It was not strange that this sort of diplomacy, developed and exposed as it was in the Senate, in spite of the unfair and partisan maneuvering of the prosecution to prevent it, should have reacted, and contributed to turn against the impeachment movement gentlemen who entered upon the investigation under oath to give Mr. Johnson a fair, non-partisan trial. The only surprise was that, after the exposure of the malignant partisan spirit that sat in judgment upon Mr. Johnson, and the utter and absolute failure to prove any violation of law on his part, but on the contrary, a determination to preserve from infringement the functions of his office and prevent a revolution from fundamental political forms by the absorption of the Executive authority by the legislative branch of the government--that even a majority, and more especially, that nearly two-thirds of the Senate, could have been found at the close in support of the Impeachment. This record will serve to explain the omission to vote on the First Article--Messrs. Sherman and Howe being precluded from supporting it in consequence of the position taken by them in the controversy between the two Houses of Congress over the first section of the Tenure-of-Office Bill while that bill was pending, and to avoid defeat on the first vote taken, which was inevitable on that Article--and also to explain, so far as any explanation is possible, the zig-zag method of conducting the ballot--skipping all the first ten Articles and going down to the bottom of the list for the first vote, with the promise of then going back to the first Article and continuing to the end, but instead, skipping that for the second time, and starting in again on the Second and then the Third. Of course, the natural effect of this battle-dore and shuttle-cock method of treating so grave a matter as an impeachment of the President of the United States, added to the effect of the manifest unfairness of the majority in their treatment of testimony offered in the President's defense--was to disgust some who doubtless entered upon the trial honestly inclined to vote for Andrew Johnson's impeachment, but wanted it done fairly and openly, without any suppression of pertinent testimony or juggling for a verdict--and amusing to others, who viewed it as proof of weakness in the indictment, and of misgiving as to the result on the part of its supporters.