WHAT NEXT?
The President has for some months declared plainly that, in his judgment,
Congress is not a constitutional body; and the air has been full of rumors and surmises as
to his probable action upon the meeting of Congress. Indeed, the late story in the
Philadelphia Ledger, although immediately confessed to be false, was not so
improbable but that the public mind was at once directed more earnestly to the actual
situation. Nor ought that attention to be relaxed. This not a time in which any good is to
be gained by refusing to consider every possibility.The case will bear to be constantly stated. The President differs
with Congress as to the conditions of restoration which ought to be imposed upon the late
rebel States. He speaks of their "exclusion," and of their "right" to
be represented, and of the "usurpation" of Congress in requiring conditions, but
it is nevertheless true that he himself united in such exclusion; that he denied their
"right" to representation by exhorting them to form governments which should be
satisfactory to Congress; and that he imposed certain terms satisfactory to himself. The
theory now adopted by him is utterly subversive of the Government and of a harmonious
Union, for it allows any State to make war upon the Union, and at any moment, by laying
down its arms, to resume all its relations within it without any guarantee whatever of
future security.
That such is not the theory of the people
who have maintained the Government during the war is made perfectly clear by the autumn
elections, and nothing is plainer than that they will not submit to its practical
enforcement. If the President should undertake to withstand their resolution, he could
succeed only by totally overpowering them, and surrendering the Government to its most
envenomed enemies and the Union to the care of those who hate it. His success would, of
course, be the present end of the American Union, and the discomfiture of the principle of
popular government. But as his chief reliance in the struggle would be upon the late
rebels, it would be for him and his friends to remember that his opponents would be the
mass of the lately victorious people of the loyal States together with all the Union men
of the South of every color.
Every patriotic and thoughtful man is
naturally unwilling to believe that so grievous a contest is possible; but with a man like
the President everything is possible. No fear of being an alarmist should prevent every
man from looking steadfastly at the facts, or from considering the drift of the situation.
The President has not ceased to vituperate Congress as an illegal body. The difference
between them has been presented to the people, and they have declared every where for
Congress. That is not a result which is likely to pacify such a man as the President. He
knows that he is openly threatened with impeachment. Mr. Boutwell, at a meeting in Faneuil
Hall in Boston, announced that he should move in Congress an inquiry looking to
impeachment. Mr. Loring, in supporting the nomination of General Butler, says that he is
pledged to the same course. Is it probable that the President will meet Congress and send
in his Message as if nothing had happened? If he be persuaded that he is likely to be
impeached, is it not possible that he might endeavor to gain the advantage in advance over
the impeaching body?
These are questions that can not fail to
suggest themselves to every man.
But we hope sincerely that the President
may not only hear but fully understand the result of the elections. He has constantly
asserted his faith in the people, and certainly he has now heard from the people. But as
the spiritual medium always insists when the experiment fails that the conditions are not
favorable, so the President may contend that "the people" means the whole voting
population of the country at the South as well as at the North. If, however, he plants
himself upon that ground, he should remember that even then the majority of an entire
Congress must be held to indicate the popular will, and that that has decided against him.
Since it has so decided, the President
may now wisely and properly say and do what he did when the Civil Rights Bill was passed
over his veto. He may declare that he differs, but at the same time he may submit to the
superior will. It is well for us all to anticipate that action upon his part, without
losing sight of the possibilities of which we have spoken. That is the plain way of peace,
and his own satisfaction in walking in it would be beyond his most ambitious dreams.
Should he acquiesce in the popular decision, public opinion would forbid Mr. Boutwell and
General Butler from fulfilling their pledge.
Articles Related to the Initial Impeachment
Discussions:
The President Judged by Himself
August 25, 1866, page 530
Reconstruction and How
it Works (cartoon)
September 1, 1866, pages 552-553
Which Is The More
Illegal (cartoon)
September 8, 1866, page 569
The New Orleans Report
October 20, 1866, page 658
The New Orleans Massacre
IMarch 30, 1867, page 202
Text from Illustration of Andys Trip
October 27, 1866, pages 680-681
The Great Campaign of
66
September 29, 1866, page 610
What Next?
October 27, 1866, page 674
King Andy (cartoon)
November 3, 1866 page 696
Shall the President be
Impeached?
November 3, 1866, page 690
The Popular Will
November 24, 1866, page 738
Andy Makes a Call on
Uncle Sam, Who Rises to the Occasion (cartoon)
December 1, 1866, page 768
Impeachment and General
Butler
December 15, 1866, page 786
Congress
December 22, 1866, page 803
What Next?
December 29, 1866, page 818
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