The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

by Stephen L Carter

  “We have been … keeping track.”

  “And do you wish Mr. Lincoln to be convicted?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Good. Because I understand that you want to be a lawyer. Well, you are going to have to learn that nothing is more important than protecting your clients.”

  She nodded toward a book on the shelf. Jonathan had recommended it, but Abigail had found time to read only ten or twelve pages. “In the introduction to his treatise on ethics, Mr. Curran De Bruler says that a lawyer’s highest duty is not to his client but to the public whom the bar serves.”

  “Then Mr. Curran De Bruler is a fool. If you decide that a lawyer’s highest duty isn’t to his clients, pretty soon you’ll lose your clients to somebody who decides it is.” Heading for the door, he eyed the mess. “As I said, I really think you should clean the place. Tell Dennard I’ll be by later.”

  “Mr. Dennard is in California.”

  “No, he’s here. He arrived in town yesterday. Didn’t anybody tell you?” A laugh, low and affectionate. “Well, don’t worry about it. Nobody tells anybody anything in this town. If they did, everybody would be in jail.”

  He was gone.

  Abigail looked around the room, then stopped and, as Sickles had suggested, began to clear the papers he had strewn about the floor. She studied them closely, trying not to wonder what was in the envelope he had taken from the drawer. Her admiration of Mr. Lincoln was too great for her to take seriously the possibility that he might be concealing evidence. And it occurred to her, as she fetched the broom to begin sweeping up the chips of wood thrown off by all the prying, that the entire episode was too obvious. Precisely because she did not know what might have been in the envelope, she did not know for sure that it was important. It was peculiar indeed that she should have happened on Dan Sickles at precisely the right moment to catch him in the act of jimmying the drawer. She wondered what he was really looking for, and why he was so interested in the safe. And she reminded herself that Lincoln’s own reputation as “Honest Abe” said nothing about the veracity of his friends.

  CHAPTER 8

  Widow

  I

  THAT SAME SATURDAY morning, Jonathan Hilliman called again upon Mr. McShane’s widow, Virginia—a most unfortunate name with which to be saddled during the conflict. The McShanes lived on K Street near Nineteenth, halfway between the President’s House and the outskirts of the city proper. Beyond their house were the canal, several belts of trees, and George Town, with its rows of shanties for the negroes and poor whites. Mrs. McShane was a tiny woman. Seated in the dark parlor of her home, draped in enough black crepe to cover a catafalque, she blended into the shadows. Even squinting Jonathan barely was able to pick her out. She sat very still, a bird seeking cover. Friends and relatives fluttered round her like avian bodyguards. He apologized for the inconvenience, but before he could finish his condolences, Virginia McShane launched upon a discourse. Her husband had been a good man, said Mrs. McShane; a man of kindness and decency. It was his decency that had drawn him to the law. He had studied for the ministry before deciding to read for the bar. He had served as a vestryman at Saint John’s Episcopal Church, just north of the Executive Mansion, where Mr. Lincoln occasionally attended services. Her husband would never have consorted with a fallen woman, Mrs. McShane insisted, and had never visited a bawdy house in his life.

  Jonathan had not intended to discuss the murder itself, but now that the widow had brought it up, he thought he might proceed, delicately, down that road. And so he began by asking Mrs. McShane whether she had any idea why her husband had been in the neighborhood.

  She did not.

  He asked whether her husband had received any mysterious messages or strange callers in the days before the attack.

  “I would scarcely know,” she said.

  He asked whether she knew Miss Rebecca Deveaux, the negro woman who had been murdered alongside her Arthur.

  Mrs. McShane sniffed.

  He asked if she had any idea how her husband might have known Miss Deveaux.

  Not for nothing was Virginia McShane a lawyer’s wife. “I was not aware,” she said, “that it has been established that they knew each other.”

  Jonathan had not considered this point, and said nothing. But he tied what a professor of his at Yale used to call a knot in the strands of thought, a place to climb back to later, when time allowed.

  Furthermore—said Mrs. McShane—until it was established by what she called, correctly, competent evidence, she saw no reason to presume that this Miss Deveaux had anything to do with her husband.

  “You tell them that,” she commanded.

  So he did.

  Inspector Varak was dismissive. “Wives,” he muttered, with the angry certainty of one who had endured long and perhaps bitter experience with the species.

