In his annual Message to Congress, the Fortieth Congress, of December 3d, 1867, the President said nothing directly in regard to his suspension of Mr. Stanton from office. He put forward a strong argument, couched in moderate and respectful language, against the policy and constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts, as measures establishing martial law in times of peace, and as doing it for the purpose of establishing negro rule over the Southern communities, and he urged the repeal of these Acts, and the immediate admission of the Representatives and Senators from these communities, or "States" as he considered them, to their seats in Congress. What he said upon these subjects is, for the most part, entirely convincing to the impartial mind, at this day, and all of it was apparently animated with true patriotism and earnest desire to promote the common weal. At the close of the argument, however, the President introduced into his Message some ambiguous expressions which were unfortunate, to say the least, and which roused to a high degree the suspicions and the hatred already entertained against him by the radical Republicans. He wrote as follows: "How far the duty of the President 'to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution' requires him to go in opposing an unconstitutional act of Congress is a very serious and important {159} question, on which I have deliberated much and felt extremely anxious to reach a proper conclusion. Where an act has been passed according to the forms of the Constitution by the supreme legislative authority, and is regularly enrolled among the public statutes of the country, Executive resistance to it, especially in times of high party excitement, would be likely to produce violent collision between the respective adherents of the two branches of the Government. This would be simply civil war, and civil war must be resorted to only as the last remedy for the worst of evils. Whatever might tend to provoke it should be most carefully avoided. A faithful and conscientious magistrate will concede very much to honest error, and something even to perverse malice, before he will endanger the public peace; and he will not adopt forcible measures, or such as might lead to force, as long as those which are peaceable remain open to him or to his constituents. It is true that cases may occur in which the Executive would be compelled to stand on its rights, and maintain them regardless of all consequences. If Congress should pass an act which is not only in palpable conflict with the Constitution, but will certainly, if carried out, produce immediate and irreparable injury to the organic structure of the Government, and if there be neither judicial remedy for the wrongs it inflicts nor power in the people to protect themselves without the official aid of their elected defender--if, for instance, the legislative department should pass an act even through all the forms of