OPINION OF HION. HENRY WILSON.. The past seven years have been to gentlemen occupying seats in this Chamber years of pressing duties and stern trials. In the trying times through which the nation has passed and is passing it has sometimes happened that Senators of large capacity, ripe experience, and eminent public service have widely differed in the interpretation of the Constitution and the construction of the laws. Whenever the high duties imposed upon Senators by the exigencies of the country have pressed for action, and our deliberations have been distracted by the diverse opinions of Senators learned in the law, I have striven to discharge my duty by giving whatever doubts clouded my judgment or embarrassed my action to patriotism, to liberty, and to justice-to the security of my country and the rights of all its citizens. In glancing back over these years I find few votes I would recall by foliowing this rule of action. In this great trial, imposed upon the Senate by the Constitution of our country and the Representatives of the people, I shall give whatever doubts have arisen to perplex or embarrass to my country rather than to its Chief Magistrate, now arraigned as a violator of the Constitution, a violator of the laws, and a violator of his oath to faithfully execute the laws. By a too rigid adherence to forms and technicalities the substance is often lost. Discarding forms and technicalities and looking only to the substance, I shall so vote as to secure the ends of justice. 66 I am not, I trust, unmindful of the gravity of the occasion, of the solemnity of my oath, nor of the obligation ever resting upon me to be just and fear not." I know that the vote I shall give in this great trial will be criticised sharply in our age and in ages to come. The President is on trial before the Senate-the Senate is on trial before the present age and before the coming ages. I intend to vote for the conviction of the President and for his removal from his high office, and to submit my motives and my action to the judgment of the present and of the future. From the verdict of the Senate the President has no appeal ; from the verdict of posterity the Senate has no appeal. I propose to state, with brevity, some of the reasons why I shall vote for the conviction of the President of the United States upon the charges preferred by the Representatives of the people. High misdemeanors may or may not be violations of the laws. High misdemeanors may, in my judgment, be misbehavior in office detrimental to the interests of the nation, dangerous to the rights of the people, or dishonoring to the Government. Ientertain the conviction that the framers of the Constitution intended to impose the high duty upon the House of Representatives to arraign the Chief Magistrate for such misbehavior in office as injured, dishonored, or endangered the nation, and to impose upon the Senate the duty of trying, convicting, and removing the Chief Magistrate proved guilty of such misbehavior. Believing this to be the intention of the framers of the Constitution and its true meaning; believing that the power should be exercised whenever the security of the country and the liberties of the people imperatively demand it; and believing by the evidence adduced to prove the charges of violating the Constitution and the tenure-of-office act, and by the confessed and justified acts of the President, that he is guilty of high misdemeanors, I unhesitatingly vote for his conviction and removal from his high office. the laws according to his own caprices, whims, and sovereign pleasure. Never can I assent, by a vote of acquittal, to executive assump tions so unconstitutional, so subversive of the Government, so revolutionary in their scope and tendency. These assumptions will introduce into our constitutional system, into our Government of nicely-adjusted parts, derangement, disorganization, and anarchy. Criminal acts raise the presumption of wrong motives, intentions, and purposes. The President's acts, claims, and assumptions, made against the well-known protests of vast masses of the people, the organs of publie opinion, the Congress of the United States, and the laws of the land, afford ample evidence that his motives, intentions, and purposes were unworthy, if not criminal. We are sworn to give this arraigned President a trial as impartial as the lot of humanity will permit. But we can. not close our eyes to the records of the past three years, nor can we wholly shut out from all influences our personal knowledge of his intentions, purposes, and acts. The framers of the Constitution, when they empowered Senators to sit in judgment upon an arraigned Chief Magistrate, must have presumed that Senators would know something of the motives, intentions, and purposes, and we familiar with the public record of him who should exercise executive power in their time. The framers of the Constitution knew, when they gave Senators the power to try an arraigned Chief Magistrate, the country knows, and we know, that personal knowledge and the historic records of the country cannot but influence in some degree the feelings and judgments of men. Four years ago eleven States were wrenched from the Union, their governments were arrayed against the country, the land was desolated with civil war, the nation was strug The President is charged by the House of Representatives with violating the Constitution and the tenure-of-office act in removing Mr. Stanton from the office of Secretary of War and in appointing Adjutant General Thomas Secretary of War ad interim. The removal of Mr. Stanton and the appointment of Adjutant General Thomas, and the violation of the tenure-of-office act, if Mr. Stanton be within that act, stand confessed and justified in the answer of the President to the charges of the House of Representatives. The answer of the President, without any other evidence, is to my mind conclusive evidence of his guilt. Upon his answer, confessions, assumptions, and justifications I have no hesitation in recording mygling to restore and maintain the unity of the vote of "guilty." The assumptions of power put forth by the President in his defense cannot but startle and alarm all men who would maintain the just powers of all branches of the Government. Had the President inadvertently violated the Constitution and the laws; had he pleaded in justification misconstruction of the Constitution and the laws, I might have hesitated to vote for his conviction. But he claims the right to remove civil officers and appoint others ad interim during the session of the Senate. If that claim of power is admitted by a vote of acquittal, the President can remove during the session of the Senate tens of thousands of civil officers, with their millions of compensation, and appoint his own creatures to fill their places without the advice and consent of the Senate, and thus nullify that provision of the Constitution that empowers the Senate to give its advice and consent to appointments. Not content with this assumption of power, the President claims the right to pronounce a law of Congress unconstitutional, to refuse to execute