The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 302 pages of information about The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 302 pages of information about The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866.
which involved so much of baseness and ingratitude.  It was natural that they should seek to save him by bending to him even when he leaned to the side of error.  But all is changed now.  Congress knows now that it must go on without his aid, and even against his machinations.  The advantage of the present session over the last is immense.  Where that investigated, this has the facts.  Where that walked by faith, this may walk by sight.  Where that halted, this must go forward, and where that failed, this must succeed, giving the country whole measures where that gave us half-measures, merely as a means of saving the elections in a few doubtful districts.  That Congress saw what was right, but distrusted the enlightenment of the loyal masses; but what was forborne in distrust of the people must now be done with a full knowledge that the people expect and require it.  The members go to Washington fresh from the inspiring presence of the people.  In every considerable public meeting, and in almost every conceivable way, whether at court-house, school-house, or cross-roads, in doors and out, the subject has been discussed, and the people have emphatically pronounced in favor of a radical policy.  Listening to the doctrines of expediency and compromise with pity, impatience, and disgust, they have everywhere broken into demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm when a brave word has been spoken in favor of equal rights and impartial suffrage.  Radicalism, so far from being odious, is now the popular passport to power.  The men most bitterly charged with it go to Congress with the largest majorities, while the timid and doubtful are sent by lean majorities, or else left at home.  The strange controversy between the President and Congress, at one time so threatening, is disposed of by the people.  The high reconstructive powers which he so confidently, ostentatiously, and haughtily claimed, have been disallowed, denounced, and utterly repudiated; while those claimed by Congress have been confirmed.

Of the spirit and magnitude of the canvass nothing need be said.  The appeal was to the people, and the verdict was worthy of the tribunal.  Upon an occasion of his own selection, with the advice and approval of his astute Secretary, soon after the members of Congress had returned to their constituents, the President quitted the executive mansion, sandwiched himself between two recognized heroes,—­men whom the whole country delighted to honor,—­and, with all the advantage which such company could give him, stumped the country from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, advocating everywhere his policy as against that of Congress.  It was a strange sight, and perhaps the most disgraceful exhibition ever made by any President; but, as no evil is entirely unmixed, good has come of this, as from many others.  Ambitious, unscrupulous, energetic, indefatigable, voluble, and plausible,—­a political gladiator, ready for a “set-to” in any crowd,—­he is beaten in his own chosen field, and stands to-day before the country as a convicted usurper, a political criminal, guilty of a bold and persistent attempt to possess himself of the legislative powers solemnly secured to Congress by the Constitution.  No vindication could be more complete, no condemnation could be more absolute and humiliating.  Unless reopened by the sword, as recklessly threatened in some circles, this question is now closed for all time.

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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.