Chapter XIV (1)

As the result of the great victory over the President in the political contest of 1866, and of his stubborn maintenance of a hostile attitude, the ardent and extreme men of the Republican party began, in the autumn of that year, to discuss the propriety of ending the whole struggle by impeaching Mr. Johnson and removing him from office. They believed that his contumacious and obstinate course constituted a high crime and misdemeanor, and the idea of Impeachment, as soon as suggested, took deep root in minds of a certain type. When Congress came together in December the agitation increased; and on the 7th of January (1867), directly after the holidays, two Missouri representatives (Loan and Kelso) attempted in turn to introduce resolutions in the House proposing an Impeachment, but each was prevented by some parliamentary obstruction. At a later hour of the same day Mr. James M. Ashley of Ohio rose to a question of privilege and formally impeached the President of high crimes and misdemeanors. "I charge him," said Mr. Ashley, "with an usurpation of power and violation of the law: in that he has corruptly used the appointing power; in that he has corruptly used the pardoning power; in that he had corruptly used the veto power; in that he has corruptly interfered in elections and committed acts which in contemplation of the Constitution are high crimes and misdemeanors."

Mr. Ashley's charges were very grave, but they created slight impression upon the House and did not alarm the country. Every one present felt that they were gross exaggerations and distortions of fact, and could not be sustained by legal evidence or indeed by reputable testimony of any kind. They were however referred in due form to the Judiciary Committee, with full power to send for persons and papers, to administer the customary oath to witnesses, and to make in all respects a thorough investigation. Nothing was heard from the committee until the 2d of March, when on the eve of the expiration of Congress they reported that many documents had been collected, a large number of witnesses examined, and every practicable thing done to reach a conclusion of the case; but that not having fully examined all the charges preferred against the President, they did not deem it expedient to submit any conclusion beyond the statement that sufficient testimony had been brought to the committee's notice to justify and demand a further prosecution of the investigation. They therefore passed the testimony they had taken into the custody of the Clerk of the House, as a notification to the succeeding Congress that inquiry into the matter should be pursued. The report was made by Mr. James F. Wilson of Iowa, chairman of the committee, and concurred in by all the Republican members. Mr. Rogers, a Democratic member from New Jersey, made a minority report, stating that he had carefully examined all the testimony in the case; that there was not one particle of evidence to sustain any of the charges which had been made; that the case was entirely void of proof; and that most of the testimony taken was of a secondary character, such as could not be admitted in any court of justice. He objected to continuing the subject and thereby keeping the country in a feverish state. No action was taken by the House except to lay both reports upon the table.

There was on the part of conservative Republicans a sincere hope that nothing more would be heard of the Impeachment question. If a committee industriously at work for sixty days could find nothing on which to found charges against the President, they thought that wisdom suggested the abandonment of the investigation. But Mr. Ashley, with his well-known persistency, was determined to pursue it; and on the 7th of March, the third day after the new Congress was organized, he introduced a resolution directing the Judicial Committee to continue the investigation under the same instructions as in the preceding Congress, with the additional power to sit during the recess. Mr. Ashley expressed the hope that "this Congress will not hesitate to do its duty because the timid in our own ranks hesitate, but will proceed to the discharge of the high and important trust imposed upon it, uninfluenced by passion and unawed by fear." He was answered with indignation by Mr. Brooks and Mr. Fernando Wood of New York, and the question becoming a party issue Mr. Ashley's resolution was carried without a division after an ineffectual attempt to lay it on the table,--a motion which was sustained by only thirty-two votes. The committee proceeded in their work during the recess of Congress, and reported the testimony on the 25th of the ensuing November (1867).

Some ninety-five witnesses had been examined, and the report of testimony covered twelve hundred octavo pages. Much of the evidence seemed irrelevant, and that which bore directly upon the question of the President's offense fell far below the serious character assigned to it by previous rumors. This was especially true in regard to the testimony given by General Grant. There were secret and ominous intimations that General Grant had been approached by the President with the view of ascertaining whether, if it should be determined to constitute a Congress of Democratic members from the North and rebel members from the South (leaving the Republicans to come in or stay out as they might choose), the Army could be relied upon to sustain such a movement. There is no doubt that many earnest Republicans were so impressed by the perverse course of President Johnson that they came to believe him capable of any atrocious act. They gave credulous ear, therefore, to these extravagant rumors; and in the end they succeeded in making a deep impression upon the minds of certain members of the Committee charged with the investigation into the President's official conduct.

The persons who were giving currency to these rumors never seemed to realize that General Grant, with his loyalty, his patriotism, and his high sense of personal and official honor, could not for a moment have even so much as listened to a proposition which involved an attack upon the legitimacy of the Congress of the United States, and practically contemplated its overthrow through means not different from those by which Cromwell closed the sessions of the Long Parliament. Nothing can be more certain than the fact that if President Johnson had ever made such an intimation to General Grant, it would have been at once exposed and denounced with a soldier's directness; and the President would have been promptly impeached for an offense in which his guilt would not have been doubtful.

