National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-05-19
Robertson's Confirmation.


ton of governments, rulers have been
found who were corrupt. Gifts have per-
verted judgment and offices have been
marted for gold. The prostitution OF
high official station to base uses, whether
of avarice, ambition, or revenge, has ever
consigned to infamy the prince or ruler
to whose door it could successfully be
brought Bacon was destroyed because
he received gifts from suitors, even
though he decided adversely to them.
The great name of Henry Clay was un-
justly stained because his acceptance
of Office under John Quincy Adams
was vaguely connected in mems minds
with the fact that he had been an import
ant factor in the latter's election. This
was declared to be presumptive evidence
of corrupt bargain. Through years of
Republican rule We have Indignantly re-
PEELED the idea that Offices were gifts to
be made, rewards to be bestowed, or
merchandise to be sold. In 1868, when
President Johnson attempted to remove
Cabinet officer for his own political pur-
poses, Republican Senate said no, and
when, in contempt of the Senate, he Or
dered a removal, Congress by two
thirds vote passed over the Presidents
veto the tenure-of-office act to restrain the
Executive will and preserve the consti-
tutional power of the Senate. The people
approved the action of the Senate and of
Congress, and condemned the President.
And now, in 1881, after several years of
morbid sentimentality over the question
of whether appointments to Office could
even be properly confined within the lines
of the party in power, when ordinary
human methods of selection were counted
corrupt, when character and fitness have
been measured with civil-service reform
steelyards and yardstick, when Harvard
and Yale united on Williams to insure us
scholarship and reform in our politics, and
when the tempest of factions at Chicago
had driven our party back into the haven
which appeared to symbolic "the sweet
by-and-bye," 10! and behold, our prophet
refuses even to longer wear his veil.
The offices are being bestowed. The
President, who has written magazine ar
ticles and delivered lectures ON reform,
and who, as Taine says of Dickens's Peck
sniff, can "talk like a prospectus
President keeps the correspondents of
his newspaper organs busy informing the
world of the sorry motives which govern
him in making the appointments.
1t is openly and notoriously declared
that, in choosing the men who are to ex-
ecute the duties of public office, he deems
it proper to be guided by the part taken
by them in the disgraceful rough-and-
tumble fight at Chicago from which he
emerged a winner, where he had been
From that famous bat
tle-feld he brought away the presidential
much as from real battle
fields some are said to bear away the
jewels of the slain. His heart goes out to
those who made this exploitpossible, and
the chiefest among them, he
makes ruler over all merchants in the !
land who deal in merchandise imported |
into the city of New York. at is my
iCNQIu, llODSIlSOil lOI hOIh
at Chicago" And the President, instead |
of Withdrawing Robertson for making
the shameless confession, takes him a
whip and cracks it about the ears Of the |
Senate until, for the sake of peace and to
save themselves from Executive tyranny
and prescription, that body yields to his |
unlawful usurpation of their power. In
delibly stamped upon the history of the |
country and darkly staining what might |
have been its brightest page, our chill
dren will read that President Garfield |
personal hostility to any Sem
ator who should vote against, and infer
entially promised his friendships to any |
who should vote for, the confirmation of |
the man he had determined to pay for
his vote at Chicago. The work is done
Robertson was confirmed yesterday. 1t |
was not willingly done by the Senate.
Next week the State of New York will |
comment on this in the election of SEN
ltorS.