by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER XI
THE SUPREME TEST
It is the glory of the American Republic that every man who has filled theoffice of President has grown in stature when clothed with its power andhas proved himself worthy of its solemn trust. It is our highest claim tothe respect of the world and the vindication of man's capacity to governhimself.
The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson would mark either the lowesttide-mud of degradation to which the Republic could sink, or its end. Inthis trial our system would be put to its severest strain. If a partisanmajority in Congress could remove the Executive and defy the SupremeCourt, stability to civic institutions was at an end, and the breath of amob would become the sole standard of law.
Congress had thrown to the winds the last shreds of decency in itstreatment of the Chief Magistrate. Stoneman led this campaign of insult,not merely from feelings of personal hate, but because he saw that thusthe President's conviction before the Senate would become all butinevitable.
When his messages arrived from the White House they were thrown into thewaste-basket without being read, amid jeers, hisses, curses, and ribaldlaughter.
In lieu of their reading, Stoneman would send to the Clerk's desk anobscene tirade from a party newspaper, and the Clerk of the House wouldread it amid the mocking groans, laughter, and applause of the floor andgalleries.
A favourite clipping described the President as "an insolent drunkenbrute, in comparison with whom Caligula's horse was respectable."
In the Senate, whose members were to sit as sworn judges to decide thequestion of impeachment, Charles Sumner used language so vulgar that hewas called to order. Sustained by the Chair and the Senate, he repeated itwith increased violence, concluding with cold venom:
"Andrew Johnson has become the successor of Jefferson Davis. In holdinghim up to judgment I do not dwell on his beastly intoxication the day hetook the oath as Vice-president, nor do I dwell on his maudlin speeches bywhich he has degraded the country, nor hearken to the reports of pardonssold, or of personal corruption. These things are bad. But he has usurpedthe powers of Congress."
Conover, the perjured wretch, in prison for his crimes as a professionalwitness in the assassination trial, now circulated the rumour that hecould give evidence that President Johnson was the assassin of Lincoln.Without a moment's hesitation, Stoneman's henchmen sent a petition to thePresident for the pardon of this villain that he might turn against theman who had pardoned him and swear his life away! This scoundrel was bornein triumph from prison to the Capitol and placed before the ImpeachmentCommittee, to whom he poured out his wondrous tale.
The sewers and prisons were dragged for every scrap of testimony to befound, and the day for the trial approached.
As it drew nearer, excitement grew intense. Swarms of adventurersexpecting the overthrow of the Government crowded into Washington. Dreamsof honours, profits, and division of spoils held riot. Gamblers throngedthe saloons and gaming-houses, betting their gold on the President'shead.
Stoneman found the business more serious than even his daring spirit haddreamed. His health suddenly gave way under the strain, and he was put tobed by his physician with the warning that the least excitement would beinstantly fatal.
Elsie entered the little Black House on the hill for the first time sinceher trip at the age of twelve, some eight years before. She installed anarmy nurse, took charge of the place, and ignored the existence of thebrown woman, refusing to speak to her or permit her to enter her father'sroom.
His illness made it necessary to choose an assistant to conduct the casebefore the High Court. There was but one member of the House whosecharacter and ability fitted him for the place--General Benj. F. Butler,of Massachusetts, whose name was enough to start a riot in any assembly inAmerica.
His selection precipitated a storm at the Capitol. A member leaped to hisfeet on the floor of the House and shouted:
"If I were to characterize all that is pusillanimous in war, inhuman inpeace, forbidden in morals, and corrupt in politics, I could name it inone word--Butlerism!"
For this speech he was ordered to apologize, and when he refused withscorn they voted that the Speaker publicly censure him. The Speaker didso, but winked at the offender while uttering the censure.
John A. Bingham, of Ohio, who had been chosen for his powers of oratory tomake the principal speech against the President, rose in the House andindignantly refused to serve on the Board of Impeachment with such a man.
General Butler replied with crushing insolence:
"It is true, Mr. Speaker, that I may have made an error of judgment intrying to blow up Fort Fisher with a powder ship at sea. I did the best Icould with the talents God gave me. An angel could have done no more. Atleast I bared my own breast in my country's defence--a thing thedistinguished gentleman who insults me has not ventured to do--his onlyclaim to greatness being that, behind prison walls, on perjured testimony,his fervid eloquence sent an innocent American mother screaming to thegallows."
