After Lincoln

by A. J. Langguth

Put in charge of abandoned plantations in the Mississippi Valley during the war, Thomas had sided with white plantation owners against the newly freed slaves until he was overruled in Washington. Thomas revealed an obvious nostalgia for the sluggish pace at the War Department under Simon Cameron, and Stanton felt only contempt for him.

  Describing Thomas as “only fit for presiding over a crypt of Egyptian mummies like himself,” Stanton had once threatened to “pick Lorenzo Thomas up with a pair of tongs and drop him from the nearest window.”

  For his part, Thomas was either more forgiving or well lubricated. He confessed that “Stanton is an enigma to me. He has no manners, and treats persons rudely, and yet he appears kind.”

  President Johnson understood that Thomas was no scrapper, but he promised to be a docile interim appointment until Johnson could prevail on General William Sherman to sign on as secretary. As Stanton sensed, it had come down to a matter of respect: Andrew Johnson’s self-respect demanded that Stanton be fired. And Johnson expected that “the nation would entertain sufficient respect for the Chief Magistrate to uphold him.”

  At 9 a.m. on Friday, February 21, 1868, Johnson summoned Lorenzo Thomas for his next defiant move. Inadvertently, however, Thomas had deprived the president of the advantage of surprise. On Wednesday, while looking up the text of the tenure law, he had confided Johnson’s scheme to a colleague.

  As a result, Stanton was prepared when Thomas knocked on the door of the war secretary’s office. Told to enter, Thomas came into the room as Stanton rose from his couch to receive him. Formally, Thomas said, “I am directed by the President to hand you this.”

  Stanton accepted the order dismissing him and seemed to study it intently. With no change of expression, he said, “Do you wish me to vacate at once, or am I to be permitted to stay long enough to remove my property?”

  Relieved at Stanton’s mild reaction, Thomas said, “Certainly, at your pleasure.” He handed over Johnson’s second directive, naming Thomas as secretary, and suspected nothing when Stanton requested a copy.

  But while Thomas left to have the copy made, Stanton huddled with General Grant, who agreed that Stanton should not vacate the office.

  Returning with the copy, Thomas found a different reception. “I want some little time for reflection,” Stanton now said sharply. “I don’t know whether I shall obey your order or not.” He added that until he made up his mind, Thomas was forbidden to issue any orders.

  That was not a message Thomas wanted to carry back to the White House. Meeting with Johnson in the early afternoon, he let the president believe that all had gone well. Johnson told him to occupy the secretary’s office the next day.

  Johnson went to report to his cabinet that he had prevailed and that “Stanton seemed calm and submissive.” In that jubilant mood, he sent to the Senate an account of what he had done.

  But Stanton had already informed his allies, and a Radical Pennsylvania congressman, John Covode, had introduced a resolution to impeach. By the time Johnson’s message arrived, the Senate was meeting in executive session to weigh its course of action.

  Stanton sent his son to the Capitol to monitor events, and at 3 p.m. Edwin reported that the prevailing sentiment was that “you ought to hold on to the point of expulsion” until the Senate could act. Senators were sending their own messages of support, and Charles Sumner condensed his advice to one terse word: “Stick!”

  Emboldened, Stanton wrote out an order for Grant, as head of the army, to arrest Thomas “for disobedience to superior authority in refusing to obey my orders as Secretary of War.”

  Grant hurried to Stanton’s office, drew him away from the men gathered there, and spoke with him in private for half an hour. Stanton had assumed that Grant respected him, but he was asking the nation’s premier soldier to flout the president of the United States.

  Stanton got his answer when Grant tore up the directive and went back to his own office. Night was approaching, and Stanton was prepared to sleep on his office couch, as he had done for many wartime nights as he awaited news from the battlefield.

  Since his conversation with Stanton, Grant was refusing to receive calls, but he agreed to meet with Charles Sumner and a delegation of flustered Republican senators. Sumner said afterward that the general had reassured them by asking, How or when would the president get the soldiers to remove Stanton? From his question, the senators inferred that Grant would refuse to issue any order to evict Stanton by force.

