North Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1850-1852, 1851-03-19

! ~ - 49,
COMPLIMENTARY. When it is asserted that Con-
sttutional reform by Legislative enactment is unde-
mocratic unjust, tyrannica &c., it to us that
quite left handed compliment is paid to the peo-
pie of the State, and especially those of the Wes-
tern part of the State The Constitution itself provides
this mode of altering itself, and the people ratified it
with this clause; thus giving their assent to it. A
Convention may be Called and it may alter and amend
and still the people have to ratfy reject these alt
| erations and amendments. Any change by LegisIa-
lative enactment must also be submitted to the peo-
pie. Suppose the work of Convention is rejected,
has not more expense been incurred than would have
been if the same had been done by the Legislature
All power is in the people, and they have right to
delegate that power TO whom they please. 1t they
delegate it to Convention it is still reserved to them
selves approve or reject the proceedings of that
Convention if they delegate it to the Legislature,
I is with the same reservation.
When, therefore, distinct proposition is made to
alter the Constitution in any particular the Leg
lslature Is at once looked the economical
mode of efecting it. If it be point which is known
to be favored by any considerable portion of the peo-
Ple we. hold that it is the duty of the Legislature
to pass it and let it go before the people, though
1t be doubtful whether majority of the people favor
1t. What, then, is to be thought of those who OPP
pose measure which they know is favored by a
large majority of the people? and which they them
selves profess to be in favor of? Who set them
above the Constitution to say that its provision
for altering or amending itself by Legislative enact
ment, is wrong?
The amendments to the Constitution by the Con-
venton of 1885 ratified by the people; but they
were strongly opposed by the people of the East and
1t was Western men whose votes established those
amendments. If any thing undemoclatic and tyran-
meal was done by that Convention, it is the people
OF the West who are to blame for ratifying it.
Two years ago last summer, when the question of
Free Suffrage began 10 be agiated, the prominent
wings, generally, opposed it, and one of their grounds
of opposition that it would stop with this,
that it would beget desire for change and that that
hav IN
other changes. Now, We find these same the
strongest agtators for, other alterations. They
reject one almost universally desired because, they
profess, they want others with it.
During the canvass of candidates for the Legisla-
ture, last summer, we presume there were very few
OF them that did not express themselves in favor of
Free Suffrage. And was anything then said to the
manner of obtaining it Was there single candi-
date who told the people " am for Convention to
give Free Sufrage-I shall oppose it in the Leg
islature if l am elected? 2" We know of no such in
stance; such declaration would have insured the de-
feat of any man.
But can Convention be had 1t requires vote
of two thirds of the members of the Legislature to
call Convention. 1t is evident that the East is
rayed against Convention now, and without the aid
of Eastern members it is impossible to call Con-
venon. Is 1t, then the part Of wisdom to reject a
part because We cannot get the auhoLe when know
il impossible to obtain the whole
Ofthe motives of those members who protested to
favor Free Suffrage and yet voted against it, have
our own part we DO not approve their course, neither
do we believe that the masses of the people do.
RutherfordtOn Banner.
Rich. If the readers of the Raleigh Register can
swallow the following without direful consequences,
we should think quack nostrums to aid digestion
would find slow sale about the capital of the old
North State In speaking of the result of the cleo
ton in the Greenvile District, the Register says:
This result gives strong coloring to the state
ment that the true secret of the agitation in South
Carolina lies in the fact that the in that State
are rode over roughshod by a few influential
families, and that the press is bought up threat
ened with ruin by these masters, if they do not adj
vocate certain measures. In the instance before US,
few patriotic and independent men had but to brave
the bidding of these g influential families " and de-
clare themselves for the Union, and the eyes of the
people opened to the position to which the
madness of secession would drive them. May the
day soon come, when the people of South Carolina
shall demand that political power and those Franchise
es which the people of every other State enjoy. At
present they not sovereign Let them become so,
and they will spurn alike their present leaders and
the principles they hold"
Poor, down-trodden South CaroIinians The horse
and his rider have marred your visages. The hoofs
of the :. oughshod influential families have scared
and blurred the comness of 50 the Masses" and the
press is one mass of orruption-bought, soul and
body, by the gold of the " influential families - But
take courage, that better time is coming you are
rem smbered in the prayers of the Raleigh Register
When we see such paragraph as that We have
quoted above, in respectable paper of an adjoining
we with what inscriptions of
conscience it gives currency to what it knows-or at
east ought to KNOWS gross Islander on the people
If sister State, blush for Southern journalism
The wholesale libel on the press of this State, utter
ID by the Register, is indication that he measures
editorial independence by his own guage.
South Carohnian.
O'CoNNELL AND THE REPORTERS. Anxi ous as he |
vas to be reported in England, there were occasions
when O'Conne preferred that what he said should