Irving Wallace - The Man

“Perhaps, from the outset, since the managers of the House have raised the point, some clarification is necessary. What is a man? Is he, indeed, Emerson’s ‘golden impossibility’? Or is he, in the definition of Noah Webster, simply ‘a male human being’? Is he, to give the anthropological view of him, ‘an individual (genus Homo ) of the highest type of animal existing or known to have existed, differing from other high types of animals, especially in his extraordinary mental development’? Is he Pindar’s ‘a shadow and a dream’? Or is he more? Is he, in the words of Genesis, that one whom God created in his own image, that special and holy being whom God formed from the dust of the ground, and into whose nostrils God breathed ‘the breath of life’ so that he became ‘a living soul’? Or is he, as the poetic Psalms would have it, a creature ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ and made only ‘a little lower than the angels’?

“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 five Articles of Impeachment pronounced against the President this afternoon.”

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 indictment of President Dilman is brought into the open and aired, and considered by honest and courageous men, there can be no justice done in the impeachment trial of Douglass Dilman!”

He wanted to say more, but he could hardly hear his own voice now over the hubbub, and so he stopped and waited for what would happen next.

Chief Justice Johnstone’s gavel smashed down three times, and the sounds of it were as deafening as a cannonade, and at once the tumult receded, settled into order, except for a pocket of continuing protest at the rear of the Chamber.

Then Abrahams realized that Senator Hoyt Watson, gray hair disheveled, string tie out of line, was standing, arm aloft, attempting to hail the chair.

“Mr. Chief Justice! Mr. Chief Justice!” Senator Watson roared. “Objection! I submit a question on a point of order!”

At last, the room fell silent.

“The chair recognizes the honorable Senator on a point of order,” Chief Justice Johnstone announced. “Your inquiry, Senator?”