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
He can contrive no method
but that of a convulsion of the earth, that shall project the
deposed President to this infinitely distant space; but a shock of
nature of so vast energy and for so great a result on him, might
unsettle even the footing of the firm members of Congress. We
certainly need not resort to so perilous a method as that. How
shall we accomplish it? Why, in the first place, nobody knows
where that space is but the learned manager himself, and _he is
the necessary deputy to execute the judgment of the court."_
Two of the managers, Butler and Bingham, were at sword's points,
and had but recently assailed each other with great bitterness
in the House. How all this was turned to account by the counsel
will now appear. In vindicating the President against the charge of
undignified utterances and impropriety of speech in recent
public addresses, Mr. Evarts candidly admits that the Executive,
whose early educational advantages had been meagre indeed, and who
was confessedly untaught of the schools, "had gotten into trouble by
undertaking to be logical with a metaphor."
He insisted, however, that the President should be bound by no
higher standard of propriety of speech than that set by the House of
which the Honorable Managers were members. The rule governing the
House in such matters will readily appear from a recent exchange
of courtesies between the two distinguished members referred to
above, Mr. Bingham and Mr. Butler. The former said:
"I desire to say, Mr. Speaker, that it does not become a gentleman
who recorded his vote fifty times for Jefferson Davis as his candidate
for President of the United States, to undertake to damage this
cause by attempting to cast an imputation either upon my integrity
or my honor. I repel with scorn and contempt any utterance of that
sort from any man, _whether he be the hero of Fort Fisher, not
taken, or of Fort Fisher, taken!"_
To which Mr. Butler replied:
"But if during the war, the gentleman from Ohio did as much as I
did in that direction, I shall be glad to recognize that much done.
But the only victim of the gentleman's prowess that I know of was an
innocent woman on the scaffold, one Mrs. Surratt. I can sustain
the memory of Fort Fisher if he and his present associates can
sustain him in shedding the blood of a woman tried by a military
commission _and convicted, in my judgment, without sufficient
evidence!"_
To which Mr. Bingham replied: "I challenge the gentleman, I dare him
anywhere, in this tribunal or any tribunal, to assert that I
spoliated or mutilated any book. Why, sir, such a charge without one
tittle of evidence is only fit to come from a man _who lives in
a bottle, and is fed with a spoon!"_
"Now, what under heavens that means," protested Evarts, "I do
not know, but it is within the common law of courtesy in the judgment
of the House of Representatives."
XXIII
"THE GENTLEMAN FROM MISSISSIPPI"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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