The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-12-21
WELCOME. ALABAMA!

after having framed republican constltu-
ton which challenges comparison with that
of any of the free States. 1t Is hitting
monument to liberty, built on soil which
hitherto produced only harvests of seditlon,
and having among its architects class OF
men two hundred years swamped in the
ouagmires of slave-barbarism and Ignorance.
There are epochs which operate as resur-
rections of the immortal mind, in which
Imam rises from the dungeon of oppression
into which the preiudices of a powerful
caste had consigned him. The Alabama
convention is the result of the reformatory
spirit of the century. 1t is to the South the
mailing of their political thesis to the door
of the crumbling citadel of aristocracy. It
is the dawn of the republican dynasty of
the Gulf, accepting thankfully the living
lessons of battle It is sublime effort of
the presiding genius of just Government
to marshal all the interests of man into the
army of humanity
We have seen rebellion desolate one-third
of our lovely land and like great cyclone
sweeping away all moral influences, all gov
crnmental immunities, leaving behind a
darkness deeper than the midnight of the
Iron Ages. But from all this gloom we now
see the genius of law and order rising gar
landed with new liberties, and speaking
dawn Of every morning, the first sentence
of Alabama's bill of rights: . We hold these
truths to be self eUident, that all men are
created equal; that they are endoaoed By their
Creator acith certain inazienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
Of happiness"
For ninety-one years has the harmony of
those sacred words been silenced by the
clangor of slaverys chains. When the IA
theirs died they mis- ht well have said with
Kepler, l leave not my laws to the present
but to the remote future; a century hence
will vindicate their truth" Almost IL CEN
fury has passed since the Nations bill of
rights was framed. Ere it shall have entire
ly passed, dare we not hope is not the &C
ton of the Alabama Constitutional Conven-
ton an earnest-that the whole land Will
put on the faith of rs. and round the cen
fury by grand triumph of civilization and
tie rights of man?
1t will be a grand consummation when
435, 900 of Gods images take upon them
selves the solemn responsibilities of man.
hood, hitherto denied them, and walk hand
IN hand with their enslavors to the temple
of freedom, there to enter mutually into
those sacred covenants of State which recog-
nize no determinations except between guilt
and innocence, and acknowledge the inal-
ienable rights silently pledged by natures
laws to our common humanity.
The Alabama constitution is the counter
part of the great primitive instrument of
the nation. But it goes beyond its national
prototype, as it should, else its trainers were
towards and not heroes in this great war
with error. They had been no fit cham
plons of truth had they neglected to give
the essentials of manhood that fxity which
places them forever beyond the cavils of the
designing, and causes them to stand as an
impenetrablc bulwark againsG guilty agita-
tors. The convention have, therefore. un-
mistakably adjusted the status of all her
citizens-have. as it were, after having en-
tered the realm of progressive freedom and
law, placed at the entrance the egis of their
hopes on which is inscribed the clause
" That no form of slavery shall exist in this
State, and there shall be no involuntary serv-
itude otherwise than for the punishment of
crime of which the party shall have been
duly convicted" so as to break the retreat
of those welded to the errors of the past,
and warn them of the wolf that loiters with
out the fold
True to the instincts of selfpreservation,
the men who have borne the stripes of tyr
annical and rebelIous masters have guarded
tuciT lniLldi WOTk WIFI CUG COHSllCuLlOQdl
checks placed in their hands by national au-
thority. They have not ignored the crime
of violating the Federal compact-of wa
ging war against the Union of the States
They have evidently read the constitution,
and determined that Acknowledgement should
he inflicted as punishment for treason
They at least regard the traitor as an unsafe
counsellor, and have determined that the
voice which blasphemed the institutions that
gave him his life, his freedom, and his hap
piness, shall not be raised in deliberations
which are TO repiedge the public faith to an
enduring sisterhood of States; and yet, lest
strict justice should appear vindictive, there
is a saving clause "Good works meet for
repentance" is the quality of redemption
Let it be made manifest that the old leaven
of rebellion is worked out of your hearts,
and that you are DESTROYS of entering faith
fuiiy the crusade that is to recover the sep
ulchre wherein you buried all our hopes and
aii our wealth from nnrequited toll, and the
FSaper authorities will consider you as hay
ing sufficiently expiated Your colossal crimes.
Ill we possessed the consolidated voices
o. our twenty-five millions of people, we
m"'Gio proclaim it observation-disclosures.
-hIaoarna J Wash. Chron.
6.. female mesmerizer in England has been
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