Herald Of The Times

FORTIFICATION BILL

Of all the impudent assumptions of the Tory party in this place, for the purpose of affecting the coming election, the most bare-faced is one put forward, in their yesterday's paper, which in a muddy and confused way, undertakes to charge the Whig members of Congress with the shameful delay, which has attended the bill in the House of Representatives for this year's appropriation for Fortifications.

They have the modesty to put forth this charge on the minority of that body, when it must be palpable to every one, who has given the least heed to Congressional proceedings, that the whole difficulty lies in the miserable incompetency of the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means—C.C. Cambreleng—and in the entire want of regularity and efficiency with which the business of the House is conducted.

If such a man as Louis McLane, or Geo. McDuffie, had been at the head of that Committee, even in so disorderly a body as the present Jackson House of Representatives, does the most bigoted of the tools of the present Administration believe, that in the fourth month of the session so important a bill as the one appropriating money for the ordinary fortifications, would have been suffered to sleep without even an attempt to act upon it?

Have they forgotten, that all the important appropriation bills have been put by this session—first, to gratify the vindictive resentments of Mr. Adams and then to carry through the infamous attempt to deprive the State of North-Carolina of its rightful vote in the House in the election of President?

With a majority of nearly two to one in the popular branch of the Government, if the business of the Country is not properly attended to, is the fault of that neglect to be charged to the minority?

If the citizens of Newport and its vicinity, are the sufferers by this neglect, to what cause, we ask, will every candid minded man in this community impute it?