it, although he is sworn to do so, and to openly violate it with a view of testing its constitutionality in the courts, although no means may exist for months or years to come to test the constitutionality of the law so violated in the judicial tribunals of the country. The President claims and has exercised the right to declare Congress an unconstitutional body, incapable of enacting laws or of propos ing amendments to the Constitution; to hold the laws in abeyance; to refuse to execute them, and to defiantly violate them in order to test their constitutionality. These are the po The framers of the Constitution well knew the seductive, grasping, and aggressive nature of executive power. They knew that for ages the contest had been "to rescue," in the words of Daniel Webster, "liberty from the grasp of executive power," and that " our security was in our watchfulness of executive power." They knew that the champions of human freedom in the Old World, though often baffled, had struggled for generations to limit and restrain executive power. They sought to make the executive power of the nation useful to the country, but not dangerous to the liberties of the people. They gave to the President a short term of office, and clothed the Representatives of the people with power to arraign him before the Senate, not only for high crimes, but for high misdemeanors, too. Jealous of executive power, the framers of the Constitution gave to the House of Representatives-a body representing the interests, the sentiments, the opinions of the people, and their passions, toocomplete authority to arraign the Chief Magis-sitions assumed by Andrew Johnson. These trate of the nation before the tribunal of the Senate. They clothed the Senate of the United States, composed of gentlemen quite as liable as are the members of the House of Representatives to be influenced by the interests, the opinions, the sentiments, and the passions of the people, with ample power to try, convict, and remove the President, not only for the commission of high crimes, but for high misdemeanors. country, the supremacy of the Government, and the freedom of millions made free by executive proclamation and a constitutional amendment. The faith of the nation was plighted to restore the broken Union on the basis of loyalty, and to maintain the freedom of millions of emancipated bondmen. The men pledged to liberty and union accepted Andrew Johnson, supported and trusted him. Coming into power, he at once, in spite of the fears and protests of the loyal men who had confided in him, entered upon a policy that placed the conquered rebel States in the keep ing of traitors, and put loyal men and the freedmen completely under the authority of men who had striven for four years on bloody fields to destroy their country, to perpetuate the slavery of the very men surrendered to their control. To lighten the burdens and partially protect and defend the endangered rights of the freedmen, Congress passed a Freedmen's Bureau bill; the President arrested it by a veto. Congress passed another Freedmen's Bureau bill; the President endeavored to defeat it by another veto, and when it passed into law he strove to embarrass and thwart its operations. To protect the freedmen he had wickedly abandoned to the control of their enemies and the nation's enemies, Congress passed a civil rights bill; the President attempted to arrest it by a veto; and failing in that, he has utterly neglected to en force it. Congress endeavored, by submitting an amendment to the Constitution, to secure the reconstruction of the Union; the President met it by a denial of the authority of Congress to submit an amendment, and by an invocation to his governments in the rebel States to reject it. The rebel States having failed to adopt the constitutional amendment, Congress passed the reconstruction measures over Executive vetoes. Those measures of restoration have encountered in their execution the hos assumptions, if admitted, radically change the been removed for their fidelity and efficiency, and others have been rebuked and thwarted. The history of the past three years records it, and our personal knowledge attests it, that the President has sought to prevent the enforcement of the laws passed over his vetoes. In every form he has striven to prevent the restoration of the Union on a basis of loyalty to the country and the equal rights and privileges of the people. The evidences legally before us, the records of the country, the personal knowledge of Senators, show the motives, intentions, and designs of President Johnson. To accomplish his purposes and designs, Mr. Johnson sought, by the use of executive patrouage, to corrupt the American people. When Congress, by the casting vote of Vice President Adams, decided, in the beginning of Washington's Administration, that the Senate was a part of the appointing power, but not of the removing power, the office-holders of the country were but a few hundred in number, and received a compensation amounting to but a few thousand dollars. In our time the Federal office-holders are counted by tens of thousands, and their compensation amounts to many millions. To defeat the will of the people, the President, in the interests of disloyalty, inequality, and injustice, sought to use the corrupt and corrupting influences of executive patronage. The Postmaster General made the shameless declaration, that officers who ate the President's bread should support the President's policy. To maintain the cause of the country, as well as to protect honest public officers who would not betray their country, Congress enacted the civil-tenure act. It met the executive veto, the executive denunciation of unconstitutionality, and the executive violation. Mr. WILLIAMS, of the House of Representatives, who drew the proviso to the first section of the act, tells us that he intended that the act should protect Mr. Stanton. The Senator from Oregon, [Mr. WILLIAMS,] who introduced the original bill, and who was on the committee of conference, and the Senator from Vermont, [Mr. EDMUNDS,] who reported the bill from the Committee on Johnson and his counsel hostile to the spirit OPINION HON. GEORGE VICKERS: The Constitution secures to the President of the United States the nomination of civil offcers and their appointment, if the Senate shall advise and concur. He is the initiating and acting power, and gives character and form to the proceeding before it is presented to the consideration of the Senate, which body has no power to present the name of any one to the President as an object of official favor. The act of 1789, which created the Department of War, does not limit the tenure of the office of the Secretary of that Department, but assigns such duties as shall be enjoined upon and intrusted to him by the President, agreeably Constitution. Judiciary, and who was also on the committee to then const the Government went into opera of conference, both claim that Mr. Stanton is protected by the act. A fair and logical construction of the language of the act gives its protection to Mr. Stanton. A large majority in Congress voted for the bill in