Mr. Johnson's veto of the Tenure-of-Office Bill, and the passage of that bill over his veto, of course intensified the antagonism between himself and Congress. He not unnaturally regarded that Act as an infringement of the Executive function which it was his duty to his office and to himself to resent. The culmination came upon his official notification to the Senate on February 21st, 1868, of his removal of Mr. Stanton from the office of Secretary of War, and his appointment of Gen. Lorenzo Thomas as Secretary ad interim, nothwithstanding the assumed interdiction of the Tenure-of-Office Act.
Immediately on receipt of this notification, the Senate went into executive session, and the following proceeding was had:
IN EXECUTIVE SESSION Senate of the United States February 21st, 1868Whereas, The Senate have read and considered the communication of the President, stating that he had removed Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and had designated the Adjutant General of the Army to act as Secretary of War ad interim. interim.. Therefore,Resolved, by the Senate of the United States, That under the Constitution and laws of the United States, the President has no power to remove the Secretary of War and designate any other officer to perform the duties of that office ad interim.
The journal of the Senate shows that this Resolution was adopted by the following vote:
Yeas--Messrs. Cameron, Cattell, Cole, Conkling, Cragin, Drake, Ferry, Harlan, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Morton, Patterson of New Hampshire, Pomeroy, Ramsay, Ross, Sprague, Stewart. Sumner. Thayer, Tipton, Trumbull. Van Winkle, Wade, Willey Williams. Wilson. Yates--23.
Nays--Messrs. Buckalew, Davis, Doolittle, Edmunds, Hendricks, Patterson of Tennessee--6.
Absent or not voting--20. Note. (Note--It is due to myself to say here, that the entry of my name in the above vote, was incorrect. My distinct recollection is, that though present, Ideclined to vote, and from the consideration mentioned. I was totally unaware of my name being recorded as voting on the proposition until long after I left the Senate, when of course there was no opportunity to secure a correction of the journal.)This was an extraordinary proceeding. A proposition to impeach the President had till recently been pending in the House for nearly a year, and the ingenuity of the majority had been taxed to the utmost to find some basis for an indictment upon which a successful impeachment might be possible. There is ground for the suggestion that much was hoped for in that direction from the Tenure-of-Office Bill, at least so far as the House was concerned. That hoped for opportunity had now come--nor is it an unreasonable surmise, that this very extraordinary action of the Senate was forced by outside as well as inside influences for the purpose of testing the Senate, and committing it in advance and in anticipation of the preferment of another impeachment by the House.
As to the question of the guilt or innocence of the President of the commission of an impeachable offense, this vote of the Senate was in the nature of a vote of "guilty." It was therefore to a degree an impeachment and conviction combined by the Senate, prior to the bringing of an accusation by the House of Representatives, the constitutional body for the preferment of an impeachment of the President--and was an improper, and not far removed from an indecent proceeding on the part of the Senate. In effect, the President was thereby condemned by the Senate without trial, and his later arraignment was simply to receive sentence-it being solely upon the removal of Mr. Stanton that the impeachment was brought by the House.
It is noticeable, and possibly indicative, that the names of twenty out of fifty-four members of the Senate do not appear in this list--a very unusual occurrence in divisions of that body;especially in the exciting conditions that then prevailed. The absentees, or at least abstentions from voting, were fifteen Republicans and five Democrats, more than one-third of the body.
That very unusual absence or abstention from voting may well be attributed to the very proper hesitancy of Senators to commit themselves in advance, either way, on a proposition that was reasonably certain to lead to an impeachment of the President, then virtually pending and imminent in the House, and upon which the Senate was equally certain to be called upon to act.
The action of the President was also communicated to the House of Representatives by Mr. Stanton, at the same hour of the same day, February 21st, 1868, in the following communication, enclosing a copy of the President's notification of his dismissal.
War Department, Washington City, Feb. 21, 1868.
Sir:--Gen. Thomas has just delivered to me a copy of the enclosed order, which you will please communicate to the House of Representatives.
(Signed) E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War.
Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker House of Representatives.
This gave new life to the impeachment cause, which had a few weeks before been defeated in the House and since then had, for lack of material, been laming, to the discouragement of many of its advocates: and the gleeful ejaculations, on the floor of the House, in the lobbies, and on the streets, on receipt of this news, and more especially after the action of the Senate became known, which was not long in reaching the public, with a common greeting slid clasping of hands: "Well, we've got him now!"The communication of Mr. Stanton to the House of Representatives was immediately, after reading, referred to the Committee on Reconstruction.
In the evening of the same day, Mr. Covode, of Pennsylvania, offered a resolution to impeach the President, which was also referred to the same Committee.
On the next day, Feb. 22d, 1868, Mr. Stevens, Chairman of that Committee, made the following report:
