The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-05-01

= VAwA SAv~A>>t 1V1Dh l.
Tho Chief Justice and the Impeachment
The attempt to suppress free speech in thi
once free country may be said to have reached
its elimination when we find our Senatorial
Jacobins openly plotting to gag the Chief JUS
tice of the United States while presiding ovel
the highest court of judicature known to oul
laws or constitution. 1t was not enough thai
the President should be arraigned for having
dared to express his opinions in regard to the
state of the nation in succession of addresses
called forth during non-ofacial excursion to
the West. But now, while the President il
being hurried through the forms of trial with
view to his removal for having asserted this
very right of free speech, we next find our SEN
atorial conspirators actively and audaciously
proclaiming that they will not even permit the
Chief Justice of the court before which he is
being tried to exercise that prerogative Of
summing up the evidence and giving there
upon his views as to the questions of law in
volved, which is made the duty of every presid-
ing judge in every court of justice known to our
system of government. The Chief Justice is to
be made mere automaton, nodding assent to
the DEGREES of jury already pledged to con-
vict, but with no power either to offer advice
as guide for their deliberations or to dissent
by word, look or gesture from whatever he
may find to be the conclusions at which his
lawless jurymen shall have already arrived.
To this end run all the dictatorial and offensive
bullyings of Butler; to this end all the rulings
of the Senate, and pre-eminently to this end
the resolutions offered by Senator Sumner d.
rectly forbidding the Chief Justice to make any
summing up or charge whatever when turning
over the case to the tender mercies of his Jaco-
bin associates.
That the Chief Justice will accept the igno-
upon him, those who know him best profess
themselves most reluctant to believe In every
past occasion of his life his abilities have risen
equal to the emergency and his courage has
sustained him at its height. His conclusions
may have been right or wrong, but he has
never lacked dignity in their assertion, nor is
he creature Of yesterday, to be overawed by
either Butler or Stevens. In his person
great issue is at stake, and he cannot be false
to the trust. AS the highest representative of
that coordinate branch of the government
which we typify as the ermine, he must see
that it is neither torn from his shoulders by
lawless violence nor sullied while he wears
it. 1t is his duty not to waive the prerogative
of summing up the facts put in evidence and
expounding the law as applied thereto. He
their own passions, putting out of their sight
all portions of the testimony which are not
relevant or have not been sustained, and
placing before them, in brief and lucid form, a
condensation of such points as are material,
with his decision as to the legal considerations
upon which their verdict must be founded 1t
will be one of his first necessities to define the
technical Specification of the words ''high
crimes and misdemeanors;" and upon that in
depreciation, as point of law, his ruling must
Senate. If the acts charged against the Presi-
dent do not fall within the definition laid down
by the Chief Justice, then the trial fails. If
they do, then it will be for the Senators to say
whether President johnson has been guilty of
those acts or not.
In the course of such summing up the
Chief Justice will be afforded noble oppor-
tunity to vindicate the conduct of the govern
ment during the war, when every act necessary
''for the safety of the nation" was not only JUS
tifable, but commendable as the highest duty of
patriotism; and to contrast with this honorable
record, in which his own part was so illus
trious, the misconduct of our present Jacobin
rulers, who perpetrate and keep perpetrating,
after three years of peace, violations of the
constitution more decisive and destructive than
were found necessary, during the worst days of
the rebellion, by the more wise and moderate
administration of which the Chief Justice was
one of the highest pillars. During war the
laws are SILENT" was maxim which the
government of Mr.. Lincoln strove to soften as
much as possible, rarely invading the just
dominion of the civil power except in cases Of
the last extremity. But with our present
Senatorial revolutionists this old maxim has
been materially modified, until now It may be
said to read:-''After war the laws shall be
abolished altogether" If the Chief Justice be
true to his great and shining antecedents he
will tower above the puny efforts now being
made to narrow down his great office into
blind and dumb fgurehead for tribunal which
may be designated a party caucus for the
removal of Andrew Johnson.
Francisco.
The people Of California evidently appre-