The Portland daily press., 1868-06-06
The Tmpeachmeu, Fnree.'

Mr. EDIToR,-Please let that title stand. 1t
is time for little plain talk about this BUSH
ness. There has been more than enough of
| cowardly insinuaton; now let us look at the
facts. Here are three or four in bunch 1. The
| Republican lawyers of the Boston bar are
about equally divided on the question whether
Andrew johnson was guilty under the articles
presented to the Senate. 2. A gentleman in
Washington during the trial, and toward its
close, had occasion to call on eleven of the
| Senators whose votes were then considered
doubtful. He found nine of them patiently at
work upon the law and evidence, looking up
| the authorities with a conscientious thorough
ness which the Managers ON the part of the
House would have done well to emulate, but
| did not. 8. Thaddeus Stevens pronounced
| the first ten articles worthless, and added an
eleventh which was more absurd than either
| of the others, since it charged johnson with
intending to deny the authority of Congress
in a foolish speech which had been followed by
every conceivable recognition of their author
| ity. In the opinion of many Republicans
these facts serve to show that the case against
| the President was not quite as plain as pike
| staff.
| Now look at three or four more. 1. Observe
| that in all the speeches of the Managers there
is not an hours reading on the scope of the
| tenure-of Office act, the very point at ISSUE
| 2. Consider the bearing of the most conspic-
| uous of the Managers, his impertinence to the
| Chief Justice, his intipation that Senator
johnson was acting as counsel for the Presi-
| ident, his badgering of witnesses and Often
sive assumption from beginning to end that
the whole trial was mummery and farce
conceived and carried out for partisan ends
g. Remember Thaddeus Stevens daring Re-
| publican Senators to vote for acquittal. 4. Re-
call the clamorous cutlery of portion OF the
press while the trial was still in progress, 80
dangerously indecent that Mr.. James S. ike,
brother of the Representative from this
State, and late American Minister at the
Hague, felt called upon to write letter from
Washington to the New York Tribune, remon-
stratine against a course which tended to
rouse every spark of selfrespect ON the part
of the judges SO assaulted and belabored, to
indignant protest and refusal to comply. Do
not these facts show that there were blunders
in the conduct of the case, as there was GER
tainly haste and carelessness in its prepare
ton?
Look finally at some of the performances
| since the trial closed. Thaddeus Stevens says
when asked if he would have Senators violate
their oaths that he ''don't think it would hurt
them much" MIR. Butler enters on an inves-
tgation which if it were open and aboveboard
would be important aud desirable, but which
conducted as it is, makes his committee mere
committee of defamation. Senator Sumner
announces in string of resolutions that the
trial was sham and humbug, with the form
of judicial proceeding but designed only as
test of party strength. To determine wheth-
er the President had technically, e., actually
violated the law, was only the professed object
of the proceeding. The real object was under
color or without color of law to thrust an I'M
popular President out of office. In the name
of the Republican party 1 protest against
this degradation of the forms of justice. If 1
call impeachment a farce, it is only and solely
because some men from whom better things
might have been expected, and others
from whom nothing good is to be ex-
pected, have conspired together, to pro-
cure a verdict in great state trial
by the exercise of all the miserable arts
of the ward room and the lobby. The pecu-
culiar theories of these men have just been
pointedly dsowned at Chicago. Mr.. Summers
notion of establishing impartial suffrage in
Ohio by act of Congress, and Mr.. Buffers no.
ton, to which Mr.. Stevens has also given his
assent, OF dishonoring the national promises,
have been explicitly and heartily condemned
by the representatives of the Republican par
ty in their national convention, and the party
90 hoo ,e;I,J 10 f,r
the present tricks of these men than for
their former vagaries.r
As for the seven, absolutely nothing has
yet been produced to justify any impeachment
of their integrity. 1t may be that Henderson
will support Chase for the Presidency, but
there is as yet no good reason to suppose so.
The Tribune calls Grimes a hedgehog, but
calling names proves nothing. Senator Ross,
Kansas Abolitionist in the old days, a man
who enlisted as private in the last war, how
does his character compare just now with that
of Senator Pomeroy, who voted for conviction?
Which vote was worth most to Illinois, Trum-
bulls or Dick Yates's? If we are bound to go
into the question of motives, how was our own
Senator Morrill, situated? L have no doubt
he voted honestly and conscientiously. I be-
I6P6 Hill W Ue d uOuOrdDic HAL.
But by what rule do men justify him, and
unctuousy insinuate in the same breath that
his colleague was influenced mainly by selfish
anxiety to retain or obtain the disposal of a
| few clerl1ships in the departments at Wash
| ington? There can be no general distribution
of offices under the tenure-of- office act, with
out the consent of the Senate, and Mr.. Fessen-
| den's influence in the Senate hardly depends
on the occupancy of the White House. 1t is the
| disposal of the clerkships in the departments
| alone, which in the opinion of some people
Mr.. Fessenden could not resign. To retain
an undivided seventh of that patronage be was
willing to put in peril his reputation and
standing!
Who is Mr.. Fessenden. one asks? Is this
| the man who fourteen years ago refused to
take part in log-rolling operation to procure
his election to the Senate, but was elected
nevertheless? Is this the man who within a
week after he took his seat electrified the
country by his speech on the Nebraska bill?
| Is this the champion who endorsed the Little
Giant of the West? Is it the Fessenden who
in the Kansas days, when Ross was doing
good service on the frontier, led the Lecompton
debate? Is this the father who gave four sons
to his cOuntry's service when the late war
broke out? Is it the man who for his sterling
integrity was called by unanimous consent to
the management of the Treasury in 1861? Is
| it the chairman of the reconstruction commit
tee, who, we are told, has suddenly grown
conservative? Is there line or syllable in
his report on reconstruction which does not
ring true to the principles of Republican pol
icy? 1t was Fessenden who on the day after
Johnson's first scandalous speech, repealed
that assault in behalf of the Senate in Ian
guage dignifed but severe, and pressed to a
passage the resolution declaring that the bust
ness of reconstruction belonged to Congress
alone He a conservative? He has not been
brawler and defamer, but it is we'll known
that before the pending constitutional amend
ment came up Mr.. Fessenden preferred an
amendment abolishing all civil or political dis
tinctions on account of color in all the States
What could have been more thorough-going
than such a measure, instead of which we have
have had one rule for the South and another
for the North, and chequered political for
tunes instead of the grand victory to which he
would have led us He wanted to plant the
policy of the Republican party on this great
principle, but was overruled by selfstyled
Radicals who feared their return to Congress
might be jeopardized. He wanted to establish
military government at the South and leave
the States there to come in their own time
suing for readmission to the Union and again
the Radicals did not dare to follow this "cop