out the concurrence of two-thirds of the second charge, that the President made members present. Judgment in cases of peace, whereas that power belongs to impeachment shall not extend further than Congress, is more definite, but if we are to removal from office, and disqualification not greatly mistaken, he made it under the to hold and enjoy any office of honour, trust, provisions of an Act intended, no doubt, to or profit under the United States, but the arm Mr. Lincoln, but still operative under party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable his successor. The third charge, about and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, the disposition of prizes, seems stronger, the and punishment, according to law." It is prizes having been frequently returned by at other points that the difficulties begin to the President's own order to their original arise so thickly. Is the President to be tried owners; but here the power of pardon may as President or to be deposed first? The be pleaded with effect. The only charge words of the Consti ution direct that an which to us, as outside observers, seems impeached officer shall be removed from tenable, is that the President has been office on impeachment for and conviction guilty of a "high misdemeanour" in breakof" such and such offences, and it is almost ing the solemnly pledged faith of the Union certain that the two words are to be read to the negro troops-a charge on which together. Yet how try Mr. Johnson while there would, we believe, be irresistible Chief Magistrate of the Republic, the actual evidence. Impeachment, however, in any master of the most important witnesses- shape is surrounded with difficulties, and the Secretaries of State? the Liberals will, we believe, in the end be Then there must be an accusation, and driven back upon a constitutional amendthere are limits to accusations. Impeach- ment. It is quite practicable, if two-thirds ment is only possible for "treason, bribery, of both Houses and three-fourths of the or other high crimes and misdemeanours," States can be made to agree, to pass a and it is not settled what those "other high constitutional amendment declaring that crimes" include. No charge of bribery is Congress shall have the power on a twocontemplated, and treason is defined in the thirds' vote to order that there shall be a Constitution as "levying war against the new Presidential election for the remainUnited States, or adhering to their enemies, der of any term. This would not be a giving them aid and comfort," and the removal of the President, but would compel Southerners are not now, technically, at all him to submit his claim to continue in events, "enemies" of the Union. The office to the people, who, if they agree with President's legal powers are so very large him, will simply reappoint. It would therethat it will be difficult to prove that he has fore remove the objection that the President exceeded them, even in making appoint- was intended to represent the nation, and ments or granting pardons, and whatever not Congress. That amendment, morethe charge, it is indispensable that it should over, besides meeting the existing difficulty, be clearly made out. His attack on Con- would have this further advantage, that it gress as a body "on the verge of the would definitively replace the sovereign Government" might indeed furnish moral power in the Representative Body whenground for an impeachment, for it was in- ever the latter is strongly in accord with tended to deprive Congress of its legal the general sentiment of the nation, and so authority, but a President's speech must be abolish the greatest evil inherent in Presiin the nature of things privileged, and to dential as opposed to Parliamentary governtry a ruler for a speech would in any case ment. The power is one which it would be contrary to all American instincts. on ordinary occasions be impossible to use, General Butler thinks a case can be made but which would remain as the strongest out of consistent attacks on the Constitu- popular weapon in the legal arsenal, to be tion in making appointments, Mr. Johnson drawn forth only when the nation was subbeing accustomed to appoint a man on the stantially unanimous and the President last day of the session, and when the Sen-unendurably out of accord with its opinate refuses the nomination to reappoint him ions. A stronger defence against tyranny next day ad interim; but to make the Sen- it would be impossible to frame, or one ate remove a President for an attack on its own power, is to make it prosecutor and judge at once. Besides, though he has overstepped the meaning of the Constitution, he has not even strained its words, and the Constitution is always interpreted like a text or a penal law. General Butler's which could be less perverted by professional politicians. To pass such an amendment would be difficult, for it would require the votes of twenty-seven out of the thirtysix States, and the North can rely implicitly only on twenty-three or four; but to gain the other three will, we fear, be an easier task than to manage the impeachment of the legal head of thirty millions of men. They were gained for the amendment abolishing slavery. Should Mr. Johnson, misled by passion, or ignorance, or an immovable conviction of duty, attempt any overt act against Congress, then, of course, impeachment would be easy, but if he confines himself to his legal power, paralyzes business, recognizes the old legislatures in the South, and steadily vetoes Northern bills, impeachment will, we fear, be a dangerous process, even in the hands of the stern men to whom the elections will entrust the representative power. We do not mean dangerous in the sense that they may excite the President to armed resistance. That is the fancy of men accustomed to consider armies machines. The first order to the army to act against Congress would bring Mr. Johnson within the strict letter of the law, and the matter would then be very speedily decided. The South cannot conquer the North, and the South alone would be behind the President, who would in a week find himself without a Northern officer of mark, with his scattered army resolved not to fire upon the people, and a quarter of a million militiamen who have