Johnson finding that his quarrel with Congress had ruined him with his party, now set about constructing a new one—a Johnson party. His scheme was to ignore both the Democratic, and the Republican parties. If he could succeed in reconstructing the Southern States, to the exclusion of Congress, he might hope to get the votes of those States in the next Presidential election. But to conciliate these States, it would not do to hang “five hundred of the military and political leaders of the rebel Government,” as a mere “beginning.” He must pursue a different policy. He now issued first one amnesty proclamation, and then another—doling out amnesty, grudgingly, in broken doses—until he had issued three of them. By the last of these proclamations, the writer of these pages, who was true to his State, was “graciously pardoned” by Andrew Johnson, who had not only been a traitor to his State, but had betrayed, besides, two political parties. A glorious opportunity presented itself for him to show himself a statesman. He has proved a charlatan instead. He cowered in his struggle with Congress, and that body has shorn him of his prerogatives, and reduced him to the mere position of a clerk. This is the second act of the drama, the first act of which was the secession of the Southern States. The form of government having been changed by the revolution, there are still other acts of the drama to be performed.
THE END.
Footnotes:
[1] The Cuba was hourly expected to arrive, but, as the reader has seen, was recaptured, and did not make her appearance.
[2] “Now let us make a calculation of the annual saving to the commerce of the United States, effected by these charts, and sailing directions. According to Mr. Maury, the average freight from the United States to Rio Janeiro, is 17.7 cents per ton, per day; to Australia, 20 cents; to California, 20 cents. The mean of this is a little over 19 cents per ton, per day; but to be within the mark, we will take it at 15 cents, and include all the ports of South America, China, and the East Indies. The ‘Sailing Directions’ have shortened the passage to California, thirty days; to Australia, twenty days; and to Rio Janeiro, ten days. The mean of this is twenty, but we will take it at fifteen, and also include the above-named ports of South America, China, and the East Indies. We estimate the tonnage of the United States, engaged in trade with these places, at 1,000,000 tons per annum. With these data, we see that there has been effected, a saving for each one of those tons, of 15 cents per day, for a period of fifteen days, which will give an aggregate of $2,250,000 saved per annum. This is on the outward voyage alone, and the tonnage trading with all other parts of the world is also left out of the calculation. Take these into consideration, and also the fact that there is a vast amount of foreign tonnage, trading between those places and the United States, and it will be seen that the annual sum saved will swell to an enormous amount.”—Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine, May, 1854.
Transcriber’s Note:
Some quotes are opened with marks but are not closed. Obvious errors have been silently closed while those requiring interpretation have been left open.
Other punctuation has been corrected without note.