How

been for years their enemies and oppressors. are we to reconcile to ourselves, to our country, and to posterity this great inconsistency on our part?

I am as much attached to party as any man can be; but the jewel of the Republican party is its consistency, based upon justice, and now we abandon justice and accept inconsistency as our policy. Is not the history of this country full of warning? I will not mention names; but, from 1850 to the close of the rebellion, the pathway of ambition for parties and for men has been strewn right and left with the fragments of parties and the remains of politicians that have proved false to justice, to humanity, and to republican principles. Do you inquire whether these States are to be for ever excluded? By no means. We have assurances from North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas, that, if this Congress will but demand impartial suffrage, the people of those States who are loyal to the Union will enter the contest, second the demand for impartial suffrage, contend for it, and ultimately, as they believe, they will secure it. I speak under the impression, the firm conviction, that we to-day here surrender up the cause of justice, the cause of the country, in the vain hope that the admission of Tennessee may work somewhat for the advantage of the party which has controlled the country during these last six years. We surrender the rights of four million people; we surrender the cause of justice; we imperil the peace and endanger the prosperity of the country; we degrade ourselves as a great party which has controlled the

government in the most trying times in the history of the world. Fortunate will it be for us, for those whom we represent, and for the future of the country, if these apprehensions shall not be realized; and, humble though I be, but in the full conviction that they are not groundless, I enter my earnest protest against this proceeding. Believing it to be wrong, I declare my convictions in the presence of those who have the power to prevent the wrong; and I make the declaration with a sense of responsibility such as has never before rested upon me in any experience of my life.

489

THE USURPATION.

[FROM THE "ATLANTIC MONTHLY," OCTOBER, 1866.]

HERE are three passions to which public men

THER

are especially exposed, fear, hatred, and ambition. Mr. Johnson is the victim and slave of all; and, unhappily for himself and unfortunately for the country, there is no ground for hope that he will ever free himself from their malign influence.

It is a common report, and a common report founded upon the statements of those best acquainted with the President, that he lives in continual fear of personal harm, and that he anticipates hostile congressional action in an attempt to impeach him and deprive him of his office. He best of all men knows whether he is justly liable to impeachment; and he ought to know that Congress cannot proceed to impeach him, unless the offences or misdemeanors charged and proved are of such gravity as to justify the proceeding in the eyes of the country and the world.

There is nothing vindictive or harsh in the American character. The forbearance of the American people is a subject of wonder, if it is not a theme for encomium. They have assented to the pardon of many of the most prominent rebels; they have seen the authors of the war restored to citizenship, to the possession of their property, and even to the

enjoyment of patronage and power in the government; and, finally, they have been compelled, through the policy of the President, to submit to the dictation, and in some sense to the control, of the men whom they so recently met and vanquished upon the field of battle. The testimony of Alexander H. Stephens everywhere suggests, and in many particulars exactly expresses, the policy of the President.

Mr. Stephens asserts that the States recently in rebellion were always entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States; and Mr. Johnson must accept the same position; for, if the right were once lost, it is impossible to suggest how or when it was regained. It is also known, that, while the Johnston-Sherman negotiations were pending, Mr. Davis received written opinions from two or more persons who were then with him, and acting as members of his Cabinet, upon the very question in dispute between Congress and Mr. Johnson, -the rights of the then rebellious States in the government of the United States. These opinions set up and maintained the doctrine that the rebel States would be at once entitled to representation in the government of the country, upon the ratification or adoption of the pending negotiations. It may not be just to say that the President borrowed his policy from Richmond; but it is both just and true to say that the leaders of the rebellion have been incapable of suggesting a public policy more advantageous to themselves than that which he has adopted. The President knows that the people have been quiet and impartial observers of these

proceedings; that the House of Representatives has never in public session, nor in any of its caucuses or committees, considered or proposed any measure looking to his impeachment.

The grounds of his fear are known only to himself; but its existence exerts a controlling influence over his private and public conduct.

Associated with this fear, and probably springing from it, is an intense hatred of nearly all the recog‐ nized leaders of the party by which he was nominated and elected to office. Evidence upon this point is not needed. He has exhibited it in a manner and to a degree more uncomfortable to his friends than to his enemies, in nearly every speech that he has made, commencing with that delivered on the 22d of February last.

Superadded to these passions, which promise so much of woe to Mr. Johnson and to the country, is an inordinate, unscrupulous, and unreasoning ambition. To one theme the President is always constant; to one idea he is always true, "He has filled every office, from that of alderman of a village to the Presidency of the United States.' He does not forget, nor does he permit the world to forget, this fact. In some form of language, and in nearly every speech, he assures his countrymen that he either is, or ought to be, satisfied with this measure of success. But have not his own reflections, or some over-kind friend, suggested that he has never been elected President of the United States? and that there yet remains the attainment of this one object of ambition?

Inauguration day, 1865, will be regarded as one