A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction (37 page)

(February 24, 1868)

Though steps to impeach President Johnson failed in December 1867, efforts in the House of Representatives to remove him from office resumed in February when he again defied the Tenure of Office Act by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton (1814–1869). Johnson appointed General Lorenzo Thomas (1804–1875), adjutant general of the army, Secretary of War ad interim. The
New York Times
concurred with House Republicans that Johnson had defiantly violated the law but pointed out that he had done so intentionally to test its constitutionality. The U.S. Supreme Court, the newspaper maintained, not the U.S. Senate, was the appropriate venue to determine whether Johnson had acted unconstitutionally.

The Republican Party in Congress seems at last to be unanimous in favor of impeachment. Those who have hitherto been most conservative in this matter seem now most zealous and demonstrative on the other side. There can be very little doubt that the President will be impeached by the House and sent before the Senate for trial—the specific misdemeanor for which he is arraigned being the violation of the Tenure of Office Law, in the removal of Secretary STANTON and the appointment of Gen. [Lorenzo] THOMAS in his place ad interim.

There can be no doubt, we presume, that the President's action is in violation of the law. The first section declares that “every person holding any civil office to which he has been appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, is and shall be entitled to hold such office until a successor shall have been
in like manner
appointed and duly qualified.” This clause deprives the President of the power to remove any such officer without the consent of the Senate. The second section gives him the power to suspend officers “during the recess of the Senate” until its next meeting and for one month thereafter, under certain specified circumstances, and to fill vacancies in the same way and upon the same conditions. . . .

The President's removal of Mr. STANTON and his appointment of Gen. THOMAS were in distinct and unmistakable defiance of these provisions of that law. It is also clear that this violation of the law has been
intentional
on the President's part—not with a view, as the heated zealots of Congress assume, of usurping power and overthrowing the institutions of the country, but for the purpose of
testing the
constitutionality of the law,
and of procuring a judicial definition of the limits and prerogatives of the Executive Department of the Government under the Constitution of the United States. . . .

He is not only entitled to such a decision, but the whole country is interested in having it given. Under our form of government, as under every form of government which has been or can be devised, doubts will arrive as to the proper distribution of authority and power. We have, unlike Governments of a different form, a written Constitution by which the limits of official authority are defined, and the powers and prerogatives of the several departments of the Government are described and conferred; and, consequently, the only controversies that can arise out of attempts on the part of one department to encroach on the jurisdiction of another, become questions of construction. . . .

There can be no doubt, we presume, in any one's mind, that the Supreme Court is the proper tribunal for the decision of the question involved in this particular conflict between the President and Congress. . . .

The impeachment of the President, if pushed to trial in advance of such a decision by the Supreme Court, is in violation of this principle.

(March 13, 1868)

In 1868 the Southern states held elections to approve the new state constitutions mandated by the Reconstruction Act. Georgia's delegates drafted a new document enfranchising the freedmen, establishing a free public school system, and instituting a system of debt relief. Responding to the state's proposed new basic law, editor S. A. Atkinson of the pro-Democratic weekly
Athens Southern Banner
urged Georgians to defeat the constitution in the April referendum because, in his opinion, it would surrender control of the state to “a negro oligarchy.” Georgians ultimately ratified the constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment, and in July 1868, Congress readmitted the state to the Union. In December 1869, however, when the General Assembly expelled its black legislators and refused to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress remanded Georgia to military rule. Not until July 1870, after its African-American legislators took their seats and the state ratified the Fifteenth Amendment (passed February 26, 1869), did Congress finally restore Georgia to the Union.

Radicalism has so far advanced in its infamous work as to call for the full exercise of every energy that can be enlisted in its defeat. The purpose of that abandoned and shameless organization to control the political destinies of the state by an alliance with negroes and Northern adventurers is too manifest not to be seen and scorned by every just right-minded citizen. . . .

