Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1854-06-07
To Candidates and Sheriffs.

didatcs to the law of North Carolina, for the
suppression of treating by candidates for Of
fee, and also the law defining the duties of
Sheriffs in reading and making public the
law in this respect. TO save them the trou-
BILE of having to hunt the law up in the books,
we subjoin the same, giving chapter and
section, so that they may examine and see
that we extract correctly. The Revised Stat
utes ofNorth Carolina, 54th chapter, contains
the following sections:
Sec. %. If any person shall at any time before
or after any election, either directly or indirectly,
give any money, gift, gratuity, or reward to any
elector or electors, or to any county or district, in
order to be elected, or to procure any other person
to be elected as a member of the General Assembly,
every person so offending shall forfeit and pay four
hundred dollars, to be recovered Ivy action of debt,
in any court of record having cognizance thereof,
with the costs, and shall be incapable to serve as a
member during the continuance of that General As
semhly. for which such election shall be made as
aforesaid.
Sec. %. IF any person or persons shall treat. with
either meat or drink, on any day of election, or any
day previous thereto, with an ~intentto influence the
election, every person so offending shall forfeit and
pay the sum of two hundred dollars, the one half
for the use of the county where the same shall bo
TecONeTeQJ 10 De palu 10 the county trustee, $h0 other
hall to the use OF the person who shall sue for the
same, to be recovered by action of debt in any court
of record having cognizance thereof, with costs.
Sec. "a. 1t shall be the duty of the sheriff in each
and every county, annually to publish the two pre-
ceding sections of this act, by advertising and read
ing the same at the court house door, on the first
and second days of the county court, which shall
happen previous to the annual election, under the
penalty of forty dollars for each and every neglect.
Now, how can any law-loving, law-abiding
citizen decline saying he will not treat, when
there is the plain law of the land making it
a penal offence for him to do so ? What! a
man aspiring to the responsible post of a lao-
mdher, and yet refuse to pledge himself not
to ciotdte the written law of the land! We
hope every person who shall violate the pro-
visions o fthe law will be duly prosecuted
and held amenablc for an infraction of the
statute. If propriety, decency and law all
fail to restrain, the effect of legal penalties
should be tried, and the offender deprived of
a seat to which he has been elected by the
use of unlawful means.
And the section referring to the duties of
Sherifs should be required to be rigidly OBJ
served. Were the provisions of the law car
ried out by the Sheriff of Wake county at
May Court, just past? If not, why? The
law makes the penalty forty dollars for each
and every offence. Has the law been OBJ
served by the Sherifs of the different coun-
ties in the State? Is it not the duty of Grand
Jurors, at the next Court, to inquire into
these delinquencies, and find true bills against
all offenders? "Let the law be enforced, at
all hazards"