Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/662

630 Congressional Reconstruction. Impeachment. [i867 Fourteenth Amendment, while negroes were to be included. By this electorate a constitutional convention was to be chosen in each State, which should draft a constitution containing the same suffrage qualifica- tions ; and, when this had been adopted by a majority of the registered voters in the State, and the State had ratified the Fourteenth Amend- ment, Congress, if it found nothing " unrepublican " in the process, could admit the State to representation. At the same time Congress tied the hands of the executive. It provided that the first session of the Congress elected in 1866 should follow immediately upon the expiration of its predecessor, thus leaving no such interval of time as that used by Johnson in 1865. It made all military orders issuable only through the commanding General, known to be in favour of the Congressional policy. It passed a Tenure of Office Act, limiting the power of the President to dismiss officials by making the consent of the Senate necessary, thus blocking a proscription threatened by Johnson. Fearing unfriendly action by the Federal judiciary in a test case involving the validity of the Reconstruction Acts, it abolished the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in such cases. Objections on constitutional grounds were lightly regarded by the relentless majority; they had a task to perform, and refused to be hindered by legal quibbles. Furious debate, it is needless to say, raged in Congress from its meeting in December, 1865, increasing in acrimony during the next three years ; but these were times when debate counted for little. The old days of elevated constitutional discussion were gone for ever ; and, although both sides regularly invoked the sacred document, this became scarcely more than a matter of form, the result of ingrained habit. In fact, party considerations were absolutely dominant, the majority riding roughshod and regardless of mere words over President and minority. This party vindictiveness reached its height in an attempt to impeach the President, who regarded the Tenure of Office Act as un- constitutional, and tried to remove Secretary Stanton, his bitter enemy, in apparent defiance of its terms. In an explosion of rage the House voted impeachment, and brought Johnson to trial before the Senate in March, 1868. Public excitement was at fever heat, the President being subjected to a tempest of execration, and accused not merely of violating the law but of planning to get control of the War Department in order to carry out a coup cTetat. The Senate, however, although strongly Republican, on technical grounds failed to convict him by the narrow margin of one vote. Seven Republican senators, who separated from their party in this vote, were ruined politically; but the decision is universally regarded at the present day as fortunate for the country and the stability of the Constitution. Meanwhile the process of reconstruction laid down in the Acts of 1867 was being vigorously carried through; but it became clear that