ate.

No provision is made, in terms, concerning who shall make removals. But the Government would soon be off the track if removals could not be made. Bad men would plunder it without restraint, or fear of removal, or punishment. The First Congress under the Constitution, when establishing the Departments of State, Treasury, and War, had the question of removal under consideration. Mr. Madison, called the Father of the Constitution, took the lead in the debate, declaring that the power of removal was vested in the President, as a prerequisite to the exercise of the express power to appoint, and as a necessary means of executing the conceded power to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." In each of these acts provision is made for the performance of the duties of the office, in case of removal of the head of the department by the President, thus expressly recogniz ing the President's authority to remove. If this power did not rest with the President, all officers appointed by him, except those limited to four years by the act of 1820, could hold for life, including members of the cabinet. The Constitution thus construed in 1789, with the exception of Mr. Calhoun's attempt, in 1834, to tie up the hands of General Jackson, has been recognized by all parties as authoritative, and been acted upon by every President, and by none to a greater extent than Mr. Lincoln. The last Congress, not content with the spoils they had obtained and could secure under the Constitution, as construed for nearly eighty years by every Congress and Administration, and as acted upon by the Senators during Mr. Lincoln's term of office, passed an act to enable the Senate to restrain the powers of the President, by enlarging and conferring upon that body new ones unknown to the Constitution. They forbid the President to make removals without the consent of the Senate, and limit his power to suspending, in vacation, until the Senate shall act, and if they do not concur, the removed officer is restored to office. Under this law, passed over the President's veto, the Senate not only can, but does, keep all Republicans in their offices, notwithstanding they violate their duties, plunder the Government, and personally insult and refuse to obey the lawful authority of the President. Men have been thus restored who were known to have

robbed the Government while in office. Mr. Stanton, the most thoroughly unpopular and disliked man ever in a department, whose administration of the War Department was characterized by more extravagances, and illegal acts, and grosser neglects of duties, and who was guilty of greater contempt and disrespect for his superior, the President, than any of his predecessors or heads of departments, was thus sent back to the War Department, after his suspension, and by the votes of Senators who declared, on the passage of this law, that no man could so far disgrace himself as to cling to a cabinet office against the wishes of the President. This was done after it was known that Mr. Stanton had declared the Tenure-of-Office Bill unconstitutional, and had advised the veto, and promised to help prepare it. America has never been so disgraced by such an example on her records, and by such a death-like struggle to retain office. Congress changed their day of meeting, in 1867, from the first Monday in December to the 4th of March, so that the Senate should be constantly in session to prevent the President from making removals in vacation, granting commissions which would ordinarily run to midsummer, 1868, and took recesses, and adjourned from time to time, doing little business until the winter session of 1867-'68. The avowed and known object of all this legislative manœuvring was to prevent Mr. Johnson from removing and making appointments. Among the consequences we find that the President is surrounded by officers endeavoring to thwart him in the performance of his duties, and suffering their subordinates to plunder the public revenue before it reaches the Treasury, and others to clutch it after it has reached there. Nearly every civil office throughout the Union, and a large portion of those in the Army, and a majority in the Navy, are filled with men who are struggling in aid of Congress to keep the Southern States out of the Union until they can be brought in through negro votes, to aid in continuing the Republican party in power. The good of the service is entirely ignored. Congress is now even proposing to constitute the Internal Revenue Bureau a separate department, making the present chief of it the head of the department, giving him all the appointments, so as to prevent the Secretary of the Treasury or the President

exercising any control over it. Such legislation would disgrace any government, even if the man proposed to be legislated to the head of the department was competent to perform his duties well. But this struggle for office must, ere long, end in disappointment. The people will place the Government in honest and competent hands, who will restore it to its former high character.

