“We gather here, today, on behalf of 230 million American people, as watchdogs once more, guardians of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our responsibility, however, is far, far graver than that assumed by our predecessors in 1868. In that other time, the one impeached, for all his reckless malversation in office, presided over a Union he could harm but could not liquidate. The world was slow and small then, and the island of the Union, no longer riven, only hurt and bloodied, was a fortress unto its own, and withdrawn enough so that no single fumbler, no single incompetent, no lone traitor, could bring it to disaster.

“We, today, live in another and terrible age, the nuclear age, a clouded and fearful time where the jet, the rocket, the hydrogen bomb can liquidate life on this wondrous planet of the Maker in minutes, fulfilling the terrible prophecy of the Apocalypse. Contracting, momentarily, our view of our era, we live in the one great free republic of this planet, where intelligent and God-conscious men have laboriously, through two centuries, constructed a utopia of peace-loving, free and independent citizens, who dwell in prosperity and equality. We are the fortunate heirs of a society that is sinless and decent, lawful and just, a Christian society so brilliantly arranged that in our government, in our government of the people, by the people, for the people, there are three branches of government, with their magnificent checks and balances, one upon the other, assuring the preservation of our democracy.

“A world such as I have described, sensitive to every national indiscretion, capable of self-extinction in the blink of an eye, a democracy such as I have described, delicately responding to any mutinous hand that would rock and sink the ship of state-a world such as this, in this new epoch of ours, cannot afford executive leadership which, out of ignorance or wickedness or selfishness, can destroy us all through the madness of a perverted bias. Because we are the elected caretakers of the life of our proud country and of our good neighbors, to preserve ourselves under the judgment of the Supreme Being who made us all, we are met here today to cast down from his high seat a pretender and usurper who has placed himself above the law, above every standard of common decency, above and outside the pale of respect, wittingly or unwittingly leading the United States and the world toward inevitable total extinction.

“Who is this evildoer among us? You know, and I know, but I shall enunciate it clearly for the world beyond this Chamber to know, and to realize that we are men of good will. The one I refer to is not a man among ordinary men like ourselves. He is not possessed of our good intention and good purpose. I hesitate to identify him for what he truly is, as we know him and this trial shall prove him to be. He is-no, let not the words be mine, but those of one of greater stature than myself, an immortal American liberal who loved black Americans with the same fervor as he loved white Americans, yet who loved America more and would not see it wrecked by the one other President in our history whose disgraceful conduct earned him impeachment. The words I shall repeat were spoken in the House of Representatives by Thaddeus Stevens, upon hearing that President Andrew Johnson had committed his most notorious act of treachery and infamy. ‘Didn’t I tell you so?’ Stevens thundered to his colleagues. ‘If you don’t kill the beast, it will kill you!’

“The beast. Yes, the beast, he had branded that earlier dangerous and delinquent President-and the appellation, I say to you honorable gentlemen, is far more aptly suited to the one who sits in the White House today. On behalf of the entire country, I paraphrase the warning of a great dead statesman-I entreat you, I implore you-if you don’t remove the beast, it will kill you and me and all of us-and the beast that you must expel from the government, from the company of civilized men, is the one under trial today, the one already entered in the roll call of history’s blackguards and villains. He is the beast who dares bear the name of a man-I refer to Douglass Dilman-known to the press as His Accidency-known to our shame as the President of the United States!”

The viciousness of Zeke Miller’s opening attack elicited from the audience not what Abrahams had hoped for, which was shock and revulsion at such lese majesty, but surprisingly, a reaction of understanding and approval. In Abrahams’ eyes, it was as if Miller had thrown a spear near a large, coiled, dozing snake, not to harm it but to awaken it and warn it of danger from a beast in the jungle. And now the snake writhed awake, twisting and rising and hissing.

The senators, the House members, the gallery spectators stretched before Abrahams had been momentarily transformed into that malignant serpent. They were alerted to the beast at their back.

Abrahams watched Miller strut a few steps this way and that, satisfied, regaining his composure, as he waited for the audience to settle down. Abrahams did not bother to look at his own associates. He knew that they must feel as he felt, and he concentrated his contempt upon the House prosecutor. Hatred was an emotion almost unknown to Abrahams. For even the most unregenerated criminals, the most dangerous bigots, he had always been able to leaven disapproval with charity, trying to understand their motives, born of heredity and nurtured by environment. Yet, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt the awakening inside himself of blind hatred for Miller and Miller’s colleagues and all the ignorance and malice on earth that they represented.

As he assessed the content and tone of the opposition’s initial attack on Dilman, another thought came to Abrahams. The boundaries of the forensic battle were now more clearly drawn. Definitely, the conflict between the managers would not be warfare within the limits of legalistic weapons. The boundaries had widened to include emotional demagoguery at its basest level. How well Ben Butler had understood the value of this when he had opened his first barrage upon President Johnson in 1868. Snatches of Abrahams’ reading of that earlier impeachment trial came back to him now. Butler had made it clear at the very outset that the arena for an impeachment battle was not to be a gentlemanly courtroom but a political cockpit. What had he told his senator-jurors in that other time? This proceeding “has no analogy to that of a court.” Each step must be different “from those of ordinary criminal procedure.” Then, “A constitutional tribunal solely, you are bound by no law, either statute or common, which may limit your constitutional prerogative. You consult no precedents save those of the law and custom of parliamentary bodies. You are a law unto yourselves…”

Abrahams had begun to jot a note to his colleagues, reminding them of this precedent established by Ben Butler, reminding them this was not gloved fighting, but bare-knuckle, when, to his amazement, he realized that Zeke Miller had resumed, and that Zeke Miller had done homework at the same source.

“-and so, I repeat, able gentlemen, I repeat the words of my illustrious forebear who had opened for the House in that first impeachment of a President-I repeat-you are not tied down to the steps of ordinary criminal procedure, because you are an elected parliament. You don’t have to follow any precedents except those established by Congress. ‘You are a law unto yourselves, bound only by the natural principles of equity and justice, and that salus populi suprema est lex.’

“More and more as this trial progresses you will find me, and my fellow managers, harking back to the noble wisdom of our watchdog legislators of more than a century ago, the legislators who desperately tried to preserve the Union and government against the dictatorial encroachment of mad, drunk Andy Johnson. Again, with your leave, I echo the injunction of Ben Butler in 1868. In other times, in other lands, he pointed out, despotism was removed by assassination and rebellion. ‘Our fathers,’ he said, ‘more wisely, founding our government, have provided for such and all similar exigencies a conservative, effectual, and practical remedy by the constitutional provision that the “President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The Constitution leaves nothing to implication, either as to the persons upon whom, or the body by whom, or the tribunal before which, or the offenses for which, or the manner in which this high power should be exercised; each and all are provided for by express words of imperative command.’ ”