WHAT "A YANKEE" DOES SAY ON THE IMPEACHMENT.
[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.] New York, April 3, 1868. I RISE to a privileged question—to one at least which is always so regarded here—the correction of a personal misrepresentation for which I am in no way responsible. The Spectator of March 12 says that I " pledged my prophetic insight that Mr. Johnson would never be impeached." Under favour, I must be allowed to say that I did no such thing. And I hope that no other reader of the Spectator misunderstood inc as its editors have done. I may not be quite " sane " on the subject of politics, but I am not stark mad, as I must have been to predict that Mr. Johnson would " never " be impeached. I did predict twice, in the very height of the two impeachment fevers, that "President Johnson would not be impeached," each time in these words, and my readers know the event in both of those cases. But is it necessary for me to say that I predicted that he would not be impeached for anything that he had done, not that he would not be impeached for anything that he might do? I did not mean to say that if he were detected in attempting to bribe the Justices of the Supreme Court, or in conspiring against the liberties of the nation, he would not be impeached, or that impeachment would not be the consequence of his open disregard of the will of Congress put in the shape of a law, and consequently I did not say that he "never would be impeached." He did so disregard the will of Congress, and Congress, jumping at the chance he had not before given it, impeached him within the week in hot haste, before I could express an opinion to the Spectator about this question. It would seem that this explanation should not be necessary ; and yet it is.
A word now, not purely personal, about my prediction that President Johnson will not be found guilty. That prediction was based on the assumption as to which I said nothing, because I thought that as to that at least nothing was to be said—that although the impeachment was a party measure, and Senators were human creatures and partizans, the trial would at least be genuine, and not a miserable sham. I cannot yet quite believe that my assumption was unwarranted ; but I wish to say now publicly what the editors of the Spectator know is not elicited from me by this occasion. About ten days ago a gentleman of long experience in politics, a Radical Republican of the purest type, a man who never says what he does not know to be true, and one who I know has peculiar advantages for obtaining political information, said to a friend of mine who has a little Government bureau, and who is believed in past years to have done some service to the cause of freedom and the Union, that because of these services he wished to warn him beforehand to make his arrangements for a change in the administration of the Government. " It will come," he said ; " Mr. Johnson will be deposed as sure as the sun will rise to-morrow. Yesterday I saw — [naming a very important and prominent man well known to them both] who has just returned from Wash- ington, and every Senator that was counted on is pledged to stand firm for condemnation. Johnson will surely be found guilty and removed within fifty or sixty days. It is as certain now as it will be after the trial." Now, my prediction was based upon the sup- position of a real trial, not upon such an arrangement as this ; and I therefore withdraw it, and my shame in doing so is not for myself. But it is right that I should add that although I should take a statement by the person who made this one without question upon any other political subject, this one I cannot quite believe. If it should prove true, I shall do what I have not yet done in our darkest hour—begin to despair of the Republic. A YANKEE.
[" A Yankee " admits that Mr. Johnson has given the Repub- licans their opportunity, and why blame them for seeing clearly what is clear ? We have always disliked the impeachment, as a cumbrous mode of removing a bad Executive ; but that is the fault of the Constitution, not of the Radicals.—En. Spectator.]
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