Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2)

J >> James Gillespie Blaine >> Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2)

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72

The great trial was over, and the President retained his high office.
In the ranks of the more radical portion of the Republican party there
was an outbreak of indignation against the Republican senators who had
voted "_Not guilty_." In the exaggerated denunciations caused by the
anger and chagrin of the moment, great injustice was done to statesmen
of spotless character. But until time had been given for reflection
on the part of the excited mass of disappointed men, it was idle to
interpose a word in defense, much less in justification, of the
senators who had conscientiously differed from the main body of their
political associates. While, however, the majority of Republicans
shared in the chagrin caused by the defeat of Impeachment, a large and
increasing number of the cool-headed and more conservative members of
the party rejoiced at the result as a fortunate exit from an
indefensible position, which had been taken in the heat of just
resentment against the President for his desertion of those important
principles of public policy to which he had been solemnly pledged.
Still another class, even more numerous than the last-named, took a
less conscientious but more sanguine view of the situation--rejoicing
both in the act of Impeachment and in the failure to convict. Their
specious belief was that the narrow escape which the President had made
would frighten him out of all mischievous designs for the remainder of
his term; while the narrow escape which the party had made, left to it
in the impending Presidential contest all the advantage of a political
power so firmly held by Congress, and at the same time imposed upon the
Democrats the responsibility for a discredited and disgraced
Administration of the Government.

The sober reflection of later years has persuaded many who favored
Impeachment that it was not justifiable on the charges made, and that
its success would have resulted in greater injury to free institutions
than Andrew Johnson in his utmost endeavor was able to inflict. No
impartial reader can examine the record of the pleadings and arguments
of the Managers who appeared on behalf of the House, without feeling
that the President was impeached for one series of misdemeanors, and
tried for another series. This was perhaps not unnatural. The
Republicans had the gravest cause to complain of the President's course
on public affairs. He had professed the most radical creed of their
party, had sought their confidence, had received their suffrages.
Entrusted with the chief Executive power of the Nation by Republican
ballots, he professed upon his accession to office the most entire
devotion to the principles of the party; but he had, with a baseness
hardly to be exaggerated, repudiated his professions, deserted the
friends who had confided in him, and made an alliance with those who
had been the bitterest foes of the Union in the bloody struggle which
had just closed.

In the outraged and resentful minds of those who had sustained the
Union cause through its trials, the real offenses of the President
were clearly seen, and bitterly denounced:--his hostility to the
Fourteenth Amendment; his unwillingness to make citizenship National;
his opposition to all efforts to secure the safety of the public debt,
and the sacredness of the soldier's pension; his resistance to measures
that would put the rebel debt beyond the possibility of being a burden
upon the whole nation or even upon the people of the Southern States;
his determination that freedmen should not be placed within the
protection of Organic law; his eagerness to turn the Southern States
over to the control of the rebel element, without condition and without
restraint; his fixed hostility to every form of reconstruction that
looked to national safety and the prevention of another rebellion; his
opposition to every scheme that tended to equalize representation in
Congress, North and South, and his persistent demand that the negro
should be denied suffrage, yet be counted in the basis of
apportionment; his treacherous and malignant conduct in connection with
the atrocious massacre at New Orleans; his hostility to the growth of
free States in the North-West, while he was constantly urging the
instant re-admission of all the rebel States; his denial of a morsel
of food to the suffering and starving negro and white Unionist of
the South in their dire extremity, as shown by his veto of the
Freedmen's-bureau Bill; his cruel attempt to exclude the colored man
from the power to protect himself by law, in his shameless veto of the
Civil Rights Bill; and last, and worst of all, his heartless abandonment
of that Union-loving class of white men in the South who became the
victims of rebel hatred, from which he had himself escaped only by the
strength of the National arms. In recounting all the acts which made
up the roll of his political dishonor, Johnson had, in Republican
opinion, committed none so hideous as his turning over the Southern
Unionists to the vengeance of those who, as he well knew, were
incapable of dealing with them in a spirit of justice, and who were
unwilling to show mercy, even after they had themselves received it in
quality that was not strained.

