ing that instead of States in the Union, we have now conquered provinces to govern.

2. The larger portion of the Republican party, following their leaders, have changed their expression of opinions.

Only a fraction of the Government and people deny these States the right to assume their places in the Union. If the present position of the Republican party is correct, then all the acts of the war were based upon the false pretence of fighting to restore the Union, when the real object was to conquer provinces and govern them—a thing not authorized by the Constitution. The motives of the professed change-for it is not real-are apparent. It is to cramp and worry these States, and force them, in order to become practically States in the Union, so to mould and frame their constitutions as to enable the Republicans, through the negroes, to control them politically. These States are now as much a part of the Union as on the day they were admitted.

125.-ANDREW JOHNSON.

Andrew Johnson is a native of North Carolina, but an adopted son of Tennessee, and is about sixty years of age, in robust health, and capable of great endurance, of medium size, and rather thick set. His education, though self-acquired, is good. His application has been great, and his memory is remarkably clear and retentive. During his whole life he has been noted for strict integrity, and his word was as good as a bond. Although industrious and prudent, his acquisition of knowledge was greater than that of wealth, concerning which he has no remarkable skill. He neither hoards money nor lavishly spends it. With him it seems to be simply a medium of life and enjoyment.

Politically, Mr. Johnson came upon the stage, and has remained, a Democrat. He had before him such lights as Jackson, Grundy, White, Cave Johnson, and Polk to guide him in forming and settling his political principles. In the State Legislature, in the House of Representatives, as Governor of Tennessee, and United States Senator, he acquitted himself to the satisfaction of his friends, and with high credit to himself, as a true and faithful Democrat. His record was in all respects fair, and in many

noble. It shows endless labor, and of the most useful kind, and with as few mistakes as that of any of his contemporaries. His first mistake was in resigning his place in the Senate, and accepting that of military Governor, where it was expected he would make laws as he went along, and also administer them. Few, if any, ever retire from such a position as much respected and beloved as when they entered.

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In 1864 the Republicans had many fears and doubts concerning their ability to carry a purely Republican ticket. Hence they sunk the word "Republican" in their calls and meetings and adopted the words "Union National" or "National Union party," assuming that it was not a party question which was to be solved, but one of “ ing the national Union," by which they deluded many Democrats into the support of their ticket, they being made to believe they were in good faith so acting as to save the Union. As Mr. Lincoln was to be nominated, this pretence would not be received and relied upon, unless the nominating convention placed a Democrat on the ticket for Vice-President. They knew Mr. Johnson, and that he was an unchanged Democrat, who had in the House and Senate, and elsewhere, denounced their principles and practices. But he was a real Union man, and they could truly present him as such; and what was quite as important, it was believed he could carry Tennessee, owing to the attachment of the Democracy of that State to him. Its vote might control the election. Hence, without his disavowing one Democratic sentiment, or espousing one of a Republican character, he was nominated. They asked no pledges-he gave none. In accepting that nomination, and becoming entangled in the meshes of Republicanism, and consenting to travel with them, he committed his second mistake, the consequences of which are still upon him. He should not have accepted that nomination from his political enemies, unless he intended to abandon his former faith, and adopt and follow theirs. The case of John Tyler should have warned him of the consequences of being elected by those whose principles he could not follow to the end.

When the hand of a murderer had cut short the days of Mr. Lincoln, and he became President, he should then bave deter

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mined whether he would adopt the Republican programme and follow wherever it might lead, or at once have resolved to follow Democratic principles to the end, and if so, to have changed his cabinet from Republican to one purely and unmistakably Democratic, filled all the important offices with Democrats, and made his an old-fashioned Democratic administration of the Jacksonian stamp, with the same fixed purposes as Mr. Lincoln had made his purely Republican. Not doing either was a mistake of a grave and enduring character, and which never can be remedied. he formed in line with the Democracy in the summer of 1865, he would have had a large and a controlling party supporting him. The Republicans could not have fairly complained of his thus setting up for himself, as they well knew he was a Jackson Democrat when they nominated and elected him; and if there was any wrong in the matter, it was by the leaders imposing such a man upon their rank and file. A fourth mistake was, that when he put forth Democratic doctrine in his messages, he did not sustain himself by removing those who denounced him for having done He preached Democracy, and undoubtedly honestly and sincerely, but allowed his officials to scout it, and abuse and ridicule him for it. He was all right on paper, and all wrong in practice. A fifth mistake was, in consenting to the formation of a third party, with one Democratic and one Republican leg to stand upon. Tyler tried this, and failed. Mr. Johnson meant well, but that did not prevent his falling into error in practice. It was these mistakes that enabled his enemies to entangle and bind him hand and foot. As his course presented him, the Republicans made war upon him for his correct principles, and the Democrats could not rally to his support because his practice was not Democratic, but almost exclusively Republican. Like Tyler, he is without a party, and his enemies are strong enough to carry every measure they desire over his veto and the Democratic votes. He is a bold rebuker of wrong, but seems to lack the courage, in practice, to take and maintain his ground, and throw the consequences of failures, if they happen, upon his enemies. But he has allowed himself to be badgered, brow-beaten, and threatened, until he has consented to nominate the worst enemies of Democracy and of

