The wisdom of the change was doubted at first by many real friends of progress, who thought they saw grave legal complications arising; who knew what popular government in a large city, with no restriction of the election franchise, might mean; who at times thought of New York with a shudder; who knew that as Washington was the centre of everything political, it was necessarily the centre of political corruption; that her alleys were crowded with ignorant freedmen; that her ward politicians were as unscrupulous and skillful as the same class in other cities; and who thought it safer to trust the average Congressman than the small political trader and his chattels. But Congress sits as a perpetual court of appeal on the spot where its members can judge from personal knowledge, ready to overrule any act of the Assembly that can be shown to be a bad one; and one house of the Assembly, with the governor and executive boards, is appointed by the President. The election of the larger house and of the delegate to Congress is sufficient security to the people, and Washington is to-day in most respects the best-governed city of its size in the United States. The powers of the little Assembly are very limited: the governor can veto its measures; Congress can override them both; the President can veto the acts of Congress; two-thirds of Congress can still surmount this veto. This complicated system may retard good measures, but it is not probable that any very bad one can long survive under it.