There are three passions to which public men are especially
exposed,--fear, hatred, and ambition. Mr. Johnson is the victim and
slave of all; and, unhappily for himself, and unfortunately for the
country, there is no ground for hope that he will ever free himself from
their malign influence.
It is a common report, and a common report founded upon the statements
of those best acquainted with the President, that he lives in continual
fear of personal harm, and that he anticipates hostile Congressional
action in an attempt to impeach him and deprive him of his office. He
best of all men knows whether he is justly liable to impeachment; and he
ought to know that Congress cannot proceed to impeach him, unless the
offences or misdemeanors charged and proved are of such gravity as to
justify the proceeding in the eyes of the country and the world.
There is nothing vindictive or harsh in the American character. The
forbearance of the American people is a subject of wonder, if it is not
a theme for encomium. They have assented to the pardon of many of the
most prominent Rebels; they have seen the authors of the war restored to
citizenship, to the possession of their property, and even to the
enjoyment of patronage and power in the government; and finally, they
have been compelled, through the policy of the President, to submit to
the dictation, and in some sense to the control, of the men whom they so
recently met and vanquished upon the field of battle. The testimony of
Alexander H. Stephens everywhere suggests, and in many particulars
exactly expresses, the policy of the President.
Mr. Stephens asserts that the States recently in rebellion were always
entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States; and Mr.
Johnson must accept the same position; for, if the right were once lost,
it is impossible to suggest how or when it was regained. It is also
known that, while the Johnston-Sherman negotiations were pending, Mr.
Davis received written opinions from two or more persons who were then
with him, and acting as members of his Cabinet, upon the very question
in dispute between Congress and Mr. Johnson,--the rights of the then
rebellious States in the government of the United States. These opinions
set up and maintained the doctrine that the Rebel States would be at
once entitled to representation in the government of the country, upon
the ratification or adoption of the pending negotiations. It may not be
just to say that the President borrowed his policy from Richmond; but it
is both just and true to say that the leaders of the Rebellion have been
incapable of suggesting a public policy more advantageous to themselves
than that which he has adopted. The President knows that the people have
been quiet and impartial observers of these proceedings; that the House
of Representatives has never in public session, nor in any of its
caucuses or committees, considered or proposed any measure looking to
his impeachment.
The grounds of his fear are known only to himself; but its existence
exerts a controlling influence over his private and public conduct.
Associated with this fear, and probably springing from it, is an intense
hatred of nearly all the recognized leaders of the party by which he was
nominated and elected to office. Evidence upon this point is not needed.
He has exhibited it in a manner and to a degree more uncomfortable to
his friends than to his enemies, in nearly every speech that he has
made, commencing with that delivered on the 22d of February last.
Superadded to these passions, which promise so much of woe to Mr.
Johnson and to the country, is an inordinate, unscrupulous, and
unreasoning ambition. To one theme the President is always constant,--to
one idea he is always true,--"He has filled every office, from that of
alderman of a village to the Presidency of the United States." He does
not forget, nor does he permit the world to forget, this fact. In some
form of language, and in nearly every speech, he assures his countrymen
that he either is, or ought to be, satisfied with this measure of
success. But have not his own reflections, or some over-kind friend,
suggested that he has never been elected President of the United States?
and that there yet remains the attainment of this one object of
ambition?
