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

by David O. Stewart

  Postal agent Legate: Moore Diary/Large Diary, p. 82 (January 8, 1870).

  In the final committee report: Impeachment Money, p. 33.

  In a letter to his father: Thomas Ewing, Jr. to Thomas Ewing, Sr., June 3, 1868, in Papers of Thomas Ewing Family, Box 74.

  Ross’s denunciation: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., app., pp. 4463–65 July 26, 1868); 4507–8, 4509–17 (July 27, 1868).

  As Henderson himself: David A. Logan, “Historical Uses of a Special Prosecutor: The Administrations of Presidents Grant, Coolidge, and Truman,” Congressional Research Service (November 23, 1973), p. 11. The most dramatic response to the committee investigation and report came from Thurlow Weed, who suffered on June 26 what was described as “partial sunstroke.” Weed left for Europe on the steamship Cimbria four days after the report issued. Thurlow Weed Barnes, Life of Thurlow Weed, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (1884), p. 460; New York Times, July 8, 1868.

  Though a firm Republican: Mark Wahlgren Summers, The Press Gang, University of North Carolina Press (1994), p. 85; Ritchie, Press Gallery, pp. 74, 113; Richardson, p. 27.

  Boynton was disgusted: In the 1860s, Congress did not have regular procedures for preserving the records of its committees. The committee’s journal of its activities survives in the National Archives, along with the transcripts of testimony of a few minor witnesses. Butler retained copies of some correspondence in his personal records, along with a couple of additional transcripts. Fragments of other testimony, and references to many telegrams and other correspondence, appear in the two reports prepared by the committee. Some witnesses claimed that the excerpts of testimony in the reports omitted important information.

  Having expected to prove: Cincinnati Gazette, December 20, 1868; Boynton to Whitelaw Reid, October 23, 1869, Whitelaw Reid Papers. The biographer James Parton wrote in Atlantic Monthly in August 1869 that Johnson’s acquittal was “wholly the lobby’s doing.” He claimed that senators’ votes were purchased for $25,000 or $50,000 per vote, or by the intentional loss of large sums in card games. He concurred with Boynton that much of the money raised for bribery purposes was siphoned off by middlemen, and that patronage appointments and “commodities of another description” purchased some votes. He also claimed that Butler and the impeachers could have purchased a conviction for $110,000. Because Parton offered no particulars to support his statements, they are difficult to evaluate. James Parton, “The ‘Strikers’ of the Washington Lobby,” Atlantic Monthly, August 1869, pp. 229–30.

  Wendell added: Cincinnati Gazette, December 25, 1868; New York Herald, January 8, 1870.

  Without directly asking: Wendell to Johnson, March 3, 1868, in Johnson Papers 15:500–501.

  Sixty thousand dollars: Moore Diary/Large Diary, p. 83 (January 6, 1870).

  House Speaker Colfax: Summers, The Era of Good Stealings, pp. 231–37.

  Seward, who had accepted: After the trial, Clemenceau described Seward as “Mr. Johnson’s mentor,” adding that “[t]he influence, or at least the maneuvers, of the Secretary of State played a considerable part in the President’s acquittal.” Clemenceau, p. 189 (May 29, 1868).

  The president’s men: Cincinnati Gazette, December 20, 1869.

  “As matters stand now”: New York Tribune, May 24, 1868.

  “I have been saved by so many men”: Moore Diary/Large Diary, p. 39 (May 18, 1868).

  Three days later: Ross to Johnson, June 23, 1868, in Johnson Papers 14:258.

  When the Senate Finance Committee: Cincinnati Gazette, June 25, 1868; Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1868; Boston Daily Advertiser, June 25, 1868; Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1868. The Newport (RI) Journal asked on June 27, 1868, whether there was a connection between Fuller’s appointment and the vote of Edmund Ross on impeachment.

  “The man who can give”: Fuller to Johnson, August 23, 1868, in Johnson Papers 14:530 and n. 2; Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1868.

  Fuller’s overhaul: Washington Daily National Intelligencer, September 30, 1868; McCulloch to Johnson, October 20, 1868, in Johnson Papers 15:159.

  The criminal charges: New York Herald, September 22, 1869; Chicago Tribune, May 1, 1869; New York Times, September 16, 1869; Lowell Daily Citizen & News, February 7, 1868; Chicago Tribune, December 10, 1870; Abel, p. 85 n. 177; New York Times, January 29, 1875.

  The appointment was “vital”: Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1868; Ross to Johnson, June 6, 1868, in Johnson Papers 14:177–78.

  The Kansas senator: Ross to Johnson, June 13, July 1, 10, 1868, in Johnson Papers 14:215–16, 295, 346; Charles A. Jellison, “The Ross Impeachment Vote: A Need for Reappraisal,” Southwestern Social Science Quarterly 41:151, 154 (1960); Gerry, p. 872.

