The Impeachers

by Brenda Wineapple

  A charming mythmaker, Vinnie Ream would tell the Danish critic George Brandes that she’d been asked to sculpt Lincoln because she’d been staying at the White House when he was assassinated. Brandes knew she was lying but, after all, she was a real “American girl,” he rationalized, “for without rank or privilege she’d fought for what she had.” And Vinnie Ream had sized up her prey, a male cabal of politicians who coveted a sculpted berth in history. After Lincoln’s assassination, again with the assistance of Rollins, Ream competed for a $10,000 congressional commission to sculpt a marble, life-sized statue of the deceased President. Even though such noted sculptors as Mills had entered the competition, Ream confidently submitted her bust of Lincoln to Congress, as well as a petition signed by Generals Ulysses S. Grant and George Armstrong Custer, by more than half of the members of the House, by more than half of the senators—and by President Johnson. Interviewed about the commission, she didn’t mention any of her meetings with Lincoln, an oversight she later attributed to nervousness.

  Ream won the commission. As the journalist James Parton observed, “Five minutes’ conversation with Miss Vinnie Ream explains this ridiculous behavior of Congress. She is one of those graceful, animated, bright-eyed, picturesque, undaunted, twinkling little women, who can make men say Yes to anything they ask.” Five feet tall, with a round open face framed by cascades of long, curly auburn hair—she said she created the waves with a combination of sugar and water—the pretty Ream ushered her many visitors to the basement studio in the Capitol building that another besotted admirer, John H. Rice, chairman of the House Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, had managed to provide for her. Many senators met there to talk politics.

  Awarded a $10,000 commission to mold a life-sized marble statue of Abraham Lincoln, Lavinia (Vinnie) Ream had never made a statue in her life, but having lobbied Congressmen, she successfully launched her career as a sculptor. “The shrewdest politician of them all,” Mark Twain called her.

  And so, explaining that he hadn’t brought his family to Washington because he couldn’t afford it, Ross became a boarder on the second floor of the Ream house. He was also one of Vinnie Ream’s most ardent admirers. He signed a petition to recommend that her father receive a diplomatic appointment to Italy, and he suggested to the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin that Vinnie Ream receive a commission to sculpt two former governors—at $10,000 each. (The Wisconsin legislature resoundingly rejected the proposition.) When Ream traveled to Madison to lobby on her own behalf, Ross looked after her studio.

  His behavior raised eyebrows. “Ross though a man of family is at present infatuated to the extent of foolishness with Miss Vinnie Ream,” Ben Butler had been told. He was also informed that Vinnie Ream, Perry Fuller’s sister-in-law, had joined forces with Fuller “to advance the interests of the family.” And Fuller owned Senator Ross, the anonymous author continued, having “bought his election and has since used him as an agent in pushing his frauds through the Indian Bureau and Quartermasters Department. He aspires to be Commissioner of Internal Revenue.” That was all true.

  Butler sent Ross a copy of the accusation. “I have suffered too much from ungenerous and secret slanders,” Butler remarked, “not to desire in such matters ‘to do as would be done by.’ ” That was likely true too. But Butler was also hinting that Ross should vote to convict Johnson.

  Ross was jumpy. Fuller arranged for him to propose a deal to his friend Interior Secretary Orville Browning. Browning was an Ohio man and also a friend of the Ewings and Henry Stanbery. If President Johnson would approve the constitutions of South Carolina and Arkansas, and send them over to Congress, which so far he’d procrastinated doing, “it would exert a salutary influence upon the trial now pending,” Browning confided to his diary, “and that he [Ross] and others would then vote against impeachment.”

  The deal was similar to the one Grimes had brought to the President: demonstrate your willingness to work with us, and we’ll acquit you. In public, though, Ross continued to say he favored conviction, at least on the eleventh article, while vainly hoping the whole thing would just go away.

  The night before that vote in the Senate—as late as eleven-thirty—Ross’ former commander, Thomas Ewing, Jr., called on Ross at the Ream home for reasons unknown. As Ewing entered, Daniel Voorhees was leaving. Voorhees was a strong Johnson supporter. So was Vinnie Ream.

  Ross repeated to Ewing that he planned to convict the President. “I stated to him in the course of the conversation that in my opinion the whole impeachment proceeding was purely partisan,” Thomas Ewing, Jr., later said, “that the conduct of the trial had been flagrantly unfair, and that no conviction would be justifiable on any one of the articles.”

  Ross showed Ewing the telegram from Daniel Anthony. Ewing said Ross should answer immediately, and the two men walked to the telegraph office. “Gentlemen, I do not recognize your right to demand that I shall vote either for or against conviction,” Ross haughtily replied. “I have taken an oath to do impartial justice according to the Constitution and Laws, and trust I shall have the courage and honesty to vote according to the dictates of my judgement [sic], and for the highest good of my country.”

  Anthony didn’t let the matter drop. “Your telegram received,” Anthony wrote back. “Your vote is dictated by Tom Ewing not by your oath. Your motives are Indian contracts and greenbacks. Kansas repudiates you as she does all her perjurers and skunks.”

  * * *

  —

  “A GREAT DEAL of anxiety is felt here,” Ulysses S. Grant dolefully noted the night before the vote. “Impeachment is likely to fail.”

  * * *

  —

  THE DAY OF the vote arrived at last, overcast and murky. Edmund Ross ate breakfast at Perry Fuller’s house on the corner of 12th and K Streets along with Thomas Hendricks, a strong Democrat and Johnson supporter. Ross seemed unhappy, and when Fuller asked him what was wrong, he moodily replied, “I would rather have my right arm cut off, than to have this vote taken today.”

  That same morning, on the day of the vote, at the John Wesley African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church on Connecticut Avenue the Reverend Sampson Jones opened the convocation with a prayer for the removal of Andrew Johnson, the “demented Moses of Tennessee.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The Crowning Struggle

  “It was the crowning struggle between the Rebellion and the people.”

  —New-York Tribune

  “President will be acquitted if a vote is had today. Tell my wife.” This was the telegram sent by an Ohio lawyer, Charles Woolley, to George Pendleton, the Midwestern greenbacker hoping to be the next Democratic President. “We have beaten the Methodist Episcopal Church north, Hell, Butler, John Logan, [Radical journalist] George Wilkes and impeachment,” Woolley merrily announced at eight in the morning on Saturday, May 16.

  The folks streaming in and out of hotels, government offices, stores, and barrooms had no idea about the telegram. They had no idea about the vote on impeachment or what the outcome would be—an outcome Woolley seemed to know in advance.

  Crowds again formed at the Capitol, where extra police were again on guard, polished clubs again in their white-gloved fists, revolvers in their holsters. Ushers steered the diplomats and visitors into the rotunda, men and women elbowing one another, reporters hovering nearby. “Through the glass doors of the ante-room we could see Senators stalking up and down, anxiously talking to each other,” Moorfield Storey wrote to his sister.

  Bony and drawn, William Pitt Fessenden walked into the chamber, hands stuffed into his pockets, his mouth slightly twitching. Head lowered, Lyman Trumbull sat at his desk, busily writing or pretending to write and affecting indifference. Peter Van Winkle shuffled papers. Joseph Fowler pulled on black kid gloves as though preparing for a funeral—“probably his own,” a reporter whispered. John Henderson chatted with Edmund Ross, who for s
ome reason was tearing paper into small pieces and tossing them onto the floor.

  The chief justice strode to his post at the head of the chamber. Looking smallish in his frock coat, Ross returned to his seat, and Republican Senator Henry Wilson, who’d seen General Sickles chatting with Ross, walked over to Sickles, who whispered something to Wilson. The color drained from Wilson’s face, noted the spectators in the gallery who’d been watching the little drama. “Mr. Ross is gone,” they whispered.

  House impeachment managers, seated, from left: Benjamin F. Butler, Thaddeus Stevens, Thomas Williams, John A. Bingham. Standing, from left: James F. Wilson, George S. Boutwell, John A. Logan. Photograph by Mathew Brady, 1868.

  Chief Justice Chase pounded the gavel. Oregon Senator George Williams proposed that the chief justice read the eleventh article of impeachment first. This was the catchall article that pushed beyond the technicalities of the Tenure of Office Act to Johnson’s disregard of Congress, his denial of its authority, and his attempt to prevent its laws from being executed. It was the article assumed most likely to produce a guilty verdict. Fessenden immediately objected since James Grimes had not yet arrived. Reverdy Johnson said Grimes was in the building, and as if on cue, Grimes tottered into the chamber. His doctor had advised him to leave Washington but here he was, bolstered by two friends and leaning to one side, his features a mask of pain. He was eased into a large chair near the door.

  The motion to hear and then vote on the eleventh article of impeachment passed. Benjamin Wade voted for the first time, even though the outcome directly concerned him. In a matter of minutes, he might move closer to the presidency.

  Few people were completely sure how Willey, Fowler, or Ross would vote on the eleventh article. Ross went on tearing paper into little bits.

  “Ross has been bought, so has Fowler,” said a fellow claiming insider information. “Talk about their consciences? The idea is preposterous.”

  Rising from his seat, Chief Justice Chase said that he’d call out the name of each senator in alphabetical order and warned the galleries that persons making any disturbance whatsoever would be promptly evicted. He wanted no more outbursts like the one that occurred after Bingham’s closing argument.

  The clerk began to read the eleventh article out loud. No one was listening. Henderson walked over to Ross to confer one last time. The air was heavy. “The grass would be green, and the corn would grow, and men would be happy or miserable, whether Andrew Johnson should be acquitted or condemned,” said a reporter. And yet something deeply significant hung in the balance.

  “I felt the importance of this event to humanity,” he added. “It was the crowning struggle between the Rebellion and the people.”

  “Mr. Senator Anthony, how say you?” Chief Justice Chase called on the Rhode Island senator. “Is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor, as charged in this article?”

  Henry Anthony jumped to his feet. His face was flushed. “Guilty,” he said. The crowd murmured softly.

  Senator Bayard? “Not guilty.”

  Senator Buckalew? “Not guilty.” No sound of surprise from fellow Democrats.

  Before the chief justice called out Simon Cameron’s name, Cameron jumped up. “Guilty.” Senators Cattell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Conness, Corbett, and Cragin also voted to convict. Davis, Dixon, and Doolittle voted to acquit. Still no surprises.

  William Pitt Fessenden heard his name. He unfolded himself. “Not guilty,” he declared, sounding defiant.

  Joseph Fowler was next. His face the color of skimmed milk, the senator from Tennessee half rose from his seat and mumbled. “We do not hear the answer,” Charles Sumner shouted out. Did Fowler say “guilty”?

  “The Chair did not hear the Senator’s answer,” Chief Justice Chase repeated. Fowler was unsteady. “Not guilty,” he gasped, and dropped back into his chair, sapped of strength.

  Journalist Mary Clemmer Ames was contemptuous. What a hypocrite, she said. Not long ago, Fowler had furiously declared, “if we refuse to impeach Andrew Johnson from office the blood of loyal men slain in the South will rest upon our souls.”

  New Jersey’s Frederick Frelinghuysen pronounced the President “guilty,” and when his turn came, James Grimes awkwardly tried to stand. The chief justice said he might remain in his chair. “Not guilty.”

  “Not guilty,” Senator Henderson voted after he heard his name. The Radicals had lost him after all.

  The voting continued, with no more surprises, until Chief Justice Chase read out the name of Edmund Ross. Ross had promised to vote for conviction on the eleventh article, and so it still seemed, at this the eleventh hour, he would.

  “Mr. Senator Ross, how say you: guilty or not guilty?”

