Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1863-01-23
The Richmond Enquirer.

paper either in temper or style. We are cool, and
we can afford to be, but it is the GOODNESS of con-
tempt for The impotent rage of the Enquirer. We
shall notice at present the article of the 10th, re-
serving for future issue our reply to other articles
in that paper. The Enquirer says: . " ~.
"whateyer NAV be the Standards of complaint
against the ENQUIRER it have whatever against
the State of Virginia unless II be ha sue i6e% d as
ernment and prevented the stars and stripes from WaV-
ing over its Office"
We have no complaint to make against that por-
ton of Virginia tchich is loyal Virginia is great
State She is worthy of better representatives and
defenders than the Enquirer has shown itself to be-
She is afflicted just with scurvy set of foreign
and Yankee office-holders, who infest Richmond as
the lice and frogs infested Egypt and the Enquirer
is the mouth-piece of this set. But Virginia is not
to blame for this. She is the victim in this respect
of circumstances I" for where the carcase is, there
will the vutures be gathered together"
When Mr.. Lincoln called on Virginia to fight her
full brother of the South her half brother of the
North, she said she would fight the latter. North
Carolina said the same thing before Virginia did
She said it unanimously, with open doors, in the
face of the whole world; Virginia said it with
closed doors and by divided vote. She could not
have thrown herself as breastwork against the
march of the Standard" when the Standard aided
| III accomplishing the work of separation before
Virginia did. The Enquirer remained longer under
the "old government" than we did, and, if the
| truth could be known, we have no doubt it drew
its pay or attempted to draw it, for publishing the
| laws Of the "old government" after LincolnS pro-
clamation. We were true to the "old government"
as long as it existed We intend to be true to the
new. The Enquirer was false to the old by "plot-
ting" at Charleston and Baltimore to break it up;
and it is false to the new by Its attempts to justify
violations of the Constitution, ard by inaugurating
the same corrupt system of party politics at Rich
mond which prevailed at Washington and paved
the way to our present calamities. The worst foe
| to the South is he who would pervert the Consti-
tution the administration, the government to his
own selfish, party ends. The Enquirer is that foe.
| Its conduct under both governments proves it to
| be so. Take away all its official patronage, and
consign it to hopeless minority, and it would at
| once so to work 10 destroy the new government no
matter what the consequences might be. In revo-
lutionS in freshets the decayed and refuse timber
always floats on the surface That was the En-
guirerS calculation when it aided in destroying the
old government; and such would be its calculation
and its conduct under the new, if 1t should happen
to sink to the bottom.
The Enquirer says the Standard "seeks to sap
the foundations Of the attachment that exists between
the people of North Carolina and Virginia" This
is not true. The Enquirer is solely responsible for
all the i'll blood between the people of the two States
II created this I'll blood by its arrogant and nsoent
attack the Legislature of this State because that
body was considering the prOpriety of calling out
ten regiments of troops. 1t lectured the Legisla-
ture, assumed to speak for the people of this State
and declared the world that portion of the poo
pies representatives in Raleigh, were engaged in
plotting" as traitors to destroy the Confederate
government, and thus aid Lincoln and his hordes
| No wonder our people became indignant under such
insult This State is not province dependent
on the government at Richmond, nor are its people
so lost to self-espect and manhood as to submit
without resentment to the mpertinent lectures of
the Richmond Enquirer. Time was when they
| would have listened with respect to suggestions
| from that journal but that paper has so fallen in
character the nere echo of power and as the or
! gan of Jews and Yankees about Richmond that
even its suggestions any subject would scarcely
arrest the attention Of any considerable decent
portion of them
| We charged that the Enquirer the organ of
the administration, and it replies as follows:
"Ifthe Editor of the Standard has received less avors
from the President than the Editors of the Enquirer he
| has been neglected man indeed. We have met the
mond We never asked favor from him, and
ceived one"
We are not in the habit of asking or expecting
favors of those in power. But the Enquirer is the
! official organ of the administration, so published
and declared All the orders of the Departments
are first published in that paper. The person who
wrote the editorial to which we replying may
not have met the President at all since he has been
in Richmond but that does not change the fact that
the Enquirer is the official organ. 1t begs the ques
/ ton when it says, 1--WE never asked favor from
him. and never received one" 1t enjoys the great
"favor" of being the recognized organ of the De-
partments. Certainly it obtained this favor from
the President through his Secretaries. There is
no doubt about that. And yet the Enquirer, with
serpentine turn which is part of its nature tries
to wrggle out of the fact that it is the mere echo
of power, having no thought, no independence, no
mind of its own. "Gurth, the born thra of
Cedric, the Saxon" is written in unmstakable char
tiers on the collar of the Enquirer 1t has waxed
so fat on the spoils poured into its lap by cut
purse Jews and snvel!ing Confederate Yankees
in Richmond, that it dares to lecture sovereign
State as to its duty and as to humole Editors like
ourse it does not hesitate TO call them traitors if
they do not think precisely as it does, and to call
on its mob to "tear them in pieces" or drive them
from the State. The Enquirer boasts of its large
circulation, and says that it has its semi-weeky
list more subscribers in North Carolina than the
STANDARD has. We do not believe it. But if its
circulation is large it is due to the fact that it is
printed at the seat of the common government and,
being the official organ of the Departments, the
thousands of subOrdinates in the employment of the