Inauguration day, 1865, will be regarded as one of the saddest days in
American annals. We pass over its incidents; but it was fraught with an
evil suggestion to our enemies, and it must have been followed by a firm
conviction in the mind of Mr. Johnson that he could not thereafter enjoy
the confidence of the mass of the Republican party of the country. He
foresaw that they would abandon him, and he therefore made hot haste to
abandon them. And, indeed, it must be confessed that there was scarcely
more inconsistency in that course on his part, than there would have
been in continuing his connection with the men who had elected him. His
nomination for the Vice-Presidency was an enthusiastic tribute to his
Union sentiments; beyond a knowledge of these, the Convention neither
had nor desired to have any information. Mr. Johnson was and is a Union
man; but he was not an anti-slavery man upon principle. He was a
Southern State-Rights man. He looked upon the national government as a
necessity, and the exercise of any powers on its part as a danger. His
political training was peculiar. He had carried on a long war with
slaveholders, but he had never made war upon slavery. He belonged to the
poor white class. In his own language he was a plebeian. The
slaveholders were the patricians. He desired that all the white men of
Tennessee, especially, and of the whole South, should be of one
class,--all slaveholders,--all patricians, if that were possible; and he
himself, for a time became one. Failing in this, he was satisfied when
all became non-slaveholders, and the patrician class ceased to exist.
Hence, as far as Mr. Johnson's opinions and purposes are concerned, the
war has accomplished everything for which it was undertaken. The Union
has been preserved, and the patrician class has been broken down.
Naturally, Mr. Johnson is satisfied. On the one hand he has no sympathy
with the opinion that the negro is a man and ought to be a citizen, and
that he should be endowed with the rights of a man and a citizen; and,
on the other hand, he shares not in the desire of the North to limit the
representation of the South so that there shall be equality among the
white men of the country. He is anxious rather to increase the political
strength of the South. He fears the growing power of the North. The same
apprehension which drove Calhoun into nullification, and Davis,
Stephens, and others into rebellion and civil war, now impels Mr.
Johnson to urge the country to adopt his policy, which secures to the
old slaveholding States an eighth of the political power of the nation,
to which they have no just title whatever. To the North this is a more
flagrant political injustice than was even the institution of slavery.
He once expressed equal hostility towards Massachusetts and South
Carolina, and desired that they should be cut off from the main land and
lashed together in the wide ocean. The President appears to be
reconciled to South Carolina; but if the hostility he once entertained
to the two States had been laid upon Massachusetts alone, he ought to
have felt his vengeance satisfied when her representatives entered the
Philadelphia Convention arm in arm with the representatives of South
Carolina, assuming only, what is not true, that the sentiment of
Massachusetts was represented in that Convention. As a perfect
illustration of the President's policy, two men from Massachusetts
should have been assigned to each member from South Carolina, as
foreshowing the future relative power of the white men of the two States
in the government of the country. The States of the North and West will
receive South Carolina and the other Rebel States as equals in political
power and rights, whenever those States are controlled by loyal men; but
they are enemies to justice, to equality, and to the peace of the
country who demand the recognition of the Rebel States upon the unequal
basis of the existing Constitution.
Of these enemies to justice, equality, and the peace of the country, the
President is the leader and the chief; and as such leader and chief he
is no longer entitled to support, confidence, or even personal respect
He has seized upon all the immense patronage of this government, and
avowed his purpose to use it for the restoration of the Rebel States to
authority, regardless of the rights of the people of the loyal States.
He has thus become the ally of the Rebels, and the open enemy of the
loyal white men of the country. The President, and those associated with
him in this unholy project, cannot but know that the recognition of the
ten disloyal States renders futile every attempt to equalize
representation in Congress. The assent of three fourths of the States is
necessary to the ratification of an amendment to the Constitution. The
fifteen old Slave States are largely interested in the present system,
and they will not consent voluntarily to a change. The question between
the President and Congress is then this: Shall the ten States be at once
recognized,--thus securing to the old Slave States thirty
Representatives and thirty electoral votes to which they have no title,
or shall they be required to accept, as a condition precedent, an
amendment to the Constitution which provides an equal system of
representation for the whole country? It is not enough, in the
estimation of the President, that the loyal people should receive these
enemies of the Union and murderers of their sons and brothers as equals,
but he demands a recognition of their superiority and permanent rule in
the government by a voluntary tender of an eighth of the entire
representative force of the republic. When before were such terms ever
exacted of the conqueror in behalf of the conquered? If the victorious
North had demanded of the vanquished South a surrender of a part of its
representative power in the government, as a penalty for its treason,
that demand would have been sustained upon the principles of justice,
although the proceeding would have been unwise as a measure of public
policy. As it is, the victorious North only demands equality for itself,
while it offers equality to the vanquished South. Was there ever a
policy more just, wise, reasonable, and magnanimous?
