THE SUPPOSED ACQUITTAL OF THE PRESIDENT.
THE English papers are leaping to a very hasty and ques- tionable conclusion about the trial of the President. On Saturday last, the Senate, taking first the Eleventh Article, —which was appended later to the original ten articles, and was the least satisfactory of any to the more moderate of the anti-Presidential party,—gave a vote upon Mr. Johnson's
guilt which was insufficient to convict him, inasmuch as it showed only 35 for his conviction to 19 against it, a less than two-thirds' vote, which is essential for conviction. It is assumed now that, as a matter of course, the whole impeachment will fail. The Senate, instead of immediately voting upon the other articles, adjourned for ten days,—from the 16th to the 26th May (next Tuesday),—and it is assumed here that this adjournment is intended to pave the way towards drop- ping the impeachment altogether. We may note, how- ever, that the transfer of a single vote from one side to the other would have found the President guilty by the requisite majority ; and further, that the policy of voting first on this Eleventh Article was decided on ex- pressly on the ground of its being the broadest and most general, and therefore, of course, the least strongly supported of the number, through the absolute confidence of the Radicals in their power to procure a conviction. The Eleventh Article charged Mr. Johnson with "having denied in a public speech that the Thirty-Ninth Congress was authorized to exercise legislative power ; also with denying that the legislation of the said Congress was valid or obligatory upon him, or that it had power to propose certain amendments to the Constitution ; with seeking to prevent the execution of the Tenure of Office Act by illegally attempting to prevent Mr. Stanton from resum- ing the functions of Secretary of War ; and further, with having contrived to hinder the execution of the Reconstruction Act, as well as of the Act which provides that all military orders should be issued through the General of the Army." Now, in the first place, the two first points of this charge are in themselves very vague, and bearing, as they do, not so much on official acts of the President, as on mere words of political criti- cism fairly open to him, as to any other citizen of the Republic, would not, in the minds of most men, furnish adequate sub- stance for an impeachment. The illegal attempt " to prevent Mr. Stanton from resuming the functions of Secretary of War " was in fact never brought home to the President, Major-General Lorenzo Thomas having expressly stated that what was done in this matter was done by his own responsibility, and without the knowledge of the President. And finally, the evidence of any attempt to hinder the operation of the Act which pro- vides that all military orders should be issued through the General of the Army was ridiculously weak, and brought some- thing like positive discredit upon the whole case. We cannot wonder, therefore, that on an article thus composed, especially when the vote was taken on all four of its separate charges at once, the requisite majority of the Senate should not have been obtained. Originally the intention had been to vote on all the four separate charges contained in this article separately, —in which case the two first, which, though weak charges, were sufficiently well established, would probably have been carried by the two-thirds' majority. But the confidence of the extreme party in their strength was so great that they have evidently forced the vote on all four charges simultaneously, so that it was not possible for any senator who believed Mr. Johnson innocent of any of them to give effect to his belief without rejecting his guilt on the whole article. If you accuse a man of lying, steal- ing, perjury, and murder in a single charge, and believe him guilty of the two first, but guiltless of the two last, you can but show this by saying that he is not guilty of all four. It seems clear that the overweening confidence of the Butler section of Radicals has led to this defeat, which was probably not regretted by many of the Senators as a snub to General Butler himself. It is not, however, very likely that this failure to convict on the superadded article of impeachment,—an article not contained in the original charges, and plainly the weakest of the whole,—a failure, too, which missed the requisite two- thirds' majority only by a single vote,—will be accepted even by the moderate Republicans as their test vote for the whole trial.
But it is supposed by many that though this failure to con- vict on the weakest compound of charges in the impeach- ment, is not in itself decisive of the verdict on the other articles, it will tend to an outbreak of diaffection among the Republicans on the one side, and of exultation among the Democrats on the other, which will, during the ten days of adjournment, materially discourage the one party, and strengthen the other at their expense, so that, when the Court meets again, some of the judges who had formerly intended to vote against the President on the beat supported Articles of Impeachment will now absent themselves or vote in his favour. And, doubtless, this is just the doubtful point. Unquestion- ably, a ten days' adjournment leaves time, and was probably intended to leave time, for a reference to constituents,—
that is, to the legislatures of the several States which elect the Senators. But it seems to us all but certain that this time was demanded by the anti-Presidential party for the purpose of securing an additional pressure, not that it was asked for by the wavering in order to find an excuse for drop- ping the impeachment. There is this important point to bear in mind,—that the question of adjournment is determined by an absolute majority, not by a two-thirds' vote ; and that the party desirous of removing Mr. Johnson had a majority far above what was requisite for this purpose the vote of 35 to 19 itself proves. It seems certain, therefore, that the adjournment must have been the policy of the section bitterly hostile to the President, not of those who were either in his favour or did not know their own mind. If so, it does prove thus much,—that the foes of the President at least believed that a reference to their constituents—the State Legislatures, —would be likely to tell in their favour, and not against them. With passions roused as high as they now are in Washington, we may be quite sure that the party of impeachment would have left no stone unturned to carry their object ; and as they com- manded an immense majority on all questions of method, they would certainly vote for immediate action on the other articles of impeachment, or for delay, according as they thought either policy most suitable to their immediate purpose,—the Pre- sident's condemnation and disgrace. As they carried delay, —apparently without a struggle,—we do not doubt that they believed such a delay most likely to serve their end.
