The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-01-19


disloyal people. Some oath is indispensa-
ble.s Thoseswho can not,tale the oath must
stand aside, and let those who can take it
restore the government. We are asayerse as
any one can be to strifes between man and
man. aiWewish to compose and settle strifes,
and we believe this can be done in no other
way than by re -organizing the State on the
basis of Mr.. Stevens test.oath. Neither is
the oath "impracticable" or "absurd." 1t
can be carried out, and is, therefore, prac-
ticable: it is just, fair and sensible, and is,
therefore, not "absurd."- 1t may be that it
seems " improbable and absurd" to Presi-
dent Swain, because it will consign num-
Der of his secession friends to those g back
seats" which they ought meekly to have Ia
ken and occupied long since.
But President Swain objects to the oath,
because it is based on a proclamation of
President Lincoln which many of our people
gent person that President Lincoln issued a
number of proclamatlons during the REBEL
ion offering amnesty to our people, if they
would submit to rightful authority. Pres
ident Swain knows that no man in the in
terror of the State, however much he
might have desired to restore the Union
in accordance with these proclamations,
dared to intimate even that in any event he
would accept their benefits. Public men
among us were required, at the peril of their
lives and property, to repudiate them as fast
as they appeared; but this does not alter the
fact that, in March, 1864, large majority of
our people were at heart for the Union and
would have returned to it if they had been
left free to do so. But what could they do,
with the whole power of the Confederate and
State governments against them 2--with the
rebel Governor of the State prosecuting them
and denouncing them with the utmost fury
and hunting them down like beasts of prey9
with the military power against them,
hayonets bristling in every neighborhood,
and the President of the so-called Con-
tederate States filling his loathsome prisons
with them, ana declaring that if they attemp-
ted to take the State out of the Confederacy,
Or to perform any other loyal act, he would
pour his troops into our midst and deliver
us up to fire and sword2 The assumption
is, that those who were loyal to the Union
then are loyal now. They would have evin-
ced their loyalty then if they had dared to do
so, and all the oath does is to take the will
for the deed" 1t is the object of the OATH
and it was so framed, to exclude from office
and from the polls all CONSCIOUS traitors -
Or, in othe: words, all who opposed the peace
movement in this State, and persisted,
against reason, justice and humanity in
lighting to the last moment. If such per-
sons were honest in pursuing this course.
hey are not fit to take part in the work of
e organization, for it is Incredible that they
should have changed and become DEVOTED
-nion men in the short space of wenty
months; if dishonest, or if reckless bloody
minded, or wickedly selfish and ambi .ious,
hen they may never be qualified to vote or
lold Office
In word. the Presidents plan with its
Mild amnesty oath, has been tried and has
allied. That was the grass the old man thl-e~
t the boy. Next the Howard amendment
'as offered and contemptuously rejected. In
hat the boy got sticks, but they made no.
Impression on him. Now it is proposed to.
~ the virtue of stones as embodied in the.
est-oath under consideration We think
he wicked boy" will come down from the
rec, and that in good time we shall have
eace and order in Uncle Sans orchard.