A few of the signers of this great charter of the new Government were also signers of the Declaration of Independence, a paper standing second in importance, perhaps, in the veneration of Americans. For some reason the names of the signers of the Declaration were pushed out of their place in the third volume. That they may not be lost from the first edition of this work, they are deliberately inserted here with the sentence introducing them in Mr. Jefferson's immortal document, as follows:

The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and signed by the following members:

EDWARD RUTLEDGE, THOMAS LYNCH, Jun.

THOMAS HEYWARD, Jun. ARTHUR MIDDLETON.

GEORGIA.

BUTTON GWINNETT,

GEORGE WALTON.

LYMAN HALL,

31-R

CHAPTER XVII.

VAIN EFFORTS TO HARMONIZE THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS-TWO STUBBORN BODIES-THE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL-A HIGH-TONED FARCE AND

N

SCANDAL-ALTA VELA.

O event in the history of Congress or the country during this memorable period was so great a source of public excitement and interest, and was yet of so little benefit or honor to the Nation, as the impeachment trial of the President. It was the result of the unfortunate division between Congress and the Executive, and the evil and stubborn spirit which took no small part in the affairs of the times. Mr. Johnson viewed his early reconstruction measures as right, and designed them to be permanent. He did not mean that they should be set aside by Congress, or that any other should take their place. In the long interval between his inauguration and the meeting of Congress he pushed his plan forward with great rapidity, and hoped it was too far developed, and too well sanctioned by the initial steps of Mr. Lincoln, to meet serious opposition. He had been too hasty. The spirit of the Rebellion was not dead, and the progress of events had satisfied the majority in Congress that his policy was not safe. If the majority in Congress had determined to oppose the

course the President had taken, he had also decided to give his sanction to no other which might be substituted for it. If Congress deemed it best not to agree with him, he concluded that he would not agree with it, and shut his ears against all appeals for harmony. In the spirit of compromise he never believed nor took any part, and nothing in his conduct at this time belied his former record. It is simply a fact that Congress did not desire to pursue the direction President Johnson had taken, and he neither had desire nor disposition to agree with it. If he was inclined to be on good terms with Congress, he never exhibited such inclination, in the least, by word or deed.

No patriot, in his right mind, could have wished a quarrel between the President and Congress, especially at a period so critical, and much anxiety was felt on this point. Counsel was diverse, and safe leaders were not numerous. The most unreasonable of all things was it to expect that the loyal people who had upheld the Government through the long, bloody, and costly struggle should submit affairs to the guardianship of men whose erratic notions and feelings had led to the struggle, or to that of those who had sympathized with them. And yet this was what they were required to do. The rebel leaders with few exceptions and their Northern sympathizers gathered around Mr. Johnson, and finally became his only warm supporters. And among these men and their political descendants and executors are to be found, to-day, mainly, his very decided apologizers and defenders.

Among men who had always been loyal there was a strong desire for the President and Congress to work in perfect harmony, and there was undoubtedly a disposition on the part of Republicans to think that the President should stick to the Republican party. His election as Vice-President under the auspices of that party, fixed his obligations, it was held, and his immediate and thorough disagreement with Congress was certainly contrary to the general expectations of the country.

Horace Greeley wrote the following account of his own efforts to prevent any serious difference between the President and Congress, showing how he reached a conclusion as to Mr. Johnson's disposition, a conclusion which became quite general at the time, and has not undergone any very material modification up to this date:

"Soon after our last State election, and before the assembling of the present Congress, I went, not uninvited, to Washington, expressly to guard against such a difference. Being admitted to an interview with the President, I urged him to call to Washington three of the most eminent and trusted expositors of Northern anti-slavery sentiment, and three equally eminent and representative Southern exrebels, and ask them to take up their residence at the White House for a week, a fortnight, so long as they might find necessary, while they, by free and friendly conference and discussion, should earnestly endeavor to find a common ground whereon the North and the South should be not merely reconciled, but made evermore fraternal and harmonious. I suggested that the President should occasionally, as he could find time, drop in on these conferences, and offer such suggestions as he should deem fit,