Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1867-02-14
Usurpstfon.
[Fron Harper,s Weekly.l

uttle REJECTION VIII enligllten them.
The President, by the Constitution, ID
made Q CO ce-ordinate but not Q co-equall
branch Of the Governments. SO, also, IA
the Supreme Court. But Congress, or the
Legislative branch, is wisely made the
chief and superior branch. The Execu-
tive and the Judiciary are "checks and
balances only. The Constitution, in
giving Congress powerto remove thePres-
fdent by impeachment and to reorgan-
ize the Supreme Court by increasing the
Enumber of Judges establishes the neces-
sary final supremacy of the Legislature,
TO suppose three absolutely co-equaf
branches is tpsuppose three supreme de-
partments Of the Government, which is
absurd. Under certain careful reserva-
tions, thereipre, the Legislature is as in
tie nature of popular system 1t should
be, constitutionallys supreme. f'n5 lLI iH.ll
The President is the Executive, Heis,
the hand of the Government. His ftInep
tion is to execute the laws which are
enacted by. Congress. He Is therefore
made Commander of the army and navy,
because the execution of the laws may
sometimesrequiref force. But he can law
fully use the army and navy only i'm the
enforcement of the laws, and there, are
no laws until Congress makes them.---,
The Executive has no legislative power
whatever But the check upon the Leg
islature by the Executive which the Con-
stitution provides is the Veto. Yet that
is not a final obstruction. If law be
vetoedby the President 1t is invalid,
unless it be passed over the veto by vote
of twO-thirds of Congress. 1t then be-
comes as imperative law, as if the Presi-
dent had approved it: and his oath binds
him to its faithful execution. That is
one of the ways in which the supremacy
IF ho I las
constitutionally asserted. ,....,-
When the rebellion was suppressed by
the arms of the United Statesi ii left every
rebel State without any lawful civil au-'
thority, as President johnson truly de-
clared at the time. Every such State was
held by the national military authority,
and as Commander-in-C Chief upon the
field the President was authorized to-
establish military governments to keep
the peace. But there could be no politi-
cal movement, no initiation of a civil
government without law of the United
States, and the Legislature or Congress
alone was constitutionally competent to
pass such law. By disregarding this
fact, by initiating civil governments
upon his own responsibility and without
! the least reference to Congress, and then
| insisting that such governments were as
| valid as those of Ohio or New York, the
| President indisputably, ,usurped the func-
| ton of Congress, and neither he or any
of his adherents have ever been able to
show the slightest constitutional authori-
| ty for his action. This is the plain usur-
| patton of the President. He had no
more authority to reorganize the rebel
! States of his own motion than he would
have had for issuing an edict from the
| White House, removing the Governor of
| New Jersey, and claiming for 1t the force
and sanctity of law. i' ... .,.....
But he did this twenty months ago, we
are told, and why do we now first hear of
usurpation? We do not now hear of it
for the first time. 1t was as clear then as
it is now. But the express terms of the
| Presidents prOclamations and the words
of his first Message In December, 1865,
| by which he referred the whole subject
| to Congress, and his declarations that he
| regarded his action as experimental, per-
suaded the country that his proceedings
| were merely provisional, and were taken
| from the necessity of immediate action
and from considerations of public safety
If the President had said in his procIa-
nations that when any State had con-
formed TO the terms he imposed it should
| be at once by that fact restored to all its
functions in the Union, the very first act
| of the present Congress would doubtless
iiufV pSCii MP
Moreover, when his usurpation began
it was regarded not only in the light of
his own declaration that it was provis-
ional, experimental movement, arising
| from the public situation, like a sudden
suspension of the hubeds corpus, and like
that wholly referable to the ratification
of Congress, but 1T was viewed also from
the point of his conduct through the war
and his speeches upon his accession to
the Presidency. In n word, the same
confidence which the country had reposed
in the occasional arbitrary acts of Mr..
| IiincOln-a confidence founded in entire
| ally transferred to his successor elected
| with him, and called suddenly to deal
with an utterly unprecedented emergen-
cy. And the usurpation would have
been as heartily condoned by the country,
\ as Mr. Lincoln's acts always were, had
the President himself morally justified
his course by showing Mr.. Lincoln's
simple fidelity. '"''
But when the deplorable consequences
OF the Presidents course We're gradually
revealed-when the country saw that
the President actually denied to Congress
a legislative function which he had not
| hestated himself to assume; that, not
content with so startling u position, he
fiercely denounced Congress as an unlaw-
full and impertinent body; that his action
had placed the government of the lately
rebel States wholly in the hands of ene-
mics of the Government, leaving Union
men of every color to their mercies; that
he opposed every measure of Congress in
tended tosecure the just and necessary
results of the war; and that the whole
mass of those who had been in open oil
covert hostility to the Union and the
principles of equal liberty were suddenly
changed from his foulest detractors into
his most unwavering and menacing sup.
porters--then those who would willingly
have forgiven the assumption of power
had 1t been directed, as they supposed il
would be, to the pacification of oui
troubles, saw the Presidential conduct in
its true light as nothing less than usurpa.
tiop.
That 1t was begun with the deliberate
intention of overthrowing the Govern,
ment is not clear; but that it's chief dan.
ger, the sudden restoration of the late
rebel States without the least security O.
the Union, has been averted, is very evi
dent Yet the question still remains, ant
1t Is the question which the country Il
now pondering, whether Impeachment Il
a wise policy until the President Is showr
to be wilfully persisting In the attemp
, to establish his usurpation hy actually