Reconstruction

by Brooks D. Simpson

  Men will not fail to remember these things when the events of to-day are written in history. There are moral reasons for the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Children will ask their parents what became of the man who thus dishonored his country, and the reply will be, he was driven from his office to obscurity, and was never afterward heard of beyond the tap-rooms of Greenville, where he lived to a green old age, making endless speeches about the Constitution and the Radicals, and what he would do when he was reëlected President of the United States. We owe something to the spirit of Christianity, to the moral law which every gentleman tries to obey and to teach to his children. The impeachment of Andrew Johnson will not merely be commended because he tried to evade the law, but because he degraded his high office, and brought his country to shame, and made it a scandal among the nations. Therefore, the moral sense of the country demands this impeachment. Congress should feel that every gentleman, that every Christian mother who has sons that she would see honored, that every American who is proud of his country, will stand by it in this solemn but unavoidable duty. There are moral laws as well as civil laws. While the tribunal of one is the present and palpable machinery of justice, the tribunal of the other is in the conscience and heart of all. Now that Andrew Johnson is about to appear before the civil law to answer for his misdemeanors, it is well to remember that, morally, he was long since tried by the common-sense of his countrymen, and condemned to the execration of the party which he betrayed, and to the contempt of that other party upon which he is now fawning.

  February 24, 1868

  “HIS WICKED DETERMINATION”:

  WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY 1868

  Thaddeus Stevens:

  Speech in Congress on Impeachment

  Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I agree with those gentlemen who have gone before me that this is a grave subject and should be gravely treated. It is important to the high official who is the subject of these charges, and it is important to a nation of forty million people, now free, and rapidly increasing to hundreds of millions. The official character of the Chief Executive of this great nation being thus involved, the charge, if falsely made, is a cruel wrong; if, on the other hand, the usurpations and misdemeanors charged against him are true he is guilty of as atrocious attempts to usurp the liberty and destroy the happiness of this nation as were ever perpetrated by the most detestable tyrant who ever oppressed his fellow-men. Let us, therefore, discuss these questions in no partisan spirit, but with legal accuracy and impartial justice. The people desire no victim and they will endure no usurper.

  The charges, so far as I shall discuss them, are few and distinct. Andrew Johnson is charged with attempting to usurp the powers of other branches of the Government; with attempting to obstruct and resist the execution of the law; with misprision of bribery; and with the open violation of laws which declare his acts misdemeanors and subject him to fine and imprisonment; and with removing from office the Secretary of War during the session of the Senate without the advice or consent of the Senate; and with violating the sixth section of the act entitled “An act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices.” There are other offenses charged in the papers referred to the committee, which I may consider more by themselves.

  In order to sustain impeachment under our Constitution I do not hold that it is necessary to prove a crime as an indictable offense, or any act malum in se. I agree with the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania, on the other side of the House, who holds this to be a purely political proceeding. It is intended as a remedy for malfeasance in office and to prevent the continuance thereof. Beyond that, it is not intended as a personal punishment for past offenses or for future example.

  Impeachment under our Constitution is very different from impeachment under the English law. The framers of our Constitution did not rely for safety upon the avenging dagger of a Brutus, but provided peaceful remedies which should prevent that necessity. England had two systems of jurisprudence; one for the trial and punishment of common offenders, and one for the trial of men in higher stations, whom it was found difficult to convict before the ordinary tribunals. This latter proceeding was by impeachment or by bills of attainder, generally practiced to punish official malefactors, but the system soon degenerated into political and personal persecution, and men were tried, condemned, and executed by this court from malignant motives. Such was the condition of the English laws when our Constitution was framed; and the Convention determined to provide against the abuse of that high power, so that revenge and punishment should not be inflicted upon political or personal enemies. Here the whole punishment was made to consist in removal from office, and bills of attainder were wholly prohibited. We are to treat this question, then, as wholly political, in which, if an officer of the Government abuse his trust or attempt to pervert it to improper purposes, whatever might be his motives, he becomes subject to impeachment and removal from office. The offense being indictable does not prevent impeachment, but is not necessary to sustain it. (See Story’s Commentaries, Curtis on the Constitution, Madison, and others.) Such is the opinion of our elementary writers, nor can any case of impeachment tried in this country be found where any attempt was made to prove the offense criminal and indictable.

