ge of any of its
constitutional or legal duties or responsibilities; but said article and
the specifications and allegations thereof, wholly and in every part
thereof, question only the discretion or propriety of freedom of opinion
or freedom, of speech as exercised by this respondent as a citizen of
the United States in his personal right and capacity, and without
allegation or imputation against this respondent of the violation of any
law of the United States touching or relating to freedom of speech or
its exercise by the citizens of the United States or by this respondent
as one of the said citizens or otherwise; and he denies that by reason
of any matter in said article or its specifications alleged he has said
or done anything indecent or unbecoming in the Chief Magistrate of the
United States, or that he has brought the high office of President of
the United States into contempt, ridicule, or disgrace, or that he has
committed or has been guilty of a high misdemeanor in office.
_Answer to Article XI_.--And in answer to the eleventh article this
respondent denies that on the 18th day of August, in the year 1866, at
the city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, he did, by public
speech or otherwise, declare or affirm, in substance or at all, that the
Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States was not a Congress of the
United States authorized by the Constitution to exercise legislative
power under the same, or that he did then and there declare or affirm
that the said Thirty-ninth Congress was a Congress of only part of the
States in any sense or meaning other than that ten States of the Union
were denied representation therein, or that he made any or either of
the declarations or affirmations in this behalf in the said article
alleged as denying or intending to deny that the legislation of said
Thirty-ninth Congress was valid or obligatory upon this respondent
except so far as this respondent saw fit to approve the same; and as to
the allegation in said article that he did thereby intend or mean to be
understood that the said Congress had not power to propose amendments
to the Constitution, this respondent says that in said address he said
nothing in reference to the subject of amendments of the Constitution,
nor was the question of the competency of the said Congress to propose
such amendments, without the participation of said excluded States,
at the time of said address in any way mentioned or considered
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