The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-09

being apparently unwilling to incur the suspi-
cion of sharing in his malady. What has
brought Mr. Williams to grief is the notion
which he makes frantic but unsuccessful
efforts to develop, that in Andrew Johnson
tue majority of the Committee had got hold of
a great historical character of the Stuart and
Slrafford type, whose abilities and wickedness
made his possession of power dangerous to
the State, and whose removal, therefore, was
duty as delicate as it was awful.
There is certainly some resemblance between
Mr.. Johnson and Charles | or James ii, but
Mr. Williams has apparently very little idea
in what it consists. The President is like the
Stuarts in having very loose notions of the
nature and functions either Of the legislature
or of the executive, and in fancying that the
latter is the real depositary of the sovereignty
even in a constitutional government, the
former being rather an adviser than a law
giver He has set out his opinions, too, in
much the same temper and with similar
want of sincerity. But here the parallel
ceases. Nothing can be possibly more
unlike than the relations OF the Stuarts
to the English nation and those of
our worthy "Chief Magistrate to the Ameri-
can nation, and nothing but the nervous dis
order we have mentioned would have led Mr..
Williams to fancy there was any analogy
between them. The crisis, too, through
which the country is passing is momentous
one, no doubt; but it is not Mr.. JOhnson's
faults and follies which have made it so, and
his impeachment or removal would, therefore,
not remove any of the real difficulties in the
national path. The business of impeaching
him is not now and never was a weighty or
important business in the eyes of anybody
except the small knot of supernaturally illu-
minated politicians who have taken it in
hand.
Whether the North would reap the fruits of its
victory in the field, after the lighting was over,
has all along depended not on what Andrew
Johnson did or said, or what Mr.. Stevens or
Mr.. Wade or Mr.. Boutwell, said or did, or
what anybody else said or did, but on the
temper and persistence of the Northern
people. In every great struggle, whether in
| war or peace, it is only small number of
| master minds who can take in the whole field
and see where the key Of the position really
! lies, and on what combination of circumstances
! the fortunes of the day will turn. The COM
! mon run of politicians and soldiers are pretty
! sure to fasten on some trifling matter of only
collateral Importance, and see in it, to use the
| gorgeous balderdash of Mr.. Williams, at once
"a master-key" and ga centre of gravity, 4"
and make a fuss about it in the inverse ratio
OF the value Of their opinions,
We might illustrate this copiously from
the chronicles both of the late war and
| Of the last two years, if we had space.
One of the most striking examples of the force
OF this tendency has been what we may call,
we hope without ofense, the impeachment
craze. For year and half a number of
| well-meaning as we'll as some ill-meaning
persons have been fully persuaded that unless,
by hook or by crook, Andrew Johnson could
be got out of the Presidential chair all was
| lost, and have been trying, but with very
small measure of success, to win the public
over to their way of thinking. As is usual
with a certain class of minds, the more they
thought of their scheme, the more import
n,,A Al,a s.,Ny@ ~kn
appeared, the more stupendous villain An
drew Johnson became. He started before
them as simply very indecent brawler, whose
presence in the White House was national
disgrace, no doubt, but who was simply dis
grace-nothing more. AS the chase continued
he grew into an offender against morality, then
a seller of pardons, then a conspirator against
the nation, then the preparer of a coup d'6tdt,
and finally General Butler ran him to earth as
a common assassin.
But all this was done by dint of hallooing
and insinuating. No proofs were forthcoming
and, in order to put good face on this little
defect, it was given out that the proofs were
too awful to be laid before the public till the
| Committee was ready to report, and the mem
bers were bound to secresy under the most
solemn sanctions. We have waited with bated
| breath more than q year for the opening of the
bag, and now Mr.. Williams has opened it and
displays its contents with a showman's mag
| nilOquence. But it turns out, as we have over
and over suggested in these columns that he
has nothing to show that we did not all know
already. The secresy was apparently intended
simply to heighten the effect of a rather sorry
farce. Two-thirds of the charges are simply
ofFenses for which the only proper punishment
is non-reglection and public reprobatiOn.
There could be hardly better illustration O
the diseased condition of Mr.. Williams polit
cal sense than the enumeration amongst Mr.
Johnson's "high crimes and misdemeanors
OF his having vetoed bills he ought to have
approved, and having advised Legislatures t
reject a constitutional amendment which ht
ought to have advised them to adopt. Why
if the President night be impeached for offenses
of this sort, so might every member of Con
gress be impeached for voting against any bill
| which the majority chose to pronounce essen
tial to the national safety, and SO might every
member who made stump speeches against
a constitutional amendment. The President
has Just as much legal right to veto wrongly
as Senator to vote wrongly, just as much
right to argue against constitutional amend
ment as Senator to argue for it. We think
Mr.. Johnson has been wrong, and perhaps
| from bad motives, in nearly all his vetoes and
In nearly all his recommendations; but if he il
to veto when the majority in Congress says
he may, and only to recommend what they
prescribe, his Office becomes a ridiculous sine
cure.
Nearly all the charges, too, are old and well
worn The pardoning of the Virginiau de.
serters, if true, was bad and corrupt act; but
bad as it was and corrupt as it was, it was nc
worse than other Presidents have done, and
than other officials are constantly doing; anG
tbOuoh wa sbOu1d lilra 10 saa M Tohrsor