  All the same, reports circulated that Thomas was ready to pounce during the weekend commemorating George Washington’s birthday. Stanton told his Senate callers that “Thomas is boasting that he intends to take possession of the war office at 9 tomorrow morning.”

  How could he continue to resist, Stanton asked, if the Senate had not backed him up? Within an hour of his plea, the Senate decreed, on a straight party-line vote, that Johnson could neither remove Stanton nor replace him with Lorenzo Thomas.

  Buoyed by that assurance, Stanton vowed to occupy the war office night and day until the issue was resolved. Two congressmen gathered together a hundred fellow members to protect him, and Grant invested a guard unit with authority to summon every soldier to the War Department.

  If Andrew Johnson intended to launch a second civil war, Stanton and the Congress would be ready.

  At 8 a.m. on Washington’s birthday, Lorenzo Thomas was awakened by an assistant United States marshal and a local policeman. Thomas learned that David Carter, a District of Columbia judge, was standing by to take the actions that Grant had refused.

  Judge Carter had accepted Stanton’s affidavit that Thomas violated the tenure law by trying to take control of the War Department, and Carter issued a warrant for Thomas’s arrest.

  While Stanton was barricaded in his office the previous night, Thomas had gone to a masked ball. After many drinks, he had boasted to the other guests that if Stanton should refuse to open his door, he would break it down.

  The next morning, Thomas was suffering the effects of his revelry when the two arresting officials showed up before he had breakfast. They agreed to let him stop by the White House on his way to court and alert the president about his arrest. Impatient to get the issue before the courts, Johnson refused to intervene.

  Two friendly tradesmen were on hand when Judge Carter heard the charges, and they put up Thomas’s five-thousand-dollar bail. Thomas notified the president that he was free and set off for the War Department with a new resolve.

  And yet, unlike his brash talk the previous night, Thomas was subdued when he confronted Stanton. The two men exchanged good mornings. Thomas indicated the group around Stanton and said he did not want to interrupt. “Nothing private here,” Stanton said briskly. “What do you want?”

  Among the onlookers was a Republican congressman with an ear for dialogue and a knowledge of shorthand. His notes allowed the New York Times to present the scene as political theater:

  “Thomas: I am Secretary of War ad interim, and am ordered by the president of the United States to take charge of this office.

  “Stanton: I deny your authority to act and order you to repair to your room and exercise your functions as adjutant-general of the army.

  “Thomas: I am Secretary of War ad interim, and I shall not obey your orders, but I shall stand here. I want no unpleasantness in the presence of these gentlemen.

  “Stanton: You can stand there if you please, but you cannot act as Secretary of War. I am Secretary of War. I order you to repair to your office as adjutant-general.

  “Thomas: I refuse to do so, and will stand here.

  “Stanton: You shall not, and I order you, as your superior, back to your own office.

  “Thomas: I refuse to do so and will stand here.

  “Stanton: How are you to get possession? Do you intend to use force?

  “Thomas: I do not care to use force, but my mind is made up as to what I shall do. I want no unpleasantness, though I shall stay here and act as Secretary of War.”<
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  They repeated the gist of that exchange, and then Thomas crossed the hall to demand to be given the department’s mail. As Stanton followed after him, the absurdity of the situation struck them. Thomas reported later that he told Stanton, “The next time you have me arrested, please do not do it before I get something to eat.”

  At that, Stanton reverted to his usual patronizing tone with Thomas, laying his hand on the nape of Thomas’s neck and running his fingers through his hair. Turning to an aide, General Edmund Schriver, Stanton said, “Schriver, you have got a bottle here. Bring it out.”

  Schriver’s bottle turned out to be nearly empty. Stanton sent out for another. As he poured out their drinks, Stanton said, “Now this, at least, is neutral ground.”

  Courage restored, Thomas returned to the White House for the harder task of reporting that Stanton would not budge.

