The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-04-29
PRESSURE ON THE SENATE.

those Republican senators are by the politi-
clans who openly attempt. to drive them to
the conviction and removal of the President
by exterior pressure. 1t is assumed, as
matter of course, that every true Republican
in the Senate, from the moment the court of
impeachment was organized, lost sight of the
| Judicial aspect of the case, and thought of it
only as proceeding of party expediency, and
especially in its relations as such to the i'm
| pending presidential election. Under this
theory, any senator, formerly Republican,
who has sat in this court without predeter-
mination to convict can be nothing else than
a renegade to his party. Among journals
none are more explicit or shameless in thus
viewing the matter, and in helping to organ
| lie party terrorism over the Senate, than
the New York Tribune and the St Louis
Democrat The latter paper, referring to the
rumored uncertainty of some Republican
senators who have seemed to favor delay to
degree almost inexplicable, launches threat
in these words But when the main ques-
ton comes-when they are called upon to say
whether Andrew Johnson, upon the charges
| preferred, ought or ought not to be removed
4
from office, we are not prepared to believe
that any Republican will deliberately commit
| political suicide by voting against his re-
moval. The Republican who votes
with the Democrats to defend and acquit such
President can expect very little sympathy
from his Republican constituents, and if he
locks to the Democrats for support, the fate
of Doolittle and Dixon ought to be enough to
warn him" The Democrat then adds, as if
wholly unconscious of the grim humor of the
thought that it does "not believe that Re-
publican senators can be cajoled, bought or
frightened into a vote of acquittal."
In the opinion of the radical press in gen
eral, it is fatty criminal for Republican SEN
ator to occupy voluntarily, for one instant,
doubtful position on the subject of impeach-
ment. Forney, the Senates secretary, daily
subjects that body to the indignity of
couple of allocutions on the duty of convict
ing and removing the President, and in one
of these he declares that even to doubt such
an issue of the impeachment trial would be
"treason to representative government"
Looking at the question from Judicial point
of view, it might be pertinent to ask if there
can be any trial which does not admit the pos
sibility of acquittal Doubt, in fact, is the
basis of all Judicial inquiry and of all legal
discussion. The so-called trial in this case is
either no trial, or it is pervaded by the. es-
sence of doubt. Take away this element, and
the court is at once dissolved. If it be trea-
son-as Forney, Stevens, and other radical
nj
cording to the uncontradicted statement of
the New York Tribune, has authorized some
one else to proclaim for him-not to antici-
pate conviction and removal as a foregone
conclusion, and as a necessary result, then
Messrs. Evarts and Curtis, and the rest of the
Presidents counsel, are traitors for presum-
ing to argue the case; all the sena-
tors of the court are traitors for pre-
suming to try the case, under oath to
decide, with impartiality and without pre-
judgment, according to law and evidence;
and the chief justice is a traitor for presum-
ing to preside over this jury of reasonable
triers. To think that such a combination,
headed by military chieftain who is per-
suaded that the impeached incumbent of the
presidency is an impeachment to his own sue
cession to that Office, should, to overawe the
court, set up this doctrine that it is treason to
imagine the innocence or the acquittal of the |
accused, and that the indecent spectacle does |
not bring upon its authors a storm of public |
indignation To think that even those Re. |
publican senators who were deemed to have |
brought to tire trial the most senatorial dig |
nifty and Judicial independence, should not |
rise in calm scorn above this truculent device |
but should evidently quail under it, and alb |
jectly deprecate the vengeance Illuminated |
against them for daring to maintain decent |
reserve as to how they will vote as triers of |
the impeached president SO scandalous an |
exhibition has not before appeared in these
days rife as they have been with corruption |
and infamy And yet still more scandalous
thing could happen. 1t would be the |
triumph of the desperate and INSCRIPTIONS
men who are working upon members |
of the impeachment court with the enginery
of terror. The success of this effort, fol- |
lowed by popular acquiescence, would bring
the Senate to the feet first of a revolutionary
caucus, and next of a single usurper and des-
pot. 1t would soon be sunk into the pitiful
insignifcance of the Roman Senate in the
days of Tiberius or a Claudus Most of
the Republican editors express the belief that
it will succumb, and they glory in the antici-
patton. They do not hesitate to avow that
the necessities of their party demand the sac
rifce of the President, and the degradation of
the Senate. 1t is true that they, and the radi-
cal impeachers in Congress- have contrived to
get their party into such position respecting
impeachment that acquittal will be its ruin.
But neither can conviction save it. The di-
lemma is fatal Even if their presidential
programme should succeed, the Grant admin
istration would come into power by process
more akin to seizure upon government than
to the form and result of regular election.
And then they would find that, instead of
1