The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1866-11-15
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From the Atlantic Monthly.
THE PRESIDENT
AND HIS ACCOMPLECES,
TCoNCLUsIoN.1 I


1t is evident, from the nature of the
case, that Mr.. Johnson's labors were
purely experimental and provisional,
and needed the Endorsement of Con-
gress to be Of any force. The only de.
partment of the government constitu-
tionally capable to admit new States or
rehabilitate insurgent ones is the legis-
lative When the Executive not only
took the initiative in reconstruction,
but assumed to have completed it;
when he presented hS States to Con-
gress as the equals of the States repre-
sented in that body; when he asserted
that the delegates from his States should
have the right of sitting and voting in
the legislature whose business it was to
decide on their right to admission /;
when, in short, he demanded that Grim
inals at the bar should have seat on
the bench, and an equal voice with the
judges, in deciding on their own case,
the effrontery of Executive pretension
went beyond all bounds Of Congression-
al endurance.
The real difference at first was not on
the question of imposing conditions,-
for the President had notoriously impos-
ed them himself, f,-but on the question
whether or not additional conditions
were necessary to secure the public safe
ty. The President, with that facility
Gin turning his back on himself" which
all other logical gymnasts had pronoun-
ced an impossible ieat, then boldly took
the ground, that, being satisfied with
the conditions he had himself exacted,
the exaction of conditions was unconsti-
tutional. TO sustain this curious pro-
position he adduced no constitutional
arguments, but he left various copies of
the Constitution in each of the crowds
he recently addressed, with the trust,
we suppose, that somebody might be
fortunate enough to find in that instru-
mcnt the clause which supported his
theory. Mr.. Johnson, however, though
the most consequential of individuals, is
the most inconsequential of reasoners;
every proposition which is evident to
himself he considers to fulfil the defini-
tion of a self-evident proposition; but
his supporters at Philadelphia must
have known, that, in affirming that in
surgent States recover their former
rights by the fact of submission, they
were arraigning the conduct of their
leader, who had notoriously violated
those "rights." They took up his work
ata certain stage, and then, with that as
basis, they affirmed general PROPOSE
ton about insurgent States, which, had
it been complied with by the President,
would have left them no foundation at
all; for the States about which they so
glibly generalized would have had no
show of organized governments. The
premises of their argument were OBJ
tanned by the violation of its CONCLUSION;
they inferred from what was a negation
of their inference, and deduced from
what was a death-blow to their deduc-
ton .......
1t is easy enough to understand why
the Johnson Convention asserted the
of the Johnson reconStructions
of States with the States now represent
ed in Congress. The object was to
give some appearance of legality to a
contemplated act of arbitrary power, and
the principle that insurgent States re-
cover all their old rights by the fact OF
submission was invented in order to
cover the case Mr.. johnson now in
tends, by the admission of his partisans,
to attempt a coup d'etat on the assem-
bling of the Fortieth Congress, in case
seventy-one members of the House of
favorable to his policy,
are chosen, in the elections of this au-
tumn, from the twenty-six loyal States.
These, with the fifty Southern delegates,
would constitute a quorum of the
House; and the remaining hundred and
nineteen members are, in the Presidents
tavorite phrase, "to be kicked out"
from that "verge" of. the government
on which they are now said to be chang
ing" The question, therefore, wheth-
er Congress, as it is at present consti-
tuted, is a body constitutionally compe-
tent to Iegslate for the whole country,
is the most important of all practical
questions. Let us see how the case
stands.
The Constitution, ratified by the peo-
pie of all the States, establishes gov
ernment of sovereign powers, supreme
over the whole land, and the people of
no State can rightly pass from underits
authority except by the consent of the
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