The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

by Stephen L Carter

  Stanton, a man of action, did not believe in bluffing, any more than he believed in negotiating or apologizing. He shook his head, but sat down, his face fierce.

  Lincoln, meanwhile, was telling a story. “You know, back when I lived in Kentucky, there was a family where every member fell ill after a meal. When the doctor came, he attributed the sickness to the greens that had been served. Now, it happened that the family had a son named Jake, a ne’er-do-well whom nobody particularly liked. And so, the next time the mother announced greens for dinner, the father decided nobody would eat until the greens had been tasted by Jake.” He laughed hard, his chair rocking back so that it now balanced precariously on rickety hind legs. “That’s why we tried negotiating, Mars. We had to test the greens on the Managers before we feed them to the Senate.”

  “Very prudent,” said Speed, ever the sycophant.

  Dennard looked up from his notebook. “Mr. President, I think we should now assume that there will be no further negotiations, whether here or in New York.” A hard look at Jonathan. “It is time that we discussed strategy for the trial.”

  Lincoln had a way of letting his left eyelid droop lower than his right, making him seem sleepy and alert at once. “I am wondering,” he said, “about Greeley.”

  “He is sticking to his story,” said Dan Sickles. He was hunched at one end of the divan, the bad leg stretched across the faded cushions. From the way Sickles was rubbing his thigh, Jonathan decided that the pain must be terrible today.

  The President nodded. His eyes were shut. His head was resting against the bookshelf. “Mr. Greeley,” he said, “possesses that peculiar consistency granted to the man who is always wrong.”

  Horace Greeley was the well-known editor of the New York Tribune, the most widely read newspaper in the country. He had been in his day an early Abolitionist and a great supporter of the war, but by 1864, when the conflict seemed destined for a bloody stalemate, he had called urgently for peace. When Lincoln chose instead to press for victory, Greeley told the Administration that he had made contact with a representative of the rebels, who wanted to find a compromise. Lincoln had sent his secretary, John Hay, to Niagara to meet with Greeley and the rebel commissioners. Nothing had come of the meeting, and Greeley insisted that Lincoln himself had sabotaged the meeting, missing the chance to end the war and save thousands of lives. Lincoln’s supporters considered this nonsense. The negotiations failed because the commissioners had no real authority to compromise, and in any case would never have agreed to Lincoln’s terms. But Greeley stuck to his story, and was sticking to it still.

  “Will they call him to testify?” asked Dennard, anxiously.

  “They would not dare,” said Stanton, who had found his voice again.

  “They might,” said Sickles. “Maybe they’ll try to argue that the war would have been over a lot sooner if the President had been willing to negotiate seriously with the rebels.”

  “Then they will look ridiculous,” snapped Stanton. “The Radicals can hardly argue, in the same breath, that the President was insufficiently energetic in punishing the South, and that he should have treated them more gently!”

  “I am not sure they will mind looking ridiculous,” said Lincoln, eyes still lidded. His voice was exhausted. “But they will not call Greeley. Forced to take an oath, a man might say anything at all. The oath changes how people see the world. It’s supposed to focus their attention, but it makes some folks giddy. So they won’t call him.” The chair moved farther back, and was now defying gravity. “You know, back in Salem, I was called as a character witness for a man named Pete Lukins. His lawyer asked me, under oath, what I could tell the court about Mr. Lukins’s character and veracity. I told the court that Mr. Lukins’s nickname was ‘Lying Pete.’ Believe me, they won’t call Greeley.” He began to chuckle, chair still rocking. The laughter calmed him; it relieved his stress. Abraham Lincoln laughed the way lesser men drank.

  “Besides,” Lincoln was saying, wiping at his eyes. “They are better off with Greeley publishing his lies in the Tribune instead of telling them from the witness stand. Bigger audience. So let’s not give Horace Greeley another thought.” The chair came down with an alarming crash. Everyone but Sickles jumped. “Now, before the negotiations fell apart, Speed here was up on the Hill working on the schedule. He says the Managers want two weeks to present their case.”