the belief that it threw its protection over the great War Secretary, who stood before the country one of the foremost champions of Congress in its struggle against the anarchical, disorganizing, and unpatriotic action of the Executive. Mr. Stanton was suspended by Mr. Johnson; the reasons for his suspension were submitted to Congress; the reasons were pronounced insufficient by more than a three fourths vote of the Senate; Mr. Stanton returned to his office; the President refused to acknowledge him; and, after several days, issued the order for his removal, and he appointed Adjutant General Thomas Secretary of War ad interim-all in direct violation of the tenure-of-office act. tion the power of removal from office was exercised by the Executive during the session as well as in the recess of the Senate; the commissions to the Secretaries and many other officers contained the statement that they held at the pleasure of the President. A practice immediately arose and prevailed, and was continued down to the year 1867, of removal from office by the Executive; the power of removal was claimed as an incident to that of appoint ment, and as essential to a faithful execution of the laws, on the ground that unless the President possessed it he could not remove a faithless officer who might be engaged in obstructing the execution of the laws or in embezzling the public funds; the duty of the Presi- || dent under the Constitution, to take care that the laws should be faithfully executed, could not be efficiently discharged unattended by the power of removal. Although differences of The President refused to send a nomination opinion may have existed upon this as well as to the Senate, knowing that it was the will of other provisions of that instrument, yet the the Senate and of the nation that Mr. Stanton practice uninterruptedly continued, with the should remain at the head of the War Depart-implied assent of the Legislature, for upward ment. He had vainly sought to induce General Grant to be a party in thwarting the will of the Senate by preventing the return of Mr. Stanton to the War Office. He had failed to persuade Lieutenant General Sherman to aid || him in removing Mr. Stanton from his office. He then took Adjutant General Thomas, through whom all communications must go to the Army, and made him Secretary of War ad interim. The law requires all communications to the Army to go through General Grant. Might it not have been, by placing Thomas in the War Department, while holding the office of Adjutant General, the purpose of the President to have the means of communication with the Army under his control, and substan stantially to set aside the law requiring such communications to go through the General of the Army? In support of the acts of the President, claims are made and powers asserted by Mr. of seventy-five years, and constituted a legis- The acquiescence by Congress in that con- Buren, and other Presidents, down to Mr. Johnson. The elder Adamis removed Mr. Pickering, Secretary of State, during the session of Congress, and without consulting it; he requested Mr. Pickering to resign, and on his refusal removed him by a peremptory order, and nominated John Marshall his successor. The right of Mr. Adams does not seem to have been questioned. The act of 1789, in its second section, provides for the appointment of a chief clerk in the Department of War, who, whenever the principal officer, the Secretary, shall be removed by the President, or in any other case of vacancy, shall have the charge and custody of all the records and papers in the office. The language of this act recognizes an existing right in the President, under the Constitution, to remove a Secretary at his discretion. The debates in Congress in 1789, by the ablest men of the nation, show that the power of removal from office was conceded to be in the President, and the bills establishing the Departments and regulating the duties to be performed were framed purposely to conform to that construction of the Constitution. Thus, in the act relating to the Treasury Department, the seventh section provides that the assistant shall take charge of the records, books, and papers "whenever the Secretary shall be removed from office by the President of the United States, or in any other case of vacancy." In the same year the Department of Foreign Affairs was created, and in the second section of the act it is declared that there shall be appointed an inferior officer, to be called the chief clerk, and who, "whenever the said principal officer shall be removed from office by the President of the United States, or in any other case of vacancy, shall, during such vacancy, have the charge and custody of the records," &c. These three statutes do not confer the power of removal, but they treat it as existing in the executive department, and were designed and drafted to exclude the presumption of implication of a grant of that power to the President by legislative authority. The act of the 2d March, 1867, regulating the tenure of civil offices, and passed over the President's veto, was intended to alter and change the settled construction of the Constitution, and to empower the Senate to continue a Cabinet officer in commission against the will and wishes of the Executive, and to restrain and check his wonted power of removal; the statute trenched upon and materially impaired what the President and his legal advisers, including the Secretary of War, believed and declared to be a constitutional right and prerogative of the executive department. The President having sworn to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States," considered it to be his duty, as custodian of the executive department, to treat the act as unconstitutional, and to exert the power claimed and exercised by all his predecessors. The statute of 2d March, 1867, essays to create an offense of high misdemeanor in any one who may attempt to violate it, and for this effort of the President to maintain the integrity of his department until the judiciary, the only arbiter to determine a question of such magnitude in the last resort, should decide, the impeachment is predicated. If one department shall attempt or do what another department shall believe to be an essential and vital encroachment upon its high powers or functions, the law of self-defense is as applicable as it would be to a personal attack by one upon another. It cannot be expected that the executive department is to be the agent for executing a statute upon itself which is to dismember and deprive it of half its | vigor or vitality; the duty enjoined upon the President to see that the laws are executed was not designed to operate in such a case, for the practical recognition of such a principle might be used to work the destruction of the whole frame of the Government and make the Constitution its own destroyer. The allegation that if the President shall be permitted to contravene a statute which he and his Cabinet believe invades and infracts the constitutional limits and powers of the department over which he presides, and feels bound to preserve, that he may be at equal