Unfortunately for the Governor, the first, second, and sixth charges had a background of facts, although the rest were ridiculous and trivial. By a vote of 43 to 12 he was removed from the governorship. The proceeding was not merely an impeachment of New York's Governor. It was an impeachment of its government. Every citizen knew that if Sulzer had obeyed Murphy, his shortcomings would never have been his undoing. The great commonwealth of Pennsylvania was for sixty years under the domination of the House of Cameron and the House of Quay. Simon Cameron's entry into public notoriety was symbolic of his whole career. In 1838, he was one of a commission of two to disburse to the Winnebago Indians at Prairie du Chien $100,000 in gold. But, instead of receiving gold, the poor Indians received only a few thousand dollars in the notes of a bank of which Cameron was the cashier. Cameron was for this reason called "the Great Winnebago." He built a large fortune by canal and railway contracts, and later by rolling-mills and furnaces. He was one of the first men in American politics to purchase political power by the lavish use of cash, and to use political power for the gratification of financial greed. In 1857 he was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican by a legislature in which the Democrats had a majority. Three Democrats voted for him, and so bitter was the feeling against the renegade trio that no hotel in Harrisburg would shelter them. In 1860 he was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. President Lincoln made him Secretary of War. But his management was so ill-savored that a committee of leading business men from the largest cities of the country told the President that it was impossible to transact business with such a man. These complaints coupled with other considerations moved Lincoln to dismiss Cameron. He did so in characteristic fashion. On January 11, 1862, he sent Cameron a curt note saying that he proposed to appoint him minister to Russia. And thither into exile Cameron went. A few months later, the House of Representatives passed a resolution of censure, citing Cameron's employment of irresponsible persons and his purchase of supplies by private contract instead of competitive bidding. The resolution, however, was later expunged from the records; and Cameron, on his return from Russia, again entered the Senate under circumstances so suspicious that only the political influence of the boss thwarted an action for bribery. In 1877 he resigned, naming as his successor his son "Don," who was promptly elected.