The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1870-02-19
THE CARpET-BAGGERS.
What they Arc and What They Are
Doing.
I"Mack, y in Cincinnati EnquIrcr.l


It Is now quite we'll understood that at least
one carpet-bng member of the House-a gen.
tleman from South Cardinals Implicated in
the s,e of West Point cadetshipS. There Is
promise Of full exposure, and the public VIII
soon know all abont II. But the most remark
able feature Of the thing to my mind Is, not
That the carpct-baggers should sell their IN
tlucnce and votes for such sums as they can
grt, but that the people should wonder when
they do so. Congress has deliberately imposed
this set of vile creatures upon ten States Of the
Union. The Reconstruction laws have render
cd anything like respectable representation
impossible; they have excluded from Office
every nlau In the South who Is lit to hold
1t, and made ten millions OF people the VIC
tins OF unprnclpled adventures. You can
not name to-day, among the carpet-bag MEM
hers and senators in Congress, single man
who could be elected 10 any Office in the coun-
ty in the North, from which lie emigratcd to
fistcn himself upon an unwilling people
through the instrumcntality OF Congresslonal
reconstruction. The Republicans in Congress
are beginning TO see this, and TO complain OF
Convention OF France, when the Able Sieyes
complained OF The extremes to which the reVo-
lul.onists were going, "My dear Able, you
have ioosed the bull; do you think he will not
use his horns?' Congress has "looscd the
bnll,n and he is simply using his horns. There
never wag more daStardly crime committed
against Il brave people than that which called
the carpet-baggcrs into existence and filled
the halls of Congress with the mean Wretches
who now represent the South. Nor is the In
Jury confined to the South alone. The carpet
bagger's vote counts for as much on tariff or
a currency question affecting the whole coun-
try rs the vote of 4 member from New York or
Cincinnati, and we have now twenty such
votes in the Senate and eighty in the House
any one of them Il merclantablc article lof
inr an army of raScality sufficiently large 10
corrupt and bef0ul the entire Legislation OIL
Congress. Nor is there any prospect OF lntne-
diatc relief. The influence OF these men IL
constantly excited TO prevent the extension OF
amnesty to those likely to prove compelltors
for their succession. A general removal OF
disabilities would soon purify the political AT
mospherc of the South: but Congress never
was farther from that sort of magnanlnlty
than it is to-day. Tie Southern delegations
are solid against it., and are likely to remain so
and to defeat any measure Of the Kind.
So. rcpcat, the sale OF cadctships, though
q disrraccful thing. is bnt drop in the great
ocean of corruption. 1t is rs nothing COM
pared to the villany and velaltty wliich are
insrparable from q system which makes scna-
tors and representatives out ol men VINO coile
here for the sole purpose of making rs mlich
as possible ouS Of their positions In congress.
These facts may as we'll be looked Squarely III
The face, and the people may as well make up
their minds to accept the diSgraccful SITUATION
which party malice has forced upon them: It
will be the work OF twenty years to "dislElect'
the halls of national legislation, anu remove
from them the impurities of Congressional re-
nStrucLiOl.