The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

by Stephen L Carter

  “No,” he said at last. He stole a glance at her shadowed face, but she was turned away from him. “No, I am not going to inform Mr. Dennard.”

  “Thank you.” She looked up; pointed. “I will need to return my brother’s derringer.”

  Jonathan handed it over. “Tell me one thing. When you say that your brother is a killer …”

  “I have no knowledge of the details of Michael’s activities,” she said, with legalistic precision. The gun had vanished into her bag. “But I know what he is capable of.” She shuddered with memory. “Do you know what Michael told me recently? Through friends of his, he actually had advance warning of John Brown’s murderous raid at Harper’s Ferry eight years ago. Michael wanted to go. They refused to take him, as, at eleven, he was too young. But he wanted to go. That is my brother.”

  To this there was no response to be made. Jonathan called to the horses and snapped the reins. They headed off at a slow trot.

  CHAPTER 31

  Ruse

  I

  THE NEXT DAY, Abigail nearly missed the proceedings. When Dennard arrived at the offices at nine-thirty, he immediately handed her a list of books that were needed at once, not only from the Library of Congress but from a number of libraries around the city that had promised to lend. Many were on topics she could not relate, even abstractly, to the trial: a treatise on trusts and estates, a compilation of pharmaceutical remedies from the seventeenth century.

  “That will take her the better part of the day,” Jonathan objected.

  “Then the better part of the day is what it will take,” said Dennard, sourly. When he turned toward Abigail once more, his tone softened. “Take all the time you like, my dear. Little will drive you. Should you finish your rounds in time to come to the Capitol, so much the better. Or you may wait here, or even leave early today if you like. Entirely up to you.”

  “Yes, Mr. Dennard,” said Abigail, bewildered.

  The lawyer went into his office to gather his notes. The group would be leaving for trial as soon as Speed and Sickles arrived.

  “I have no idea what this is about,” said Jonathan when she looked his way.

  “Isn’t it obvious? They are getting rid of me.”

  “You cannot think they mean to dismiss you!”

  “Dismiss me?” Her laugh was brittle. “No, Jonathan, no. For today. They do not want me there today.”

  Jonathan glanced at the tightly closed door to Dennard’s room. “I cannot see why that would be.”

  “Nevertheless, that is what is happening.”

  II

  Abigail Canner had been a peculiar child. Everybody said so. At home, and also at her Quaker school. She read everything, and remembered what she read. She could do arithmetic in her head and learn music with ease. Her parents, to her chagrin, used to show her off at parties. People would give little Abby arithmetic problems to solve, or play pieces on the piano that she would mimic by ear. When she erred, everyone would laugh, and she had learned from those earliest days that being laughed at was what she hated most in the world.

  Today, as she made her rounds with Mr. Little, she felt laughed at.

  The weather was warmer, but the air was sooty. Carriages charged through filthy puddles, drenching passersby.

  Abigail fumed.

  Everyone was at Capitol Hill, except her. Just as everyone met with Mr. Lincoln regularly, except her.

  She looked at her list. The next library they were visiting was up Seventeenth Street, north of the White House. She urged Mr. Little to hurry. She was determined to finish her chores and reach the Capitol before the trial day was over, if only to show them that she could. That was how she had spent her life. Showing them all. She supposed that Nanny would say she had succumbed to the sin of pride. Her mother might have said the same: the very mother who, by showing her daughter off all through childhood, had trained into her the instinct to defeat the expectations of others.

  “Hurry, please,” Abigail said.

  “I’se goin as fast as I can.”

  “Please,” she repeated. But the horses were old and the wagon older. The fancier and swifter carriage the firm used for official business belonged to Mr. Dennard. Now and then Abigail had been permitted to use it for running errands, but today the rig was in use, conveying the others to Capitol Hill.

  Without her.

