Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1873-04-02
G9t FIREMAN
MONTPELIER. VT,
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1873.
RESIGNATION.

hCSiSudtIOD.
There is at length one vacant chair, va
cant IN law as well as in fact, in that care
fully watched and tended body of men OF
Roman virtue. the New York Senate Will
liam M. Tweed has concluded to retire to
private lie and has resigned his seat. 1t,
of course, becomes the bOuDden duty of all
republican party organs to show how care
fully bis monstrous iniquities were nursed
and cherished in the bosom of the den ocracy.
how its rotten organization used party
chlnery to foist this ward politician and
rough into position where he not only ruled
the State councils OF New York democracy,
but, through it, swayed its national move
ments, and drew princely revenues from the
metropolis of the Empire State to satisfy the
greed of himself and his political friends.
In a yet more august body than the New
York Senate there is a like spectacle present
ed. Alexander Caldwell concIu led that he
would no longer be United States Senator
and has gone his way, leaving his bought
honors behind him. MIR. Caldwell having
been, to the time of his exposure, a member
of the Republican party in good and regular
standing, it is seemly and right that all par
tisan Democratic papers should at once point
at this man as a fair sample OF what the
country must expect when it trusts its desti-
MES in the hands of men who profess SO much
love for honesty and purity and morality, and
have SO little of those virtues, as the never to
be sufficiently condemned republicans. All
this time each g organ . APPLIES the white
wash brush to its own defled premises. and
tries TO hide what it seems to have no desire
to wash clean. The result sought is that IN
der party cries the people shall be again
brought into line and made to record once
more the will of their masters in the art, NOT
the science, Of politics.
So long as this mine of prejudice can lie
wbrked, so long will the country be under
the burden of disgrace which has come upon
it within the last few years. There are but
few men who from friendship or from any
other sentimental reason would allow their
private affairs to be placed in the hands Of
persons whom they do not respect as honest
and worthy men, and it is now come in ie-
sue whether this common sense view of things
can be carried inrD our action 10 public al
fairs,
Our questions in government are now main
ly what are appropriately termed business
questions the raising OF immense revenues,
the disbursing of them after they are gath
cred. The principles on which the govern
ment stands are better settled than those of
tb men who legislate and those who execute
the laws.
The resignation of these two corruptionists,
Tweed and Caldwell, ought to mark, and
will mark, if the plain tax-payng citizens
will 80 determine. turning point in our pc
ltical system. Their retirement 10 escape a
worse fate is about the only resulting loss OF
place from the Reform movement started IN
New York city, and from the awakening Of
the nation the pat winter as to the yenality
of its servants.
Expulsion would have been better, but the
retreat of the guilty is something The on
ly sorrow is that We have no system IN civil
life whereby a resignation can be refused &C
ceptance. The poor thief cannot resign bis
station in society, and laying no claim to its
benefits, at once relieve himself OF its power
of judgment but to Jail he goes To see
these larger criminals go unwhipIed OF jus
tice is a painful, but just recompense for
those honest men who by ahdering to party
forsake their duty to themselves and their
fellows.
Thore are honest men enough in the Unit
ed States to dictate who shall make and who
shall execute the laws by which 50 much
money is taken from the people in taxes. Les
them lay aside the bitterness of party spirit
and whenever any opportunity offers, see to
it that no salary grabber, no brlber, no de-
faulter, no man of loose principles, receives
their support. So doing may metime Ia
volve the support of political opponentand
whenever it does, no better sign for the WEI
fare of the country need De asked than
that such support was unhesitatingly given.
Resignation will then be out OF order and
instead of the voluntary retirement of rascals
from Office with smile and c0urtIy bow, they
will be kicked out as they deserve.