The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-21 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, DEC. 21, 1868.

Andrew JOHNSON'S career as President of the
United States promises to be so far of a piece that its
close in one sense is very much like its commencement.
That commencement, who can have forgotten ? This
close, who is likely very soon to forget ? By having
been elected Vice-President, he became President
very soon afterwards by misadventure. So that in
point of fact his presidency in a manner dates
From the hour of his vice-presidential inaug-
And the latter, as all accounts
unanimously record it to have been, was re-
garded by those who witnessed it as little less than a
national disgrace and calamity. The Times' Corres-
pondent, fresh from beholding that extraordinary ex-
hibition, wrote of it as of the inauguration of a Rowdy.
Explanations came afterwards from the friends
of JOHNSON to the effect that he was out
of health at the time, and that, being na-
turally and habitually a very abstemious man,
he had, under medical advice, swallowed a
nip of raw brandy or of some other stimulant just to
steady his nerves before appearing for the first time
in his official capacity before the great Democratic
Legislature at Washington! And that, hence and hence
only, came the unseemly excitement and incoherence
with which lie addressed the assembled representa-
tives of the United States upon the occasion of his
auguration thus, or installation as Vice-President.
Since then, the incident has been overlooked and
almost forgotten. Steadied first of all by dismay, no
doubt, on his own part, on awakening to the fact of his
having so flagrantly, and manifestly so unwittingly
committed himseli—but steadied far more probably by
theastouuding casualty whichswept the late President,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,out of his path, and thereby caused
the supreme authority to devolve upon himself, accord-
ing to the wise provision of the great Republican
Constitution for the rest of the prescribed interval of
four years which had still to elapse should have
run out—ANDREW JOHNSON, Vice-President no
longer, but President thenceforth of the United
States, redeemed the reputation for statesmanship
and for personal dignity which, for one disastrous

uration.

moment, he seemed to some to have altogether for-
feited. Ilis responsibilities, always heavy from
the outset, encreasing enormously upon him as
time ran on, Mr. JOHNSON eventually secured
to himself the earnest sympathy of millions who were
attentively observing his career from their stand-
point on this side of the Atlantic, when it was ob-
served by the latter that he as PRESIDENT was, with
the utmost malignity on the part of his enemies,
being formally threatened with a solemn Itnpeach-
ment. The spectacle of one man calmly and un-
dauntedly withstanding the attacks of a multi-
tude of assailants, won for him the earnest
sympathy of many who were not by any means
originally in any way prejudiced in his favour. The
Impeachment as a political move fell through. Mr.
JOHNSON'S authority as President remained in every
essential particular undiminished. Animosity was for
a while silenced. Time ran on ; and, at last in due
course, the period arrived when the electors of the
United States had to choose from among the candidates
for that high office, who should be the new President.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, the founder of the great Re-
public, was twice President. THOMAS JEFFERSON,
in like manner, was re-elected to that post of honour
and authority on the expiry of the first four years of
his Presidency. So also was it with JAMES MADISON,
with JAMES MoNROE, with ANDREW JACKSON, and
last of all with ABRAHAM LINCOLN, the last-men-
tioned, as it happened, being re-elected to be as-
sassinated almost immediately afterwards. There
were, thus, half-a-dozen precedents for re- election.
But no one for a moment thought of acting upon
those precedents in the instance of a man who was
only there, to begin with, in that highest post of all,
purely and solely through misadventure. The choice
as to his successor lay simply, as was seen at once,
between SETMoUR and GRANT. By an over-
whelming majority, ULYSSES GRANT was elected
to the Presidency. The days of ANDREW JOHN-
SON were then, in the naturally course of things,
clearly numbered. lie had escaped Impeachment.
He had tided on somehow in spite of the most viru-
lent opposition. Isolated, single-handed, almost alone,
he was there simply to fulfil the allotted period of his
tenure of office, and then to pass out of public view,
and to give place to his soldier successor. Before that
period could arrive, however, there was one other
great Presidential act that ANDREW JOHNSON was
called upon to perform. Ho had to produce and
to transmit to the proper authorities another--his
final—Message. This document he composed, this
document be transmitted to its destinations—to the
assembled Congress—simultaneously to the Senate
and to the House of Representatives of the United
States. Upon the very day of his doing se, there
came flashing to us the announcement, through
the Atlantic Cable, that the Senate bad re-
fused to listen to the reading of the PRESI-
DENT'S Message. The text of that Message
has now come to hand vhi Southampton, through the
steamer Deutschland. And, reading it, the extraordi-
nary decision of the American Legislature, bewilder-
ing when first announced, can now be readily enough
comprehended. The reading of the Message, it turns
out, was not absolutely refused, as first stated by
the Atlantic Telegraph, but, having been threatened
with a refusal of its reading being continued, it was