The National tribune., 1901-01-24

Office TO winch ne Hau Deen cdlleu uuuei
such melancholy circumstances at his
rooms in the Kirkwood House, which
stood where the Raleigh Hotel now stands,
ut IL o'clock a. M, Saturday, April 4,
1865.
The oath of office was administered by
Chief Justice Chase, of the Supreme
Court, in the presence of nearly all the
Cabinet officers. Solomon Foot, United
Stntes Senator from Vermont: Hon. Rich
ard Yates, United States Senator from
Illinois; Alexander Ramsey, United States
Senator from Minnesota; John 7. Hale,
from New Hampshire; Gen. Farnsworth,
of the House Of Representatives: Senator
+. L. Blair, Hon. Montgomery Blair and
Others
Appropriate speeches were made by the
gentlemen, which deeply affected the Pres
ident, who was seemingly conscious of the
great responsibility he was assuming.
He delivered his short Inaugural adj
dress, in which he promised to faithfully
discharge his duties.
In the beginning he took the side of
the extremists in the North, and against
those who We're in favor of a more con-
cilatory policy toward the South.
1t is not uttering any new thought for
history to say that Mr.. Iohnson's views
underwent a radical change. 1t soon came
ont that the leaders of parties took posi-
tion accordingly for and against him. lie
had become so radical in his views that,
almost without exception, every bill passed
by the Republicans from 1866 to the end
of the term was vetoed and passed over
his head by a two-thirdS vote. He vetoed
the Civil Rights Bill, the bill for the add
mission of Nebraska, the Civil Tenure
Bill, and others.
Gen. Butler accused the President of
attempting TO bring Congress into dis
grace, ridicule. hatred. contempt and re-
proach. and with delivering Incorporate,
infammatory and scandalous harangues,
accompanied by threats and bitter lhen-
aces, against Congress and the laws of the
United StateS.'
In his Swing around the circle" Presi-
dent johnson characterized Congress as a
''rump' Congress and declaring that they
were not a Congress authorized TO execute
legislative power, but, ION the contrary,
represented only part of the States.
Congress, by an act, deprived the Presi-
dent of the prerogative of dismisslng Of
ficers of the Government, except with the
consent of the Senate, which was required
for appointment.
The President Immediately showed his
wrath by disHlissing Stanton, Lincoln's
great Secretary of War.
1t was therefore declared that impeach
ment papers should be made out, wherein
he was accused of high crimes and mis-
demeanors.
Many of the speeches made in this trial
were marked by great brilliancy and
power The vote resulted in So for vOn-
yiction and 10 for acquittal. The neces-
sary two-thirds vote was wanting, there
fore he was acquitted, yet smarting under
the fact that large majority of Congress
had made record of his guilt, and only
one vote was lacking of a two-thirds vote.
We have sometimes thought the char
acter of our public men would be better
understood and could be more accurately
weighed if the walls of many of our his
toric homes were phOnOsraps, and could
be set talking at will, revealing the secrets
of the conferences held in the last 40
years.
What politician, what citizen of the Re
public, in fact, would not like to turn the
crank and listen to the arguments used
in the conference, and at the dinner in the
Reyerdy johnson house, known in later
days as the Arlington Annex, that decided
ON Feb. %, 1868, the votes of Mr.. Fes-
sender and Mr.. Grimes, with whom lay
the balance of power which acquitted
President johnson.
Again, we would like to hear pledges.
cxacted and given. They must have been
satisfactory 10 Mr.. Fessenden, for when
Chief Justice Chase, in his impressive
manner, asked, Mr.. Fessenden. how say
=
guilty as charged?' he firmly replied,
mot guilty. Mr.. Grimes voted the same.
They fulfilled their pledge.
1t was well known that Mr.. Fessendcn,
while not wholly in sympathy with all the
accusations of the prosecuting party, had
grave misgivings of the fidelity IF Presi-
dent Johnson
Whether President johnson was faith
full TO the pledge he made and solemnized
at the conference held in the home of Re
verdy johnson contemporary history must
decide.
One thing, we were saved from the dis
grace of having President of the United
States impeached:
Andrew Johnson's boyhood was spent
in the place where he was born, Raleigh,
n. G. When he was 10 years of age he
was apprenticed 10 a tailor, and followed
the business until he was Ii years old.
He never had attended school, but had
made some advancement by studying
alone.
His father was dead. Tennessee in
those days was the land Of promise, and.
accompanied by his mother, he removed
10 Greenville in 1896. he met there Eliza
McCrelie, whose life had been spent in
her mountain home. She admired his
character, and when II years of age she
married him, he not being quite 81. He
had never received one days schooling,
yet he acquired by perseverance what
misfortune had withheld from him.
1t is a mistaken idea that his wife
taught him his letters, for he had mas
tered these in the dim recesses of his
workshops in Raleigh, and had made him
self somewhat familiar with words and
their spelling, and the construction of SEN
fences. Mrs. JOhnson's advantages had
been superior to his, and he keenly felt
her superiority, and from that time his
ambition received n new impetus.
Many night when the work of the day
was over, when sleep rested on the village,
the youthful couple would still be pouring
over their studies: sometimes she read to
him; sometimes she guided his unwieldy
hand in writing. Day after day she
worked, and night after night brought her
pupil again TO his studies; week after week
she was sewing the seed that was TO de-
yelOp this tailor boy into Senator and
into q President Of the United States.
The years passed, and she watched him
as he rose, step by step, and certain it is
that she was the power that lifted him
upward! The mother of Mrs. johnson
and his mother were parts of this home
in that mountain village. We look back
through the atmosphere of 40 years, and
we wonder what the feelings were of these
women when they witnessed the struggles
OF this young couple. History in its rec
Ords Of public lives viii preserve that of
:he 18th President OF the United States,
that other young lives in this republican
Government may take hope and courage,