History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States Part 23

Mr. Bingham: I have been directed by the Managers on the part of the House of Representatives, in the matter of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, to report the following preamble and resolutions for consideration at this time:

Whereas, information has come to the Managers which seems to them to furnish probable cause to believe that improper or corrupt means have been used to influence the determination of the Senate upon the Articles of Impeachment submitted to the Senate by the House of Representatives against the President of the United States; therefore.

Be it Resolved, That for the further and more efficient prosecution of the Impeachment of the President, the Managers be directed and instructed to summon and examine witnesses under oath, to send for persons and papers, and employ a stenographer, and appoint sub-committee to take testimony; the expense thereof to be paid from the Contingent Fund of the House.

This resolution was immediately and without debate adopted by a vote of 88 to 14. It would be stating it mildly to say that the House was in a tumult. The Republican leaders were wild with rage. They had selected for the first vote what they deemed the strongest point in their indictment, and lost; and their vengeance now turned upon those Republican Senators who had failed to support them. Hence the adjournment of the Senate for ten days to afford them time to discipline the recusants and force an additional vote for conviction on the next ballot.

The conspicuous indelicacy of this move was two-fold: 1st, in that the House proposed to investigate the action of a co-ordinate branch of Congress: and 2nd, that the trial not being concluded, it had to a pointed degree the appearance of an attempt to intimidate Senators who had voted against conviction into changing their votes at the next ballot in fear of an inquisition for alleged corruption. In that sense it was an act of intimidation--a warning. It was an ill-disguised threat and a most unseemly proceeding--yet there was not one among the supporters of the Impeachment to condemn it, and few who failed openly to justify it. Partisan rancor and personal and political hostility to the President had reached a point that condoned this indelicacy of the House towards the Senate, and justified the public a.s.sault upon the dissenting Republican Senators, and the insult to the Senate itself.

The demand for adjournment and delay seemed to have been understood by the impeaching majority of the Senate, and was of course promptly granted and further voting postponed, and the Senate adjourned to May 26th.

The next ten day were days of unrest--of anxiety to all who were involved or in any way interested in the impeachment proceeding.

While the result of the 16th gave hope and comfort to the opponents of impeachment, it caused little or no perceptible discouragement to its more radical friends. They were more active and persistent than ever.

The footsteps of the anti-impeaching Republicans were dogged from the day's beginning to its end and far into the night, with entreaties, considerations and threats, in the hope of securing a reversal of the result of the 16th. The partisan press of the States represented by the anti-impeaching Republicans came daily filled with vigorous animadversions upon their action, and not a few threats of violence upon their return to their const.i.tuents. But it was in vain.

The Senate rea.s.sembled on the 26th of May to complete the vote on the articles of impeachment. After the usual preliminary proceedings, Mr.

Williams moved to begin the voting on the Second Article, which was had with the same result as on the 11th--and then the Third, and still with the same result. It then became manifest that it was useless to go farther, as all the balance had been rendered certain of defeat, and by still more decisive votes--a considerable number of those so far voting for impeachment having committed themselves in the previous conference against all the balance. So, to save themselves from being forced to vote against impeachment on any of the articles, there was a unanimous vote of the impeachers to abandon the case and adjourn--and with it went glimmering the visions of office, and spoils, and the riotous a.s.saults on the public treasury that had for months been organizing for the day when Mr. Johnson should be put out and Mr. Wade put in, with the political board clear for a NEW DEAL.

An a.n.a.lysis of the Eleventh, Article shows that it comprised four distinct counts, or accusations.

First--That Mr. Johnson had said that the Thirty-Ninth Congress was not a Congress of the United States, but a Congress of only part of the States, and therefore had no power to propose amendments the Const.i.tution.

The latter clause of this accusation was the only portion of the first count that received any consideration during the trial, and the only testimony brought in its support was the Parsons-Johnson telegraphic correspondence set out in Interrogatory No. 5.

In that dispatch, referring to then pending Const.i.tutional amendment (the 14th) Mr. Johnson referred to Congress as "a set of individuals."

