Year: 1868

and disasters attendant upon wide departures
from the landmarks of the constitution as
understood and defined by MIR. johnson since
the first Monday in December, 1865.


We have the right to ask for something
more. We should like to have, for instance,
some exposition in the forthcoming message of
the financial policy pursued by his Secretary
OF the Treasury, for which the President him
self is responsible. Mr.. McCulloch has not
given us very good administration of the
Treasury Department On the contrary, it
has been the administration rather of a small
stockjobber than of o great statesman or
fnancier. It Is widely suspected that he has
been influenced more by the stock and gold
gamblers of Wall street than the general in
terests of the country. That great body Of
men which Abraham Lincoln defined as ''onr
plain, honest, thinking people" find it espe-
cially difficult to understand how it is that
under an efficient and honest Secretary such
things as frauds upon the Treasury to the
extent of hundred millions q year could
possibly be perpetrated, and upon the single
item Of contraband whiskey.


Upon this matter, too, the responsibility
falls back upon the President. What can he
say in explanation of the continuance Of these
whiskey frauds from month to month and from
year to year, or of the smothering of all the
investigations attempted He may plead the
Tenure of Office laws but even under this
obnoxious law he has still had the power of
suspending dishonest and suspected officials,
great and small. Why has he not availed
himself of this power, and made q score or two
of wholesome examples Of the officers under
whose general supervision and of those in
whose especial districts or departments these
enormous whiskey frauds have been perpe-
trated? We ask for light upon this dark and
mysterious business, and the President ought
to be able by the reassembling of Congress to
he must do something towards clearing up
these whiskey mysteries, or he may himself
in the public judgment, fall short Of an i'm
perative duty.


On the subject Of Southern reconstruction
we anticipate rigmarole of chop logic Of
little or no consequence in practical view;
but still point will be gained ii we have
in the Presidents message recognition
Of the constitutional amendment, article
fourteen, proclaimed by the Secretary
of State part and parcel of the constitution
''to all intents and purposes" The Southern
democratic leaders are holding back upon this
amendment. A word from Mr.. johnson will
set them right, and will at once put them in the
way Of carrying, with the negro balance Of
power, every Southern State against the radi
Gals in their next elections for Congress. Had
the democracy in their Tammany Convention
Of last July recognized this amendment in the
simple nomination of Chase they might have
carried the country on the excessive taxations
and corruptions Of the party in power.


The Secretary of State generally works up
that branch Of the Presidents message re-
lating to our foreign affairs, and SO we shall
probably have nothing very clear or definite in
the forthcoming message touching Mr.. Reverdy
Johnson's negotiations on the Alabama claims,
nor in reference to Cuba, Mexico, the Para
quay imbroglio, or anything else. Neverthe
less we expect from Mr.. Johnson . better
message this time than any he has yet given
us, inasn,uch as it will be the last of his regu-
lar course. He may, like General Jackson,
follow the example Of Washington In giving
us on retiring from Office the benefit of a fare
well address; but If he intends, on returning
to Tennessee, to take fresh start in running
for Governor, a farewell address may, perhaps,
be indefinitely postponed.