The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-10 00:00:00

MORE ~ RECREANT" SENATORS.

The man last discovered to be " making his way
home on the long and dark track of infamy" was
Edmund G. Ross, the Senator from Kansas, who so
suddenly appeared to the mind's-eye of some men sus-
pended on " a gibbet of everlasting obloquy," as to
startle the whole assembly and almost take away
their breath. The amount of stationery this Senator
destroyed while meditating his leap into " everlast-
ing infamy" might fairly be charged against the
estate of the politically deceased traitor. He sym-
bolized the rending of his party as he tore into
fragments the cream-laid" supplied to Senators.
D. R. Anthony, speaking in the names of a thou-
sand Kansas men, on the 14th May sent a telegram
to Mr. Ross, declaring " that Kansas had heard the
evidence, and demands the conviction of the Presi-
dent." This seems to have riled. Mr. Ross, and to
hive had the most injurious effect on the interest
they desired to serve. Some men, like pigs, if eagerly
driven, are certain to get into the wrong road, and
Mr. Ross appears to be one. All the " cussedness"
in his nature was aroused by Anthony and his thou-
sand, and the Senator from " Bleeding Kansas"
placed his back against a rock and cried, in the
words of Fitz-James—
" Come one—come all I—this rock shall fly

From its firm base as soon as I."
Still with that amount of worldly wisdom, even
when about to plunge into " everlasting infamy,"
he delayed this hostile message till he stood on the
brink—not thus hurling back his defiance, till May
16, when he did so in these words :—" I do not
recognize your right to demand that I shall vote
either for or against conviction. I have taken
an oath to do impartial justice according to
the Constitution and laws, and I trust I shall
have the courage and honesty to vote ac-
cording to the dictates of my judgment and
for the highest good of my country." Hav-
ing kept his counsel till the moment when he
exploded his mine in the Senate Chamber, he
escaped a large measure of the persecution directed
against his "recreant" colleagues. The famous re-
porter of the New York, Tribune did not exert all
his skill to depict him in the most telling caricature,
nor was be worried into paralysis like Senator
Grimes, nor pursued into his very bedroom, and
dragged out at midnight, to be deluged with argu-
ment like the others. He knew that his plunge would
make the extreme faction his bitter foes, and per-
haps he enjoyed the knowledge that -he was going
to hit the first and the most fatal blow. It is
said that had the Managers not been blind that
they might have escaped the consequence of this
vote, as Mr. Ross on the night previous to the as-
sembly of the Court sent a note to the Radical
Senators' Caucus then sitting, predicting failure if
they insisted upon pushing the Senate to a vote on
the eleventh Article. His words, " that it would
not be well to make the trial," passed unheeded.
They put him down as a safe vote for Im-
peachment, and found out too late the error of
their calculation. Senator Fowler, of Tennessee,
another "recreant" on the "long and dark track,"
had expressed himself in favour of convic-
tion, and was once its warm advocate. Of
course both he and Ross are said to have been
bought, but a well-informed paper declares that the
latter was so " horribly wicked that he perjured
himself out of pure 'cussedness' without even the
excuse that he had sold his vote." Not much was
expected from Van Winkle. lie was a " recreant,"
evidently acquainted with "the long and dark track,"
and on the whole rather preferring that way
home. His colleague of West Virginia, Sena-
tor Willey, gave way under the pressure brought
to bear on him. Every appliance of party
tyranny and badgering was used, and the weak-
kneed brother whose imagination was worked on
till he shied in a fright from the plunge, promised
to vote for the eleventh Article, a promise he kept.
The opinion of Senator Trumbull has been pub-
lished. After examining the Tenure-of-Office Act,
he points out its inconsistency with previous enact-
ments, directs attention to the permission given the
President by it to remove Cabinet officers, and
maintains that Abraham Lincoln's policy is identi-
cal with that of Andrew Johnson's. "To do im-
partial justice in all things appertaining to the
present trial, according to the Constitution and
laws, is the duty imposed on each Senator by the
position he holds and the oath he has taken, and
he who falters in the discharge of that duty, either
from personal or party considerations, is unworthy
his position, and merits the scorn and contempt of all
just men. The question to be decided is not
whether Andrew Johnson is a proper person to fill
the Presidential office, nor whether it is fit that he
should remain iu it, nor, indeed, whether he has
violated the Constitution and the laws in other re-
spects than those alleged against him. As well
might any other 54 persons take upon themselves
by violence to rid the country of Andrew Johnson,
because they believed him a bad man, as to call