The Commonwealth. — 1867-01-19 (London, England)

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.  ........  The Impeachment of President Johnson. The first step has been taken by the House of Representatives at Washington towards the impeachment of the President, namely, to instruct a committee to inquire into the offences charged against him. The vote appointing this committee was carried by 108 to 38, apparently on the 7th January. The Times' correspondent: at Washington, who first sent us this news by Atlantic cable, added, "The Radicals are determined to press it." Congress separated before the vacation in much doubt as to this grave step, but the President having in the meantime vetoed the Negro Suffrage Bill for the District of Columbia,.a bill already voted by more than two-thirds' majorities in both Houses, and which therefore can be immediately carried over his head, the challenge has been accepted by Congress, and this resolution is the result. The President has now vetoed every bill passed by. Congress with a view to the real and final extinction of slavery, and he has withdrawn, finally, the military check on the wholesale murder of negroes by whites in the South. If it be not possible to check him in his career, he will undo in the remaining two years of his Presidency the whole work of the war.—Spcclator. The Times remarks that "the events of this session, grave as they have been, will not allow us to believe that twe-thirds of the Senate will Concur in the condemnation of the President upon the charges brought against him; but a constitutional difficulty is in these days a matter of small concern in the States. If the majority in will cannot legally compass their ends, they will do so by the exptession of their own will. In the face of the constitution, Mr. Wendell Phillips has constantly urged that the President should, before trial, be prohibited from exercising any of his official functions, on the ground that an accused person should not continue to act as President of the United States; and the spirit which dietated this bold advice will not scruple at acting upon a sentence, even though it should be supported by less them the prescribed two-thirds of the Senate. Let a majority, however small, condemn Mr. Johnson, tlae dominant party will enforce the condemnation, and their supremacy will be established without opposition or possibility of rivalry. The Daily News observes that "the wisdom and propriety of the impeachment of Mr. Johnson must depend on the result of the inquiries now going on. The leaders of Congress are not such bunglers in the art of politics as to take such a step as a mere party move. The exasperation which Mr. Johnson s conduct raised may increase their readiness to take so serious a course, but they will not do it nukes the best Interests of the country seem to them to demand it. Mr. Johnson will really have only himself to thank if the counsels of his enemies prevail, and he is brought to trial. His share in the frightful business at New Orleans has never been explained, and his indiscriminate pardons have subjected his very patriotism to suspicion. Ner can he wonder if Congress should attribute the most serious meaning to his foolish words. That he seriously contemplated a coup d'elat is generally believed in both Nce th and South, and his own language towards Congress quite justifies the inquiry whether the questions which he was said to have addressed to the Attorney-General were or were not an invention of the enemy. He is said to have stood greatly in fear of impeachment from the time of the deoisive victories of his opponents in the elections. But the House will not impeach him even for the foolish words he used in his speeches against Congress, and the Senate will assuredly not find him guilty unless some overt note of violence or more unconstitutional actions are clearly proved against him,"