The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Garret Davis, of Kentucky, was, we believe, the first to announce this
executive remedy for the "radical" disease of the state, and it has
since been often prescribed by Democratic politicians as a sovereign
panacea. General McClernand, indeed, proposed a scheme, simpler even
than that of executive recognition, by which the Southern Senators and
Representatives might effect a lodgment in Congress. They should,
according to him, have gone to Washington, entered the halls of
legislation, and proceeded to occupy their seats, "peaceably if they
could, forcibly if they must"; but the record of General McClernand, as
a military man, was not such as to give to his advice on a question of
carrying positions by assault a high degree of authority, and, there
being some natural hesitation in following his counsel, the golden
opportunity was lost. Mr. Montgomery Blair, who professes his
willingness to act with any men, "Rebels or any one else," to put down
the radicals, is never weary of talking to conservative conventions of
"two Presidents and two Congresses." There can be no doubt that the
project of a _coup d'etat_ has become dangerously familiar to the
"conservative" mind, and that the eminent legal gentlemen of the North
who are publishing opinions affirming the right of the excluded Southern
representatives to their seats are playing into the hands of the
desperate gang of unscrupulous politicians who are determined to have
the right established by force. It is computed that the gain, in the
approaching elections, of twenty-five districts now represented by Union
Republicans, will give the Johnson party, in the next Congress, a
majority of the House of Representatives, should the Southern
delegations be counted; and it is proposed that the Johnson members
legally entitled to seats should combine with the Southern pretenders to
seats, organize as the House of Representatives of the United States,
and apply to the President for recognition. Should the President comply,
he would be impeached by an unrecognized House before an "incomplete"
Senate, and, if convicted, would deny the validity of the proceeding.
The result would be civil war, in which the name of the Federal
government would be on the side of the revolutionists. Such is the
programme which is freely discussed by partisans of the President,
considered to be high in his favor; and the scheme, it is contended, is
the logical result of the position he has assumed as to the rights of
the excluded States to representation. It is certain that the present
Congress is as much the Congress of the United States as he is the
President of the United States; but it is well known that he considers
himself to represent the whole country, while he thinks that Congress
only represents a portion of it; and he has in his character just that
combination of qualities, and is placed in just those anomalous
circumstances, which lead men to the commission of great political
crimes.
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