The fight was ended only by an order from the old Commoner's bed toBingham to shut his mouth and work with Butler. When the President hadbeen crushed, then they could settle Kilkenny-cat issues. Bingham obeyed.
When the august tribunal assembled in the Senate Chamber, fifty-fiveSenators, presided over by Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the SupremeCourt, constituted the tribunal. They took their seats in a semicircle infront of the Vice-president's desk at which the Chief Justice sat. Behindthem crowded the one hundred and ninety members of the House ofRepresentatives, the accusers of the ruler of the mightiest Republic inhuman history. Every inch of space in the galleries was crowded withbrilliantly dressed men and women, army officers in gorgeous uniforms, andthe pomp and splendour of the ministers of every foreign court of theworld. In spectacular grandeur no such scene was ever before witnessed inthe annals of justice.
The peculiar personal appearance of General Butler, whose bald head shonewith insolence while his eye seemed to be winking over his record as awarrior and making fun of his fellow-manager Bingham, added a touch ofhumour to the solemn scene.
The magnificent head of the Chief Justice suggested strange thoughts tothe beholder. He had been summoned but the day before to try JeffersonDavis for the treason of declaring the Southern States out of the Union.To-day he sat down to try the President of the United States for declaringthem to be in the Union! He had protested with warmth that he could notconduct both these trials at once.
The Chief Justice took oath to "do impartial justice according to theConstitution and the laws," and to the chagrin of Sumner administered thisoath to each Senator in turn. When Benjamin F. Wade's name was called,Hendricks, of Indiana, objected to his sitting as judge. He could succeedtemporarily to the Presidency, as the presiding officer of the Senate, andhis own vote might decide the fate of the accused and determine his ownsuccession. The law forbids the Vice-president to sit on such trials. Itshould apply with more vigour in his case. Besides, he had without ahearing already pronounced the President guilty.
Sumner, forgetting his motion to prevent Stockton's voting against his ownexpulsion, flew to the defence of Wade. Hendricks smilingly withdrew hisobjection, and "Bluff Ben Wade" took the oath and sat down to judge hisown cause with unruffled front.
When the case was complete, the whole bill of indictment stood forth atissue of stupid malignity without a shred of evidence to support itscharges.
On the last day of the trial, when the closing speeches were being made,there was a stir at the door. The throng of men, packing every inch offloor space, were pushed rudely aside. The crowd craned their necks,Senators turned and looked behind them to see what the disturbance meant,and the Chief Justice rapped for order.
Suddenly through the dense mass appeared the forms of two gigantic negroescarrying an old man. His grim face, white and rigid, and his big club foothanging pathetically from those black arms, could not be mistaken. Athrill of excitement swept the floor and galleries, and a faint cheerrippled the
surface, quickly suppressed by the gavel.
The negroes placed him in an armchair facing the semicircle of Senators,and crouched down on their haunches beside him. Their kinky heads, blackskin, thick lips, white teeth, and flat noses made for the moment acurious symbolic frame for the chalk-white passion of the old Commoner'sface.
No sculptor ever dreamed a more sinister emblem of the corruption of arace of empire builders than this group. Its black figures, wrapped in thenight of four thousand years of barbarism, squatted there the "equal" oftheir master, grinning at his forms of justice, the evolution of fortycenturies of Aryan genius. To their brute strength the white fanatic inthe madness of his hate had appealed, and for their hire he had barteredthe birthright of a mighty race of freemen.
The speaker hurried to his conclusion that the half-fainting master mightdeliver his message. In the meanwhile his eyes, cold and thrilling, soughtthe secrets of the souls of the judges before him.
He had not come to plead or persuade. He had eluded the vigilance of hisdaughter and nurse, escaped with the aid of the brown woman and her blackallies, and at the peril of his life had come to command. Every energy ofhis indomitable will he was using now to keep from fainting. He felt thatif he could but look those men in the face they would not dare to defy hisword.
