History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson [120]
as adjusted by the Organic Act--constitutes the balance wheel of our political system.
The logical effect of the doctrines promulgated by the House of Representatives in that regard, and re-echoed on the floor of the Senate, in the press and on the stump throughout the North, were therefore not only revolutionary, but destructive. To have removed the President upon accusations in reality based upon partisan and personal--not amounting even to substantial political differences--would have been the establishment of a precedent of the most dangerous character.
In a large sense, the American system of politics and of government was on trial, quite as much as was Andrew Johnson. The extreme element of American politics was in absolute control in the House of Representatives, and practically so, in the Senate. The impeachment and removal of the President on unsubstantiated, or even remotely doubtful charges, simply: because of a disagreement between himself and Congress as to the method of treating a great public emergency, would have introduced a new and destructive practice into our political system.
Logically, the introduction of such a practice on that occasion would have been construed as a precedent for the treatment of future public emergencies. Thus, it would have tended to disturb the now perfect adjustment of the balance of powers between the co-ordinate branches. That quality of absolute supremacy of the several departments in their respective spheres, or functions, and of co-ordination or equality in their relations to each other, established by the Constitution as a guarantee of the perpetuity of our political system, would have been endangered, and the result could not have been otherwise than disaster in the future.
Logically, the Presidency would in time have been. degraded to the position of a mere department for the execution of the decrees of the legislative branch. Not illogically, the Supreme Court would have been the next object of attack, and the legislature have become, by this unconstitutional absorption of the powers of Government, the sole, controlling force--in short the Government.
That would, in time, by equally logical sequence, have been the natural, inevitable result--and the end. The wreckage of the Great Republic of the age would have been strown upon the sands of the political seashore--relics of the disregard of the checks and balances established by the wisdom of its framers, in the fundamental law--and all for the satisfaction of personal ambitions and the hates of factional animosities.
History affords too many illustrations of that tendency to decadence and disruption from disregard of the proper and necessary checks and balances in the distribution and equalization of the powers of government, to permit us to doubt what the final end would have been had the President been removed on the unsubstantiated accusation preferred by the House of Representatives, Our peculiar system of political government--a Democratic Republic--passed the danger point of its history in that hour.
It was indeed a narrow escape. The history of civilization records no precisely similar condition. The country then passed the most threatening period of its history--but passed it safely. The result was the highest possible testimonial to the strength and endurance of properly adjusted Democratic institutions that history records.
It emphasized not only the capacity of the American people for intelligent and orderly self-government, but also the strength and endurance of our popular forms. It was a profound surprise to those habituated to different political conditions. They had witnessed with astonishment the quiet disbandment of millions of men but as yesterday engaged in mortal strife--the vast armies as peacefully returning to former vocations as though from a great parade--and now, from a state of civil convulsion that in many another nation would have produced armed collision and public disorder, they saw an entire people quietly accepting the verdict of the highest authoritive body of
The logical effect of the doctrines promulgated by the House of Representatives in that regard, and re-echoed on the floor of the Senate, in the press and on the stump throughout the North, were therefore not only revolutionary, but destructive. To have removed the President upon accusations in reality based upon partisan and personal--not amounting even to substantial political differences--would have been the establishment of a precedent of the most dangerous character.
In a large sense, the American system of politics and of government was on trial, quite as much as was Andrew Johnson. The extreme element of American politics was in absolute control in the House of Representatives, and practically so, in the Senate. The impeachment and removal of the President on unsubstantiated, or even remotely doubtful charges, simply: because of a disagreement between himself and Congress as to the method of treating a great public emergency, would have introduced a new and destructive practice into our political system.
Logically, the introduction of such a practice on that occasion would have been construed as a precedent for the treatment of future public emergencies. Thus, it would have tended to disturb the now perfect adjustment of the balance of powers between the co-ordinate branches. That quality of absolute supremacy of the several departments in their respective spheres, or functions, and of co-ordination or equality in their relations to each other, established by the Constitution as a guarantee of the perpetuity of our political system, would have been endangered, and the result could not have been otherwise than disaster in the future.
Logically, the Presidency would in time have been. degraded to the position of a mere department for the execution of the decrees of the legislative branch. Not illogically, the Supreme Court would have been the next object of attack, and the legislature have become, by this unconstitutional absorption of the powers of Government, the sole, controlling force--in short the Government.
That would, in time, by equally logical sequence, have been the natural, inevitable result--and the end. The wreckage of the Great Republic of the age would have been strown upon the sands of the political seashore--relics of the disregard of the checks and balances established by the wisdom of its framers, in the fundamental law--and all for the satisfaction of personal ambitions and the hates of factional animosities.
History affords too many illustrations of that tendency to decadence and disruption from disregard of the proper and necessary checks and balances in the distribution and equalization of the powers of government, to permit us to doubt what the final end would have been had the President been removed on the unsubstantiated accusation preferred by the House of Representatives, Our peculiar system of political government--a Democratic Republic--passed the danger point of its history in that hour.
It was indeed a narrow escape. The history of civilization records no precisely similar condition. The country then passed the most threatening period of its history--but passed it safely. The result was the highest possible testimonial to the strength and endurance of properly adjusted Democratic institutions that history records.
It emphasized not only the capacity of the American people for intelligent and orderly self-government, but also the strength and endurance of our popular forms. It was a profound surprise to those habituated to different political conditions. They had witnessed with astonishment the quiet disbandment of millions of men but as yesterday engaged in mortal strife--the vast armies as peacefully returning to former vocations as though from a great parade--and now, from a state of civil convulsion that in many another nation would have produced armed collision and public disorder, they saw an entire people quietly accepting the verdict of the highest authoritive body of