The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

by Stephen L Carter

  “We must go to Stanton,” said Jonathan.

  “No.”

  “Abigail, there is no alternative.”

  “We dare not run the risk.” Her voice steady as she gazed on the inky mist. “But there is another possibility.”

  Jonathan listened, then shook his head and said no, under no circumstances. What she proposed was unethical. It wasn’t, she said. There was no conflict. He said absolutely not. Abigail pressed. He said no. Dennard would be outraged. And with reason.

  “I have lost one sibling unjustly in this matter,” said Abigail, head turned away from him as if emotion constituted an embarrassing motivation. “I shall not lose another.”

  Yielding, Jonathan turned the carriage west, running downhill toward the stolid brick mansion at the corner of Sixth and E Streets. This time she asked Jonathan to wait outside.

  “If there are repercussions,” Abigail said, “they shall fall on me alone.”

  “A gentleman can hardly allow a lady to—”

  “Please, Jonathan.” Despite the terrors of the endless night, she managed the pixie grin that so entranced him. “On this occasion, your duty as a gentleman is to let me have my way.”

  He handed her down. Jonathan watched her as she composed herself, then walked firmly to the door. She rang the bell. The door opened, and almost shut again as soon as the colored servant saw her, but Abigail whispered a few words, and the man seemed to nod. She stepped inside.

  The door snicked shut.

  Jonathan wondered how long she would be. He thought about tonight’s strategy meeting, and the haunted look on the President’s craggy face as he listened to Dennard, who narrated, without visible emotion, the progress of the trial so far. He saw again the coterie sitting around the Cabinet Room, arguing vehemently as Jonathan himself sat in the corner taking notes, until Sickles proposed the only good idea that any of them had come up with, an idea the President adamantly resisted until they could talk him around, and all the while, Abigail had been alone in the offices, fighting off attackers while the men who should have been there to protect her talked nonsense in the White House, and he tried not to imagine precisely what the burglars might have tried to do to her before her brother intervened, but sometimes his exhausted mind wandered paths the conscience would never—

  “Jonathan?”

  He sat up with a start, realizing that he had dozed. Abigail stood on the curb. He climbed down and handed her up.

  “Did you get it?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She held up her bag, patted the side. “An order of habeas corpus for the release of one Michael Canner from the custody of the city police, signed by the Chief Justice of the United States.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Sacrifice

  I

  “THE BURGLARY IS a clever touch,” said Dan Sickles. He was lounging on the battered settee as the others, supervised by a weary Dennard, hunted through the debris. Sunday morning was dreary. Beyond the windows, a dull early April sun cast pallid gray illumination over the turbulent city.

  “I fail to see,” said Abigail, who had been cross all morning, “what is clever about it.”

  “I don’t care if it was clever or not,” Dennard griped. He seemed fatter than ever as he sat on a rickety wooden chair with his back to the grate. Little had laid a coal fire before joining the cleanup. Rellman was at the far end of the room, reshelving books. Dennard mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “I want to know what is missing. I shall need an inventory.”

  “So far,” said Jonathan, sliding books back onto the shelf from which they had been ripped, “everything seems to be accounted for.”

  Speed frowned. “Maybe Miss Canner and her brother surprised them before they could depart with what they came for.”

  Abigail was carrying a small mountain of files toward the cabinet. The burglars had not even untied the green string. “You still have not told us why the burglary is clever.”

  “Not just the burglary,” said Sickles, in the midst of adjusting his bad leg. “Taking nothing is even better for them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the anti-Lincoln folks can deny they had anything to do with it. It was just a third-rate burglary, foiled by our colored law clerk.” He tipped his head in mock apology. “I am telling you what the papers will say, Miss Canner. The rest of us are grateful.”

  Abigail’s anger was very near the surface. What had happened last night was bad enough. To be here this morning, surrounded by the very men who had continued to visit the Mansion without her, made the hot pounding in her ears that much more intense.

