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. He was, too, in favor of having our State bonds, and the interest on the same, payable in North Carolina, and not in New York, and thus keeping the money of our people at home. He said the national debt of England, being due to her own people, strengthened her, while ours acted as a continual drain to pay interest in New York. After speaking one and a half hours, Mr. Gilmer said he desired, before he closed, to say something on Federal politics, and the principles of the American party, of which he was a candidate.