  “That’s two trial weeks,” Speed clarified, once more stating the obvious. He looked around with satisfaction. “A trial week is four days.”

  From the divan, Sickles groaned. “They won’t limit themselves to two weeks. They’ll take as much time as they want. And”—this to Speed—“they might say a trial week is four days, but if they want to meet on a Friday, they’ll meet on a Friday.”

  Dennard said, “We should negotiate a more precise time limit.”

  “There is no point,” said Sickles. “The rules the Senate adopted place few limits on the Managers. They need not disclose their evidence to us. They need not limit themselves to what would be admissible in a court of law—”

  “They have promised us a witness list,” said Speed.

  “Which we have yet to see, and trial four days away.”

  Stanton roused himself from his torpor. “We should not be negotiating with those traitors at all.” He coughed hard, wiped his beard, turned to Lincoln. “Mr. President, I will say again, cooperating with these people is a mistake.”

  “The Constitution leaves us no choice,” said Dennard, heavily.

  Stanton’s glare could freeze an army in place. “The Constitution leaves us a broad range of choices.”

  Silence. The President’s eyes were shut. There was a half-smile on his face, as if he was in the midst of a moderately enjoyable dream.

  It was James Speed who finally tried to haul the discussion back to the agenda. “After the Managers have completed their evidence,” he said nervously, “we will have two weeks to present ours.”

  “We won’t need it,” said Lincoln, suddenly.

  Speed looked at him in surprise. Sickles shook his head sadly. Dennard rumbled, “Sir, we do have to put on a case, exhibits, witnesses, et cetera. We might not require the entire time. One never knows. But we might.”

  “We won’t,” said the President, crisply. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. You want to line up military officers to testify, one, that I am not unsympathetic to the freedmen at the South, and, two, that I have never issued any sort of order that would undermine the position of the Congress. Is that about right?”

  Dennard was succinct. “Sir, the military is the most respected institution in the country. If people see—”

  “No officers,” said Lincoln.

  Even Sickles was startled. “Mr. President—”

  “No,” said Lincoln, slashing the air with his hand. “No military officers. They have a hard enough time, doing their duty to their country, risking their lives, and keeping their heads down so the Congress won’t get after them for this or that. I will not compound that by having them risk being punished by the Radicals for testifying on my behalf.”

  Sickles said, “They would testify truthfully—”

  “I know they would. That’s the problem. That’s what they’ll be punished for. The Radicals would prefer that they lie.”

  Dennard tried again. “Mr. President, we have to meet their proof. The Managers will contend that you have been conspiring with military officers to overthrow the constitutional forms of government. The testimony of a few highly decorated officers would rebut that claim.”

  Lincoln’s eyes hardened. “You know as well as I do, Mr. Dennard, that a tale like that is impossible to disprove by witnesses. By this time, my character is well established in the public mind. If people believe me capable of such a thing, then the testimony of a hundred generals will make no difference. If people believe I am not a man of that persuasion, then nothing the Managers say will change their minds.”

  Noah Brooks, the Preside
nt’s secretary, stepped in. “Pardon me, Mr. President. It is time for your luncheon with Mr. Wells.”

  Everyone rose. Lincoln said, “Keep working. We will meet this evening if necessary.”

  III

  They stood on the portico waiting for their carriages to be drawn up. To the west, the late afternoon sun was pale and shrunken in the chilly haze. Dennard was plainly irritated.

  “Do you know who Wells is?” the lawyer fumed. “He’s the commissioner of revenue! We’re trying to plan for an impeachment trial, and the President throws us out of his office because he has to meet with the commissioner of revenue!”

  “Lincoln does still have to perform the duties of his office, Rufus,” said Sickles. He laughed. “And the country does need revenue. Now more than ever.”

  Dennard was unsatisfied. “He isn’t going to have an office much longer if he won’t spend more time with his counsel.” He had another thought. “Besides, he shouldn’t be having meetings with anybody without one of us present. Who knows what he’ll let slip? Who knows whom the Managers will subpoena next?”

