The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

by Stephen L Carter

  “We would like to see Mr. Grafton,” said Jonathan, with the peremptory emphases of his class. “Immediately, please.”

  Plum was already shaking his head. “Oh, no, sir, that would not be possible. My apologies. It isn’t possible.”

  “The matter is urgent. I am afraid we will have to insist.”

  “But he isn’t here. He’s gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Away,” said Plum. “He left a note. He said he had a wire last night. A crisis in his personal affairs. He did not say where he was going, only that he had no idea how long he would be away, and that I should see about assigning his cases to other counsel. This is most irregular, you see. Oh dear. Most irregular.”

  He was still muttering to himself as, stunned, they left.

  CHAPTER 42

  Hypothesis

  I

  THE MANAGERS DID not call Reverend Beecher. For two days, they brought in a parade of lesser witnesses. Two swore to erratic behavior on the part of the President, behavior that turned out to be not so erratic upon Sickles’s ardent cross-examination; another was an employee of the Freedmen’s Bureau, who testified that he had been told by his superior not to process certain reimbursement claims filed by colored families whose possessions had been destroyed by the night riders, but Dennard was able to show that the boss had been cashiered for diverting funds to his own use. The Managers did record a small success with a pair of witnesses who had heard the President make the most dreadful offhand remarks about the Congress, thereby—said the Managers—indicating his contempt for the body. But everybody was waiting for Henry Ward Beecher, and Henry Ward Beecher did not appear.

  Rumors swirled. One story had it that the initial contact with the good reverend had been through Stanton, and that Beecher, outraged at Stanton’s betrayal of Lincoln, had decided not to testify. Another, easier for many to credit, held that Beecher was not prepared to testify anywhere under oath until the litigation over the scandal with Mrs. Tilton was resolved. The anti-Lincoln papers insisted that the President was holding some sort of threat over Beecher’s head, but nobody could come up with a plausible reason for the most famous preacher in America to fear a Chief Executive whose term looked about to end. The pro-Lincoln papers contended that Beecher had never intended to testify against the President, that the Managers had floated his name without consulting him, and that, upon discovering what he would actually say if called, had decided to dispense with him.

  Whatever the true reason, Henry Ward Beecher never appeared. Certainly the Managers did not need Beecher’s evidence, for they had presented a strong case so far but for two or three days at least, they nevertheless seemed confused and even incompetent in the eyes of the public.

  The President’s lawyers were jubilant; and thanked, in absentia, the still-unknown correspondent known as Chanticleer, for the damaging information about those witnesses who did appear.

  Abigail had another theory; but, for the moment, she kept it to herself.

  II

  On Tuesday night, Abigail again allowed Jonathan to drive her home. On the way, she asked several questions about his family, and about Hilliman & Sons. Her tone was casual, but he sensed somehow that the questions were not.

  “Tell me about your brother,” she said. “I understand that he died in the war.”

  “Palmer? He was the heir apparent. He was supposed to run the business when my father died. Everyone understood that. I don’t know how much you know about families like mine”—an uneasy glance, testing for offense—“but the idea is that you do not, under any circumstances, break up the fortune you have labored to build. You provide for all of your children, obviously, but you leave the bulk of the fortune, intact, to a single heir. That way the family power grows from generation to generation. The other way around, it declines. Not that there was much money left by the time the war began. Still, Palmer was supposed to inherit all the stock in Hilliman & Sons.”

  “But he died.”

  “He was a captain in the first detachment of the Rhode Island Volunteers, serving under Burnside. He died at Bull Run. The first hour of the first battle of the war.”

  They rolled on companionably through the chilly night mist. Now and then a tree or house would loom from the unbroken grayness. Jonathan kept the horses moving slowly, in the middle of the road.

  “Your family must have been quite upset.”

  “My mother was despondent. She had lost her husband and a daughter to the influenza, and now her firstborn son to the war. When I joined up, she told me I was a fool.” He shook his head. “The family was pro-Lincoln in 1860. Whigs from way back. But after Palmer died, Mother swore she would never support him again.” He turned her way. “I know what you are thinking, Abigail. But when I said to you that if a conspiracy exists, my family must be involved, I was making a jest.”

  “I am not insisting that it is true.” He heard her long sigh, like a surrender to the inevitable. “But, Jonathan, look at the facts. They hate Lincoln. They are doing everything to get you to quit Washington. And they are in textiles, so they are in favor of the high tariff to keep their profits up, and soft money to pay back the banks with.”

  “My mother has her moments of temper, and I would not trust my uncle with a nickel. But do not, for a moment, associate them with those vicious murderers.”

  They had crossed the canal, and now were waiting, as so often, for a freight train to pass on the Seventh Street tracks. It was steaming north, probably carrying cotton or tobacco, because the South had nothing else to sell.

  “Mr. Sickles made an interesting point the other day,” said Abigail. “He said that Blaine’s murder suggested that the conspirators are panicking. But it occurs to me that there need not be one conspiracy only.” She hesitated. “There could be silent supporters, Jonathan. Men—and women—who are prepared to provide resources but have no real idea how they are being used. They could think they are giving to a new political party, or that their funds will in some other way contribute to the removal of the President by legal means. They might well remain entirely unaware of Mr. Grafton’s willingness to use violence—”

  “I don’t know where you are getting these ideas,” he said. “But I will not discuss them further.”