It was not surprising, therefore, that by General Grant's testimony,(1) the entire charge was dissipated into thin air, and proved to be only one of the thousand baseless rumors which in that exciting period were constantly filling the political atmosphere. It was perhaps the intention of the Committee in examining General Grant on this point, to give him an opportunity in an official report to stamp the current rumors as utterly false. It can hardly be possible that a single member of the Committee believed that General Grant had silently received from the President a deliberate proposition to revolutionize the Government. When the essential truth of the matter was reached, it was found that General Grant had never heard any thing from the President, on the question of organizing Congress, at all different from the premises he had assumed in the series of disreputable speeches delivered by him in his extraordinary tour through the country the preceding year.

There was a marked divergence of views in the recommendations from the Judiciary Committee. The majority, Messrs. George S. Boutwell of Massachusetts, Francis Thomas of Maryland, Thomas Williams of Pennsylvania, William Lawrence of Ohio, and John C. Churchill of New York, reported a resolution directing that "Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors." Mr. Wilson of Iowa and Mr. Frederic Woodbridge of Vermont, submitted a minority report, with a resolution directing that "the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of the proposed impeachment of the President of the United States, and that the subject be laid upon the table." The two Democratic members of the committee, Mr. Marshall of Illinois and Mr. Eldridge of Wisconsin, while agreeing with the resolution submitted by Mr. Wilson, desired to express certain views from the Democratic stand-point. They therefore submitted a separate report, reviewing the entire proceeding in language more caustic than Mr. Wilson and Mr. Woodbridge had seen fit to employ.

The effect of Mr. Boutwell's report was seriously impaired by the fact that the chairman of the committee and another Republican member had refused to concur, and it was at once evident from the position in which this division left the question, that the House would not sustain an Impeachment upon the testimony submitted. By an arrangement to which only a few members objected, the discussion of the reports was confined to two speeches, one by Mr. Boutwell and one by Mr. Wilson. Mr. Boutwell's was delivered on the 5th and 6th of December, and Mr. Wilson's reply immediately after Mr. Boutwell had concluded on the second day. Both speeches were able and positive, holding the attention of members in a marked and exceptional degree. A large majority of the House desired the vote to be taken as soon as Mr. Wilson had concluded; but some dilatory motions kept off the decision until the succeeding day (December 7, 1867), when amid much excitement, and some display of angry feeling between members, the resolution calling for the impeachment of the President was defeated by an overwhelming majority,--_ayes_ 57, _noes_ 108.(2) The affirmative vote was composed entirely of Republicans, but a larger number of Republicans were included in the negative; so that apart from any action of the Democratic party the advocates of Impeachment were in the minority.

By this decisive vote the project of impeaching the President was in the public belief finally defeated. But those best acquainted with the earnestness of purpose and the determination of the leading men, who had persuaded themselves that the safety of the Republic depended upon the destruction of Johnson's official power, knew that the closest watch would be kept upon every action of the President, and if an apparently justifying cause could be found the project of his removal would be vigorously renewed. It is difficult to understand the intensity of conviction which had taken possession of certain minds on this subject--difficult to understand why the same causes and the same reasons which operated so powerfully on certain Republicans in favor of Impeachment, should prove so utterly inadequate to affect others. Why should Mr. Boutwell be so decidedly on one side and Mr. Dawes with equal firmness on the other? Why should General Schenck and William Lawrence vote for impeachment and General Garfield and John A. Bingham against it? Why should Thaddeus Stevens and Judge Kelley vote in the affirmative and the four Washburns in the negative?

Geographically there was a traceable division in the vote. In New England, usually so radical, only five members favored Impeachment. New York gave but two votes for it and Pennsylvania gave but six. The large majority of those who exhibited such an earnest desire to force the issue to extremes came from the West, but even in that section the Republicans who opposed it were nearly equal in number to those who favored it. The vote led to no little recrimination inside the ranks of the party--each side regarding the other as pursuing an unwise and unjustifiable course. The advocates of Impeachment were denounced as rash, hot-headed, sensational, bent on leading the party into an indefensible position; while its opponents were spoken of as faint-hearted, as truckling to the Administration, as afraid to strike the one blow imperatively demanded for the safety of the Republic. But outside of this quarrel of partisans the great mass of quiet citizens and more especially the manufacturing, commercial, and financial communities, were profoundly grateful that the country was not, as they now believed, to be disturbed by a violent effort to deprive the President of his great office.

