The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

The Honorable Salmon P. Chase Presiding

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SENATE SITTING FOR THE TRIAL OF THE IMPEACHMENT OF ANDREW JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Background : Johnson ImpeachedThe House of Representatives impeached Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth President of United States at five o’clock p.m. on February 24, 1868 by a vote of 126 yeas to 47 nays. On February 25, Thaddeus Stevens and John A. Bingham appeared in the Senate chamber. Mr. Stevens spoke, "In obedience to the order of the House of Representatives and of all the people of the United States. We do impeach Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, of high crimes and misdemeanors in office; and we further inform the Senate that the House of Representatives will in due time exhibit articles against him, and make good the same, and in their name we demand that the Senate take order for the appearance of said Andrew Johnson to answer said impeachment."

Challenge: Retrial by YouThe Senate will reassemble as a court on March 23, 1868. You, dear students, will play the key roles in this great historical event. In our class the "trial" of Andrew Johnson will begin on ____________________. Pretrial papers of no more than two pages will be due a few days earlier on ____________________. These papers should focus on two issues: 1) the major factors underlying the dispute between President Andrew Johnson and Congress before the summer of 1867--"Setting the Scene" and 2) the substance of your anticipated testimony if you are a witness or your opening statement before the Senate if you are an attorney.

InterviewsOn _____________________ the six attorneys and President Johnson will interview the prospective witnesses in class and determine which witnesses they plan to call on their behalf and the order of the witnesses. (The teacher, who will also double as Chief Justice Salmon P.Chase who presided over the trial, will ensure that all witnesses are called.)

TrialThe next day, on _____________________the trial will begin. The charges against President Johnson are as follows:

A) Dismissing Edwin M. Stanton as Secretary of War in violation of the Tenure of Office Act

B) Attempting to bring into disgrace, ridicule and contempt the Congress of the United States by grossly intemperate language

Your RolesAll students except those playing the attorneys, President Johnson or the newspaper editors will double as Senators; they will shed their previous persona and vote on each charge separately and at the end of the trial write a paper defending their vote by citing evidence introduced in the course of the trial. That paper will be due ten days after the impeachment proceedings close.

Your VoteIn the real trial of President Andrew Johnson the Senate fell one vote short, 35-19, of the two-thirds required for dismissal from office. Our class will use the same Constitutional requirement of a two-thirds vote. The outcome, however, may be different.

Who wins?The team presenting the most persuasive argument wins the trial. The winners in this game will depend on YOUR final vote!

Pre-Trial PapersThe first thing that everyone in class will do is compose pre-trial papers. The purpose of these papers is to provide background knowledge on the conflict between Andrew Johnson and Congress. Your paper should include discussion of the following:

• What was President Johnson's Reconstruction plan? Why did it so anger the Senate?• Explain the Tenure of Office Act.• Why did President Johnson believe the Tenure of Office Act to be an unconstitutional

abridgment of his power?

Your essay should be no more than two pages. It is due __________________________.

Parts and RolesAll students in class will have a role to play, although some roles will be bigger than others. Here are a list of the parts available:

• Reporters: each reporter will write an editorial each day of the trial summarizing what is going on (they are free to interview witnesses and attorneys to find out information, and can provide general summaries of the events as well)◦ William Blunt: a fictional newspaper editor who supports Andrew Johnson◦ Martina Wader: a fictional newspaper editor who supports the Radical Republicans

• Attorneys: attorneys will conduct the trial; they will responsible for submitting an opening statement and a closing statement; they must also talk to their witnesses and prepare testimony◦ Prosecuting attorneys (3)◦ Defense attorneys (3)

• Witnesses: witnesses will be called by their respective side to testify their knowledge and opinions about the President; each witness will turn in a document detailing what their contribution to the trial is, and their conversations with their attorney◦ Andrew Johnson: the person at the center of the trial, accused of violating the Constitution

by firing his Secretary of War without Congressional authorization◦ John Logan: one of the House's leading proponents of impeachment [prosecution witness]◦ Lyman Trumbull: a Northerner who was sympathetic to Johnson [defense witness]◦ Thaddeus Stevens: Radical Republican who opposed the President [prosecution witness]◦ Ulysses S. Grant: Union general and Lincoln ally who (begrudgingly) supported

impeachment [prosecution witness]◦ Edwin Stanton: Secretary of War who was dismissed from his position by the President

[prosecution witness]◦ James Brooks: Northern Democrat who favored a lenient Reconstruction policy [defense

witness]• Senators: everyone remaining in class will comprise the Senate, and will be voting on whether

or not to convict Andrew Johnson of his crimes; each Senator will write a biography of Andrew Johnson

The Trial ItselfPlease right down your part on the line so you do not forget: __________________________

Senators will be responsible for writing a biography of Andrew Johnson, in order to get a sense of the man and how his background shaped the decisions that he made. Your biography should include the following:

• Describe his early life. How do you think his experiences helped shape him, in particular making him hostile to other members of the Senate?

• As a Southerner, why do you think he called Confederates “traitors”?• Ultimately, do you think that Andrew Johnson is unfairly viewed as a “difficult” president? Or

does he deserve the scorn that has been heaped on him by historians? Explain.

Witnesses will be responsible for writing up their testimony; essentially, you are composing a loose “script” of what you plan on saying on the stand. Thus, the witnesses need to read the documents presented to understand how their character feels about Andrew Johnson and the Tenure of Office Act. Then, they need to communicate with their attorney and develop the questions that the attorney will ask them while on the stand. The testimony and questions will be turned in for a grade.

Attorneys will be responsible for developing both an opening statement and closing argument, as well as sitting down with the witnesses and writing the questions they will ask on the stand. The opening statement should:

• Provide the theme of the case (why are we here?)• Briefly preview the expected testimony• Set the scene for the jury; what will they be hearing about in the day's testimony?• In your last sentence, summarize the case in one sentence

The closing argument should:

• State the basis of the case• Highlight the key parts of testimony or law that benefit your side• Make your arguments clear and succinct

Reporters will write an editorial on each day of events in the trial (both the trial itself AND on the pre-trial days when attorneys are consulting with their clients). The reporters are allowed to talk to/interview the attorneys and witnesses if they want (but ONLY the people on their “side”, so the reporter from the North is only allowed to talk to the prosecution and their witnesses). They are also allowed, and encouraged, to give their own thoughts about the trial, how it is being conducted, and who should win.

Trial Procedure• Opening statement by prosecution• Opening statement by defense• Prosecution witnesses and cross-examination• Defense witnesses and cross-examination• Closing argument by prosecution• Closing argument by defense

Documents for SenatorsHarper's Weekly, May 13th, 1865PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSONAndrew Johnson, the seventeenth President of the United States, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, December 29, 1808. His father died while he was yet scarcely advanced beyond infancy, and the family was thus left in extreme poverty. At ten years of age Andrew was apprenticed to a tailor.

Here a casual circumstance gave direction to his whole after-life. Among his master’s customers was an eccentric gentleman who habitually visited the shop and read aloud from books or newspapers to the journeymen. The boy soon learned to read from this gentleman, and after the long day’s work was over he regularly devoted two or three hours to study. Upon the expiration of his term of apprenticeship he was seventeen. He then left Raleigh, and pursued his trade for two years at Laurens Court House, South Carolina. Thence he returned to Raleigh, and very soon after moved westward with his mother to Tennessee, and at Greenville again appears as a tailor. Here he married, and his choice of a partner proved exceedingly fortunate for his future prospects. He knew now how to read. But his wife taught him writing and arithmetic.

It was in 1829 that Mr. Johnson held his first office – that of Alderman. He was elected Mayor in 1830, and served in that capacity three years. In 1835 he was sent to the State Legislature. His politics were those of the party then known as Democratic. His first speech was against a measure for internal improvement. In 1841 he was elected to the State Senate, and two years afterward representative in Congress. In regard to the admission of Texas into the Union, the Mexican war, the Tariff of 1846, and the Homestead Bill, Mr. Johnson took very strong Democratic ground. In 1851 he was chosen Governor of Tennessee, to which office he was re-elected in 1855. In 1857 he was elected to the United States Senate for the full term, which ended in 1863.

Mr. Johnson’s record during the revolutionary period out of which we are now passing at first may be said to have fluctuated in certain respects, but it was never for a moment doubtful as to the necessity of the Union. In a speech of his delivered December 19, 1860, while he was defiant against the threat of Southern States to force the Border States into the Confederacy, he also gave some ambiguous utterances as to the insult which would be offered to any State by the threat of coercion from the North. But in that speech his argument against secession was very strong as affecting Southern interests. He predicted that disunion must destroy slavery; that a hostile or even alien government upon the border of the slaveholding States would be the natural haven of rest to the hunted slave. He said that if one division was allowed others would follow; "and," said he, "rather than see this Union divided into thirty-three petty governments, with a little prince in one, a potentate in another, a little aristocracy in a third, a little democracy in a fourth, and a republic somewhere else – a citizen not being permitted to pass from one State to another without a passport or a commission from his government – with quarreling and warring among the petty powers, which would result in anarchy – I would rather see this government to-day – I proclaim it here in my place – converted into a consolidated government."