117.—THE REORGANIZATION OF LOUISIANA AND ARKANSAS, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

Mr. Lincoln's plan of restoration, contained in his proclamation of December 8, 1863, was to allow one-tenth of the former number of voters, if loyal, to form new State governments, to be admitted in place of the former ones. The election of delegates to a convention, their proceedings, and the adoption of the new constitution, were to be under the direction of a Governor appointed by him. Under this proclamation and that of General Banks, Louisiana elected delegates, who met in convention, framed a new constitution prohibiting slavery, and submitted it to the people, who approved of it. Under this constitution a new government was organized and put in operation. Under General Banks's proclamation, Michael Hahn had been elected Governor. At the election of delegates to frame a new constitution five members of Congress were elected, and members to form a Legislature, who chose seven electors of President and Vice-President. The government thus authorized was in operation on the 1st of January, 1865. Two of the members elected to Congress were admitted and voted for Speaker. When the Committee on Elections acted upon their right to seats, it reported in their favor, but the report was not acted upon. Hahn was elected by the Legislature to the Senate of the United States, but was not admitted to a seat. A controversy sprang up concerning the fairness of the proceedings to organize the new government, the radical Republicans charging fraud. But the real cause of discontent was the omission in the constitution of a provision placing negroes on an equal footing with the whites, and allowing them to vote. A movement to reconvene the convention with the view of inserting this provision, a year or more after its work had been submitted to and approved by the

people, led to the New-Orleans riots. Mr. Johnson had approved of and recognized this reorganization in Louisiana.

At the beginning of the year 1864, Arkansas framed and organized a new government under Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of December 8, 1863. The constitution prohibited slavery. All the votes cast were for the constitution, except 226. There were chosen at this election, in addition to their usual State officials, a Legislature and three members of Congress. When the Legislature convened they elected Senators, whose right to seats was discussed in, but which never decided by the Senate. Nor were the members elected, admitted to seats in the House. The Legislature, by a law, disfranchised a large portion of those who claimed to be voters under the constitution. Mr. Johnson, in a letter to Governor Murphy, October 30, 1865, said:

"There will be no interference with your present organization of State government. I have learned from E. W. Gantt, Esq., and other sources, that all is working well, and you will proceed and resume the former relations with the Federal Government, and all the aid in the power of the Government will be given in restoring the State to its former relations."

Here was a State government in full operation under Mr. Lincoln's plan, under which the State was resuming its business and prosperity. Arkansas and Louisiana confided in Mr. Lincoln, and acted accordingly. He had not only proclaimed his plan of reorganization in December, 1863, but had, on the 8th of July, 1864, reaffirmed it by his proclamation, in which he said, "I am also unprepared to declare that the free State constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set side and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens, who have set up the same, as to further effort."

In both these States slavery had been abolished, which was all that had been previously claimed. The act which had been passed, but not approved by Mr. Lincoln, required no more. Negro suffrage had not been provided in any act of Congress, or in the national platform. Up to that time Mr. Lincoln's word had not only been the law, but often far above the law, and sus

tained by Congress and the whole Republican party. These two State organizations had been under the direction of his friends, and through agents selected by him. Notwithstanding all these considerations, these reorganized State governments have been crowded out and supplanted by military tyrannies instituted under the reconstruction acts passed by Congress over the President's veto. And why? The reason is obvious. These State governments were not so organized as to insure the perpetuation of power in the hands of the Republicans. It was feared that a majority of the white people, who knew they had designedly precip itated the war, would not vote to continue them in office. It was expected that, by the aid of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the use of the military power, the negroes could be controlled, and made to sustain them by their votes, which would render their success certain. For these reasons, two unobjectionable State governments, organized under Mr. Lincoln's own authority, and satisfactory to all but radical politicians fearing defeat, and under which the people were contented and becoming prosperous, were crushed out, and all power placed in the hands of those who rule by the sword and bayonet. The wishes of the governed and the pledges of the past were ignored without hesitation in the effort by the Republicans to perpetuate their power. For this purpose they are ready to make deserts and waste places of ten beautiful and lovely States.

Whether this shall be permitted is one of the questions for the consideration of the public. Tennessee, though treated by Congress as reconstructed, is probably in a worse condition than any other State. Her old constitution was amended, and the amendments were so submitted as to prevent two-thirds of the people from voting on the question of its ratification. It is now an instrument of disabilities, instead of one authorizing self-government by the people. Hon. Cave Johnson, in a letter before referred to, after enumerating the various public employments he had held, and stating that he had taken no part in the rebellion, and had taken the oath of allegiance, says: "I thought I might be entitled to vote, and applied yesterday to be registered, as required by the late acts, and was refused, because I had, in the