The Life of Lyman Trumbull Part 27

This bill was pa.s.sed over the veto on the 23d of March, Trumbull voting in the affirmative. These votes, however, did not prevent him from publishing in the Chicago _Advance_ of September 5, the same year, a carefully written article denying the power of Congress to regulate the suffrage in the states, concluding with the following paragraphs:

If the views expressed are correct, it follows that there are but two ways of securing impartial suffrage throughout the Union. One is, for the states themselves to adopt it, which is being done by some already; and now that the subject is being agitated and its justice being made apparent, it is to be hoped it will soon commend itself to all: the other is, by an amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, adopting impartial suffrage throughout the Union, which to become effective must be ratified by three fourths of the States.

Amendments of the const.i.tutions of Ohio, Kansas, and Minnesota for that purpose were then pending, but they were all voted down by the people in October and November, 1867.

Congress continued to pa.s.s supplementary Reconstruction measures at short intervals. One such authorized the commanders of the military districts to suspend or remove any persons holding any office, civil or military, in their districts and appoint other persons to fill their places and exercise their functions subject to the disapproval of the General of the Army of the United States. It was declared to be the duty of the commanders aforesaid to remove from office all persons disloyal to the United States and all who should seek to hinder, delay, or obstruct the administration of the Reconstruction Acts. Section eight of this act made members of boards of registration removable in like manner. Section eleven provided that "all the provisions of this act, and of the acts to which it is supplementary, should be construed liberally." This bill was vetoed by the President July 19, 1867, and was pa.s.sed over the veto by both houses the same day. Still another supplementary act was pa.s.sed on the 11th of March, 1868, relating to the election of members of Congress in the rebel states.

Under this harness of militarism const.i.tutional conventions were held and const.i.tutions adopted by all of said states, except Texas and Mississippi, during the year 1868, and all the rest of them were admitted to the Union except Virginia, subject, however, to the condition that their const.i.tutions should never be amended, or changed, so as to deprive any citizen, or cla.s.s of citizens, of the right to vote, except as a punishment for crimes of the grade of felonies at common law.

Delays having occurred in the course of procedure in Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas, there was opportunity to apply new conditions to their readmission and this chance was eagerly seized by the radicals.

Trumbull, on the 13th of January, 1870, reported from the Judiciary Committee a simple resolution reciting that Virginia, having complied with all the requirements, was ent.i.tled to representation in Congress.

This was amended on motion of Drake, of Missouri, by a proviso that it should never be lawful for the state to deprive any citizen of the United States, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, of the right to hold office. Trumbull said in the debate on this proposition that Congress had no authority to enact it and that it would not be binding on the state. Yet it was adopted by a majority of one vote, 30 to 29. Wilson then moved as an amendment that the state const.i.tution should never be so changed as to deprive any citizen or cla.s.s of citizens of school privileges, and this was adopted by 31 to 29, Trumbull in the negative. In addition to these a long section was added prescribing a new form of oath to be taken by all state officers and members of the legislature, which was adopted by 45 to 16, Trumbull voting no. In the final vote on the Bill, however, he voted in the affirmative. The same conditions were applied to Mississippi and Texas.

In the debate on the Virginia Bill there was a pa.s.sage-at-arms between Trumbull and Sumner which came near to overstepping parliamentary rules on both sides and which caused widespread newspaper comment. It was generally believed that a rupture had taken place between them which would never be healed; yet a year later, when the decree went forth (presumably from the White House) that Sumner must be deposed from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Trumbull was one of his strongest supporters in the fight which ensued.

Following close after the reconstruction of Virginia came the re-reconstruction of Georgia. That state ratified her _post-bellum_ const.i.tution on the 11th of May, 1868, and elected Rufus P. Bullock, governor. He represented the radicals, but the conservatives at the same time carried the state legislature. A few negroes had been elected as members, and these were expelled on the ground that the right to hold office had not been conferred upon them by the new const.i.tution. The supreme court of the state a few months later decided that since the rights of citizenship and of voting had been conferred upon them, the right to hold office belonged to them also unless expressly denied. In addition to unseating the blacks, the conservatives had admitted certain members who could not take the oath prescribed in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Const.i.tution. Governor Bullock needed a legislature different from the one which had been elected, in order to accomplish certain ends which he had in view, and he seized upon these irregularities as a means of overturning the majority. He then raised an outcry, which he knew would stir the north,--that the blacks in Georgia were still terrorized by the Ku-Klux Klans.

