December 20, New York City Hall. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Built in 1803, the town hall is still home to the mayor's office and the chamber of the city council, and the new council hall is under construction, which was originally expected to be used in ten years, but was not fully completed until the 21st century because of the weight of the building.

It must be noted that at this time, New York was only New York County, and other counties such as Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, and Staten Island were not yet New York territories, so the New York City Council was not as large as it was in the 21st century, consisting of 40 councilors, who were elected every four years to oversee the mayor's work and form a mayor-council model.

Of course, with such a strong mayor as Tweed, this "oversight" is just talking, and in the previous decade, few congressmen have pointed fingers at Tweed, in a sense, all of them are vested interests, and as long as no one stands up, they will not break the established tradition.

Although there is a tradition, but now it is not what it used to be, Li Mu and Wall Street tycoons collectively challenged Tweed, Tweed has been unable to protect himself, at this time, everyone will be wise to protect themselves, and no one wants to go to prison with Tweed.

The Council Hall is a circular chamber with a separate seat for the Speaker on one side of the chamber and next to the speaker's seat, where Tweed is often questioned by the Assembly to explain his platform, which unfortunately will not happen again.

Although it was a plenary meeting, the atmosphere in the parliamentary hall today was obviously not good, whether it was speaking or voting, the atmosphere was very dull, and everyone, including Speaker Anthony Donne, was very preoccupied, and this was certainly not because of the empty auditorium, in fact, everyone knew that in a little while, it would be full.

Speaker Anthony Dorne and Majority Leader Ford Heslett glanced at each other, and both could see the helplessness in each other's eyes, Anthony looked at the scheduled agenda, sighed, and went straight to the last item: "Now, we will vote on whether to impeach Mayor Mr. Tweed—"

As soon as Anthony's voice fell, an opposing voice suddenly sounded in the corner of the council room: "I object, Mr. Tweed was mayor for ten years, during Mr. Tweed's administration, New York's progress is obvious to all, our city has grown tremendously, our population is growing day by day, our economy is thriving, including the salaries of our councillors, compared to ten years ago, we should not forget all this, I know some people will talk about bad municipal government, but let's face it, look at the United States now, Which city doesn't have municipal problems? We can't discredit Mr. Tweed because of the chaos of the city, it's not fair or just—"

It was Ben Marjorie, a staunch supporter of Tweed, who was a lot of people in parliament who, because of their presence, failed to pass the first two votes.

Ben Marjorie was gushing when another voice rang out: "Shut up, you Tweed dog, don't think we don't know your relationship with that embezzler, how much money that embezzler gave you to make a big deal out of here, you must be afraid now, because if that embezzler is out of power, you will definitely not be better, and the court will give you fairness and justice-"

The last speaker is Peter Allen, a congressman who has a good relationship with Rockefeller, and it is because of Rockefeller's support that Peter Allen was able to serve as a congressman, and Peter Allen is also a member of the beach club that has recently taken Manhattan by storm.

When Peter Allen spoke, Ben Marjorie didn't shut up as usual, and was still talking to himself.

Peter Allen is also not polite, and uses a louder voice to compete for the right to speak.

The result of the two people grabbing words was that neither of them could hear what the other was saying, and immediately there were their own supporters to help, and the originally quiet council hall suddenly became noisy like a construction site, and I don't know who picked up the notebook in front of him first and threw it at each other, and the random council hall was full of notebooks, quill pens, ink, water glasses, and even a chair.

Anthony and Ford made no attempt to maintain order, their chin propped up and they watched the chaotic council hall without any movement, and if there were no accidents, it would be half an hour later, when the lawmakers were already running out of strength to vote.

At this time, the corner door of the council hall opened gently, and a middle-aged man in a suit walked in expressionlessly, this guy had a cigarette holder in his mouth, although there was no tobacco in his eyes, but he could still see the pride on his face, and there was a signal that no one should enter.

Many people know him, this is Brown Pope, the director of the New York Coal Exchange, a standard millionaire and one of the tycoons of Wall Street.

The movement in the venue immediately became a little smaller.

