“Mr. Seward’s little finger”: Jeremiah Black to AJ, March 19, 1868, PAJ: 13, p. 658.
“Stanbery is the tallest”: [Emily Edson Briggs], “The Impeachment Trial: Scenes in the Senate,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 25, 1868, p. 3.
“To the one”: “Washington Gossip: Impeachment of the President—How Washington Feels About It,” New York Herald, March 21, 1868, p. 3.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE TRIAL, FIRST ROUNDS
Salmon Chase’s daughter, Kate: “From Another Correspondent,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 14, 1868, p. 1. For other descriptions, see also, for instance, Briggs, The Olivia Letters, pp. 50–62.
She had an appetite: see “Washington Gossip,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, March 19, 1868, p. 1.
To the right: see [Emily Edson Briggs], “The Impeachment Trial,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 16, 1868, p. 1.
About one hundred cane-bottomed: see, among other newspaper descriptions, “From Another Correspondent,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 14, 1868, p. 1.
“he looked strong enough to live as long as a hemlock,”: “Impeachment! First Day of the Trial,” The Crisis (Ohio), p. 61. See also for comment on Boutwell.
They seemed to have no friends: see “Washington,” New York Herald, March 14, 1868, p. 3.
“Forty days—”: Trial 1, p. 27.
“The world moves,”: “The Impeachment Trial,” Baltimore Sun, March 14, 1868, p. 1.
Sir Forcible Feeble: Thomas Ewing, Jr., to Hugh Ewing, March 8, 1868, LC.
Democrats had continued to peel: see “The President Alarmed,” Boston Daily Journal, March 16, 1868, p 2 ; see also “President Becoming Discouraged,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, March 16, 1868, p. 3, and “Washington Gossip,” New York Herald, March 20, 1868, p. 2.
“Johnson makes a muddle of everything”: Samuel L. M. Barlow to Jerome Stillson, Feb. 28, 1868, Barlow papers, Huntington.
“A little while longer”: Feb. 28, 1868, Clemenceau, American Reconstruction, p. 158.
“He is a man with a remarkable”: Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, vol. 2, p. 378.
“a man not to be trifled with”: quoted in Dolby, Charles Dickens, p. 237.
“Hancock the Superb”: see for instance, Porter, Campaigning with Grant, p. 58, and Jordan, Winfield Scott Hancock, p. 4.
“beau ideal”: quoted in McFeely, Grant, p. 184.
“had not been mixed up in political affairs,”: August 24, 1867, Colonel Moore diary typescript, p. 48.
“fighting the Radicals.”: quoted in “Our Washington Correspondence,” The National Anti-Slavery Standard, March 28, 1868, p. 2.
an unapologetic white supremacist: on Hancock’s career, see Hancock, Reminiscences of Winfield Scott Hancock, p. 135; see also Jordan, Winfield Scott Hancock, p. 204.
Hancock formally touched: see Jordan, Winfield Scott Hancock, p. 213.
So Hancock rode: [Emily Edson Briggs], “The President’s Levee,” Philadelphia Press, March 25, 1868, p. 4.
“I cannot believe there is really any danger,”: Moorfield Storey to his sister, March 28, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 85.
“Do not lose a moment’s sleep”: quoted in “Notes of Colonel W. G. Moore,” March 16, 1868, p. 124.
“for cause to be judged by the President alone,”: see Trial I, pp. 3, 42, 44, 46, 49, 50, 52.
Curtis was largely inaudible: see “Impeachment,” Republican Banner, March 28, 1868, p. 1.
“We, as the managers”: Trial 1, p. 71.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE TRIAL
The room was like a vaulted tomb: see [Emily Edson Briggs], March 31, 1868, “Letter from Olivia,” Philadelphia Press, p. 4.
for over a week: see Butler, Butler’s Book, p. 928.
“bound by no law”: Trial I, p. 90.
“I speak”: Trial I, p. 122; see also “The Impeachment; The Opening of the Trial,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, March 31, 1868, p. 1. See also “The Impeachment Trial,” New-York Tribune, March 31, 1868, pp. 1–2, 5.
“He might have made a stronger argument”: Moorfield Storey to his father, April 2, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 90.
