The North Carolina Standard

THE "NEW ORDER OF THINGS"

The Register of Wednesday last appears to be greatly shocked at the fact that the Democratic State Convention was addressed by Senators Houston and Douglas, citizens of other States. That paper speaks of this as a "new order of things," and says:

It has been the pride and boast of both political parties in North Carolina heretofore, that they interfered not with the Politics of her sister States, nor allowed interference in hers by them. But it appears that the Loco Foco party of North Carolina intend for the future to pursue a different policy at all events, they have introduced a new order of things, and have determined upon parading before the good citizens of the "Old North," the opinions and views of those representing other States. It was not sufficient, at the recent "Demiocratic" Convention, that the men of their own party here at home, but two United States' Senators must be brought on and requested to "enlighten the ignorant and benighted People" of North Carolina, in relation to their duty to the Constitution and their Country.

Now we are prepared to show, from the record-and we challenge contradiction-that this is not a "new order of things" in North Carolina, but that the practice, whether improper or not, was commenced by the Register's own party.

On the 12th day of April, 1844-just four years ago-that "travelling speechmaker," Mr. Clay, (as he was called by Mr. Badger in 1828,) was here, in Raleigh, urging his own pretensions to the Presidency, endeavoring to enlighten the masses of the people as to Whig principles, denouncing the Democrats as Dorrrites and Repudiators, and proclaiming, in advance, that all the States in this Confederacy, but three, would vote for him. Mr. Clay was assisted in his labors by Benjamin Watkins Leigh and Mr. Shelton, of Virginia, and by that notorious hypocrite, blackguard, and scoundrel, Parson Brownlow of Tennessee. We remember it all-and who that was here, on that occasion, will ever forget it? The Register complimented Messrs. Leigh and Shelton for their efforts, endorsed Brownlow, and almost deified Mr. Clay. Then the "Dictator" was in the fullness and glory of his prime. Now poor old man! the ardent adulators of four short years agone have become cold, careless, and indifferent; and his fourth appeal to his slumbering hosts is received with surprise, and treated with ill-concealed indignation and alarm. Then Whig principles-and Whig measures were to be; now they are numbered among the things that were. Then the South was to be conciliated; but now the appeal is to the "free" States, and the South is left to take care of herself, with all the Whig men of the North, and all their newspapers and organs of public sentiment arrayed against her.

In one sense of the term the Register is right. A "new order of things" has arisen. Since that day, Mr. Clay-the embodiment of Whig principles and the idol of the Register-has dared to appeal to the "free" States as against the "slave" States for support; and it remains to be seen how that appeal will be received. Since that day the Wilmot Proviso, the design and tendency of which is to degrade the South, has been sprung upon us; and though North Carolina Whigs and the Register have denounced it, yet their Representatives in Congress vote for a Wilmot Proviso Speaker-their State Convention utters no voice of opposition to it-their acknowledged leader and inexorable "Dictator" Mr. Clay, avoids any expression of opinion against it at Lexington, but yields up the question by opposing the further acquisition of territory by the people of this country-and the Whig party of North Carolina, (including the friends and admirers of Gen. Taylor,) now stands committed to support the Nominees of a Whig National Convention, no matter what their views or their feelings may be in regard to this Proviso or to Southern institutions! We defy the Register to meet us on these points.

The Register attempts to make political capital out of some remarks which fell from a member of the Convention in support of the call upon Messrs. Houston and Douglas for copies of their Speeches. That paper says the people of North Carolina were characterized as "ignorant and benighted." Now, we were absent at the time, and did not hear the remarks of the gentleman alluded to; but we understand, from those who did hear them, that they will not bear, by any means, the construction placed upon them by the Register and indeed, we feel authorized by the gentleman himself to state that he was reported incorrectly. Senators Houston and Douglas had presented facts and authorities, upon the question of the boundary, which were new, or at any rate not sufficiently understood, by the Whigs of the State. That gentleman and the members of the Convention were anxious that these facts and authorities should be placed before the Whigs, in order that they might examine and judge for themselves, without reference to the fabrications and misrepresentations of designing demagogues. Upon this subject we are bound to believe that many Whigs are "ignorant,"-for how else can we account for their honest belief that the Nueces is the true boundary? We believe, for instance, that the Editor of the Register is "ignorant" of the facts involved; but we fear that such is his stubbornness and such his pride of opinion, that he will never become sufficiently enlightened to admit that the Rio Grande is the boundary, and thus put Mexico in the wrong and his own country in the right. We confess that, as to his case, we despair.

The truth is, these words "benighted and ignorant" were eagerly caught up by the Register, and tortured out of their real design and meaning; and they have been used for no other purpose but to create prejudices in Whig minds against Democratic truth. The Register became alarmed at the great weight and unanswerable logic of those Speeches. It felt that an effect had been produced even here, in this stronghold of Federalism. It foresaw that the Whig cause, bottomed as it is upon opposition to the War, and having no principles to sustain it, would suffer at the polls; and hence it resumed its old trade of perversion and misrepresentation, and substituted for arguments which it could not offer, silly and sickly tirades about "degrading observations" and "itinerant political pedlars." This is the whole secret of that magnificent article in that paper of Wednesday last, headed "a new order of things."

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that the Whigs of North Carolina had been told, in an insulting manner, and in a way calculated to injure the character of the State for intelligence, that they were "ignorant and benighted" what right would the Raleigh Register, the endorser of Brownlow, have to complain? That man-and the Editor of the Register and hundreds of Whigs no doubt heard him-called the Democrats pickpockets, and called upon all good Whigs to look well to their pocket-books when among Democrats; and after this expression had been used by that fellow, he was complimented and praised by the Register as an efficient and useful advocate of Whig principles! But enough of this.

We dislike to be compelled to meet the Register on such grounds as these. We had much rather discuss principles, or, at least, measures or men with that journal. But when it plays the demagogue, or attempts to create capital for its party out of things which never had any real existence, or rakes up matters that can have no legitimate connection with the great topics of the day, it must expect to be exposed, and to have its efforts in a bad cause counteracted by the truth.