Mr. Manager Boutwell declared this expression to be "the gist of the offense of this particular telegraphic dispatch."

Counsel for defense objected to this testimony, but it was received by a vote of yeas twenty-seven, nays seventeen.

As the Fourteenth Amendment was not declared adopted or a part of the Const.i.tution for more than a year after the transmission of that dispatch, and as the Const.i.tution of the United States prohibits any abridgment of the freedom of speech, and as this remark was unaccompanied by any act in violation of law, it is difficult to see how it could be construed into an impeachable offense. Moreover, saying nothing of the good taste or propriety of that dispatch, Mr. Johnson was opposed to the proposed amendment, and had the same right to oppose it, or to characterize it or the members of Congress favoring it, as had any private citizen, or as had the members of Congress to characterize his action in the premises, without being called to account therefor.

The second count of that article was:

Violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act of March 2nd, 1867, in seeking to prevent the resumption by Mr. Stanton of the office of Secretary of War.

This clause had been very effectually disposed of by Messrs. Sherman and Howe several days before the vote was taken on the Eleventh Article, when they pointed out the fact that the language cage of the first section of the Tenure-of-Office Act clearly excepted, and was intended by the Senate, to except Mr. Stanton and all other persons then in Mr.

Johnson's Cabinet who had been originally appointed by Mr. Lincoln and were still holding over under Mr. Johnson without having been recommissioned by him; and that Mr. Johnson had therefore the legal right and power to remove them at his pleasure.

And so convincing had been the argument of those gentlemen at that time, that there was unanimous consent on the pro-impeachment side of the Senate, on two different occasions, to set aside the First Article, of which the alleged unlawful attempt to remove Mr. Stanton was practically the princ.i.p.al accusation. Not illogically, that unanimous consent to abandon the First article by thus setting it aside, and afterwards refusing to put it to a vote, may be said to have been equivalent to a vote of its insufficiency.

It is pertinent to suggest here that the President believed the Tenure-of-Office Act to be unconst.i.tutional, as it was clearly an attempted abridgment of his power over his Cabinet which had never before been questioned by Congress. The only method left him for the determination of that question was in the course he took, except by an agreed case, but it is manifest from the record that no such agreement could be had, as an effort thereto was made in the Thomas case in the District Court, but failed, the prosecution withdrawing the case at the point where that purpose of the President became manifest.

The third count was:

Attempting to prevent the execution of the Army appropriation Act of March 2nd, 1867.

The means specified in this alleged attempt was the appointment of Mr.

Edward Cooper to be a.s.sistant Secretary of the Treasury, with power to draw warrants on the Treasury without the consent of the Secretary--the purpose being to show that, with General Thomas acting as Secretary of War, and Mr. Cooper as a.s.sistant Secretary of the Treasury to honor General Thomas' drafts, and thus, in control of expenditures for the support of the Army, a conspiracy was sought to be proven whereby the President intended and expected to defeat the Reconstruction Acts of Congress by preventing the use of the Army for its enforcement.

Mr. Johnson, of the Court, asked this question:

The Managers are requested to say whether they propose to show whether Mr. Cooper was appointed by the President in November, 1867, as a means to obtain unlawful possession of the public money, other than by the fact of the appointment itself?

Mr. Manager Butler answered:

We certainly do.

Mr. Butler read the law on this subject, pa.s.sed March 2nd, 1867, as follows:

That the Secretary of the Treasury shall have power, by appointment under his hand and official seal, to delegate to one of the a.s.sistant Secretaries of the Treasury authority to sign in his stead all warrants for the payment of money into the public Treasury and all warrants for the disbursments from the public Treasury of money certified by the accounting officers of the Treasury to be due upon accounts duly audited and settle by them; and such warrants signed shall be in all cases of the same validity as if they had been signed by the Secretary of the Treasury himself.

Mr. William E. Chandler, who had been a.s.sistant Secretary of the Treasury, was on the witness stand, called by the prosecution. Mr.

