Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy (43 page)

The Republican leaders unanimously:
Shelby Cullom,
Fifty Years of Public Service
, Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. (1911), p. 147; Brodie, p. 240; Charles R. Williams, ed.,
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes
, Columbus: Ohio State Historical Society (1922–26), vol. 3, p. 33.

“I cannot yield”: Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., p. 4 (December 4, 1865).

To ensure that the Southern representatives:
Foner, p. 239;
Chicago Tribune
, December 12, 1865.

Without debate: Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., p. 6 (December 4, 1865), p. 30 (December 12, 1865).

If Stevens had heard:
Welles, vol. 2, pp. 387, 438; Blaine, vol. 2, p. 112.

5. A GOVERNMENT DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF

The war between the President:
Georges Clemenceau,
American Reconstruction: 1865–1870
, Fernand Baldensperger, ed., New York: Lincoln McVeagh/Dial Press (1928), pp. 102–3 (September 10, 1867). Clemenceau, who would become the French premier during World War I, completed his medical studies in 1865 but was not ready to settle down. His father underwrote a lengthy stay in the United States, during which Clemenceau practiced some medicine and gloried in roughhouse American politics. He began contributing letters about American politics to
Le Temps
in Paris, and ultimately was paid for his dispatches. He also acquired an American wife.

The hearings assembled:
Kendrick, pp. 39, 41; Report of the Joint Committee of Reconstruction, passim; Eric L. McKitrick,
Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction
, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1960), pp. 330–31 and n. 3. One scholar concluded that the Joint Committee hearings “dramatized conclusions already held rather than uncovered the whole truth.” Joseph B. James, “Southern Reaction to the Proposal of the Fourteenth Amendment,”
Journal of Southern History
22:480 (November 1956).

With four million:
Blaine, vol. 2, p. 189;
Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 356–57 (January 22, 1866) (Roscoe Conkling).

But blacks were in a majority:
Ibid., p. 351; Leslie H. Fishel, Jr., “Northern Prejudice and Negro Suffrage, 1865–1870,”
Journal of Negro History
39:8 (January 1954);
Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., p. 683 (February 6, 1866). The population estimates are based on 1860 census figures.

Harkening to the 200,000 blacks: Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 674–87 (February 6, 1866).

With the proposed amendment:
Ibid., p. 380 (January 23, 1866) (Rep. Brooks); Foner, pp. 252–53;
Washington Daily National Intelligencer
, January 29, 1866; “Interview with James Dixon,” January 28, 1866, in
Johnson Papers
9:647–48.

It specifically conferred: Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., p. 1760 (April 4, 1866) (Sen. Trumbull); McKitrick, p. 278; Edward McPherson,
The Political History of the United States of America During the Period of Reconstruction
, New York: Da Capo Press (1972; originally 1871), pp. 72–74, 78.

Thad Stevens and his allies:
Welles Diary, vol. 2, p. 432.

The president’s concern:
McPherson, pp. 69–71;
Chicago Tribune
, February 9, 1866. Johnson met a delegation of Negro leaders in early February but offered no support for their petition for protection for the former slaves. McPherson, p. 54. Johnson confided to his secretary after the meeting, “I know that d—d [Frederick] Douglass,” adding, “he’s just like any nigger, & he would sooner cut a white man’s throat than not.” Reported by Philip Ripley in letter to Manton Marble, February 8, 1868, Manton Marble Papers.

Yet Johnson ignored:
John H. Cox and LaWanda Cox, “Andrew Johnson and His Ghost Writers: An Analysis of the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Veto Messages,”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
48:470–71 (December 1961); McPherson, pp. 71–72. In a masterful analysis of drafts of two Johnson veto messages, the Coxes demonstrated that Johnson carefully managed those documents, though others drafted large portions of them. The challenge to Congress’s authority in the veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau bill, however, appears in no drafts, so the Coxes conclude that Johnson himself inserted it.

Johnson’s veto:
McKitrick, pp. 290–91.

