Reconstruction

by Brooks D. Simpson

  In accordance with this policy the political campaign of 1866 was builded on that matchless lie, the Howard Amendment as a finality in reconstruction. Everyone knew that it must be either a shameless lie, or an absolute surrender and betrayal of all the rights of the colored men of the South, not excepting those who had fought against rebellion. This was the first fruit of the reaction which has periled the life of the Republican party. From that day to this it has lost ground. If they had taken the suffrage issue when first presented, and stood squarely upon it as a matter of intrinsic right, they would have been triumphantly sustained. The people would have accepted it as a right, but as a means of strengthening the Republican party they care nothing about it.

  This change of policy, from What is Right to What will Win, at first puzzled the people. They could not understand why certain evidently just and proper measures did not meet the support of the Republican leaders. The fact has, however, at length forced itself upon very many of the most active and valuable men of the country, that our Republican Congressmen are more anxious about re-electing each other than about reconstructing the government, more concerned in the election of a President than in doing justice to all.

  The latest exhibition of this anxiety is in reference to the Conventions now in session in the late rebel States. Even at this time a delegation of Republican lobbyists from Washington are said to be at Richmond to prevent the Virginia Constitution Convention doing anything which might prejudice the Republican party. It makes no difference what may be the needs of the people in these States, the Republican party and its interests are paramount. It must be saved though the liberties of the people are left unprotected. Much of the legislation which it thus sought to smother is not only very just and proper, but absolutely essential to the future people and prosperity of the states concerned.

  Again the “reaction” cry, striking as it does the little remaining courage from the hearts of the thimble-riggers of the party, has developed a sudden and pressing necessity for relieving a large portion of the present excluded classes from disability. In so doing it is not proposed to afford specific relief to men who ought not to have been disfranchised at the first, but to offer a reward for party work in the matter of reconstruction. There are many men here who, according to the letter of the acts, are disfranchised, but who were as good Union men during the entire war as the South could show, yet after it was over honestly differed with the policy of Congress upon the matter of Reconstruction. These men were disfranchised upon the hypothesis that they had been disloyal to the United States, and in all cases where the reverse can be shown are of course entitled to relief from disabilities by Congress. These, however, are not the men whom it is proposed by “Reactionists” to relieve, but those who have done party-work, those who were shrewd enough to foresee the success of the party and ally themselves with it in good time. It is said these men “must be rewarded,” that they have “condoned their offences,” etc. As if work done for the Republican party, with the prospect of fat offices in view, could condone an offence against the government of the United States!

  These are a few of the measures which, if persevered in for a while longer, if forced upon the Republican party to avoid the fancied terrors of “Reaction,” will most certainly react upon the minds of all just and patriotic men and sound the knell of Republicanism.

  The only way to save it alive, is to come back to the standard of Right and Wrong, stand squarely upon the principles of Justice, and select a Presidential candidate who shall represent them positively. A double-faced candidate will complete its ruin.

  WINEGAR

  National Anti-Slavery Standard, January 4, 1868

  “ABSOLUTE AND DESPOTIC POWER”:

  NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 1868

  New-York Tribune:

  The President Must Be Impeached

  WE DO NOT see how the House can refuse to arraign the President before the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors. Impeachment is not a desirable proceeding. It is cumbersome and tedious. It may arrest legislation, and present a new issue to the country at a time when new issues are not wanted. It is not, perhaps, a wise precedent to make. It gives to power a temptation which passion cannot always resist. It is a high, solemn, sacred trust, only to be used, when absolutely necessary for the salvation of the country.

