, of course, General Grant and
Admiral Farragut, he thinks will obey his orders. The South, he
supposes, will rally round him to a man. The thoroughly Rebel military
organization in Maryland, controlled by a Governor after his own heart,
will interpose obstacles to the passage of troops from the Northern
States to Washington. The Democrats in those States will do all they
can to prevent troops from being sent. Before there could be any
efficient military organization in the Loyal States brought to bear on
his dictatorship, he expects to have a Congress of "the whole nation"
around him, of which at least a majority will be defeated Rebels and
Copperheads. The whole thing is to be done in the name of the
Constitution; and the Proclamation he has issued to all officers of the
United States, civil and military, telling them to obey the Constitution
(i. e. Mr. Johnson), may be considered the first step in the development
of the scheme.

It is needless to say that such a scheme could only find hospitable
reception in the head of a spiteful, inflated, and unprincipled egotist,
for such an egotist Mr. Johnson assuredly is. It is needless to say that
it would break down through the refusal of General Grant to give up his
command, and through the refusal of the great body of the army to obey
the President; for the danger is not so much the success of the attempt
as the convulsion which, the mere attempt would occasion. That the
danger is a serious one, provided the October and November elections
show a considerable Republican loss, is evident from a consideration of
the President's position. He has already gone far enough in his course
to exasperate Congress, and unite its Republican members, conservative
and radical, in favor of his impeachment. Without going over the long
list of delinquencies and usurpations which would justify that measure,
it is sufficient to name the recent Proclamation of Amnesty as an act
which promises to secure it. That Proclamation is a plain violation of
the Constitution as the Constitution is understood by Congress; and it
is upon the Congressional interpretation of the Constitution that, in
the matter of impeachment, the President must stand or fall. Congress,
by giving the power of granting amnesty to Mr. Lincoln, evidently
conceived that it was not a power given to him by the Constitution; by
taking it away from Mr. Johnson, it as evidently conceived that it
could not be exercised by him except by