The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

by Stephen L Carter

  Speed was back on his feet. Objection. Privileged communication with the President.

  Chase was patient. “Counsel, your position is by now well understood. But the entire body has concurred in the admission of such testimony. There is no point to further argument.”

  For the briefest of instants, Speed seemed inclined to press his point. But he returned, restless, to his seat.

  “The witness will answer,” Chase said, kindly.

  Clancy was growing noticeably more nervous. “Sir, I—I never transmitted to the War Department any orders regarding the Department of the Atlantic.”

  Butler smiled rigidly. “Did you ever discuss with the President a military department of that name?”

  “Yes, sir. I did. Yes.”

  “What was the nature of that discussion?”

  Speed looked about to rise. Everyone paused and glanced his way, expecting an objection just to break the flow, even if it would inevitably be overruled. But the lawyer remained in his chair.

  “Sir, it was an afternoon in September or October of last year. I was in the President’s office to collect some commissions he had signed, appointing, um, new officers, and he asked me to stay for a minute.”

  “Was that unusual?”

  “No, sir. The President often asked me to stay, when he had an idea he wanted to discuss. He told me that several of his advisers had suggested that a new military department be created, with responsibility—”

  Now Speed was on his feet, asking for permission to approach the bench. Chase waved him forward. Butler joined them. The argument was brief, but animated. Chase waved them back. He turned to the witness. “Let’s leave the other advisers out. You may answer, but tell the story without them.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Clancy. He looked confused. “Sir,” he said, contriving to look at the Chief Justice and Butler at once. “The President said he had been considering the idea of creating a new military department, with responsibility for Washington City. He suggested that it might be called the Department of the Atlantic.”

  “And what is a military department?”

  “Sir, when there is military government of an area, the military department is in charge of administration, keeping order, and so forth.”

  “So, when the President proposed creating this Department of the Atlantic—”

  Speed was up at once. “Object to ‘proposed.’ That is not the testimony.”

  Chase turned to Butler.

  “May it please the Court, it seems a fair interpretation.”

  “The witness has only testified,” said Speed, “that the respondent said he was considering the idea.”

  “It’s the same thing,” said Butler.

  Chase pondered. “Overruled,” he said. “Continue, Mr. Manager.”

  “Thank you, sir. Major Clancy, just to clarify. A military department, you said, is responsible for administration and keeping order where there is military government.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So, when the President proposed”—tiny emphasis, just right—“the creation of a military department to be called the Department of the Atlantic in Washington City, what did you take him to be suggesting?”

  Again Speed objected: it made no difference what the witness thought that the respondent was suggesting; he could testify only to what he had seen and heard.

  “Overruled,” said Chase. “The witness will answer.”

  Clancy swallowed. “Sir, I thought that he was suggesting a military government for Washington City.”

  A sigh ran through the chamber. The Managers had struck gold.

  “A military government,” Butler echoed. “With a headquarters here in Washington.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are there other military departments in the country?”

  “Yes, sir. There are departments in each of the Southern states, for instance—that is, except for the ones that have been readmitted—”

  Chase did not wait for the objection. Lincoln held that the Southern states, although led astray by their leaders, had never actually left the Union, and should soon be allowed to send representatives to Congress; the Radicals sharply disagreed. “The witness will refrain from expressing a view on whether or not any states have been readmitted.”

  Clancy foundered a bit, but, with some prodding from Butler, at last found a phrasing that was acceptable: “Sir, there are military departments governing all the Southern states except the ones where the President has directed that the military government be phased out.”

  A helpful answer for the prosecution.

  “Now, then, Major,” said Butler, “would a military department typically be placed above the civilian government?”

  “Objection. He is testifying for the witness.”

  “Overruled. The witness will answer.”

  Clancy was sweating now. Battle might not frighten him as much as sitting in this chamber, damaging a commander-in-chief he clearly admired. “Sir, yes, sir. A military government is placed above a civilian government. There would be no point, otherwise, would there?”

  “So—just to be clear—when the President proposed the formation of the Department of the Atlantic, to be headquartered in Washington, you took him to be proposing a military government to be placed above the civilian government in Washington.”

  Clancy answered, albeit unwillingly. “Yes, sir. That is what I thought.”

  Butler half turned, waving his hand toward the ranks of Senators and, beyond them, congressmen. “When Mr. Lincoln offered this proposal, Major, were you aware of the law, passed by these gentlemen here, prohibiting general officers from entering Washington City without permission?”

  Clancy sat, if anything, straighter. His voice trembled. “Yes, sir. I was.”

  “And were you also aware that the Congress had directed that there be no military department headquartered in Washington City?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was the President aware of these laws?”

  Again Speed objected. Chase told Butler to rephrase the question.