so.

himself for high and responsible offices, some of a life tenure. Nearly all the officials of the Federal Government, and among them members of his cabinet, are his enemies and the detesters of Democratic principles. It is conceded that the Government has never been so badly officered as at present, and he now has not the means of preventing it as long as he consents to execute unconstitutional laws. Mr. Johnson is worthy of a better fate than that which is upon him. Had he assumed when he became . President the attitude which his real principles required, and showed that he loved his friends better than his enemies, and officered the Government with Democrats, the crisis that is upon us would have been obviated, and he at the head of a party which, in spite of all obstacles, would triumph this fall. He has all the qualifications for a leader except that unshaken and natural boldness, that the world so much admired in General Jackson, which he has only in a limited degree. His boldness is rather the creature of reflection than of instinct. His reasoning faculties are strong, and, aided by reflection, he is almost always right, except where he is personally concerned. In that case there seems to be some halting, which never occurs with the selfish man. His motives are now fiercely assailed by his enemies, and no epithet is too severe to apply to him. This was so with General Jackson. No one was more fiercely or bitterly denounced. Now his memory is revered and cherished by his former revilers. History will do Mr. Johnson justice, and place him far higher in the temple of fame than any of his present persecutors. We say this because we believe it, and think it due to one who is no friend of ours, but whose persecutions have awakened the sympathy of all who agree with us in thinking him honest and a true Democrat at heart.

Governor Seymour, of New York, thus forcibly expresses himself in relation to President Johnson, in his address to the Democratic State Convention on the 11th of March:

"I have no political prejudices in favor of Mr. Johnson. I have never seen him. He is not one I helped to place in office, nor have I ever advised him or been consulted by him as to his policy. I know he has been cheated and betrayed by those about him, who plotted his destruction from the outset. But while he

has been most unhappy in his friends, no man has been so fortunate in his enemies. They have given him a high place in history as one who suffered for the rights of the American people. And when he shall go to his final account, and his friends seek in clear, terse, and lasting terms to tell that he was a man who loved his country and was hated by the corrupt and treasonable, they have to chisel upon his tombstone that he was impeached by this House of Representatives and cendemned by this Senate."

126.-IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON.

Political tacticians, like military strategists, often threaten what they have no thought of attempting. It is doubtless true, that the Republicans wish to get rid of Mr. Johnson and place the Government in the hands of a daring and reckless Republican who would use the army and navy and all the influences it could command to carry the next election, and in the mean time to allow the most favored ones to dip deep into the Treasury. Whatever the reckless may say, or the simple believe, the substantial Republican leaders would not step upon what they knew to be untenable ground. They knew, notwithstanding what General Butler said at Brooklyn, that impeachment would not lie for error of opinion, because that is no crime, and for the reason that no standard has yet been established by law with which to make the comparison. On a trial of such a case, it would be a question of fact and not of opinion, which the Senate would have to try. A million of witnesses might be called, and the evidence stand equally balanced. As to criminal acts, the Senate could not, either as a matter of law or fact, declare that they were so, unless a statute had previously so declared them. When the law is silent, the Senate cannot declare an act a high crime or misdemeanor, without, in fact, making a law for the case, an ex post facto law. The most rigid scrutiny could not find that Mr. Johnson had violated any existing statute law or precept of religion. On the question of receiving or expelling members, each House is expressly clothed with the power to "judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members," and there is no express limitation of authority. But on impeachment, before a conviction can be had, some act, previously