seen service advancing amid enthusiastic approval straight on Washington. But there would be danger of re-animating the Democratic party, of creating the sympathy which always follows any neglect of the true principles of justice, and of alarming every State in the Union with the spectacle of a central power which to secure a political end would strain the ordinary law. Of all solutions of the question, the best would be the voluntary resignation of the President; the next best, his enforced resignation under a constitutional amendment; the next his submission; and the worst, his removal under a sentence which large sections of the people would undoubtedly consider unjust. The South would then seem to be headed by the legal chief of the Union, the North only by the creature of the representative bodies. From the Economist, Oct. 20. THE PROPOSED IMPEACHMENT OF THE PRESIDENT. WE fear that the Radical party in America have not sufficiently taken warning by the reaction which Mr. Johnson has excited in his attempt to carry his policy with so violent and high a hand, and are themselves not unlikely to produce another reaction in the opposite direction. At least if it be true, as the generally well-informed and sagacious correspondent of the Daily News seems to think, that the Radicals will really on very slender grounds impeach the President, simply in order to get rid of one who thwarts their policy, and that in so doing they will be following the lead of such men as General Butler and Mr. Stephens, we think they are in far greater danger of shooting an arrow that will return into their own breast than of attaining their purpose. Nothing is more remarkable about the Northern Americans than what we have been frequently tempted paradoxically to call their insane moderation. Nothing disgusts them so much as pushing anything too far in action. Violent as was the language frequently used during the war, scarcely any immoderate act was sanctioned by public opinion throughout it, and nothing gave greater general satisfaction than the excessive leniency with which the South was treated by Mr. Lincoln on their submission. Mr. Lincoln understood his own people well when he told General Sherman that as President he must of course press for the active pursuit of Mr. Jefferson Davis, but that if it should somehow happen that Mr. Davis escaped, he should certainly not feel sorry to be relieved from a great difficulty. He knew perfectly well that there was a constitutional and political danger in not inflicting a very heavy punishment on the leaders of secession, and yet an excessive disinclination in the North to inflict it. This was the temper in which Mr. Johnson's accession found the United States. Had he shown himself thoroughly anxious to reap all possible results from the war, to keep faith with the loyal population of the South, and to protect the North against a similar catastrophe in future, no leniency towards the South, however great beyond the limit of these reserves, would have been received without real approbation and cordial support. But Mr. Johnson, himself a Southerner and full of caste prejudices, did not observe these limits. He showed himself eager to contest even the very lenient terms imposed by Congress, and thoroughly bent on throwing away the practical fruits of so much terrible effort. Nay, he went further, and engaged in a vulgar and fierce crusade against the leading party in the lawful legis lation of the country. He showed himself immoderate on the side of former rebels, intoxicated against the loyalists of the late struggle, an, worst of all, intoxicated against the leaders of the very party which had carried the war to a successful issue. The American people were very naturally an incident of constitutional arrangements deeply disgusted, and the recent elections in Pennsylvania and New England show, we believe, that the policy paraded by the President has not the vestige of a chance of support by the people of the North. which must be judged on their own general merits, and could not be overruled to meet a special difficulty without disastrous results. Thus, as we believe, the Northern people view the case; and if Mr. Johnson be imBut now at the critical moment, when the peached, they will look very narrowly indeed Radical leaders might secure the triumph at the alleged illegalities imputed to him, of their policy by opposing a firm and dig- and see if they be illegalities in the broad nified front to the President's rant and folly, sense, implying contempt for the limits imthey seem to be contemplating the only act posed by the constitution on his powers, which could well forfeit them the favour of and a desire to usurp fresh powers, or only the country, an impeachment on insuffi- technical illegalities into which, if he has cient grounds. No doubt it is a great mis-fallen at all, he has fallen without any usurpfortune that a man never elected for, anding intention. never intended to occupy, the post of Pres- Now, we are told expressly the grounds ident, and absolutely unfit for it, should not on which it is supposed that a case can be be constitutionally removable by the mere made out against Mr. Johnson, and we vote of both Houses of Congress. It would must say they seem to us of the flimsiest be an admirable thing for the American and most inadequate nature. His real people if they had some means of removing crime is hearty sympathy with the old an incompetent President instead of suffer- Southern régime, and his wish to restore it ing from his incompetence for at least four without any reference to the welfare either years. But unfortunately this is not so. of the negroes who have been loyal, or of The only ground for removing him is lunacy, the Northern States who have sacrificed so imbecility, or illegal conduct; and illegal much to upset it. But that is not constituconduct in a matter of such moment as the tionally a crime at all. The crimes of which constitutional removal of a President, must he is accused are these. First, and this of course be clear, flagrant, and of a charac- the lawyers consider the clearest point ter to render it clear that the laws are not against him, - he has encroached on the safe under his administration. To remove Senate's right to