Could the President have been legally and constitutionally impeached
for these offenses he should not have been allowed to hold his office
for an hour beyond the time required for a fair trial. But the
Articles of Impeachment did not even refer to any charge of this kind,
and a stranger to our history, in perusing them, could not possibly
infer that behind the legal verbiage of the Articles there was in the
minds of the representatives who presented them a deadly hostility to
the President for offenses totally different from the technical
violation of a statue, for which he was arraigned,--a statute that
never ought to have been enacted, as was practically confessed by its
framers, when, within less than a year after the Impeachment trial had
closed, they modified its provisions by taking away their most
offensive features.

The charges on which the House actually arraigned the President were
in substance, that he had violated the Tenure-of-office Act; that he
had conspired with Lorenzo Thomas to violate it; that he had consulted
with General Emory to see whether, independent of the General-in-Chief,
he could not issue orders to the army to aid him in his determination
to violate it; and lastly, that he had spoken of Congress in such a
manner as tended to bring a co-ordinate branch of the Government into
"disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach." The charge of
conspiring with Lorenzo Thomas, as well as that in respect to General
Emory, appeared in the end to be not only unsustained, but trivial.
The President had conspired in precisely the same way with General
Sherman when he urged him to accept the post of Secretary of War as Mr.
Stanton's successor. The charge that he had attempted to bring
Congress into "disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach," was
laughingly answered in popular opinion, by the fact that he not been
able to say half so many bitter things about Congress as Congress had
said about him; and that, as the elections had shown, Congress had
triumphed, and turned the popular contempt and ridicule against the
President. Besides, the offense charged against the President had been
committed nearly two years before, and seemed to be recalled now for
popular effect in the construction of the Articles of Impeachment.
This charge richly deserved the satire it received at the hands of
Judge Curtis when he spoke of "the House of Representatives erecting
itself into a school of manners, and desiring the judgment of the
Senate whether the President has not been guilty of an indecorum;
whether he has spoken properly?" . . . "Considering the nature of our
government," said Judge Curtis, "and the experience we have had on this
subject, that is a pretty lofty claim!"

In fact there was but one charge of any gravity against the President
--that of violating the Tenure-of-office Act. But on the charge there
was a very grave difference of opinion among those equally competent
to decide. Mr. Fessenden, one of the ablest lawyers, if not indeed the
very ablest that has sat in the Senate since Mr. Webster, believed on
his oath and his honor--an oath that was sacred and an honor that was
stainless--that the President had a lawful and Constitutional right to
remove Mr. Stanton at the time and in the manner he did. Mr. Trumbull,
whose legal ability had been attested by his assignment to the
chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, believed with Mr. Fessenden,
as did Mr. Grimes of Iowa, one of the strongest members of the Senate,
and Mr. Henderson of Missouri, whose legal attainments have since given
him a high professional reputation. Let it be frankly admitted that
lawyers of equal rank conscientiously believed in the President's
guilt. This only proves that there was ground for a substantial and
fundamental difference of opinion, and that it could not therefore with
certainty be charged that the President, "unmindful of the high duties
of his office, did this act in violation of the Constitution of the
United States." This was the very question in dispute,--the question
in regard to which lawyers of eminent learning and impartial mind,
members of the Republican party and zealous opponents of the
President's policy, radically differed in judgment. Opinions of
distinguished lawyers on the Democratic side of the Senate, like
Reverdy Johnson, are not quoted, because partisan motives would be
ascribed to their conclusions.

