Weekly North Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1850-1858, 1854-10-18
THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH. =
The Charleston Mercury has the following rcaec-
tions on the attitude of the North and the South

cat no period since we have been people, has
there been a greater calm than that which now per-
vades the minds of the Southern people. The stpng
gle of 1850 seems to have produced profound in
difference, or confident assurance, which is con-
tent to leave public affairs as connected with the
General Government to drift down the stream of
time without an effort to divert or arrest their
course. If the Government was the most behefcent
in the world, and absolutely under our control, we
could not exhibit greater apparent satisfaction with
its operations Little local State matters alone bub
BILE up in the State elections tests for the peoples
choice and favor. The people seem to be totally un-
conscious or indifferent to the black tempest of abo-
tion which is gathering in the North, soon to break
in all its fury on the South. Throughout the free
States the aspect of things is widely different. There
the prooundeSt interest and widest fanaticism agi
tate the public mind Conventions and public meet
ngs of all sorts daily taking place. Public speak
and public lecturers abroad amongst the peo-
pie, stirring up their passions and firing their zeal
in the public service. And what is the great bur-
den of their furious agitations? Slavery-the sa-
very of the Southern States-without which the
Southern States must be bowling wilderness, and
their people scattered abroad houseless and home
less. Their dsparagement in the Union their degra
dation and dependency under Northern domination; !;
their ruin, POLITICAL social and physical is the grand
theme of discussion, and the grand aim of Northern
agitation 1t is not enough, that we have been tri
butary to them for thirty years, in all the operations
of our common Government and have lifted them
to affiuence and power 1t is not enough that they
steal slaves and not only will not fulfil the faith
of the Constitution in rendering them back to us,
but murder our citizens in attempting to retake
them. 1t is not enough, that we have been turned
out of our territory acquired from Mexico to be paid
for by Southern treasure and by the best blood
of the South 1t is not enough, that have patient
ly bowed down under all these multiplied wrongs,
and still cling to an Union with them. Their hatred
and contempt seems to increase with their aggres-
sioas, and our submission. They break down the
hoxYa
and organize mighty National Party, whose creed
is hostility to slavery, and the South and whose
policy it is, to destroy both Never before has such
state of things existed amongst people living un
der the same Government. "A hostility, justfyng
among nations, is deliberately excited and car
ricd on by one portion of the people against the
other. 1t is worse than this. They design to pro-
duce war, intestine war, which will end in eXtermi-
nation They design to produce revolution-revo-
luton which shall entail utter rnin perhaps by blood
and massacre. Yet, the South is calm.very calm!
Is her repose that of conscious power? Is her ap-
parent Indifference the result of settled determi
nation which is no longer heard in words? Or is
she dead-dcad beyond resurrection by the calls
of selfpreservation, of honor, by the fierce
fires of instruction? We still have confidence in
her deStinies but looking to the past and present,
many brave heartsnight despair of the South.
To feel and write in this manner is painful du-
ty. The tame and sluggish will not thank us for re-
minding them of their unworthiness, or for disturb
ing their s!umbers; and the brave and indignant
spirit will be only the chafed when it is point
ed to the nsolent attitude of the aggressor and the
unressting meckness of the victim. But the true
Southern journal is false to its mission, false to its
principles, false to ITSELF it, it looks out upon the
political sky and reads the danger it hesitates to
give the alarm, lest towards may rasa their depre
eating hands or party spoilsmen tremble for their
gold"
With the Mercury, we shave confidence in the
sleeping The calm which prevails is but the evil
dence of the settled determination on the part of
her people to defend their rights, when driven to
their defence, with an energy and firnness worthy
the land of Calhoun, and King, and Macon, and
Henry.
"Stl as the breeze but dreadful as the Storm"
The Mercury will bear in mind that in the con-
test of 1S49 and 1850 between the two sections,
those who occupied prominent ground as Southern
Rights men, were denounced By Southern men as
traitors and disunionists Southern men, for the
most part Wings, united with Northern politicians
in the effort then made to form Union party whose
object to prescribe all of both parties in the
South who were boldly contending for the Union
according to the Constitution. This party like all
organizations formed one idea, passed away.
Its test of orthodoxy was the Union at all hazards,
whatever might be the result of the struggle then
going forward. The question of slavery was settled,
as was hoped by many, by the "Compromise" of
1850; yet those public in the South who staked
themselves to obtain this settlement, and who, by
their firm and determined manner, contributed SO
much to bring emaoritics of the non-slaveholdng
States to terms retain still lively recollection Of
the treatment they received for their course at the
hands even of many Of the Southern people. They
in the lead then, and were characterized
cessionists traitors disunionsts; they still
they were, and what they were, and when the strug
gle is renewed they will be found neither ithless
nor faltering but no overt act has yet been per-
petrated by the non savchoiding States which would
justify dissolution they content to maintain their
position in comparative silence leaving it to time
and events to in their former denouncers the
same feelings which Influenced and controlled them
in 1850. The Union according to the Constitution
can be preserved only by union in the South, and by
the aid of portions of that party in the nslayehold
ing States which cast in the House twenty
for the ugitiveslave law, and forty -four votes fol
the Nebraska BILL Southern Whigs by uniting
with the Democrats, and by doing justice to those
Democrats in the non -slaveholding States who are
stil true to the Constitutional rights of the South
/ may be able to accomplish much for the cause o
the Union in the approaching struggle; but thu
South has nothing to hope for from the action o
i the Wing party in the non-slaveholding States.
is utterly and fxedly against us ;:and It's triumph
in the elections about to take pace as they hay,