The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-10
The President and Mr. stanton.

from The tribune.
In the traditions of the United States Gov
ernment the Cabinet has been so entirely the
creation of the Presidential will that the pre-
sent Administration we believe, furnishes the
first instance of Cabinet officer holding his
seat through term of years in direct opposi-
ton to the Presidents policy. When Mr..
Johnson was made President by an accident
he found himself in the hands of a strong
Cabinet whose members had been, through
out the war, the trusted advisers of Mr.. Lin
coin; they understood the various depart
ments, and he did not; they brought four
years of national experience to the work;
he came from the Military Governorship
of single State. Probably there was not
one of the Secretaries who did not know
better than he the duties of the Pre-
sidency, and Mr.. Johnson was no doubt
happy to find a ready-made Cabinet tho
roughly acquainted with Executive business,
and capable of directing his course. But,
while he yielded to the necessities of igno-
rance, he did not intend to be the mere execu-
tor of Mr.. Lincoln's will; yet, though resolved
upon change of policy, was uncertain what
that change should be. At first he thought
his predecessor had been too lenient and de-
sired to correct that error by general hang
ing Of the Rebel leaders; but before any
one was hung he was convinced that Mr..
Lincoln had been too severe, and corrected
that mistake by appointing Rebels to Office.
AS soon as he changed the Executive policy,
and began to reverse the decision of the
war by placing the United States in an
attitude OF defeat, it was naturally expected
that the Cabinet officers Mr.. Lincoln had ap-
pointed would resign. Their alternative was
surrender, and Mr.. Seward and Mr. Welles
preferred 1t. One by one, as the new Pre-
sident's intentions were disclosed Messrs.
| Speed, and Dennison, and Harlan resigned.
The position OF every member of the Cabinet
was deined-of every one but Edwin NJ
Stanton, the Secretary of War, whose entire
record in othoe was opposed to Mr.. Johnson's
! views, and who retained his position without
! making single profession of fidelity or faith
lessness to his old principles. AS time passed,
Mr.. Stanton became the political mystery of
the day-something like the Man in the Iron
Mask, or the Yelled Prophet of Khorassan.
DE said nothing, he did nothing; he drew his
salary, and attended Cabinet meetings. So
equivocal was his position that his enemies
and friends were equally afraid to trust
him. he was third party in politics; he
| was mere othce-seeker; a radical forl0rn
hope in the Cabinet, traitor to Republi-
canism; he was everything, in short, that the
imagination of the people chose to make him.
Other public men are abused by one party
and defended by the other, but he was abused
! by both But gradually this cloud was lifted;
it was noticed that Mr.. Seward no longer COM
| plimented Stanton as "the Garnet who had
organized victory and that when Mr.. john
son went on the electiOneering funeral excur-
sion to the grave of Douglass he was not of
the party. Then the issues of reconstruction
were presented, and it was well understood
that Mr.. Stanton did not side with the Presi-
dent. Then it was rumored that he wished TO
resign, and consented to hold Office only at the
earnest request of the Republicans in Con-
gress. The recent publication of the Cabinet
debate upon reconstruction ,eonfrmed the
belief that Mr.. Stanton's Republicanism was
unshaken; and now comes the threat Of his
removal, and the announcement that he has
been for more than year one of the many
officers whom Mr.. Johnson has desired to
remove without daring to take the responsi-
bility--next to Congress and the people the
greatest obstacle to the Rebel rule which Mr..
! johnson has tried to establish.