The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

by Stephen L Carter

  “So defending Mr. Lincoln is your own choice?”

  “I—yes, Mr. Sumner. It is.”

  “Why? Doesn’t it matter to you that he suspended habeas corpus and jailed political opponents? Or that he doesn’t seem to care what happens to the freedmen? Or that the Congress has twice adopted legislation concerning the manner in which the defeated South is to be reconstituted, and Mr. Lincoln has twice thanked us for our advice and told us that the question is military, and therefore none of our business?”

  Abigail composed her answer carefully. Sickles had told her only to try to feel Sumner out; he had never for an instant suggested that she try to persuade the great orator. And a side of her, faced with Sumner’s browbeating, understood that the greater part of valor would be laughing his question off. But at this moment the other side of her was dominant, the side that would not back down in the face of any white man’s presumption of intellectual superiority.

  “Whatever wrongs Mr. Lincoln may or may not have committed,” she said, “he has also committed the two greatest and most important acts any President has done, or is likely to do. He won the war to restore the Union. In the process, he forced an end to slavery.”

  Sumner was unimpressed. “Lincoln freed the slaves as a military necessity. He has said that over and over. It was not a moral crusade for him, any more than the war was. All was forced upon him.”

  Abigail noticed the guests moving toward the drawing room, where the great chess champion was about to give some sort of exhibition. Sumner did not budge. He seemed genuinely interested in her answer.

  “Senator,” she said, eyes glittering, “I cannot deny any of what you say. But why should the one whose yoke is broken care whether it was broken out of the proper motive? It would be far worse to wait another generation for a President whose motives are pure.”

  She spotted David Grafton across the room, in animated conversation with a young woman she did not recognize. For the briefest of instants she wondered again about the whispers of conspiracy: You do know David Grafton, do you not?

  “I would think,” said Sumner, “that the answer would depend on what happened to the man after the yoke was broken. A committed Abolitionist would take measures to ensure that the yoke would not, in some other guise, be restored. I am not persuaded that the President has done that. Indeed, I know that he has not.” She was about to respond, but he had tired of repartee. “Three times now, the Congress has presented a bill that would keep from ever holding office again all those who rebelled against the Union, or fought for the rebel side, or worked for the rebel government. Three times, Mr. Lincoln has refused to sign it. He is perfectly content to allow the same Southerners who rebelled to be mayors and governors and even Senators, so long as they swear they will not do it again, and that they are against slavery. Well, of course they will swear they are against slavery, since the Thirteenth Amendment abolished it a year and a half ago!”

  Grafton had noticed her. He flashed a friendly smile, and began to wend his way through the throng. Not wanting to speak to him, she tried to excuse herself. But Charles Sumner, by common consent the most eloquent man in the nation, had turned upon her the full force of his eloquence, and was not about to allow her to escape.

  “And there is another reason, Miss Canner, a problem of which Mr. Lincoln himself is aware. Never in the history of our Protestant Republic has one man gathered to himself as much power as the current occupant of the Executive Mansion. He has nearly sunk the other branches into irrelevance. In a parliamentary system, which I would prefer, such a thing would never happen. His own party would turn a prime minister out of office before allowing him to usurp the legislative function—”

  He stopped, and bowed. “I apologize, Miss Canner. At times I forget that I am not on the floor of the Senate.”

  She nodded, nervously. Grafton was nearly upon them. “I was under the impression that you had not made up your mind how to vote.”

  “And I have not. I have a great deal of thinking to do. I shall weigh the case with enormous care. Certainly the argument you have just offered will weigh heavily upon my judgment. Good evening, Mr. Grafton. As you well know, I have nothing to say to you.” Perfectly calm, Sumner turned his back: Abigail was impressed by the aggressive smoothness of this grave insult, and wished for a silly instant that she were a gentleman, so that she might try it.

  For the moment, however, having talked to the one man she had been ordered to talk to, Abigail faced the challenge of avoiding the one man she had been ordered to avoid.

