Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1881 — The Question at Issue. [ARTICLE]

The Question at Issue.

Amid the fury and clamor of the contest at Albany, it may be well to recall the principles involved on the one side and the other. President Garfield contends for the right of the Executive to coerce the consent of the Senate to appointments by withdrawing nominations which Senators approve, until they agree to vote for nominations which they do not approve. The Senate, under this novel theory, may not consider each nomination separately, and dispose of it according to its merits, but may be forced, at the pleasure of the Executive, to consider any number of nominations together. This certainly is doctrine of a very startling kind. \ Mr. Conkling, on the other hand, contends that the, previous advice and con ■ sent of the Senate are necessary, not merely to an appointment, but to a nomination, and for this purpose the two Senators from a State are the Senate so far as appointments within that State are concerned. They name and they confirm ; nobody else has anything to do in the premises. Mr. Garfield would make the President a great national political boss, using the offices for political rewards and punishments. Mr. Conkling would make the Senators the bosses, divided into pairs, and having absolute control of the Federal patronage within their respective States. Neither of the two parties regards the letter or the spirit of the constitution ; and neither looks upon the purity and efficiency of the public service as a thing of any special importance. As a matter of constitutional principle, it would be difficult to make a choice between them. Both positions are radically false and alike unsound. Perhaps neither the President nor the Senator ever thought, at the outset, of the real nature of his contention, or would care much about the precedent in comparison with the temporary success of the one machine over the other. The struggle is not for principle but ior spoils; for the control of a party which has outlived the sense of constitutional responsibility, and has become profoundly corrupt. It is much to be hoped that in due course of time the people will determine to bury both factions in a common grave, and return to the Jeffersonian plan of dispensing with useless officials altogether, and filling the necessary places with men who are better fitted for the public service than for the private service of any political boss, whether President or Senator.— New York Sun.