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 Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Edmunds, Ferry, Frelinghuysen, Harlan, Howard, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Morton, Nye, Patterson of New Hampshire, Pomeroy, Ramsay, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Van Winkle, Wade.
Willey, Williams, Wilson, Yates--34.
Nays--Bayard, Buckalew, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Fowler, Henderson, Hendricks, Johnson, McCreery, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Ross, Saulsbury, Trumbull, Vickers--16.
Every Senator present who had voted for conviction voted to abandon the prosecution and end the trial, and every Senator present who had voted against conviction, voted to continue and go through the indictment.
Of course, it was useless to go farther with any hope of success, as, it will be seen by this record, all the remaining Articles were dead, beaten in caucus before the voting commenced, and by the professed friends and leaders of the movement.
Possibly it was the anticipation of this effect of the abandonment of the First Article, that was the "sickness" to which Mr. Edmunds, at the outset of the voting, ten days before, ascribed the peculiar order of taking the vote.
It is not intended to aver that there was any privity or concert in this particular manipulation--yet it is suggestive. The Impeachment had been dragging since the 22nd of February, to May 26th--more than three months,--and had been everywhere the engrossing topic of the time. It was becoming tiresome-not only to the Senate, but to the general public.