  They passed the Old Clubhouse, the grim granite mansion of Secretary of State William Seward, who had not left it in two years. A guard stood nonchalantly outside. Seward was said to be a smooth and persuasive politician, easily able to reach deals in smoky back rooms, and she wondered whether Mr. Lincoln would be in so much trouble had his Secretary of State been available to negotiate with those ranged against him. Everyone knew that Seward and Lincoln, working together, had repeatedly outflanked and humiliated the Radicals during the war, further increasing the bad blood.

  From Seventeenth Street, they crossed to Connecticut Avenue, then proceeded down a winding trail to a private library on an estate overlooking Rock Creek. The morning rain had left the roads muddy and slow, and every mile or so they had to rein in the horses and inch their way around somebody’s trap stuck in the mire, but in the end Mr. Little managed the miracle, and they were back at the offices by a quarter to four.

  “Take the wagon,” he said.

  “I must carry the parcels upstairs—”

  “I can take the parcels. You go.”

  She flew. She reached the Capitol by four-fifteen, and handed the reins to a surprised valet, the unfortunate fellow not sure which was worse, the parlous state of the rig he was being asked to handle, or the color and sex of the driver who was asking. She hurried up the steps, then paused beneath the Rotunda to compose herself. She used her handkerchief to mat the perspiration from her face. She could not use the facilities here, and so had to adjust her hat by touch. Then she walked calmly to the reserved stair, and showed her pass to the same guard as yesterday, who grunted his disapproval but waved her through.

  Upstairs, the crowd was smaller. Many of the ladies of the city had departed, to dress for the round of evening parties. In the nearly empty front row, Kate Sprague was seated exactly as before, alongside the same seat Abigail had used yesterday. Nobody was sitting there, perhaps fearing contamination. For a moment Abigail hesitated. To walk past these ladies and claim the same seat, when there were plenty up here in the back—

  And then, with that preternatural sense of courtesy, Kate looked up and, smiling, indicated the seat beside hers.

  Abigail excused her way along the row, ignoring the outraged whispers of the great ladies, and, gathering her skirts, sat.

  “I thought you were not coming,” said Kate.

  “I had … business.”

  Mrs. Sprague nodded toward the well of the Senate. Speed held the floor. “You have missed very little. Mr. Dennard required two hours to tell the Senators that the charges are baseless and politically motivated and an embarrassment to the nation. Mr. Speed has been addressing the body for a good forty-five minutes now, answering each charge of the indictment.”

  Abigail nodded. That had been the decision: Dennard and Speed would open the case for Lincoln. Dennard was a well-known lawyer in Washington City, and had many admirers on Capitol Hill. As for Speed, he had been confirmed by this very Senate as attorney general two years ago. Sickles, on the other hand, was viewed with hostility by many people in this room, not least because he was openly contemptuous of social convention, and of the Radicals; there was no need to press him upon the group until necessary. With McShane gone, there was not a finer trial lawyer in the city; but wisdom dictated that Sickles’s voice should be reserved for the presentation of evidence and the examination of witnesses.

  Meanwhile, heedless of the glares of those seeking to shush her, Kate continued her dissection of the arguments by the President’s counsel. “Mr. Speed has already annoyed a few of the Senators, I suspect, because he has said that Mr. Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus
and his shuttering of certain newspapers were subsequently endorsed by the very Congress that now cites them as grounds for impeachment.”

  “But that is true!”

  “Yes. However, congressmen who are embarrassed by past votes always claim later that they were misled. I am sure that the Managers will say that the Congress would never have given the President what he wanted had he not lied. It seems true in every age: legislators seem to be the most gullible creatures on the planet. They are constantly complaining that they have been made fools of.” She smiled, showed tiny, perfect teeth. “I believe he is winding up. Certainly I hope he is.”

  Down below, Speed was saying that counsel for respondent was planning to call as witnesses several leaders of the colored race, who would testify, contrary to the Managers’ assertion, that Abraham Lincoln was viewed as a great friend of their people.

  Abigail cringed.

  Then it got worse; and she knew why Dennard had wanted her to stay away from the trial today.

