ADJOURNMENT OF CONGRESS
Congress has adjourned until July, and unless a quorum is then present it
will not again assemble until December. This short opening session has been marked by one
important measure and one significant event: the Supplementary Reconstruction bill, and
the virtual abandonment of the impeachment project.The Supplementary bill was well digested, and it was passed into a
law over the veto with dignity and unanimity. The President evidently means to give it a
fair trial. He said to a Virginia delegation which came to ask if there were no hope of
evading its operation, that while he had, as they knew, heartily opposed the bill it was
now the law of the land which he must execute, and that the best thing they could do for
themselves and for him was to go home and organize under it. Perhaps the President
understood the situation. If he had virtually endeavored to defeat the intention of the
bill by perplexing its honest operation, Congress would undoubtedly have proceeded, in Mr.
Bankss imposing language, "to take into consideration the situation of the
country;" in other words, it would have acted immediately upon the question of
impeachment, and in a manner not agreeable to the President. But by his prompt and
satisfactory action, appointing the very commanders who would probably have been selected
by Congress, he showed a sagacity which nobody had a right to expect.
It was this action which, we think,
disposed for the present of the impeachment? a subject which has been
utterly mismanaged from the beginning. If a caucus of the House were necessary to consider
the question as the House thought, every member should have been put upon his honor not to
move the matter in the House until it was ready to be carried steadily to a
successful result. Hopes and wishes and surmises and suspicions are not evidence. The
subject should have been thoroughly sifted, and no charges made in the House of which the
House was not sure that it had the proof. When they were made they should have been
immediately referred. The Committee should have promptly reported. The impeachment should
have been unanimously carried, and the trial have begun without delay.
Now as a matter of fact there seems to
have been no evidence whatever beyond the general conduct of the President, which was
fully known to the country, and upon which it has not demanded his impeachment. Technical
arguments have been made, and the President has been denounced for his familiar offenses,
but the orators have not been able to disturb the sensible conviction of the country that,
under circumstances, and without denying the fact of usurpation of powers, it was not
expedient to impeach the President. It was felt that there was a better remedy for the
difficulty, and it has been found. The President has been made practically powerless for
mischief even if he designed it, and the country has been spared the angry conclusion of
the debate, which must inevitably have arisen upon the point of suspension of powers
during the trial. Congress has done wisely in obeying the inspiration of public feeling
upon this subject, and in abstaining from a perilous work of supererogation. It would have
been still wiser if it had refrained from officially beginning a movement of this kind
which it was not perfectly sure of carrying through.
Senator Sumner is of opinion that a
quorum will be present in July, and that he can then press his new bill establishing
universal suffrage. But we doubt if the fact will justify his opinion unless some
extraordinary event should happen in the mean while. The country needs rest. Every
interest demands it. The chances of danger have passed; and we may now safely watch and
wait the process of reconstruction.
Articles Related to Military Reconstruction:
News Items
January 19, 1867, page 35
Impeachment
January 26, 1867, page 50
Congress and
Impeachment
February 16, 1867, page 98
The Probability of
Impeachment
February 23, 1867, page 114
The Louisiana Bill
March 2, 1867, page 130
Reconstruction
March 9, 1867, page 146
The Thirty-Ninth
Congress
March 9, 1867, page 146
The Veto of the Reconstruction Bill
March 16, 1867, page 162
The Fortieth Congress
March 30, 1867, page 195
The Fortieth Congress
April 6, 1867, page 211
Sprats and Vetoes
April 6, 1867, page 210
Adjournment of Congress
April 13, 1867, page 226
Prometheus Bound
March 2, 1867, page 137
The Result
March 30, 1867, page 194
The Southern Commanders
April 6, 1867, page 218
The Debate upon Impeachment
March 23, 1867, page 178
We Accept the Situation (cartoon)
April 13, 1867, page 240
The Big Thing (cartoon)
April 20, 1867, page 256
The End of Impeachment
June 22, 1867, page 386
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