How did the Senate handle the trial of William W. Belknap in 1876 and what was the final vote?
Executive summary
The Senate in 1876 first resolved a threshold jurisdictional fight, deciding it could try William W. Belknap despite his resignation by a 37–29 vote, then conducted a full trial with more than forty witnesses before concluding on August 1, 1876 that a majority found him guilty on all five articles but that the votes fell short of the two‑thirds required for conviction [1] [2] [3]. The result: acquittal for lack of the necessary supermajority even though a majority voted for conviction on each article [4] [5].
1. The unfolding scandal and the House’s move to impeach
Belknap, President Grant’s Secretary of War, resigned on March 2, 1876 amid evidence of kickbacks tied to trading posts in Indian Territory and lavish personal expenditures that outstripped his salary, and the House nonetheless voted unanimously to impeach him and forwarded five articles to the Senate [2] [6]. The House managers framed the case as one in which resignation should not allow a public official to “escape from justice,” and they formally presented the articles at the bar of the Senate in early March 1876 [2] [7].
2. The jurisdictional fight: Senate first decided whether to try a private citizen
Before reaching the merits, the Senate spent weeks debating whether a former cabinet officer could be tried after resignation; Belknap’s counsel argued the Senate lacked jurisdiction, but the Senate voted 37–29 that it retained the power to try a former official, clearing the way for a full trial [1] [8]. That threshold vote became the most consequential procedural ruling in the case and has been repeatedly cited in later debates about trying former officers in impeachment proceedings [9].
3. A lengthy evidentiary trial with dozens of witnesses
Once jurisdiction was settled the Senate proceeded to take extensive testimony: more than forty witnesses were heard, including public figures such as George Armstrong Custer, and senators examined detailed evidence about payments and contracts tied to the trader‑post scheme [2] [7] [4]. The trial stretched over weeks into the summer of 1876 and mixed legal argument over constitutional purpose with routine evidentiary hearings, reflecting a chamber grasping both for factfinding and for an institutional precedent [3] [9].
4. The final votes: majorities for conviction but no two‑thirds
On August 1, 1876 the Senate recorded a majority vote against Belknap on all five articles — with the numbers varying by article but producing yes counts in the mid‑30s (reports show yes votes of roughly 35–37 and no votes of 25 on each count) — yet none reached the constitutional two‑thirds threshold required for conviction, and Belknap was therefore acquitted [4] [3] [5]. Senate sources and later histories consistently state that a clear majority favored guilty findings but conviction requires a supermajority that was not met [2] [4].
5. Why acquittal despite a majority: jurisdiction and the politics behind the votes
Contemporaneous accounts and later historians emphasize that many senators who voted to acquit did so not because they doubted Belknap’s receipt of money, but because they believed the Senate lacked jurisdiction to punish a private citizen — estimates put about 22–23 of the acquittal votes on that constitutional ground — turning a factual corruption case into a constitutional and political judgment [10] [11] [12]. Thus the trial’s outcome reflected institutional caution and political calculation as much as disputed evidence.
6. Aftermath and precedent
The Belknap trial left a durable precedent: the Senate asserted it could try former officials (the 37–29 jurisdiction vote is frequently cited), but it also demonstrated that impeachment outcomes can hinge on procedural and political divisions rather than straightforward factfinding; historians and legal scholars continue to cite the case when debating impeachment of former officials [8] [9] [1]. Primary records and Senate histories record the procedural rulings, witness lists, and the August 1 votes that together make Belknap’s trial a touchstone for questions about impeachment jurisdiction and the Senate’s role [7] [3].