Perhaps the best test as to whether the act of the President in
removing Mr. Stanton was good ground for impeachment, would be found
in asking any candid man if he believes a precisely similar act by
Mr. Lincoln, or General Grant, or any other President in harmony with
his party in Congress, would have been followed by impeachment, or by
censure, or even by dissent. It is hardly conceivable, nay, it is
impossible, that under such circumstances the slightest notice would be
taken of the President's action by either branch of Congress. If there
was a difference of opinion as to the intent and meaning of a law, the
general judgment in the case supposed would be that the President had
the right to act upon his own conscientious construction of the
statute. It might not be altogether safe to concede to the Executive
the broad scope of discretion which General Jackson arrogated to
himself in his celebrated veto of the Bank Bill, when he declared that
"The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be
guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer
who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will
support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by
others." But without approving the extreme doctrine which General
Jackson announced with the applause of his party, it is surely not an
unreasonable assumption that in the case of a statute which has had no
judicial interpretation and whose meaning is not altogether clear,
the President is not to be impeached for acting upon his own
understanding of its scope and intent:--especially is he not to be
impeached when he offers to prove that he was sustained in his opinion
by every member of his Cabinet, and offers further to prove by the
same honorable witnesses that he took the step in order to subject the
statute in dispute to judicial interpretation.

It is to be noted that in the progress of the trial the Managers on the
part of the House and the counsel of the President proceeded upon
entirely different ground as to what constituted an offense punishable
with impeachment. General Butler, who opened the case against the
President with circumspection and ability, took care to exclude the
idea that actual crime on the part of the officer was essential to
justify impeachment. Speaking for all the Managers he said, "We define
an impeachable high crime or misdemeanor to be one in its nature or
consequences subversive of some fundamental or essential principle of
government _or highly prejudicial to the public interest; and this may
consist of a violation of the Constitution, of law, of an official
oath, or of duty, by an act committed or omitted; or, without violating
a positive law, by the abuse of discretionary powers from improper
motives or for any improper purpose_." This of course would give
great latitude in proceedings against the President. It would
challenge his discretion, erect sins of omission into positive
offenses, and make inquest of his motives and purposes. There has not
been an occupant of the Executive Chair since the organization of the
Government, who did not at some period in his career commit an act
which in the judgment of his political opponents was "highly
prejudicial to the public interest," and therefore if his opponents
should happen to be in the majority they might impeach him, simply
for disagreement upon an issue of expediency upon which men equally
competent to judge might reasonable and conscientiously hold different
opinions. This was in effect the same position assumed by Mr. Thaddeus
Stevens, that "in order to sustain impeachment under the Constitution
it is not necessary to prove a crime as an indictable offense, or any
act _malum in se_. It is a purely _political_ proceeding." The
counsel for the President dissented altogether from this definition of
the grounds of Impeachment as given by the Managers. Judge Curtis
declared that "when the Constitution speaks of treason, bribery, and
other high crimes and misdemeanors, it refers to and includes only
high criminal offenses against the United states, made so by some law
of the United States existing when the acts complained of were done. .
. . _Noscitur a sociis_. High crimes and misdemeanors! so high that
they belong in this company with _treason_ and _bribery_." The
position of Judge Curtis was fortified by the fact that in the five
cases of Impeachment trial before the President was accused--the cases
of Blount, of Pickering, of Chase, of Peck, and of Humphries--the
charges preferred by the House involved criminality.

Outside of professional opinion there was supposed to be a popular
demand, so far as the Republican party represented the people, for the
President's conviction--a demand found to be based, when analyzed, upon
other acts of the President than those for which he was arraigned in
the Articles of Impeachment. The people in this respect followed
precisely in the line of their Representatives. It was certainly not
a praiseworthy procedure that this supposed popular wish should have
been mentioned at all as an argument for conviction. The most
dignified of the many comments which this feature of the trial elicited
was by Senator Fessenden, in the official _opinion_ which accompanied
his vote:--"To the suggestion that popular opinion demands the
conviction of the President on these charges, I reply that he is not
now on trial before the people, but before the Senate. In the words of
Lord Eldon, upon the trial of the Queen, 'I take no notice of what is
passing out of doors, because I am supposed constitutionally not to be
acquainted with it. . . . It is the duty of those upon whom a judicial
task is imposed to meet reproach, and not to court popularity.' . . .
_The people_ have not taken an oath to do impartial justice according
to the Constitution and the law. _I have_ taken that oath."

