Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1861-02-07
w. II. NJ.
~ We invite attention to the following extracts

brethren IN the Soutn may 90 likewise, before IL Is
forever too late. Yours, &C.,
w. M
~ We invite attention to the following extracts
from letter from highly intelligent gentleman in
Princeton New Jersey, to a friend in this City
The writer is gentleman of fine sense and thorough
education, and has evidently thought much upon
the present unfortunate condition Of the country
If all our people North and South were like the
writer of this letter and the person to whom it is
addressed we should soon have peace and concord
in the land -
Moderate men in this region imagine that they
look at the subject dispassionatey -certainly with
no prejudice against the Southland yet, | must
confess, utterly COMPOUNDED at the state ofpub
lie sentiment with you. When we one Southern
State after another swept along by the current of
passion-passlon avowedly excited by reasons which
we know to be for the most part masinary-to
commit the very act for which your bitterest enc
mics have long been praying as the consummation
of their hopes, /! does seem to us as if God had
indeed given you up to destruction. One Of the
leading minds of the South DIR. Dabney, of Virgin
ia in an appeal to Southern Christians published
some weeks since, and which you have probably
seen, declares that the conclusion to which all the
movements at the South are now tending, would in
dictate that you have been given over to "a repro
bate mind" We might look for some other expla-
nation of the purpose of those who seek to dissolve
our Federal Union, if there anything in that
event. that tended to redress the grievances or re-
move the evils of which you complain But the
very opposite is the fact Will slavery be thereby
carried into our Territories? Will the restoration
of fugitive slaves be more efectually secured p
Will the North regard the institution with more ia
vor? Will the mouth of single abotionist be
closed or single effort for freeing the slave be re-
laxed? Or in regard to the evils of which you
loiD will oil of
real and all that are real be but increased tenfold
What is all that has occurred, or IN the Union
occur, to be compared with that civil which
must inevitably follow dissolution? Let the work
of secession go on, or even he sustained where 1t
has been accomplished and / do not see how war
can he averted not as yOu seem to take for grant
ed a war waged by the Federal Government against
the South. but wagcd by the South against
the Federal Government. We have Just learned
thatthe first shot has been fred-an unarmed steam
err bearing the United States flag is fired upon by
State authority and in all probability that hostile
act will be- by the South, generally sustained l
need not say then that is inevitable it has be-
gun, and can any one pretend to say that the ag-
gressors in the fearful conflict thus initiated had
previously exhausted all peaceabe means of redress?
believe | can say without hesitation that the
almost universal sentiment at the North is, if the
South are determined to separate from the Union
and to that end should propose measures for an
us, those measures would be assented TO, however
much we might deplore the result The Union
cannot be maintained by force, nor dc | believe
it will be attempted. But that any State may
at her pleasure vote herself out of the Union,
and take with her too whatever of the Federal
property she lay her hands on; that Florida, for
EXAMPLE which has cost the Federal government
about 81 900 for every white nhabitan shall be al
lowed to renounce her allegiance and declare the
very government who purchased her territory for
the national defence, foreign nation that she shall
be permitted to take with her, too Notifications
built for the national defence at the expense of mil
lions of dollars; that by simple vote of her people,
not in number equal to scores of our counties, she
can transfer her allegiance to any other power if
she sees fit or at best put herself in position where
she may at any time be taken by any great Euro
pean power who wishes the command of the Gulf;
that all this may lawfully be DONE and the Federal
government have no right to interfere is principle
that never be recognized without assuming that
the trainers of our government were not merely fools
but idiots On this point the North are unit; the
recorded Judgment of Southern statesmen, up to the
present crisis is almost as unanimous and whatever
else may occur thing is certain that to the ex-
tent of defending the Federal property against ag
erosion, this vital principle OF our national exist
| ence will be maintained at every hazard. Seward
was denounced as a traitor and perjurer because
he was understood to have said that the law of God
was higher law than the Constitution of the United
States In what estimation those officials to be
held who regard the act of any single State as a
higher law, and this, too, when the Constitution,
which they have sworn to support declares in ex-
press terms this Constitution shall be the supreme
law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws
| OF any State to the contrary notwithstanding II
the South are determined to leave the Union, and
have so little regard for the government cemented
by the blood of their fathers, and to this hour the
minister to them of civil privileges such as are en-
loved by no other nation that they will not ask for
a National Convention, whereby their separation
may, if possible be amicably effected-let them a:
once call their movement by its proper name-a
revolution-and justify, if they can their resist.
ance to the powers that be, which are ordained Of
! God"
The VIRGINIA ELECTIoN.-The Richmond WING
OF Tuesday morning gives list as far as heard from
of delegates to the Convention. This list includes
81 who supported Bell, 10 Breckenridge, and 10
Douglas. The Wing says:
"As far as we can judge from the returns, the
"Precipitators " have only four or five representa-
tives The residue either claim to be- were elected