Chapter 6 Summary

Edmund Ross of Kansas came to the Senate in 1866 from Tennessee when his predecessor, Jim Lane, committed suicide under the stress of vilification for voting to uphold President Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Bill of 1866. The congress was covertly trying to lodge a two-thirds majority of congressmen who would vote to impeach Johnson. They felt that in Ross, they had one of their two-thirds majority votes. However, when the impeachment proceedings began, Ross was the last of the seven dissenting Republicans to make clear that he would not vote for impeachment proceedings. His vote of not guilty was the vote that saved President Johnson's term. Ross was ostracized politically and socially and he and all of the seven Republicans who voted against the impeachment were never elected again. Ross fell into poverty.

Chapter 6 Analysis

Ross was an individualist in a distorted congressional...