In the judgment which I now deliver I cannot hesitate. To my vision
the path is clear as day. Never in history was there a great case
more free from all just doubt. If Andrew Johnson is not guilty, then
never was a political offender guilty; and if his acquittal is taken
as a precedent, never can a political offender be found guilty. The
proofs are mountainous. Therefore you are now determining whether
impeachment shall continue a beneficent remedy in the National
Constitution, or be blotted out forever, and the country handed over
to the terrible process of revolution as its sole protection. If the
milder process cannot be made effective now, when will it ever be?
Under what influences? On what proofs? You wait for something. What?
Is it usurpation? You have it before you, open, plain, insolent. Is it
abuse of delegated power? That, too, you have in this offender, hardly
less broad than the powers he has exercised. Is it violation of law?
For more than two years he has set your laws at defiance; and when
Congress, by special enactment, strove to constrain him, he broke
forth in rebellion against the constitutional authority. Perhaps you
ask still for something more. Is it a long catalogue of crime, where
violence and corruption alternate, while loyal men are sacrificed and
the Rebellion is lifted to its feet? That also is here.
The apologists are prone to remind the Senate that they are acting
under the obligation of an oath. So are the rest of us, even if we do
not ostentatiously declare it. By this oath, which is the same for all,
we are sworn to do “impartial justice.” It is justice, and this justice
must be impartial. There must be no false weights, and no exclusion
of proper weights. Therefore I cannot allow the jargon of lawyers
on mere questions of form to sway the judgment against justice. Nor
can I consent to shut out from view the long list of transgressions
explaining and coloring the final act of defiance. To do so is not
to render impartial justice, but to depart from this prescribed
rule. The oath we have taken is poorly kept, if we forget the Public
Safety in devices for the criminal. Above all else, now and forever,
is that justice which “holds the scales of right with even hand.” In
this sacred name, and in the name also of country, that great charity
embracing so many other charities, I make this final protest against
all questions of form at the expense of the Republic.
Something also is said of the people, now watching our proceedings
with patriotic solicitude, and it has been proclaimed that they are
wrong to intrude their judgment. I do not think so. This is a political
proceeding, which the people are as competent to decide as the Senate.
They are the multitudinous jury, coming from no small vicinage, but
from the whole country: for on this impeachment, involving the Public
Safety, the vicinage is the whole country. It is they who have sent us
here, as their representatives, and in their name, to consult for the
common weal. In nothing can we escape their judgment, least of all on
a question like that before us. It is a mistake to suppose that the
Senate only has heard the evidence. The people have heard it also,
day by day, as it was delivered, and have carefully considered the
case on its merits, properly dismissing all apologetic subtilties. It
is for them to review what has been done. They are above the Senate,
and will “rejudge its justice.” Thus it has been in other cases. The
popular superstition which long surrounded the Supreme Court could
not save that eminent tribunal from condemnation, amounting sometimes
to execration, when, by an odious judgment, it undertook to uphold
Slavery; and down to this day Congress has justly refused to place the
bust of the Chief Justice pronouncing this judgment in the hall of the
tribunal where he presided so long. His predecessors are all there
in marble; no marble of Taney is there. The present trial, like that
in the Supreme Court, is a battle with Slavery. Acquittal is another
Dred Scott decision, and another chapter in the Barbarism of Slavery.
How can Senators, discharging a political function only, expect that
the voice of the people will be more tender for them than for a Chief
Justice pronouncing judgment from the bench of the Supreme Court, in
the exercise of judicial power? His fate we know. Nor learning, nor
private virtues, nor venerable years could save him from justice.
In the great pillory of history he stands, and there he must stand
forever.
The people cannot witness with indifference the abandonment of the
great Secretary, who organized their armies against the Rebellion, and
then organized victory. Following him gratefully through the trials
of the war, they found new occasion for gratitude when he stood out
alone against that wickedness which was lifted to power on the pistol
of an assassin. During these latter days, while tyrannical prerogative
invaded all, he has kept the bridge. When, at a similar crisis of
English history, Hampden stood out against the power of the Crown, it
is recorded by the contemporary historian, Clarendon, that “he grew
the argument of all tongues; every man inquiring who and what he was,
that durst at his own charge support the liberty and property of the
kingdom, and rescue his country, as he thought, from being made a prey
to the Court.”[217] Such things are also said with equal force of our
Secretary. Nor is it forgotten that the Senate, by two solemn votes
of more than two thirds, has twice instructed him to stay at the War
Department, the President to the contrary notwithstanding. The people
will not easily understand on what principle of Constitution, law, or
morals, the Senate can twice instruct the Secretary to stay, and then,
by another vote, deliberately surrender him a prey to Presidential
tyranny. Talk of a somersault; talk of self-stultification: are not
both here? God save me from participation in this disastrous wrong, and
may He temper it kindly to our afflicted country!
For myself, I cannot despair of the Republic. It is a life-boat, which
wind and wave cannot sink; but it may suffer much and be beaten by
storm. All this I clearly see before us, if you fail to displace an
unfit commander, whose power is a peril and a shame.
Alas for all the evil that must break upon the country, especially in
the suffering South, as it goes forth that this bad man is confirmed in
the prerogatives he has usurped!
Alas for that peace and reconciliation, the longing of good men, now
postponed!
Alas for that security, so important to all, as the only foundation on
which to build, politically or financially! This, too, is postponed.
How can people found a government, or plant or buy, unless first secure?
Alas for the Republic, degraded as never before, while the Whiskey Ring
holds its orgy of corruption, and the Ku-Klux-Klan holds its orgy of
blood!
Alas for the hearts of the people, bruised to unutterable sadness, as
they witness a cruel tyranny installed once more!
Alas for that race so long oppressed, but at last redeemed from
bondage, now plunged back into another hell of torment!
Alas for the fresh graves already beginning to yawn, while violence,
armed with your verdict, goes forth, like another Fury, and murder is
quickened anew!
Alas for the Unionists, white and black alike, who have trusted to our
flag! You offer them a sacrifice to persecutors whose representative
is before you for judgment. They are the last in my thoughts, as I
pronounce that vote which is too feeble to save them from intolerable
wrong and outrage. They are fellow-citizens of a common country,
brethren of a common humanity, two commanding titles, both strong
against the deed. I send them at this terrible moment the sympathy and
fellowship of a heart that suffers with them. So just a cause cannot
be lost. Meanwhile, may they find in themselves, and in the goodness of
an overruling Providence, that refuge and protection which the Senate
refuses to give!
CONSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY OF SENATORS FOR THEIR VOTES IN CASES OF
IMPEACHMENT.