The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-01-30
WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE!

Certain newspaper correspondents at Wash
ingtOn, who profess to report unofficial ut
terances by the President, represent him to
say in substance that he washes his hands of
the defense, in the last resort of the Consti-
tuition, and throws upon the people the re-
sponsibility for the unchecked progress of
congressional usurpation. They may actively
assist the work if they choose. They may,
while morally opposing, practically acquiesce
in it, if they choose. It is their affair. If
they are willing to stand by and see treason
against the present government carried out in
successful revolution by faction, he is but
single man and cannot prevent the result.
Hence the responsibility for such consum-
nation must rest at last upon them. Such,
briefly. is the argument of the President, ac-
cording to the representations Of certain news
paper correspondents; representations which
We are not prepared unreservedly to accept or
reject. We will simply consider the naked
Argument on its impersonal merits 1t is ex-
tremely plausible, but profoundly fallacious.
The people, in a representative republic,
have but one legitimate way of action, and
that is through the constituted authorities
who represent them; just as those authori-
ties have but one legitimate way Of action, and
that is under the provisions and within the
limits Of the Constitution. The President is
such an authority. He is preeluled by
the theory of his Office from the plea of in-
ability as an individual to oppose usurpation
and to defend his own constitutional exist
ence He is not called upon to do this as an
individual. The Constitution makes him
concentrated plurality. If he is President by
constitutional right he is required by consti-
tutional obligation to vindicato himself as &
noun Of multitude; and he cannot, without
gross delinquency, shrink into the character
Of a personal pronoun, singular number. Mr..
johnson is either the representative Of the
people at large, or he is not President. Sup
posing him to be both these in one function
airy, it must follow that if he invokes the
people to rescue the government from the
hands of usurpers he invokes power which
resides, by virtue of delegation, in his own
Office. And the only legitimate response
which the people, in such a case, could render,
the power belonging to him as their consti-
tutonal agent for the defense Of the govern
ment against usurpation. r he fails to take
all measures necessary to this defense, and
if no other agent can or will undertake
the task, it is clear that the people are with
out any peaceful means of interposition. It
is clear that their only remedy is to be found
by resolting to counter-rcYolution, in order to
destroy an accomplished usugpGtion. Their
right TO appeal to such remedy is, of course,
But this furnishes no excuse
for a presidential representative, whose de- |
fault should be wholly or partly the cause Of |
crisis in which they must |
either practically acquiesce in the subversion
Of the constitutional government, or proclaim
anarchy, and adopt measures of counter-rev- |
Olution. In time of war, the treason of a COM
mander who, without making the defense of I
which he was capable, suuenders a vital post,
is scarcely less than the treason of one who |
deserts and joins the enemy. When one set
of agents in a republican government cease
to represent the people, and enter upon a
scheme of usupation, it is only through the
weakness or the infdelity of other agents
hat the scheme can be accomplished. The
leaders of Congress would at
this moment subside into pack of blatant
mbeciies, if the Judiciary and the executive,
the military power, were loyal in
word and deed to the constitutional republic.
The moral loyalty, in this respect, of the
President, is not questioned. But he must
put his own shoulder to the wheel, as well as
pray to the popular Hercules, if he would lift
he executive wagon from the mud, and avoid
he just charge Of being great, perhaps
atal, delinquent