Yet the President rejects this policy, deserts the loyal men of the
North by whom he was elected, conspires with the traitors in the loyal
States and the Rebels of the disloyal States for the humiliation, the
degradation, the political enslavement of the loyal people of the
country. And this is the second great conspiracy against liberty,
against equality, against the peace of the country, against the
permanence of the American Union; and of this conspiracy the President
is the leader and the chief. Nor can he defend himself by saying that he
desires to preserve the Constitution as it was, for he himself has been
instrumental in securing an important alteration. "The Constitution as
it was" has passed away, and by the aid of Mr. Johnson.
Nor can he say that he is opposed to exacting conditions precedent; for
he made the ratification of the anti-slavery amendment a condition
precedent to his own recognition of their existence as States clothed
with authority. Thus is he wholly without proper excuse for his
conduct. Nor can he assert that the Rebel States are, and ever have
been, States of the Union, and always and ever entitled to
representation and without conditions; for then is he guilty of
impeachable offences in demanding of them the ratification of the
constitutional amendment, in dictating a policy to the Southern States,
in organizing provisional governments, in inaugurating constitutional
conventions, in depriving officers elected or appointed by authority of
those States of their offices, and, in fine, in assuming to himself
supreme authority over that whole region of country for a long period of
time. Thus his only defence of his present policy contains an admission
that he has usurped power, that he has violated the Constitution, that
he is guilty of offences for which he ought to be impeached. Thus do the
suggestions which the President tenders as his defence furnish
conclusive evidence that his conduct is wholly indefensible.
While then the President cannot defend his conduct, it is possible for
others to explain it.
Its explanation maybe found in some one or in several of the following
propositions:--
1. That the Rebel leaders have acquired a control over the President,
through the power of some circumstance not known to the public, which
enables them to dictate a policy to him.
2. That he fears impeachment, and consequently directs all his efforts
to secure more than a third of the Senate, so as to render a conviction
impossible.
3. That he seeks a re-election, and purposes to make the South a unit in
his favor, as the nucleus around which the Democratic party of the North
must gather in 1868.
4. That he desires to reinstate the South as the controlling force in
the government of the country.
In reference to the first proposition, we are restricted to the single
remark, that it is not easy to imagine the Rebels capable of making any
demand upon the Executive which, in his present state of mind, he would
not be prepared to grant. He has pardoned many of the leaders and
principal men of the Rebellion, and some of them he has appointed to
office. He has resisted every attempt on the part of Congress to furnish
protection to the loyal men of the South, and he has witnessed and
discussed the bloody horrors of Memphis and New Orleans with
cold-blooded indifference. Early in his term of office he offered an
immense reward for the person of Jefferson Davis; and now that the
accused has been in the official custody of the President, as the head
of the army, for more than fifteen months, he has neither proclaimed his
innocence and set him at liberty, nor subjected him to trial according
to the laws of the land. Davis is guilty of the crime of treason. Of
this there can be no doubt. He is indicted in one judicial district. The
President holds the prisoner by military authority; and the accused
cannot be arraigned before the civil tribunals. Davis was charged by the
President with complicity in the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. There is
much evidence tending to sustain the charge; but the accused is neither
subjected to trial by a military commission, nor turned over to the
civil tribunals of the country. These acts are offences against justice;
they are offences against the natural and legal rights of the accused,
however guilty he may be; they are offences against the honor of the
American people; they are acts in violation of the Constitution. If the
elections of 1866 are favorable to the President, they will be followed
by the release of Davis, and the country will see the end of this part
of the plot.
