The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-15
MONSIEUR VETO AND RECONSTRUCTION.
To me EDITOR Of me Evening Telegraph


sinned away his day of grace. He mistakes
perversity and obstinacy for greatness. He
went into office as Vice-President by a splen-
did popular majority. He will now 90 out Of
office so ignominiously, that John Tyler and
James Buchanan shine like stars when COM
pared to Andrew Johnson and his administra-
tion of public affairs.
Assassination prepared the ladder upon
which his ambition climbed, and if '1owliness'
was the ladder, he long ago kicked that ladder
down. His whole discharge of his public
by audacity and 10y imbecility. II is currently
reported that the doubtful honor of the author
ship of the Military Reconstruction bill veto
belongs to Stanbery, the Attorney-General.
Certainly it has the genuine Copperhead ring
Not content with still harping on my
daughter, in regard to the ten unrepresented
States, Andrew Johnson, with much show of
Indignation, calls upon Congress to remember
that there will be sixteen States out of line on
the 4th of March by which he desires us to
understand that the Fortieth Congress will
meet before Connecticut, Kentucky, and other
States elect their Representatives to the in
ao,,,Itg TN, 7ress. But he does not anywhere
IN This veto rive Us 10 understand that the
necessity which compels Congress to this
extraordinary session has foundation IN the
wickedness and treachery of the ExecuhYe,
in whose hands the people cannot safely trust
the ordinary machinery of Government unless
Aanked by extraordinary precautions.
Perhaps it may not be known that the Ame-
rican people have to thank honest Thaddeus
Stevens for the present Reconstruction bill.
On Monday the 18th of February, the Great
Commoner Greatly the biggest and noblest
Roman Of them alb sat alone in his apartments
on b street, near the Capitol, with copy of
the Military Reconstruction bill, cut from the
lIoraiag Chronicle. Forney had blown his
loudest blast for this bill Commonly called
the Senate amendment, which was really Old
Thad's bill eviscerated, and leaving all white
men, loyal and dislOyal alike to build again
the dangerous State governments in the ten
rebellious States). The Chronicle was loudly
for the Senate amendment.
The New York Iiljmc said it saw 'land
ahead Stevens saw land too but it was as
the mariner, tossed on the deep for many
nights, with shipwTeck threatening, every
hour sees the shore, rocky and precipitOus,
threatening. not peace and safety, but only
new dangers and certain shipwreck. 10 drop
all metaphor, Mr.. Stevens said to the writer
of this that he was never more perpleXed in
his life His Judgment was against the Senate
amendment, but there remained scarcely ten
days of the session in which to pass bill over
Monsieur Vetos head, and he was assailed on
all hands to give away. He felt the fatal dan
ger of any plan Of reconstruction which did
not prevent the men who made the Rebellion
having one more chance to organize another
rebellion. This they certainly had the power
to do, if to the dsloyal majority of the South
were committed the destinies of the men who,
for five weary years, had been true to the flag.
Thaddeus Stevens rose, as no man in either
House did, to the magnitude of what he called
this thrilling hour"
And in no single act did the moral heroism
OF that brave old man so shine forth as in that
moment in which he determined, no matter
who was opposed to him, to be faithful to his
duty to the oppressed white or black, and to
win the fight which, if lost in that hour,
against God and humanity, would not in
century be won again.
I told him no man could advise him. but
that the people would sustain linn in what
ever course he chose to adopt, and would tight
sCiH him on his ora line.
One hour from that moment he drove over
to the HOuse-he was still feeble from the eX-
element Of over-work-and to the astonish-
ment of friends and foes alike, defeated the
Senate-amended Reconstruction bill by sheer
force of will, and by Parliamentary tactics
which he hesitated to use.
BY some strange hallucination the Demo-
cratic party (what is left of it in Washington)
rallied to the side of the Great Commoner,
not because they loved him or his bill, but
because they thought by defeating the Senate
amendments (far less dangerous to them than
Mr.. Stevens original bill) they might escape
out OF the Thirty-ninth Congress and into the
Fortieth, with no reconstruction" at all.
That party, like the Cavaliers who fought for
Charles l, and prayed for the restoration" of
Charles Ia weaker and more vicious king
than the nrstC stCharles-sighnOwf for Zone year of
Buchanan" just as the Cavaliers sighed for
''one year of the Stuarts." They will most
likely get, instead Of either, regenerated re-
public, built not upon the vicious doctrines of
the ''Merry Monarch, " but upon the truer. if
more puritaniCal doctrines of Miles Standisb
and John Brown.
But must move on to the veto. History
will place the last great victory of the Great
COmmoner beside the real splendors of Chat
ham, and above the ponderous but oratorieal
triumphs of Burke. Nothing can better show
the difficulty of Old Thad's position than the
statement that all the younger leaders of the
House were against him, including the whole
Ohio delegation, led by John Sherman in the
Senate, and by Schenck and Bingham and
Garfield in the House. Perhaps Shellabarper
was the only member from Ohio who rendered
Mr.. Stevens the slightest assistance But he
won his fight and posterity, North and South
will thank him for it, and clOthe his fame with
that immortality which is the only guerdor
the brave and noble patriot asks of the Re
public for which he has suffered much, anC
from which he has received, alas little, i
anything. How mounful it is to hear Thad
deus Stevens Justly complain of the fact tina
very few members of Congress must do al