and urged again by his friends, under whose control he had placed himself, to go there and answer their call; and is it not natural in a free Government like ours that the President of the United States should associate with the people; and when they make a call on him to address them is there anything improper and || unreasonable in his doing it? And if when he addresses them a prepared mob intends to insult him; if they excite his passions, as the passions of any man would be excited under the circumstances, and he answers them a little intemperately and somewhat in their own way, speaks about the Congress of the United States pretty freely, pray tell us what sort of treason is committed? Does the Congress of the United States hold itself up so far above the President and the people of the United States as to say that your acts are not subject to criticism either by the President or by anybody else that chooses to criticise them? I tell you, Senators, we have not got that far yet. The President, any citizen of the United States of America, from the President down to the humblest citizen, has the right to criticise any act of Congress that he chooses to criticise, and he has the right to speak of any act of Congress in any mode that he sees proper to speak; and if the people will tolerate it there is no law and nothing in the Constitution to prevent it; and if this power of free speech, as I said before, is improperly exercised, then the corrective must be in the people themselves. So I say that one of the greatest rights secured to the people under the Constitution of this country would be invaded if this article was sustained. The eleventh article charges that on the 18th of August, 1866, the defendant asserted that the Thirty-Ninth Congress was not a lawful Congress, denied that it had the right to recommend constitutional amendments, and in pursuance thereof removed Stanton on the 21st of February, 1868, to prevent the execution of the tenure-of-civil-office act, and to prevent the execution of the Army appropriation bill, and prevent the execution of the act for the more efficient government of the rebel States. The honorable Manager, Mr. BUTLER, referred to the President's admission that he attempted to prevail on General Grant to disobey the law, to his admission that he intended from the first to oust Mr. Stanton, his order to Grant not to recognize Stanton, his order to Thomas to take possession, &c. In answer to all this have to say that the honorable Manager admits that if the Senate shall have decided that all the acts charged in the preceding articles are justified by law, then so large a part of the intent and purpose with which the respondent is charged in this article would fail of proof that it would be difficult to say whether he might not with equal impunity violate the laws known as the reconstruction acts; and as we have shown that the President is entitled to an acquittal on the other charges, he must be entitled to a judgment or verdict of not guilty upon this. But we say that none of the acts charged amount to a high crime or misdemeanor; that he had the right to deny the authority of Congress as he had previously done in his messages. I have them here, but I shall not turn to them. Time and again the President, in his veto messages especially, has asserted, in his communications to Congress, his views and opinions as to the rights of the southern States that are excluded from representation; and although the phraseology is a little more courtly and elegant in the messages than it was in the several speeches which have been referred to, yet, so far as the substance is concerned, the President, in almost every one of those communications, has asserted his belief that the southern States are entitled to representation, and that they ought not to be excluded by Congress. We say that none of the acts charged amount to a high crime or misdemeanor; that he had the right to deny the authority of Congress as he had previously done in his messages; that he had the right, as President, to instruct General Grant, who is his subordinate, bound to obey his commands, to disobey a law which he believed to be unconstitutional, or test its validity in the courts of law; that he had the right to remove Stanton and to order Thomas to take possession of the War Office; that he had the right to differ in opinion with Congress, and to answer the telegraphic dispatch of Governor Parsons as he did. I ask, have not members of Congress during all Administrations, commencing with the Administration of General Washington, been accustomed to assail the measures of every President, both in Congress and out of it? And may not the President vindicate and endeavor to sustain his own views before the people in opposition to Congress? And can he not with propriety say to members of Congress when they oppose his views, "You are assailing the executive department," with just as much priety as they can say that he is assailing the legislative department? The obligation to support the Constitution is equally obligatory on both, and both have the right under this and all other circumstances to appeal to their common sovereigns, the people, with a view of procuring a final and authoritative settlement of the controversy. pro Senators, I had intended to notice, and I will now, with your indulgence, very briefly notice, one or two of the observations of the honorable Manager who last addressed you. He