The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-06

minutes between the close of one session and
the beginning of the next, lest a faithless
President should perpetrate some irreparable
mischief and Congress was careful to act in
the spirit of that insult. It has kept a COM
mittee employed for the last eight or ten
months in raking. all the cesspools of scandal
to besmear his personal character and dis
cover some pretext for his impeachment. He
has been wantonly accused of writing traitor
GUS letters to JEFF. Davis, giving sympathy
and comfort to the Rebellion, and of completely
in the murder Of his predecessor to get his
Office. Congress has had the despicable and
indecent meanness to pry into his alleged
amours, and its committee have heard per-
jured witnesses who invented what they failed
to find.
The foremost business of this session is to
impeach him, and put him out of office, be-
cause he has exercised his right of dissenting
from the policy of their party. After all this
contumelous and insulting treatment, the
Republicans have the face to complain of Mr..
johnson because his Message is not abject and
conciliatory If Congress had shown any dis
position to meet him halfway If they had set
an example of the yielding spirit which they
require, there might be some show of reason
in complaining that their profers were re-
PEELED. But they have given him nothing but
fresh insults and proyocations, and are stupid
and arrogant enough to find fault that he does
not oringe and truckle. The blandishing en-
u6afmenIS OF congress Ougnt, no uOuOJ, TO
have had more melting effecti
1t is creditable to President Johnson's dig
nifty of character and sense of official decorum,
that he has not been provoked by this long
series of unexampled and persistent insults
into forgetfulness of the proprieties of his
position. The passions of the man are sunk
in the duties of the Office. He discusses, in
his message, only public questions from a
public point of view; but he discusses them
with vigor and decision justified by the i'm
portance of the subjects and the solid!ty of his
reasoning. 1t is the patriot jealous for the
Constitution, not the menaced officer or the
insulted man, that appears in every part OF
the Message.
This frank and intrepid document merely
gives words and logic to the determination
expressed by the people in their votes since
the adjournment of Congress in July. Ii the
President condemns the policy of Congress as
repugnant to the Constitution, subversive of
the public prosperity, and breach of pledges
solemnly given, he merely echoes the voice of
the people, or rather supplies tongue to ex-
press their will. The popular fat has gone
| forth that the reconstruction policy of Con-
| gress cannot stand; and we wish the President
would repeat it in every communication he
| has occasion to make, as the resolute cid
| Roman concluded every speech, no matter on
| what subject, with his deLenda est Carthage
no quarter to Carthage. 1t is preposterous'to
suppose this hideous violation of the Constitu-
tion can be permanent; and If Congress refuse
to undo their work, the people will assuredly
undo il for them.
| There is not one white man in five hundred
between the Potomac and the Rio Grande who
| will not indorse and stand by every word Of
| the Message, or whose indignant sense of vio-
| lated right and outraged feeling does not out
| run the guarded language of the President.
| Congress must be synod of as great block
| heads as they are disposed to be tyrants, If
| they think that with this state of feeling in
| the South, their negro governments can ever
be self-sustainiDg. They will stand while
they are propped up by Federal bayonets, and
| not day longer
| Will the people consent to maintain per-
manent armies for this detestable. purpose |?
Let the defeat of the Republicans in every
part of the, Northern States be taken as an
| answer. Go also for an answer to the universal
impatience of grinding taxation; to the feeling
| of insecurity and apprehension which pervades
the trading community; to the stagnation in
business to the bloated and unsound currency;
1 to the readiness with which projects for
virtually repudiating the public debt are lis
tened to; and when you have interrogated
these facts, tell us if they give promise that
the people will permanently endure the bur
dens of war in time Of peace for the sake of
making four or five millions OF Ignorant,
| brutal negroes the rulers of one Of the
country The question is not whether the
people will submit to this heavy expense for
one or two years to establish governments
which will afterwards be self-sustaining, but
whether they will submit to a perpetual
burden for SO wretched and insane an object
as to enable the Southern negroes to domineer
over the Southern whites. Nobody can sup
pose the Southern whites will submit to this
odious inversion of the order OF nature except
by military compusion; and we ask Republi-
cans what they expect to gain by continuing
for year or two system which can by no
possibility be permanent The hypoorites
They know that their reconstruction policy
cannot stand; but they are willing that the
people should groan and sweat under the ex-
pepse of it for another year, for the sake o.
giving them the negro vote in the Presidential
election.
The Republican journals can find nothing
solid to say against the masculine reasoning
of the Presidents Message, and so they i'll
their columns with splenetic, hypercritioa
cavils. The Times objects to it that instead o.
merely giving Information" to Congress, il
indulges in argument This prepOsterouE
cayil is just as applicable to every message o.
President Lincoln's, and to nearly every mes
sage of every President we ever had. 1t is toe
excessively foolish to deserve the dignity of a
retutation The Tribune applies to the Chic
Magistrate of the country its usual gentle
manlke charge of direct falsehood. Dryden
| when once cornered on a charge of Obscenity
in his writings, was driven to reply that he
knew no law which prescribed morality to
comic poet. The Tribune seems ignorant o
any law which prescribes courtesy to the