  “Major, did the President say anything to you to indicate an awareness of these laws?”

  The look in Speed’s eyes suggested that he was ready to complain again. But he kept his seat.

  “Sir, not exactly,” said the major.

  “Explain that, if you please.”

  “Sir, the President didn’t say anything about the congressional law—”

  To everyone’s surprise, the Chief Justice himself ventured a rare interruption. “Major, the statutes in question are statutes of the United States, not of the Congress.”

  The witness paled, his Adam’s apple bobbing faster. “Yes, sir.” He turned back to Butler. “Sir, the President didn’t say anything about the, um, the law.” He brightened. “But I did.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said that I wasn’t sure that the Department of the Atlantic would be legal.”

  “An excellent point, Major.” Butler nodded his approval. “And what did Mr. Lincoln say to that?”

  “Sir, he laughed. He said something about how the world is full of highly legal illegalities and highly illegal legalities. I’m not trained in the law, sir. I wasn’t really sure what he meant.”

  Butler smiled. “I am trained in the law, Major, and I’m not sure, either.” Restrained laughter, but only from the gallery; the Senators were on edge. “And what else did the President say?”

  “Sir, he said that he was the commander-in-chief, and if there was any legal trouble, that was his lookout, not mine.” He hesitated. “That’s what he said, sir. ‘Lookout.’ ”

  “Did the conversation return to the subject of Congress?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what else did the President say?”

  “Sir, he told me a story. He said there was this farmer who bought himself a nice farm, and everything was fine until the storm came and knocked down a gigantic tree. The tree was in the middle of his
biggest field. It was an old tree, too heavy to move and too big to run the plow through. Everybody figured the farmer would have to give up. But when the fall came, he had the biggest harvest of anybody. Turned out, he’d just left the tree where it was and plowed around it.”

  Butler paused for emphasis. In the chamber, not a sound. “He plowed around the tree?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you took the tree to refer to what?”

  Speed objected: the witness could not possibly know what the President’s story referred to, and in any event the President was obviously telling a joke.

  Butler glared self-righteously. “Your Honor, the story about the plow immediately followed the discussion of the Congress and the discussion of the Department of the Atlantic. It is the position of the Managers that the subjects are obviously connected. What counsel for the respondent calls a joke might just as well have been an implicit order. He might have been telling Major Clancy that he wanted the military to plow around the Congress.”

  “On that point,” rumbled Speed, “the witness’s opinion is irrelevant.”

  Chase sustained the objection, but Butler had won the round. He had elicited the story from the unfortunate major, and, in the guise of responding to Speed’s argument, he had put before the Senate the possibility that the President did indeed intend to plow around the Congress.

  “The Managers have no further questions for this witness,” said Butler.

  The Chief Justice looked to his left. “Cross-examination?”

  II

  Speed sauntered toward the box. His posture was casual. He wanted it clear to everyone, from the start, that the defense would not be challenging this witness.

  “Major, just a few questions.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “For clarification.” Speed leaned on the bar, as if he were in a circuit court back in Illinois, not the Senate Chamber. “Major Clancy, where exactly is the Department of the Atlantic located?”

  The witness was puzzled. “Sir?”

  “The Department of the Atlantic. You just testified about it. Where was it established? Where is it headquartered?”

  “Sir, it was never established. It was just an idea.”

  “It doesn’t exist?”

  “No, sir.”

  “There is no Department of the Atlantic?”

  “No, sir.”

  “There is no military government in Washington?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I see.” Speed was stern. “You testified that the President discussed with you the feasibility of creating a Department of the Atlantic.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you told him that you thought the action would require the approval of the Congress, is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the President seemed not to care what the Congress thought.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Speed nodded. “Can you recall his exact words? I’m not sure that the Managers asked you to quote him exactly.”

  Major Clancy squinted his eyes comically, as if a furrowed brow might aid his memory. “He said, ‘Sometimes Congress gets a little too involved in military matters for its own good.’ I think those were his words, sir. Or pretty close, anyway.”

  “Was that the end of the conversation?”

  “Well, he told me that story.”

  “The story about the farmer?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And did you take the President’s story as anything other than a joke?”

  Now it was Butler’s turn to object, but Chase allowed the question.

  “No, sir,” said Clancy. “It was clear to me that the President was joking.”

  Speed nodded. His voice remained friendly. “And did the President say anything else about the Department of the Atlantic?”

  “He told me he would give it some more thought.”

  “Did he tell you to give it more thought as well?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did he direct you to create the Department of the Atlantic?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Not then and not later, either?”

  Clancy seemed almost relieved as he answered. “He never brought it up with me again, sir.”

  “Did he ever tell you that creating the Department of the Atlantic would not require the consent of the Congress?”

  “No, sir.” He cocked his head to the side. “Now that I think of it, I believe he called it an interesting question.”