revise and confirm official a President for an illegality which was a appointments, after a manner of his own. matter of difficult discussion, and decided By the second section of the Constitution, by subtle lawyers with hesitation after all, the President" shall nominate, and by and would be to weaken the Presidential power with the advice of the Senate, shall apfor the future in a manner which the Amer- point Ambassadors, other public Ministers ican people, who are proud of their strong and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, executive, would never countenance. They and all other officers of the United States would clearly demand evidence either that whose appointments are not herein otherthe President intended to break the law, or, wise provided for." Again, "The Presiat least, that he did not care in the heat of dent shall have power to fill up all vacancies his political passions, whether he observed that may happen during the recess of the the law or not. If Mr. Johnson was to Senate by granting commissions which shall attempt to ignore Congress, and recognise a expire at the end of their next session." bogus-Congress elected by the South with a Now Mr. Johnson has actually worked few additions of Northern democratic dep- these powers in the following certainly uties and senators, then no doubt impeach- irregular way. The President has always ment would fall upon Mr. Johnson as cer- exercised-by what constitutional clause tainly and as swiftly as if he had been all we cannot make out- the right of disalong an ally of the rebellion. But to im- missing from office without reason assigned, peach him on doubtful and questionable as well as appointing to it, and there can legal niceties would, we feel sure, be a gross be no doubt that this has been always suppolitical blunder. The North would be posed to be a Presidential right. In this glad enough to be rid of Mr. Johnson legally custom he has dismissed freely during the if it could, but not at the risk of crippling adjournment of the Senate, and used this its executive ever after. Mr. Johnson can- power to fill up the vacancies thus made not rule beyond March, 1869, and cannot as follows:-(we quote from the letter of do very much mischief between this and the correspondent of the Daily News): then, except by open defiance of the law, in" In these [vacancies] he places men who which case he would be at once removed. under the constitution hold their offices At all events, what mischief he may do is until the close of the next session of Con - 6 But if this ground for impeachment seems very much strained, as we think it does, the other two will have no chance whatever. It is said that Congress, having the right to declare war, has also the right to conclude peace, and that the President proclaimed peace without consulting it. But, in fact, it was not like the case of " concluding peace" with a foreign nation. There was no conclusion of peace. The rebellion ceased, and Mr. Johnson chose a moment when he intimated his belief that it had ceased; and if he were wrong, the courts of law, if consulted, might overrule his decision as that of any other private • person. He might have been in error, but he could scarcely be supposed to have infringed the prerogative of Congress in proclaiming the opinion of the executive that the war-powers had ceased. The last charge against him is, that Congress has, by the constitution, “ 'power to make rules concerning captures by land and water," and that Mr. Johnson has not referred these questions of prize-money to Congress, but dealt with them by his own authority. Even the lawyers who urge this, evidently hold it as a very questionable point indeed whether this is an illegality, so we need not discuss it here. It is clear, as we said before, that the removal of a President for illegal conduct must be based on clear and flagrant violation of the laws, and not on a very questionable and doubtful interpretation of it. gress, the legal supposition clearly being give the President the power of dismissing that by that time the Senate would either office-holders for their party politics at all. have confirmed him or the President would The only clause under which, as far as we have found another man for the place whom can make out, he has a right to dismiss, is it would confirm. But the practice Mr. that which gives him power to see "that Johnson has pursued since his breach with all laws be faithfully executed," under Congress has been to dismiss functionaries which he would probably have the right to for refusing to support his policy, and to dismiss for either incompetence or idleness send in a new name on the last day of the or dishonesty, but we should say certainly session. The Senate refuses to confirm, not for political opinion. The Presidential and he then re-appoints the same man to powers in relation to office-bolders have althe office after the Senate adjourns, and ways been very freely construed, and very the commission is good until the close of freely used in the United States, and if the next session, and so on. In fact, the Mr. Johnson has kept, as appears pretty proceeding amounts to a complete nullifi- certain, within the mere letter of the law, cation' of the section of the Constitution it would be starting quite a new policy to which requires the concurrence of the Sen- punish him for breaking its spirit, since he ate in appointments, a section which was is almost certainly by no means the first obviously intended to prevent the Presi- offender in this respect. dent from doing what Mr. Johnson is now doing, filling the public service with persons entirely dependent upon him. He has actually, since Congress adjourned, re-appointed to office thirty persons whom the Senate rejected; and hundreds of employés are dismissed now every day, whose successors are appointed by the President, and will hold office without the consent of the Senate until the close of the next session. Considering the enormous patronage which the war has thrown into the President's hands, there can be no question that this is a most alarming and dangerous usurpation. That it is an usurpation there is little doubt amongst lawyers. When the Senate meets next December, there will probably be hardly a man