by the Secretary of the Treasury, it was said, were always moderate and economical, and so it would appear from a reference to that statement. For example, the estimates for the year 1837, sent in from the Treasury Department in December, 1836, are ostentatiously displayed in one column of the statement as amounting to no more than $22,651,442, while, in another column it appears that the annual expenditures in that year were $39,164,745; and in a third column stating the excess of appropriations above the estimates of the Treasury, for that year, at $17,073,921! It is manifest that the well-informed only would be able to detect the fallacy of this argument, or to expose the hypocrisy of those who advanced it. If it be said that the Secretary might have been honestly mistaken in making an estimate of appropriations for the year 1837, greatly below the actual demands of the service, inasmuch as the expenses incurred in suppressing Indian hostilities, in that year, greatly exceeded the expectations of all parties, still that does not excuse the attempt to impose upon the people by exhibiting the estimates, and contrasting them with the appropriations, as an argument in favor of the greater economy of the executive administration; and still less does it excuse the attempt to keep up the same delusive appearances in the estimates for the service of the present year (1838) submitted on the 6th of December, 1837. In the report then submitted to Congress, the estimates of appropriations for the service of the year 1838 are stated at $20,523,249 only. Very moderate indeed, and worthy of all praise, in a republican statesman, considering the actual circumstances of the country at that time. But let us examine for a moment what those circumstances were. There were at that moment between 8,000 and 10,000 troops employed in the prosecution of the Florida war, with no certain prospect of ending the war, at all events, before the spring of the next year; and it afterwards appeared, I believe, that at the time those estimates were sent in, the arrears then due in that branch of the public service, and for which there was no appropriation, exceeded $1,000,000; and upwards of $7,000,000 were afterwards actually appropriated for the service of 1838, not one cent of which was included in the estimates of the Treasury!

There were, also, at the period of those estimates (December, 1837) five or six Indian treaties already signed under the direction of the President, involving an expenditure of more than $3,000,000; and although they were not then ratified, yet, as their ratification was regarded as a matter of course, the Secretary of the Treasury was without apology for failing to notice in some form the appropriations necessary to carry them into effect. These treaties were afterwards ratified, and $1,200,000 were actually appropriated, to be expended in the year 1838, according to their stipulations. But this is not all. At the time the Treasury estimates were sent in, the Secretary could not have been ignorant that the Secretary of War and the President had united in an earnest recommendation to increase the rank and file of the standing army to 15,000 men, and to augment considerably every branch of the military establishment and defences of the country; and many concurrent circumstances, besides, indicated that this would be done; yet no notice whatever was taken by the Secretary in his estimates of the increased charges upon the Treasury on this account. The army proper was increased so as to number between 12,000 and 14,000 men, and the other branches of the military establishment were also augmented; to meet the expenses of which, in the year 1838, upwards of $700,000 were voted by Congress. Those few items, referred to merely from memory, show an aggregate of $9,000,000 demanded for the service of 1838, all, or the greater part of which, ought to

have been, and probably was, foreseen by the Secretary of the Treasury, yet no part of it was included in his estimates. It is by such concealments and artifices as these that the administration seeks to uphold a character for economy and retrenchment, and to throw upon the opposition and Congress the charge of extravagance. I conclude my remarks upon this part of the Message by repeating my opinion, that the public interests demand the application of some remedy for tlfis mischief. Some adequate penalty should be imposed to protect the people against such false pretences.

I now propose to notice another part of the Message, which, from its connexion with the subjects of greatest interest at the present time, will be regarded as the most interesting and important of the whole.

After adverting to the defalcation of the late collector of the port of New York, (Mr. Swartwout,) and very naturally associating with it the idea of the necessity of a more secure and safe system for the safe keeping and disbursement of the public moneys," the President insists

"That the application of the public money to private uses should be made a felony, and visited with severe and ignominious punishment.

"The Government, it must be admitted," (says the President, in the same paragraph,) has been, from its commencement, comparatively fortunate in this respect.

Here, then, is a fair admission that until recently but a small portion of the public moneys has been embezzled by the officers charged with its collection; yet the method of collecting and safe keeping heretofore in use is denounced and repudiated; a new system is projected and insisted on; and the further security is suggested of severe and ignominious penalties. The enormous abuses successively brought to light under this administration continue to be imputed to any but their true cause. The system of collection and disbursement is defective; the method of accounts is defective; the laws are defective! This has been the ready apology of the late and present administrations for all abuses. There were no serious complaints of abuses or defalcations in the Post Office Department until the party now in power undertook, as they said, to bring about a general reform of the Government; but when a few years of maladministration had brought about a general derangement and the most corrupt practices in that Department, it was immediately proclaimed that the laws regulating the Department were eminently defective; the system of accountability in use, it was said, was a bad one; in fine, that nothing could retrieve its condition but a new organization. The same excuses have repeatedly been urged in defence of the gross abuses which have prevailed in the War Department, in the departments of Indian Affairs and of the Public Lands. Bad laws and a bad organization are the only causes of abuse ever admitted by the friends of power; and the only remedies proposed or applied are new laws and a new organization. But I now take leave to notify the gentleman from New York, (Mr. CAMBRELENG,) that when he shall introduce his bill to provide the remedies suggested in this Message, I shall insist that the rules of this House be strictly enforced, and that his bill shall take rank in the rear of a bill now on the calendar of the House, entitled “ A bill to secure the freedom of elections;" but it might with more propriety be called "A bill to secure in future a skilful and honest administration of public affairs;" a bill, sir, a bill, sir, which provides the very best and the only effective remedy in the power of Congress to adopt, for all the abuses in the public service. Lest the provisions of this bill may have been forgotten, I hope the Clerk will be allowed to read it.

