The North Carolina Standard

[Correspondence of the Richmond Enquirer.]
WASHINGTON, March 6, 1850.
I have witnessed to-day one of the most disgraceful and mortifying spectacles that it ever fell to my lot to observe. I have seen a Southern man turning traitor to his people at this most trying moment, and doing more mischief to the rights of the South and the cause of the Union, than fifty most rabid abolitionists. I attempt a brief narrative. Mr. Featherston of Mississippi had the floor and made a logical and admirable argument against the admission of the State of California, unless Southern rights are at one and the same time guarantied in the measure of adjustment. At the end of Mr. F.'s hour the famous Stanly of North Carolina got the floor and pronounced the most miserable farrago of nonsense, misrepresentation and treachery to the cause of the South that I ever listened to. His speech abounded in the vilest party slang, and at this particular moment is better calculated to give "aid and comfort" to the fanatics than forty thousand speeches of such men as Horace Mann or Giddings. Stanly commenced by ridiculing the idea that the North had made any aggressions on the South. He took up, one by one, the various aggressions complained of by the South—contended that they were all humbugs—that the South had no cause to complain, and that all the present agitation and excitement were the fruits of party schemes, designed to make capital for the Democrats. He fully admitted the constitutionality of the Wilmot Proviso—defended the repeal of the 21st rule against the reception of Abolition petitions, and made a speech so thoroughly northern, that, unless I knew that he disgraces North Carolina as her Representative, I should have taken him for a ranting free-soiler. The most brutal and disgraceful portion of Stanly's speech was his gross attack on his fellow Whig, Mr. Hilliard of Alabama, who, you will remember, has stood up nobly and gallantly for the South and who is an eloquent minister of the Methodist Church. So intense is Stanly's hatred for every man who declares his intention to stand up for the South "at all hazards and to the last extremity," that he made a most offensive onslaught on Mr. Hilliard, and hoped he would not again desecrate the scriptures by drawing from them arguments to induce brothers to cut each others' throats. Mr. H., in manly and dignified terms, said that he had not done so. S. refused to accept the explanation, and proceeded still further to misrepresent H. in offensive language. H. called him to order, and said that no gentleman would have resorted to such conduct especially as it was well known that, from his profession, he could not avail himself of the usual mode of adjustment. The House was at once in uproar and excitement—and a fierce by-play occurred between the two members. Mr. H. said S. must allow him to set him right. "Must," said S., with a bitterly contemptuous tone. "You shall," retorted H., with firmness. "Miserable devil," hissed out Stanly, in a sotto voce, and looking directly at H. We were standing at the reporter's desk, just behind Wilmot's seat, and these disgraceful words reached us with perfect distinctness. And this is the man who boasts that Old Zack will save the Union, and who asserts that the citizens of Nashville will drive out of its limits the disunion "traitors," (as he calls the delegates of the Southern people, assembled to guard the rights of the South,) "who shall desecrate the ashes of Jackson." Stanly also ridiculed his Whig colleague, Clingman, who, I learn means to give him a Rowland for his Oliver. May he lay on the lash well! Mr. Hilliard to-day obtained leave to make a reply, which he will do to-morrow. I hope he will administer a severe castigation.
W. F. R.