The New York Herald

INTELLIGENCE BY THE MAILS.

Our Washington Correspondence.

WASHINGTON, May 17, 1850.

The Cabinet and the Galphin Committee-The National Intelligencer, &c.

Scarcely has the President announced, through the Intelligencer, that his cabinet are all alive and kicking, than the report of the Galphin committee knocks all into pi again. That cabinet, which has so long braved public opinion, and stuffed the President-which, from the scorn of Congress and its own party, took refuge under the warrior's cloak of the chief magistrate-is now attainted. It is the first cabinet, in the history of our country, which stands charged with corruption-foul money corruption-before the American people.

I need not dwell on the facts of the case. They stand revealed by the Report of the committee and in regard to these facts the committee were unanimous. The minority (whig) report makes a feeble attempt to justify the cabinet: Mr. Burt, of South Carolina, made a sort of kid glove report, interposing a cushion between the cabinet and the hammer; but still he feels bound to strike, and to pronounce the payment of the interest, (one hundred and ninety-two thousand dollars,) as contrary to law and usage. Finally Messrs. Disney, Mann, and Featherston, made a report of real bone and sinews, and this paper exposes the whole transaction as a fraud on the Government.

Now, to another fact. Mr. Burt's order exonerates all the cabinet but Mr. Crawford: Mr. Disney's report leaves that subject to the judgment and sound discretion of the House of Representatives. It is true. Messrs. Meredith and Johnson swear that they did not know that their colleague had any pecuniary or other interest in the claim; but Mr. Meredith admits that he has heard such a rumor, and that (though repeatedly urged by Mr. Crawford to decide the claim,) he attached no consequence to it. This is a queer way to prove a man's innocence, by taking his own statements in opposition to every reasonable influence drawn from the facts themselves. On that principle, no guilty person would ever be brought to justice; on that principle, Professor Webster ought undoubtedly to have been acquitted.

There was a power of attorney accompanying the papers which proved, black on white, that Mr. Crawford was interested in the claim, but perhaps Mr. Meredith attached no consequence to it. Query, would not Mr. Meredith have examined these papers a little more closely, if they had had reference to other persons than Mr Crawford? Would he not have been bound to do so? And if, as the first accounting officer of the government, and an eminent lawyer, he passed so strange a claim--a claim which had existed for three generations-which had been repeatedly rejected by Georgia and the United States-a claim which the State of Georgia refused even to recommend to the United States: if, I say, interest to the amount of nearly two hundred thousand dollars was claimed on it, contrary to all the usages of the government, was it not the duty of Mr. Meredith to look into it, before he paid it on the mere recommendation of the Attorney General? And, if Mr. Meredith neglected such an important duty, in so important and striking a case, are we not led to infer that he is, in all probability, still more criminally neglectful of other duties appertaining to his office; and consequently utterly unfit, as far as that branch of the public service is concerned, for the post of Secretary of the Treasury.

As to Mr. Reverdy Johnson, I leave him safely in the able hands of Mr. Disney. The reports are ordered to be printed, and every lawyer in the land will judge for himself. Never was an argument so completely riddled—its premises and conclusions more thoroughly overthrown, Yet we are told, and in fact we know, that Mr. R. Johnson is an eminent lawyer. He has recently shown it in an important case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Now what is the inference? The inference undoubtedly is, that Mr. Johnson, having been favorably impressed with the claim, fell disposed to allow it' and thus, instead of reasoning synthetically from the facts to the conclusions, pursued the analytical method; taking the thing for granted, and reasoning backward to discover some premises which would justify such a conclusion. "By this purely metaphysical process, he arrived at just an " Indian ullo ;" on which, consequently, he hung his whole argument. "He had no other means of justifying the Allowance, and it was accordingly made the corner-stone of his decision. Mr. Disney, who proceeded in search of truth, selected the synthetic method; and, grasping at the commencement with the corner-stone of Mr. Johnson's argument, exposed at once its utter rottenness and incapacity to support the superstructure,

And now, what becomes of the boastful declamation, by the President's authority, of the Intelligencer, that this cabinet is invulnerable-that neither ridicule nor contempt, neither the condemnation of Congress nor of the people, can start it from its present position? Will the cabinet be able to live, " infamous and content," under the charge of corruption-real, positive, unmistakeable money corruption? Mr. Crawford, it is said, will resign, and thereby the remaining members of the cabinet hope to clear their skirts; but I see no justice in Mr. Crawford being thus made the scape-goat of the concern. A large number of members of the House are for impeaching him, were it but for the purpose of ferreting out the guilt of his accomplices.

Nor is this Galphin claim more than the first act of the drama. Mr. Ewing is in pickle under the Richardson Committee : and the facts which have come to light, by that investigation are even richer and more highly flavored than those in regard to the claim of Galphin. The Cherokee case will be amazingly interesting, and a recent fact enriched with the removal of a handful of Indians in Minnesota, will show that contracts as well as claims, are ways of putting money in people's pockets to the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I remember, at the coming in of this administration, to have read a communication in the Philadelphia North American, evidently written by one of the toadying letter writers of Mr. Clayton-one of the " doge," as Mr. Bullitt used to call them in the palmy "days of the Republic"-promising that "the members of the new cabinet would "keep house," and entertain in a handsome and liberal manner the Elite that should come to Washington : but the cunning " dog" forgot to tell us that they meant to do so out of the public treasury. The least they could do, under these circumstances, was to invite the whole country to partake of their hospitality : since the whole country contributes toward paying the bills.

Yet this Cabinet, which is rotten to the core, wants to save itself by cutting off one of its limbs! The syphilis is in the system, and requires a radical cure.

PoZZo di BORGO.