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

by David O. Stewart

  “The whole force”: Brooks D. Simpson, Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861–1868, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (1991); Blaine, vol. 2, p. 294; Badeau, p. 65.

  He called for a time: Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 107 (June 14, 1867); Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 565–67 (July 10, 1867), 592–93 (July 11, 1867), 725, 730–32, 741–47 (July 19, 1867); Blaine, vol. 3, p. 294; “Veto of the Third Military Reconstruction Act,” July 19, 1867, in Johnson Papers 12:416, 423.

  He called the investigation: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 1st sess., p. 450 (March 29, 1867). In early March, Senator John Sherman of Ohio called the impeachment effort “a complete failure.” John Sherman to William Sherman, March 7, 1867, in Sherman Letters, p. 289.

  Stevens predicted: New York Herald, July 8, 1867.

  Smythe’s employees kicked back: Carman and Luthin, pp. 59–60.

  Smythe gained the plum position: Cox and Cox, Politics, Principle, and Prejudice, p. 127.

  In mid-March, the committee chairman: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 120–23 (March 15, 1867).

  Smythe customarily received: Mark Wahlgren Summers, The Era of Good Stealings, New York: Oxford University Press (1993), p. 91.

  He succeeded in riding out the storm: Samuel Barlow to Ward, March 29, 1867, Barlow Papers, Box 64; House Report No. 30, 39th Cong., 2d sess.; Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 1st sess., p. 394 (March 27, 1867); Boston Daily Advertiser, March 19, 1867; Daily Cleveland Herald, March 23, 1867; James B. Steedman to Johnson, March 22, 1867, in Johnson Papers 12:174.

  8. THE DANGEROUS SPHINX

  The President don’t comprehend: Sherman to Ellen Sherman, October 7, 1867, in Mark DeWolfe Howe, ed., The Home Letters of General Sherman, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (1909), p. 361.

  “Grant quarrels with no one”: Tyler Dennett, ed., Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, New York, DaCapo Press (2000), p. 176.

  “I am disgusted”: Simpson, p. 149, quoting Sylvanus Cadwallader, “Four Years With Grant,” unpublished manuscript in Illinois Historical Society library, pp. 186–87, 151.

  Abraham Lincoln described him: George Meade, Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (1913), vol. 2, p. 191 (Meade to Mrs. Meade, April 24, 1864); William O. Stoddard, Jr., William O. Stoddard: Lincoln’s Third Secretary, New York: Exposition Press (1955), p. 307.

  Ben Wade of Ohio: Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, New York: Random House (2006) (reissued), vol. 3, p. 12; New York Times, November 8, 1867.

  One of his officers: Dana, Recollections of the Civil War, p. 61; James McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, New York: Oxford University Press (1988), p. 721.

  Grant accepted all three changes: Smith, Grant, p. 26; Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, New York: Charles L. Webster & Co. (1885), vol. 1, pp. 34–35; Smith, Grant, pp. 24–25.

  At final exercises: James B. Fry, “An Acquaintance with Grant,” North American Review 141:540 (1885).

  “For years afterward”: New York Times, July 24, 1885.

  An officer who served under Taylor: Meade, vol. 2, p. 191 (April 24, 1864).

  “I do not know that I felt”: Grant to John Lowe, June 26, 1846, in Grant Papers 1:97.

  Within six years: Grant’s recent biographer, Jean Smith, provides a persuasive account both of his resignation from the army and his problems with alcohol. Smith, Grant, pp. 83–89.

  In a brief exchange: Church, Grant, at 57.

  Another wrote home: Horace Porter, Campaigning with Grant, New York: Century (1897), p. 16; T. Harry Williams, McClellan, Sherman, and Grant, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press (1962), pp. 82–83 (quoting Charles Francis Adams, Jr.).

  General Grant is a great general: Badeau, pp. 373–74; L. P. Brockett, Our Great Captains: Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan, Farragut, New York: Charles P. Richardson (1866), p. 175.

  “I am becoming impressed”: Welles Diary, vol. 3, pp. 15 (January 10, 1867), 177 (August 22, 1867), 244 (December 24, 1867).