  Half the men in the city visited those houses, the inspector said, hardly looking up from his desk, and every wife would swear on a stack of Bibles that her husband was in the other half. Look at Bishop Richmond, the inspector went on, referring to an embarrassing episode involving a prominent preacher, an important political supporter of Mr. Lincoln, who had come to town at the height of the war promising to clean up the bawdy houses, and left in disgrace after exposure of his filthy love letters to a Treasury Department clerk.

  “Do you know which half Mr. McShane fell into?” Jonathan inquired, as ingenuously as he knew how, which was not very.

  “The res is rather ipsa on the loquitur,” said Varak, the mangled Latin proposing that he knew his guest for an educated man. Realizing that he had misfired, the inspector shuffled papers and tried again. “Believe me, Mr. Hilliman, I would be happy to fix this if I could. I don’t like troubling the widow any more than you do. But there’s nothing I can do. Your Mr. McShane was stabbed on the pavement outside Sophia Harbour’s place. He was with one of Madame Sophie’s girls. A child could draw the inference.”

  Jonathan asked how he knew that Rebecca Deveaux was one of Sophia’s girls. The inspector said he just knew.

  “Did you interview Madame Sophie?”

  “Madame Sophie is indisposed.”

  “Did you interview the other girls?” Receiving no answer, Jonathan pressed. He imagined Abigail at his side, tried to ask what she would ask. “What about Miss Deveaux’s friends? She must have some, mustn’t she? Or her family? Have you interviewed them?”

  The weathered face reddened. His meaty hands formed huge fists atop the cluttered blotter. Jonathan looked at those hands and reminded himself that he was a Hilliman. The inspector would not dare strike him. “Are you telling me how to do my job?”

  “No, sir, but—”

  “Then be so good as to accept what I am telling you. Good day, Mr. Hilliman.”

  II

  “Dennard didn’t care,” said Jonathan. “That was the strangest part. He and McShane were not only partners but very close friends, and yet Dennard was all but in frothing furies when he learned I’d been back to see the policeman. As much as ordered me to leave the murder alone and tend to business.”

  In the opposite chair, Fielding Bannerman swirled his brandy. “But he did say you’ll be continuing the representation of the President, I take it?”

  Jonathan nodded. He was in evening attire, on his way shortly to the home of Meg’s aunt Clara for dinner. “Funny. I thought we were done. Two of the firm’s biggest clients sent telegrams, regretting the untimely death and so on, and adding that they assumed that politics would no longer serve as an obstacle to their representation.”

  “In other words, telling Dennard to drop the case.”

  “He showed some pluck, I must say.” Jonathan took another small sip. He was pacing himself, not wanting to dine with Meg and her father while unfortified, but not wanting his fortification to be too obvious. “He never wanted the firm to take on Mr. Lincoln as a client, and I don’t think he wanted to continue. But he went over to the White House this morning, and the President
talked him into it.” He shut his eyes briefly. “I wish we had more time. The Senate only gave us an extra week and a half.”

  “So trial starts when? Three weeks? Is that enough time for Dennard to prepare?”

  “We don’t have a choice. The great Thaddeus Stevens rose from his sickbed to go down to the Capitol and explain why the nation cannot afford another month of the tyrant Lincoln.”

  “Didn’t know that old fossil was still alive. Stevens.” Fielding topped up the glasses. “Does he still have that colored wife?”

  “She isn’t his wife exactly.”

  “Right. Not exactly.” A tipsy laugh. “Is that what you are planning to argue about the Department of the Atlantic? That Mr. Lincoln’s plan for military government in Washington did not exactly comprehend the overthrow of the Congress?”

  “There was never any such plan!”

  “Makes no difference to me either way.” Another long swallow. This was by far the most serious allegation against Lincoln: that he had planned to impose martial law on the nation’s capital. The allegations concerning the Department of the Atlantic might have made no difference to Fielding Bannerman, but they mattered enormously to the Congress. “Funny. With McShane gone, the finest trial lawyer in the country is already in the Administration.”

  “Stanton.”

  “Precisely. Stanton got Sickles off when he shot Mr. Barton Key in front of twenty witnesses. I’d have thought he’d resign as Secretary of War to defend Lincoln in the Senate. Dennard, I’m sure, is an excellent lawyer. But he’s no Stanton. So why isn’t Stanton part of the defense team?”

