Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-05-19
THE AUGMENTATION.
Grant rs an administrator and
the Laws lle-llas Violated.
= Since he Began.
<Trr-fE-s 4 sETTFse X ~ ~
How Grant has Exceeded Sum-
Hef's coalitions OF I'm 3
.x1zs peaehment.s sa
HsE saad On Whom The PresI-
q dent Leans and the Parts
they are Expected TO
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esfrssponlsaeso Of the New York World
WAsHiNaToE, May l4.-The alb
sence of Congress gives much les
of what may be called the publ,
news at the capital, but the govern
mental administration is none th'
less prolific either of activity or in
terest. There are no bills to bt
signed and none to be suggested oil
| pressed, but all that business re.
| quiring the highest order of expe.
rience and ability, known as the
execution of the laws, is put upon
the President and the other Office
holders here, or directed from this
point. During the canvass of 1868,
the simplicity and ease of the
Presidential duty of enforcing the
laws were very largely descanted
upon by Radical speakers and pa
pers. Their object was two-fold /:
to expose the difficulties which Pres
ident Johnson, in their opinion, had
purposely thrown in the way of the
execution of the laws, and to pre-
pare the people to acquiesce in the
choice of Gen. Grant, in spite of his
civil inexperienee, on the ground
that he was inspired by the senti-
ment of obedience to the laws, and,
moreover, was one whose executive
faculties were of such high order,
that he would take to the Presi-
dency as naturally as a child to a
story book. Gen. Grant himself
recognized the effect with which this
representation of him was enforced
before the people, and in his inau-
gural, got off the commonplace that
he should execute all the laws,
whether he approved of them or
not. Therefore, to Gen. Grant, as
an administrator, the attention of
the country was directed first by
the words of his friends, and after
wards by the first official utterance
which fell from his lips.
THE LAoHEs OF THE PRESIDENT.
l remember when Mr.. Sawyer,
of Massachusetts, offered his little
bill from his seat as Senator of
South Carolina, that the revenue
officers appointed by Mr.. McCulloch
in the South, and who could not
take the oath, be paid for their
services. 1t was in the middle of
the last session of the Fortieth Con-
gress. Mr.. Sumner rose and de-
clared that the appointment of any
man to Office who could not take the
oath was a violation Of law, and
for having allowed the first one of
these men to qualify, Mr.. johnson
should have been impeached and
convicted, and removed. That any
violation of a law was equally OBJ
noxious; that no political officer
should be permitted to plead either
ignorance Of the law, or any such
exigency as made violation or eva
sion of a law desirable. "The
laws" remarked the Senator, "are
supreme, and free people should
be jealous of their slightest infrac-
ton" Whereupon the revenue
men were not paid.
Thought l, we will see how stiffiy
that doctrine will be adhered to
under the coming man.
His first nomination showed an
ignorance of a law as old as the
government itself. Mr. Stewards
ineligibility under the act of 1879
is remembered. 1t is not true that
the Senate shared this ignorance.
Mr.. Thurman, Of Ohio, knew of
the act, and so did Mr., Edmunds,
of Vermont, and it was stated in
executive session that the law was
no bar to the confirmation of Mr..
Stewart, but that he would be re
quired to purge himself of it
before he qualified. But the
President was totally ignorant
of the law. In his message of
the next day, he says: 81 find
upon examination of the act" etc,
i j. i the ineligibility Of Mr..
Stewart. Here was "pOlitical
officer pleading ignorance of the
laws" and in the message referred
to he detailed "such as exigency as
made evasion of it desirable" con-
stituting together two of the enOr~
nous otfenses which the Senator
from Massachusetts had hurled at
Mr.. Johnson's head. Then followed
those brutal kilograms from Mr..
Washburne and Mr.. Rollins, in the
name of the President, counter
handing the delivery of some of
the pardons which his predecessor
had issued in the retiring hours of
his administration. 1t is not gen
orally recollected that this attempt
ed cancellation Of pardons was pro-
nounced grossly and wholly illegal
by courageous United Stytes Dis
trict Attorney in Boston, and that
upon that opinion the cancellation
as to Boston prisoners was with
drawn. In the case of the federal
prisoners in New York, the law Off
Ger of the United States did no such
dutiful and brave thing. The men
who were pardOned and who are as
much entitled to liberty as Presi-
dent Grant is to his salary, are still
in Jail, and every day they stay
there is as great an outrage on laws
as were the arbitrary arrests which
Abraham Lincoln was compelled to
stop as to the Empire State in or
der to keep her in the Union. That
stupendous violation of law has
been approved Of by the party Of
the President because it savored Of
vengeance and was a back kick al
Mr.. johnson. .t
How deeply this ilIegality ought
TO be condemned, can be judged by
the significant repression of in,
quiry into it by the Republican
papers. Had Mr.. Courtney risen
to the height of the occasion he
could have secured from Judge
BIatchford as prompt q vindica
ton of the law as the United States
/