The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—" La Revolution va hien." The despatches
which pour upon us through the Atlantic Telegraph
show that the well-known phrase of 1792 may be
applied in all its meaning to the course of events in
America. A revolution is in progress there. The
House of Representatives has taken the first step
towards the removal of the President front office.
Mr. Johnson stands in the way of the Republican
party. He is the " Monsieur Veto" of the Union,
and he must be got rid of. He has been guilty of
the crime of forming an opinion for himself, and that
opinion does not conform to the sentiments of the
majority of Congress. Whether the opinion was
right or wrong, just or unjust, it is not for us to in-
quire. The important points are that it was an inde-
pendent opinion ; that Mr. Johnson thought he was
a President with well-defined duties and responsi-
bilities, instead of a Constitutional King bound to
accept and follow the advice of Ministers possessing
the confidence of a Legislative Assembly ; that the
independent opinion formed in the pursuit, as he
thus conceived, of his duty conflicts with that of
Congress; and that a popular Assembly will not
brook the existence of a permanent obstacle to its
will. Accordingly, Mr. Johnson is to be impeached.
The House of Representatives has ordered a Com-
mittee to report on the offences of the President, and
the Radical party are determined, we are assured, to
press on the Impeachment, of which this is the first
step, to its " bitter end." The members of the House
have returned to Washington, after their short
Christmas recess, more bent than ever on establishing
their own supremacy. The Impeachment of a Pre-
sident is not, indeed, an event to be ranked in the
same category with the trial of a King ; even when
consummated, the appropriate punishment of the
offender is simply deposition from office and
disqualification for future employment; yet it is so
foreign to what was once the temper of American
citizens that any step towards it betokens a pro-
found change in their character. We are driven to
the conclusion that the revolution is bearing fruit.
It is true that Mr. Johnson is not hedged round by
the divinity which made loyalty to a Stuart cr a
Bourbon the creed and passion of multitudes, but it
may be boldly asserted that a successful impeach-
ment of the President is impossible without a
wrench of that constitution which the Americans
were wont to idolise as divine. Those who have
initiated the impeachment must be resolved to carry
it through, no matter bow flimsy the charges pre-
ferred against the President, or what constitutional
difficulties may stand in the way of their purpose.
What sudden provocation has hurried the House of
Representatives to a step which a few weeks since
would have been considered impossible? The tele-
gram from our correspondent, perhaps, supplies the
answer. The President has vetoed the Negro Suf-
frage Bill for the district of Columbia, and we are
warranted in looking upon this act as the exciting
cause of the impeachment. In one point of view,
this explanation, if sound, may appear to detract
from our estimate of the importance of the step
taken by the House of Representatives. The House
is, to say the least, a somewhat eccentric body. It
thanked Commodore Wilkes in hot haste for an act
immediately afterwards pronounced illegal by Mr.
Lincoln and his Cabinet. It adopted without dis-
cussion the amendment, or rather the repeal, of
the Neutrality Laws promoted by General Banks,
which has since been quietly shelved in the Senate.
In the week before Christmas it was seduced into
passing a ludicrous resolution solemnly command-
ing " the tone of the national voice towards the
Republic of Mexico." Knowing all this, it may
be said that the instruction to the Impeachment
Committee is a mere splenetic resolution. The
President, in perfect consistency with his former
acts, vetoed the Suffrage Bill, and the house boiled
over. It had reached the term of its patience. Mr.
Johnson's veto was an idle form, but it was an act
of opposition to the majority, and an impeachment
immediately followed. But, in truth, the compara-
tively trifling matter which has been made the occa-
sion of the impeachment, the feebleness of the in-
dictment against the President, and the obstacles
presented by the Constitution to the success of the
impeachment, only heighten our sense of the revo-
lutionary character of the impeachment itself. If
the law and the Constitution are to be observed,
what ground is there upon which reasonable men
can rely that the impeachment may prove success-
ful? Mr. Wendell Phillips, the leader of the most
advanced section of the Republican party, and one
o f the first to recommend extreme measures, is for
impeaching Mr. Johnson upon " his instincts."
Falstaff was a coward upon " instinct," but it is not
easy to believe that any legal tribunal can recognise
" instincts" as sufficient evidence of criminality.
f
Yet this is all that Mr. Phillips bas to
adduce. , I
my instincts be true," says the orator, " it will be
found that from the time the rebellion was suppressed.
Mr. Johnson was in league with traitors. Gen. But-
ler, next in importance as an advocate of impeach-
ment, is a little more definite in his charges, but the
more definite he becomes the more unsatisfactory is
his case. It is an article of accusation with the for-
mer commander at New Orleans that the speeches
of Mr. Johnson during his Chicago tour were inde-
cent. They degraded the office of President, and ex-
posed it to public ridicule. An impeachment of a
public officer for an offence against good taste is
somewhat of a novelty, and the novelty is not
dimi-
nished when we consider who is the accuser. General Butler has, however, another
charge
Mr. Johnson has appointed his own friends
one.
Is
of which every President
offices of State. If this be an offence, it is n
within living
ag,memory
hasnecessary
toaimpossibleti it would be to make
pointbeen
out guilty,bow b
such a charge a ground of condemnation. Yet it is
upon allegations like these that the
President,
soifd
eint its ow
and
that Repre-
sentatives has instructed a Committeeoase of
body to inquire into the crimes of the that the Republican party has resolved to proceed
of
to these articles of in-
dictmentto extremities. The futility
insure its failure
pa
un
by
ie tcompetenteok ear
e t
o tribunalgnardb•
abguati
nt
ought to be sufficient
foundersshteany
passingof
making
btheefoßree
bceaseeosnadudeiffitedcu Impeach-
excess of popular excitement
Ptrhoee yess.
House rr
ohfeßlmeppreeascehn:
blyt
went
minuasitl
tatives before the Senate, sitting
presidency of the Chief Justice of aths jusdgesupreme Court
under the
of the Union, and the Constitutione prescribes that
no person shall be convicted without the concurrence
of two-thirds of the members
give a true verdict upon the evidencePreseat, sworn to
The events of this session, rave before them.
g
as they have been,
will not allow us to believe that two-thirds of the
Senate will concur in a condemnation of the Presi-
dent upon the charges brought
Constitutional difficulty is
in th
agaidnst him ; but a
small concern in the States. If the ays a matter of
majority in Con-
gress cannot legally compass •
their ends, they will do
so by the expression of their own will. In the face
of the Constitution, Mr.
•}Wendell Phillips
has con-
stantly urged that the President should before trial
be prohibited from exercising
functions, on the groundthat an allyof his official
accused person
should not continue to act as President of the United
States ; and the spirit
which dictated this bold ad-
vice will not scruple at acting
upon a sentence, even
though it should be suprertsed by less than the pre-
scribed:two-thirds of t
however small, condemn Mr.ejnoahten.,4onLetthae
(niiaajo.rity,
party will enforce the condemnation, and
thleaiirnant
su-
premacy will be established without opposit io n or
os-
sibility of rivalry. The Union is thus visibly Pa
ing through a revolution, and a revolution pass-
, per-
haps more than any other, ,
remarkable for the
speed of its progress. It is barely a month since
Congress met, and ten days out of the month have
been spent in the recess, yet this brief time has
been sufficient to develope a profound in change
the
American nation. During the elections
and up to
the beginning of December nothing appeared more
chimerical than an attempt to • impeach the Presi-
dent. No respectable organ of opinion, no person
in any position of responsibility, advocated it • and
the Republican leaders deprecated any suggestion
of such a proceeding as a slanderous aspersion upon
the moderation and sagacity of the party. But
Congress has met and tested its strength, and,
flushed with a sense of power, hurries on from one
position to another, until at last it boldly declares
that no obstacle shall be permitted to thwart the
complete execution of its will. What was pro-
nounced impossible has become a fact, and argu-
ments reprobated with indignation are accepted
and acted upon. What is a clause of the Consti-
tution that it should bar the way of the repre-
sehtatives of the people? A majority some eighty
years since pretended to enact laws limiting the
power of the majority of to-day. Can any pre-
tence, it is asked, be more vain or idle ? And the
sophism passes current, as sophisms will which
justify the excesses of those to
whom they are
addressed. But the popularity of such reasoning
makes the impeachment of the President remark-
able as evidence of the length to which the revo-
lution has gone, and a hint of what may come
after. The fate of Mr. Johnson is a trifle com-
pared with the safeguards of all personal liberty
and individual freedom, which arc thus subjected
to the unchecked caprice of a fluctuating majority.

