The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1868-01-04
n Mantor Disxusted.

| wendell fhiiips, Who, in the hAlcyon day o
A. Lincoln, was wont to lead the. republi
can party - the tanned bull is led by ring il
his nose, il disguised that the animal has beer
siezed with such fright by the thunder Of tn.
last fall elections rs to become unmanageable
The failure of congress to go ON with the i'm
peachment actually sickenes him. Said he, in
"lecture" week ago at Brooklyn:
Congrsss has spent two years in pursuing the
avowed policy OF checkmaking the President on
the ground that he could not be trusted with
the powers Of aPresident. The seth and 10th
Congresses have spent every hour of their lives,
which has not been wasted, in the effort to put
on the statute book laws which should take from
the President the powers Of President. They
have systematically and necessarily been ut work
building up machine which omits the President
omits him frem all power such as the Constitu-
ton endows him with. And when we said to
them, 'instsad thus of perpetsally worrying your
victim, why don't you strangle him at once?
why, instead Of like a cat perpetually plaguing
your captive, don't you cut his head off = "Oh,"
they said in reply, the public won't bear it; we
are going to follow the policy Of checkmaking
impeach him" But in pursuing that policy
they have forfeited all the support, and stirred
up on the side of the President all the sympathy
of the nation. -
Congress stands to-day like schoolboy who
has forgotten his task 1t has nothing to say
that will hold water for a moment against the ar
guments of Andrew Johnson, because he answers
their pretences with their actions. But that is
not the most serious question by any means.
Congress is nothing but vane on the meeting
house, and turns whichever way the wind pleas
se laI ~.
even nobody knows, who wriggle their way up
to power nobody knows how, and 90 down like
rockets, no one knows where.
If Phillips is disguised at the timidity of
Congress which for four years has been setting
the constitution at defiance to rob the Presi-
dent Of his power, and then backs down at
the verge of complete success; his disgust is
no less that the party should still further turn
tail to its principles by meditating the nomi-
nation of Gen. Grant. Says he:
1t is Ulysses Grant that makes Andrew John
son President to-day. And the hardest sight to
man whose heart is in this problem is the atti-
tude Of the nation before that successful soldier
l would not take leaf from his lsurels; YOU
may put him higher than Wellington and, on
one scale, superior to the Caesars and the Bona
parties, and viii not complain. 1t is not a cam
ncneer, nor a captain, nor corporal that we
want to-day, but man who knows this problem
and sees it rightly. To-day we present to the
world the marvellous spectacle of a nation that
has sent out its first born to graves and taken its
garnered wealth and scattered it to the winds,
in order to accomplish a purpose, and now, on
the very eve and moment of its accomplishment,
is shutting its eyelids and bandaging its eyes,
and trusting its future to man whose only
merit is his reticence. We have lived to see
ninety-nine ont of hundred journals praise the
reticence of an American citizen. | can under.
stand reticence at Moscow. The Emperor of the
French has right to be reticent; there is only
one man in that country who has right to
think. But wsrlive, in, a country where every
man bears in his hand that BALLOT which is at
the same time his title and his duty to think.
We Live in . country where there are six mil
lions of thoughts, six millions of convictions;
and it is in this country that the press, which
undertakes to lead ii, parades as the chief glory
OF Gen. Grant that he does not condescend TO
tell ne what he thinks. Here is man whose
great historic words are, II will fight it out on
this line if it lasts forever" and here are twenty
millions Of people who are about to trust that
man with the helm OF power, without claiming
the right to ask him "On what line do you in
tend to fight it QUIT" Yes,a man stands up and
'ciis nis ieHow citizens, - 40 Aot condeacend TO
say where I am going to lead you" and yet we
are to elect him President. We loved Lincoln
with all his faults, because his face was towards
the light and what he did not know to-day he
learned tomorrow, and was always growing
wiser than he was yesterday. His soul was al
ways open to the influence OF Providence and
events We have exchanged him for a man in
capable alike of forgetting or of learning-a
man with his face not only turned towards dark
ness. but bathed in it. And it is now proposed
to complete the trinity by having a man of
whom it ID stated, as a matter of pride, that we
don't know which way he looks. o.
Europe.
The Cable dispatches from Europe during