practice or neglect of duty. It will be observed that this is very English-like and very broad. There is not necessarily any crime in the jurisdiction here proposed to be conferred. In the next report they proposed to allow the tribunal jurisdiction over treason, bribery and corruption. It will be observed that they began to get away from English precedent and to approach the final result at which they arrived. The jurisdiction is partly criminal and partly broad and open, not necessarily involving criminality. In the next report on this very question of jurisdiction they reported to the Senate, or rather to the Supreme Court of the United States, to which body up to the very last moment they confided the jurisdiction.

In the next report they proposed to allow jurisdiction for treason or bribery and nothing else. It will be observed that here was nothing but a gross flagrant crime, and that gives the jurisdiction that we have in the present Constitution-treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors, not malpractices, not neglect of duty, nothing that left jurisdiction open; the jurisdiction is short and limited by any fair construction of this language, and it was intended to be short. It is impossible to observe the progress of the deliberations of that Convention upon this single question, beginning with the briefest and most open jurisdiction, and ending in a jurisdiction confined in its terms, without coming to the conclusion that it was thesr determination that the jurisdiction should be circumscribed and limited. In what character Senators do you sit here? You have heard the argument of the managers, you have heard the discussion of the subject all through the progress of the case; you have been referred to English precedents by the managers to support their theory that you sit here, not as a court, but as an inquest of office, or as a nameless tribunal with unfixed and illimitable jurisdiction. We have our own precedents on this subject, and I will call your attention to them.

It has been heard in this trial for the first time, that this tribunal now sitting as you are sitting, is anything else than a court. I challenge the gentlemen, after their investigations of the action of the Constitutional Convention, to show anything that has been said or done, calculated to make the impression that the tribunal to try impeachment is anything else than a court. Let us look, Senators, at our own history. We have had four trials of impeachment in the United States. The first was the case of Blount. What was the language of the tribunal in that trial? When it came to make a final decision, it did so in this language:-"The court is of opinion that the matter alleged is not sufficient in law to show that this court ought to hold jurisdiction of the said impeachment." That is good authority--that is good American precedent on this question. It is the deliberate opinion of the Senate of the United States in the first trial in which it sat in that capacity, declaring itself in the most solemn language, which it uttered during the trial as its final decision, that it was a court and not an inquest of office, or some nameless thing, calculated only to frighten the timid.

What is the next case? The Pickering case. Throughout its progress the Senate styled itself "The Senate sitting in the capacity of a Court of Impeachment," and the last action of the body, its decision, was on a question in this form:"Is the court of opinion that John Pickering be removed." So too in the next case, the case of Chase. The President in that case styled the body "a court," and was more fortunate than the Chief Justice, in that he escaped all censure from the managers of the House of Representatives. How in the next case, the Peck case, the tribunal itself put the final point in this language-"Resolved, That this court will now pronounce judgment in the case of William H. Peck, Justice of the United States for the District of Missouri." Now, Senators, I have gone over every precedent that we have in our own history on this question, and they show that in every instance the Senate Bolemnly declared itself to be a court. If we are to go by precedent, let us take our own precedents rather than those which have been so liberally quoted from abroad, by the managers on this occasion. In what spirit, Senators, shall you try this case? Allow me to refer you on that subject, to the language of Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution. He says, "The great objects to be attained in the selection of a tribunal for the trial of impeachments, are impartiality, integrity, intelligence and independence. If either of these be wanting, the trial must be radically imperfect.

To secure integrity there must be a deep sense of duty and a deep respensibility to future times and to God; to secure intelligence there must be a "high intelligencepowers as well as attainments-necessary to secure independence; there must be numbers as well as talents, and a confidence restilting at once from permanency of place, dignity of station and enlightened patriotism." On the next page Story adds:-"Strictly speaking, the power, that is, the power of impeachment, is partly of a political character, and on this account it requires to be guarded in its exercise against the spirit of faction, the intolerance of party and the sudden movements in peculiar feeling." Senators, this is not my language, it is the language of a distinguished jurist whom you all respect, but I may affirm by all our own authorities and by all our teachings on the subject, that it is a true and faithful portraiture of what is meant in the Constitution by the tribunal to try impeachment.

