A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction (38 page)

I have now discussed but one of the numerous articles, all of which I believe to be fully sustained, and few of the almost innumerable offenses charged to this wayward, unhappy official. I have alluded to two or three others which I could have wished to have had time to present and discuss, not for the sake of punishment, but for the benefit of the country. One of these was an article charging the President with usurping the legislative power of the nation, and attempting still his usurpations.

With regard to usurpation, one single word will explain my meaning. A civil war of gigantic proportions, covering sufficient territory to constitute many States and nations, broke out, and embraced more than ten millions of men, who formed an independent government, called the Confederate States of America. They rose to the dignity of an independent belligerent, and were so acknowledged by all civilized nations, as well as by ourselves. After expensive and bloody strife we conquered them, and they submitted to our arms. By the law of nations, well understood and undisputed, the conquerors in this unjust war had the right to deal with the vanquished as to them might seem good, subject only to the laws of humanity. They had a right to confiscate their property to the extent of indemnifying themselves and their citizens; to annex them to the victorious nation, and pass just such laws for their government as they might think proper.

This doctrine is as old as Grotius and as fresh as the Dorr rebellion. Neither the President nor the judiciary had any right to interfere, to dictate any terms, or to aid in reconstruction further than they were directed by the sovereign power. That sovereign power in this republic is the Congress of the United States. Whoever, besides Congress, undertakes to create new States or to rebuild old ones, and fix the condition of their citizenship and union, usurps powers which do not belong to him, and is dangerous or not dangerous, according to the extent of his power and his pretensions. Andrew Johnson did usurp the legislative power of the nation by building new States, and reconstructing, as far as in him lay, this empire. He directed the defunct States to come forth and live by virtue of his breathing into their nostrils the breath of life. He directed them what constitutions to form, and fixed the qualifications of electors and of office-holders. He directed them to send forward members to each branch of Congress, and to aid him in representing the nation. When Congress passed a law declaring all these doings unconstitutional and fixed a mode for the admission of this new territory into the nation he proclaimed it unconstitutional, and advised the people not to submit to it nor to obey the commands of Congress. I have not time to enumerate the particular acts which constitute his high-handed usurpations. Suffice it to say that he seized all the powers of the government within these States, and, had he been permitted, would have become their absolute ruler. This he persevered in attempting notwithstanding Congress declared more than once all the governments which he thus created to be void and of none effect.

But I promised to be brief, and must abide by the promise, although I should like the judgment of the Senate upon this, to me, seeming vital phase and real purpose of all his misdemeanors. To me this seems a sublime spectacle. A nation, not free, but as nearly approaching it as human institutions will permit of, consisting of thirty millions of people, had fallen into conflict, which among other people always ends in anarchy or despotism, and had laid down their arms, the mutineers submitting to the conquerors. The laws were about to regain their accustomed sway, and again to govern the nation by the punishment of treason and the reward of virtue. Her old institutions were about to be reinstated so far as they were applicable, according to the judgment of the conquerors. Then one of their inferior servants, instigated by unholy ambition, sought to seize a portion of the territory according to the fashion of neighboring anarchies, and to convert a land of freedom into a land of slaves. This people spurned the traitors, and have put the chief of them upon his trial, and demand judgment upon his misconduct. He will be condemned, and his sentence inflicted without turmoil, tumult, or bloodshed, and the nation will continue its accustomed course of freedom and prosperity without the shedding any further of human blood and with a milder punishment than the world has been accustomed to see, or perhaps than ought now to be inflicted.

Now, even if the pretext of the President were true and not a mere subterfuge to justify the chief act of violation with which he stands charged, still that would be such an abuse of the patronage of the Government as would demand his impeachment for a high misdemeanor. Let us again for a moment examine into some of the circumstances of that act. Mr. Stanton was appointed Secretary of War by Mr. Lincoln in 1862, and continued to hold under Mr. Johnson, which, by all usage, is considered a reappointment. Was he a faithful officer, or was he removed for corrupt purposes? After the death of Mr. Lincoln, Andrew Johnson had changed his whole code of politics and policy, and instead of obeying the will of those who put him into power he determined to create a party for himself to carry out his own ambitious purposes. For every honest purpose of Government, and for every honest purpose for which Mr. Stanton was appointed by Mr. Lincoln, where could a better man be found? None ever organized an army of a million of men and provided for its subsistence and efficient action more rapidly than Mr. Stanton and his predecessor [
Simon Cameron
].