  Ross swept the tiny flakes of torn paper from his lap.

  White-faced, he answered. “Not guilty.”

  The galley sighed in unison. The policemen did not stir. “It’s all up,” said a number of spectators. “He promised only last night to vote for the eleventh article,” said others in disbelief. Hadn’t Horace Walpole declared that every man has his price, Mary Clemmer Ames wondered.

  The portly Van Winkle sealed the already sealed case with his “not guilty.” President Andrew Johnson was acquitted on the eleventh impeachment article. Sure, the Senate had still to vote on the other ten articles, but the die was cast.

  * * *

  —

  THE GALLERIES QUICKLY emptied. In a sweat, harried telegraph operators clacked out dispatches, as many as six wires within a couple of hours to just one newspaper:

  On the eleventh article of impeachment:

  For acquittal, 19.

  For conviction, 35.

  “Messrs. Fowler, Fessenden, Graves, Henderson, Van Winkle, Trumbull, and Ross voting not guilty.” Just enough: seven Republicans, recusant Republicans as they were called. It was said the President’s friends had another vote or even two in reserve, should they have needed them.

  * * *

  —

  AT ONE-THIRTY IN the afternoon, Charles Woolley sent another telegram, this time directly to his wife. “Virtue has triumphed over vice,” he exulted. “Our children will have a country when we are gone. Thank God.”

  * * *

  —

  “THE VALLEY OF the Shadow is passed safely,” the New York World reporter Jerome Stillson wrote to Democrat kingmaker Samuel Barlow. “Butler, Greeley & their cohorts are ruined and what is of more consequence than all else beside, the country is spared the disgrace & the danger of a bad precedent which might have been followed by equally bad & unscrupulous men on our side, at another time, and in the end we should have become another Mexico.”

  * * *

  —

  COLONEL WILLIAM CROOK, President Johnson’s bodyguard, had been seated in the galleries, and as soon as he heard Van Winkle declare “not guilty” on the eleventh article, he jumped to his feet, sprinted down the Capitol steps, and raced all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. Johnson was in the library eating his lunch with Gideon Welles and two other men when Crook burst through the door. “Mr. President,” Colonel Crook cried with joy, “you are acquitted.” The President’s eyes swelled with tears. Embarrassed, Crook looked away but Johnson quickly recovered himself and ordered whiskey up from the cellar for a toast. The men raised their glasses.

  Colonel Crook then ran upstairs to tell Mrs. Johnson, who shakily rose from the rocking chair where she sat sewing. “I knew he would be acquitted,” she declared. “I knew it.”

  * * *

  —

  MEN AND WOMEN spilled out of the Capitol, walking every which way, gesticulating and arguing or hanging their heads in shock. Pennsylvania Avenue was mobbed, and near the White House people paced up and down, hoping that Andy Johnson might show his face or wave a hand from t
he balcony. They were disappointed.

  Edmund Ross rushed to the White House. “There goes the rascal to get his pay,” Representative James Blaine was said to mutter.

  Henry Stanbery and Thomas Nelson sped to the White House in a carriage. “Well, thank God, Mr. President, you are again free,” Nelson exclaimed.

  William Seward had been in his office, stretched out on his sofa, smoking and reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau. An assistant entered, nervously asking if there’d been any news about the eleventh article. Seward smiled and said conviction had failed by a single vote and then, recalled the assistant, “went on reading, as if the country had not just passed through a crisis of tremendous importance.”

  Assuming that the failure of the eleventh article spelled the collapse of impeachment, well-wishers were surging into the White House reception rooms. Hugh McCulloch congratulated the President, and Gideon Welles, without removing his black slouch hat, shook hands all around. Several congressmen came to pay their respects, and a few women, like the writer Harriet Prescott Spofford, joined them. The President talked amiably to a reporter. “I do not know that I am altogether out of the woods,” he observed. “It strikes me, however, that their strongest blade has been put forward.” Victory did not belong to him alone, he diplomatically added. The Constitution had triumphed.