For that purpose you have been sworn anew as it were to prepare you for this occasion. The oath which you took when you entered this Senate Chamber, as Senators, was a political, a legislative oath. The oath which is now upon you is purely a judicial oath to do impartial justice. We are then, Senators, in a court. What are you to try? You are to try the charges contained in those articles of

impeachment, and nothing else. On what are you to try them? Not on common fame, not on presumption of guilt not on any views of party politics. You are to try them on the evidence offered here, and on nothing else. By the obligation of your oaths, what is the issue before yon? Senators, allow me to say that it is not a question whether this or that thing was done. You are not here to try a mere issue of fact. By the very terms of the Constitu tion you can only try in this tribunal, crime. Let me repeat the jurisdiction:-"Treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors."

The jurisdiction is comprised within that language. The only issue which this court can try, is the issue of crin.e. What is crime? In every crime there must be unlawful purpose or intention, and when this is wanting there can be no crime. There must be an unlawful purpose prompting its commission, otherwise there can be no crime. Let me illustrate:-Suppose a crazy man should burst into this Chamber and kill one of us; he has committed the act of homicide, but he has not committed a crime. Suppose the President should become deranged, and should, while in that condition, attempt to bribe and to break law upon law, you have no jurisdiction to try him on impeachment. Let me put another case that is not suppositious. Mr. Lincoln claimed and exercised the power to organize a military commission under which he arrested and imprisoned citizens within the loyal States. He had no act of Congress warranting it, and the Supreme Court of the United States has declared that the act was against the express provisions of the Constitution, Suppose he did violate the express provisions of the Constitution, then, according to the argument of the managers, he might be impeached and convicted. I beg to read from the argument of one of the managers on that subject. The honorable manager who addressed us the day before yesterday referred to the motives of the Pre-ident, and declared that the necessary inference of the law is, that he acted under the influence of bad motives; whereby the gentleman seems to acknowledge that, in order to constitute a crime there must be a motive. here can be no crime without a motive; but now, when the President comes forward, and offers to prove his good motive, you will not allow him to make that proof. When he comes forward and offers to prove this from his warm and living heart, the answer is, "we make up the motive out of the presumptions of the law, and conclude you on that point; we will not hear you; you must be silent."

Now, Senators, the jurisdiction of this body is to try crime, and there is no crime without unlawful intention and purpose. You cannot get a crime without showing the unlawful intent or purpose behind the act itself. What is your verdict? Not that the President did this or that act. That is not it. But was he guilty of high misdemeanor, it being his purpose to commit it?

With these preliminary observations, I propose to proceed to a brief examination of the case presented. You are now, all of you, familiar with the arguments which have been presented thus far in this case, and I need not attempt to go over them. I have this to say, and you will all concur with me, that the first eight articles are built upon two acts of the President; the one being the removal of Edwin M. Stanton, the other the letter of authority given to Lorenzo Thomas. Now, if you will take those eight articles, and notice the substantial argument around which they are bound, with all their assertions of good or bad intent, and all their arguments of every kind, you will find that there are but those two acts-the removal of Mr. Stanton and the letter of authority to General Thomas. To do that, we have only to inquire in reference to these two acts in order to ascertain the merits of this case. If the President of the United States had the right to remove Edwin M. Stanton, then these eight articles are without support. If, in addition to that, he had the right to give the letter of authority to Lorenzo Thomas, then these articles fall to ruin.

Now, there is no Senator who has studied this case who will not see the application of this statement at once, and it relieves us from the necessity of going over article by article, step by step. in our progress. Give me those two proposition the right to remove Stanton and the right to i-sue the letter of authority to Thomas-and the articles fall instantly, and there is nothing left of them, so that we have, in asking your consideration of these articles, but two inquiries to make. Had the President the right to remove Mr. Stanton, and had he the right to issue the letter of authority to Thomas? I propose now, as well as I am able, to examine this question. Had the President the right to remove Edwin M. Stanton? I propose to examine that question first, in connection with the act regulating the Tenure of Civil Offices. It is claimed on the one side that, by the operation of this law, Mr. Stanton was withdrawn from his previous position, and is covered and protected here. It is claimed upon the other side that the law does not apply to his case at all. I think it will be readily acknowledged by Senators that the President has the right to remove him.