  Van Winkle of West Virginia: Bayless, p. 88; Brockway, p. 15; Van Winkle to Johnson, June 19, 1868, and Fowler to Johnson, July 18, 1868, Johnson Papers, Reel 33; Grimes to Johnson, January 28, 1869, Johnson Papers, Reel 36. The president also granted an appointment desired by Fessenden of Maine. Smythe to Johnson, June 22, 1868, in Johnson Papers 14:251.

  Cornelius Wendell, the corruption consultant: New York Times, October 22, 1868.

  The Senate promptly confirmed: Cincinnati Gazette, May 26, June 1, 1868; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, June 26, 1868; Janesville (WI) Gazette, June 29, 1868; Ann S. Stephens to Johnson, June 2, 1868, in Johnson Papers 14:157.

  It was, Welles noted tersely: Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 391 (May 25, 1868); New York Tribune, July 4, 1868. About the nomination of Perry Fuller as commissioner of internal revenue, Welles harrumphed that it was “an improper selection.”

  One historian estimated: Chicago Tribune, September 3, 1868; Albert S. Bolles, The Financial History of the United States, from 1861 to 1885, 2d ed., New York: D. Appleton & Co. (1894), p. 495.

  Despite Johnson’s dogged efforts: New York Tribune, February 13, 1868; Boston Daily Advertiser, January 30, 1868; North American Review (April 1869), p. 625. Noting the Fuller, Smythe, and Foote appointments, the Janesville (WI) Gazette observed dryly on June 28, 1868, “The president is going through the list. He has not yet reached Woolley.”

  25. THE CARAVAN MOVES ON

  Mrs. Johnson came downstairs: Gerry, p. 873.

  Noble Hurdle: New York Times, January 2, 1869; Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, January 2, 1869; Ellis, pp. 242–43.

  Did this fraternal feeling: Butler spent the rest of New Year’s Day calling at the homes of Johnson’s Cabinet secretaries, most of whom could not stand the sight of him. Plainly, the Massachusetts congressman had embarked on a major fence-mending effort. Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 497 (January 2, 1869).

  With a laugh: Moore Diary/Large Diary, pp. 41–42 (May 27, 29, and 30, 1868); E. P. Townsend, pp. 135–36.

  Congress enacted both bills: Chicago Tribune, June 22, 1868. Johnson vetoed other legislation as well. “Veto of Restrictions on Electoral Votes,” July 20, 1868, in Johnson Papers 14:388; “Veto of Freedmen’s Bureau Bill,” July 25, 1868, in ibid., 14:429.

  Using terror tactics: Report of Senate Select Committee on “The Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the Northern States,” S. Rep. No. 693, 46th Cong., 2d sess., Part I, p. xviii (1880); Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, pp. 340–41, 349–50; Johnson to Grant, March 14, 1868, in Johnson Papers 13:650. The Senate Select Committee report in 1880 included a remarkable study compiled by a freed slave and former Union soldier from Louisiana, Henry Adams, who was shocked by the antiblack violence when he returned to the South in 1868. Adams recruited a group of some 500 freedmen who attempted to document atrocities committed by whites and to report on conditions for the freed people throughout the South. Their goal was to identify areas where black people might live in safety. Adams’s listing of the victims of white slaughter includes gruesome entries like: “Alex. Nelson (colored) tongue cut out, skinned and beat, and then killed by Old Dority and other white men, on John Orley’s place, in 1868.” Most are more prosaic: “Frank Jeffrew (colored), killed by white men on Seward Angrel’s place, 1868.” Senate Select Co
mm. Report, Part II, p. 196.

  The Ku Klux Klan claimed credit: Memorandum for election of 41st Congress, Butler Papers, Box 43; Trelease, p. 117; Connelly, p. 211; Smallwood, p. 62; Michael W. Fitzgerald, Splendid Failure: Postwar Reconstruction in the American South, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee (2007), p. 91; New York Times, August 6, 1868; Trelease, p. 116.

  Others were compelled: Benjamin Leas to Butler (July 4, 1868); J. C. Lucas to Butler (July 1, 1868); J. Tarbell to Butler (July 3, 1868), all in Butler Papers, Box 45; see Hans L. Trefousse, “The Acquittal of Andrew Johnson and the Decline of the Radicals,” Civil War History 14:158–59 (1968).

  Twenty-five freedmen: New York Times, May 11, 1868; Smallwood, pp. 142–45.

  If the man in the White House: Report of the Secretary of War, Part I, House Ex. Doc. No. 1, 40th Cong., 3d Sess. (1868), pp. xix–xxxii.