  What, then, are the official misdemeanors of Andrew Johnson disclosed by the evidence? On the 2d day of March, 1867, Congress passed an act entitled “An act regulating the tenure of certain civil offices.” Among other provisions it enacted that no officer who had been appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate should be removed from office without the consent of the Senate, and that, if during vacation a suspension should be made for cause, such cause should be reported to the Senate within twenty days after their next meeting. If the Senate should deem the reason of the suspension sufficient, then the officer should be removed and another appointed in his stead; but if the Senate should refuse to concur with the President, and declare the reasons insufficient, then the officer suspended should forthwith resume the functions of his office and the powers of the person performing its duties should cease. It is especially provided that the Secretary of War shall hold his office during the term of the President by whom he may have been appointed, and for one month thereafter unless removed by and with the consent of the Senate as aforesaid. On the 12th day of August, 1867, during the recess of the Senate, the President removed the Secretary of War, whose term of office had not expired, requiring him to surrender the office with the public property, and appointed General U.S. Grant Secretary of War ad interim.

  When Andrew Johnson assumed the office of President he took the oath to obey the Constitution of the United States and to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. This was a solemn and enduring obligation, nor can he plead exemption from it on account of his condition at the time it was administered to him. An attempt to obstruct the execution of the law, not a mere omission amounting to negligence which would have been a misdemeanor, but a daring and bold conspiracy, was attempted by him to induce the General of the Army to aid him in defeating the operation of this law; and when he had suspended the Secretary of War he appointed General Grant Secretary ad interim, with the avowed purpose of preventing the operation of that law, if the Senate should decide in favor of the Secretary; and he says that the General did enter into such conspiracy to aid him in obstructing the return of the rejected Secretary notwithstanding the Senate might decide in his favor. This is denied by the General, and a question of veracity, rather angrily discussed, has arisen between them. Those gentlemen seem to consider that that question is one of importance to the public. In this they are mistaken. Which is the man of truth and which the man of falsehood is of no more public importance than if it arose between two obscure individuals. If Andrew Johnson tells the truth then he is guilty of a high official misdemeanor, for he avows his effort to prevent the execution of the law. If the General commanding tells the truth then the President is guilty of a high misdemeanor, for he declares the same thing
of the President, denying only his own complicity. No argument can make this point plainer than the statement of the culprit. If he and the General told the truth then he committed willful perjury by refusing to take care that the laws should be duly executed.

  To show the animus and guilty knowledge with which this law was violated we have only to turn to the proceedings of the Senate notifying him of his illegal and void conduct, and then to consider that he has since persevered in attempting to enforce it. Indeed, to show his utter disregard of the laws of his country, we have only to turn to his last annual message, in which he proclaims to the public that the laws of Congress are unconstitutional and not binding on the people. Who, after that, can say that such a man is fit to occupy the executive chair, whose duty it is to inculcate obedience to those very laws, and see that they are faithfully obeyed? Then the great beauty of this remedial and preventive process is clearly demonstrated. He is dull and blind who cannot see its necessity and the beneficial purposes of the trial by impeachment.

  By the sixth section of the act referred to, it is provided:

  “That every removal, appointment, or employment made, had, or exercised contrary to the provisions of this act, and the making, signing, sealing, countersigning, or issuing of any commission or letter of authority for in respect to any such appointment or employment, shall be deemed, and are hereby declared to be, high misdemeanors; and upon trial and conviction thereof every person guilty thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $10,000 or by imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.”

  Now, in defiance of this law, Andrew Johnson, on the 21st day of February, 1868, issued his commission or letter of authority to one Lorenzo Thomas, appointing him Secretary of War ad interim, and commanded him to take possession of the Department of War and to eject the incumbent, E. M. Stanton, then in lawful possession of said office. Here, if this act stood alone, would be an undeniable official misdemeanor—not only a misdemeanor per se, but declared to be so by the act itself, and the party made indictable and punishable in a criminal proceeding. If Andrew Johnson escapes with bare removal from office, if he be not fined and incarcerated in the penitentiary afterward under criminal proceedings, he may thank the weakness or the clemency of Congress and not his own innocence.

