satisfy his carnal needs. Yes, he had degraded his office, and his manhood, and his race, by attempting to force himself upon Miss Sally Watson while intoxicated, seduce her, and only through the grace of the Lord had she escaped. In due time, the victim herself, agonizing as reliving the experience would be for her, would recount the details of the horrifying episode. Photographs of her injuries, taken immediately after the terrible experience, would be entered into the record as Exhibit C by the managers of the House.
Miller went quickly over the other specifications in Article III, and from his table Abrahams grudgingly had to concede the effectiveness of his tactic. Miller sensed that he had made an impression with the details of the Sally Watson charge. It had been strong stuff, as the faces of the senators indicated, and Miller was too clever to water it down.
He glossed over the Wanda Gibson affair. Mainly, he emphasized that the President had dwelt under the same roof with this single woman for five years, encouraged by the Reverend Spinger (who would be a witness to the fact), because the Reverend had offered her up as a bribe to get preferential treatment for his Crispus Society. Suffice it that, even after leaving his licentious house on Van Buren Street and moving into the White House, the President had been compelled to return in the night, against all security advice, in order to be by the side of his mistress.
Dilman’s veto of the Minorities Rehabilitation Program required little explanation, according to Miller. There would be a host of specialists of every race to show how severely the veto had hindered America’s economic advance and had damaged domestic peace. Soon enough, the House managers would spell out in detail the reasons behind the President’s incredible veto: his inability to study the bill with a brain sodden with alcohol, his persistent desire to placate Afro-American extremists who had no desire for the domestic tranquillity that passage of the bill would insure, above all, his determination to insult Congress and take all the reins of government into his own hands.
As to the President’s history of alcohol addiction, that would be put forth in irrefutable affidavits collected throughout the Midwest, and in Washington, D.C., and its environs.
Now, his voice having become ragged, Zeke Miller paused and swallowed a few times. He laid aside his notes, and then standing wide-legged, hands on his hips, he surveyed the crowded Senate Chamber.
“At last,” he said, “we have come to Article IV, the gravest crime we can charge against the President, the one beside which all others seem petty misdemeanors in their meaning and portent. For, in commission of this single misdeed, the Chief Executive has, like an insane Samson, attempted to crumple the pillars of our institutions and bring our proud temple of democracy down into rubble and ruin. It was mainly for this high crime that Andrew Johnson was haled before the bar of justice, and it is for this same act of arrogant lawlessness, if for no other, that we are met here this afternoon.
“Once more, permit me to quote Ben Butler’s remarks, on a similar issue, in the first impeachment trial. ‘Has the President, under the Constitution, the more than kingly prerogative at will to remove from office, and suspend from office indefinitely, all executive officers of the United States, either civil, military or naval, at any time and all times, and fill the vacancies with creatures of his own appointment, for his own purposes, without any restraint whatever, or possibility of restraint by the Senate, or by Congress through laws duly enacted? The House of Representatives, on behalf of the people, join this issue by affirming that the exercise of such powers is a high misdemeanor in office.’ ”
Miller halted, pulled himself to his full bantam height, and scanned the rows of senators directly before him.
“Honorable gentlemen, need more be said today? Has there been, in this century, in these United States, a Presidential act more overtly and nakedly tyrannical? No, never, never, in any century. The offense may be read on your desks. The crime admits of no discussion. What remains is only punishment for the crime.
“Honorable gentlemen, we of the House do here and now charge the President of the United States with contemptuously breaking a major law of the land, a law almost unanimously passed by Congress, a law not vetoed by his pen. We, of the House, do here and now charge the President of the United States with summarily removing from office the Secretary of State of the United States without the legal consent of the Senate, and of so doing not because his first Cabinet member had been disabled or was incompetent, but because his first Cabinet member advocated policies that were and are desired by the majority of the American people. For this adherence to democracy, our Secretary of State was beloved by the American people as he was beloved by our late President. And because our Secretary of State earned this popularity, because he was the next in line to succession of the Presidency, because his popularity posed a threat to the uneasy holder of that primary office, he was fired illegally by a horn-mad, jealous, spiteful President. For this vicious act, honorable gentlemen, we of the House do here and now charge the President of the United States with violation of the Constitution of the United States.”
Zeke Miller paused, sucked in his breath, drew back his shoulders, lifted his arms high above his head in an evangelistic posture of beseeching both the Lord above and the Senate below.
“Fellow Americans!” he shouted. “I close our argument with the prayer that the historic warning be emblazoned from this memorable day of justice undertaken, to the day of reckoning and final judgment in this Chamber. Fellow Americans, kill the beast before the beast kills you!”
The galleries broke out into an unrestrained burst of applause, and here and there senators, and the majority of the House members behind them, came to their feet, clapping their hands. Zeke Miller gave a short nodding bow, turned on his heel, and went swiftly to his table, where his colleagues waited, all standing, faces wreathed in smiles of congratulations and triumph.
From above, Chief Justice Johnstone’s gavel fell steadily, its pounding drowned out by the tumult and clamor.
Nat Abrahams, arms still crossed over his chest, sat grimly, observing the spectacle, the animated congressmen and spectators, the swiveling television cameras. He knew that Miller had scored, hit low, scored high.
Engaged in a trial, Abrahams always divested himself of self-delusion, not hope but self-delusion. The opposition, he calculated, was far ahead at this point. They would have to be caught. It would not be an easy matter overtaking them. Miller’s hour and twenty minutes of oratory had worn down the senators, undoubtedly exhausted the attentiveness of millions of television viewers. How could reason hold them now? When you were sated with a rich feast and heady wine, what taste would there be for health foods and the milk of kindness?
Behind Abrahams, the Chief Justice’s gavel monotonously pounded, and gradually the din of mob celebration began to subside.
Aware of activity to his left, Nat Abrahams looked down the table. Felix Hart had passed an open note to Priest, who read it, nodded, gave it to Tuttle, who glanced at it noncommittally, and then handed it to Abrahams.
Abrahams stared at the note. “Nat,” it read, “that was rough. We’ve lost them, unless you can bring them back sharply. Need an immediate attention grabber, what writers call a narrative hook. Suggest you discard agreed- upon opening, and alternate as well, and go all out with third possibility we discussed. What do you say?” The note was signed “Felix.”
Abrahams’ mind had already been made up. Taking up a pencil, he scrawled across Hart’s note, “I say YES!”
He passed it back, observing each of his associates read his reply. He waited for their decision. Felix Hart was the first to answer, vigorously nodding his approval. Then Joel Priest ducked his head twice in affirmation. Abrahams waited upon Tuttle, who sat with his jaw on his fist, thinking. Tuttle’s head turned. “Hate to fight their roughneck style,” he said gruffly, “but when you’re set upon in a dark alley by ruffians, guess you got to knee as well as punch. No choice, Nat. Yup, better bring that audience back, right quick, or nobody’ll know we have a case or a President.”
Abrahams was relieved, and now edgy but eager for the counterattack. He glanced behind him and upward.
The sputtering Chief Justice had hit his gavel down one last time. The Chamber had finally lapsed into silence. Abrahams’ gaze returned to the senators at their desks. While respectful and half attentive, most of them were slouching and slumping in attitudes of relaxation, as if they had heard it all, as if there was no more to be said, as if the show was over and only the necessary and boring closing formalities of the first day remained.
The Chief Justice had rolled his chair forward and leaned across the side of the rostrum.
“Mr. Managers for the President,” he called down, “are you prepared to proceed with your opening
