From this review, showing how this proceeding is political in character, before a political body, and with a political judgment, being expulsion from office and nothing more,--then how the transgressions of the President, in protracted line, are embraced under “impeachable offences,”--then how the form of procedure is liberated from ordinary technicalities of law,--and, lastly, how unquestionable rules of evidence open the gates to overwhelming testimony,--I pass to the consideration of the testimony, and how the present impeachment became a necessity. I have already called it one of the last great battles with Slavery. See now how the battle began. Slavery in all its pretensions is a defiance of law; for it can have no law in its support. Whoso becomes its representative must act accordingly; and this is the transcendent crime of Andrew Johnson. For the sake of Slavery, and to uphold its original supporters in their endeavors to continue this wrong under another name, he has set at defiance the National Constitution and the laws of the land; and he has accompanied this unquestionable usurpation by brutalities and indecencies in office without precedent, unless we go back to the Roman emperor fiddling or the French monarch dancing among his minions. This usurpation, with its brutalities and indecencies, became manifest as long ago as the winter of 1866, when, being President, and bound by oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, and to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, he assumed legislative powers in the reconstruction of the Rebel States, and, in carrying forward this usurpation, nullified an Act of Congress, intended as the corner-stone of Reconstruction, by virtue of which Rebels are excluded from office under the National Government, and thereafter, in vindication of this misconduct, uttered a scandalous speech, in which he openly charged members of Congress with being assassins, and mentioned some by name. Plainly he should have been impeached and expelled at that early day. The case against him was complete. That great patriot of English history, Lord Somers, has likened impeachment to Goliath’s sword hanging in the Temple, to be taken down only when occasion required;[193] but if ever there was occasion for its promptest vengeance, it was then. Had there been no failure at that time, we should be now by two years nearer to restoration of all kinds, whether political or financial. So strong is my conviction of the fatal remissness of the impeaching body, that I think the Senate would do a duty in strict harmony with its constitutional place in the Government, and the analogies of judicial tribunals so often adduced, if it reprimanded the House of Representatives for this delay. Of course the Senate could not originate impeachment. It could not take down the sword of Goliath. It must wait on the House, as the court waits on the grand jury. But this