Every white man should gird on the armor for a good fight with the hydra-headed monster which assails civil liberty. If the Constitution framed by the Radical Convention is adopted we do sincerely believe that the State will be controlled by the negroes as certainly as though every whiteman [
sic
] in the State were disfranchised. One hundred thousand men, voting as a unit, cannot fail to attract to their embrace a large element of abandoned wretches, like many of those in the Convention, who could never make a sign among decent white men. We believe also, that the adoption of this hell-born conspiracy against the white race, must result in violence and strife, if not in the extermination of either the white or black race from the State. Two races, so nearly equal in numbers, never have lived in a free government on terms of peaceful equality. We value the well being of the black race too much to willingly see them deluded into a conflict which cannot fail to be fatal to them, as well as, fearful for the whites. We value the peace of society too much to be silent when a heaving earth quake is about to belch forth its horrid fires upon us. We shall therefore enter upon the great canvas with every energy enlisted—every impulse aroused, and we hope to have the active aid of every white man, and every prudent and sensible black man in this portion of the State. We have no object to observe but the good of society.

Already the Radical papers are being circulated in every neighborhood, full of ingenious appeals in support of the monstrous frauds embraced in the new constitution. Let the county committees see to it that Democratic papers are sent to counteract the poison instilled by these Convention organs. Let those who need relief be shown that the method proposed is a cheat and a swindle, and cannot stand. Let it be shown that with 100,000 negroes at the ballot box, the white men of Upper Georgia forever lose the control of the State which their numbers have long commanded; and that this populous section becomes but a province, an appendage, of a negro oligarchy.

We appeal to our readers to wake up to the magnitude of the struggle before us. It is no common issue—or ordinary campaign, involving only a choice of individuals. It is the crisis of liberty. Let us meet it like the sons of the fathers of freedom—like honest men, who value honor, integrity, and justice, beyond the glitterized bribe of political power, or the tempting chances of pecuniary advantage.

(March 17, 1868)

Racial proscription during the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction was not limited to the Southern states, a fact emphasized by Southern and Northern critics of Radical Reconstruction. Repeatedly referendums in Northern states on enfranchising their relatively small African-American male populations failed to pass. In this letter to the editor of a Michigan newspaper, “Karinus” noted the hypocrisy of Northerners, especially Republicans, who riveted universal suffrage on the South but refused to accept black enfranchisement in their own states.

Occasionally we hear an avowed Republican proclaim his aversion to the clause in our new constitution granting the elective franchise to the colored freedmen of the State. Of these we would simply ask, are they Republicans from principle? Are they, in pursuance of that principle, supporters of the reconstruction policy of the Government? If they are supporters of the policies of the government, which is but the principle of justice, upon what principle do they justify their opposition to Equal Suffrage in Michigan? It is much more difficult for a professed Republican to assign a cogent reason for such a position than for the “Democracy. . . .” But because of the patriotic tendencies of the negro, in late years, the democracy regard him as a “degenerated son of noble ancestry,” and refuse him fraternal fellowship. None of these causes, however, should control the sentiment of Republicans. The Republican and the negro, when Democracy inaugurates treason and rebellion, fight a common battle for a common cause. . . . Shall Michigan, then, who has so nobly stood by the policies of the government, contradict and stultify herself by refusing to do in her own dominion what she has commanded Congress to do for the whole domain? Shall they contravene every vote given by our Senators and Representatives in Congress, who were elected by the same people to represent the same principle in Congress that they are called upon to enforce in their own State next Spring? . . . We are at a loss to account for this sudden retrogration from the magnanimous standard of the fathers of the republic, which is meant to be the rule and guide of modern Republicanism. All the State constitutions adopted after the declaration of Independence up to 1792, except South Carolina, extended the right of franchise to legal voters irrespective of color. None of the alarming consequences grew out of that prerogative in those days which are predicted as being the result of a like prerogative at this time. . . . In view of these antecedents it is very difficult to account for the seemingly unhappy instinct which move men of late to curse a nigger. Whatever may have been the modernly progressive tendency of things in reference to art and science, it seems to have been terribly retrogressive in regard to prejudices among races. . . . It is reduced simply to the fact that the negro, as a general thing, will vote the Republican ticket. Shall it be then, that for this offence the Democracy shall deprive the freedman of his vote, by the aid of renegade, unreliable Republicans? We shall see.