Upon any view of the President's case, it is evident that he has thrown
himself into the arms of the South, and that his personal and political
fortunes are identified with Southern success in the coming contest. He
claims to stand upon the Baltimore Platform of 1864, and to follow in
the footsteps of President Lincoln. The enemies of President Lincoln are
reconciled to this assumption, by the knowledge that Mr. Johnson's
counsellors are the Seymours, Vallandigham, Voorhees, and the Woods. Mr.
Johnson, under these evil influences of opinion and counsel, has
succeeded in producing a division of parties in this country
corresponding substantially to the division which Demosthenes says
existed in Greece when Philip was engaged in his machinations for the
overthrow of the liberties of that country. "All Greece is now divided
into two parties;--the one composed of those who desire neither to
exercise nor to be subject to arbitrary power, but to enjoy the benefits
of liberty, laws, and independence; the other, of those who, while they
aim at an absolute command of their fellow-citizens, are themselves the
vassals of another person, by whose means they hope to obtain their
purposes."
The Republican party desires liberty, independence, and equal laws for
all people; the Presidential party seeks to oppress the negro race, to
degrade the white race of the North by depriving every man of his due
share in the government of the country, and, finally, to subject all the
interests of the Republic to the caprice, policy, and passions of its
enemies.
The Presidential party is composed of traitors in the South who had the
courage to fight, of traitors in the North who had not the courage or
opportunity to assail their government, of a small number of persons who
would follow the fortunes of any army if they could be permitted to
glean the offal of the camp, and a yet smaller number who are led to
believe that any system of adjustment is better than a continuance of
the contest.
The Presidential party controls the patronage of the government; and it
will be used without stint in aid of the scheme to which the President
is devoted.
It only remains to be seen whether the courage, capacity, and virtue of
the people are adequate to the task of overthrowing and crushing the
conspiracy in its new form and under the guidance of its new allies. The
Republican party carries on the contest against heavy odds, and with the
fortunes of the country staked upon the result.
One hundred and ninety-one men have been recognized as members of the
present House of Representatives. There are fifty vacancies from the ten
unrecognized States; consequently a full House contains two hundred and
forty-one members. One hundred and twenty-one are a majority,--a quorum
for business, if every State were represented. Of the present House, it
is estimated that forty-six members are supporters of the President's
policy. If to these we add the fifty members from the ten States, the
Presidential party would number ninety-six, or twenty-five only less
than a majority of a full House. No view can be taken of the present
House of Representatives more favorable to the Republican
party,--possibly the President's force should be increased to
forty-eight men. It is worthy of observation that neither the
Philadelphia Convention nor the President has breathed the hope that the
Republicans can be deprived of a majority of the members from the loyal
States. The scheme is to elect seventy-one or more men from the loyal
States, and then resort to revolutionary proceedings for consummation of
the plot. The practical question--the question on which the fortunes of
the country depend--is, Will the people aid in the execution of the plot
contrived for their own ruin? Upon the face of things, we should say
that it is highly improbable that the new party can make any important
gains; indeed, it seems most improbable that the President can survive
the effect of his own speeches. But we must remember that he is
supported by the whole Democratic party, and that that party cast a
large vote in 1864, and that in 1862 the Republican majority in the
House was reduced to about twenty.
In the Thirty-eighth Congress the Democratic party had ten or fifteen
more votes than are now needed to secure the success of the present
plot. To be sure, the elections of 1862 occurred at the darkest period
of the war. The young men of the Republican party were in the army, and
but a small number of them had an opportunity to vote. There was still
hope that a peace could be made through the agency of the Democratic
party. These circumstances were all unfavorable to the cause of the
patriots.
The Democratic party is now weaker than ever before. Its identity with
the Rebellion is better understood. The young men of the country, in the
proportion of three to one, unite themselves with the Republican party.
As an organization, considered by itself, the Democratic party is
utterly powerless and hopeless.
