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.

SPOLIATION OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN-THE SAVING REMEDY.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, MARCH 6, 1868.1

[This speech, prepared with great care and considerable labor, was published as a campaign document for the national canvass of 1868. It will be found to embody important facts bearing upon a great question, which is commanding a constantly increasing interest.]

MR. SPEAKER, -Perhaps there is no question affecting the civil administration of the government which more deeply concerns the people of the United States than that which is submitted in the bill I have had the honor to report from the Committee on Public Lands. It touches all the springs of our national life and well being. It makes its appeal to every landless citizen of the Republic, and to every foreigner who comes to our shores in search of a home. It reaches down to the very foundations of democratic equality, and takes hold on the coming ages of industrial development and Christian civilization in the rapidly multiplying States of our Union. Had the policy now proposed been accepted by the nation a generation ago, before its magnificent patrimony had been so grievously marred and wasted by legislative profigacy and plunder, the gratitude of millions would have attested the blessed results, the failure of which millions must deplore. Not a single hour of further delay should stay the friendly hand of Congress in rescuing the remaining heritage of a thousand million acres from the improvident administration of the past.

Before proceeding to the general discussion of this measure it may be well briefly to refer to its particular provisions, and their effect in modifying the action of its controlling principle. It forbids the further sale of the public lands, except as provided for in the preemption and homestead laws. These laws have been improved by repeated amendments which have been suggested by experience, and their machinery is understood by the people Under the preemption laws the settler may select his home on the surveyed or unsurveyed lands, and perfect his title on the 1 On the bill to prevent the further sale of agricultural lands, except as provided for in the preemption and homestead laws.