The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-03
THE RETURN or WRITTEN ORE.

SUFFICIENT returns have been received from
the special election in the First Congressional
district of South Carolina to render the re-
turn of the notorious Whittemore certain by
decided majority. We need not recapitu-
late in detail the story of his shame. Worse
than defaulter in Massachusetts,, before
he donned the sacred robes; more than dis
trusted for dishonesty as chaplain of regi-
ment; charged circumstantially with defraud-
ing the freedmen in various ways; elected to
Congress from q district where colored men
of the most ignorant class largely predomi-
nate; bartering his eadetships openly and
shamelessly in the market; and, fually, fee
ing the House to escape an almost unanimous
expulsion, he now returns to the same House
that drove him out as a moral leper, with the
broad seal of the State of South Carolina
attesting his right to represent the First dis
trict of that Commonwealth in the popular
branch of our National Legislature.
La a few days he will again appear at the
bar of the House and ask to be sworn as
member. Will he be admitted? +? The nation,
profoundly sensitive respecting the half
developed corruption which seems to pervade
our supreme law-making power, will watch the
action of the House with much solicitude.
The case is without precedent in our history.
Members have heretofore resigned under
resolutions of censure and been returned and
sworn unchallenged, but in no instance, we
believe, has member of Congress been ex-
PEELED or compelled to resign to escape ex-
pulsion for venality, and subsequently
returned to claim a seat. Mr.. Matteson,
e w. l.,
vote some years ago for alleged corruption
and then compelled to resign; but a
resolution of expulsion had failed to COM
mand the constitutional majority in his case,
and his legal right to his seat was unques-
toned. At the time of his resignation he
had already been reelected to the succeeding
Congress, and when the new term COM
menced he resumed his place. The propriety
of allowing him to serve without some notice
of the disgrace he had brought upon the pre-
vious Congress was freely discussed in the
public journals, and was the subject of re-
peated consultations between some of the
leading members of the House. But it is due
to Mr.. Matteson to say that ne stoutly dis
puted all the allegations of corruption, and
claimed that his explanations cleared him of
all moral turpitude in the matter.
1t is clear that the House has the legal
right to protect itself from the presence of
any improper person. 1t is the sole judge of
the qualification of its own members, and it
is morally bound to refuse admission to q
man who has notoriously and corruptly abused
his official privileges and brought infany
upon himself and the country. We submit,
therefore, that when Mr.. Whittemore's Gre
dentials are presented for readmission, it is
the duty of the House to reject him and de-
clare the seat vacant because the proposed in
cumbent is utterly unworthy, and his admis-
sion would be a blistering stain upon our ma
tional character.
Mr.. Whittemores g reelection is but part
of the grand scheme of q pack of the most
unscrupulous adventures to maintain power
in South Carolina. OF the four districts
in that State, two elected Republicans
-Whittemore and Bowen; and the other
two districts elected Simpson and Reed, De-
moerats, by about 1000 each. OF the two
Republicans, Mr.. Whittemore is sadly noto-
rious, and the antecedents Of his Republican
colleague are anything else than creditable.
ka adventurer and camp-follower in the
Rebelarmy, and more than once arraigned for
crime before the Rebel military authorities,
he naturally cast his lot with the swarm
of vampires who have fastened upon that
State, in desecration of the name of Repub-
icanism, and are eating out its vitals and
making reconstruction a term of reproach
among all upright men. In the two districts
which give very large Democratic majorities
the members elected were not eligible, and
The minority candidates have both been
sworn in in defiance of the popular will ex-
pressed against them in unmistakable tones.
We need not say that the men, Messrs. Hoge
and Wallace, who consent 20 sit in Congress in
contempt of the decision of the election
returns cannot merit any high measure of
popular respect.
But for the combinations of the corrupt
State authorities, Whittemore would not have
had a shadow of chance for reelection. But
he is neither better nor worse than the ave-
rage of his fellow official plunderers, and
they did not dare to overthrow him. They
would have done so, bat Whittemore would
have risen like the ghost of ''Banquo" to con-
fuse them. Governor Scott is a candidate
for reelection next fall and he dare not
break link in the circle of Swiss merce-
naries who now control the State by appeals
to the passions and prejudices of the igno-
rant, and by the official patronage they co a.
mand. They profess to purchase homes for
the homeless freedmen, issue the bonds of
the State to pay for lands, and then what
they fail to plunder directly from the State