Of course they may be mistaken. Of course it is possible, as we are now told, that the country is tired of the very word impeachment,' that the reaction has set in, that the people see something ludicrous in deposing a man who has only nine months to reign, and that the voice of the constituencies, when it is heard, will be for dropping the proceedings. This is what we are told by the literary class, the political coteries of the great towns, the correspondents of English journals, and, in short, those who manufacture what we in England imagine to be the public opinion of America. But we confess that all this carries very little weight to our minds. The "weariness " of the sole topic of political discussion is a weariness which is only felt in the small circles of great cities, and is no index of the feeling of the country, where any important topic of discussion must be fresh enough, since men meet so seldom and talk so little. This symptom of literary restlessness can mean nothing at all as indicative of the real opinion of the country. It only shows that clubs and drawing-rooms are tired of talking about a matter on the decision of which clubs and drawing-rooms exercise no sensible influence at all. As for "reaction," the country has long since seen the unfortunate character of the form of procedure,—namely, a judicial trial for acts which technically amount to little more than the exercise by the President, in a sense keenly hostile to Congress, of powers conferred on his office only for the purpose of delaying the action of Congress, and this in a time when it had become gene- rally understood that Congress, as the legislative power, should be deferred to as virtually supreme. No American of mode- rate sense and judgment had failed to observe the exceeding embarrassment of establishing a strong precedent against Presidential obstructiveness by a method originally intended for the punishment of treason and treachery. Still, the dilemma was whether to keep to the legal forms of action, or to take proceedings positively revolutionary, in order to resist the important precedent which Mr. Johnson was making for any of his successors who might choose habitually to thwart Congress without absolutely violating the forms of the Constitution. If it is not to be understood that for four years any man who happens to be chosen President has ample power to neutralize the action of the Legislature, some mode, either legal or revolutionary, must be discovered for stopping him. As for the short term remaining to this particular President, that has nothing to do with the matter. The danger is to the future, not to the present ;—it lies in the example set by a Chief Magistrate of laughing at and snubbing the Legislature, not in the harm of this special deadlock which nine months must terminate. The Americans, we confess we think with questionable judgment,—have preferred the perversion of a special Constitutional form, to the more natural method of providing by revolutionary steps for a difficulty for which no remedy was supplied, the difficulty itself having never before been practically encountered, under the Constitution. Having chosen that method, we cannot think that they
will shrink from making it effective. Mr. Johnson has throughout his term of office done all in his power to reduce the legislative power and the influence of Con- gress to a minimum. He has, last of all, during the session of the Senate, appointed to an office the nomination to which is believed under the Constitution to require the approbation of the Senate, and which has by former Presidents been, as a matter of course, submitted for their approbation, a man whom he knew the Senate would not approve, and whom indeed he appointed precisely because the Senate was not willing to approve him, and, of course, without submitting the appoint- ment to their approbation. This act, which forms the substance of the Third Article of Impeachment, must receive some condem- nation and punishment, or Congress retains its rights only upon sufferance from the President. For ourselves, we hold that the country will not, in all probability, reverse its decision on the matter, nor will the various States allow their representatives in the Senate to acquit Mr. Johnson of a crime which, tech- nical as it seems, virtually amounts to a power of suspending popular government altogether. We are disposed to believe that the ten days' adjournment will result in that familiar process of strengthening the feeble knees which is so familiar to us at home when Adullamite hearts meet their consti- tuents, or hear from them ; and that the trial will yet end in the condemnation of the President on some of the strongest counts,—of which the third, which charges him with direct violation both of the letter and spirit of the Constitution, is probably the strongest and most clearly substantiated.
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