“He was exceedingly careful about committing himself; would receive no favors of any kind, and scrupulously paid for everything.… A large house was set apart for him on Ninth Street, [Philadelphia,] on the grounds now covered by the Pennsylvania University, which he refused to accept.”[109]
By such instances, brought to light recently, and shining in contrast with our times, we learn to admire anew the virtue of Washington.
It would be easy to show how in all ages the refusal of gifts has been recognized as the sign of virtue, if not the requirement of duty. The story of St. Louis of France is beautiful and suggestive. Leaving on a crusade, he charged the Queen, who remained behind, “not to accept presents for herself or her children.”[110] Such was one of the injunctions by which this monarch, when far away on a pious expedition, impressed himself upon his country.
My own strong convictions on this Presidential pretension were aroused in a conversation which it was my privilege to enjoy with John Quincy Adams, as he sat in his sick-chamber at his son’s house in Boston, a short time before he fell at his post of duty in the House of Representatives. In a voice trembling with age and with emotion, he said that no public man could take gifts without peril; and he confessed that his own judgment had been quickened by the example of Count Romanzoff, the eminent Chancellor of the Russian Empire, who, after receiving costly gifts from foreign sovereigns with whom he had negotiated treaties, felt a difficulty of conscience in keeping them, and at last handed over their value to a hospital, as he related to Mr. Adams, then Minister at St. Petersburg.[111] The latter was impressed by this Russian example, and through his long career, as Minister abroad, Secretary of State, President, and Representative, always refused gifts, unless a book or some small article in its nature a token and not a reward or bribe.
The Constitution testifies against the taking of gifts by officers of the United States, when it provides that “no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present or emolument from any king, prince, or foreign State.” The acceptance of a present or emolument from our own citizens was left without constitutional inhibition, to be constrained by the public conscience and the just aversion to any semblance of bargain and sale, or bribery, in the public service.
The case of our President is exceptional. Notoriously he has taken gifts while in the public service, some at least after he had been elected President, until “the Galena tanner of a few hundred dollars a year”—to borrow the words of my colleague [Mr. Wilson], one of his supporters—is now rich in houses, lands, and stock, above his salary, being probably the richest President since George Washington. Notoriously he has appointed to his Cabinet several among these “Greeks bearing gifts,” without seeming to see the indecorum, if not the indecency, of the transaction. At least two, if not three, of these Greeks, having no known position in the Republican Party, or influence in the country, have been selected as his counsellors in national affairs and heads of great departments of government. Again do I repeat the words of our Scriptures, “A gift doth blind the eyes of the wise”; again the words of Washington, “Should I not thenceforward be considered as a dependant?”
Nor does the case of the first Secretary of State differ in character from that of the other three Cabinet officers referred to. The President, feeling under personal obligation to Mr. Washburne for important support, gave him a complimentary nomination, with the understanding that after confirmation he should forthwith resign. I cannot forget the indignant comment of the late Mr. Fessenden, as we passed out of the Senate Chamber immediately after the confirmation. “Who,” said he, “ever heard before of a man nominated Secretary of State merely as a compliment?” But this is only another case of the public service subordinated to personal considerations.
Not only in the Cabinet, but in other offices, there is reason to believe that the President has been under the influence of patrons. Why was he so blind to Thomas Murphy? The custom-house of New York, with all its capacity as a political engine, was handed over to this agent, whose want of recognition in the Republican Party was outbalanced by Presidential favor, and whose gifts have become notorious. And when the demand for his removal was irresistible, the President accepted his resignation with an effusion of sentiment natural toward a patron, but without justification in the character of the retiring officer.
Shakespeare, who saw intuitively the springs of human conduct, touches more than once on the operation of the gift. “I’ll do thee service for so good a gift,” said Gloster to Warwick.[112] Then, again, how truly spoke the lord, who said of Timon,—