American telegraph. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1851-1851, 1851-06-02
Nv AsHINGTONI

POPLAR ELEoTIoNs.-The extension of the
right of suffrage has ever been opposed where
ever recommended; has ever prevailed where
ever stoutly urged by its advocates, and has
ever proved more conducive to the public veal
and less liable to abuse and corruption than the
appointing power. We remember when we
thought that the institution of an elective iu-
dietary would be the end of justice; and yet
where judges are elected the people are salts
fed with them, and the ends of justice are ac-
comphshed, while many of the courts, whose
judges are the creatures of the appointing
power, languish in imbecility, and are without
the respect or confidence of the public
1t was our opinion, that if judges could be
safely elected by the. people, all the officers
under the General and State Governments might
receive their appointments from the same
source and zoe think so get. We know of no
permanent Office that might not be supplied by
the peoples nomination with advantage to the
public; and, in addition to the procuring good
and efficient officers in the right way, they who
now have the appointing power would be re-
ieved of q responsibility that is oppressive upon
them, and exempted from temptations they Ger.
tainly cannot always resist
In the appointments under the General Gov
eminent, the Quid pro quo-the price of the
thing received-is as regularly exacted and
paid as in any brokers' office in the United
States; not always in money, to be sure, but
in services of like character, or in votes to the
person comforting the appointment, or whose
influence procures it,
In the ante-rooms of the great men of the
hour, an unassuming man, who has done SER
vice to the State or to his party, sometimes
comes, believing that, with the credentials of
an honest and fair fame, of industry and eff
cheney, his chance Of success must be as fair as
could have been those of some who have
succeeded but after hours and days of waiting,
he wonders at his want Of success, and is amazed
that beardless youths and obsolete imbeciles
have gone in and out, and obtained the objects
Of their suits, while he has waited unnotced or
been cooly rejected. He is unwilling to believe
that the mere toady or shadow of some Senator
or Representative has been preferred before him
by an intelligent and discriminating Secretary;
yet all the while the lookers-on are laugh
ing at his verdancy, and wondering at folly
so stupid as to suppose that plain, good man,
with the ability, skill, and will to work-no mat
ter what his past services may have been-can
hope to obtain employment and living in
market where the pledges Of future support can
be obtained from the very men who are to COM
pose presidential caucus, or who can carry
STATE or disrrict for whomsoeyer they please
and who have nephews and sons, and fathers and
brothers, and acquired connexions of q discred-
liable character, to provide for. That many bad
and inefficient men should obtain preferment
under such system ought not to amaze us
but that good and honorable men should pre-
dominate in the public Offices is truly to be
wondered at.
We sometimes have interesting revelations on
this subject yet but little of what might be
told. The ambition or other unworthy motive
Of Secretary often blinds and misleads him !; |
but the means by which the influence of " hon
orable gentlemen" is obtained and applied would
afford the more startling narrative. DENLY,
Dinsmore, Collins, Galphin and Lewis exposes
are printed and published for the worlds edit
cation but there are other cases that might be
made public, before the fame of which these
would be forgotten
The true private history Of the administra-
ton Of our government would exhibit cor
ruption to which the people would give but an
incredulous hearing; yet such as would con-
vince every republican that by the popular cleo
ton alone Of every officer who can possibly be |
80 chosen, can the Government be perpetuated
in purity.