  • • •

  The congeniality at the War Department had not reached to the Capitol. Hundreds of spectators had to be turned away from the House galleries, avid for the next act in the constitutional drama. The New York Times reporter was convinced that “if any one believes what he sees with his own eyes and hears with his own ears, Mr. Johnson’s term of office is likely soon to come to a miserable, mortifying and ignominious end.”

  One Democrat loyal to Johnson tried to buy time by calling on the House to listen to a reading of Washington’s Farewell Address and then adjourn. Republicans beat back that motion.

  At 2 p.m., journalists reported “a buzz of excitement” as members of Thaddeus Stevens’s Reconstruction Committee filed onto the House floor. The Speaker admonished House members and the crammed galleries to show neither approval nor disapproval during the debate.

  From the gas lamps glowing in the early dusk, Stevens appeared trembling and weak as he rose to speak. That morning, his committee had met at his house, where they overrode the protests of their two Democratic members and voted for impeachment.

  Stevens had sent for certified copies of Johnson’s order removing Stanton and directing Lorenzo Thomas to assume the duties of the secretary of war. Those orders constituted the proof the Republicans would present to support the resolution for impeachment that Stevens had crafted months before.

  With his committee’s report read, Stevens yielded the floor but reserved the right to offer closing arguments. New York’s Senator James Brooks, the Democratic leader in the House, sounded the alarm that had been circulating throughout the city, even though the president had let it be understood that he wanted to resolve the impasse in the courts, not by force. Brooks called Stanton’s refusal to resign “arrogant, impertinent and insolent” and claimed that 80 percent of the army were fellow Democrats who would remain loyal to Johnson. If the president were to be impeached, Brooks vowed, “We will never, never—so help me, God!—never, never submit!”

  Another New York Democrat took up his theme that Americans were approaching the French Revolution and would be “baptized in blood.” He claimed that “Robespierre, Marat and Danton were less vindictive” than the Radicals—“and the bloody rule of the Jacobins was mild compared to that which is sought.”

  The chamber echoed with accusations until 11:15 p.m., when the House adjourned until ten o’clock on Monday morning.

  At the White House, Washington’s birthday had begun with Gideon Welles showing up to say that his son had heard that army officers had been ordered to their barracks and might be sent to stage a coup d’etat and take Johnson prisoner.

  Johnson found the threat sufficiently real to call in the commander of the Washington garrison, who assured him that no plot was under way. In the course of the day, Johnson told a friendly reporter that he was untroubled by the prospect of impeachment. At the same time, he was dispatching messengers to the Capitol for fresh news of the debate.

  At one point, Johnson became enough distressed to take the advice of Attorney General Henry Stanbery and nominate a man more plausible than Lorenzo Thomas as secretary of war. Johnson sent to the Senate the name of Thomas Ewing, a conservative Ohio Republican of seventy-eight. But most senators were in the House chamber, listening to the impeachment debate, and Ewing’s nomination went undelivered.

  As congressmen were preparing to adjourn until Monday, the president was mulling over other strategies for saving his job. At a late hour, he left a dinner for the diplomatic corps and received Sam Ward, a pro-Southern Democrat. Notorious as “king of the lobby,” Ward exerted his influence on behalf of bankers and gold traders. Now he advised Johnson to begin putting together a legal defense team—half Republicans, half Democrats.

  The next evening, with Congress in its Sunday recess, Johnson’s caller was Perry Fuller, a Kansan who was widely understood to have made his fortune at the expense of Indian tribes. Fuller had already bribed enough clerks to control the department of Indian Affairs, but he was angling for the lucrative office of commissioner of internal revenue. Now he volunteered his services in the showdown ahead. Fuller could boast political friendships with a number of congressmen, including Kansas senator Edmund Ross.

  By 4:30 p.m. on Monday, February 24, 1868, with passions spent on both sides, Thaddeus Stevens rose to deliver the coup de grace. He began his remarks in a low, unsteady voice but quickly surrendered his speech to be read by the clerk of the House. Stevens assured his listeners unconvincingly that the impeachment was not motivated by personal animus, although he added that by shirking its obligation, the Congress guaranteed that the continent would be “a nest of shrinking, cowardly slaves.”

