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.
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