A Ghost Walks

The Ghost Walks

The Congressional revolt against Government-by-directive had gone so far last week that Pundit Walter Lippmann, a man not easily frightened, saw a ghost, a specter out of some of the blackest days of U.S. history. What frightened Mr. Lippmann were "monstrosities" like the McKellar patronage grab bill.* The ghost he summoned up was that of Thaddeus Stevens.

When John Wilkes Booth's bullet shattered Abraham Lincoln's skull, Lincoln was a lesser leader of the Republican Party than Thaddeus Stevens. Known as The Great Commoner, Stevens was then over 70, the House Republican leader, a scholar and wit whose penetrating eyes and dry, high-keyed voice, always clear and incisive, commanded audiences magically. His baldness was disguised by a heavy, insecure black wig. Club-footed from birth, he leaned dramatically on a cane, gesturing arrogantly.

Stevens' Whip. Stevens believed that Congress was sovereign, not the President. Of President Andrew Johnson he said: "He and his minions shall learn that this is not a Government of kings and satraps, but a Government of the people and Congress is the people."

Johnson learned; so did the South. That Stevens, dominating the Congress, the President and the people, drove the laws of Reconstruction through. He had a political purpose: he believed that if Southern representation were restored in Congress, the Republican Party would be doomed. The black days followed.

Southern state governments were virtually abolished, the South was divided into military districts. And the 40th Congress, under Stevens' domination, did not stop with reconstruction. Next came measures to bring the President, the States, the Army, the Cabinet and even the Supreme Court under Congressional control. Repeatedly President Johnson's veto was overridden. Congress was master.

Stevens' Chance. Thad Stevens' chance to break Johnson came when the President violated one of Stevens' own measures, the Tenure-of-Office Act, which denied the President power to remove without Senate permission any appointee the Senate had confirmed. Johnson suspended Secretary of War Stanton, and Thad Stevens called for Johnson's impeachment. Trembling with age, leaning on his cane, Stevens could scarcely read his own charges. On May 16, 1868, Johnson was acquitted by a margin of one vote.

Many times since the '60s the ghost of Thaddeus Stevens has walked in the House--in 1919-20, when Congress blocked President Wilson's World War I reconstruction plans; again in 1931, when Congress forestalled President Hoover's depression measures.

Walter Lippmann saw the ghost in the McKellar bill. Wrote Lippmann.

". . . The abuses of executive authority can and must be checked. But let no one . . . imagine that to swing to the other extreme and let the Congress dominate the Government would not be the sure way to national disaster."

*Requiring a new Senate confirmation of every employe in the Government making more than $4,500 -- the greatest spoils crop in U.S. history.

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