President Grant soon thereafter recommended that Congress take Georgia again in hand. This was done promptly. An act was pa.s.sed directing Governor Bullock to call the legislature together and directing the legislature to reorganize itself in accordance with the oaths of office heretofore prescribed, including that of the Fourteenth Amendment; to exclude all persons who could not lawfully take those oaths and to admit all who had been expelled on account of color; also requiring Georgia to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment before her Representatives and Senators should be admitted to seats in Congress. The seventh section of the act authorized Governor Bullock to call for the services of the army and navy of the United States to enforce the provisions of the act. Under this authority, exercised by General Terry, twenty-four conservatives were expelled from the legislature and their places were filled by radicals, and the negroes formerly excluded were returned to their places. Even this did not satisfy Bullock. He went to Washington with a troop of carpet-baggers and a pocketful of money and railroad bonds and persuaded General Butler, who was chairman of the House Committee on Reconstruction, to bring in a bill for the restoration of Georgia similar to that of Virginia, with a proviso extending for two years the term of office of the present legislature, which would otherwise expire in November, 1870. Butler reported such a bill from his committee, but Bingham, of Ohio, offered an amendment to require a new election of the legislature at the time fixed in the state const.i.tution, and this amendment was agreed to, in spite of Butler's opposition, by 115 to 71.

The Georgia Bill was the subject of an exciting battle in the Senate where Trumbull supported the Bingham proviso against the efforts of Morton, Howard, Drake, Stewart, Sumner, Wilson, and all of the new Senators from the South, two of whom (those of Texas) were hastily admitted in time to vote on the Georgia question. The first vote was on the motion of Williams, of Oregon, to prolong the life of the existing legislature till November, 1872. One effect of so doing would be to save a seat in the United States Senate for a man who had been elected unlawfully. The vacancy would occur on March 4, 1871, and could be lawfully filled only by the legislature chosen next preceding that date.

Williams's motion was voted down April 14, by a majority of one. On the 19th of the same month, Trumbull made one of the great speeches of his public career, filling twelve columns of the _Congressional Globe_, on the Georgia question, demolishing the Bullock case and stirring public opinion strongly. The struggle was protracted till July 8, when the bill pa.s.sed, as Trumbull desired, with the Bingham proviso.

An editorial in the _Nation_ of May 26, 1870, tells, in brief compa.s.s, what took place while the Georgia Bill was the matter of chief concern in the Senate:

Our readers may remember that when Mr. Trumbull, some weeks ago, made his severe summing up of the "Georgia difficulty," he hinted in very plain terms that the patriots of the Bullock faction had been guilty of both corruption and intimidation in trying to get their "Reconstruction" bill through, installing them in office for two years. By many people this charge was ascribed partly to Mr. Trumbull's hatred of the black man, and partly to his hostility to the pure and good of all colors, and doubtless some asked themselves, as they asked themselves when the Traitor Ross refused to give up his chair to Senator Revels, for the sake of the dramatic unities: "What else can we expect of a man who voted No on the Eleventh Article?"

[A committee of the Senate, appointed to look into the matter, had taken a ma.s.s of testimony and submitted a report.] Their finding is--and we blush to write it--that Bullock and his friends have been for a long time in Washington, complaining of the Ku-Klux Klan, and asking fresh guarantees for "the persecuted Unionists" of Georgia; that somehow or other, while there, they have had a great deal of money and railroad bonds, which they seemed to have no particular use for, themselves; that they tried unsuccessfully to purchase the votes of Senators Carpenter and Tipton against the Bingham amendments; that harrowing reports of "outrages" in Georgia were actually prepared to order, like boots or dinners, furnished to them and paid for; that the writing of threatening letters to Senators was procured in the same manner; that $4000 was paid to that good and great man, Colonel Forney, of the Washington _Chronicle_, for "advertising and printing speeches and doc.u.ments," the Colonel's editorial denunciations of the opponents of the Georgia Bill, we suppose, being thrown into the bargain. The Washington correspondent of the Boston _Advertiser_--a wicked fellow--adds that some of the witnesses when first examined "were very loath to tell what they knew, and indulged in the tallest kind of lying." The report of the committee is unanimous.