The defection of Mr. Johnson, however, inspires the leaders with fresh
courage. It is possible for them to enjoy the patronage of the
government for two years at least, and it is barely possible for them to
secure the recognition of the ten Rebel States, or, in other equivalent
words, the ten Democratic States, to the Union.
This combination is formidable; but its dangerous nature is due to the
facts that Mr. Seward's name and means of influence are still powerful
in the State of New York, and that he has joined himself to the new
party and become an instrument in the hands of designing men for the
organization of another rebellion. Outside of New York Mr. Johnson's
gains in the elections will be so small that the Union majority will
remain substantially as in the present Congress; nor can we conceive
that the gains in that State will be adequate to the necessities of the
conspirators. It is probable that the undertaking will prove a failure;
but it should never be forgotten that the country is in peril; that it
is in peril in consequence of the uncertain political character of the
State of New York; and that that uncertain character is justly
attributable to the conduct of Mr. Seward. If, then, Mr. Johnson succeed
in the attempt to change the character of this government by setting
aside the Congress of the loyal States, Mr. Seward will be responsible,
equally with Mr. Johnson, for the crime.
Reverting to the statement already made, that neither Mr. Johnson nor
any of his supporters can even hope to secure a majority of the members
elected from the States represented in the present Congress, it only
remains for us to consider more specifically the scheme of revolution
and usurpation in which these desperate men are engaged. The necessary
preliminary condition is the election of seventy-one members of Congress
from the twenty-six States. To these will be added fifty persons from
the ten unrepresented States, making one hundred and twenty-one, or a
majority of Congress if all the States were represented. This
accomplished, the way onward is comparatively easy.
When the Thirty-ninth Congress reassembles in December next, Mr. Johnson
and his Cabinet may refuse to recognize its existence, or, recognizing
it as a matter of form, deny its legitimate authority.
He would summon the members of the Fortieth Congress to assemble in
extra session immediately after the 4th of March. Fifty persons would
appear claiming seats as representatives from the ten States. The
Republicans would deny their right to seats,--the supporters of the
President would maintain it. The supporters of the President, aided
directly or indirectly by the army and police, would take possession of
the hall, remove the Clerk, and organize the assembly by force.
Whether this could be done without bloodshed in Washington and elsewhere
in the North remains to be seen; but as far as relates to the
organization of the House, there can be no doubt of the success of the
undertaking. We should then see a united South with the President at the
head, and a divided North;--the army, the navy, the treasury, in the
hands of the Rebels. This course is the necessity of Mr. Johnson's
opinions and position. It is the natural result of the logic of the
Rebels of the South and of the Democratic party of the North. Mr.
Johnson believes that the present Congress intends to impeach him and
remove him from office. Admit that this fear is groundless, yet, if he
entertains it, he will act as he would act if such were the purpose of
the two Houses. Hence he must destroy the authority of Congress. Hence
he arraigns its members as traitors. Hence he made the significant,
revolutionary, and startling remark, in his reply to Reverdy Johnson as
the organ of the Philadelphia Convention: "_We have seen hanging upon
the verge of the government, as it were, a body called, or which assumed
to be, the Congress of the United States, but in fact a Congress of only
a part of the States._" This is a distinct, specific denial of the right
of Congress to exist, to act, to legislate for the country. It is an
impeachment of all our public doings since the opening of the war,--of
all our legislation since the departure of Davis and his associates from
Washington. It is an admission of the doctrine of Secession; for if the
departure of Davis and his associates rendered null and void the
authority of Congress, then the government, and of course the Union,
ceased to exist. The constitutional amendment abolishing slavery is
void; the loan-acts and the tax-acts are without authority; every fine
collected of an offender was robbery; and every penalty inflicted upon a
criminal was itself a crime. The President may console himself with the
reflection that upon these points he is fully supported by Alexander H.
Stephens, late Vice-President of the so-called Confederacy.
We quote from the report of his examination before the Committee on
Reconstruction.
