ANDREW JOHNSON TO THE SCAFFOLD.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 382, 4 June 1866, Page 2

ANDREW JOHNSON TO THE SCAFFOLD.

(From tlioXow York Daily Xc.vs.) At last the strategic evolutions, the flank movements, the marchings and countermarchings of the Iladical enemies of the President have culminated in a direct, open, and desperate assault. There is no longer any doubt as to the bitter hostility of the faction headed by Mr Stevens, not only against the policy, but against the individuality of Mr Johnson. It is well. When the rattle of the serpent is heard, and its crest is seen reared for the deadly spring, the danger at least is visible, the stroke can be parried, the venomed head crushed under the heel. We do not know whether Mr Stevens has been thrown off his guard by the violence of his fanaticism, or whether he really considers his faction strong enough to contend, in a political death struggle, with the Executive. It matters little whether his action has been prompted by temper or by policy. It is sufficient to know that be has flung his glove into the President’s face, and between the two there must be a political war to the utterance; war that admits of no compromise, that forbids conciliation, ami must close upon the political prostration of one or other of the contending parties. The vindictive, reckless, unscrupulous de-magogue-tyrant of the House of Hepreseutatives means no less than the impeachment of President Johnson. It is a simple question of power. The intent is apparent; it remains to bo seen whether the Iladical element in Congress has strength enough to establish its supremacy by a coup de main, aiming to paralyze the Executive arm, and, perhaps, to hurl from the Executive chair the cow marked object of an implacable Iladical opposition. Mr Stevens, openly in the Katioual Council Chamber, lias denounced Andrew Johnson as guilty of usurpation and abuse of power. Plot some trivial transgression, not some mere straining of Executive authority, that demands from the conscientious legislator an expression of rebuke ; but such abuse of power, as, in the estimation of

the member from Penny si vania, merits death upon the scaffold. The crime alleged by Mr Stevens against the President, would, he says, if it had been committed by a British king, “ have cost him his head.” Nor does the blood-craving Pennsylvania demagogue disguise his thought that the fate of the first Chas. Stuart should visited be upon the Chief Magistrate of our Republic ; he claims that justice would be thus satisfied,- but admits, deprecatingly, that his sanguinary longings are baffled in the fact that “ in this day we are tolerant of usurpation and the abuse of power.” If never before, he has spoken the mournful truth. Our people have, indeed, tolerated the usurpation of national legislation by an incendiary faction. They have, indeed, tolerated the abuse of a power that fanatics and ambitious demagogues have arrogated to themselves. In the days of civil strife, they permitted the Constitution to be ignored and violated in its most sacred attributes. They have been tame lookers on, while the most precious privileges of American citizenship were being trampled under foot. . . . But what was the unpardonable crime of Mr Johnson for which his life-blood is demanded in atonement ? Perhaps he has deprived some citizen of his liberty without due process of law. Perhaps he has assailed the freedom of the Press, denied the trial by jury, overthrown the judicial fabric, and established the military over the civil authority. Perhaps he has withheld from certain States within the Union the representation to which they are entitled in the National Legislature. Not so, sucli offences against republicanism are virtues in the eyes of Mr Stevens and his faction. But Mr Johnson has dared to appeal to the people against the incendiarism, the tyranny, the revolutionary spirit cf the Radicals in Congress. He has dared, through the medium of the public press, to make the masses acquainted with his views upon questions of vital importance ; and he lias endeavored to make the people, whoso Ciiief Magistrate lie is, understand the purport of the policy that he lias adopted for their safety and welfare. The only ground upon which Mr Stevens founds his fierce denunciation and Lis invocation of the death penally for oar President, is the report of the Associated Press of the recent conversation between-Mr Johnston and a member of the United States Senate, upon questions under discussion'iu Congress.

We will nut attempt to disguise our satisfaction that the conflict., being inevitable, has thus been .brought to a crisis.