The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1868-10-28
conservatives of North Carolina.

You like neither the names nor the ante
cedents of either the old Democratic party
or the new Radical party. The word con-
servative is musical to your ear and slgnlti-
cant to your understanding, and having the
sanction of age and responsibility about it,
YOU delight to call yourselves and to be call
ed eminently conservative in all you think
and in all you do. 1t is too late in the CAM
paign to write about the relative value Of
words or names. We will take it for grant
ed that you who do not like to be called
Democrats, are honest Conservatives and de-
sire to vote for the men whose administra-
ton of national affairs will be conservative
and prudent, and tend to promote peace and
harmony and not war and discord.
Were an educated foreigner to arrive in
one of our larger cities and ask to be shown
the papers representing the different politi-
cal parties of the country, after reading them
he would set aside the organ of Wendell
Phillips and the La Crosse Democrat as ex-
tremely radical papers, and would unfresitu-
tingly pronounce those supporting General
Grant conservative. No papers in the coun-
try have more bitterly and shamefully de-
nounced and maligned Gen. Grant than the
organs of Wendell Phillips and Brick Pome-
roy. Both have been working to the same
end, among different class of people it is
true, but with the same avowed purpose of
undermining and destroying his influence
with the people.
Gen. Grant is by nature and culture Con-
seryative, and it is because he is Conserva-
tive that he is so thoroughly hated by Wen
dell Phillips. He sustains the reconstruc-
ton laws because he believes they are con-
servatiye and will uphold and preserve the
integrity and stability Of the nation. He be-
lieves that Congress, the representative of
the people of the country, and not simply
one man, the Executive, should decide the
question of the status of the Southern States
and the terms upon which they are to be ad-
mitted into the Union.
Think one moment, Conservatives of
North Carolina, how you would have acted,
had the army of Gen. Lee conquered that of
Gen. Grant, and the Northern States been
to-day knocking at the doors of the South
en Confederacy.. Suppose Gen. Lee had
paroled Gen. Grant and his army, and they
had returned to their homes under pledge
not to be disturbed during good behavior.
And suppose, further, that Jefferson Davis,
in the exercise of arbitrary power, had
decided to admit the Northern States
into the Southern Confederacy, with
out pledge of future good behavior,
without word from radical New England
Or troublesome Northwest that they would
not agitate the question Of slavery Or dis
seminate any of those pernicious theories of
human rights, which you have so often
called political poison and tried to keep out
Of your community through courts and
churches Suppose Jefferson Davishad been
IN favor of immediate admission, and had
d his right, as Executive, to admit
IL al-n States without the sanction of
the confederate Congress, and Gen. Lee had
opposed him before the people and main
tanned the right of the Confederate Congress
alone to settle the question of the status of
those States and the terms upon which they
were to be admitted into the Confederacy.
suppose, through this difference of opinion,
two parties had arisen in the South, and JEFF
1erSon Davis had been put forward as the
candidate of one and Gen. Lee of the other.
Supposing all this, would you, Conservatives
OF North Carolina, have voted for Jefferson
Davis or Gen. Lee? Would you have voted
iof one man power Or, power alone through
She will of the people? If we are not great
Nmlstaken, you would have given Gen Lee
your entire vote and would have remanded
'eRerSon Davis to the private life Mr..
'olhson IS about to retire to, on the election
vi Gen. Grant. Gen. Lee would have main
'aihe(l, as a Conservative by nature and cul-,
,ute' the right Of the Confederate Congress
'Settle the whole question of re-admission,
%Vu'o have denounced, as the supremest
q any, the Idea that they were members of
Wv oonlc derate Union the moment General
'-'e laid down his arms.
:. L" 'h's discussion we overlook tbe fact
'"e >onfederacy set itself up as sepa-