  As for the president, Stevens charged that Johnson had undertaken to rule alone over “the conquered country” of “the so-called Confederate States of America.” When Congress had admonished him directly, “he disregarded the warning and continued his lawless usurpation.”

  Stevens concluded, “If Andrew Johnson escapes with bare removal from office, if he be not fined and incarcerated in the penitentiary afterward under criminal proceedings, he may thank the weakness or the clemency of Congress, and not his own innocence.”

  The party-line vote on adopting the impeachment resolution was foreordained: 126 to 47. The Republicans chose Stevens and Ohio representative John A. Bingham, leader of the House conservative faction, to deliver official notice of impeachment to the Senate. The two men would also serve on a House committee of seven managers and prepare the formal charges.

  Stevens was carried in an armchair to the Senate. Once there, he rose to his feet, leaning for support on Bingham on one side and his cane on the other, and delivered the House indictment in a firm voice that reached through the chamber.

  When the case against Andrew Johnson was ready, the president would be tried before a frankly political jury of senators. Presiding would be another political enemy, U.S. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase.

  • • •

  For Chase, his high rank represented a consolation prize. During his last turbulent year as Lincoln’s secretary of the Treasury, Chase had tried to bully the president once too often and wound up losing his cabinet position.

  The way Lincoln resolved their latest dispute recalled his approach when Chase had led the congressional charge against Henry Seward. This time, the immediate cause of their standoff had been fairly trivial. Chase had insisted on a promotion for a lightly qualified protégé against the opposition of powerful New Yorkers, including Seward and Thurlow Weed.

  Sure that he could assert himself and force the president to back down, Chase submitted his fourth letter of resignation. But Lincoln did not forget that Chase had conspired to replace him as the 1864 Republican nominee for president. Finding limited support at the time, Chase had withdrawn his name and seemed to expect that his behavior would not disturb his relations with Lincoln.

  In that, he was wrong. The president bided his time, waited for Chase’s next letter of resignation, and accepted it. Lincoln explained privately that the Treasury secretary had “fallen into two bad habits. He thinks he has become indispensable to th
e country. He also thinks he ought to be President. He has no doubt whatsoever about that.”

  Nor was it unreasonable for Salmon Chase to believe that the presidency should cap a distinguished career. Born in 1808, he had graduated from Dartmouth College and gone on to study law in Washington with Attorney General William Wirt. Chase had been attracted to Wirt’s daughter, Elizabeth, but he had been convinced that his uncertain prospects made it futile to court her.

  He returned to Cincinnati to live with his widowed mother and her nine other children while he explored his opportunities as a lawyer. As his income rose in Ohio, Chase began to entertain thoughts of marriage again.

  When he was introduced to the eligible Catherine Garniss, the young woman did not race his pulse. He found “her features large and her face plain.” On her side, Catherine considered Chase presentable enough but uncouth and in need of social polishing.

  In time, they looked past appearances and discovered first friendship, then love. They were married in March 1834 by the Reverend Lyman Beecher. Chase knew the clergyman’s daughter, Harriet, as a fellow member of Cincinnati’s literary society, the Semi-Colon Club.

  Within twenty months of the wedding, Kitty Chase had given birth to a daughter and was dead from infection. During the next eleven years, Chase lost that daughter, along with his second wife, Eliza Ann Smith, and two of the three daughters she gave him. Chase soon married a third time. Sarah Belle Ludlow Chase bore two daughters, but only one of them survived during the six years before Sarah died of tuberculosis. At forty-four, Chase had been grieving half his life.

  Chase turned for solace to the Episcopal Church and to Ohio politics. He became a committed abolitionist as he rose through a succession of political parties—Whig, Free Soil, Liberty, Republican. Opposing slavery did not ensure popularity. Since early in the century, Ohio had been inhospitable to blacks, even requiring them to post a five-hundred-dollar bond before they could enter the state. Allowed in, they could neither vote nor hold office.

  Yet as a lawyer, Chase took up the cause of so many slaves escaping to Ohio from their owners in neighboring Kentucky that he became known as “the attorney general for runaway slaves.”