  “Lincoln isn’t the kind,” said Sickles, putting a hand on the larger man’s shoulder, “who lets things slip. Not unless he wants to. He is the shrewdest man I’ve ever known. If he’d rather meet with Wells than with us, I am sure he has good reason.”

  Dennard refused to be mollified. Even after his carriage departed, the others could hear him, arguing to the air about his unreliable client who threw his lawyers out to meet with Wells. And all at once Jonathan remembered Belmont’s offer to support Lincoln in return for a lowered tariff; and that Wells, as commissioner of revenue, had responsibility for such matters, and had recently visited Europe, and returned, so salon gossip had it, as a committed anti-tariff man, with many new friends on the Democratic side.

  Lincoln was still negotiating; he simply was not telling his lawyers.

  IV

  At about the time that Noah Brooks was reminding the President of his meeting with Mr. Wells, sparking off Dennard’s rant, Abigail was descending the slippery west lawn of the Capitol. She had been sent off to the Library of Congress in search of several volumes, and the fruits of her labors were in the heavy book-sack she was cradling with difficulty. One of the clerks had offered superciliously to help, but Abigail was too proud.

  Mr. Little was waiting with the carriage. Approaching, Abigail was surprised to see him in conversation with a tall, stooped gentleman in overly fancy dress.

  “There she is now,” said Mr. Little, moving toward her and relieving her of the sack.

  Even before the other man turned her way, she recognized from the twisted waist and bent shoulders the familiar crooked figure of David Grafton.

  “Ah, Miss Canner. Excellent. As we are both headed in the same direction, I wonder whether I might trouble you for a ride.”

  Abigail was trapped: the courtesy was one that all Washingtonians of a certain class provided to one another.

  “Of course, Mr. Grafton.”

  As the carriage started off, he nodded toward her book-sack. “I see that Dennard is keeping you busy with tasks of great significance.”

  She was stung, but kept her gaze calm and her voice resolute. “Really, Mr. Grafton, I cannot imagine what you would think you and I have to talk about.”

  The crooked man seemed amused. He sat with his back to the driver, one hand clutching the strap as they rocked and bumped along. “I take it, then, that you have not reconsidered my offer of employment.”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Pity.” He reached inside his coat, withdrew an envelope, handed it to her. “Recognize this?”

  She did, of course; and returned it almost untouched. But not before she spotted the same bloodstains, the same spiky writing:

  For Mr. Benjamin Wade

  Personal and Confidential

  “Where did you get this?” she demanded.

  “A friend.”

  “It was found … it was found with”—her voice stumbled—“with the bodies.”

  Grafton had already tucked it away. “So I am given to understand.”

  “Shouldn’t it be in the police files?”

  He ignored this. “Tell me, Miss Canner. Do you have any idea what might have been in the envelope?”

  “A letter to Mr. Wade, obviously.”

  “Obviously. Any notion of the subject?”

  “No.”

  “Miss Deveaux never told you?”

  She blinked. “I have already told the police that I never met her. Now I am telling you.”

  Grafton nodded. “I gather that Inspector Varak has chosen to believe you. I haven’t made up my mind.” The clever eyes measured her. “The letter that was in this envelope, Miss Canner, concerned the President’s defiance of congressional mandates on Reconstruction, on the ground that they are too harsh on the Southern states. As it happens, Dennard believes the President to be right in pursuing a gentler policy. Perhaps you knew that?”

  Abigail refused to wilt. “I would be grateful, sir, if you would be so good as to cease your efforts to persuade me to leave Mr. Dennard’s employ.”

  Grafton smiled blandly; and changed the subject. Still holding on, he contrived to bend his twisted body toward her. “The letter that was in this envelope is the property of a client of mine. The contents are confidential. And my client wants it back.” A pause. “Obviously.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “In case you should happen to come across it.” Another, longer pause. “My client would be prepared to pay handsomely for the return of the letter. Especially if he could receive assurances that its contents have not been disclosed to, let us say, an adverse party.”

