The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1859-04-06
REMARKS OF MR.. SPEAKER WOODS,
DELIVERED THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,, sAG :
URDAY, MARCH y, 1859, RELATIVE TO PRINTING
REPORT OF TEASURY INVESTIGATING
COMMITTEE.

The House having under consideration Sen
ate J Joint Resolution No 70 Relative to print
ing the report of the Treasury Investigating
Commission, Mr.. WOODS said
Mr.. Speaker The House will bear me wit
ness that during the time [ have served
member of this body, I have not troubled
with much speaking. Except when some loca
| bill interesting my constituents was under dis
cussion have not addressed the House. NJ
only desire has been to reaeet- -by -0te- TIN
! will of the people represent, and to discharg
faithfully the duties of the position to which tn
t partiaIity of the House has elevated me. But
sir, during this debate three leading member
on the Republican side of the House, (West
of Logan, Parsons and Harrison, have takel
occasion to go outside the record to assail tn
official conduct and integrity of the Hon. VIM
d. Morgan, ex-Auditor of State, gentleman
whom / am proud to represent upon the floor
1 cannot consistently with my duty to him o.
the people among whom he lives, and who hon
or him, and cherish his well earned good name
4 sit silent, and say no word in his Defence
1 The three gentlemen to whom have referred
have treated us to defamation without argu
| ment, strong assertions without proof, and vio
| lent censures without dignity and without mod
eration.' Strip their speeches of the misstate
ments of the fact on which they are founded
and they are naught but sound and fury signi
| flying nothing.
The gentleman from Logan, (Mr. West) as
| serts that the books of the Auditors Office
during Mr.. Morgan's term. disclosed the fact
that defalcation existed in the Treasury, yet
Mr.. Morgan concealed it. From This state
mcnt he draws the inference that MIR. Morgan
was derelict in duty and accessory to the rob-
berry of the Treasury. Sir, when we remem-
bcr that the gentleman from Logan is lawyer
by profession, daily called upon to examine the
statutes of the State, that he represents what
has been supposed to be an intelligent constit-
uency, the ignorance displayed by him of the
Legislative history of the State reaches the
sublime Until the passage of the act of April
8, for the regulation of the Treasury, usually
called Kclley's law, the books of the Auditor
did not and could lot, under the system there
tofo:e ex sting, show the. condition of the
Treasury. by the law of 1916, the Trea: :
urer of State was authorized to draw upon the
County Treasurer, directly, and thus hundreds
of thousands OF dollars found their way into
the State Treasury, no account of which was
made uron the books of the Auditor. The
Treasury WAS entirely independent of the Au-
ditor's cffice. The Senate Finance committee,
(Mr. Kelly chairman) in their report upon the
condition Of the Treasury, April Z, 1856, call
the attention of the General Assembly to this
state of things and attributeth the fact that the
Auditors cfice was no check upon the Treas
u y TO defective Legislation, and hoped the ac-
ton of that body would cure the evil.
Now sir, to cliEch this matter ,and to show how
utterly false is the promise from which the gen.
tleman from Logan draws his conclusion, l will
state single fact: When A. \. Bliss retired
from the Office of State Treasurer the books of
the Auditor (Joln Woods credited him with
disbursements to larger amount than the la
bilitics with which be Vas charged, thus appa-
rently showing that the State was indebted to
Bliss. At the same date, however, Bliss own
books in the Treasury cffice showed that he was
indebted to the State in the sum of 81 H.
242 81. The same system for the manage
ment of these two Offices continued through
Auditor Morgan's term, in spite of his persis-
tent efforts to induce the General Assembly to
inaugurate better one. Now, sir, in the light
of this fact, what becomes of the statement of
the gentleman from Logan, that Mr.. Morgan
knefc from his own books that there was a def
cheney in the Treasury; and his inference
thcrefrCm that Mr. Morgan accessory
to the plumber of the public?
The gentleman from Madison, Mr.. Harrison,
however, being a little better posted on the
history of the State than my friend from Lo-
gan, takes different line of argument to show
that Mr.. Morgan was accessory to the robbery
of the Treasury. He tells us that Mr.. Morgan
Treasury by sending circulars to the County
Treasurers and learning what amounts of mon
ey had been drawn from them by the Treasur-
er of State. In answer to this have to say
in the first place that it was no part of his
duty. There was no law upon the statute book
to authorize or require it. In the next place
even if he had adopted the sage plan of the
gentleman from Madison it would have been
utterly futile. He might have ascertained how
much money had gone into the Treasury, but
how could he find out whether it remained
there? He had no more authority to cross
the threshold of the Treasury for the purpose
of counting the assets there, than the gen.
tleman from Madison. You could, with as
much reason, make the same charge against
the School Commissioner or the Board of Pub
lie Works. But. sir, torthe sake of the argu-
mont let us suppose the Auditor armed with
the authority of law to make an investigation
into the condition of the Treasury. Now we
have had the experience of three different
committees to show us what the result would
have been The Senate Finance Committee,
Alfred Kelly Chairman, after, by the authority
of the Senate, making an examination of the
Treasury, reported April Z, 1856, and were un-
able to discover any deficiency in the public
moneys. The late Republican General Assem-
bly, raised, it will be recollected, joint COM
mittee to examine the condition of the Treas
ury, r. w. Taylor, Chairman. This commit
tee was authorized to send for persons and pa
pers, and after an investigation of months, af-
ter examining witness after witness, after a
careful scrutiny of the Treasurer s vaults, were
not able to discover any deficit, as will be seen
by the report made in December, 1855.
Again; under the provisions of the act of
April 8, 1856, the present Auditor of State ex-
amined the condition of the Treasury, and the
result of that examination is thus set forth in
his annual report dated December 81, 1856:
'.The amount of the available balance in the Urea
sury on Nov Is, 1856, has been stated on preced-
ing page. deem it proper say that the accuracy
of the amount reported was ascertained not only by
the books of this (Audtors) Office and those of the
Treasury Department, but by personal examination
and count of the funds in the Treasurers vaults,
required by the provisions of the act of April 9Th,
1856 prescribing the duties of the Auditor and Trea
surer of State relative to the receipt, safe keeping
and disbursement and accounting therefor, and in
accordance with the special provisions of tho 18th