The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1856-09-25
; The Last Session Of Congress.

The Last Session OF congress.
A Baltimore correspondent Of a religious pa
per of wide influence reviews the last session
of Congress with much severity, but with dis
agreeable truth. In abiding to the charac-
ter of this Congress it says:
"There has never been any Congress of
which the moral character was not higher
We use the phrase with reference to the pub
lie affairs. Whether the private moral char
acter of the individual members are better or
worse than that of their predecessors, we do
not know and shall not inquire. But what
we mean to say is, that there has never been a
Congress in which the absence Of anything
like pure and comprehensive patriotism was
so strongly marked. The members appear to
have been solely engrossed IN the pursuit OF
personal, party and sectional interests, to the
utter disregard of the public interests, and OF
that which is emphaticully the chief national
interest, the Union. We do not say this ex-
clusively of any party, section, or clique all
seem to us to be equally guilty. We hesitate
to say that each individual member was SO
guilty. but the innocent were few in number.
| The general character of the session and its
proceedings was such as to confirm the opin-
ions which we have so often expressed about
=
1t alludes to the difficulties at the COM
mencement of the session in the election OF
| Speaker and at the close in refusing to pass
the Army Appropriation Bill, and then says:
"Such were the beginning and end of the
session, what was the middle? A scene of vi
tuperation and violence. An amount of per-
sonal and sectional abuse on both sides, which
| bou odd l,.p No
attempt made to check it by the application
Of moral force. Mere brute violence, in the
shape of assaults such as occur in the shop to
which we have just alluded, ana challenges
and acceptances of challenges, which no one
believed were intended to produce any result,
served to deepen the stain on the morals of the
| National Councils, and to furnish to newspa-
pers and local politicians opportunities for the
same kiud ofblusterlng and abuse which had
already disgraced the Halls ofCongress Then
came the arrest and trial of member of Con-
gress for homicide, committed in an atfray
with the walters at tavern. This seems 10
I be all that was wanted to complete the pic
ture But there is something still behind.
The body Of men, who could agree in moth
ing else agreed in dividing among themselves
three -fourths of million of public money
We are not going to dispute that an annual
salary for the members of Congress is prefer
able to q per diem. In fact, we believe that it
is. We are not going to maintain that $4,000
year is too much, although we are inclined
to believe that it is. But common decency
required that such an enormous increase OF
compe nSation should not commence until af-
ter the next election. The parallel which we
recolect is that of the British House of Com
mons the members of which, having been
elected for three, voted themselves into power
for seven years.
The whole history of this unfortunate ses-
sion points to the danger Of the course which
has been pursued by letting the government
of the country fall into the hands of trading
politicians. 1t proves, beyond ali question,
that the highest places are not filled by the
best men. The object at which certain Eng
lish party processes to aim, of putting the right
men in the right place, is not attained. The
object ofthe Government has for long time
past appeared in the minds of those who ad-
ministered, or sought to administer it, to be
the distribution of office. Now a mischievous
element has been added in the attempts Of the
North and South to govern each other, which,
after all, is used only as new instrument in
in the hands of trading politicians. The dan
ger, not merely of the Union, but of the true
liberty and the good government of the Sec
tions into which it may be divided, is great
and imminent. The remedy is in selecting a
better class of men to represent us. But there
are two difficulties one is that of prevailing
on such men to enter into the associations
which public life now presents, the other is to
elect them. If the difficulties are to be over
come, it must be by combination of the vir-
tue of the country. 1t is time that men Of
morals should think of something besides theiI
immediate private interests or even their par
tY or sectional prejudices. The first abstract
them from their public duties, the others make
them tools in the hands of trading politicians
But if the country is to be saved, it must be
by some combination among those who desire
its prosperity and not its spoils. H. D. E.
Baltimore, Sept. 8. 1856.