The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-09
SPIRIT OF THH PR1ss.
Editorial Opinions fthe Leading Journals
upon Current Topios-Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
THE CASE OF wHITTEMoRE.

From the NJ Y. World
The reelection of Whittemore by heavy
majority brings up two questions of very
unequal interest. The first and minor ques-
ton relates to his reception by the House
which pronounced him unfit for a seat, and
would have expelled him if he had not like
the snakes in St. Patrick's time, COMMITTED
suicide to save himself from slaughter"
The other and more important question has
reference to the fitness of negro constitu-
ency to make creditable use of the elective
franchise.
The mere parliamentary question has no
great popular interest. We incline to think
that Whittemore will be admitted, and that,
on the whole, he ought to be admitted to his
seat His exclusion would set q bad prece-
dent; a precedent all the more dangerous
from the fact that he would be rejected by
a Congress controlled by his own political
party.
We should be sorry to see it established as
a principle of parliamentary law that an ex-
PEELED member can be second time excluded
if he has been reelected by the voters of his
district. There is no conceivable limit to
the abuses which might be perpetrated under
color of such principle. 1t might easily be
pushed to such an extent as to make the will
of party majority of the House supreme
over the choice of any Congressional con-
stituency, and enable a political faction to
maintain itself in power in defiance of the
people. If an expelled members constituents
condone his offense, it is safer to give him a
new trial, and let his place depend upon his
subsequent conduct, than to incur the risk
of subordinating the will of the people to the
caprice of partisan maj jority in the House.
1t is doubtless bad thing to have a district
represented by an unworthy or an infamous
member. But it would be worse thing to
deprive the people of their freedom of choice
in the election of their representatives.
We do not recollect any previous instance
of the reelection of member who had been
expelled (Whittemore's retirement was equi-
valent to an expulsion) for a scandalous
breach of trust. 1t is only negro constitu-
ency that could be so wanting in self-respect.
But after admitting negroes to the suffrage,
we must accept the legitimate consequences
of the experiment. All the Congressional
constituencies must stand on the same level,
and are entitled to the same rights. If
white constituency should return an expelled
member, their right to choose their repre-
sentatives ought to be respected, and until
he has committed some new offense he
should be received in Difference to his con-
stituents. So far as we are aware, this
principle has always been recognized In
the debate on the expulsion of Lyon and
Griswold, in 1898, one of the speakers re-
marked, SIN order to get rid of these re-
proaches, he hoped all parties would unite
in expelling these members. If their con-
stituents choose to send them back, he hoped
no member would associate with or take
notice of them" Which clearly implied that
the House had no power to exclude them from
their seats if they should be reelected after
expulsion. In the debate on the proposed
expulsion of Lyon, the next year, Mr.. Bayard,
of Delaware, one of the ablest members Of
the body, made remarks which conveyed the
same implication. Lyon, whose term had
not expired, had been sentenced by court,
and during his imprisonment had been elected
for the next Congressional term; and his
friends argued that if the people of Vermont
chose to have him for their representative
nobody had right to object. Mr.. Bayard's
reply admitted that his reelection entitled
him to his seat for the next term if he should
be expelled for the residue of the unexpired
term. He said that "the member was not
reelected to the present Congress, nor was
any return made of his reelection to the
next" A line of remark which clearly i'm
plies that reelection for the same term
would operate as a conformation of his
offense.
The return of Whittemore q disgraced
member, challenges attention chiefly by its
bearing on the fitness of the Southern
negroes for the political duties thrust upon
them by the reconstruction experiment The
case of Whittemore has more notoriety than
that of the other carpet-bag members; but
the new Southern representatives are pretty
much alike. Whittemore is conspicuous
sample of the whole lot. The First District
of South Carolina from which he is elected,
has greater preponderance of negro voters
than any other Congressional district in the
South, and therefore furnishes a somewhat
more striking illustration of the operation of
universal negro suffrage. The experiment
must be judged by its fruits and thus far its
fruits justify the opposition made to ii by the
Democratic party. The experiment must in
deed run its course but it is to be hoped
that it will not always produce results
so scandalous as have thus far attended it.
Relief is to be looked for, for the present
generation at least, rather in the political
skill with which the negroes are managed
than in the progress of their rude apprentice
ship. The natural leaders of Southern poll
tics have been so fettered and repressed since
the war, that we have not any sufficient data
for Judging what the negro voters may be
brought TO do under their guidance and con-
troll. That they can be easily influenced by
local leaders is proved by the success OF
Whittemore, who has had no difficulty in get
ting himself reelected in spite of the ban put
upon him by the Republican leaders at the
Federal capital. One discredited man in close
intercourse with the negroes secures more OF
their confidence than the whole Republican
party elsewhere They have all the credulity
of ignorance, and can easily be manipulated
and practised upon. In the course of year
or two they may fall under the control of
better class of leaders than the interlopine
Radicals who went South with the army and
the Freedmen's Bureau. If it were still an
open question whether they should be in
trusted with the suffrage, it ought to be de