In a speech made March 2, 1861, he said: "Show me those who make war on the Government and fire on its vessels, and I will show you a traitor. If I were President of the United States I would have all such arrested, and, if convicted, by the Eternal God I would have them hung!"

On the 4th of March 1862, after the capture of Nashville by the National forces, Mr. Johnson was appointed by the President Military Governor of Tennessee, with the rank of Brigadier-General. The acceptance of this position necessitated, of course, the resignation of his situation in the Senate. As Military Governor Mr. Johnson was both just and firm. If he exacted a very rigorous test-oath from the disloyal, it was because he was convinced that, in justice, all government must be in the interest of

loyal men. If he exacted from rich secessionists large sums of money for the support of the poor citizens who had been impoverished by the rebellion, it was because those men were responsible for the poverty which was thus alleviated.

As to Mr. Johnson’s future policy, his explicit statements leave us no room for doubt. Against responsible, conscious traitors the law must take its course as against other criminals. They must not only be punished, but impoverished. The problem of restoration is one for loyal men to solve. Except in the abolition of slavery, the States are to retain the character which belonged to them before the war. We are pledged, according to the requirements of the Constitution, to secure to these States a republican form of government. In reply to the question, What constitutes a State? Mr. Johnson answers, "Its loyal citizens." It is into the hands of these that the work of reconstruction be committed.

Mr. Johnson comes into power through a most melancholy occurrence, but he has entered upon the duties of his office with a dignity and firmness that elicits at the same time the confidence of the American people. May God spare his life and guide his steps!

There are points in the policy of reconstruction that have hitherto been little discussed, but which must very soon assume important phases. The emancipation of four millions of slaves, it is thought, will but partially effect the work of political regeneration in the South. If the reports which reach us have any truth, it is certain that there is a large class in the South whose prejudice against the sentiments held at the North is as strong as ever before. There are men and women there who will teach their children to hate the name of Northern men. There are politicians of this class who will strive again for power, which they will wield as unscrupulously as they have ever done. A barrier against the possibility of such an exercise of power must be set at the very first, or we shall have no tranquil peace for many years. The only remedy is to not simply free but also to enfranchise the negroes. Give the negroes a vote and they will most certainly be courted by both parties at the South. It may be objected that they will thus become merely the tools of politicians. But it must be remembered that freedom will excite new activities in these black men. They will have leaders of their own; they will have sentiments of their own; and the policy which they will most naturally adopt will be that which will bring them into alliance with the poor loyal whites of the South. Besides, their memories of the past oppression of which they have been the victims, their memory of the part which colored soldiers have played in the war for the Union – all these will bind them to a purely Democratic policy.

Harper's Weekly, December 9th, 1865The President's FidelityThose of the friends of the President who have feared that he would imperil the advantages won by the war by a fatal leniency, or still worse, by joining a party which has been utterly repudiated by the people of the country, have allowed their fears to obscure their perceptions. Whatever the President has said has been full of a determination that the rights of freedom which the war has conferred upon a certain class of the Southern population, and the class which is most friendly to the Government, shall be maintained. He expresses himself in his own way, but he never varies the strain.

Thus, to the Governors and Legislatures and Committees of the unorganized States he has constantly said: "Certain things are essential. The emancipation amendment and equality before the law are among them. Farther I say nothing. My action will depend upon events." To Mr. Stearns he said that, as a citizen of Tennessee, he should be in favor of negro suffrage there under certain conditions. But he said nothing better than what General Fiske reported in his speech in Brooklyn. The General went to the White House to offer his resignation. The President said to him:

"People say sometimes I was born South, and I will not treat the negro as a freeman; but I mean and desire to carry out the views of the great and good Abraham Lincoln, and to see that these people have

a guarantee of their freedom. I may not believe with you in their ultimate attainments, but I mean they shall have a fair chance. (Cheers) I wish the people of the North knew what I had to stand between. Daily I receive telegrams and letters from all parts of the South of dreadful import. If they could but see the difficulties of my position they would pity me and give me their prayers." This he said with tears in his eyes; and I asked him if the Freedmen’s Bureau was to be discontinued – my resignation being already in his hands – and he said to me, "Go back; go to your work, and see justice done to both white and black. The Freedmen’s Bureau will only cease to exist when the Southern States are resolved to deal honestly and justly by these freedmen." (Applause) And I came away from his presence with more of faith and hope in Andrew Johnson than I have ever had.

It is apparently forgotten that during the war Andrew Johnson was at the front. He saw with his own eyes the terrible details of the struggle. He measured the spirit of rebellion. He knew the conduct of rebels, and he knew also that of the slaves. He proved the quality of their fidelity as every other Union soldier proved it. It was Andrew Johnson who walked before the seats of Mason, Slidell, and the other conspirators in the Senate, and shook his finger in their faces, denouncing men who should do what they intended to do as traitors whom, had he the power, he would hang. It was Andrew Johnson who told the colored men of Tennessee that he would be their Moses.

Such a man is not easily seduced. The blandishments of his enemies are not likely to dazzle a man who has looked behind the servile manner and the smiling mask. No man knows better than he that the party which sought to use him, and monopolize the reputation of regard for him and support of his policy, in order to carry an election, and which disastrously failed, is a party which never relents or forgives. It would no more adopt him as a candidate than it did Tyler or Fillmore. The future of Andrew Johnson is linked with that vast body of loyal men who were the war party while the war lasted, and who intend, now that it is over, to plant peace upon justice, and cement the Union by liberty.

Harper's Weekly, March 10th, 1866The President's SpeechThat the President of the United States should have been incited by a shouting crowd of his fellow-citizens to denounce by name a Senator, a Representative, and a private citizen, and to speak of another citizen in the slang of the stump, is something so unprecedented and astounding that, while every generous man will allow for the excitement of passion, there is no self-respecting American citizen who will not feel humiliated that the chief citizen of the Republic, in such a place, on such a day, should have been utterly mastered by it.

Yet the servility which actually defends and approves such an outburst of passion is even more deplorable. The President, excited and exasperated, may be charitably supposed unconscious of the real scope of his words when he accused Mr. Sumner and Mr. Stevens of inciting to his assassination. It is conceivable that he was too angry to weigh his words when, after calling for justice upon traitors - meaning the gallows - he denounced those gentlemen as traitors. But for an editor to sit deliberately down and elaborately justify so tragical an outrage of the plainest official propriety upon the ground that the speaker said that he should "stand by the Constitution," is an offense so contemptible as to be ludicrous. The President has taken a solemn oath to "stand by the Constitution," and nobody supposes that he intends to perjure himself. But the Senator and Representative have taken quite as solemn an oath, and their purpose is no less undoubted. Is it treason and deserving of death to differ from the President’s view of constitutional duty? How if, because of a difference of opinion as to constitutional obligation, the Senator and Representative had denounced the President by name as a traitor like Jefferson Davis? Would they be excused on the ground that they declared they would "stand by the Constitution?"

Documents for Andrew JohnsonHarper's Weekly, March 3rd, 1866The Veto MessageThe Senate did wisely in adjourning after the Veto Message [note: the “veto” referred to in this reading was Johnson vetoing legislation that would have continued to fund the Freedmen's Bureau] was read. Legislation under such excitement is not likely to be dignified or sagacious. That the Message was a sore disappointment to the truest friends of the President can not be denied. Their regret may be measured by the rejoicing of those who would fain use him for their own purposes. Whether those friends are to be found among those who most earnestly advocated his election, or those who most strenuously opposed it, whether those who were in bloody rebellion at the South, and those who heartily supported them at the North are really the wisest advisers upon the great problem of reorganization, are questions which time will adequately answer.

Of the President’s sincerity there is no doubt. That he honestly wishes, as he says, to secure to the Freedmen the full enjoyment of their liberty we fully believe. But he seems to us not entirely master of his own positions. Thus he acknowledges the usefulness of the Freedmen’s Bureau as established by the act of last March. But he regards it as a war measure, and war having ceased, he is of opinion that the matter should be left to the States. Yet, if war has ceased, why does he support General Terry’s military order reversing the action of the Virginia Legislature? So the President says that in his judgment the late rebel States "have been fully restored, and are to be deemed to be entitled to enjoy their constitutional rights as members of the Union." Yet if this be so, why in his late proclamation restoring the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus did he except the late rebel States? The Constitution defines the conditions under which the right of suspending the privilege may be exercised. It is only when in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. Yet he expressly exhorts us in the Message not to suppose that the United States are in a condition of civil war.

The Freedmen’s Bureau is exceptional, but it is so only because the condition of the country is exceptional. All the President’s acts in initiating the reorganization of the late rebel States were exceptional. But the question of the hour is very simple in itself, however difficult it may be to answer. How can the United States most surely and judiciously and temperately secure the fruit of the victory they have won? Having given liberty to millions of slaves, how can the authority that conferred it maintain its perpetuity? To suppose that a coerced adoption of the Emancipation Amendment, without any specific method of enforcing it, will produce this result is as idle as to imagine that a declaratory resolution would effect it. The Constitution itself contains a guarantee of free speech for every citizen, but it did not secure it in half the country. Why should we expect of an amendment a virtue which does no inhere in the original instrument? The President says that a system for the support of indigent persons was never contemplated by the authors of the Constitution. Certainly not, and this bill is no more such a system than an appropriation for military hospitals would be. It is a simple necessity of the situation. Shall these homeless, landless, forlorn persons be left to the mercies of those who despise and hate them, or shall the United States say, "We cut the bonds that bound you to the ground, and we will protect you while you are struggling to get upon your feet?"

