The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-11-13
BEN BUTLER AND THE JOHNSON
 IMPEACHMENT.

1 BEN BUTLER AND THE JOHNSON
 IMPEACHMENT.
 Seldon in the history of the courts has a member of the bar been called upon to address a similar body of legal experts, and, desuite his ingenuity and plausibility, Butler was not the type of practioner whose utterances on ques- tions of law carry weight with the pro- fession. Indeed, he himself probably suspected the disadvantages under which he was laboring, for instead of trusting to his fluent powers of speech he armed himself with sheaf of notes and proceeded to read a carefully pre- pared address which soon set the gall leries yawning, but delighted the re- porters, who gratefully laid aside their pads and pencils, knowing that copies of the harangue could be had for the asking
 Despite his labored efforts uo adapt himself to his learned audience and avoid his customary forensic methods, the speakers opening was eminently characteristic. He inrorned his hear CTS that the Senate organized as a court of impeachment was not court that not being a court, 1t was, bound by no precedents, and that being bound by no precedents it could make it's own rules of evidence and generally be a law unto itself" Having announced this convenient theory, which was cer- tainly we'll adapted for a case desti- tute of all legal proof, he proceeded to demonstrate its soundness by quot ing precedents form one of the most monumental briefs ever submitted to a court of law, utterly obEivious to the humor of hurling authorities at a trib- unal supposed to be "a law unto it. self. This preliminary fiction was, however, only a forerunner of those that were to follow and, starting with Incorporation that Johnson was merely filling out Lincoln's unexpired term the champion casuist argued that Stanton could not be removed from office un- der the Tenure of Office act because he had been appointed by Lincoln, and the law protected all officials during the tefm of the President by whom they had been appointed. JohnsJn's term being Lincolns term, the President had violated the law by removing the sec retary of War, and thereby forfeited his office. The jury exhorter then turn ed to the more familiar field of cheap invective, and the bored and sleepy au- dience reused itself to listen to gusty el5quence in which the Presidents op position to the Congress was denounc- ed as criminal, and wordy chastisement administered for the sin of oriticising political opponents A little of this di- version, however, soon palled upon the galleries, and at the end of three hours the orator relieved the suffering vis- tors by closing with a panegyric on the great example which the American people were about to afford the won dering nations of the earth by peace fully removing an obnoxious ruler. while your king, O. M3narchist! if he becomes a tyrant can only be displac- ed through revolution, bllodshed and civil war; This absurd fustian must have fairly disgusted the Senators who knew in their heart of hearts that the power of impeachment was being misused for party purposes. Indeed, before the weary day ended there was some evidence of a reaction in the | Presidents favor, and the case had al- | ready begun to totter Frederick Ire ! yor Hill, in Harpers Magazine.