Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-05-19
ZINC Defsat Of ConYic,ion.

On Wednesday last, we gave 1t as
our opinion that impeachment was dead !;
that Senators GRIMES, HENDERSON,, FEs
sENpEN and TRUMBULL had stricken it fatal
blows in secret session on Monday; that
the adjournment of the Court from Tues
day until Saturday was equivalent to con-
fession that they had done so. The failure
to convict on the 11th article confirms it.
Between the adjournment of the Court on
Tuesday and its reassembling on Satur-
day, every conceivable means was resorted
to to insure the conviction OF the Presi-
dent. The Radical press thundered and
stormed; preachers preached and prayed
conyiction; Radical politicians wrote and
telegraphed that mighty and dangerous
excitement stirred the people because con-
viction was not voted on Tuesday; the at
tempt was made in a few localities to get
up conviction meetings; but they gener--
ally were insignificant and tame.
The Radical politicians had impeached
the President in the name of the people;
but the people have not given appreciation
to the proceeding. Indifferent they have
not been. Having seen the outrages
budb ud0 DCOH COLmiLGCu Ill Gl6lr
name by these politicians they won
dered what lengths they would go in
their name to do an unrighteous thing
Patiently and scrutinizingly they follow
ed the proceedings from beginning to the
end; and the wonder with them is not
that seven Republican Senators-Messrs.
FEssENDEN, FOWLER, GRIMES, HENDERSON,
Ross, TRUMBULL and VAN WINKLE-should
have voted for acquittal; but their sur
prise is that any considerable number of
Republican Senators should have voted for
conviction. 1t required no learned legal
argument to convince them that the Presi-
dent had committed no 'shigh crimes and
misdemeanors" which called for his re-
moval before the expiration of his term of
Office. They had seen that bad feeling ex-
listed between him and the Radicals in
Congress; but they were not prepared to
hold him responsible and punish him for
that feeling. They had not forgotten that
he had prevailed upon the Southern peo-
pie, before the assembling of Congress in
December, 1865, to tear up the institution
of Slavery by the roots, and to covenant
that nevermore would they plead the right
of Secession as a Justification to undertake
to fight their way out of the Union, and
that not one dollar of the Rebel debt would
they pay. They had not forgotten
that when the President solicited the
Southern people to do these things in good
faith, the Radicals laughed at the Presi-
dent for being SO silly as to suppose that
the Southern people would accede to his re-
quest. They claimed they were yet unre-
generate Rebels, and too high spirited to
comply. The people have yet lively rec
objection that the policy which President
JOHNSON inaugurated In May, 1866, receiv-
ed the approval and commendation of "tbe
loydp' people in their State conventions of
that year, and that it was only at the bid
ding of THADDEUs STEVENS that they turn-
ell that approval and commentator into
disapproval and condemnation. Its great
defect, in SrEvENs' estimation, was that II
did not clothe with suffrage the Negro.
and did not sufficiently circumscribe the
privilege of voting to the Whites in the
South. Thus situated, he ,apprehended
that the Republican lease of power would
be of short duration. Hence since the as
sembling of Congress in December, in 1869,
the legislation of Congress has been
little else than to subordinate the
White people of the South, as a political
power, to the Negroes. Reconstruction bill
after Reconstruction bill has been passed
to this end. For this object the Freedmen,s
Bureau has been continued; for this pur.
pose the control of the army has virtually,
In violation of the Constitution, been taken
out Of the hands otthe President. To COM
pass this, the Tenure of Office act was en-
acted and the Supreme Court admonisbed
that it ppss not pronounce an opinion
touching the Constitutionality of the polit-,
i cal measures of Congress. Despite ali tl,is
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missed il.