The weekly Ottumwa courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1857-1872, 1869-04-01
APRIL 1, 1869.

| In that memorable winter Of 60-61,
when senator after senator, and mem-
Der of congress after memter Of con-
gress deliberately foreswore their
fealty to the government, and were
allowed one after one to tear their
oaths of allegiance to tatters, before
the paralyzed representatives of the
people, and then permitted to quietly
depart to their respective States to
inauguratc bloody war against the
government, Andrey johnson alono
remained faithful among the faith
less, and from his place on the Sen
ate floor, in tones that electrified the
nation, declared that were he Presi-
dent he would arrest, try, and hang
high as Haman those seeding and
traitorous senators, and through that
bold, manly, loyal utterance, and the
fortuitous aid of Booths pistol, camo
he to the Presidency.
At tho end cf his senatorial term
in 1868, he was commissioned a brig
adler general, by Mr.. Lincoln, and
appointed Military Governor of Ten
nessee, which position he was filing
to the eminent satisfaction of such
unionists as Brownlow and Maynard.
and to the utter dismay of all the
traitors on Tennessee soil, with and
without arms in their hands, when
the Baltimore Convention OF Juno 7,
1864, by a mistaken act of generosity
towards the clamors of sectionality,
in an unfortunate hour displaced
Hamlin with him, for the second
place on the Republican ticket.
) His subsequent career is too famil-
lar to require recapitulation. His
ringing speeches for loyalty and lib
erty pending his candidacy tor the
Vice Presidency, became household
words during that canvass, and now
stand in painful relief against tho
black record of perfdy and disloyal-
ty, behind which his reputation and
life have disappeared together.
1t would indeed bo moro pleasant
task to draw the veil over the subse-
quent acts of Andrew Johnson than
to recount them, which is enough to
make up his record of infamy, but
his drunken, maudlin speech at the
Inauguration March 4, 1865; his al.
most immediate treachefy to the men
and principles of the party that elcc-
ted him; his arrogant assumptions of
unwarranted power in attempting to
reconstruct the southern states with.
out the semblance of authority; his
open and fragrant usurpations and
violations of law, which justly and
legally impeached him before the
eyes of the people, but from the pen
alties ,of their violation he was
saved by the merest scratch, are all
matters of history, whose infamics
can neither be justified or palliatcd
even in the presence of his dead body.
His support of Breckenridge against
Douglas, in which he took violent
southel n grounds, and his subsequent
denunciations of Davis, Toombs &
Co, in the senate, for carrying his
teachings on the stump in 1860 to
their logical conclusion, by breaking
up the government, coupled with his
treachery to the republican party,
after accident had made him Presi-
dent, leads us irresistably to the con-
clusion that his break with the rebel
leaders at the opening of the war, re-
suited from a failure on their part to
give him that prominent place in the
incubating rebel programme which
his insatiatc ambition demanded.-
On no other theory can we account
for his relapse into the hands of these
same men when coming into power.
He was a man of extraordinary
tenacity of purpose, and great natu-
raj vigor Of intellect, which added to
his indomitable pluck and boundless
ambition, enabled him to overcome
all ordinary obstacles, and in turn to
fill all the offices of Importance in
his State and nation, sufficient of
themselves to testify to his ability,
which qualities. if founded upon
superstructure of moral purpose and
honest conviction, would have sent
his name down to history with the
acclaims, rather than the execrat,ons
of his fellow countrymen.
He was in the prime of life, and
only yesterday, as it were, started
on triumphal tour to his home in
Tennessee, receiving everywhere the
plaudits of those against whom he
was breathing out fearful threats du-
ring the day of trial and disaster,
and which hate was fully reciprocal
ted by the rebels of the country both
north and south, at that time.
1t was well understood in Tennes-
see that hc was to have been the
candidate of the Kuklux Klan and
paroled rebel democracy, for COVER
nor, this fall, with ultimate aims on
the scnatorship.
We are as yet without particulars
of his death, except that il was very
sudden, and caused by paralysis. or
apoplexy.
LATER.-From our dispatches else
where, it will be. seen that the Great
Vetoer has even vetoed Death, and is
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