The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1867-03-09

L :
tally, and the House should not be hasty
in declaring him guilty Of high crimes and
misdemeanors.
Mr.. BROOKS spoke. He said that Mr..
ASHLEY had asserted that five thousand
Union men had been killed and wounded
IN the South. Now he Mr.. BRooKsl was
an attentive reader of newspapers, and
knew what was going on, and he pro-
nounced the declaration as a mere fiction
a fgment of the gcntleman's own brain.
| There was no more crime in the southern
country, in proportion to its population,
than in New York, and no crimes had been
committed so Extensively atrocious as in
the northwest of Missouri. During the
past year and half there had been no
more crime committed in ten southern
| States than in ten northern States of like
population. Crime existed everywhere
and in every form-murder, arson, etc.
and yet assertions of crimes committed in
the southern country are mentioned here
to arouse the public to the impeachment
OF the President. Five thousand killed
and wounded There was no such proof
on record at all, nor before any committee,
that in Texas three hundred Union men
had been killed.
He would say to the gentleman from
Ohio [Mr. SPALDINGl, who stood here as a
Girond against the Jacobins, that the his
tory of the Girondists was in this place to
be written and although such men as he
attempt to arrest the revolution, he mr..
| BRooKsl did not think this revolution was
here to stop. He did not believe it was
half written, or half acted out, unless all
history was at fault. We are now repeat.
ing the Roman history Of Augustus and
julius Cesar, and the Government is
passing from a Republic to Despot-
| ism. Revolutions never stop. The Girond-
| lists the Conservatives are to be over
| whelmed by the Jacobins; and when we
| shall have lost all our liberties, some fu-
ture Napoleon, yet unknown, will rise up
| from the chaos, and rescue the country
| from anarchy through a military despot-
| ism. Hence the resistance of the gentle
man from Ohio Mr.. SPALDING] and the par
| tial resistance of the gentleman from Penn
| Sylyania Mr.. MILLER were all in vain.
More than one -half of the territory of the
old republic was already under military
deSpotiSm, and there was no more protec-
ton in the southern States for life, liberty,
| or property than under the dominions of
the Sultan or the Gar. The military GO
vernment bill now over ten millions of
people, white and black, was to be extend
ed over the North and West before there
volution was finished. While he greeted
the voice of the gentleman from Ohio
[Mr. SPALDINGl, and welcomed the calmly
resisting tones of the gentleman from
Pennsylvania mr.. MILLERl, he knew, if
history was correct, there was to be no
escape for any Of us.1
The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr..
BUTLERl, in his specifications of irnpeach
ment, said that this House would be false
to itself if it shrunk from impeachment
now. The gentleman was right. The ball
of revolution which had been set in mo-
ton was not 10 be stopped, but was to roll
over the House and the country. They
who embark in revolutions can never
shrink. They must always 60 on.
Another specification of Impeachment
by the gentleman from Massachusetts was
the surrender by the President of certain
army and railroad materials to the rebels.
Was the gentleman really serious on that
point Why, if that was criminal, what
would become Of him, from whom the
rebels have taken hundred dollars worth
of all species of material while the Presi-
dent has surrendered one!
We have here out loud what is whisper
ed in the inner circles of the caucus. The
executive branch of the Government is in
our way, and the Executive must be re-
moved. This was revolutionary talk. This
was what reminded him Mr.. BEooKsl OF
the French conventions. No matter what
the Constitution said-no matter what the
form of legiSlation-no matter what the
precedents Of the country were-no mat
ter whether the President is right or
wrong. he stands in the way of our party,
and he, therefore, must be removed This
was the whole secret of the process Of
impeachment. Let him appeal to his Re-
publican friends, and remind them that
they were establishing a precedent. At
some future day those now in the majority
| will be in minority, and some other party
wil.be in the majority, and if their Presi-
dent stands in the way, the majority could
impeach him and remove him out of the
way.
We are no longer a free people, with a
constitutional government, if the gentle
man from Massachusetts, is leader of his
party, and his principles and declarations
can be carried out.
We are all indebted, however, to the
gentleman from Massachusetts, for the great
freedom and frankness of his speech.
There was no disguise in him. lie told
the House exactly what he wanted. Who
ever, he says, stood in the way of the glo-
rious march Of the times must be taken
out Of the way, or. stricken down. That
was plain English, and all could compre-
bend it well.
If there is no respect, however, in this
| House for constitutional principles, let me
beg gentlemen, as one of the representa-
| tives of great commercial people, to be ar
in mind what are the financial conse-
quences of this prolonged agitation. Even
the first movement Of the gentleman from
Ohio [Mr. ASHLEY has already cost the
merchants, capitalists, bankers, and manu-
facturers full one hundred millions of dol
lars. He has inflicted immense losses on
those who hold stocks, bonds, and other
lgations-Federal, State, and corporate.
And now he proposes to keep up the agi-
tation much longer, and to cruelty these
great interests more and more. If the
bears of Wall street, who have profited by
the public ealamities to the amount CT mil
lions of dollars, and who have ridden
rough shod over the railroad stocks and
bonds of the States of Illinois, Iowa, and
other northwestern States, and given him
million Of their profits, they would
| not have more than compensated for
the large amount Of money they
were enabled to put into their
pockets. And now, as if all of these
calamitics were not enough, it is pro-
posed to continue this fearful and alarming