The President's Message Condemned

THE second session of the Fortieth Congress commenced on the 2d of December, 1967. The President's annual message was so offensive in tone and temper, that when the usual resolution to print it was offered in the Senate, Mr. Sumner took fire and vehemently denounced it as a "libel," an "insult to Congress, and an "incendiary document, calculated to stimulate the rebellion once more, and to provoke Civil War. It is a direct appeal," he said, "to the worst passions and the worst prejudices of those rebels who, being subdued on the battle-field, still resist, through the aid of the President of the United States. It is an evidence of a direct coalition between the President and the former rebels." Senator Wilson, wiser and less impulsive than his colleague, while he as decidedly condemned "the tone and temper and doctrines of the message," saying in calm and dignified language that the President seemed to "have forgotten that we have had any rebellion at all," and pointing out the flagrant inconsistency of his conduct, nevertheless opposed a departure from the ordinary practice of the Senate in ordering the President's Message to be printed, and it was done.

A majority of the Judiciary Committee, to whom the charges against the President had been referred, for inquiry, reported the following resolution on the 5th of December: "Resolved, That Andrew Johnson, President of the 5th of December: "Resolved, That Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanors." In the course of the debate that ensued, Mr. Boutwell, of the majority of the Committee, submitted facts which proved that Mr. Johnson had long contemplated a desertion of the party that had elevated him; that while on his way to Washington to be inaugurated Vice-President of the Republic, he had confidentially avowed to an old Democratic partisan with whom he had acted before the war, that he preferred the party opposed to the administration of Mr. Lincoln, and that the country could yet be saved from ruin through that party only. It was also proven that he and his friends had declared that his policy toward the enemies of his country and the freedmen before June, 1865, was only temporary and for a special object, and that he had since persistently pursued a course calculated to place the country under the control of those who had tried to destroy the Union. Notwithstanding this attitude of the President, so menacing to the good of the Republic, was well established, the House, hoping he might cease his impotent warfare upon Congress, hesitated to adopt extreme measures toward the erring Chief Magistrate, unless he should yet commit some flagrant act of disobedience to law. The resolution was, therefore, rejected by a decided majority.

A week later the President sent to Congress a message, in which he gave his reasons for the removal of Secretary Stanton. The reasons were not satisfactory; and, a month later (January 13, 1868), the Senate reinstated the former Secretary of War, when General Grant quietly retired from the office. This act enraged the President, and he reproached the general-in-chief for yielding to the implied commands of the Senate to retire. He charged him with having broken his promises; and Johnson tried to injure Grant's reputation as a citizen and a soldier. In the correspondence between them, which found its way to the public, a question of veracity between the President and the general-in-chief arose; and, finally, the latter felt compelled to say to the irate Chief Magistrate: "When my honor as a soldier and my integrity as a man have been so violently assailed, pardon me for saying that I can but regard this whole matter, from beginning to end, as an attempt to involve me in the resistance of law for which you hesitated to assume the responsibility in orders, and thus to destroy my character before the country." The President did not deny the truth of this damaging charge, and the correspondence ceased.

Congress now steadily advanced in the adoption of measures for the restoration of the Union on the basis of justice, by providing for conventions of the people in the disorganized States for forming new or revising old constitutions, and electing representatives in the National Legislature. They had also, by law, given enlarged powers to the general-in-chief for the administration of military government in those States, and had deprived the President of power to interfere in the matter, when Mr. Johnson startled the country by an act bolder in aspect than any he had yet attempted. It was the issuing of an order on the 21st of February (1868) directing Mr. Stanton to vacate the office of Secretary of War; also another order to Adjutant-General Lorenzo B. Thomas, to enter and take the place of the deposed Secretary. These orders were officially communicated to the Senate on the same day, and drew from that body a resolution that the President had no authority, under the Constitution, for his act. Meanwhile Thomas had proceeded to the War Department and demanded the seals and the authority with which the President had invested him. Mr. Stanton, his official superior, refused to yield them, and ordered Thomas to return to the duties of his proper office. The President, satisfied that he would not be permitted to use military force to eject Mr. Stanton, did not attempt it, and that officer retained his place.