Mr. PRESIDENT: We are before you as a committee of the National Union
Convention, which met in Philadelphia on Tuesday, the 14th instant,
charged with the duty of presenting you with an authentic copy of its
proceedings.
Before placing it in your hands you will permit us to congratulate
you that in the object for which the convention was called, in the
enthusiasm with which in every State and Territory the call was
responded to, in the unbroken harmony of its deliberations, in the
unanimity with which the principles it has declared were adopted, and
more especially in the patriotic and constitutional character of the
principles themselves, we are confident that you and the country will
find gratifying and cheering evidence that there exists among the people
a public sentiment which renders an early and complete restoration of
the Union as established by the Constitution certain and inevitable.
Party faction, seeking the continuance of its misrule, may momentarily
delay it, but the principles of political liberty for which our
fathers successfully contended, and to secure which they adopted the
Constitution, are so glaringly inconsistent with the condition in
which the country has been placed by such misrule that it will not
be permitted a much longer duration.
We wish, Mr. President, you could have witnessed the spirit of concord
and brotherly affection which animated every member of the convention.
Great as your confidence has ever been in the intelligence and
patriotism of your fellow-citizens, in their deep devotion to the Union
and their present determination to reinstate and maintain it, that
confidence would have become a positive conviction could you have seen
and heard all that was done and said upon the occasion. Every heart
was evidently full of joy; every eye beamed with patriotic animation;
despondency gave place to the assurance that, our late dreadful civil
strife ended, the blissful reign of peace, under the protection, not of
arms, but of the Constitution and laws, would have sway, and be in every
part of our land cheerfully acknowledged and in perfect good faith
obeyed. You would not have doubted that the recurrence of dangerous
domestic insurrections in the future is not to be apprehended.
If you could have seen the men of Massachusetts and South Carolina
coming into the convention on the first day of its meeting hand in hand,
amid the rapturous applause of the whole body, awakened by heartfelt
gratification at the event, filling the eyes of thousands with tears of
joy, which they neither could nor desired to repress, you would have
felt, as every person present felt, that the time had arrived when all
sectional or other perilous dissensions had ceased, and that nothing
should be heard in the future but the voice of harmony proclaiming
devotion to a common country, of pride in being bound together by a
common Union, existing and protected by forms of government proved by
experience to be eminently fitted for the exigencies of either war or
peace.
In the principles announced by the convention and in the feeling there
manifested we have every assurance that harmony throughout our entire
land will soon prevail. We know that as in former days, as was
eloquently declared by Webster, the nation's most gifted statesman,
Massachusetts and South Carolina went "shoulder to shoulder through the
Revolution" and stood hand in hand "around the Administration of
Washington and felt his own great arm lean on them for support," so will
they again, with like magnanimity, devotion, and power, stand round your
Administration and cause you to feel that you may also lean on them for
support.
In the proceedings, Mr. President, which we are to place in your hands
you will find that the convention performed the grateful duty imposed
upon them by their knowledge of your "devotion to the Constitution and
laws and interests of your country," as illustrated by your entire
Presidential career, of declaring that in you they "recognize a Chief
Magistrate worthy of the nation and equal to the great crisis upon
which your lot is cast;" and in this declaration it gives us marked
pleasure to add we are confident that the convention has but spoken the
intelligent and patriotic sentiment of the country. Ever inaccessible to
the low influences which often control the mere partisan, governed alone
by an honest opinion of constitutional obligations and rights and of the
duty of looking solely to the true interests, safety, and honor of the
nation, such a class is incapable of resorting to any bait for
popularity at the expense of the public good.
In the measures which you have adopted for the restoration of the Union
the convention saw only a continuance of the policy which for the same
purpose was inaugurated by your immediate predecessor. In his reelection
by the people, after that policy had been fully indicated and had been
made one of the issues of the contest, those of his political friends
who are now assailing you for sternly pursuing it are forgetful or
regardless of the opinions which their support of his reelection
necessarily involved. Being upon the same ticket with that much-lamented
public servant, whose foul assassination touched the heart of the
civilized world with grief and horror, you would have been false to
obvious duty if you had not endeavored to carry out the same policy;
and, judging now by the opposite one which Congress has pursued, its
wisdom and patriotism are indicated by the fact that that of Congress
has but continued a broken Union by keeping ten of the States in which
at one time the insurrection existed (as far as they could accomplish
it) in the condition of subjugated provinces, denying to them the right
to be represented, while subjecting their people to every species of
legislation, including that of taxation. That such a state of things is
at war with the very genius of our Government, inconsistent with every
idea of political freedom, and most perilous to the peace and safety of
the country no reflecting man can fail to believe.
We hope, sir, that the proceedings of the convention will cause you to
adhere, if possible, with even greater firmness to the course which you
are pursuing, by satisfying you that the people are with you, and that
the wish which lies nearest to their heart is that a perfect restoration
of our Union at the earliest moment be attained, and a conviction that
the result can only be accomplished by the measures which you are
pursuing. And in the discharge of the duties which these impose upon
you we, as did every member of the convention, again for ourselves
individually tender to you our profound respect and assurance of our
cordial and sincere support.
With a reunited Union, with no foot but that of a freeman treading or
permitted to tread our soil, with a nation's faith pledged forever to a
strict observance of all its obligations, with kindness and fraternal
love everywhere prevailing, the desolations of war will soon be removed;
its sacrifices of life, sad as they have been, will, with Christian
resignation, be referred to a providential purpose of fixing our beloved
country on a firm and enduring basis, which will forever place our
liberty and happiness beyond the reach of human peril.
Then, too, and forever, will our Government challenge the admiration and
receive the respect of the nations of the world, and be in no danger of
any efforts to impeach our honor.
And permit me, sir, in conclusion, to add that, great as is your
solicitude for the restoration of our domestic peace and your labors
to that end, you have also a watchful eye to the rights of the nation,
and that any attempt by an assumed or actual foreign power to enforce
an illegal blockade against the Government or citizens of the United
States, to use your own mild but expressive words, "will be disallowed."
In this determination I am sure you will receive the unanimous approval
of your fellow-citizens.
Now, sir, as the chairman of this committee, and in behalf of the
convention, I have the honor to present you with an authentic copy
of its proceedings.
Counsel for the respondent submitted the following motion:
_To the Senate of the United States sitting as a court of impeachment_:
And now, on this 23d day of March, in the year 1868, the counsel for
the President of the United States, upon reading and filing his answer
to the articles of impeachment exhibited against him, respectfully
represent to the honorable court that after the replication shall have
been filed to the said answer the due and proper preparation of and for
the trial of the cause will require, in the opinion and judgment of such
counsel, that a period of not less than thirty days should be allowed to
the President of the United States and his counsel for such preparation,
and before the said trial should proceed.
HENRY STANBERY,
B.R. CURTIS,
THOMAS A.R. NELSON,
WM. M. EVARTS,
W.S. GROESBECK,
_Of Counsel_.