Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1860-04-21
NaK; more; Is old sectional feeipgs Aaveg3ied out
und the h ipy auspices Of eoustitn,
81 s s|ss e:' ss| ST
|pr9 PING bieb ssEs IDS ssd 9, sa 1882 !. as as

Increased SO as 10 equaiize ner represeutatiou III @
ESenate--until now, ia both Houses Of the General
Assembly, east and west are scarcely known, and
stand at almost perfect equilibrium. The east and
i the stakeholder demand the performance of your
part Of the contract to build these very railroads,
the debt has been incurred which now produces our
comparatively heavy taxation
OF what benefit has the provision which requires
that the captation tax upon oil individuals subject
to the same shall be equal yet been to the slaves
holder and the east? Hitherto, until very lately,
I our taxes have been light and their weight could
have easily been borne but now, for the first time
heavy. and this is urged reason why the plight
ed faith of the State should be broken and funda-
principle of our polity destroyed. What, fellow
citizens, we ask, is the object Of a constitutional
governmentAupon what principle Care our American
+ constitutions based? Isit not upon the necessity
of giving to mnorities means Of ,protectng them
selves from aggression and from tSlhny in order
to preserve their freedom? This mHb rity not to
have positive power to control majority, but a
negative power to prevent majority from Cypress
iRg.them Is it not fundamental principle, that
all the great interests of State must necessarily
suffer in a republic, unless this negative power of
protecting themselves is bestowed in the organic
Jaw? fBut when is this protection needed2 Not
when there is no temptation offered to the majority
from self interest to 4enSroach for then there is no
inducement todo,wrong, and in an ordinarily vrtu-
,ous community the weaker needs no protection-
Men are not devils, and do not love wrong for
wrongs sake 1t is when taxes become burdensome
that the majority who impose them, and must assist
in paying Them are inclined, from selfish motives,
to break down the constitutional barriers which
protect mnorties from unjust and unequal burdens.
The very fact that taxation is becoming burdenSome
is the strongest reason why the compromises of
1884 and 1885 should be strictly adhered to and
ligiousy observed; for it was for protection at just
such moments this that the STAKEHOLDER and the
east insisted upon that provision in the constitution
h1Nt frAra fox and
remember, fellow-ctzens, for what purposes our
present taxes imposed and collected; it is not
only to pay the ordinary expenses of State gov
ernment but also pay debts contracted in building
up internal improvements both in the east and the
west but mostly in the west and also to raise
les to continue that system of improvements, the
appropriations made. the money voted,
the debts were contracted under our present const
tuition No whisper was heard Of proposed change
of our whole system Of taxation when the represen
tativeS of taxpayers consented to these apprOprla-
tons by the State and you must recognize the flct
that there is great difference between changing an
ordinary revenue law, and altering whole sys
TEN of taxation by constitutional amendment.
When an appropri' ton is made the taxpayer
looks upon the former variable, as likely to be
altered with each recurring legislature but the lat
ter he regards ought to regard sacred at least
he counts upon the fundamental law as fred until
its change is demanded by decided expression Of
the popular tcW. With what regard to justice and
uprightness and honor, call upon slavehold-
ers, east or west to pay the greater proportion of
appropriations vi ich have already been made, and
debts which have already been contracted for rail-
roads which eastern well western slaveholding
rs well non-savcholding votes have built
up and are now building, when they who cast
their votes for these roads, at the time of ma
king these appropriations and of contracting these
debts, presumed and rightly presumed they would
| pay them under the then organic law; espe-
cially when the sole protection afforded to the east
and the slave owner is not limit to any amount of
taxation which the legislature may fit to impose;
but those counties embracing Large slave popula
ton say, through the constitution, 10 those embra-
cling preponderating white one tax our slave pop
ulation to what extent you will, but do not your.
selves 20 scot free; do not tax black population
! more than three times as much as you tax your
! white population. For our present constitution
taxes slave population at least three times much
as it does white population
But, fellow citizens, some of the advocates of
change in the constitution admit that the clause
which they desire to strike out formed part of the
compromise Of the convention bill of 1884 and of the
convention of 1885, indeed much was admitted
upon the floor of the late Opposition convention by
one Of the leaders of this party but it was urged
that clause of the constitution framed in 1885, which
required property qualification Of fifty acres Of
land to entitle citizen to vote for State Senator,
had been since stricken out and free suffrage sub
stituted for it, chiefly through the agency of the
Democratic party; that this also formed part of
the compromise of that date and since by striking
it ont the compromise violated in one particu
lar it was no longer binding on any one. Fellow
citizens, the Democratic party does not shrink from
the responsibility Of that act we claim the credit
of free suffrage, though those who nor call them
selves OpposonistS, were very anxious at one time
| and under another name to share it with us: that
measure did not disturb the equilibrium of our con-
stitution; it simply gave to the people of the whole
State the right to select from among the freehOldeS
those who should represent them both in the SEN
ate and in the House of Commons leaving the great
landed interest Of this State protected by the i'm
portant fact that each member of both branches of
our General Assembly was yet required to he con-
siderable reeholder and the Governor of the State
must also have large landed qualification: it was
presumed that men could not be easily induced to
egiSlate against their interest either by exces-
sively taxing lands or by imposing other unequal
burdens upon the landowner; but the proposed
change of the Opposition party is entirely different
it takes away from about $780, 000 900 of property
IN the State, every protection which is thrown
around it in organic law; that great interest is
| left subject to any amount of taxation which the
legislature may fit in the haste Of ordinary leg
islation to impose and to any other burdens which
may be laid upon it -l- o..
But it is Sufficient answer to this spacious argyll
ment to state that it is not supported by the facts
of history. The freehold qualification formerly re-
qured for elector of State Senator had nothing to
do with the compromise of 1884 and 1885, made be-
tween the east and the west There was no effort
to change the constitution of 17T6 that time in
this respect The freehold qualification had its orr
| gin in the colonial government of North Carolina
when this State under the dominion of the Brit
ish Crown. In 1774, when Josiah Martin, the last
royal Governor of North Carolina, became alarmed
at the spirit of independence which manifested itself
among the people, and having first dissolved the
lonial assembly, sought safety by fight to his ma
jesty's ship of war, "the Cruiser" then lowering
upon our coast at the mouth Of the Cape Fear river
it the freehoders and house-holders who met in
their respective counties and elected representatives
who assembled at Newbern in the "Congress o;
Deputies
1t was the freeholders of North Carolina, who in
1776 elected the congress of deputies which con.
vened in Halifax, on the 18th of November of that