He shambled painfully to his feet amid a silence that was awful. Again thesheer wonder of the man's personality held the imagination of theaudience. His audacity, his fanaticism, and the strange contradictions ofhis character stirred the mind of friend and foe alike--this man whotottered there before them, holding off Death with his big ugly left hand,while with his right he clutched at the throat of his foe! Honest anddishonest, cruel and tender, great and mean, a party leader who scornedpublic opinion, a man of conviction, yet the most unscrupulous politician,a philosopher who preached the equality of man, yet a tyrant who hated theworld and despised all men!
His very presence before them an open defiance of love and life and death,would not his word ring omnipotent when the verdict was rendered? Everyman in the great courtroom believed it as he looked on the rows ofSenators hanging on his lips.
He spoke at first with unnatural vigour, a faint flush of fever lightinghis white face, his voice quivering yet penetrating.
"Upon that man among you who shall dare to acquit the President," heboldly threatened, "I hurl the everlasting curse of a Nation--an infamythat shall rive and blast his children's children until they shrink fromtheir own name as from the touch of pollution!"
He gasped for breath, his restless hands fumbled at his throat, hestaggered and would have fallen had not his black guards caught him. Herevived, pushed them back on their haunches, and sat down. And then, withhis big club foot thrust straight in front of him, his gnarled handsgripping the arms of his chair, the massive head shaking back and forthlike a wounded lion, he continued his speech, which grew in fierceintensity with each laboured breath.
The effect was electrical. Every Senator leaned forward to catch thelowest whisper, and so awful was the suspense in the galleries thelisteners grew faint.
When this last mad challenge was hurled into the teeth of the judges, thedazed crowd paused for breath and the galleries burst into a storm ofapplause.
In vain the Chief Justice rose, his lionlike face livid with anger,pounded for order, and commanded the galleries to be cleared.
They laughed at him. Roar after roar was the answer. The Chief Justice inloud angry tones ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to clear the galleries.
Men leaned over the rail and shouted in his face:
"He can't do it!"
"He hasn't got men enough!"
"Let him try if he dares!"
The doorkeepers attempted to enforce order by announcing it in the name ofthe peace and dignity and sovereign power of the Senate over its sacredchamber. The crowd had now become a howling mob which jeered them.
Senator Grimes, of Iowa, rose and demanded the reason why the Senate wasthus insulted and the order had not been enforced.
A volley of hisses greeted his question.
The Chief Justice, evidently quite nervous, declared the order would beenforced.
Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, moved that the offenders be arrested.
In reply the crowd yelled:
"We'd like to see you do it!"
At length the mob began to slowly leave the galleries under the impressionthat the High Court had adjourned.
Suddenly a man cried out:
"Hold on! They ain't going to adjourn. Let's see it out!"
Hundreds took their seats again. In the corridors a crowd began to sing inwild chorus:
"Old Grimes is dead, that poor old man." The women joined with glee.Between the verses the leader would curse the Iowa Senator as a traitorand copperhead. The singing could be distinctly heard by the Court as itsroar floated through the open doors.
When the Senate Chamber had been cleared and the most disgraceful scenethat ever occurred within its portals had closed, the High CourtImpeachment went into secret session to consider the evidence and itsverdict.
Within an hour from its adjournment it was known to the Managers thatseven Republican Senators were doubtful, and that they formed a groupunder the leadership of two great constitutional lawyers who stillbelieved in the sanctity of a judge's oath--Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois,and William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine. Around them had gathered SenatorsGrimes, of Iowa, Van Winkle, of West Virginia, Fowler, of Tennessee,Henderson, of Missouri, and Ross, of Kansas. The Managers were in a panic.If these men dared to hold together with the twelve Democrats, thePresident would be acquitted by one vote--they could count thirty-fourcertain for conviction.
The Revolutionists threw to the winds the last scruple of decency, wentinto caucus and organized a conspiracy for forcing, within the few dayswhich must pass before the verdict, these judges to submit to theirdecree.
Fessenden and Trumbull were threatened with impeachment and expulsion fromthe Senate and bombarded by the most furious assaults from the press,which denounced them as infamous traitors, "as mean, repulsive, andnoxious as hedgehogs in the cages of a travelling menagerie."