The prophets of Peace were disappointed in their hopes and their predictions. A train of circumstances, not unnaturally growing out of the political situation, led in the ensuing month to the renewal of the scheme of Impeachment because of the President's attempt to appoint a new Secretary of War. The President himself narrates what he had done to secure the resignation of Mr. Stanton: "I had come to the conclusion that the time had arrived when it was proper for Mr. Stanton to retire from my Cabinet. The mutual confidence and general accord which should exist in such a relation had ceased. I supposed that Mr. Stanton was well advised that his continuance in the Cabinet was contrary to my wishes, for I had repeatedly given him to understand by every mode short of an express request that he should resign." On the fifth day of August (1867), the President addressed Mr. Stanton a brief note in these words: "Public considerations of a high character constrain me to say that your resignation as Secretary of War will be accepted." Mr. Stanton replied immediately, acknowledging the receipt of the letter and adding: "I have the honor to say that public considerations of a high character, which alone have induced me to continue at the head of this Department, constrain me not to resign the Secretaryship of War before the next meeting of Congress."

Not acting with angry haste, but reflecting for a week upon the situation resulting from Mr. Stanton's refusal to resign, the President on the 12th of August suspended him from the Secretaryship of War under the power conferred by the Tenure-of-office Act, and added in a note to him: "You will at once transfer to General Ulysses S. Grant, who has this day been authorized and empowered to act as Secretary of War _ad interim_, all records, books, papers and other public property now in your custody and charge." Mr. Stanton replied to the President: "Under a sense of public duty I am compelled to deny your right under the Constitution and laws of the United States, without the advice and consent of the Senate and without legal cause, to suspend me from the office of Secretary of War, or the exercise of any of the functions pertaining to the same; but inasmuch as the General commanding the armies of the United States has been appointed _ad interim_ and has notified me that he has accepted the appointment, I have no alternative but to submit, under protest, to superior force." It is evident that General Grant and his legal advisers saw no force in Mr. Stanton's denial of the President's power to suspend him from office. The General's acceptance of the Secretaryship of War was plain proof that he recognized the President's course as entirely lawful and Constitutional. General Grant's willingness to succeed Mr. Stanton was displeasing to a certain class of Republicans, who thought he was thereby strengthening the position of the President; but the judgement of the more considerate was that as Mr. Johnson had determined in any event to remove Stanton, it was wise in General Grant to accept the trust and thus prevent it from falling into mischievous and designing hands.

By the provisions of the Tenure-of-office Law the President was under obligation to communicate the suspension to the Senate, with his reasons therefor, within twenty days after its next meeting. He did this in his message of the 12th of December (1867), in which he reviewed with much care the relations between himself and the Secretary of War. He certainly exhibited to an impartial judge, uninfluenced by personal or party motives, strong proof of the utter impossibility of Mr. Stanton and himself working together harmoniously in the administration of the Government. If the President of the United States has the right to Constitutional advisers who are personally agreeable to him and who share his personal confidence, then surely Mr. Johnson gave unanswerable proof that Mr. Stanton should not remain a member of his Cabinet. But the Senate was not influenced either by the general considerations affecting the case or by the special reasons submitted by the President. The question was not finally decided by the Senate until the 13th of January (1868), when by a party vote it was declared that "having considered the evidence and reasons given by the President in his report of December 12, 1867, for the suspension of Edwin M. Stanton from the office of Secretary of War, the Senate does not concur in such suspension." The Secretary of the Senate was instructed to send an official copy of the resolution to the President, to Mr. Stanton, and to General Grant.

Upon receipt of the resolution of the Senate, General Grant at once locked the door of the Secretary's office, handed the key to the Adjutant-General, left the War-Department building and resumed his post at Army Headquarters on the opposite side of the street. Secretary Stanton soon after took possession of his old office, as quietly and unceremoniously as if he had left it but an hour before. Perhaps with some desire to emphasize the change of situation, he dispatched a messenger to Headquarters to say in the phrase of the ranking position that "the Secretary desires to see General Grant." General Grant did not like the way in which Mr. Stanton had resumed control of the War Office. He did not think that he had been treated with the same courtesy which he had shown to Mr. Stanton when he succeeded him the preceding August. In fact, he had not expected, nor did he desire, the restoration of Mr. Stanton, and but for differences that arose between him and the President might have used his influence against Mr. Stanton's remaining. He had indeed warmly seconded a suggestion of General Sherman (who was then in Washington), made the day after Mr. Stanton's restoration, that the President should immediately nominate Governor Cox of Ohio for Secretary of War.

The President did not accept the suggestion respecting the name of Governor Cox. His chief purpose was to get rid of Mr. Stanton, and he did not believe the Senate would consent in any event to his removal. He expressed surprise that General Grant did not hold the office until the question of Mr. Stanton's Constitutional right to resume it could be judicially tested. A heated controversy ensued a fortnight later on this point, leading to the exchange of angry letters between the President and General Grant. Mr. Johnson alleged that the fair understanding was that General Grant should, by retaining his portfolio, aid in bringing the case before the Supreme Court of the United States. General Grant denied this with much warmth, declaring in a letter addressed to the President that the latter had made "many and gross misrepresentations concerning this subject." It was doubtless in the beginning a perfectly honest misapprehension between the two. General Grant had on a certain occasion remarked that "Mr. Stanton would have to appeal to the courts to re-instate him," and the President, hastily perhaps, but not unnaturally, assumed that by this language General Grant meant that he would himself aid in bringing the matter to judicial arbitrament. But the President ought to have seen and realized that such a step would be altogether foreign to the duty of the Commander of the Army, and that with General Grant's habitual prudence he never could have intended to provoke a controversy with Congress, and get himself entangled in the meshes of the Tenure-of-office Law. The wrath of both men was fully aroused, and the controversy closed by leaving them enemies for life--unreconciled, irreconcilable.

