Note 28 — Chapter XI · POETRY AND PROSE 1858-1872

What Lowell thought of the impeachment business may be inferred from a passage in a letter written to Mr. Godkin, 20 December, 1867: “I was sorry to see you [in the Nation] relaxing a little about impeachment. For myself, I have seen no sufficient reason to change my old opinion of its folly. They remind me of the boy’s playing at hanging, who finds he has done it all right,—only forgotten to cut himself down. We might be able to stand it, we are a wonderful people, of course, but the other lesson of standing A. J. to the end of his tether is worth ten of this. The South is as mad now as it ever will be.”