Year: 1868

not reconstruct government without
our consent. Now, the only party inter
ested is the Government of the United
States. They, as rebel States, could not
do it, The General Government must
do it.


And, then, we come to consider the
further question. How? BY what de-
partm ent, and through what department
and agency the United States shall act
to the end of establishing these State
Governments? And this brings us to
the only question upon which any of the
departments of the Government have
ever held different opinions. The Su-
preme Court of the United States, the
President of the United States, and the
Congress of the United States, have all
concurred in saying that the result of
the war was to leave Georgia without any
civil government, and that the people Of
Georgia were powerless as government
in the place of one which they had de-
stroyed. The Supreme Court Of the
United States decided what necessarily
leads to this conclusion, in the prize
cases decided in 1862, when they decided
that the whole people of Georgia, with
out reference to their private conduct,
we're to be regarded as public enemies,
but, although they were to be regarded
as public enemies, they were not the
less traitors 10 the government Of the
United States.


Andrew johnson had taken up this
subject, and treated it with the fullness
and the wisdom that is peculiar to him
self. Laughter. He had said, in his
proclamation, which he issued immedi-
ately after the surrender of Lee and
Johnston, that this rebellion had, in its
progress, swept away all civil govern
meht in the rebel States, and that the
Government of the United States owed
it as a duty to that section Of the coun-
try to establish local State Governments
there, and he, Andrew Johnson, (being
the United States,) undertook to do it.


Laughter. And he did it-''in horn"


Great laughter, and cries of ''And he
did it with ahorn." Yes, both. I accept
the amendment. Shouts of laughter
lie did it both ways. The President of
the United States, as such, clearly had
no authority over the subject. Our peo-
pie, when they framed our government.
were jealous Of the executive power
that is, the kingly power. Our fore
fathers were Englishmen. They remem-
bered well the contest that had stained
the soil Of England with blood in the
struggle to wrest rights and principles
from the crown and deposit them or
safe use and practical exercise with the
Parliament of England; and when they
framed our Constitution they determined
to limit and circumscribe and bind down
this ever encroaching executive power
within very narrow limits There is no
danger of oppression of the people by
Congress. The danger is always of op-
preston and usurpation coming from
that power which is centralized in no
mans bosom. There is no danger that
Congress, rent asunder as it is, and
must ever be, by cliques and fac
tions, will ever consent to Cypress the
people, because they can never agree
among themselves which clique shall he
the opi4ressors. Laughter. Mr., Fes
sender will have his little circle of
friends; Judge Trumbull will have his;
Judge Howe will have his. And so there
are dozen cliques in the Senate, and
the danger is that they won't be able TO
get together and do some things that
ought to be done some time. Great
laughter and applause Not so with
the President of the United States. The
great rash act of his which brought on
his impeachment-the removal of the
Secretary Of War for no offense except
for differing from him in opinion, and
differing from him in this particular,
that the Secretary of War thought fit to
act according to his own convictions,
according to the Constitution, and with
the party and friends who placed him
in power-that rash act of the President
was the result of no deliberat with
any body. No Cabinet officer knew any
thing about it. Neither Seward nor his
chum, Randall, ever dreamed that the
thing was to be done It was the result
of consultation between Andrew John
son and his demijohn alone [applause and
laughterl, and, when the purpose was
formed, it was executed by an order
written at his own table, at night. No
other man had to be got to sign it; no
other ambitious clique had to be concili-
ated [Applause-


This have alluded to only to illus
trate the fact and the theory that free
dom is in no danger of overthrow from