Allow me to call your attention to one question of this law in which the question seems to be involved. It provides, "That every person holding any civil office to which he has been appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and every person who shall hereafter be appointed to any such office aud become duly qualified to act therein, is entitled to hold such office until his suc cessor shall have been appointed and duly qualified, except as herein otherwise provided. Provided, I hat the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Interior, the Postmaster-General, and the AttorneyGeneral shall hold their offices respectively for and during

the case of Mr. Stanton, and even if they did think that it does, there would be a very small majority certainly, who would say there was not room for doubt, as to the constitutionality of the law. Let me then refer you to the act creating the office of Attorney-General:-

"There shall be also a person learned in the law appointed Attorney-General of the United States, who shall be sworn, and whose duty shall be to prosecute all suits in the Supreme Court of the United States in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States." I need not read further. There was a law, construe it as you will, in reference to the question of the operation of which there might be a difference of opinion. No Senator will differ as to the fact that it might be interpreted as not covering Mr. Stanton's case by its provisions. Now suppose the President of the United States, upon consulting upon the subject, did construe the law in that way, is there a Senator in this chamber who will say that there was any blame to attach to him on account of such an interpretation?

I am assuming here that this law was a law of doubtful construction as it is, and if the President availed himself of the counsels of his Cabinet oflicer, who is desiguated to do this special duty, then he is acquitted of the charge of wilfully misinterpreting it; and, now, what is the testimony on that subject? It shows that cons Itations were held between the President and his Cabinet. Not idle consultations, but consultations for the purpose, of deciding upon this great and important question, and which, if you undertake to investigate the question of motive, you cannot pass by. It appears that this subject came up for consideration and it was taken for granted that these C-binet officers, who had been appointed by Mr. Lincoln, were not affected by the provisions of the Tenure of Office act. I do not remember that the point was thus stated, but I recollect that it was suggested by one member of the Cabinet who was appointed by Mr. Lincoln, and that no dissent was expressed. The Attorney-General, Mr. Stanbery, was there the entire Cabinet was there-and this subject was considered, and this very question of construction came up, and the opinion was expressed that he (Mr. Stanton) was not included in the provisions of the act.

(The speaker's voice, which had gradually become fainter, here became almost inaudible to the reporters.)

He considered this the most important point in this case, but should this view not be correct and the law did apply to Mr. Stanton, the next inquiry was whether the conduct of the President in removing Mr. Stanton was criminal. Senators who participated as legislators in the passage of this very law and had affirmed its constitutionality, in the unfortunate condition of this case, became the judges, and, therefore, they must not be understood as arguing the point with a view to change their opinions or to show that the law was unconstitutional. That was not his object. It was to present the inquiry whether, in the condition of the question and in the condition of the President, he had a right to take the steps he did take without incurring the charge of criminality. Our governmeni is composed of three departments. Power has been distributed among them, and they are each independent of the other; no one responsible to the other. They are responsible to the people, and they are enjoined each to take care of its own prerogatives, and to protect itself against all possible encroachment from the other.

This they do, each and every department, bv observing with the utmost fidelity the instruction of the written Constitution. At the head of one of these departments, the executive, stands the President of the United States; he is sworn by an oath, the most solemn obligation that could be administered, faithfully to execute the office of President, and to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. It is not an oath merely to execute the laws, but also to the best of his ability to preserve, protect and defend the Coustitution. It would seem that such an oath would impress him with the idea that the first and paramount duty of the executive was to act according to the terms of the Constitution, and that in all trial and doubts he should take shelter under it. The learned managers contended that the President should simply execute the laws passed by Congress and no more. That was not the interpretation that should be given to the language of the Constitution. He was the Chief Magistrate of the nation and in charge of one of the great departments of the government, and must maintain the powers conferred by the Constitution on that department; but shall he disregard a law, "never."

He should never in mere wantonness disregard any act of Congress in any manner. Shall he execute all laws? He took issue with the learned manager on this point in toto. According to the theory of the managers, the President should be convicted of a crime even though the law was not constitutional. He denied this. If a law be declared by the Supreme Court, the third department of the government, and by the very terms of the Constitution itself the highest and final arbiter of the constitutionality of Congressional enactment, if that courthould declare a law to be unconstitutional the President would be false to his oath of office if he should exeerte that law. He would tell the gentleman, in answer to his long argument, that if a law be unconstitutional it was no law; it never was a law and never nad a particle of validity, although it might be in the form of a Congressional enactment. From the beginning ab initio it is no law, and is v id, a d to execute it is a violation of the Constitution. Therefore he should not execute such a law.

