Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy

by David O. Stewart

  For this final scene of the impeachment drama, House members packed into the rear of the chamber. Many observers held long tally sheets listing the fifty-four senators, pencils poised to mark down each vote as it was cast.

  The clerk called the Senate to order and the chief justice took the podium. The quiet gave the moment an almost religious feeling. The Senate started with the question whether to vote on the eleventh article first. The margin in favor of that motion was not quite the two-thirds that would be needed to convict on an impeachment article. Ross of Kansas voted against.

  In the corridor, Senator Howard of Michigan arrived on a stretcher. Leaning on two friends, he entered the chamber and unsteadily made his way to his desk. Though it was a warm day, he wore an overcoat with a shawl around his shoulders.

  The partially paralyzed Grimes of Iowa appeared at another door. He supported himself with a cane, his other arm leaning on a Senate official. Pale and shaky, Grimes did not try to make it to his desk. He sank into a chair next to the door. Henderson of Missouri found the tension unbearable. “All turns on Ross’ vote,” announced a noon dispatch to the Cincinnati Gazette.

  After Anthony of Rhode Island cast the first vote, each ear listened for the names of the doubtfuls, paying little heed to the votes of those partisans whose loyalties had long been known. The first Republican defector in the alphabet, Fessenden of Maine, voted as promised: “Not guilty.” Next came Fowler of Tennessee, who wore black kid gloves for the occasion. With his head cast down, Fowler spoke in a soft voice. The crowd buzzed. Had he said guilty? What did he say? Simultaneously, Chief Justice Chase and Charles Sumner of Massachusetts asked Fowler to speak up. He said, clearly this time, “Not guilty.”

  Grimes was next. The chief justice told him to vote from his seat, but Grimes would not have it. Leaning heavily on his cane, he strained to rise. “Not guilty.”

  Henderson of Missouri also voted to acquit. The rhythm was steady. The clerk called the name of a senator. The senator rose. The chief justice posed his question. The senator voted as expected. There was no other sound. A congressman on the floor could hear breathing in the galleries. Colleagues around him looked pale and ill. The clerk reached the name of Senator Patterson of Tennessee, the president’s son-in-law. He stood quickly and shouted out, “Not guilty.” Many smiled and would have laughed but the chief justice instantly called for order.

  Silence returned, then became more profound as the clerk neared the name of Ross. Sitting at his desk, the Kansan shredded paper into smaller and smaller bits. His lap and the floor around him were covered with white scraps. He was the fulcrum on which the president would stand or fall. Ross rose for the chief justice’s question, paper bits on his fingertips, his face white. Aware that every eye was trained on him, Ross felt as if he “looked down into my open grave.”

  With no hesitation, he answered, “Not guilty.”

  An urgent sound passed through the crowd. Some heard it as a long sigh of disappointment. That was that. Impeachment would fail. Trumbull of Illinois and Van Winkle of West Virginia voted not guilty, as expected. By the time Ben Wade’s name came up, it no longer mattered whether he voted or not. He cast his ballot for conviction. The final count was 35 guilty, 19 not guilty. Andrew Johnson had been acquitted by a single vote, that of Edmund Ross.

  There was no cheering from the gallery, no applause. Some suppressed glee, others rage. The prosecutors had to swallow their failure. Ben Butler’s bald scalp flushed red. John Bingham leaned his forehead against the table before him. Stevens, who had predicted failure the day before, bit his lip. John Logan spat tobacco juice at a spittoon, missed, and spattered the carpet.

  Dismayed, unsure what to do next, Republicans played for time. They adjourned the Senate for ten days, until May 26, without voting on the ten remaining impeachment articles. It was a stall. Going forward meant certain defeat. Maybe something would come up. Maybe something could be done to change votes on another article.

  Stevens rode in his chair, borne by two porters, above the river of humanity that streamed from the Senate. Men in the corridor called for news of the vote. What had happened? “Black with rage and disappointment,” according to one observer, Stevens shouted, “‘The country is going to the devil.’”

  A Johnson aide ran the sixteen blocks from the Capitol to the White House. Bursting into a presidential meeting, he delivered the news, which had already arrived by telegram. As Johnson accepted congratulations, tears ran down his face. Whiskey came out with sandwiches. Johnson and his men drank a toast.

