The Portland daily press., 1866-02-22
president Johnson,s Veto Message

President Johnson's Veto Message.
That President johnson has won his first
victory over Che true men he is pleased to style
the "counterparts and duplicates" of Southern
rebels, is not to be doubted, but we are great
ly mistaken il it does not prove to him to be a
first Bull Run victory. In the Senate srliii-
Gent amount of weakness was developed to
prevent the passage Of the Freedmen's bill
over the veto; as was to be expected by those
who reflected one moment upon the power Oh
patronage to corrupt men and demoralize pai-
ties. The votes OF any two recreant repopii
cans who made their beds with SALISBURY anu
Davis. changed to the other side, wouid nave
secured the passage of the bill. IhaI oo"ah
and Doolittle should have deserved Inc hepup-
can ranks is not strange, but that Messrs. Dix
ON and Morgan should do SO was not expected.
Tbey have made their election. however, and
benceforth their power to delude and cheat
the Union men of the nation is defeated for
ever. The Tylerlzing of the party has
commenced, but we do not believe it is in the
power Of the Executive to carry any consid-
cradle portion of the people over to the EN-
brace of condemned theory of G Government,
or that the representatives of the people are
TO be turned aside from the imperious duties
imposed upon them by the loyal men OF the
nation. In relation to the veto message itself
we have but little to say. 1t has always been
conceded that Congress is to be the judge OF
the public necessities. For the President,
therefore, to brand as unnecessary and uncalE
ed for a great measure matured in Congress
by long and exhaustive debate, and passed by
more than two-thirds OF both Houses, it seems
to us is little short of impertinent if not abso-
lutey insulting.
So far as the constitutionality of the meas
ure is concerned, it will take long time for
President johnson to satisfy the people that
he is better judge than large number OF
Senators and Representatives who gave the
bill their cordial support; and when the ma
ton comes to believe that Salisbury and Nc
Dougal, Davis and Hendricks, Cowan and
Doolittle have more respect for the Constitu-
ton and constitutional liberty than Fessenden
and Foote, Henderson and Howard, Sherman
and Sumner, Trumbull and Yates, it will be a
dark day for American liberty, and millions
will have cause to mourn for its decadence.
The objection of the President that the bill
gave too much power to the Executive to be
safely entrusted in the hands of any one man,
was fully disposed of by Senator Trumbull in
his speech in the Senate, when the veto was
under consideration. The objection based ON
the expense of the thing is unworthy the age
in which we live. 1t is simply weighing the
great problems of justice and right against
mere lucre; refusing protection to the OPP
pressed and down-trodden-"th wards of the
acknowledgements of the cost Such an OBJ
lection is born of spirit debauched by the
slave power, which inclines to look upon Gods
children as things, whose protection may be
weighed against money, and whose rights may
be abandoned when the cost of maintaining
them appears formidable. Had the American
people acted upon SO low plane in the late
struggle, they would never have spent three
thousand millions of dollars and sacrificed a
half million of lives to preserve Tennessee
and other rebel States in the Union, toprotect
in their rights such men as Andrew johnson,
anu w ultthC IL pOoSlDlC blidL buCJ SllOuiu
high places of power. No! the American
people fought the battles of the late war on
principle; to protect human rights and human
Interests, and the question of cost never was
allowed for a single moment to danpen their
ardor or to hold them back from the sacrifice
1t was the copperheads of the North, the men
who opposed Andrew Johnson and denounced
him as tyrant, that raised the cry of expense,
tried to frighten the people by intimations of
bankruptcy, and to destroy the Government
credit by denouncing its pledges and bonds.
But the President is particularly eloquent
when he comes to speak of the injustice of
passing such bill, a bill to affect the late rebel
States were unrepresented in Congress, and
he speaks as if by book of the injustice of
taxation without representation. On this
part of the veto message we wish to speak
more specially. Says the President:
: The principle is firmly fixed in the minds of
the American people that there should be no
taxation without representation.
Traer words have seldom been spoken, and
yet President Johnson himself is in favor of
taxing 100000 of native born population in
the Southern States, while denying them ev-
cry form of representation! He would not
even allow them to vote for their own rulers
or the laws to which they are to be subject! In
South Carolina, for example, he would dis
franchise a majority Of the whole population,
and yet impose upon them all the burdens of
taxation. This is the style in which it is pro-
posed to carry out the ''principle firmly fixed
= in the minds Of the American people,"
Either President johnson is arrayed against
his own doctrine, or he must ignore the four
million people of color as those having no
rights which the Government is bound to re-.
spect and such charge we certainly are not
prepared to prefer against him. We prefer,
rather, to arraign his consistency, and to
charge his Inconsistency to the debauching in
fuency of an institution ia the baneful shad-
from early childhood. E s.o o. T-ot
We invite attention to the following SEN
tence:
IL lCongressl has never yet deemed itself
authorized to expend the public money for the
rent or purchase of houses for the thousands,
not to say millions, of the white race who are
nonesty toliing from day to day for their sub
Inc above sentence is unworthy the great
heart which President johnson has often re-
Vealed when referring to this subject. He ap-
peals to low prejudice against color. and his
language is calculated to excite the suspicion
that Congress is more mindful of the ssnigaeru
than of the "poor white Ran" The sugees-
ton is low and undignifed, worthy only of the
stump and the caucus room in times of heat
ed political excitement. The freedmen, with
freedom forced upon them by the act of the ma
ton, are to be abandoned to their fate in the
midst of their oppressors and natural enemies,
had no special protection extended to them |!
Pray when did the nation, acting from any