The Express.
London, England, 1867-10-08 00:00:00

AMERICA.

(FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPOND/WT.)

NEW YORK. SEPT. 26.

There is a good deal of speculation going on in
the newspapers about what the President will do
when Congress meets, -or rather before Congress
meets, and various theories have been propounded
by the Washington correspondents, some on what
they call good authority. One, coming from a demo-
cratic source, is that he will resort to force, and
disperse the body when it attempts to meet ;
anotheAß that before it meets he will have the prin-
cipal radicals arrested and indicted by a Mary-
land grand jury for a conspiracy. Although these
stories are wildly improbable, there nevertheless
seems to be no doubt that there are amongst his
advisers men who would not be sorry to see him
resort to violence ; not only this, but who urge
him to resort to it, in the hope that something
good for themselves may turn up in the disorder.
But these people haste not as yet got the upper
hand—l do not think they over will, not because Mr.
Johnson would not like to follow their advice,
but because he has not nerve enough. His
courage, luckily for the country, seems to
evaporate in speeches and proclamations.
Those who believe that he will attempt a coup
d'itot do so on the theory that he cannot without
stultifying himself refrain from following up his
late proclamations by some decided action. But
then this is ascribing more logic to his character
than it has ever given any sign of. He will stul-
tify himself, wo may be sure, and will do so with
the most perfect simplicity. He issued the pro-
clamation because ho thought it a good thing to
de; but it contained internal evidence that it was
an isolated act, and not part of a series. There
is no coherence whatever about his performances.
He travels all the time in the same direction, but
he never keeps for more than a week at a time on
the same track. Although the republican aonven-
tions throughout the country are very shy of em-
bodying impeachment in their platforms, this is
mainly because they are unwilling to seem to im-
pose any policy upon the majority in Congress.
That impeachment will be attempted, and success-
fully attempted, when Congress meets, I still be-
lieve, although it is true, at the same time, that
Mr. Johnson has only to keep quiet for a fortnight
even to create a strong feeling in favour of letting
him alone, so great is the reluctance to add any-
thing to the troubles and complications already
existing.

The dismissed generals are going about receiving
what are called " ovations." Sheridan is no orator,
and therefore receives his honours almost in
silence, but Sickles is an old politician, and can
make a Very good speech; and he has now to make
one nearly every day, or rather every night, for it
is mostly after dark that he is called out. He de-
fends his policy in South Carolina very success-
fully. The 'trona* point made against him by
the President was, as yen know, his having issued
an order staying the issue of execution on judg-
ments of the United States courts for debt. He
justifies this, however, on the ground that it was
just as necessary to the reorganisation of society
and the restoration of industry as anything he
did, almost as much as the preservation of order.
The close of the war found South Carolina in •
condition of which I suppose it would be impos-
sible to form an idea from the experience of any
recent European wars. The State was devastated,
, and not only this, but the large portion of its white
population was left helpless to a degree, which no
European can understand. Nothing that can
happen to any man not on the throne in a free
• country can reduce him to the condition of slave-
' holders who have suddenly lost their slaves, and
especially slaveholders like those of South Carolina,
who had always been remarkable for an almost
Chinese imperviousness to outside influences and
ideas. They were utterly bewildered by finding
themselves left face to face with their own neces-
sities, and were perfectly blind with rage. They
had not only to accustom themselves to the use of
free labour but had to labour themselves, and if
their creditors had been allowed to come upon
them while going through this ordeal, their re-
covery would have in most cases been impossible.
It may of course be said that the arrest of legal
process by military officers is a dangerous precedent ;
but it is no more dangerous when the process is
that of the Federal than when it is that of the
State courts, and no objection is made by Mr.
Johnson, for none can be made under the
act of Congress, to the district commanders
dealing with the State courts in any way they see
fit. But he denies the right of Congress to arrest
the action of the Federal courts under any circum-
stances. This point, of course, involves every point
in the controversy ; to concede it is to concede
everything. If Congress cannot authorise a com-
manding officer at the South to suspend the execu-
tion of a Federal writ of fi. fa., it cannot authorise
him to refuse obedience to • Federal writ of
habeas corpus ; and if it cannot do this, the recon-
struction process is at an end, and the South mart
be released from coercion. As far as regards the
danger to public liberty which Mr. Johuson pro-
femme to find in General Sickles's action, there is,
of course, no difference in principle between resist-
ance to one court and resistance to another. If a
military officer, by tying the hands of one judge,
puts freedom in danger, he does it equally by
tying the hands of another. The source from
which the judge's authority emanates is of no con-
sequence. The essence of the peril, if peril
there be, lies in the fact that the officer's
will becomes the law of the land. There ap-
pears to be little question, however, that
in this objection to Sickles's action Mr. Johnson
thinks be has made a grand discovery, and that it
has furnished him with a weapon that will carry
havoc into the radical ranks. But lam bound to
say that he produces very little impression on the
public mind anywhere by his points. His selection
of Binckley as " acting attorney-general," to argue
the case against Sickles, has deprived his legal posi-
tion of all respectability in the eyes of even hie
owu friends. Some of the hardest things said of
him just now are said by the democratic papers,
which utterly repudiate him as a democratic leader,
and the republican contempt and indifference are
stimulated by seeing that he apparently produces
no impression and raises no expectations at the
South.