said that the President's object was to obtain control of the Army and Navy, and regulate the elections of 1868 in the ten southern States, so as to let the rebels exercise the elective fran chise and exclude negroes from voting. What authority in the proof in this case had the honorable gentleman upon which to make that assertion? He said that the South had been States, is familiar with the fact that a great many in works on evidence, rather as a caution to cases are put in the law books, and especially judges and jurors than anything else, as to improper and unjust verdicts that have been rendered in times past. Every lawyer knows that cases are reported in the books where men, especially upon circumstantial evidence, have been tried and executed for murder and other offenses, and who it afterward appeared upon a more careful investigation, were not guilty of the offenses imputed to them. These cases are not put in the books for the purpose of fright given up to rapine, bloodshed, and murder by the President's policy. Why, Senators, under whose control is the South? Is not the South under the control of Congress? Is it not under the control of Army officers appointed by the President of the United States in pursuance of an act of Congress which he had attempted to veto? And who was responsible for this? I live in the South; and the statement which I am about to make will go just for what you think it is worth, much or little; but my observation ever since the close of the war is, that although there has been a bad state of things in some portions of the southern States,ening judges and juries from their propriety, nine tenths of the murders and assassinations that have been reported in the newspapers and talked about here in Congress are made to order, got up for political effect, with a view of keeping up agitation and excitement, and that there is no warrant or foundation for the charge that the President has given up the South to any such condition of affairs. It has been said, Senators, that the President takes the place of Charles I and Stanton the place of John Hampden, I am glad that the Manager did some justice to Mr. Stanton before he got through. He placed him in the condition of a "serf," as I showed you awhile ago, and I am glad that he wound up with Mr. Stanton by showing or asserting that he was entitled to the reputation of John Hampden; but as to the President being Charles I, or as to his assuming any powers that are not warranted by the Constitution of the country, I have endeavored in my feeble and imperfect way to show you that he is not guilty. Senators, many other things might be said; Every lawyer, every judge in the United but they are put in for the purpose of causing them to exercise a salutary degree of caution in the powers which are conferred upon them. So without going over these things in detail, I may say that I think even the Senate of the United States may look back upon the history of the world for the purpose of deriving the same instructive lessons that are intended in law books to be impressed upon the courts and juries of the land. Without undertaking to travel along the whole course of history, some three or four examples have occurred that are not unworthy of a passing notice before I take my seat. Without going into the details, every Senator is fully informed of the account which has been transmitted to us in history of the murder of Cæsar by Brutus; and for nearly twenty centuries it has been a question whether that act was an act of patriotism, and whether it was justified or not. The execution of Charles I is another of the historical problems which have probably not been settled, and never will be satisfactorily settled in the opinions of mankind. Some regard Cromwell as a patriot, as a man animated by the purest and most correct motives; others look upon him as being an ambitious man, who designed to engross power improperly into his own hand. That question still remains open. But these deeds of violence which have been done in the world have not always been followed by peace or quiet to those who have done them. A few short years after the execution of Charles I, the bodies of Cromwell and Bradshaw, and one or two others who were concerned in that execution, were, in consequence of a change of public sentiment in England, taken from their graves and they were hung in terror and in hate and execration by the party that came into power. Louis XVI was executed by the people of France. Did that act give peace and quiet to the French kingdom? No; it was soon followed by deeds of bloodshed such as the world never saw before. The guillotine was put in motion, and the streets of Paris, it is said, literally ran with human gore. Most of those who were concerned in the trial of Charles I were executed. Three of them came to America and sought refuge in the vicinity of New Haven. They were compelled to hide them| selves in caves. Their graves were not known to those in whose midst they lived, or are but little known. These deeds of violence, done in times of high party and political excitement, are deeds that should admonish you as to the manner in which you discharge the duty that devolves upon you here. This thing of being rid of the Chief Magistrate of the land in the mode that is attempted here may be fraught with consequences that no man can foresee. I have no idea that it will be fraught with such consequences as those I have described; and