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Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

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Title: Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

Compiler: W. J. Peele


        
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                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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       *       *       *       *       *




[Illustration: WILLIAM R. DAVIE.]




  LIVES

  OF

  DISTINGUISHED NORTH CAROLINIANS

  WITH

  ILLUSTRATIONS AND SPEECHES


  COLLECTED AND COMPILED BY

  W. J. PEELE,

  A MEMBER OF THE RALEIGH BAR


  DAVIE, MACON, MURPHY, GASTON, BADGER, SWAIN, RUFFIN,
  BRAGG, GRAHAM, MOORE, PETTIGREW, PENDER,
  RAMSEUR, GRIMES, HILL


  Let us pass not through the earth so fair,
  Leaving no witness the truth to bear
  That we've lived and loved and labored here.


  RALEIGH
  1898




  COPYRIGHTED 1897
  BY
  W. J. PEELE

  PUBLISHED BY
  THE NORTH CAROLINA PUBLISHING SOCIETY


  THE LORD BALTIMORE PRESS
  THE FRIEDENWALD COMPANY
  BALTIMORE, MD.




  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

  TO

  THOSE WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO MAKE IT,

  TO THE

  DESCENDANTS OF THOSE WHO ARE ITS SUBJECTS,

  AND TO

  ALL NORTH CAROLINIANS WHO SEEK TO EMULATE

  THE VIRTUES IT

  RECORDS.




CONTENTS.


  PREFACE.

  INTRODUCTION.

  WILLIAM R. DAVIE                 BY WALTER CLARK.

  NATHANIEL MACON           BY { THOMAS BENTON.
                               { WELDON N. EDWARDS.
    Speech on the Missouri Compromise.

  ARCHIBALD D. MURPHY         BY WILLIAM A. GRAHAM.
    Historical Address at the University.

  WILLIAM GASTON                   BY W. H. BATTLE.
    Address at the University.

  GEORGE E. BADGER            BY WILLIAM A. GRAHAM.
    Speech on Slavery and the Union.

  DAVID L. SWAIN                    BY Z. B. VANCE.
    Address: "Early Times in Raleigh."

  THOMAS RUFFIN               BY WILLIAM A. GRAHAM.
    Opinion in "Ex parte Bradley."

  THOMAS BRAGG                   BY PULASKI COWPER.
    Account of a Political Discussion.

  WILLIAM A. GRAHAM            BY MONTFORD MCGEHEE.

  BARTHOLOMEW F. MOORE       BY ED. GRAHAM HAYWOOD.
    Argument in State _vs._ Will.

  J. JOHNSTON PETTIGREW      BY MRS. C. P. SPENCER.
    The Character of the British;
    An Evening at Seville.

  WILLIAM D. PENDER            BY W. A. MONTGOMERY.

  STEPHEN D. RAMSEUR                  BY W. R. COX.

  BRYAN GRIMES                     BY H. A. LONDON.
    Surrender at Appomattox.

  DANIEL H. HILL                    BY A. C. AVERY.
    Address: "The Old South."




PORTRAITS.


  DAVIE           Frontispiece

  MACON          facing p.  81

  MURPHY         facing p. 111

  GASTON         facing p. 150

  BADGER         facing p. 181

  SWAIN          facing p. 229

  RUFFIN         facing p. 284

  BRAGG          facing p. 306

  GRAHAM         facing p. 333

  MOORE          facing p. 378

  PETTIGREW      facing p. 413

  PENDER         facing p. 436

  RAMSEUR        facing p. 456

  GRIMES         facing p. 495

  HILL           facing p. 524




PREFACE.


The publication, in a permanent form, of the most valuable sketches
and speeches which have been produced in our State will aid
materially in laying the foundation for a distinctive literature. In
the beginning, character only is essential; art is a development,
and will assume its comely form in due season if it springs from
virtue. The undeserving are the fearful and the unbelieving, and
these are they who are morbidly anxious to graft borrowed ideals of
literary culture upon the native stock.

The people are entitled to the sources of history (the knowledge of
which, in this State, is confined to a very few), because from among
the people must always arise the man who breaks the monopoly which
sequesters the facts of public interest for private interpretation.

Failure in some writers to give the sources of information and of
ideas, and to give credit or quote where these are already well
expressed, has caused much confusion in the historical data of
this State. This practice is fatal to any considerable literary
reputation and an unwitting confession of incapacity.

The educational value of these sketches and speeches, and of such as
may be published at a later period, is probably what will chiefly
recommend this undertaking to the consideration of the public. A
good course of home reading about worthy men close enough to the
reader to stimulate his interest can hardly be overvalued, and it
is the best substitute for the training of the schools as well as a
powerful assistant in such training.

It will be remarked that some of the best sketches of our
distinguished dead have been written to be spoken; but they are none
the less effectual among North Carolinians, who have generally been
hearers rather than readers: those, therefore, who have desired
their attention have cultivated oratory. The style of the effective
writer, however, is more condensed than that of the orator--freer
from passion and local prejudice and fitter to paint for posterity
pictures of the past.

To the ladies of the memorial associations of North Carolina, and to
those who have generously responded to the honor of their calls, our
people are indebted for the collection, in the form of addresses,
and the consequent preservation of some valuable historical matter.
This is especially true of the Ladies' Memorial Association of
Raleigh, as the sketches of Grimes, Ramseur, Pender, and Hill, here
published, will attest.

No less deserving are those who of their own accord, or at the
request of others, have prepared sketches of such as have done deeds
worthy of remembrance. Born of some patriotic North Carolina woman,
a man will arise who will use the stubborn facts so preserved to
bruise the serpent-head of false history.

It will not be understood, of course, that an attempt is made
in this volume to publish the lives of all distinguished North
Carolinians--there are others, perhaps, as worthy as any which here
appear; and should this book be approved and sufficiently sustained
by reading people, another volume may be added at some future time.

My main object will be attained if interest in those who have done
something worthy of remembrance is stimulated.

Much of what is called biography and history is a tiresome chronicle
of the successive advancement in office of some who have advanced
little in better things. Service, not office, is the inspired test
of greatness. He who would be greatest among you must be the servant
of all.

