Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1861-11-09


les come to meet around that spot where lie the re-
mains ut him whom the Creator made chi!tleSS that
4 nation might call him father every particle oil
| dust in that sacred urn will rise mighty army To
strike for those who are striking for their affairs and
their fires, God and their native land LAPplaISe.)
REV. DR.. r. j. BRECKINRIDGE AND HIS
CONSISTENCY.
Dr. Bleckinridge is undoubtedly one Of the lead
ing minds Of the Old School Presbyterian Church.
lie IS citizen of Kentucky, and President Of the
Theological Seminary at Danville in former years
he wall Of strength IN that church against
aboloniSnl. but the two extracts from his pen be-
low, which exhibit HIM pro and coa, place him in
singular contrast with himself aOU with his former
position. Solomon never spake more Shrewdly than
when lie said 90. that my enemy had written a
book" So true is it, that mos; men who write at
all, exhibit such continual antagomism with them
selves, that is often the strongest accuser of
himself and his most fearful witness.
Some years ago, DIR. Breckenridge. outraged by
the diabolical positions assumed 10y that archaboli
ZIONIST Senator Sumner of Massachusetts,, addressed
/ him an eloquent and Scathing letter. in which he
portrayed with fearfully prophetic cearness the
direiu results of the principles and spirit of aJo-
litonism. Then he was a champion of the South
from his letter. He says:
Now, sir, this means neither more nor less than
the edge Of the sword. Lay aside the rhetoric and
the simple sense Is, grape and canister, cold steel
and stricken battle. Believe me- Mr. Sumner. when
! state two facts, one of which i know better than
you do, and the other of which you ought to know
better, perhaps than | Go.
The fac: that | know better than you is, that
when the faintcst indication of the settled purpose
of the men Of the North TO follow your advice BE-
comes apparent 10 the men of the fifteen slave
States of this Union, million of armed men will
be ready to receive you and your followers; and if
you come not speedily thereafter to execute your
threats, your coming will not DC waited for but
they will seek you the soil where YOU now vainly
suppose no danger will ever come. The TACT which
YOU ought to know better than | do is that after
two or three hundred thousand men are arrayed in
battle on each SIde 1t makes no sort of difference
to the probable result, whether one or the other
party has the greater reserve Of physical force left
out of the battle because, after two three hun
dred thousand fighting men, in the present state of
the art of war, everything depends merely OH brains
The sum of these two facts is very clear, namely:
if the North wishes to settle the slavery question
by the edge of the sword, the North is in a per-
ectly fair way to be perfectly gratilied; and when
she gets what she wants. there is at least exceed
ing great probability that the North will see reason
to change her mind very materially as to the wis
dom of that method Of settling that question.
Moreover, let it not escape your attention, that
many circumstances aggravate the conduct of the
men Of the North and exasperate the hearts OF the
of the South in this whole business all of them
tending to strengthen and weaken you at every
stage of the bloody struggle to which you are dr-
wing the country For, i'll the first place. let slave
ry DC all that you assert it to be, the time is long
past when it was either honest wise patriotic for
| you to take that ground, in an argument hav
ing merely ordinary political bearings, much less in
! one looking to blOOdShed and conquest All that
was settled between before the old Confederation
! was formed: it was again settled in the common
glory Of our great Revolution; it was settled again
/ in the Federal Constitution. | say nothing about
! the unspeakable folly of arguing as a statesman
that slave State and free State cannot tolerate
each other in one COnfederacy, supposing the ques-
! ton to be now for the first time considered What
say is, that 1t is no longer possible for the of
the North to open that question without revolution
and without dSloyalty to every national act and
! movement OF our past history; and what mean is
! they cannot do this without weakening and dis
grazing themselves, and so Strengthening and emo
bling u.s. that God posterty fortune and the hearts
of combatants must feel the effects of the opposite
1 conduct of the parties To which add, in the Sec
ond place, that this conduct of the men of the
North, besides being bare political after thought
Is uelloeTate oreaCI o pOIlLlcal lalIn cenenIeu Dy
the blood Of our fathers, ignoble retraction of
plghted honor, and truth, and justice; calculated
sacrifice of those of their own race, and lineage,
and house, and blood for those of strange kin.
| dred and CLINE, without any new circumstance OF
additional reason for so atrocous perfdy against
nature and against plighted troh Add again. in the
third Ptuce, the atrocity of the state of heart in
which the North presses this bloody arbitrament,
under the settled belief that she risk nothing there
by, and that risk everything; and the fervor OF
that state Of soul in which the South reused by so
much insult injustice and danger, does risk ALL
with sublime purpose to the last man, to win ALL
And then, in the fourth place, add the sort of con-
viction with which the two parties thus mutually
range themselves in that deadly strife; and if you
be as wise as you are eloquent, you may compre
bend what as yet you seem to have wholly over.
looked, the settled confidence of the entire slave
States that they are fully able to make the men Of
the North repent that they ever broke the Consttu
tion and forgot ancestral ties and outraged national
obligations in order to ruin ten millions of the
: most elevated race on the face of the EARTH upon
the hazard, if not the pretext Of benefitting the
third part of that number of one of the most de
graded races in the world You will have battle