The result of this expose probably will be that the Georgia question will at last, after a year's delay, filled with this lying and intrigue and corruption, be settled at the outset, by handing the State Government back to the electors on the same terms as Virginia, and letting the "Bullock faction" go home and find some means of gaining an honest livelihood.... We cannot pa.s.s from this affair, however, without bearing hearty testimony to the services which Mr. Trumbull has, by his att.i.tude in it from the very beginning, rendered to truth, justice, good government, and civilization. He has made every honest man, North and South, his debtor, not for being able, for this he cannot help, but for being bold, and hitting hard.

"By Time," says Hosea Biglow, "I du like a man that ain't afeared!"

FOOTNOTES:

[98] _Diary of Gideon Welles_, III, 10-12.

[99] Boutwell, _Reminiscences_, II, 108.

[100] This was the second time that Sumner had shunted the nation in the direction he desired it to go; the first time was when he filibustered the Louisiana Bill to death at the end of the Thirty-ninth Congress.

Edward L. Pierce, his biographer and eulogist, writing in the early nineties, says rather dubiously: "For weal or woe, whether it was well or not for the black race and the country, it is to Sumner's credit or discredit as a statesman that suffrage, irrespective of race or color, became fixed and universal in the American system." (_Memoir and Letters_, I, 228.)

[101] _Fifty Years of Public Service_, by Shelby M. Cullom, p. 146.

[102] _Diary of Gideon Welles_, II, 484.

CHAPTER XX

IMPEACHMENT

Early in 1867, Congress pa.s.sed an act, originating in the Senate, to prevent the President from removing, without the consent of the Senate, any office-holders whose appointment required confirmation by that body.

In its inception it was not intended to include members of the Cabinet, but merely to protect postmasters, collectors, and other appointees of that grade, whom the President, in his stump speech at St. Louis, had declared his intention to "kick out." Accordingly a clause was inserted excluding Cabinet officers from the operation of the measure.

When the bill came before the House, a motion was made to strike out this exception, and it was at first negatived by a majority of four.

Subsequently the motion was renewed and carried, but the Senate refused to concur. The differences between the two houses were referred to a committee of conference of which Sherman was a member. He had been extremely resolute heretofore in opposing the attempt to include members of the Cabinet, because he held that no gentleman would be willing to remain a member after receiving an intimation from his chief that his services were no longer desired. To this Senator Hendricks replied that it was not a question of getting rid of a _gentleman_, but of a man of different stamp, who might be in the Cabinet and desire to stay in. "The very person who ought to be turned out," he said, "is the very person who will stay in." The Conference Committee reported the following proviso, which was adopted by both houses:

That the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of War, of the Navy, and of the Interior, the Postmaster-General, and the Attorney-General shall hold their offices respectively for and during the term of the President by whom they may have been appointed and for one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Senator Doolittle, who opposed the bill _in toto_, pointed out that it did not accomplish what it aimed at: that is, it did not prevent the President from removing the Secretary of War. He showed that Stanton had never been appointed by Johnson at all. He was merely holding office by sufferance. The term of the President by whom he was appointed had expired and the "one month thereafter" had also expired; therefore, the proviso reported by the Conference Committee was futile to protect him.

Sherman replied that the proviso was not intended to apply to a particular case or to the present President, and that Doolittle's interpretation of the phrase as not protecting Stanton in office was the true interpretation. He added that if he supposed that Stanton, or any other Cabinet officer, was so wanting in manhood and honor as to hold his office after receiving an intimation that his services were no longer desired, he (Sherman) would consent to his removal at any time.

This declaration committed Sherman in advance to a definite opinion as to the President's right to remove Stanton whenever he pleased.

The bill pa.s.sed with the clause above quoted, all the Republican Senators present voting for it except Van Winkle and Willey, of West Virginia. Trumbull was recorded in the affirmative.

