"In this city, however, as almost everywhere else, to the public discredit and injury, our social affairs had been long mingled with the party questions of the Republic. At each rise or fall of one or the other party, the 'spoils' were greedily sought for. Even scavengers, unless of the victorious party, were deemed unworthy to sweep our streets. Mr. Girard's estate, therefore, very soon became an object of desire with each party, in order to increase its strength and favor its adherents. Instead of selecting for the Councils the best men of the whole community, as Mr. Girard evidently desired, the citizens of Philadelphia persisted in preserving factious distinctions, and in October, 1832, the Federal candidates prevailed. "The triumphant party soon manifested a sense of their newly acquired power. Without making any trial whatever of the efficiency of the rules prepared by their predecessors for the management of the Girard trusts, they at once abolished them; and there were various other analogous evidences of intolerance. "Without asserting that party passions actuated them, certain it is, that those who were now in power placed none of Mr. Girard's intimate friends in any position where they could aid in carrying out his views. No serious application was ever made, to my knowledge, to one of them for explanation on any point deemed doubtful. On the contrary, objections made by myself and others to the erection of a gorgeous temple, instead of a plain building for orphans, were utterly disregarded. "A majority of the citizens of Philadelphia as a political class, and not a majority, as a social community, as trustees of a fund for orphans, having thus got entire control of the Girard estate, they turned their attention to the plans of a College collected by their Democratic predecessors. Neither of the parties appears to have originally considered whether the plan described in the will ought not to be followed, if that could be done practically. The main desire of both so far seems to have been to build in the vicinity of this city a more magnificent edifice than any other in the Union.