New-York tribune., 1868-05-01
Mr.. EKARTS'S Third DAY.


ging a new point into the impeachment argu-
ment. which bears almost as weightily on the
merits of the case as some of Mr.. Nelson's
poetic quotations. He AYERS that the removal
of the President--who is elected by the people
by judgment of the Senate, which repre-
sents the States, will subject the sovereignty
of the people to the sovereignty of the States,
and make Presidential elections mere techni-
cal proceeding. This theory overlOoks the fact
that the Senate can never remove President
until he has been impeached by the House OF
Representatives, and that the House represents
the people more directly than the President
does. Hence both the people and the States
concur in impeaching and removing Presi-
dent, and the supposed destruction of the
balance of power is a specifically fanciful
myth.
Mr. Evarts devoted himself to proving that
the Tenure-of- Office law wholly changed the
practice of the Government relative to appoint
ments to and removals from Office. We admit
it. In no department of the Government had
salutary revolution become so necessary, if
not indispensable to the very existence of the
Republic. The President had put up all the
offices, power, and patronage of the Gov
ernment for sale to political harlots, taking his
pay in political prostitution Better it were, as
in the old Roman Empire, to knock them down
at auction to the highest bidder, if the money
they brought could go into the national treas
ury, than to have them thus disposed of in
manner at once more venal and less profitable
If Congress has revolutonzed the law of re-
movals, it is because the President first revo-
Al. H. l.1,o fl.a +t,.a
official patronage of the Government.
But neither the country nor Congress would
be disposed to hamper a patriotic President
with such a statute as the Tenure Office
law. 1t must be remembered that for year
before that act was passed, the President had
utterly lost the confidence of all loyal men,
and had acted in manner TO create general
belief that he mcditated an attempt to disperse
the lawful Congress, and recognize an assem-
blage elected by unlawful Southern State gov
ernments of his own creation, as the Con-
gress of the United States. His extraordinary
views relative to reconstruction threatened
the country with revolution at any mo-
ment. Congress had so much apprehension
on this point that they frequently delayed to
adjourn, and when they did adjourn it was
for short intervals. The whole world knew
that the source of this anxiety was the treach-
erous and uncertain conduct, the deSpotic pre-
tensions of the President himself. IL was all
important under such circumstances to with
draw from his unsteady and treacherous hand
the control of the army and navy, and OF re-
construction Various laws, each of which IN
some sense revoutiOnized the previous practice
of the Government in the matters TO which
they referred, were passed TO take from the
President the powers with whose exercise he
could not be trusted. The army was placed
under the sole control, practically, of Gen.
Grant Reconstruction was given to the dis
trict commanders, and these were under the
supervision of Grant. Grant has stood as the
breakwater between the President and the peo-
pie for two years. But for the confidence
of Congress and the people in him, and the
hope that through his aid we might get along
to the end of JOhnson's term, we should have
had either a revolution by the President or his
impeachment by Congress year earlier. Such
was the public exigency which caused the
passage of the Tenure-of Office law Its object
was undoubtedly special, to retain in office the
Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln, and especially its
most faithful member Mr. stanton. Congress
and the loyal people desired to retain them in
office simply to avoid a bloody and terrible
attempt, such as was threatened by the Presi-
dent and his friends, to revOlutiOnize the Gov
ernment by reconstructing the Union accord
ing to his pretensions and policy. Under n
trustworthy President and proper Bureau of
Civil Service, for the examination and nomination
of appointees to Office. such law might be
,;,,ht ho tly oil
fed If the President thinks the law
straight jacket, we reply, If your behavior
chad been sane, we should not have required
"you to wear it," II the Tenure of Office law
is an evil, it is one for which the President is
responsible and the sooner he is removed and
trustworthy President substituted, the sooner
it can be dispensed with. The authorities
which Mr. Evarts quotes, to the effect that
each department of the Government may judge
Of the Constitution for itself, do not bear on
the Presidents case. He exercised and ex-
hausted this privilege of constituting the Con-
stitution when he vetoed the Tenure of Office
bill. But after the bill was passed over his
veto, he had exhausted his functions and his
responsibility. He could as we'll claim the
power to annul a decision of the Supreme
Court as law of Congress.
Mr. Evarts argues that it is abhorrent to
justice that the Senators should adjudge this
ISSUE because it is one between themselves and
the President, and it is, in remote sense,
their own case. He forgets that if the Senate
yield to the President, then he is the judge in
the same case. Since one or the other of them
must be the Judge, and since the Constitution
makes the Senate the judges, we judge Mr..
Eyarts's sense of justice must yield to that of
the authors of the Constitution. Upon any
other theory criminal has only to attack the
Court before which alone he can be tried, and
: IL