[The Clerk read the bill, which proposes in the preamble to declare removals from office upon political grounds, or for opinion's sake, "a violation of the freedom of elections, an attack upon the public liberties, and a high misdemeanor," The first section provides a penalty of not more than $1,000, removal from office, and perpetual disability to hold office, against any officer, agent, or contractor, under the Federal Government, convicted of intermeddling in any manner with elections, State or Federal, except in giving his own vote. The second section provides a penalty of $5,000, removal from office, and perpetual disability, against any officer of the Federal Government, having, under the constitution and laws, the power to appoint, or nominate and appoint, any office or agent of the Government, who shall be convicted of promising or bestowing any office or agency, upon any agreement on the part of the appointee to render political or other services in elections or otherwise; and a penalty not exceeding $1,000, dismissal from office, and perpetual disability, against any subordinate officer convicted of receiving office upon such terms. The President and judges of courts are excepted as to the penalty of removal from office.]

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The remedies proposed in this Message are applicable to evils in subordinate offices, which are but the consequences of greater ones which exist in higher places. I insist, sir, that when we begin again to apply remedies, we shall begin higher up on the calendar; that we shall begin at the head of the list.

There exists a canker at the core, which must be eradicated before we can expect to heal the eruptions on the surface of affairs. All the remedies devised by the administration are applicable to others and to subordinates only, while the radical vice is in themselves. It is the spoils principle-it is the principle of corruption itself which has been adopted by the party in power as the only effective party cement-it is the false, corrupt, and corrupting principle upon which the appointing power has been and continues to be exercised under the present proscriptive dynasty-it is the practice of appointing desperate, worthless, and unprincipled, men to office-men who, in general, possess no other merit than their partisan services and efficiency in elections. This, then, sir, is the great and fundamental evil. And now, sir, when most of the offices of greatest trust in the country are filled by this class of men-by clamorous and needy favorites-when their abuses and defalcations have become so monstrous that their own patrons are compelled to acknowledge that nothing but the fear of the penitentiary can restrain them, a vain and idle attempt is made to substitute ignominious pains and penalties for an honest course of executive appointment and supervision; and a hope equally idle and delusive is thrown out to the public, that unprincipled public officers may be made honest men by law! And who are they who are set to watch-whose duty it is to watch defaulting receivers and collectors of the public moneys? Men, themselves, who acquired and now hold their stations by the successful operation of the same false and corrupt principle of appointment which placed all those who are subordinates to them in office. The one class cannot be supported without the other-all must be sustained or fall together.

But, Mr. Chairman, this is an old and threadbare theme with me. I have employed my time for years in an effort to attract the attention of the public to this subject in vain. I have often repeated all the arguments which have suggested themselves upon this subject on this floor, and, I am sorry to say, with small effect. I have ever believed, since I became advised of the extent to which the appointing power continued to be abused, that there could be but ohe result, under the gross abuse of the appointing power which has prevailed of late. I have never doubted that time would develop an amount of fraud, peculation, and corruption, which would amaze and arouse the people, if the system should not effectually undermine the public morals, and destroy all sense of national pride and honor before their eyes could be opened.

Sir, I may claim to have penetrated still further into the probable results of this system. I foretold, upon this floor, that other results besides mere injury to the public service, would necessarily, in due course of time, follow in the train of the spoils system, as established and acted upon in some of the States in the Union as well as at Washington. I predicted that the time would come when these contests for the spoils, into which all elections would soon resolve themselves, would be decided by the sword. We have recently had a very fair illustration of the working of this system at Harrisburg; and that, sir, is but the beginning the first-fruits of the system. We shall see the same scene exhibited by and by upon a larger theatre. When this detestable principle of party aggregation shall extend itself into all, or nearly all, the States of the Union, as it promises soon to do, we shall see our national elections contested and settled by the direct intervention of office-holders and office-seekers, backed by their respective partisans, made furious and desperate by the prospect of losing their share of the public spoils, and resolved to incur every hazard to themselves and the country in asserting their claims.

