There has been no call of Congress for a return of the relations holding office, stipend, or money-making opportunity under the President. The country is left to the press for information on this important subject. If there is any exaggeration, the President is in fault,--since, knowing the discreditable allegations, he has not hastened to furnish the precise facts, or at least his partisans have failed in not calling for the official information. In the mood which they have shown in this Chamber, it is evident that any resolution calling for it, moved by a Senator not known to be for his reëlection, would meet with opposition, and an effort to vindicate republican institutions would be denounced as an assault on the President. But the newspapers have placed enough beyond question for judgment on this extraordinary case, although thus far there has been no attempt to appreciate it, especially in the light of history. One list makes the number of beneficiaries as many as forty-two, being probably every known person allied to the President by blood or marriage. Persons seeming to speak for the President, or at least after careful inquiries, have denied the accuracy of this list, reducing it to thirteen. It will not be questioned that there is at least a baker’s dozen in this category,--thirteen relations of the President billeted on the country, not one of whom but for this relationship would have been brought forward, the whole constituting a case of nepotism not unworthy of those worst governments where office is a family possession. Beyond the list of thirteen are other revelations, showing that this strange abuse did not stop with the President’s relations, but that these obtained appointments for others in their circle,--so that every relation became a centre of influence, while the Presidential family extended indefinitely. Hitherto only one President has appointed relations, and that was John Adams; but he found public opinion, inspired by the example of Washington, so strong against it, that, after a slight experiment, he replied to an applicant, “You know it is impossible for me to appoint my own relations to anything, without drawing forth a torrent of obloquy.”[59] The judgment of the country found voice in Thomas Jefferson, who, in a letter written shortly after he became President, used these strong words: “Mr. Adams _degraded himself infinitely_ by his conduct on this subject.”[60] But John Adams, besides transferring his son John Quincy Adams from one diplomatic post to another, appointed only two relations. Pray, Sir, what words would Jefferson use, if he were here to speak on the open and multifarious nepotism of our President? ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF NEPOTISM.