  “Mr. Grafton—”

  “My dear Miss Canner. Everyone in Washington City knows that you continue to look into what happened that unfortunate night. I have no objection to your doing so. But I see no reason why you should not profit from whatever information you happen to uncover.” A thin smile.

  “You would be able to give your great-aunt the comfort she deserves in her late age.”

  They were held up by a police officer to let crossing traffic pass. Grafton chose that moment to wish her good afternoon and, with a nimbleness that was a surprise in a man so wounded, hopped to the ground. Watching him go, waiting for her heart to return to its normal rhythm, Abigail reflected that at least now she knew the identity of the second man who been taken in by the fake registration at the Metzerott Hotel.

  V

  Evening. Gentle snowflakes brushed lightly across the gray city. The lawyers departed, followed swiftly by lazy Rellman. Little fed the stove one last time, then excused himself until tomorrow.

  “I must apologize,” said Jonathan the instant they were alone, “for my condition last night.”

  “You were exhausted.”

  He seemed not to hear. “I would be distressed were you to judge me harshly on the basis of a single episode—”

  “I don’t judge you harshly, Jonathan. I don’t judge you at all. Please, let us speak of it no more.” Abigail hoped this would be enough. She returned to Chitty, then looked up. “I must tell you what transpired this afternoon as I left the Library of Congress—”

  But Jonathan Hilliman, as Fielding had told her at the Eameses’, could be terribly stubborn. “It is no business of mine what you do. I want to be very clear. I am delighted that the two of you are friends.”

  “The two of us.”

  “You and Fielding. He is a fine young man. You are a fine young woman—”

  “Stop it, Jonathan. Please. Just stop. We have more important matters to discuss. Now, will you please listen to me?”

  He did. She told him what had happened with Grafton today; and with Mrs. McShane on Tuesday.

  “Grafton had the evidence from Varak,” Jonathan mused when she was through. “Or from another contact in the police. What you are telling me is that Grafton is indeed a conspirator.”

  “As w
e both have suspected all along. And there is more.” She told him about Mrs. McShane’s confirmation that her husband, too, believed in the conspiracy. “And at the end she said something passing strange. She said that Mr. McShane thought that this entire trouble could have been avoided if Mrs. Lincoln were alive to explain herself.”

  “Explain herself? But what could there be for Mrs. Lincoln to explain?”

  Abigail barely glanced up. “Perhaps this is why the Managers are calling Mrs. Orne. To testify to some offhand comment by Mrs. Lincoln that they will twist into something sinister.”

  Jonathan put down his pencil. “Speed has been trying to talk to Mrs. Orne, to find out what she plans to say. So far she has refused to see him.”

  Abigail’s gaze had shifted to the middle distance as she worked the permutations. “We are missing something, Jonathan. Not about Mrs. Orne. About the motivation of whoever is manipulating events.” She closed her book with a snap. “We need more information.”

  “About what?”

  “About who is truly manipulating events. Mr. Dennard refuses to consider the possibility of a conspiracy. I gather that Inspector Varak suspects more, but he is not inclined to share what he knows. General Baker is acting from motives I am unable to fathom. Therefore, it is left to the two of us.” She was on her feet. “Will you accompany me?”

  Jonathan hesitated. “I am supposed to deliver these pages to the copyist tonight.”

  “We can do that on the way.”

  “Very well.” Scrambling to the closet. “But where are we going?”

  “To the source.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Alley

  I

  HOOKER’S DIVISION WAS the derisive name given to the triangle south of Pennsylvania Avenue, north of Ohio Avenue, and east of the President’s Park, which housed the rougher end of the brothel trade. According to the original plan of Washington City, drawn up at the end of the previous century by the Frenchman L’Enfant, this land was supposed to be set aside for the vast buildings the national government would someday need. Perhaps the day would one day come, although nobody believed it.