In order to secure undisturbed control of the city, the Ring took care to win over the Legislature of the State to their schemes. There was a definite and carefully arranged programme carried out with respect to this. The delegation from the City of New York was mainly secured by the Ring, and agents were sent to Albany to bribe the members of the Legislature to vote for the schemes of the Ring. Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, in his speech at Cooper Institute, November 2, 1871, says that $1,000,000, stolen from the treasury of the city, were used by the Ring to buy up a majority of the two Houses of the Legislature. By means of these purchased votes, the various measures of the Ring were passed. The principal measure was the Charter of the City of New York. "Under the pretence of giving back to the people of the City of New York local self-government, they provided that the Mayor then in office should appoint all the heads of Departments for a period of at least four years, and in some cases extending to eight, and that when those heads of Departments, _already privately agreed upon_, were once appointed they should be removable only by the Mayor, who could not be impeached except on his own motion, and then must be tried by a court of six members, every one of whom must be present in order to form a quorum. And then they stripped every legislative power, and every executive power from every other functionary of the government, and vested it in half a dozen men so installed for a period of from four to eight years in supreme dominion over the people of this city." {78} Besides passing this infamous charter, the Ring proceeded to fortify their position with special legislation, designed to protect them against any effort of the citizens to drive them from office, or punish them. This done, they had unlimited control of all the public affairs, and could manage the elections as they pleased, and they believed they were safe. The "Committee of Seventy," appointed by the citizens of New York to investigate the charges against the municipal authorities, thus speak of the effect of the adoption of the New Charter, in their report presented at the great meeting at Cooper Institute, on the 2d of November, 1871: