That the President of the
United States should have been incited by a shouting crowd of his fellow-citizens to
denounce by name a Senator, a Representative, and a private citizen, and to speak of
another citizen in the slang of the stump, is something so unprecedented and astounding
that, while every generous man will allow for the excitement of passion, there is no
self-respecting American citizen who will not feel humiliated that the chief citizen of
the Republic, in such a place, on such a day, should have been utterly mastered by it.
Yet the servility which actually defends
and approves such an outburst of passion is even more deplorable. The President, excited
and exasperated, may be charitably supposed unconscious of the real scope of his words
when he accused Mr. Sumner and Mr. Stevens of inciting to his assassination. It is
conceivable that he was too angry to weigh his words when, after calling for justice upon
traitors - meaning the gallows - he denounced those gentlemen as traitors. But for an
editor to sit deliberately down and elaborately justify so tragical an outrage of the
plainest official propriety upon the ground that the speaker said that he should
"stand by the Constitution," is an offense so contemptible as to be ludicrous.
The President has taken a solemn oath to "stand by the Constitution," and nobody
supposes that he intends to perjure himself. But the Senator and Representative have taken
quite as solemn an oath, and their purpose is no less undoubted. Is it treason and
deserving of death to differ from the Presidents view of constitutional duty? How
if, because of a difference of opinion as to constitutional obligation, the Senator and
Representative had denounced the President by name as a traitor like Jefferson Davis?
Would they be excused on the ground that they declared they would "stand by the
Constitution?"
This is not a question of President
against Congress, or the reverse. It has nothing to do with the merits of different views
of reorganization. It is an offense unprecedented in our history, which we fervently trust
may never be repeated.
Articles Relating to Johnson's First Vetoes:
A Long Step
Forward
January 27, 1866, page 50
Congress
February 10, 1866, page 83
Education of the
Freedmen
February 10, 1866, page 83
The Veto Message
March 3, 1866, page 130
The Freedmens
Bureau
March 10, 1866, page 146
The Presidents Speech
March 10, 1866, page 147
The Political
Situation
April 14, 1866, page 226
The Civil Rights
Bill
April 14, 1866, page 226
The Civil Rights
Bill
April 21, 1866, page 243
The Congressional
Plan of Reorganization
May 12, 1866, page 290
The Trial of the
Government
May 26, 1866, page 322
Making Treason
Odious
June 2, 1866, page 338
The Final Report of
the Reconstruction Committee
June 23, 1866, page 387
The Report of the
Congressional Committee
June 23, 1866, page 386
The Case Stated
August 4, 1866, page 482