liberty to disregard any law of a different character and object, has no more force than that the right of self-defense may be extended to justify an individual in assaulting every person he may chance to meet. If it is in the lawful competency of Congress to punish the infraction of every law by pains and penalties, and to deprive the courts of the United States of their jurisdiction over the same, Congress would soon become omnipotent, the coordination of the departments be destroyed, and the structure and genius of our Government be changed by the action of one department. It may well be questioned if the Cabinet officers who were appointed by a former President, and not reappointed in a second term, either by that President or by Mr. Johnson, his successor, were intended to be embraced by the act of 2d March, 1867; if it were a matter of doubt the accused would be entitled to the benefit of it. From a careful examination of the act, taken in connection with the avowed purpose of it, as declared in the Senate and House of Representatives by the committees of conference at the time of its final passage, my opinion is that such officers were not, nor intended to be, included in it. Entertaining the views I have expressed, I do not consider that the first and eighth articles of impeachment are sustained. The act of Congress of 1795, chapter twentyone, provides for the filling of all vacancies by the President, by appointments ad interim for a period not exceeding six months. The power of removal or suspension necessarily carries with it the right to fill the vacancy temporarily on the ground of public necessity; the exigency may exist at any time, whether during the session or in the recess of the Senate, and the public interest and service may require the promptest action by the President. The acts of 1863 and 1867 do not, by implication, repeal the cases provided for and covered by the act of 1795, which embraces all cases of vacancy from whatever cause, and authorizes ad interim employments, but only such as are occasioned by death, resignation, absence, or sickness, leaving the vacancies occasioned by removal and expiration of commission unrepealed. The act of 1867, regulating the tenure of certain civil offices, by its second section, empowers the President to fill vacancies which may happen during the recess of the Senate, by reason of death or resignation, and in such cases to grant commissions, which shall expire at the end of the next session thereafter, but makes no provision for filling vacancies which may occur during the session of the Senate, leaving such to be filled under existing laws and the usages of the department. The eighth section of the tenure-of-office act declares that whenever the President shall, without the advice and consent of the Senate, designate, authorize, or employ any person to perform the duties of any office, he shall notify the Secretary of the Treasury, &c. This recognizes the right of the President to make ad interim appointments without the consent of the Senate. This class of appointments is not the same mentioned in the third section of that act, because he is authorized by that section to issue commissions to expire at the end of the next session; but in the eighth section it is stated to be a mere designation or employment of some person to perform the duties of an office. According to usage, from the necessity of the case, and the act of 1795, unrepealed in part by the act of 1863 or the act of 1867, the President had the power to designate General Thomas to perform, for a brief period, the duties of the Department of War. To avoid circumlocution I have sometimes used the word appointment instead of designation or employment in connection with ad interim duties, but an appointment to office, legally and technically, has three essential elements: 1. A nomination by the President. 2. A confirmation or approval by the Senate. 3. A commission signed, sealed, and delivered to the appointee. A concurrence of all is necessary to its consummation. The designation of a person to take possession and fulfill the duties is but for a temporary purpose, till a suitable successor can be found and his nomination sent to the Senate; the public interest may demand such a course of action. The proceedings in this case abound with instances of ad interim employments, directed by all the Presidents from Mr. Adams (the elder) to Mr. Johnson, including President Lincoln. The designation of General Thomas was on the 21st February, and the nomination of Mr. Ewing was sent to the Senate on the 22d February, but in consequence of an early adjournment, and the next day being the Sabbath, it was not actually received by the Senate till Monday, the 24th of that month. But if the President, the Attorney General, and other Cabinet officers were mistaken in their construction of the law, which I do not think, such an error was a venial one, and cannot properly be considered a high crime or high misde meanor. But if none of the laws alluded to authorized the ad interim appointment of General Thomas, yet, if Mr. Stanton's case is not covered by the first section of the act of March 2, 1867, called the tenure-of-office law, the second article and others into which it enters are not subjects of impeachment. Mr. Stanton was appointed by Mr. Lincoln in 1862, during the first term of his Presidency; his term expired with Mr. Lincoln's as definitively as if the latter had not been reëlected; he was not reappointed either by Mr. Lincoln or by President Johnson, and only held by courtesy and sufferance. The month allowed to the Cabinet officers appointed by Mr. Johnson and confirmed by the Senate does not apply to officers appointed by Mr. Lincoln, and who held no legal term under President Johnson. The latter, therefore, committed no misdemeanor in designating General Thomas to perform the duties till a regular nomination could be made; first, because Mr. Stanton's case is not protected by the first section of the act of 1867, all the subsequent sections having reference to the cases only which are included in that section, the sixth section, relating to ad interim appointments, expressly declaring them to be "contrary to the provisions of this act," and if not within the first section it cannot be within the sixth; secondly, because no other act forbids such appointments; and thirdly, because it was in conformity to the settled practice of the executive department since its formation, acquiesced in by all the departments, and necessary to a proper and faithful execution of the laws. In any aspect of the case the second and third articles are not maintainable. With the views already expressed, that the President is not guilty of the principal charge, which is modified and extended over other articles, it follows that he is not punishable on the charge for conspiring to do the acts mentioned in the fourth, fifth, and seventh articles, and especially not in the absence of all proof of any such conspiracy. The sixth article charges a conspiracy to seize and take by force the property of the United States in violation of the conspiracy act of July, 1861. This