“ The censure and condemnation of the President, either by the majority or minority, is without our jurisdiction, not justified by the facts, unbecoming one department of the Government toward another, and calculated to bring reproach upon the Committee, the House, and the Nation. We cannot ignore the fact that time has been spent and testimony taken by the Committee in endeavoring to ascertain if the President, in his official capacity, has spoken censoriously and condemnatory of Congress. ”

“ The local Governments swept away as they had been, in the opinion of the President himself, by the whirlwind of the rebellion, were in ruin, while communities were anarchy, the courts outlawed, the social tie dissolved, a system of pretended laws existing in deadly conflict with the law of the Conqueror. A people subdued, but sullen and full of hate, and hostile as ever to the power that had overthrown them ”

“ We do not impugn the personal motives of any member of the Committee who differs with us. Our intercourse upon the Committee has been pleasant, and the courtesy with which we have been treated, uniform and uninterrupted. We entertain none but the most kindly feelings toward every member, but candor and a sense of duty compel us to declare that we can find no warrant or excuse for this traveling outside or beyond the subject and condemn the President, except in the prejuduce and zeal of overheated partyism. ”

“ For every act so gravely condemned the President had the sanction and approval of his Cabinet, and yet, while he is arraigned before the world as a criminal of the deepest dye, they are not only not impeached, but are recognized as special favorites of the party for impeachment. ”

“ It is not our purpose now to attempt an analysis or discussion of evidence taken before us, or to point out the gross absurdity and inconsistency of a very large portion of it. It will be read and considered by the American people, and we cannot doubt what their verdict will be when those who have been attempting to load with disgrace and infamy the Chief Magistrate of our country, shall stand pillowed in the undying scorn and indignation of a great people. ”

“ We endeavored in the investigation to exclude from our minds every question of mere politics, and as far as possible to be uninfluenced by party bias. We were admonished that in some sense the nation, the people, in the person of their Executive Head, were on trail before the world, and that personal animosity and party politics should be inflexible and scrupulously forgotten and ignored. For any cause to have shrunk from a full and careful investigation of the great question of impeachment was cowardice ”

“ It is a fact of history that the obstinate and protracted struggle between the Executive and Legislative departments, arising out of the claim of more than kingly power on the one hand, and as strongly maintained by the operators of the first rights of sovereignty, lodged with it by the people, on the other, which has convulsed this nation for the last two years, and presented a spectacle that has no example here, and none in England since the era of the Stuarts, began with the advent of the present Chief Magistrate. ”

“ This class of men has constituted a considerable portion of mankind in all ages, and in none have they been more numerous than in our own. They have furnished the bigots and persecutors of all times, and their pathway through the long line of history, from its earliest date to the present time, has been marked with carnage and desolation. With such men no argument, based upon the Constitution and established laws, can have any ability; they live and breathe in a purer and higher atmosphere outside of the Constitution and above the laws. ”

“ Lincoln had survived, it is not to be doubted from his habitual deference to the public will, that, although a citizen of a loyal State, and enjoying the public confidence in the highest possible degree, he would have felt it to be his duty to convoke the representatives of the people to lay down the sword in their presence, and to refer it to their enlightened and patriotic judgment to decide what was to be done with the territories and people that had been brought under the authority of the Government by our arms. ”

“ We cannot doubt that the evidence herewith, this day admitted, will be received with a universal burst of indignation by the American people. If they retain any fast pride in their country and its institutions they will blush to find that the chief officer of their Government has for ten months been subjected to the scrutiny of a secret Star Chamber inquisition, unparalleled in its character in the annals of civilization. ”

“ Blind bigotry and unbridled partisan rage, it is true, can see crime in the most meritorious actions; and men governed by the unhallowed passions do not hesitate to drag to the stake or the torture of the Inquisition all who will not conform to their wretched creeds and miserable dogmas. They substantiate their own crude and often crazy theories, for truth and justice and under pain of severest penalties demand of all men to bow down and worship the idol they have erected. ”

“ We dissent from all of this, and from the temper and spirit of the report. The cool and unbiased judgment of the future, when the excitement in the midst of which we live, shall have passed away, will not fail to discover that the political bitterness of the present time, has, in no inconsiderable degree, given tone to the document which we decline to approve. ”

“ As the report of the majority does not charge the President with any act recognizable by any statute or law of the land as a crime or misdemeanor, we can but regard the charges preferred as a political or partisan demonstration, tended and intended to bring him into odium and contempt among the people, as an unjustifiable attempt to excite their suspicions. "Spargese voces in volgarer ambigues." We utterly deny the right of the Committee or any member thereof, as such, to do this. ”

“ We have reason to be thankful to an over kind and merciful Providence that this worst feature of the worst of despotism, when the attempt was made in an unhappy hour to transplant it to our own free American soil, was placed for its administration in the hands of a class of men so destitute of manhood and character as to deserve the undying scorn and indignation of the entire people ”