If the President believes that the word of the nation sacredly pledged to the freedmen will be kept by the black codes of South Carolina and Mississippi, his faith would remove mountains. And if he proposes to abandon the freedmen to civil authorities created exclusively by those who think that the colored race should be eternally enslaved, who deny the constitutionality of emancipation, and who have now a peculiarly envenomed hostility to the whole class, we can only pray God that the result may be what we have no doubt he honestly wishes it to be. We believe that he is faithful to what he conceives to be the best interest of the whole country. And while upon this question we wholly differ from him, we differ with no aspersion or suspicion.

Harper's Weekly, October 27th, 1866WHAT NEXT?The President has for some months declared plainly that, in his judgment, Congress is not a constitutional body; and the air has been full of rumors and surmises as to his probable action upon the meeting of Congress...

The case will bear to be constantly stated. The President differs with Congress as to the conditions of restoration which ought to be imposed upon the late rebel States. He speaks of their "exclusion," and of their "right" to be represented, and of the "usurpation" of Congress in requiring conditions, but it is nevertheless true that he himself united in such exclusion; that he denied their "right" to representation by exhorting them to form governments which should be satisfactory to Congress; and that he imposed certain terms satisfactory to himself. The theory now adopted by him is utterly subversive of the Government and of a harmonious Union, for it allows any State to make war upon the Union, and at any moment, by laying down its arms, to resume all its relations within it without any guarantee whatever of future security.

That such is not the theory of the people who have maintained the Government during the war is made perfectly clear by the autumn elections, and nothing is plainer than that they will not submit to its practical enforcement. If the President should undertake to withstand their resolution, he could succeed only by totally overpowering them, and surrendering the Government to its most envenomed enemies and the Union to the care of those who hate it. His success would, of course, be the present end of the American Union, and the discomfiture of the principle of popular government. But as his chief reliance in the struggle would be upon the late rebels, it would be for him and his friends to remember that his opponents would be the mass of the lately victorious people of the loyal States together with all the Union men of the South of every color.

Every patriotic and thoughtful man is naturally unwilling to believe that so grievous a contest is possible; but with a man like the President everything is possible. No fear of being an alarmist should prevent every man from looking steadfastly at the facts, or from considering the drift of the situation. The President has not ceased to vituperate Congress as an illegal body. The difference between them has been presented to the people, and they have declared every where for Congress. That is not a result which is likely to pacify such a man as the President. He knows that he is openly threatened with impeachment. Mr. Boutwell, at a meeting in Faneuil Hall in Boston, announced that he should move in Congress an inquiry looking to impeachment. Mr. Loring, in supporting the nomination of General Butler, says that he is pledged to the same course. Is it probable that the President will meet Congress and send in his Message as if nothing had happened? If he be persuaded that he is likely to be impeached, is it not possible that he might endeavor to gain the advantage in advance over the impeaching body?

But we hope sincerely that the President may not only hear but fully understand the result of the elections. He has constantly asserted his faith in the people, and certainly he has now heard from the people. But as the spiritual medium always insists when the experiment fails that the conditions are not favorable, so the President may contend that "the people" means the whole voting population of the country at the South as well as at the North. If, however, he plants himself upon that ground, he should remember that even then the majority of an entire Congress must be held to indicate the popular will, and that that has decided against him.

Since it has so decided, the President may now wisely and properly say and do what he did when the Civil Rights Bill was passed over his veto. He may declare that he differs, but at the same time he may submit to the superior will. It is well for us all to anticipate that action upon his part, without losing sight of the possibilities of which we have spoken. That is the plain way of peace, and his own satisfaction in walking in it would be beyond his most ambitious dreams...

Documents for John LoganHarper's Weekly, September 30th, 1865General Logan Upon ReorganizationGeneral John A. Logan, the old leader of the Douglas Democrats in Illinois, and one of the most distinguished soldiers of the war, lately made a speech at Jacksonville, Illinois, reviewing the events of the last four years:

"With reference to the reconstruction policy pursued by the Government, he said that it was but an experiment, and so long as there was any hope of its success he would yield a hearty support to the President. He confessed, however, that he had his doubts as to the wisdom of pardoning arch rebels by the wholesale. He thought it better to wait and test the sincerity of their repentance. He was opposed to the restoration of the rights of citizenship to men whose skirts had hardly been cleansed of the defilement of treason, and whose fingers were yet dripping with the blood of the martyrs of the Union. He would wait and see whether they brought forth fruit meet for repentance before granting them the privileges of the elective franchise."

Harper's Weekly, September 30th, 1865The President's ExperimentWe elsewhere call attention to a remarkable speech of General John A. Logan’s in Jacksonville, Illinois. The General says that the policy of reconstruction adopted by the Administration is an experiment, and that it is the duty of all good citizens to stand heartily by the President until it is proved a failure.

That is precisely the ground which a true Conservatism now occupies. The Democratic Conventions, in breathless haste to eat their own words of the last few years, vociferate their adherence to the President’s policy, and amiable poets of the morning press behold vast hosts of Jacobins marshaling under blood-red banners to oppose it. But as the President is merely trying an experiment, it is rather premature vehemently to support or rancorously to oppose his policy; nor is any country in a very "parlous state" when its Jacobins are the most intelligent, conservative, and substantial part of its population.

The President, acting from the necessity of the case and for the public safety, has set aside the civil officers elected in various States under their Constitutions, and has appointed provisional Governors of his own. He has further prohibited thirteen certain classes of voters under the Constitutions of those States from exercising the right of suffrage, and has authorized a certain number, who are also qualified by the State Constitutions, to vote for members of a Convention. This Convention is to remodel the existing State Constitutions, and to proceed, under them, to elect State Officers and representatives in Congress. The Constitutions and, by consequence, the validity of the officers elected, are to be submitted to the Government for approval. In the President’s words, the Convention is "to present such a republican form of State Government as will entitle the State to the guaranty of the United States therefore, and the people to protection by the United States against invasion, insurrection, and domestic violence."

This is all that the President has done. This is his whole policy thus far. It is, as General Logan says, "an experiment." The President virtually says to certain persons in the States, "See what you can do. Suggest your plan." But he does not say that the plan shall be adopted. He does not promise that the Constitution shall be approved and the elections under it legitimated. The very object he has in view is to try the temper of the class of the population which he selects. To prove whether the local political power of the States may be safely confided to them. Nor does he assume finally to decide so vital a question. He leaves it. Where it belongs, to the nation itself, to the representatives of the people.

The Democratic resolutions and the amiable chatter about opposition assume that it is not an experiment: that the President has declared the Constitution framed by the voters he has selected, and the elections held under it, to be the law without further process or approval. This is exactly what he has not done, and could have no pretense of authority for doing. If he had done it, if he had said that a certain class of persons in the States named by him should elect a convention, that that convention should frame a Constitution, that the elections should be held under the Constitution, and that thereupon that State should be recognized as having resumed all its relations in the Union, and its Representatives and Senators should be admitted to Congress as a matter of course, then, indeed, he would have laid down a policy, and the whole country would have crackled in opposition to it.

But the President is much too sagacious a man to have declared within less than two months after the surrender of Lee that a Constitution for South Carolina such as Mayor Macbeth or Wade Hampton might devise should be accepted by the loyal people of the United States. He said, simply, "Let us find out where we are. If Mayor Macbeth and Wade Hampton should happen to be wise, so much the better. There is no harm in trying. If they are not wise, we can try again."

Thus far the President is merely trying an experiment, and whether we think the principles upon which it proceeds promise success or failure, we ought loyally and patiently to await the event. So says General Logan; so says Maine; so says Vermont; so says California; so say we all.

Documents for Lyman TrumbullHarper's Weekly, June 6th, 1868THE DISSENTING SENATORSWhoever has read the opinions of Senators Fessenden, Grimes, and Trumbull, however he may regret the conclusions to which they come, will not deny the ability, dignity, and candor with which their views are stated. They all knew the storm of obloquy that was sure to follow their action, but they leave no doubt that, however they may differ with many of their party friends upon the particular point involved in the Impeachment, they are still in hearty sympathy with the great purposes of the party.