A mass meeting was held in Washington which said:
"Resolved, that we impeach Fessenden, Trumbull, and Grimes at the bar ofjustice and humanity, as traitors before whose guilt the infamy ofBenedict Arnold becomes respectability and decency."
The Managers sent out a circular telegram to every State from which came adoubtful judge:
"Great danger to the peace of the country if impeachment fails. Send yourSenators public opinion by resolutions, letters, and delegates."
The man who excited most wrath was Ross, of Kansas. That Kansas of allStates should send a "traitor" was more than the spirits of theRevolutionists could bear.
A mass meeting in Leavenworth accordingly sent him the telegram:
"Kansas has heard the evidence and demands the conviction of thePresident.
"D. R. Anthony and 1,000 others."
To this Ross replied:
"I have taken an oath to do impartial justice. I trust I shall have thecourage and honesty to vote according to the dictates of my judgment andfor the highest good of my country."
He got his answer:
"Your motives are Indian contracts and greenbacks. Kansas repudiates youas she does all perjurers and skunks."
The Managers organized an inquisition for the purpose of torturing andbadgering Ross into submission. His one vote was all they lacked.
They laid siege to little Vinnie Ream, the sculptress, to whom Congresshad awarded a contract for the statue of Lincoln. Her studio was in thecrypt of the Capitol. They threatened her with the wrath of Congress, theloss of her contract, and ruin of her career unless she found a way toinduce Senator Ross, whom she knew, to vote against the President.
Such an attempt to gain by fraud the verdict of a common court of lawwould have sent its promoters to prison for felony. Yet the Managers ofthis case, before the highest tribunal
of the world, not only did itwithout a blush of shame, but cursed as a traitor every man who dared toquestion their motives.
As the day approached for the Court to vote, Senator Ross remained tofriend and foe a sealed mystery. Reporters swarmed about him, the targetof a thousand eyes. His rooms were besieged by his radical constituentswho had been imported from Kansas in droves to browbeat him into a promiseto convict. His movements day and night, his breakfast, his dinner, hissupper, the clothes he wore, the colour of his cravat, his friends andcompanions, were chronicled in hourly bulletins and flashed over the wiresfrom the delirious Capital.
Chief Justice Chase called the High Court of Impeachment to order, torender its verdict. Old Stoneman had again been carried to his chair inthe arms of two negroes, and sat with his cold eyes searching the faces ofthe judges.
The excitement had reached the highest pitch of intensity. A sense ofchoking solemnity brooded over the scene. The feeling grew that the hourhad struck which would test the capacity of man to establish an enduringRepublic.
The Clerk read the Eleventh Article, drawn by the Great Commoner as thesupreme test.
As its last words died away the Chief Justice rose amid a silence that wasagony, placed his hands on the sides of the desk as if to steady himself,and said:
"Call the roll."
Each Senator answered "Guilty" or "Not Guilty," exactly as they had beencounted by the Managers, until Fessenden's name was called.
A moment of stillness and the great lawyer's voice rang high, cold, clear,and resonant as a Puritan church bell on Sunday morning:
"Not Guilty!"
A murmur, half groan and sigh, half cheer and cry, rippled the greathall.
The other votes were discounted now save that of Edmund G. Ross, ofKansas. No human being on earth knew what this man would do save thesilent invisible man within his soul.
Over the solemn trembling silence the voice of the Chief Justice rang:
"Senator Ross, how say you? Is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, guilty ornot guilty of a high misdemeanor as charged in this article?"
The great Judge bent forward; his brow furrowed as Ross arose.
His fellow Senators watched him spellbound. A thousand men and women,hanging from the galleries, focused their eyes on him. Old Stoneman drewhis bristling brows down, watching him like an adder ready to strike, hislower lip protruding, his jaws clinched as a vise, his hands fumbling thearms of his chair.
Every breath is held, every ear strained, as the answer falls from thesturdy Scotchman like the peal of a trumpet:
"Not Guilty!"
The crowd breathes--a pause, a murmur, the shuffle of a thousand feet----
The President is acquitted, and the Republic lives!
The House assembled and received the report of the verdict. Old Stonemanpulled himself half erect, holding to his desk, addressed the Speaker,introduced his second bill for the impeachment of the President, and fellfainting in the arms of his black attendants.
