第57章 ORGANIZATION OF THE COURT ARGUMENT OF COUNSEL(5)
He can contrive no method but that of a convulsion of the earth that shall project the deposed President to this indefinitely distant space; but a shock of nature of so vast an energy and for so great a result on him might unsettle even the footing of the firm members of Congress. We certainly need not resort to so perilous a method as that. How shall we accomplish it? Why, in the first place, nobody knows where that space is but the learned manager himself, and he is the necessary deputy to execute the judgment of the court. Let it then be provided that, in case of your sentence of deposition and removal from office, the honorable and astronomical manager shall take into his own hands the execution of the sentence. With the President made fast to his broad and strong shoulders, and having already assayed the flight by imagination, better prepared than anybody else to execute it in form, taking the advantage of ladders as far as ladders will go to the top of this great capitol, and spurning there with his foot the crest of Liberty, let him set out upon his flight while the two houses of Congress and all the people of the United States shall shout--"Sic itur ad astra!" But here a distressing doubt strikes me. How will the manager get back. He will have got far beyond the reach of gravitation to restore him, and so ambitious a wing as his should never stoop to a downward flight. Indeed, as he passes through the constellations, the famous question of Carlyle (by which he derides the littleness of human affairs upon the scale of the measure of the heavens,)"What thinks Bootes as he drives his hunting dogs up the zenith in their leash of sidereal fire?" will force itself on his notice. What, indeed, will Bootes think of this new constellation? Besides, reaching this space beyond the power of Congress ever to send for persons and papers, how shall he return, and how decide in the contest there become personal and perpetual--the struggle of strength between him and the President? In this new revolution thus established forever, who shall decide which is the sun and which is the moon? Who determine the only scientific test, which reflects hardest upon the other?"Gen. Logan, one of the managers, appeared for the prosecution, upon the close of the examination of witnesses. The following is a brief extract from his very long and labored argument, and relates to the Tenure-of-Office Act:
It is a new method of ascertaining the meaning of a law, plain upon its face, by resorting to legislative discussions, and giving in evidence opinions affected by the law. As a matter of fact; it is well known the act was intended to prevent the very thing Mr. Johnson attempted in the matter of Mr. Stanton's removal. I think this manner of defense will not avail before the Senate. The law must govern in its natural and plain intendment, and will not be frittered away by extraneous interpretation. The President in his veto message admits substantially this construction.
The proviso does not change the general provisions of the Act, except by giving a more definite limit to the tenure-of-office, but the last paragraph of the Act puts the whole question back into the hands of the Senate according to the general intention of the Act, and provides that even the Secretaries are subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The Act first provides that all persons holding civil offices at the date of its passage appointed by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall only be removed in the same manner.
This applies to the Secretary of War. This proviso merely gives a tenure running with the term of the President and one month thereafter, subject to removal by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The law clearly gives Mr. Stanton a right to the office from the 4th of March, 1865, till one month after the 4th of March, 1869, and he can only be disturbed in that tenure by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
Yet, although Mr. Stanton was appointed by Mr. Lincoln in his first term, when there was no tenure-of-office fixed by law, and continued by Mr. Lincoln in his second term, it is argued that his term expired one month after the passage of the Tenure-of-Office Act, March 2nd, 1867, for the reason that Mr.
Lincoln's term expired at his death. This is false reasoning; the Constitution fixed the term of the President at four years, and by law the commencement of his term is the 4th of March. Will it be said that when Mr. Johnson is deposed by a verdict of the Senate, that the officer who will succeed him will serve for four years? Certainly not. Why? Because he will have no Presidential term, and will be merely serving out a part of the unexpired term of Mr. Lincoln, and will go out of office on the 4th of March, 1869, at the time Mr. Lincoln would have retired by expiration of his term, had he lived. * * *The only question, then, which remains, is simply this: Has the accused violated that (Tenure-of-Office) Act? No one knows better than this accused the history of, and the purpose to be secured by, that Act. It was ably and exhaustively discussed on both sides, in all aspects. In the debates of Congress it was subsequently reviewed and closely analyzed in a Veto Message of the respondent. No portion of that Act escaped his remark, and no practical application which has been made of it since did he fail to anticipate. He knew before he attempted its violation that more than three-fourths of the Representatives of the people in Congress assembled had set their seal of disapprobation upon the reasons given in the Veto Message and had enacted the law by more than the constitutional number of votes required. Nay, more; he was repeatedly warned, by investigations made looking toward just such a proceeding as now being witnessed in this court, that the people had instructed their Representatives to tolerate no violation of the laws constitutionally enacted.
Mr. Groesbeck, in behalf of the defense, said in closing his argument: