e encountered by pure and
stainless lives. Let corruption and bribery meet their lawful
punishment.

"My own public life has been a very brief and insignificant
one, extending little beyond the duration of a single term
of Senatorial office; but in that brief period I have seen
five judges of a high court of the United States driven from
office by threats of impeachment for corruption or maladministration.
I have heard the taunt, from friendliest lips, that when the
United States presented herself in the East to take part with
the civilized world in generous competition in the arts of
life, the only product of her institutions in which she surpassed
all others beyond question was her corruption. I have seen
in the State in the Union foremost in power and wealth four
judges of her courts impeached for corruption, and the political
administration of her chief city become a disgrace and a by-
word throughout the world. I have seen the chairman of the
Committee on Military Affairs in the House, now a distinguished
member of this court, rise in his place and demand the expulsion
of four of his associates for making sale of their official
privilege of selecting the youths to be educated at our great
military school. When the greatest railroad of the world,
binding together the continent and uniting the two great seas
which wash our shores, was finished, I have seen our national
triumph and exultation turned to bitterness and shame by the
unanimous reports of three committees of Congress--two of
the House and one here--that every step of that mighty enterprise
had been taken in fraud. I have heard in highest places the
shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office
that the true way by which power should be gained in the Republic
is to bribe the people with the offices created for their
service, and the true end for which it should be used when
gained is the promotion of selfish ambition and the gratification
of personal revenge. I have heard that suspicion haunts the
footsteps of the trusted companions of the President.

"These things have passed into history. The Hallam or the
Tacitus or the Sismondi or the Macaulay who writes the annals
of our time will record them with his inexorable pen. And
now when a high Cabinet officer, the Constitutional adviser
of the Executive, flees from office before charges of corruption,
shall the historian add that the Senate treated the demand
of the people for its