  We believe the salvation of the country demands the impeachment of the President. We have all along felt that we might submit to Mr. Johnson’s Administration, evil as it has been, rather than force an angry and doubtful question upon the country. With the Congress overwhelmingly Republican, there was no reason why we should not compel the President to pursue a wise policy. We reasoned upon the presumption that it was better to have impeachment held over him as a check than to begin a trial that might be as long as that of Warren Hastings. It was a debatable question. The evidence was far from being conclusive. Morally, there was no doubt that Mr. Johnson should be impeached. But impeachment is a question of law and evidence, not of moral belief. As a Republican, there were a hundred reasons why he should be removed. This would be a good plea in a Republican Convention, not before the Senate of the United States. Until impeachment became an inevitable, overwhelming necessity, without doubt as to the meaning of the law, and the force of the evidence, to enter upon it was only to give the President a chance to make himself a martyr before the country. Therefore we have constantly opposed impeachment, although at times we stood alone among the Republican press. There is no longer any doubt. The issue is as clear as it was when Gen. Beauregard opened his batteries upon Fort Sumter. Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, tramples upon a law, defies the authority of Congress, and claims to exercise absolute and despotic power. Congress must impeach him immediately.

  All other questions sink before the present. It would be difficult to have our course clearer. A law is passed, which defines it to be the duty of the President to consult with the Senate before removing a certain officer. This law may or may not be constitutional. The President has no business with that. It is constitutional until the Supreme Court decides otherwise. It is law until the Court interposes and invalidates it. The President’s sworn duty is to execute it—to obey it—to see that it is carefully and studiously obeyed. He may not like it. But chief-magistrates have been compelled to execute laws they did not prefer. He may think it unconstitutional. That is of no more consequence than the opinion of any private citizen. His duty is not to execute laws which he may think constitutional, but to EXECUTE THE LAWS. If he had been clothed with judicatory power, if the founders of the Constitution had felt that it was wise to give the President any option in the matter, they would have so expressed it and declared that he might execute all laws only when the Supreme Court decided their constitutionality. If the President has the right to select his laws, and say “This act I will execute because it suits me, and the other I will not enforce because it strikes me to be unconstitutional,” then Congress and the Supreme Court might as well adjourn without day. For the right to do as he pleases with any law, to assume to be its sole arbiter and judge, may become a tyranny more absolute than that of the Emperor of Russia. It is a comparatively small matter now. Apparently, it affects only the right of Mr. Stanton to hold the War-Office, and of the President to select his constitutional advisers. This is not the question, but only the merest incident of it. If the President has the right to remove Mr. Stanton in defiance of law, he may remove Mr. Chief-Justice Chase and Gen. Grant, and indeed the whole Senate. For the law by which Mr. Stanton holds his place is as much a law, as sacred and as binding, as that by which Mr. Chase presides over the Supreme Court, and Gen. Grant commands the army. If he may with impunity order Lorenzo Thomas to take possession of the War Department—a building which is not the property of Mr. Johnson, but of the American people—he may also direct Mr. Coyle to open the next Supreme Court, and Gen. Hancock to assume command of the army. It may be said that there is a law which provides the form in which Mr. Chase may be removed, and
another law which directs the manner for the removal of Gen. Grant. To this we reply that there is also a law which provides how Mr. Stanton may be removed, that one law is as binding as the other, and that if we permit the President to violate one, he may with impunity violate all.

  There is no avoiding this conclusion. There is no explaining it away. There is no middle course. The President has assumed the responsibility of breaking a law. Congress must assume the responsibility of impeaching him. Not to do so in the face of this flagrant and insolent proceeding is to become a partner in the crime. It is no time to consider the party influence of impeachment, or its effect upon Presidential candidates. We would rather see the Republican party, candidates and all, driven into the deserts of Arabia than to have them tremble one moment in the presence of this high duty. Questions of expediency were all well enough so long as the President stood within the pale of the law. But now when he presumes to be the executive, legislative, and judicial power, when he claims to decide which laws Congress may pass, and what acts are constitutional, to hesitate a moment is criminal.

