Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1867-12-11


ion Of it in any contingency, so long as the Judi
,ial power remains, deserves universal adherence,
The two next topics, frauds on the treasury and |
The tenure Of office. should be considered together.
It is lamentaby true, as all honest public Off .
GERS have confessed and every body knows, that /
enormous frauds upon the Government have been .
from the initiation Of the war to this
day. Congress aud faithful executive officers have
laborcd to prevent them, but the enormous sums
to be collected and discussed through multtudcs /
Of agents all over the country have afforded both
the temptation and the means to peculation and
fraud. Such is the fact. Now the President at
tempts plauhy to turn this fact against Congress,
and pleads that he cannot prevent frauds because
Congress has cut him off from the privilege Of
turning rogues out Of Office Indeed. 1t is but
a few months since the tenure Of office bill was
passed. and IL is quite pertinent to inquire how
the fact was before that time, when the President
had fall power. Frauds frauds frauds reader
that was the fact. SO the plea Of the President
utterly fails. But there are other facts, such as
that frauds and losses by incompetency prevailed
even more than usual because the President re-
mored good men and PIT in bad or inexperienced
men, The official reports Of executive officers de-
clared this, and the declaration has been repeated
contemporaneously with the message The Sec
rotary Of the Treasury complains that appoint
monts TO revenue positions do not depend upon
merit alone :" that politics apt to influence, if
not to control selections to office +" and that the
whiskey tax cannot be thoroughly enforced "un-
less a higher standard Of qualification for revenue
officers Than non erists shall be established"
Other officers are still more pointed, and attribute
losses TO changes Of revenue officers. The real
truth is that the tenure Of office bill was designed
by Congress to prevent the President from APP
pointing dishonest and incompetent men. When
the President himself threw Oft all the restraints
of political consistency, decency and morality,
the dregsof all parties--the very men least fit to
be trusted by any body-gathored around him to
receive his favors for promised support aud Just
then Congress interposed to save the treasury
from forty thousand thieves. So much for the
motive Of the act. Some Inconvenience not pro-
vided against have flowed from it, and for this
there must be a remedy.
In reading this part of the message the thought
struck us that the President imagines himself an
autocrat, responsible to nobody, and that every
attempt to check his abuse OF power is an encroach
ment upon his rights We think it would be well
for him to read the Constitution once more, and
to mark the power Of the Senate over executive
appointments, and the power of Congress to vest
the appointment Of inferior officers as they think
proper" Congress and the Senate have certainly
acted more completely mp to their constitutional
power than has been usual but they have had an
unusually bad man to handle.
The remainder Of the message presents nothing
censurable, and much of it is decidedly good.
We are glad to see the President and the Secreta-
ry of the Treasury in harmony on financial ques-
TONS and hope nothing may occur to impair that
harmony We believe the Secretary Of the Treas
ury is substantially right and the stake is great
that should deplore his removal from that post
as a national calamity. Even the fact that he is
not exactly Of our political persuasion is not an
objection. That Office ought not TO be political.
The Court or CLAus.--Senator Edmunds
has introduced bill allowing the Government to
appeal from the Court Of Claims to the U. S. Su-
preme Court in certain cases, and in others requr-
ing the revision of Congress. The last is taking
the back track, and we have no doubt of the pro-
prety of it. The trials in the court Of claims, as
in the committees Of Congress, are little better
than er parte; the claimant being fally heard and
the Government but imperfectly. The Govern
ment is indeed represented in the court by solicit
tors, whose duty il is to defend the Government as
completely as possible; but they rarely do it,
probably mover so thoroughly as the same men
l 10 loo ha,.b al Il 10
/ ious and jealous sutton This results from the ma
ture Of the case First, it is office, and incum-
bents of that like those Of all other offices, find
the temptations to ease stronger often than the
ambition for efficiency or, to make the statement
accurately, there are probably many more who
consult their ease than there are who zcalousy
and strictly guard the interests of the Government.
And second, there is a real difficulty in the way OF
Jealous solicitors, in the multiplicity of the cases
to be tried. We had a pretty good opportunity to
judge Of the court by reason of having had to ex
anime several cases, aud two we will state as OK
amples The first claim arose in 1850, for slaves
taken and property OF an American officer destroyed
by the British in South Carolina. More than 7C
years elapsed before this claim was presented tC
Congress Gin 1S5l) by grandson of the officer
who lost the property and the claim ioas paid in
1853, as agreed by the claimant with his support
ers in Congress and interest was also paid from
the presentation of the claim to Congress till the
passage of the act. Moreover the account allowed
was taken from the claimants statement in hi.
own hand writing and signed by him. The amount
agreed upon accurately stated in the act new
ertheless the act was so drawn (probably by the
claimant himself,) as to give color for another
claim, and this the claimant did not dare to pur
sue in Congress where the facts were known, but
he carried it to the court of claims. In his peti
ton there he embraced an item for crops LOST
Which he had agreed to give up IN Congress to Sc
cure the passage Of his act and he run up tn,
amount Of that item from the original sum of 81 600
first to $4,000, and ultimately "to 1922, $50 pei
aunum for a series of years > and had the face t.
demand interest on the whole amount for seventy
seven years, although in Congress he had gyer
up the interest except from 1851 to 1858. II,
2 also claimed a sum for an error in computation
though in fact there was no error, as was proven
f subsequently over his own name Well, the cour
of claims alioiced the very claim the petitioner ha,
I given up to secure his act, and allowed also 70
: the error, which was no error and directed test
mony to be taken to show the value Of the crop