ssionate sense of self-importance, inflaming a mind of extremely
limited capacity.

Such a person, whose mere presence in the executive chair of a
constitutional country is itself "a high crime and misdemeanor," is of
course the natural prey of demagogues, and he now appears to be
surrounded by demagogues of the most desperate class. His advisers are
conspirators, and they have so wrought on his vulgar and malignant
nature that the question of his impeachment has now come to be merged in
the more momentous question whether he will submit to be impeached.
Constitutionally, there is no limit to the power of Congress in this
respect but that which Congress may itself impose. The power is plain,
and there can be no revision of the judgment of the Senate by any other
power in the government. But Mr. Johnson thinks, or says he thinks, that
Congress itself, as at present constituted, is unconstitutional. He
believes, or says he believes, that the defeated Rebel States whose
representatives Congress now excludes are as much States in the Union,
and as much entitled to representation, as New York or Ohio. As he
specially represents the defeated Rebel States, it is hardly to be
supposed that he will consent to be punished for crimes committed in
their behalf by a Congress from which their representatives are
excluded; and it is also to be presumed that the measures he is now
taking to obstruct the operation of the laws of Congress relating to
reconstruction are but preliminary to a design to resist Congress
itself.

The madness of such a scheme leads judicious people to disbelieve in its
possibility; but in respect to Mr. Johnson it has been found that the
only way to prevent the occurrence of mischief is to diffuse extensively
among the people the suspicion that it is meditated. Judicious and
dispassionate persons are often poor judges of what men of fierce
passions and distempered minds will do; for they unconsciously attribute
to such men some of their own ideas of honesty, propriety, and regard
for the public welfare. The legislators whom Louis Napoleon outwitted
were overthrown, because, bad as their opinion of him was, it was not so
bad as events proved it ought to have been. In the case of Mr. Johnson,
there is not the same excuse for misconception, since his cunning is
utterly divorced from sagacity, and he has not the intelligence to
conceal what his impulses prompt him to attempt. The kind of man he is
would seem to b