  “Indeed,” said Speed, with the hopeless grandiloquence of the man unable to believe that another view than his own exists, “if Mr. Lincoln harbors the sort of prejudice against the freedmen that the Managers suggest, why would he now have in his employ, working hard on his own defense, a colored woman, a graduate of Oberlin College, one of the best of her race?”

  Speed asked his rhetorical question grandly, as though expecting applause, and up in the gallery, Abigail covered her face. She knew people were watching her, some of them, no doubt, surprised that she had reached the Capitol in time. She knew she should be sitting stoically; but could not.

  “And why,” Speed railed on, still unaware of Abigail’s presence in the gallery, “would the President have consulted with this young woman in person, at the Executive Mansion, just days ago, if he did not genuinely value her counsel?”

  Speed went on to the final charge—conspiring to usurp the Congress—and lectured the body about how furious he was to have been forced to resign his commission as attorney general in order to come to this venue and defend a personal friend against so ridiculous an allegation.

  Abigail scarcely listened. The room wobbled a bit, and she knew why Lincoln had asked her to come to the White House for their five-minute conversation. She began to feel dizzy, and shut her eyes. A sudden breeze was Mrs. Sprague’s fan, directed now at Abigail’s face.

  “They might have warned you,” said Kate.

  “Indeed they might,” Abigail whispered, humiliation making her careless.

  III

  Speed was not quite through. He had finally noticed Abigail, and embarrassment had made him lose his place briefly. In his agitation, he actually stared at her, accentuating his error. Chairs scraped. The Senators whispered to each other.

  Chase rapped the gavel lightly. “Does counsel wish to continue?”

  Counsel did. Speed wound up quickly. The President’s commitment to the security and support of the freedmen was absolute, he said. The Managers were taking honest differences in policy among people who shared the same goal, and transforming them into crimes. That was the standard, said Speed, hammering upon the point in that imperial tone of his that regarded disagreement as enemy action. Criminality. If the Senate failed to find Mr. Lincoln guilty of a crime, then it must acquit him. The Constitution said so. He quoted: “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

  The Managers, said Speed, alleged none.

  The notion that the President sought to overthrow the authority of the Congress was a fantasy, he said. Certainly the President had made remarks critical of the Congress, at times quite vehemently so. But his words no more represented a challenge to the constitutional structure than did the far more vehement remarks made by members of Congress about the President.

  “The wisdom of our forefathers is being challenged today,” said Speed, “not by any action of the President but by this effort to shape mere differences over policy into high crimes and misdemeanors. This is not the constitutional system.”

  Abruptly Speed was done. He made no effort to summarize. He seemed to believe that indignation was a sufficient argument.

  “Now, that,” said Kate, chuckling, “was unhelpful.”

  Not for the first time, Abigail told herself that Lincoln’s decision to have Speed share the counsel duties was a terrible mistake. She hoped the consequences would not be too grave.

  IV

  Back at the office, once the others had left, Jonathan tried to apologize for what had happened, insisting that he had not known what Speed was going to say.

  “I would never hold one man accountable for another’s statements,” Abigail assured him. He was behind her, helping her into her coat. Now she turned cool gray eyes his way. “In any event, you owe me no apology.”

  He hesitated. “Abigail, we should talk—”

  “I have an engagement.”

  Fielding again, he suspected. An awkward silence. Were he to comment in any way, he would sound a fool. “I only need a moment,” he said. “It is about Miss Hale.”

  Her brown face softened in that mysterious smile that so enchanted him. “I was under the impression that she had embarked with her father for Spain.”

  “They went to Boston, and they should be departing within the week.”

  “You keep excellent track of her travels.” But the teasing was by habit, carrying none of the gamine lilt that made conversation with Abigail such fun.

  “Your sister Judith—didn’t she say that Miss Deveaux told her that a young lady often carried messages on behalf of the conspirators? A woman of the upper classes, who seemed wise in the ways of Washington?”