In this materialistic age it is nothing strange that some North
Carolina writers have praised such as have done well mainly for
themselves; and while I do not remember that, in the collection here
published, place and station are set forth as an end rather than a
means to good, yet here, as elsewhere and everywhere, the thoughtful
reader will be on his guard against any squint in favor of false
ideals.

As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses by the art of counterfeiting
the symbols of Heaven's appointment, a devilish power, so this age
suffers much from spurious greatness, persistently advertised, as
bearing the image and superscription of virtue.

Human limitation is such that a character is sometimes worthy of
study which only effectually illustrates one great virtue growing
among defects; and human nature, unless morbid, instead of being
contaminated, will be encouraged that weakness can deserve fame. The
defects which criticism may discover in any character here portrayed
may be used, under intelligent guidance, to gain the sympathy of the
young rather than mar their ideals--which must be composite pictures
of the virtues of many, or else imaged on the soul by contemplation
of the life and work of One who was the Servant of all.

  W. J. P.




INTRODUCTION.


This book is written of North Carolinians by North Carolinians. Many
of the writers are no less distinguished than their subjects, and
these together give it local color, distinctiveness, and personality
which ought to make it interesting to ourselves and valuable to
those who seek to know us through intrinsic evidence.

Wherever practicable the subjects are allowed also to speak for
themselves. "Biography is the only true history," says Carlyle. The
history of North Carolina has not yet been written, and never will
be, until each pioneer investigator confines himself to a short
period--say a decade. Then, eventually, perhaps, some genius for
generalization and condensation will arise and in a single life-time
combine the whole into one work. Meanwhile this generation may bind
up and preserve the material.

There is not sufficient political homogeneity among North
Carolinians at this time to enable us to endorse with unanimity the
true theory of our history for the past seventy years--especially in
our relation to the General Government.

This generation, too, is inundated with cheap and often insidiously
false sectional literature from the North.

Such literature is gradually glozing over and reconciling our people
to the sinister changes which are being subtly wrought in American
institutions.

The innovators can now persuade the misinformed and careless that
just criticism of themselves and their cupidity, and just defense
of the principles and motives which actuated us in the late war
between the States, is rank treason against the United States
Government.

To publish what our sages and warriors have taught and fought for
rises, therefore, to the dignity of a duty, as tending to correct
erroneous impressions common among us and still more common among
others, and as giving a particular account rendered by many
witnesses, of men and times to be remembered by posterity, rightly
or wrongly, forever.

This introduction is intended to present also a bird's-eye view of
the field in which were cast the lives and labors of the subjects
of this book. Incidentally, too, I indicate a theory of Southern
history which, if not obvious enough upon its bare statement, or
from the facts here briefly set forth, will one day be demonstrated
to the satisfaction of the seeker after truth. It involves an
analysis of the character, influence, and interests of the North
acting on the South.

The inoculation of New England semi-foreign views of the Federal
Constitution (for half New England is foreign born) goes on apace.
With conceit, born of provincialism, these people have magnified
their Mayflower scrap of local history into national importance;
they have dinned it with such Codrus-like persistency into our ears
that the average North Carolinian knows their story better than he
does that of the settlement of Roanoke Island. We read their books,
papers, and periodicals, though many reflect upon us, and nearly all
are unfair to us; but they do not read ours. It would be a surprise
to the publishers if one hundred copies of this book should be sold
north of Mason and Dixon's line--a line which still exists against
our literature, our ideas, and our construction of fundamental law.
Most probably not one of their monthlies would publish what I am now
writing.

The most un-American section of the Union is New England. Bounded on
the west and north by British Canada and on the east by the Atlantic
ocean (which may be said now to belong also to Great Britain), it
is the hotbed of British ideas of government and society; and, in
the event of a third war with the "mother country" (as it still
affectionately terms the nation whose government has always been the
enemy of our liberty, growth, and progress) it may be a hotbed for a
hundred times more traitors than it had in the War of 1812. Like our
great cities, this section is a danger-spot in the Union.

Many of its political and social leaders vie with those of New
York in rushing over to England and Germany to get the foreign
construction of our Federal Constitution, and foreign consent to
proposed financial legislation by Congress, and foreign sanction of
the orders, social preferences and privileges, and marriages of our
"corner"-made aristocracy.

These leaders, too, are less and less the owners of the wealth they
handle, and are becoming more and more the mere agents of English
capitalists and the dupes and tools of foreign marriage-brokers.
About three thousand million dollars of British capital is said
to be invested in a section of the Union. This copartnership of
foreign and domestic wealth gives to Great Britain a voice in our
government--a representation in Congress from whole groups of
States. How many Northeastern Senators and Representatives have
differed in late years from British views of what our financial
policy should be? Foreign and domestic monopolists and bondholders
have the same interests, the same social sympathies and affinities,
a common cause, the same victims and enemies, the same want of
confidence in popular government; therefore, what doth hinder them
from forming a treasonable alliance, offensive and defensive,
against the people? They have already formed it: the money-kings
in all nations, in control of all kings and governments, have an
understanding with one another, and, by concentration, they can
easily crush any movement, for amelioration, among the people of any
one nation at a time. There is a brotherhood, too, of incorporated
rate, fare, and tax collectors as well as of bondholders. United
they stand.

The Hamiltonian theory of government has been in adoption, and the
Hamiltonian school of politicians has been in control of the Union
for nearly forty years, and they may now be judged by their fruits:
they have given us a more corruptly administered government than
that our fathers rebelled against in 1775; and they are fulfilling
with startling fidelity and rapidity all the prophecies which Henry,
Jefferson, Macon, and Randolph made about them.

It is a knowledge of these things which has organized a great
rebellion in the United States, especially among those who live
outside the great cities and homes of monopoly--a rebellion
which has begun to control political parties, and which, in the
last general election, mustered nearly six and a half million
voters--voters who were hurled, for once, against the great
international brotherhood of plunderers by legislation. Some,
however, who were in it are not of it; these, when they comprehend
it, will become offended and walk no more with it. A new declaration
of independence is being formulated to voice its spirit, and it
awaits its Jefferson, if, indeed, as some believe, he has not
already come in the person of Bryan, a Western man descended from
Southern ancestors, and seeming to have at heart the interests of
all sections.