  III

  David Grafton appeared not in the least offended by Sumner’s rudeness. The smile on the pale, crooked face projected the same feral air she remembered from their first meeting. “A pleasure to see you again, Miss Canner. I trust that you are enjoying yourself.”

  “I am indeed,” she said, backing away.

  Like a hunting cat, the crooked man followed her. He crowded her into a corner, where a bookshelf ended and a small corridor began. She smelled the cloying sweetness of breath freshened with the latest European import.

  “A pleasure,” he repeated, and then, to her surprise, he slipped past her, and into the hallway. She turned to see his crooked form wobbling its way along until, without breaking stride, he sidestepped through a door. The water closet, she told herself, except that she was fairly certain that while she was talking to Sumner, a young woman had slipped into that very room; and not emerged. Abigail had caught only a glimpse of the young woman and had not seen her face; but wanted very badly to know who she was.

  Later, Abigail would not be able to say quite what drove her forward. Curiosity, yes, certainly, but she was not one for great risk. The need to prove herself, perhaps by unraveling the great hidden conspiracy of which others whispered. The simple desire to get to the heart of the mystery that was David Grafton. And the conviction, perhaps fanciful, that even if Grafton was indeed the corrupt schemer others supposed, it was odd that he would risk, in the middle of a crowded reception, sneaking off to meet a woman half his age: for much of her understanding of the interaction between the sexes was still colored by lessons drawn from the pages of Peterson’s and McClure’s and the other magazines aimed at women of the rising middle classes.

  The drawing room was now nearly deserted, because the guests had moved into the parlor to watch the chess exhibition. Abigail gathered from the cheers that the great champion was winning. Satisfied that she was not observed, she crept into the short corridor. Two doors on the right, one on the left. Grafton, and the young woman before him, had entered the farther door on the right.

  Abigail crept down the hall until she was outside the room. The door was tightly shut. After a glance over her shoulder, she leaned in and pressed her ear to the dark polished wood. She could hear only a low murmur: no clear words.

  Frustration.

  She stepped back. Perhaps it would be best to re-join the party.

  Suddenly the door jerked open, and Abigail leaped away. She dashed into the room across the way—as it happened, the library. She closed the library door and peered through the crack. The unknown woman stood in the threshold of the opposite room, her back to Abigail. Grafton’s voice was as clear as a bell.

  “Then we are in agreement? Your doubts are assuaged?”

  The young woman whispered something Abigail did not catch.

  “You might imagine, my dear, that, because of who your father is, you cannot be reached. That would be a grave error.”

  Wiping tears from rosy cheeks, the young woman turned toward the light.

  “You are a monster,” said Bessie Hale, and swept off down the hall.

  IV

  “Please tell me it went well,” said Jonathan as a servant helped Abigail into her coat. “Your conversation with Sumner. You had half the room watching.”

  “He said he has not made up his mind. He said he will give the matter careful consideration.”

  “So much we knew already.”

  “The
n we are no worse off,” she said, more coldly than either expected, but the evening’s events had left her nervy and fraught.

  The line of guests awaiting their rigs created a delay at the door. With the crowd now close around them, Jonathan changed the subject, talking airily, as though the event of greatest importance tonight had been meeting the guest of honor. “In any event, Miss Canner, you missed a most fascinating exhibition. Mr. Morphy, the chess champion, played three of us without sight of the board. He won all the games, and it took him only fifteen minutes! Afterward there was a bit of a scene. Mrs. Sprague—do you know Kate Sprague?

  “I believe that Mrs. Sprague and I were briefly introduced earlier this evening.”

  “Ah. Good, then. A useful woman to know. Mrs. Sprague is the daughter of the Chief Justice and the wife of the junior senator from Rhode Island. She is but twenty-seven, and already the most eminent woman in the city. Well. Mrs. Sprague took one of the boards against him. She lost, of course, but that was hardly the end of the matter. Mr. Eames proposed a toast to Mr. Morphy, followed by three huzzahs. Afterward, Mrs. Sprague walked right up to Mr. Morphy and accused him of having fought in the rebel army. She said he was attached to General Beauregard’s staff at Bull Run.” They were out on the front portico, where he signaled to Abigail’s carriage man. “She also said that his family fortune came from slaves. Not using them in the fields but selling them. That his grandfather was a slave importer and auctioneer in New Orleans. The very lowest of human activities, she said.” He shook his head ruefully. “I am afraid Mrs. Sprague showed little tact. She disrupted the evening. Hence, the present crush.”

