tice of taxing the consumer without regard to his means is considered, and when the amount actually paid by the consumer, charged in the shape of profits, on the amount of duty advanced by the importer, the jobber, and the retailer, is estimated and compared with the actual amount which reaches the treasury, (probably not more than one half of the sum paid by the consumer,) it may well be doubted whether the incidental protection which a tariff for revenue affords to the producer, grower, and manufacturer is not purchased too dearly, and whether it will not be better, as it certainly is more just and equal, to support the general government as the state governments are supported, by direct taxation. But these are speculations foreign to the object of this work. No other measures of importance engaged the attention of Mr. Wright during this session. The bill for the relief of the revolutionary officers and soldiers, which passed in May of this year, received his vote and cordial support. During the recess he attended the state convention at Herkimer, as a delegate from St. Lawrence, and successfully supported the nomination of Martin Van Buren for governor and that of E. T. Throop for lieutenant-governor. Mr. Wright was nominated for re-election from his district for congress. The election was sharply contested. At that time antimasonry was exceedingly rife in the state, and the antimasons and Adams men united in his district, which, it will be remembered, was a double district. This produced a very close election: Mr. Wright's colleague was beaten, but a small majority of votes was given to Mr. W., although the certificate of election was given to his opponent, because the word "junior" was omitted on some of the tickets deposited for him, and because an alleged informality had been committed by the returning officers of one of the towns. On the 4th of December, 1828, Mr. Wright resumed his seat in congress. An attempt was made to repeal the tariff law passed at the last session, but the movement was resisted by Mr. Wright, and failed,—a very large majority voting against it. It affords us pleasure to be able to state, that during the short period that Mr. Wright sat as a member in this session, two resolutions were adopted providing for the appointment of a committee to inquire into the condition of the slave-trade as it existed in the District of Columbia, and the laws in relation thereto, and to consider and report upon the propriety and expediency of the abolition of slavery in that district, and that Mr. Wright voted for both resolutions, although they were opposed by most of the southern members. Mr. Van Buren having been elected governor, he resigned his seat in the senate of the United States, and it became the duty of the legislature, which met in January, 1829, to supply the vacancy. At a caucus to nominate a successor, Mr. Wright, though not a candidate, and without his knowledge, was voted for by several of the members, a fact which shows the great respect entertained for him by his former associates. - CHAPTER VII. Mr. Wright is appointed Comptroller of the State-The Importance of that Office and its high Responsibilities—The Chenango and other projected Canals-Mr. Wright's Report in 1830-General Fund-Mr. Wright attends the State Convention and successfully advocates the Nomination of Mr. Throop for Governor, who is elected—Mr. Wright elected Senator of the United States in the winter of 1833. DURING the session of the New York legislature in the winter of 1829, and while Mr. Wright was engaged in the performance of his duties as a member of congress at Washington, he was appointed comptroller, to supply the vacancy occasioned by the appointment of the former comptroller, William L. Marcy, to the office of judge of the Supreme Court. This appointment, so far as we know, or have reason to believe, was conferred on Mr. Wright without his solicitation. The multifarious and important. duties, and the high responsibilities which a succession of statutes have devolved on the comptroller, are so well described by an able writer in the Albany Argus in one of the numbers of that paper published in the year 1846, that we can in no way so well express our own views on the subject as by transcribing his remarks. "There is at this day," says the learned correspondent of the Argus, "no officer of the state whose duties and powers are so diversified, so extensive, and so complicated, as those of the comptroller; nor is there any who is placed in a more commanding position for exercising a political influence. From a simple auditor of accounts, and a watch upon the treasury, he has sprung up into an officer of the first eminence in the administration; supplanting, by degrees, some departments which were once in'equal, if not higher regard, as auxiliaries and advisers of the executive power. He is the one-man of the government. He is not simply an officer, but a bundle of officers. There is hardly a branch of administration of which he is not a prominent member; so prominent, in some cases, that the affairs of that branch cannot be conducted without his actual presence, although personally he may be a minority of those having it in charge. He is the chief of the finances; the superintendent of banks; and the virtual quorum of the commissioners of the canal fund, with all the power which such a position gives him in the canal board. While other state departments have no more than maintained their original sphere and authority, or have suffered material diminution, particu larly of influence, the office of comptroller has been a favorite of the legislature, and the chief object of its confidence, intrusted with high if not extraordinary powers of government. An examination of the statutes will show that every year adds to its duties, until they have become, by continual aggregation, a complicated mass, beyond the power of performance by any one man, and almost beyond the reach of his thorough and intelligent supervision. "For twenty years after the adoption of the first constitution, the treasurer was the principal financial officer. It became obvious that he needed a check, not more for the prevention of frauds than for the detection of errors. The co-operation of two officers, and a double set of accounts, constituted a device of great wisdom for the public security; and its practical working has been so perfect, that peculations and frauds in respect of the public funds confided to the treasury are unheard of. They are, in fact, impossible, without presuming that rare case of profligacy, when two high officers of state combine, by mutual overtures of corruption, to violate their oaths and their consciences,—a result unknown in the history of our state government. "It is of little moment that the comptroller, and not the treasurer, is now by law the chief of the finances; but if the treasurer have duties enough to occupy his time and capacity, it would seem that the parallel duties of the comptroller should of themselves be a sufficient employment and trust, without the vast additional burden of labor and responsibility which is otherwise cast upon him. To form an adequate idea of the mass of duty he has in charge, it is necessary not only to survey the summary contained in the revised code of our laws, but to trace out the statutes from year to year; to review the reports of his office; and to follow him and his numerous assistants in the actual discharge of their various labors in the financial, banking, and tax bureaux of his department. But it is inconsistent with the designed brevity of these papers to enter into the details which alone can convey a suitable notion of the magnitude and responsibility of his trust and influence. As the department is now organized, it is overgrown and cumbersome; and to perform with thorough intelligence and conscientiousness, without error or delay, all its requisite offices of supervision and of action, requires the sight of Argus with his hundred eyes, and the activity of Briareus with his hundred hands." A higher evidence of respect for Mr. Wright, and confidence in his ability, sagacity, and integrity, could not have been given, than was exhibited by this appoint |