The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-11-20

MIR. ValIandigbRm as Senator from
Ohio.
Wa have received letter from the Hon. James
w. Wall, of New Jersey, in reply to an edi-
torial which we published a few days since in
THE BvENN0 TELEGRAPH, which will be found
on our eighth page.
In replying to the ex-United States
Senator, we desire to avoid discussion as
much as possible, and WILL therefore, grant
that Mr.. Vsllandigham is personally moral
that he has eloquence and education, and will
take Mr.. Wallis word for it that he is
''highly courteous gentleman" although we
have never had the honor of judging by expe-
rience. We will also pass by without com
ment the slur on the immaculate Lincoln"
and come down to that portion Of the letter
which treats of the legal right of the Senate
to reject an applicant for admission. We must,
however, first take exception to the statement
that Mr.. Vallandigham is "the idol Of ma
jority of the people of Ohio" 1t is so long
ago since idols were worshipped that we do
not exactly understand the form of devotion,
but it strikes us that to mufle an idol up in
gags, to hide it, and keep its oracular voice
from being heard, and to put 1t away in an
inner chamber, is hardly the approved method
Of worship. Yet Mr.. Valandigham, and GER
tain other gentlemen in our own State, and on
the other side of the Deiawarc, were treated in
this manner; and how m uch of the success of
the Democracy is due to their being hidden
from sight, the change Of the vote from the
time they were allowed to speak and when
they were kept quiet will show. II our
memory does not deceive us, when Mr.. Vallan-
digham stumped the State and ran for Gov
erner, he was beaten by somewhere in the
neighborhood of 100, 900 majority. 1t proves
the old motto, that "speeoh may be silver,
but silence is gold"
The authority on the subject of the right
of the United States Senate to Judge of the
"election returns and qualifications of its mem
bers" is found in the Constitution. No limit
is assigned to the qualifications" of which
the Senate can judge; and as they are not
defined, Mr.. Wall takes occasion to say that
they consist in an inquiry as to whether
the applicant is resident of the
State which elected him, is over thirty
years of age, and has resided in
that State nine years. This, according to
Mr.. Wall, is all that the highest body of the
United States can do. 1t is not power capa-
bic OF excluding unworthy members; it Is
nothing more than clerk to investigate family
Bibles and tax receipts. Such an opinion
places the dignity of the Senate, its purity,
and its respectaJaHy entirely at the mercy OF
majority of a State Legislature. Such a
T.-k
laid it down, Mr.. Wall proceeds to contradict
himself. He extends the limits of the inquiry
He goes so far as to ackn .wledge that in case
of crime the Senate eau reject an
applicant. Having once broken down
the barriers, and acknowledged that other
questions than age, residence, and citizenship
can be inquired into, by what right does Mr..
Wall limit the examination to crimes of which
the applicant has been convicted The very
language he quotes from Chancellor SandfOrd
does not require legal conviction as ground
for exclusion. "There may be an exclusion
as punishment for crime, !" and not that some
petty State Court must have convicted the
applicant. The Senate itself is the Judge as
to whether its members have been guilty of
crime. Each Senator not only is authorized
to act as his conscience and his oath dictate,
without regard to legal teohnicalities, but it
is his duty so to act; and to admit any one
whom he believes to be a criminal, even if no
legal conviction has taken place, is to be false
to his high Office.
Not only has the Senate, without regard to
party maintained this view, but it has fre-
quently acted on it. Ia the case of Jesse D.
Bright who was guilty of writing letter to
jefferson Davis, introducing man who had
patented frearm, even those who opposed
his expulsion based their opposition not on
the right of the Senate to expel for crime be-
fore legal conviction, but because they did
not deem such letter crime. They never
denied that the Senate was the Judge of
whether or not Bright was entitled to mem
bership.
The reverse of such a position would place
the Senate in a subordinate attitude to a State
Court. That lofty body would have to post
pone all action on the expulsion of an unwor-
thy member until his case was settled in some
County Court of Oyer and Terminer-a position
of affairs utterly opposed to the spirit of the
Constitution and subversive of the dignity Of
the Senate. According to Mr.. Wall,
the Senate had no right to expel
Davis, Toombs, and the ten Rebel
Senators, after they were in arms, until