When the proposition was
originally made, more than a year ago, the universal feeling among those who had elected
Mr. Johnson was that, although he was strenuously endeavoring to baffle the intentions of
the people as expressed by their representatives, yet he was ingeniously keeping within
the letter of the law; while, to make sure of a successful impeachment, technical guilt
was necessary. His conduct in connection with the New Orleans massacre; his reeling tour
and maudlin speeches in the summer of 1866, might, if themselvesas it seemed to
manyhave justified a charge of "misdemeanor," if nothing more. But it was
remarked that while he coarsely insulted Congress he yet recognized its authority; and the
good-sense of the country concluded that it was expedient to await the ordinary method of
an election to remove an obstacle to its will. This conclusion was more emphatically
declared by the enormous majority against impeachment at the opening of the present
session, when the laws that had been passed over the veto of the President had made his
efforts to paralyze the equitable reconstruction of the Union still more abortive. His
malevolence was evident; but although a great misfortune to every national pacification,
it was better to endure it to the end than to impeach without palpable and technical guilt
which should satisfy every one who was not skeptical of every thing that Congress could
do.
Under plea of testing the
constitutionality of a law by making a case for the Supreme Court, the President violated
the law. He had now supplied the technical offense. His whole career, and the immediate
circumstances of the case, tended to show that his act was tentative merely. There could
be no reasonable doubt that, if not at once arrested in his course, the President would
not hesitate to take steps still more daring; and the same House that a little more than
two months before had so decidedly opposed impeachment now by the whole Republican vote
impeached. We ask those who think the impeachment will show how easily a President may be
removed, what else could Congress have done? If it be said that it might have awaited the
opinion of the Court, we reply that it could only have done so, if at all, when it had
reason to believe in the honest purpose of the President; and even if it had been sure of
that purpose, it might properly have said that the precedent was too dangerous. For if the
Executive may continue to impose his veto when it has been constitutionally over-ruled, in
one case, he may do so in every case.
If, indeed, President Lincoln had vetoed
any law passed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, upon the ground of unconstitutionality, and
it had been passed over his veto, we can very well understand that he might have arranged
with Congress that it should be judicially determined by a case mutually agreed upon; but
only because of the extraordinary circumstances of the time and of the remarkable
confidence that was reposed in him personally. But if Breckinridge, or Pendleton, or
Seymour had been President at the time, and had directly violated the law under plea of
awaiting a judgment of the Court, we can not imagine that Congress would have delayed
impeachment for a single week. The declared opinions and antecedents of those three
persons would have furnished a conclusive presumption against the loyalty of their
intentions. Congress could not safely have trusted them. If an Executive were ever to be
removed by impeachment, the case would have arisen.
That a party majority in the House will
hereafter naturally resort to impeachment when a mere difference arises with the President
we have no fear. This is not a difference with the President; it is, in the judgment of
the House, a violation of law. As for party majorities and their action we presume that
there is nobody who doubts that had a democratic Congress under its slaveholding leaders
found itself opposed by the President, and at the same time in command of a two-thirds
vote, it would have promptly impeached him if he had refused to obey a law passed over his
veto until the Supreme Court could move in the matter. The present impeachment is a party
measure, undoubtedly, but no more than the opposition to it; and it is necessarily a party
measure, because the law which the Executive violated was passed by a party majority.
Impeachment contemplates a political offense, among others, and the trial is of necessity
a political trial. It need not therefore be strictly and offensively partisan, although,
as the members of a great party naturally sympathize upon political questions, it will
almost inevitably assume a party aspect. Yet it must be always remembered that the
Republican majority refused to impeach the President for betraying the cause which he was
elected to serve. He is impeached not for treason to his party, but for violating the law
which he had sworn to execute. If he be removed it can not be said that a Republican
Congress punished a President because he differed in opinion, but because, against the
Constitution, he endeavored to make his opinion law.