The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (43 page)

“He hasn’t,” said Constance. “You wouldn’t know. You’re a Northern negro. You’re pampered. Come look at the South. Come see how we live, and you’ll understand why Lincoln has to go. Isn’t that right?”

“Lincoln has to go,” Corbin echoed.

Abigail’s brief was to observe and report, nothing more. In particular, she was not supposed to argue or challenge, or in any way imply that she wished to change the witness’s mind about his testimony. But the issue between them had become too large to ignore. And so Abigail, having the rhythm of the conversation at last, addressed herself entirely to the sister.

“Isn’t Mr. Lincoln the reason you are free?”

Constance made a spitting sound. “The Union Army is the reason we’re free.” She was becoming seriously riled. “All the other colored folk down there—they all worship him. They call him Uncle Linkum. They name their babies Abraham. Why, my cousin just named hers Abrahamina. They don’t see what’s going on. We do.” She had laid her very large hands on the table, and now she clenched them into very large fists. “We have big troubles in South Carolina, but you wouldn’t know about that, would you? Or care. We’ve heard of you, Miss Canner. Every colored person in this town is talking about you. Did you know that? My brother can’t read, but I can.” Tossing the morning’s newspaper onto the table. “There you are. Uncle Linkum is showing you off! Are you proud of yourself?”

Canner women were known throughout the Island for their tempers. Abigail’s control at that moment was almost unnatural.

“I am working on Mr. Lincoln’s behalf because I believe that he is in the right.” Her voice was calm but firm. “I am sorry that you disagree. Still. I am not trying to change your minds. I am only asking what testimony your brother will be giving before the Senate.”

“He will tell the truth.” Constance Yardley flung the words. “He will tell the world how, thanks to Uncle Linkum, our feed business was almost destroyed. All we ask is to be left alone. But the troops who are protecting us are on their way home, and the men who once enslaved us are running for office. Come.” Addressing her brother now, as she stood: “We’ve said all we have to say. Tell her.”

“I’se got nothin more to say.”

Little was waiting outside in the trap. Abigail was miserable. Not only was she missing the trial, but she had failed completely. Dennard had trusted her with a mission of great import, and she had been carried away by the need to defend herself: for Constance Yardley’s cutting words had laid bare the confusion in her own soul.

And then she remembered. Big troubles in South Carolina, Constance had said.

“Mr. Little.”

“Yes, miss?”

“Before we go to the Capitol, I need to stop home.”

Perhaps the day was not a waste after all.

III

At the house on Tenth Street, she hurried up the stairs, ignoring Nanny Pork’s demands to know why she was home in the middle of the day and what she called herself up to, making all that racket. She pulled the Chanticleer folders from their place in the closet. Then she bounded back down, kissed her aunt’s wrinkled cheek, promised to explain later.

“But right now I have to go. It’s important, Nanny.”

“Then go, child.”

As Mr. Little raced across the city, Abigail sat in the carriage studying the materials the mysterious Chanticleer had sent. She did not know who he was; but at last she understood why Mrs. McShane had made her keep the package.

She had been right; she had not failed; Dennard and Sickles would sing her praises.

Jonathan, too.

IV

Abigail slid into her seat beside Kate Sprague just as Speed was winding up his argument on habeas corpus.

“It is easy, I suppose, to forget the painful process through which that decision was reached.” Speed had a thick, dark beard, not unlike his friend Lincoln’s. His younger brother Joshua had once been Lincoln’s law partner, but had declined the offer of a government position on the ground that Washington was a hopeless cesspool. Speed’s fury as he
spoke suggested that he believed the same. “How many now remember the clever rebel attack on the fort at Key West, where each soldier was brought out of the fort because a rebel judge issued a writ of habeas corpus? Then, having been brought out, he was set free by the judge, and in this way the fort was emptied of its soldiers. What should Mr. Lincoln have done? Allowed the rebellion to empty every Union fort in the South in this manner, or determine to resist, even if that resistance meant suspending the writ?”