left in the public service with whose appointment it has anything to do; and yet nothing is clearer than that the Constitution intended that it should judge of the fitness of every employé before he was settled in his place, except such as were unavoidably appointed to accidental vacancies occurring during the vacation." No doubt that is in spirit a real straining of the constitutional provision. If Mr. Johnson had done this in a few cases only, there would probably be plenty of precedent for it; but in doing it systematically, he has no doubt shown a wish to free himself from the restraint of the Senate in the choice of his office-holders. Still we should think his conduct quite within the letter of the law, and party policy has always been recognised in America as so legitimate a On the whole, there seems to us absoprinciple of action, even in the appoint-lutely no evidence that Mr. Johnson has ment of office-holders, that it would be very intended to violate the law. Violent in his strong indeed to find a President guilty of passions, he has used all the power which an offence against the law for merely obey- he believed himself to possess on behalf of ing its letter and not its spirit. We doubt his own friends, but that is all; and we are whether the spirit of the Constitution would very much mistaken if the people of the North will not strongly object to set so important a precedent as the impeachment of a President on so weak a case as this, whether, indeed, they will not be tempted to withdraw their confidence from the party which proposes so dangerous a precedent for the future. From the London Review, 20 Oct. THE SITUATION IN AMERICA. THERE seems no reason to doubt that the result of the elections now going on in the United States will be adverse to President Johnson and his policy. For this he has in great part to blame himself. His speeches, and indeed his whole bearing and conduct during his recent progress through the States, were an outrage upon political decency, and a direct defiance to public opinion in the North. Had he adopted a conciliary tone had he contented himself with advocating a generous policy towards the South, and with insisting upon the advantage of restoring the Union at the earliest possible period - had he shown the slightest wish to secure for the conquerors in the late civil war the legitimate fruits of their victory in the final settlement of the negro question, it is not impossible that he would have rallied around him a majority of moderate men whom the violence and intemperance of the Radical leaders had disgusted and alienated. Instead of doing this, however, he appeared with scarcely any disguise as the advocate and champion of the South. Instead of soothing, he exasperated party feeling; and he impressed the Northern people with a conviction that, while he cared little or nothing for their interests or wishes, he sympathized keenly with the feelings and prejudices of those who were lately their enemies, and whom they have not yet learnt to regard as friends. By his obstinate adherence to the old doctrines of State rights, he gave rise to a natural and, indeed, a well-founded impression, that it was the object, and would be the effect, of his policy to restore a condition of things which had always been a fertile source of weakness, and to frustrate the ardent desire of the Northern people to consolidate the Union into a nation. By the outrageous coarseness of his language, by the violence of his invectives against those who differed from him, and by the intolerable egotism in which he seemed steeped, he threw the worst of his opponents into the shade, and convinced all the respectable portions of society that the best interests of the State demanded that a President who could so degrade his high office should be placed under the most stringent and effective control. That his interference in the elections has been attended with the worst results is admitted by his own adherents; but we incline to think that even without his intervention the Radical party would have proved substantially successful. There is no doubt that in many of the large towns, and especially in trading towns like New York, there was a large party, possibly a majority, in favour of receiving the late Confederate States into the Union on the easiest possible terms. In these places the interests of trade are paramount to all others, while from tolerably obvious causes the unfortunate negro is in them rather an object of aversion than of care. But the whole course of events, since the first election of Mr. President Lincoln, has proved conclusively that the political destinies of the North are in the hands not of the traders of the East, but of the agriculturists of the West. It was to the unflinching pertinacity of the latter that the prosecution of the war under most adverse circumstances was mainly due; and they have a just conviction that to them more than to any one else its successful termination is owing. To attain this end they made the severest sacrifices, and strained their energies to the utmost. They have, therefore, every motive and every incentive to take good care that their victory over the slaveholding aristocracy of the South shall be complete and final. For these, the inhabitants of newly-settled territory —emigrants either from Europe or from other portions of the Union the doctrine of State rights has little or no value. They are citizens not of a State, but of the United States; and although they are undoubtedly not without local attachments. they are strictly subservient to a larger patriotism. They do not want to restore the old Union, but to found a new country, and hence, while they are impervious to most of the arguments of the democratic or "Staterights" party, they are firmly convinced of the importance of extirpating every element of future dissension, and of depriving those who were but recently in rebellion, of any means of asserting a quasi-independence. It is not likely that men with these views would have listened favourably to a proposition to readmit the South to the Union, on terms which amounted to little more than promising to behave well for the future. Although they might not be disposed to insist upon the adoption of negro suffrage |