[Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) by James Gillespie Blaine]@TWC D-Link book
Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2)

CHAPTER XIV
25/88

It is scarcely a peccadillo when considered beside the New-Orleans massacre and many other of the wholesale enormities of which he has been known to be guilty for many months past, _but I believe it would be regarded as scarcely sufficient ground for this proceeding if not considered in the light of far greater previous offenses_." -- Mr.James F.Wilson of Iowa said: "I will vote for the pending resolution to the end that law may be vindicated by the removal of an unworthy public servant from an official position, which he has dishonored by his perverse disregard of duty and his unjustifiable contempt for the supremacy of the law." -- General Butler, after a careful recital of the acts of the President, said: "For a tithe of these acts of usurpation, lawlessness and tyranny our fathers dissolved their connection with the government of King George; for less than this King James lost his throne, and King Charles lost his head; while we, the representatives of the people, adjudge only that there is probable cause shown why Andrew Johnson should be deprived of the office he has desecrated and the power he has abused, and if convicted by the court to which we shall send him, be forever incapable of filling that office--the ambition to be again nominated to which has been the moving spring of all these crimes." -- Mr.Washburne of Illinois said: "In my judgment the safety of the country, the cause of good government, the preservation of Constitutional right and public liberty, depend upon the prompt impeachment of the President of the United States." -- Mr.Woodward of Pennsylvania, a bitter anti-war Democrat, formerly Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of his State, protested earnestly against Impeachment, on the ground that all the States not being represented either in House or Senate, there was no competent branch to impeach and none to try an officer.

"If I were the President's counselor," said he, "I would advise him, if you preferred Articles of Impeachment, to demur to your jurisdiction and to that of the Senate, and issue a proclamation giving you and all the world notice that while he held himself impeachable for misdemeanors in office before the Constitutional tribunal, he never would subject the office he holds in trust to the irregular, unconstitutional, and fragmentary bodies who propose to strip him of it." -- Mr.Boutwell spoke very earnestly and ably in favor of Impeachment.
"I can but indicate," said he, "the plot in which the President is engaged.

He desires first to get control of the War Department, in order that, as in 1861, the munitions of war, arms and material might be used for te purpose of enabling him to succeed in his aspirations to be President of the United States.

He knew that if he could corrupt the leaders of the Army, if he could bend these men to his will, these ten States were in his control, and that he could send to the Democratic Convention, to be holden on the 4th of July next, men who would sustain his claim for the Presidency.

Then, upon the allegation which he could well carry out and which no other man could make good, that with the Army and his influence among the rebels of the South, whom he had brought to his support by his previous violations of law, he could secure the electoral votes of those ten States by excluding the negroes whom we have enfranchised from all participation in the election.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books