  “I assume that the President finds him more valuable where he is.”

  “Or else …” Fielding trailed off. For him, all of life, especially in Washington City, was machination and double-dealing.

  “Or else what?” asked Jonathan.

  “Well, Stanton controls the army. With Seward out of the picture, he controls both the Secret Service and the federal police.”

  “So?”

  “So … I wonder what would happen if Stanton and Lincoln ever had a falling out.” And he took a long swallow.

  III

  “Knew McShane a bit,” said the Lion of Louisiana between mouthfuls of roasted beef. He chewed hard and methodically, the way he did everything. “We served together in the war.” One reason Hiram Felix’s soldiers loved him was his effortless leveling. Most general officers would say of a subordinate, “He served under me”—but not General Felix. “Good man. Full of energy, and loved the Union. Well, we all do, don’t we?”

  “I’m sure we do, sir,” Jonathan answered dutifully. He felt Margaret’s attention tauten. Had she caught something in her father’s tone that he had missed? Dinner was just the three of them. Aunt Clara had absented herself for the evening.

  “My condolences,” said the Lion. “Been to see the widow. She’s in bad shape. Well, I suppose one would expect that. Husband dead, found with that woman. The negress.”

  “Rebecca Deveaux.”

  “That’s the one.” General Felix’s meaty fist pummeled the air in triumph. A servant, misinterpreting the gesture, advanced to pour more wine, and was ordered testily away. The general’s glare was murderous, but when he turned back to the table, his expression was calm, or as calm as it ever was. He was broad-shouldered and powerful and had been widely quoted during the war to the effect that he loved the fighting and killing. He had led the attack that captured Port Hudson, Louisiana, the Confederacy’s last redoubt on the Mississippi River. After the fall of Louisiana, the outcome of the war was foreordained, as General Felix’s acolytes in the press had been reminding the nation ever since. The same acolytes had given him his nickname: Ulysses Grant was the Lion of Vicksburg, so Hiram Felix became the Lion of Louisiana. “Right. Yes. Deveaux. I remember. Wainwright tells me she was a hooker. I beg your pardon, Meg. But a hooker. That right, Hilliman?”

  “Actually, sir, I gather the investigation is still in an early—”

  “You’re not offended, are you, Hilliman? Man to man. By the word, I mean. ‘Hooker.’ That’s what she was, wasn’t she? What would you prefer that I call her? What’s the polite word, Meg? My little Margaret wants me to be more polite.”

  “A woman of easy virtue,” Margaret murmured, eyes downcast.

  “I like ‘hooker’ better,” said General Felix, dipping his head to take a sip of water. “ ‘Prostitute’ is a silly word, ‘woman of easy virtue’ is worse. Let’s call her what she is. Was. Never knew McShane inclined that way.”

  Jonathan was about to answer, but Margaret kicked him, hard, beneath the table. Arguing with the Lion of Louisiana was like charging an enemy battalion, alone. Meg preferred that her fiancé keep his silence when her father took on one of his moods. Jonathan glanced her way, but she was concentrating on the plate before her. She was an earnest, practical soul, brimming with crisp, unspoilt ideas about roles and obligations. With Kate Chase, daughter of the Chief Justice, safely married, Margaret Felix, on her frequent visits to her aunt, was probably the most sought-after young woman in the city; or had been, until her engagement.

  Meanwhile, the Lion was continuing his eulogy. “McShane had a fine record in the war, Hilliman. His colonelcy was well deserved. We fought together in the West—we were with Grant back then. Later, we were with Sherman.” Evidently, the egalitarian Hiram Felix never fought “under” another man, either. “Good soldier, your Colonel McShane. In charge of signals. Codes, ciphers. Good leader of men, but unsound in his politics. A Lincoln man from the beginning—I suppose you knew that, Hilliman—but you didn’t know the Lincoln we knew back in Illinois. Ambitious man. Bit of the bumpkin, isn’t that right, Meg? Not that Meg would remember. But it’s true. Didn’t know his table manners, not at first. Had that squeaky voice, all high and Western. That atrocious accent. Remember, Meg? She wouldn’t really.”

