ROTATION OF OFFICE IN THE LEGISLATURE. 237 



scarcely been entered upon at the time of my arrival. 

 It was the first session of the Senate, and out of the 

 thirty-two who had served in the former Senate, only 

 three members had been returned to the new one. This 

 fact illustrates two things first, how very widely the 

 supposed justice of the principle of a rotation of office 

 prevails, and how generally it is acted on ; and, second, 

 why it is that in the State Legislatures, and in Con 

 gress, so much time is spent in preliminary business, and 

 in discussions which lead to no effective advance in 

 legislation. It is considered an advantage, both pecu 

 niary and otherwise, to go to Albany for the first 

 hundred days of the year ; and as all have an equal 

 right to enjoy this advantage, the rule is to change the 

 members every election the exception, to return the 

 same person more than once to the State or National 

 Legislatures. 



I have said the first hundred days of the year, as, by 

 the constitution of the State of New York (Article III., 

 6,) the members of the Legislature receive 3 dollars 

 a-day for their services, but the allowance for the session 

 cannot exceed 300 dollars in all. So that, if they sit 

 beyond the hundred days, they receive no pay for the 

 extra days an admirable spur upon their proceedings 

 when the second month of the session is over. 



This system of rotation in office is followed by the 

 necessary consequences that only third or fourth rate 

 men in regard to talent are usually returned to serve in 

 the Legislature ; that scarcely one member in a new 

 house knows more of affairs than another, or has made 

 any one branch his special study ; and that all come up 

 raw, and must of necessity spend six weeks in talking, 

 that they may be broken in, and made gradually to see 

 that the crude notions and intentions they each brought 

 with them from the country cannot be put in practice, 

 and will not bear the critical examination of their brother 