The trial of President Johnson is the most memorable attempt made by
any English-speaking people to depose a sovereign ruler in strict
accordance with all forms of law. The order, dignity and solemnity
which marked the proceedings may therefore be realized with pride by
every American citizen. From the beginning to the end there was no
popular menace, or even suggestion of disturbance or violence, let the
trial end as it might. If the President had been convicted he would
have quietly retired from the Executive Mansion and Benjamin F. Wade,
President of the Senate, sworn by the Chief Justice in the presence
of the two Houses of Congress, would have assumed the power and
performed the duties of Chief Magistrate of the Nation. During the
original agitation of Impeachment in the House of Representatives some
imprudent expressions had been made by hot-headed partisans, in regard
to the right of the President to disperse Congress and appeal directly
to the people to vindicate his title to his office. But these
declarations were of no weight and their authors would have promptly
retracted them in the hour of danger.

The time within which the trial of the President was comprised, from
the presentation of the charges by the House of Representatives until
the final adjournment of the Senate as a Court of Impeachment, was
eighty-two days. Within that period the amplest opportunity was
afforded to submit testimony and to hear the pleas of counsel. The
gravity of the procedure was fully realized by all who took part in it,
and no pains were spared to secure the observance of every
Constitutional requirement to the minutest detail. In conserving its
own prerogatives Congress made no attempt to curtail the prerogatives
of the President during his trial. The army and the navy were under
his control, together with the power to change that vast host of
Federal officers and employees whose appointment does not require the
confirmation of the Senate. Confidence in the reign of law was so
absolute that no one ever dreamed it possible for the President to
resist the force of its silent decree against him if one more voice in
the Senate had pronounced him guilty.

The trial of Warren Hastings is always quoted as a precedent of
imposing authority and consequence. But that was simply the
arraignment of a subordinate official, upon charges of peculation and
cruelty--misdemeanors not uncommon with the Englishmen of that day who
were entrusted with Colonial administration. The great length of the
Hastings trial, and especially the participation of Edmund Burke as
original accuser and chief manager, have given it an extraneous
importance to students of English history and law. The Articles of
Impeachment, drawn by Mr. Burke, were presented at the bar of the House
of Lords in April, 1786. They were so elaborate as to fill a stately
octavo volume of five hundred pages. Mr. Burke's opening speech was
not made for two years thereafter, and his closing plea was made in
June 1794. During these eight years his splendid eloquence was the
admiration and pride of the English people, and gave to the arraignment
of Hastings an extrinsic interest far beyond the real importance. It
bore no comparison in any of its essential aspects with a change of
Rulership in a Republic of forty millions of people. Scarcely an
incident of Hastings' life in India would be known to the popular
reader, except for the association of his name with the most celebrated
period of Mr. Burke's majestic career. Baron Plassy, a far greater
man in the same field of achievement, is, compared with Hastings,
little known--the title not being remembered even by the mass of his
countrymen to-day as part of the reward to Robert Clive for founding
the British Empire in India.

But the importance of the President's Impeachment does not depend upon
the fame of his accusers or upon the length of his trial. The case in
itself possesses intrinsic and enduring interest. It was not affected
by factitious circumstances. It is notable especially because of the
extreme tension to which it subjected the Constitution, and the
attestation it affords of the restraint which a free people
instinctively impose upon themselves in times of public excitement.
It will be studied as a precedent, or as a warning, by the citizens of
the Great Republic during the centuries through which, God grant, it
may pass with increasing prosperity and renown. And it may well happen
that in the crises of a distant future the momentous trial of 1868,
though properly resulting in acquittal of the accused, will be recalled
as demonstrating the ease and the serenity with which, if necessity
should demand it, the citizens of a free country can lawfully deprive
a corrupt or dangerous Executive of the office he has dishonored and
the power he has abused.