  We shall propose to prove on the trial that Andrew Johnson was guilty of misprision of bribery by offering to General Grant, if he would unite with him in his lawless violence, to assume in his stead the penalties and to endure the imprisonment denounced by the law. Bribery is one of the offenses specifically enumerated for which the President may be impeached and removed from office. By the Constitution, article two, section two, the President has power to nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all officers of the United States whose appointments are not therein otherwise provided for and which shall be established by law, and to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session. Nowhere, either in the Constitution or by statute, has the President power to create a vacancy during the session of the Senate and fill it without the advice and consent of the Senate, and yet, on the 21st day of February, 1868, while the Senate was in session, he notified the head of the War Department that he was removed from office and his successor ad interim appointed. Here is a plain, recorded violation of the Constitution and laws, which, if it stood alone, would make every honest and intelligent man give his vote for impeachment. The President had persevered in his lawless course through a long series of unjustifiable acts. When the so-called confederate States of America were conquered and had laid down their arms and surrendered their territory to the victorious Union the government and final disposition of the conquered country belonged to Congress alone, according to every principle of the law of nations.

  Neither the Executive nor the judiciary had any right to interfere with it except so far as was necessary to control it by military rule until the sovereign power of the nation had provided for its civil administration. No power but Congress had any right to say whether ever or when they should be admitted to the Union as States and entitled to the privileges of the Constitution of the United States. And yet Andrew Johnson, with unblushing hardihood, undertook to rule them by his own power alone; to lead them into full communion with the Union; direct them what governments to erect and what constitutions to adopt, and to send Representatives and Senators to Congress according to his instructions. When admonished by express act of Congress, more than once repeated, he disregarded the warning and continued his lawless usurpation. He is since known to have obstructed the reëstablishment of those governments by the authority of Congress, and has advised the inhabitants to resist the legislation of Congress. In my judgment his conduct with regard to that transaction was a high-handed usurpation of power which ought long ago to have brought him to impeachment and trial and to have removed him from his position of great mischief. He has been lucky in thus far escaping through false logic and false law. But his then acts, which will on the trial be shown to be atrocious, are open evidence of his wicked determination to subvert the laws of his country.

  I trust that when we come to vote upon this question we shall remember that although it is the duty of the President to see that the laws be executed the sovereign power of the nation rests in Congress, who have been placed around the Executive as muniments to defend his rights, and as watchmen to enforce his obedience to the law and the Constitution. His oath to obey the Constitution and our duty to compel him to do it are a tremendous obligation, heavier than was ever assumed by mortal rulers. We are to protect or to destroy the liberty and happiness of a mighty people, and to take care that they progress in civilization and defend themselves against every kind of tyranny. As we deal with the first great political malefactor so will be the result of our efforts to perpetuate the happiness and good government of the human race. The God of our fathers, who inspired them with the thought of universal freedom, will hold us responsible for the noble institutions which they projected and expected us to carry out. This is not to be the temporary triumph of a political party, but is to endure in its consequence until this whole continent shall be filled with a free and untrammeled people or shall be a nest of shrinking, cowardly slaves.

  February 24, 1868

  THE NEW STATE CONSTITUTION:

  LOUISIANA, MARCH 1868

  Bossier Banner:

  White Men to the Rescue!

  IF YOU DON’T want negro equality forced upon you, go to the polls and vote against the proposed Constitution, framed by the social banditi, domestic bastards, catamites, scalawags, slubberdegullions, cow thieves and jay-hawkers of Louisiana.

  If you don’t want your State, District, Parish and Ward offices filled with negroes and white vagabonds, vote down the black vomit spewed up by the scrofulous vermin, late of the Mechanic’s Institute.

  If you don’t want negro jurors, go to the polls and vote against the new constitution.

  If you don’t want to be ground down by taxes to educate negroes, go to the polls and vote against the new constitution.

  If you don’t want your wives and daughters to be insulted by insolent and depraved negro vagabonds, go to the polls and vote against the new constitution.

  If you don’t want negroes and Yankee thieves to be your masters and rulers, go to the polls and vote against the new constitution.

  If you are opposed to amalgamation and miscegenation, vote against the new constitution.

  If you wish the respect of all honest white men, go to the polls and vote against the new constitution.

  If you prefer the Southern white man to the Northern thief as an office holder, go to the polls and vote down the infamous libel proposed as a constitution.

  If you feel like stealing something, and wish to associate with negroes and white jayhawkers the balance of your life, go to the polls and vote FOR the new constitution.r />
  If you want your children to go to the same school, eat at the same table, and sit in the same church pews with negro children, and wish to turn negro and jayhawker yourself, go to the polls and vote FOR the cow thieves’ constitution.

  March 28, 1868

  THE PRESIDENT’S ACQUITTAL:

  NEW YORK, MAY 1868

  The Nation:

  The Result of the Trial

  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.