  Another kick, the hardest of all. Plainly, Margaret Felix had heard the story before, and knew that something was coming that would annoy her fiancé greatly.

  “But Lincoln knew what he wanted,” the Lion continued. “Heavens, yes. Kicked and clawed, stole clients like everybody else, married above his station. You’re offended, Hilliman, I can see it in your face. You look at Lincoln and you see the man who ended slavery and saved the Union and all the rest of that folderol. Let me tell you something about your Mr. Lincoln. The convention that nominated him for the presidency—they held it in Chicago, remember, Meg? She wouldn’t, I suppose. Never mind. Point is, I was there. I was a Bates man. Never much cared for your Mr. Lincoln. A schemer, Hilliman. Wanted the purple too much, my opinion. Willing to cross the Rubicon. Didn’t care who he trampled. You don’t believe me, I can see it in your face. Listen. Tell you a story. Day of the nomination vote, Lincoln’s people packed the benches and crowded the doors. The men who wanted Chase, Seward, Bates, all the others—they couldn’t get into the hall. If they weren’t in the hall, they couldn’t vote. That’s Lincoln for you. Anything to win.”

  “But, sir, isn’t that what we want in war?” Jonathan interjected, unwisely. “A man of determination?”

  General Felix was sopping up sauce with his bread. The food at Aunt Clara’s residence was always heavy and tasteless, as if the cook had been instructed to serve no dish unavailable to the troops in the field. Answering the sally, the Lion struck a surprising Delphic note. “What you want in war, yes. But the war’s over, Hilliman. We’re at peace. Not at all sure your Mr. Lincoln is the right leader for a country trying to bind up the wounds and so forth.”

  “Some of the Confederates are still fighting,” Jonathan pointed out before Meg could kick him again.

  “Mostly trying to control the negroes, Hilliman. They’re not fighting us. They’re simply trying to preserve their accustomed social relations. Don’t see why that’s our business, to be frank.” Pointing with a crust. “A lot of fine men left their lives on the field, Hilliman. Proud to have fought beside them. But we weren’t fighting for
the negroes. We were fighting for the Union. Some of us who were out there leading them are not altogether comfortable with the direction of policy since then. Your Mr. Lincoln says the Southern states are our wayward brothers. Well, then, let’s treat them like our brothers. Nonsense with military districts and so forth, troops in the state houses, setting the negroes over the white man, when your Mr. Lincoln himself said the war had nothing to do with—”

  General Felix had worked himself into a state. His cheeks bulged redly. He waved to a servant, who refilled his glass. He gulped at the flaming-red wine like a drowning man tasting water.

  “Not your McShane, though,” he went on, calm again. “McShane was fighting for the negroes. Last time I saw him—oh, two months ago, it must have been—he was on about how the constitutional amendment to end slavery was the mightiest achievement in the history of the Republic. I suppose Mr. Lincoln feels the same.” The Lion’s mighty hands demolished a crust of bread. He dipped it in the wine as his daughter looked away. “Doesn’t matter. Lincoln is finished, isn’t he? Trial starts in a couple of weeks, and he’ll be gone in a month.”

  This time Meg’s kick was not fast enough. “I believe, sir,” said Jonathan, “that we are going to prevail.”

  Hiram Felix nodded distractedly; he was not signaling agreement. “I’m not a political man, Hilliman. Don’t much care who’s in the White House and so forth, as long as our policy is sound. Of course, one has one’s friends. Associates. Men of ideas. The thing is, Hilliman, if this impeachment business goes anywhere—you see my point—if Mr. Lincoln has to leave, well, without a Vice-President, it would be Wade, wouldn’t it? Wade’s an old man, Hilliman. A sort of a caretaker. Besides, it wouldn’t look very good, would it, to attack Lincoln from Capitol Hill, take over the office, then run in ’68. Not the sort of thing our Protestant Republic could countenance. Too European. France, Italy get up to that sort of thing all the time. Not here. No. The ship of state would need a new captain at the helm. Even if the impeachment fails, the Republican Party is split wide open. The country will be ready for change, Hilliman. Somebody new. Reliable. A hero from the war and so forth. Grant, say, if he’s willing. Sherman. Even a man like Garfield has sufficient ambition, from what I hear.” Dark eyes sparkling now as he took another sip. “You never know where the country might turn,” said the Lion of Louisiana.