The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln (73 page)

The door opened.

“I heard about what happened,” said Rufus Dennard. “I am so glad to see that you are both well.”

IV

Two hours later.

They sat in the carriage up on the bluff, waiting for the sun. Down below, the nation’s capital city was swaddled in gray predawn mist. Behind them was the low wooden Quaker school where Abigail’s long road had begun. At this moment, Jonathan wanted more than anything to feel her head on his shoulder. But they sat straight, close together yet worlds apart, each hoping the other might produce a suggestion.

“We have to stop the trial,” said Jonathan for perhaps the fifth time. “They are proceeding under taint. It cannot be allowed to go forward.”

“Events have their own momentum,” said Abigail. “I am not at all sure that we can deflect them.”

“We have to try.”

“There is no one left to tell,” she said.

A thin red glisten on Washington’s monument hinted that morning was very near. Abigail could not remember the last time she had stayed up all night.

The meeting with Dennard had been painful. The old man, usually so dignified, had been almost in tears.

No, he insisted, he was not a conspirator, and never had been. Yes, they had approached him, as he assumed they had approached everyone
on that blasted list—a list that should never have been set down in writing, and the loss of which had caused so much trouble. Yes, that was what had led to the split from Grafton—Grafton had been one of the prime movers, and Dennard had refused to join.

Wasn’t that the time to alert General Baker? Abigail had asked.

He could not, he said. He owed Grafton for favors he would not discuss, in much the same way that he owed Dr. Finney. Grafton had saved his life in the Mexican War and, later, had helped Dennard and his wife through a terrible time. He would not turn on them. But he refused to help.

Jonathan suggested that was the reason Dennard wanted the firm to stay out of the impeachment battle.

Dennard nodded. He tried to keep the firm out, and then, when McShane died, and Grafton organized the telegrams from clients, he tried again. But then Lincoln asked him personally, and a true patriot did not refuse his President. Still, Dennard had tried his best to steer Abigail and Jonathan away from the investigation, not from a desire for self-protection, but to keep them out of harm’s way.…

Eventually, they had to leave. The séance of self-justification had become too eerie.

“Do you think Dennard was giving information to Grafton?” said Abigail—too exhausted to maintain the formalities. The sun was peeking over the horizon. She answered her own question. “No. I cannot believe that Dennard’s representation of the President was at any time other than energetic and honorable. He did his best.” Another thought struck her. “But why would Grafton tell me all those terrible things about Dennard? Why would he try to draw me away?”

“Maybe he didn’t want Chanticleer’s sister so close to the impeachment.”

“But how could he have known about Judith?”

Jonathan shook his head. If Abigail could not get her capacious mind around the whole story, he knew that there was little point in his trying.

“I suppose we might consider Mr. Grafton the spider,” she mused. “The others were in his web. The men of wealth who wanted Mr. Lincoln out of the way. The Radicals. Grafton saw to it that their interests coincided.”

“And Waverly?”

“The corporal as much as told us. What remains of the Confederacy would obviously be interested in blackmailing the powerful of
the North. Grafton played on that, using their people to do what violence might have been necessary to protect the conspiracy. No doubt the rebels thought they were using him, too. But I very much doubt that most of the conspirators were aware of the Confederate role. Or of the violence.”

“And Baker? He knew that there were two envelopes.”

“Surely General Baker’s motive is simplest of all. Mr. Stanton knew what Rebecca had stolen. He wanted his papers back, before harm could be done to the President’s cause.”

Jonathan wondered at Abigail’s smooth assurance, and her determination to absolve their client; but chose to mention neither. “I just wish I knew whom we could tell,” he said. “I think we’ve been over everyone. Baker was too excited at the thought of getting his hands on the material. No Baker means no Stanton, even now. You don’t trust Noah Brooks. I don’t trust Fielding. Varak is gone. Chase is obviously impossible. So, again, I ask you: who’s left?”

“Sickles?” she said. “When he says his only cause is Abraham Lincoln, I believe him.”

