Delaware State journal and statesman., 1866-03-30
IProm the London gconomlstI
THE PRESIDENTS SPEECH ON THE
WAsHINGTON ANNIVERSARY.

WAsHINGTON ANNIVERSARY.
We regret that we cannot join in the enco- |
miums which some of our contemporaries
have layished upon Mr.. Johnson's speech to
the people of Westinghouse speech which
while praising it heartily they have most
judiciously suppressed. We do not rcmem-
Der ever TO have read a great public deliver
ance by man in high position so wanting
in external decorum of form OF internal
dignity of thought. The occasion, il must
be remembered, was very great one-the
speaker one of the few mighty personages
OF the world President johnson is the head
of one of the most powerful nations now
existing, perhaps the most powerful nation
now existing, of II people which without
striking blow can compel II Government
like that which now rules France to recedc
from cherished purpose, and he deemed it
necessary to proclaim to the world the policy
by which he hoped to close up the wounds
caused by the civil war. lie had to announce
that as President of the nation, and moi of
any faction within the nation, he had deemed
it right TO break finally with the party which
had elected him, to rentroduce the South
without effective guarantees, and to forbid
exceptional central legislation for the protec-
| tion OF blacks. II was natural to make his
| statement in the form of speech to II cluster
of people from Washington assembled in his
own grounds, for that is the American mode,
and becoming to speak with rough homei-
ness for nothing not simple would be accep
! table to the West But it was neither ma
tural nor becoming for the President,
monarch in position and more than mon
arch in power, to address a mob in the style
of mob orator, and lay aside, with all pomp
of words, all dignity of lorbearancc, There
was manliness, and even dignity, in the way
in which the Presid ent accepted and neu-
traized a laugh at his origin, but there was
no manliness in affecting to believe that the
majority in his own Parliament, without
whom he could not have been President,
were plotting ASSASSINATION, in talking of his
own murder as imminent, or in exclaiming
in tone which seems even to Americans
histrionie-"If my blood is to he shed be
cause vndicate the Union and the prcser-
walton of this Government in its original
purity and character, let it be shed let an
an altar to the Union be erected, and then,
if it is necessary, take me and lay me upon
it, and the blood that now warns and ami
mates my existence shall be poured out as a
fit libation TO the Union of these States. ~
There was no dignity in singing out indi-
vdual opponents as traitors, and stigmatiz-
ing others as 'dead ducks upon which he
would not waste 'tmmunition,n or publicly
telling the people that he, a monarch, 'would
not be bullied, or talking of the Constitu-
tion as an instrument to be printed as if it
were in the heavens punctuated with stars" "
while in the next breath he affirmed that as
Il good tailor lie "wanted no patchwork but
a whole suit Mr.. Lincoln, like Mr. John
son was Western man of lowly origin, and
and his humorous homeiness seemed often
to Englishmen to pass the limits of good
taste, but Mr.. Lincoln on such an occasion
would have been as incapable of speeches
like this as any Old World sta tesman; would
have struck his opponents if NJ all by few
happy sentences of illustrate n, and have
risen to Biblical imagery, which has always
from association an effect of moral grandeur
where his successor rises only to wretched
"bunkum." II may be said we make much
OF style, but in the uttcrances OF statesmen
there are styles which express, tendencies
anu powers. No man not liable I o lose lis
head would in Mr.. Johnson's post. ION have
uttered that angry burst about his ow u supc-
rlorlty to abuse or the needless defian ce OF
personal danger; no man whose iudgr. 1ent
was balanced would have resorted on such
an occasion to the wild hopes and feeb. e
slang OF Western stamp orator; no man,
above all, conscious what it is to govern.
would have held up constitutional opponents
by name to the vengeance Of the nation ms
F assassins 1t is no light thing that in the
crisis of its history nation terribly power
ml-and we use the word terribly ad,isedly
should be ruled by man liable to be car
rled away when speaking in public vindic-
tlYe TO opponents, capable of believing that
wild protestations become the Chief Maris
trate of Il great State. Words are things in
] free politics. Mr., Bancroft's acrid nonsense
about foreign States, uttered publicly to their
Ambassadors, then sitting as the nations
guests, have done more to breed soreness
| and false contempt for American institu-
tlons than lost battle could have done, and
his ill-judged exhibition of spite was a tri
t viallty when compared with the speech of
MIR. johnson. A sccond-rate historian fling
ing pompous sarcasms may excite annoy-
ance, but an American President talking as
II lie were inilamed with wine excitcs fear