Senator Trumbull said:

"In coming to the conclusion that the President is not guilty of any of the high crimes and misdemeanors with which he stands charged, I have endeavored to be governed by the case made without reference to other acts of his not contained in the record, and without giving the least heed to the clamor of intemperate zealots who demand the conviction of Andrew Johnson as a test of party faith, or seek to identify with and make responsible for his acts those who from convictions of duty feel compelled on the case made to vote for his acquittal. His speeches and the general course of his administration have been as distasteful to me as to any one, and I should consider it the great calamity of the age if the disloyal element, so often encouraged by his measures, should gain political ascendancy. If the question was, is Andrew Johnson a fit person for President? I should answer no; but it is not a party question, nor upon Andrew Johnson’s deeds and acts, except so far as they are made to appear in the record, that I am to decide…In view of the consequences likely to flow from this day’s proceedings, should they result in convictions on what my judgment tells me are insufficient charges and proofs, I tremble for the future of my country. I cannot be an instrument to produce such a result; and at the hazard of the ties even of friendship and affection, till calmer times shall do justice to my motives, no alternative is left me but the inflexible discharge of duty."

Harper's Weekly, January 27th, 1866A Long Step ForwardThe order of General Grant, defining the military authority of the United States in the late rebellious States, should reassure our friends who fear that the Government is too ready to imperil the public peace by delivering the whole authority of those States unconditionally into the hands of a class which can not be expected to use it in good faith.

The General’s reply to the request of Governor Parsons, of Alabama, that the national forces should be withdrawn and the local militia armed, is also significant and sensible. It is as follows:

"For the present, and until there is full security for equitably maintaining the right and safety of all classes of citizens in the States lately in rebellion, I would not recommend the withdrawal of the United States troops from them. The number of interior garrisons might be reduced, but a movable force sufficient to insure tranquility should be retained. While such a force is retained in the South, I doubt the propriety of putting arms in the hands of the militia."

The bill of Senator Trumbull’s continuing the Freedmen’s Bureau and extending its operations to every part of the country in which freedmen are to be found in large numbers, is the complement of these military orders. It will undoubtedly be approved by the President and become a law. This is another of the plain signs that neither the President nor Congress wish to make haste unwisely, and should certainly tend to temper the acrimony of debate upon the general subject.

Senator Trumbull’s bill recognizes two vital and fundamental truths of the situation. First, that the National Government means to protect and secure the personal liberty which it has conferred; and second, that it is essential the freedmen should become landholders. Without that provision every other device will be futile.

At this moment, it should be remembered, the freedmen, excepting those settled upon the sea islands by General Sherman, and whose freehold Mr. Trumbull’s bill confirms, are without land and without the means of buying it. They are helpless in the midst of a population which is generally hostile to them, and they have no chance of livelihood except from the landowners who may choose to employ them. Any landholder may say to them: "You are free to go. I do not wish to employ you. Get off my land." That all will not and do not say this, is true. But vast numbers do. And the laborer has no remedy. He must "move on," and beg, steal, or starve. The tragedy of his situation can hardly be exaggerated; and although the feeling against him may mellow with the lapse of time, and although the necessities of the case will gradually persuade the landholders not to quarrel with their bread and butter, yet meanwhile, under these winter skies, and among those wintry hearts, the suffering of the freedmen is terrible and incalculable, and the duty of the country is plain and imperative.

The freedmen are placed by General Grant’s timely order under the protection of the military power. But that power can not feed them, nor house them, nor enable them to work and be paid for working. Mr. Trumbull’s bill authorizes the President to reserve for them 3,000,000 acres of good, unoccupied land in Florida, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Each laborer or family is to have forty acres at a rent agreed upon by the Commissioner and the freedmen. Afterward the tenants may buy the land at a price to be named by the Commissioner and approved by the President. Meanwhile the pauper freedmen are to be provided with such lands as the United States may buy in any district, and necessary schools and asylums are to be built upon them; while as the paupers become productive laborers the land may be sold to them under fair conditions.

The necessity of immediate and decisive action upon the subject is urgent. Give the freedmen land from which they can not be expelled; protect their rights against all aggressors by the national power; and Time, the great mediator and educator, will gradually show the present class landholders in the late rebel States that their interest is one with that of their late slaves, now become citizens; while the occupancy of land, the laws of labor, and the education for which the freedmen are so anxious and so ripe will develop the self-respecting and independent manhood which will fit them for the political power which can not long be withheld.

Documents for Thaddeus StevensHarper's Weekly, May 12th, 1866The Congressional Plan of ReorganizationThe propositions of the Reconstruction Committee will strike every thoughtful citizen as perfectly reasonable. They seem to us to justify the hope of the most truly intelligent and patriotic persons that Congress would propose no policy upon which the whole Union party of the country, including the President, might not agree. Some concessions of opinion were inevitable upon all sides. Those who held with Mr. Thaddeus Stevens that there should be general confiscation, or with Mr. Sumner that impartial suffrage should be immediately established throughout the country, or with the President that no farther conditions whatever were necessary, must have seen that the opinion of the country did not support them, and that all must meet upon some firm and moderate middle ground such as the Committee now offer.

The objection to what is called the President’s policy is plain and conclusive. It is that, by allowing the late rebel States to resume their full relations in the Union immediately, and without further provision, those States would have actually gained political power by the rebellion. This gain arises from the fact that every colored man, as a slave, counted as three-fifths of a man in the basis of representation; but as a freeman he counts as five-fifths. In a State like South Carolina, therefore, where the colored population is half or even more than half of the whole, and where that half is disfranchised, every voter has practically twice the power of a voter in a State like Connecticut. This is an absurdity and injustice so conspicuous as to demand instant adjustment.

On the other hand, the objection to the imposition of equal suffrage by the National Government as a precedent condition of resumption of full rights in the Union is practical and twofold. In the first place, it is hardly to be presumed that the States which prohibit equal suffrage, or deny it to a colored skin altogether, would insist upon its adoption by the suspended States; and, in the second place, such a proposition would have been very widely regarded as a radical blow at the most sacred of State rights, and a consummation of centralization. Moreover, there are many of the most faithful and liberty-loving Union men, who are the steady advocates of equal suffrage, and who, under the circumstances, do not doubt the entire competency of Congress to require this or any other condition which might seem to it necessary, but who doubt the wisdom of this method, and question the expediency of such a requirement, and who could not therefore heartily sustain it.

But we see no good reason for supposing that all reasonable and patriotic men should not sincerely unite upon the propositions presented. They have reference exclusively to national relations. They do not interfere in the State economy, except in defense of national rights. They declare simply, in the first place, that no State shall abridge the privileges of citizens of the United States. Such a proposition is its own irresistible argument. A citizen of this country should be equally a citizen every where in it; this is plain, and therefore all his civil rights as a citizen of the United States should be sacred wherever the national flag floats. Can the President, with all his war convictions of the sanctity of States, object to so obviously just a provision?

In the second place, whenever the elective franchise shall be denied to any portion of the male citizens of a State who are of age, except for crime or participation in the rebellion, the basis of representation shall be reduce in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens not less than twenty-one years of age. In other words, if South Carolina shall choose to disfranchise 100,000 of her citizens because of their color, or New York shall choose to do the same thing because of want of property, then each of those States shall suffer in the national representation just in that proportion. Such a provision stimulates every State to enlarge the suffrage, and to extend education in order to make the suffrage safe. It is strictly harmonious with the President’s

expressed wish to base representation upon the number of voters.

In the third place, the Committee recommend that until the 4th of July, 1870, four years hence, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the rebellion shall be excluded from voting at national elections. This article we presume is introduced to embody the President’s desire that "treason shall be made odious," and that in the great work of reorganization the late rebel leaders shall "take back seats." In his frequent and vehement expression of that desire the President unquestionable spoke for the loyal country, and his sentiments are still further incorporated in the proposed bill to render certain of those leaders ineligible to office under the government of the United States. This third proposition is the one which seems to us likely to occasion most difference of opinion. That it is in strict accordance with President Johnson’s frequent suggestions is true, but it is a point of doubtful policy, not essential to the general plan, and, it seems to us, might be safely omitted.

The fourth proposition is a matter of course, that neither the United States nor any State shall assume to pay any debt incurred in aid of the rebellion, or for any claim for compensation of loss of slaves, and Congress is authorized to enforce the provisions of this article.

These are the propositions of the Committee, which we trust will be unanimously adopted by the Union vote in Congress, because they are perfectly just and moderate, and because they do not claim to reap more than has been sown. They simply define and secure the legitimate result of the war as recognized by the general conviction of the loyal country, and as it has been often strongly stated by President Johnson. They contain nothing vindictive, and if the Government of the United States has any right whatever to do any thing whatever to prevent the late rebel States from gaining political power by their rebellion, it may challenge the whole world and its late domestic enemies to show any thing unprecedented, unjust, or ungenerous in the settlement it proposes. We believe that the vast body of the Union party of the country which carried the war successfully to the end, and which triumphantly elected Lincoln and Johnson, will most cordially sustain this policy of reorganization and gladly appeal to the country to ratify it. And however anxious the President may be to see loyal men from the late disturbed States admitted to Congress, we shall be very slow to believe that he will refuse his sincere co-operation to a plan which does not conflict with any of his known opinions, and which secures the admission of loyal members to Congress with the heart-felt welcome and congratulation of the whole loyal country.

