The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-27

bub nOiuAbAf AubABon bOu luuon VI NulllhdIJ 1851
ing into his remonstranoe. He apparently
forgets what we have for some time past been
advOcating-that the removal Of Sheridan
changes no law, alters no result. To imagine
that any one man is absolutely necessary to
the preservation of our institutions or the gov
ernment Of any section, is to forget the funda-
mental elements of republicanism; merge prin-
ciples into men; give rule to the latter; ignore
any innate force in laws themselves, and march
the people at double quick to military des-
potsm. In this view alone we applaud the
removal of Sheridan; for the political cry raised
by the party in power shows how closely they
are treading upon the dangerous ground we
have designated. A brave soldier, indeed, is
Sheridan, and the President pays just tri-
butte to his worth; but it must be a principle
of our republicanism that no man is abso-
lutely essential to us. This lesson we must
teach at once. Ignoring it, we touch the bor-
der of a dictatorship and its inevitable Sc
quence.
Andrew Johnson attempted at first to seize
the three branches of Government, and embody
their forces in himself. He failed. Congress
has lately tried to do the same. They, too,
have failed. All this shows the strength of
our Government, and the terrible strain to
which it may be subjected without breaking.
1t is useless for Congress to hope that by any
enactment they can usurp all power. Their
efforts to break the executive branch by split
ting it into fragments is in every sense illegal,
and to be deplored by every man who's the
general good instead of political victory. The
desire, moreover, to force to the surface vast
negro Observation-Disclosures uneducated, untitled
to control themselves, much less legislate for
those who have just set them free-is the mad
dest phase of a revolution which is urged on
with partisan violence which forgets, in its
present success, that it must finally bring a
reaction which will be terrible to both white
and black. The former will dry up his SYM
pathies for race which is forced so rapidly
upwards that sympathy now turns to disgust.
The latter, taught that it is his color that
gives him merit, will sink to the level from
which, in common with ignorance of any
color, he must slowly march upwards. Here
he too will be filed with disgust; disgust for
the white who inflated him; disgust that he
has tasted at spring he must leave and after
wards reach by long years of TOLL disgust
that, after all that has been told him, brain is
the measure OF the man. The radical party,
in forcing this black element into such
prominence, appear only to elevate it the
higher that the reaction may drop it the lower.
Mr.. Johnson now holds in his hands the
forces that can resolve this problem of recon
stTuction. If he will only rise to the demands
of the occasion, he may restore himself to the
confidence of the North. His letter to General
Grant is full of executive power and deter
minatiOn that it shall not be wrested from him.
The whole common sense of the country sus-
tains his effort to keep his pose despise the
desire of Congress to Overturn him. Let them
impeach him. He may challenge it and win.
Let him overturn the clashing elements in his
own Cabinet; the country will applaud. Let
him drive back the black cloud that threatens
both North and South; he will receive all aid.
President Lincoln issued an emancipation pro.
clamation for the blacks; let Andrew Johnson
issue, by universal amnesty, an emancipation
for the white portion of the population of the
United States.