  Grant, who was moved: Testimony of Ulysses S. Grant before House Impeachment Committee, July 18, 1867, in Grant Papers 17:216–18; Badeau, pp. 35–36; Grant to Johnson, December 18, 1865, in Grant Papers 15:434–37. Just after the Southern surrender, Grant wrote his wife from North Carolina that “the suffering that must exist in the South the next year, even with the war ending now, will be beyond conception. People who talk of further retaliation and punishment, except of the political leaders, either do not conceive of the suffering endured already or they are heartless and unfeeling and wish to stay at home out of danger while the punishment is being inflicted.” Grant to Julia Grant, April 25, 1865, in Badeau, p. 31.

  “early in the rebellion”: Grant to Elihu Washburne, August 30, 1863, in Grant Papers 9:217–18.

  Grant directed his commanders: Grant to Thomas et al., December 26, 1865, in Grant Papers 16:69–70.

  Noting that Stanton: Smith, p. 433, quoting Comstock Papers, Library of Congress; John Y. Simon, ed., Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (1975), p. 165.

  Grant’s senior aide: Grant to Oliver O. Howard, January 18, 1867, in Badeau, p. 59; Welles Diary, vol. 3, pp. 42–43 (February 15, 1867); Smith, Grant, pp. 432–33; Grant to Elihu Washburne, March 4, 1867, in Grant Papers 17:76–77; Grant to Philip Sheridan, June 24, 1867, ibid., 17:196; Thomas and Hyman, p. 546; Badeau, p. 71.

  Wherever Grant went: Badeau, pp. 62, 69; Chicago Tribune, August 8, 1867.

  When Johnson offered: Moore Diary/AHR, pp. 107–8 (August 1, 1867).

  Sheridan, in short: Sefton, p. 140; Badeau, p. 102; “Interview with Cincinnati Commercial Correspondent,” July 2, 1867, in Johnson Papers 12:369–70; Welles to Johnson, August 4, 1867, in Johnson Papers 12:454.

  Indeed, those feelings: Badeau, pp. 62, 95.

  Dismissal of Stanton and Sheridan: Grant to Johnson, August 1, 1867, in Grant Papers 17:250–52.

  “Public considerations”: Moore Diary/AHR, p. 107; Welles Diary, vol. 3, pp. 149–56 (August 2, 3, 1867); Stanton to Johnson, August 5, 1867, in Johnson Papers 12:461; Badeau, p. 90.

  “The turning point”: Moore Diary/AHR, p. 109.

  Removing Sheridan: Grant to Johnson, August 17, 1867, in Johnson Papers 12:489–90.

  In a bitter letter: Grant to Johnson, August 26, 1867, in Grant Papers 17:303.

  Grant asked to be excused: Moore Diary/AHR, pp. 112–13 (August 28, 1867); Johnson to Grant, August 28, 1867, in Johnson Papers 12:519; “Statement from Andrew Johnson,” October 12, 1867, ibid., 13:166–67.

  Now he pardoned: “Second Amnesty Proclamation,” September 7, 1867, in Johnson Papers 13:40; Order of August 26, 1867, ibid., 12:514; Johnson to Grant, August 26, 1867, ibid., 12:512–13.

  Similar demands came: William A. Russ, Jr., “Was There Danger of a Second Civil War During Reconstruction?” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 25:39, 41 (June 1938), quoting Missouri Democrat, August 30, 1867; Schurz to Mrs. Schurz, August 31, 1867, in Intimate Letters of Carl Schurz, Joseph Schafer, ed., Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin (1928), p. 392; Brodie, p. 331, quoting Francis Lieber to Theodore W. Dwight, August 27, 1867, Lieber Papers, Huntington Library; Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, p. 300, quoting Fessenden to McCulloch, September 2, 1867, in McCulloch Papers, Library of Congress, Box 3; Chicago Tribune, August 21, 1867; The Nation, August 29, 1867; H. Taylor to Butler, August 28, 1867, and W. G. Upham to Butler, September 16, 1867, in Butler Papers, Box 43. Even the New York Times, ordinarily not anti-Johnson, began to denounce the president. New York Times, September 11, 1867.

  “I have always had an abiding confidence”: New York Times, November 14, 1867.

  The Democratic candidate: Fishel, pp. 8, 18, 19–20, quoting Boston Evening Transcript, November 8, 1866; Foner, p. 313. The Frenchman Clemenceau observed that “any Democrat who did not manage to hint in his speech that the negro is a degenerate gorilla would be considered lac
king in enthusiasm. The idea of giving political power to a lot of wild men, incapable of civilization, whose intelligence is no higher than that of animals! That is the theme of all the Democratic speeches.” Clemenceau, p. 131 (November 1, 1867).