The severance of friendly relations between the President and General Grant was not distasteful to the Republicans of the country. Indeed it had been earnestly desired by them. Many of those who were looking forward to General Grant's nomination as the Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1868, had been restless lest he might become too much identified with the President, and thus be held in some degree accountable for his policy. General Grant's report on the condition of the South in 1865 had displeased Republicans as much as it had pleased the President. He had created still further uneasiness in Republican ranks by accompanying the President in 1866 on his famous journey to Chicago, when he "swung around the circle." His acceptance of the War Office in 1867 as the successor to Mr. Stanton was naturally interpreted by many as a signal mark of confidence in the President. It was said by General Grant's nearest friends that in his position as the Commander of the Army he was bound in courtesy to comply with the President's requests; but others maintained that as these requests all lay outside his official duties, and were in fact political in their nature, he might decline to respond to them if he chose. It was in fact known to a few persons that General Grant had declined (though requested by the President) to accompany Minister Lewis D. Campbell to Mexico and hold an interview with the officials of the Juarez Government, in the autumn of 1866. The President, however, did not insist on General Grant's compliance with his request, and at the suggestion of the latter readily substituted Lieutenant-General Sherman, who went upon the mission, with results--according to his own narrative--more laughable than valuable. General Grant always believed that Mr. Seward had originated the suggestion, and had desired him to go upon the mission from some motives of his own not made fully apparent. The incident did not interfere with the kindly relations between the President and General Grant, as was shown by General Grant's acceptance of the War Office ten months after the Mexican Mission had come to its profitless conclusion.

From all the circumstances of the case, it is not difficult therefore to understand why the quarrel between the President and General Grant should be viewed with substantial satisfaction by the Republicans of the country. The National Convention of the party of 1868 had already been called, and it might be awkward for its members, while denouncing President Johnson in the platform, to be reminded that the candidate of their party was on terms of personal friendship with him, and had been so throughout his administration. Such a fact would embarrass the canvass in many ways, and would dull the edge of partisan weapons already forged for the contest. General Grant as a Presidential candidate was likely to draw heavily on the Democratic voters of the Northern States, and Republicans felt assured that his quarrel with Johnson would cause no loss even in that direction. In every point of view, therefore, the political situation was satisfactory to the Republicans--the last possible suggestion of discontent with General Grant's expected nomination for the Presidency having been banished from the ranks of the party.

By the Senate's refusal to concur in the suspension of Secretary Stanton, a confidential adviser under the Constitution was forced upon the President against his earnest and repeated protest. This action appears the more extraordinary, because when the Tenure-of-office Bill was pending before the Senate, the expression of opinion on the part of the majority was against any attempt to compel the President to retain an unwelcome adviser. In fact the Senate voted by a large majority to except Cabinet officers from the operation of the law. The expressions of opinion by individual senators were very pointed on this question.

--Mr. Edmunds said it was "right and just that the Chief Executive of the Nation in selecting these named Secretaries, who, by law and by the practice of the country, and officers analogous to whom, by the practice of all other countries, are the confidential advisers of the Executive respecting the administration of all his Departments, should be persons who are personally agreeable to him and in whom he can place entire confidence and reliance; and whenever it should seem to him that the state of relations between him and any of them had become so as to render this relation of confidence and trust and personal esteem inharmonious, he should in such case be allowed to dispense with the services of that officer in vacation and have some other person act in his stead."

--Mr. Williams of Oregon sustained the position of Mr. Edmunds, but added: "I do not regard the exception as of any great practical consequence, because I suppose if the President and any head of Department should disagree so as to make their relations unpleasant, and the President should signify a desire that that head of Department should retire from the Cabinet, that would follow without any positive act of removal on the part of the President. . . . It has seemed to me that if we revolutionize the practice of the Government in all other respects, we might let this power remain in the hands of the President of the United States; that we should not strip him of this power, which is one that it seems to me is necessary and reasonable that he should exercise."

--Mr. Fessenden said: "A man who is the head of a Department naturally wants the control of that Department. He wants to control all his subordinates. . . . In my judgment, in order to the good and proper administration of all the Departments, it is necessary that that power should exist in the head of it, and quite as necessary that the power should exist in the President with reference to the few men who are placed about him to share his counsel and to be his friends and agents."

