The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-05
The Veto-The situation.
From The World.


The VetO-The situation.
From The World.
As a state paper, dealing with a great ques-
ton on impregnable grounds of argument,
nothing could be more cogent than this noble
message. The clear, masculine reasoning by
which President Johnson demonstrates the
irreconcilable repugnance of the vetoed bill to
the Constitution, and by which he shows that
the evils it inficts are the most CALLING and
intolerable which oppression can infict upon
its victims, leaves nothing to be supplied.
If he fails to produce conviction, it cannot be
for lack of sound argument and forcible re-
mOnstrance, but for the want of dispassionate
minds on which argument and remonstrance
can make no impression. The prompt passage
OF the bill over the veto, with thirty-nine sur
plus votes in the House and eighteen surplus
votes in the Senate above what was requisite
to make the two-thirds, betOkens that the
question has passed beyond the province of
argument to that of action. The next Con-
gress will be quite as radical as the present,
and even if the two-thirds and its surplus
could be wiped out, it would make no differ
ence, since bare majority sufices to prevent
the repeal of law once enacted. If the Re-
publicans carry the next Presidential election,
the veto will prevent the repeal of this abOmi-
nable law within the ensuing six years, for the
long term of the Senators insure the Republi-
cans at least one-third of the Senate, and a
third of either branch of Congress suffices to
support veto.
The sole power of President Johnson's veto
consists in the strength of his arguments.
Arguments of greater intrinsic force are not to
be expected hereafter, and as they obviously
produce no impression on the Republican
majority now, there is no ground to expect
from them any better result when the little
novelty they may possess shall have worn off,
and the startling occasion which commands
attention to them at present, shall have given
place to the leaden apathy with which people
naturally regard reasoning which possesses no
novelty, on questions regarded as settled.
That the Republican party regard this ques-
tion as settled, is incOntestable; and we cannot
expect that the arguments which produced no
impression on them while it was pending, will
be weighed with candor when they have come
to consider the question as decided. 1t is not
what Democrats think of these arguments that
is going to change anything, but what Repub-
lcans think of them; and he must be strangely
blind to the signs of the times, to the actuali-
ties of the situation and to the ordinary opera
tiOn Of human motives, who expects that
much can be accomplished by way of prose-
lytism by their iteration. Arguments have
spent their practical force when there is no
longer any chance Of getting them fairly con-
sidered by those whom you wish to convert.
For all purposes of impression they become
blueted by use, and by the difficulty of re-
opening questions which have been decided
after long discussion. Familiarity with usurpa-
ton takes OFF the keen sense of its atrocity:-
"Vice is a monster of such hideous mien
AS TO be hated needs but TO be seen;
Yet seen too Oft familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace"
These lines of the poet depict tendency of
human nature which has been deplorably ex-
empliied by our countrymen within the last
six years. The resolutions passed by Congress
in the summer of 1861 with only two dissent
ing votes, declaring that the war was not
waged for any such purposes as are now
sought to be consummated, measures the sad
decline in public virtue.
As a portrayal of wrongs, nothing needs to
be added to this powerful message of Presi-
dent Johnson. But il we attempt to pass from
the question of wrongs to that of remedies,
we no longer tread upon well-eXplored, solid
ground. The terrible and portentOus evils
which the President shows to be involved in
the enforcement of this cruel law, are a strong
argument for resisting its operation and
shortening its duration, by every practicable
! or promising means. The worse any stua-
| ton Is, the stronger are the reasons for
speedily getting out of it. The bill is so bad
that nothing undertaken against it can be
worse. The only possible methods of relief
are these three
G. l. Military resistance by the Southern
States.
q political revolution in the North lead
ing 10 repeal of the law.
"a. o, a me OF action in the South leading tC
i'9 1oO1p 1ptahce and reorganization under it.
-, we a., nave not forgotten the Supreme Court;
pu' | tne chanees Of relief from that quarter
The greatest expedition and ceIaritv cannot
procure, a. decision from the Supreme Cour
much short OF year, since the court. aftei
its spring adjournment, will not meet agai1
+ until next winter. In the meantime the ex
isung state state &c governments will be utterly
lates out of Office all the inonml'a,,ts and re-
> quires them to be replaced by orsFs persons @ no