CHAPTER IX

THE ATTEMPT TO IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT

Grant in the War Office-The President's Message of December 3d, 1867-The President's Special Message Concerning the Suspension of Stanton-The Senate Resolution in Regard to the Suspension of Stanton-Grant's Disobedience toward the President-The Unbearable Situation in which the President now Found Himself-The Dismissal of Stanton from OfficeGeneral Thomas Appointed Secretary of War ad interimStanton's Resistance--Thomas and the President-The Attitude of the Senate toward the Dismissal of Stanton-The Movements in the House of Representatives-The Arrest of General Thomas-Thomas's Second Attempt to Take Possession of the War Office-The House Resolution to Impeach the President -The Withdrawal of Stanton's Complaint against Thomas -The Fear of the Republicans to Test the Tenure-of-Office Act before the Courts-The Managers of Impeachment-The Charges against the President-The President's Answer to the Complaint-The Withdrawal of Mr. Black from the President's Counsel-The Contents of the President's Answer-The Replication of the House to the President's Answer-The TrialConduct of the Managers-The Evidence in the Case-The Argument-The Law in the Case-Mr. Stanton's Violations of Law-The Nomination of General Schofield to be Secretary of War-The Vote upon Impeachment―The Truth of the Matter-The Abdication of Stanton-Schofield's Confirmation as Secretary of War, and His Acceptance of the Office.

DURING this same period, another act in the drama of Reconstruction was being played, a fit companion piece to what was occurring in the unhappy communities of the South. It was the attempt to dispose of the President, and the presidency, by the impeachment of the President.

War Office.

The history of the President's relations to Mr. Stanton, his Secretary of War, has already been given down to Grant in the the suspension of Mr. Stanton in August of 1867, and the designation of General Grant to succeed him ad interim. Grant immediately assumed the duties of the office, and Mr. Stanton then regarded General Grant as a friend of the President in the controversy between himself and the President.

of December

3d, 1867.

In his annual Message to Congress, the Fortieth Congress, of December 3d, 1867, the President said nothing The Presi- directly in regard to his suspension of Mr. dent's Message Stanton from office. He put forward a strong argument, couched in moderate and respectful language, against the policy and constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts, as measures establishing martial law in times of peace, and as doing it for the purpose of establishing negro rule over the Southern communities, and he urged the repeal of these Acts, and the immediate admission of the Representatives and Senators from these communities, or "States" as he considered them, to their seats in Congress. What he said upon these subjects is, for the most part, entirely convincing to the impartial mind, at this day, and all of it was apparently animated with true patriotism and earnest desire to promote the common weal. At the close of the argument, however, the President introduced into his Message some ambiguous expressions which were unfortunate, to say the least, and which roused to a high degree the suspicions and the hatred. already entertained against him by the radical Repub

licans.

He wrote as follows: "How far the duty of the President to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution' requires him to go in opposing an unconstitutional act of Congress is a very serious and important

question, on which I have deliberated much and felt extremely anxious to reach a proper conclusion. Where an act has been passed according to the forms of the Constitution by the supreme legislative authority, and is regularly enrolled among the public statutes of the country, Executive resistance to it, especially in times of high party excitement, would be likely to produce violent collision between the respective adherents of the two branches of the Government. This would be simply civil war, and civil war must be resorted to only as the last remedy for the worst of evils. Whatever might tend to provoke it should be most carefully avoided. A faithful and conscientious magistrate will concede very much to honest error, and something even to perverse malice, before he will endanger the public peace; and he will not adopt forcible measures, or such as might lead to force, as long as those which are peaceable remain open to him or to his constituents. It is true that cases may occur in which the Executive would be compelled to stand on its rights, and maintain them regardless of all consequences. If Congress should pass an act which is not only in palpable conflict with the Constitution, but will certainly, if carried out, produce immediate and irreparable injury to the organic structure of the Government, and if there be neither judicial remedy for the wrongs it inflicts nor power in the people to protect themselves without the official aid of their elected defender-if, for instance, the legislative department should pass an act even through all the forms of law to abolish a co-ordinate department of the Government— in such a case the President must take the high responsibilities of his office and save the life of the nation at all hazards. The so-called Reconstruction Acts, though as plainly unconstitutional as any that can be imagined, were not believed to be within the class last mentioned.

The people were not wholly disarmed of the power of selfdefence. In all the Northern States' they still held in their hands the sacred right of the ballot, and it was safe to believe that in due time they would come to the rescue of their own institutions. It gives me pleasure to add that the appeal to our common constituents was not taken in vain, and that my confidence in their wisdom and virtue seems not to have been misplaced." These last words referred undoubtedly to the recent rejection, by popular vote, in a number of the most important Northern "States," of proposed amendments to "State" constitutions conferring suffrage upon negroes. Most of the Republicans in Congress interpreted this whole paragraph in the Message as a threat to violate the Reconstruction Acts, although this was pretation disavowed, rather indistinctly it is true, and placed by the Republicans to violate also the Tenure-of-Office Act. It dent's Mes- is very difficult to say what the President was aiming at in giving such a warning to a body already excited against him to a high degree. It was certainly a faux pas of the worst kind, to say the least about it.

The inter

on the Presi

sage.

cerning the suspension of

Just nine days later the President sent his special Message to the Senate in regard to his suspension of Mr. The Presi- Stanton. The gist of it was that mutual dent's special confidence between himself and Mr. Stanton Message conno longer existed, and that when he asked Stanton. Mr. Stanton to resign Mr. Stanton had declined to do so and hal strongly intimated that his reason for declining was his own lack of confidence in the President's patriotism and integrity. The President claimed that such an attitude, on the part of a subordinate toward his superior, was unendurable, was in fact official misconduct of a grave order, and he also referred to Stanton's withholding Baird's telegram from

him just before the New Orleans riot. The President furthermore discussed Mr. Stanton's letter in reply to his order to him suspending him from office and commanding him to turn over the records and property of the office to General Grant. This letter contained a declaration by Mr. Stanton denying the right of the President, under the Constitution and laws, to suspend him from office, without the advice and consent of the Senate, and without legal cause, and affirming that he yielded, under protest, to the superior force wielded by the General of the Army who had been designated to

succeed him.

This contention of Mr. Stanton that the President could not suspend him under the Constitution and laws of the United States gave the President the opportunity of saying that Mr. Stanton must be claiming the protection of the Tenure-of-Office Act of March 2d, 1867, and of revealing to the Senate Mr. Stanton's most decided condemnation of that Act when it was a bill before the President. The President asserted that Mr. Stanton, as every other member of his Cabinet, advised him that the bill was unconstitutional, in that it was a dangerous encroachment upon the President's constitutional prerogatives, and urged him to veto it. He also said that all the members of his Cabinet who had been appointed by Mr. Lincoln-and Stanton was one of these-appeared to be of the opinion that their tenures were not fixed or affected by the provisions of the bill. The conclusion arrived at by the President evidently was that the Tenure-of-Office Act did not cover Mr. Stanton's case, but left it under the law and practice existing before the passage of that measure, and that if it did cover it, the Act was unconstitutional, and was so considered by Mr. Stanton himself, and every other member of the Cabinet.