Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1856-07-12

of groves still fragrant with the lingering breath OF
Spring upon the ripe sheaves, cleaning upon COUNT
less acres, and the tall corn waving over innumera,
bic burrows, giving promise Of full. harvest and
abundant cheer; upon nine hundred thousand PEG.
pie, embracing different and most opposite races,
dwelling together in peace unsmtten by pestilence
or plague-with no regular military organization,
and none daring to modest them-with schools open
to all, without money and without pl1ce Iw x1a.
the Bble-with the right of free speech, OF h00eas
corpus, and trial By jury-with free press and an
able and upright Judiciary-with all liberties and
every blessing which rational beings could desire
look upon all this and then say if our lots have not
been cast in good time in the worlds history, ana
in pleasant places; and il we have not State wor
thy of all our devotion and aection-rchly entitled
to our best efforts to improve her in peace, and to
our blood and our treasure, if required in the day
of danger? Consider, too her capacities for I'M
provement, and the progress which has oeen maze
during the last twenty years. We all remember the
Sacrifices the expenditures and the earnest ana anx
ous efforts of the early friends of internal improve
ments; and the mingled pride and joy with when
we first heard the whistle OF the steam car above
our soil No0, there are nearly six hundred miles
of Railroad in the State in successful operation with
six hundred miles more projected, and which Will De
ready, at distant day. for use. There are persons
in this assemblage who witnessed the labors OF Cald
WE'LL and Bartlett Yancy, and Murphy, and others,
in the cause of education and of Common Schools,
and who stood with them and sustained them IN
those labors. The University was then struggling
up amidst many difficulties, if not against prejudice
and actual opposition. 1t is now established on an
enduring basis and is of the best and most -four
shing institutions of the kind in the whole country
Up to 1910, when our Common Schools were COM
menced, there were but two Colleges in the State,
but one hundred and fifty academies, and only six
hundred primary schools. Noao, there are fourteen
emies and three thousand five hundred primary or
Common Schools. In 1910, there were not more
than two hundred students at Colleges, not more
than four thousand at academies, and not more than
twenty five thousand at all the schools, of whatso
ever kind, in the State. Now, there are one thous-
and students in the various Colleges, nine thousand
in academies, and not less than one hundred and
forty thousand in the primary or Common Schools.
What cheering results these How they glad
den the heart of the phlanthropist and patriot!
1t may be truly asserted that no State in the Con-
federacy possesses any advantages North Car
DINA, whether we consider the extent of her sea-
coast and the value of her harbors-her geographic
cal situation, the nature and variety of her re-
sources and productions. She occupies, upon the
surface of the globe those parallels oflattude, which
have been most favorable in all past time to civiza-
ton, to vaor, to improvement in letters, and in
whatsoever contributes most to elevate and refine
the human race She is shielded on the one hand
from the protracted and rigorous winters of the
North and the other from the blasting heats of
the South. Her soil can be made to yield in perfec-
article which is produced in any one in all of the
thirty States. Her timber is varied in kind and
almost inexhaustible in quantity the banks of her
rivers and her Eastern plains are well stored with
materials for improving the soil her hills and her
valleys rich in depostes of gold, of ron Of sill
yer, of copper, of marble, of coal, and other valua
bic minerals and to crown ALL there is spirit of
intelligence, of enterprise, and improvement among
her people, which will in due time bring out all
these resources to adorn her surface to add to her
wealth and to the general comfort and to raise her
to her proper and just rank in the Confederacy of
States. Develop her coal and her iron, and send
them out to the markets Of the world, and shall
cease to pay tribute to Northern banks and North
ern capitalists Exchange will then be in our avor
and our State credit well maintained throughout
the recent financial embarrassmcnts and difficulties
will be placed on still higher and stronger founda-
tons. Build up our own market towns, and let our
productions as far as practicable, be shipped from
our own ports, and our own people will then reap
the benefits realized from handling, and shipping
and selling Them We shall not then see our ex-
ports stated in federal commercial returns at four
hundred thousand dollars, when really they might
be estimated by millions. In word, fellow-citi-
zens, let cut loose, as far can from that de-
pendance for markets sister States which for
half century has injured our circulating medium
embarrassed and limited the acton of our Banking
institutions drained US of our resources to enrich
others, lowered the tone of State pride and State
manhood and dwarfed our State independence
But better and brighter day has already risen
upon us. Internal Improvements and Common
Schools have become the established policy of the
State and the great interests of agriculture and the
mechanic arts receiving the attention of the L.
gislature and of the people generally. The steam
car now thunders along from the mountains to the
seaboard feighted with the productions of the in
terror Counties, and bearing back for consumption,
for use, and for ornament, the commodities of other
and distant regions. The mind of the capitalist is
stimulated, and the arm ofthe miner, the mechanic,
and the manufacturer, nvgorated by the prospect of
fair rewards for their expenditures and labors Our
Common Schools and our academies thronged
with thousands of happy and ingenious children;
emigration is ceasng and the old State lifts herself
up, and girds herself for the work of Improvement
physical mental, and moral, in which she is en-
gagged.
And is this time for any true of hers to fall
ter in her SERVICE to abandon her for other lands?
No-felow- citzcns-No! Here let US remain, and
plan, and labor for the improvement of our State,
and for ourselves and our posterity. 1t is good
ly and glorious land, worthy of our best afiec-
tions and of all efforts and every sacrifice which
We can make in its behalf 1t is the land of our
forefathers, "ust and free in their day, and hope
full in their death Their honored ashes mingle
with its SOIL and their patriotic spirits hover through
its air." They speak to US by their great examples
and invoke to be faithful to the rich inheritance
which has fallen to US from their hands. We re-
spond to the invocation. We are resolved, that as
they performed their whole duty in their day, so we
will perform ours; and that with one mind and
one heart, oiW unite to keep the State on
the high road of advancement and improvement, and
to give to her star lustre in the constellation
of the Union. So shall posterty look back with
gratitude to US, as we look back to those who have
preceded u.s. SO shall intelligence and freedom, and
manliness and State PRIDE and virtue and pety, in
crease and abound among us; and so shall all the
generations which are destined to exist within our
borders utter fervent thanks that they first saw the