It thenceforward ought to have been counted a shameful proposition, a flagrant affront to common justice and gratitude, for Congress to propose to the rebels as a constitutional amendment that if they would agree to the exclusion of these loyal colored men from the basis of representation, we would agree to surrender them to the tender mercies of rebel State governments which might wholly deprive them of the sacred right of representation. Sir, I hope no such principle will ever defile the Constitution of our fathers. Aside from its cold-blooded ingratitude to our black allies, it is radically vicious. It impliedly concedes to the States of the Union the right to disfranchise male citizens of the United States over twenty-one years old who are innocent of crime, and thus strikes at the root of all democracy. If "taxation without representation is tyranny," and governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed," the citizen's right of representation is as natural and inherent as the breath of his nostrils. To deprive him of it, unless he himself forfeits it by his offenses against society, is a crime against his manhood, which is the common foundation of the rights of all men. It is an offense against all free government; for the right of one citizen to a voice in its public administration is precisely the same as the right of every other citizen; and no fraction of citizens, however large, can deprive the remainder of their common and equal right. To deny this is to mock the Declaration of Independence and insult the memory of our fathers; and to incorporate the denial into the Constitution of the United States, in words which express or imply it, would strengthen the hands of every rebel in the South, and comfort the enemies of American democracy throughout the world. It would pollute the very fountains of our national life by the unnatural marriage of the Constitution to the foul heresy of State Rights, which so recently wrapped the Republic in the flames of war; while it would stand in open conflict with that grand central principle of our great Charter which declares that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government."

IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 11, 1867.

[As Mr. Julian was among the first and most zealous of those who demanded the impeachment of President Johnson, this brief speech is here reprinted. It is selected from among others on the same subject because it condenses into a few vigorous paragraphs the real grounds of impeachment, and appropriately places the opponents of the measure upon the defensive.]

AFTER the Journal was read, Mr. Julian asked and obtained leave to make a personal explanation, and preliminary thereto had read at the Clerk's desk the following paragraph from the Washington correspondence of the "New York Tribune " :

"Of the fifty-seven members who voted for the resolution it must not be thought that all sincerely desired the impeachment of the President. The Indiana delegation which voted almost solidly in the affirmative, did so in the belief that some future deed of the President would justify their course. Others voted for impeachment, well knowing that it could not be carried, on the principle that their action would seem bold, and might be quoted with effect in future canvasses. Had the passage of the resolution depended on the votes of these gentlemen they would have been found against it; but there were probably forty men who were convinced that the testimony justified the House in bringing the President to a trial, though they did not undertake to usurp the functions of the Senate in judging of his innocence or guilt."

MR. JULIAN then proceeded:

This is certainly a remarkable display of the freedom of the press, and I must claim the right to refer to that portion of the extract which relates to the Indiana delegation. The writer says we voted for impeachment because we believed" that some future deed of the President would justify" our course. Sir, I do not speculate about the future deeds of the President. I know the past, and in the light of the past the Indiana delegation judged of their duty, and acted. That the President will pause in his career of maladministration and crime I do not for a moment believe. His capacity for evil stands out in frightful disproportion to his other gifts. He is a genius in depravity, and not merely "an obstinate man who means honestly to deal with" the problem of reconstruction. His hoarded malignity and passion have neither been fathomed nor exhausted, and will not be during his term of office.

If I may judge of the effect of the President's late message of defiance, acting on the inflammable temper of Southern rebels, and followed swiftly by the strong vote of this House renouncing its jurisdiction over his crimes, I can have no hesitation in believing that a new dispensation of rapine and misrule will be the result. This will be morally and logically inevitable; and while I respectfully commend it to the consideration of gentlemen who voted against impeachment, I desire to say in behalf of myself and the five of my colleagues who voted with me that in the vote we gave we assumed no jurisdiction whatever over acts of the President which have not yet transpired. We had neither the right nor the disposition to do this, but were governed by the following among other good and sufficient reasons:

We voted to impeach the President because he usurped the power to call conventions, set up governments, and decide the qualifications of voters, in seven of the States lately in rebellion.

Because he recognized these governments thus unconstitutionally established by himself as valid civil governments, and condemned and denounced Congress for lawfully exercising the powers and performing the acts which he exercised and performed in violation of law and of the Constitution.

Because he created the office of provisional governor, as a civil office, which is unknown to the Constitution, and appointed to such office in the rebel States notorious traitors, well knowing them to be such, and that they could not enter upon the duties of the office without the crime of perjury.

Because he deliberately trampled under his feet a law of Congress enacted in 1862 prescribing an oath of office, and which law he was sworn to execute, and appointed to offices under the laws of the United States men who were well known to him as traitors, who could not take the oath required.

Because he refused to execute the confiscation laws, and the laws against treason, and by the most monstrous abuse of the pardoning power in innumerable instances has made himself the powerful ally and best friend of the conquered traitors of the South, whose unmatched crimes have thus utterly defied even the ordinary administration of criminal justice.

Because the power of impeachment as defined in the Constitution clearly comprehends political offenses, like those of which the President has been proved guilty in the case recently before the House, and would otherwise be an empty and unmeaning mockery, leaving Congress wholly powerless to protect the nation

against the most wanton acts of Executive maladministration and lawlessness.

And because, finally, in the language of the majority of the Judiciary Committee, he has " retarded the public prosperity, lessened the public revenues, disordered the business and finances of the country, encouraged insubordination in the people of the States recently in rebellion, fostered sentiments of hostility between different classes of citizens, revived and kept alive the spirit of the rebellion, humiliated the nation, dishonored republican institutions, obstructed the restoration of said States to the Union, and delayed and postponed the peaceful and fraternal reorganization of the Government of the United States.

Sir, these are some of the reasons which compelled six of the Indiana delegation to vote "solidly in the affirmative." We had no occasion to carry our researches into the future in order to find a justification for our votes. And I desire to say, sir, as emphatically as I can, that under our view of the evidence and the law there was but one alternative left us. We could not allow our sense of duty, under the oaths we have taken, to be swayed by any calculations as to the effect of impeachment upon the finances of the country, or upon our own party relations, or upon the success of the Republican party next year. Neither could we pause to consider whether the impeachment would be sustained in the Senate, or whether it would provoke the President to renewed acts of violence and render him more devil-bent than before. We had nothing whatever to do with considerations of this character. Sir, impeachment is not a policy, but a solemn duty under the Constitution, which expressly provides for its performance. The "New York Tribune" itself says that "impeachment is the constitutional safeguard between the people and a dictatorship. To regard the Presidency as an intact, independent office, responsible only to the moral influence called the people,' and to a political mob called a convention,' is to make our ruler as absolute as the Emperor of China."

Sir, not to impeach in a case fairly requiring it is itself an act revolutionary and rebellious in its character. So the Indiana delegation believed, and so they acted under their sworn duty of fidelity to the Constitution of the United States. And having so believed and acted they have no apologies to make, no man's pardon to beg, and no favors to ask in any quarter. In common with the fifty-seven members who voted in the affirmative, and the one hundred and eight who voted in the negative, we shall be judged

by the people. None of us can "escape history," and for one I am willing to accept its final verdict. I only beg leave to say, in conclusion, that if the leading newspapers of the country had allowed the people to see the report in full of the majority of the Judiciary Committee, the correspondent of the " Tribune" would probably have felt less inclined to volunteer an apology for the Indiana delegation which is as dishonorable to himself as to them.