The Clansman Part 27

They laughed at him. Roar after roar was the answer. The Chief Justice in loud angry tones ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to clear the galleries.

Men leaned over the rail and shouted in his face:

"He can't do it!"

"He hasn't got men enough!"

"Let him try if he dares!"

The doorkeepers attempted to enforce order by announcing it in the name of the peace and dignity and sovereign power of the Senate over its sacred chamber. The crowd had now become a howling mob which jeered them.

Senator Grimes, of Iowa, rose and demanded the reason why the Senate was thus insulted and the order had not been enforced.

A volley of hisses greeted his question.

The Chief Justice, evidently quite nervous, declared the order would be enforced.

Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, moved that the offenders be arrested.

In reply the crowd yelled:

"We'd like to see you do it!"

At length the mob began to slowly leave the galleries under the impression that the High Court had adjourned.

Suddenly a man cried out:

"Hold on! They ain't going to adjourn. Let's see it out!"

Hundreds took their seats again. In the corridors a crowd began to sing in wild chorus:

"Old Grimes is dead, that poor old man." The women joined with glee.

Between the verses the leader would curse the Iowa Senator as a traitor and copperhead. The singing could be distinctly heard by the Court as its roar floated through the open doors.

When the Senate Chamber had been cleared and the most disgraceful scene that ever occurred within its portals had closed, the High Court Impeachment went into secret session to consider the evidence and its verdict.

Within an hour from its adjournment it was known to the Managers that seven Republican Senators were doubtful, and that they formed a group under the leaders.h.i.+p of two great const.i.tutional lawyers who still believed in the sanct.i.ty of a judge's oath--Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, and William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine. Around them had gathered Senators Grimes, of Iowa, Van Winkle, of West Virginia, Fowler, of Tennessee, Henderson, of Missouri, and Ross, of Kansas. The Managers were in a panic.

If these men dared to hold together with the twelve Democrats, the President would be acquitted by one vote--they could count thirty-four certain for conviction.

The Revolutionists threw to the winds the last scruple of decency, went into caucus and organized a conspiracy for forcing, within the few days which must pa.s.s before the verdict, these judges to submit to their decree.

Fessenden and Trumbull were threatened with impeachment and expulsion from the Senate and bombarded by the most furious a.s.saults from the press, which denounced them as infamous traitors, "as mean, repulsive, and noxious as hedgehogs in the cages of a travelling menagerie."

A ma.s.s meeting was held in Was.h.i.+ngton which said:

"Resolved, that we impeach Fessenden, Trumbull, and Grimes at the bar of justice and humanity, as traitors before whose guilt the infamy of Benedict Arnold becomes respectability and decency."

The Managers sent out a circular telegram to every State from which came a doubtful judge:

"Great danger to the peace of the country if impeachment fails. Send your Senators public opinion by resolutions, letters, and delegates."

The man who excited most wrath was Ross, of Kansas. That Kansas of all States should send a "traitor" was more than the spirits of the Revolutionists could bear.

A ma.s.s meeting in Leavenworth accordingly sent him the telegram:

"Kansas has heard the evidence and demands the conviction of the President.

"D. R. Anthony and 1,000 others."

To this Ross replied:

"I have taken an oath to do impartial justice. I trust I shall have the courage and honesty to vote according to the dictates of my judgment and for the highest good of my country."

He got his answer:

"Your motives are Indian contracts and greenbacks. Kansas repudiates you as she does all perjurers and skunks."

The Managers organized an inquisition for the purpose of torturing and badgering Ross into submission. His one vote was all they lacked.

They laid siege to little Vinnie Ream, the sculptress, to whom Congress had awarded a contract for the statue of Lincoln. Her studio was in the crypt of the Capitol. They threatened her with the wrath of Congress, the loss of her contract, and ruin of her career unless she found a way to induce Senator Ross, whom she knew, to vote against the President.

Such an attempt to gain by fraud the verdict of a common court of law would have sent its promoters to prison for felony. Yet the Managers of this case, before the highest tribunal of the world, not only did it without a blush of shame, but cursed as a traitor every man who dared to question their motives.

As the day approached for the Court to vote, Senator Ross remained to friend and foe a sealed mystery. Reporters swarmed about him, the target of a thousand eyes. His rooms were besieged by his radical const.i.tuents who had been imported from Kansas in droves to browbeat him into a promise to convict. His movements day and night, his breakfast, his dinner, his supper, the clothes he wore, the colour of his cravat, his friends and companions, were chronicled in hourly bulletins and flashed over the wires from the delirious Capital.

Chief Justice Chase called the High Court of Impeachment to order, to render its verdict. Old Stoneman had again been carried to his chair in the arms of two negroes, and sat with his cold eyes searching the faces of the judges.

The excitement had reached the highest pitch of intensity. A sense of choking solemnity brooded over the scene. The feeling grew that the hour had struck which would test the capacity of man to establish an enduring Republic.

The Clerk read the Eleventh Article, drawn by the Great Commoner as the supreme test.

As its last words died away the Chief Justice rose amid a silence that was agony, placed his hands on the sides of the desk as if to steady himself, and said:

"Call the roll."

Each Senator answered "Guilty" or "Not Guilty," exactly as they had been counted by the Managers, until Fessenden's name was called.

A moment of stillness and the great lawyer's voice rang high, cold, clear, and resonant as a Puritan church bell on Sunday morning:

"Not Guilty!"

A murmur, half groan and sigh, half cheer and cry, rippled the great hall.

The other votes were discounted now save that of Edmund G. Ross, of Kansas. No human being on earth knew what this man would do save the silent invisible man within his soul.

Over the solemn trembling silence the voice of the Chief Justice rang:

"Senator Ross, how say you? Is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor as charged in this article?"