statute does not, in my opinion, apply to the removal of an officer under claim of constitutional right; besides, no proof was offered of any authority from the President to use force, (none was used,) and no legitimate inference of such an intention can be drawn under an act penal in its character when the presumptions are favorable to the citizen, and especially to a high public functionary of the Government in the discharge of official duty. The ninth article, which alleges an attempt to seduce an officer of the Army from his duty to promote sinister purposes of the President, appears to be wholly unsupported by proof. The Commander-in-Chief has an undoubted right to consult with his subordinates, to inquire into the disposition of the military forces, and to express opinions; the relation between them precludes the presumption of an unlawful purpose in making proper inquiries and communications. In such a case the charge should be expressly proved; but there was not only no evidence offered tending to prove it, but a laudable motive was proved by the Secretary of the Navy, who suggested to the President the propriety of making the investigation. The tenth supplemental article is in reference to certain public speeches of the President, and charges that they are high misdemeanors in office. These speeches were made in a private, and not in an official capacity, and however injudicious some may think portions of them, and to be regretted, I know of no law which can punish Mr. Johnson with a removal from office because they were made. As we have no law to punish those who may indulge in political discussions, it cannot reasonably be expected that the President should be removed for exercising a privilege enjoyed by every American citizen; the first amendment to the Constitution declares that Congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. The eleventh article is anomalous, indefinite, and liable to the objection of multiplicity. If it were possible to put it in the form of an indictment or of a declaration in a civil action, it would be quashed on motion by a court of law. The first item or paragraph is not in the form of a charge, but is the recital of a speech contained in the tenth article and appears to be only introductory, or alleged as inducement to a charge which follows, namely, that the Presi dent, in pursuance of said speech made in Au- ' gust, 1866, attempted to prevent the execution of the tenure-of-office act, passed on the 2d March, 1867; then follows a vague allusion to the means by which he made the said attempt, to wit: on the 21st February, 1868, by unlawfully devising, contriving, and attempting to devise and contrive means to prevent E. M. Stanton from forthwith resuming the functions of the office of Secretary of War, which had been peaceably and quietly resumed on the 13th January, 1868, about five weeks prior to the alleged contrivances, as appears by Mr. Stanton's affidavit to procure a warrant for General Thomas's arrest, and also by the first article of impeachment. The other means are to prevent the execu tion of the act making appropriations for the support of the Army, of which no proof was offered except that in relation to the ninth article in reference to General Emory's interview with the President. The last means charged are to prevent the execution of an act to provide for the efficient government of the rebel States, passed 2d March, 1867; the only evidence introduced was a telegram to Governor Parsons, dated several weeks prior to the pas sage of the said act alleged to be violated. This eleventh article seems to be made up by uniting fragments or portions of other articles; if separately the articles in full are not sustained, the joining together of some of their disunited parts cannot impart to them additional strength or vitality. There is no proof of any connection between the speeches referred to and the tenure-of-office act, nor between that act or any alleged violation of it and the means and contrivances imputed to the President. It was contended on the part of the prosecution that the act of 1789, and not the Constitution, conferred upon the President the power of removal from office and separated that power from that of appointment. The act of 1867 does not essay to punish a removal under the act of 1789 unless made in the recess of the Senate, and as Mr. Stanton's removal was during the session of that body, the prohibition of the act is not applicable. The act of 1789 is general, and not confined in its operation to the recess of the Senate or to its sessions; its language is," whenever the said principal of ficer (the Secretary being meant) shall be removed from office by the President of the United States," the inferior officer shall have charge of the records, books, and papers appertaining to the Department. all its pretended consequences. On this head there can be no doubt. lawyers, for whom a technicality is everything,guage, inconsistent with this assumption and and a promiscuous company who at every stage of the battle have set their faces against Equal Rights; these are his allies. It is the old troop of slavery, with a few recruits, ready as of old for violence-cunning in device and heartless in quibble. With the President at their head, they. are now entrenched in the Executive Mansion. Not to dislodge them is to leave this country a prey to one of the most hateful tyrannies of history. Especially is it to surrender the Unionists of the rebel States to violence and bloodshed. Not a month, not a week, not a day should be lost. The safety of the Republic requires action at once. The lives of innocent men must be rescued from sacrifice. A President and his Cabinet may be called upon to examine and determine the meaning, scope, and operation of statutes they may be required to execute materially affecting the powers, duties, and practice of the executive department of the Government. Judgment is necessarily involved in that examination and consideration. If, after a candid and diligent investigation and mature deliberation, the President acts upon the conclusion thus formed, can it be contended that for doing so he is guilty of a high crime or misdemeanor and punishable by removal from office? There must be some willful and manifest abuse of authority, usurpation, or corruption in such a case to justify a proceeding so degrading in its fegiracter and consequences. If Congress, by legislation of two thirds, after the exercise of the veto by the Executive, should assume the power of making appointments to office, irrespective of his right of nomination, of nego-ing our homes with mourning, and darkening tiating and confirming treaties, of diminishing his compensation during the term for which he was elected, can it be said that he would have no right to judge of the constitutionality of these acts; and, if he should refuse to regard them, to be subjected to impeachment and removal, as well as to fine add imprisonment, although they attempted to abstract the essential attributes of his office and reduce the Department to a subordinate and inferior condition? Surely such a proposition