uenced the
final result.

From 1862 to 1869 he was retained in many causes, the most important
of which was the controversy over the contract between the commonwealth
and Gen. Herman Haupt for the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel. The
hearing before a legislative committee occupied about twenty days and
ended in the annulment of the contract. For several years Mr. Boutwell
was associated in Boston with J. Q. A. Griffin. Afterward he was in
partnership with Henry F. French until 1869, when he became Secretary
of the Treasury in the Cabinet of President Grant. He filled this
position with great ability for four years, originating and
promulgating, among other measures, the plan of refunding the public
debt. During that period he made but one argument, when he appeared
in the Supreme Court on the appeal by his client of a patent case, of
which he had had charge from the beginning. From 1863 to 1869 he had
been a member of the 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st Congresses, serving on
the committees on the judiciary and on reconstruction, and being
chairman for a time of the latter body. While representing his
district in Congress Mr. Boutwell gained considerable experience in
the proceedings against President Andrew Johnson, who was impeached for
high crimes and misdemeanors, and he was selected as one of the
managers on the part of the House. In a remarkably brilliant speech
before the House on December 5 and 6, 1867, he maintained the doctrine
that the president and all other civil officers could be impeached for
acts that were not indictable, although the contrary was held by many
eminent lawyers, including President Dwight, of Columbia College, who
wrote a treatise in support of his theory. But the House preferred
articles that did not allege an indictable offence and the Senate
sustained them by a vote of thirty-five to eighteen, one less than the
number necessary for conviction. On April 22 and 23, 1868, Mr.
Boutwell, on behalf of the managers, addressed the Senate, delivering
one of the strongest and ablest arguments on record, and thus
completing, as a lawyer, the most exhaustive labor he ever attempted.
He was a member of the Committee of Fifteen which reported the
Fourteenth Amendment, and while serving on the committee on the
judiciary he reported and carried through the House the Fifteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

In 1873 Mr. Boutwell was chosen United States Senator from
Massach