Something of Men I Have Known: With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and RetrospectiveStevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing)
History
Something of Men I Have Known: With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective
Stevenson, Adlai E. (Adlai Ewing)
United States -- Biography; United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1933
"Travellers and astronomers inform us that in the southern heavens
near the Southern Cross there is a vast space which the uneducated
call a hole in the sky, where the eye of man, with the aid of
the telescope, has been unable to discover nebula, or asteroid,
planet, comet, star or sun. In that dreary, cold, dark region
of space, which is only known to be less than infinite by the
evidences of creations elsewhere, the Great Author of celestial
mechanism has left the chaos which was in the beginning. If
this earth were capable of the sentiments and emotions of justice and
virtue which in human mortal beings are the evidences and the pledge
of our divine origin and immortal destiny, it would heave and throw
with the energy of the elemental forces of nature, and project this
enemy of two races of men into that vast region, there forever
to exist in a solitude eternal as life, or as the absence of life,
emblematical of, it not really, that outer darkness of which the
Saviour of Man spoke in warning to those who are the enemies of
themselves, of their race, and of their God."
To the above Mr. Evarts replied:
"I may as conveniently at this point of the argument as at any
other pay some attention to the astronomical punishment which
the learned and honorable manager, Mr. Boutwell, thinks would be
applied to this novel case of impeachment of the President. Cicero,
I think it is, who says that a lawyer should know everything,
for sooner or later there is no fact in history, in science, or of
human knowledge, that will not come into play in his argument.
Painfully sensible of my ignorance, being devoted to a profession which
sharpens and does not enlarge the mind, I yet can admit without
envy the superior knowledge evinced by the honorable manager.
Indeed, upon my soul, I believe he is aware of an astronomical fact
of which many professors of that science are wholly ignorant.
Nevertheless, while some of his honorable colleagues were paying
attention to an unoccupied and unappropriated island on the surface
of the seas, Mr. Manager Boutwell, more ambitious, had discovered an
untenanted and unappropriated region in the skies reserved, he
would have us think, in the final counsels of the Almighty as
the place of punishment for convicted and deposed American
Presidents. At first I thought that his mind had become so enlarged
that it was not sharp enough to discover that the Constitution had
limited the punishment, but on reflection I saw that he was as
legal and logical as he was ambitious and astronomical, for the
Constitution has said 'removal from office,' and has put no distance
to the limit of removal, so that it may be, without shedding a drop
of his blood, or taking a penny of his property, or confining
his limbs, instant removal from office, and transportation to
the skies. Truly this is a great undertaking and if the learned
manager can only get over the obstacles of the laws of nature, the
Constitution will not stand in his way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account