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would be kicked out in short order.
So the chaplaincy remains a thing of grimace and mummery, nicely calculated to help some flockless and complaisant shepherd to a few hundred dollars, and impose on devout simpletons an exalted notion of the piety of Congress.
Should not the truth be spoken?
...
But in truth the great sorrow is, that so many of the Members of Congress, as of men in high station elsewhere, are merely dexterous jugglers, or the tools of dexterous jugglers, with the cup and balls of politics, shuffled into responsible places as a reward for past compliances, or in the hope of being there made useful to the inventors and patentees of their intellectual and moral greatness.
To such men, the idea of anybody's coming to Congress for anything else than the distinction and the plunder, unless it be in the hope of intriguing their way up to some still lazier and more lucrative post, is so irresistibly comic—such an exhibition of jolly greenness, that they cannot contemplate it without danger of explosion.
Dec. 13th.
Mr. Greeley introduced the
Land Reform bill, of which he had given notice.
It provided:
1. That any citizen, and any alien who had declared his intention of becoming a citizen, may file a pre-emption claim to 160 acres of Public Land, settle upon it, improve it, and have the privilege of buying it at any time within seven years of filing the claim, at the
Government price of $1 25 per acre:
provided, that he is not the owner or claimant of any other
real estate.
2. That the Land office where a claim is filed, shall issue a Warrant of Pre-emption, securing the claimant in seven years possession.
3. That, after five years occupancy, a warrant-holder who makes oath of his intention to reside on and cultivate his land for life shall become the owner of any forty acres of his claim which he may select; the head of a family eighty acres.
4. That the price of public lands, when not sold to actual settlers, shall be five dollars per acre.
5. That false affidavits, made to procure land under the provisions of this bill, shall be punished by three years hard labor in a State prison, by a fine not exceeding $1,000, and by the loss of the land fraudulently obtained.
Dec. 16th. The following notice appeared in the Tribune:
In reference to many requests for copies of the President's Message and
