Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-05-03

for the State Senate. In Massachusetts,
or in North Carolina, to be a governor a
citizen must own real estate worth a thou
sand pounds. Religious restrictions also
were, as we have said, almost universal.
| 1t is doubtful if Thomas Jefferson could
have held state Office in any of our com
monwealths except Virginia and New
York. In almost all the states the mem
bers of legislatures, the governor, and the
chief administrative officers must be
| Christians; in many they must be PrOtes-
tants lin two they were expressly required
to believe in the inspiration of the old
and new testaments; in one they must be-
| lieve in future state of rewards and
punishments, and in another, in the doc
trine of the trinity. We should add that
during the interval between the achieve
ment of American independence and the
adoption of the New York state constitu-
ton of 1921, the additions to the number
of inhabitants through immigration had
been considerable
Yet this ideal regime under which the
voters were all protesting Christians, ma
tive Americans, and owners of property,
while the Office holders were all relatively
rich men, as Mr.. McMaster demon
strates, a period of much political corrup
ton. The politicians of that Utopian period
proved themselves inventors and adepts in
the arts of filibusteriDg, gerrymandering,
and colonizing; in distributing patron
age among members of the successful
party and in stealing governorships and
| legislatures The assent of the Pennsyl-
vania Assembly to the call of state con-
vcnton to consider tho proposed Federal
convention was blocked up to the last mo-
ment by the most defiant filibustering on
| the part of the anti Fcderalists. The
Fedcralists were no better; for they sup
pressed the reports Of the debates in the
ensuing Pennsylvania convention, lest
their publication should furnish material
for opposition in other states. In the
| New York Legislature of 1889 so bitter was
the quarrel between the Federalists, who
controlled the Senate, and the anti
Federalists, who dominated the assembly,
that no agreement could be reached as to
the method OF choosing United States
senator's and presidential electors the re-
| suit was that the state had no senators
! during the first session of the first Con-
| gress. and cast no electoral vote for Presi-
dent in 1889. Three years later in New
York, the governorship was stolen from
John Jay, the votes of two Fcderalist
counties being thrown out by tho canvas
sing board Of which the Clintonians or
Republicans had majority. In 1901
John jay, then governor, induced the
Legislature to call convention that
amended the state constitution and gave
every member of the council of appoint
ment right to nominate to the multi
tudinous and lucrative state, county, and
municipal offices then in the gifs of the
council. Thus it was, as Mr. McMaster
shows, that the spoils system as intro.
duced into the state Of New York, for
thenceforth change in the political COM
position of the council was sure to be fol-
lowed by a prescription of office holders
To Massachusetts we owe the inven-
ton of the disgraceful trick known as
gerrymandering, or the districting of
state for partisan purposes, without re-
gard to natural boundaries or the con.
venieDce of citizens. This precedent, set
by Republicans in the spring of 1912, was
promptly followed by the same party in
New York and by the Federalists in New
Jersey and Maryland. 1t was the Federal
lists who, in 1916, undertook to carry the
Maryland state Senate by the colonizing
OF Annapolis, and thus made q peculiarly
infamous addition to the resources of IL
licit party machinery. The year before
the Republicans had stolen the New York