Burleigh’s testimony: the controversy is documented in Trial I, pp. 175–85.
“He was a man of small stature”: The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, p. 294.
“The managers may propose a question”: Trial I, p. 177.
“Mr. Chase made a little coup d’état”: Moorfield Storey to his father, April 2, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 89.
“Mr. Chase was already very angry…decided,”: Moorfield Storey to his father, April 2, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 90.
The question was leading: see Trial I, pp. 216–17.
“The defense fight every”: Moorfield Storey to his father, April 2, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 90.
“Mr. Manager Butler: You have been asked, Mr. Hudson”: Trial I, pp. 310–11.
“hold their offices respectively for and during the term”: Trial I, p. 39.
“The necessary conclusion”: Trial I, p. 40.
“I cannot see how Mr. Curtis”: April 10, 1868, quoted in Clemenceau, American Reconstruction, p. 175.
“high crimes and misdemeanors…against what law?”: Trial I, p. 409.
When Butler good-humoredly said: see April 6, 1868, Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 91.
“Now, senators; reflect”: Trial I, pp. 504–05.
“As he left the stand”: Agate, “The Impeachment Trial,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 14, 1868, p. 2.
“The high forehead and eagle eyes”: Emily Edson Briggs, “Impeachment: April 14, 1868,” in The Olivia Letters, p. 63.
“I submit that that is contrary to all rule”: “The Crisis of the Impeachment Trial,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 15, 1868, p. 1.
“No! No!”: Trial I, p. 489.
“He did not state to me then”: Trial I, p. 521.
“It is one of the curious revenges”: “The Crisis of the Impeachment Trial,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 15, 1868, p. 1.
“I made this point,”: Trial I, p. 529.
“It was the constitutionality of that bill”: Trial I, p. 529.
“The bland impudence”: Moorfield Storey to his sister, April 12, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 93.
“Far be it from me…individual,”: Trial 1, p. 628.
“We have been here in the Senate…cease”: Trial I, p. 629.
“I feel warmly…stop”: Trial I, p. 629.
Another drenching rain kept: On April 16, 1862, Lincoln signed into law the Compensation Emancipation Act to end slavery in the capital. In 1866, the black population there began celebrating April 16 as Emancipation Day.
“an organization which is”: quoted in “An American Secret Society,” The Manchester Guardian, April, 23, 1868, p. 6.
“Death’s angels”: “The Ku Klux Klan in Washington,” New York Herald, April 13, 1868, p. 3.
“an orgy of blood”: Trial 3, p. 281.
George T. Downing: “The Ku Klux Klan in Washington,” New York Herald, April 13, 1868, p. 3; Downing released information about the threat to the National Anti-Slavery Standard, April 18, 1868, which published it in its entirety.
Thaddeus Stevens received a note: see “KKK” to Thaddeus Stevens, May 4, 1868, LC.
Benjamin Wade: see “Washington,” New York Herald, April 4, 1868, p. 3.
“The Ku Klux Klan send letters every day”: Moorfield Storey to Helen Appleton, April 20, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 98.
“frighten old ladies”: see “Agony Coming to an End,” New York Herald, April 24, 1868, p. 7, and also “The Maelstrom of Radical Ruin,” New York
Herald, April 19, 1868, p. 6.
Republicans countered: see “Washington,” New-York Tribune, April 21, 1868, p. 4.
He’d been prepared by Stanbery: Gideon Welles to Henry Stanbery, April nd, 1868, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
“Senators…within it”: Trial I, p. 698.
Ready at all times with a joust: “Glimpses of the Great Trial,” Boston Advertiser, April 4, 1868, p. 1.
“Genl. Butler swallows”: William Evarts to Edwards Pierrepont, April 16, 1868, Yale.
“Stick to the point, gentlemen”: Briggs, “Impeachment: April 14, 1868,” in The Olivia Letters, p. 63.
“first by resignation, then under the Tenure-of-Office”: Moorfield Storey to his father, April 19, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 9.
the President’s son-in-law: “The Agony Coming to an End,” New York Herald, April 24, 1868, p. 7.
