statement?”
Adjusting the knot of his tie, Nat Abrahams came swiftly to his feet, hearing the crack of his knee joints and feeling the strained pull on his back and calf muscles.
Facing the Chief Justice, he replied, “Yes, Mr. Chief Justice. I am instructed by my associates to say that we are ready to proceed with our evidence against the Articles of Impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives against the President of the United States. I am Nathan Abrahams, Your Honor, and I have been assigned to present the opening testimony for the defense.”
“Very well, Mr. Manager Abrahams, proceed with the evidence.”
Abrahams lifted a document from the table. “Mr. Chief Justice, before undertaking the defense, I should like to offer first, on behalf of the managers, a certified copy of the oath of the President of the United States, which I will now read.” He read aloud from the document: “ ‘I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.’ Signed, ‘Douglass Dilman.’ ”
Handing it up to the Chief Justice, Abrahams announced in a voice penetrating enough to be heard not only by the presiding officer but by the legislative jurors, “That is our prime exhibit, and the cornerstone of our case- evidence, first, that Douglass Dilman is the legal President of the United States, and evidence, second, that he was and is fully cognizant of his oath of office, which we contend he has entirely lived up to and is continuing to live up to, and which contention we shall support through select witnesses and further certified evidence. Now, Your Honor, I shall enter upon my opening argument.”
Walking slowly to the spot on the carpet between the rostrum and the jammed Senate benches, his face rigidly set and unsmiling, Nat Abrahams was prepared to begin. He had left his multitudinous notes on the table. He had committed to memory every fact and shred of evidence. All the stored knowledge he possessed of the case, provoked by his opponent, had been electrified, and now pulsated with life inside his brain, waiting for his summons. He required no written reference. He was alert, anger controlled, ready as he would ever be to even the score. If it was possible, he would do it. He would try.
“Mr. Chief Justice, gentlemen of the United States Senate, fellow citizens,” he heard himself say, surprised at how firm and even was the pitch of his address. “As the document I have turned over to the Chief Justice of the United States confirms, we have for President of the United States a man, a man who has sworn, before the presiding officer now seated on the bench above, that he will preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution and our nation under God. We have, I repeat, a man for our President of the United States.
“Perhaps, from the outset, since the managers of the House have raised the point, some clarification is necessary. What is a
“You see, then, man is defined as many things, but of one fact I am positive, and all higher authority is positive, one thing he is not. Man is not a beast.
“A beast, again quoting Noah Webster, is plainly, precisely, ‘any four-footed animal,’ and an animal, as apart from a plant, is most often ‘a brute or beast, as distinguished from man.’ There are many beasts on the earth, quadrupeds all. A lion is a beast, a panther is a beast, a rhinoceros, a dog, a jackal, a wolf, a hyena, each is an authentic beast. But only among the unknowing and the ignorant, or the malicious and unbalanced, is a man ever confused with a beast. Sometimes, in the North of our nation, I have heard pathetic and psychopathic perverts called beasts, even though they were men. Sometimes, in the South of the United States, not the South of Africa, in the South of the United States and occasionally in the North, I have heard our citizens of black skin called beasts. But I have always attributed that confusion of identity to ignorance or malice, and believed the only corrective measure to be education.
“Forgive me the biological discourse, honorable senators, but since my able opponent mistook the nature of the subject on trial today, I thought it but proper, indeed necessary, to correct him. Let there be no confusion among you from this moment on. In 1868, the President of the United States was a man, a man made in the image of God, Thaddeus Stevens notwithstanding. Today, the President of the United States is another man, a man created in the image of God, Zeke Miller notwithstanding. The President is not a four-legged brute, but a man, as you are men, no more, no less, as even the managers of the House are men.
“I am determined to keep the definitions in this trial precise. You are here to sit in judgment on the future of a human being who is the President of the United States. The managers of the House are here to prosecute a human being and try to remove him from his rightfully held office. My colleagues and I are here to defend a human being and retain him in the highest position in the land. If that is understood and agreed upon, I am prepared to enter into our argument against the Articles of Impeachment voted upon by the House of Representatives.”
It was time for a breather. Nat Abrahams halted. With unfaltering gaze, he surveyed the faces and the profiles of the senators arrayed before him. He had gained and held their attention, he guessed, shamed some, annoyed others, but he had opened the path for what must now, of necessity, follow. Along this path there was danger, but there was no other way.
Bending his head to organize his thoughts, he took several paces to his right. When he raised his head, his eyes met those of Zeke Miller, and it pleased him to see that Miller’s balding warm pate was beaded and his eyes burning and his thin-lipped mouth compressed with contained bile.
Abruptly, Nat Abrahams swung back to confront his audience.
“Gentlemen of the Senate, I shall now enter into my argument against the five Articles of Impeachment-wait, it was not a slip of the tongue, I repeat, the
There was puzzlement on many faces, he could see, and there were rustles and whisperings of wonder from behind some of the desks. Rapidly, Nat Abrahams resumed. He almost had them; now he must grab them and hold them and bang their skulls against the truth.
“It is not the fourth Article, as my distinguished opponent has stated, that stands as the gravest charge and the one most crucial to the welfare of our government and our democracy. No, gentlemen, it is the fifth Article of indictment against our President, the covert, hushed fifth Article, unannounced, unwritten, unmentioned yet in this judicial court, that pervades the atmosphere of this Chamber, that dominates this trial, and that exists as truly as if it had been made public from the first-it is this Article, I submit, that is and shall be the head and heart of the House’s case against our President, and the disposition of which shall affect the future existence of our democracy most seriously.
“This vaporous, invisible, elusive Article V, if the opposition had possessed the courage to set it down in writing against President Dilman, would have read as follows: ‘That said Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, at Washington, in the District of Columbia, unmindful of the high duties of his office, of his oath of office, and in violation of the Constitution, did irresponsibly, and without regard for the will of the majority of the public and its elected legislators, accept the high office of the Presidency, despite his origin and color. And said Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, did then and there commit high crime and misdemeanor by daring to undertake his duty as Chief Executive and perform as President, while knowing that in the eyes of zealots and bigots he was unqualified and unfit for leadership because he was of the Negro race, and therefore not a full citizen but a second-class citizen, and therefore semiliterate, shiftless, mentally arrested, socially inferior, addicted to whiskey and violent behavior, possessed of unnatural inherited desires, if not to marry, then at least to molest daughters of Caucasians, and contemptuous and sullen in his determination not to know his rightful place and in his refusal to serve his racial betters.’ ”
Nat Abrahams could hear the vocal storm rising before him, around him, the legislators barking their indignation, or pounding their desks, the lung-filling intake of shock followed by scattered outbreaks of applause from the galleries, the enraged protests from the House managers’ table.
He tried to go on. “Gentlemen!” he cried out over the tumult. “This unannounced Article, I submit, is what lies behind the announced four Articles, colors them, shades them in the hue of darkness, and unless this fifth