One pronounced him: McGregor
[
IA
]
News
, reprinted in
Chicago Tribune
, February 27, 1866;
Chicago Tribune
, February 21, 1866;
Pittsburgh Commercial
editorial reprinted in
Chicago Tribune
, February 27, 1866;
Richmond Whig, Vicksburg Herald
, reprinted in
Chicago Tribune
, February 27, 1866.

Nevertheless, the Senate failed: Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., p. 943 (February 20, 1866, Sen. Trumbull). With the battle lines hardening between the president and Congress, Stevens secured House approval of a resolution declaring flatly that no Southern legislator would enter Congress “until Congress shall have declared such state entitled to such representation.” Kendrick, pp. 233–34;
Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., p. 950 (February 20, 1866).

Stirred by his looming martyrdom: Washington Daily National Intelligencer
, February 23, 1866. Struck by the peculiarly self-righteous tone of this oration, one scholar counted each use by Johnson of a personal pronoun—I, me, myself, my, Andrew Johnson, and even the occasional third-person “he.” The scholar found that Johnson referred to himself 210 times, or approximately three times a minute, or about twice as often as Lincoln had referred to himself in his final speech. McKitrick, p. 293 n. 46.

A Johnson ally:
Blaine, vol. 2, p. 182; Welles Diary, vol. 2, p. 439; James H. Geiger to John Sherman, February 24, 1866, John Sherman Papers; McCulloch, p. 381; Browning Diary, vol. 2, p. 93 n. 1 (letter of Sen. Doolittle of Wisconsin, October 7, 1866).

The Maine senator wrote:
Fessenden to Elizabeth F. Warriner (February 25, 1866), in Fessenden Papers, Bowdoin College, quoted in McKitrick, p. 297 n. 51.

His real dismay:
McPherson, pp. 74–78.

Over a glass of claret: Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 1755–61 (April 4, 1866), p. 1809 (April 6, 1866) (Senate), p. 1861 (April 9, 1866) (House); Moore Diary/AJ, p. 15 (undated entry).

To ensure that Johnson:
Foner, p. 251; LaWanda Cox and John H. Cox,
Politics, Principle, and Prejudice 1865–1866
, New York: Atheneum (1976), pp. 202–3; Cox and Cox, “Andrew Johnson and His Ghost Writers,” p. 478.

“A year ago they were willing”:
Foner, p. 262; McFeeley, pp. 275–81, quoting
Memphis Avalanche
, May 6, 1866;
New York Times
, May 24, 1866.

A day later, Sheridan’s feelings:
James G. Hollandsworth, Jr.,
An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866
, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press (2001), pp. 139–41, 144.

A few Johnson loyalists:
Welles Diary, vol. 2, p. 569.

Yet the same report:
Schurz,
Reminiscences
, vol. 3, pp. 239–40; George S. Boutwell, “The Usurpation,”
Atlantic Monthly
18:509 (October 1866);
New York Times
, May 19, 1868.

After Charles Sumner’s insistence:
Foner, pp. 252–53;
Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., p. 1289 (March 9, 1866).

Seated in Stevens’s parlor:
James M. Scovel, “Thad Stevens,” undated article, in Stevens Papers, Box 8.

Owen had less luck:
Robert Dale Owen, “Political Results from the Varioloid,”
Atlantic Monthly
35:662–64 (June 1875).

During the first half of April:
Kendrick, pp. 82, 89, 97.

When the revised version:
Owen, pp. 665–66;
New York Independent
, May 31, 1866 (quoting Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan); Welles Diary, vol. 2, pp. 495–98.

Focusing on practical matters: New York Herald
, May 2, 1866.

That provision would survive:
By 1875, Robert Dale Owen was critical of the failure to enforce this provision: “[W]hile various States have abridged suffrage by imposing qualifications [such as literacy tests and poll taxes], no attempt has been made, or is likely to be made, to ascertain how many adult males are thereby excluded, or to deduct,
proportionately
, from the basis of representation in these States.” Owen, p. 667.

