The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1866-12-22
''grtnlona nispafrh,.
SATURDAY DECEMBER 70. 1866.
Sublime Spectacle.

Mr.. WENDELL PHILLIPS has fine eye
for moral effects. He has just published
another letter in the Anti-SlaUay Standard,
urging the impeachment Of the President ;
and his chief argument for its seems to be
that " it would be sublime spectacle COM
pared with which, the trials of CABLES /.
and LOUIS XIV. would sink" &c.--to see
"the American people arraigning their
Chief Magistrate in the face Of the world
the first time in their history-for his at
tempt, by hypocrisy and treason, to cor
rupt their moral sense" Certainly, if
this sublime spectacle were presented in
the face of the world" we doubt whether
the world could keep its conference.-the
indignant American people arising in vir-
tuous wrath to let its Chief Magistrate
know that in attempting to corrupt its
moral sense he had walked up the wrong
passenger, and had got the wrong sow by
the ear
We rather like this outspoken WENDELL
PHILLIPS. He never makes any preten-
sion at all TO a respect for law and Consti-
tuition, and such like trammels to the
sublime flights Of his virtue. If the thing
ne recommends be shown to be against the
law, he likes it all the better. For exam
pie, in this letter he says:
"Some doubt whether Johnson be legally
liable 10 impeachment, since, as they suppose,
he has violated no specific statue, committed
no offence specially and exactly defined by law.
We think such supposition utterly erroneous.
On the contrary, II asked by what law we in
tended TO try him, we night answer, as the
RoGndhead did III Charles the Firsts case,
BY all the laws he has left us "
But even granting the suppostion TO be
correct, IL does not touch or affect the ques-
ton"
When you want TO try man for crime,
lac does not touch the question Indeed,
you cannot disgust men like Mr.. PHILLIPS
more than by citing the laws of the land
he had fondly hoped his Radical party had
got over al that sort of sickly sentimental
ity-snd now, when it is proposed to pre-
sent the world with q sublime moral dra-
ma, weakly to relapse into this pulling cant
about law, like any dog returning to his
vomit, is a little too much for PHILLIPS.
II would appear from this letter that the
present President of the United States has
deprived the unfortunate people Of that
country, almost of every jot and title of
the laws which once protected society but
that he has still left, through inadvertence,
one small shred of law somewhere, just
about enough to hang him by, in WENDELL
PuILLIPs's opinion-and in WENDELL
PHILLIPS's opinion very small rag will
do for that. For his own part, he does not
want even such rag-"it does not touch
the question"
This theory of Mr.. PHILLIPS is, we
fear, more widely prevalent at the North
than the speakers and writers Of that sec
tion wish at once TO declare. There is a
general disbelief in any law which would
stand in the way of the wishes Of that party
which is dominant for the time. The Su-
preme Court, we are now told, needs TO be
re0rganized; and the journal which has,
unhappily, the widest circulation in the
country, in an elaborate article Thursday,
taking for text the Indiana decision in
the case of MILLIGAN, urges that the court
must be reconstructed "to adapt it to the
paramount decisions of the war -" to
"make il meet the demands Of the great
revolution" sc. In short, there is ge-
neral disposition to eliminate law from the
courts of justice and establish for the 60
vernment of mankind the "great reyolu-
tion," the sublime new civilization created
by the war, and interpreted by orators OF
the higher law.