But those best acquainted with the earnestness of purpose and the determination of the leading men, who had persuaded themselves that the safety of the Republic depended upon the destruction of Johnson's official power, knew that the closest watch would be kept upon every action of the President, and if an apparently justifying cause could be found the project of his removal would be vigorously renewed.

It is difficult to understand the intensity of conviction which had taken possession of certain minds on this subject--difficult to understand why the same causes and the same reasons which operated so powerfully on certain Republicans in favor of Impeachment, should prove so utterly inadequate to affect others.

Why should Mr.Boutwell be so decidedly on one side and Mr.
Dawes with equal firmness on the other?
Why should General Schenck and William Lawrence vote for impeachment and General Garfield and John A.
Bingham against it?
Why should Thaddeus Stevens and Judge Kelley vote in the affirmative and the four Washburns in the negative?
Geographically there was a traceable division in the vote.

In New England, usually so radical, only five members favored Impeachment.
New York gave but two votes for it and Pennsylvania gave but six.
The large majority of those who exhibited such an earnest desire to force the issue to extremes came from the West, but even in that section the Republicans who opposed it were nearly equal in number to those who favored it.

The vote led to no little recrimination inside the ranks of the party--each side regarding the other as pursuing an unwise and unjustifiable course.