It is a significant fact, in this connection, that from two-thirds
to three-fourths of the foreign voters in the Union marched
under the allied leadership of foreign and domestic monopoly and
ill-gotten wealth. Two-thirds, at least, of the native-born white
voters were in this great rebellion, and the life and soul of it.
The negro voted almost solidly with the foreigners and with his new
masters, for he will have masters of some kind yet for many years.
I note the status and attitude of the negro seriously (and let him
that readeth understand), for if this ever-deepening conflict comes
to bullets, those who now tell the old Federal soldier to vote as
he shot, will tell the negro to shoot as he voted; and he will
so shoot. The negro vote, under the easy control of a sectional
faction of political manipulators, is as dangerous a menace to our
institutions as our foreign population indoctrinated with European
medievalism--kingcraft and priestcraft.

Much, if not most, of our foreign immigration now comes from cities,
and pours itself into the already corrupted life of our own great
cities. ("Syrian Orontes pours its filth into The Tiber."--_Juv._)
It does not buy land, it sells votes; it specifically performs the
political contracts of its priests; it buys and sells political
jobs; it officers ward politics. It is one of the arms--and the
negro is the other--by which greed and monopoly, the twin devils
which dance attendance upon national decline, are consolidating our
government.

No great city has ever been fit for self-government and civil
liberty. From Babylon to Nineveh, from Nineveh to Carthage, from
Carthage to Rome, from Rome to Venice, and from Venice to New
York and Chicago (neither of which can elect an honest board of
aldermen), it is the same old story of avarice which finally
overreaches itself. This is the sin which, when finished, brings
forth the death of nations.

In vain did Virgil and Horace sing their deathless melodies of
country homes to a people whose blood was already poisoned with the
lust for gain and fevered with the excitement of artificial life.

The South, the rural South, in spite of many shortcomings, is the
great conservator of our institutions. It is the distinctively
American section of the Union, jealous of all foreign domination or
interference, and stands firm in the patriot's faith that we as a
nation can work out our own salvation without the aid of European
capital or distinctively European ideas of finance, government or
society.

Though contaminated by modern machine politics, and much hampered by
the race question, the South still clings to local self-government
and to the dignity of Statehood as the only sure foundation for
civil liberty and perpetual Union. Long taxed unfairly, by the
subtle operation of the Federal tariff and internal revenue and
currency laws, out of money which has long enriched another section,
in the shape of pensions, internal improvements, and "protection
to home industries," the South is still the section most loyal to
constitutional government, having infinitely more genuine affection
for it than the pension-pampered patriotism of such as make
merchandise out of "saving the Union."

These considerations are sufficient to inspire in us an effort to
write our own histories, expound to our children the principles of
fundamental law, and teach them the safeguards of our institutions.
The collection and arrangement of the following sketches, with a few
crude suggestions of my own, is what I have contributed towards this
end.

Except in so far as "history is philosophy teaching by examples,"
I take little pleasure in it, and should be at no pains to
preserve or popularize it. But seeing, as I think I see, the
drift and tendencies of these times, and believing that a correct
and widespread understanding of the lessons of recent events is
the first postulate in determining the remedy for existing and
prospective evils, I take an abiding interest in every earnest
endeavor to marshal the facts and discover the theories which will
explain them--for facts without theories are dead. The field of
investigation is white unto harvest, but the laborers for love are
few--the hirelings are many.

In order to illustrate the necessity of our reading and writing our
own histories, I will undertake to show the main cause of the war
between the States, indicating as I go along some of the errors
called history, which are circulated and taught to the prejudice of
the South.

Northern historians make the negro and the interest of their people
in his welfare the underlying cause of the agitation which resulted
in the war between the States. Some of them would have us believe
that the Federal soldiers, a generation ago, fired with the love
of liberty and humanity, came South on a great missionary tour to
strike the fetters from the limbs of four million slaves. About
fifty per cent. of these missionaries were foreigners, or foreign
born, having but crude ideas of the nature of our government; many
thousands of them could not even speak our language; some were
Hessians, imported from foreign tyrannies expressly for the purpose
of war. Many tens of thousands came for money, and hundreds of
thousands were compelled to come by law. Not ten per cent. came to
free the negro. Those acquainted with the esteem in which he is held
at the North have never been deceived by this _missionary_ theory
of his emancipation. Listen to the words of De Tocqueville, written
about 1835. This Frenchman certainly cannot be accused of having
been biased against the Northern States. He says: "Whosoever has
inhabited the United States must have perceived, that in those parts
of the Union in which the negroes are no longer slaves, they have in
nowise drawn nearer to the whites. On the contrary, the prejudice of
the race appears to be stronger in the States which have abolished
slavery than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so
intolerant as in those States where servitude has never been known.
* * * *

"The electoral franchise has been conferred upon the negroes in
almost all the States in which slavery has been abolished; but, if
they come forward to vote, their lives are in danger. If oppressed,
they may bring an action at law, but they will find none but whites
amongst their judges; and, although they may legally serve as
jurors, prejudice repulses them from that office. The same schools
do not receive the child of the black and of the European. In the
theatres gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside
their former masters; in the hospitals they lie apart; and, although
they are allowed to invoke the same Divinity as the whites, it must
be at a different altar and in their own churches, with their own
clergy. The gates of Heaven are not closed against these unhappy
beings; but their inferiority is continued to the very confines of
the other world; when the negro is defunct his bones are cast aside,
and the distinction of condition prevails even in the equality of
death. The negro is free, but he can share neither the rights, nor
the pleasures, nor the labor, nor the afflictions, nor the tomb of
him whose equal he has been declared to be; and he cannot meet him
upon fair terms in life or in death."--_Democracy in America_, page
339.

The negro's freedom was accidental and merely incidental to the
main purpose of the war. When the alternative was secession or
war, the sentiment of the most rabid abolitionists was voiced by
Horace Greeley, who was willing that the "erring sisters depart in
peace." Many abolitionists were sincere, though fanatical, and they
had too often invoked the doctrine of secession, for the North, to
consistently object when the South invoked it. Abraham Lincoln (a
shrewd, practical Western countryman, put into his high office to
hold the agricultural West against the agricultural South) put the
war exclusively upon the ground of saving the Union. He would save
the Union, he said, whether it enslaved the negro or freed him. In
his inaugural address, March, 1861, he said: "I have no purpose,
directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery
in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right
to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Eight days before,
Sumner, the abolition leader, had said in Congress: "I take this
occasion to declare most explicitly that I do not think Congress has
any right to interfere with slavery in a State." Neither Lincoln nor
Sumner, if they are to be credited with any sincerity, had stumbled
upon the policy of freeing the negro; and, if they had, it would
have been very impolitic to have then disclosed it, for all the
border States would then have joined the South.