  “The question of whether Congress had to approve.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did the President ever give you any orders regarding the Department of Atlantic? Say, to transmit to Mr. Stanton?”

  “Sir, no, sir.”

  Speed consulted his notes. Then, rather showily, he sauntered back to the table. He was about to sit when he seemed to recall a point. “Oh, Major. One last thing. When you leave here today, where will you be headed?”

  “Sir?”

  “When you leave the Capitol building. Where will you go?”

  “Oh, uh, I suppose, sir, back to the Mansion.”

  “The Executive Mansion?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where you are the President’s military aide?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So you haven’t lost your assignment or anything like that as a result of your testimony here today?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thank you, Major Clancy.”

  Speed resumed his seat. The Managers had dragged a snarling cat of a story into the room. Speed had done his best to defang it. But the weighty silence in the chamber as the major stepped down from the stand suggested that the operation had enjoyed only limited success. Clancy’s testimony had done exactly what it was supposed to do, leaving in the atmosphere a whiff of uncertainty over exactly how far the President might be willing to go. All through the war, he had insisted on using his “broader powers” as he saw fit for the benefit of the Union. He had defied courts and Congress alike. The Managers had searched and searched for a way to drive home the dangers of leaving such a man in office. In the unassuming person of Major Clancy, they had evidently found it.

  III

  “Jonathan, listen,” said Abigail.

  They were alone in the office. The temperature had dropped precipitously, and the common room was frigid. They were sitting side by side at the end of the table nearest the grate, where the remnants of the coal fire glowed weakly and provided little warmth. She had a shawl around her shoulders and had threatened to put on a coat. Helping prepare for closing arguments, she had spent the afternoon cataloguing the letters from military officers that the House Managers had introduced as evidence of the President’s perfidy. Now she had open before her a heavy volume of the Statutes at Large, the official compilation of the laws of the United States. Her task of the moment was to copy out the citation and the text of each congressional enactment approving, after the fact, one of President Lincoln’s more controversial wartime orders. Evidently, there were more statutes than she had expected, because the stack of notes piled on the blotter kept getting higher.

  The coterie had spent two hours after court evaluating how the trial was going, and their conclusions had so depressed the company that nobody had bothered to wake Dan Sickles, who had fallen into what seemed to be a drunken slumber on the sofa in McShane’s office. Major Clancy’s testimony had been particularly devastating, they all agreed, because his affection for the President was evident. True, the Mangers had misfired with Moorhead and Yardley, but the cumulative effect of the witnesses and the documents—said Dennard—did indeed put their client at serious hazard. In a disheartened spirit, the others had departed, save only Sickles, who slept on in the next room, snoring aggressively, as Abigail chafed under Jonathan’s tender gaze; a gaze she felt even when he was not actually looking at her.

  “Jonathan,” she repeated. “About the other night—”

  He covered her mouth: o
ne of the few times he had ever touched her. Their eyes mutually widened in surprise, and he dropped his hand.

  “I spoke too sharply,” he said now. “You were trying to warn me.”

  “And you might be right. For all we know, the reason Chanticleer included the contributors to the Unification Party was in case any were called as witnesses.”

  “Yes. Yes. To show bias on cross-examination, should they claim to be loyal supports of Lincoln, testifying reluctantly.” He brightened. “So the names need not be related to the conspiracy at all.”

  “But there is another problem.”

  She told him about Fielding; and Baker’s talent for knowing when the two were together.

  “Impossible. Fielding’s family is for hard money, remember? And the hard-money people seem to be supporting Lincoln. Besides—I know this is old-fashioned of me—but Fielding is a gentleman. He is not underhanded. I have known him all of his life.” He searched for the words. “And you must surely know that Fields is … is fond of you. Very fond.”

  She flushed, quite prettily. “Perhaps not Fielding but his family—”

  “But his family could not possibly know where to send General Baker. And at the moment, he is the only Bannerman in the city.”

  “You are saying it is coincidence.”

  “I am saying that his fondness for you would not allow him to … to conspire against you.” Jonathan, plainly having difficulties, was stumbling over the words. “And he is not alone in that … fondness.”

  IV

  As there are precious moments between two people that can never be retrieved, there are also moments of tension that can never be avoided, no matter how they try. They had reached one; and neither quite knew how to advance; or retreat.

  “Abigail.”

  “Yes, Jonathan?”

  “I should like to talk to you.”

  Oh, no. “We are talking now.”

  He could not contain his anxiety, and so stood. After a moment, she followed his example. “No, no, I mean—well, about what has happened these past several weeks, and … and about other things.”

  “I am not sure which of the occurrences of the past weeks you mean,” she said, hoping that her ornate circumlocutions would conceal her growing panic.