The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation (2020)
The impeachers were pessimistic, feeling that if the vote was taken on 12 May 1868, they would have the necessary 2/3’s for removal, but with the delay, they viewed the chances of removing Johnson as fading fast. On 13 May 1868, Johnson was told, by among others, Montgomery Blair, that there were not enough votes to remove the President. Also on that day, Stanton remained barricaded in his office. The backlash against impeachment was growing, and the divisions within the GOP were becoming more fractious. Interestingly, the cabal formed by Chase, with such Senators as James Grimes, formed the basis of what would become the liberal wing of the Republican Party (the end of the Liberal Republicans occurred during the Republican National Convention in Miami in 1968).
Senator Edmund Ross (R: KS) had been sent to Capitol Hill to finish the term of his predecessor who had committed suicide. About the only thing Ross succeeded in accomplishing as a Senator was making bad associations with people. Ross received a telegram from KS which stated that his home state expected him to vote Johnson guilty. On 15 May 1868, several Republican Senators that had previously stated that they would vote Johnson guilty now said they would vote to acquit the President.
Miss Vinnie Ream was a politically connected temptress that had Ross under her spell. Ross boarded at the same house as Ream, and he became an ardent admirer. Despite being charged by KS to convict Johnson, Ross was pressured and convinced by Ream and other ne'er-do-wells to vote to acquit the President. Once Butler was apprised of the shenanigans, he sent a very clear telegram to Ross telling him that he knew what was going on, and that he was expected to vote to convict. Ross vainly kept claiming that he would convict on the 11th article, while hoping the whole deal would just go away. As late as 11:30 pm on the evening before the Senate vote, Ross stated he would convict.; however the person that Ross confided in saw Ream leaving the Senator’s home when he arrived. Ross sent a telegram to KS asserting is right to vote his conscience, and KS responded with a telegram that questioned his motives; in effect, the KS state legislature repudiated Ross in that telegram.
Ross rushed to the White House after the vote, with James G. Blaine commenting that the rascal was in a hurry to get his pay from the President. The Senate delayed voting on the other ten article for ten days in order to not be in conflict with the Republican National Convention in Chicago. The Radical Republicans hoped that after the convention the rebellious members of their party would see the light and vote to convict Johnson on at least some of the remaining ten articles. The Radical Republicans were trying their best to get Wade installed as President before the election, which might deny Grant the White House.
Returning to its legislative function, Congress was ready to bring in Arkansas, which would also bring in more Republicans. However, as much as Sumner wanted AR in the Union, he didn’t want to conduct business with Johnson until the final votes for removal/acquittal were completed in the Senate. Sumner saw, with great disdain, that far too many Senators still buzzed around the President, looking for favors.
On 21 May 1868, Grant was nominated on the first ballot. Wade’s chances at being Grant’s Vice-President were dashed due to the failure to remove Johnson on the 11th article, since he was a Radical Republican and President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and nothing more, with far too many in his own party arrayed against him. Speaker Colfax became Grant’s VP on the fifth ballot, and that ticket would mean more to the nation than the impeachment and attempted removal ever could, and the Democrats could have Johnson for themselves, if they chose. Wade actually took his defeat for VP with grace, warmly and genuinely congratulating Colfax. Johnson, still living in his fantasy land, believed that he could easily defeat Grant, if only the Democrats realized that he was their dream nominee.
No one really expected the expected the seven Republican Senators accused of shenanigans to change their votes. The Radical Republicans felt that impeachment was a dead letter in the future, which to them meant that Presidential power to become unchecked. On 26 May 1868, the Senate started to vote on the second and third articles of impeachment, with the vote being 35 - 19 on both, just as it had been on the 11th article. After the vote on the third article, the Senate trial on removing Johnson was adjourned sine die.
Ross kept up the narrative that he was being picked on because he was a newcomer/nobody in the Senate, and therefore a convenient scapegoat for Butler to pursue. Ross claimed that he had worked in his “humble” way to keep Wade out of the White House and to get Grant elected President Ross conveniently omitted the fact that he repeatedly went to Johnson for patronage favors after the acquittal, telling Johnson that he owed him since he voted for acquittal. Ross became quite the pest, in that every time Johnson agreed to a request from Ross, the junior Senator from KS came back with another request, and another, and another. Ross was probably trying to get back into the good graces of the KS state legislature by getting as many fellow Kansans as possible into the Executive branch. Ross was frequently irritating in terms of asking the President for favors, but he certainly wasn’t alone in doing so. Ross also defended himself by blasting the motives and tactics of the Radical Republicans.
Meanwhile, Chase was doing his best to convince the Democrats that he was their man for the nomination, arguing that he had never really left the party. and Af/Am suffrage remained stuck in the craw of the nation. Moderate Republicans only wanted to deal with the South on the matter of Af/Am suffrage, and to let it alone in the North. Sumner and the other Radical Republicans viewed Af/Am suffrage as a constitutional issue in need of an amendment. The conservative Republicans simply believed that they had done enough for the former slaves, and that their future was in their own hands.
Johnson badly wanted the Democrats to nominate him for President in 1868, but the Democratic Party’s view was that Johnson proved his disloyalty by being part of the Lincoln administration, cozying up to Seward, and allowing Stanton to remain SecWar. What also turned off the Dems was Johnson’s pathetic attempt to create reinvigorate the National Union Party in order to raid the party’s pantry. Johnson finished second on the first two ballots in the Democratic National Convention in 1868, but on the 22nd ballot, the governor of NY, Horatio Seymour, was nominated. Seymour had supported the draft rioters in NYC in 1863, and he had supported McClellan in 1864. Clemenceau opined that the Democrats had forgotten nothing and learned nothing. By the fall in the Campaign of 1868, the Democrats were experiencing buyer’s remorse with Seymour, realizing far too late that Chase would have been much stronger candidate.
While Grant won an overwhelming victory in the Electoral College, he only garnered .520 of the popular vote, which meant that white men overwhelmingly voted for Seymour. What provided the Electoral cushion for Grant were the 500k+ Af/Am votes he received from the states in the South. Those 500k Af/Am voters refused to be prevented from voting by violence of the threat of violence, with the KKK running point. By 1868 in TN, there were already 40k KKK members, and Nathaniel Bedford Forrest claimed that there were over 500k KKK members throughout the South. Johnson wasn’t idle closing out his time as President, issuing two more blanket amnesty orders to benefit as many Southern white men as possible, including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, making sure that they could not be charged with treason. Johnson also made sure he had generals that were to his liking in command of the military districts.
Addendum: The Aftermath . . .