MR. LINCOLN'S GLORY AND MR. JOHNSON'S SHAME. 113

are habitually slow to speak ill of public men, even of such as deserve dispraise; but if such an appearance as Mr. Johnson presented during his inauguration is to pass without public rebuke, then there no longer remains to the press any duty of impartial criticism of men in official stations.

Once or twice, we have felt it our duty to speak against the excessive use of intoxicating liquors by some of our statesmen. It may be asked, What is the duty of journalists in such cases? It seems to us plain. We hold that if a public man is drunken in a private company, he is not amenable to comment in the newspapers; but if drunken while acting his part on a public occasion, his offence is against the public, and should never be shielded from the just punishment of public censure.

In the Senate Chamber, on the fourth of March, in presence of the Senate, of the House, of the Cabinet, of the Supreme Court, of the Diplomatic Corps, of the newspaper press, of a gallery of ladies, and (during part of the time) of the President of the United States-on an occasion to be for ever historic-the Vice-President elect presented himself to take his solemn oath of office in a state of intoxication.

Not in anger but in sorrow do we chronicle this fact, which we have no just right to suppress.

A few weeks ago, the Speaker of the House of Representatives was commanded by vote of that body to administer a public reprimand to a member who had committed a similar offence with less conspicuous shame. If a member of the House is to be punished for such an act, shall the President of the Senate go unrebuked?

Of course, the Senate will choose its own method of reaching the case-a method which, we trust, will be

kind, moderate, and just. But meanwhile, it is the plain duty of Mr. Johnson either to apologize for his conduct, or to resign his office. In the name of an insulted people we demand that so great an affront to the dignity of the Republic shall be made to bear a fit penalty, atonement, and warning.

After the President had delivered his inaugural, and the Vice-President had staggered through his oath; in other words, after the glory and the shame of the day were over; every spectator, as the multitude broke up, turned to his neighbor, and with a look of earnestness seldom seen on all men's faces at one time, exclaimed, "God spare the life of Abraham Lincoln, and forbid that Andrew Johnson shall ever occupy the Presidential Chair."

March 9, 1865

THE EXCURSION TO FORT SUMTER.

EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

AT SEA, OFF BARNEGAT, HOMEWARD BOUND, April 20, 1865.

TO THE INDEPENDENT:

W

HILE the steamer is rolling and pitching, and half the company are queasy in their berths, I, your editor, turned correspondent-a solitary sitter in this deserted cabin, rocking without a rocking-chair, tasting an occasional qualm of mortality, yet sweetly medicined by this confronting cluster of Port Royal roses-force my unwilling pen into a hurried story of the hoisting of the old flag at Sumter, and of our historic sea-voyage that began in joy and ends in grief.

What a memorable party Capt. Gadsden weighed anchor with, a fortnight since, on the Arago! I cannot name them in any accurate order of honor, except that the hero of the expedition was Gen. Robert Anderson, and next in the assigned rank of the occasion was a certain clergyman of Brooklyn, who, having been often taunted with the query, "Why don't you go to the South?" at last answered, "Behold I go!" But the observed of all observers was William Lloyd Garrison, accompanied by his life-long co-worker, George Thompson -noble twins in friendship, and equal veterans in the cause of emancipation in two nations. Then we had Gen. Dix, Joseph Holt, Henry Wilson, Justice Swayne of the

Supreme Court of the United States, Lieut.-Gov. Charles. Anderson of Ohio, brother of the General, and himself one of the true heroes of the war, Gen. Townsend of the War Department, Rev. Dr. Storrs of Brooklyn (who preached on Sunday from the capstan as a pulpit), Judge Kelley and Daniel Dougherty of Philadelphia (the latter of whom does whatever is "natural for an Irishman's son "), Abbott A. Low, President of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the venerable Joseph Hoxie, author of an unpublished cyclopedia of anecdotes, and other brilliant gentlemen whose names are just at this moment jarred from my memory by this lurching ship. But I must not forget Gen. Doubleday, and a good story he told. After the surrender of Sumter, a hotel-keeper on Sullivan's Island, whose house had been hit by a stray shot, haughtily accosted Capt. Doubleday, saying, "Sir, why did you fire at my house? a hotel is not a fort." "Well," replied the captain, "you once gave me a squalid room and a villainous bed, and I thought I would take my revenge by putting a hole through your wall!" That answer brevets its author a wit.

South Carolina gave her first kiss to our invading feet at Hilton Head. What a golden morning! What songs of mocking-birds! What wild white roses, and orange blooms! The gay green of the Southern grass, the palmettos, the live oaks festooned with moss, the wondrous magnolias yet unflowered, the cactus and the geranium growing as weeds by the wayside-all these were lustrous reminders how far we had wandered from Yankeeland. Nevertheless, the wonderful sea-beach was Brother Jonathan's Nahant over again, only ampler and grander.

In a strange country the pleasantest thing one's eyes can look upon is the face of an old friend. And who

should be the first man to greet us but Colonel Stewart L. Woodford, our former companion on many an antislavery platform, and now gallantly bearing his country's eagle on his shoulder! No young man in the nation has a more eloquent tongue or a more knightly heart.

Suddenly General Littlefield made a military arrest of our whole party of fanatics and incendiaries, conveying us in ambulances to Mitchelville-a neighboring village of blacks, and named after that noble astronomer who, ceasing to look toward the stars, dwells now among them. Are negroes competent for self-government? Here is a settlement of three thousand, who choose their officers, make their laws, and regulate their political economy as in a New England town. Nor is New York half so well governed; for a mayoralty according to Murchison, is better than a mayoralty "according to Gunther." A meeting in the chapel brought us face to face with these villagers. Never shall we forget that scene. Never shall our ears lose the remembered music of that day's solemn songs of praise. No soul was unmelted. A company of world-famed abolitionists, speaking for the first time in their lives on the soil of Calhoun, to an audience of tearful, prayerful, thankful, emancipated slaves, presented a spectacle of moral sublimity such as no one of the spectators may ever again behold.

Fort Sumter is a Coliseum of ruins. Battered, shapeless, overthrown, it stands in its brokenness a fit monument of the broken rebellion. Round its base lie innumerable cannon-balls, enough for a bombardment— cankered now by the salt waves, and perishing with peaceful rust. The parapets are ragged as a saw-edge; and one who walks them should have the sure footing of a goat upon the rocks. When the flag ascended, the