the Spectator
February 2. 1867
If proof were wanting of President Johnson's deficiency in political sagacity,—which unfortu- nately it is not,—it could not be better illus- trated than by his somewhat bizarre choice of a political confidant. The Times' correspondent in America is evidently an able man, and can put Mr. Johnson's ideas into masculine and telling English; but the President's English cbnfidant, in his holy wrath at the im- peachment policy of the Radical party, declares, with less than his ordinary shrewdness, that it cannot be asserted "that Mr. Johnson prevents necessary legislation. The majority of two-thirds is secured, and the veto can always be rendered inoperative." The worthy critic seems to forget that no "legislation," however 'necessary,' is of the least effect which is not put in force by the executive authority. And he well knows that Mr. Johnson not only does not enforce the Civil Rights' Act, and the Freedmen's Bureau Act passed over the President's veto, and does not try to recommend the second Constitutional Amendment, but that he openly encourages the South to set these Acts, as unconstitutional, at defiance . . . Mr. Johnson is not, we suspect, at all likely to be proved guilty of corruption. But that he is guilty of treason• to the cause for which the North has been fighting, none proves more conclusively than his English friend and admirer.
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