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The Impeachment
of Andrew Johnson |
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»Impeachment, Trial, and Acquittal |
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THE OPENING OF THE PRESIDENTS COUNSEL
The case for the President was opened by Mr. Curtis. His great renown as
an able lawyer, possibly the head of his profession in the country, and the weight of his
personal character, gave peculiar interest to his plea. It was known that he would say the
best that could be said for his client; that he would subject the letter of the law to the
most trying ordeal of possible interpretation; and that he would ingeniously shift the
lights and shadows upon the facts of the case to favor his own view, in the manner of all
great advocates, and with an effect deepened by the apparent passionlessness of his
manner. Indeed the advocate has no art so profoundly skillful as the air of severe
judicial impartiality: the appearance of seeking the truth for the truths sake
merely, and urging the acquittal of his client as a homage which a magnanimous jury or
Senate will naturally be anxious to offer to their own high sense of justice. This quality
Mr. Curtis possesses, and he has been trained in a school favorable to its development,
for he has been Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.Yet, when the best has been said
for the President, how unsatisfactory it is! The first thing that impresses the reader of
the argument of Mr. Curtis is that, however able, there is nothing new in it. The whole
case is so simple and so open to the public appreciation that the line of defense which
was indicated at the very beginning of the trial as the only possible line, is the one
that has been followed. Mr. Curtiss argument subjects the Tenure-of-Office Act to
the most searching verbal analysis; but while it marshals probabilities and possibilities,
and suggestions and surmises, with consummate skill, the great facts steadfastly and
impregnably confront them all. Mr. Curtis contends that Mr. Stanton is not within the
scope of the law; that the law is against precedent and interpretation; that, therefore,
amidst the conflict of authorities and the uniformity of practice, to question the
validity of the law is not necessary hostility to the Government; that Mr. Stanton has not
been removed; and that Mr. Stanton having been removed the office was vacant.
These points are elaborated with great
ability; but the mind remains unconvinced, because it is part of the skill of the orator
to omit a whole series of facts which control the case, and which are familiar to the
country. The argument of Mr. Curtis assumes that an upright magistrate, anxious to execute
the laws, and theoretically preserving order and promoting concord at a time of great
national disturbance, finds himself at last constrained to doubt the validity of a law,
and therefore seeks a judicial interpretation of its constitutionality. Were this really
the case, Mr. Curtis would perhaps not have made his ingenious plea, for the President
would very possibly not have been impeached. He is impeached because the violation of a
law by this particular President under the peculiar circumstances in which he stands is of
itself evidence of intention. In another case it might not be. In another case, as we have
formerly supposed, and as Mr. Butler stated in his opening speech, there might have been a
friendly understanding between the Executive and the Legislature in order to test the law.
But his is a very different case. If, under any circumstances, such conduct upon the part
of the Executive ought to be tolerated, and it is certainly very doubtful, in this case it
would be madness. Men must be judged by their conduct and character. If Andrew Johnson
should be allowed to set aside laws because he professed to have scruples as to their
constitutionality, the country would deserve the anarchy into which it would inevitably
fall.
Mr. Curtis fortifies the doubts which the
President professes to entertain by the opinion of many eminent men, and by what he claims
to be the settled interpretation. But the question is not of opinions, but of laws. The
Tenure-of-Office Bill may seem unwise to the shades of the great departed, but if laws
were to be disregarded because great men had prospectively condemned them, government
would be at an end. Mr. Curtis farther says, that if the President did not take the
responsibility of testing the law in the Courts, it could not be tested. But if he takes
the responsibility he must also take the risk. One law properly passed is as binding upon
him as another. If he is to execute only the laws which he thinks constitutional, it makes
no difference to an honest officer whether they immediately concern himself or others. He
has no right, as Mr. Curtis suggests, to leave them in the latter case to be tested by
those whom they affect. If a law be unconstitutional, the Executive ought not to connive
at its execution; and if he is to be the judge in any case, he is the judge in all cases.
Nothing can be plainer, and no principle more vitally important, than that the President
must execute all the laws, without exception, which have not been adjudged
unconstitutional, or resign. If possible inconveniences result, they are not to be
compared with the certain perils of any other course.
We doubt if Mr. Stanbery or Mr. Evarts
can add weight to the argument of Mr. Curtis. Even should the witnesses for the President
establish what his counsel wish, we do not see how it could be sufficient. They certainly
can not disprove that the Tenure-of-Office Act is a law regularly enacted; that it has not
been declared unconstitutional; that it authorizes the Secretary of War, and the other
Secretaries, to hold their offices "for and during the term of the President by whom
they may have been appointed, and one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate;" and that the President removed the Secretary of
War without the advice and consent of the Senate. And if Mr. Curtis has been unable to
show that Mr. Stanton does not stand within the terms of the law are his colleagues likely
to do it?
Articles Related to the Impeachment, Trial, and
Acquittal:
To see a list of the related
articles go back to the intro
section. |
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