The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1866-05-23

| houses Oh Uuclr living, duu 0Hc Sldfcc VI
their dead and he had become with
some worthy and glorious exceptions,
panderers and apologists Of the lust,
and violence of masters, who in return
for his service were willing to feed him
ON the fat of the land. Our Legislators
instead of following the christian law,
requiring much where much is given,
and proportioning accountability to the
gifts and talents of nature, had estab-
lished the reverse enactments, punish
ing the ignorant and uneducated, whom
it was made crime to enlighten, with
death for many offences, which when
committed by the educated and privil-
eyed, Were satisfied with fine or imprls-
onment. Our courts of justice had pro-
claimed the infamous doctrine that dus-
ky men had no rights which white men
were bound to respect; and into this
very temple of law pious woman had
been dragged as a criminal for an act
which might almost invite an archan-
gel to come down from the mansions OF
the best; for teaching the poor children
of oppression, and of licensed wrong to
read the Bible, and the laws made not
to govern them, but crush out OF them
every feeling of humanity.
"And worst of all and worst to be
deplored /" was the prostitution OF our
houses, the very heart and seat OF do
nestle purity, the poisoning of which is
fatal to all moral vitality-and death
to public and private happiness. The
subsection of the woman Of one COM
plexion, to the wild fury of unbridled
RIGHTEOUSNESS, and as consequence de-
nying to the women of our own COM
plexion the holy rites Of marriage, or
making in thousands of cases those
rights as much mockery as conscious
traitors oath, are proclaimed ON every
plantation in the bleached faces of the
children of the slave women, bleached
by the blood of the first families, until
hardly half our births were of lawful
wedlock, and until it would seem that
masculine virtue must be nearly extinct
in the proud circles of the chivllric ar
istocracy of the State.
Your duties under these circumstan-
ces are both difficult and dangerous, for
you are called upon to oppose the worst
passions of every desperate man, who
will make vigorous efforts to verify
their often repeated predictions, that
freedom would bring ruin and extermi-
nation upon the colored people, and it
is possible that some of you may meet
with violence for faithful discharge of
your duties as one of the last grand ju-
ry has already done. But better,
thousand times better to fall by the
hand of the assassin as Lincoln and
Dixon have fallen, or die under the
mockery of pretended forms of law as
our Saviour did, in the cause of freedom
and humanity, than to shrink like cow
, ards from our public trusts, in order to
drag out few more years of ignoble
life before filling unhonored graves.
The laws of Congress, which will
guide your action, are instinct with
equity, and are ample if fearlessly adj
ministered to check and humble the
most defiant, differing essentially in
this respect from the laws of our State
Legislature, which like those of an an
cient heather nation, seems "like cob
webs made to catch the weak, but to
permit the strong to break through
them" Yours is the rough pioneer
work of removing the great distractions
of crime and violence from our midst,
so that education, intellectual, moral
and religious education very different in
kind and degree from the past, may
come to curse the evils under which we
suffer. Where there is so much vice to
be reclaimed, ignorance to he enlight-
, ened and misery to be alleviated, we
may hope the teacher and the missiona-
ry will come, and that culture and re-
fnement will yet be seen approaching
that which now classes Massachusetts
and New England, and that the time
may be fastening when our people
shall feel and act like brethren of the
same blood, children of the same AL
mighty Benefactor, who permits all
alike to range the same earth, breathe
the same air, bask in the same sunshine,
and dwell under the same celestial can
opy, thus teaching our duty, and invit-
ing our imitation. When joining in eff
forts for mutual aid, we shall forget the
terrible pastand gloomy present-the
bitter fruits of ages of violence and OPP
preston on our side, and of misery, 10
norance and degradation on the other
Since the adjournment of the last Grand
Jury, the attention of the Court has
been particularly called to our disloyal
press, by the highest military authority
of the country, with view to the pun
ishment of its treason and Indictment
to rebellion. r.i
While concurring entirely with the
Lieutenant General, and the distinguish
ed soldier and accomplished lawyer who
commands the Department of Virginia,
in the propriety Of abating by military
power, such papers, during the suprema
cy of martial law, and recognizing the
distinction between liberty and 1icen-
tiousness, after mature reflection, we
doubt the policy of suppressing by the
Courts papers. reasonable as any even
in this State. Aside from an unwill-
ingness to limit the Freedom of the
press, it is submitted that the cause of
good government may gain more by
the exposure of reasonable designs
through the most disloyal press, than it
would by punishment and suppression.
BY restraint the disease would not be
cured, but would only become conceal
ed and more dangerous by concealment.
The vanity, egotism and heartlessness