CHAP. III.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S ERRORS.

41

as the Executive to stand by the States which had sinned and repented, and which now demanded his protection. But Mr. Johnson was not free from the Southern inflammability of temperament, and the gibes of his political antagonists unfortunately excited him to make open war upon the Legislative. Misled by his belief that almost unlimited power was intrusted to him, he sought opportunities to attack Congress when ordinary discretion might have admonished him to act on the defensive. He spoke of that body as "hanging on the verge of the government," "traitors at the other end of the line," "the tail of the government," and used other terms which denoted that in his opinion he possessed the chief, and Congress only a secondary right, to direct public affairs. The people were alarmed at this language, and deeply offended by the want of dignity and self-command which the President occasionally displayed. In this respect Americans are not less sensitive than the older and more aristocratic nations of the world. They expect their chief magistrate to comport himself in a manner becoming the head of a great people. They may choose him from a humble rank, but they look to him to rise to the level of the post in which they place him. Mr. Johnson's constant allusions to his original calling were excessively distasteful to the people. They considered that he dishonoured himself and his office by haranguing every crowd which chose to bring a barbarous band of music under his windows, and yell forth vulgar

songs, and scream for "Andy Johnson." They were ashamed to find their chief magistrate bandying slang and interchanging coarse personalities with the scourings of the streets and the ruffians of the barroom. They smarted under the sense that they were degraded in the eyes of the world, and that a great crisis in their affairs was made to look puerile and mean. It was useless for Mr. Johnson to boast of his humble origin and his early struggles. The nation took no pride in them. An American writer well expressed the common feeling of his countrymen when he remarked-"The people do not take it as a compliment to be told that they have chosen a plebeian to the highest office, for they are not fond of a plebeian tone of mind or manners. What they do like, we believe, is to be represented by their foremost man, their highest type of courage, sense, and patriotism, no matter what his origin."2 But it was with strange forgetfulness of the very root of all their political and social theories that the President's origin was cast in his teeth as an insult. The coarseness of these attacks sometimes shocked men

of all parties. "His head," said a member of the House, at a public meeting in Washington,3 "will rest more quietly on the lapboard and the goose than while oppressed with a crown." It was a mistake on the part of the President to dwell so much upon the

2 North American Review,' April 1866.

3 Held 3rd December, 1866. The speaker was Mr. Covode, of Pennsylvania.

CHAP. III. CONGRESSIONAL STRUGGLE FOR MASTERY.

43

past, but it was cowardice in his opponents to make it matter of reproach against him. They had not been deceived. They chose with their eyes open. They knew who and what Mr. Johnson was before they elected him Vice-President. If the people do not like mechanics to be their great public officers, they need not go to that class for them. But the truth is, that many of the results of popular government are unsatisfactory to the Americans when they are brought into close contact with them. They would not for the world renounce the principle that all men are equal; but they would give a great deal to make their principle harmonise with facts.

The differences between the President and the Legislature soon became irreconcilable. Mr. Johnson thoroughly believed that Congress was exceeding its proper functions in refusing to adopt his or some similar plan for the speedy admission of the eleven insurgent States; and yet nothing can be more firmly established than the right of each House to decide for itself upon the qualifications of its members. This was a province in which the Executive had no right to interfere. But Mr. Johnson was eager to restore the Southern States to their former position, honestly believing that representation in the national legislature belonged to them of right, and that it was to the interest of the country that they should possess it soon and unabridged. The majority in Congress contended that the Secessionists had forfeited their former claim to representation, and could

only be received afresh into the Legislature upon new terms, such terms as their conquerors chose to insist on. Then arose the charge and countercharge of "centralization" and "oppression." Members of Congress standing up in their places stigmatised the President as a tyrant, a despot, and an usurper. He was even accused of conspiring with the assassin Booth, a low theatrical madman, to murder Mr. Lincoln. The most intolerable accusations were levelled at his private character. Mr. Johnson retorted upon his assailants in a similar temper, and in language not less violent than that which proceeded from their lips. He made his appeal to the country through his veto messages, and the answer was returned by the re-election of the Congress which had passed its Bills over his vetoes, and thus reduced him to the position of a mere agent who feebly protests against measures which he is bound to put into execution with his own hand.

All these events proved that the power of the Executive is very limited, and that what little of it there is depends upon the will of the people. Popular or unpopular, the President stands practically unsupported. He is the Minister of Congress, a chief magistrate, not an independent ruler. No man occupying the Presidential chair can hope to carry out his own views or measures when Congress is confirmed in its opposition to him by the majority of the people. His blindness to this unwritten law was another of the errors into which Mr. Johnson fell, and it was one which added to the misfortunes of

CHAP. III.

THE POWER OF THE LEGISLATURE.

45

the Southern States. The Northern people, angered at the zeal and ardour of their partizan, became more and more embittered against those who had endeavoured to destroy the Union. The generous impulse of forgiveness which immediately succeeded the war soon passed away. The President was determined to bring the South back into the Union upon what he deemed just, and what undoubtedly were strictly constitutional, conditions. He did not take into consideration several circumstances which might have been sufficient to warn him that failure beset his steps. During the war unusual, and even unconstitutional, powers had been wielded by the Executive. The liberty of the press was sometimes interrupted, and private citizens were arrested, as Mr. Seward said, upon the tinkling of a little bell. These and a hundred other arbitrary acts were condoned by the people in consideration of the perils to the government which they were designed to ward off or avenge. The war came to an end; Mr. Lincoln died; and his successor thought to exercise the same authoritative sway which had been sanctioned in the hour of the nation's trial and extremity. He did not perceive that an absolutism which was justifiable in time of war would not be submitted to in time of peace. Congressional rule, which had sunk into comparative abeyance, was sure to be revived. The Legislative, which had to a certain extent been subverted, began to recover its former place. The issue was invited by the Presi