Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1860-04-04
The Oath bound Candidate.

John Pool, Esq, the Opposition candidate for
Governor, is now first second, and third degree
Know Nothing and will, if elected Governor, be
solemnly bound to observe and carry out his oaths
Startling as this may appear it is nevertheless true.
He is sworn to prescribe all persons who are not
natives and all persons who profess the Catholic re-
lgion. He is sworn to 5estow all the Offices which
he may have to fill on Know Nothings like himself;
and he is sworn to support only Know Nothings for
Office. He is committed by solemn obligations as
ever rested upon man, to foment strife between
races and between sects in religion; and these ob-
cations, in the language of the oath which he took,
"shaU ecer be kept sacrsd and inriolate" If there
be power to absovc him from these obligations
We have no evidence that Mr.. Pool has ever been
absolveG On the contrary, the inference is that
his obligations are still upon him, and that he is
bound, whether he wishes to do so or not to carry
them out
All this, and much more, fellow-ctzens, seas done
in secret. With doors closed, at midnight, away
from the thoroughfares of men, while honest people
slept Mr. Pool took these oaths. With his hand rest
ing on the flag staff of his country, or on the Holy
Word of God, he pronounced these obligations, not
against the enemies of the State, but against por-
tons of his own fellow-citizens: By the light of
lamps dimly burning, with hushed tread Of foot
steps, and with the silence of skulking fear, the
passwords were "achispered" and the grip" was
given.
Such is q faint outline of Know Nothingism. 1t
commenced in the North, in the hotbeds of aboli-
t. olJ Wbir rtv which
was national, and built up the black Republican
party. which is sectional. 1t trampled under foot
the teachings of Henry Clay, and substituted for
them the teachings of Brownlow Winter Davis,
Banks, and Tom Ford. 1t put the North against
the South, the South against the North, the native
against the foreigner and the Protestant against the
Catholic. It sharpened the knife and lit the torch
Of hand-to-hand conflict in Baltimore, New Orleans,
and Louisville between citizens of the same coun-
try, until blood flowed like water, and selfgovern-
ment became byword and reproach IN those
Cities. 1t hunted down men, who proudly claimed
the American flag as their flag, because they wor-
shipped God in their own way, and because they
had foreign blood in their veins. If WASHINGTON
had lived in such day, and had been proposed for
Office, it would have voted against him for refusing
to subscribe to its oaths and would then have mob
bed him if he had staked his life, as he did in the
old war, for toeration religion and for the rights
of naturalzed citizens 1t made party, and that by
the most binding oaths, paramount to country and
paramount to individual character and personal in
dependence. 1t made tools of freemen for the ben
eft of third degree leaders in the Order like John A.
Gilmer and John Pool. 1t outraged justice, it so
trampled on individual rights, it strengthened ab
olitionisn it deed and contemped law in large Ci
ties, it SO arrayed neighbor against neghbor and
friend against friend that the whole Southern coun-
try, disgusted with its mummeries and indignant at
its course rose almost as one man and consigned it
to defeat. But black Republicanism had meanwhile
risen on its "ruins" and now threatens the very
existence of the government In the South the
members of this oath.bound faction again changed
their name declared themselves Wings, and attempt
ed to rid themselves of the odium of Know Nothing
ism. But in vain. 1t will stick to them as long as
their oaths stick in their conscences. We intend to
hold them to it. We intend to hold John Pool to
it. In our next we will refresh the minds of our
readers more fully with the obligations which Mr..
Pool assumed as Know Nothing, so that every one
may see what sort of Governor he would be, if by
possibility he should be elected
a. load into