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Volume CXXXI, Number 23 |
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Fessenden & Hyde
KID WONGSRICHANALAI
COLUMNIST
With the American Civil War over, the victorious North began to talk about
reconstructing the nation. President Andrew Johnson believed and acted
as if the Executive branch of the government alone had the power to bring
back the Southern states. This, Congress contested. What was even more
infuriating to members of the Senate and the House of Representatives,
however, was the fact that Johnson's terms of reconciliation were so lenient
that former Confederate officials were reelected to positions in the U.S.
government. There were no guarantees that the Civil War would not be repeated
and Johnson had also cut off any help to the freedmen, who had been so
recently liberated by three hundred thousand Northern lives.
Johnson, many radical Republicans believed, needed to go.
There was talk of impeachment early on but there had been no real case
against the President. William Pitt Fessenden, Bowdoin class of 1823,
and a veteran of the U.S. Senate, watched in disgust as his colleagues
attempted to remove their own president. Fessenden wrote:
The President has undoubtedly been guilty of very serious
offenses, the consequences, I think, of bad temper and of self-confidence,
the worst consequence of which has been to encourage the South in its
opposition to the measures of Congress, and in keeping alive a spirit
of hostility. I doubt, however, if he has committed any specific act,
which would justify before the world his removal from office.
The origins of the impeachment trial began with the passage
of the Tenure of Office Act in March of 1867. The Act, which Johnson vetoed
(and Fessenden disapproved of), stated that any federal official, which
was appointed with the consent of the Senate could not be removed without
the Senate's consent as well. If the Senate was not in session, the President
could suspend the official but once the Senate reconvened, and if it did
not agree with the suspension, the official had to be returned to his
post.
In August 1867, Johnson suspended Stanton for the Secretary
had opposed Johnson's lenient reconstruction policies from the start.
When Congress reconvened that November, Johnson's suspension was overruled
by the Senate. Stanton was returned to the War Department. Within a matter
of weeks, however, Johnson forced the issue again by dismissing Stanton
entirely. On February 24, 1868 the House of Representatives voted 126-47
in favor of impeaching the President of the United States.
Everything else that came before Congress, whether it be
the issue of bringing the Southern states back into the Union or the issue
of black suffrage, was shelved to make way for the case of the century.
The prosecution leveled eleven charges against the President, basically
accusing him of attempting to violate the Tenure of Office Act and conspiring
to hinder the business of the War Department. The trial began on March
30, 1868.
A few days earlier, Fessenden had written that "The
trial will be very dull and stupid work the country will probably be tired
and disgusted with it. The result will, in my judgment, be politically
disastrous, whatever else may come of it." Johnson had very few friends
and the radical Republicans were moving to cut off the remaining supporters
he had. Fessenden, however, was not about to be bullied into a decision
that he did not agree with. To one of his sons, he wrote:
We have a tedious job before us in the impeachment, and
I regard it with very serious apprehension. I would give much to avoid
the responsibility, for it may be that I shall feel compelled to disappoint
all the expectations and wishes of our friends. Whatever may be the consequences
to myself personally, I will not decide the question against my own judgment.
As the trial neared its end in May of 1868, Fessenden let
it be known that he would vote for Johnson's acquittal, believing that
the President had the right to remove Stanton. To convict Johnson the
Senate needed a two-thirds majority. Figuring that the Democrats would
vote for Johnson's acquittal, the President's defense needed seven Republican
senators to vote "not guilty." Fessenden and five other Republicans
were known to favor letting Johnson go. As the day of judgment moved closer
the pressure on those Republican senators to break was extreme.
Fessenden himself received a number of threatening letters.
One was obvious in its intentions, "Senator Fessenden, - Any Republican
senator who votes against impeachment need never expect to get home alive;
so take notice…" The letter was signed simply, "a radical."
Despite the pressure from all sides (including from his friends in Washington politics) Fessenden remained firm in his convictions to see justice, as he saw it, done. On May 16, 1868, he sat in his Senate seat along with his colleagues, many of them once friends, now forever his enemies, to render judgment in the case of Andrew Johnson. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Salmon Chase asked for individual verdicts and went down the line.
"Mr. Senator Fessenden, how say you? Is the respondent,
Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of
a high misdemeanor, as charged in this article?" Weathered, worn,
embattled, and stubborn till the end, William Pitt Fessenden rose to call
out, "Not guilty."
The final count was 35-19 in favor of impeachment; one vote shy of the
two-thirds majority needed to convict Johnson.
As the first Republican to vote "not guilty" many
angry radicals singled out Fessenden as a target for their disappointment.
When the senator rose to leave after adjournment he remained calm and
composed as he walked through a threatening mob. Alone at home, without
family or comfort, without the friends he had made in his years as a dedicated
Republican, Fessenden collapsed onto his couch and sobbed. The trial finally
ended on May 26th with the remaining articles against Johnson falling
in the same pattern as the first- not guilty by a narrow margin of one
vote.
The trail was over. Within a few months a new Republican
president would enter the White House but the Reconstruction process had
already been derailed. For William Pitt Fessenden, the trial had cost
him his good name, his career in the courts and in the Senate. He would
not regain the reputation that he had for within a year and half of Johnson's
acquittal, the Maine senator would be dead.
Next Time: Where Their Roads Led After Bowdoin.
To view a full version of the entire series (including source
citations) please visit my website. (This site includes the Chamberlain
and Howard Series and is updated weekly during the school year) at: http://www.bowdoin.edu/~kwongsri
Also, please send comments and ideas to: kwongsri@bowdoin.edu