Franklin Repository

The President has recoiled from his own wrong, as if appalled at his crowning treachery; but let no loyal man be deceived. It is as the recoil of the viper after it has made one stroke at its victim, only to make another and more deadly one if possible. Phrenzied by passion or the sad infirmity that has heretofore made the Nation bow to humility and shame, he welcomed to his embrace, by his speech of the 22d ult., a motley mass of malignant copperheads and avowed rebels, and he exhausted the vocabulary of the Five Points to denounce the Union majority in Congress. He was insolent, defiant, vulgar and vituperative to a degree that would have degraded a ward politician harrangueing at a corner grog-shop, and his utterances were greeted by vociferous applause by every rebel within his hearing. Time, reflection and sobriety brought back to him some appreciation of the fact that he was the Chief Magistrate of thirty millions of people, and he found that every true friend was alienated, and sorrow and mortification were as wide-spread as loyalty itself.

He then sought to shield himself from his own madness. He had in an evil and unguarded hour told the truth, proclaimed and boasted of his own treachery, and it had gone with lightning wings to shadow a continent. He had thus vindicated Congress and upon his voluntary record he could not stand. To fall upon the Union column, now entrusted with the destiny of a Nation just emerging from the terrible crucible of civil war, was to be broken into fragments; and to have it fall upon him was to grind him to powder. He therefore resolved by fresh treachery to renew his potency for evil. He called about him several Union men--among them Gov. Cox of Ohio, and attempted to explain that he was not at positive variance with Congress, that he desired to retain his status in the Union party, and meant to deal justly with the loyal sentiment of the country. This we regard as a graver offence, if possible, than his incoherent but manifestly truthful offerings on the altar of traitors. It but adds to his outrage upon justice and freedom additional outrage upon truth. He may have wished at the time to regain the jewel of consistency, fidelity and patriotism he had wantonly cast from him; but the time is past when new wrongs can be inflicted upon the great Union party of the Republic, by Andrew Johnson's perfidy. He has filled its measure, completed its circle; and as he has cast his lot and chosen his companionship, so he must abide.

We have not hastily handed over a President as hopelessly faithless. Many months ago we felt well convinced that this dark day must come. We had seen the shadows but too plainly which with fearful certainty betokened a starless night of gloom. We had heard him defend treason, only treason, when there was no Congress to give excuse for his ebullitions of passion. We had seen him manifest unmingled satisfaction at the prospect of copperhead victories in the North, when he hoped to turn them to account to complete the triumph of traitors knocking at the doors of Congress. We had known of his refusal to endorse the Union State tickets in New York and Pennsylvania in 1865, or to deny the daily declarations of the foes of the Union party, that he earnestly desired their success. We had not failed to observe that beyond a few irresponsible hirelings of treason, who were without friends or political power, he studiously shielded every rebel murderer, and even men proclaimed by himself as the chief of assassins, from the demands of justice. In common with many others who knew how carefully his follies were cloaked and his wrongs concealed, we struggled on, and hoped that the silver lining to the cloud, which now and again would brighten with the promise of a noon-tide of fidelity, might yet be made to give ultimately some measurable fruition of the heroism, the sacrifices and the bereavements of a loyal people. But the last ray of hope has faded away, by his bold espousal of the traitor's cause, and the official notice he has given Congress and the Nation that there shall be no legislation for the rebellious States until their Senators and Representatives aid in its enactment.

The veto of the Freedman's Bureau bill was the pretext for an irreconcilable issue with Congress--not the cause. It was supported by nearly if not quite every Union man in either branch. It was commended to Congress in his annual message. It was advised by Gen. Grant in his report on the condition of the South. It was prepared by the immediate supervision of Gen. Howard, the President of the Bureau, and who has never encouraged what is termed radicalism in politics or tolerated idleness on the part of the negroes. Senators and Congressmen in daily consultation with the President supported the measure, and no one doubted that he would promptly approve it. Indeed, it cannot be questioned that he meant at first to sign it; that he intended to postpone for some future occasion his issue with Congress, and expected to be more potent to divide and destroy the Union party after approving the bill than before; but the traitors of the South rebelled. They had carried the outer works of the Executive and they would not delay their possession of the very citadel of power. They demanded that there must be no restraint upon their rebel proclivities in their States; no measure of justice or protection to the freedmen, and pitiable ambition triumphed over right. Since the issue was inevitable, we do not regret that it has come now and so plainly that no Union man can err; and the spasmodic efforts of Mr. Johnson to seduce the Union men from the loyal ranks must prove abortive. The Union State Convention to meet to-day will likely not stop to antagonize or denounce the President. It will have higher and holier duties to perform than to descend to the modern style of Presidential denunciation; but it will declare the principles of the Union party in letters of living light, and in sentiments which will cheer every faithful man, and in thus maintaining fidelity to a bleeding Nation and to the issues on which its future peace and safety depend, it will simply consign to the rear a President it would have delighted to honor, and leave him and his camp-followers to the consuming scorn of an honest people and to the retributive record of impartial history.