With the Assassination of Lincoln, the Presidency fell upon an old-fashioned
southern Jacksonian Democrat of pronounced states' rights views. Although an
honest and honorable man, Andrew Johnson was one of the most unfortunate of
Presidents. Arrayed against him were the Radical Republicans in Congress,
brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics. Johnson was no match for them.
Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1808, Johnson grew up in poverty. He was
apprenticed to a tailor as a boy, but ran away. He opened a tailor shop in
Greeneville, Tennessee, married Eliza McCardle, and participated in debates at
the local academy.
Entering politics, he became an adept stump speaker, championing the common man
and vilifying the plantation aristocracy. As a Member of the House of
Representatives and the Senate in the 1840's and '50's, he advocated a homestead
bill to provide a free farm for the poor man.
During the secession crisis, Johnson remained in the Senate even when Tennessee
seceded, which made him a hero in the North and a traitor in the eyes of most
Southerners. In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor of
Tennessee, and Johnson used the state as a laboratory for reconstruction. In
1864 the Republicans, contending that their National Union Party was for all
loyal men, nominated Johnson, a Southerner and a Democrat, for Vice President.
After Lincoln's death, President Johnson proceeded to reconstruct the former
Confederate States while Congress was not in session in 1865. He pardoned all
who would take an oath of allegiance, but required leaders and men of wealth to
obtain special Presidential pardons.
By the time Congress met in December 1865, most southern states were
reconstructed, slavery was being abolished, but "black codes" to regulate the
freedmen were beginning to appear.
Radical Republicans in Congress moved vigorously to change Johnson's program.
They gained the support of northerners who were dismayed to see Southerners
keeping many prewar leaders and imposing many prewar restrictions upon Negroes.
The Radicals' first step was to refuse to seat any Senator or Representative
from the old Confederacy. Next they passed measures dealing with the former
slaves. Johnson vetoed the legislation. The Radicals mustered enough votes in
Congress to pass legislation over his veto--the first time that Congress had
overridden a President on an important bill. They passed the Civil Rights Act of
1866, which established Negroes as American citizens and forbade discrimination
against them.
A few months later Congress submitted to the states the Fourteenth Amendment,
which specified that no state should "deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law."
All the former Confederate States except Tennessee refused to ratify the
amendment; further, there were two bloody race riots in the South. Speaking in
the Middle West, Johnson faced hostile audiences. The Radical Republicans won an
overwhelming victory in Congressional elections that fall.
In March 1867, the Radicals effected their own plan of Reconstruction, again
placing southern states under military rule. They passed laws placing
restrictions upon the President. When Johnson allegedly violated one of these,
the Tenure of Office Act, by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the
House voted eleven articles of impeachment against him. He was tried by the
Senate in the spring of 1868 and acquitted by one vote.
In 1875, Tennessee returned Johnson to the Senate. He died a few months later.
The Impeachment of
Andrew Johnson
In January of
1868 the returning Senate took up the issue of Johnson's suspension of Secretary
Stanton, and voted 35 to 6 not to concur in the action. On January 14, a
triumphant Stanton marched to his old office in the War Building as the
President considered his next move. Johnson was anxious to challenge
the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act in court, but to do so he
would have to replace Stanton and defy the Senate. This he did on February
21, 1868, naming as the new Secretary of War Major General Lorenzo Thomas.
When Stanton notified his Capitol Hill allies of the presidential order to
vacate his office, he received from Senator Sumner a one-word telegram: "Stick."
Stick he did. When Thomas went to the War Department Building to claim his
new office, Stanton refused to budge. After an awkward confrontation, the
two men enjoyed a bottle of liquor together before Thomas finally headed home.
For the next ninety days, Stanton would remain barricaded in his office.
The Lorenzo
Thomas appointment made impeachment in the House for violation of the Tenure of
Office Act and other "high crimes and misdemeanors" inevitable. On
February 24, the House voted to adopt an Impeachment Resolution by a vote of 126
to 47. Five days later, formal articles of impeachment were adopted by the
House.
On March 30,
1868, Benjamin Butler rose before Chief Justice Salmon Chase and fifty-four
senators to deliver the opening argument for the House Managers in the
impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson. Historians such as David Dewitt have
been struck by the improbability of the scene: "The ponderous two-handed engine
of impeachment, designed to be kept in cryptic darkness until some crisis of the
nation's life cried out for interposition, was being dragged into open day to
crush a formidable political antagonist a few months before the appointed time
when the people might get rid of him altogether." Butler's three-hour
opening argument was "a lawyer's plea with a dash of the demagogue." He
contemptuously dismissed arguments that the Tenure of Office Act didn't cover
Stanton, read parts of Johnson's 1866 speeches that were the basis of the tenth
article of impeachment, and referred to the President as "accidental Chief" and
"the elect of an assassin." (Butler was a poor choice for manager.