That the proposed settlement of the committee should be greeted with sneers and anger by those who have persistently declared that Congress is a bloody, factious, revolutionary body is natural. These objectors have counted upon overthrowing the President and destroying the Union party by fomenting every real or asserted difference between them. But here is the utter refutation of their calumnies. Here is the plain proof that Congress seeks only the speediest reorganization of the Union upon the most temperate and reasonable conditions. For we assume that there will be little delay in ratifying the report; and then, so great and unprecedented is the occasion, we trust that the Legislatures of the States will be immediately summoned in special session to act upon the proposed amendment, that Congress and the country and the world may know the will of the loyal people of the United States upon this most vital point of national policy.

Harper's Weekly, June 23rd, 1866The Report of the Congressional CommitteeThe Report of the Congressional Committee upon Reconstruction is so able and conclusive that we wish it might be universally read. It is the Constitution and common sense applied to the situation; and after the passionate and pettifogging spirit in which Reconstruction, the most important of all our present questions, has been so often discussed its tone is manly and dignified. There is nothing exactly new in the arguments of the Committee, but the Report is an unanswerable statement of the conclusions

to which the common sense of the loyal part of the country had arrived, and upon which, as we believe, it now reposes.

Those conclusions are in brief that the rebellious States were left, at the close of the war, without other valid government than the military authority of the United States, directed by the President as Commander-in-chief; that the civil government of those States could become valid only upon recognition by Congress, and that the resumption by those States of their relations in the Union can occur only upon such conditions as Congress may prescribe. The folly of the assumption of Alexander H. Stephens and the late allies of the rebellion, that the moment a rebel State was forced by arms to surrender it regained untouched and without condition every right and privilege it had enjoyed as a part of the Union is conclusively exposed by the Committee. "To admit such a principle for one moment would be to declare that treason is always master and loyalty a blunder. Such a principle is void by its very nature and essence, because inconsistent with the theory of government and fatal to its very existence.

To know the condition of the late rebel States it was necessary either to take the opinion of the President solely, or to sift the evidence upon which that opinion was founded and enlarge the range of testimony. This latter course was adopted, and the impression left upon the Committee is again that of the great mass of Union men in the country. The condition of the States in question is precisely what was to be expected. It is a feeling of intense regret that the struggle could not be prolonged, and of bitter hostility toward the Government. But while this is natural to any party defeated in so fierce a contest, the Committee find that it is peculiarly strong in the States in question. "The conciliatory measures of the Government do not seem to have been met even half-way. The bitterness and defiance exhibited toward the United States under such circumstances is without a parallel in the history of the world." It is remarkable that Mr. Seward in his Auburn speech states that situation exactly the other way. "The work of reconciliation," he says, "has outrun expectation. Indeed, it has never had a parallel in human affairs." We presume that the private conviction of most of us, based upon all the various public and private evidence of the year, will confirm the Committee’s judgment rather than Mr. Seward’s.

After the most careful consideration upon ample evidence the Committee believe that adequate security should be required for future peace and safety, and they suggest, as the result of mutual concession, the amendment determining civil rights, equalizing representation, disqualifying certain persons for office under certain conditions, and disowning the rebel debt. This amendment has been already adopted by the Senate in a moderate and generous form, and will undoubtedly be approved by the House. As there is nothing in it which is not strictly in consonance with the views which the President has often expressed, we hope that for the sake of harmony he will not oppose it. If, however, a bill should be offered for his signature, postponing the admission of any late rebel State to Congress until the amendment had become a part of the Constitution and had been ratified by the State, he would undoubtedly veto it. It seems to us, for many good reasons, advisable that each suspended State should be restored upon its individual acceptance of the condition, and we hope that such may be the final judgment of Congress.

Thus this most important Committee concludes its labors, and concludes them worthily. It has been fiercely derided and insulted by the most malignant enemies of the Union and Government at the North and South; and even the President’s impatience has betrayed him into vituperation of it. But we challenge any caviler to produce from history an instance of a settlement by a victorious government so honorable, so reasonable, so free from vengeance, so tenacious of the spirit of a truly free government. There is no lately rebellious citizen of the United States who "acquiesces" honestly in the situation who can declare it ungenerous or unjust, while every faithful citizen will heartily commend it as the true popular platform. The substance of the Report is sure to be filtered through editorials and speeches, so that it will become familiar to the country.

Documents for Ulysses S. GrantHarper's Weekly, January 4th, 1868GENERAL GRANT’S LETTERThe letter of General Grant to the President upon the removal of Stanton and Sheridan is characteristic of the man. It shows the same supreme good sense which distinguishes Grant as it did Lincoln; the same sagacity and moderation, but clearness and firmness which endear him more and more to the country. In regard to Mr. Stanton the General reminds the President that the Tenure of Office Bill was intended especially to protect the Secretary of War, and concludes quietly: "The meaning of the law may be explained away by an astute lawyer, but common-sense and the views of the loyal people will give to it the effect intended by its framers." In speaking of Sheridan he gives him high praise in saying: "He is universally and deservedly beloved by the people who sustained this Government through its trials, and feared by those who would still be the enemies of the Government."

It seems to be impossible for any man to pretend further that he does not know what Grant’s views and sympathies are. Could he make them more clear, could he awaken profounder public confidence if he should write a letter advocating certain details of policy? On the contrary, if there be any thing which would disturb the feeling which the vast body of faithful Union men in the country entertain for General Grant, it would be a letter from him "defining his position." Deep and permanent faith in public men at such a period as this is not founded upon what they say for a particular purpose, but is the result of the impression of their whole career.

This letter, written under a strong sense of public duty, shows that the General’s opinion of the policy of reconstruction which has been adopted is that of the most intelligent men in the country. Supporting his friend Sheridan against the rebel pressure to which the President gladly yielded, he says that the assertion constantly made that the administration was dissatisfied with Sheridan "emboldened the opponents of the laws of Congress within his command to oppose him in every way in their power, and has rendered necessary measures which otherwise may never have been necessary." Those laws are to be repealed, or they are to control reconstruction. The Democratic Party will go into the election clamoring for its repeal, and insulting Sheridan and all the "satraps" who enforced the law. The Republican Party will insist that the principle of the law, namely, the equal rights of all the citizens, shall continue to inspire reconstruction. One of the two parties will succeed. There will not be a new party, and, of course, if the Republicans repeal the law they retire from the contest. Can there be any doubt, then, that General Grant will be the Republican candidate as the representative of the Republican policy? He will be the President elected by the principle which maintained the war to its triumphal close.

Harper's Weekly, August 31st, 1867SECRETARY GRANTWhen the President as Commander-in-Chief directed General Grant to take charge of the War Department ad interim the General had the alternative of obeying or resigning. He chose to obey, and he chose wisely. Had he resigned Lieutenant-General Sherman would have been at the head of the army under Andrew Johnson, and that is a result which is not to be desired. General Grant in obeying the order to assume the charge of the Department avoids a consequence which we must consider a misfortune, and secures an element of confidence and safety in the Cabinet. The correspondence between him and Mr. Stanton shows a mutual respect and trust which are very agreeable to the country as well as honorable to themselves. The General informs the Secretary that he has been assigned as Acting Secretary of War, and, in notifying him of the fact, expresses his appreciation of Mr. Stanton’s "zeal, patriotism, firmness, and ability." In reply, Mr. Stanton denies the right of the President to suspend him, yields to superior force, and cordially reciprocates the sentiments of the General.

General Grant is now Secretary of War. In that office he is no more subject to the dictation of the President than Mr. Stanton. He is to administer his office in the manner which he considers best for the interests of the service and of the country. If the President should order him to neutralize and oppose the policy of Congress, and to defeat the intention of the law by the appointment of officers notoriously hostile to it, General Grant will of course, decline, as Mr. Stanton would, and upon the President will be thrown the responsibility of suspending him as he has suspended his predecessor. To suppose that General Grant is to be the tool of Andrew Johnson is simply to misunderstand him altogether.

If, after an interval longer or shorter, the President should appoint some such person as Rousseau or Steedman to the War Department, it will be impossible to accuse General Grant of complicity with his designs. That can be justly done only in the case we have mentioned of furthering those designs. If it should be alleged that, if General Grant considers that he has been "assigned" to the War Department by his military superior, he must therefore obey that superior’s orders during his assignment, we reply that, with what is know of the General’s character, it is impossible to suppose that he would take any serious step inconsistent with his views of the true radical policy of reconstruction.

If he did? if his views of military subordination are such that he would not hesitate to do any thing which the President might order, the country would never have been so deceived in any man whatever; and the universal popularity of the General would be changed into an equally universal amazement and sorrow at his profound misconception of the popular feeling and purpose.

Documents for Edwin StantonHarper's Weekly, August 24th, 1867THE SECRETARY OF WARIf the request of the President to Mr. Stanton that he would resign the Secretaryship of War means that he is about undertaking to change all the military personnel under the Reconstruction bill, substituting men like Steedman and Rousseau for Sheridan and Schofield and Sickles, the deluge will not be after Mr. Johnson, but upon him. We do not believe that the country will submit to such a plain paralysis of its purpose.