yet deeds that are done in excitement often come back in future years, and cause a degree of feeling which it is not, perhaps, proper for me, on this occasion, to describe; it has been done a great deal better by a master hand, || who tells us: "But ever and anon of grief subdued, There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, A tone of music-summer's eve-or spring A flower, the wind, the ocean which shall wound, Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound; And how and why we know not, nor can trace Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, But feel the shock renewed-nor can efface The blight and blackening which it leaves behind." God grant that the American Senate shall never have such feelings as these. God grant that you may so act in the discharge of your duty here that there shall be no painful remembrance, Senators, to come back on you in your dying hour. God grant that you may so act that you cannot only look death, but eternity in the face, and feel that you have discharged your duty and your whole duty to God and your country. And if you thus act, you will, I am sure, act in such manner as to command the approbation of angels and of men, and the admiration and applause of the world and of posterity who are to come after us. Mr. Chief Justice and Senators, you and each of you, personally and individually, have struggled through life until you have reached the positions of eminence you now occupy. It has required time and study and labor and diligence to do so; but, after all, the fame which you have acquired is not your own. It belongs to me; it belongs to others. Forty million American citizens are tenants in common of this priceless property. It is not owned alone by you and your children. We all have a direct and immediate interest in it. Whatever strife may have existed among us as a people; whatever of crimination and recrimination may have been engendered amid the fierceness of party passion, yet in the cool moments of calm reflection every true patriot loves his country as our common mother, and points with just pride to the hard-earned reputation of all her children. Let me invoke you, therefore, in the name of all the American people, to do nothing that may even seem to be a stain upon the judicial ermine, or to dim, for a moment, the bright escutcheon of the American Senate. The honorable Manager who addressed you on yesterday [Mr. BOUTWELL] referred in eloquent terms to Carpenter's historical painting of emancipation. Following at an humble distance his example, may I be permitted to say that I have never entered the Rotunda of this magnificent and gorgeous Capitol when I have not felt as if I were treading upon holy ground; and I have sometimes wished that every American sire could be compelled by law and at the public expense to bring his children here, at least once in their early years, and to cause them to gaze upon and to study the statuary and paintings which, at every entrance and in every hall and chamber and niche and stairway, are redolent with the history of our beloved country. Columbus studying the unsolved problem of a new world, and the white man and Indian as types of the march of civilization, arouse attention and reflection at the threshold. Within, the speaking canvas proclaims the embarkation of the Pilgrim Fathers; their sublime appeal to the God of oceans and of storms; their stern determination to seek a "faith's pure shrine" among the "sounding aisles of the dim woods," and "freedom to worship God;" and the divine, the angelic countenance of Rose Standish as she leans, with woman's love, upon the shoulder of her husband, and looks up, with woman's faith, for more than mortal aid and guardianship, so fixes and rivets attention, "That, as you gaze upon the vermil cheek, The lifeless figure almost seems to speak. And there is the grand painting that represents Washington, the victor, surrendering his sword after having long before refused a a crown-one of the sublimest scenes that earth has ever seen, presenting, as it nobly does, to all the world the greatest and best example of pure and unselfish love of country. Not to speak of other teeming memories which everywhere meet the eye and stir the soul, as I sat a few days since gazing upward upon the group (Washington and the sisterhood of early States) who look down from the topmost height of the Dome, methought I saw the spirits of departed patriots rallying in misty throngs from their blissful abode and clustering near the wondrous scene that is transpiring now; and as I sat, with face upturned, I seemed to see the shadowy forms descend into the building and arrange themselves with silent but stately preparation in and around this gorgeous apartment. I have seen them, in imagination, ever since. I see them now! Above and all around us. There in the galleries, amid those living forms of loveliness and beauty, are Martha Washington and Dolly Madison and hundreds of the maids and matrons of the Revolution, looking down with intense interest and anxious expectation, and watching with profoundest solicitude the progress of the grandest trial of the nineteenth century. And there, in your very midst and at your sides, are sitting the shades of Sherman and Hamilton, Washington and Madison, Jefferson and Jackson, Clay and Webster, who in years that are past bent every energy and employed every effort to build our own great temple of liberty, which has