The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-23
The Crisis at Warrington.


Mr.. Johnson seems to be fully determined
that the process of reconstruction shall not 90
on smoothly if he can possibly prevent it; and
the means which he is adopting to prevent it
would be very interesting subject of study if
they were the result of any particular line of
thinking into which even a small number of
persons are likely to fall. But the truth is,
that he is kind of man who need not be
looked for in high place in a Constitutional
Government once in a thousand years, and
who could not have got into high place in
this one without a series of accidents such as
are not likely ever to occur again. The quail
ties which are cultivated in the politicians of a
representative Government are invariably pli-
ability and adaptability, or, in other words
talent in finding out what is practicable or
what the majority want to have done, and in
doing it. 1t is only once in many GEN.
turies that a statesman like Pericles appears,
who has not only the art of executing the
will OF the majority successfully, but of easily
winning the majority over to his way of think
ing. So that the lesson which the politician
OF free country has most constantly impressed
upon him is the lesson of yielding, of compro-
mising of postponing indefinitely, of accepting
not what he wants but what he can get, of
often cheerfully going without anything at all
in order to preserve his influence undamaged:
the lesson, in short, that in popular Govern
ment strength of will is rather an encum-
brance than help. A politician who has not
learnt this lesson hardly ever reaches any
place of trust or profit, but passes through life
with the reputation of an impracticable
grumbler.
Now, Mr. Johnson has not learnt it. and vet
as he has often told us, he has passed through
every Office in the peoples gift, from that of
village alderman up "to the chief magstracy
of this great country" 1t would not be diff
cult to account for this by an investigation of
the society in which he has passed the greater
part of his life. The simplicity, rudeness,
and terrible personality, if we may use the
term, of Southern life, and the unusually
prominent part which mere passion plays in
all slave societies, would alone furnish a sufi-
cient explanation of it. He no doubt believes
firmly that what he is now doing in Washing
ton is showing strength Of will, which he con
siders very fine thing; but what he is in
reality showing is simply vindictive temper,
which his political training does not seem to
afford him the least assistance in curbing. His
will is in reality very feeble, as was shown by
the readiness with which he suffered Congress
to set aside his ''pOlicy," and the hesitation
he has exhibited in resisting any of what he
considers the enoroachments on his authority.
The taunts or encouragements of his friends
have at last driven him into action, but the
action consists simply in what may be called
the expression of spite against indiVi-
duals. 1t is not at all likely that he
hopes or intends through the removal
either of Stanton or Sheridan to effect any real
change in the government of the South, or
change the terms of admission to the Union
for the seeded States. What he does hope to
do, and is pretty sure of doing, is to annoy a
number OF people who have annoyed him.
That his policy goes no deeper than this
that, in fact, he is not capable of any deep
policy at all-is, we think, abundantly proved
by the scheme which he devised for bringing
the impeachers to shame, and the nature of
which has just been exposed In order to
throw discredit on them, he goes to con-
victed perjurer actually serving out his sem
tence in JAIL and perhaps the man least likely
to be believed of any of whom the public has
ever heard, and gets him to trump up a story
on every word Of which wild improbability is
stamped, and gets the 'Acting Attorney Cen
eral'I to embOdy it in an official report, evil
IDENTIFY in the belief that it will crush his enc
miles, Now, this is the act of an embittered
and unscrupulous man, but it is not the act of
a deep man; and no man whose bad passions
find expression in this way is likely to be very
dangerous. Mr.. Johnson evidently is not the
stuff of which great traitors or cOnspirators
are made.
Nevertheless, though not dangerous man,
he is proving himself prominently a mis-
chievous man. He is mischievous in several
ways. One is, that in the petty persecution
on which he has now entered, he Is likely to
furnish several gentlemen with claims to the
Presidency as martyrs" simply, and which, If