could not be seriously advocated. But further, suppose that Congress by its acts should grant titles of nobility and require the President to issue commissions to perfect them, or pass bills of attainder or ex post facto laws, or lay a capitation tax without reference to the census, and devolve the execution of the statutes upon the President; shall he be bound, regardless of his oath to protect and defend the Constitution, to execute them against his own convictions and against the unanimous opinion and advice of the Attorney General and his other constitutional advisers? If in any case the right of judgment is to be exercised, no criminality can be legally imputed for its honest exercise, though the conclusion may be erroneous. For these reasons, independent of those already assigned, and from a careful consideration of the evidence adduced and of the circumstances of the case, I do not think that the first eight and the eleventh articles can be maintained. OPINION OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER. I voted against the rule of the Senate allowing opinions to be filed in this proceeding, and regretted its adoption. With some hesitation I now take advantage of the opportunity, if not the invitation, which it affords. Voting "guilty" on all the articles, I feel that there is no need of explanation or apology. Such a vote is its own best defender. But I follow the example of others. BATTLE WITH SLAVERY. This is one of the last great battles with slavery. Driven from these legislative Chambers; driven from the field of war, this monstrous power has found a refuge in the Executive Mansion, where, in utter disregard of the Constitution and laws, it seeks to exercise its ancient far-reaching sway. All this is very plain. Nobody can question it. Andrew Johnson is the impersonation of the tyrannical Slave Power. In him it lives again. He is the lineal successor of John C. Calhoun and Jef ferson Davis. And he gathers about him the same supporters. Original partisans of slavery North and South; habitual compromisers of great principles; maligners of the Declaration of Independence; politicians without heart; I would not in this judgment depart from that moderation which belongs to the occasion; but God forbid that when called to dia! with so great an offender, I should affect a coldness which I cannot feel. Slavery has been our worst enemy, murdering our children, fill the land with tragedy; and now it rears its crest anew with Andrew Johnson as its representative. Through him it assumes once more to rule the Republic and to impose its cruel law. The enormity of his conduct is aggra vated by his barefaced treachery. He once declared himself the Moses of the colored race. Behold him now the Pharaoh. With such treachery in such a cause there can be no parley. Every sentiment, every conviction, every yow against slavery must now be directed against him. Pharaoh is at the bar of the Senate for judgment. The formal accusation is founded on certain recent transgressions, enumerated in articles of impeachment, but it is wrong to suppose that this is the whole case. It is very wrong to try this impeachment merely on these articles. It is unpardonable to higgle over words and phrases when for more than two years the tyrannical pretensions of this offender, now in evidence before the Senate, as I shall show, have been manifest in their terrible, heartrending consequences. IMPEACHMENT A POLITICAL, AND NOT A JUDICIAL PRO CEEDING. Before entering upon the consideration of the formal accusation, instituted by the House of Representatives of the United States in their own name and in the name of all the people thereof, it is important to understand the nature of the proceeding; and here on the threshold we encounter the effort of the defense, which has sought in every way to confound this great constitutional trial with an ordinary case at Nisi Prius and to win for the criminal President an Old Bailey acquittal, where on some quibble the prisoner is allowed to go without day. From beginning to end this has been painfully apparent, thus degrading the trial and baffling justice, Point by point has been pressed, sometimes by counsel and sometimes even by Senators, leaving the substantial merits untouched, as if on a solemn occasion like this, involving the safety of the Republic, there could be any other question. The first effort was to call the Senate, sitting for the trial of impeachment, a court, and not a Senate. Ordinarily names are of little consequence, but it cannot be doubted that this appellation has been made the starting-point for those technicalities, which are so proverbial in courts. Constantly we have been reminded of what is called our judicial character and of the supplementary oath we have taken, as if a Senator were not always under oath, and as if other things within the sphere of his duties were not equally judicial in character. Out of this plausible assumption has come that finespun thread which lawyers know so well how to weave. The whole mystification disappears when we look at our Constitution, which in no way speaks of impeachment as judicial in character, and in no way speaks of the Senate as a court. On the contrary it uses positive lan By the Constitution it is expressly provided that "the judicial power shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish," thus positively excluding the Senate from any exercise of the judicial power." And yet this same Constitution provides that "the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments." In the face of these plain texts it is impossible not to conclude that in trying impeachments Senators exercise a function which is not regarded by the Constitution as “judicial,” or, in other words, as subject to the ordinary conditions of judicial power. Call it senatorial or political, it is a power by itself and subject to its own conditions. Nor can any adverse conclusion be drawn from the unauthorized designation of court, which has been foisted into our proceedings. This term is very expansive and sometimes very insignificant. In Europe it means the household of a prince. In Massachusetts it is still applied to the Legislature of the State, which is known as the General Court. If applied to the Senate it must be interpreted by the Constitution, and cannot be made in any respect a source of power or a constraint. It is difficult to understand how this term, which plays such a part in present pretenṣions, obtained its yogue. It does not appear in English impeachments, although there is reason for it there, which is not found here. From ancient times Parliament, including both Houses, has been called a court, and the House of Lords is known as a court of appeal. The judgment on impeachments embraces not merely removal from oflice, as under our Constitution, but also punishment. And yet it does not appear that the Lords sitting on impeachments are called a court. They are not so entitled in any of the cases, from the first in 1330, entitled simply, "Impeachment of Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, for Treason,' down to the last in 1806, entitled, "Trial of Right