  “I think she did the right thing,” murmured Abigail, impressed.

  The group ahead of them climbed aboard their rig. The Berryhill barouche was next in line. With nobody in earshot, Jonathan leaned close to her. “Abigail, listen. Forget all that. Fessenden says there is an offer on the table.”

  “Oh?”

  “He says that the Radicals are willing to make a deal with Mr. Lincoln. Perhaps they are not as confident as everyone thinks. We must go to Mr. Dennard’s house.”

  Abigail considered. “You go,” she said. “I am exhausted.” Her breath curled whitely in the frigid night air. A gray mist softened the streetlamps to distant gauzy globes. “It is well that tomorrow is the Sabbath.”

  Handing her up into the carriage, Jonathan asked, “By the way, where did you vanish to? Mr. Sumner was present for the champion’s exhibition. You were not.”

  Abigail looked down, eyes unreadable. She seemed about to explain herself, then thought better of it. “Good night, Mr. Hilliman.”

  The driver closed the door, and the barouche headed off. As soon as they were out of the driveway, Abigail moved to the opposite seat, up behind the driver. “I have changed my plans, Mr. Cutler. Rather than taking me home directly, I wonder whether you would mind making a stop along the way.”

  V

  The Metzerott Hotel was located on Pennsylvania Avenue between Ninth and Tenth Streets West, just four blocks from the offices of Dennard & McShane. It stood two stories, with a fancy balustrade along the second level, and was one of the few leading hotels in Washington City where it was possible—not easy, but possible—for a negro to find a room. Even at ten-thirty in the evening, the porter answered the door, because it was not unusual for a train to run late, and guests to need to register. The porter roused the night clerk, a softly rounded man, bald and egglike, who pursed thick lips in disappointment upon learning that she was not planning to stay.

  “The kitchen is closed,” he whispered, tone funereal, eyes downcast. “As is the bar. And I would not like to disturb our guests at this hour.”

  “I am not looking for refreshment,” said Abigail. “I am not looking for a guest.”

  “Oh?”

  She had never quite played the deceiver, and was not sure how precisely it was done. But she could think of only one way Inspector Varak could possibly have been led to believe that she and Rebecca Deveaux had been in this hotel at the same time, and was determined to check her arithmetic. “In truth, I myself was a guest here, oh, two weeks ago. And I am afraid that I lost the receipt for my stay.” She cast her eyes demurely downward. “Without the receipt, I fear I shall not be able to obtain reimbursement from my employer.”

  The night clerk was a friendly man. He had a daughter her age, he said, and she, too, had unfortunately been required to earn for a short period, until a suitable husband had been found. He opened the hotel register happily, but when Abigail told him her name, his round face grew distressed. He started to speak, hesitated.

  “Yes, well, there is a bit of a problem.” He eyed her fancy clothes, glanced through the shadowed lobby at the expensive carriage waiting outside.

  She understood.

  “I shall be right back,” she said.

  Her handbag was in the barouche. She did not carry much money—she did not possess much—but she found a couple of coins. Back inside, she dropped them into the night clerk’s sweaty palm.

  The money vanished; the ledger appeared; and as the clerk wrote out her receipt by the wavery glow of a single gas lamp, Abigail read upside-down. Her name, as a guest, for one night: Saturday, the sixteenth, five days before the murder of Arthur McShane.

  Even though she had never been inside the hotel in her life.

  Abigail inquired about Rebecca Deveaux. The answer cost her another half-dollar: Rebecca’s name, too, was in the ledger, and on the same date.

  “You’ve been right popular,” said the clerk, leering. “A couple of men have been in, asking the same. Maybe one of them from your employer.”

