In the same vein another officer testifies from Texas:

"There is one thing, however, that is making against the speedy return of quietness, not only in this State, but throughout the entire South, and that is the Reconstruction policy of President Johnson. It is doing more to unsettle this country than people who are not practical observers of its workings have any idea of. Before this policy was made

known, the people were prepared to accept anything. They

expected to be treated as rebels,

their leaders being pun

ished, and the property of others confiscated.

But the mo

Reb

ment it was made known, all their assurance returned. els have again become arrogant and exacting; Treason stalks through the land unabashed."

This testimony might be multiplied indefinitely. From city and country, from highway and by-way, there is but one voice. When, therefore, the President, in opprobrious terms, complains of Congress as interposing delay, I reply to him: "No, Sir, it is you, who, by unexpected and most perverse assumption, have put off the glad day of security and reconciliation, so much longed for. It is you who have inaugurated anew that malignant sectionalism, which, so long as it exists, will keep the Union divided in fact, if not in name. Sir, you are the Disunionist."

Glance, if you please, at that Presidential policyso constantly called "my policy"-now so vehemently pressed upon the country, and you will find that it pivots on at least two alarming blunders, as can be easily seen: first, in setting up the One Man Power as the source of jurisdiction over this great question; and, secondly, in using the One Man Power for the restoration of Rebels to place and influence, so that

good Unionists, whether white or black, are rejected, and the Rebellion itself is revived in the new governments. Each of these assumptions is an enormous blunder. You see that I use a mild term to characterize such a double-headed usurpation.

Pray, Sir, where in the Constitution do you find any sanction of the One Man Power as source of this extraordinary jurisdiction? I had always supposed that the President was the Executive,- bound to see the laws faithfully executed, but not empowered to make laws. The Constitution expressly says: "The Executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." But the Legislative power is elsewhere. According to the Constitution, "All Legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." And yet the President has assumed legislative power, even to the extent of making laws and constitutions for States. You all know, that, at the close of the war, when the Rebel States were without lawful governments, he assumed to supply them. In this business of Reconstruction he assumed to determine who should vote, and also to affix conditions for adoption by the conventions. Look, if you please, at the character of this assumption. The President, from the Executive Mansion at Washington, reaches his long executive arm into certain States and dictates constitutions. Surely here is nothing executive; it is not even military. It is legislative, pure and simple, and nothing else. It is an attempt by the One Man Power to do what can be done only by the legislative branch of Government.

And yet the President, perversely absorbing to himself all power over the reconstruction of the Rebel States, insists that Congress must accept his work without addition or subtraction. He can impose conditions: Congress cannot. He can determine who shall vote: Congress cannot. His jurisdiction is not only complete, but exclusive. If all this be so, then has our President a most extraordinary power, never before dreamed of. He may exclaim, with Louis the Fourteenth, "The State, it is I," while, like this magnificent king, he sacrifices the innocent, and repeats that fatal crime, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His whole "policy" is "revocation" of all that has been promised and all we have a right to expect.

Here it is well to note a distinction, not without importance in the issue between the President and Congress. Nobody doubts that the President may, during war, govern any conquered territory as commander-inchief, and for this purpose detail any military officer as military governor. But it is one thing to govern a State temporarily by military power, and quite another thing to create a constitution for a State which shall continue when the military power has expired. The former is a military act, and belongs to the President; the latter is a civil act, and belongs to Congress. On this distinction I stand; and this is not the first time that I have asserted it. Of course, governments set up in this illegitimate way are necessarily illegitimate, except so far as they acquire validity from time or subsequent recognition. It needs no learned Chief Justice of North Carolina solemnly to declare this. It is manifest from the nature of the case.

But this illegitimacy becomes still more manifest,

when it is known that the constitutions which the President orders and tries to cram upon Congress have never been submitted to popular vote. Each is the naked offspring of an illegitimate convention called into being by the President, in the exercise of illegitimate power.

There is another provision of the Constitution, by which, according to a judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, this question is referred to Congress, and not to the President. I refer to the provision that "the United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government.” On these words Chief Justice Taney, speaking for the Supreme Court, has adjudged, that "it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State; for, as the United States guaranty to each State a republican government, Congress must necessarily decide what government is established in the State, before it can determine whether it is republican or not"; and that "unquestionably a military government established as the permanent government of the State would not be a republican government, and it would be the duty of Congress to overthrow it." But the President sets at nought this commanding text, reinforced by the positive judgment of the Supreme Court, and claims this extraordinary power for himself, to the exclusion of Congress. He is "the United States." In him the Republic is manifest. He can do all; Congress nothing.

And now the whole country is summoned by the President to recognize State governments created by constitutions thus illegitimate in origin and character. Without considering if they contain the proper ele

1 Luther v. Borden et al., 7 Howard, R., 42, 45.

ments of security for the future, or if they are republican in form, and without any inquiry into the validity of their adoption,-nay, in the very face of testimony showing that they contain no elements of security for the future, that they are not republican in form, and that they have never been adopted by the loyal people, we are commanded to accept them; and when we hesitate, the President, himself leading the outcry, assails us with angry vituperation, blunted, it must be confessed, by coarseness without precedent and without bound. It is well that such a cause has such an advocate.

Thus setting up the One Man Power as a source of jurisdiction, the President has committed a blunder of Constitutional Law, proceeding from an immense egotism, in which the little pronoun "I" plays a gigantic part. It is "I" vs. The People of the United States in Congress assembled. On this unnatural blunder I might say more; but I have said enough. My present purpose is accomplished, if I make you see it clearly.

The other blunder is of a different character. It is giving present power to ex-Rebels, at the expense of constant Unionists, white or black, and employing them in the work of Reconstruction, so that the new governments continue to represent the Rebellion. This same blunder, when committed by one of the heroes of the war, was promptly overruled by the President himself; but Andrew Johnson now does what Sherman was not allowed to do. The blunder is strange and unaccountable.

Here the evidence is constant and cumulative. It