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
The mere hint of the possibility of his attempting a _coup
d'etat_ is received by some Republicans with a look of incredulous
surprise; yet what has his administration been to such persons but a
succession of surprises?
But whatever view may be taken of the President's designs, there can be
no doubt that the safety, peace, interest, and honor of the country
depend on the success of the Union Republicans in the approaching
elections. The loyal nation must see to it that the Fortieth Congress
shall be as competent to override executive vetoes as the Thirty-Ninth,
and be equally removed from the peril of being expelled for one more in
harmony with Executive ideas. The same earnestness, energy, patriotism,
and intelligence which gave success to the war, must now be exerted to
reap its fruits and prevent its recurrence. The only danger is, that, in
some representative districts, the people may be swindled by
plausibilities and respectabilities; for when, in political contests,
any great villany is contemplated, there are always found some eminently
respectable men, with a fixed capital of certain eminently conservative
phrases, innocently ready to furnish the wolves of politics with
abundant supplies of sheep's clothing. These dignified dupes are more
than usually active at the present time; and the gravity of their speech
is as edifying as its emptiness. Immersed in words, and with no clear
perception of things, they mistake conspiracy for conservatism. Their
pet horror is the term "radical"; their ideal of heroic patriotism, the
spectacle of a great nation which allows itself to be ruined with
decorum, and dies rather than commit the slightest breach of
constitutional etiquette. This insensibility to facts and blindness to
the tendency of events, they call wisdom and moderation. Behind these
political dummies are the real forces of the Johnson party, men of
insolent spirit, resolute will, embittered temper, and unscrupulous
purpose, who clearly know what they are after, and will hesitate at no
"informality" in the attempt to obtain it. To give these persons
political power will be to surrender the results of the war, by placing
the government practically in the hands of those against whom the war
was waged. No smooth words about "the equality of the States," "the
necessity of conciliation," "the wickedness of sectional conflicts,"
will alter the fact, that, in refusing to support Congress, the people
would set a reward on treachery and place a bounty on treason. "The
South," says a Mr. Hill of Georgia, in a letter favoring the
Philadelphia Convention, "sought to save the Constitution out of the
Union. She failed. Let her now bring her diminished and shattered, but
united and earnest counsels and energies to save the Constitution in the
Union." The sort of Constitution the South sought to save by warring
against the government is the Constitution which she now proposes to
save by administering it! Is this the tone of pardoned and penitent
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