  On the twenty-second ballot: Cooper to Johnson, July 3, 1868, in Johnson Papers 14:306–7; Smythe to Johnson, July 6, 1868, in ibid., 14:328; Cooper to Johnson, July 7, 1868, in ibid., 14:328–29; Moore Diary/Large Diary, pp. 57–58, 60 (July 3, 7, 8, and 9, 1868); Johnson to Cooper, July 8, 1868, in Johnson Papers 14:332; Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, p. 339.

  The new state governments: Joseph B. James, Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press (1984), pp. 280–98.

  The president’s annual message: Edward McPherson, p. 385 (Annual Message of the President, December 7, 1868).

  The House took no action: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 3786–91, 3792–93 (July 7, 1868); Cincinnati Gazette, July 8, 1868.

  He was not concerned: New York Times, August 8, 1868; San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, August 31, 1868, reprinted from the New York Tribune; J. Hickman to McPherson, January 14, 1869, in McPherson Papers, Box 12.

  In Stevens’s final moments: New York Times, August 14, 1868; New Hampshire Statesman, August 21, 1868; Newark (OH) Advocate, August 14, 1868.

  Before his death: Lowell (MA) Daily Citizen, August 15 and 18, 1868; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, August 14, 1868; New York Times, August 13, 1868; New York Times, August 13 and 18, 1868.

  He won easily: Brodie, p. 366.

  Johnson nominated Evarts: Welles Diary, vol. 3, pp. 375, 390 (June 3 and 14, 1868).

  Stanberry returned to private law practice: Charles Lane, The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction, New York: Henry Holt & Co. (2008), pp. 116–17.

  Four days later: Dawes, p. 504.

  Grant appointed him: Land, p. 222.

  “Not a single one of them”: John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage, New York: Harper & Row (1955), p. 165.

  Poor health forced: Grimes to Henry W. Starr, March 18, 1869, in Salter, p. 367. A denunciation of Grimes in the newspaper in Burlington, Iowa, offers a flavor of the passions of the time: “Republicans of Iowa mourn over the studied perfidiousness of the reptile [Grimes] they have warmed into life and to whose fangs they have added the poison of power to destroy them.” George A. Boeck, “Senator Grimes and the Iowa Press, 1867–1868,” Mid-America 48:157 (1966), quoting the Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye, May 23, 1868.

  Only a few months earlier: Fessenden, p. 326.

  He retired from the Senate: Bayless, pp. 86–87; Sturm, p. 39.

  Indeed, their careers: Richard J. Roske, “The Seven Martyrs?” American Historical Reviw 64:324 (1959).

  On a memorable evening: New York Times, September 26, 1872, September 21, 1875, May 18, 1906, and April 2, 1911; Sedalia Daily Democrat, September 7, 1872 and September 25, 1872. Roske, p. 328; Poore, pp. 313–14; Washington Post, December 20, 2000.

  He later ran for governor: Krug, p. 269; Roske, p. 329.

  In 1872, he campaigned: New York Times, February 7, 1870; Newark (OH) Advocate, June 12, 1868, reprinted from the Cincinnati Commercial; Walter T. Dunham, “How Say You, Senator Fowler?” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, 62:55–56 (1983).

  In his final years: Charleston Courier, April 17, 1869, reprinted from New York Herald; Plummer, “Profile in Courage?” pp. 42–45; Kubicek, p. 151; “Hon. Edmund G. Ross, Governor of New Mexico,” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, June 13, 1885; Edmund G. Ross, “Historic Moments: The Impeachment Trial,” Scribner’s 11:519 (April 1892); Edmund G. Ross, History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Co. (1896); undated letter from Ross in New Mexico to Major Hoxie, in Hoxie-Ream Papers.

  He ran for president: Albert R. Kitzhaber, “Götterdämmerung in Topeka: The Downfall of Senator Pomeroy,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 18:243 (1950).

  Eight years after that: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, April 1872, p. 790; Chicago Daily, January 19, 1873; Chicago Tribune, January 11 and 13, 1885; San Francisco Bulletin, January 12, 1885; New York Times, March 4, 1893; Chicago Tribune, March 22, 1893; Rocky Mountain News, March 22, 1893; Chicago Daily, July 23, 1894.

  After winning dismissal: New York Herald, September 16 and 17, 1869; New York Times, April 28, 1899; Milwaukee Sentinel, July 11, 1886.

  Smythe again escaped: New York Herald, November 26, 1869.

  Woolley, who was then president: Chicago Tribune, March 1, 1871, and February 11, 1876, October 13, 14, and 21, 1878; New York Times, May 3, 1878 and February 8, 1879.

  In his remaining years: Evarts to Ward, December 8, 1880, in Samuel Ward Papers, Box 1; New York World, May 20, 1884.

  Confined for weeks: Philadelphia North American, November 19, 1889 and January 4, 1890. The Raleigh News and Observer described Gaylord as “for years a heavy manipulator of railroad securities.” January 4, 1890.

