throne, and King Charles lost his head; while we, the Representatives of the people, adjudge only that there is probable cause shown why Andrew Johnson should be deprived of the office he has desecrated and the power he has abused, and if convicted by the court to which we shall send him, be forever incapable of filling that office the ambition to be again nominated to which has been the moving spring of all these crimes."

George W. Woodward [Dem.], of Pennsylvania, formerly Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of his State, urged the legal reasons against impeachment. He said that, since all the States were not represented in the House and Senate, there was no competency in the former chamber to impeach an officer, nor in the latter to try him.

"If I were the President's counselor I would advise him, if you preferred articles of impeachment, to demur to your jurisdiction and to that of the Senate, and issue a proclamation giving you and all the world notice that, while he held himself impeachable for misdemeanors in office before the constitutional tribunal, he never would subject the office he holds in trust to the irregular, unconstitutional, and fragmentary bodies who propose to strip him of it."

Mr. Boutwell stated what in his opinion was "the plot in which the President is engaged."

He desires, first, to get control of the war department, in order that, as in 1861, the munitions of war, arms, and material might be used for the purpose of enabling him to succeed in his aspirations to be President of the United States. He knows that if he can corrupt the officers in charge of the Southern military departments these ten States will be in his control, and that he can send to the Democratic convention, on the 4th of July next men who would sustain his claim for the presidency. Then he can secure the electoral votes of those ten States by excluding the negroes whom we have enfranchised from all participation in the election. If by fortune he should receive a sufficient number of votes in the North to make a majority, then, with the support of the army which he had corrupted he has determined to be inaugurated President of the United States at the hazard of civil war. To-day we escape from these evils and dangers.

Later in the day Mr. Stevens [Pa.] closed the debate, which had broken all previous records in the number of speeches made in a single day, these, together with the speeches not delivered, but printed, filling more than 200 columns of the Congressional Globe.

Mr. Stevens prefaced his remarks by adverting to the importance of the issue.

The charge, if falsely made, did a cruel wrong to the Chief Executive of the nation; if true, proved him guilty of so atrocious usurpation as was "ever perpetrated by the most detestable tyrant who ever oppressed his fellow-men. The question, therefore, should be discussed in no partisan spirit, but with legal accuracy and impartial justice. The people desire no victim, and they will tolerate no usurper."

In order to sustain impeachment under our Constitution I do not hold that it is necessary to prove a crime as an indictable offence, or any act malum in se.1 I agree with the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Judge Woodward], on the other side of the House, who holds this to be a purely political proceeding. It is intended as a remedy for malfeasance in office and to prevent the continuance thereof. Beyond that it is not intended as a personal punishment for past offences or for future example

The speaker then recounted the "official misdemeanors" of the President, beginning with the latest, the removal of Secretary Stanton. In connection with this removal he admitted to the quarrel which had arisen between the President and General Grant. In this recrimination, he said, if the President told the truth, "he is guilty of a high misdemeanor, for he avows his effort to prevent the execution of the law." If the General tells the truth, the President is again proved guilty, for the General corroborates the President's avowal, but denies complicity in the effort.

We propose to prove on the trial that Andrew Johnson was guilty of misprision of bribery by offering to General Grant, if he would unite with him in his lawless violence, to assume in his stead the penalties and to endure the imprisonment denounced. by the law. Bribery is one of the offences specifically enumer

"Evil in itself."

ated for which the President may be impeached and removed from office.

The speaker then reviewed the course of the President beginning with the inauguration of his reconstruction policy, and asserted that it was in defiance of the Constitution.

If Andrew Johnson escapes with bare removal from office, if he be not fined and incarcerated in the penitentiary afterward under criminal proceedings, he may thank the weakness or the clemency of Congress and not his own innocence.

I trust that when we come to vote upon this question we shall remember that, although it is the duty of the President to see that the laws be executed, the sovereign power of the nation rests in Congress, who have been placed around the Executive as muniments to defend his rights, and as watchmen to enforce his obedience to the law and the Constitution. His oath to obey the Constitution and our duty to compel him to do it are a tremendous obligation, heavier than was ever assumed by mortal rulers. We are to protect or to destroy the liberty and happiness of a mighty people, and to take care that they progress in civilization and defend themselves against every kind of tyranny. As we deal with the first great political malefactor, so will be the result of our efforts to perpetuate the happiness and good government of the human race. The God of our fathers, who inspired them with the thought of universal freedom, will hold us responsible for the noble institutions which they projected and expected us to carry out. This is not to be the temporary triumph of a political party, but is to endure in its consequence until this whole continent shall be filled with a free and untrammeled people or shall be a nest of shrinking, cowardly slaves.

The resolution that the President be impeached was then adopted by a strictly partisan vote of 126 yeas, 47 nays, 17 absent or not voting. Of the absentees and non-voters, only one was a Democrat.

The speaker appointed Mr. Boutwell, Mr. Bingham, Mr. Wilson, General Logan, Mr. Julian, and Hamilton Ward [N. Y.] as a committee to draw up the articles of impeachment.

On February 29 the committee made its report, which was adopted on March 2 by a party vote. The House

then elected the following managers of impeachment. There were, in the order of number of votes received: Mr. Bingham, Mr. Boutwell, Mr. Wilson, General Butler, Thomas Williams [Pa.], General Logan, and Mr. Stevens. The Democrats refused to vote.

On February 22 the President had sent to the Senate the nomination of Thomas Ewing, Sr. [O.], as Secretary of War. The choice of this distinguished statesman, who was known as a staunch Republican, was a shrewd challenge to the Senate, but that body refused now to accept as the issue the qualifications of the appointee, and insisted that it was whether or not a vacancy existed. To uphold their contention that Edwin M. Stanton was still Secretary of War, the Senate, on February 24, refused to accept the nomination of Mr. Ewing. Nevertheless the action of the President in making so unexceptionable a nomination tended to impress the country that he was standing upon his rights and not seeking a partisan advantage.

The trial of President Johnson before the Senate began on March 5, 1868. As the report of it belongs more properly to a work entitled "Great Trials" rather than "Great Debates" in American history, only a bare account of it will be given here. Besides, the Government published the full proceedings in a separate volume, which may be obtained by those interested as a public document.

THE TRIAL OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON

Chief-Justice Salmon P. Chase presided. Mr. Bingham, chairman of the managers, read the articles of impeachment. They related chiefly to the President's removal of Secretary Stanton, though minor offences, such as the President's harangues against Congress, in which he stated that the Thirty-ninth Congress was illegitimate, were also charged.

At the conclusion of the reading of the articles the Senate adjourned to March 13. On this day Henry Stanbery, who had resigned his position as AttorneyGeneral to become counsel for the President, asked for