Year: 1864




The Observer seems not only to have lost its
reason, but all respect for truth and decenoy in its
assaults on US II calls Us traitor, and charges
that the object oa STATE Convention is to take the
State out Of the Confederaey and make terms with
the enemy. 1t even goes 50 far rs to charge, in
substance, that the STANDARD is Lincoln paper,
and labors to show that We are disposed to screen
and favor the federal government in its conduct 10
wards the South, and at the same time array our
people against our own government. ..-.


We need not say to our readers that all this is
false. The, object of the proposed Convention is
not to secede, but to protect the rights of the
State against the common government and to
aid that government in obtaining an honorable
peace. We have not assailsd the Confederate gov
ernment-We have not thought OF advising the dis
banding OF our army-we have not favored in the
remotest sense the despotc government of Lincoln.
On the contrary, have sought to conserve or pre-
serve our government by insisting that it shall be
administered in its integrity and purity. Wehave
advocated every just and constitutional measure to
increase and strengthen our army. We have urged
the soldiers to stand by their eoors and not to de-
sert them under any circumstances. We have heldup
to readers the dangers and the horrors OF sub
jugaton and have advised them to take those steps
which, in our judgment, may avert these horrors.
We have never wronged the Confederate govern
ment in thought, word, or deed. All our interests
and all our feelings as Southern man are with the
Southern cause But our sin is that We will not,
with the O6serper excuse every act of the Confede-
rate government and unite with that paper in its
disposition to sacrifice every principle of free gov
ernment to blind hatred of the yankee nation"
Our sin is that we are determined to preserve lib
erty while We are contending for it against com.
mon foe The Obseroer at one time entertained the
same views and the same feelings but it has under
gone radical change since passed into the service
of the Destructive leaders .. 80,


We shall not appeal to that paper to represent MS
correctly, or to do US justice. To do 30 would be
to least pearls before swine"


The Observer denies that it desires to draw Con.
federate troops to this State to overawe people,
but the record is against it 1t declared, more
than q month ago, that in certain contingency
the government would "take armed possession Of
this State, and hold it against even own peo-
plel That would be civil war; and We hesitate not
to say that in our opinion before the Observer





of those desperate political adVenturers who con-
troll it it would see North Carolina humbled at the
feet of arbitrary power and drsnched with the
blood of her own citizens.


The Editors or the public men who would take
part against their own State, in any event or for
any government when that State was pushed to
the wall in last effort to preserve its rights and
liberties are capable of any crime heretofore re-
corded in the annals of human degradation.


The Observer is desperate. 1t intimates, with
out the slightest excuse for so doing that we are
charging "extortionate prices for the Standard,
and that we are making fortune out Of the war.
Our answer is that the price of the Standard is
toics that of the Observer, and that our suSscrp-
ton list is increasing more rapidly than at any
printer, the Observer is losing money as .. news
paper, and the Editors, fearing on account Of
the unpopularity of their present course to in
crease the rates of the O6serpsr lest they should
lose nearly all their subscribers, are keeping
up their establishment out of the profits of their
cotton and Kerosene factories. We are making an
honest living BY hard work, and at prices which our
readers cheerfuIly pay. We have no Kerosene oil
at $50 per gallon or cotton cloth at 81 per yard
If the poor are starving for the want of covering to
protect them against the cold, it is consolation to
Us to be clear of the temptation to see them suffer
il they cannot pay us forty prices for yard of
cloth. 1t gives us no pleasure to refer to matters
of this kind but the Observer threw the first stone
by stating what is not true, that we are charging
"extortiOnate prices" for the Standard