  Ben Wade, firmly committed: New York Times, November 8, 1867.

  “I take the occasion”: New York Herald, November 7, 1867.

  Sherman spurned: William Sherman to John Sherman, October 11, 1867, in Thorndike, Sherman Letters, p. 297.

  In a triumphal procession: Clemenceau, p. 122 (October 4, 1867).

  9. IMPEACHMENT, ROUND TWO

  “They swept through the air”: Washington Daily National Intelligencer, November 18, 1867, reprinting Boston Post article of November 15, 1867; “Impeachment Investigation,” H. Rep. No. 7, 40th Cong., 1st sess. (1867), pp. 1166–94; New York World, November 15, 1867.

  I have always believed: Ellis, p. 169; Horowitz, pp. 133–40; Impeachment Investigation, pp. 1198–99.

  Churchill gave his reasons: New York Times, December 6, 1867.

  The Associated Press: New York Times, November 23, 1867; Daily Cleveland Herald, November 29, 1867; New York Times, November 30, 1867, reprinting November 29, 1867, article in the Philadelphia Bulletin.

  When he left Lancaster: Stevens to Simon Stevens, August 3, 1867, in Stevens Papers, Box 4; Henry Carpenter to Stevens, November 17, 1867, in Stevens Papers, Box 4. Dr. Carpenter’s remedies included:

  Taking three times a day the “tonic mixture in the vial,” which could be omitted “if the stomach should become disturbed with weakness of appetite,” in favor of “the vegetable tonic, infused with half a pint of boiling water, poured off after standing a few hours and a tablespoonful taken every 4 hours until better,” when the tonic mixture could be resumed.

  If other ill effects should arise, “as indicated by the gray or ash coloured stools, a blue pill may be taken at bedtime and repeated next morning or evening as may be necessary.”

  “If the effusion into the pericardium—or the dropsical affection of the heart, should increase—as you will know by the usual oppression, as experienced before, take one of the ‘diuretic pills’ at bedtime, and repeated every 6 to 8 hours if necessary, until relieved.”

  “Take as much nourishing food as your stomach will comfortably receive and digest—with as much of the punch wine, brandy, whisky or beer, as may be necessary and agreeable.”

  He could flash into coherence: New York World, November 15, 1867 (“looks very feeble”); Chicago Tribune, November 23, 1867 (“more haggard and bloodless in the face”); New York Herald, November 20, 1867; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, November 18, 1867.

  When colleagues offered: New York Herald, November 19 and 21, 1867; New York Times, November 22, 1867.

  “Why, I’ll take that man’s record”: Ben Perley Poore, Perley’s Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis, Philadelphia: Hubbard Brothers (1886), vol. 2, p. 229.

  When the report: New York World, November 26, 1867.

  In dealing with the former rebels: House Rep. No. 7, 40th Cong., 1st sess., p. 2.

  One stated, for example: The quoted language, included in the majority report, came from a popular constitutional treatise by George Ticknor Curtis—History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States, New York: Harper & Row (1865), vol. 2, p. 261. Ironically, the author of the treatise was the brother of former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Curtis, who would serve as one of Johnson’s defense counsel in the impeachment trial. With unofficial help from brother George, Benjamin Curtis would argue the opposite position during the trial.

  Rather than contrive: The Nation framed the problem: “Mr. Johnson is mischievous in this—that small, feeble, and insignificant though he be, the precautions which it is necessary to take against him are likely to become precedents, and to lead to serious changes in the character of the government.” August 22, 1867, p. 150; Benedict, Compromise, pp. 292–93.

  Wilson, called by one newspaper: New York Times, March 16, 1868.

  By rough force: For example, Wilson pointed to the constitutional provision stating that an official, after removal by impeachment, may be prosecuted in a criminal court. That shows, Wilson proclaimed, that impeachment must be for a crime. Yet the Constitution does not require criminal prosecution of the removed official. Nor does it state that only a criminal offense may be the basis for impeachment. Rather, it preserves the possibility of a later criminal prosecution if the conduct at issue justifies it. Wilson also trumpeted the constitutional provision that “the trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury.” By placing impeachment and “crimes” in adjacent clauses, this statement proved to Wilson that impeachment can only be for a crime. But the constitutional language states only that criminal cases must be decided by juries except when an impeachment trial happens to include allegations of a crime. The provision does not exclude impeachment for noncriminal conduct. Finally, Wilson stressed the provision that the president’s power to pardon “offences against the Constitution” does not apply “in cases of impeachment.” Because Wilson thought “offences” could mean only crimes, he argued that this provision also limited impeachment to criminal offenses. But if the definition of impeachment offenses (“high crimes and misdemeanors”) includes conduct other than crimes, then such conduct constitutes an “offence against the Constitution” that the president cannot pardon.