The negro was freed as a means to an end. The emancipation
proclamation was a "war measure," and, as such, a master-stroke,
for it took two hundred and fifty thousand laborers out of the
South and put muskets into the hands of nearly two hundred thousand
colored troops. This was the difference between success and failure,
and was the turning point in the war, as was admitted by Lincoln
in his message to Congress, in which he said: * * * * "and for a
long time it had been hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed
without resorting to it [the policy of emancipation] as a military
measure." The negro incidentally caused the defeat of the South; and
he was also incidentally a cause of the war, but not the causing
cause--_that lies deeper, and must be rightly understood at the
peril of the nation_.

The war was about taxation--the usual cause of revolution. A century
ago it was taxation without representation; a generation ago it
was unequal, discriminating, sectional, and class taxation. Out
of this still grows the political strife whose quadrennial flood
rises higher and higher at each election: income taxes successfully
resisted by the rich; rate, fare, and tariff taxes unsuccessfully
resisted by the poor--these are the fruitful causes of war--fought
with ballots first, and finally, if no remedy can be found, with
bullets.

The truth must be told even if it diminishes the glory of those
who "saved the Union"--and made money by it. The blood of the last
generation was not shed in vain, if we, with the advantages we
enjoy, learn and teach the lessons which all posterity will demand
of us--both for the sake of those who perished and of those who may
perish if we suffer them to believe a lie. Forewarned is forearmed.

Under our Federal revenue laws, those who have produced the export
crops (in quantities sufficient to invite the exploits of political
manufacturing and trade combinations) have long paid far more than
their share of the expenses of government. They were not allowed
to buy in the open market, where they sold their crops, but in the
restricted "home market," at prices not fixed by open competition.
But the said combinations bought these crops in a free market and
sold their own products in a protected market. So they got more
benefit than the government: first, in being relieved from Federal
taxes, which the producers of the export crops paid; second, in
incidental, then in avowed, protection; third, in the system of
internal improvements which they were obliged to invent to dispose
of the surplus revenues raised as an incident to giving them
"protection"; and these "improvements" usually improved one section
and impoverished the other.

So, early in the game, we find one _class_, the political
combinations of manufacturers, growing rich, and another class,
the ill-combined agriculturalists, growing correspondingly poor.
Prior to 1860, even more than now, relatively, cotton was the great
export crop of America, and was also the principal money crop of a
section; so the tax suffered on account of it was sectional. Being
also manufactured in a section, the benefits enjoyed on account
of it were sectional. So we have the _sections_, as well as the
classes, antagonistic, and made so by the operation of a Federal
revenue law--one section growing richer and the other growing
correspondingly poorer in the sight of all men.

Political parties aligned according to "geographical
discriminations" (against which Washington warned but did not
provide), arose and cursed each other, from 1816--the date of the
first distinctively protective tariff (which, as increased in 1828
and 1830, provoked South Carolina's first acts of secession)--to
1861, the date of the Morrill tariff, with sixty per cent.
protection in it, which, passed March 2d, and flaunted in the
face of the seven already seceded States, rendered reconciliation
impossible. The Confederate Constitution declaring in its very
first article against even incidental protection, conveyed no hint
to the wilfully blind revenue-hunters that the most oppressed of
the agricultural States had formed their combination to resist the
plunder of Federal tariff, as well as other sectional aggressions.

Lincoln's policy of reenforcing Federal forts in the South (the
immediate cause of the war) was bottomed on a purpose to collect
this odious tax (the tariff of 1861), a policy which Alexander
H. Stephens says was not determined upon until the "seven war
Governors" (from the seven most protected States) offered to
furnish the troops requisite to subdue the States then seceded. The
border States had decided for the Union before Lincoln's acts of
aggression; and he, therefore, though erroneously, supposed that
they all would either aid him or remain neutral until he could
"strengthen the Government" by the conquest of the cotton States.

By means of the tariff the cotton crop had been made the scapegoat
upon which, in relief of wealth and monopoly, was piled the huge
iniquity of Federal taxes; but more than that, and worse than that,
the tariff was the engine by which the political combination of
spinners and shippers forced down the price of that crop.

As far back as 1791, Hamilton and those in charge of the revenue
department of the General Government (a certain school of
politicians has always had a Judas-like fondness for carrying the
bag), finding the express powers under the Constitution too weak
for the purposes of exploit, began to lay the foundation for a new
government by implied powers under court construction; by means
of which they and "their successors in office" have slowly but
steadily amended the Constitution, consolidated our Federation, and
undermined the rights of the States. While they were experimenting
to discover which States it was most advantageous to form into a
copartnership with the General Government, they invented an unequal
and discriminating tax on carriages, which fell heaviest on New
Jersey, where they were principally manufactured. Seeing the burden
of half a dozen States fall on one, North Carolina and some others
denounced it as infamous and unconstitutional.

After a few more such experiments, in which it was learned
effectually that the purely agricultural States could not be
seduced into taking advantage of their sisters, the manipulators
of the Treasury induced the General Government to coquet with the
States which were more or less under the control of the political
combinations of merchants, manufacturers, bankers, and speculators;
and with more success.

A copartnership was perfected between the General Government
and the protected States by the tariff of 1816; and the mutual
considerations passed were first named "incidental benefit" for one
party to the contract and "liberal construction" of implied powers
for the other. Angry protests and sectional incriminations and
recriminations followed, and awakened Jefferson, like "an alarm-bell
at night," out of the sleep of old age. The "peculiar institution"
of one section gave the other a terrible advantage, which it was
quick to see and to seize; and it was used remorselessly. Greed,
suddenly joining philanthropy, religion, and fanaticism, organized
and led a crusade against _African_ slavery. The agitation about
the negro, as a counter-irritant to distract attention from the
injustice of Federal revenue laws, was more than a success: for
the shallow politicians of both sections forgot the real issue;
but the beneficiaries never lost sight of it. I will use a homely
illustration: A and B are doing business on opposite sides of a
street; B begins to undersell A; A becomes angry, but cannot afford
to tell his customers the cause; he hears that B once cheated a
negro out of a mule; he makes that charge; they fight; the court
record of the trial shows that the fight was about the negro and the
mule; but there is not a business man on the street who does not
know that the record speaks a lie.

