The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (6 page)

Jonathan always covered for her.

With his assistance, at first reluctant but now smilingly conspiratorial, she had been able to slip out of chores to spend more and more time reading. Not often, perhaps, but occasionally. Jonathan treated her with an awkward kindness. The young people of Abigail’s set—Dinah foremost among them—were unanimous in their view that the white
race meant them no good; whites were kind only when they wanted something. Abigail largely shared these views. And she was no fool. She had spent enough time in the world of men to know what men generally wanted. Therefore, she was at pains to let Jonathan know that she was engaged. As it turned out, so was he.

“Of course he is,” said Dinah, the two of them in the midst of the crowd descending the snowy slope from the Capitol following the vote. Her arms were out to her sides for balance, a pose Abigail would not dream of striking in public, even if the cost of her reticence was an occasional fall. Dinah was a stout, saucy woman whose family had arranged for her to be finished—poorly, in Abigail’s secret opinion—at a school near Philadelphia. The Berryhills owned tracts of timber in upstate New York and a large shipbuilding firm on Cape Cod. Dinah had traveled all over Europe. One of Abigail’s constant frustrations, at Oberlin and in Washington City both, was battling the presumption among her classmates
that if you were black you must have been a slave until the Emancipation Proclamation; or, if you had been born free, then your parents surely scrubbed kitchens or waited tables. In either event, you were unlikely to have opened a book until the kind people of the American Missionary Association or the Freedmen’s Bureau dragged you off to a dreary one-room schoolhouse in the middle of some benighted Southern swamp. When Abigail told her classmates that her father built houses, they imagined shacks on a plantation; and when she told them that the Berryhills had built frigates for the Royal Navy a century ago, her classmates assumed that they swept out the shipyards after hours.

Dinah, meanwhile, was still talking about Jonathan. “Rich young men,” she proclaimed, “are always engaged. They rarely marry, but they are always engaged.”

In Hebrew, Dinah’s name meant “judgment,” and she lived up to it constantly.

“I must say, Mr. Lincoln’s opponents seem quite passionate,” Dinah continued. “Why, poor Thaddeus Stevens is dying, and he came to the House today to condemn the man.”

“Mr. Lincoln has broken no laws,” said Abigail, already sounding like the lawyer she hoped to be. Yet she, too, had been saddened by the condition of Stevens, the most senior of the Radicals, and the Abolitionist most beloved by educated negroes. “There is no case.”

“Of course there is a case,” said Dinah, who, coming from a business family, shied away from abstractions. She laid a saucy hand on her hip. “My father is afraid to commit any important business confidences to either telegram or post for fear that Mr. Lincoln’s Secret Service might seize the message. Some who would otherwise speak out against the President choose not to do so, lest they wind up in one of Mr. Stanton’s secret military prisons. That is not politics, Abigail. That is tyranny.”

“Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves,” said Abigail, doggedly. She remembered her grueling interview with General Baker, and wondered at her own certainty—and her motives. Although nobody had mentioned that conversation since, and her standing at the office seemed even to have improved, a part of her worried that some dire consequence still lay ahead.

Dinah’s laugh was hard and mannish, the laugh of one who has seen it all and long forgotten how to be impressed. “Abby, darling, he is being impeached by the Radicals of his own party. They would have freed the slaves, too. That is not what this quarrel is about.”

“Then what is it about?”

“Goodness, darling. The man tried to put the army over Congress! To establish military government in this city, with himself at the head! He is a petty tyrant, a tyrant running our great Protestant Republic! Really, what else does one expect when we choose an uneducated Westerner to be—Stop! Stop him!”

A small, dark, slim figure had darted from the throng and snatched Dinah’s fancy handbag. He ran on—

Only to scream in agony a second later as an absurdly tall man, white and broad and grizzled, stepped out of the crowd and snapped his wrist.

“Sorry, Miss Dinah,” said the giant, with a sheepish grin. He had a flaming-red beard, and a bright scar along the side of his neck. His ancient jacket of butternut gray, a relic of the war, was evidence that he had been on the losing side. “I tried not to hurt the fool,” he rumbled.

