[Excerpted and transcribed by Marianne Nichols Ordway for the United States GenWeb Project Archives]

The North Carolina Standard Newspaper

Raleigh: Wednesday, June 26, 1861

One of the most important acts of the convention relating to the financial interests of the State, was the organization of a Court for the investigation and settlement of all claims against the State, growing out of the war, and the appointment last week of Messrs. B.F. Moore of Wake, S.F. Phillips of Orange, and P.H. Winston, Jr. of Bertie, as the Judges. The appointments are entirely satisfactory to all we believe.

On Saturday last, it will be seen by the proceedings of the Convention, Mr. Whitford of Craven, presented his report, and a beautiful design, as described by our reporter, for a State Flag. The ordinance passed unanimously.

Supreme Court Rulings:

In Cooper vs. Cherry, from Bertie, declaring that there is no error in the decision of the Superior Court.

In state ex. rel. Willey v. Eure, from Gates, affirming the Judgment.

In Burn v. Nichols, from Bertie, dismissing the bill with costs.

In Floyd v. Gilliam, in equity, from Bertie; the injunction should be continued and an account ordered.

God On Our Side:

The ordinary rule by which we determine all favorable events, to be specifically directed by Divine Providence for our good, is fallacious, and is often a fruitful source of self-deception. We must not conclude we are right, simply because we feel we are right – because as we say, our conscience does not condemn us. Every kind of conscience is not a safe guide or rule. To be safe, it must be well instructed, tender, and quick to do its office.

We do not claim for our cause, that the conscience of the South is wholly what it should be. It is guilty, seared, hard and impracticable in many respects no doubt. Hence, we do not conclude hastily that the South is right, and that by consequence, God is on our side simply because the Southern conscience is much at ease upon the grounds of the contest between North and South, or because of the universal feeling among Southern people that we are right. WE rest it upon other and safer grounds; upon such a concatenation of arguments and facts as irresistibly force upon us the conviction that we are right, and that God is on our side.

It is aside from our purpose to go into the argument. This has been amply elaborated for the last thirty years, and it is at the finger’s end of everyone. We mean the argument in support of the rights of the South under the old Constitution, and the right and duty of the South to separate when she failed to obtain them, after the proper effort. In this the South held the vantage ground, our enemies themselves being judges. The argument was cumulative and progressive from the time the contest began, until it culminated in the South at least, under the usurpation of Lincoln, to the point of almost universal conviction.

The facts which we purpose to introduce afford confirmatory and irresistible evidence, that God sustains the right, and that He is on our side.

1. The process by which the South arrived at the conviction that she was right has not been hasty or inconsiderate. Full time was taken for deliberation, for labor and parley with our antagonists, and for putting her foot on a firm foundation. The Southern sentiment vibrated between hope and fear for a time, not because she was undecided as to her course when the full time came, but because it was her hope that Lincoln and the North would at last do right. Her she paused as if waiting for God to interfere. It must be confessed that even in most of the states that had seceded, there was still suspense, if not some faint hope of adjustment. The suspense was awful. It sat as the pall of death upon the entire country; when suddenly, by one of those strange and mysterious occurrences which ever and anon take place in human affairs, Lincoln issues his proclamation. The Rubicon was passed. We do not see God in that matter as some may ordering that act or directing the hand of Lincoln in drawing up that black infamous record. God permits what the devil executes; and we cannot erase from our minds the solemn conviction that the "Prince of the power of the air" has had a chief agency in all these calamitous events. But we do see the hand of God in directing the whirlwind, and as if by his immediate power, converging the sentiment of the South to one point. Nor does it weaken the force of the idea or of the truth that the time had then come from separation, to admit that the same hand converged the sentiment of the North against us. It confirms that truth; for without the universal antagonistic sentiments on both sides, separation, permanent and incurable, could not have been effected. We claim therefore, that the unity of this antagonistic sentiment on both sides, is evidence that under the circumstances, God sanctioned separation, and that in the struggle of the South to maintain it, as God approves the right, He is on our side.

 

2. Let us look at other evidence of Divine approval. While the North with her immense resources, finds herself agreed in her opposition to separation, yet her efforts to trammel and damage the South, recoil with greater force upon herself. Her commerce and trade and manufactures are ruined as long as the war last. Her immense treasures are locked up not only because there is no room for safe investments, but because her people doubt either her integrity or permanency of the government. With millions of treasures her government cannot borrow of her people, but now seriously contemplates an appeal to European coffers. In her attempts to defeat us at Norfolk, and Harper’s Ferry, in her fright, she left us the most ample means of prosecuting the war. Every step of the invasion has been marked by the blood of our enemies. At Aquia Creek, and Fairfax Court-house, Phillippi and at Bethel Church, the punishment of our enemies was terrible. We see God in all this.

On the other hand, the South finds the blockade of her ports, and the invasion of her territory unite her people the more, tax their power of invention, learn them to bear privation, and to make the best use of her resources. Confidence in their government supplies the sinews of war; and the justice of their cause supplies their courage, which is better than large munitions of war. With but little commerce or trade or manufactures to protect or keep in motion, their means, their labor, and their courage, are all directed to the protection of their rights, their soil and their homes. The South suffers, but she suffers patiently and willingly. God is in all this.

The history of the South never furnished greater immunity from epidemic diseases or pestilence than it does at the present time. The health of the citizens and soldiery of the South is remarkable. Her fields of wheat, rye, oats, rice, corn and cotton; are laden with the richest harvest-prospect that her planters ever garnered. Even the forest of oak are bending with mast, and what only occurs periodically, our stately pine forest are stately with food for the swine. Hence, a prudent watch-care over the young porkers, is all that is needed for a bountiful supply of bacon and pork, for which we have hitherto made ourselves depended upon the North. The laborers of the South till her lands with unwonted cheerfulness and alacrity, and only regrets that they cannot aid us in driving back the Northern Vandals. God is in all this. With what sleepless vigilance has He watched over the lives of our people, in conflict with the enemy. The intrepid Jackson fell at Alexandria, but the lives of seventy of the enemy have paid the forfeit, nor is the reckoning ended. At Fairfax O.H. the brave Marr fell, but fifteen or twenty were made to atone. At Phillippi a few of our brave men fell, but more than two to one of our enemy were made to bite the dust. At Bethel Church the memory of which glorious conflict will never die out in the good old North State, the slain of the enemy numbered hundreds to one. The fearless Wyatt fell a martyr there, but he sleeps beneath his own soil of the South. Numberless are the instances in that memorable battle in which God’s outstretched hand covered from the missiles of the enemy our brave troops, but we have not space to particularize.

Hear it men of the South! Hear it ye brave soldiers of the Old North State – God is on our side. Forward! forward! To the breach! and meet the dastard foe, who dares invade our soil. Forward! And let your watchword be "God is our strength and shield, the God of Jacob is our refuge."