I have watched the operations of this Government with great interest and care, and I have noticed that every approach toward making each source of revenue or expenditure separate and independent of all others, tended to the profit and advantage of the Government, and increased the chances of securing honorable and honest agents to transact its business. A marked instance of this will be found in the administration of the affairs of the Post Office Department. And here I cannot refrain from relating an anecdote which is strongly in point, and which forms one of the pleasantest recollections of my own connection with the administration of the General Government.
Upon a certain occasion I called my cabinet together. Sad complaints had been made concerning the administration of several of the Departments, and the press had not failed to predict heavy losses to the Government through the dishonesty and the defalcations of its agents. I determined that I would know what the facts were, and I directed all the departments to furnish me, by a certain day, with a correct and accurate list of all their defaulting employés, and on the same day I summoned my cabinet to consider these reports. The lists came in from the several Departments, and I assure the Conference that they were formidable enough to give ample occasion for anxiety. But the list from the Department of the Post Office was not forthcoming. My friend, Governor Wickliffe, was at that time at the head of that Department. The day of the cabinet meeting arrived. We were all assembled but the Postmaster General. We waited for a long time for him and for his report. At length he came, bringing his report with him, but with the marks of great care and anxiety upon his brow. He had discovered a defalcation in his Department. He had been occupied for a long time in tracing it out, but he had at length succeeded. He came to announce to the President that the postmaster of a certain "Cross Roads" in Kentucky had absconded, and defrauded the Government out of the sum of fifteen dollars! and worst of all, his bail had run away with him!!
This is only one of the many proofs which my own experience would furnish of the propriety, if not the necessity of keeping each Department of the Government by itself—of not connecting it with others, and of making the agents of each Department responsible to itself alone. Carry this idea into practice in all the Departments of the Government, and a better class of agents would be secured, and the loss by defaulters would be much lessened.
The enormous increase of the expenditures of the General Government might, by the same process, be prevented. How does it happen that in a time of peace these expenses have risen from twenty-three millions of dollars up to seventy or eighty millions? In the same proportion, the sum to which they will reach in another decade will be frightful! It is high time that a stop was put to this lavish expenditure, and especially to the losses by dishonest agents. The plan here proposed will give you a starting point. The proceeds of the vast domain of the public lands are now so mingled with the other expenditures of the Government, that no one can tell what becomes of them. They are now common plunder. Divide them among the States, and they will be saved—they will be applied to some worthy object, and you will have adopted a principle which, after a little time, under any honest administration, will be applied to the other Departments of the Government. I trust the whole amendment may be adopted. As the amendment may be divided into two parts—one relating to appointments to office, and the other to the public domain—I would ask that the vote may be taken upon each proposition separately.
The vote was then taken upon the first portion of the amendment proposed by Mr. Seddon, with the following result:
Ayes.—Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Missouri—5.
Noes.—Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa—14.
And the amendment was rejected.
Mr. JOHNSON:—I cannot concur in the vote just given by Maryland. I desire to have my dissent recorded.
Mr. CRISFIELD:—I dissent, also, from the vote of Maryland.