“ Neither Congress nor the President has any power or authority not derived from and found in the Constitution. The only question with reference to which the Committee were authorized to inquire was, whether the charges against the President were true, and constitute an offence or offences subjecting him to impeachment. Certainly if this is not the only question referred to the Committee, it is the only one which the Committee as such can investigate. The political purpose of the acts of the President has not for one moment engaged the attention of the Committee. ”

“ If the people of this Republic desire such a result, we have not yet been able to discover it, nor would we favor it if its presence were manifest; while we condemn and censure the political conduct of the President, and judge him unwise in the use of his discretionary powers, and appeal to the people of the Republic to sustain us, we still affirm that the conclusion at which we have arrived is correct. ”

“ It sometimes happens that the administration of the most dangerous usurpation is placed in the hands of men so respectable for character and talent as to disarm suspicion, and conciliate even those whose liberties are endangered. ”

“ A contrary rule might leave to Congress but little time for other business than the trial of impeachments. But we are not now dealing with political offences. Crimes and misdemeanors are now demanding our attention. Do these within the meaning of the Constitution appear? Rest the case upon political offences, and we are prepared to pronounce against the President, for such offences are numerous and grave. If Mexican experience is desired we have no difficulty, for there almost every election is productive of a revolution. ”

“ In so doing they must be allowed the indulgence which a comprehensive scrutiny, running over a two years' administration of the affairs of a great Government, through an unexampled crisis of the State, and involving the very highest matters that can engage the attention of a free people, would serve to necessitate, and must at all events excuse. The charges made, and to which the investigations of the Committee have been especially directed, are usurpation of power and violation of law in the corrupt abuse of appointing, pardoning and veto powers ”

“ To hold the conquered territory within our military grasp until the sovereign power of the nation, vesting in the Representatives the same power which had girt the sword upon the thigh of the Executive, and placed the resources of the country, in men and money, at his command, should be ready to declare its will in relation to the rebels it had conquered, was all that remained for him to do. ”

“ In every important statement he is contradicted by witnesses of unquestionable credibility, and there can be no doubt that to his many previous outrages, entitling him to an unenviable immortality, he has added that of willful and deliberate perjury; and we are glad to know that no one member of the Committee deems any statement made by him as worhty of the slightest credit. ”

“ They are law unto themselves, and both men and Gods must conform to their views and theories, or receive their bitterest maledictions. But our people will never submit to have their Chief Magistrate arraigned for trial for offences unknown to the laws, and which exist only in the excited brains of her political enemies. ”

“ It is wicked thus to trifle with the most vital interests of the nation and to disregard the voice of a great people when spoken, as in this case, so emphatically in favor of the preservation of our Constututional form of government, and the rights and liberties established by our Revolutionary fathers. We will not attempt to add anything to the able, and, as we believe, unanswerable argument just presented by the Chairman of our Committee upon the law of impeachment. ”

“ It is the commission by the President of an impeachable offence only that can subject him to our official jurisdiction, or justify us as a Committee of the House of Representatives, or even the House itself, as such challenging his official acts. ”

“ Never in the history of this or any other State have questions more numerous and vital, more delicate or difficult, requiring graver deliberation or involving the exercise of higher governmental powers, resented themselves for the consideration of a people, and never was a Congress convoked in a more serious crisis of a State. ”

“ He has been blind to the necessities of the times and to the demands of a progressive civilization, enveloped in the darkness of the past, and seems not to have detected the dawning brightness of the future. ”

“ Planting himself firmly and immovably upon this position, he has incurred the fierce and malignant hatred and opposition of all those who claim, by virtue of the alleged conquest of the territory and the subjugation of the people of the lately rebellious States, the power and right to dictate to them the Constitution and laws they shall live under, and the liberties they shall be permitted to enjoy. ”

“ The majority of Congress and of the Committee have entertained and been prepared to declare at all times in Congress and out of it, even more strongly than is expressed in their report, this same censure and condemnation. ”

“ The end can not but be foreseen—the antagonism will ultimately produce enmity and open hostility and aggression which must result in the destruction of one or more departments, and as a consequence destroy one system of government altogether. ”

“ Fourth—The national banking system should be sustained and improved by repealing the monopoly clause, and leaving all perfectly free to establish banks who will comply with the law of Congress, thus giving all sections of the country as large an amount of substantial circulating medium as their interests require. ”

“ That their own judgment may be fallible, or that other men differing from them may be equally wise and honest with thousands, never occurs to their minds, and they will without hesitation question the justice even of the Almighty if the ways of Providence do not conform to their own crude theories. ”

“ The report of the majority resolves all presumptions against the President, closes the doors against all doubts, affirms facts as established by the testimony in support of which there is not a particle of evidence before us, which would be received by any Court in the land. ”

“ He well knowing that the provisions inserted under and by his dictation in the said illegal Constitutions for said States, were wholly inadequate to protect the loyal people of the United States against the payment of claims on account of debts incurred by such States in aid of rebellion, thus rendering it practicable and easy for those in authority in the aforesaid illegal and unconstitutional Governments thus set up to tax and oppress the loyal people of such States for the benefit of those who have been engaged in the attempt to overthrow the Government of the United States ”