NEW YORK. 



section of the State. Besides the nominations already 

 referred to. there were awaiting the action of the Sen- 

 ate several citizens of New York named for offices 

 connected with courts district attorneys and mar- 

 shaU. These were all re-appointments ; most of them 

 had been originally commissioned by Mr. Hayes. 

 They were certified by the judges of courts and many 

 other eminent persons who attested the faithfulness 

 and merits of their service, and recommended their 

 continuance. They were not presented by us. We 

 have not attempted to dictate, nor have we asked the 

 nomination of one person to any office in the State. 

 Indeed, with the sole exception of the written request, 

 set forth above, we have never even expressed our 

 opinion to the President in any case, unless questioned 

 in regard to it. 



Some days ago, the President abruptly withdrew, 

 in one and the same act, the names of General Wood- 

 ford and Mr. Tenny, and of two marshals. This un- 

 precedented proceeding, whether permissible by law 

 or not, was irruvfly significant. The President had 

 nominated these officers after they had been weighed 

 in the balance. Their official records were before 

 him, and had been fully scrutinized and approved. It 

 must be presumed that he thought the nominations fit 

 to be made, and that it was his duty to make them. 

 There is no allegation that he discovered any unfit- 

 ness in them afterward. It could hardly be that he 

 discovered unfttness in all of them alike. What, then, 

 was the meaning and purpose of this peremptory step f 

 It was immediately stated, as if by authority, and 

 seems to be admitted, that the purpose was to force 

 the Senate or Senators to vote as they could not vote if 

 left free from Executive interference : it was to control 

 the action of Senators touching matters committed by 

 the Constitution to the Senate exclusively. It has 

 been suggested, hi addition, that by recalling these 

 nominations and holding them in his own hand, the 

 President might, in the event of the failure of another 

 nomination, use them to compensate that failure. If it 

 can be supposed all these public trusts are to be, or 

 would in any event be made personal perquisites to 

 b bundled and disposed of, not only to punish inde- 

 pendence of senatorial votes and action, but liquidate 

 personal obligations of any individual, however high 

 in station, the conditions are utterly vicious and de- 

 grading, and their acceptance would compel repre- 

 sentatives of States to fling down their oath and rep- 

 ativc duty at the footstool of executive power. 

 Following this sweeping and startling executive act 

 came ominous avowals that dissent, or failure to " ad- 

 vise and consent," would be held an act of offence, 

 exposing all Senators from whatever State to the Ex- 

 ecutive displeasure. Thus we found ourselves con- 

 fronted by the question whether we shall surrender 

 the plain right and sworn duty of Senators by con- 

 senting to what we believed to be vicious and hurtful, 

 or be assigned a position of disloyalty to the Admin- 

 istration which we helped bring in, and the success 

 of which we earnestly wish for. We know no theory 

 avowed by any party which requires such submission 

 as is now exacted. Although partv service may be 

 fairly considered in making the selection for public 

 offices, it can hardly bo maintained that the Semite is 

 bound to remove without cause incumbents merely to 

 make place for those whom any individual, even'tho 

 President or a member of his Cabinet, wishes to repay 

 for being recreant to others or serviceable to him. 

 Only about two years ago the Senate advised that 

 General Merritt be appointed collector at New York. 

 It is understood that among the Senators who so ad- 

 vised was Mr. Windom, now Secretary of the Treas- 

 ury, and head of the department whoso subordinate 

 General Merritt Is. Another Senator known to have 

 given this advice was Mr. Kirkwood, now Secretary 

 of the Interior. It is said, like the Postmaster-Gen- 

 eral from our own State, that these Cabinet officers 

 were not taken into consultation touching the removal 

 of General Merritt, but their sworn and official ac- 

 tion as Senators is none the less instructive. That 



the late Secretary of the Treasury of the late Admin- 

 istration up to its expiration, less than ten weeks ago, 

 approved General Merritt as an officer, is well known, 

 and it is not here suggested that any citizen had peti- 

 tioned for his removal, or that official delinquency on 

 his part is the reason of it. In place of an experi- 

 enced officer hi the midst of his term fixed by law, it 

 is proposed suddenly^ to put a man in who has no 

 training for the position and who can not be said to 

 have any special fitness for its official duties. In the 

 inaugural of President Garfield, delivered on the 4th 

 of March, stand these words: "The civil service can 

 never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regu- 

 lated by law. For the good of the service itself, for 

 the protection of those who are intrusted with the 

 appointing power against the waste of time and the 

 obstruction of the public business caused by the inor- 

 dinate pressure for place, and for the protection of in- 

 cumbents against intrigue and wrong, I shall at the 

 proper time ask Congress to fix the tenure of minor 

 offices in the several executive departments, and pre- 

 scribe the grounds upon which removals be made 

 during the terms for which incumbents have been ap- 

 pointed." How good a distinction is which would 

 make the major offices a prey to intrigue and wrong 

 and shield the minor offices from a like horde, and de- 

 cide whether the collectorships of the country should 

 belong to the exposed or to the protected class, need 

 not be discussed here. Assuming General Merritt to 

 be an officer of average fitness and honesty, it might 

 be reasonably argued that all Senators should, with 

 alacrity, advise his displacement by means of obvious 

 superiority. Possibly it might be said that all should 

 advise the selection in General Merritt's place of a 

 man wlio, without any_ superior fitness, had rendered 

 his country, or even his party, conspicuous or exalted 

 service. The case in hand does not belong to either 

 of these classes. The vocation of Mr. Robertson and 

 his legislative and professional experience and sur- 

 roundings do not denote a superiority of these quali- 

 ties, the knowledge, business habits, and familiarity 

 with the revenue laws and system of the United States 

 which might make him more competent than General 

 Merritt to collect the vast revenues and administer 

 the vast business pertaining to the port of New York. 

 He certainly can not in this respect be held an excep- 

 tion to the rules of right and consistency on which 

 the Constitution and laws have placed the public serv- 

 ice. We know of no personal or political service 

 rendered by Mr. Robertson so transcendent that the 

 collectorship of New York should be taken in the 

 midst of a term and given him as a recompense. Mr. 

 Robertson is reported by the "New York Tribune" 

 as declaring that his nomination was a " reward," a 

 " reward for his action as a delegate to the National 

 Convention." If Mr. Robertson in his action was in- 

 fluenced by a sense of dutv, if he voted and acted his 

 honest conviction, it is difficult to see what claim he 

 had for any reward, not to speak of such a great re- 

 ward. The action of which an estimate is thus in- 

 vited is understood to be this: Mr. Robertson and 

 sixty -nine other men accepted from the State Conven- 

 tion a certain trust. They sought and accepted the 

 position of agents or delegates to the National Conven- 

 tion. The State Convention declared that its plainly 

 stated judgment and policy was to be observed and 

 supported "by those it commissioned. To this declara- 

 tion all selected as <U-lf_ r :it<-s IMVC implied consent, but 

 several of them in addition made most specific per- 

 sonal pledges and engagements to exert themselves in 

 pood laith throughout to secure the nomination of 

 General Grant. They made this pledge as a means of 

 obtaining their own appointments as delegates, and 

 they did, as we both personally know, obtain their 

 seats in the National Convention upon the faith of 

 their personal statements of their earnestness and 

 fidelity. The obligation thus*assumed wo understood 

 to involve integrity, as much as the obligation of one 

 who receives the proxy of a stockholder in a corpora- 

 tion upon a pledge and promise to vote aa his prin- 