It might, with more propriety, be said of this officer than of the celebrated Frenchman, that he “organized victory.” He raised and by his requisitions distributed more than a billion dollars annually, without ever having been charged or suspected with the malappropriation of a single dollar; and when victory crowned his efforts he disbanded that immense Army as quietly and peacefully as if it had been a summer parade. He would not, I suppose, adopt the personal views of the President; and for this he was suspended until restored by the emphatic verdict of the Senate. Now, if we are right in our narrative of the conduct of these parties and the motives of the President, the very effort at removal was a high-handed usurpation as well as a corrupt misdemeanor for which of itself he ought to be impeached and thrown from the place he was abusing. But he says that he did not remove Mr. Stanton for the purpose of defeating the tenure-of-office law. Then he forgot the truth in his controversy with the General of the Army. And because the General did not aid him, and finally admit that he had agreed to aid him in resisting that law, he railed upon him like a very drab.

The counsel for the respondent allege that no removal of Mr. Stanton ever took place, and that therefore the sixth section of the act was not violated. They admit that there was an order of removal and a rescission of his commission; but as he did not obey it, they say it was no removal. That suggests the old saying that it used to be thought that “when the brains were out the man was dead.” That idea is proved by learned counsel to be absolutely fallacious. The brain of Mr. Stanton's commission was taken out by the order of removal—the rescission of his commission—and his head was absolutely cut off by that gallant soldier, General Thomas, the night after the masquerade. And yet, according to the learned and delicate counsel, until the mortal remains, everything which could putrefy, was shovelled out and hauled into the muck-yard there was no removal. But it is said that this took place merely as an experiment to make a judicial case. Now, suppose there is anybody who, with the facts before him, can believe that this was not an afterthought, let us see if that palliates the offense.

The President is sworn to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. In what part of the Constitution or laws does he find it to be his duty to search out for defective laws that stand recorded upon the statutes in order that he may advise their infraction? Who was aggrieved by the tenure-of-office bill that he was authorized to use the name and the funds of the government to relieve? Will he be so good as to tell us by what authority he became the obstructor of an unrepealed law instead of its executor, especially a law whose constitutionality he had twice tested? If there were nothing else than his own statement he deserves the contempt of the American people, and the punishment of its highest tribunal. If he were not willing to execute the laws passed by the American Congress and unrepealed, let him resign the office which was thrown upon him by a horrible convulsion and retire to his village obscurity. Let him not be so swollen by pride and arrogance, which sprang from the deep misfortune of his country, as to attempt an entire revolution of its internal machinery, and the disgrace of the trusted servants of his lamented predecessor.

(May 21, 1868)

Johnson's impeachment trial lasted until May 26, 1868. On May 16, the Senate voted on article number eleven (written by Stevens), acquitting the president by one vote. Voting again ten days later on the second and third articles, the senators reached the same verdict. Following the first vote,
The Nation
commented that despite Johnson's acquittal, the House had been justified in initiating impeachment proceedings. The editor predicted that regardless of the Senate's failure to convict Johnson, his impeachment and the fact that thirty-five of fifty-four senators considered him guilty would leave Johnson discredited and powerless for the remainder of his presidency.

The vote on the verdict, even if it has not resulted in conviction, has abundantly justified the House in impeaching the President. When thirty-five out of fifty-four senators pronounce him guilty, it would be absurd as well as unjust to say that there was not “probable cause” for instituting the prosecution, and one may take this view of the matter even after making some allowance for the influence of party feeling and political excitement. The trial of a President by the Senate for offences committed in the course of a long quarrel with Congress touching the limits of his power under the Constitution cannot be a fair one in the sense in which we speak of a fair trial before an ordinary tribunal, where the accused and the judge have never previously had any relations whatever. The Senate, being a branch of the legislature, must have many imperfections as a court of justice; to expect that it will not, is to expect that senators will prove themselves more than men. All the public can ask of them is that they will make all possible efforts to rid their minds during the trial of pride, prejudice, and passion, and govern themselves to the best of their ability by the law and the evidence. That in the present instance they have done so we have never seen good reason to question, and we therefore think their action a sufficient vindication of the action of the House in preferring the charges. One may still doubt the policy of its course, but one cannot accuse it of mere vindictiveness, or mere subservience to party spirit in pursuing it.

The failure to convict is to be regretted for several reasons, but that it leaves Mr. Johnson in the Presidential chair we no longer include amongst the number. In the first place, it is not unlikely that during the remainder of his term he will behave well; in the second, even if he should desire to do mischief, his powers of mischief now, as we have already pointed out, are almost
nil
; and in the third, if he should commit fresh follies and extravagances, although the scandal will be great, it will be more than compensated for by the fact that they will help the Republican party during the coming campaign. His last follies helped it materially in 1866. Moreover, after the exhibition we have had during the last week or two of the taste and temper of the men who would in case of his deposition have had charge of the Government, it is difficult to believe that the country would have gained by the change, and it is quite certain that the party would have lost by it, for it would have had to bear the burden of their indiscretions.