The fool, as it happened, was a negro boy, no more than ten or twelve, and Abigail ached at the image, the brown boy struggling in the painful grip of the white Goliath as the crowd backed away.

“You may release him, Corporal,” said Dinah. She bent over, laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and lectured him in a stern whisper, finger waving in his face. All the time, the boy looked at the ground, and cradled his wounded wrist. He nodded. Dinah slapped him lightly on the side of his head, and he scampered off.

“I imagine,” said Dinah, brushing off her bag, “that he will shortly be stealing another.” She adjusted her hat. “I do wonder how they live.”

She linked her arm through Abigail’s and they resumed their stroll, Dinah expostulating on Lincoln’s crimes in a voice meant to be overheard, and Abigail barely listening, so sickened was she by the episode with the thief.

The giant had disappeared, but Abigail knew he was nearby. He was never separated from Dinah by more than a dozen paces. His name was Alexander Waverly, late corporal in the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia under “Stonewall” Jackson. He was one of two former Confederates hired by the Berryhills to keep their headstrong daughter out of harm’s way: Corporal Waverly guarded Dinah during the day, and a Corporal Cutler by night. Dinah insisted that both men were as gentle as could be, but Abigail found them terrifying.

Why does your father hire only Confederates to protect you?
Abigail had once asked her friend.

Dinah’s answer was succinct:
Because we won, dear
.

III

McShane spent the afternoon at the White House. The city was dark when he returned. The only illumination in the common room came from a noisy gas chandelier. Jonathan was seated at the table, working his way through an evidence treatise. Little was putting one last shovelful of coal into the stove. Abigail was dusting the shelves. McShane stood silently, but gave her a long look that seemed to Jonathan almost hostile. Then he beckoned the young man to join him in his office. Abigail watched them go.

“Close the door,” the lawyer said.

He perched on the edge of his desk. He was a pleasant man, with little use for affectation or formality.

“The President has instructed us,” McShane began, “to go to the Hill and get more time to file our response. Never mind. We have more pressing matters to discuss. I am afraid we have a bit of a problem.” A heavy pause. “It involves Miss Canner.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What do you think of her?”

A sudden gray rain assaulted the windows. Jonathan fought the instinct to sing Abigail’s praises. Instead, he decided to tread carefully,
at least until he learned what the “problem” was. “She is intelligent. She is hardworking. Given the proper training, I think she might well succeed in her ambition to become a lawyer.”

“Ah,” said McShane, but the single syllable somehow registered displeasure.

Jonathan plunged on. “That idea you liked, the one about the disqualification of feudal lords—that idea was Miss Canner’s. She found it in Blackstone.” He saw no way out. “And she made other suggestions as well.”

A prickly pause.

“I see.” McShane seemed unhappier than ever. He turned away, as if seeking answers in the storm beyond the window. The rain had grown louder, like gunfire against the panes. “She made suggestions for a memorandum about the legal strategy of the President of the United States.” He shook his head. “And how exactly did Miss Canner know what you were working on?”

Jonathan had gone very still. “I told her.”

“Never again.” The tone was sharp. His employer faced him once more, eyes rock-hard. “Never. She is not to be admitted to the secrets of this office. Am I being clear?”

“Yes, of course, but she might be helpful—”

The little man was suddenly on his feet. Agitated. Pacing. The worry lines in his face seemed to have deepened over the past week. Jonathan remembered that Rufus Dennard, the senior partner, had been dead-set against representing the President, fearing that more lucrative clients might flee to a firm less involved in the nation’s nasty politics. “Be quiet and listen. It appears that our difficulties are greater than I suspected. I told you that records of our deliberations are finding their way into the hands of the President’s political opponents. That is bad enough. But there are larger forces at play. Powerful men throughout the nation. A conspiracy, if you will, behind the conspiracy.” McShane caught something in his clerk’s posture. “I know that you have no patience with such theories, Hilliman. But I have sources of my own. One of them tells me that a list of names was lost in Virginia, and the conspirators are frantic to find it. The list, if it exists, very likely would tell us who is plotting against Mr. Lincoln. Not an assassination this time, but his removal through legal means. You don’t believe a word, I can see it in your face.”