Honorable Henry Lord Viscount Melville before the Lords House of Parliament in Westminster for High Crimes and Misdemeanors whereof he was accused in certain articles of Impeachment." In the historic case of Lord Bacon, we find, at the first stage, this title, "Proceedings in Parliament against Francis Bacon Lord Verulam," and after the impeachment was presented, the simple title, "Proceedings in the House of Lords." Had this simplicity been followed in our proceedings, one source of misunderstanding would have been removed. There is another provision of the Constitution which testifies still further, and, if possible, more completely. It is the limitation of the judgment in cases of impeachment, making it political and nothing else. It is not in the nature of punishment, but in the nature of protection to the Republic. It is confined to removal from office and disqualification; but, as if aware that this was no punishment, the Constitution further provides that this judgment shall be no impediment to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment "according to law." Thus again is the distinction declared between an impeachment and a proceeding "according to law." The first, which is political, belongs to the Senate, which is a political body; the latter, which is judicial, belongs to the courts, which are judicial bodies. The Senate removes from office; the courts punish. I am not alone in drawing this distinction. It is well known to all who have studied the subject. Early in our history it was put forth by the distinguished Mr. Bayard of Delaware, the father of Senators, in the case of Blount, and it is adopted by no less an authority than our highest commentator, Judge Story, who was as much disposed as anybody to amplify the judicial power. In speaking of this text, he says, that impeachment "is not so much designed to punish the offender as to secure the State against gross official misdemeanors; that it touches at the risk of protracting this discussion, I cannot hesitate to consider this branch of the subject, although what I have already said may render it superfluous. What are Impeachable Offenses has been much considered in this trial and sometimes with very little appreciation of the question. Next to the mystification from calling the Senate a court has been the other of Andrew Johnson impeachable offenses. neither his person nor his property; but simply divests him of his political capacity. (Story, Commentaries, Vol. I, sec. 803.) All this seems to have been forgotten by certain persons on the present trial, who, assuming that impeachment was a proceeding "according to law," have treated the Senate to the technicalities of the law, to say nothing of the law's delay. As we discern the true character of impeach-mystification from not calling the transgressions ment under our Constitution we shall be constrained to confess that it is a political proceeding, before a political body, with political purposes; that it is founded on political offenses, proper for the consideration of a political body and subject to a political judgment only. Even in cases of treason and bribery the judgment is political, and nothing more. If I were to sum up in one word the object of impeachment under our Constitution, meaning that which it has especially in view, and to which it is practically limited, I should say expulsion from office. The present question is, Shall Andrew Johnson, on the case before the Senate, be expelled from office? Expulsion from office is not unknown to our proceedings. By the Constitution a Senator may be expelled with "the concurrence of two thirds;" precisely as a President may be expelled with "the concurrence of two thirds." In each of these cases the same exceptional vote of two thirds is required. Do not the two illustrate each other? From the nature of things they are essentially similar in character, except that on the expulsion of the President the motion is made by the House of Representatives at the bar of the Senate, while on the expulsion of a Senator the motion is made by a Senator. And how can we require a technicality of proceeding in the one which is rejected in the other? If the Senate is a court, bound to judicial forms on the expulsion of the President, must it not be the same on the expulsion of a Senator? But nobody attributes to it any such strictness in the latter case. Numerous precedents attest how, in dealing with its own members, the Senate has sought to do substantial justice without reference to forms. In the case of Blount, which is the first in our history, the expulsion was on the report of a committee, declaring him "guilty of a high misdemeanor, entirely inconsistent with his public trust and duty as a Senator." (Annals of Congress, Fifteenth Congress, 1797, page 44.) At least one Senator has been expelled on simple motion, even without reference to a committee. Others have been expelled without any formal allegations or formal proofs. There is another provision of the Constitution, which overrides both cases. It is this: "each House may determine its rules of proceeding." The Senate on the expulsion of its own members has already done this practically and set an example of simplicity. But it has the same power over its "rules of proceeding" on the expulsion of the President; and there can be no reason for simplicity in the one case not equally applicable in the other. Technicality is as little consonant with the one as with the other. Each has for its object the Public Safety. For this the Senator is expelled; for this also the President is expelled. Salus populi suprema lex. The proceedings in each case must be in subordination to this rule. There is one formal difference, under the Constitution, between the power to expel a Senator and the power to expel the Presi dent. The power to expel a Senator is unlimited in its terms. The Senate may, "with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member," nothing being said of the offense; whereas the President can be expelled only for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemean org." 66 A careful inquiry will show that, under the latter words, there is such a latitude as to leave little difference between the two cases. This brings us to the question of impeachable offenses. POLITICAL OFFENSES ARE IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES. So much depends on the right understanding of the character of this proceeding, that even It is sometimes boldly argued, that there can be no impeachment under the Constitution of the United States, unless for an offense defined and made indictable by an act of Congress; and, therefore, Andrew Johnson must go free, unless it can be shown that he is such an of fender. But this argument mistakes the Constitution and also mistakes the whole theory of impeachment. It mistakes the Constitution in attributing to it any such absurd limitation. The argument is this. Because in the Constitution of the United States there are no common-law crimes, therefore, there are no such crimes on which an impeachment can be maintained. To this there are two answers on the present occasion; first, that