Speeches of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States
With a Biographical Introduction, by . Boston : Little, Brown, & Co.
THE publishers have done well in placing this volume before the public. One among the most important results of the war is that of vastly increasing the practical, however it may be with the theoretical, power of the executive. It has done this, in the first place, by direct addition. The "war powers of the President,” though beyond question legitimate, made him for the time being wellnigh absolute ; and now that overt war is ended, it is found impracticable to return immediately to the ancient limits of executive authority. Exercises of sovereignty, accordingly, which would once have been called most dangerous encroachments upon coõrdinate branches of government, pass without protest, it may be with general approbation. An instance of such is seen in the appointment of Southern governors who by an explicit law of Congress are ineligible. But, in the second place, this power is increased, perhaps, even more by the marked disposition of the people to accept the initiative of the President. The prodigious bids made by the Democratic party for his countenance, and the extreme reluctance of the Republicans to open an issue with him, illustrate this disposition, and are of great significance.
We are stating facts, not complaining of them. A great change has undoubtedly taken place in the practical economy of the Government,—a significant change in the relative importance of its coõrdinate branches. It may not be permanent, but it can scarcely be brief.
At the same time the importance of the Government as a whole has been greatly enhanced. We have reached a point where the nation, for, perhaps, the first time, is to be saved by statesmanship, and where it is apparent that only statesmanship of a high order will be equal to the task. Formerly the Government could be contemptible without being fatal. When its imbecility led to civil war, the courage, patriotism, and persistency of the people sufficed to purchase victory ; and though the Government was tasked heavily, its tasks were of a simple kind. But now a point is reached where must begin a long stretch of wise, far-seeing, faithful statesman’s work, or where, in the want of this, prospects open which no patriot can contemplate with satisfaction.
A series of able, temperate, true-hearted Presidents has now become indispensable; but the highest qualities will be needed in no subsequent administration so much as in the present; and very serious mistakes in the present would go far to render the highest ability in the future unavailing. Under these circumstances, there must be a common and anxious desire to know what may reasonably be expected of President Johnson.
Hence the timeliness and importance of the volume under notice. An attentive perusal of these pages will afford ground for some critical estimate of the man in whose hands so much power is lodged, and on whose use of power so great issues depend. The biographical sketch, though somewhat vague, and marked by occasional inaccuracies, affords some tolerable notion of the experience he has passed through ; and the speeches, though covering but few years, exhibit that portion of his opinions which is most related to existing problems.
We find here the image of a very honest, patriotic man, vigorous in mind, resolute in will, definite in character, and bearing deeply the impress of a special and marked experience. Of his honesty, to begin with, there can be no doubt. His administration may be mistaken, but it will not be corrupt. And to feel assured of so much is very healthful. But an honest man, in his position, must be patriotic,—must be looking to the welfare of the country, rather than casting about to make bargains for his private advantage ; and we gather from this book, that, if any meditate buying or bribing the President, they will learn a lesson in due time. He may come to coincide with them, but it will be by their acquiescence in his judgment, not by his acceptance of their proffers.
It is when we come to inspect his intellectual position, to consider the quality of his honest convictions, as determined chiefly by his peculiar experience, that the real question opens,
Mr. Johnson was a Southern “poor white.” He became the ornament, then the champion, of his class ; rescued it from political subjection in Tennessee, and, in his own election to the Governor’s chair, and then to the United States Senate, gave it a first feast of supremacy. In this long struggle, the peculiar opinion and sentiment of his class — that is, of its best portion — became with him, though in an enlarged form, impassioned convictions, deeply incorporated with his character, and held with somewhat of religious fervor.
In the first speech contained in the present collection, dating so lately as 1858, he is found still resting upon this experience. His sympathy is wholly with the simpler forms of country life, with mechanics and small landholders, “the middle class,” as he calls them. He hates cities; he cannot help showing some mild jealousy of the commercial and manufacturing interests ; literature and science he does not wish to undervalue, but his whole heart is with the class who live a well-to-do, honest life, by manual labor in their own shops or on their own acres. Like his class, he dislikes the cotton lords, but likes Slavery, and has no faith in the negro ; it has not occurred to him to think of the negro as a man, and he wishes that every white man in the country had a slave to do his “ menial ” labor.
In the next speech, made two years later, he is confronting the immediate probability of Secession. He grapples with it sturdily, but still regards it from a strictly Southern point of view,—that of his class. The South, he thinks, has real grievances ; it has, indeed, been wronged by the election of a “ sectional President and Vice-President ” ; it is entitled to redress; only it should seek redress in the Union, not out of it.
Even when what he feared and fought against was become overt and bloody war, when his own life was vengefully sought, when his own friends were hunted down, and either murdered without mercy or dragged mercilessly away to fight an alien battle with a sword behind and cannon in front, even then he finds great difficulty in changing his point of view. He speaks no more of wrongs which the South has suffered ; but it is because his feeling of that is overwhelmed by his sense of the horrible wrong it is committing. He declares, at length, that, if Slavery or the Union must go down, he will stand by the Union ; but he evidently accepts the alternative with reluctance, though with resolution. When it becomes apparent that this possible alternative is indeed actual, he is true to his pledge ; but it is a new charge in his mind against the Secessionists, that they have forced him to such election. They will have it so, he says, and since they will have it so, be it so ; the necessity is not of his making; the retribution is real, but it is deserved. His final proclamation of freedom in Tennessee, in advance of executive warrant, was an intrepid and memorable act, worthy of his resolute spirit, —but was an act rather directed against the Rebels than prompted by sympathy with the slaves. His career in Tennessee was already far advanced before he fairly held forth his hand to the negroes as men, with the rights and interests of human beings ; and it needed all the roused passion of his soul, all the touching trust of this people in him as their “ Moses,” all his intensity of recoil from treason, and all his sense of personal outrage, to nerve him for that triumph over his traditional prejudices.
The impression of Andrew Johnson which this book gives us is that of a deep, powerful, impassioned nature, inflexible, but inflexible rather by definite determination of character and fixity of conviction than by obstinacy of will. A man of large ability, he is, so to speak, deeply immersed in his own past, —limited by the bonds of his earnest, but, until lately, narrow experience.
His power to change his point of view upon theoretical considerations is small, for he does little but expand his experience into theory. Facts alone can instruct him ; and if these run counter to his intellectual predilection, they must be impressive to be effectual. He follows the law of his mind in proceeding to make an “experiment” in dealing with the South, and in making it as nearly as possible in accordance with the ancient customs of his thought. There is danger, we think, that he will look at facts too much with a traditional eye ; but there is no danger that he will not act upon them with vigor, Courage, and honest patriotism, so far as he shall see them in their true light.
It should be said, that, to learn the latest modifications of his opinions, the reader must consult the Introduction.