Speed was making no effort to hide his growing fury. “And then, when the troops of the Union moved through Maryland to defend the capital of the country—this capital, gentlemen, where we now sit!—the railroad lines to Washington were severed by the secessionist traitors, and our troops—our good Union troops, volunteers all—were set upon by mobs. Many were killed. Naturally, the President ordered the arrests of those who engaged in violence, and those who incited it, but the rebel judges issued writs of habeas corpus and set them free to attack our troops once more. Gentlemen, the nation was under attack by rebels from within. Would you really have had Mr. Lincoln stand idly by? Should the right of habeas corpus be elevated to so transcendent a status that we must allow it to be used to destroy the country? No plausible reading of the Constitution requires the President to allow our forts to be taken and our troops assaulted while traitorous judges issue orders that encourage and even assist the rebellion.”

A smattering of applause greeted these words, and Abigail, still catching her breath from the rush across the city, remembered how Dennard had said that the Managers never expected a conviction on either of the first two counts. They had been included in the resolution in order to excite the press, which would publish stories stressing not the necessity that drove Lincoln but the outrage at his policies. That the country would otherwise have been lost would be forgotten in that peculiar mist that drifts into the public mind once a war is over: people seem to remember the sacrifices they made more than they remember what the sacrifices were for.

“I notice that some of Mr. Lincoln’s opponents seem happy with Mr. Speed’s speech.” Kate Sprague, reading her mind. “But wherever have you been, dear? I had about given up hope that you would be here today.”

“I … I had business.” Following Kate’s bemused gaze, Abigail saw mud splattered along the hem of her dress. “I was splashed by the horsecars,”
she said, lying poorly. Actually, she had stepped in a puddle running out of the house, and decided not to take the time to change.

But perhaps Kate was not looking after all, because her mind was already back to its favorite subject: politics.

“Alas, I doubt that Mr. Speed has swayed any more votes today than he did yesterday,” she said. “Do you have a count?”

Abigail, for an instant, did not even realize that her new friend was talking about the trial. “A count?”

“A head count. On the resolution.”

The impeachment resolution, she meant. In her mind’s eye, Abigail saw the blackboard, with its six undecided votes, of which the President needed four. “I am not sure where the count stands at the moment,” she said, uneasily.

Kate chuckled. “You mean, your count is confidential.”

“Yes,” said Abigail, wondering why she had not just said that in the first place.

“Mine isn’t. I am perfectly happy to share it with you.”

The boldness of the offer made Abigail dizzy. Kate Chase Sprague possessed one of the sharpest political minds in the capital, to say nothing of contacts in every faction. There was nobody whose estimates would constitute more valuable political intelligence. And yet it was plain that she expected Abigail, in return, to divulge her side’s own numbers.

Down below, Speed took a drink from his water glass. “Gentlemen,” he said softly. “Some of you here present, sitting in judgment, endorsed the President’s actions at that time. That is to your credit, and the nation owes you a debt of thanksgiving. There were others, however, who thought Mr. Lincoln’s action unjustified, even illegal. And Mr. Lincoln, mindful of this criticism, submitted his orders suspending habeas corpus to the judgment of the Congress of the United States for ratification, lest there be any question of illegality. It is right there on pages twelve and thirteen of the
Senate Journal
, first session, Thirty-seventh Congress.” A thoughtful nod. “And the Congress assented.”

A hush. Kate tensed beside her.

“Now, once the President and the Congress agreed to the suspension of habeas corpus, everyone concedes that the suspension was legal. The only question, then, that the Second Article can raise is whether the suspension was legal before the Congress acted. The Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus in the case of rebellion. It is
silent on who has the power to suspend it. Is it really the position of the House Managers that, when faced with a rebellion that began in April, the President should have waited to take action until Congress convened in July? Had he done nothing, this capital, and perhaps the entire war, would have been lost. Surely it cannot be an impeachable offense to do what is necessary to defend the capital when this Congress subsequently agreed to his act.”

Speed sat. No applause.

Argument was over for today. Chase asked counsel for both parties to approach. They whispered about procedural matters as the gallery began to empty. Kate said, suddenly, “Your side is losing, Abigail.”