When he closed: Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 3042–3149 (May 5 through June 13, 1866); Owen, p. 665; “A Woman in Washington,”
The Independent
, June 14, 1866.

Do you inquire why: Cong. Globe
, 39th Cong., 1st sess., p. 3148 (June 13, 1866).

Meeting with one Cabinet member:
Senate Ex. Doc. No. 57, 39th Cong., 1st sess. (June 22, 1866); “Message re Amending the Constitution,” June 22, 1866, in
Johnson Papers
10:615; Browning Diary, vol. 2, p. 80; Temple, p. 343 (Tennessee); testimony of T. C. Wetherly, April 2, 1868, in Archives,
Impeachment: Various House Papers
(South Carolina); Trefousse,
Andrew Johnson,
p. 275 (Alabama); James, p. 497 (Johnson’s opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment was “decisive” in persuading Southern states to reject it). Most Southern state officials opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, and no Southern states ratified it until their governments were reconstituted after the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 took effect. Perman,
Reunion Without Compromise
, pp. 249–53.

Thereafter, the two congressmen:
Cullom, p. 153.

6. POLITICAL WAR

We have got to fight:
Mark M. Krug,
Lyman Trumbull, Conservative Radical
, New York: A. S. Barnes (1965), p. 244.

The president, according to his own treasury secretary:
McCulloch, pp. 404–5.

In mid-June:
Carter, p. 237; Welles Diary, vol. 2, pp. 528–31.

In the year since the assassination:
Moore Diary/AJ (May 2, 1866).

One contemporary called:
Brooks,
Men in Lincoln’s Time
, pp. 35–36; Blaine, vol. 2, pp. 65, 108; Goodwin, pp. 11–13, 506–7; Field, p. 262; Donn Piatt,
Memories of the Men Who Saved the Union,
New York: Belford, Clarke & Co. (1887), p. 135; Van Deusen, pp. 428–30; John M. Taylor,
William Henry Seward: Lincoln’s Right Hand
, New York: HarperCollins (1991), pp. 245–46, 250; Frederic Bancroft,
The Life of William H. Seward
, Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith (1967), vol. 2, pp. 462–63;
Washington Daily National Intelligencer
, June 22, 1865. Navy Secretary Gideon Welles held a grudging admiration for Seward’s political skills, claiming that the secretary of state “made constant mistakes, but recovered with a facility that was wonderful and almost always without injury to himself.” Welles Diary, vol. 1, p. 139.

One Republican thought:
Blaine, vol. 2, p. 67.

Some attributed:
Staudenraus, ed., p. 326 (June 7, 1864); Blaine, vol. 2, pp. 64–69; Hamlin, p. 506; Van Deusen, p. 433. Dickinson also was a “War Democrat.” Had the New York delegation supported Dickinson aggressively, he might well have won the nomination, but some New York strength was siphoned off to Johnson. Hamlin, pp. 464–76; Glonek, p. 291.

He strongly approved:
Seward to Johnson, February 23, 1866, in
Johnson Papers
10: 164;
Milwaukee Daily Sentinel
, March 31, 1866 (reprinting column from
Cincinnati Gazette
).

In a public letter:
Goodwin, pp. 300–304, 467–68;
Washington National Daily Intelligencer
, March 8, 1866 and July 16, 1866;
Milwaukee Daily Sentinel
, February 24, 1866;
Yankton (SD) Union and Dakotan
, September 15, 1866 (reprinting Seward speech).

According to his new secretary of the interior:
Welles Diary, vol. 2, pp. 551–52 (July 11, 1866); Trefousse,
Andrew Johnson
, p. 257; William Dennison to Johnson, July 11, 1866, in
Johnson Papers
10: 668–69; James Harlan to Johnson, July 27, 1866, in
Johnson Papers
10:741; Browning Diary, vol. 2, p. 79.