Page:'Tis Sixty Years Since.djvu/62

52 and, taken altogether, most successful operation, for a century and a quarter. During that century and a quarter we have had, we will say, some five and twenty different chief magistrates. There is an ancient and somewhat vulgar adage to the effect that the proof of a certain dietary article is in its eating. Apply that homely adage to the matter under consideration. What is the lesson taught? It is simply this,—during a whole century and a quarter of existence there has not been one single chief executive of the United States to whom the arbitrary Recall could have been applied with what would now be agreed upon as a fortunate result. In the Andrew Johnson impeachment case was it not better that things were as they were? On the other hand, every one of the seven independent, self-respecting Senators who then by a display of high moral courage saved the country from serious prejudice would have been recalled out-of-hand had the Recall now demanded been in existence. Its working would have received prompt exemplification; as it was, the recall was effected in time, and after due deliberation. The delay occasioned no public detriment. In this life, experience is undeniably worth something; and the experience here referred to is fairly entitled to consideration. No political system possible to devise is wholly above criticism,—not open to exceptional contingencies or to dangers possible to conjure up. Such have from time to time arisen in the past; in the future such will inevitably arise. This consideration must, however, be balanced against a general