Year: 1868

TIE REPORT ON CORRUPTTON


We print elsewhere a condensed abstract of
the final report of the Impeachment Commit
tee, relative to the corrupt means con-
certed and employed to obtain the acquittal
of the President. 1t proves that several dis
tinct funds were raised, one of one
hundred thousand dollars, another of
twenty thousand, ten thousand, &c, for the
purpose of securing the Presidents acquitta


and as testimonials from his admirers should
he be convicted and removed from Office 1t
is not remarkable that corrupt office holders
and whisky distllers, should be willing to raise
these sums to keep in Office the man through
whom they had gorged their pockets
with millions of the stolen money of the peo-
pie. The report shows not only that consider
able sums were obtained expressly to buy the
votes of Senator's but that Senators who had,
for months before Secretary Stanton was re-
moved, been bowling for impeachment lobby
ing in the House for impeachment, and within
a few days of the final vote had declared their
intention to vote for impeachment on the spe-
cifc articles then pending were changed and
induced TO vote for acquittal, to the stutifica-
tion Of their known sentiments and pledges,
and to the astOnishmcnt of their colleagues.
Such facts are barely consistent with the nno-
! cence of those whose votes are thus changed,
as all circumstantial evidence of crime is barely
consistent with the innocence of the accused,
| though it is indicative of guilt and compels
suspicion. The country will enter in favor of
the Senators over whom these circumstances
rest, n verdict neither of guilty or not guilty.
but simply the Scotch verdict, not proven"
We know that corruption in the action of
members of our legislative bodies, including
Congress, so far from being an anomaly, is in
many instances their profession. We have seen
since the trial the most important offices
Of the Government handed over to those
who rendered themselves serviceable to the
President therein, rs if it required no effront-
cry and deserved no rebuke thus to prostitute
the power and patronage of the Presidential
office One of his counsel is offered the Sec
retaryshp of the Treasury, though finance is
wholly foreign to the range of his experience
or probable abilities. Another of his counsel
has been nominated for Attorney General.
His most efficient and able friend in the Senate
has been sent as Minister to England. Collec-
tor Smythe who has shown no other capacity
for diplomacy than that involved in the
corrupt efforts to buy the Presidents
acquittal. has been named as Minis
ter to Austria. Senator Ross, who pre-
viously had no influence over appointments,
suddenly acquires the control over Federal
patronage and secures the nomination of his
rotten friend Perry Fuller for the office of
Commissioner of Internal Revenue. an office
eminently requiring a man of first-cass abili-
ties and thorough honesty. Senators Hender-
] Al
chief political agency, however to secure the
Presidents acquittal, the Chief-Justice was
openly wheedled and biased by fragrant
movement TO secure his nomination to the Presi-
dency by the Democratic party, an honor to which
his only claim arises out of the influence he
exerted to secure the Presidents acquittal. To
secure the success of this project the Presi-
dents supporters, Doolittlc Dixon, and Others
will labor to-day and tomorrow in the pending
Democratic Convention. All these rewards for
serving the President are tainted with cor
ruption. The pure men of the early or recent
history of this Republic would have neither
conferred nor accepted Office on such disgrace
full terms. If so much is done openly and
unblushingly, what shall we say of deeds
done in the dark, in the excitement





dent was about to be removed, as he
actually was, and of which the actors will lie
in prison for weeks rather than testify, and
then testify in contradictory terms, charging
themselves with beastly drunkenness as the
only means of accounting for their cOntradic-
tions and falsehoodsP What was done when
Weed, Shook, Wooley, and Hastings met in
NewYork, and terms were mentioned
$4,000 for three Senator'S What was done
when these and kindred spirits held high carni-
val in Washington, reveing in all the riotous
wealth which the millionaires of the Whisky
Ring pledged themselves to place in their
hands to secure Johnson's acquittalq We do
not expect the class of men who engage in
such corrupt schemes to give us the whole
truth. They swear to half The other
half we must infer. They remember well how
their nefarious ring proposed to buy the votes
of dozen Senators, whom they did not buy,
But they forget with equal perspicuty, un-
animity, and distinctnctness, that the names of
either of the three or four Senators whose votes
were actually changed. were ever mentioned in