  At the house, Abigail asked him to come in. Jonathan was astonished. “That would not be proper—”

  “Nanny is always up.” The pixie grin. “She will serve as chaperone if you are worried.”

  III

  He sat with Nanny Pork at the kitchen table, sipping tea and nibbling on snickerdoodles. Abigail had disappeared upstairs. Not sure what to say, Jonathan asked after Nanny’s health.

  “A day closer to Glory,” she said.

  The cookies were far too sweet. Jonathan had noticed this with his own father, who was a good deal older than his mother: as age advances, the sense of taste begins to fade, and more robust flavorings are desired.

  He tried again. “Abigail is doing excellent work at the firm.”

  “Did you think she wouldn’t?”

  “No, no, I—” He stopped. “Nanny, have I done or said something to offend you? Because, if I have, I apologize.”

  She twisted her mouth but did not quite smile. “Maybe you has a little fight in you after all.”

  Abigail returned. She had a folder under her arm. No words passed, but Nanny stood up and said good night. She tottered toward the stair.

  When they were alone, Abigail slid the folder across the table.

  “I want you to read that,” she said, and set about tidying the dishes.

  “What is it?”

  But she offered no answer, and probably he did not expect her to, because he had already opened it. Badly handwritten pages, about ten of them, outlining the possibility of creating something called “The Columbia Unification Party” to oppose both Lincoln and the Democrats in the 1864 election. Dozens of these sects had cropped up, he remembered, and none had amounted to anything. Lincoln had won a landsl
ide.

  “So?”

  “Read,” she repeated.

  The party was dedicated to a rapid peace … high tariffs to protect American industry … fiat currency, the polite term for soft money … and an end to the disastrous invasion of the liberties of the people by the perfidious Administration of Abraham Lincoln and his crony William Seward.…

  And near the end was a list of people to approach for contributions, some with notations next to them.

  Brighton Hilliman had promised five thousand dollars.

  “It’s just a political party,” Jonathan protested, sinking fast. “So the family opposes Lincoln. What difference does that make? Lots of people are against him. Otherwise, he would not be facing this ridiculous trial.”

  “This was in one of Chanticleer’s folders.”

  “I guessed that.”

  “Why did Chanticleer include it, if it isn’t about the conspiracy?”

  “Does the letter say that it is about the conspiracy?”

  “No, but—”

  “Is this the missing list of conspirators that Stanton is on about?”

  “I don’t believe so. My point is only that these are people willing to spend large sums of money—”

  “Then I choose to make no assumptions as to Chanticleer’s reason for including the list.” He slapped the pages. “Most likely this is like everything else in the folder, included for purposes of impeaching potential witnesses. Should any of these people be called, we would show bias by asking whether they had ever given money to an anti-Lincoln party. Nothing more.”

  She was growing exasperated; so was he. “Please, Jonathan. Just bear in mind the possibility.”

  “I will,” he said, and went out.

  CHAPTER 43

  Industrialist

  I

  “CALL THE NEXT witness,” said Chase.

  “Honorable James K. Moorhead,” shouted Butler, taking the Chief Justice’s instruction literally. “Honorable James K. Moorhead!” the clerk repeated, louder still.

  Moorhead’s name on the witness list had stunned the President’s men. He was a Republican of little consequence, now in his fourth term as a member of the House, a quiet Pennsylvanian in his sixties, an entrepreneur, and the father of a noted financier. Early in the war, when the western end of the state was riven with strife, Moorhead had joined a committee of prominent citizens in petitioning the President to declare martial law in Pittsburgh. Although Thaddeus Stevens held enormous sway over the state’s congressional delegation, Representative Moorhead was thought to be a Lincoln man through and through. Most important, he had voted against the impeachment resolution.

  Why, then, had the Managers called him?

  Once more, Abigail had found the answer by delving into the Chanticleer letters. She had discovered what they should have realized from the start: Moorhead’s son Maxwell, the financier, was a heavy investor in the iron industry—indeed, the mighty McKeesport Iron Works had until a few years ago borne the Moorhead name. The iron-industry men were leaders of the soft-money crowd, a group whose chosen savior was of course Benjamin Wade.

  So, by the time Moorhead was sworn on Wednesday afternoon, and Butler rose to question him, the President’s lawyers hoped they were ready.

  Butler’s first questions were innocuous: establishing Moorhead’s membership in the House, and his friendships with several of the President’s close advisers.

  “Have you ever had occasion to meet the President?”

  “Many times.”

  “Have you had any private conversations with him?”

  For a moment Moorhead hesitated. He had a wide, stern face, his hair thin on top but gathered heavily near his ears. His eyes were set deep in their sockets, and it was easy to imagine him intimidating his inferiors. But, seated in the Senate, he was plainly ill at ease. His heavy, nervous gaze brushed upward over the gallery, then down across the ranks of legislators, and lingered, oddly, on Sickles, before finding its way back to Butler.

