The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-09-05

Mr.. johnson as a renegade and traitor.
In performing this duty, we shall not Affect
for Mr.. Limo oln any veneration which we do
not feel. We will frankly say that we have
no sympathy, nor much patience, with the
Republican cant of always calling him sour
martyred President" Mr.. Linooln's character
is neither better nor worse from the fact that
he died by assassination. We would no more
canonize Abraham Lincoln than we would old
John Brown, although Lincoln was every way
a more estimable man than Brown. The fact
that one was killed by an assassin and the
other by hangman, makes neither of them
political saint. Both are to be judged by what
they respectively did before their tragioal
ends. John Brown was felon, and deser
vedly met felon's fate. He indeed differed
from a common felOn, in not acting from
common felon's motives. But this is true of
Wilkes Booth. Mr.. Lincoln resembled neither
Of these criminal enthusiasts, except in the
circumstance that he did not die a natural
death; but the fact that he was cut off by viO
lence should not in any degree alter our esti-
mate of his character. To call him martyr
is absurd; the essence of martyrdom being
voluntary sacrifice of life in attestation of the
sufferers convictions.
But Mr.. Lincoln, though no saint nor much
of a statesman, was man of good impulses,
fair intentions, and more than ordinary pro-
bity. The make of his mind, and all his
habits of thought, were averse to sophistry
and chicanery; and this intellectual fairness,
which we do not know that anybody ever
denied him, relieves him, and ought to redeem
his successor, who treads in his footsteps,
from the imputation of perversely adopting
policy for which there is no warrant in the
Constitution Every shaft aimed at Presi-
dent Johnson passes directly through the
body of Abraham Lincoln.
In the first place Co begin with the con-
sideraton which lies at the core of the cOntro-
versy), Mr.. Linceln believed that the right
of the Southern States to representation in
Congress never lapsed at all during the Re-
beliOn, and that it remained perfect whenever
they should choose to exercise it. We could
give many proofs of this, but we will formally
present only one, as others will appear Incl
dentally in the evidence we shall have ocoa-
sion to bring forward in support of another
position. In December, 1862, Fernando Wood
wrote a letter to the President, stating that he
had intelligence from Richmond that the
Rebels were ready to send Representatives
to Congress, provided the President by an
amnesty would shield them from the
penalties of treason. Mr.. Lincoln, in his
reply, expressed doubts, or rather a
disbelief of the authenticity of Mr.. Woods
information, but was willing to grant an
amnesty if he could be convinced that the
States wished to resume their places in Con-
gress. 81 do not think it would be proper"
he continued, ''now to communicate this,
formally or informally, to the people of
the Southern States. M belief Is that hey
already knooO 1t; and when they choose,
if ever, they can communicate with me un-
eouivocally." The right of the States to re-
sumo their representation in Congress was so
incontestable, and the interest of the United
States in allowing them to exercise that
right so obvious, that Mr.. Lincoln thought
the Southern people might know it without
any special assurances from him. Although
we promised to give only one documen-
tary proof on this head, another occurs to
us of such general notoriety that we can recall
it by mere allusion, without the tedousness
OF quotation. France, at later stage of the
war, rendered her good offices as a mediator
between the Federal Government and the re-
/ volted States. Our Government rejected the
proffer, and the Secretary of State, by Presi-
dent Lincoln's direction, stated in the reply
that seats in Congress awaited the Southern
/ States whenever they chose to occupy them,
and that discussion and adjustment between
the parties in that arena, was preferable to
any form of mediation.
We now proceed to state the views of Presi-
dent Lincoln on the other great point in con-
trOversy-the organization of the State Gov
ernments. The Republicans contend that it
is usurpation on the part of the President to
pretend that this can be done without Con-
gressional authorization. If this be so, Presi-
dent Lincoln was just as much a usurper as
! President Johnson. The proofs, as of the other
point, are conspicuous; but the obstreperous
din which is kept up about President john
sons usurpation is causing them to slide into
foTgettulness. In his annual message in De-
cember, 1863 Mr. Lincoln informed Congress
OF plan Of reconstruction which he had
adopted, and was about to offer to the South;
and without awaiting, or even asking any
action of Congress thereupon, he published a
reconstruction proclamation on the same day
he sentin the message. He soughtno advice, but
only told Congress what he had decided to do, and
put his resolution in practice before they had
time to protest. or even to consider the sub
ject He forthwith set the machinery of recon-
struction at work in Louisiana and Arkansas,
and he encouraged reconstruction by another
method in Tennessee, independently of any
action by Congress. He regarded this as no
usurpation, because the right of the States to
organize republican governments and send
Senators and Representatives, was not derived
from Congress but from the Constitution.
There was needed no permissive law to enable
them to exercise an irrepealable constitutional
right. Mr.. Lincoln proposed his plan only as
a suggestion to the States; he encouraged a
different mode of proceeding in Tennessee; and
he protessed a willingness to countenance any
plan which the people of the States might
adopt to accomplish the same end of restoring
the States to their Federal relations.
1t may be said that President johnson differs
from his predecessor in adherng to his own
plan after Congress has taken its stand in
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