Weekly North Carolina Standard

"I FEEL THAT THIS QUESTION OF THE PUBLIC LANDS

IS AT THIS MOMENT A FAR MORE IMPORTANT ONE THAN

THAT OF SLAVERY, AND A MUCH MORE PRACTICAL ONE."

—Mr. McRae's Letter to Mr. Dancy.

"Mr. McRae reminded the audience of the fact

that when in 1840 clouds and darkness overshadowed

the fortunes of the Democratic party, he was

manfully fighting its battles and sharing without a

murmur its fate, while a certain Editor, not a thousand

miles from Raleigh, was clad in coon-skins,

having a string of gourds around his neck and swilling

hard cider in a log cabin."—Register's Report

of McRae's Speech.

So did Rives, and Tallmadge, and Van Buren, and

Benton, and Blair fight the battles of Democracy and

share its fate; but they permitted their ambition

and their selfishness to get the better of their judgment,

and, abandoning principle, they fell at once

deeper than plummet ever sounded. The late Consul

of the United States at Paris, with Douglas and

Wise, are on the same inclined plane on which the

public men referred to went down to those immeasurable

depths; and the late Consul has already

sunk so far that no mortal hand can reach him to

bring him up.

The late Consul has been highly honored and well

paid for his sacrifices (?) for the Democratic party.

We believe he also shared the fortunes of John Tyler:

and was sent by that gentleman, when President,

on a special errand to Mexico, for which he received

some $2,500. He afterwards subordinated "distribution"

to the Consulship at Paris, and went abroad,

leaving the lands to be squandered and plundered

as aforetime, and received therefor some $20,000 in

pure federal money. He returned and took up the

"distribution" thread precisely where he had dropped

it: and now, some of the Know Nothing distributionists

are afraid to run him for Governor, lest

in the midst of the campaign he might be offered

another federal office, might accept it, and thus leave

them without a candidate. Nothing would be left to

them then but to fall back upon their principles, which,

it must be confessed, would be a dangerous operation.

They might fall on space, and so fall ad infinitum.

Our former political associate does well to remind

us of those "coon-skins" and to rattle those "gourds"

about our ears. He makes the matter infinitely worse

than it was. We neither handled gourds nor wore

coon-skins in 1840. We were engaged at that day

in setting type for a living—we had no time,

as Mr. McRae had, to devote to politics and

speech-making: and we wore plain woolen and

cotton clothes, which we earned and paid for

by hard labor. As to "log-cabins," our earliest

recollections are associated with houses of that

sort, for we were born in one of them; and

doubtless we had a more sincere respect for their

occupants in 1840, as we have now, than those old

federalists who affected to be the poor man's friends,

and some of whom so warmly applauded Mr. McRae

in this City on Monday last. We have never sought

federal office, nor would we have it if offered to us;

and to this extent, at least, we have the advantage

of Mr. McRae.

We repeat, Mr. McRae does well to twit us with

1840. The federalists and Know Nothings have

been doing the same thing for fifteen years. The

gentleman repeats with fluency the lessons he has

learned in the opposition school; and if he is satisfied

with his employment in this respect, we are

sure we are. Our political record for the last fifteen

years is without a blot: We have labored for

and sought the good of our party more than our

own,—we have thought more of principles and of

the triumph of our cause than we have of self. No

man can say that we have ever even hesitated either

as to principles or as to organization since we have

been at the head of this press. Can Mr. McRae say

as much? Mr. McRae was born and brought up in

a minority, and he adhered to it after it reached a

majority—only so long as it promoted and honored

him; we left a majority for a minority, and that too

at a time when the success of the latter was regarded

as next to impossible. We are willing any day

and at all times to compare political records with the

gentleman.

Mr. McRae spoke here for two or three

hours, and made no allusion to the Kansas question.

Where is he on this question? Is he with the President,

or is he with Wise and Douglas? Can the

Register answer for him? That paper is committed

in the strongest terms to the admission of Kansas

with the Lecompton Constitution, yet its candidate

for Governor is silent on the subject. Does the Editor,

following in the footsteps of Mr. McRae, propose

to subordinate the great issue of the Constitutional

rights of the South to the question of distribution?