The first speech in this book opens with old Nat. Macon lecturing
(in 1820) a Representative from Pennsylvania, the most protected
State, for expressing a desire to see the Union dissolved rather
than that slavery should be extended beyond the Mississippi.

Slavery, itself, while for several generations usually beneficial
to the negro, was, doubtless, in many respects injurious to his
masters. It made us provincial, of necessity, sensitive and
intolerant of criticism, easily susceptible of misrepresentation,
and cut us off from the sympathy of some who else had been our
friends. It cramped thought, invention, progress, poetry, and
literature. It enabled monopoly to divide and conquer the tillers
of the soil. It tended to create caste and it _degraded manual
labor_--as necessary as death after sin and decreed in the same
Divine judgment. Skilled manual labor gutted the Confederacy by
driving war-ships up its rivers: and the felt want of it, in late
years, has established a great industrial institution at our State
capital, the mother of many others, and destined to revolutionize
education among us.

"Protection" and discrimination in the operation of the Federal
revenue laws, though still potent for evil, will probably never
again be the principal, causing cause of another revolution
unto blood; because from three to ten per cent. of our Southern
population will henceforward be directly benefited by such laws, and
their interests will soften the sectional aspect of the tax. But the
unequal and sectional operation of the currency laws, alienating the
West as well as the South; the heaping up of nearly all the wealth
of the country into one section, and most of it in a few great
cities of that section; the plunder of agriculture by legislation
and by the unchecked conspiracy of capital; the monopoly of the
carrying trade by the wealth of the cities; the growing distrust
between the urban and rural populations; the sullen and fickle
temper of our foreign elements--the nucleus, perhaps, of a future
Prætorian Guard; the mutterings against the now "vested right" of
protected labor to be fed or assisted by the government--and capital
hides behind such labor; machine politics and party spirit; the
prostitution of the electoral system by the national nominating mob
system, which treats sovereign States as the provinces of a party;
the fine Italian hand of a certain religio-political corporation
in getting offices and holding the balance of power between the
factions contending for public plunder; the growing intimacy of
sectional wealth with foreign governments and aristocracies--these
are the dangers which together threaten a perpetual Union of the
States and the liberties of the people.

Before 1860, Macaulay prophesied that our government would go to
pieces over a presidential election. In the face of these dangers,
it is well for us to consider and carefully teach our children the
causes which have worked our injury in the past, in order that we
and they may be the better able to recognize and grapple them when
they reappear, under changed names or in the shape of new laws.

But a tariff tax as a causing cause of the late war shall not
rest upon the foregoing testimony alone. "Let the South go,"
exclaimed Abraham Lincoln, in 1861, "where then shall we get our
revenues?" This man was noted for hitting the bull's-eye, and Divine
Inspiration had forestalled him with the prophecy that the love of
revenue was the root of all evil.

Thomas H. Benton is a witness who will be heard. In a speech in the
Senate, in 1828, he shows how the tariff (which, except for about
twelve years, had been mainly levied for revenue) had plundered the
South. He said: "I feel for the sad changes which have taken place
in the South during the last fifty years. Before the Revolution it
was the seat of wealth as well as hospitality. Money, and all it
commanded, abounded there. But how is it now? All this is reversed.
Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in the regions north
of the Potomac; and this in the face of the fact that the South,
in four staples alone, has exported produce since the Revolution
to the value of eight hundred millions of dollars; and the North
has exported comparatively nothing. Such an export would indicate
unparalleled wealth, but what is the fact? In the place of wealth
a universal pressure for money is felt--not enough for current
expenses--the price of property all down--the country drooping and
languishing--towns and cities decaying--and the frugal habits of
the people pushed to the verge of universal self-denial for the
preservation of their family estates. Such a result is a strange and
wonderful phenomenon. It calls upon statesmen to inquire into the
cause.

"Under Federal legislation the exports of the South have been the
basis of the Federal revenue. * * * * Virginia, the two Carolinas,
and Georgia may be said to defray three-fourths of the annual
expense of supporting the Federal Government; and of this great
sum, annually furnished by them, nothing, or next to nothing, is
returned to them in the shape of government expenditure. That
expenditure flows in an opposite direction--it flows northwardly,
in one uniform, uninterrupted, and perennial stream. This is the
reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the
North. Federal legislation does all this. It does it by the simple
process of eternally taking from the South and returning nothing to
it. If it returned to the South the whole or even a good part of
what it exacted the four States south of the Potomac might stand the
action of the system, but the South must be exhausted of its money
and its property by a course of legislation which is forever taking
away and never returning anything. Every new tariff increases the
force of this action. No tariff has ever yet included Virginia, the
two Carolinas, and Georgia, except to increase the burdens imposed
by them."--Benton's _Thirty Years View_, Vol. I, p. 98, quoted by
Raphael Semmes in his _Memoirs of Service Afloat_.

In 1860 we find the South still furnished many millions more than
two-thirds of the export crops, besides fifty millions to the North.
In Colonial and Revolutionary times the South was the richest
section, and so acknowledged to be in the Constitutional Convention
of 1787.

No wonder that the South always insisted that the Federation was
a limited partnership; and no wonder that her rapacious partners
insisted on a government of unlimited powers, when they employed
such powers for unequal taxation, sectional expenditures, and
unlimited "protection." Those who have clamored most persistently
for a "strong government" have never scrupled to sap its strength
for purposes of private emolument. Those who have panted most for
a consolidated republic have now fully disclosed their purpose of
sequestering its assets. They have not consolidated the patriotism
of the republic, but they have drawn a line of division from the
Atlantic to the Great Lakes--a division of interests, division
of sentiment, division of population, division of history, and
a division of churches. Who can measure the hypocrisy of those
writers and politicians who teach the people that the way to make
the government strong is to give to one section "implied powers"
to plunder the other? Having gotten their wealth by the craft of
booming nationalism and centralization, they now perceive that in
order to keep it they must hold themselves ready to "hedge" with the
doctrine of States' rights and reserved powers. So, while college
professors are confusing the mind of youth about "the two opposing
theories of government," the facts of opposing interests are jarring
the foundations of society and wrenching the fetters which bind the
States in a "more perfect Union."