The services of Mr. Stanton to this country are incalculable. It is not easy to conceive of a more efficient Secretary of War at a time when that office was of the very highest importance. The faults which were popularly ascribed to the Secretary, his abruptness, his brusqueness, were often merely a necessary decision and rapidity of action. A man in such an office at such a time may be pardoned if he does not stop to make bows, and if he speaks too crisply for common courtesy. Coming into the War Department at a time when the headquarters of General George B. M’Clellan were fast becoming the head bureau of the Government, and when even the President went to the General, instead of requiring the General to come to him, the Secretary of War taught General M’Clellan that the President was to be respected as his Commander-in-Chief. Mr. Stanton was never deceived in the character or the capacity of General M’Clellan. The Secretary’s comprehensive grasp of the vast duties of his office, his unquailing energy, his exhaustless industry, his silent fidelity, were no less remarkable than his heroic faith in the people and his inflexible determination that the war should be fought to an unconditional overthrow of the rebellion. When that result was almost accomplished he instantly repudiated the immense error of General Sherman; and when President Lincoln was murdered, and there was a moment of inexpressible confusion, it was the steady hand of the Secretary of War which seized the government and passed it to Mr. Lincoln’s lawful successor. During the melancholy and humiliating administration of Mr. Johnson, which has sought in every way to defeat the national victory and to demoralize the national mind, Mr. Stanton has tenaciously clung to the real issue, and he alone in the Cabinet has represented the national conviction and the national purpose. He, therefore, has been the especial object of the President’s hostility, and after a thousand rumors of his designed or attempted removal the President has at last formally summoned him to resign.

Mr. Stanton’s retirement would be a national misfortune. Upon the part of the President it would be another impotent blow at the purpose of the country, which he can not change. But if, as we said, he should go further, and by appointing his own creatures show an evident intention to defeat the objects sought by the Reconstruction bill, he would be hoist with his own petard.

Harper's Weekly, August 13th, 1867A DESPERATE MANAndrew Johnson is a desperate man. Conscious of the total failure of his administration and of the universal public censure, he would gladly do something to revenge himself upon fortune. His only opportunity is to remove the General of the Military Departments under the Reconstruction bills, and see what would follow the appointment of persons who would nullify the law. But the President has nothing to gain by such a course except impeachment and removal with the consent of the whole loyal country. Should he persist in the course which his suspension of Mr. Stanton implies, every man, who upon various grounds has opposed impeachment, would accept it as a choice of evils.

That the President would try other and more perilous measures, if he could, we can have no doubt. The story of the organization in Maryland that asked for batteries which the President wished to send and which Mr. Stanton refused, points to an armed organization upon which it has been rumored the

President was willing to rely for ulterior purposes. Yet, although the tale as told be untrue, it will not be rejected because of its supposed inconsistency with the probable wishes or wisdom of the President. That there is some fire under the smoke every one will be willing to agree. But there is no great body of persons in the country so interested in renewing civil war as the vast multitude of the population are in trampling out the least spark of such an intention. This is not a truth which the President can apprehend, for he apprehends nothing. But it is the truth, nevertheless.

It is evident that those who distrusted Mr. Johnson most were the wisest men; and that Congress, having once discovered his character, should not have separated except to meet again promptly upon the proper summons. Had this course been adopted he would not have attempted the removal of Mr. Stanton, or, if he had, Congress would instantly have assembled to know the reason. No man can be considered harmless who holds even a restricted authority as President, when his spirit and purpose have been fully revealed. It is the old story. The Parliament that would check a false king becomes a long Parliament. The Congress that would protect the popular will from the interference of a hostile President must be always ready to lay its hand upon him.

The President may now proceed to thrust out his whole Cabinet and to replace them with whomsoever he will. He may remove the Generals in the unorganized States, and so delay the due registry and obedience to the laws of Congress. More he can not well do. He will hardly undertake forcibly to prevent Congress from assembling; and when it does assemble, if it finds that he has been palpably nullifying the laws which he is sworn to execute, it will impeach him, and the country, longing for peach, will cry Amen. It would not be a question of hair-splitting nor of technicality. The country would ask, through Congress, does he faithfully execute the laws, or does he try to paralyze and defeat them? The evidence which would be demanded would be and ought to be the most conclusive. And if such evidence were produced? if his whole career showed that he intended so far as possible to substitute his own will for the law of the land? he would be removed, and again the country would cry Amen.

Documents for James BrooksHarper's Weekly, March 7th, 1867THE PRESIDENT AND THE LAWBefore this paper is issued the question of impeachment will probably be decided. The offense of the President is plain. He assumes to put himself above the law, upon the ground that in his judgment the law is unconstitutional. A plea more preposterous can hardly be conceived, for if he be the judge of one law he is the judge of all, and no law will be executed until he approves it. Mr. James Brooks, in the very unwise and braggadocio speech which he made in the House upon the presentation of the resolution of impeachment, said that the President had as much right to judge of the constitutionality of the Tenure-of-Office Act as the Senate or the House. Undoubtedly he has; but the Constitution expressly declares that if the President objects to an act upon the ground of want of constitutionality, or upon any other ground, if he can not persuade Congress to agree with him, and the act is again passed by a two-thirds vote, it becomes the law of the land, notwithstanding the judgment of the President.

The New York Times echoes the remark of Mr. Brooks in saying of the President: "But it can scarcely be unlawful for him to perform an act in violation of an unconstitutional law, which is simply no law at all; and until the validity of this law shall have been decided by the Supreme Court the question of the President’s guilt or innocence can scarcely be entertained." That is to say, if the President vetoes a bill, and it becomes a law despite the veto, the President may set it aside until the Supreme Court declares it to be valid. Now if the President is not bound by the law, nobody else is; and the Times declares that no law is binding, even if passed by a two-thirds vote of Congress, until the Supreme Court has approved it. Such a theory reduces the function of the representatives of the people to the mere initiation of laws, and vests the real power of the Government exclusively in the Executive and Judiciary.

The Tenure-of-Office Act was passed by Congress, vetoed by the President, passed over his veto by the constitutional majority, and became the law. The President acknowledged it to be a law by conforming to its requirements, and explaining to the Senate why he had suspended the Secretary of War. The Senate did not approve the suspension, and there the matter should have ended. But by subsequently assuming to remove the Secretary the President deliberately and distinctly violates the law which forbids the removal of any civil officer appointed with the consent of the Senate without its concurrence if it be in session. There could not be a more flagrant defiance of law or usurpation of authority. If the President, as we have said, may do it in the case of one law, however constitutionally enacted, until the Supreme Court had passed upon it, and the consequent confusion and uncertainty would be intolerable. The assumption of Mr. Brooks and of the New York Times that a law may be held unconstitutional until pronounced otherwise by the court is subversive of the government and of civil order; and the question ought, therefore, to be distinctly settled whether the President has the power of dispensing with the laws? a power which the English two hundred years ago dethroned King James II for claiming.

Documents for AttorneysHarper's Weekly, March 21st, 1868THE REMOVABILITY OF PUBLIC OFFICERSPresident Johnson, in deciding to remove Mr. Stanton, accepted the construction put upon the Constitution by the first Congress, that the power of removal is an Executive power, and rejected that of the last Congress that it shall be exercised only by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. He did this with his eyes open, in clear view of the fact that the House which impeaches, and the Senate which tries, had, as legislators under the solemnity of an oath to support the Constitution, asserted the policy in the Tenure-of-Office Act which he deliberately spurned and contemned. He knew full well that the Court of Impeachment were judges of the law and of the fact—no higher tribunal having been created by the people—and that it was improbable that they would reject as members of the Court what as Senators they had solemnly avowed. He can not complain, therefore, of the situation, as he chose it voluntarily and defiantly—acting in conjunction with those who seek to defeat the general policy of Congress. He was the head of the Government; he had sworn to see the laws faithfully executed, but he placed himself in direct opposition to their execution. Congress could not retain the support of the people, or secure respect for the laws in any quarter, if an instance so signal and flagrant of contempt for their authority, involving a threat of repetition, were overlooked.

The First Congress was undoubtedly influenced in its decision by the exalted character of the President, and the probability that the succession for a long course of years would devolve on the revolutionary patriots who constituted the supports of Washington. Mr. Madison said, in the debate on the motion to strike out the words "to be removable by the President " in the act creating the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, that "If the Constitution is silent, and it is a power the Legislature have a right to confer, it will appear to the world, if we strike out the clause, as if we doubted the propriety of vesting it in the President of the United States." Mr. Smith, member from South Carolina, observed, "Perhaps gentlemen are so much dazzled with the splendor of the virtues of the President as not to be able to see into futurity. The framers of the Constitution did not confine their views to the first person who was looked up to, to fill the Presidential chair."

The prudence of the several incumbents of the Presidency to, and including, John Quincy Adams, in exercising the power of removal, satisfied the country with the decision thus made. The instance during the administration of Mr. Adams, of the attempted removal of Jonathan Thompson, Collector of this port, is well remembered. A Committee consisting of important citizens of New York, headed by Charles King, went to Washington for that object. Mr. Adams expressed his willingness to gratify them, and they were about leaving. "But, gentlemen," said he, "you have not mentioned the objections you have to Mr. Thompson." "Why," said Mr. King, "he is against your Administration." Mr. Adams, finding there was no other objection, answered, that Mr. Thompson had a perfect right to his own opinion; and if there were no other reasons he should not be removed.