  “Pray continue,” she murmured, acidly.

  Jonathan gave her a look but said nothing. Rellman drifted closer. Sickles folded his hands over his stomach and shut his eyes. “Think of it this way,” he said. “The burglars had to be after the Chanticleer letters. How they found out about the letters I don’t know, but we don’t have anything else worth stealing. Well, they didn’t find them, because they aren’t on the premises. So they took nothing.” He adjusted the bad leg. “Now, suppose we put a story in the newspaper. What are we going to say? That two men who we think might have been part of an anti-Lincoln conspiracy broke into our offices and took nothing? If the reporters go down to talk to the police, they will discover that the only man arrested was a negro, accused by two white men of assault. They will discover that the negro is the brother of Miss Canner. The next day, the stories will be about us, not about them. The Times might be with us, but the World, the Tribune, even the Herald—all of them will be writing about Miss Canner’s brother.”

  Abigail felt the heat rise, and was unable to wrestle it down. “You are suggesting that they knew that I was returning to the office. That they planned Michael’s arrest. That is absurd. Even I did not know I was returning until five minutes before I arrived.”

  “The arrest was a lucky chance for them,” Dennard rumbled. “But I am afraid that Mr. Sickles is correct. Even had there been no arrest, even had you not arrived, the worst that we could have done would be to report the burglary. If the Chanticleer letters were taken, we would hardly admit to having possessed them. And if nothing was taken—the actual fact of the matter—any story the newspapers might print would give the impression that we, in our embarrassment over recent events, we were inventing fairy tales. Your arrival was, for the other side, simply the lagniappe.”

  Sickles was rougher. He lacked entirely the taste for Latinate English so much in vogue in the capital. “We look like fools now. We’re scared, we’re confused, we can’t tell anybody what happened because it will look like we’re trying to distract attention from how badly the trial is going.” He rubbed his thigh. “And it is going badly for us. Very badly. Forget the burglary. We need to turn things around.”

  James Speed could not let the evaluation pass. “We have done our job. We have made the arguments. If the trial is going badly, it is only because Chase and his Radical friends have mangled the Constitution beyond recognition.” He glanced around as if expecting contradiction. “Sickles is right. We need a fresh strategy.”

  “That was the purpose,” said Dennard, “of last night’s meeting.”

  “I do not believe,” Jonathan said, “that Miss Canner has been apprised of the decisions we took last night.” He looked at her. “She should have been there. Next time, we’ll take her.”

  Sickles opened a single eye. “No,” he said. “We won’t.”

  Jonathan drew himself up. “Abigail is a clerk in this firm, Mr. Sickles. Just as I am. She should not be excluded from our meetings with our client.”

  “Maybe that was true before,” said Sickles. He yawned. The eye shut again. “But it isn’t true now.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jonathan demanded. He realized that he had balled his fists. He was looking wildly from Dennard to Sickles, and then over at Abigail, who sat in the armchair with a sad little smile on her face. “Why isn’t it true?”

  “You’re a smart boy.�
�� Sickles’s tone was mocking. “I am sure that you can figure it out.”

  “Tell him,” said Dennard.

  A hot red tension hung thick in the air. Even Little, who had gone to the anteroom to repair the broken door, sensed the nearness of battle, and drifted back into the common room, arms held loosely, as though he envisioned physical restraint of the younger and stronger white men.

  “What is it?” Jonathan said, body trembling less with anger than with a growing fear.

  “Mr. Sickles is correct,” said Abigail. She was standing now, clutching her bag. Her voice was gentle and unhappy. “I shall resign my position.” She actually put out a hand, and, quite contrary to etiquette, laid it on Jonathan’s shoulder. “There is no choice.”

  Jonathan addressed Sickles. “You said this was a third-rate burglary. It cannot be that we must lose our most brilliant mind because of it!”