Robert Toombs said, in a speech before the Georgia Legislature, in
November, 1860: "The instant the Government was organized, at the
very first Congress, the Northern States evinced a general desire
and purpose to use it for their own benefit, and to pervert its
powers for sectional advantage, and they have steadily pursued that
policy to this day. They demanded a monopoly of the business of
ship-building, and got a prohibition against the sale of foreign
ships to citizens of the United States, which exists to this day.
They demanded a monopoly of the coasting trade, in order to get
higher freights than they could get in open competition with the
carriers of the world. Congress gave it to them, and they yet hold
this monopoly. * * * These same shipping interests, with cormorant
rapacity, have steadily burrowed their way through your legislative
halls, until they have saddled the agricultural classes with a large
portion of the legitimate expenses of their own business. We pay a
million dollars per annum for the lights which guide them in and
out of your ports. We have built, and keep up, at the cost of at
least another million a year, hospitals for their sick and disabled
seamen, when they wear them out and cast them ashore. We pay half a
million to support and bring home those they cast away in foreign
lands. They demand, and have received, millions of the public
money to increase the safety of harbors and lessen the danger of
navigating our rivers; all of which expenses legitimately fall upon
their business, and should come out of their own pockets, instead of
a common treasury.

"Even the fishermen of Massachusetts and New England demand and
receive from the public treasury about half a million dollars per
annum as a pure bounty in their business of catching codfish. The
North, at the very first Congress, demanded and received bounties,
under the name of protection, for every trade, craft and calling
which its people pursue, and there is not an artisan in brass,
or iron, or wood, or weaver or spinner in wool or cotton, or
calico-maker, or iron-master, or a coal-owner, in all the Northern
or Middle States, who has not received what he calls the protection
of his government on his industry to the extent of from fifteen to
two hundred per cent. from the year 1791 to this day. They will
not strike a blow or stretch a muscle without bounties from the
government. No wonder they cry aloud for the glorious Union. They
have the same reason for praising it that the craftsmen of Ephesus
had for shouting 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians!' By it they get
their wealth, by it they levy tribute on honest labor."

The future historian will devote a long chapter to show how the
slavery agitation "ebbed and flowed with the sinking and the
swelling" in the voices of protest from the much-plundered South;
voices which were keyed to the pitch of secession and revolution
against the tariff of 1828, and which again, in 1861, shouted in
warlike defiance until they were hushed in blood. That chapter will
point also in shame to the dark record which shows that on March 2,
1861, after seven States had seceded and their Representatives in
Congress had withdrawn, and while four other States were preparing
to secede if found necessary, greed thrust its "lewd snout" into the
purity of that chastening hour when many thousand patriots still
prayed that the awful catastrophe might be averted, and got by force
a tariff with sixty per cent. protection in it! Hear the effect of
that measure from the lips of a North Carolinian, General Clingman,
who was lingering in the Senate in the hope of reconciliation: "But,
Mr. President, there is another difficulty in the way, and we might
as well talk of this frankly. I know it is present to the minds of
Senators on the other side, and they must see the difficulty. The
honorable Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Simmons) particularly, who
engineered the tariff bill through, of course sees the difficulty.
* * * The revenues under that tariff bill cannot be collected
anywhere, I think, if the declarations which gentlemen make are to
be acted out. If they are to hold that all the Confederate States
are in the Union, and that you are to have no custom-houses, on the
line between them and the other States, what will be the result?
Goods will come into New Orleans, Charleston, Mobile, and other
places; they will come in paying a low tariff, and merchants from
Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Ohio, if they choose to go down
there and buy goods, will take them home and pay no duties. No man
from the Northwest will go to New York and pay a duty of fifty per
cent. on goods that he can get at a fifteen or twenty per cent.
duty at New Orleans. That will be the course of trade, of course.
Senators must see that you cannot have two tariffs, one high and
one low, in operation in the country at once, with any effect
produced by the high tariff. If you go to a man and say: 'You may
pay me a high price or a low price for an article,' you will never
get the high price. When, therefore, you attempt to carry out the
new tariff, which contains rates, I think, of fifty per cent., and
some of one hundred per cent., and some even above one hundred per
cent., you cannot collect those rates at Boston and New York and
Philadelphia, while the men who want to consume the goods can get
them by paying a duty of one-third as much. That is impossible. I
presume the Senator from Rhode Island, and those who acted with him,
did not intend the tariff, which has lately passed, to be a mere
farce, a mere thing on paper, not to be acted out. Of course they
mean to get duties under it some way or other. If you do not mean to
have your line of custom-houses along the border of the Confederate
States you must expect to stop importations there."--_Speeches
and Writings of T. L. Clingman_, pp. 61, 62: extract from speech
delivered in United States Senate, March 19, 1861.

Yes, and it was the armed attempt to "stop importations there" that
brought on the war!