--Mr. Sherman said: "If a Cabinet officer should attempt to hold his office for a moment beyond the time when he retains the entire confidence of the President, I would not vote to retain him, nor would I compel the President to have about him in these high positions a man whom he did not entirely trust both personally and politically. It would be unwise to require him to administer the Government without agents of his own choosing. . . . And if I supposed that either of these gentlemen was so wanting in manhood, in honor, as to hold his place after the politest intimation from the President of the United States that his services were no longer needed, I certainly, as a senator, would consent to his removal at any time, and so would we all."

Still more significant and conclusive was the action of both Senate and House on the final passage of the Tenure-of-office Act. That action was based upon the report of a conference committee, of which Mr. Sherman was chairman on the part of the Senate, and General Schenck on the part of the House. It will be remembered that the Senate had insisted that officers of the Cabinet should be excepted from the operation of the Tenure-of-office Act, and the House had insisted that they should not be excepted. A compromise was made by the conference committee, the result of which was thus explained to the Senate by Mr. Sherman: "In this case the committee of conference --I agreed to it, I confess, with some reluctance--came to the conclusion to qualify to some extent the power of removal over a Cabinet minister. We provide that a Cabinet minister shall hold his office, _not for a fixed term, not until the Senate shall consent to his removal, but as long as the power that appoints him holds the office_." General Schenck, representing the original House amendment, said: "A compromise was made, by which a further amendment is added to this portion of the bill, so that the term of office of the heads of Departments _shall expire with the term of the President who appointed them_, allowing these heads of Departments one month longer." These were the well-considered explanations made to their respective branches by the chairmen of the committees that composed the conference. It was upon this uncontradicted, unqualified, universally admitted construction of the Bill that the House and Senate enacted it into a law.

It must not be forgotten that if the Senate had consented to the removal of Mr. Stanton, as was confidently anticipated from the expressions of opinion above quoted, no new Secretary could have been installed without the Senate's explicit consent, and that meanwhile the War Department would remain under the control of General Grant, in whose prudent and upright discharge of duty every senator had perfect confidence. The complaint of the President's friends, therefore, was that senators, while perfectly able to exclude from the control of the War Department a man in whom they had no confidence, demanded that the President should retain at the head of that Department an officer in whom he had no confidence. Hence it was that for the first time in the history of the United States, an officer distasteful to the President and personally distrusted and disliked by him was forced upon him as one of his confidential advisers in the administration of the Government. In the _prima facie_ statement of this case the Senate was in the wrong. Upon the record of its votes and the expression of opinion by its own members, the Senate was in the wrong. The history of every preceding Administration and of every subsequent Administration of the Federal Government proves that the Senate was in the wrong.

The situation in which the President was left by this action was anomalous and embarrassing. One of the most important Departments of the Government--especially important at that era--was left under the control of a man with whom he did not even hold personal relations. If this could be done in one Department it could with equal justice be done in all, and the extraordinary spectacle would be presented of each Executive Department under the control of an officer, who in matters of personal feeling and in public policy was deadly hostile to the President of the United States. Even those who insisted most warmly upon Mr. Stanton's being retained in his position, must have seen that such a course would contradict the theory of the National Constitution and be in direct contravention of the practice of the Federal Government. Every one could see that these circumstances had brought about an unnatural situation--a situation that must in some way be relieved. It presented a condition of affairs for which there was no precedent, and the wisest could not foresee to what end it might lead.

The issue was brought to a head by the President, who informed the senate on the 21st of February (1868), that in the exercise of the power and authority vested in him by the Constitution of the United States, he had that day removed Mr. Stanton from office and designated the Adjutant-General of the Army--Lorenzo Thomas--as Secretary of War _ad interim_. The communication was received with great astonishment by the Senate and with loud expressions of indignation against the President. With short debate and with little delay the Senate passed a resolution declaring "that under the Constitution and laws of the United States, the President has no power to remove the Secretary of War and to designate any other officer to perform the duties of that office _ad interim_." The Senate could do nothing more than express and record this opinion, but it did that promptly, resentfully, almost passionately.

The House took up the matter in hot temper and in hot haste. A flagrant offense against the Constitution and the laws had, in the judgment of a majority of its members, been committed by the President. In defiance of the letter and spirit of the Tenure-of-office Act he had removed the Secretary of War from office. He had done this under circumstances of peculiar aggravation, because the Senate had passed upon all his reason therefor when the question of Mr. Stanton's suspension was before that body; and if even the suspension was not justifiable, how very grave must be the offense of removing the Secretary from office! These views and the discussion to which they led engrossed the attention of the House as soon as it was known that the President had sent a message to the Senate communicating his action in regard to Mr. Stanton. The Senate had no sooner recorded its dissent from the Executive power of removal than Mr. Covode of Pennsylvania, on the same day, rose to a privileged question in the House and offered a resolution that "_Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors_." The resolution was referred to the Committee on Reconstruction and the House adjourned. On the next day (February 22d) Mr. Stevens, chairman of the Reconstruction Committee, reported the resolution back to the House with the recommendation that it pass, suggesting that the question might immediately be taken without debate.