  “There is no choice,” Abigail repeated, not rising to the praise. “My brother was arrested for threatening two white men with a gun. It makes no difference that his arrest was without justification. If I remain an employee of this firm, the newspapers will destroy us. The trial will be a secondary story. The reporters will write that Mr. Lincoln’s lawyers are scandal itself. One is murdered in the company of a negro call girl. They hire a negro whose sister is a friend of the murdered call girl, and whose brother—” Her voice broke. She dropped her hand. “It makes no difference what we say. There is no alternative.” She looked around at the others. “I would like to thank you, Mr. Dennard, for the opportunity to apprentice here and study the law. I am grateful for the opportunity to assist in the defense of the President against these calumnious charges. But now I have my own calumny with which to deal. I cannot allow my situation to harm Mr. Lincoln’s case.” For an instant, the pixie smile was back. “I would, however, appreciate being allowed to keep my ticket to the gallery.”

  The grin faded. She shook hands all around, and went out.

  And Jonathan’s youth ended.

  II

  That night was dinner with Meg and her aunt Clara, along with half a dozen of the great of Washington City. There might have been more, but many had declined their invitations, reasoning that, as Lincoln’s sun was setting, the reflected light from his lawyers, once their glory, was growing that much dimmer: indeed, given the now obvious ascendancy of the Radicals, the ambitious might reasonably have worried that the rays, though fading, would actually prove harmful.

  The conversation focused on trifles, although Jonathan could feel all eyes inching his way. His distraction was obvious, but few of the guests made a serious effort to draw him. Everyone knew the trial was going poorly. Everyone assumed that, once Lincoln had been removed from office and Benjamin Wade sworn in, Jonathan would marry Margaret and return to New England.

  “You seem tired,” said Meg, when Jonathan failed to crack the slightest smile at a series of ribald stories from a storied city wit. She was seated beside him: not precisely what protocol demanded, but Margaret had faced down her aunt’s stony disapproval. “You seem dispirited.”

  Jonathan found a smile somewhere. “Work has been difficult.”

  “I know, my darling. I am so very sorry.” She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “Father says Mr. Lincoln is going to be convicted.”

  “The matter is not yet settled.”

  “Father says that it is.”

  Jonathan took a bite of the overcooked fish. “There are witnesses yet to be heard,” he said. “There are arguments yet to be presented.” Ears as well as eyes began to turn. Jonathan found himself repeating what Dan Sickles had said a few days ago. “It is a mistake to assume midway in a trial that you know what the result will be.”

  One guest, who had imbibed more than the others, had a bright idea. “You fellows have some surprise waiting, don’t you?” A near-giggle. “My question is, a legal surprise or some other kind?”

  Aunt Clara told him to shush. “We should all be proud,” she said, “of young Mr. Hilliman’s commitment to his client.” She raised a glass.

  So did the others, not wanting to offend their hostess. Talk turned to other matters. But the impeachment trial remained, inevitably, the ghost at the feast, and the conversation was desultory.

  After the guests had departed, Jonathan and Margaret sat together in the parlor. The maid had laid fresh logs on the fire before retiring.

  “Spring is in the air,” said Margaret, gaily. She squeezed his hand. “Can’t you feel it?”

  “I suppose.” He forced a smile. “I’m sorry. Of course. Yes.”

  “You should be cheery. Soon this will all be over.” She touched his cheek. “I know you had to speak bravely at table, but you and I both know that there is no serious possibility that Mr. Lincoln can prevail.” A nod of acknowledgment of the tragic truth of matters. “He will be convicted, Jonathan. You must accept that.”

  “I told you—”

  “That matters are not settled. I know. But they are. Father says so. And Father knows people.” Her tone was one of affectionate correction. Flames leaped and crackled in the grate. “Father understands these things”—implying that her young man did not. Jonathan experienced a sudden vision of married life with this wonderful woman he had adored since they were young. Yes, Jonathan, but Father says … No, Jonathan, because Father says … That’s a bad idea, because Father says … We cannot move house, because Father says … And always delivered with warm sincerity, a loving desire to make her beloved happy, because she knew, and would always know, that perfect happiness was identical to hewing to the wisdom of the Lion of Louisiana.