(March 21, 1868)

This two-panel wood engraving appeared in
Harper's Weekly
eight days before Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial opened. The cartoon depicts Johnson atop a stepladder reaching for the U.S. Constitution, only to be flattened by the weight of the heavy tome. Though the House of Representatives impeached Johnson on eleven articles, the Senate vote dashed the cartoonist's wishful thinking. It acquitted Johnson by one vote on May 16.

(April 27, 1868)

As an author of both the Reconstruction and Tenure of Office Acts, and as Johnson's most acerbic and vocal critic, Stevens, not surprisingly, led the move to impeach the president for alleged high crimes and misdemeanors. He wrote one of the articles of impeachment, reported the charges of impeachment to the Senate, and served on the board of managers that prosecuted the case. In his April 27, 1868, speech Stevens charged Johnson with repeatedly violating the Constitution by exceeding his prerogatives, breaking various laws, and, at a crucial period in the nation's history, overturning the workings of the government.

. . . When Andrew Johnson took upon himself the duties of his high office he swore to obey the Constitution and take care that the laws be faithfully executed. That, indeed, is and has always been the chief duty of the President of the United States. The duties of legislation and adjudicating the laws of his country fall in no way to his lot. To obey the commands of the sovereign power of the nation, and to see that others should obey them, was his whole duty—a duty which he could not escape, and any attempt to do so would be in direct violation of his official oath; in other words, a
misprision of perjury
.

I accuse him, in the name of the House of Representatives, of having perpetrated that foul offense against the laws and interests of his country.

On the 2d day of March, 1867, Congress passed a law, over the veto of the President, entitled “An act to regulate the tenure of certain civil offices,” the first section of which is as follows:

“
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled
, That every person holding any civil office to which he has been appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and every person who may hereafter be appointed to any such office and shall become duly qualified to act therein, is and shall be entitled to hold such office until a successor shall have been in like manner appointed and duly qualified, except as herein otherwise provided:
Provided
, 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.”

The second section provides that when the Senate is not in session, if the President shall deem the officer guilty of acts which require his removal or suspension, he may be suspended until the next meeting of the Senate; and that within twenty days after the meeting of the Senate the reasons for such suspension shall be reported to that body; and, if the Senate shall deem such reasons sufficient for such suspension or removal, the officer shall be considered removed from his office; but if the Senate shall not deem the reasons sufficient for such suspension or removal, the officer shall forthwith resume the functions of his office, and the person appointed in his place shall cease to discharge such duties.

On the 12th day of August, 1867, the Senate then not being in session, the President suspended Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of the Department of War, and appointed U. S. Grant, General, Secretary of War
ad interim
. On the 12th day of December, 1867, the Senate being then in session, he reported, according to the requirements of the act, the causes of such suspension to the Senate, which duly took the same into consideration. Before the Senate had concluded its examination of the question of the sufficiency of such reasons he attempted to enter into arrangements by which he might obstruct the due execution of the law, and thus prevent Edwin M. Stanton from forthwith resuming the functions of his office as Secretary of War, according to the provisions of the act, even if the Senate should decide in his favor.

And in furtherance of said attempt, on the 21st day of February, 1868, he appointed one Lorenzo Thomas, by letter of authority or commission, Secretary of War
ad interim,
without the advice and consent of the Senate, although the same was then in session, and ordered him (the said Thomas) to take possession of the Department of War and the public property appertaining thereto, and to discharge the duties thereof.