Again, if a law be upon its very face in blank contradiction to the plainly expressed provisions of the Constitut on, as, for instance, a law declaring that the President should

not be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, or declaring that he had no power to make treaties, the President should, without going to the Supreme Court, maintain the integrity of his department, which, for the time being, is intrusted to him, and is bound to execute no such law. He would be untrue to his high official position if he should execute that law. But the difficulty was not here; the dithculty arises in doubtful cases, in cases which are not plainly stated in the Constitution, and this was the question of inquiry in the present case. The law of interpretation to be observed in doubtful cases was a point to which he called the attention of the Senate. He would not question the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office act. He did not challenge its constitutionality here, because the Senate had affirmed it. He would therefore simply read a few opinions of the Supreme Court and quote from other standard authorities in regard to this question, The counsel here read at length several decisions on this point, and then proceeded with the argument.

Now, Senators, I have called your attention to the decision of the question by the court. I have given you the utterance from the bench. I have given you the opinions of Marshall, and of Kent, and now let me refer you to the Executive Department. From the beginning of the government down to March 2, 1867, it has been the uniform construction and practice of every administration that it had the power of removal. Washington approved of the bill; Adams voted for it; Jefferson maintained it; Madison drew it up; Monroe and Jackson maintained the same construction of it. Every President, including President Lincoln, through all our history of eighty years, and of twenty administrations, maintained this construc tion on the question of where is the power of removal lodge.

The Judicial Department has concurred in the construction that the power of removal is lodged by the Constitu tion in the President. The Executive Department, from Washington down, through all the Presidents, has acted on this construction and affirmed this practice. Washington called the attention of the First Congress to the fact that the Executive Departments under the old Confederation had ceased to exist, and that it was necessary to organize new and corresponding ones under the new government, and he suggested that, before Congress legi lated on the subject, it should, in debate, fix the principles and determine the number of departments necessary. Congress at once entered on the subject, and agreed to establish three departments.

At this point of the argument the court, at quarter past two, took a recess for a quarter of an hour.

Mr. GROESBECK resumed his argument, commencing by reminding the court of the points he had been calling its attention to before the recess. He expressed his astonishment at Mr. Boutwell's summing up of the debate of 1789, and declared, with all respect to the honorable mana ger, that the statement was not authorized by anything that occurred in that debate. The only question that was discussed and settled in that debate, was whether the power of removal was lodged in the President alone, or lodged in the President and Senate, and it was decided that the power was in the President alone. The phraseology of the bills was changed so that all appearance of a grant of the power from the Legislature might be avoided, ane that Cougress might appear as simply recognizing the fact that the power was vested by the Constitution in the President. He had stated accurately the substance of the debate, and challenged all contradiction.

What had followed? That Congress had passed three bills establishing three Executive Departments, and in the language of Chief Justice Mar hall, it had, in order to avoid legislative instability on that question, framed those bills so that they should not take the form of a grant from the Legislature, but should appear as a constitutional interpretation. These laws were in force to this day; they were professedly an interpretation of the Constitution; were so declared by the Supreme Court; were so declared and treated be the Congress which passed them, and were BO regarded by every subsequent Congress down to the Thirty-ninth Congress.

He would pass on for nine years, and come down to 1798. Another executive department was then formed, called the Navy Department, and in the law creating it, the power of removal was recognized in the phraseology, "in case of vacancy by removal or otherwise." The words were not removal by the President:" the idea being con veyed that it was a power lodged by the Constitution in the President. He passed on for twenty years--to the creation of the Post Office Department, the law creating which contained this provision:-"In case of the resignation or removal from office of the Postmaster-General. It did not say by whom the removal was to be made, but it adopted the preceding laws in reference to which it was distinctly understood that they were interpretations of the Constitution, acknowledging that the power of removal was lodged in the President, and therefore not necessary to be conferred by express grant.

Theu he came to the act of March, 1849, creating the Interior Department, and providing that the Secretary of the Interior was to hold his office by the same tenure, and to receive the same salary as the secretaries of the other departments. Under that law the Secretary of the Interior was removable at pleasure. Then he came to the law establishing the seventh department, that of the Attorney General. In the law establishing that office there was not one word said on the subject of removal or vacancy, but the Attorney General had taken his commission during the pleasure of the President for the time being, and had been subject to removal by the President just as any other of the heads of the departments.

