Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

Murphy, Cherokee Co., May 9, 1856.

Editors of the North Carolina Standard.

Gentlemen:—The discussion between the gubernatorial candidates opened here yesterday, and I propose to give you the points made and the substance of what was said on that occasion. There were probably two hundred persons present, and there would have been more had it been generally known that both candidates would be present. Until Governor Bragg arrived it was doubted whether he would attend, as the Standard announcing his intention to do so did not reach us until the day of his arrival.

Mr. Gilmer opened the discussion by informing the people that his name was John A. Gilmer—that he was a candidate for the office of Governor, and had come among them for the purpose of presenting his claims for their suffrages. He said he had found the country beautiful and romantic far beyond his expectations—never having before been on this side the mountains—and that when he was in the Legislature he voted for the measures introduced for their relief and for the improvement of their section.

He said that a short time ago he had no intention of becoming a candidate—that he had not now, nor ever had, any political ambition, but that he had listened to the importunities of friends, and had yielded rather to feeling than to his better judgment.

He said the organ of the party to which his opponent belonged had said that he had a bad political record, and it had referred to many of his votes and addresses to show that he was a Western man. Well, he was ready to defend these votes and addresses; they were brought forward to injure him in the East. He was then justified in making an appeal to the people of the West to sustain him as a Western man. First, he was charged with having voted to distribute the school fund according to white instead of federal population. He said it was true and asked if he had not done right in so doing. He referred to the first law introduced and passed under the auspices of Bartlett Yancey, Esq., to raise the fund and distribute it among the white children of the State. In 1838-'39 it was submitted to the people and accepted on that basis. In 1842, when the Democrats got into power, they altered the law to the federal basis, the effect of which was to give to a child in the East five or six times as much as to one in the West. This was unjust, and was a violation of the original agreement upon which the fund was raised. He further said that had Western men been true to themselves, Governor Reid never could have been elected, occupying the position he did upon this question; that party was allowed to overcome their rights and true interests; for, taking the counties favoring the present mode of distributing the fund and those against it, there would be found a majority of fourteen or fifteen thousand in the latter. In the vote he had given he had carried out the will of his constituents, and he put it to them to say if it was fair to charge him with being a Western man with a view to injure him. He hoped, if such was the case, the West would stand by him. Next, as to free suffrage. He had been charged with being opposed to that. This was not true. He was always for it, provided it could be passed in a proper manner and with such guards and qualifications as, in his opinion, ought to go with it. He preferred a convention. He could not see why the West was disturbed on that question, willing as she was to go into convention on the federal basis. There all things could be settled. They could elect their justices of the peace by the people, and establish cheap justices' courts for the trial of petty offenses, and thus keep them from the courts; that it was important that justices should be elected by the people, as they laid the county taxes.

He said he voted against the present free-suffrage bill because there was no provision in it to prevent the undue taxation of land; that the Senate, as now constituted, was a check on such taxation; but, abolish the freehold qualification for voters, and where would the check be; that he had offered an amendment himself which, had it passed, he would have voted for the bill, and waived his objection to the legislative mode of amendment; that the object of this amendment was to provide simply a protection to lands by requiring land, the slave poll and white poll to be taxed alike; that, in his opinion, something ought to be adopted to protect the landholder.

He said that the Standard had called him the "shin-plaster candidate." It was true that his face appeared upon the bills of a small bank in his town, but he was in no way concerned in the same, and had no interest in the institution. He was, however, opposed to the law, and would make war upon any law which undertook to do away with small notes. Why take away small notes, the only currency which a poor man could get? The rich could get large bills, but they were beyond the reach of a poor man. (Here Mr. Gilmer entered into a rather elaborate argument to sustain the policy of small banknotes, and read the Bank Note Reporter and other authorities to show that true policy required their free circulation, and that the worst consequences had followed their discontinuance in some of the States.)

He next shadowed forth a project for a new bank, to be owned in part by the State and part by individuals. For every one hundred dollars the State owns in railroad stock he would have her own a like amount in stock in the bank, and the same as to individuals; something was said also as to State bonds forming a part of the basis, but the writer did not clearly catch the idea.

It was insisted, however, by Mr. Gilmer, that such a bank would be very profitable, and that the State would realize enough from the profits to pay the interest of the State debt, and relieve the people from taxation; and the plan was, he said, for the bank to issue mostly one and two dollar notes for currency, as in South Carolina.