Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1866-04-12
ImDeachnemt.
[Corresp ndence Of the Boston Post
VV.eu,~,r,,ro,, n ~ Anil o 1oQp


WAsHINGToN, d. c., April 8, 1866.
Whispers have been circulating here of
an event SO grave, so improbable, that /
have feared amid the general ridicule with
which they have been received, to give them
a fixed form in your columns. But the
shadow takes shape and the gloom takes
light, and it would now be simple neglect
to pass them unheeded longer. Thoughts
of impeaching the President of the United
States are entertained and resolved by Sem
ators and by members of the other branch
of the National Legislature. 1t has even
been said that Gen. Butler has suggested
the grounds on which such impeachment
might be made with specious seeming of
legal justification. After his trite attempt
to talk law before the Supreme Court
os the United States in the case of
the Indiana conspirators, the faulty that
would lead Senators to look to him for
leadership in such crime is only equalled
by the immeasurable recklessness that could
suggest it. Failure to enforce the provis-
ions of the cOntiScation act, is the specitiea-
tion named; an endeavor to substitute his
single will for the will of the people, as
trying to operate through their constitu-
tional delegates in duly convened Congress
assembled, is the charge. a'<-.-
HComing events cast their shadows be-
fore" is an old aphorism but this threat
comes upon the country unheralded by any
premonitory shade of a shadow. What act
of the Presidents public life could have
awakened suspicion of such a dread insult?
At the besSit could culminate into nothing
more. Was the whisper derived from his
course at the inception of the late rebellion
When the cOnstitutionally elected Legisla-
ture of his State gave its adhesion, indorsed
and O. eaforced by its Governor duly elected,
to the secession of that State, he stood al
most alone, political Luther, with the
Constitution inhis hand, saying, II cannot
do this thing-it is unconstitutional" Were
we to anticipate this threatened impeach-'
ment from the tenacity with which he clung
to that resolution, severed the political as
sociatiOns, the private friendships of life
of upward toll rather than swerVe an inch
from the line of conduct he believed the
Constitution of the United States pre-
scribed? Hooted, jeered at by everNman,
every journal of his State, put in jeopardy
of life and limb, relinquishing all, Drawing
all, with the faith of martyr In his child
hoods Gospel, so true to the Union and to
the instrument that makes it, that in the
midst of her agonies his political oppo-
nents selected him for, and elected him to,
the Vice Presidency of the nation. What
in his career could foreshadow an impeach-
ment |? To Andrew johnson the test OF po-
litical heresy was the Constitution. 1t has
been so to him all through life. It is SO to-
day. His Senatorial lifel Plaeeit it alongside
of the public lifeof the aspiring, ,sOldierand
the Democrat of Charleston who may sug-
gest so fonl an iRsalt2 The fanatic Crom+
wellumight push a Charles Stuart to the
block, aud men see butthe struggle of a great
man against a weak king; but imagine AM
drew johnson on trial with Chase for a
Bradshaw and Butler for an Invisible ac-
cuser., y..eqi,iI.k d art5nis sa4.er.,
nI OH THE PRESIDENT RIGHT. . asg
Q. "From his course as President are to be
drawn the grounds forthis impeachment
He has not done a single act as President
under a different guidance than that he fol-
lowed in Tennessee. All hisGdifferenees
with Congress are based on !. his reverence
for the Constitution. Itis said he misinter-
prets it,, Possibly, for no man IS fnfAilible,
and the instrument is not of the clearest. -
E"The great majority of Congress differ with
hims and surely they are wiser than he,"-
To this the answer Is obvious. The who'll
Legislature Of his State, the State itself Of
Tennesseesdiaered with him, AND. what man