I begin with the Apology of Good Intentions. In the light of all that
has occurred, with the volume of history open before us, with the
records of the Senate in our hands, and with the evidence at the bar
not utterly forgotten, it is inconceivable that such an apology can be
put forward. While making it, the apologists should be veiled, so that
the derisive smile on their faces may not be observed by the Senate, to
whose simplicity it is addressed. It is hard to treat this apology; but
it belongs to the case, and therefore I deal with it.
A mere technical violation of law, with no evil consequences, and
without any claim of title, is followed by nominal damages only. If
a person, without permission, steps on a field of grass belonging
to another, he is a trespasser, and the law furnishes a familiar
proceeding against him; but if he has done this accidentally, and
without any real damage, it would be hard to pursue him, unless
assertion of the title were thought important. But if the trespasser
is an old offender, who from the beginning has broken fences, ruined
trees, and trampled down the garden, and now defiantly comes upon the
field of grass, insisting upon absolute ownership, then it is vain to
set up the apology that very little damage is done. The antecedent
transgressions, ending in claim of title, enter into the present
trespass, and make it a question whether the rightful owner or the
trespasser shall hold possession. Here the rightful owner is the people
of the United States, and the trespasser is Andrew Johnson. Therefore
in the name of the people is he impeached.
This simple illustration opens the whole case. Mere technical violation
of statute or of Constitution, without antecedents and without
consequents, would not justify impeachment. All of us can recall such,
even in the administration of Abraham Lincoln; and I cannot doubt,
that, since this proceeding began, the Chief Justice violated the
National Constitution when he undertook to give a casting vote, not
being a member of the Senate. These were accidents, besides being
innocuous. From violation of statute or of Constitution the law
ordinarily infers evil intent, and, where such a case is submitted to
judgment, it throws upon the violator the burden of exculpation. He
must show that his conduct was innocent,--in other words, that it was
without evil intent, or claim of title. In the present cause we have
the denial of evil intent, with a claim of title.
The question of intent raised by the offender cannot be considered
narrowly. This is a trial of impeachment, and not a criminal case
in a county court. It is a proceeding for expulsion from office on
account of political offences, and not a suit at law. When the offender
sets up good intentions, he challenges inquisition, according to the
latitude of such proceeding. The whole past is unrolled by himself, and
he cannot prevent the Senate from seeing it. By a commanding rule of
evidence it is all before us without further proof. You cannot shut it
out; you cannot refuse to look at it. And yet we have been seriously
told that we must shut out from sight everything but the technical
trespass. It only remains, that, imitating the ostrich, we should
thrust our heads into the sand, and, not seeing danger, foolishly
imagine it does not exist. This may do at _Nisi Prius_; it will not do
in the Senate.
To such extent has this ostrich pretension been carried, that we were
solemnly admonished at the bar, and the paradox has found voice in the
Senate, that we must judge the acts of Andrew Johnson “as if committed
by George Washington.” Here is the paradox in length and breadth. I
deny it. I scout it. On the contrary, I say that we must judge all
these acts as if committed by Andrew Johnson, and nobody else. In other
words, we must see things as they are. As well insist that an act of
guilt should be judged as the mistake of innocence. As well argue that
the stab of the assassin should be treated as the cut of the surgeon.
To the Apology of Good Intentions I oppose all that long unbroken
series of transgressions, each with a voice to drown every pretext
of innocence. I would not repeat what I have already said, but, in
presence of this apology, it is my duty to remind the Senate how the
career of this offender is compounded of falsehood and usurpation; how,
beginning with promises to make treason odious, he soon installed it
in authority; how, from declared sympathy with Unionists, white and
black, he changed to be their persecutor; how in him are continued the
worst elements of Slavery, an insensibility to right and a passion
for power; how, in this spirit, he usurped great prerogatives not
belonging to him; how, in the maintenance of this usurpation, he stuck
at nothing; how he violated law; how he abused the pardoning power;
how he prostituted the appointing power; how he wielded the power of
removal to maintain his tyranny; how he sacrificed the Freedmen’s
Bureau, and lifted up the Whiskey Ring; how he patronized massacre and
bloodshed, and gave a license to the Ku-Klux-Klan; how, in madness,
he entered into conflict with Congress, contesting its rightful power
over the reconstruction of the Rebel States, and, when Congress
would not succumb to his usurpation, how he thwarted and vilified
it, expectorating foul-mouthed utterances which are a disgrace to
human nature; how he so far triumphed in his wickedness that in nine
States no Union man is safe and no murderer of a Union man can be
punished; and, lastly,--for time fails, though not the long list of
transgressions,--how he conspired against the patriot Secretary of
War, because he found in that adamantine character an obstacle to
his revolutionary career. And now, in the face of this terrible and
indisputable record, entering into and filling this impeachment, I hear
a voice saying that we must judge the acts in question “as if committed
by George Washington.” The statement of this pretension is enough. I
hand it over to the contempt it deserves.