Previously: Booth shoots Lincoln and breaks leg in escape. Baker saves Booth’s life at Garrett’s farm. Lincoln’s friend Lamon interviews Mrs. Surratt and others in prison. Anna Surratt pleads for her mother’s life. Johnson grants a reprieve, but it arrives too late.
Stanton spent many restless nights through the fall months worrying about what President Johnson knew about the conspiracy, who told him and how long he would wait before he did something about it. While the secretary of war did not have a specific plan to move against Johnson, he realized he had to lay groundwork, gain support among the serious critics of the president in Congress.
Time is on my side. Congress was not in session, and the Republicans were touring the country, rallying support for their own strict Reconstruction policies. Embers of hatred for the Tennessee usurper burned, and all Stanton had to do was wait until the right moment to fan them into full impeachment flame.
Late one evening in December of 1865 Stanton awaited several Republicans to arrive at his home on K Street. He suggested to his wife Ellen an early bed time might ease her melancholy. Without a word, she retired to their bedroom.
A few minutes before midnight six congressmen entered the parlor lit by oil lamps, looked around at the placement of the chairs and took seats which would not draw attention to themselves. Each crossed and uncrossed their legs and moved from side to side.
When Thaddeus Stevens arrived, however, he headed for a tufted leather upholstered chair situated near the Franklin stove against the wall opposite the door. He sat as though it were a throne—his throne.
“What the hell is this all about, Stanton?” Stevens bellowed. “I’m too damned old to be called out in the middle of the night by some fool government bureaucrat. It’s too damned cold.” He held his well-worn cane in front of him.
Knowing he needed Stevens’ skills of intimidation to remove Johnson, Stanton smiled with the innocence of a trained roué on the prowl. “You know very well how I admire your devotion to our Constitution and your stern patriotism—“
“Oh, hell, Stanton, get on with it,” Stevens growled.
“It’s the President, sir.”
“That damned bastard, bigot, drunk!”
“And every word you uttered is undebatable, but they can hardly be used as legal points in the impeachment of the President,” Stanton replied in a smooth, understated voice.
“Impeachment?” Benjamin Wade leaned forward, every wrinkle on his sixty-five year-old face illuminated in the lamplight. “Do you think impeachment is a possibility?”
Stanton restrained the smile trying to emerge on his lips. He was aware that Wade had been working the cloakrooms of the senate vigorously, though delicately, trying to position himself to be named Presiding Officer of the Senate of the 40th Congress, which was to convene in 1867. That title would ensure that he would be the President’s successor in the event of his removal from office since Johnson had no Vice-President. Quite an improvement in social standing for a man who began his life digging ditches for the Erie Canal.
“Correct, Mr. Wade,” Stanton replied. “Not only possible but indeed our obligation. Rumors persist about the man’s habits of lurking about the taverns of Washington City, late into the night, drinking and who knows what other practices of debauchery.”
“Well, that’s just not right,” Charles Sumner agreed in his familiar righteous tone. “A humane and civilized society cannot tolerate such behavior from its chief executive.”
“Exactly so, Mr. Sumner.” Stanton knew he would have a strong advocate in the Massachusetts representative. Right before the war a Southern congressman nearly beat him to death with a cane on the floor of Congress. Sumner often spoke with benevolence of treating the defeated Confederates with dignity and compassion, but his actions always spoke otherwise.
“While Congress was adjourned,” Sumner continued, “the Tennessee President acted on his own and without due authorization to proclaim Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, South Carolina, and Arkansas back in the Union. Hundreds of Negro friends of the Republic slaughtered on the streets of New Orleans, and the President did nothing. My God! Shall there be no justice administered at all?”
“No! No!” the men responded, as though they were attending an evangelical tent meeting.
“And worst of all….” Stanton paused because he knew introducing this accusation into the discussion might cause repercussions. He added an exasperated sigh. “Such rumors do not bother me. I’m used to all manner of verbal abuse, but my delicate wife Ellen was particularly devastated at whispers about town that I actually had some role in President Lincoln’s assassination.”
“Why I’ve heard no such thing!” Lorenzo Thomas blurted out. “If I ever hear anyone under my command repeat this slander I’ll have him court martialed!”
“That’s very kind of you to say.” Stanton nodded in appreciation. Lorenzo Thomas was a West Point graduate and had proved himself proficient in insinuating himself up the chain of command. Thomas would be pleased to become Assistant Secretary of War as a reward for defending my honor.
“If anyone outside the ring of convicted conspirators exists, it would be the man to benefit the most from the president’s death, Andrew Johnson himself!” Rep. George Boutwell of Massachusetts looked around the room, nodding at the other men, as though trying to garner support for his statement.
“Do you really think so?” Stanton raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. Boutwell was the youngest man in the room so therefore not as trained in the art of guile as the others.
“Of course!” Boutwell lifted his chin. “I know my forthrightness might imperil my political career but I don’t care. My heart’s deepest desire is to serve my country as a member of the President’s cabinet, but I would rather leave that ambition unrequited than to let any man—president or not—go unpunished for crimes against the nation.”
“Well said, my friend.” John Bingham, slightly older than Boutwell, had been a Pennsylvania congressman until he was appointed a judge-advocate by the Attorney General. He was a prosecutor in the conspiracy trial, and if he were re-elected to the House in the upcoming mid-term elections, could bring expertise to the impeachment charges against Johnson. “We must move on this quickly.”
Stevens rapped his cane on the floor. “Patience, my young friends. First we must create a law that a stubborn jackass like Johnson would be bound by personal honor to violate. Then we shall have him. No charges based on mythical conspiratorial assumptions but instead charges rooted in actual law.”