“But that ‘only cause’ is the reason he has been visiting generals and stirring up the army. In a way, telling Sickles is as bad as telling Stanton. He would not be particularly sorry to see everyone on that list hang.” He paused, remembering Abigail’s words at Tenth Street. “Whether or not they rejected the approach.”

Abigail touched his arm. “We have one consolation. Fielding’s name is not on the list. No Fielding. No Bannerman.”

“Then why did he leave town so suddenly?”

But they both knew the answer to that: he was a gentleman to the end. There was only one Abigail, and Fields and Hills were … two.

“There’s something else you should know,” Jonathan said as they waited. He was trembling. “The handwriting. The list.” He had trouble forming the words. “The handwriting is Margaret’s.”

“I’m sorry, Jonathan,” she said. “I suppose we know who the young lady who ran messages is, don’t we?” She laughed. “I hope you will not be offended if I say that, in this case, you are definitely better off without her.” When Jonathan said nothing, she added, “At least poor Bessie is off the hook.”

They sat for a while, watching the sun, out of ideas.

“I just don’t understand,” said Jonathan after a bit. “How can so many of those elected to office abuse that trust so badly? They don’t
care about truth. They don’t care about argument. They only care about winning elections and holding on to their power.”

Abigail smiled wistfully. “Professor Finney always says that the right to govern belongs to those whose moral attributes best qualify them.”

“Moral attributes. We live in a world of … of moral pygmies. Not like the days of the Founders. They could see beyond the needs of party. Beyond the needs of interest. Beyond the needs of the next election. There are few men like that today.”

“I doubt,” she said dryly, “that the generation that wrote the Constitution was so much wiser than ours.” Then: “Jonathan. I have an idea.”

I

“
THIS IS QUITE
manifestly irregular,” said Charles Sumner. A servant poured lemonade. “Rather
ex parte
, don’t you think?” He toyed with his gray-blond locks. “The Democratic newspapers would make quite a meal of this meeting. I suppose the Republican papers would, too, if they thought they might earn a few more pennies.”

Yet, for all his complaint, Sumner seemed curiously at ease. He was in no hurry to be rid of them. They were all seated in his long study, its high shelves piled with thousands of books. His admirers claimed that he had memorized every word; certainly he could recite, accurately, long passages of history from Pliny the Elder, or Descartes, or the Bible.

It was Thursday morning; Jonathan should have been at the firm. Instead, he had gone home to change before rejoining Abigail, who had concluded that the only option was the one they were now pursuing. To see Sumner, the man who, as he proclaimed repeatedly to all the world, was in the business not of politics, but of morals; Sumner, who had met all the crowned heads of Europe, and who corresponded with half the prime ministers on the planet; Sumner, who spoke as many languages and knew as many capitals as anyone could ask; Sumner, who had forced Lincoln to take on Abigail, and who still controlled the three votes the President would need to prevail.

“We would not be here,” said Abigail now, “were the matter anything less than the most urgent.” She smiled, as best she could after the
depredations of the night before; it was her name and not Jonathan’s that had opened the most private door in the city.

“I did hear, of course, of your eventful evening.” He sounded less sympathetic than amused. “I am pleased to see that you emerged unscathed.” He glanced at Jonathan. “Both of you, naturally.”

Dinah, who had dined with Sumner at her father’s table, insisted that he was the only white man in Washington who seemed genuinely to believe in equality of the races: a legacy of his education in France, where the young Sumner had sat in lecture halls alongside students from Africa and the West Indies.

Abigail, conscious of her role, continued to hold the stage. “We have something we should like to show you,” she said. “And then we have something we should like to tell you.”

“If it involves the impeachment, I fear I may not properly listen. The Senate, as you know, will vote this afternoon on the Articles.”

“Not directly,” said Jonathan.

Sumner shook his heavy head. “I will not compromise,” he said. “I am interested in no deals. There is nothing the President may offer that I would take. My vote shall be based, entirely, on what I think right. It is for my moral judgment, and that alone, that the legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sent me to the Senate.” He made to rise. “I am sorry if you have wasted your time; or mine.”