Butler asked whether it was the practice of the a.s.sistant Secretary to act as Secretary in case of removal of the Secretary.

Answer: I am not certain that it is, without his appointment as Acting Secretary by the President.

Mr. Fessenden, of the Court, propounded this interrogatory?

1st--Has it been the practice, since the pa.s.sage of the law, for an a.s.sistant Secretary to sign warrants unless especially appointed and authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury?

2nd--Has any a.s.sistant Secretary been authorized to sign any warrants except such as are specified in the Act?

The witness answered as to the first:

It has not been the practice for any a.s.sistant Secretary since the pa.s.sage of the Act to sign warrants except upon an appointment by the Secretary for that purpose in accordance with the provisions of the Act.

Immediately upon the pa.s.sage of the Act, the Secretary authorized one of his a.s.sistant Secretaries to sign warrants of the character described in the Act, and they have been customarily signed by that a.s.sistant Secretary in all cases since that time.

As to the second question the answer was:

No a.s.sistant Secretary has been authorized to sign warrants except such as are specified in this Act, unless when acting as Secretary.

That disposed of the third count in the Eleventh Article, and the testimony was rejected by a vote of yeas 22, nays 27.

These answers to tire interrogatories seemed to prove the reverse of what the Prosecution had expected. The accusation of the Third count was not sustained.

As to the Fourth count of the Eleventh Article, that Mr. Johnson sought to prevent the execution of the "Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States," pa.s.sed March 2nd, 1867, by the removal of Mr. Stanton from the War Office, the proceedings of the trial disclose no testimony of a sufficiently direct character for specification, except, possibly, a number of speeches delivered at different points by Mr. Johnson, which are set out in the Tenth Article of the Impeachment. As that Article was by unanimous consent abandoned and never put to vote, all its allegations logically fell as unproven.

There was, therefore, no force and little coherency in the Eleventh Article. It fell of its own weight. Every one of its several averments had been disproven, or at least not proven. It was to a good degree a summing up--an aggregation, of the entire bill of indictment on the several distinct forms of offenses charged--a crystallization of the whole.

The entire impeachment scheme was in reality beaten by the vote on that Article, and the adjournment of ten days then taken could have been only in the hope on the part of the majority that ultimate success on some one of the remaining Articles could be made possible, in some way, legitimate or otherwise, in part by the importunate throng of visitors to the Capitol who were vociferously and vindictively urging Mr.

Johnson's removal largely for reasons personal to themselves--but more especially through the efforts of the House of Representatives to discipline one or more of the anti-impeaching Republicans of the Senate.

The allegation of the Second Article, put to vote on the 26th, and beaten by the same vote as was the Eleventh, was a corollary of the First-violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act in the appointment of General Thomas as Secretary of War ad interim, WITHOUT THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE SENATE. This was the first declaration ever made in the Senate that an ad interim or merely temporary appointment to fill a vacancy, required confirmation by that body. The power to make such an appointment is so clearly possessed by the President without consultation of the Senate-had been so uniformly exercised by every preceding President without question, that argument on that point would be superfluous.

In reality the essence of the Second Article, as of the First, was the removal of Mr. Stanton. If the President could remove him without the consent of the Senate, which was clearly established in the debate in the conference by Messrs. Sherman and Howe, the way was clear for the appointment of an act interim Secretary, to the end that the office be filled until such time as the President would be prepared to refill the place with a Secretary on consultation with the Senate. That was the very thing he attempted to do on the 22nd of February, the day after Mr.

Stanton's removal, when he sent to the Senate the nomination of Thomas Ewing, Senior, to be Secretary of War, for the action of that body.

The Third Article was so closely a.n.a.lagous to the Second, that an a.n.a.lysis of it would be in the nature of repet.i.tion. If there were any distinctions between them, they were so finely drawn that they amounted simply to a distinction without a difference--a characteristic, indeed, of a large part of the eleven Articles of Impeachment--a characteristic so conspicuous that it was not deemed worth while by the majority to go further in their submission to the Court.