and proved to be only
one of the thousand baseless rumors which in that exciting period were
constantly filling the political atmosphere. It was perhaps the
intention of the Committee in examining General Grant on this point,
to give him an opportunity in an official report to stamp the current
rumors as utterly false. It can hardly be possible that a single
member of the Committee believed that General Grant had silently
received from the President a deliberate proposition to revolutionize
the Government. When the essential truth of the matter was reached, it
was found that General Grant had never heard any thing from the
President, on the question of organizing Congress, at all different
from the premises he had assumed in the series of disreputable
speeches delivered by him in his extraordinary tour through the
country the preceding year.

There was a marked divergence of views in the recommendations from
the Judiciary Committee. The majority, Messrs. George S. Boutwell of
Massachusetts, Francis Thomas of Maryland, Thomas Williams of
Pennsylvania, William Lawrence of Ohio, and John C. Churchill of New
York, reported a resolution directing that "Andrew Johnson, President
of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors."
Mr. Wilson of Iowa and Mr. Frederic Woodbridge of Vermont, submitted
a minority report, with a resolution directing that "the Committee on
the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of the proposed
impeachment of the President of the United States, and that the subject
be laid upon the table." The two Democratic members of the committee,
Mr. Marshall of Illinois and Mr. Eldridge of Wisconsin, while agreeing
with the resolution submitted by Mr. Wilson, desired to express certain
views from the Democratic stand-point. They therefore submitted a
separate report, reviewing the entire proceeding in language more
caustic than Mr. Wilson and Mr. Woodbridge had seen fit to employ.

The effect of Mr. Boutwell's report was seriously impaired by the fact
that the chairman of the committee and another Republican member had
refused to concur, and it was at once evident from the position in
which this division left the question, that the House would not sustain
an Impeachment upon the testimony submitted. By an arrangement to
which only a few members objected, the discussion of the reports was
confined to two speeches, one by Mr. Boutwell and one by Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Boutwell's