  The New York Times correspondent also bolted from the Senate. Vaulting into a waiting hack, he raced to the White House. His carriage passed Chase on the street, then novelist Anthony Trollope, then the crowds waiting for news in front of the National Hotel and Willard’s Hotel. The correspondent’s carriage entered the White House drive behind one carrying the president’s lawyers, former Attorney General Stanberry and Thomas Nelson of Tennessee. With sweat pouring down his face, Nelson rushed up the steps to Johnson’s office and plunged in. “Well, thank God, Mr. President,” he announced, “you are free again.”

  When the Times correspondent wedged his way into Johnson’s office, he found the president in high spirits, though cautious. The impeachers had not given up entirely, the president said, though they should. “Men’s consciences are not to be made harder or softer,” he said. Senators “will not know any more about the law and the evidence on the 26th instant than they know to-day.”

  Secretary of State Seward, whose intimates had been deeply involved in the bribery schemes, greeted the news with aplomb. May 16 was also his birthday. He was sixty-seven. After congratulating the president, he returned to his office and stretched out on the sofa with a cigar and a volume of Rousseau.

  Later that day, a Republican congressman saw Senator Ross walking on the White House grounds. “There goes the rascal,” he said sourly, “to get his pay.”

  The Astor House group was elated but not surprised. Hours before the ballots were cast, Whiskey Ring lawyer Charles Woolley sent telegrams announcing victory. To Hugh Hastings of Albany, in care of Sheridan Shook, he crowed, “We have beat the Methodist Episcopal church north, hell, George Wilkes [a Ben Butler operative], and impeachment.” Another message was more succinct: “Andy all right.” After the votes were in, Shook and Woolley hosted a party in a suite at the Metropolitan Hotel. They were still drunk the next day.

  One of Ben Butler’s agents monitored the night’s celebrations. Johnson threw open the Executive Mansion to well-wishers, an event that included “much whiskey drinking and jollification,” plus a band serenade at 10:30 P.M. The president also attended a party for the diplomatic corps at Seward’s house.

  Butler’s interest in the celebrations was not a casual one. Less than three hours after the Senate vote, John Bingham pushed a resolution through the House of Representatives that authorized an investigation of whether “improper or corrupt means have been used to influence the vote of the Senate.” Before the day was over, a committee led by Butler approved summonses for eight witnesses, including Edmund Ross, Indian trader Perry Fuller, and several of the Missourians who tried to persuade John Henderson to vote for conviction. The committee started hearing testimony that evening. The first witness was Senator Ross’s brother, William. He denied knowledge of corruption in the voting but was disappointed with his brother’s vote.

  Butler was certain, as were many Republicans, that the president’s men had purchased the votes of Ross, Henderson, Fowler, and perhaps Van Winkle. “How does it happen,” the Massachusetts congressman wrote, “that just enough & no more Senators are convinced of the President’s innocence[?]…Is conscience confided to only enough to acquit the President?”

  Across the nation, the president’s adherents rejoiced. Hundred-gun salutes sounded in Boston, in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Demonstrations massed in New York, St. Louis, Memphis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, and Alexandria, Virginia. In
several Southern cities, though, the reaction was muted. Richmond received the news quietly, as did Savannah, Georgia. With new state governments elected under congressional Reconstruction laws, and with Grant the likely next president, Johnson’s acquittal might not mark much change in Southerners’ political realities.

  At first, many Republicans denounced the seven defectors. The New York Tribune posted a list of them under a sign that screamed “TRAITORS.” Henderson was burned in effigy in Missouri. Ross received a telegram from an enraged Kansan: “Probably the rope with which Judas hung himself is lost, but the pistol with which Jim Lane committed suicide is at your service.” The West Virginia legislature passed a resolution deploring a world in which a senator from that state (Van Winkle) had kept the president in office. Those supporting impeachment reviled Chief Justice Chase, who was suspected of inciting defectors to vote for acquittal.

  Then came recriminations against the impeachment enterprise itself. The Radical Chicago Tribune offered a pithy summary of the reasons why Johnson was still in office:

  Bad articles.