--Mr. Brooks of New York had hoped for time to prepare a minority report, but contented himself with a long speech earnestly protesting against the Impeachment. "Suppose," said he, "you succeed. You settle that hereafter a party having a sufficient majority in the House and the Senate can depose the President of the United States. You establish a precedent which all future parties in all time to come will look to. The curse of other countries, the curse of France, the curse of the South-American Republics, has been that they followed such a precedent as you call upon us to establish here to-day--the overthrow of their Executive, not by law, not by the Constitution, but by the irregular and arbitrary and revolutionary exercise of power, in order merely to obtain a temporary possession of the Government."

--Mr. Spalding of Ohio followed Mr. Brooks, earnestly supporting the Impeachment. There seemed to be an inordinate desire among gentlemen who had hitherto been conservative on the question, as well as among those who had been constantly in favor of Impeachment, to place themselves on record against the President.

--Mr. John A. Bingham said that "the President having criminally violated the Constitution and the laws, I propose for one to put him on trial."

--Mr. Farnsworth of Illinois declared that "no student of our Constitution, no citizen, can doubt that Andrew Johnson has been guilty of a flagrant violation of our Constitution, which is justly impeachable."

--Judge Kelley of Pennsylvania warned "those who have spoken on the other side to-day, that they had better exercise the privilege of revising their words, and that it will be well for others to pause before they speak in defense of the great criminal whom the American people arraign for thousands of crimes."

--General Logan, answering those who feared that Impeachment might lead to some form of revolution, said "that a country which in time of war and excitement can stand the assassination of so good and just a President as Abraham Lincoln, can and will stand the Impeachment of as bad a President as Andrew Johnson."

--Mr. Ingersoll of Illinois, in the course of his remarks sustaining Impeachment, read a telegram from Governor Oglesby, declaring his belief "that the people of Illinois demand the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, and will heartily sustain such action by our Congress." Mr. Ingersoll declared that the telegram from the Governor of Illinois "is but the voice of the people of the whole country on the question. There have been grave doubts with regard to the policy and the right of impeaching the President upon the facts as presented heretofore, but at the present hour I know of no man who loves his country more than party who will not pronounce a verdict against the President. And, sir, I shall for one be grievously disappointed if, within ten days from this time, honest old Ben Wade (now President of the Senate) is not President of the United States."

The proceedings were carried far into the night, and their deep seriousness had been somewhat relieved by amusing effort on the part of several Democratic members to have Washington's Farewell Address read in honor of the day. But they failed to accomplish it, because a resolution to that effect could not take precedence of the privileged subject which was holding the attention of the House. At a late hour Mr. Holman of Indiana, unable to secure the reading of the address, obtained leave to print it in connection with his remarks, and thus left in the columns of the _Globe_ a somewhat striking contrast--on the one hand, the calm words of Washington counseling peace and good will among his countrymen, and warning them of the evils of party spirit; on the other, the exciting and inflammatory attempt to remove one of Washington's successors from office by impeaching him of high crimes and misdemeanors.

The hours of the intervening Sunday did not appease the temper or cool the ardor of the Republican representatives, now so evidently bent on impeaching the President. The House had adjourned on Saturday night to meet at ten o'clock Monday morning, with the declared intention on the part of the majority to force the resolution of Impeachment to a vote on that day. Mr. Ashley of Ohio opened the debate with a fierce attack upon the President, and was followed by Mr. Burton C. Cook of Illinois in a brief but pointed legal argument to prove that the President had violated the letter and spirit of the law.

--Mr. Julian of Indiana made a somewhat remarkable speech. "Is it not most fortunate," said he, "that this single act of lawlessness has been evoked which so beautifully consolidates into a unit all the friends of the country in this House and throughout the nation? _It is true the removal of the Secretary of War is relatively a simple matter_. It is scarcely a peccadillo when considered beside the New-Orleans massacre and many other of the wholesale enormities of which he has been known to be guilty for many months past, _but I believe it would be regarded as scarcely sufficient ground for this proceeding if not considered in the light of far greater previous offenses_."

--Mr. James F. Wilson of Iowa said: "I will vote for the pending resolution to the end that law may be vindicated by the removal of an unworthy public servant from an official position, which he has dishonored by his perverse disregard of duty and his unjustifiable contempt for the supremacy of the law."

--General Butler, after a careful recital of the acts of the President, said: "For a tithe of these acts of usurpation, lawlessness and tyranny our fathers dissolved their connection with the government of King George; for less than this King James lost his throne, and King Charles lost his head; while we, the representatives of the people, adjudge only that there is probable cause shown why Andrew Johnson should be deprived of the office he has desecrated and the power he has abused, and if convicted by the court to which we shall send him, be forever incapable of filling that office--the ambition to be again nominated to which has been the moving spring of all these crimes."

--Mr. Washburne of Illinois said: "In my judgment the safety of the country, the cause of good government, the preservation of Constitutional right and public liberty, depend upon the prompt impeachment of the President of the United States."