On the inauguration of General Jackson the doctrine that to the victors belong the spoils was announced, and in one year from his inauguration on the 4th of March, 1829, the removals amounted to eight in the diplomatic corps, thirty-six in the Executive departments, and one hundred and ninety-nine in important civil posts, whereas during the eight years of Washington’s administration only nine officers in the whole had been displaced. "This extraordinary change," said Judge Story, "has awakened general attention and brought back the whole controversy with regard to the Executive power of removal to a severe scrutiny. Many of the most eminent statesmen in the country," he continues, "have expressed a deliberate opinion that it is utterly indefensible, and that the only sound interpretation of the Constitution is that avowed upon its adoption; that is to say, that the power of removal belongs to the appointing power" – meaning the Senate conjointly with the President.

The Constitution expressly provides that the appointment of all inferior officers may be devolved upon the President alone, the Heads of Departments, or the Supreme Court. The appointment of all officers below the grade of the Heads of Department may thus be provided for by Congress, which might confer the authority on the Heads of Departments and the Supreme Court alone as to all officers respectively under them. This constitutional provision could not be satisfied if the President might remove such appointees at his pleasure. As to all such appointments, the power of removal would follow the appointing power, for otherwise perpetual conflict might exist between the two authorities, one insisting upon appointing, the other upon removing. Here, then, it must be admitted, is an exception which Congress may make to the universality of the rule authorizing removals, claimed as appertaining to the Presidential office. The character of this power, to be exercised by the Heads of Departments under the Constitution, furnishes a strong argument against the position that they themselves may be displaced by the President. The power of the President over them expressed in the Constitution is that "he may require the opinion in writing of the principal officer in each of the Executive departments upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices." The expression of this power would be wholly unnecessary if the Constitution, by necessary implication, gave the President alone power to remove these very officers, for this would have embraced entire control over their action. The Heads of Departments have duties to perform most intimately connected with Congress. Treaties are to be made by and with the advice, and subsequently by and with the consent of the Senate, provided two-thirds of those present concur. The Secretary of State, whose duties relate chiefly to foreign affairs, represents both the President and the Senate in this duty. The Secretary of the Treasury makes his report directly to Congress, not to the President. This is done to enable Congress to employ the proper means to meet the public expenditure. The Secretary of War is equally the representative of the Legislative and of the Executive Department. The power to declare war is wholly Legislative under our Constitution, differing in that respect from the British, under which it is wholly Executive. The controversy between Congress and the President with respect to the mode of tying up the ends of the war, in which he seeks to defeat their will constitutionally expressed—for in a civil war the terms of peace are fixed by Congress in its discretion—proves the necessity of exempting the Secretary of War from the President’s power of removal, except with the advice and consent of the Senate. If Congress may fix the tenure of any of these executive offices in a way to prevent the exercise by the President of the power of removal, it puts an end to the implication claimed in his behalf.

The power claimed for the President would enable him to defeat the action of the Senate in the matter of appointments, and thus in effect destroy the constitutional provision by which it is required. On the adjournment of the Senate the President, by removing the person appointed on their advice and consent, might substitute another and an unsuitable person—one to whose appointment such advice and consent had been refused. If to this it is answered, that the President would subject himself to impeachment, then we say that the offense committed more certainly deserves this remedy.

The theory that removal follow the appointing power, or if it do not, that Congress which creates may fix the precise tenure of office when not otherwise specified in the Constitution, reconciles provisions which on the opposite doctrine must be deemed utterly inconsistent. The power conferred on the President in terms to issue commissions in case of vacancy happening during the recess of the Senate is not in harmony with power claimed as implied that he may make and fill a vacancy at any time. The power conferred on Congress to devolve the appointment of inferior officers on the President alone, or the Supreme Court, or the Heads of Departments, can not be exercised consistently with the broad ground claimed for the President, that he, independently of Congress, may remove all executive officers even if their appointment and removal be devolved by Congress on the Heads of Departments alone.

The removability of executive officers by the Chief Executive derives its origin from the peculiarities of the British Constitution. It has been transplanted here not by express grant but by implication against the popular branch of our Government, and in favor of one against which our jealousies were aroused.

In England the Queen has an inheritable estate in her office, which she needs to support by extraordinary power. But this power is allowed to her only on the condition that the great offices in the realm shall be filled in complete sub-serviency to the principles of the Parliamentary majority. When in a minority, the ministry resign. The President expects to have the benefit of the Queen’s prerogative, without submitting to the obligation which the Queen is obliged to concede of a ministry harmonious with Parliament. The denial of this obligation in England would produce a revolution. It can scarcely be expected that a bold defiance of the clearly and legally expressed will of Congress can go unredressed under our Government.

Harper's Weekly, March 28th, 1868THE PRESIDENT’S POWER OVER THE CABINETThe Impeachment of the President is earnestly resisted on the ground that he is entitled to a Cabinet in unison with him. We have already shown in previous articles that the Constitution did not contemplate the creation of a Cabinet, but that one has grown up from the custom of successive administrations. We repeat, however, the whole of the clause conferring on the President power over the Heads of Departments: "He may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the Executive Departments upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices."

This power clearly negatives the idea that a much higher power over them was intended to be conferred, and negatives that also that it was the intention of the framers of the Constitution to create a Cabinet. The duties of the officers indicated by the description of "the principal officer in each of the Executive Departments" are not specified in the Constitution; but Congress, under the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution"… the "powers vested by this Constitution… in any department or officer thereof," have, from time to time, created various departments and changed those duties at pleasure. Did the Constitution intend that the President at all times and under all circumstances, shall have in those departments such officers as he shall think proper? The power conferred on him in the selection of the Heads of Departments is that he shall "nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate appoint" them. It was intended that he should take the advice of the Senate on that head, and after obtaining their consent appoint. General Washington construed the Executive power "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate to make treaties," as intending that he should in advance take such advice. In the proceedings, in 1789, of the First Congress, will be found a note from General Washington, addressed to the Senate, informing them that he would meet them at their chamber, to take their advice on the formation of an Indian treaty, for which purpose the Senate passed a resolution to receive him at the time mentioned. They met and consulted together; and such was no doubt the intention of the Constitution. The language of the power with respect to officers is somewhat different; but that the Senate was to advise with the President on that subject is very clear. The practice has doubtless been abandoned from the multiplicity of nominations and appointments. The language contemplated intimate relations between the Senate and the President on that subject. It will be recollected that Mr. Stanton, under the Tenure-of-Office Act, was suspended by President Johnson, and that General Grant was appointed Secretary ad interim under the authority of that act. The suspension of Mr. Stanton was reported to the Senate as having been made for some of the causes of objection which the act enumerates, but they were deemed insufficient, and Mr. Stanton was restored. This action amounted to the Senate’s advice on that subject, and was equivalent to the refusal of the Senate to consent to Mr. Stanton’s removal. In defiance of such advice and of the plain intent of the Tenure-of-Office Act, the President removed Mr. Stanton. This, as we have seen, constitutes one of the grounds of impeachment.

Mr. Stanton’s removal was proof not only of a want of cordiality between the President and the Senate, but of a wide difference between them, and it is scarcely to be expected that the Senate, which is invested with the power "to advise and consent" to appointments, would use the power in order to arm the President with an officer in hostility—in the gravest matters of public concern—not only to the

Senate, but also to the House of Representatives. Such an officer, if appointed, would add to the power of the President to obstruct the action of Congress. Indeed, with the complete command of the War Department and of the army and all the material of war, the President might defy the popular branch of the Government. The President’s course furnished just grounds of suspicion that his motives in appointing General Thomas to the control of that Department were such as could not be tolerated. All laws conflicting with the Tenure-of-Office Act having been in terms repealed by it, there was no such office as the "Secretary of War ad interim," except in the contingency of suspension. Removal, not suspension, was resorted to, and hence the chief clerk was to act as custodian of the books and papers if a vacancy had occurred, which it did not; but the President chose to assume that there was a vacancy against the fact, and to order General Thomas to fill it. The order was in the nature of a military order from the commander-in-Chief to a subordinate, who was directed in a wholly illegal manner to take possession of the Department. These extraordinary proceedings show that Congress was right in withdrawing from the President the power of removal which the act of 1789 assumed that he possessed, and in declaring that it should be exercised only by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

The Secretary of War is, in ordinary times, when there is perfect accord between all the branches of the Government, as important to Congress as to the President. It is in the power of Congress at any time to abolish the office, and to create it again at their pleasure. If they can destroy and create at pleasure, may no Congress say that this officer shall not be removed except by the same ceremonies that were required before appointment? — that is to say, the Senate’s advice and consent.

Mr. Madison undoubtedly argued in Congress in favor of the President’s power; but, as he was one of the recognized authors of the Federalist, he was clearly committed to the doctrine advanced in the 77th No. of that work, that "the consent of that body (the Senate) would be necessary to displace as well as to appoint." The names of the several authors were not at the time of their publication announced, and hence it may be said (although Mr. Hamilton was the author of that article) that Mr. Madison abandoned, when supporting Washington’s administration, a position which he advanced to secure the adoption of the Constitution.

