The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-03-03
INTOLERANCE AND MissTATE-
MENTs

We cannot understand how it is
that our northern friends continue SO
relentless in their statement of things
in which the south figures.
Here at this late day is Mr.. Alfred
Payson TerhIne, in the Now York
World, repeating that false story
about Andrew Johnson being so drunk
that he could not deliver his inaugural
address so as to be understood by the
audience that had gathered to hear
him on that memorable occasion.
Congressman Brownlow of Tennes-
see, republican, at great pains col
lected irrefutable data that put that
scandalous and malignant story to
flight, but, like Banquo's ghost, it will
not down, and those malignant writ
ers for the northern press, like Ter
hume, continue to reiterate them. It
is not the man so much in this in
stance that they traduce as it is the
section he halls from, and in his maud
ling condition Andrew Johnson is put
down inferentially as a type of south
ern statesmen.
Andrew Johnson was one of the
great men of this country, and if his
policy had been carried out of rehabil-
itating the southern states to all the
rights of statehood without the proba-
tionary torture of the reconstruction
measures, northern craftsmanship
would have appeared in history in far
more satisfactory and pleasing colors.
Mr. Terhune says:
If single senator's vote had been
cast differently, the world at large
would have been treated to the amaz-
ing spectacle of United States pres
ident convicted of high crimes and
misdemeanors."
But Mr.. Terhune does not say what
those high crimes and misdemean-
ors" were, and we do not believe he
dare do it because their recital would
be far more injurious to his persecut-
ors than to Andrew Johnson.
In what consisted those high
crimes and misdemeanors?" Presi-
dent Johnson simply wanted to exer-
else a prerogative that had been ex-
ercised without question by all of his
predecessors and successors in Office.
1t was simply the right to remove an
insubordinate and personally often
sive member of his cabinet from Of
fice That was all there was to it.
Whom did the president want as this
mans successor? No less a distin-
guished parsonage than Ulysses S.
Grant himself So he certainly had
no disloyal designs upon the govern
ment.
Suppose that the democrats had
been in power in congress when Mr.. |
Roosevelt was president, and he
should have wanted to remove from
his cabinet some member who was in
sulting and abusive to him, and the
democrats had impeached him for
high crimes and misdemeanors,
would there not have been howl over
the land? Well, a republican con-
gress made all that fuss and fury over
Andrew Johnson because he wanted
to remove Edwin M. Stanton from Of
flee. who was insubordinate. violent
and abusive to the executive head of
the government.
We can scarcely read an Grafton
from any orator of that period on al
most any subject that a malignant ref
erence to the south does not crop out.
Having nothing else to do the other
night we picked up one Of those pop
ular orations and read an address by
Mr. Thomas wentworth Higginson IN
female suffrage, and even on that sub
ject dig" at the south did not es-
cape him. Here is how he began. his
Grafton:
81 recall our early audiences; the
rows of quiet faces in Quaker bon.
nets in the foreground; the rows of
l6AC6culuSty uuQuiSJ uSuIcS VI oOuen-
ern medical students, with their hats
on, in the background. l recall the
visible purpose of those energetic
young gentlemen to hear nobody but
/ the women, and the calm determine
ton with which their boot-heels COLI
tributed to put the male speakers
down." etc.
That speech was delivered in Phil
adelphia There were medical stu
dents there from all parts of the
country-why did Mr. Higginson re-
Ifer to those who were wanting in cul-
ture and manners as being from the
south? Why could they not have
been from the west, or middle west,
or far west? The distinguished orator
could not help his little fling at the
south.
1 If the south was noted for anything
under the old regime it was in the
courtly manners of its men and lis
xxyc,,,on