Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1860-07-11
A Constitutional Union.

this great sisterhood of States after mature debera
ton. She did SO believing she would thereby best
promote her own interests and more efectualy than
in any other situation protect herself from encroach
ments by foreign States. Strong in her own arm
and in her own determined purpose to maintain the
right under all circumstances, she was nevertheless
not unmindfn of the fact that in union there would
be strength beyond that which any individual State
could possess During this long period she has been
faithful to all her Constitutional obligations and on
the other hand, while her rights as a slaveholding
State have not always been as fully respected and
maintained as they should have been, yet no DELHI
crate wrong has been put upon her. and none of her
vital interests have been assaled or threatened by
the common government When her co-States of
the South have complained of unjust tariff laws or
protested against the encroachments of the nom
saveholding States upon their rights in the common
territories she has sympathzed with them in these
complaints and protests; but when they have multi
fled the laws, or taken steps to dissolve their rela
tons with the other States, she has mildly but firm
ly interposed to prevent the calamtous consequent
ces which would flow from notification and disunion
She has never been either multiplying disunion
State, and she is not so now. Some great cause
must move her-some great wrong must either be
inflicted or must overshadow her, before she will
seriously contemplate by her own act severance of
the Union. She feels that while Virginia and Ten
nessee, and Maryland, and Kentucky safe in the
Union she will be safe also and that her honor as
sensitive and untarnshed theirs, has been con-
fided to her own keeping and not to that Of South
Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi She is bread
stuff rather than cotton State" Her interests
central among the southern States relying as she
does for protection not more on the slaveholding
States south of her than those of the north and
west. She is not so much of "cotton State" as to
be ready just now to pitch into the vortex of dis
union and revolution She will not rush into this vor
tex herself and she will hold others back she can
During this long period of seventy years, North
Carolina has enjoyed almost uninterrupted repose.
The battles rendered necessary by just regard for
the honor of the country, have been fought else
where than on her soil. Her people are now con-
tented prosperous, and happy. Her fields smile
with plenty and the hum of industry is heard in all
her workshops. Her credit in the money market is
equal to the best. Her internal improvements are
progressing, and prospecting as they progress. Her
Common School system is the best in all the South
ern States. Her slave property is secure. No me-
mace even is uttered against her, save by the more
radical portion of the black Republicans. The ma
tonal Democrats of the nonslavehoding States have
defended and are defending her rights a slavehol
ding State both in Congress and before their fellow
citizens.
In a word, no reason exists why North Carolina
should contemplate at this time dissolution Of the
Union.
While we would surrender no right of our State,
and while we would preserve her honor untarnished
among her sisters, yet disunion is one of the last
things to be thought Of Disunion would be frater-
nal strife civil and serve war; murder, arson, pill
lage robbery, and fire and blood through long and
cruel years. 1t would unsette all business, dmin-
sh the value of all property put the lives of both
sexes and all ages in peril and launch the States
a sea of scenes which no eye has scanned and no
navigator sounded. 1t would bring debt, and mis-
rule, and oppressive taxes, to be followed perhaps
by the military rule of titled tyrants. 1t would
wrench apart the tenderly entwined affections of
millions Of hearts, making it crime in the North
to have been born in the South, and crime in the
South to have been born in the North 1t would
convert the great body of the conservative men of
the North, who are our friends, into either
deadly enemies or Indifferent spectators of our ntes
tine struggles, which would increase in intensity
until law order, justice, and civil rule would be for
gotten unknown. We repeat there is no good
cause for dIssolving the Union. The cause may
arise, but let not hasten to make meet it
Who desires it now? Who would cause it? Who
would 'precpitate the States" into bloodshed and
revolution? Who would darken the stars that
now fash in the flag of the Union? Who, without
cause and for no sufficient reason, would have war
instead of peace dscord in the place of concord and
all the calamties which must result from the dsso-
luton Of government such ours? If such
man exists let him stand forth to be blasted by the
indignant maledctions of patriotic millions. Voices
from the past voices innumerable in the present,
appeal to not to peril rashly our Constitutional
Union From all battle fields where Southern blood
has mingled with Northern blood beneath one CON-
mon and glorious banner; from the shores of the
Delaware, over whose breaking ice, on that stormy
night pressed the weary and bleeding feet Of those
two thousand soldiers, the only the orlorn, the last
hope of great WASHINGTON HIMSELF from the king
doms of the earth, in which the down-trodden mil
lions struggle beneath the iron hoof of despotism,
casting longing and hopeful glances towards this,
the first as it may be the last great experiment of
selfgovernment among men; from the whole civil
lied world interested in material prosperity and
in the progress and happiness of man, there comes
up to US with laundering southland over all of it,
and ringing through all of it as with the blast of a
trumpet, the spiritvoice of the immortal jackson,
speaking from his record and from his whole military
and civil life-''THE FEDERAL UNIoN-IT MUST
AND SHALL BE PRESERVEDr Preserved, not
as consolidated, aggressive, usurping Union, but
as a Constitutional Union, protecting all equally,
and dispensing its benefits and blessings much to
one section as another. Let cling to such Union