His disrespectful treatment of the president damaged the prosecution's case with
wavering senators and, in general, he made key strategic errors.)
House Managers
proceeded to introduce documentary evidence and witness testimony supporting the
eleven various articles of impeachment. Two witnesses described the
confrontation between Edwin Stanton and Lorenzon Thomas in the War Office on the
day of Stanton's firing, February 22. One witness brought on torrents of
laughter by his description of his meeting with Thomas in the East Room of the
White House when he told Thomas "that the eyes of Delaware were upon him."
Several witnesses testified as to details concerning speeches by the President
delivered in Cleveland and St. Louis in September of 1866. On Thursday,
April 9, the Managers closed their case. Many observers concluded that the
testimony added little to the Manager's case, and may have actually hurt their
case by emphasizing the President's isolation and powerlessness in the face of a
hostile Congress.
The opening
argument for the President was delivered by Benjamin Curtis, a former justice of
the Supreme Court best known for his dissent in the famous Dred Scott case.
Curtis argued that Stanton was not covered by the Tenure of Office Act because
the "term" of Lincoln ended with his death, that the President did not in fact
violate the Act because he did not succeed in removing Stanton from office, and
that the Act itself unconstitutionally infringed upon the powers of the
President. As for the article based on Johnson's 1866 speeches, Curtis
said "The House of Representatives has erected itself into a school of
manners...and they desire the judgment of this body whether the President has
not been guilty of indecorum." Curtis argued that conviction based on the
tenth article of impeachment would violate the free speech clause of the First
Amendment.
Counsel for the
President called only two witnesses of real consequence. Lorenzo Thomas,
Johnson's would-be Secretary of War, was sworn in as a witness for the President
and examined by Attorney General Stanbery concerning his encounters with
Stanton. According to Thomas's testimony, the two were surprisingly
cordial after Stanton had Thomas arrested, at one point sharing a bottle of
whiskey together. Secretary Welles was called for the purpose of
testifying to the fact that the Cabinet had advised Johnson that the Tenure of
Office Act was unconstitutional, and that Secretaries Seward and Stanton had
agreed to prepare a draft of a veto message. Benjamin Curtis argued that
the testimony was relevant because an article of impeachment charged the
President with "intending" to violate the Constitution, and that Welles's
testimony tended to show that the President honestly believed the law to be
unconstitutional. Over the House Managers' objection, Chief Justice Chase
ruled the evidence admissible, but was overruled by the Senate 29 to 20, and the
testimony was not allowed.
Final arguments
in the impeachment trial stretched from April 22 to May 6, with the Managers
speaking for six days and counsel for the President speaking for five days.
Arguments ranged from the technical to the hyperbolic. Manager Thaddeus
Stevens railed against the "wretched man, standing at bay, surrounded by a
cordon of living men, each with the axe of an executioner uplifted for his just
punishment." Manager John Bingham brought the crowded galleries to its
feet with his thunderous closing:
"May God forbid
that the future historian shall record of this day's proceedings, that by reason
of the failure of the legislative power of the people to triumph over the
usurpations of an apostate President, the fabric of American empire fell and
perished from the earth!...I ask you to consider that we stand this day pleading
for the violated majesty of the law, by the graves of half a million of martyred
hero-patriots who made death beautiful by the sacrifice of themselves for their
country, the Constitution and the laws, and who, by their sublime example, have
taught us all to obey the law; that none are above the law;... and that
position, however high, patronage, however powerful, cannot be permitted to
shelter crime to the peril of the republic."
William
Groesbeck's peroration for the President offered a spirited defense of Johnson's
view of reconstruction:
"He
was eager for pacification. He thought that the war was ended. It
seemed so. The drums were all silent; the arsenals were all shut; the roar
of the cannon had died away to the last reverberations; the army was disbanded;
not a single enemy confronted us in the field. Ah, he was too eager, too
forgiving, too kind. The hand of reconciliation was stretched out to him
and he took it. It may be that he should have put it away, but was it a
crime to take it? Kindness, forgiveness a crime? Kindness a crime?
Kindness is statesmanship. Kindness is the high statesmanship of heaven
itself. The thunders of Sinai do but terrify and distract; alone they
accomplish little; it is the kindness of Calvary that subdues and pacifies."
William Everts
contended in his closing argument for the President that violation of the Tenure
of Office Act did not rise to the level of an impeachable offense:
"They wish to
know whether the President has betrayed our liberties or our possessions to a
foreign state. They wish to know whether he has delivered up a fortress or
surrendered a fleet. They wish to know whether he has made merchandise of
the public trust and turned the authority to private gain. And when
informed that none of these things are charges, imputed, or even declaimed
about, they yet seek further information and are told that he has removed a
member of his cabinet."
