History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson [108]
by the legislative branch of the government--that even a majority, and more especially, that nearly two-thirds of the Senate, could have been found at the close in support of the Impeachment.
This record will serve to explain the omission to vote on the First Article--Messrs. Sherman and Howe being precluded from supporting it in consequence of the position taken by them in the controversy between the two Houses of Congress over the first section of the Tenure-of-Office Bill while that bill was pending, and to avoid defeat on the first vote taken, which was inevitable on that Article--and also to explain, so far as any explanation is possible, the zig-zag method of conducting the ballot--skipping all the first ten Articles and going down to the bottom of the list for the first vote, with the promise of then going back to the first Article and continuing to the end. but, instead, skipping that for the second time, and starting in again on the Second and then the Third.
Of course, the natural effect of this battle-dore and shuttle- cock method of treating so grave a matter as an impeachment of the President of the United States, added to the effect of the manifest unfairness of the majority in their treatment of testimony offered in the President's defense--was to disgust some who doubtless entered upon the trial honestly inclined to vote for Andrew Johnson's impeachment, but wanted it done fairly and openly, without any suppression of pertinent testimony or juggling for a verdict--and amusing to others, who viewed it as proof of weakness in the indictment, and of misgiving as to the result on the part of its supporters.
To still others it was more than that. It was not only an indication of weakness, but of a determination to take every possible advantage, fair and unfair, to save votes for conviction. The impeachers not unnaturally feared the effect of the defeat of the First Article by the nay votes of Messrs. Sherman and Howe, and probably other Republicans, which was certain to follow the submission of that Article to a vote. Its only allegation was the unlawful removal of Mr. Stanton from the office of Secretary of War in violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act. That alleged offense was repeated in varied but more or less specific forms, in every succeeding Article of the Impeachment except the Tenth, and constituted the sum and substance--the gravamen--of the entire indictment. It was the basis upon which the impeachment super-structure had been erected. Without that Article there was not only no foundation, but no coherence in the recital of Mr. Johnson's alleged offenses, and when that fell by its abandonment, the entire impeachment scheme fell with it--as, if there were nothing in the First Article on which to hang an impeachment, there could be nothing in those that followed and were but an amplification--a mere exploitation--of the First.
In substantiation of this view of the First Article, the declaration of Mr. Boutwell to that effect is here inserted. Mr. Boutwell was chairman of the committee of the House appointed to prepare the Articles of Impeachment upon which Mr. Johnson was tried. On his report of these Articles to the House he said, after speaking particularly of the Tenth Article:
The other Articles are based upon facts which are of public knowledge, growing out of the attempt of the President to remove Secretary Stanton from the office of Secretary for the Department of War.
That is, that the basis of the entire accusation was the alleged violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act in the removal of Mr. Stanton, as recited in the First Article.
So, after taking the vote on the Second and Third Articles and their defeat by the same vote as that on the Eleventh, it became manifest that further effort to the impeachment of the president on any of the remaining eight Articles would be useless, and Mr. Williams moved that the Senate, sitting as a Court of Impeachment, adjourn sine die, which motion was carried by the following vote:
Yeas--Anthony, Cameron, Cattell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling
This record will serve to explain the omission to vote on the First Article--Messrs. Sherman and Howe being precluded from supporting it in consequence of the position taken by them in the controversy between the two Houses of Congress over the first section of the Tenure-of-Office Bill while that bill was pending, and to avoid defeat on the first vote taken, which was inevitable on that Article--and also to explain, so far as any explanation is possible, the zig-zag method of conducting the ballot--skipping all the first ten Articles and going down to the bottom of the list for the first vote, with the promise of then going back to the first Article and continuing to the end. but, instead, skipping that for the second time, and starting in again on the Second and then the Third.
Of course, the natural effect of this battle-dore and shuttle- cock method of treating so grave a matter as an impeachment of the President of the United States, added to the effect of the manifest unfairness of the majority in their treatment of testimony offered in the President's defense--was to disgust some who doubtless entered upon the trial honestly inclined to vote for Andrew Johnson's impeachment, but wanted it done fairly and openly, without any suppression of pertinent testimony or juggling for a verdict--and amusing to others, who viewed it as proof of weakness in the indictment, and of misgiving as to the result on the part of its supporters.
To still others it was more than that. It was not only an indication of weakness, but of a determination to take every possible advantage, fair and unfair, to save votes for conviction. The impeachers not unnaturally feared the effect of the defeat of the First Article by the nay votes of Messrs. Sherman and Howe, and probably other Republicans, which was certain to follow the submission of that Article to a vote. Its only allegation was the unlawful removal of Mr. Stanton from the office of Secretary of War in violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act. That alleged offense was repeated in varied but more or less specific forms, in every succeeding Article of the Impeachment except the Tenth, and constituted the sum and substance--the gravamen--of the entire indictment. It was the basis upon which the impeachment super-structure had been erected. Without that Article there was not only no foundation, but no coherence in the recital of Mr. Johnson's alleged offenses, and when that fell by its abandonment, the entire impeachment scheme fell with it--as, if there were nothing in the First Article on which to hang an impeachment, there could be nothing in those that followed and were but an amplification--a mere exploitation--of the First.
In substantiation of this view of the First Article, the declaration of Mr. Boutwell to that effect is here inserted. Mr. Boutwell was chairman of the committee of the House appointed to prepare the Articles of Impeachment upon which Mr. Johnson was tried. On his report of these Articles to the House he said, after speaking particularly of the Tenth Article:
The other Articles are based upon facts which are of public knowledge, growing out of the attempt of the President to remove Secretary Stanton from the office of Secretary for the Department of War.
That is, that the basis of the entire accusation was the alleged violation of the Tenure-of-Office Act in the removal of Mr. Stanton, as recited in the First Article.
So, after taking the vote on the Second and Third Articles and their defeat by the same vote as that on the Eleventh, it became manifest that further effort to the impeachment of the president on any of the remaining eight Articles would be useless, and Mr. Williams moved that the Senate, sitting as a Court of Impeachment, adjourn sine die, which motion was carried by the following vote:
Yeas--Anthony, Cameron, Cattell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling