Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1856-12-06
THR PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.

Sh. give information to them of the state OF the
Union. To do this fully involves exposition OF al
matters in the actual condition OF the country, 40
nestle or foreign which essentially concern the gen.
eral welfare. While performing his constitutions
duty in this respect, the President does not speak
merely to express personal convictions, out as the
executive minister Of the government, enabled by
his position, and called upon by his official obl'ga-
TONS to scan with an impartial eye the interests
Of the whole, and of every part Of the United
States.
of the condition of the domestic interests of the
IJniop its agriculture mines, manufactures, navl-
CATION, and commerce, it is necessary only to say
that the internal prosperity of the country its con-
tinuous and steady advancement in wealth and pop
ulstion and in private as well as public well-beng,
attest the wisdom of insti utons, and the pre-
dominant spirit of intelligence and patriotism, which
notwithstanding occasional irregularities OF opinion
or action resulting from popular freedom, has DIS
tnguished and characterised the people OF America
In the brief interval between the termination OF
the last and the commencement of the present ses'
sion of Congress, the public mind has been occu-
pied with the care of selecting for another consul
tutional term the President and Vicc-Presldent Oh
the United States.
The determination of the persons, who are OF
right or contingently, to preside over the admins
tration of the government is, under our system,
committed to the States and the people. We appeal
to them by their voice pronounced in the forms OF
law, to cali whomsoever they will to the high post
of Chief Magistrate.
And thus it is that as the senators represent the
respective States Of the Union and the members OF
the House of Representatives the several constltu-
ences of each State the President represents the
aggregate population of the United States. Their
election of him is the explicit and solemn act OF the
sole sovereign authority OF the Union
1t is impossible to misapprehend the great prih-
ciples which, by their recent political action, the
people of the United States have sanctioned and
announced.
They have asserted the constitutional equality of
each and all of the States of the Union as States;
they have affirmed the constitutional equality OF
each and all of the citizens of the United States
rs citizens whatever their religion, wherever their
birth, or their residence; they have maintained the
invoiability of the constitutional rights of the diff
ferent sections of the Union and they have pro-
claimed their devoted and unalterable attachment to
the Union and to the constitution, objects Of in
terest superior to all subjects of local or sectional
controversy, as the safeguard of the rights of ALL
the spirit and the essence of the liberty, peace and
greatness of the Republic.
In doing this, they have, at the same time, en-
phaticaly condemned the idea of organizing in
these United States mere geographical parties; OF
marshalng in hostile array towards each other the
different parts of the country, North or South East
or West.
Schemes of this nature, fraught with ncalculable
mischief, and which the considerate sense of the
people has rejected, could have had countenance in
y,
by suggestions plausible in appearance acting upon
an excited state of the public mind, induced by
causes temporary in their character, and it is 20 be
hoped transient in their influence.
Perfect liberty of association for political objects,
and the widest scope of discussion are the received
and ordinary conditions of government in our coun-
try. Our Institutions framed in the spirit of con-
fidence in the intelligence and integrity of the peo-
ple do not forbid citizens either individually or
ISOLATED together, to attack by writing, speech or
any other methods short of physical force the Con-
stitution and the very existence of the Union. I'm
der the shelter of this great liberty, and protected
by the laws and usages of the government they
SAIL associations have been formed, in some of the
States, of individuals, who pretending to seek only
to prevent the spread of the institution of slavery
into the present future inchoate States of the
Union really inf1amed with desire to change the
domestic institutions Of existing States. To accom-
plsh their Objects they dedicate themselves to the
odious task of depreciating the government organ
ization which stands in their way, and Of calum-
mating, with ndiscriminate nvective, not only the
citizens of particular States with whose laws they
find fault but all others of their fellow-citizens
throughout the country, who do not participate
with them in their assaults upon the Constitution,
framed and adopted 10y our fathers, and claiming
for the privileges it has secured and the bessingst
has conferred, the steady support and grateful rev.
erence of their children They seek an object
which they well know to be revolutionary one.
They are perfectly aware that the change in the
relative condition of the white and black races in
the slaveholding States, which they would promote
is beyond their lawful authority that to them it is
foreign object; that it cannot be effected by anv
peaceful nstrumentality of theirs; that for them
and the States OF which they citizens, the only
path to its accomplishment is through burning cit
les, and ravaged fields, and slaughtered populations
and all there is most terrible in foreign complicated
with civil and servile war and that the first step
in the attempt is the forcible disruption of coun.
try embracing in its broad bosom degree of liber-
ty, and amount of individual and public prosper
ity, to which there is parallel in history, and sub
shutting in its place hostile governments driven at
once and inevitably into mutual devastation and
fratricidal carnage Transforming the now peaceful
and felicitous brotherhood into a vast permanent
camp OF armed men like the rival monarchies of
Europe and Asia. Well knowing that SUCH and
such only, are the means and the consequences of
their plans and purposes they endeavor to prepare
the people Of the United States for civil war by do
ing everything in their power to deprive the Con
st'tutlon and the laws of moral authority, and to
undermine the fabric of the Union by appeals to
passion and sectional prejudice, by matchmaking
It's people with reciprocal hatred, and by educating
them to stand face to face as enemies rather than
shoulder to shoulder as friends
1t is by the agency OF such unwarr antable inter.
ference, foreign and domestic, that the minds of
many, otherwise good citizens have been so infam-
ed into the passionate condemnation of the domestic
institutions Of the southern States as at length to
pass sensioly 10 almost equally passionate hostility
towards their fellow-citzens of those States, and
thus finally to fall into temporary fellowship with
the avowed and active enemies of the Constitution
Ardenty attached to liberty in the abstract they do
not stop to Consider practically how the objects thew
would attain can be accomplished, nor to reflect that
even If the evil were great as they deem it they
nave no remedy apply and that it can be only
gravated by their violence and unconstitutional &C.
ton: question, which is one Of the most difficult
OF all the problems of social institution political
economy and craftsmanship they treat with unrea.
sonlng intemperance of thought and lanpuaoo E~.