It only remains, that, imitating the ostrich, we should thrust our heads into the sand, and, not seeing danger, foolishly imagine it does not exist.

It therefore devolves upon the National Legislature to take the initiative in the effort to resume specie payments.

To such extent has this ostrich pretension been carried, that we were solemnly admonished at the bar, and the paradox has found voice in the Senate, that we must judge the acts of Andrew Johnson “as if committed by George Washington.” Here…

On the contrary, I say that we must judge all these acts as if committed by Andrew Johnson, and nobody else.

In other words, we must see things as they are.

As well insist that an act of guilt should be judged as the mistake of innocence.

As well argue that the stab of the assassin should be treated as the cut of the surgeon.

The difficulties that impede the reduction of the national liabilities lie in the fact that such obligations are a part, and a large part, of the currency of the country.

And now, in the face of this terrible and indisputable record, entering into and filling this impeachment, I hear a voice saying that we must judge the acts in question “as if committed by George Washington.” The statement of this…

To withdraw that currency without giving a substitute is to create stringency, burden trade, and invite chaos: at least, so it seems.

If this pretension ever found favor, it was from the partisans of Slavery and State Rights, who, assured of the sympathy of the Court, sought in this way to complete an unjust triumph.

The National Constitution leaves no doubt as to the proper functions of the Supreme Court.

Its business is to decide “cases,”--not to sit in judgment on Acts of Congress and issue its tribunitial veto.

If a “case” arises where a statute is said to clash with the National Constitution, it must be decided as any other case of conflict of laws.

But nothing within the just powers of the Court can touch an Act of Congress, except incidentally, and then its judgment is binding only on the parties.

On the evidence it is clear enough that the President had no honest purpose to make a case for the Supreme Court.

Had the President been in earnest, it was very easy for him to make a case by proceeding against a simple postmaster; but this did not suit him.

It is the subterfuge of a criminal to cover up his crime,--as if a surgeon had committed murder, and then set up the apology that it was an experiment in science.

Then comes the Apology of Prerogative, being nothing less than the intolerable pretension that the President can sit in judgment on Acts of Congress, and, in his discretion, refuse to execute them.

Let it be established, and, instead of a government of laws, which is the glory of a republic, we have only the government of a single man.

Of course, if the President can sit in judgment on the Tenure-of-Office Act, and set it aside as unconstitutional, there is no Act of Congress he may not treat in the same way.

In the spirit of oppression which seems to govern him, he may set aside the great statute for the establishment of civil rights without distinction of color.

The whole statute-book will be subject to his prerogative.

I would issue a bank-note for every dollar of Treasury obligation cancelled; but I would issue no bank-note that did not absorb an equal obligation of the Treasury.

Strike out of existence in a single day the legal-tender notes, and I fear that the bank-note would for a time fall in comparative value: so would everything else.