Finally,
Attorney General Henry Stanbery's closing for the President compared conviction
to a despicable crime:
"But if,
Senators, as I cannot believe, but as has been boldly said with almost official
sanction, your votes have been canvassed and the doom of the President is
sealed, then let that judgment not be pronounced in this Senate Chamber; not
here, where our Camillus in the hour of our greatest peril, single-handed, met
and baffled the enemies of the Republic; not here, where he stood faithful among
the faithless; not here, where he fought the good fight for the Union and the
Constitution; not in this Chamber, whose walls echo with that clarion voice
that, in the days of our greatest danger, carried hope and comfort to many a
desponding heart, strong as an army with banners. No, not here. Seek
out rather the darkest and gloomiest chamber in the subterranean recesses of
this Capitol, where the cheerful light of day never enters. There erect
the altar and immolate the victim."
Outwardly,
House Managers were confident. Benjamin Butler told a Republican
audience on May 4 that "The removal of the great obstruction is certain.
Wade and prosperity are sure to come with the apple blossoms." Privately,
the were less optimistic. In the week before the vote, much money was
being bet by professional gamblers on the outcome of the trial, and the odds
favored acquittal. On May 11, from 11 am to midnight, senators debated the
merits of the case behind closed doors. The best chance for conviction
seemed to rest with the eleventh article that charged the President with
attempting to prevent Stanton from resuming his office after the Senate
disapproved his suspension. It was obvious that the vote would be very close,
depending upon the decisions of two or three undecided Senators. No
Senator's vote was more critical than that of Edmund Ross of Kansas, who
remained stubbornly silent throughout the trial and discussions.
At noon on May
16, 1868, the High Court of Impeachment was called to order by Chief Justice
Chase. The galleries were packed and the House of Representatives was
present en mass. A motion was made and adopted to vote first on the
eleventh article. The Chief Justice said, "Call the roll." Historian
David Dewitt described the tension as the roll call reaches the name of Senator
Ross:
"Twenty-four
'Guilties' have been pronounced and ten more certain are to come. Willey
is almost sure and that will make thirty-five. Thirty-six votes are
needed, and with this one vote the grand consummation is attained, Johnson is
out and Wade in his place. It is a singular fact that not one of the
actors in that high scene was sure in his own mind how his one senator was going
to vote, except, perhaps, himself. 'Mr. Senator Ross, how say you?' the voice of
the Chief Justice rings out over the solemn silence. 'Is the respondent, Andrew
Johnson, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor as charged in this article?'
The Chief Justice bends forward, intense anxiety furrowing his brow. The
seated associates of the senator on his feet fix upon him their united gaze.
The representatives of the people of the United States watch every movement of
his features. The whole audience listens for the coming answer as it would
have listened for the crack of doom. And the answer comes, full, distinct,
definite, unhesitating and unmistakable. The words 'Not Guilty' sweep over
the assembly, and, as one man, the hearers fling themselves back into their
seats; the strain snaps; the contest ends; impeachment is blown into the air."
Although John F. Kennedy described Edmund Ross as a "profile in courage" in his
book of the same name, historian David O. Stewart believes otherwise. In
his excellent book Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the
Fight for Lincoln's Legacy, Stewart contends that Ross's vote was bought.
Defenders of the President had raised $150,000 for an "Acquittal Fund," and
Stewart believes that Johnson's supporters were approaching Republican senators
and offering bribes. Political fixer Perry Fuller, a key contributer to
Ross's Senate campaign, spent the night before the Senate vote with Ross, who
until that time had indicated an intent to vote for conviction. Stewart
contends that a few days after the vote, Fuller was rewarded for his successful
efforts to thwart conviction with an appointment by Johnson to the position of
head of the Internal Revenue Service, perhaps the best post in Washington for
someone interested in feathering his own nest. When Congress refused to
confirm Fuller, Johnson appointed him as collector of taxes for the Port of New
Orleans, a position which Fuller made personally enriching for the remainder of
the Johnson term.
The debate
continues as to whether Johnson should have been convicted. David Stewart
argues, and I agree, that Johnson deserved to be removed from office, but not
for the arguable offense of violating the Tenure of Office Act or for being a
blowhard. Instead, Johnson should have been convicted because he seriously
undermined efforts to improve the lot of the country's newly freed slaves and
because he stood idly by, and provided not a finger of federal assistance, even
when ex-slaves were being slaughtered on southern highways. Johnson was a
confrontational and insensitive president at a time when the nation desperately
needed someone to heal the nation's wounds--someone like Abraham Lincoln.
Still, the
impeachment trial had its value. It served to channel the potentially
explosive anger in many parts of the country against Andrew Johnson into a
morality play. Things could have been worse.