To such extent has this ostrich pretension been carried, that we were solemnly admonished at the bar, and the paradox has found voice in the Senate, that we must judge the acts of Andrew Johnson “as if committed by George Washington.” Here is the paradox in length and breadth. I deny it. I scout it. On the contrary, I say that we must judge all these acts as if committed by Andrew Johnson, and nobody else. In other words, we must see things as they are. As well insist that an act of guilt should be judged as the mistake of innocence. As well argue that the stab of the assassin should be treated as the cut of the surgeon. To the Apology of Good Intentions I oppose all that long unbroken series of transgressions, each with a voice to drown every pretext of innocence. I would not repeat what I have already said, but, in presence of this apology, it is my duty to remind the Senate how the career of this offender is compounded of falsehood and usurpation; how, beginning with promises to make treason odious, he soon installed it in authority; how, from declared sympathy with Unionists, white and black, he changed to be their persecutor; how in him are continued the worst elements of Slavery, an insensibility to right and a passion for power; how, in this spirit, he usurped great prerogatives not belonging to him; how, in the maintenance of this usurpation, he stuck at nothing; how he violated law; how he abused the pardoning power; how he prostituted the appointing power; how he wielded the power of removal to maintain his tyranny; how he sacrificed the Freedmen’s Bureau, and lifted up the Whiskey Ring; how he patronized massacre and bloodshed, and gave a license to the Ku-Klux-Klan; how, in madness, he entered into conflict with Congress, contesting its rightful power over the reconstruction of the Rebel States, and, when Congress would not succumb to his usurpation, how he thwarted and vilified it, expectorating foul-mouthed utterances which are a disgrace to human nature; how he so far triumphed in his wickedness that in nine States no Union man is safe and no murderer of a Union man can be punished; and, lastly,--for time fails, though not the long list of transgressions,--how he conspired against the patriot Secretary of War, because he found in that adamantine character an obstacle to his revolutionary career. And now, in the face of this terrible and indisputable record, entering into and filling this impeachment, I hear a voice saying that we must judge the acts in question “as if committed by George Washington.” The statement of this pretension is enough. I hand it over to the contempt it deserves. THE MOOT-COURT APOLOGY. Kindred to the Apology of Good Intentions, or, perhaps, a rib out of its side, is the Moot-Court Apology, which pretends that the President, in removing Mr. Stanton, only wished to make a case for the Supreme Court, and thus submit to this tribunal the constitutionality of the Tenure-of-Office Act.