Pawtucket Gazette And Chronicle

Adjournment of Congress.
It is a gratification to us to be able to announce to our readers that the First Session of the Thirty-Second Congress of these United States of North America has at length been brought to a close. For nine months our National Legislators have been charging the country eight dollars a day for their services in doing that which might and ought to have been done better in three months. Whether this outrageous neglect of the business of the country is to continue will depend upon the public. In the more virtuous days of the republic, we should have had no fears that it would: but in these degenerate times, and after so long a toleration of the evil, we should be more surprised at the application of a remedy, than we should be at a continuous session from the first Monday in December in one year to the fourth of March in the next. Let us be devoutly thankful for that provision in the constitution which, once in two years, puts a stop to the disgraceful proceedings at Washington. It may be that but for that provision there would be no stop to them—that speeches "for Buncombe," the discussions of partizan questions, the adjournments for purposes of pleasure and to gratify a taste for idleness and perhaps dissipation, and the undignified and demoralizing wrangling and personal abuse better suited to the precincts of a bar-room or a brothel than to the halls of legislation, would be continued from December to December, and from December to December again.

Is there no way in which the character of the House of Representatives can be improved? Are there not men who can be sent there that would trample down the worthless village pettifoggers and backwoods brawlers whose little narrow minds are incapable of grasping any thing beyond their own personal interests and the interests or prejudices of the constituencies that elected them?—men who will bring these libels upon statesmen and statesmanship to an understanding and appreciation of their own insignificance? What a pity it is that we cannot have a few Clays, Websters, Calhouns and Wrights there to restore that bear-garden to something of its former respectability and usefulness. There are those who have confidence that Col. Benton will exert an influence tending to this result. He doubtless possesses some of the requisite qualifications, but not, we think, all of them, or even enough of them to effect much good. As much as there is to admire in "Old Bullion's" character and acquirements, we have never been able to regard him as a model legislator.

The closing proceedings of Congress are yet enveloped in too much fog for us to ascertain what was done or what was left undone, and we question whether some of the members were much wiser in this respect immediately after the adjournment than we are. We shall not, therefore, attempt at present to give any account of the closing proceedings. We know enough to be warranted in saying that several measures that ought to have been passed were not passed. As has been the case for many years, a large mass of important legislative business was crowded into the last few days of the session, and there was not time to consider it as it ought to have been considered, or act upon it as it ought to have been acted upon. We shall probably be able next week to give some account of the fate of numerous bills of general interest and importance. In the meantime, we take our leave of the first session of the 32d Congress with much such feelings as we should of the cholera or small pox.