170 a short history of the united states
the House, demonstrating genuine concern for a colleague, by a vote of
115 to 110 and 15 abstentions, chose merely to “condemn” his conduct.
When the decision was announced, something strange and unbelievable
happened: Republicans who had just voted to condemn Ames crowded
around him and asked his pardon. “We know you are innocent,” they
babbled, “but we had to do it in order to satisfy our constituents.”
As for the other members mentioned in the scandal, the committee
declared that they might have been “indiscreet” in accepting stock in
the company, but that they were not guilty of criminal intent. In fact
most of them returned the stock as soon as the scandal came to light
and denied making any appreciable fi nancial gain.
Although Ames was not expelled from the House, his term in offi ce
was due to expire momentarily, and he died shortly thereafter. As for
the others implicated in the scandal, most of them survived, except
Schuyler Colfax who had contradicted himself so often during his ap-
pearances before the committee that the public turned against him and
his career ended in disgrace.
Revelations of other scandals soon followed. Congress busied itself
setting up committees to investigate several charges initiated by news-
papers, such as the St. Louis Demo crat, that exposed the “Whiskey
Ring” in the spring of 1875. And, as it turned out, President Grant’s
personal secretary, General Orville E. Babcock, allegedly directed the
“Ring,” by which the government was defrauded of millions of dollars
in taxes through the sale of forged revenue stamps. Indictments of
more than 200 individuals resulted, many in the Treasury Department.
Although indicted himself, Babcock escaped imprisonment through
the intervention of the President.
The Secretary of War, William W. Belknap, was impeached by the
House on March 2 , 1876 , for accepting bribes for the sale of trading
posts in the Indian Territory. He resigned to avoid a trial in the Senate.
But the Treasury and War departments were not the only ones to dab-
ble in embezzlement and fraud; the Freedmen’s Bureau, the Navy De-
partment, the Interior Department, the Post Office, and the attorney
general’s offi ce helped themselves to whatever largess they could iden-
tify, resulting in numerous indictments, resignations, and, on occasion,
convictions.
One disgrace followed another, and it seemed as though few govern-