  One Republican congressman: Harper’s Weekly, December 14, 1867; Chicago Tribune, November 27, 1867. The New York Times gathered similar views expressed by newspapers in Providence; Albany; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Buffalo. New York Times, November 29, 1867; New York Times, December 3, 1867; Blaine, vol. 2, p. 343.

  Though Stevens continued to endorse: New York Herald, November 26 and November 19, 1867; Charleston Courier, December 5, 1867; Harper’s Weekly, October 19, 1867; Welles Diary, vol. 3, pp. 234 (October 19, 1867), 237–38 (November 30, 1867); “Memorandum to the Cabinet,” November 30, 1867, in Johnson Papers 13:269–71; Farrand, vol. 2, pp. 612–13 (September 14, 1868). Senator Reverdy Johnson, a Maryland Democrat who argued and won the Dred Scott case in 1857, offered a constitutional attack on the notion that the president could be suspended from office pending an impeachment trial. New York Times, November 26, 1867. Congress never voted on the legislation. Chicago Tribune, February 10, 1868.

  In apocalyptic tones: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1 (December 3, 1867). Johnson’s annual message was leaked to the press before Congress received it, which annoyed many congressmen. New York World, December 4, 1867. The source of the leak is not clear, though one Johnson aide sometimes sold exclusive stories to newspapers—Donald A. Ritchie, The Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington Correspondents, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1991), pp. 80–81—while Johnson met regularly with favored reporters to trade information.

  Although civil war should be avoided: Remarkably, Johnson’s annual message stated that “enormous frauds have been perpetrated on the Treasury, and colossal fortunes have been made at the public expense.” Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 4 (December 3, 1867), p. 4. That sort of confession rarely comes from an incumbent who has been managing the bureaucracy for almost three years. The president blamed the “enormous frauds” on the Tenure of Office Act, which required Senate action concurring in the dismissal of many officials. Though the statute surely had been an obstacle to dismissals of executive officials for the preceding eight months, the widespread fraud predated the law and thrived both with and without it.

  The telling consideration: Some Republicans thought Johnson’s message could provoke civil war. Moorfield Storey to his father, December 4, 1867, in M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Portrait of an Independent: Moorfield Storey, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. (1932), p. 47.

  He could be long-winded: Julian, p. 312; New York Times, December 6, 1867; New York Herald, December 7, 1867; Blaine, vol. 2, p. 361; Brodie, p. 340.

  Over th
e next six months: Boutwell, “The Usurpation,” p. 508; Clemenceau, p. 175 (April 24, 1868); Ellis, p. 169. The only full biography of Boutwell is Thomas H. Brown, George Sewall Boutwell: Human Rights Advocate, Groton, MA: Groton Historical Society (1989). Navy Secretary Welles wrote in his diary that Boutwell “is a fanatic, a little insincere, violent, and yet has much of the demagogic cunning.” Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 235 (October 23, 1867).

  After paying tribute: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., app., p. 54 (December 5, 1867).

  In a disingenuous opening: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., app., p. 63 (December 6, 1867).

  With Wilson and John Bingham: New York World, December 9, 1867; New York Times, December 9, 1867; New York Herald, December 8, 1867; Chicago Tribune, December 21, 1867; Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 66 (December 7, 1867).

  As remembered by: Sherman, Recollections, p. 414.

  Two days before Boutwell began: A political operative allied with Johnson, Cornelius Wendell, reported strong pro-Grant feelings in New England. He wrote from western Massachusetts: “Six weeks spent here and hereabouts satisfy me that Radical managers in this section will be forced to go Grant. The public voice is unanimous for him. Of hundreds whom I have listened to, not one dissentient have I heard.” Wendell to Thurlow Weed, August 2, 1867, Seward Papers. New York Herald, November 12, 1867. Chicago Tribune, January 28, 1868; New York Herald, December 4, 1867; New York World, December 5, 1867. The New York Times hailed the “spontaneous uprisings for Gen. Grant, which are without precedent in our political history. They did not originate with politicians, and cannot be controlled by schemers.” New York Times, December 4, 1867.