he dollar a mere form of expression by the issue of an additional
billion or two of greenbacks, and then "pay off" the debt in the
currency they had done all they could to render worthless. In other
words they would not only swindle the public creditor, but wreck all
values. A party which advocates such a scheme as this, to save it from
the death it deserves, would have no hesitation in risking a civil
convulsion for the same purpose. Indeed, the reopening of the civil war
would not produce half the misery which would be created by the adoption
of their project to dilute the currency.

Now, if by apathy on the part of Republicans and audacity on the part
of Democrats the autumn elections result unfavorably, it will then be
universally seen how true was Senator Sumner's remark made in January
last, that "Andrew Johnson, who came to supreme power by a bloody
accident, has become the successor of Jefferson Davis in the spirit by
which he is governed, and in the mischief he is inflicting on the
country"; that "the President of the Rebellion is revived in the
President of the United States." What this man now proposes to do has
been impressively stated by Senator Thayer of Nebraska, in a public
address at Cincinnati: "I declare," he said, "upon my responsibility as
a Senator of the United States, that to-day Andrew Johnson meditates and
designs forcible resistance to the authority of Congress. I make this
statement deliberately, having received it from an unquestioned and
unquestionable authority." It would seem that this authority could be
none other than the authority of the Acting Secretary of War and General
of the Army of the United States, who, reticent as he is, does not
pretend to withhold his opinion that the country is in imminent peril,
and in peril from the action of the President. But it is by some
considered a sufficient reply to such statements, that, if Mr. Johnson
should overturn the legislative department of the government, there
would be an uprising of the people which would soon sweep him and his
supporters from the face of the earth. This may be very true, but we
should prefer a less Mexican manner of ascertaining public sentiment.
Without leaving their peaceful occupations, the people can do by their
votes all that it is proposed they shall do by their muskets. It is
hardly necessary that a million or half a million of men should go to
Washington to speak their mind to Mr. Johnson, when a ballot-box clos