The General Assembly at
North Carolina met on the 27th inst, and
Gov. Vance's message was laid before it on that day.
Gov. V. recommends that Congress be recommended to modify the law of importation so far as to permit sovereign States to import suck cargoes as they may aced.
North Carolina has been in her capacity as a State importing necessaries for her soldiers, and it is desired to continue such importations.
On the question of foreign relations with the
United States Gov. Vance says:
‘
I respectfully recommend that you, as the representatives of the people of
North Carolina, should lay down what you would consider a fair hastes of peace, and call upon our Representatives in Congress, and those to whom is committed the pourer of making treaties, by the
Constitution, to neglect no fitting opportunity of offering each to the enemy.
These terms in my judgment should be nothing less than the independence of these States whose destinies have been fairly united with the
Confederacy by the voice of their people, and the privilege of a free choice to these which have been considered doubtful.
’
I presume that no honorable man or patriot could think of anything less than independence.
Less would be subjugation, ruinous, and dishonorable.
Nobody at the
North thinks of reconstruction, simply because it is impossible.
With a Constitution torn into shreds, with slavery abolished, with our property confiscated, and ourselves and our children reduced to beggary, our slaves put in possession of our lands and invested with equal rights, social and political, and a great gull yawning between the North and South, filled with the blood of our murdered sons, and to waves ladened with the debris of our ruined homes, how can there be any reconstruction with the authors of these evils, or now can it be desirable if it were possible.
Lincoln himself says it is not possible; so does
Mr. Fillmore, a man whom we once respected, and so do nine- tenths of their creators and presses.
The only terms ever offered us contained in
Mr. Lincoln's infamous proclamation were alike degrading in matter and insulting in manner, being addressed not to the authorities, Confederate or State, of the
South, but to individuals, who by the very act of accepting its terms would make from themselves the vilest of mankind.
I cannot too earnestly warn you gentlemen, and the country against the great dangers of these insidious attempts of the enemy to seduce our people into treating with him for peace, individually, or by the formation of States or parts of States.
Indeed, I might add that I took upon any attempts to treat for peace, other than through the regular channels provided by our Constitution, so long as our Government is maintained, as almost equality dangerous.
It is the real peril of the hour.
So great is the hostility and so far one the fanaticism of the party at the
North, that they have not even offered as terms that could be regarded by the most timid and wavering as "alluring"
Lincoln's proclamation is so grossly out rageous and so repugnant to our every idea of liberty, property, and honor, as to insure the rejection of the terms it hands out, while it adds weight and gives a tone of authority to the offer repeated assertions of their public men and presses, that they want no compromise, but with only be content with our subjugation.
If our enemy were ready willing, under any circumstances, to compromise with us upon any terms short of our absolute submission, they would certainly say so, and that to those whom they know to be authorized to entertain their propositions.
The insidious attempts to invoke separate, individual, and State action, proves this conclusively, and can have no other intention than to plunge us into civil war and to subjugate us beyond redemption.
How strange, then, to think, as some of our people honestly do, that the very plan proposed by the enemy for our destruction is the best way to secure a speedy and honorable peace ! I respectfully submit that my plan, based on the wisdom and patriotism of
Washington and the universal teaching of history — to strengthen and sustain the army, and negotiate through the proper channels — is the safer and the better one.
It seems to me the safe, true and conservative path through all our troubles, lies in guarding alike against the destruction of law and liberty on the one hand, and the impatience of the people under the burdens of war on the other, white with both hands and with all our strength and hearts and souls we uphold and maintain those who, even as I write, are battling and bleeding for the rights and independence of their country.
I confess I am not of those who seem to think the greatest danger to our rights and liberties is from our own people and our own Government.
While struggling to the invisible tendencies of revolution to destroy civil freedom at home, I cannot forget that this danger from without threatens the destruction of everything that comes from the
North a rank and bloody despotism, fierce and fanatical, gory with our people's blood, and blackened by the smoke of their burning home, with hordes of armed slaves thirsting to complete the demoniac work of wasting and destroying, and panting to sew salt in the furrows of the plough share of desolation, as it runs over razed cities, and in whose march forms of law, constitutions, free Governments, life, home, property, all go down to rise no more, till God shall implant in the bosoms of a new generation the principles of liberty and love of peace, which this, in its madness, has cast off.