We charge that, in defiance of frequent warnings, he has since repeatedly attempted to carry those orders into execution, and to prevent Edwin M. Stanton from executing the laws appertaining to the Department of War and from discharging the duties of the office. . . .

In impeachments, more than in indictments, the averring of the fact charged carries with it all that it is necessary to say about intent. In indictments you charge that the defendant, “instigated by the devil,” and so on; and you might as well call on the prosecution to prove the presence, shape, and color of his majesty, as to call upon the managers in impeachment to prove intention. I go further than some, and contend—that no corrupt or wicked motive need instigate the acts for which impeachment is brought. It is enough that they were official violations of law. The counsel have placed great stress upon the necessity of proving that they were wilfully done. If by that he means that they were voluntarily done I agree with him. A mere accidental trespass would not be sufficient to convict. But that which is
voluntarily
done is
wilfully
done, according to every honest definition; and whatever malfeasance is willingly perpetrated by an office-holder is a misdemeanor in office, whatever he may allege was his intention.

The President justifies himself by asserting that all previous Presidents had exercised the same right of removing officers, for cause to be judged of by the President alone. Had there been no law to prohibit it when Mr. Stanton was removed the cases would have been parallel, and the one might be adduced as an argument in favor of the other. But, since the action of any of the Presidents to which he refers, a law had been passed by Congress, after a stubborn controversy with the Executive, denying that right and prohibiting it in future, and imposing a severe penalty upon any executive officer who should exercise it; and that, too, after the President had himself made issue on its constitutionality and been defeated. No pretext, therefore, any longer existed that such right was vested in the President by virtue of his office. Hence the attempt to shield himself under such practice is a most lame evasion of the question at issue. Did he “take care that this law should be faithfully” executed? He answers that acts that would have violated the law, had it existed, were practiced by his predecessors. How does that justify his own malfeasance?

The President says that he removed Mr. Stanton simply to test the constitutionality of the tenure-of-office law by a judicial decision. He has already seen it tested and decided by the votes, twice given, of two-thirds of the Senators and of the House of Representatives. It stood as a law upon the statute-books. No case had arisen under that law, or is referred to by the President, which required any judicial interposition. If there had been, or should be, the courts were open to any one who felt aggrieved by the action of Mr. Stanton. But instead of enforcing that law he takes advantage of the name and the funds of the United States to resist it, and to induce others to resist it. Instead of attempting, as the Executive of the United States, to see that that law was faithfully executed, he took great pains and perpetrated the acts alleged in this article, not only to resist it himself, but to seduce others to do the same. He sought to induce the General-in-Chief of the Army to aid him in an open, avowed obstruction of the law as it stood unrepealed upon the statute-book. He could find no one to unite with him in perpetrating such an act until he sunk down upon the unfortunate individual bearing the title of Adjutant General of the Army. Is this taking care that the laws shall be faithfully executed? Is this attempting to carry them into effect, by upholding their validity, according to his oath? On the other hand, was it not a high and bold attempt to obstruct the laws and take care that they should not be executed? He must not excuse himself by saying that he had doubts of its constitutionality and wished to test it. What right had he to be hunting up excuses for others, as well as himself, to violate this law? Is not this confession a misdemeanor in itself?

The President asserts that he did not remove Stanton under the tenure-of-office law. This is a direct contradiction of his own letter to the Secretary of the Treasury [
Hugh McCulloch
], in which, as he was bound by law, he communicated to that officer the fact of the removal. This portion of the answer may, therefore, be considered as disposed of by the non-existence of the fact, as well as by his subsequent report to the Senate.

The following is the letter just alluded to, dated August 14, 1867:

 

SIR: In compliance with the requirements of the act entitled “An act to regulate the tenure of certain civil offices,” you are hereby notified that on the 12
th
instant Hon. Edwin M. Stanton was suspended from his office as Secretary of War, and General U. S. Grant authorized and empowered to act as Secretary
ad interim
.