“I assure you,” said Jonathan hastily, “that we are not proposing a deal of any sort—”

Abigail interrupted. “All we ask is that you hear us out. You may decide for yourself what to do about what we tell you.”

And so they told him.

Abigail did most of the talking, because they both sensed that Senator Sumner preferred it that way. She started with the murders, went over their own investigations, explained how Stanton played both sides at once. Finally, she reached the events of last night, and could not go on. And so Jonathan, his own voice a bit clotted, told him what had happened with Waverly.

“We did not know whom we could trust,” said Abigail, in conclusion. “And so we came to you.”

Jonathan expected that the great moralist would next ask to see the list of conspirators; but he did not.

Sumner sipped his sherry. “You have omitted two details.” He
waited, but neither contradicted him. “You have not told me who had custody of the list for the past year or so. And you have not told me how you persuaded this individual to give it to you.”

“We gave our word,” said Abigail.

Plainly, Sumner liked that answer; he even smiled. “And Dennard? Why have you not brought your tale to your employer?” He saw their faces. “Ah. I see. Like that, is it?”

“I am afraid so,” said Jonathan.

“Here is your difficulty,” said the great moralist. “You are adhering to the classic argument
ad hominem
. You are suggesting that a proposition should be rejected not on its own merits but due to the merits of those who happen to be in favor of it. The Greeks disproved this nonsense long ago.” Sumner tilted his head toward one of the shelves. “You’re a Yale man, Hilliman. So—tell me. Have you ever read the
Characteristics
, by the Right Honorable Anthony Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury? No? Well, perhaps you know the volume by its formal title?
Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times
? No? Sad. And you, Miss Canner? Are you familiar with the volume?”

“I fear not, Mr. Sumner.”

“Pity.” He stretched out a long arm, pulled the volume free, flipped through the pages. “Cooper, in his excellent discussion of goodness, demonstrates that men act out of a multiplicity of motives. Thus, in the process of achieving that which morality dictates, one must invariably accept as allies some who lack the same moral sense. There will always be those who will seek the right result for the wrong reason. If the moral man dismisses all allies because he disdains their motives, then he will never be able to move toward a more moral world. Thus, in the struggle against slavery, the moral man accepted as allies those who wanted war for selfish reasons of commercial or political success. And in the struggle against the tyranny of Lincoln, one might accept as allies those who are, again, motivated by dreams of commercial or political success.”

Abigail blanched. “But we are speaking of a great conspiracy—”

“Indeed. And if the conspirators are caught, and found guilty, then they should be sent to the scaffold. I shall applaud their executions, even if they prove to be my closest friends. But, as we await that event, it cannot be the case that their improper motivation discredits the end toward which they are working. The evidence you have brought me is disturbing indeed. Nevertheless, the question of impeachment must be judged on its own merits.”

She tried again. “You have the list! It is right there before your eyes!”

Sumner was gentle. “Miss Canner, what I see before me is a list of names. I have no idea of its provenance. Neither do you. The writer of the list tells us that those whose names appear are committed to the great cause of undoing Lincoln’s tyranny, or may be persuaded to join. He further tells us that some among them will require further consideration. You are taking this to mean that bribes have changed hands. Perhaps you are correct.” He stacked the papers neatly, handed them back. “Now, suppose that everything you say is true. Look at the list. Yes, some members of the House of Representatives appear. As many as a dozen. But the bill to impeach Mr. Lincoln passed by far more than a dozen votes. And there are no names of any Senators. Therefore, by your own hypothesis, the actions of the Senate are beyond reproach.” He tapped the pages. “There are merchants here, a few men of commerce, a lawyer or two, some newspaper editors. A relative of Mr. Hilliman’s—your mother, I gather?—and, of course, Mr. Lincoln’s own lawyer. Perhaps they were all conspirators. Perhaps they were all bribed. None of that tells us whether or not Mr. Lincoln deserves the office he has so dishonored.”