  Before he could consider a reply, she kissed him, softly, then kissed him again. Her warm openness surprised him. “You are a good man,” she said, holding his face, watching his eyes. “I love you very much, Jonathan.”

  “I love you, too,” he said, after the barest hesitation.

  Margaret seemed to consider. She stroked his hair. “Aunt Clara will be in bed soon,” she murmured. Another kiss, and now he felt the desperation. “This time, I do not wish to hear of an urgent meeting.”

  “But—”

  She stood, and took his hand. Her eyes were bright, full of joy and wonder, fixed on a magnificent future. “If we are to be husband and wife,” she said, “we should practice our conjugal duties to one another.”

  III

  As for Abigail, after leaving the office in the afternoon, she wandered vaguely eastward through an unexpected April snow, until the smoky rumble of a train on the Baltimore and Potomac tracks woke her from her reverie. Startled, she realized how near she was to the Chase mansion at Sixth and E. Embarrassed that habit had almost led her to fresh humiliation, she quickly boarded the horsecars of the Metropolitan Line and rode due south, alighting on the Island, less than a mile from her home. Marching through the city, Abigail was for once comforted rather than offended by the fetid breeze off the canal. She felt lightheaded, yet her mind quested onward.

  She was almost there. She could feel it. After last night’s events, she was so close to the answer. Were the pain of her circumstance not clouding her judgment, she told herself angrily, she would have it. But it is difficult to think clearly through tears.

  At home, she was railed at by Nanny Pork, who never let pass an opportunity to point out the horribles, as she called them, that happened whenever her advice was ignored. Nanny took pains to list all the many ways in which Abigail had ignored her guidance, not only in this matter of pursuing her foolish dream of becoming a lawyer, but all the way back to her childhood, including several incidents that Abigail did not remember, and in whose occurrence she entirely disbelieved. Yet she did not fight back. Not against Nanny Pork. All through the cruel years after Abigail’s parents died, and then again in the crueler years after she returned from Oberlin to find her fiancé vanished, her great-aunt’s unquestioning if disapproving love had been the only constant in her life.

  Now, as Abigail sat sipping tea, and Nanny Pork limped ar
ound the kitchen listing her niece’s deficiencies, the evening’s mood began subtly to shift. Abigail found her thoughts drawn away from the mystery of the secret code, and even from the seemingly hopeless impeachment trial, and more and more toward the delicate matter of her own circumstances. Aaron. The collapse of her career, and of her hopes. And all at once she found herself telling Nanny what had really happened. Not Michael’s arrest, a matter they had already discussed, and which Nanny had already dismissed; what had nearly happened to Abigail herself in the offices of Dennard & McShane in the late hours of the past night. Giving voice at last to her terror, Abigail was suddenly weeping, and in Nanny’s strong arms, which, if the truth was told, was where she had longed to be ever since she walked into the office last night and confronted the two white men who, but for Michael, would certainly have raped her. Nanny said nothing, but tightened her embrace. Abigail was crying for all she was worth, crying hard for the first time since she learned two years ago that Aaron’s regiment had returned from the war without him, crying because she had run out of reasons not to. And eventually, wrapped in those familiar arms, comforted by the massive chest, like the child every adult sometimes still is, Abigail cried herself to sleep.

  Nanny Pork sat awake, stroking the child’s curly hair, marveling that the good Lord allowed so much pain in this sinful world. She wondered why white folks, who had everything, spent so much time fighting over who got how much, while black folks, who had nothing, just sat around feeling sorry for they selves. And she wondered, too, whether it was God’s work or Satan’s that had caused her precious niece to fall so deeply and hopelessly in love.