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If the council held the key to the city treasury, the boss reigned, for councilmen from properly gerrymandered wards could usually be trusted to execute his will. The third form of government was government by boards. Here it was attempted to place the administration of various municipal activities in the hands of independent boards.
The possibility of a victory in a gerrymandered district, however won, was without price. Shelby appreciated their point of view and addressed himself to measures more feasible.
It appears to me that any such electoral arrangement, founded on the present provincial divisions, would tend to defeat the purpose of union and perpetuate the idea of disunion." Counsels less wise and just prevailed, and the united province was "gerrymandered" against Lord Durham's protest. Lower Canada complained of the injustice, and with good reason.
"You should have heard him when old Sir John Macdonald gerrymandered the electoral districts and gave votes to the Moneida Indians. The way he put it, the Tories in the congregation couldn't say a word, but it was a treat for his fellow Grits." Finlay smiled gravely. "Political convictions are a man's birthright," he said. "Any man or any minister is a poor creature without them.
Douglas addressed public gatherings for forty successive days; and when election day came, he was prostrated by a fever from which he did not fully recover for months. Those who gerrymandered the State did their work well. Only one district failed to elect a Democratic Congressman. Douglas had a majority over Browning of four hundred and sixty-one votes.
We confronted him with the names of eight. He looked them over and said, "Yes, the eight men are living in my district as now constituted," but added that his district had been gerrymandered so that he could no longer tell who did and who didn't live in it.
No better proof could be offered of Lincoln's contention that the State was gerrymandered in favor of the Democrats. Still, this was part of the game; and had the Republicans been in office, they would have undoubtedly used an advantage which has proved too tempting for the virtue of every American party.
For elective purposes the two districts were gerrymandered as the bill proposed; but it was expressly provided that the transferred county should remain judicially in Whitcomb's district until the expiration of Whitcomb's term of office. Having refreshed his memory as to the facts, Kent spent a forenoon in the State library.
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