It was they who carried ship-money against the patriot exertions of Hampden; and in our country it was they who held up Slavery in all its terrible pretensions from beginning to end.

What is sometimes called “the legal mind” of Massachusetts, my own honored State, bent before the technical reasoning which justified the unutterable atrocities of the Fugitive Slave Bill, while the Supreme Court of the State adopted the…

When will lawyers and judges see that nothing short of justice can stand?

My duty is to vote, Guilty on all the Articles.

If consistent with the rules of the Senate, I should vote, “Guilty of all, and infinitely more.

I cannot doubt that the conspiracy was to obtain possession of the War Department, peaceably, if possible, forcibly, if necessary.

There was hypocritical profession of regard for the Constitution, while betraying it.

Here again his past character explains his purpose beyond reasonable doubt.

On this alone, without anything else, I should deem it my duty to vote for expulsion from office.

A President, at the top of the ladder, with less excuse from the inexperience of early life, and with greater responsibility from the elevation he had reached, should be cashiered promptly also; and this is the object of impeachment.

No person capable of such speeches should be allowed to govern this country.

Besides being degraded, the country cannot be safe in such hands.

The speeches are a revelation of himself, not materially different from well-known incidents; but they serve to exhibit him in his true character.

But a sober man, whose conduct suggests drunkenness, is as bad at least as if he were drunk.

If without the explanation of drunkenness he makes such harangues, I cannot doubt that his unfitness for office becomes more evident, inasmuch as his deplorable condition is natural, and not abnormal.

The drunken man has lucid intervals; but where is the assurance of a lucid interval for this perpetual offender?

The drunkenness of Andrew Johnson, when he took his oath as Vice-President, was not “official”; but who will say that it was not an impeachable offence?

If they did not violate the National Constitution, or any provision of law, common or statute, as is apologetically alleged, I cannot doubt that they violated the spirit of all laws.

Spirit of John Milton! who pleaded so grandly for this great liberty, but would not allow it to be confounded with license, speak now to save this Republic from the shame of surrender to an insufferable pretension!

If Andrew Johnson is not guilty, then never was a political offender guilty; and if his acquittal is taken as a precedent, never can a political offender be found guilty.

Therefore you are now determining whether impeachment shall continue a beneficent remedy in the National Constitution, or be blotted out forever, and the country handed over to the terrible process of revolution as its sole protection.

If the milder process cannot be made effective now, when will it ever be?

For more than two years he has set your laws at defiance; and when Congress, by special enactment, strove to constrain him, he broke forth in rebellion against the constitutional authority.

By this oath, which is the same for all, we are sworn to do “impartial justice.” It is justice, and this justice must be impartial.

Therefore I cannot allow the jargon of lawyers on mere questions of form to sway the judgment against justice.