Why it was that the bombardment, on April 12, 1861, of a Federal
_fort_ about to be reenforced "fired the Northern heart" more
than the bombardment, on January 9, 1861, of a Federal _war-ship_
attempting to carry reinforcements to that fort, the Northern
historians, like the Pharisees, "cannot tell." And they never tell
that between the two bombardments sectional monopoly had brooded,
and on March 2d hatched a cockatrice egg of sectional advantage;
that its beneficiaries had had opportunity to touch noses with the
"seven war Governors" and that the inspiration of such a touch
accounts for the zeal with which they urged the President to war,
when twenty-one States were trying to effect peace; that between the
15th and the 28th of March these Governors had a secret conference
with the President in Washington, in which they pledged their States
to support him in "collecting the revenues of the Government"; and
that, thus assured, he had, to the astonishment of the South and
most of his own constituents, suddenly sent the invading expedition
to reenforce Fort Sumter! Did this same influence persuade Lincoln
to refuse to allow the Supreme Court or even Congress to pass upon
the much-mooted constitutional question of the right to secede?
Of course it was familiar learning to him that all the States,
especially the Northeastern, had from time to time asserted, acted
on, or acquiesced in this right. Did the tariff Governors induce
this man, reputed to be tender-hearted, to decide, on his own
responsibility, a question of law which forced the issue of blood at
a cost of a million lives, and a sinister change in the character
and conduct of our government? Did they seduce him into fitting
out an armament to collect the revenues at Charleston, and, at
the same time, leave open for construction and equivocation his
doubtful and inconsistent expressions about enforcing the Federal
laws and Supreme Court decisions giving protection to Southern
property in slaves? Why was it that, in this awful crisis, he
refused to call Congress together until he had precipitated war by
his invasion and his call for volunteers, unless it was because his
extra-constitutional advisers feared to trust a body which passed
a conciliatory resolution even after battles had been fought and
blood had been shed? Why was it that by the very terms of his war
proclamation he put off the assembling of Congress for two months
and nineteen days after he had declared war, unless it was because
he was willing to forestall its action, and preferred to rely on
the conspiring war Governors and their protected constituents to
sustain him, rather than on his constitutional advisers and the
Representatives of the people? Monopoly could not then trust the
Supreme Court, for the Dred Scott decision showed that it might
again adhere to the original view of the Constitution; and its best
members were zealous to effect compromise and peace. That Lincoln
and his Cabinet were against the policy of coercion, until somebody
influenced them, has been confessed by at least one of its members.

A valuable side-light on the mainsprings of Lincoln's policy is
furnished by Dr. R. L. Dabney. He says that while Virginia, through
her convention, sitting in April, 1861, was making a last effort
to save the Union, Seward sent a confidential messenger, Allen B.
McGruder, to Richmond, to urge that a representative be sent to
Washington in all haste. McGruder stated that he was authorized
by Seward to say that Fort Sumter would be evacuated on Friday of
the ensuing week and that the _Pawnee_ would sail on the following
Monday for Charleston to effect the evacuation. Colonel Baldwin,
an original Union man, was fixed upon as the best representative
of the peace sentiment. "He and McGruder," continues Dabney, "set
out on the night following and arrived in Washington early the next
morning. Immediately after breakfast they drove to Mr. Seward's,
when the latter took charge of Mr. Baldwin, and the two went
directly to the White House, where they arrived about nine o'clock.
They found Mr. Lincoln engaged, but, upon Mr. Seward's whispering
in his ear, he excused himself and conducted Mr. Seward and Colonel
Baldwin into a sleeping apartment and locked the door.

"After the usual formalities, Colonel Baldwin presented his
credentials. After Lincoln had read the credentials, Colonel Baldwin
proceeded to state to him what was the opinion of the great body
of Virginians, both in the convention and out of it. This opinion
was as follows, to wit: 'That although opposed to a Presidential
election upon a sectional free-soil platform, which they deplored
as most dangerous and unwise, Virginia did not approve of making
that, evil as it was, a _casus belli_, or a ground for disrupting
the Union. That much as Virginia disapproved of it, if Mr. Lincoln
would only adhere faithfully to the Constitution and the laws,
she would support him just as faithfully as though he was the man
of her choice, and would wield her whole moral force to keep the
border States in the Union, and to bring back the seven seceded
States; but that, while much difference of opinion existed on the
question whether the right of secession was a constitutional one,
all Virginians were unanimous in believing that no right existed in
the Federal Government to coerce a state by force of arms.' To this
Mr. Lincoln replied: 'You are too late, sir; _too late_!' Colonel
Baldwin understood this as a clear intimation that the policy of
coercion had just been determined upon, and, as he discovered,
"_within four days_." Impressed with the deep solemnity of the
occasion, Colonel Baldwin made a final appeal, asking, among other
things, that all questions at issue should be left for adjudication
by the constitutional tribunals. Lincoln asked a few questions, the
last of which was, "What will become of my tariff?" He put this
question with such force of emphasis as clearly indicated that this
consideration should decide the whole matter.

The peace ambassadors sent to Washington by the Virginia convention
immediately upon Baldwin's return found the same difficulty. "They
saw Mr. Lincoln. The tariff was still the burden of his complaint.
They left the next day; and the same train which carried them to
Virginia carried Lincoln's proclamation also for the seventy-five
thousand troops." See _North Carolina in the War Between the
States_, by Sloan, pp. 27, 28, 29, 30, quoting R. L. Dabney, in the
_Southern Historical Papers_.

There was a subtle influence at Washington strong enough to veer
Lincoln round from Seward, whose constituents dreaded war, to Thad.
Stevens, who represented in Congress the Pennsylvania iron interest,
and, in his character and person, the worst element of the worst
politics that America ever saw.

Lincoln had no warrant in the Constitution for calling out the
militia against the seceded States. "The Congress shall have power
to declare war" (Article I, section 8, clause 11); and "The Congress
shall have power to raise and support armies" (Article I, section 8,
clause 12); and if, in violation of standard definition and contrary
to the fact, it be said that what he inaugurated was not war, but
was only an armed effort to put down insurrection, the Constitution,
Article I, section 8, clause 15, replies: "The Congress shall have
power to provide for the calling out of the militia to execute the
laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions." So
the only warrant the President had was an old act of Congress,
passed February 28, 1795, shortly after the Whiskey Insurrection.
This act provided: "That whenever the laws of the United States
shall be opposed in any State by combinations too powerful to be
suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or the
power vested in the marshals by this act, it shall be lawful for
the President of the United States to call forth the militia of
such State or of any other State or States, as may be necessary to
suppress such combinations and cause the laws to be duly executed."
No pretense of authority was given when a State or a combination
of States opposed the United States. His construction forestalled
Congress and robbed it of its exclusive right and power to "declare
war," and made him the sole arbiter to dictate the nation's weal or
woe.

As a matter of fact, this law, thus misconstrued, was obsolete, and
so marked in the reprint of the United States Statutes at Large,
in 1845, authorized by Congress. Lincoln, then, "by and with the
advice and consent" of interested persons, utterly ignoring the
two coordinate branches of government, unearthed for the purpose
of inaugurating a most frightful war an old statute, unused from
the time of its passage, and standing on the authoritative Revised
Statutes marked "obsolete" for sixteen years--so received by the
lawyers, and unchallenged by Congress or any member thereof.

