| By Larry Cunning and sent to us by Lu Hickey This
American Scot is little known but undoubtedly a man whose indomitable courage, at a
crucial moment in U.S. history, certainly made a difference. No less a person than
President John F. Kennedy recognized the watershed in history represented by one man and
his lonely, memorable vote in the U.S. Senate on May 16, 1868. Kennedy included him in his
work, Profiles in Courage.
Senator Ross was not cut from political cloth. He was a
railroad venture capitalist, a director of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad,
which he named. He was appointed to fill out the term of Kansas Senator Jim Lane, who had
died unexpectedly. It was Ross’ fate to be swept up in the national hysteria
engendered by President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s vice-president and successor after
the assassination. Johnson had adhered to Lincoln’s hope-for policy of rebuilding the
South, and re-engaging the Confederacy in a postwar effort to rebuilding the whole
country.
Lincoln died for that hope as a probable sacrifice at the
hands of political extremists who believed that "the South should pay." Johnson
took office with Lincoln’s manifesto, to comfort the widows and orphans, to bind up
the wounds of war "with malice towards none" very much his own. He immediately
became a target of vindictive sentiments in the North, trumpeted by an angry press, and
widely believed-in by much of the northern populace. It was not long until Johnson was
targeted by a vicious cabal in Congress (many of whom owed their election to "carpet
baggers" working to maximize their wealth through harsh administration of the
pacification laws, stripping the South of its remaining portable wealth). The petition to
impeach Johnson soon passed the House, directing the Senate to try Johnson for malfeasance
and other crimes.
The senators were under an oath from the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, in acting as jurors, to "do impartial justice." Fortunately
nearly half the Senate took this charge seriously, although in the public sentiment, the
uproar had only increased with the main proponents (pollsters today) fiercely feeding the
worst opinions and sentiments. In retrospect, the future of the U.S. as a real
Constitutional body was at stake.
On the morning of May 16, 1868 as Kennedy wrote almost 90
years after, the substitute Senator Ross from Kansas, figuratively looked down into his
own political grave. Nonetheless, he voted his own convictions, for President
Johnson’s acquittal of the mainly sensational charges. Without this man’s
courage to vote for justice, not hysteria, Constitutional government was saved for our
present benefit. He did "impartial justice," but his life in Kansas to which he
returned, was torment, and he later moved to the end of the line, the New Mexico hub of
the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, his railroad. He died in virtual obscurity in
1907. A Scottish-American who made a difference |