As if he hadn't seen the hot scene in the venue, Brown Pope walked straight to the auditorium after entering the door, went to a chair in the far corner, sat down, and began to fill tobacco without raising his head.

Soon, someone came in, this time John Hoffman, a Democrat, the former governor of New York.

Next up was Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad.

And then there's the railroad tycoon Jay Gould.

And then there's Cornelius Vanderbilt, the head of the Vanderbilt family, and his son, William Vanderbilt, who haven't been seen in public for a long time.

Then came Arthur, J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, New Jersey Senator Frederick Theodore Freelinghaythen, Massachusetts Senator Runkel, and Reem, who had never been seen in public.

When everyone was seated, there were only 60 seats in the auditorium, and there were five senators, nine members of the House of Representatives, and more than 40 millionaires.

Although these people in the auditorium kept a basic silence when they came in, without bluffing and pretentiousness, and without meaningful warning eyes, they were watched by such a group of people, and all the parliamentarians subconsciously stopped insulting and throwing, they tidied up their clothes and hairstyles, took the initiative to clean up their seats, and then acted as if nothing had happened, with solemn expressions, as if they were attending the presidential inauguration ceremony.

It was only when the council chamber was quiet that Anthony Dorne picked himself up again: "Now we will vote on whether to impeach Mayor Mr. Tweed—"

Ben Jomari immediately stood up: "I object, Mr. Tweed has been mayor for ten years, and Mr. Tweed has been in power—"

"Please be quiet—" Anthony didn't save face this time, and directly picked up the gavel and interrupted Ben Chomari's words: "Ben, we are not discussing whether or not to impeach, but determining how many people are in favor of impeachment, so now is not your time to speak, please wait." ”

According to the normal agenda, since two votes have been taken, that is, the stage of debate has passed, and the vote will be held immediately.

Anthony doesn't want people to see jokes, there are so many bigwigs, Anthony wants the New York Council to be more professional.

"Mr. Speaker, I think that before the vote, we should fully listen to the opinions of the citizens, and the impeachment of a mayor with outstanding merits is not a trivial matter, and we should be more cautious." Ben Chomari was not deterred and insisted on his opinion.

"Mr. Speaker, I have here a signed book with the signatures of 10,000 New Yorkers, and according to the relevant laws of New York State, when the number of people in favor of impeaching the mayor exceeds 10,000, we must vote on it, and this is our responsible attitude towards the people." Peter Allen stood up, bowed gently, calmly presented the evidence, and acted like a gentleman.

"If such a signature works, then I can take out a hundred copies at any time!" Ben Jomari doesn't back down.

"Rules are rules, Mr. Ben Chomari, since I have 10,000 signatures, then we should do our duty, and it doesn't matter how many signatures you have, even if you have 1,000 signatures, we have to vote this time." Peter Allen insisted, looking at Ben Jomari with a look of pity.

"Enough! In accordance with the provisions of the New York State Constitution, we are now voting on whether to impeach Mayor Tweed first, and gentlemen, please be careful that your sacred vote will affect the future of New York City and the entire state of New York. "Anthony didn't want to stall and got straight to the point.

Ben Jomari wanted to say something, but seeing that most of the parliamentarians had already taken out a small book for voting, he had no choice but to accept it.

In those years, voting had not yet evolved to the electronic stage, and the use of a fairly primitive secret ballot, where each person had a special note for voting, on which parliamentarians could write for or against, and then handed over to the presidium to count the votes, and finally decide the result of the vote.

Although they are anonymous, we must not think that others do not know their attitudes, they are all old oils in the political arena, and the staff in charge of statistics naturally have their own set of methods to determine the tendencies of these parliamentarians.

After a little leaning, the staff in charge of counting began to count votes, and almost from the beginning, the votes in favor of impeaching Tweed were far ahead.

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

"Against!"

"Yes!"

――

The entire vote lasted only about 15 minutes, and the votes in favor of impeaching Tweed were overwhelmingly majority, with 31 votes in favor of impeaching Tweed.

From this moment on, Tweed's identity changed from mayor to suspect.