the District of Columbia, where the President resides and exercises his functions, was once a part of Maryland, where the common law prevailed; that when it came under the jurisdiction of the United States it brought with it the whole body of the law of Maryland, including the common law, and that at this day the common law of crimes is still recognized here. But the second answer is stronger still. By the Constitution expulsion from office is on impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors; " and this, according to another clause of the Constitution, is "the supreme law of the land." Now, when a constitutional provision can be executed, without superadded legislation, it is absurd to suppose that such superadded legislation is necessary. Here the provision executes itself without any reënactment; and as for the definition of "treason" and "bribery' we resort to the common law, so for the definition of "high crimes and misdemeanors" we resort to the Parliamentary Law and the instances of impeachment by which it is illustrated. And thus clearly the whole testimony of English history enters into this case with its authoritative law. From the earliest text-writer on this subject (Woodeson, Lectures, Vol. II, p. 601,) we learn the undefined and expansive character of these offenses; and these instances are in point now. Thus, where a lord chancellor has been thought to put the great seal to an ignominious treaty; a lord admiral to neglect the safeguard of the seas; an ambassador to betray his trust; a privy councillor to propound dishonorable measures; a confidential adviser to obtain exorbitant grants or incompatible employments, or where any magistrate has attempted to subvert the fundamental law or introduce arbitrary power; all these are high crimes and misdemeanors, according to these precedents by which our Constitution must be interpreted. How completely they cover the charges against Andrew Johnson, whether in the formal accusation or in the long antecedent transgressions to which I shall soon call attention as an essential part of the case, nobody can question. Broad as this definition may seem, it is in harmony with the declared opinions of the best minds that have been turned in this direction. Of these none so great as Edmund Burke, who, as manager on the impeachment of Warren Hastings, excited the admiration of all by the varied stores of knowledge and philosophy, illumined by the rarest eloquence, with which he elucidated his cause. These are his words: "It is by this tribunal that statesmen who abuse their power are tried before statesmen and by statesmen, upon solid principles of State morality. It is here that those who by an abuse of power have polluted the spirit of all laws can never hope for the least protection from any of its forms. It is here that those who have refused to conform themselves to the protection of law can never hope to escape through any of its defects." [Bond, Speeches on Trial of Hastings, vol. 1 p. 4. The value of this testimony is not diminished because the orator spoke as a manager. By a professional license an advocate may state opinions which are not his own; but a manager cannot. Representing the House of Representatives and all the people, he speaks with the responsibility of a judge, so that his words may be cited hereafter. In saying this I but follow the claim of Mr. Fox. Therefore, the words of Burke are as authoritative as beautiful. In different but most sententious terins, Mr. Hallam, who is so great a light in constitutional history, thus exhibits the latitude of impeachment and its comprehensive grasp: "A minister is answerable for the justice, the bonesty, the utility of all measures emanating from the Crown, as well as their legality; and thus the Executive administration is or ought to be subordinate in all great matters of policy to the superintendence and virtual control of the two Houses of Parliament."-Hallam, Constitutional History, vol. 2, chap. -. Thus, according to Hallam, even a failure in justice, honesty and utility, as well as in legality, may be the ground of impeachment; and the administration should in all great matters of policy be subject to the two Houses of Parliament; the House of Commons to impeach and the House of Lords to try. Here again the case of Andrew Johnson is provided for. Our best American lights are similar in character, begining with the Federalist itself. According to this authority impeachment is for "those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust; and they may with peculiar propriety be deemed political, as they relate to injuries done immediately to society itself." (No. 65.) If ever injuries were done immediately to society itself; if ever there was an abuse or violation of publie trust; if ever there was misconduct of a public man;-all these are now before us in the case of Andrew Johnson. The Federalist has been echoed ever since by all who have spoken with knowledge and without prejudice. First came the respected commentator, Rawle, who specifies among causes of impeachment the fondness for the individual extension of power;" "the influence of party and prejudice;" "the seductions of foreign States;" the baser appetite for illegitimate emolument;" and "the involutions and varieties of vice too many and too artful to be anticipated by positive law;" all resulting in what the commentator says are "not inaptly termed political offenses." (Page 19.) And thus Rawle unites with the Federalist in stamping upon impeachable offenses the epithet political.' If in the present case there has been on the part of Andrew Johnson, no base appetite for illegitimate emolument and no yielding to foreign seductions, there has been most notoriously the influence of party and prejudice, also to an unprecedented degree an individual extension of power, and an involution and variety of vice impossible to be anticipated by positive law, all of which, in gross or in detail, is impeachable. Here it is in gross. Then comes Story, who writing with the combined testimony of English and American history before him and moved only by a desire of truth, records his opinion with all the original emphasis of the Federalist. His words are like a judgment. According to him the process of impeachment is intended to reach "personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation or habitual disregard of the public interests in the discharge of the duties of political office;" and the commentator adds that it is "to be exercised over offenses committed by public men in violation of their public trust and duties;" that "the offenses to which it is ordinarily applied are of a political character;" and that strictly speaking the power partakes of a political character." (Story's Commentaries, vol. 2, 2746, 764.) Every word here is like an ægis for the present case. The later commentator, Curtis, is, if possible, more explicit even than Story. According to him an impeachment is not necessarily a trial for crime," "its purposes lie wholly beyond the penalties of the statute or customary law;" and this commentator does not hesitate to say that it is a "pro |