At the first Cabinet meeting of February 26, the bill was considered, and all the members thought that it ought to be vetoed. "Stanton was very emphatic," says Welles, "and seemed glad of an opportunity to be in accord with his colleagues." (He had previously given his sanction to the Stevens Reconstruction Bill in opposition to his colleagues.) The President said he would be glad if Stanton would prepare a veto or make suggestions for one. Stanton pleaded want of time. The President then turned to Seward, who said that he would undertake it if Stanton would help him. This was agreed to, and the veto (based on the ground of unconst.i.tutionality) was prepared and submitted by them at the Cabinet meeting of March 1. Stanton must have been aware of the colloquy between Sherman and Doolittle in which his name was mentioned, and he probably agreed with them in the opinion that he was not protected by the Tenure-of-Office Act. If he had thought differently he would hardly have favored the veto, or joined with Seward in writing it. The veto message was sent in on March 2, 1867, and the bill was pa.s.sed by two thirds of both houses the same day.

Few persons at the present time believe that there was any substantial ground for the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. The unsparing condemnation of history has been visited upon the whole proceeding, and the commonly received opinion now is that if the Senate had voted him guilty as charged in the articles of impeachment a precedent would have been made whereby the Republic would have been exposed to grave dangers. Trumbull was one of the so-called "Seven Traitors" who prevented that catastrophe.

The first session of the Fortieth Congress began on March 4, 1867. The radical wing of the Republican party had been muttering about impeachment even earlier, and a resolution had been pa.s.sed by the House on the 7th of January preceding, authorizing the Judiciary Committee to inquire into the official conduct of the President and to report whether he had been guilty of acts designed or calculated to "overthrow, subvert, or corrupt the Government of the United States, or any department or office thereof." On the 28th of February, the committee reported that it had examined a large number of witnesses and collected many doc.u.ments, but had not been able to reach a conclusion and that it would not feel justified in making a final report upon so important a matter in the expiring hours of this Congress, even if it had been able to make an affirmative one. On the 29th of March following, the committee was instructed to continue its investigation.

It accordingly continued its work and voted on the 1st of June, by 5 to 4, that there was no evidence that would warrant impeachment; but at the earnest solicitation of the minority it kept the case open during the recess which Congress took from July to November. In this interval one member of the committee changed his vote and this change made the committee stand 5 to 4 in favor of impeachment. The report of the committee was presented by Boutwell, of Ma.s.sachusetts, November 25, accompanied by a resolution that Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. James F. Wilson, of Iowa, chairman of the committee, submitted a minority report adverse to impeachment, and the House on the 7th of December sustained Wilson and rejected the majority report by a vote of 57 to 108. Among those voting against impeachment were Allison, Bingham, Blaine, Dawes, Poland, Spalding, and Washburne, of Illinois. On the other side were Thaddeus Stevens, B. F. Butler, and John A. Logan. On the 5th of August, the President sent to Stanton a note of three lines saying that his resignation as Secretary of War would be accepted. Stanton replied on the same day declining to resign before the next meeting of Congress.

The President thereupon decided to remove him regardless of consequences, but he felt the necessity of finding somebody to take the office who would be acceptable to the country. His choice fell upon General Grant, who was perhaps the only person whose appointment under the circ.u.mstances would not have caused a disturbance. No plausible objection could be raised against him in any quarter, not even by Stanton himself. Grant reluctantly consented to accept the place.

Accordingly one week after Stanton had refused to resign, the President suspended him and appointed Grant Secretary _ad interim_ and so notified Stanton. The latter had undoubtedly made plans for retaining the office in defiance of the President and was chagrined to find that a man had been appointed whom he could not resist. Although a few months earlier he had advised the President that the Tenure-of-Office Law was unconst.i.tutional and had a.s.sisted in writing the message vetoing it on that ground, he now denied the President's power to suspend him without the consent of the Senate, but said that he yielded to superior force.

He then surrendered his office to Grant. Although the usual expressions of confidence and esteem were exchanged between himself and his successor, a residue of asperity remained in the breast of the retiring Secretary, who felt that the head of the army ought not to have enabled the President to get the better of him. But as a matter of fact Grant did not want the office. He accepted it only because he feared that trouble might follow from the appointment of somebody less familiar than himself with conditions prevailing in the South.