A friend warned him: see William Evarts to Edwards Pierrepont, April 21, 1868, Yale.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE BEGINNING OF THE END
The President’s defenders belittled: see “Agony Coming to an End,” New York Herald, April 24, 1868, p. 7, and “The Maelstrom of Radical Ruin,” New York Herald, April 19, 1868, p. 6.
“The Dems pooh-pooh”: Schuyler Colfax to John Russell Young, April 16, 1868, LC.
All nine Democratic: The three conservative Republicans were James Dixon of Connecticut, James Doolittle of Wisconsin, and Daniel Norton of Minnesota.
“Delays are dangerous”: Moorfield Storey to Helen Appleton, May 17, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 107.
Although he had backed: He shared this point of view with Gideon Welles as well as conservatives like James Doolittle; see Salter, The Life of James Grimes, pp. 328–62.
“What Republican will dare run the risk”: Benjamin Perley Poore to William W. Clapp, April 24, 1868, LC.
“a man [as] Secy of War”: Gustavus Fox, diary entry, April 5, 1868, NYHS.
Fox told Gideon Welles: see April 25, 1868, Welles, Diary, vol. 3, p. 339.
These wavering senators: see John Russell Young to Edwin Stanton, May 6, 1868, LC.
“A majority of Republicans”: Schofield, Forty-six Years in the Army, p. 415.
“How dull Washington would be without the Impeachment Trial”: quoted in “A Woman’s Letter from Washington,” The Independent, May 14, 1868, p. 1.
Conviction of the President: see “no right to entrain any motive contrary to his constitutional obligation to execute the laws”: Trial II, p. 74.
Boutwell then offered a forensic analysis: see “It is not specially the right of any person to so test the laws, and the effort is particularly offensive in the Chief Magistrate of the country to attempt by any process to annul, set aside or defeat the laws which by his oath he is bound to execute”: Trial II, p. 95.
“Travelers and astronomers inform”: Trial II, pp. 116–17.
“I’ll put Boutwell”: Moorfield Storey to his mother, April 24, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 100.
“Who is Andrew Johnson?”: Trial II, p. 117; see also April 23, 1868, Briggs, The Olivia Letters, p. 72.
“Suppose he committed an error”: Trial II, p. 124.
“In the name of all that is sacred”: Trial II, p. 125.
Nelson was saying: see “Washington Letter,” The Independent, April 30, 1868, p. 1.
The galleries were almost empty: see for instance, “Impeachment,” New York Times, April 25, 1868, p. 1.
He argued that even if the President did not possess the power: see Trial II, pp. 204–06.
“Is the Senate prepared to drag…what he did”: Trial II, p. 206.
“He tried to pluck a thorn out of his very heart”: Trial II, p. 215.
“Stop; I have a further oath”: Trial II, p. 226.
“to search out defective laws”: Trial II, p. 229.
“This trial has developed”: James Garfield to Harry Rhodes, April 28, 1868, quoted in Life and Letters, vol. 1, p. 424.
“reopened the war, inaugurated anarchy”: Trial II, p. 234.
And since we care about the nation’s safety: see Trial II, p. 260.
And if you’re tempted: see Trial II, p. 262.
“Indeed, upon my soul”: Trial II, p. 297.
“Cardinal Wolsey said”: Trial II, p. 332.
“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,”: Trial II, p. 327.
“a man who lives in a bottle…puffed up,”: Trial II, p. 329.
Bingham forced a smile: see “The Impeachment Trial,” Philadelphia Press, May 1, 1868, p. 8; see also Poore, vol. 2, Reminiscences. p. 235.
Although the managers claimed Johnson had violated a 1795: As for the issue of an interim appointment: In 1863 Lincoln had asked that the President be allowed to make interim appointments to the cabinet in the event of death, resignation, sickness, or something vague called “absence from the seat of government.” See Trial II, p. 334.
“And this brings me very properly…against him”: Trial II, pp. 355–56.
“Can we summon now…no wound!”: Trial II, pp. 357–58.
“It seems inert”: May 2, 1868, Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong, vol. 3, p. 205.
“Fourteen mortal hours”: “The Week,” The Nation, May 7, 1868, p. 361.
“He contrived”: Moorfield Storey to his father, May 3, 1868, quoted in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 103.
“No rule of the profession obliged him to take the President’s case,”: see Wendell Phillips, “Impeachment,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, May 16, 1868, p. 2; see also Grand Assize,” Zion Herald, May 7, 1868, p. 225.
“Ah, Mr. Evarts,”: quoted in Lewis, Great American Lawyers, vol. 7, op. cit., p. 233.
“the strong arms of the people”: Trial II, p. 388.
“Most men prefer to be deceived”: “Long Stories,” The Round Table, May 9, 1868, p. 292.
“must be carried out to the bitter end”: Briggs, March 27, 1867, The Olivia Letters, p. 36.
“the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments”: Trial II, p. 393.
“In spite of the technicalities”: Trial II, p. 392.
“a man may make his speech”: Trial II, p. 394.
Chief Justice Chase sent one of the Senate pages: see “News from Washington,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 5, 1868, p. 1.
Some said Bingham’s style: see “The Week,” The Nation, May 7, 1868, p. 361.
Benjamin Wade said: see “Warrington upon the Situation in the State and National Capitols,” Springfield Republican, May 9, 1868, p. 4; see also “Mr. Bingham’s Summing Up,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, May 11, 1868, p. 1.
“I ask you to consider that we stand this day”: Trial II, p. 468; see also M.C.A. “A Woman’s Letters from Washington,” The Independent, May 14, 1868, p. 4.
“I don’t know”: quoted in Briggs, May 7, 1868, The Olivia Letters, p. 81.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: CANKERED AND CRUDE
“Society, in these States”: Whitman, Poetry and Prose, ed. Justin Kaplan, p. 937.
“Our American politics,”: Walt Whitman to Moncure Conway, Feb. 17, 1868, Butler.
“While the piled”: “Amid whatever clouds,” Walt Whitman, “Democracy,” pp. 930, 933. Whitman read Carlyle’s essay the previous August and began composing his response then.
Someone heard the President: “Washington,” Chicago Republican, May 12, 1868, p. 1.
Schuyler Colfax seemed certain: see Schuyler Colfax to John Russell Young, April 8, 1868, and April 16, 1868, LC, as well as J. R. Briggs to Young, April 17, 1868, for the suspicions discussed in this paragraph.
Henderson of Missouri and Edmund G. Ross of Kansas: see “Washington Gossip,” quoted in the Lowell
Daily Citizen, May 8, 1868, p. 2; Ross had volunteered: BB [for the committee], “Raising of Money,” p. 30.
“After this impeachment trial is over”: quoted in J.R. Briggs to Godard, April 17, 1868, LC.
“Is there anything new?”: quoted in “The Impeachment Trial,” New-York Tribune, May 13, 1868, p. 1.
“Moral debauchery under a decent exterior,”: J. R. Briggs to Godard, April 17, 1868, in John Russell Young papers, LC.
“I have believed from the first”: N. Kilgore to Elihu Washburne, May 7, 1868, LC.
Though no supporter: for a sympathetic but instructive view of Van Winkle, see Peter Strum, “Senator Peter G. Van Winkle and the Johnson Impeachment Trial,” West Virginia History (1999), pp 25–43.
When Charles Sumner: see Ibid., p. 32.
“This impeachment worries a fellow to death,”: Benjamin Perley Poore to William W. Clapp, April 24, 1868, LC.
And though in private Fowler had said: see John Russell Young to Schuyler Colfax, April 16, 1868, LC.
Gideon Welles assumed: see May 7, 1868, in Welles, Diary, vol. 3, p. 349.
And though both Henderson and the Missouri delegation: see CG 40: 2, May 16, 1868, p. 2503. The issue of Henderson, the Missouri delegation, and his vote became a matter of some dispute.
President of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad: Craig had also been appointed by Johnson as Collector of Internal Revenue for the St. Joseph, Missouri, district.
“He was the man to do it,”: “Testimony of Alfred Lacey,” May 19, 1868, “Impeachment Investigation,” NA; see also BB, [for the committee], “Raising of Money,” p. 16.
“turned out of the Republican Church,”: “Testimony of Alfred Lacey,” May 19, 1868, “Impeachment Investigation,” NA.
The Impeachers Page 54
