CHAP. VIII. POLITICAL OSTRACISM OF ABLE MEN. 169 A system of government which has a tendency to repel men of high character and position, and attract the needy and unscrupulous, will necessarily be full of corruption. The standard of integrity and honour will be low.22 And this is what we find in the United States. Posts in the civil service are so many bribes used to win over men whose opposition might prove dangerous. There is a general scramble for the emoluments of office. But this is not the They denounce as copperhead every Republican who offers to differ from them, and exercise really a system of terrorism which has broken down the independent judgment of very many, and makes some of the ablest men in the House and Senate so anxious to avoid their proscription that they are silent, or acquiescent in measures which their judgment condemns." In the Senate, on the 11th July, 1867, Senator Buckalew made the following remarks:-"If a member of this body gets re-elected, his friends think it is a subject for warm congratulation, regard it as a wonderful result to be wrung from a caucus and from managers at home. But, sir, I insist that in this country, as abroad, the House of Representatives ought to be the great House of our Legislature; its hall should be resorted to for words of eloquence, for profound logic, and for the exhibition of the highest traits of American statesmanship. How is it, and how must it be, as long as you keep members there two, four, and six years only? They have no opportunity to grow up into distinction; they have no opportunity to mature their abilities and become able statesmen."('Congressional Globe,' 12th July, 1867.) 22 Burke, in his French Revolution,' utters certain truths which seem to have disappeared altogether from modern political discussions, or at best are openly disavowed and repudiated. "Everything," he says, "ought to be open, but not indifferently, to every man." "I do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power, from obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all rare things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honour ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be opened through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle." only, or the worst, form of corruption which exists, Lord Brougham bears this testimony to the honour of the House of Commons:—“I have sat in Parliament for above fifty years, and I never even have heard a surmise against the purity of the members, except in some few cases of private Bills promoted by Joint Stock Companies. I had been considerably upwards of a quarter of a century in Parliament before I ever heard such a thing even whispered; and I am as certain as I am of my own existence, that, during the whole of that period, not one act of a corrupt nature had ever been done by any one member of either House." 23 The incredulity of a high American official when this passage was once shown to him revealed the difference in the tone of honour which prevails in English and in American public life. Corruption is the first thing to which an American politician of the common order becomes accustomed. He beholds it practised everywhere. It has been brought to bear upon himself, and he is driven to the use of it in his dealings with others. The member of Congress is surrounded with persons who are being bought and sold from morning till night. Before he begins the business of the day, his rooms are besieged by an eager crowd of office-seekers, whose claims, in the larger proportion of cases, he knows to be worthless; but he is bound to advance them. When he goes down to the House he finds himself beset by a 23 Lord Brougham on the 'British Constitution,' p. 62, chapter iv. CHAP. VIII. CORRUPTION OF THE LEGISLATORS. 171 throng of "lobbyists," who haunt the doors of the chamber, and often contrive to follow him upon the floor. Any great interest which is affected by a Bill before the House has active agents at work to make it worth the while of members, such members, that is, as are accessible to gold, to hear and see no more than they are paid to do. If a member is ascertained to have been engaged in a nefarious transaction, it does not injure him in the estimation of his associates, of his constituency, or of the country. This is the worst indication of all of the extent to which public life has been degraded. One instance, among many, may be given in proof of a statement which seems to affect the national idea of probity, although in reality it reaches no further than the political idea. In 1862 a local newspaper in a Western State brought forward accusations seriously affecting the reputation of a member of the House of Representatives. The charge was renewed so often that at last a Committee of the House was appointed to inquire into it. They found that the implicated member was the Chairman of a Committee to which the regulation and disposal of lands in Territories were intrusted, that he had appointed his relatives and friends to posts in all directions, and that he had made a bargain with an agent to buy lands, upon information afforded by the member in question, obtained in his official capacity, and to divide the profits between them. The facts were proved chiefly by the letters of the accused. Once he had written to his underling, "I want to unite with you as a full partner in land speculations and town sites." And again he wrote, by his own admission, "I want to have an interest with you in the city and town lot speculation. The Pacific railroad will go through this Territory, and it will be a fortune to us if I can get it." "I will know all the proposed expenditures in the Territories and post you in advance." "I have spent a good deal of time and some money to get this place." The other party to this bargain wrote back saying,-"In the matter of the appointments you may have them your own way; all of them you can save for yourself, and over and above these the partnership matter in land speculations." The facts brought out in the evidence laid open the corrupt intentions of the accused with a conclusiveness which would have been fatal to him in other countries. But there was no proof that any of the transactions agreed upon had really been concluded, and the member was exonerated, and suffered to retain his official position.24 In the early part of 1867 the Secretary of the United States Senate, who was the publisher of a public journal, was accused of threatening his party with desertion unless a very lucrative trade contract was made with him. He did not deny the charge, but on the contrary defended it upon principle with great candour. The theory that men should be paid for their political support was, he said, "one that no 24 For the particulars of this case, see 'Reports of Committees of the House of Representatives,' 1862-63. (Washington, 1863.) CHAP. VIII. ADMISSIONS OF POLITICIANS. 173 party could discard and live." "Nothing has contributed more to the tremendous and increasing strength of the Republican party than the adherence of such men as Governor taking care of their friends." to the maxim of There is no attempt at secrecy or disguise about this. able for a public official to own that if he upholds his party he expects to be properly paid for the effort. And it is needless to say that the practice is not peculiar to any side or faction; it is the one precedent which all parties defend with perfect unanimity. When the Tariff Bill was before Congress in 1867, and duties on certain articles were enormously increased, statements were openly made in the public papers that interested manufacturers had been busy with their gold among the members. Whether they were well founded or not the mere observer could not decide. They were urged by American journals against American politicians, and they were never contradicted. It is incontestable that the duties most largely enhanced were those upon manufactures, the special representatives of which had seats in Congress. Public writers in America seldom deny that corruption on the most extensive scale exists in the Legislature, unless, perhaps, when the fact is affirmed by a foreigner. The addition of Texas to the Union was notoriously secured by the judicious outlay of ten millions of dollars among members of Congress and 25 Washington Morning Chronicle,' February 14th, 1867. |