Knoxville Weekly Chronicle

[COMMUNICATED.]

Horace Maynard—Political Honesty.

As a rule, it is enough to know that the Press and Herald does not approve the course of this gentleman in Congress, to feel assured that he is about right. This paper has sought to make some political capital out of his vote against refusing Whittemore to take his seat. Those who best know Horace Maynard know very well that, whatever were his motives for voting as he did, a disposition to wink at bribery and corruption was no part of such motives.

The Washington correspondent of the New York Independent thus speaks of the case:

"The action of the House cannot be justified as constitutional, and all the great lawyers of the House admit it. Whittemore was entitled to be sworn in; and then the House had a constitutional right to expel him, if it could obtain a two-thirds vote to that end. But the feeling was strong against him; and more particularly the feeling of the country was violent against him, as being a convicted cadetship huckster, and members feared that a vote to admit him, even for an hour, to a seat, might be misinterpreted."

It appears, then, that Mr. Maynard, in agreeing with "all the great lawyers in the House" as to the unconstitutionality of such action, voted accordingly. As for political honesty, or honesty of any kind, or under any circumstances, we will put him against any man whom the Conservatives are likely to bring out, and he will suffer nothing in the comparison.

We believe Mr. Maynard to be as capable and as faithful in representing the interests of East Tennessee in Congress as could be expected from any other one that can be named. And this being so, we are in favor of keeping him there, rather than to risk the chance of not being represented at all, by putting some man of straw in his place.

H. C.