  “Two,” said Moorhead. “The President and I have had two private conversations.”

  “When?”

  “The first was in January of 1861, when I traveled to Springfield to congratulate Mr. Lincoln on his election.”

  Sickles glanced at Jonathan, who understood. They had covered this ground. Moorhead had actually made the trip to urge the President-Elect to appoint to his cabinet Simon Cameron, the famously corrupt Senator from Pennsylvania. Lincoln had rebuffed him. Indeed, Lincoln had embarrassed Moorhead badly, albeit in private, pointing out that a man known as Honest Abe could not appoint a man “whose very name stinks in the nostrils of the people for his corruption.”

  Surely this testimony was not a long-delayed revenge for this slight? After all, despite Lincoln’s resistance, Cameron had in the end been appointed.

  “When was the second meeting?” Butler asked, skipping entirely the actual subject matter of the January 1861 encounter.

  Again Jonathan sensed Moorhead’s reluctance. “February of 1865.” His darting eyes settled on the Managers’ table. “I was one of several congressmen who went to the Mansion to urge the President to take a harder line against the rebel leaders. We did not agree with the President’s soft line on the matter of punishment of those responsible for the war and all those hundreds of thousands of deaths.”

  “Did anything else happen at that meeting?” asked Butler.

  “The meeting ended.” Moorhead cast his eyes up toward the gallery, then the ceiling. “I remained behind with the President.”

  “And why was that?”

  “I believe that Mr. Lincoln wanted to talk to me.” His hands wrestled with each other in his lap. “I was one of the few men in Washington he could trust. That is what he said.”

  Butler nodded sympathetically. “Is that why it is so difficult for you to tell the story now? Because you are betraying a trust?”

  “I do not like betraying a trust,” said Moorhead. “But I love my country too much to keep the secret.”

  “And what is the secret?” asked Butler.

  “Once we were alone, Mr. Lincoln told me that the nation faced a serious dilemma, and that few people in Washington City realized how serious.”

  “Did the President indicate what problem he had in mind?”

  A slow nod. “He said that the Congress was getting to be a problem. He said that members were forgetting the limits of their constitutional function.” He ran a manicured hand across his face. “He told me that he had many friends in the Congress, and that I, of course, had served with honor. But there were others, he said, who … who were seeking to usurp the proper functions of the executive. And I believe he said that something had to be done.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I believe I said that the Congress was only legislating as it always had, laying down the laws that the executive was bound to execute.”

  “And what did Mr. Lincoln say to that?”

  “He told me a story. He said that when he was practicing law in Springfield, a man came to see him—a prominent man in those parts, the Old Squire, he called him—the Old Squire came to ask whether a justice of the peace could issue marriage licenses. Mr. Lincoln told the Old Squire no, the justice of the peace had no such power, at which point the Old Squire became very angry and said, ‘You know nothing of the law. I’ll have you know that I have been a justice of the peace for going on twenty years, and I issue marriage licenses all the time!’ ”

  A titter in the chamber. Chase tapped the gavel.

  “And what,” said Butler, “did you take the story to mean?”

  Dennard was up again. “Objection to offering the interpretation of the witness. He can say what he heard and saw.”

  “Overruled. The witness will answer.”

  Moorhead swallowed. “I believe that the President meant that his judgment on what was constitutional was superior to the judgment of the Congress.”

  Butler consulted his notes. “Did Mr. Lincoln say
what should be done about the way the Congress was behaving?”

  “He said that if the congressmen kept usurping his function, he might just have to find some way to usurp right back.”

  “Was that all?”

  “No, sir, it wasn’t. He said that I shouldn’t worry, because, if worse came to worst, he knew who had been loyal and who hadn’t. And then, I believe, he asked me to keep the conversation to myself.”

  II

  Sickles began the cross-examination far from where Butler had ended. He went back to Moorhead’s initial meeting with Lincoln, shortly after the 1860 election. After a bit of badgering, Moorhead conceded that one of his purposes had been to persuade Lincoln to appoint Simon Cameron to the Cabinet.

  “You were for Cameron?” asked Sickles, feigning surprise.

  “I thought he should be considered.”

  “And this is the same Mr. Cameron of whom Mr. Manager Stevens once said, ‘I do not believe that he would steal a red-hot stove’?”

  Laughter in the chamber, but anger, too, and Chase did not even wait for the objection before gaveling that line of inquiry to a halt. But the point had been made. This theatricality was what Sickles did best; no lawyer in the city was better.

  “Stick to the direct examination, Mr. Sickles.”

  “Of course, Mr. Chief Justice.”

  “And no personal references to counsel on either side.”

  “Yes, sir. My apologies.”

  The room calmed a bit. Sickles faced the witness once more. “Now, as to the second meeting, the one in the President’s office. Isn’t it true that you went on so long that the President himself at last interrupted you?”

  Laughter from the gallery, which Chase quelled with a quick rap of his gavel. But Moorhead was nothing if not self-possessed.

  “As I am sure you are aware, Mr. Sickles, the President is in the habit of interrupting whenever he likes.”