The Man

Abrahams sat up, tried to shut the smooth, glib, whispering voice from his hearing. It had begun to irritate him. Out on the floor before them, not only a human being’s future hung precariously in the balance, but the continuance of the checks and balances of America’s system of government as well as the integrity of the American public who prattled about equality and freedom. Yet an a

As if his mind refused to accept and suffer, hope living, hope dying, each excruciating vote being a

What would happen to this country if Douglass Dilman were convicted and ousted in these next minutes? What would be on the national conscience as the great country stirred awake tomorrow morning, sated by its Roman holiday, but knowing it had crucified a President not because he was an incompetent leader-the Dilman triumph in Baraza would be known to all by then-but because he was black and they were white? How would neighbor look upon neighbor, and how would they live as one people in their shame? And Doug, what would happen to Doug? Where would he go? What would he do? How could he live? Yet, on the other hand, if he were acquitted in the minutes to come, what would be the state of the Union then? And Doug’s future?

He heard the senators’ voices replying to the Chief Justice… “Guilty”… “Guilty”… “Not guilty.” He heard the watch on his vest chain ticking, ticking, ticking. He sought it, peered down at its hands. Twenty-three minutes had passed since the roll call began. Then he felt fingers tugging at his sleeve.

He glanced up. It was Tuttle, and Tuttle was sliding a slip of notepaper in front of him. It was a scrawled message from Hart:

“They have 60, we have 26-14 votes left. They need 7, we need 8. I’m dying. What do you think, Nat?”

He took up a pencil and wrote across the note, “I think I’m dying, too, but we’re not dead. Stop using your fingers for writing and keep them crossed!”

He sent the note back down the table, turned in his chair, and now gave his full attention to the final fourteen voters. But to his surprise, in the time it had taken for Hart to write the note, pass it on, for him to read it, and reply, ten more votes had been a

“-Stonehill just voted not guilty, as expected,” the tightening voice behind him a

The Chief Justice’s gavel fell.

Nat Abrahams shut his ears to the a

“Mr. Thomas.”

“Mr. Senator Thomas, how say you? Is the respondent, Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor, as charged in this Article?”

“Guilty!”

“Mr. Van Horn, how say you? Is the respondent, Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of-”

“Not guilty.”

Abrahams’ mind tabulated the count now: sixty-six guilty, thirty-three not guilty. One vote would convict Dilman; one vote would acquit Dilman. And there was but one vote and one voter left.

The one-hundredth Senate member in the room sat erect behind his mahogany desk, arms folded across the desk.

“Mr. Watson,” the Chief Clerk called out.

Abrahams watched him, throat and lungs near bursting, eyes strained wide, watched the old gentleman unfold from his seat, grip his birch cane, watched his white thatched head, wrinkled phlegmatic face, rise with his aged body.

Chief Justice Johnstone hesitated, perhaps himself slowed by the weight his question would place on the senior senator’s bent shoulders.

“Mr. Senator Watson, how say you? Is the respondent, Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor, as charged in this Article?”

Senator Hoyt Watson did not reply. It seemed an eternity as he stood there, cane in his knobby hand, gazing up silently at the bench.

Watson’s somber voice last night, in the privacy of the Oval Office, his words to Dilman last night, rang in Abrahams’ ears: “I ca

What did Senator Hoyt Watson hear these fleeting, suspenseful seconds while the Senate, the House, the White House, the South, the United States, the wide world waited?

The Chief Justice, standing before his carved chair on high, bent forward, and as if to shake another old man from his reverie and have today’s history written and done with, he spoke.

“Mr. Senator Watson, how say you?” he repeated. “Is the President guilty or not guilty as charged in this Article?”

“Mr. Chief Justice, I vote the President not guilty of any high crimes or misdemeanors!”

Nat Abrahams fell back in his chair, limp with disbelief.

The galleries, the occupants of the floor, sat dumb, as if stu

A half dozen, then a dozen senators, foremost among them Hankins, were leaving their desks, surrounding Hoyt Watson, their irate heads bobbing, their angry arms waving, as Watson stood stonily in their midst, clutching his cane and listening.

From above, almost indistinctly now, Nat Abrahams could hear the Chief Justice intoning, “Upon this fourth Article, sixty-six senators vote ‘Guilty’ and thirty-four senators vote ‘Not Guilty.’ Two-thirds not having pronounced guilty, the President is, therefore, acquitted upon this Article!… Silence! Silence!… Mr. Senator Bruce Hankins, are you requesting the floor?”