  One hundred sixty-two blacks: “Louisiana Contested Elections,” Testimony taken by House Subcommittee of Elections in Louisiana, House Misc. Doc. No. 154, 41st Cong., 2d sess., pp. 127–28 (testimony of C. W. Keeting); Oberholtzer, p. 366; Tracy Campbell, Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition, 1742–2004, New York: Carroll & Graf (2005), pp. 60–61.

  Grant struck back: Smith, Grant, pp. 463–64; Welles Diary, vol. 3, pp. 497–98 (January 2, 1869).

  He was the last president: Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 542 (March 4, 1869); Smith, Grant, p. 466; Gerry, p. 874.

  He never forgave: This anecdote comes from a remembrance written in 1926 by E. C. Reeves, who was Johnson’s private secretary in Greeneville, Tennessee, from 1869 to 1875. Unhappily, Reeves, who was a strong partisan of the former president, waited some forty-five years before reporting this incident, a delay that could call into question his memory of the event. Nevertheless, he was employed by Johnson at the time of the incident and likely had the broad outlines of the event correct. Reeves denounced Edmund Cooper’s “treachery” in supporting his own brother after Johnson fell short in the contest. Reeves’s memorandum appears as an appendix in Lloyd Paul Stryker, Andrew Johnson, New York: Macmillan Co. (1929), pp. 825–37. Stryker’s book admires Johnson greatly. New York Times, October 20, 22, and 23, 1869; Dewitt, p. 619; Temple, p. 439.

  He wrote in December 1871: Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, pp. 360–61 (quoting letters from Johnson to his daughter).

  The new senator: Cong. Record, 44th Cong., Special sess., pp. 121–27 (March 20, 1875).

  His head rested: Trefousse, Andrew Johnson, pp. 352–77; Baber, p. 70.

  A secretary: Cowan, p. 8.

  “I intend to appoint”: Smith, Grant, p. 555.

  For a time: Ibid., p. 547.

  26. THE RORSCHACH BLOT

  Surely God is on our side: Dawes, p. 503.

  A chief justice: William H. Rehnquist, Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson, New York: William Morrow & Co. (1992), p. 278; Woodrow Wilson, History of the American People, New York: Harper & Brothers, vol. 9 (1918), pp. 49–50, 54–55. The chapter-length treatment of Johnson and Ross in the Kennedy book is particularly incomplete. For example, Kennedy portrays the appointment of Ross to the Senate in 1866 as part of a Radical conspiracy to impeach the president. There is no e
vidence to support such a claim. Ross was appointed by the Kansas governor in August 1866, when impeachment was just beginning to be mentioned by Radical newspapers and some Republicans. Kennedy describes the Tenure of Office Act as a “cry for more patronage,” when it was actually an attempt to tie Johnson’s hands in firing officials. Kennedy also describes Johnson as eager for a court test of the Tenure of Office Act, an assertion contradicted by Johnson’s repeated compliance with the statute and then his violation of it. Johnson never tried to bring a court challenge to it. When Kennedy refers to “[a]ttempted bribery and other forms of pressure” surrounding the Senate vote, he means that the so-called Radical fanatics were engaged in such actions. Yet most of the attempts at bribery were made by the president’s men. Kennedy also makes simple factual errors. He claims that twelve Senate Democrats supported Johnson; there were only nine Democrats in the Senate. He asserts that Republicans sought the admission of Colorado and Nebraska in order to secure the votes of senators from those states on impeachment. The fight over admitting those two states came in early 1867, when impeachment was not a serious goal of the Republican Party. When Kennedy quotes Butler’s statement that there was a “bushel of money” available for Ross, he places the remark at the wrong point in the trial, putting it before the first impeachment vote on May 16. The statement was made after that date, after the vote. John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage, New York: Harper & Row (1955), pp. 146–71. A recent work on Reconstruction in Mississippi, Nicholas Lemann’s Redemption, identifies comparable errors and omissions in Kennedy’s chapter celebrating Mississippi Senator Lucius Lamar.

  “He is a man of few ideas”: Curtis to Ticknor, April 10, 1868, in Curtis, p. 417.

  As one congressman wrote later: Blaine, vol. 2, p. 376.

  “Andrew Johnson is innocent”: New York Tribune, May 19, 1868, quoting Detroit Post. The Cincinnati Gazette wrote that “Ninety out of every hundred politicians will admit that had Fessenden been presiding officer of the Senate, the President would have been convicted.” Cincinnati Gazette, June 1, 1868. Senator George Edmunds of Vermont made the same point in a magazine article forty-five years later. “Ex-Senator Edmunds on Reconstruction and Impeachment,” Century 85:863–64 (April 1913), p. 864.