Jonathan had heard the conspiracy theories before. All of Washington
seemed infected with the need to blame secret malevolent forces for every misfortune. But McShane had contracted a particularly virulent strain of the disease. In the shadowed office, the wild set of his eyes was actually frightening.

“Please, sir,” said Jonathan. “Just tell me what you would like me to do.”

The lawyer recovered himself. “Yes. Well. I have just come from Mr. Stanton. We spoke about Miss Canner.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She has become, in my judgment, a liability.” Jonathan started to protest, but the lawyer was still talking. His face was flushed; here, Jonathan realized, was the true source of the man’s anger. Whatever he was about to say had him furious at their client. “Not that my judgment matters at the moment. Not where Miss Canner is concerned. Miss Canner is special. Did you know that, Hilliman?” Again he gave Jonathan no time to respond. “Stanton has General Baker looking into her background. She may be connected to the conspiracy.” The eyes took on that hunted look again. “And now of course Sumner is involved.”

Jonathan was dumbstruck. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was the most brilliant man in the Senate, and probably the most respected. He had been close to Mrs. Lincoln but somehow had never warmed to the President himself. Officially, Sumner remained neutral on the impeachment, but his fellow Radicals were courting him assiduously. Lincoln, alas, had nothing in his larder that Sumner seemed to want. And because Sumner controlled two or three undecided votes along with his own, any “problem” with him, unless swiftly resolved, would likely spell the end for their client.

“Involved how?” Jonathan finally managed, unable to hide his surprise. “What does Senator Sumner have to do with Miss Canner?”

Again McShane’s practical side asserted itself. “Hilliman, look. This thing is going to be close. Any fool can see that. Once upon a time, Mr. Lincoln would have swatted Sumner and his friends like pesky gnats. But he has not been the same man since Mrs. Lincoln’s tragic passing, and the Radicals have grown bold. So Mr. Lincoln has sent feelers to Sumner’s people. Offers to negotiate. But every attempt has been rebuffed. Now, all of a sudden, it turns out that Sumner wants Miss Canner to work on our client’s case.”

“Why would he care?”

“Because Sumner is a romantic. Maybe you remember how, just last
year, he persuaded the Supreme Court to admit the first negro lawyer to its bar. Well, in Miss Canner, Sumner has found a new cause. His next blow for the colored race. And now it is we who must go along. Stanton has spoken to Sumner directly. He believes that we have no choice. We have decided not to trouble the President.” McShane grew wistful. “We may, however, be able to turn her presence to our advantage.”

Jonathan nodded eagerly. “I told you, she’s very smart—”

“That is not what I was referring to,” said the lawyer, tone colder still. “Pay attention, Hilliman. The heart of the Radical case against Mr. Lincoln is that he has been insufficiently supportive of the colored race. If it becomes known that Miss Canner is working for us, we present a powerful symbol to the contrary.”

Jonathan chose his words carefully. “I take it, then, that we will be giving Miss Canner real work to do.”

“Under no circumstances.” The rain strafed the glass in a fresh attack. McShane laughed, mirthlessly. “Oh, we shall have to lead Miss Canner to think that what she is doing is useful, and we’ll let the public get the same idea. But she is not involved in any substantive way with our work. She does not learn our secrets, or our client’s. Is that clear?”

“Yes, but—”

McShane cut him off. “It shall be your task to supervise Miss Canner. Tell her that she will henceforth have legal work to do. But make sure that none of it carries any significance whatsoever.”

“Are you asking me to lie to Miss Canner?”

“No, Hilliman. I am ordering you to lie to her.” Jonathan had never known the little man to be so gruff; or so furious. “Now, go on. I have to get ready for a meeting.”

“I have nothing on the calendar, sir.”

Again McShane spoke with unanticipated sharpness. “Well, my goodness, Hilliman, I did manage to find my way to an appointment or two before you came into my employ.”

As Jonathan reached for the doorknob, McShane called his name, held up a single finger. “Hilliman. A word of warning. If you share another of the firm’s confidences with that woman, that will be the end of your career at Dennard & McShane.”