The North-Carolina standard., 1850-06-29


amendment in it. The bill afterwards went to the
Senate, and was defeated by {" honest' John Davis,
Of Massachusetts, who disgraced himself by speak
ing against time up to the last hour Of the session
and who thus prevented not only the giving Gov
eminent to Oregon, but defeated bill which had
passed the House making appropriations for prosecu-
ting and concluding the Mexican War.
The Oregon bill became a law in August, l849.
Col. Reid, we repeat, was not at that time mem
Der of the House, and could not therefore, have vo
ted for it, charged by the Register. In signing
that bill with what is called the Ordinance of 's7 in
it, Mr.. Polk was governed by his regard for the Mis-
souri, line basis for settling the slavery question
between the free and slave States, as the following
extracts from his message the occasion will show
"The territory Of Oregon lies far north of thirty
six degrees thirty minutes, the Missouri and Texas
compromise line. Its southern boundary is the par
allel of ~, leaving the intermediate distance 10 be
three hundred and thirty geographical miles:
And it is because The provisions Of this bill are not
inconsistent with the terms Of the Missouri compromise,
If ertended from the Rio Grande tO the Pacific ocean,
that have not felt at liberty to withhold my sane
ton. Had it embraced territories south of that COM
promise, the question presented for my consideration
would have been Of far different character and my
action upon it must have cerrespondcd with my con-
victions.
Ought we now to disturb the Missouri and Texas
compromises! Ought at this late day, in attempt
ing to annual what has been so long established and
acquesce6 in, to excite sectional divisions and jeal-
ouses to ALLEVIATE the people of different portions of
the Union from each others and to endanger the ex-
istence of the Union itself!''
We might quote more at length from that admira-
bic Message, but is scarcely necessary Mr.. Polk s
for his that occasion still fresh
in the public mind, and tha, has been almost
universally approved. The Raleigh Register has
never published his Message on that occasion-has
allowed his to 60 before his readers
but keeping all this in the back ground, has STU
dously labored to produce the impression, that in
signing the Oregon bill he gave his sanction to the
Wilmot Proviso! That paper knows better, but ma
ny of its readers do not; and why should II care
about consistency or honesty, provided votes can be
gained for its party leaders! 1t never has cared
about such things, and never will. With it, the end
justifies the means.
Let us see now how the matter stands: The Re-
gister charges that Col. Reid, seeing the insult in
tended to the South" and I" knosving' the purposes
and views of the North, voted for the Oregon bill
with the Ordinance of '97 in it, that became law ;
and we have shown that, in 1916, Col. Reid voted
against that Ordinance proposed to be inserted in
the bill tina, there proof that he voted for
the bill, that occasion, its final passage-and
that in 1913, when the bill passed to which the Reg
lister alludes, in the above extract Co Reid not
a member ef the House. We leave honest men to
make their own comments upon such a state of
facts.
The truth is, the Register does not appear to know
what the Wilmot Proviso really is. We will tell
him: That Proviso was first offered in 1916, by
Mr.. Wimot, of Pennsylvania, and was intended to
apply to Territories whieh aoe had not then acquired
and the Registers allies-including Mr.. Winthrop,
its late hvorite candidate for the Speakership OF
the House-sustained it, with the view of embar-
rassing the prosecution of the war, and Of bringing
that war to disastrous termination. 1t was offer
ed again, after we had obtained the Territories
and up to the present session of Congress- when it
became a thing to be loathed and despised on all
hands, no Wing member from the free States had
voted against it, while the Democrats from the
free States who had opposed it, had been gradually
killed off by Freesoilism in the North, and by the de-
nuncidtions of Southern Wings, the Register among
them. These denunciations were INDUCED in, be-
cause these Southern Wings desired the destruction
Of the Democratic party. They knew that those
Northern Democrats, who opposed that Proviso,
would be held up here and commended as devoted
the Union and the rights of the South and rather
than see this, they rudely put back their profered
hand of friendship, and denounced them political
hypocrites, whose only object was to deceive and
mislead the South. 1t was the same men who made
war upon Gen. Case in the late campaign, and pro-
nounced him Freesoiler and an Aboltionist. True
they have since been compelled, by the manly and
American course Of that great man, to eat their words
but they had done that frequently before that they
had become accustomed to it.
The Register well knows that the extension Of the
Missouri line to the Pacific amounts to the sam,
thing as the Ordinance Of 's7 ; and that Mr.. Cal
houn, Mr.. Badger, and MI. Mangum, and nine-,en,h,
Of the Southern members of Congress at variou,
times, have voted for that line And yet it has the
audacity to call for "a monument Of infamy'' 70
Col. Reid. jr agreeing IN opinion and aeting sv;t
such men a. CaLhoan, Manguas, and Badger! Wha
will honest Wings say TO saeh an organ! :;s
MIsslsslPrl CoTroN Caor. The jackson Missis
sippian Of the 7th inst says: " Since publishing on
last statement Of the crops Of Mississippi, we hav
kceived letters from about fifteen additional counties
We are sorry to say that We have never in our lif
known more gloomy prospect. We shall not max
700 bales In the State the number ought to b
| zoe, 900 bales at least.'' -. ''.' :.
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