But, having so often urged the abuse of the appointing power as the true cause of the gross abuses known to exist in the public service, I am unwilling that the ground assumed shall rest upon my own assertion, when so many proofs are at hand to confirm what I have said. In the report of the committee of the Senate appointed to investigate the condition of the Post Office Department in 1834, (page 8,) it will appear, by the admission of the head of that Department himself, (Mr. Barry,) that, between the 1st of April, 1829, and the 1st of September, 1834, there had been one thousand three hundred and forty removals from office in that Department alone! The committee resolved to inquire into the grounds of so many removals; and, that there might be no want of specification, they took up the case of John Herron, who had been appointed postmaster at Putnam, in Ohio, in the place of Henry Safford, removed.

[Mr. BELL here read so much of the report of the committee as relates to the case alluded to, by which it appeared, from the statements furnished by the Post Office Department, that Herron was appointed in July, 1829, and continued in office until November, 1831, when he was dismissed. The amount due from him to the Department, during the time he continued in office, was estimated at $558 64, no part of which had ever been paid, and he had finally absconded. The committee then called upon the Postmaster General for the grounds upon which Safford had been removed, and Herron put in his place; but the Postmaster General denied the right of the Senate to go into such an inquiry.]

But, said Mr. B., the committee of this House, appointed in the same year, (1834,) and charged with the same duty, resolved to take up the inquiry into this case, at the point to which the Senate's committee were limited. It appears from the report of the minority of the committee of the House (Doc. 103, p. 215) that the Postmaster General promptly communicated the letters and other papers on file in that Department relating to the removal of Safford and the appointment of Herron; but the majority of the committee, consisting of Mr. Beardsley, of New York; Mr. Connor, of North Carolina ; Mr. Stoddert, of Maryland; and Mr. Hawes, of Kentucky; passed an order that they should be returned to the Postmaster General before they were copied. In this way it happened that these papers have never been communicated to the public; but the minority of the committee, consisting of Mr. Whittlesey, of Ohio; Mr. Everett, of Vermont; and Mr. Watmough, of Pennsylvania; state the contents of them from memory, they having heard them read in committee; and by that statement it appears that an application was made to remove Safford upon the ground that although he was a professed friend of the administration, yet he was believed not to be thorough in his feelings.

His friends, hearing of the attempt to get him removed, represented to the Department that he was a true friend of the administration. There was no exception taken to his capacity or integrity, yet he was removed, and Herron, whose party fidelity was unquestioned by any one, was appointed in his place. Here is a pretty specimen of this evil, in the bud, which has since expanded into such monstrous shapes of abuse! But there is yet a more important circumstance connected with this inquiry. Besides the strange development, that a Postmaster General should not appear to be conscious of any misconduct in having dismissed an honest and competent public servant from office upon such grounds, the still more astonishing fact appears in the shape of an, order adopted by the majority of the committee that they sanction the principle of this removal. The committee declare, in express terms, that they can see "nothing in the letters and petitions transmitted by the Postmaster General, touching the removal of H. Safford as postmaster at Putnam, Ohio, and the appointment of J. Herron as his successor, which, in the slightest degree, impeaches the motives or criminates any act of the Postmaster General, or is, in any respect, material to any object of legislation, or of public interest or concern.”

Here is the solemn opinion of a majority of the committee of the House, composed of some of the most prominent men of the party in power, pronounced in favor of the principle of removals for opinion's sake; nor did they regard the question as of any public interest or concern! Though the successor, brought into office upon the ground of his superior fidelity to the party, had turned out to be a knave, and had actually run away with every cent of the revenue collected at his office in his pocket, still the public were declared to have no interest in the principle upon which the appointment had been made! This case also presents a good specimen of the refinement upon simple proscription which prevailed with the late administration, in the footsteps of which the present one treads. It was not sufficient that a man should be a friend of the administration; if he was suspected of lukewarmness by any man of undoubted standing with the party, it was enough to destroy him. These are the principles upon which the appointing power has been exercised in this country; and this the manner in which the patronage of the Government has been distributed for the last nine years. Is it any wonder that the loss of millions of the public treasure should be the consequence? We have seen, by the order adopted in the committee of the House, how the further progress of the inquiry into the grounds upon which the great number of removals in the Post Office Department was arrested. Further inquiry was, in fact, useless, if the principle assumed by the committee was well founded.

I am not willing to lay aside these valuable reports, without adverting to the facts which were incidentally brought to light before the committee of the Senate, relating to the removal of Wyman, postmaster at Lowell, Massachusetts, and the appointment of Case. It belongs to a class of abuses which are now well known, I suppose, in every part of the Union. I allude to the corruption of the public press, and the direct connexion which exists between the administration papers generally and the Post Office Department. It appears by the report of this committee, (page 11,) that William Wyman, an honest and competent postmaster, was removed from office, on the recommendation of the "democratic committee" of Lowell, without any other reason being assigned than that he was not a friend of the administration, and Eliphalet Case, the editor of the Lowell Mercury, a paper zealously devoted to the administration, was appointed in his place. It was a condition