The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-10-13

A New YoRK JUDGE ON MUNICIPAL AFFAIRs.-
Edwards Pierrepont, late Judge of the Superior
Court in the city of New York, has resigned
his Office, and in his letter of resignation, ad-
dressed to Governor Morgan, gives his reasons
for doing, in terms severe, sustained by facts
SO convincing, and disgraceful to the municipal
government of New York, that we have thought
proper to publish portions of it below. The Judge
says that he has been compelled to resign on &C.
count of continued ill health superinduced by con-
fnement in apartments entirely unfit for occupa-
ton by court of justice or any other assemblage
of human beings. 1t seems that some efforts had
been made to obtain better accommodations, to
which he refers as follows:
The Supervisors took the matter in hand
and were DESTROYS to erect building without de-
lay; but they soon found out that they had pow
er to take the land of the Park for any purpose.
In short it has been discovered, after three years
of trial. that no man, or body of men in this NUM-
cipal government have any power to do any SUBJ
stantia thing except to stay the action of every
other man or body of men. The machinery of the
city government is so cunnngly devised that each
wheel can stop the motion of every other and so
that the whole shall by possibility move in har-
mony together No man is held responsible for
anything, and no one appears to have the power to
do anything but mischief. These evils are very
generally admitted, and very generally they are
r
walls. But universal suffrage is not the cause of
our present misgoyernment. The people have a
right to vote, and they will exercise it; and any
attempt to deprive them of that right will certain
! " fail. But the people desire wise, and just, and
able rulers, and they would gladly vote for such if
| they had the opportunity. s.---
| When this great city shall construct its charter
| in harmony with those principles which the AL
mighty has implanted ineradcable in the nature
of man, the government will be successful; any
other will come to naaght.
| OF the present city government he says:
1t is but the hooking ghost of an attempted gov
eminent; the structure was built on moving sand,
and no repairs propping will save it. 1t must be
taken down to the very foundation, or it will con-
tinue to settle and crack until it tumbles in with
| much ruin.
The more intelligent portion of our citizens give
| this subject no united attention; they intent on
wealth. The moment the gloomy cloud gathered
from the panic vapors of 1857 lifts little in the
| West, we all madly fastening again to be rich
| leaving justice, order and government to take
Of IA n.sAl.-Aa etre' Just. n the wise the
wealthy, the honest ard the intelligent will not
combine for good government, the wicked, the idle
and the dishonest will combine for bad govern
ment; and they will govern, and through the forms
OF law, in the shape of taxation and other egaized
jobbery, they will strip the children of the indus.
trious rich of these carefully conserved estates,
leaving them in poverty, the more hopeless from
the very wealth in which their childhood was pam
pered. Government will be administered bv some
body that may be relied upon; if the wise and
good will net attend to it, fools and knaves will
Bad government and false notions of what is worthy
| always 60 together and act and react upon each
other, as they do here. Hence this unpromising
feature IN our civilization garingy presents itself
namely, the insane passion for outward grandeur
| and meretricous display which everywhere pre-
walls.