The New York Legislature.
By Editor
THE political corruption which alarms thoughtful men is receiving painful illustration at Albany. The Democratic party had a majority of one in the legislature, which was obtained by an unjust and tyrannical count of the election returns from the VIIth district of New York. With this majority they undertook to pass certain bills of the most obnoxious character, affecting the cities of Buffalo and New York. We have not space to describe these bills. It is enough to say that one of them proposed to put the whole taxation of the city of New York into the hands of four men, of whom the notorious Wm. M. Tweed was to be one, who were to have sole power of distributing the vast revenues of the metropolis among such purposes as they thought proper, it being only provided that the total tax receipts for the next two years should not exceed twenty-two millions of dollars per annum. In an indiscreet hour, James Irving, a Democratic Assemblyman, committed a personal assault on a fellow-member, for which it was necessary he should resign to avoid expulsion. This destroyed the party majority. The Republicans, in caucus, whipped in the weak-kneed of their party to promise united resistance to the above measures, and, to clinch the matter, published the resolutions of the caucus, with the signature of all the Republican members. And now the Tribune correspondent, under date of yesterday, says: “No grown person of sound mind in either party, at all familiar with what is going on in Albany, doubts that ten, twenty, thirty, forty, or even fifty thousand dollars are ready for the Republican who is willing to fill Jim Irving’s place. This is no beggarly affair of thirty pieces of silver.” “Conversation in the hotels to-night runs chiefly on one subject, the desperate effort which Tammany is making to bribe some Republican to vote for Tweed’s four bills. From a dozen different sources, your correspondent has heard that $75,000 were offered one man for his vote. Another report which receives credit is, that $50,000 and a sinecure birth in New York, were the inducements held out to another.” The party papers are jubilant over the firmness of the Republicans. The correspondent above quoted remarks: “Is it not to the credit of the Republican party, and of those principles which animate its ranks, that no one has been found to accept a fortune from Wm. M. Tweed?” And if the party holds together, and, by this providential equalization of forces, is enabled to defeat these bills, hundreds of men will toss up their hats, and will feel that the country has been saved. But look at the facts. One half of the legislature of the mightiest State of the Union stands ready to accomplish its measures by shameful, unblushing bribery. The compact, unbroken resistance of the other half, is secured only by the unsparing use of the party whip. The most stringent caucus measures are necessary to insure the rejection of the bribes with which its members are plied. And even in the face of these resolutions it is stated that the leader of the Tammany forces vows that he’ll “show the Republicans what stuff they are made of;” that he has unbounded faith still in the potency of the almighty dollar and the predominance of the baser qualities of human nature. Such faith can rest only on repeated experience, and would not be seriously shaken by a single failure. We have but a single purpose in referring to these things. Our voice is not heard in these places. The language of rebuke and denunciation belongs to journals which have access to these workers of iniquity. Some of these discharge their duty courageously, but with small effect. Our hope is that revelations such as these will inspire the friends of the National-Reform movement with a purpose, immovable as the granite hills, to labor, by every means and at every sacrifice, for that thorough fundamental reformation which alone can save our country. The dark days of Sumter and Bull Run did not more demand our anxieties, our labor, our sacrifices and prayers, than do these days which are upon us. We shall continue to lay facts like these before our readers as they arise, and to cry aloud and spare not, that no nation, above all, no republic, can long exist, in which political corruption riots as it does now in our own. France to-day is a bleeding, suffering witness to this unchanging truth. We hope America may not be added to the list of illustrations. It will not, if the friends of truth and of their country are faithful to their duty and their opportunity. It is in our power to-day to turn back the tide of national degeneration, not suddenly, but surely, with time, truth, and the power of God, for our allies. Our first efforts have been crowned with auspicious success. We believe they will be continued, and we are sure they will triumph. Since the foregoing was in type, the needful man has been found by Wm. M. Tweed. Orange S. Winans, Republican member from Chautauqua County, after voting steadily for two days in obedience to the caucus resolutions, rose and declared that the resolutions had been passed in caucus during his absence, that he had signed them without understanding their import, and that, believing that the Democrats had a constitutional majority in the legislature, he would vote with them to the end of the session on all party measures. This restores the ascendancy, we will not say of the Democratic party, but of the few scoundrels who rule New York City and now rule the State. There are, we are glad to say, journals which will denounce this infamous procedure in fitting terms; but it is sad to think how little their indignation will accomplish. And the question forces itself on the mind, How long will the people sustain at vast expense a government whose chief function seems to be to tax the public and divide the spoils? And what reason have we to hope that popular suffrage will elevate to office any better class of men, until a thorough revolution has been effected in the popular conceptions of government? The people must be taught the fear of the Lord; must be awed by the authority of his law and the fear of his judgments; must learn that government is his ordinance for the suppression of wickedness and the promotion of morality and religion, and that his swift and certain punishment follows its prostitution. The secular theory of government diminishes, in all who have anything to do with it, the sense of responsibility to God. The present corruption of our politics is attributable in part to the prevalence of that theory. Our work, which at present consists wholly in the advocacy before the American people of the relation of civil government to the divine government, is in the direct and only path to national recovery and preservation.—Christian Statesman.