been and will continue in all time to be the || wonder, the admiration, and the astonishment of the world. If there be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, and if the shades of Dives and Lazarus could commune across the great gulf with each other, it is no wonder that the spirits of departed patriots are gathered to witness this mighty inquest, and that they are now sitting with you upon this, the most solemn of all earthly investigations. Behind the Chief Justice I see the grave and solemn face of the intrepid Marshall; and above, among, and all around us are the impalpable forms of all the artists of our former grandeur! Mr. Chief Justice and Senators, if you cannot clasp their shadows to your souls, let me entreat you to feel the inspiration of their sacred presence; and as you love the memory of departed greatness; as you revere the names of the patriot fathers; and as you remember the thrilling tones of the patriot voices that were wont to speak "the thoughts that breathed and the words that burned" with deathless love for our institutions and our laws, so may you be enabled to banish from your hearts every vestige of prejudice and of feeling, and to determine this great issue in the lofty spirit of impartial justice, and with that patriotic regard for our present and future glory that ever prompted the action of the purest and best and greatest names that, in adorning our own history, have illuminated the history of the world. And when the day shall come-and may it be far distantwhen each of you shall "shuffle off this mortal coil," may no thorn be planted in the pillow of death to embitter your recollection of the scene that is being enacted now; and when the time shall come, as come it may, in some future age, when your own spirits shall flit among the hoary columns and chambers of this edifice, may each of you be then enabled to exclaim— "Here I faithfully discharged the highest duty of earth; here I nobly discarded all passion, prejudice, and feeling; here I did my duty and my whole duty, regardless of consequences; and here I find my own name inscribed in letters of gold, flashing and shining, upon the immortal roll where the names of all just men and true patriots are recorded!" I do not know, Mr. Chief Justice, that it is exactly in accordance with the etiquette of a court of justice for me to do what I propose to do now; but I trust that you and the Senate will take the will for the deed, and if there is anything improper in it you will overlook it. I cannot close, sir, the remarks which I have to make in this case, without returning my profound thanks to the Chief Justice and the Senators for the very kind and patient attention with which they have listened to me on this occasion. Imperfect as the argument has been, and lengthy as it has been, you have extended to me the patient attention which I had little reason to expect, and I cannot, Senators, take my seat without returning my thanks to you, whether it be according to the usage of a court like this or not. On motion of Mr. TIPTON, the Senate, sitting for the trial of the impeachment, adjourned. SATURDAY, April 25, 1868. The Chief Justice of the United States took the chair. The usual proclamation having been made by the Sergeant-at-Arms, The Managers of the impeachment on the part of the House of Representatives and the counsel for the respondent, except Mr. Stanbery, appeared and took the seats assigned to them respectively. The members of the House of Representatives, as in Committee of the Whole, preceded by Mr. E. B. WASHBURNE, chairman of that committee, and accompanied by the Speaker and Clerk, appeared and were conducted to the seats provided for them. The CHIEF JUSTICE. The Secretary will read the Journal of yesterday's proceedings. The Journal of yesterday's proceedings of the Senate, sitting for the trial of the impeachment, was read. The CHIEF JUSTICE. The first business this morning is the order proposed by the Senator from Vermont, [Mr. EDMUNDS.] The Clerk will read the order. Mr. EDMUNDS. Mr. President, at the request of several Senators who desire to consider the question, I move that the consideration of the order be postponed until Monday morning. Mr. DRAKE. Mr. President, I move that the order be indefinitely postponed. Mr. SUMNER. That is better. Mr. DRAKE. And on that motion I call for the yeas and nays. Mr. EDMUNDS. So do I, Mr. President. The CHIEF JUSTICE. The motion for indefinite postponement takes precedence of the motion to postpone to a day certain; and upon that question the yeas and nays are demanded. The yeas and nays were ordered. Mr. CONKLING. I wish to inquire what was the motion of the Senator from Vermont? The CHIEF JUSTICE. The Senator from Vermont moved to postpone until Monday; the Senator from Missouri moves to postpone indefinitely; and the question now is upon the indefinite postponement. Mr. SHERMAÑ. Ishould like to have the order read. The CHIEF JUSTICE. read the order. The Clerk will The Chief Clerk read as follows: Ordered, That after the arguments shall be concluded, and when the doors shall be closed for deliberation upon the final question, the official reporters of the Senate shall take down the debates upon the final question, to be reported in the proceedings. The question being taken by yeas and nays that I am not so well to-day as I should like to on Mr. DRAKE's motion, resulted-yeas 20,|| be; but I know the desire of the Senate to get nays 