Weekly Standard

THE CREED OF VIOLENCE.—Kenneth Rayner, the anointed apostle and accepted expounder of the new dogmas of the Opposition in this District, and to whom a numerous section of his party throughout the country look with the implicit confidence of most tractable and obedient pupils, for the lessons and maxims which are to guide them in the giving effective force to their inexorable instinctive hatred of Democracy; Kenneth Rayner, a man of admitted and high ability, whose expressions may be taken as coming from the legitimate representative of the organization he affiliates with, and as carrying with them the authoritative weight of orthodox political oracles—this gentleman, thus standing as the recognized mouthpiece of North-Carolina Oppositionism, took occasion, at the late Winton Congressional Convention, to put forth a programme for the conduct of the campaign then and there opened, whose necessary, inevitable issue, if fairly and thoroughly carried into act, is no less bloody and ferocious than the sanguinary policy some months ago announced by William H. Seward, at Rochester.

It had been manifest to our own mind, not only from significant indications developed for some weeks previous, but from the very fact itself of the nearly exact numerical equilibrium of the two parties in the First District, that the contest now begun would be actively and hotly waged; but we confess that we were not prepared to witness the exhibition of such a spirit of bitterness and intimidation towards the Democracy as was disclosed in the remarks of the orators at Winton. We were convinced that no honorable effort, certainly, would be spared by either party in order to secure success; and we could readily foresee that, in the heat of the canvass, there might be an occasional orgasm of bad feeling, and possibly a fight or two: but we were somewhat taken by surprise to hear such sentiments as were uttered in the Convention in question, deliberately put forth by the spokesmen of a large and respectable meeting of the Opposition of this District, not summarily assembled, in which case its imprudences might be excused, but summoned upon long and calm consultation, and virtually professing to act with considerate forethought and with a willingness to be held to the record of its words.

Of the uncandid and indiscriminate vituperation of Democratic men and measures indulged in by the Winton speakers, we have nothing to say in this immediate connection; although we shall have hereafter. Malignant and mendacious as those animadversions were, their refutation and exposure is not specially pertinent to the point now at issue; it is enough to say that they will, all and singular, be met and answered in the progress of the canvass.—

But we do most explicitly and earnestly dissent from accepting the extraordinary tactics which are tendered us; not that we particularly apprehend that in a battle of hickory sticks we should come out second best—inasmuch as all sound Democrats are loyal followers of glorious Old Hickory, and likely to be quite as proficient in the use of such weapons, as their adversaries—but because we do not wish to abnegate the character of good citizens and gentlemen to meet the exigencies of any partizan campaign We are sorry that party rancor should be allowed to make suggestions so entirely reprehensible, and so utterly repugnant to all the finer impulses of men; and to throw down the gauntlet of defiance to a physical encounter in a dispute where the appeal should lie only to the right reason and sound judgement of the collective body of the people. We deprecate equally a resort to the old and long since discarded "wager of battle," or to that more modern strategy which has been carried to so fine development by Tom Hyer and Messrs. Morrissey and Heenan.

We trust, in all sincerity, that the objectionable remarks credibly reported to have been made at the Winton Convention, were designed merely as a brutum fulmen, and that this is the last of them.— War may be the ultimate argument of Kings; but a reckless and unnecessary recourse to it will hardly answer among American republicans.—Murfreesborough Citizen.