Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1869-05-14
The University.

1
at various times solicited their attention,
and to a very great extent have solicited
in vain, The necessity of submission to
superior brute power, brutally exercised,
has doubtless dictated this course. With
each fresh submission on our part the OPP
pressions and cruelties Of our rulers have
increased. They have emancipated our
slaves, and by excessive taxation, have
we'll nigh confscated our lands. They
have subverted our State governments,
ousted our legally appointed officers,
and in their places have installed a
pestiferous brood of hungry vultures,
whose gaping mouths and voracious maws
nothing can fill Fatally bent upon our
complete and permanent subjugation, their
course has been uniform and systematic.
Flushed with their success in exciting, in
comparatively few years, the minds of
the people of the North to a pitch of in
sane fanaticism upon the subject of slavery,
they have been and still arc laying their
plans to poison the minds of the people of
the South by these Same means Of lying
school books and lying school-masters. To
this end complete possession has been
taken of the Common Schools and of the
University-the property Of the latter hav-
ing, less than one year past, been guarded
by a band of armed soldiers. To this end and
incidentally for private gain, an attempt was
made to compelby law the use in our schools
80 i, Il only RQHloa
| Superintendent of Public obstruction might
! prescribe. Al this point, however, ultra
| Radicalism met with open defeat, and Mr..
Superintendent Ashley, perhaps the most
bitter and relentless enemy to our people,
and the most untruthfu1, malignant and
bigoted man of his party, failed to have
conferred upon him by law, the power, at
| once, to fill the minds Of our children
with falsehoods and his own pockets with
gold.
| A second defeat was witnessed in the re
fusal of the Legislature to make an appro-
priation of public money to support in
idleness few men calling themselves the
Faculty of the Uniyersity-a University
with grounds and buildings, and profes-
sors and servants, and two students, kins-
men of the President so-caiied, and few
village boys who are barely old enough to
90 into round Jackets and the multiplica-
ton table
While the course of the Legislature had
been such as to render this action on its
part somewhat unexpected, the course of
the people of the State had been uniform
ly of an unmistakable character-they had
watched with jealous eye everything per-
tanning to the University, and had deter
mined that, though it was the pride of the
State and its most cherished institution, it
should perish, utterly and forever, rather
than become q centre from which to dis
seminate false teaching and erroneous
doctrines 1t was said by way of hopeful
promise for its future, that not even the
occupation of the University by the enc
my, Kilpatrick's thieves and bummels,
could suspend its operations, and that the
College bell continued without fail to
summon the students to their accustomed
exercises, and it may be said with equal
truth, that not even the whole power of the
conquering army of the United States has
been able to compel the people of North
Carolina to send their sons to Chapel Hill
to obey that summons OF to take part in
those exercises.
| At the commencement of the war there
were over four hundred students at the
| Tfc MI
minished during the war, as was the case
with all other Southern colleges. At the
conclusion of the war, with the reputation
Chapel Hill had maintained so long through
out the whole South the effort to re-es-
tablish the University would, we think, be-
You'd all question, have met with success
equal, at least, to that of her sister South
ern Institutions had it not been for the
whitening, blighting suspicion that there
were influences at work there not sufi
GENTLY in harmony with the views and
feelings of our people upon the great ques-
tons that had been and were still befor .
us. Under this suspicion the University,
although in charge of the same men who
had hitherto conducted its affairs with
such signal success and such marked APP
probation. languished and languishing
did live" until its death blow was given
by the appointment last year of the present
Faculty.
1t is not our purpose to enquire whether
this suspicion was or was not well founded.
We have no wish to reflect upon those
gentlemen still living who had charge OF
the Institution at the time referred to, and
certainly for those who have passed away
we cherish no feeling not in perfect accord
with grateful remembrance of many and
various acts of personal kindness oft re-
peated. Truth compels US, however, to saw
that in our opinion, it was because of this
suspicion Of the existence of these hostile
influences, no matter whether we'll or ill.
founded, that the people allowed the Uni.
yersity to languish and that it was be-
cause OF the certainty of their existence,
afforded by the appointment and compost.