On the 13th of January, 1868, the Senate, having considered the reasons a.s.signed by the President for the suspension of Stanton from office, non-concurred in the same and sent notice to this effect to the President and to Grant. The latter considered his functions as Secretary _ad interim_ terminated from the moment of receipt of the notice and so notified the President, at the same time locking the door of his room and handing the key to the person in charge of the Adjutant-General's office in the same building.

Under the terms of the Tenure-of-Office Law, Stanton returned and resumed his former place.

On the 27th of January, a motion was made by Mr. Spalding in the House of Representatives that the Committee on Reconstruction be authorized to inquire what combinations had been made to obstruct the due execution of law and to report what action, if any, was necessary in consequence thereof. This resolution was adopted by a vote of 99 to 31. A few days later, on the motion of Thaddeus Stevens the evidence taken by the Committee on the Judiciary on the impeachment question was referred to the Committee on Reconstruction. Certain correspondence that had pa.s.sed between General Grant and President Johnson relating to the retirement of the former from the War Office was also sent to the same committee.

The correspondence between General Grant and the President here referred to gives a fresh ill.u.s.tration of Andrew Johnson's want of tact in dealing with men and events. He first made an accusation that Grant had failed to keep a promise that he had previously given that "if you [Grant] should conclude that it would be your duty to surrender the department to Mr. Stanton, upon action in his favor by the Senate, you were to return the office to me, _prior to a decision by the Senate_, in order that if I desired to do so I might designate somebody to succeed you." This letter was dated January 31, 1868. Grant replied (February 3) denying that he had made any such promise, and saying that the President in making this accusation had sought to involve him in a resistance to law and thus to destroy his character before the country.

Several other letters followed, including one from each member of the Cabinet, who was present when the matter was talked of between the two princ.i.p.als, all confirming the President's statements. The letters of Browning and Seward, however, tended to show that the President's desire was to make up a case for the Supreme Court, to decide whether he had a right under the Const.i.tution to remove a Cabinet officer or not, and that he supposed that Grant had promised to cooperate with him to promote that end; but that whatever Grant might have promised, the sudden action of the Senate led him to believe that he could not delay his retirement without subjecting himself to the chance of fine and imprisonment under the Tenure-of-Office Law.[103]

The quarrel between Johnson and Grant did not, however, help the impeachers, who were voted down in the Committee on Reconstruction, February 13, by 6 to 3, Stevens being in the minority.

Stanton was now in a position of great embarra.s.sment, being a member of the Cabinet by appointment of the Senate, but unable to attend Cabinet meetings. He was endowed with sufficient a.s.surance for most purposes, but not enough to go to the White House and take a seat among gentlemen who would have looked upon him as an intruder and a spy. Johnson was advised by General Sherman and others to leave him severely alone.[104]

If this advice had been followed, Stanton would have been exposed to ridicule ere long and the Senate could not have helped him to ward it off. But Johnson came to his rescue by making a fresh attempt to oust him. Eight days after Thaddeus Stevens's impeachment resolution had been voted down, two to one, in his own committee, the President sent a note to Edwin M. Stanton saying that he had removed him from the office of Secretary of War and appointed Lorenzo Thomas, the Adjutant-General of the Army, as Secretary of War _ad interim_. The new appointee immediately presented himself at the War Office and showing his authority demanded possession, which Stanton refused to yield.

The tables were instantly turned. Stanton was no longer looked upon as holding an office with nothing to do except to draw his salary, but as a champion of the people defending them against a law-breaking President.

Grant had warned Johnson months before that the public looked upon the Tenure-of-Office Law as const.i.tutional until p.r.o.nounced otherwise by the courts, and that although an astute lawyer might explain it differently the common people would "give it the effect intended by its framers,"

that is, to protect Stanton.[105]

This was sound advice. The revulsion in the public mind was electrical in suddenness and strength. The House of Representatives, which, on the 7th of December, by nearly two to one had rejected an impeachment resolution recommended by its Judiciary Committee, now (February 24) adopted the same resolution by 128 to 47. Every Republican member who was present, including James F. Wilson, voted in the affirmative. A committee of seven was appointed to prepare articles of impeachment and present them to the Senate. Nine such articles were reported to the House on the 2d of March and two additional ones on the following day, all of which were agreed to, and seven members of the House were appointed as managers to conduct the impeachment, namely: John A.