The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1866-11-08
. From the Atlantic Monthly.
THE PRESIDENT
AND HIS ACCOMPLICES.

AND HIS ACCOMPLICES.
Andrew johnson has dealt the most
cruel of all blows to the responsibility of
the faction which rejoices in his name.
Hardly had the political Pecksniffs and
Turveydrops contrived>so to manage the
johnson Convention at Philadelphia
that it violated few of the proprieties of
intrigue and none of the decencies of
dishonesty, than the commander-in-
chief of the combination took the field
in person, with the intention of carry
ing the country by assault. His objec-
tive point was the grave of Douglas,
which became by the time he arrived
the grave also of his own reputation and
the hopes of his partisans. His speech
es on the route were volcanic out
break of vulgarity, conceit, bombast.-
scurrility, ignorance, insolence, brutalia
ty, and balderdash. Screams of laugh
ter, cries of disgust, tlushings of shame,
were the various responses of the nation
he disgraced to the harangues of this
leader of American conservatism" I"
Never before did the first Office in the
gift of the people appear so poor an OBJ
ject of human ambition, as when An
drew johnson made it an eminence on
which to exhibit inability to behave and
incapacity to reason. His low cunning
conspired with his devouring egotism to
make him throw off all the restraints OF
official decorum, in the expectation that
he would find duplicates of himself in
the crowds he addressed, and that mob
diffuscd would heartily Sympathize with
Mob impersonated Never was bluster,
ing demagogue led by a distempered
sense Of selt-lmportance into more ia
tai error Not only was the great body
of the people mortified or indignant,
but even his "satraps and dependents
even the shrewd politicians-accidents
ol an Accident aud shadows of shade
who had labored so hard at Philadel-
phia to weave cloak Of plausibilities to
cover his usurpations, shivered with APP
prehension or tingled with shame as
they read the reports of their masters
impolitic and ignominious abandonment
of dignity and decency in his addresses
to thepeople he attempted alternately to
bully and cajole. That man thus self
exposed as unworthy OF high trust
should have had the face to expect that
intelligent constituencies would send to
Congress men pledged to support h'
policy and his measures, appeared fol
the time to be as pitiable spectacle Of
human delusion as it was an exasperat-
ing example Of human impudence
Not the least extraordinary peculiari-
ty of these addresses from the stump
was the immense protuberance they ex-
hibited of the personal pronoun. In
Mr.. Johnson'a speech, his II" resembles
the geometer's description of in6nity,
having "its centre everywhere and its
circumference nowhere" Among the
many kinds of egotism in which his elo-
quence is prolific, it may be difficult to
tasten on the particular one which is
most detestable or most laughable; but
it seems to US that when his arrogance
apes humility it is deserving perhaps Of
an intenser degree of scorn or dersiou
than when it riots in bravado. The
most offensive part which he plays in
public is that of''the humble individu-
al" Dragging of the lowliness of his ori.
gin, limiting at the great merits which
could alone have lifted him to his pres
ent exalted station, and representing
himself as so satiated with the sweets OF
unsought power as to be Indifferent to
its honors. Ambition is not for him,
for ambition aspires; and what object
has he to aspire to7 From his content
ed mediocrity as alderman of village,
the people have insisted on elevating
him from one pinnacle Of greatness to
another, until they have at last made
him President of the United Staets.
He might have been Dictator had he
pleased; but what, to man wearied
with authority and dignity, would die
tatorship be worth9 If he is proud oI
anything, it is the tailor's bench from
which he started. He would have
everybody to understand that he is hum
ble,-thoroughly humble. Is this carl
caturei No. 1t is impossible to carl.
cature Andrew johnson when he
mounts his high horse of humility and
becomes sort of cross between Uriah
Heep and Josiah Bounderby of Coke.
town. Indeed, it is only by quoting
Dickens description of the latter per
sonage that we have anything whicl
fairly matches the traits suggested BY
some statements in the President''
speeches. "A big, loud man." says thu
humorist, "with stare and a metallic
laugh. A man made out of coarse ma
terial, which seemed to have beer
stretched to make SO much of him. A
man with a great puffed head and fore
head, swelled veins in his temples, anC
such strained skin to his face, that i
seemed to hold his eyes open and lift hi
eyebrows up. A man with pervadint
appearance on him of being inflated lik'
a balloon, and ready to start. A maj