"Where a man"(said Mr. Hamilton)"in any station had given satisfactory evidence of his fitness for it, a new President would be restrained from attempting a change in favor of a person more agreeable to him, by the apprehension that a discountenance of the Senate might frustrate the attempt, and bring some degree of discredit upon himself."

These are the words of one of the authors of the Constitution, of its most distinguished commentator, and of a Cabinet officer afterward of the highest authority. They do not sustain the haughty claims made in the President’s behalf, as if he were "the sole disposer of offices." The President has encroached upon this distribution of power in face of the advice of the Senate deliberately given, in face of the solemn decision of Congress, and, it now appears, in face of the true meaning of the Constitution.

Harper's Weekly, November 2nd, 1867"DISREGARDING" THE LAWOne of the most preposterous reports that has been lately sent from Washington is the assertion that the President proposes to disregard the Tenure of Office Bill, and treat it as a nullity until the Supreme Court decides whether it is constitutional. "Here’s richness" again; and the Copperhead Doctors [note: “Copperheads” was the term for a Northern Democrat who opposed the Civil War] shake their heads approvingly over the report, and exclaim, "Nothing could be more absurd than to dispute the right of the President to bring laws which he believes unconstitutional to a judicial test."

The President, as President, has nothing whatever to do with the constitutionality of laws after he has

opposed them by his veto. His sole duty in regard to them after they are passed over his veto is to see that they are faithfully executed. Then, if any body feels himself to be aggrieved, he will bring an action in the Supreme Court. But if the President, having exhausted his veto, proposes to treat all laws which he does not approve as unconstitutional, and refuse to see to their execution until they are legitimated by the Supreme Court, nothing can be plainer than that every law passed by Congress must be sent into the Supreme Court room and approved before the President will take care that it is faithfully executed. Nothing could be more absurd than such a view of the duty of the Executive except all the rest of the President’s theories.

Of course, as the Copperhead Doctors truly remark, this appeal to determine the constitutionality of a law "is a right possessed by every citizen." But to say that nobody is bound to obey a law until some Court has decided it to be constitutional, is simply to declare chaos come again. The Tenure of Office Bill is a law—and not a very wise one; and the President has just as much right to disregard it as he has to nullify every other law upon the statute-book. He is a citizen of the United States like the rest of us; and if he disobeys the law he will inevitably suffer the penalty.

Pre-Trial DocumentsThe Tenure of Office Act

The Tenure of Office Act, passed over the veto of President Andrew Johnson on March 2, 1867, provided that all federal officials whose appointment required Senate confirmation could not be removed without the consent of the Senate. When the Senate was not in session, the Act allowed the President to suspend an official, but if the Senate upon its reconvening refused to concur in the removal, the officila must be reinstated in his position. It was not entirely clear whether the Act applied to cabinet officials appointed by a previous president, such as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a Lincoln appointee.

In the summer of 1867, with Congress not in session, Andrew Johnson decided the time had finally come to replace Edwin Stanton with a new secretary of war. Stanton had become increasingly at odds with Johnson and the rest of his cabinet, and had been conspiring with Radical Republicans in Congress to thwart Johnson's policies on Reconstruction, which were considered too soft by the Radicals. On August 5, 1867, Johnson sent Stanton the following message: "Public considerations of high character constrain me to say that your resignation as Secretary of War will be accepted." Stanton refused to resign, forcing Johnson to send Stanton a second letter suspending him from office, ordering that he cease all exercise of authority, and transferring power to a new secretary of war, Ullysses S. Grant.

On January 3, 1868, the new Congress met and refused to concur in the removal of stanton by a vote of 35 to 16. The President, however, refused to accept the Senate's decision, believing the Tenure of Office Act to be an unconstitutional infringement on the power of the executive. Hoping to obtain judicial review of the Act's constitutionality, Johnson on February 21, 1868 appointed General Lorenzo Thomas, Adjutant General of the Army, to the post of secretary of war. Stanton balked at leaving the office he had reoccupied since January. Charles Sumner, one of the Senate's leading Radical Republicans, sent Stanton a one word telegram: "Stick." Impeachment proceedings began within days.

Although both Presidents Ullysses Grant and James Garfield complained strenuously about the Tenure of Office Act, the Act was not repealed until 1887, at the urging of then President Grover Cleveland.

In 1926, in the case of Myers vs. United States, the Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Taft, held unconstitutional a law requiring the consent of the Senate for removal of certain non-Cabinet officials.

Harper's Weekly, March 16th, 1867THE VETO OF THE RECONSTRUCTION BILLIf the moderation and propriety of tone which mark the Veto Messages of the President were ever to be found in his speeches he would be at least respected by the country, although his views might be rejected. The Messages, indeed, have no individual character, no raciness and quaintness, like those of his predecessor, but they are decorous and inoffensive, and becoming his position. They are all disheartening, however, from the narrow technical grasp and total want of the vital comprehension which the situation demands. They are the special pleas of a dull advocate who has taken a side; not the words of a statesman who regards only the commonwealth.

The veto of the Reconstruction bill illustrates what we say. It is a long paper, but it begs the whole question from beginning to end. There is not a good suggestion in it which is not wholly inapplicable. Being asked what he thinks of an eagle, the President proceeds to prove that a buzzard is not a

nightingale. He makes an assertion contradicting the fundamental assertion of the bill, and goes on with his argument from premises which no one but himself concedes. The bill declares that there is no lawful government in any of the late rebel States. The President replies that "to pronounce the supreme law-making power of an established State illegal is to say that law itself is unlawful." What is an established South Carolina? If not, how is there any establishment there which is valid in the view of the National Government? And if the President’s will established the State, where does the Constitution, which he so earnestly commends, grant him the authority? Having thus assumed the whole case the President sweeps on with generalizations which have no relation to the facts, and statements which are disproved by the most ample evidence.

The President argues at great length that the Constitution does not authorize military depostisms in the States of the Union in a time of peace. He shows in detail that despotic will is the will of the despot. He quotes the late Indiana decision of the Supreme Court that in a time of peace the only valid military law is the Congressional law for the government of the army, and declares that the bill denies the right of trial by jury to nine millions of citizens. He points out that the bill enfranchises the negroes, who have not asked to be enfranchised, and that the Constitution gives no power to Congress to legislate upon suffrage in the States. Then he shows that the bill invalidates the governments of ten States which have already adopted the Emancipation Amendment, and that the Amendment falls if their assent was illegal. Finally, he celebrates the excellence of the Constitution itself, and its adequacy to every emergency.

Throughout this long document there is no sign of the least consciousness that the country is not at peace, but is settling the conditions of peace. It is not, indeed, bello flagrante [Latin for “during hostilities” or “while the war was waging”], but it is bello cessante [war has ceased]. The President has proclaimed that the rebellion has ceased, but that no more makes peace than his appointment of Provisional Governors establishes States. Congress alone can declare war and raise and support armies and navies, and Congress alone therefore can say when war has ceased. The President as usual returns to the Congressional declaration of July, 1861, that the war was not for subjugation, and he argues that it was merely the suppression of an insurrection. But the Supreme Court, upon which he relies, has decided that it was a war, and when a insurrection has proceeded upon the scale of the late war it is for Congress, and Congress alone, to decide when it has ended. The President merely repeats Alexander Stephen’s doctrine of the continuous right of States. There has been a riot, he says, like the Shay rebellion in Massachusetts, like the whisky insurrection in Pennsylvania, and the riot being suppressed, every thing reverts to its previous condition. And this is urged by a man who insisted, after the surrender of Lee, that "traitors should take a back seat in the work of restoration," and who declared that if there were five thousand men in Tennessee loyal to the Constitution, to freedom, and to justice, they should absolutely control the work of reorganization, while every rebel should be "subjected to a severe ordeal before he is restored to citizenship." The President who says that the rebellion of a State does not destroy or interrupt its relations in the Union is the same President who, within two years, required the rebel States to adopt the Emancipation Amendment, to repudiate their rebel debt, and to disavow their secession ordinances as conditions of their return to the Union.

Every argument of the Veto Message is fatal to the policy which the President has pursued; every assertion is contrary to the express evidence, and every appeal to the Constitution is futile from a man who denies to the people in Congress a power which he alone has not hesitated to exercise. It is plain that the President has nothing more to say. His position has been as fully and ably explained as it can be, and it is utterly and indignantly repudiated by the people. Since, then, his oath binds him to execute the laws, and since the most vital laws, in his judgment, are unconstitutional, why does he consent to be an instrument of what he considers fatally destructive measures? He tells us that he is a patriot. Do patriots remain in place when they think that they are to be used to destroy the liberties of their country?

Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan

• Pardons would be granted to those taking a loyalty oath• No pardons would be available to high Confederate officials and persons owning property

valued in excess of $20,000• A state needed to abolish slavery before being readmitted• A state was required to repeal its secession ordinance before being readmitted.

Most of the seceded states began compliance with the president’s program. Congress was not in session, so there was no immediate objection from that quarter. However, Congress reconvened in December and refused to seat the Southern representatives.