Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1858-07-30
The Close of the Canvass.

The Close of the Canvass.
On Thursday next August 5th, the election for
Governor, members of the Legislature and ShertS will
be held throughout the State of North Carolina TO
very great extent the Canvass far the newspapers
are concerned may be regarded already closed 1t
will remain for the people to act in accordance with their
own ideas of duty with reference to the facts and agu
ments in their own possession, or which have been
placed before them through the press and the stump
Last appeals save for action Or new issues sprung upon
the eve of an election should be, and trust will be-
regarded with suspicion by an intelligent people because
incapable, in most cases, of verfcaton if right or con-
tradicton if wrong. Besides all this, the great majority
of our people in North Carolina are farmers who 1--we
away from large towns and out of the reach OF papers
issued more frequently than once week. Alter this
week we cannot again come before the great body OF
our readers in this and other Counties of Eastern North
Carolina as we'll as goody number scattered through
the West ard centre.
The canvass now about to close has been somewhat
peculiar in character if only for the length OF time that
one of the candidates for Governor has been engaged in
it. Mr. McRae the opposition candidate, may be fairly
said to have commenced it last Fall with the letter to
Mr. Dancy, of Edgecombe. We know that Mr.. Nc
Rae then and afterwards stated that he did not wish to
be canddate-hat he desired that the field should be
taken by some practical farmer but although feel
bound to concede to Mr. McRae all that high-minded
regard for truth which justice to gentleman of his
character demands at our hands, subsequent events
pei us to the conclusion that he did not then know his
mind-that without knowing it himself he was then and
ever after fully in the field and bound to rum for when
the practical farmer did in to his invo
cation in the person of Walter F. Leake Esq., he was
hustled off the stage as an unwelcOme visitor
hidden guest Mr.. McRae's central organ, the Raleigh
Register cooy informed Mr. Leake that he could not
come n that he was not wanted that he could not make
the necessary inroads upon the Democratic party;
so that after all the horror expressed for lawyer candi
dates by Mr.. McRae, that gentleman, lawyer, was
fixed upon the only to bear the standard ooppos
ton he, protesting Democrat the person determn-
ed upon by the ultra opponents of Democracy to make
nroads upon the party to which he protested to be-
long.
Well, without much more ado, Mr.. McRae entered
on the canvass months before Democratic candidate
was placed in the field Debt taxation and distribution
were the themes upon which he dlated with much vgor
and eoquence running much better by himself, however,
than he did after competitor had appeared to contro-
vert his assertions force him to take the defensive
well as the offensive. This no one who listened to him
in these different positions could fail to perceive any less
than all observing fail to perceive the change in
his position since he arrived in the west contrasted
with that assumed or the impression sought to be
Veyed at the East Down here the burden of his song
was taxation unbearabe-debt that ought not to be
creased under any circumstances for any purpose
Z Judge Ellis was almost denounced as an enemy to
the State because he said that it, years hence when the
amount already appropriated to the Western n G.
Railroad and the Wilmington Il Rutherford Railroad
should be expended such amounts should prove made
quate to complete them he would go for granting the
small additional sum requisite for that purpose rather
THAI for the want of it, suffer these works to be lost or
fail of their objects. This was dreadful and extrava-
giant, and the changes were rung upon that string
Mr. McRae would not 60 for anything for any work now
in progress or hereafter to be begun, that would add
one cent to the debt of the State. He reoiced in his
economy His taxes were more than be could bear etc.
Well when he gets to the mountains how docs he do?
Why, he is a better Railroad man than Judge Ellis
But then, how reconcile these things with his positions
at the East? Why, by subterfuge-a mental reserva-
ton unworthy Of him to resort to- He says yet he will
not recommend one cent because not cent could be
needed within two years. and then his term would have
expired and he would not more than two years
but that afterwards, as Individual he would do all
mortal man could to get the West all that it might ask
for. Compare his letter. published in the Asheville
Spectator and repubiished in another column Of the
Journal with his Dancy letter. with his speeches at Gin
ton, Kenansvlle Mosely Hall and elsewhere throughout
the East
We have argued distribution over and over before
We don't sincerely believe that anybody is taken in by
that most transparent humbug. Wedo not believe that
anybody has failed to through the motives for its
eXhumaton at the present tme time when the crcum
stances of the country at large and of the pablo treasury
in particular show it to be purely an abstraction No
man has failed to that it is eectioneering hobby
and nothing else Into the abstract merits of the cues
ton have gone before; we not to weary the
patience of our readers We let our arguments hereto
fore made go for what they are worth. =
Judge Ellis is the nominee Of the largest most enthu
sasc and certainly not least able political convention
that ever assembled in North Carolina. His nomina-
ton was made openly by the delegates Of great party
NOT by the secret manouvres of clique of dsorgan
0ers allied to defeated opposition, who could not rally
sufficient nerve to hoist their standard and fight IN
der their own name There were good and noble men in
the Charlotte convention who had not always been
Democrats but whose patriotic feelings led them to cast
in their lots with But they neither sought to
shape the platform, nor dictate the choice of the Demo
cratic party. Nor did they do so. John w. Ellis is
the free choice in open convention of the Democratic
rarty of North Carolina. Mr. McRae is the candidate
dsorganzation, of those who slide off from their own
party to its opponents and of opponents who do not