--Mr. Woodward of Pennsylvania, a bitter anti-war Democrat, formerly Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of his State, protested earnestly against Impeachment, on the ground that all the States not being represented either in House or Senate, there was no competent branch to impeach and none to try an officer. "If I were the President's counselor," said he, "I would advise him, if you preferred Articles of Impeachment, to demur to your jurisdiction and to that of the Senate, and issue a proclamation giving you and all the world notice that while he held himself impeachable for misdemeanors in office before the Constitutional tribunal, he never would subject the office he holds in trust to the irregular, unconstitutional, and fragmentary bodies who propose to strip him of it."

--Mr. Boutwell spoke very earnestly and ably in favor of Impeachment. "I can but indicate," said he, "the plot in which the President is engaged. He desires first to get control of the War Department, in order that, as in 1861, the munitions of war, arms and material might be used for te purpose of enabling him to succeed in his aspirations to be President of the United States. He knew that if he could corrupt the leaders of the Army, if he could bend these men to his will, these ten States were in his control, and that he could send to the Democratic Convention, to be holden on the 4th of July next, men who would sustain his claim for the Presidency. Then, upon the allegation which he could well carry out and which no other man could make good, that with the Army and his influence among the rebels of the South, whom he had brought to his support by his previous violations of law, he could secure the electoral votes of those ten States by excluding the negroes whom we have enfranchised from all participation in the election. Succeeding in this, we were to be met next February with the electoral votes of those ten States given for himself as President of the United States. If by fortune, as was his hope, he should receive a sufficient number of votes in the North to make a majority, then, with the support of the Army which he had corrupted, he had determined to be inaugurated President of the United States at the hazard of civil war. To-day, sir, we escape from these evils and dangers."

--Mr. Kerr of Indiana, speaking for the Democrats, said: "I and those with whom I act in this House had no knowledge whatever of the purpose of the Executive to do the act for which the movement is again inaugurated for his deposition. We are therefore free in every sense to submit to the guidance alone of reason and duty."

Late in the afternoon Mr. Stevens rose to close the debate. He said: "In order to sustain Impeachment under our Constitution I do not hold that it is necessary to prove a crime as an indictable offense, or any act _malum in se_. I agree with the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, on the other side of the House (Mr. Woodward), who holds this to be a purely political proceeding. It is needed as a remedy for malfeasance in office and to prevent the continuance thereof. Beyond that it is not intended as a punishment for past offenses or for future example." He made one of his peculiarly pungent speeches, which for some unexplained reason was scarcely less bitter on General Grant than upon President Johnson. The whole day's proceedings had been extraordinary. Never before had so many members addressed the House on a single day. The speeches actually delivered and the speeches for which leave to print was given, fill more than two hundred columns of the _Congressional Globe_. When Mr. Stevens closed the debate, many members who still desired to be heard were cut off by the previous question.

The vote on the resolution impeaching the President resulted in _ayes_ 126, _noes_ 47, not voting 17.(3) Mr. Stevens immediately offered a resolution directing the "appointment of a committee of two members to appear at the bar of the Senate, and in the name of the House of Representatives and of the people of the United States to impeach Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors in office, and to acquaint the Senate that the House will in due time exhibit particular Articles of Impeachment against him and make good the same, and that the committee demand that the Senate take order for the appearance of Andrew Johnson to answer to said Impeachment." Mr. Stevens further moved that "a committee of seven be appointed to prepare and report Articles of Impeachment against Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, with power to send for persons and papers." The resolutions were adopted by a strict party vote. The Speaker appointed Mr. Stevens and Mr. Bingham the committee to notify the Senate of the impeachment of the President, and further appointed Mr. Boutwell, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Bingham, Mr. J. F. Wilson, Mr. Logan, Mr. Julian, and Mr. Hamilton Ward of New York, the committee to prepare Articles of Impeachment against the President.

Five days afterwards, on the 29th of February, Mr. Boutwell, chairman of the committee appointed to prepare Articles of Impeachment against the President, made his report. The Articles were debated with even greater manifestation of feeling than had appeared in the discussion on the resolution of Impeachment. They were adopted March 2d, by a party vote. The House then proceeded to elect managers of the Impeachment by ballot, and the following gentlemen were chosen (their names being given in the order of the number of votes which each received): John A. Bingham, George S. Boutwell, James F. Wilson, Benjamin F. Butler, Thomas Williams, John A. Logan, and Thaddeus Stevens. The votes for the several managers did not widely differ. The highest, 114, was given to Mr. Bingham; the lowest, 105, to Mr. Stevens. The latter was failing in health and was considered by many members unequal to the arduous work thus imposed on him. The Democrats presented no candidates and took no part in the election of managers.

