The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1868-09-23
Our German Citizens.

The rebel papers in this State are claiming
the vote of the German for Seymour and
Blair. The claim is baseless one We do
not believe the German element in the South
ever was at heart a disloyal one, and we do
not believe it is one now. Despotism, slave
ry, bigotry and intolerance always have been
revolving to the minds of true Germans, and
their literature the profoundest in theology,
philosophy, history, the arts and sciences,
the world has ever seen, and which now
quickens and stimulates the leading intel
lects in all our institution Of learning, with
fresh thoughts and new principles of life
and action, is full of the very spirit of lib
erty. Cabined, cribbed and confined by any
set of principles, precedents or traditions
that cannot stand the test of truth and JUS
tice as written upon the heart of man, they
never have been nor eyer -'-;n - - - -
IL :, .i-y h..-a M. always been able TO
realize their theories in forms of government
as purely republican as our own, yet to-day
they are the most thoroughly educated peo-
pie in Europe, if not in the world. There is
nothing superficial in the German character.
What it processes to know it knows; what
it processes to teach it teaches; if it makes
contract, it. abides by it, and German
integrity is known the world over as no
hollow and pretentious assumption. Ask
our colleges who are the profoudest
scholars, naturalists, and men of general
culture we have in our land and they
will tell you our German professors
Ask onr merchants and bankers and in
surance companies, who are the best finan-
ciers and accountants, who most thoroughly
understand the principles of political econ
omy, and they will say Germans from Frank
fort and Berlin and Hamburg and the cities
of Central Europe. Ask our manufacturers
who have fathomed the laws of light and
wool, the rose, the oak, the mountain and
the valley, and flood with the glow Of ma
ture all their splendid fabrics, and they will
tell you Germans. Ask our farmers whom
they prefer as honest, Industrious. patient
and never-failing laborers, and they will tell
you unhesitatingly, Germans. Ask the great
railroad capitalists who are pushing their
bold enterprises across trackless prairies and
through dense forests and over stupendous
mountains, what class of settlers will most
rapidly develop the resources to which they.
have made access easy, and they will tell
you, Germans. And as in the field of
thought, so in the marts of commerce, and
in all the honorable avocations of life, we
find the Germen leading-to be both brain
and bone and sinew and life-blood to the
nation. If this is so, can it be believed that
the Germans of North Carolina are differ
ent class of beings from those of Ohio and
Indiana and Michigan and Texas, against
whom whisper of disloyalty was never
breathed, and who, with money and blood,
stood by the flag of our country until the
last moment of the rebellion. The best
part Of the Englishman came from
the German the best part of
the Yankee came from the English
man, and the time will come
when the best part of the Southerners will
have come from the Yankee. But the Ger
man is the root of the tree that will yet
spread its branches over the whole world.
And is it to be supposed that this great peo-
pie who are now in our midst, adding wealth
and intelligence and character to our COM
mon country, are to bow down to the miser-
able slave aristocracy, who are as much be-
meath the aristocracy they left in their own
land, as molehill is beneath a mountain
Not for one moment, and we tell you, Rebel
democrats, that If you are leaning upon the
German vote to save you from annihilation.
annihilation surely will be your fate, for ii
will all be cast for Grant and Colfax, and for
y nationality that will know no aristocrac,
but that Of intellectual culture and moral
character. ass gs
John NJ. Williams, born in Warren county, NJ
c., in 17S5, recently died near Holly Springs
MissjssinDi