  Lame Managers.

  Doubtful consequences [that is, Ben Wade as president].

  For Republicans, though, impeachment took a back seat for several days. The faithful repaired to Chicago to nominate their candidate for president. The anointing of General Grant went off without a hitch. For vice president, the Republicans passed over Ben Wade, who now looked like damaged goods, in favor of House Speaker Colfax.

  When May 26 rolled around, Chief Justice Chase reconvened the trial. Ten impeachment articles still loomed, but there was little reason to expect a conviction. Not much had changed in ten days. Butler’s committee had been taking testimony at a feverish pace, but it could issue only a preliminary report that featured implications of bribery without enough direct evidence. Two House managers, Stevens and Thomas Williams of Pennsylvania, anticipated that the last ten articles would fail; both congressmen had prepared new impeachment articles, but the committee rejected them. Despite rumors of possible vote shifts, only a miracle would produce a different outcome on any remaining article. Nevertheless, Republicans hoped for a miracle. Despairing of bringing Ross back to the impeachment cause, Butler sputtered, “Tell the damned scoundrel that if he wants money there is a bushel of it here to be had.”

  The Republicans skipped over Article I again, concerned that Sherman of Ohio would not support it. Instead, they called for a vote on Article II, the charge that the appointment of Thomas as interim war secretary violated the Tenure of Office Act. The vote was exactly the same, 35 to 19, with the same seven Republican defectors.

  The chief justice moved on to Article III, which also focused on the appointment of Thomas. Same vote. Same Republican defectors. The impeachers threw in the towel. They adjourned the trial for good. The Senate never voted on the remaining eight articles.

  At the War Department, Edwin Stanton knew the game was up. In the afternoon, he instructed his assistant adjutant general to take charge of the department “subject to the disposal and directions of the President.” The officer delivered a letter from Stanton to the White House. The war secretary, querulous to the end, did not admit that the president had removed him; rather, he wrote that he relinquished the office.

  Around the nation, the impeachment bets were settled up. William Warden, the Johnson aide who doubled as a newspaper correspondent, collected thousands from other gentlemen of the press. Much of his booty came from a correspondent for the New York Sun who doubled as an adviser to Ben Wade.

  Only one step was left for the formal impeachment process. By rule, each senator could file a public statement of the reasons for his vote. Five of the Republican defectors provided such statements.

  Trumbull of Illinois and Grimes of Iowa stressed how much they disliked Johnson. “If the question was, is Andrew Johnson a fit person for President?” Trumbull wrote, “I should answer, no.” He adopted the argument of Judge Curtis: he could not remove the president for misconstruing a doubtful statute, the Tenure of Office Act. Grimes called the incumbent “an unacceptable president,” but insisted that he would not disrupt the “harmonious working of the Constitution” to get rid of him. Fessenden of Maine coolly analyzed each impeachment article, stumbling slightly over Article XI. Impeachment, he concluded, should be used only “in extreme cases, and then only upon clear and unquestionable grounds” that raise “no suspicion upon the motives of those who inflict the penalty.” Henderson’s explanation also struggled briefly with Article XI, the one on which he had promised to vote for conviction only four days before the final ballot.

  The explanation filed by Senator Peter Van Winkle embraced a range of hair-splitting niggles. He objected that the firing of Stanton did not violate the Tenure of Office Act because the articles failed to state that Stanton actually received the removal order from the president. As to the appointment of Adjutant General Thomas, Van Winkle triumphantly pointed out that the word “appoint” appeared nowhere in the president’s letter designating Thomas as Stanton’s successor. Therefore, the West Virginian concluded, the designation was not an appointment “in the strict legal sense of the term.” Van Winkle did not explain what Johnson had done other than appoint Thomas. Finally, the senator denied that the president prevented the execution of the laws, as charged in Article XI. Johnson, he said, merely devised a plan to do so, a mere “mental operation.”

  Van Winkle was one of the targets of a countervailing eruption from Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner against the “technicalities and quibbles” arrayed in the president’s defense. Calling them “parasitic insects, like vermin gendered in a lion’s mane,” the disappointed Radical challenged history for an instance of “equal absurdity in legal pretension.”

