The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-15

Congress into as virulent evaporation as he
could have done by filing all the Offices of the
country with Democrats, and he has secured
no body of attached and strenuous supporters
in either party.
President Johnson has misconceived the
relative Importance of argument and action in
the executive head of great Government.
We are indebted to him for many sound and
admirable arguments against the policy Of the
radicals but they have been of no more ad-
vantage to us, nay, of less, than would have
been the same arguments from private citi-
zen. There are hundreds of men in the ooun-
try who can reason as cogently as the Presi-
dent; but he was the only man who, by vigOr
tempered with wisdom, could have saved the
South from the oppression under which it
groans. We do not complain that Democrats
have not had the Offices, although, by aid of
them, they could have turned the tide in oriti-
cal elections; but what we do complain of ia
that the Presidency has sunk, in his hands
into nullity. Even by a method distastefui
to Democrats, the President could have
arrested a vast amount of evil. His Cabinet.
from the first day until now, has been clog.
1t has been composed of men who would not
fight Congress, and could not manage it in the
interest of his policy; of men whom the Demo-
Gratis disliked and the Republicans distrusted.
A President who thus wastes and neutralizes
his power, only makes matters worse by the
lnldnuldLOry VlBOr OF MS language.
If, in the autumn of 1865, the President
with keen perception of the approaching
hostility of Congress, had dissolved his Cabi-
net, he would have had no difficulty in filling
every place with prominent radical. BY this
means, he could have taken out of Congress
some of the talent which has been exerted
against him, and he could easily have pledged
the men, before he appointed them, to policy
of moderation. He could at least have fixed
he 4 - Al
then reached, and, by the moral weight he
would have acquired with the extremists,
have secured smooth reception for his first
annual message. Besides the aid he might
have derived from such a Cabinet in moulding
the opinions of radical Congressman, he could
have prevented the turning of the Republican
party against him by accusations of his having
deserted it. By thus keeping the confidence
of that party he could have moderated il not
entirely controlled, its action. He:could have
got it pledged to something rather milder than
it then demanded, instead of enabling Congress
to bring it up to the tyrannical enormities
which are now insisted on.
We, of course, could indicate a mode of
action with which the Democratic party would
have been better suited; but of three possible
schemes the President adopted the very worst.
AS he decided on Republican Cabinet and a
Republican administration, it was great mis-
take not to take such Republicans as could
exert an influence over Congress and keen
him the confidence of the party. By one course
which the President could have adopted, but
did not, he might have moderated Congress
and prevented the enormous extension of it's
demands. BY another course which he could
but did net adopt, he might have carried the
people against Congress. But, by want of
skill to which it would be difficult to find q
parallel he has managed to have no effective
support either from Cabinet, Congress, or the
people. President Johnson presents the sur
prising spectacle of the head of great Govern
ment almost as isolated and powerless as pri-
vate citizen.