  “There are many such women in this city, Jonathan. Perhaps Miss Hale merely enjoys politics, as does everyone else in this dreadful place. You can hardly charge her with conspiracy merely because she has a brain.”

  “It is just that her departure seems convenient.”

  “Perhaps.” She had finished buttoning her coat and was adjusting her scarf. “You are free to speculate as you please, Jonathan. I am afraid I have other matters on my mind. Good night.”

  V

  Jonathan, as it happened, had a dinner engagement of his own. His uncle Brighton was in town, on business he coyly declined to specify. “Look at it this way,” said Brighton as he tucked into his veal at the Willard. “You work for the lawyers. I work for the company. If I go sharing information with you, all kinds of conflicts might arise.” Brighton was a voracious eater, and, as Margaret liked to say, a voracious dresser as well. He was always attired in the latest European fashions, and, in Jonathan’s judgment, usually looked like the fool he never quite was. He had also somehow acquired spacious lands north of Boston and was building a manor house, at a time when Hilliman & Sons was struggling to stay afloat. “Don’t you worry, boy,” said Brighton. “Once you’re ready to come back and take the reins, why, the books are yours to inspect.”

  “I am certainly looking forward to that,” said Jonathan coldly.

  Brighton asked after Margaret and certain other mutual acquaintances, and then, as he liked to put it, got down to the meat.

  “I’ve been talking to your mother,” he said. “And she agrees. We think this might just be the right moment for you to leave Washington City.” He saw Jonathan’s face. “No, no, don’t worry. Nobody is thinking about bringing you into the company. Not just yet. No, boy. Your time would be your own. Europe. Now, that’s a place. Paris. Berlin. Rome. Top up your culture, attend the lectures. Take a year. More if you like. The family would sponsor you, naturally.”

  Jonathan’s voice was icier than ever. “That is very kind of you and Mother, Uncle, but, as you may have noticed, we are in the middle of trial.”

  “Yes, well, I wanted to talk to you about that, boy. The trial. This whole Lincoln business. There are rumors that he’s done a deal with the bankers. If he’ll agree to lower the tariff, they’ll call off the dogs.” Brighton chewed noisily. “You see what would happen, don
’t you? The tariff goes down, we have to cut our prices because of those British imports. Profits fall. The company might even go under.” Hunching forward. “And even if we survived—well, you see the problem, don’t you, boy? If Lincoln really has done a deal, and it becomes known that the Hilliman heir was part of it, the other companies might turn on us. You see how that could be, don’t you?” Nodding as if in confirmation of his own thesis. He wiped greasy fingers on the soiled napkin at his neck. “Better if you’re not part of it. Better to leave now.”

  “Good night, Uncle,” said Jonathan, rising.

  Brighton put a hand on his arm. The fun had died in his eyes. “If you decide to stay with Lincoln,” he said, “I am not sure how much longer we can afford to protect you.”

  “I can protect myself.”

  Only after he had arrived back at the Bannerman manor and found, to his inestimable relief, that Fielding was at home, and had been home all evening, did it occur to Jonathan that the protection of which his uncle spoke might have nothing to do with business.

  VI

  She sat with Dan Sickles in his grand barouche at the entrance to the Center Market, which was shuttered for the night. The stalls were empty shadows. Today’s buyers and sellers had trampled the day’s snow into Washingmud. As recently as two weeks ago, sitting beside a man in the inky darkness—especially a man like Sickles—would have scandalized her, but by now these nocturnal peregrinations were as natural as breathing. Blaine was supposed to arrive at nine, so he was already late. Sickles was entertaining her with unlikely stories of his adventures: how his disobedience to orders would have won the Battle of Gettysburg that much sooner had the cannonball not taken off his leg for him, and how, on his trip to New Granada two years ago, he and his staff wound up in the middle of a pitched battle between two Indian tribes, who left off fighting each other because it was more interesting to join forces against the hideous white invaders in their midst. “I’ve never known such ferocity on the field. If they had fought the Spanish that way, no European would have dared set foot on this continent.”