The Democratic Advocate

Who is Responsible.

: 4

The Radical press is trying to make a little political capital by a parade of figures which seem to show that it cost more to collect the revenue under Andrew Johnson than it does under Grant. The New York Tribune says: 'It has cost less, under President Grant, to collect, under a reduced tariff $294,725,139.21 of the customs, than it did under President Johnson to collect $251,973,708.19.' Andrew Johnson was nominated and elected by the Radicals, and because they could not use him just as they wished, they bound him hand and foot. They deprived him of the power to remove corrupt and thieving officials and appointing honest men in their places. Thieving officials, some of whom have since been sent to prison, were kept in office by the action of a Radical Congress. Congress was run in the interests of the men who were plundering the public treasury, and the President whom the Radicals elected and then fettered is charged with being responsible for frauds and wrongs which he was prevented from checking by the action of the Radicals themselves. Had Andrew Johnson been left free to make his own appointments he might have been justly held responsible. Congress took all the responsibility off his shoulders, and became answerable for what was done. As the Radicals had a two-thirds majority, the people can easily tell which party is to blame for what occurred.