He had thus gone through the legislation establishing the executive departments ranging from 1789 to 1849, a period of sixty years, and showing the principle that the power of removal was recognized as being lodged by the Constitution in the President. But that was not all. He might cite a large number of laws on the subject of other officers, such as postmasters, &c., and bearing out the same idea. He stated, not from his own examination, but from information on which he could rely that if all the laws of Congress were collected from 1789 to 1867 which affirmed this construction, they would average two or three to each Congress.

The law of March, 1867, came into work on the coneurrent chain of constitutional interpretation, but he would ask Senators whether human reason might not pause here and human judgment doubt on this question. All the Presidents had affirmed the Constitution had acted on it for eighty years; the Supreme Court had affirmed it; thirtyeight Co..gresses had concurred in it. All this was on the one side of the question, and on the other side there was the action of one Congress. Might not, therefore, human reason pause and human judgment doubt? Was it criminal in the President to stand by that great mass of precedent and to believe as thirty-eight Congresses had believed; as all Administrations had believed, and as the Supreme Court had affirmed, that the power of removal from office was vested by the Constitution in the President? That was the question this court was to decide.

Did Senators believe that at the time Andrew Johnson honestly thought that the Constitution lodged the power of removal in the hands of the President? What shouldbe the effect of this long line of interpretation by every department of the government? What rule should be applied? Stability was as much needed in regard to powers not expressed in the Constitution as in regard to those as are expres ed. If it was to be fixed by interpretation and decision. When was it to be regarded as fixed? In five hundred years? They would all agree to that. In four hundred years? He thought they would all agree to that. In two hundred years? Yes, in one hundred years? Yes! Well, here was a construction and interpretation existing for seventy-eight years. If this government was ever to have stability in its institutions it must adopt and adhere to the rule of State decisus. The Thirty-ninth Congress alone had given a different interpretation of the Constitution. He did not propose to institute any comparison between that Congress and any preceding one.

He would not say that it was not just as able and in just as good condition as any other to offer a correct opinion, but he would say that it was no better. This brought him to the question, whether the Senate was prepared to drive the President from his office and convict him of crime because he had believed as every other President before him had believed, as the Supreme Court had believed, and as the Thirty-eighth Congress had believed? Was Mr. Johnson to lie down with his hand upon his mouth, and his mouth in the dust, before Congress? or was he to stand up as the Chief Magistrate of the nation in the great contest to defend the integrity of his department? It was for the President to execute the laws, to execute even doubtful laws; but when he was called upon to execute a law against which all precedents were arrayed, against which all the voices of the past were sounding in his ears, was he not justified in seeking to get a judicial interpretation of the question, and was the Senate to undertake to brand him with criminality because he proposed to go to the Supreme Court and have a decision on the question.

He (counsel) should have referred also to the President's conduct on the subject in reference to his consulting those who are by law his advisers and counsellors. The Senate had shut out many of these facts and would not hear the evidence upon them. Suppose it had been brought to the attention of Senators that on a serious and important question like this the President had disregarded the advice of his Cabinet, had turned his back upon his counsellors, had held no consultation with them, but had in wilfulness and disregard of their wishes acted in the manner he had done.

The managers would probably have put that in evidence against him, but yet the fact that he could prove just the contrary was excluded from testimony. What was Mr. Johnson's condition? He had Cabinet officers who were unfriendly to him personally and politically. All confidential relations between them had been broken off. That officer himself had told the Senate, in a letter dated as lately as the 4th of Februarv, 1868, that he had no correspondence with the President since the 12th of August last, and had received no orders from him. It thus appears that that Cabinet officer was merely a non-executive repudiating the President, having no official communication with him, and proposing to have none, and proposing to carry on his department without recognizing even the President's name.

