AMERICAN CONGRESS AND ITS SENATORS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 50, 21 October 1863, Page 6

AMERICAN CONGRESS AND ITS SENATORS.

The spectacle that is presented in our Congressional sessions is one that stinks in the nostrils of the whole country. Time is frittered away with an incessant wrangling that is disgraceful to a deliberative assembly. Language that would be expected from only the lowest rips of society is continually heard upon its floor. Scoundrel and liar are among the frequent epithets applied by members to each other; and when their lungs tire with vituperative repetition,

a fisticuff fight in the aisles and open space before the Speaker's chair is brought in as a relief. Out of doors the scene is no better. Canes are broken over each other's heads, brickbats are thrown, and pistols are not unfrequently resorted to. These are the daytime occupations of the members. If we could follow them into their nightly haunts, scenes still more disgusting would meet our view. The riot and filth of the roaring debauch would be most venial, and from that through every act of unbridled licence, ending in the gambling-house or the brothel. Their courses of life would disgrace the occupants of our penitentiary, while those of our New York Penitentiary at least have the merit of earning their living by their labor, which is more than can be said of the members of Congress. In this disgraceful picture no distinction of parties can be made. All are alike in their blackguardism, corruption, and rascality. It is not the discussion of the public business that gives rise to these scenes, but it is the constant quarrelling, intriguing, and lving that are carried on for private and political purposes. Every man has his blustering and shoulder-hitting partisans at home to reward or defend his own views of personal advancement, his particular clique to advance, and some ambitious aspirant for the Presidency to help to force upon his party. With some the motive is power, with others, money $ with others, again, fear of exposure; while not a few are only obeying their own vile instincts. In this way the power of the country is weakened, the revenue squandered by millions, the Government disgraced, and the people plundered. The President may do his duty, but, unsustained as he is by Congress, he can do nothing. He has not the power to act, and we have already seen, how impossible it is. to get Congress to do anything effective. The request for power in the cases of our Central American and Paraguayan difficulties was first refused, and the last only granted at the last moment. In fact, every man, instead of being actuated by a sincere desire to advance the interests of the country, seems to be under a constant fear that somebody may get a chance to do something that will make him prominent before the people. There is no remedy for these evils but to bring into the Presidency some man whose services have made him known to the country, and who has the energy to act, and with him a Congress that will act. General Scott has said that an energetic President, with a patriotic and working Congress to back him,, could, by giving to the executive branch of the Government promptitude and efficiency, reduce our national expenses in two years to forty millions of dollars. It is such a change as this that the people are called upon to make, for the course which the present Congress is pursuing is one that always leads to despotism. Like our own, the members of the last National Assembly of France fritted away their time and reputation until the people were rejoiced to have Louis Napoleon step in and overthrow them. So, too, with the elder Napoleon and the first National Assembly. It was their abandonment of public affairs and constant personal wrangles that opened the way for the empire. We must have a revolution in the character of Congress, or its present state will inevitably lead to revolution in our political institutions.—New York Herald.