General Grant Returns to Washington-The Impeachment Trial

Many carpetbaggers arrived to Washington at the same time as General Grant's return. These carpetbaggers are determined to campaign for Johnson's conviction and removal. Senators who do not support the removal of Johnson will be disgraced by carpetbaggers.

Return of General Grant to Washington-The Impeachment Trial, &c., &c. Special Telegram to the Dispatch. Washington, April 20.-General Grant returned from New York this morning. A large number of carpetbaggers arrived to-day, most of them from the North, for the purpose of lobbying the impeachment through the Senate to a conviction and removal of the President. They propose to regularly besiege Senators who are doubted, or in other words, who have very properly refused to commit themselves to the removal of Mr. Johnson, whether he be legally proved guilty or not. The carpet-bag lobbyists, among whom are New York journalists, claim to have accomplished much to-day and this evening in the matter of bringing over doubtful senators, and they assert that three of the eleven whom they feared were "shaky" have given satisfactory assurances that they will be " all right" ; which means the senators have to-day agreed to vote for the the conviction of the President. Such are the givings out of these carpet-baggers, and such the character of the slander-for slander no doubt it is that is promulgated against some of the members of the august Senate of the United States. Your correspondent does not deem it proper to mention the names of the eleven Republican Senators whom the Radicals doubt. Sufficient for the present that they are of the most judicious and able Statesmen in the Senate, of whom even to suspect corruption would be an outrage. But carpet-baggers freely bandy these names about the streets and in the hotel saloons, and unhesitatingly claim that they will get the entire eleven yet, either by persuasion or threats of political ostracism. A noticeable feature in this matter is, that the advocates of the removal of Mr. Johnson do not hesitate to admit that there is neither law nor fact proven upon the trial to make, out a case for impeaching the President upon strict legal principles ; but they claim that their party will be ruined if the Senate shall fail to sustain the House in its impeachment. This party-policy proposition is controverted, however, by a very considerable number of Republicans who see the defeat of their party as the result of the removal of the President without warrant of law or fact, and they earnestly deprecate the deposition of the Executive as a party measure, because of the precedent it establishes and its destruction of the stability of our Government. Such are the arguments advanced pro and con by the Republicans themselves tonight. The Democrats are mere lookers-on, having no influence to exert in any manner for the accomplishment of good. The general calculation is that the impeachment trial will be concluded and a verdict rendered on Tuesday of next Week. Wallace.

“General Grant Returns to Washington-The Impeachment Trial,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed May 28, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/998.