Eventually he received $10,000 as compensation for legal services in this and one other case in which he had been retained by the War Department. The amount was fixed by Stanton, and was paid in part by him and in part by Secretary Rawlins after Grant became President. Somewhat later this payment became a subject of criticism in hostile newspapers; and inasmuch as the McCardle case had been tried during Johnson's Administration, it was hastily assumed that it had had some shady connection with Trumbull's vote of not guilty in the impeachment case. When it became evident that the opponents of Johnson were the ones who had employed him and fixed the amount to be paid, the accusers said that his action was contrary to law and that he ought not to have taken any pay at all for legal services to the Government while he was a Senator. This charge was made by Chandler, of Michigan, on the floor of the Senate, and it led to a sharp debate, in which Chandler was called to order by the Vice-President for using unparliamentary language.
There was a law, enacted in 1808, prohibiting executive officers of the Government from making contracts with members of Congress, and prohibiting the latter from receiving payment therefor. This law did not apply in terms to legal services, and the presumption was that it did not apply to them in spirit, since there were precedents for such employment of members of Congress as late as 1864, when Roscoe Conkling, then a member of the House from New York, had been employed by the War Department and had been paid for the service rendered.
Chandler, in the debate, quoted an opinion of Attorney-General Wirt, given in 1828, to the effect that although the circumstances attending the passage of the Act of 1808 showed that Congress was then legislating on contracts for carrying the mails and for the purchase of supplies and not for legal services, yet, in his belief, the law was broad enough to include such services. An opinion of an Attorney-General, however, was not binding on Senators.
Trumbull replied that the law had been settled differently as to legal services, and that the only prohibition then in force was against Congressmen practicing for compensation in the Court of Claims or before the executive departments. In this contention he could hardly fail to be correct, since all such laws later than 1861 had emanated from, or had passed through, the committee of which he was chairman. The governing statute was the act of June 11, 1864, introduced by Senator Wade, in 1863. As originally drawn, it prohibited Congressmen from practicing for or against the Government before any court, or department; but the word "court" was stricken out while it was pending in the Senate, and this was good evidence to show what the intention of Congress was.
Although the payment was certainly legal, it would have been better for Trumbull if he had not taken it. Whenever he came before the people for public preferment thereafter, the Chandler accusation was brought against him afresh and it required a new refutation.
After the impeachment fiasco was ended, the nomination of Grant for President by the Republican party was inevitable—not because he was a Republican, but because he was the only man whom the party could certainly elect. Until he quarreled with Andrew Johnson, nobody knew which side he favored. Indeed, the Democrats, until that time, had looked hopefully to him as a possible candidate for themselves.
The convention which nominated him was confronted by the fact that Congress had imposed negro suffrage on the South, while some of the largest Northern States had not yet adopted it, but had flatly refused to do so. The platform committee, therefore, reported, and the convention adopted, a resolution declaring:
The guaranty by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained, but the question of suffrage in all the loyal states properly belongs to the people of those states.
Grant was nominated unanimously May 20, 1868, and Schuyler Colfax was nominated as Vice-President. The Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour for President and Frank P. Blair for Vice-president. In the election, Grant and Colfax received 214 electoral votes and Seymour and Blair 80.