This was the condition of President Johnson when he communicated with General Sherman, and counsel would read to the Senate what General Sherman's testimony on that point was. General Sherman said: "I intend to be very precise and very short, but it appeared to me necessary to state what I began to state, that the President told me that the relations between him and Mr. Stanton, and between Mr. Stanton and the other members of the Cabinet, were such that he could not execute the office which he filled, as President of the United States, without making provision ad interim for that office, and that he had the right under the law. He claimed to have the right, and his purpose was to have the office administered in the interest of the army and the country, and he offered me the office in that view. He did not state to me then that it was his purpose to bring it to the courts directly,

but for the purpose of having the office administered properly in the interest of the army and of the whole country." That was the condition of things with a Cabinet officer who refused all intercourse. Counsel did not intend to go into any inquiry as to who was right or wrong; he merely stated the naked fact. This Cabinet officer had refused all intercourse, and was proposing to carry on his department without communicating with the President, and as a sort of secondary executive. In that condition of things, was it not the duty of the Chief Magistrate to make a change? There was not a Senator before him who would not have made the change. It was impossible to administer the department while there were wranglings and controversies, and want of confidence between the head of the depart ment and the President. In that necessity it was that Mr. Johnson had moved to procure a change in the department. If he had sued out a writ of quo warranto, as the manager suggested, he would have been laughed at and ridiculed, because a determination of it could not have been reached before a year, and because it was reported at the time that he would be impeached and removed in ten, twenty, or thirty days,

But Mr. Stanton had brought a suit against General Thomas, and had had him arrested. There was the Presi dent's opportunity; by reason of that he could reach a nice decision instantly. The President snatched at it, but it was anxiously snatched away from him. The managers had talked of force-where was the force? Where was there one single bitter, personal interview in all that transaction? There was not a quarrelsome word with anybody. The only force exhibited was in the cordial embrace between General Thomas and Mr. Stanton, with the one putting his arm around the other and running his fingers affectionately through his silver locks. That was the "force, intimidation and threat" that was used, and that was about all there was of it. Counsel for the President had offered to bring here the members of the Cabinet to testify as to what their advice was to the President on the subject. They had consulted on that very question, but yet the Senate would not hear them; it shut their mouths and remanded the defense to the man from Delaware.

The Senate was asked to find the employment or the intimation to employ force from the utterances of that man from Delaware, and from the conversation, or at midnight masquerades of a man dressed in a little brief authority, and yet the Senate would not hear the deliberations of the Cabinet, the consultations which were held on that very question when the transaction was warm in the minds of the parties; there was no rescuing this trial from the manifest imperfectlon of the testimony on that point. Now, what was the President's course? Why did he give this letter of authority to Lorenzo Thomas? He had to do it. There was no other way he could adopt by which he could put the case in a condition to test the law. If the President had nominated to the Senate the office would have remained in the exact condition it was without nomination, and, therefore, it was necessary by an arrangement of this kind to get into the office one who could represent the government on that question.

The President's intention in all the movement was simply to get rid of that defiant, friendly Secretary. Counsel used this expression without conveving any personal sentiment. What had the President done in the first place? He had selected General Grant, a man whom the country delighted to honor, in whom it had the utmost confidence, and for whom probably the honorable manager, Mr. Butler, intended to express still greater confidence, The President had selected such a man as that, and yet this was to be regarded as a mischievous transaction. What next did the President do? The very next step that the President took was, not to get a dangerous man, not to get a man in whom the Senate had no confidence, but the next man to whom he offered the place was General Sherman-would any one charge wickedness upon that high officer? But General Sherman would not take the office. To whom did he next offer it? To Major General George H. Thomas. It seemed that the President had picked out the three men of all others in the nation who could command the respect and confidence of the nation in reference to the purpose he had in view in the matter. You cannot make crime out of this, Senators.

The President had one purpose in view, and that was to change the head of the War Department, and it would have delighted him to make the change, and put there permanently any competent man, and thus get rid of the condition of his Cabinet. What then, gentlemen? He executed this law in other respects. He changed the forms of his commissions: he reported suspensions under this law, and, Senators, it is one of the strongest facts in this case. He did not take up this law and tear it to pieces; he did not take this law and trample it under foot; and in all other respects he tried to obey it without the surrender of his own convictions. It is said that in the suspension of Mr. Stanton he acted under the law. I cannot adjust it to your law; and instead of seizing upon that as a subject of censure, I tell you it was an overture from the President to get out of this difficulty and to conciliate you. Take that suspension-take the act. In the very letter of the message of suspension he tells you my Cabinet, and Mr. Stanton the most emphatic of all, believe this law is unconstitutional.

Mr. Stanton was the one that was selected to draw up these objections. But the President tells you in that act of suspension what his views were about the law. He goes on and tells you further in that very message:-"We had this matter up in the Cabinet meeting, when the Secretaries said it did not apply to him or to any other of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet." All these opinions were in his mind. He communicated them in the very message