But the acquittal, although the largeness of the vote for conviction may justify the House morally, is not likely to strengthen the confidence of the country in the judgment of the majority. Moreover, it has some tendency to create a certain amount of confidence in the President's judgment. It leaves him less hopelessly in the wrong than he seemed six months ago, and it leaves him in possession of the honors of the field. His escape, to be sure, has been very narrow, but in politics, as in war, an inch of a miss is as good as a mile. He was, before the trial, in the position of a man whom Congress might crush, but would not; now, he is in the position of a man whom Congress tried to crush, but could not. It is certainly not Congress that has gained by this change.

(May 21, 1868)

Soon after Johnson's acquittal, the Republicans met in Chicago to hammer out the party's platform for the November 1868 presidential campaign. While strongly supporting black suffrage in the South, party leaders continued to favor the policy of allowing Northern voters to decide on universal suffrage on a state-by-state basis. The Republicans denounced debt repudiation as a “national crime” and pledged to honor the bounties and pensions due soldiers and sailors who fought for the Union. Widows and orphans also would receive support—“a sacred legacy bequeathed to the nation's protecting care.”

The National Republican party of the United States, assembled in National Convention in the city of Chicago, on the 21st day of May, 1868, make the following declaration of principles:

1. We congratulate the country on the assured success of the reconstruction policy of Congress, as evinced by the adoption, in the majority of the States lately in rebellion, of constitutions securing equal civil and political rights to all; and it is the duty of the Government to sustain those institutions and to prevent the people of such States from being remitted to a state of anarchy.

2. The guaranty by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained; while the question of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States.

3. We denounce all forms of repudiation as a national crime; and the national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness in the uttermost good faith to all creditors at home and abroad, not only according to the letter, but the spirit of the laws under which it was contracted.

4. It is due to the labor of the nation that taxation should be equalized, and reduced as rapidly as the national faith will permit.

5. The national debt, contracted as it has been for the preservation of the Union for all time to come, should be extended over a fair period for redemption; and it is the duty of Congress to reduce the rate of interest thereon, whenever it can be honestly done.

6. That the best policy to diminish our burden of debt is to so improve our credit that capitalists will seek to loan us money at lower rates of interest than we now pay, and must continue to pay so long as repudiation, partial or total, open or covert, is threatened or suspected.

7. The Government of the United States should be administered with the strictest economy; and the corruptions which have been so shamefully nursed and fostered by Andrew Johnson call loudly for radical reform.

8. We profoundly deplore the untimely and tragic death of Abraham Lincoln, and regret the accession to the Presidency of Andrew Johnson, who has acted treacherously to the people who elected him and the cause he was pledged to support; who has usurped high legislative and judicial functions; who has refused to execute the laws; who has used his high office to induce other officers to ignore and violate the laws; who has employed his executive powers to render insecure the property, the peace, liberty and life, of the citizen; who has abused the pardoning power; who has denounced the national legislature as unconstitutional: who has persistently and corruptly resisted, by every means in his power, every proper attempt at the reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion; who has perverted the public patronage into an engine of wholesale corruption; and who has been justly impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and properly pronounced guilty thereof by the vote of thirty-five Senators.

9. The doctrine of Great Britain and other European powers, that because a man is once a subject he is always so, must be resisted at every hazard by the United States, as a relic of feudal times, not authorized by the laws of nations, and at war with our national honor and independence. Naturalized citizens are entitled to protection in all their rights of citizenship, as though they were native-born; and no citizen of the United States, native or naturalized, must be liable to arrest and imprisonment by any foreign power for acts done or words spoken in this country; and, if so arrested and imprisoned, it is the duty of the Government to interfere in his behalf.

10. Of all who were faithful in the trials of the late war, there were none entitled to more especial honor than the brave soldiers and seamen who endured the hardships of campaign and cruise, and imperilled their lives in the service of the country; the bounties and pensions provided by the laws for these brave defenders of the nation are obligations never to be forgotten; the widows and orphans of the gallant dead are the wards of the people—a sacred legacy bequeathed to the nation's protecting care.

11. Foreign immigration, which in the past has added so much to the wealth, development, and resources, and increase of power to this republic, the asylum of the oppressed of all nations, should be fostered and encouraged by a liberal and just policy.

12. This convention declares itself in sympathy with all oppressed peoples struggling for their rights.

13. That we highly commend the spirit of magnanimity and forbearance with which men who have served in the rebellion, but who now frankly and honestly coöperate with us in restoring the peace of the country and reconstructing the southern State governments upon the basis of impartial justice and equal rights, are received back into the communion of the loyal people; and we favor the removal of the disqualifications and restrictions imposed upon the late rebels in the same measure as the spirit of disloyalty will die out, and as may be consistent with the safety of the loyal people.

14. That we recognize the great principles laid down in the immortal Declaration of Independence, as the true foundation of democratic government; and we hail with gladness every effort toward making these principles a living reality on every inch of American soil.