  An explanatory letter from Tennessee’s Fowler appeared several weeks later. Decrying the impeachment effort as a “scheme to usurp my Government,” Fowler insisted, “I acted for my country, and have done what I regard as a good act.”

  In a letter to his wife, Ross predicted that the nation would thank him: “Millions of men are cursing me today, but they will bless me tomorrow.” In remarks in the Senate on May 27, he admitted he had changed his mind before casting his impeachment vote, asking, “Who among you…was at all times free from doubt?” He had been singled out, Ross charged, as the “scapegoat for the egregious blunders, weaknesses, and hates which have characterized this whole impeachment movement, itself a stupendous blunder.” He denied that his vote reflected any improper influence.

  Though the seven defectors have ever since received credit, or blame, for thwarting the first presidential impeachment, they may not have been Johnson’s last line of defense. Substantial evidence suggests that the president had in his vest pocket several other Republican senators who would have voted for acquittal if their votes were needed. An ally of the Astor House group, New York broker Ralph Newton, telegrammed Collector Smythe a few hours after the vote, “Twenty-two were sure on other articles, and twenty-one on that [Article XI] if necessary.” Sam Ward made the same claim. The Chicago Tribune reported that Johnson’s advocates claimed they had at least four more votes if they needed them. Over the next years, reports named several senators as having been willing to support acquittal in a pinch: Waitman Willey of West Virginia, William Sprague of Rhode Island, Edwin Morgan of New York, and James Nye of Nevada. The listing of Nye, a former New Yorker with ties to Thurlow Weed, is intriguing; he was one of the senators listed by postal agent James Legate when he offered to sell votes to Edmund Cooper.

  There could have been others. On the day after the vote, Johnson expressed surprise that an Oregon senator did not vote for him. That man, the president explained, had “financial relations” with Treasury Secretary McCulloch and had said he would vote as McCulloch directed. The president blamed McCulloch for not giving the senator proper direction. Johnson also had expected to win the vote of Rhode Island’s Henry Anthony.

  Only nineteen votes, though, were needed. Despite
the speculation about other senators, only the seven who did vote for acquittal would be the principal targets of Butler’s investigation into corruption. No matter what the Senate thought or the nation wished, the impeachment saga would not be over until Ben Butler said it was.

  SEARCHING FOR SCANDAL

  MAY 17–JULY 5, 1868

  People here [in Washington] are afraid to write letters, and I must be a little cautious at present. Spies are, really, everywhere.

  JEROME STILLSON tO SAMUEL BARLOW, MAY 22, 1868

  PARTS OF BUTLER’S investigation started while the trial was still going on. As the Senate received evidence, Butler’s agents reported to him about suspicious characters and shady conversations. He knew about printer Cornelius Wendell, the architect of the president’s acquittal fund. Thurlow Weed’s minions had been in Washington City for weeks, so the New York boss was high on Butler’s list, along with Sheridan Shook, Sam Ward, and Collector Henry Smythe. Butler knew about the corrupt Perry Fuller and his hold over Edmund Ross—that cried out for a closer look. Missouri Senator John Henderson’s erratic course certainly seemed fishy. And then there was the Whiskey Ring, America’s political bogeyman, and its lawyer, Charles Woolley. Equally important, Butler knew the subjects he had to keep concealed. It would not do to reveal some of his own activities, or those of his allies.

  Tips poured in from around the country. What about the doctor from Paterson, New Jersey, who claimed he was in the president’s bedroom when Woolley revealed a $20,000 payment for Ross’s vote? Another source claimed that Ross received $150,000. A New Hampshire man was convinced that a cousin of Ross’s delivered bribe money to the Kansas senator. The niece of General Alonzo Adams pleaded for an investigation of her uncle and his boast that he bought senators’ votes for the verdict. Volunteer informants urged Butler to question an honest revenue agent in Chicago who could reveal all. What about the businessman in Troy, New York, who supposedly sent $100,000 to aid the president, or Vinnie Ream with her female charms, or a former army colonel with ties to the Whiskey Ring, or a tax collector who gave 10-to-1 odds that Johnson would be acquitted?