The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-06-19

sion before its readers But IN order TO boil
ster up their avowals that 1t was the real in
tentlon Of Congress, now obslructed by Mr..
JOHNSON, to wipe out all the State Govern
ments and set up parcel of military autocrats
in their place, supreme over everything but
the lives of their subjects, they are quoting
The language Of President J6hnson's veto
in contrast with the language of Attorney
General Stanbery opinion.
1t is not incumbent upon the World to recon-
cile the .twol The day that the veto of the
Supplementary act was published, we pointed
out that President Johnson had overstrained
his Interpretation oft, Sympathizing heartily
with his denunciatiOn Of its manifold enormi-
ties and usurpations, we objected that. in
selecting the grounds of his veto, he had, by
excess of ZEAL given to the radicals a warrant
for severe Interpretation of the act, which
would infalibly be used against him. But If
the President, sustaining and iustifying with
ardor veto, cannot be pardoned for having
occupied a different viewpoint from that
which be occupies in fulfilling his sworn duty
to execute the laws Of the United States
neither can Congress, which rejected the Pre-
sident's Interpretation Of its act by overriding
his veto of it, be justified in discarding its own
Language In the enactment and assuming the
hostile Interpretation. e o. ,-
The radicals are not whit more consistent
than the President Of whose Inconsistency
they are attempting to take advantage. The
Attorney General has interpreted the Military
acts in accordance with the established and
reasonable principles of legal Interpretation.
He has not strained nor quibbled. Mr.. Evarts,
Mr.. O'COnor, or any Republican or Democratic
lawyer of the first rank, would interpret the
act precisely as Mr.. Stanbery has done. They
could do no otherwise, and interpret law ac-
cording to the principles and practice of the
law. And II is to be said, moreover, that the
second opinion of Mr.. Stanbery, in those mat
ters left over to subsequent consideration,
rather stifIens than relaxes the law.
The President being constrained by his duty
to see all laws faithfully executed, and by his
ultimate responsibility, as defined very lately
in the decision of the Supreme Court, for the
acts of all the military commanders, could not
refuse to interpret the law; could not refuse to
be enlightened by the opinion of the Attorney
General upon the law; could not refuse to
apply the established rules of legal interpreta-
tion to the constituting of the law; could not
hesitate to enforce a uniform Interpretation
and execution of the law-the first essential Of
even such justice as the law itself permits,
and certainly a condition of successful recon-
struotion under the law. .
Therefore the pretense of a necessity having
been created by the President, or by the AttOr-
ney-General, for contrary and corrective action
on the part of Congress at a July session, is
wholly pretense and sham. With shameless
and perfect perfdy the Republican party pro-
ceeds in its purpose to secure the perpetual
tion of its own power, even at the expense of
prolonged disunion. ta.t