The aggregate ability and legal learning of the Managers were everywhere conceded. Mr. Stevens in the period of his active practice held a very high rank at the bar of Pennsylvania. General Butler was in the profession of the law, as in all other relations, somewhat peculiar in his methods, but his intellectual force and his legal learning were recognized by his friends and his enemies--and he had a full quota of each. Mr. Bingham, Mr. Boutwell, Mr. Wilson, General Logan, and Mr. Williams represented the strength of the Republican party in the House. Each was well known at the bar of his State, and each was profoundly convinced of the necessity of convicting the President. The most earnest--if there was any difference in zeal among the Managers--were Mr. Boutwell and Mr. Williams. Mr. Boutwell, for a man of cool temperament, thoroughly honest mind, and sober judgment, had wrought himself into a singularly intense belief in the supreme necessity of removing the President; while Mr. Williams, who tended towards the radical side of all public questions, could not with patience hear any thing said against the wisdom and expediency of Impeachment. Mr. Bingham and Mr. Wilson were the only Managers who on the first effort to impeach the President had voted in the negative.

President Johnson was well advised during this exciting period in Congress and betrayed no uneasiness. He was guarded against the folly of talking, which was his easily besetting sin, and he sought to fortify his position by promptly submitting a nomination for Secretary of War. On Saturday, February 22d, the day following the removal of Mr. Stanton, he sent to the Senate the name of Thomas Ewing (senior) of Ohio as his successor. The Senate had adjourned when the President's Secretary reached the Capitol, but the nomination was formally communicated on the following Monday. No name could have given better assurance of good intentions and upright conduct than that of Mr. Ewing. He was a man of lofty character, of great eminence in his profession of the law, and with wide and varied experience in public life. He had held high rank as a senator in the Augustan period of the Senate's learning and eloquence, and he had been one of the ablest members of the distinguished Cabinets organized by the only two Presidents elected by the Whig party. He had reached the ripe age of seventy-eight years but was still in complete possession of all his splendid faculties. He had voted for Mr. Lincoln at both elections, had been a warm supporter of the contest for the Union, and was represented by his own blood on many of the great battle-fields of the war. The Lieutenant-General of the army, with his illustrious record of service, second only to that of General Grant, was his son-in-law.

Of whatever deadly designs Mr. Johnson might be suspected, there was no man of intelligence in the United States willing to believe that Mr. Ewing could be tempted to do an unpatriotic act, to violate the Constitution, or to fail in executing with fidelity the laws of the land. If the President intended to corrupt the army, as charged by Mr. Boutwell, he had certainly chosen a singular co-laborer in the person of Mr. Ewing. Wild rumors had been in circulation that the President was determined to install General Thomas by military force, and to eject Mr. Stanton with violence from the War Office which he refused to surrender. The public uneasiness resulting from these sensational reports was in large degree allayed, when it was announced that the President had signified his desire that a grave and considerate man with long-established reputation for ability and probity should serve as Secretary of War. The surprise in the whole matter was that the President should have selected Mr. Ewing, who, as was known to a few friends, had earnestly advised Mr. Johnson against removing Secretary Stanton.

The Senate however was in no mood to accept any nomination for the War Office from President Johnson. The issue was not whether Mr. Ewing was a judicious and trustworthy man for the vacancy, but whether any vacancy existed. If Mr. Johnson had removed or attempted to remove Mr. Stanton from office in an unlawful and unconstitutional manner, the Senate, in the judgment of those who were directing its action, would be only condoning his offense by consenting to the appointment of a successor. Mr. Johnson's right to nominate any one was denied, and when the name of Mr. Ewing was received it was known by all that a committee of Representatives might at any moment appear at the bar of the Senate to present an Impeachment against the President for unlawfully attempting to remove Mr. Stanton. The course of the Senate had been fully anticipated by the President and his advisers, and they had, in their own judgment at least, obtained an advantage before the public by so complete an abnegation of all partisan purposes as was implied in the offer to confide the direction of the War Department to Mr. Ewing.

The formal presentment of the charges against the President at the bar of the Senate, presided over by the Chief Justice of the United States, and sitting as a Court of Impeachment, was made on the fifth day of March (1868), when the House of Representatives, the grand inquest of the nation, attended the Managers as they came to the discharge of their solemn duty. Mr. Bingham, the chairman of the managers, read the Articles of Impeachment against Andrew Johnson. At the conclusion of the reading the Senate adjourned to the 13th, when the counsel of the President appeared and asked that forty days be allowed for the preparation of his answer to the charges. The time was regarded as unreasonably long, and the Senate voted to adjourn until the 23d of March, when it was expected that the President's counsel would present his answer. The President's cause was represented by an imposing array of ability and legal learning. The Attorney-General, Henry Stanbery, had from an impulse of chivalric devotion resigned his post for the purpose of defending his chief. His reputation as a lawyer was of the first rank in the West, where for nearly forty years he had been prominent in his profession. But though first named, on account of his personal and official relations with the President, he was not the leading counsel. The two men upon whom the success of the President's cause chiefly rested were Judge Curtis and Mr. Evarts.