sor. The charge that he had attempted to bring
Congress into "disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach," was
laughingly answered in popular opinion, by the fact that he not been
able to say half so many bitter things about Congress as Congress had
said about him; and that, as the elections had shown, Congress had
triumphed, and turned the popular contempt and ridicule against the
President. Besides, the offense charged against the President had been
committed nearly two years before, and seemed to be recalled now for
popular effect in the construction of the Articles of Impeachment.
This charge richly deserved the satire it received at the hands of
Judge Curtis when he spoke of "the House of Representatives erecting
itself into a school of manners, and desiring the judgment of the
Senate whether the President has not been guilty of an indecorum;
whether he has spoken properly?" . . . "Considering the nature of our
government," said Judge Curtis, "and the experience we have had on this
subject, that is a pretty lofty claim!"

In fact there was but one charge of any gravity against the President
--that of violating the Tenure-of-office Act. But on the charge there
was a very grave difference of opinion among those equally competent
to decide. Mr. Fessenden, one of the ablest lawyers, if not indeed the
very ablest that has sat in the Senate since Mr. Webster, believed on
his oath and his honor--an oath that was sacred and an honor that was
stainless--that the President had a lawful and Constitutional right to
remove Mr. Stanton at the time and in the manner he did. Mr. Trumbull,
whose legal ability had been attested by his assignment to the
chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, believed with Mr. Fessenden,
as did Mr. Grimes of Iowa, one of the strongest members of the Senate,
and Mr. Henderson of Missouri, whose legal attainments have since given
him a high professional reputation. Let it be frankly admitted that
lawyers of equal rank conscientiously believed in the President's
guilt. This only proves that there was ground for a substantial and
fundamental difference of opinion, and that it could not therefore with
certainty be charged that the President, "unmindful of the high duties
of his office, did this act in violation of the Constitution of the
United States." This was the very question in dispute,--the question
in regard to which lawyers of eminent learning and impartial mind,
members of the Re