“No evidence has been presented—”

“The evidence makes no difference. As matters stand today, the President will be convicted and removed.”

“That is not our count!” Abigail cried, also rising.

“Then count again.” Kate pointed to the emptying chamber, the Senators moving toward the exits almost languidly, as if the decision were already behind them. Abigail felt a chill. “As of this morning, the tally is forty for conviction, fourteen for acquittal.” Again the easy confidence left no room for doubt. When Katherine Sprague spoke of politics, she spoke
ex cathedra
. “You need to pry five votes away from Mr. Wade’s side. I am not sure there is time.”

V

Abigail lay in the bathing tub at last. The opportunity presented itself rarely; on most nights, she was too tired or too busy, or the water supply was too weak, or the pipes themselves were too noisy. But tonight she was determined to have the treat.

Kate was counting Sumner. That much was obvious. Only if Sumner and the votes he controlled were cast against the President could the count reach forty for removal. Abigail and Sickles and Jonathan had spent an hour at the office discussing the count, long after Dennard and Speed had left for the day. It was obvious, said Jonathan, that Kate had the numbers from her father. If Chase was talking to Sumner about the trial—a gross breach of ethics—their case was in serious jeopardy.

Sickles was less certain.

Kate could be baiting you, he said. She trades in information. She
might be giving you false numbers in the hope that you will disclose the true ones.

He said he would nose around.

Be careful around her, Sickles had said. Stay close—pay attention to every word out of her mouth—but be careful. She isn’t your friend. She’s her father’s presidential campaign manager.

Now, in the tub, Abigail let her eyes drift closed. Numbers. Elections. Arguments. For Sickles, certainly for Dennard and Speed, perhaps even for Jonathan, the votes were numbers on a blackboard. Votes. The case was just a case. Win or lose, their lives would continue as they had before. But for Abigail, the numbers measured off years of her young life. It mattered what the Senators thought of what Lincoln had done, and she resented the way that public and press alike were forgetting.

She remembered the day in 1861 when her parents had put her on the train for Ohio. She had not wanted to go. She was fifteen years old, and, certainly, understood the way that the war everyone had expected to be so short was encroaching upon the capital. The Canners wanted their children out of the way of the Confederate onslaught expected any day. Louisa had already left for Boston. Michael, still in Baltimore, was resisting the plan to send him north. As for Judith, she was working as a nurse at the colored clinic in Washington City—Freedmen’s, the negro hospital, had yet to be opened—and had already declared that she would stay until the end.

That was how she had put it, at dinner two nights before Abigail’s departure:
the end
.

Judith at that time had been seeing a colored man who worked as an assistant to Charles B. Purvis, the most prominent black physician in the nation; but her beau, too, had fled.

Washington City was in a panic.

After the war began with the attack on Fort Sumter, the view in the city, among highborn and low, had been that the Union troops Lincoln had called for would soon arrive, and, when they did, they would invade Virginia, capture Richmond, and end the war within a month or two.

But the days dragged on, and there were no troops. The city was unprotected from the evil empire across the Potomac River. Stories filtered into the city. The Confederates were massing for an invasion. They had put together an army of twenty thousand men. Forty. A hundred
thousand men at the other end of the Long Bridge, awaiting the command to invade. Meanwhile, the untrained Union soldiers trying to march across Maryland were being savaged by secessionist mobs. Others hoped to come to the capital by water, but the rebels had successfully blockaded the heights at the mouth of the Potomac, and would fire on any ship attempting to pass.

The panic grew. The city emptied. Everyone hated Lincoln in those days: the rebels and their supporters because of his determination to hold the Union together by force, the Northerners for what they saw as his incompetence and indecisiveness. He was not, in those days, the Father Abraham he would become. He was the unlettered Westerner, the poorly educated bumbler with the funny accent and the ridiculous stories, the worst possible man to have in the Mansion at a time of crisis. The general view was summed up by an unsigned letter to a loyal Republican newspaper—widely believed but never proved to be the work of Salmon P. Chase—that Lincoln would have made an excellent farmer, a fair mayor, and a poor governor.