Year: 1868

The question propounded addresses
itself to US all with an emphasis that
demands inquiry. When the agents we


have placed in one of the three great
Departments of the National Govern
ment undertake to trespass upon and
crush another of our agents, the Presi-
dent, whom we have appointed and
placed in another of the great Depart
ments to perform other aud distinct
works for us, with the oaths Of God up-
on him to the best of his ability to do
it faithfully, according to the Constitu-
| tion and ldrs made in accordance there
,cith-no one of us, however humble, can
stand Indifferent. No matter who the
assaIed agent may b., if unjustly and
uncOnstitutionally assailed it is not he
alone that is to fall, but our Ma
tional Constitution and our lib
critics are to fall with him.
The weapon they aim at his side
has first to pierce the Constitution, and
not ourselves and posterity only, but
humanity must share the wound. Hence
the trunscendant Importance of the
measure inaugurated by the lower
House of Congress against the Presi-
dent-and for WHAT For what the
flatulent and agonizing travail of the
lower House on the 2lst ultf For
what the solemn and imposing march
| = u o,,1 Lob


ham up to the Senate-and then down
again 7. For what the malicious and ex-
ultant gleam from the eyes of the men,
bers of that body when their announce
ment was made I For what the tender
to Congress of hundreds of thousands
of armed men with their God speeds
by Governor Oglesby and others-in-
Guiding our ewn Legislature-a stimuli
taneous concert Of action, Indicating
Enthusiastically the widely extended, the
perfectly organized and prepared con-
spiracy, to perpetuate power at all
haZards-that slumbers like a hidden
mine beneath us-another "G0lden
Circle" only enlarged to the
bounds of our country and animated
by tLe Northern instead ofthe Southern
branch of tho first originators of trea-
soni For what the rules of the Senate,
when sitting as n high Court of I'M
peachment of % sections and many col
umns longi And all this too by agents
of ours, who at the close of the war,
when Government and people were
groaning under accumulated debt, vo-
ted themselves $4,000 Instead of $1,000
per session., averaging four or five
months, exclusive of travelling fees,
when not one in twenty of them can
earn the lesser amount in the same time
anywhere else.


| Now such of us as are not skilled in
the "higher law" arts would naturally
suppose that all this parade, ciTcum-
stance and dramatic prepare tion either
denoted that something awful had taken
place, or else betokened that something
of that sort was to take place. What
their future action will be no 'unini


tiated" man will undertake TO predict.
| But we do know that all the President
has done is to order Mr.. Stanton, whom
he had heretofore permitted to act as
Secretary of War, on suiferance merely,


tor he had never appointed him. that
his services were no longer needed, and
ordered Adjutant General Thomas TO
take charge of the Office until Secre


tary could he regularly appointed !!
That is all. That the National Consti
tuition gives our Chief Executive Officer
this right no legal or common sense mind
has ever doubted. The Doctors of the
"higher law" and their disciples stand
alone in its denial. The trainers of the
Constitution vested in the President the
Executive Power of the Government
they were framing, which embraced all
powers then understood to be included
in that term, and not by them in express
terms excluded. The absolute power of
the Chief Executive to remove Cabinet
officers at pleasure was then embraced
in the term Executive power" and
there is not a word in the Constitution
abridgiHg it in this respect. SO the first
Congress, embracing many of the makers
of the Constitution, decided, after care
full deliberation, in 1887, and the Nation
and all her great men since, without
dissenting voice, excepting the doctors
of the "higher law" and their disciples
of our day. These by virtue of their
transccndental art claimed to get around
! it in this way, that whenever Congress
by two-third vote passes bill over
| the Presidents veto, whatever be his
reasons for that veto, the same becomes
valid law, so far as the President is
concerned, and he is bound whatever be
his own conscientious convictions as to
| its cOnstitutiOuality, to see it carried
into execution, and in all things to obey
it, and if he fails in any particular he is
subject to impeachment, conviction
and removal. 1t would follow then as
necessary consequence, that if Con-


gress should pass law abolishing the
entire Executive and Judicial Depart
ments of our Government and send it to
the President, who should veto and
return it, giving as his reasons that
both his and the Judiciary Departments
were coordinate and independent
branches of the Government, so made
and established by the Constitution,
and that Congress, which could only
act in subordinatiOn to that Constitu-
ton, had no power over them, and still
Congress passes it over his veto by
two-thirds vote, it thereby becomes,
as they say, ldr, which the President,
although thereby abolished, is bound
to execute and obey by virtue of the
clause in the Constitution, that she
shall take care that the laws be faith


fully executed" and bound to do it too
until the Federal Court shall pronounce
it void. But as the Federal Court is al
so abolished by the same act, suppose
they mean the defunct President is to
keep on executing. A pretty fix to
place the Presidents oath-bouHd consci-
ence inl l mention this necessary
consequence that must follow to some of
the disciples who seemed TO doubt the
power to do so much at once, but con-
tended it could be done gradually, by
piece meal, and not violate the Consti-
tution any to hurt! When the Presi-
dent shall veto q bill solely on the
ground that he believes it iaerpedieVt,
and it is passed by two-thirds vote, it
should, perhaps, withpropriety, be taken
to be valid law which he is. bound to
execute. But when he vetoes n bill
because he coRscieRtiOHsly beiieres II conflicts
with the Constitution, which he has
sworn "to preserve, protect aud Tde-
fend," a two-thirds vote of Congress
can neither justify nor oblige him to
commit legal and moral perjury by car