eople was able
to assume unwarranted powers, the course of affairs under Johnson
demonstrated the strength that Congress derived from the organic act.
The story is told in a sentence by Blaine: "Two thirds of each House
united and stimulated to one end can practically neutralize the
executive power of the government and lay down its policy in defiance of
the efforts and opposition of the President."[167] What a contrast
between the two administrations! Under Lincoln Congress, for the most
part, simply registered the will of the President; under Johnson the
President became a mere executive clerk of Congress. In the one case the
people supported the President, in the other they sustained Congress.
Nothing could better illustrate the flexibility of the Constitution than
the contrast between these administrations; but it needs no argument to
show that to pass from one such extreme to another is not healthy for
the body politic. The violent antagonisms aroused during Johnson's
administration, when the difficult questions to be settled needed the
best statesmanship of the country, and when the President and Congress
should have cooperated wisely and sympathetically, did incalculable
harm. Johnson, by habits, manners, mind, and character, was unfit for
the presidential office, and whatever may have been the merit of his
policy, a policy devised by angels could never have been carried on by
such an advocate. The American people love order and decency; they have
a high regard for the presidential office, and they desire to see its
occupant conduct himself with dignity. Jackson and Lincoln lacked many
of the external graces of a gentleman, but both had native qualities
which enabled them to bear themselves with dignity on public occasions.
Johnson degraded the office, and he is the only one of our Presidents of
whom this can be said. Bagehot, writing in 1872, drew an illustration
from one of the darkest periods of our republic to show the superiority
of the English Constitution. If we have a Prime Minister who does not
suit Parliament and the people, he argued, we remove him by a simple
vote of the House of Commons. The United States can only get rid of its
undesirable executive by a cumbrous and tedious process which can only
be brought to bear during a period of revolutionary excitement; and even
this failed because a legal case was not made against the President. The
criticism was pregnant, but the remedy was not Cabinet respon