  We are sure there will be no hesitation. The time has come to cease trifling with Andrew Johnson. This man, who reeled into the Presidency; who has debased his high office by unseemly and indecent demonstrations; who has surrounded himself with the worst members of the worst phase of Washington life; whose retinue consists of lobbyists, Rebels, and adventurers; who has polluted the public service by making espionage honorable, and treachery the means of advancement; who has deceived the party that elected him, as well as the party that created him; who has made his own morbid and overweening vanity the only rule of his administration; who has sought to entrap illustrious servants of the people into ignominious evasion of the law, and who now claims to break that law with impunity—this most infamous Chief-Magistrate should be swept out of office. LET HIM BE IMPEACHED! And let the Republican party show that it not only has the power to preserve the country from rebellion under Jefferson Davis, but also from treachery under Andrew Johnson.

  THE FORBEARANCE OF CONGRESS.

  Now that Andrew Johnson is about to be arraigned before the Senate for the crime of defying the laws, it may be profitable to look back at the action of Congress, especially upon the question of impeachment. We do this for the purpose of showing that the representatives of the people have acted with wisdom, prudence, and forbearance. Possibly they have forborne too long. We shall be told that we were all cowards for not impeaching the President before, and that if we had taken this step in the beginning there would be no trouble now.

  Congress might, of course, have impeached Mr. Johnson at any time. The Republican party was in power. It had not only a majority, but enough votes to control a veto, and pass laws in spite of the Executive. It is difficult to imagine a greater power, or one more delicate to manage. The temptations of all great majorities is to tyrannize. Here was a party fresh from the great war, triumphant over rebellion, and eager to reap the fruits of victory by speedy reconstruction. Here was its President, so advanced in Radicalism that many prudent men were afraid he would execute all the Rebels within his reach. Surely, men said, this President has seen the South; he has been through the fiery furnace; he is scarred with the flames of rebellion, and he will give us a reconstruction that will be just, humane, and prompt. Congress was disappointed. Mr. Johnson had made himself Vice-President by pretending to be an extreme Radical. That was in war times. There were eleven States to return. In all probability they would be Democratic. He would insist upon their admission. He would be their champion and friend. He would ally himself with the Democratic party of the North, and then be elected President. We believe this has been Mr. Johnson’s purpose since the beginning of his Administration. We believe he has always intended to betray the Republican party, and with it to betray Congress. For this he has labored with a tenacity which has no parallel in history—with an energy worthy of a better cause. During all the time that the President was planning, intriguing, arranging, backing and filling, saying one thing to-day and another to-morrow, Congress treated him with courtesy and patience. Not one word was said of dissent—impeachment was never breathed.

  For the New-Orleans riots Mr. Johnson is responsible. No fair man can read the evidence without seeing that his hands are stained with the blood of loyal men. He is responsible for the great deficiency in the revenue. He debased that service to gratify his ambition. When it was necessary to construct a Philadelphia Convention, postmasters were removed by the hundred, and the collection of the revenues was transferred to those of his creatures who would accept the degrading office. Their needs were mainly pecuniary, and the surest way of supplying them was to have the gathering of the taxes. The result is that, under Mr. Johnson, corruption in the revenue service has been reduced to a science. We have men making fraud a profession, organizing it into a “ring,” and boasting that with their money they can control his Administration. We believe that if this whisky-tax alone were made a matter of inquiry, enough would be found to warrant the impeachment of the President. For the failure of reconstruction he is preëminently responsible. Beginning his Administration by loudly proclaiming his intention to hang the Rebels, he speedily took to giving them offices. Clamorously insisting that his “policy” was to bring the States back to the Union, we find him directly interfering to keep Alabama out. Since he cannot make the South Democratic, he will produce anarchy. Everything must yield to his own selfish purpose. In nothing has the President been sincere and consistent except to secure his own reëlection to the Presidency.

