The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1868-04-29
The Election in this State.


The people of this State voted on Tues
day, Wednesday and Thursday last on their
new Constitution and for Governor, State Of
ticers, members of Congress and County
officers.
We have not vet received sufficient returns
to be able to form an accurate opinion as to
the majority 10y which the Constitution has
been ratified, but we entertain no doubt that
it has been ratified by handsome majority.
We know that we have carried Craven by
1000, Wake by 1000, New Hanover by 1900,
Edgecombe by 1000, Halifax by 1900, War
rem by 1,OOO Johnston by 400, Caswell by
500, Pitt by 500. Guiltord by 500, Lenoir by
800, Beaufort by 300, Wayne by 200; and
that the Rebels have carried Rowan by 500,
Mecklenburg by 300, and we have rumors
that they have carried Duplin, Onslow, Car
teret, Orange, Cleveland, and some other
Counties by small majorities.
The contest has been most animated in the
middle part of the State from Wake to
Cleveland, especially along the lines OF Rail
road. The gains by the so-called Conserva-
tives have been made for the most part along
these lines, where all the patronage and pow
er of these corporations have been brought to
bear against us. But the East, including
the First and Second Congressional Districts,
have rolled up for the Constitution not less
probably, than ten thousand majority, while
the Northwestern part of the State, including
Forsyth, Yadkin, Surry, Wilkes, Ashe and
Watauga and the great West itself, including
Rutherford and Polk, have given US ma
jority of ten thousand more. We believe
also that the Republicans have held their
own along the South Carolina line, in Anson,
Robeson, Richmond, -Stanly and Montgome-
ry, and that they have done we'll in Moore,
Chatham and Randolph. We shall begin
to hear to day from the Western Counties
not Immediately on the line of the Railroad,
and we look confidently fo- the most salts
factory returns.
Some of the Rebel papers, with the view
of covering the modification of their de-
feat. are already essaying to show that
frauds have been committed by the Repub-
been intimidated and prevented from voting.
The very reverse is the fact. Ii frauds have
been committed they can be traced only to
the Rebel leaders; and we know that in
many instances voters of both races have
been kept from the polls by the threats of
Rebel employ ers and Rebel landholders.-
The Republicans have lost thousands of
votes on this accouut--not merely colored
votes, but the votes of poor white men, who
were anxious to go with us, but who have been
deferred from doing so because of the fact
that they are in the clutches of these heart
less Rebel landholders.
In addition to this, the most monstrous
falsehoods were put in circulation in re-
lation TO the Constitution. 1t was mis-
represented, perverted and distorted in
every possible way; and the people were ap-
pealed to by every consideration touching
their character and the character and honor
OF their families, to go to the polls and
vote it down, and thus escape the opera
ton of an instrument which they were Sc
riously told would doom them to state
of perpetual inferiority to the colored race.
Every device was rcsorted to in order
to infame the whites against the blacks
The line was drawn between them by the,
Rebel presses and by hundreds of Rebel or
ators, and the white people we're appealed
to in the most earnest terms to vote down a
Constitution which they declared was an
"infamous Niger concern, made by niggers,
Yankees, and mean white natives" Ado
ed to this were the active exertions of not
less than three thousand Rebel State Off
cials against us, pervading every neighbor-
hood, and backed by the whole power of
the Rebel State government with the Rail-
road corporations using their patronage and
Influence against us. The elections were,
necessarily, largely in the hands of the
Rebel Sheriffs who appointed their peace
officers in every neighborhood, who elec-
tloneered against the Constitution, over