Martinsburg Gazette

Now that Congress has adjourned, and its members gone to their homes, the question is beginning to be asked, "what has it done?" The answer is short, and easily given. Nothing for the public good. This may seem an abrupt and harsh answer, but it is true to the letter. The great and important measures that ought to have claimed the attention and action of that body, have all, in some way or other, been passed by or put down. The disposition of the Surplus Revenue and the Fortification Bill were strangled in the Senate. The House had passed them both together and sent them to the Senate, where the leaders, T. Benton & Co., determined, rather than the Surplus Revenue should be distributed, to let the public service suffer by being left without the means for its prosecution. The Army Bill, the Land Bill, and the Revenue Bill, were all defeated. The Bill for repealing the Treasury Circular, passed both houses of Congress, and was sent to the President for his signature, but it never afterward saw the light of day. The past session, we believe, was the first since the election of Gen. Jackson, in which the friends of the administration have had a majority in both houses of Congress, and no session since the commencement of our government has been so barren of usefulness to the country. Formerly, the Whigs were charged with retarding or defeating the wise and beneficent plans of the administration, but that plea is destroyed—the Whigs have no longer a majority—and the public business suffers more than ever. If such be the results of the beginning of their power in the halls of Congress, what may be expected when it has advanced in strength and maturity, when the plans and schemes for party organisation that have occupied the attention of Congressmen, as paramount to the duties of legislation, shall have been carried into operation, and the power of controlling the business of Congress, to suit the wishes of a party, firmly secured in the hands of the present dynasty. "If these things be done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?"