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Ironmasters' Quarterly Meeting.

WOLVERHAMPTON, Wednesday Evening.

The annual quarterly meetings of the ironmasters of this
district commenced hero to-day. An hour or two before the
trade met a meeting was held of the thin-coal masters of
Wolverhampton, at which it was resolved that the colliers
who were employed in that branch of the trade shsll have
notice of a reduction of 3d. per day in their wages scale,
that being in proportion to the reductions already announced
in other departments of the kindred iron trade.
The attendance to-day at the ironmasters' meeting was
comparatively small, and the business transacted was next
to nominal ; there were very few buyers present, and no
disposition whateser was manifested on their part to do
business ; in fact, everything connected with the trade is in
an unsettled state until something definite is known as to

the course which the men intend to take in refei'enco to the
notice of reductions received by them last Saturday ni:;ht.
Ono important fact should be known; it is that the orders
in hand would not keep the works going more than half

There appears to be not much doubt that the puddlers
will accept the reduction ; and it is hoped that the mill and
forge men will not be guilty of the folly of plunging into
a strike at such a moment as this, when there is everything
to justify the ironmasters in the resolution to which they
came at the preliminary meeting.
_ _

There appears to be somo misapprehension among mer-
chants and others interested in the iron trade in reference
to the proportion of loss falling upon labour on the recent
reductions in the wages made as compared with the em-
ployers. The price of finished iron is to be reduced 20s. per
ton ; at the 10 per cent. reduction in the wages the propor-
tion borne by the men on mill and forge work is as nearly
as possible 4s. Gd. per ton, but taking also into account
the other advantages which the masters will obtain by the
reduction of the wages of the thin-coal colliers noticed
above, the loss sustained by them will amount to—say 11s.
per ton.
It may be mentioned in illustration of the depressed state
of the trade that there aro sellers of finished iron at 7s. Gd.
per ton below the reduced "test" price.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE-TUESDAY.

At our market to-day there was a moderate supply of
English wheat, but a large quantity from abroad. Little
business was done at Saturday's rates, being an advance
of about is per qr. on the prices of this day week. Fine
barley moved off at full prices, but secondary had little at-
tention. Malt, beans, and peas were unchanged. Oats,
with continued heavy arrivals, were dull and rather
lower. Flour was tid per sack dearer, but slow at the
advance.

GAINSBUOUGII—MESDAY.
At our market to-day there was a tolerable show of
wheat, which met a fair sale, at fully late rates—old, 64s
to 68s; red and mixed, 60s to 64s per 36 stone. Malting
barley rather stiffer in price. Other grain firm.