Mr. Lucas2 —Correct information is very important and desirable, expecially in those cases where the interests of society are so materially concerned. You will therefore please to insert in your useful paper the following observations. Feeling fully justified in the proceedings in the case by the laws of the University and a firm determination in the strength of God, to discharge duty amidst every opposition; the attention of the public is invited to a plain candid statement of facts That these may be understood and regarded in their just light, you will be pleased to notice the two following laws of the University3

1st. "If any student shall deny the being of a God, or the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, or shall assert and endeavor to propagate among the students any principles subverting the foundation of the christian religion, and shall persist therein after admonition, he shall be dismissed.

2nd. "Nothing indecent, profane or immoral shall at any time be delivered on the public stage, under penalty of such censure as the faculty or trustees shall judge proper. And with a view to preserve all public exercises of the students from impropriety of any kind, every student during his senior year and previously to his commencement performances especially, shall shew to the President or presiding professor the whole of what he proposes to speak and shall not fail to observe such corrections as shall be made of his performances; and if any student pronounce any thing in public of a censurable nature in contradiction to the directions or corrections of the officer to whom he has shewn his piece, the President or presiding Professor is required to stop him on the public stage, and he shall be other wise censured as the Trustees or Faculty shall determine."

On these grounds [the speech of Wm. Shepard was ex]amined, and corrections were made by the President [Robert Chapman]. Some of these were considered by him and known by the speaker to be important and some unimportant. It has been the invariable practice of the President in his corrections to signify the first by erasure and insertion, and unimportant verbal alterations by placing the corrections above, without erasing the words of the speaker, leaving it at his option to use his own language or adopt the suggested amendment. The publication of the speech in Mr. Gales' paper [The Raleigh Register] of last week though some notes are made, is apprehended to be essentially defective, and to have a tendency to mislead the public mind by not clearly marking and stating this distinction and stating the reasons assigned by the President for the corrections. The public then will please to observe that there was but one erasure, and no insertion but what had reference to christianity. This erasure respected the sentence, "Without retailing scenes which would cause the most abandoned prosely[t]e of infamy to blush himself into virtue." The words "into virtue" were erased. The correction however was not considered as materially important and was no object of notice in the delivery of the speech. The essential points were, "But England has shewn us a christian people born at the foot of the altar, consecrated to the God of mercy—whose first draught was from the chalice of the church—whose first sound breath was a petition to a saviour." Words erased from "England," and the following substituted in their place; "professedly and pretendedly, with superior advantages, has shewn us a people." This reason was assigned to the speaker, noted on his speech, as the ground of correction: "Christianity ought not to be considered and mentioned as accountable for the conduct of British Rulers who are not under its influence." The precise words the publisher ought in candor to have inserted. Another exceptionable expression, was, "lighting the torch of war at the shrine of God." Altered the shrine of wickedness. The following sentence was corrected: "tell it not that England, the mistress of the world (the stay of righteousness, the staff of religion; whose vessels teem with missionary philanthrophists, that make the savage dens of Hindostan reverberate the anthems of God) erected a trophy, &c." The words in a parenthesis were erased and not the words "erected a trophy," as stated in the paper. The reason assigned to the speaker, written on his speech, for this erasure was—"British rulers, and individuals of that nation, who are sending missionaries abroad in the world, are different objects and ought not to be identified." The disregard of this correction in connection with the two proceeding it, evincing a determination in the speaker to prostrate the laws, and utter language deemed highly censurable, as the language of infidelity, impelled the President, as required by law, to require him to desist from speaking. There is another exceptionable part of the speech which was corrected by insertion, but which has been essentially mutilated by the publisher. The public will notice the sentence as printed in Mr. Gales' paper, and the original as handed to the President and corrected by him. "The (Christian) American (in the cause of Justice) when he rushes into the battle, is animated by the spirit of Washington, which, descending from heaven, covers him with the light of glory, exhorts him to victory, for God is the leader." The original was in the same words, with the following addition of poetic lines: "And if he falls, say not his cause is done, His deathless spirit shall outlive the sun A while his ashes mingled with the dead. But to yon heaven the aspiring soul has fled! On seraphs wings she sought celestial rest And keeps eternal sabbath with the blest."

The ground of the correction, sending every soldier, at death, however vile and abandoned to heaven, in direct opposition to the Sacred Scriptures, which declare that "he that believeth not shall be damned,"4 has thus been left out of view. With what design this was done, the public must judge. As printed in Mr. Gales' paper the correction was entirely unnecessary and childish. It is proper also to state to the public, that had the determination of the speaker and his prompter, to prostrate all authority, been known to the Faculty, the unhappy consequences to them and others would have been prevented. The public will now readily see that the publication in Mr. Gales' paper, last week, which says, that parts of the speech gave such offence to the Faculty that twenty-seven students were suspended, was incorrect. The offensive parts of the speech were known only to the President, whose business it was to make all corrections he deemed proper; but the speaker's breach of the laws and defiance of authority, in not observing the corrections, were the causes of the offence to the Faculty, which in justice ought to have been stated. With respect to the suspension of others, "the facts which have come to the knowledge of the citizen," give a wrong, incorrect view of the subject. It is proper, then, to state to the public that at the conclusion of Wm. Shepard's speech, in defiance of authority, there was a very general plaudit in the Hall in token of approbation. That at the end of the speakin[g,] as the students went to the College, there were noisy shoutings for Wm. Shepard, and great noise and riot in the buildings during a great part of the night—that the next morning the Faculty were grossly insulted by the students, individually and as a body—that all business was at an end, and authority despised and insulted,—that a public notification was placed on the Chapel door inviting the attendance of the students at a precise hour—that only 27 attended,5 & that these when discovered by the Faculty, avowed it as the object of their meeting, in the express language of one of their leaders "to form measures to express their indignation against the proceedings of the Faculty." This avowal they seemed afterwards to wish to palliate and conceal. They all had opportunity given them by the Faculty to state their object, to disavow such a design, and withdraw from the combination; but they chose to maintain their connection. Finding them engaged in such business, the following law of the University was the ground of procedure; "if any clubs or any combinations of the students shall at any time take place, either for resisting the authority of College,—interfering in its government, shewing disrespect to the Faculty, or to any of its members, or for concealing or executing any evil design, the Faculty are empowered and directed to break up all such combinations as soon as discovered, and to inflict a severer punishment on each individual than if the offence intended had been committed in his individual capacity, whatever be the number concerned or whatever be the consequence to the College."6 They were required to sign an acknowledgement of their offence, hoping that the Faculty would forgive them, and [promising future subjection to the laws: which they refused, and were accordingly suspended.7 These are the] facts, and it is further stated—that the Faculty proceeded with great deliberation—spent a whole week in the business—spared no pains to reclaim the students to a sense of duty, but that they who were suspended preseveringly manifested such a spirit and avowed such principles that the Faculty were compelled to send them away from the institution.