  “Perhaps,” Abigail said, unable to keep from blushing. But at least now she understood the clerk’s reticence upon hearing her name. Perhaps Inspector Varak, discovering these entries, had sworn him to secrecy.

  In her head echoed Varak’s words from a seeming lifetime ago, but really just a few hours: You do know David Grafton, do you not?… I do.… And you would no doubt be astonished to learn that he, too, knew your friend Miss Rebecca Deveaux?

  No, Inspector. I am not astonished at all.

  Riding home in the fine Berryhill carriage, Abigail pondered. Inspector Varak was trying to solve one mystery. Now Abigail was confronted by another. Someone had taken a great deal of trouble to make it appear that she was acquainted with the murdered Rebecca Deveaux. She had to find out who; more important, she had to find out why.

  CHAPTER 14

  Emissary

  I

  “THAT IS NO deal at all,” said Stanton. He glanced around the room as if daring the other members of the lawyers’ coterie to contradict him. His eyes were wet and swollen from his seemingly perpetual cold. “No deal at all. The Senate dare not dictate to the President of the United States who will and will not be allowed in his Cabinet!”

  Lincoln stood at the window, looking down on the park. It was early Sunday afternoon, and rainy, and the President was still dressed for church. He had attended services more often since his wife died—usually at Saint John’s, right across Lafayette Square. “Well, now, Mars, let’s not be too hasty. I am quite sure our Radical friends would like you to remain in office. They just want to subtract everybody else.”

  Stanton remained unmollified. “If it were up to me, I would have them all in shackles.”

  A moment of embarrassed silence in the room, the freezing rain like gunshots against the window.

  “This might be an argument against interest,” said Speed, “but I think, if we are being offered a deal, we are duty-bound to explore it.”

  “I agree,” said Dennard, cautiously.

  “Duty,” said the President. “Duty. Duty,” he repeated, playing with the word in a way that Jonathan, head down, scribbling notes, thought conveyed a growing distaste, perhaps even disgust: a man tired of explaining himself. The deal was a simple one. If Lincoln would allow the congressional leadership to decide who would serve in his Cabinet, they woul
d “consider” dropping the impeachment effort. “They want to control me,” said the President, now visibly angry. “They want to dictate to the Executive. But my duty is not to the Congress. My duty is to the nation. To the Constitution, which I took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend. An oath registered in Heaven!”

  In the face of this presidential fury, the other men in the room traded uneasy glances. To Jonathan’s untutored eye, the look that passed between the Secretary of War and the attorney general seemed one of exasperation. Then, as perhaps they expected all along, the anger faded, and the old Lincoln returned.

  “You know, this situation reminds me of a story I heard someone tell in Iowa. He was trying to enforce upon his hearers the truth of the old adage that ‘three removes are worse than a fire.’ As an illustration, he gave an account of a family who started from western Pennsylvania, pretty well off in this world’s goods. But they moved and moved, having less and less every time they moved, till after a while they could carry everything in one wagon. He said that the chickens of the family got so used to being moved, that whenever they saw the wagon sheets brought they laid themselves on their backs and crossed their legs, ready to be tied. Now, gentlemen, if I were to be guided by every committee that comes in at that door, I might just as well cross my hands and let them tie my legs together.”

  He laughed, as did the entire meeting, all except Rufus Dennard, who looked not so much unamused as disapproving. He was a man of few words, and had difficulty with a client who was much the other way.

  Lincoln was not done. “You know, a friend of mine was here visiting not long ago, and he told me that poor McShane getting killed like that probably lost me half a million votes, just through guilt by association. I told him about this old woman I knew back in Kentucky who had a house by the riverbank. There was a terrible storm, and the river overflowed its banks, and the water came in through the door. The old woman picked up her broom and started sweeping the water out. But the flood just kept rising and rising. And she kept sweeping and sweeping. When the water was up to her neck, she shrugged, still sweeping, and said to herself, ‘Let’s see which lasts longer, the flood or the broom.’ ”