25 APRIL 1868, Page 2

The English journals choose to pooh-pooh as perfectly trivial and

unworthy of impeachment the evidence brought against the President in the Impeachment trial,—but they choose to ignore the real drift of that evidence, namely, that the President delib- erately adopted a policy hostile to the policy of Congress, and strove to assert for himself the power to overrule Congress,—and that he carried this course of action, the spirit of which is according to the belief of the best United States politicians unconstitutional, — to literally unconstitutional lengths. The small breaches of the Constitution, however, are not his real sins. His real sin is the wish and study to thwart the whole policy of Congress, instead of co-operating heartily with Congress,— and the petty literal breaches of the Constitution are only im- portant as illustrating the greater breach of its spirit which has marked his whole Presidency. A very important breach of the letter of the Constitution has, however, been proved. The manager of the impeachment showed that but one of all the removals of Cabinet officers by Presidents, from the foundation of the Government to the present time, had been made while the Senate was in session, and that in that case, which happened in 1800, the nomination of the successor was made directly to the Senate, who have, under the Constitutiou, the right of confirming or disallowing it. Mr. Johnson, removing Mr. Stanton, did not nominate his successor, Adjutant-General Thomas, to the Senate, knowing well, indeed, that the nomination would not be approved by the Senate, since he had been chosen contrary to the well known and expressed will of the Senate. If the question of relative authority in matters of policy between Congress and the President is ever to be determined, it is precisely on a point of this kind that issue should be taken. There can be no doubt of the fact that the President selected an officer unwelcome to the Senate, and intended to do so exactly because he wished to thwart their policy. The trial draws fast to its close.