New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-12-22
CIR NEW LEG1SLATCRE.


ORR NEW LRGIsLATURE.
The new Legislature of our State cOnyenes at
Albany on Tuesday, Jan. ]. The election of a
l.. S. Senator the amendment of our new anti
Hanging law 70 rs 70 Obviate Judicial cavils
and give full effect to the intentions of its trainers,
and the revision of our Financial system, so as
10 diminish the public burdens without prejudice
to the Constitutional guarantees for the early
payment Of our debt, are among its most I'M
portant and obvious duties
Shall this Legislature be copy of the last :
This is o question of vital importance to the
State, and to its own Members as well. The!
have the history and fate OF its predecessor staring
them full in the face. OF the l23 Members Of
the last Assembly, more than One Hundred we're
denied reelection, while the few spared monu-
ments mainly saved themselves by proving that
they were found in earnest and persistent oppO-
siton to the dOings of the minority. The few
who could produce clean bill of health in this
respect were eagerly and gratefully supported;
the many who could not were generally either
denied q denomination by their respective parties
or beaten in spite of such denomination OF the
very few Republicans who were on record as
voting for the Objectionable measures of the Ses-
sion. and were nevertheless renOmnated, less
than half dozen were reelected, and those by
very much less than the vote of their party.
Shall these facts be lost on the House about to
be organized VIII the great body of new Mem
bers ignore or defy them 2 Shall this House vol
unfairly adopt and fasten upon itself the reputa-
ton of the last To do so would seem the mad
deSt self sacrifice. Assume virtue if you
have it not" is advice which even the Lobby
ought to give the Members. 1t were deplorable
indeed if this should prove another such House as
the last; but to proclaim itself such in Advance
to elect officers whose names are inseparaby
linked with the misdeeds whereof the People
have passed an irreYersible judgment-wOud be
little short of insanity.
We say, then, to the new Members VINO 0re
every day beset and buttOn-hoed by great men
aud great mems runners to vote for the old
officers or some of them. Beware You can
not afford TO apprise your constituents, at the
start, that you are bent on repeating the follies
and the cOrruptOns Of your immediate predeces-
sors. You cannot afford to make them feel that
all the good you do, all the evil you shun, this
Winter, will be 80 done, 80 summed, because of
their watchfulness, not Of your own virtue.
You cannot afford to bid those constituents keep
their hands ON their pockets and their eyes on
your every motion, lest they be dealt with as
they were the year before.
There will be candidates before you who we're
,-ta nj in, al hat I'll, bo,
so unequiyOcally condemned in your immediate
predecessors; there Will also be candidates who
opposed, resisted, denounced those dongs from
first to last Do not yainly imagine that you
can prefer the former TO the latter, yet not he
deemed to indicate thereby fellow feeling with
the men of your choce--a sympathy with their
means and their ends Your constituents must
and will Judge you by what you deliberately do
rather than by what you may feel constrained TO
say.
At the opening of the Last Session. new
Member attempted-honestly, we doubt MOTTO
correct some of the more palpable abuses con-
nected with our Legislative Sessions. No open,
at least no serious OppOsltion was then made. But
officers We're chosen who belonged TO the old
regime; aud that was the end Of reform. No
old abuse was corrected, but the Session a.
whole was more obnoxious to just reprobation
than any predecessor since that of 1897. Shall
the lesson pass wholly unheededl
Republicans in the Assembly we appeal rs
pecially to you The People of our State as
Of the Free States generally have indorsed your
National principles as embodied in the Chicago
Platform BY those principles We may fearlessly
resolve to live and die. But there are thousands
Of good men who regard us with apprehension
as unsound in matters of Finance and Public
Economy-or rather as under the control of leaders
and wire-workers who make money by loose and
yenal legislation. Ii is essential TO the mante.
nance Of Republican ascendancy in the perlous
times just ahead that should dispc. this up
prehcnsiOn, and commend ourselves to the gen.