27; as follows: on with this argument, and I have, therefore, YEAS-Messrs.Cameron, Chandler, Conkling, Cor-preferred to come here this morning in the NAYS-Messrs. Anthony, Buckalew, Cragin, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Edmunds, Fessenden, Fowler, Frelinghuysen, Grimes, Henderson, Hendricks, Howe, Johnson, McCreery, Morgan, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Saulsbury, Sherman, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Vickers, Willey, Williams, and Wilson-27. NOT VOTING-Messrs. Bayard, Cattell, Cole, Conness, Patterson of New Hampshire, Sprague, and Wade-7. So the order was not indefinitely postponed. The CHIEF JUSTICE. The question recurs on the motion of the Senator from Vermont to postpone the order until Monday. The motion was agreed to. Mr. SUMNER. Mr. President, I send to the Chair an order which I desire to have read. The CHIEF JUSTICE. The Secretary will read the order. The Chief Clerk read as follows: Ordered, That the Senate, sitting for the trial of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, will proceed to vote on the several articles of impeachment at twelve o'clock on the day after the close of the arguments. Mr. SUMNER. If the Senate is ready to act on it The CHIEF JUSTICE. The order is for. present consideration, unless objected to. Mr. JOHNSON. I object. The CHIEF JUSTICE. Being objected to it lies over. Mr. SUMNER. Mr. President, I send to the Chair two additional rules, the first of which is derived from the practice of the Senate on the trials of Judge Chase and Judge Peck. The CHIEF JUSTICE. The Secretary will read both of the additional rules proposed. The Chief Clerk read as follows: RULE 23. In taking the votes of the Senate on the articles of impeachment the presiding officer shall call each Senator by his name, and upon each article propose the following question, in the manner following: "Mr. how say you, is the respondent, guilty or not guilty as charged in the article of impeachment?" whereupon each Senator shall rise in his place and answer "guilty" or "not guilty.' RULE 24. On a conviction by the Senate it shall be the duty of the presiding officer forthwith to pronounce the removal from office of the convicted person according to the requirement of the Constitution. Any further judgment shall be on the order of the Senate. The CHIEF JUSTICE. Is the Senate ready for the consideration of these rules now? Mr. JOHNSON. I object. The CHIEF JUSTICE. Objection is made; they will lie over. [After a pause.] Gentlemen of counsel for the President, you will please proceed with the argument in his defense. Hon. WILLIAM S. GROESBECK, on behalf of the respondent, addressed the Senate as follows: Mr. CHIEF JUSTICE and SENATORS: I am sorry condition I am and attempt to present an outline, at least, of the views I have formed of the respondent's case. . Since the organization of our Government we have had five trials of impeachment--one of a Senator, and four of judges, who held their office by appointment and for a tenure that lasted during life or good behavior. It has not been the practice, nor is it the wise policy, of a republican or representative Government to avail itself of the remedy of impeachment for the control and regulation of its elective officers. Impeachment was not invented for that purpose, but rather to lay hold of offices that were held by inheritance and for life. And the true policy of a republican Government, according to my apprehension, is to leave these matters to the people. They are the great and supreme tribunal to try such questions, and they assemble statedly with the single object to decide whether an officer shall be continued or whether he shall be removed from office. I may be allowed, Senators, to express my regret that such a case as this is before you; but it is here, and it must be tried, and therefore I proceed, as I promised at the outset, to say what I may feel able to say in behalf of the respondent. In the argument of one of the Managers the question was propounded: "Is this body, now sitting to determine the accusation of the House of Representatives against the President of the United States, the Senate of the United States or a court?” * The argument goes on to admit: * * "If this body here is a court in any manner as contradistinguished from the Senate, then we agree * "that the accused may claim the benefit of the rule in criminal cases, that he may only be convicted when the evidence makes the case clear beyond reasonable doubt," In view of this statement, and in view of the effort that has been made by the Managers in this cause, I ask, Senators, your attention to the question, in what character do you sit on this trial? We have heard labored and protracted discussion to show that you did not sit as a court; and the Managers have even taken offense at any such recognition of your character. For some reason I will not allude this body the most extraordinary jurisdiction. to they have done even more, and claimed for Admitting that it was a constitutional tribunal, they have yet claimed that it knew no law, either statute or common; that it consulted no precedents save those of parliamentary bodies; that it was a law unto itself; in a word, that its jurisdiction was without bounds; that it may impeach for any cause, and there is no appeal from its judgment. The Constitution would appear to limit somewhat its jurisdiction, but everything this tribunal may deem |