Mr. Stanton promptly resigned his post when the Impeachment failed and
returned to private life and to the practice of his profession. He was
accompanied into his retirement by a vote of thanks from Congress for
"the great ability, purity and fidelity with which he had discharged
his public duties"; and in confirming his successor, the Senate adopted
a resolution that Mr. Stanton was not legally removed, but had
relinquished his office. He was broken in health and very keenly
disappointed by the failure of the Impeachment. He supported General
Grant for the Presidency and made one or two important public speeches
in aid of his election. On the 20th of December, 1869, he was
appointed by President Grant an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
of the United States. For many years of his eminent professional life
this high judicial position was the one ambition which Mr. Stanton had
cherished. But its realization came too late. His prolonged labors,
his anxieties and his disappointments had done their work, and on the
24th of December, five days after he had completed his fifty-fifth
year, he sank to his grave, after herculean labors for the safety and
honor of his country.

General John M. Schofield was nominated by the President as Mr.
Stanton's successor and was confirmed by the Senate. He had an
unexceptional record as a soldier, was a man of spotless personal
character, and possessed of sound judgment and discretion. His ability
for civil administration had been tested and satisfactorily
demonstrated during his command of the District of Virginia in the
period of reconstruction, and also in a certain degree during the war
when Mr. Lincoln entrusted to him the difficult task of preserving
loyal ascendency in Missouri. He took charge of the War Department at
a difficult and critical time, but his administration of it was in all
respects successful and received the commendation of fair-minded men in
all parties.

Immediately after his acquittal the President renominated Mr. Stanbery
for Attorney-General. The Senate, in a spirit of resentment not
altogether praiseworthy or intelligible, rejected him. It was rumored
that Mr. Stanbery's previous course as Attorney-general "in construing
the Reconstruction Acts" had given offense to certain senators. No
reason, however, was assigned and indeed no good reason could be given,
for this personal injustice to an able lawyer and an honorable man. He
was simply a victim to the political excitement of the hour. Upon Mr.
Stanbery's rejection the President nominated Mr. Evarts to his first
official position under the National Government. He was promptly
confirmed, and, it need not be added, discharged the duties of
Attorney-General with eminent ability and with a popularity which
tended to re-establish in some degree those relations of personal
courtesy always so desirable between Congress and the Executive
Departments.

[(1) The following is General Grant's testimony in full, touching the
point referred to. It was given under oath before the Judiciary
Committee on the 18th of July, 1867.

MR. BOUTWELL: "Have you at any time heard the President make any
remark in reference to the admission of members of Congress from the
rebel States into either House?"

GENERAL GRANT: "I cannot say positively what I have heard him say on
the subject. I have heard him say as much, perhaps, in his published
speeches last summer, as I ever heard him say at all upon that subject.
I have heard him say--and I think I have heard him say it twice in his
speeches--that if the North carried the elections by members enough
to give them, with the Southern members, a majority, why would they
not be the Congress of the United States? I have heard him say that
several times."

MR. THOMAS WILLIAMS: "When you say 'the North,' you mean the
Democratic party of the North; or, in other words, the party favoring
his policy?"

GENERAL GRANT: "I mean if the North carried enough members in favor
of the admission of the South. I did not hear him say that he would
recognize them as the Congress. I merely heard him ask the question,
'Why would they not be the Congress?'"

MR. JAMES F. WILSON: "When did you hear him say that?"

GENERAL GRANT: "I heard him say that in one or two of his speeches.
I do not recollect when."

MR. BOUTWELL: "Have you heard him make a remark kindred to that
elsewhere?"

GENERAL GRANT: "Yes, I have heard him say that, aside from his
speeches, in conversation. I cannot say just when: it was probably
about that same time."

MR. BOUTWELL: "Have you heard him at any time make any remark or
suggestion concerning the legality of Congress with the Southern
members excluded?"