"_Question._ Do you mean to be understood, in your last answer,
that there is no constitutional power in the government, as at
present organized, to exact conditions precedent to the
restoration to political power of the eleven States that have
been in rebellion?
"_Answer._ That is my opinion.
"_Question._ Assume that Congress shall, at this session, in
the absence of Senators and Representatives from the eleven
States, pass an act levying taxes upon all the people of the
United States, including the eleven, is it your opinion that
such an act would be constitutional?
"_Answer._ I should doubt if it would be. It would certainly,
in my opinion, be manifestly unjust, and against all ideas of
American representative government."
Thus it is seen that these two authorities concur in opinion; although
it must be confessed that the late Vice-President of the so-called
Confederate States in urbanity of manner and in the art of diplomacy far
surpasses the late Vice-President (as Mr. Johnson, if his logic does not
fail him, must soon say) of the so-called United States.
Having thus impeached the existing Congress and denied its authority,
the way is clear for the organization of a Congress into which members
from the ten States now excluded shall be admitted.
Representatives who do not concur in these proceedings will have only
the alternative of taking seats among the usurpers, and thus recognizing
their authority, or of absenting themselves and appealing to the people.
The latter course would be war,--civil war, with all the powers of the
government, for the time being, in the hands of the usurpers. The
absenting members would be treated as rebels, and any hostile
organization would be regarded as treasonable. Thus would the Rebels be
installed in power, and engaged in conducting a war against the people
of the North and West.
If, on the other hand, the representatives from the West and North
should deem it wiser to accept the condition, and await an opportunity
to appeal to the country, how degrading and humiliating their condition!
They might for a time endure it; but finally the people of the North
would rise in their might, and renew the war with spirit and power, and
prosecute it until the entire Rebel element of the country should be
exterminated. The success of Mr. Johnson in the elections is then to be
followed by a usurpation and civil war. It means this, or it means
nothing. The incidents of the usurpation would be, first, that the old
Slave States would secure thirty Representatives in Congress and thirty
electoral votes, or an eighth of the government, to which they have no
title whatever unless the negroes should be enfranchised, of which there
would be then no probability; and, secondly, that two white men in the
South would possess the political power of three white men in the North.
The results of the usurpation would be strife and civil war in the
North, and, finally, the overthrow of the usurpers by force, to be
followed, possibly, by an exterminating war against the Rebel population
of the South.
Already has one of Mr. Johnson's agents announced the usurpation in
substance, and tendered to the country a defence in advance of the
commission of the crime. The defence is simple and logical. Congress
refuses to receive the members from ten States. Those States have the
same immediate right of representation as the other States. Congress is,
therefore, a revolutionary body. Any proceeding which secures the right
of all the States to be represented immediately is a constitutional
proceeding. This is intelligible. Alexander H. Stephens is the author of
this cardinal doctrine of the Presidential party. On the other hand,
Congress maintains that enemies vanquished in war, though formerly
citizens and equals, cannot dictate the terms of adjustment; nor even
enjoy the privileges of a constitution which they have violated and
sought to destroy, without a compliance with those terms which the loyal
people may deem essential to the public safety.
The issue is well defined. Shall the Union be restored by usurpation,
with its attendant political inequality and personal injustice to loyal
people, and consequent civil war, or by first securing essential
guaranties for the future peace of the country, and then accepting the
States recently in rebellion as equals, and the people of those States
as friends and citizens with us of a common country?
The question is not whether the Union shall be restored: the Republican
party contemplates and seeks this result. But the question is, shall the
Union be restored by usurpation,--by a policy dictated by the Rebels,
and fraught with all the evils of civil war? The seizure of the
government in the manner contemplated by Johnson and his associates
destroys at once the public credit, renders the public securities
worthless for the time, overthrows the banking system, bankrupts the
trading class, prostrates the laborers, and ends, finally, in general
financial, industrial, and social disorder.