ought to go to the foot of the cross and catch the blood as it flows. He was the Savior of the Jews as well as ours, but this Savior, St. Augustine says, the Jews have converted into their judge. Avert from us such an evil. May he who died to save us, be our Savior. May he be our Savior during all the days of our lives. And may his merits shed upon us abundantly, lose none of their efficacy in our hands, but be preserved entire by the fruits we produce from them. May he be our Savior in death. And at the last moment may the cross be our support, and thus may he consummate the work of our salvation which he has begun. May he be our Savior in a blessed eternity, where we shall be as much the sharer in his glory as we have been in his sufferings.

GEORGE S. BOUTWELL

(1818-)

HERE were eleven articles in the bill of impeachment brought against President Andrew Johnson, but the realities of the proceeding were summed in the last-that on which he was arraigned for his hostility to the reconstruction program of Congress.

The impeachment resolutions having been introduced in the House, the leading speech in support of them was made by Hon. George Sewall Boutwell, of Massachusetts, who, as one of the managers of the impeachment proceedings, made an argument which, especially as it bears on the eleventh article, is of enduring historical importance. He was chairman of the committee which drafted the articles of impeachment, and as he afterwards drafted the fifteenth amendment and led the debate on it in the House, he may be considered as fairly representative of that great and determined constituency which forced the acceptance of the Civil War amendments and the reconstruction acts in spite of the desperate resistance of a minority as skillful and as uncompromising as ever opposed the inevitable in the history of the world.

Mr. Boutwell had been a Democrat before issues were forced on the slavery question. He represented in Massachusetts a class analogous to that from which Andrew Johnson sprang in Tennessee. He was a self-made man as Johnson was, though his disadvantages had not been as great as those overcome by the Tennessee tailor. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, January 28th, 1818, Mr. Boutwell began life as a clerk in a country store at Groton Centre. While working in the store he studied law, but though admitted to the bar, he never practiced his profession until after his election to Congress. In 1849 he supported Van Buren for the presidency, and two years later he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature as a Democrat. While he was still keeping his country store at Groton Centre, the Democrats nominated him for Governor of Massachusetts. He was much ridiculed by what its enemies have called the "Brahmin class," but in spite of this ridicule.- perhaps because of it, he was triumphantly elected Governor in his third race.

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Harvard vindicated his scholarship by giving him the degree of LL.D., and the "store-keeper of Groton Centre," from the time he

finally left his counter for the Massachusetts Statehouse, was one of the most prominent men of the most important period in American history. He was re-elected Governor of Massachusetts as a Democrat in 1852, but in 1856 he joined the Republican party. He was a member of the Peace Congress of 1861, and President Lincoln appointed him Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1864, he served three terms and was elected to the Senate in 1873. His service as Secretary of the Treasury under President Grant was his last in appointive office, and, after his retirement from public life, he devoted himself to the practice of law in Washington city.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S "HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS >> (In the House of Representatives, Proposing the Impeachment of the President, 1868)

THE position I have taken is sound, that the meaning of the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" is to be ascertained by reference to the principles of the English common law of crimes, Blackstone's definition, "that a crime or misdemeanor is an act committed or omitted in violation of a public law either forbidding or commanding it," becomes important. I stand upon this definition of the great writer upon English law as the connecting link between the theory of the law that I maintain and the facts which in this case are proved.

It is to be observed in connection with Blackstone's definition that in our system the Constitution and the statutes are the "public law" of which he speaks, and any act done by the President which is forbidden by the law or by the Constitution, or the omission by him to do what is by the law or the Constitution commanded, is a "high crime and misdemeanor," and renders him liable to impeachment and removal from office.

He is amenable to the House and the Senate in accordance with the great principles of public law of which the Constitution of the United States is the foundation. And it is true, in a higher and better sense than it is true of the statutes, that the President of the United States is bound to support the Constitution, the vital part of which, in reference to the public affairs of the country, is that he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and he violates that great provision of the Constitution,

especially when he himself disregards the law either by doing that which is forbidden or neglecting that which he is commanded to do.

Sir, in approaching the discussion of the transactions of which we complain, I labor under great difficulties, such as are incident to the case. The President has in his hands the immense patronage of the government. Its influence is all-pervading. The country was disappointed, no doubt, in the report of the committee, and very likely this House participated in the disappointment, that there was no specific, heinous, novel offense charged upon and proved against the President of the United States. It is in the very nature of the case that no such heinous offense could be proved. If we understand the teachings of the successive acts which are developed in the voluminous report of the testimony, and if we understand the facts which are there developed, they all point to one conclusion, and that is that the offense with which the President is charged, and of which I believe by history he will ultimately be convicted, is that he used as he had the opportunity, and misused as necessity and circumstances dictated, the great powers of the nation with which he was intrusted, for the purpose of reconstructing this government in the rebellion, so that henceforth this Union, in its legitimate connection, in its relations, in its powers, in its historical character, should be merely the continuation of the government which was organized at Montgomery and transferred to Richmond.

If, sir, this statement unfolds the nature of the case, there would not be found any particular specific act which would disclose the whole of the transaction. It was only by a series of acts, by a succession of events, by participation direct or indirect in numerous transactions, some of them open and some of them secret, that this great scheme was carried on and far on toward its final consummation. Hence, it happens that when we present a particular charge, it is one which for a long time has been before the public. The country has heard of it again and again. Men do not see in that particular offense any great enormity. Then we are told that this particular act was advised by this cabinet officer, and that act assented to by another cabinet officer. This matter was discussed in cabinet meeting, the other was considered in a side-chamber, and, therefore, the President is not alone responsible for anything that has been done. But, sir, I

assert that, whoever else may be responsible with him, he is responsible for himself. Any other theory is destructive to public liberty. We understand the relations which subsisted between the President and his cabinet officers. The tenure-of-office act gave the latter a degree of independence. But, whatever were the subsisting relations, the President cannot shield himself by their counsel, and claim immunity for open, known, and willful violations of the laws of the land. I do not speak now of the errors of judgment, but of open and avowed illegal acts personally done or authorized by himself. But he has not always had even the countenance of his cabinet officers. The test-oath was suspended by the President against the opinion of AttorneyGeneral Speed. If cabinet officers have been concerned in these illegal transactions, I have for them, to a large extent, the same excuse that I have for myself, the same that I have for the members of this House and for the people of this country. In the beginning they did not understand the President's character, capacity, and purposes.

His capacity has not been comprehended by the country. Violent sometimes in language, indiscreet in manner, impulsive in action, unwise in declamation, he is still animated by a persistency of purpose which never yields under any circumstances, but seeks by means covert and tortuous, as well as open and direct, the accomplishment of the purpose of his life.

I care not to go into an examination—indeed, I have neither the time nor the taste for it now-of the tortuous ways by which he has controlled men who in the public estimation are superior to himself. But my excuse for cabinet officers, for members of Congress, for the country, is that in 1865, when he issued his proclamation for the reorganization of North Carolina, no one understood him. General Grant in his testimony says that he considered the plan temporary, to be approved or annulled when Congress should meet in December. But when Congress assembled the President told us that the work was ended; that the rebellious States were restored to the Union. He then planted himself firmly upon the proposition laid down in his North Carolina proclamation in defiance of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that the power was in Congress to decide whether the government of a State was republican or not; in defiance of the cardinal principle of the sovereignty of the people through Congress. He ratified substantially in his