The Senate will conclude a presidential impeachment trial on Wednesday, the third in the last 152 years, in case you’re keeping count. If the pundits are right, this attempt to remove a sitting president from office will go down in flames like the first two.
We are reminded every time one of these political dog and pony shows erupt that President Andrew Johnson beat the rap in his trial by just one vote. But who was that infamous Republican holdout? Why did he vote to acquit, and what happened to him afterward?
It’s worth rummaging through history to find out.
Edmund Ross moved around a lot in his life, as did many mid-Victorian Americans. Born in Ashland, Ohio, he was apprenticed to a newspaper at age 11. Ink got in his blood, and he later took jobs at newspapers in the Buckeye State and Wisconsin. The press was highly partisan then, and since Ross was a staunchly anti-slavery Democrat, he worked for publications that reflected his views. When the Republican Party was formed in 1856, he quickly joined, believing its stand on the “peculiar institution” mirrored his own.
He was so passionate about the slavery issue, in fact, that he soon moved to Kansas — then just a territory. With both abolitionists and advocates of slavery fiercely jockeying to lead that territory into the Union on their side, Ross published an abolitionist newspaper and joined an anti-slavery militia in fighting a bloody warm-up act to the Civil War. When that conflict finally erupted, he served as captain in a federal cavalry regiment.
Ross had picked the winning side. So when one of Kansas’s U.S. senators killed himself in 1866, Ross was tapped to take his seat. He was only 40, with a highly promising future before him.
Until the radical Republicans decided to go after Johnson.
When the impeachment trial began in the Senate, its outcome appeared very close. All eyes were on Ross. As the 11 articles were voted on one by one, each fell one vote shy of the 36 needed to convict and remove Johnson from office. And each time, Ross was considered the decisive vote.
Why did he do it? Historians disagree.
Some say that while Ross genuinely believed Johnson had violated the Tenure of Office Act (from which the impeachment articles sprang), it didn’t rise to the level of kicking him out of the White House. Newspapers back home in Kansas felt Ross had fallen under the sway of his wartime commander, Gen. Thomas Ewing, a huge Johnson supporter. More recent historical research strongly suggests money may have changed hands before the vote was taken. After all, this was an era when cash was king on Capitol Hill. Others think it was a combination of factors.
Whatever the reason, the folks back home didn’t appreciate his stand. When his term expired in 1871, the Kansas legislature, which selected senators at the time, gave him the boot. Ross sullenly switched back to the Democrats the following year.
He ran for governor of Kansas in 1880, was trounced, and moved to New Mexico Territory for his health. He liked the place and stayed. When Democrat Grover Cleveland finally took the White House for his party in 1884, he appointed Ross territorial governor, allowing him to claim a small measure of vindication. He died there in 1907 at age 80.
Ross’s legacy was given a boost in 1956 when then-Sen. John F. Kennedy favorably portrayed him in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage. After that, it was back to obscurity until the end of the 20th and early 21st centuries, when the impeachments of President Bill Clinton and Trump returned him to the spotlight — if only briefly.
Edmund Ross’s legacy was saving the presidency from the ultimate partisan attack, for which he paid the ultimate political price. Johnson’s acquittal was such a resounding defeat for his foes that impeachment wasn’t even seriously considered again for another 106 years (when articles were drawn up against President Richard Nixon). In that regard, here’s hoping the Trump impeachment becomes a case of history repeating itself.
J. Mark Powell (@JMarkPowell) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He’s VP of communications at Ivory Tusk Consulting, a South Carolina-based agency. A former broadcast journalist and government communicator, his “Holy Cow! History” column is available at jmarkpowell.com.