Hon. Secretary of the Treasury.

 

Wretched man! A direct contradiction of his solemn answer! How necessary that a man should have a good conscience or a good memory! Both would not be out of place. How lovely to contemplate what was so assiduously inculcated by a celebrated pagan into the mind of his son: “Virtue is truth, and truth is virtue.” And still more, virtue of every kind charms us, yet that virtue is strongest which is effected by justice and generosity. Good deeds will never be done, wise acts will never be executed, except by the virtuous and the conscientious.

May the good people of this Republic remember this good old doctrine when they next meet to select their rulers, and may they select only the brave and the virtuous.

Has it been proved, as charged in this article, that Andrew Johnson in vacation suspended from office Edwin M. Stanton, who had been duly appointed and was then executing the duties of Secretary of the Department of War, without the advice and consent of the Senate; did he report the reasons for such suspension to the Senate within twenty days from the meeting of the Senate; and did the Senate proceed to consider the sufficiency of such reasons? Did the Senate declare such reasons insufficient, whereby the said Edwin M. Stanton became authorized to forthwith resume and exercise the functions of Secretary of War, and displace the Secretary
ad interim
, whose duties were then to cease and terminate; did the said Andrew Johnson, in his official character of President of the United States, attempt to obstruct the return of the said Edwin M. Stanton and his resumption forthwith of the functions of his office as Secretary of the Department of War; and has he continued to attempt to prevent the discharge of the duties of said office by said Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, notwithstanding the Senate decided in his favor? If he has, then the acts in violation of law, charged in this article, are full and complete. . . .

That charge is, that the President did attempt to prevent the due execution of the tenure-of-office law by entangling the General in the arrangement; and unless both the President and the General have lost their memory and mistaken the truth with regard to the promises with each other, then this charge is made out. In short, if either of these gentlemen has correctly stated these facts of attempting the obstruction of the law the President has been guilty of violating the law and of
misprision of official perjury
.

But, again, the President alleges his right to violate the act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices, because, he says, the same was inoperative and void as being in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Does it lie in his mouth to interpose this plea? He had acted under that law and issued letters of authority, both for the long and short term, to several persons under it, and it would hardly lie in his mouth after that to deny its validity unless he confessed himself guilty of law-breaking by issuing such commissions.

Let us here look at Andrew Johnson accepting the oath “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

On the 2d of March, 1867, he returned to the Senate the “tenure-of-office bill”—where it originated and had passed by a majority of more than two thirds—with reasons elaborately given why it should not pass finally. Among these was the allegation of its unconstitutionality. It passed by a vote of 35 yeas to 11 nays. In the House of Representatives it passed by more than two-thirds majority; and when the vote was announced the Speaker, as was his custom, proclaimed the vote, and declared in the language of the Constitution, “that two-thirds of each house having voted for it, notwithstanding the objections of the President, it has become a law.”

I am supposing that Andrew Johnson was at this moment waiting to take the oath of office, as President of the United States, “that he would obey the Constitution and take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Having been sworn on the Holy Evangels to obey the Constitution, and being about to depart, he turns to the person administering the oath and says, “Stop; I have a further oath. I do solemnly swear that I will not allow the act entitled ‘An act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices,' just passed by Congress over the presidential veto, to be executed; but I will prevent its execution by virtue of my own constitutional power.”

How shocked Congress would have been—what would the country have said to a scene equaled only by the unparalleled action of this same official, when sworn into office on that fatal 5th day of March which made him the successor of Abraham Lincoln! Certainly he would not have been permitted to be inaugurated as Vice-President or President. Yet such in effect has been his conduct, if not under oath at least with less excuse, since the fatal day which inflicted him upon the people of the United States. Can the President hope to escape if the fact of his violating that law be proved or confessed by him, as has been done? Can he expect a sufficient number of his triers to pronounce that law unconstitutional and void—those same triers having passed upon its validity upon several occasions? . . .