  —With Impeachment always at hand—with causes for impeachment as thick as autumn leaves—with every political passion aroused, and a war of bitterness raging—Congress has remained patient. Read, for instance, Mr. Johnson’s last annual message. The Tudors in the splendor of their almost oriental power, the Stuarts in the days of their blindest arrogance, scarcely ventured to address such a message to an English Parliament. Our own feeling at that time was that Congress would be angered into impeaching the President who had put upon them such an insult. It seems almost as if Mr. Johnson has been trying to goad Congress to pass the resolutions which will most probably be adopted to-day. Possibly he may feel that this is his last chance of obtaining the nomination of the Democratic party, and has prepared a coup d’etat for the purpose of impressing Mr. Belmont and his friends with the vigor of which he has so often spoken. We do not care to dwell upon the President’s motives, however. The main point is that Congress has acted with a wisdom and forbearance which deserves the highest praise. Subject to all the passions of a legislative body, it has shown in this impeachment business the serenity, the patience, and the dignity of a court of justice. Possibly His Excellency has presumed upon this, and supposed that because Congress was forbearing, it was cowardly, and would not dare to check him. He will find, we think, before many days are passed, how dreadfully he was mistaken.

  MORAL CAUSES FOR IMPEACHMENT.

  Although impeachment comes before the House to-day, because the President has violated a specific law of Congress—and there is little doubt that his trial will be confined to one specific point, namely, his refusal to obey the Tenure-of-Office law—yet there are moral causes for impeachment which the country will not fail to consider. The decision of the House to-day will form one of the most important pages in American History, and generations will discuss its wisdom.

  The country cannot fail to see that Mr. Johnson is a man who cannot be measured by the ordinary moral tests. We do not honor a man for being a gentleman any more than we honor a lady for being virtuous. It is the duty of every man and woman so to live that their lives may be pure and their names unspotted. It is the duty of every public man to leave a name in history that future generations may regard as an example. It will be in the mind of every Christian to-day that there are a hundred reasons for impeachment in the case of President Johnson which will hold good in general esteem, if not in law. We all remember the scenes of his inauguration as Vic
e-President. He was elected to a high office. It was the triumph of an idea which was dear to the heart of every laboring man. He was the representative of a despised class. He had labored with his hands at one of the most unpretending of employments. He had no advantages of wealth, education, or social culture. At a time when most young men are about to leave college, full of the classics and mathematics, he was beginning to read. Surmounting these difficulties, he had risen from place to place until he was the second officer of the country. Every laboring man felt ennobled in the elevation, for it showed that in free America the highest stations were open to the humblest.

  We do not repeat the history of that shameful day when Mr. Johnson not only insulted his audience, but the class from which he sprung, and gave the enemies of labor the opportunity of saying: “Look at your representative workingman, your exalted plebian, your Senatorial tailor. This is what comes of your Democratic institutions! A boor is always a boor. The quality of governing exists only in the blue veins of gentlemen like us, who come from the loins of kings. This is what Democracy brings you.” We condoned that offense. But men buried it deep in their hearts, and Americans, proud of their country, and, above all, proud of the name of an American gentleman, blushed when they remembered that a drunken Vice-President had shaken his fist in the faces of the embassadors of foreign countries, and taunted them with their noble birth. They thought of it even more keenly when Mr. Johnson went “swinging around the circle.” The story of that dreadful journey has never been fully told. The name of a dead statesman was degraded. We have heard, in ruder civilizations, of a people reveling around a coffin, and boisterously carousing over the dead body of a departed friend. But it remained for a President of the United States to dig from the grave, as it were, the body of the dead Douglas, and go junketing with it through the country. There may have been a hope that the memory of the great leader would bring followers to his cause: but, be that as it may, the dishonor put upon his memory, and upon the country, was humiliating. We saw the President bandying words with a mob in Cleveland, defending riot and murder in St. Louis, and making wild, incoherent speeches at every station. Men have told us that they read accounts of this journey, in foreign lands, with crimsoned cheeks, and tearful eyes, and hearts heavy with shame, and that they almost blushed at the name of an American citizen. Andrew Johnson is the first Chief Magistrate of the country that ever disgraced his office by conduct unbecoming a gentleman.