leaders of the rebellion, wholly unprovided for. The amendment of the Constitution meets my hearty approval, but it is not a remedy for the evils we must deal with. The next plan is that inaugurated by the President of the United States, in the proclamation of the eighth of December (1863), called the amnesty proclamation. That proposes no guardianship of the United States over the reorganization of the Governments, no law to prescribe who shall vote, no civil functionaries to see that the law is faithfully executed, no supervising authority to control and judge of the election. But if in any manner by the toleration of martial law, lately proclaimed the fundamental law, under the dictation of any military authority, or under the prescription of a provost marshal, something in the form of a Government shall be presented, represented to rest on the votes of one-tenth of the population, the President will recognize that, provided it does not contravene the proclamation of freedom and the laws of Congress; and to secure that an oath is exacted. There is no guaranty of law to watch over the organization of that Government. It may be recognized by the military power, and not recognized by the civil power, so that it would have a doubtful existence, half-civil and half-military, neither a temporary Government by law of Congress nor a State Government, something as unknown to the Constitution as the rebel Government that refuses to recognize it. The only prescription is that it shall not contravene the provisions of the proclamation. Sir, if that proclamation be valid, then we are relieved from all trouble on that score. But if that proclamation be not valid, then the oath to support it is without legal sanction, for the President can ask no man to bind himself by an oath to support an unfounded proclamation or an unconstitutional law even for a moment, still less after it shall have been declared void by the Supreme Court of the United States. By the bill we propose to preclude the judicial question by the solution of a political question. How so? By the paramount power of Congress to reorganize Governments in those States, to impose such conditions as it thinks necessary to secure the permanence of republican government, to refuse to recognize any Governments there which do not prohibit slavery forever. Aye, gentlemen, take the responsibility to say in the face of those who clamor for the speedy recognition of Governments tolerating slavery, that the safety of the people of the United States is the supreme law; that their will is the supreme rule of law, and that we are authorized to pronounce their will on this subject. Take the responsibility to say that we will revise the judgments of our ancestors; that we have experience written in blood which they had not; that we find now what they darkly doubted, that slavery is really, radically inconsistent with the permanence of re publican governments; and that being charged by the supreme law of the land on our conscience and judgment to guarantee, that is to continue, maintain, and enforce, if it exist, to institute and restore, when overthrown, republican government throughout the broad limits of the republic, we will weed out every element of their policy which we think incompatible with its permanence and endurance. The purpose of the bill is to preclude the judicial question of the validity and effect of the President's proclamation by the decision of the political authority in reorganizing the State Governments. It makes the rule of decision the provisions of the State Constitution, which, when recognized by Congress, can be questioned in no court; and it adds to the authority of the proclamation the sanction of Congress. If gentlemen say that the Constitution does not bear that construction, we will go before the people of the United States on that question, and by their judgment we will abide. The Mission of the Republic. By WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD, of New York. E see only the rising of the sun of empire only the fair seeds and beginnings of a great nation. Whether that glowing orb shall attain to a meridian height, or fall suddenly from its glorious spherewhether those prolific seeds shall mature into autumnal ripeness, or shall perish, yielding no harvest - depends on God's will and providence. But God's will and providence operate not by casualty or caprice, but by fixed and revealed laws. If we would secure the greatness set before us, we must find the way which those laws indicate, and keep within it. That way is new and all untried. We departed early we departed at the beginning — from the beaten track of national ambition. Our lot was cast in an age of revolution a revolution which was to bring all mankind from a state of servitude to the exercise of self-government from under the tyranny of physical force to the gentle sway of opinion - from under subjection to matter to dominion over nature. - It was ours to lead the way, to take up the cross of republicanism and bear it before the nations, to fight its earliest battles, to enjoy its earliest triumphs, to illustrate its purifying and elevating virtues, and by our courage and resolution, our moderation and our magnanimity, to cheer and sustain its future followers through the baptism of blood and the martyrdom of fire. A mission so noble and benevolent demands a generous and self-denying enthusiasm. Our greatness is to be won by beneficence without ambition. We are in danger of losing that holy zeal. We are surrounded by temptations. Our dwellings become palaces, and our villages are transformed, as if by magic, into great cities. Fugitives from famine and oppression and the sword crowd our shores, and proclaim to us that we alone are free, and great, and happy. Ambition for martial fame and the lust of conquest have entered the warm, living, youthful heart of the Republic. Our empire enlarges. The castles of enemies fall before our advancing armies; the gates of cities open to receive them. The continent and its islands seem ready to fall within our grasp, and more than even fabulous wealth opens under our feet. No public virtue can withstand, none ever encountered, such seductions as these. Our own virtue and moderation must be renewed and fortified under circumstances so new and peculiar. Where shall we seek the influence adequate to a task so arduous as this? Shall we invoke the press and the desk? They only reflect the actual condition of the public morals, and cannot change them. Shall we resort to the executive authority? The time has passed when it could compose and modify the political elements around it. Shall we go to the Senate? Conspiracies, seditions, and corruptions, in all free countries, have begun there. Where, then, shall we go, to find an agency that can uphold and renovate declining public virtue? Where should we go, but there where all republican virtue begins and must end where the Promethean fire is ever to be rekindled, until it shall finally expire where motives are formed and passions disciplined? to the domestic fireside and humble school, where the American citizen is trained. Instruct him there, that it will not be enough that he can claim for his country Lacedæmonian heroism, or even the Italian's boast, "Terra potens atque ubere glebae," but that more than Spartan valor and more than Roman magnificence is required of her. Go, then, ye laborers in a noble cause, gather the young Catholic and the young Protestant alike into the nursery of freedom; and teach them there that, although religion has many and different shrines on which may be made the offering of a "broken spirit," which God will not despise, yet that their country has appointed only one altar and one sacrifice for all her sons, and that ambition and avarice must be slain on that altar, for it is consecrated to Lumanity. Impeachment of President Johnson. By BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, of New Hampshire. HE issue, then, finally, is this: that those utterances of his, in the manner and form in which they are alleged to have been made, and under the circumstances and at the time they were made, are decent and becoming the President of the United States, and do not tend to bring the office into ridicule and disgrace. We accept the issues. They are two: First. That he has the right to say what he did of Congress in the exercise of freedom of speech; and, second, that what he did say in those speeches was a highly gentlemanlike and proper performance in a citizen, and still more becoming in a President of the United States. Let us first consider the graver matter of the assertion of the right to cast contumely upon Congress; to denounce it as a "body hanging on the verge of the Government;""pretending to be a Congress when in fact it was not a Congress;" "a Congress pretending to be for the Union when its every step and act tended to perpetuate disunion," "and make a disruption of the States inevitable; a Congress in a minority assuming to exercise power which, if allowed to be consummated, would result in despotism and monarchy itself;" "a Congress which had done everything to prevent the union of the States; " "a Congress factious and domineering;" "a radical Congress, which gave origin to another rebellion; " "a Congress upon whose skirts was every drop of blood that was shed in the New Orleans riots." You will find that these denunciations had a deeper meaning than mere expressions of opinion. It may be taken as an axiom in the affairs of nations that no usurper has ever seized upon the Legislature of his country until he has familiarized the people with the possibility of so doing by vituperating and decrying it. Denunciatory attacks upon the Legislature have always preceded, slanderous abuse of the individuals composing it have always accompanied, a seizure by a despot of the legislative power of a country. |