[Gutenberg 20065] • Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

Excerpt: ... was announced that the President had signified his desire that a grave and considerate man with long-established reputation for ability and probity should serve as Secretary of War. The surprise in the whole matter was that the President should have selected Mr. Ewing, who, as was known to a few friends, had earnestly advised Mr. Johnson against removing Secretary Stanton. The Senate however was in no mood to accept any nomination for the War Office from President Johnson. The issue was not whether Mr. Ewing was a judicious and trustworthy man for the vacancy, but whether any vacancy existed. If Mr. Johnson had removed or attempted to remove Mr. Stanton from office in an unlawful and unconstitutional manner, the Senate, in the judgment of those who were directing its action, would be only condoning his offense by consenting to the appointment of a successor. Mr. Johnson's right to nominate any one was denied, and when the name of Mr. Ewing was received it was known by all that a committee of Representatives might at any moment appear at the bar of the Senate to present an Impeachment against the President for unlawfully attempting to remove Mr. Stanton. The course of the Senate had been fully anticipated by the President and his advisers, and they had, in their own judgment at least, obtained an advantage before the public by so complete an abnegation of all partisan purposes as was implied in the offer to confide the direction of the War Department to Mr. Ewing. The formal presentment of the charges against the President at the bar of the Senate, presided over by the Chief Justice of the United States, and sitting as a Court of Impeachment, was made on the fifth day of March (1868), when the House of Representatives, the grand inquest of the nation, attended the Managers as they came to the discharge of their solemn duty. Mr. Bingham, the chairman of the managers, read the Articles of Impeachment against Andrew Johnson. At the conclusion of the...