Gold Hill Daily News

[From the Carson Appeal, February 28.]

Nasby's occupation's gone. By deliberate action, the House of Representatives has squared 'the circle' around which Johnson has been so noisily swinging, and holds him close within one of the corners of its newly contrived geometrical figure. The President has learned very suddenly that the 'Constitution' is not all his own and that the Executive of the United States is as amenable to the laws of the land as another and more 'humble individual.' But the President has skirmished fast and with all his might to hold his own. He 'overplayed his hand' as the sports say. First he suspended Stanton; then he slaughtered Phil. Sheridan; then he nipped off Sickles' head; then Pope fell a victim to 'my policy.' These ventures were got along with smoothly enough and the President felt his courage rising. All at once, however, he stumbled up against an unexpected flank movement of Grant's. With this the downfall of his Accidency's career began. Grant's frustration of the Presidential scheme upset the whole plan; and then and thereafter Johnson struck out wildly, hastily, recklessly. He tried in vain, and most shamelessly, to impugn Grant's veracity. Failing in this, he sought to make a catspaw of Sherman. That dodge failed. Then he tried the same game on General George H. Thomas. That attempt was also a failure. Headed off at all points, this clumsy strategist reasoning with himself that Wilson of Iowa, Banks of Massachusetts, and some other conservative Republicans would defeat again, as they did before, any attempt at impeachment, he slashes away at the Tenure of Office Act, determined to test the 'constitutionality' of that measure by kicking his foot through it. Right then and there his circle got squared. He talks no more about 'forcible resistance' as he did when he sent his annual message to Congress; but with an air as meek and meeching as a whip-dreading pointer, he begs the Senate to understand that when he broke the Tenure of Office Law he merely meant to try a little harmless experiment for his dear Constitution's sake. This burly blusterer is a lily-livered coward! He sees, all at once, that he holds a barren sceptre in his hand; that the army and navy are not concealed weapons of his own; that his lip-valiant secession, conservative, toad-eating friends, who have been urging him to drive Congress out of the Capitol at the point of the bayonet, are as shameless braggarts and faint hearted, impotent brawlers as himself. The bully is frightened and now tries to beg immunity from the consequences he has defied. He should be impeached for his poltroonery, if for nothing else! There is talk of ninety days as the time necessary to convict this wretch of his crimes. The trial will be too long if it occupies ninety hours. We would have the Senate proceed deliberately, but promptly. There is no time to be wasted in courtesy and the tying of red tape while the country is suffering as it is now. Try the culprit speedily and either convict or acquit him, at once. Either do this or set a precedent, and suspend him. Suppose he had deliberately murdered Grant, burned the White House, raised the secession flag over that structure, or done any other flagrant act. Would it be safe for him to remain unsuspended from the exercise of the Chief Magistracy? We would say then that Congress had no Constitutional right to arrest him and send the Vice President to take his place? This must be a very flimsy fabric of Government if it is liable to be at the mercy of a felon or an usurper. This man Johnson has, with his hands, torn a law of the land in twain; has as much as said that he has a divine, sovereign right to be considered above all law: He has gone further and usurped to himself the right to decide the constitutionality of Acts of Congress. He has not only set himself up as superior to the Legislative branch of the Government, but he has arrogated to himself the judicial powers of the Supreme Court. When such a base, bad man is indicted or impeached he should be arrested and denied all bail, and should be stripped of every show of power until the charges against him are disposed of. The old Capitol Prison and not the White House is the right place for him. Congress will deserve to be dispersed if it fails to proceed with this impeachment business with a strong hand. Johnson's power is all air. There is nothing of it, either moral, physical or political. He is a pest, a danger, a sore on the body politic; an outlaw, a baulked desperado, a confederate relic. Brush him away then. Take his vile person out of the Chair of State and obliterate him from politics. The first of May will see restoration and reconstruction completed, the Democracy begging to support Grant as a 'greenback man,' or something else, and the United States once more a calm, peaceful, tranquil nation, plodding along in the enjoyment of rest and quietude and growing fat with prosperity and health, if Congress will only do its duty with a firm hand and unhesitating dispatch. Now, of all times, delays are dangerous.