It is no wonder that Congress, when it did assemble, in July, 1861,
and found war a fact accomplished and armies already threatening
Washington, should have made haste to validate the President's
high-handed measures and strengthen his precarious position by
an act of which section three is as follows: "That all the acts,
proclamations, and orders, of the President of the United States,
after the 4th of March, 1861, respecting the army and navy of the
United States, and the calling out, or relating to the militia or
volunteers from the States, are hereby approved and in all respects
legalized and made valid to the same intent and with the same
effect as if they had been issued and done under previous express
authority and direction of the Congress of the United States." The
marginal note of the printed laws points this act specially to the
proclamation of April 15, 1861, calling out the militia.

In suppressing the Whiskey Insurrection Washington acted under
the "previous express authority of Congress," then lately given,
"cautiously in his delicate duty," while Hamilton "was pressing for
the collection of the revenue," says history. The act under which
the militia was then called out, passed in 1792, required a Federal
judge to certify the fact of the insurrection, and Washington
took care to arm himself with the certificate of a Supreme Court
Justice. The act under which _Lincoln_ proceeded, an epitome of the
former, shows on its face that it was also, when in force, in aid
exclusively of court proceedings, and operative only when a Federal
judge should call upon the President to assist the United States
Marshals, who were purely court officers. Any other construction
gives the President "the power to suppress insurrections," and the
"power to declare war"; and, when war is declared the Constitution
places him in command of the army and militia: so nothing would be
left for Congress but to vote supplies and validate his acts, as it
did Lincoln's usurpations!

Though the militia had often been needed, and sometimes called out
for troubles, domestic and foreign, no President of the United
States, until Lincoln, had ever issued such a call unless expressly
authorized by Congress, in special acts of limited duration, which
have usually specified the number of troops wanted and the term
of service required. It is no wonder then that an act, treated as
a dead letter since the suppression of the Whiskey Insurrection,
should have been marked "obsolete" by the government publisher, with
the sanction of Congress.

Unless Madison's refusal to recommend a policy of coercion against
the New England States, successfully resisting the drafts for
the defense of the nation in the War of 1812, be regarded as a
precedent, Lincoln had but one, directly in point, and that was
furnished by President Jackson in the case of South Carolina's
nullification of Federal law in 1832. Jackson's zeal for the Union
could not be doubted; and, in spite of his military training and
arbitrary temper, he found a remedy which saved the Union without
bloodshed.

On December 10, 1832, after South Carolina had nullified the tariff
act, proceeded to provide a separate government, notified the
President, and begun to arm and organize its militia for defense,
Jackson issued a proclamation in which he besought, and threatened,
and promised. Failing by such means to induce the tariff-plundered
planters of the plucky little State to recede from their position,
on the assembling of Congress he recommended the removal of the
cause of the trouble, expressing his belief that such action would
shortly put an end to resistance. Nullification still continuing,
Jackson (a month later) wrote his famous message, in which he called
attention to the magnitude of the opposition, and recommended to
Congress to provide by law: "That in case of an attempt otherwise
[than by process from the ordinary judicial tribunals of the
United States] to take property [from the custody of the law] by
a force too great to be overcome by the officers of the customs,
it should be lawful to protect the possessions of the officers
by the employment of the land and naval forces and militia under
provisions similar to those authorized by the eleventh section of
the Act of January 9, 1809." After recommending the revival of
other expired acts to facilitate and protect the collection of the
revenues and execution of Federal law, he said further: "Provisions
less than these--consisting, as they do, for the most part, rather
of a revival of the policy of former acts called for by the [then]
existing emergency, than of the introduction of any unusual or
rigorous enactments--would not cause the laws of the Union to be
properly respected or enforced. It is believed that these would
prove adequate unless the military forces of the State of South
Carolina, authorized by the late act of the Legislature, should
be actually embodied and called out in aid of their proceedings,
and of the provisions of the ordinance generally. Even in that
case, however, it is believed that no more will be necessary than
a few modifications of its terms to adapt the Act of 1795 to the
present emergency, as by that act the provisions of the Act of 1792
were accommodated to the crisis then existing; and, by conferring
authority upon the President, to give it operation during the
session of Congress, and without the ceremony of a proclamation,
whenever it shall be officially made known to him by the authority
of any State, or by the courts of the United States, that, within
the limits of such State, the laws of the United States will
be openly opposed and their execution obstructed by the actual
employment of military force, or by any unlawful means, whatever,
too great to be otherwise overcome."

Pursuant to these recommendations, Congress passed, March 2, 1833,
the "force bill," or "bloody bill," as it was called; and the
section which made it infamous in the unprotected States was as
follows: "Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, that whenever the
President of the United States shall be officially informed by the
authorities of any State, or by a judge of any Circuit or District
Court of the United States in the State, that within the limits of
such State any law or laws of the United States, or the execution
thereof, or of any process from the courts of the United States is
obstructed by the employment of military force, or by any other
unlawful means too great to be overcome by the ordinary course
of judicial proceedings or by the power vested in the marshals
by existing laws, it shall be lawful for him, the President of
the United States, forthwith to issue his proclamation declaring
such fact or information, and requiring all such military or other
force forthwith to disperse; and if, at any time after issuing such
proclamation, any such opposition or obstruction shall be made in
the manner or by the means aforesaid, the President shall be and
hereby is authorized promptly to employ such means to suppress the
same, and to cause said laws or process to be duly executed, as are
authorized and provided in the cases therein mentioned by the Act
of the 28th of February, 1795, entitled: 'An act to provide for
calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress
insurrections, repel invasions, and repeal the act now in force
for that purpose'; and also, by the Act of the 3d of March, 1807,
entitled: 'An act authorizing the employment of the land and naval
forces of the United States in cases of insurrection.'" Section 1 of
the force bill authorized the President to call out the army, navy,
and militia to aid in collecting the _customs_--a power which the
Act of 1795 could not be construed to give. It was also provided in
the act that the operation of said sections 5 and 1 should "continue
until the next session of Congress, and no longer." Thus careful was
Congress to limit the duration of the great powers delegated to the
President, as it had usually done in other instances in which it
had authorized the employment of military force. The Act of March
3, 1807, referred to in the force bill, simply gave the President
authority to use the land and naval forces of the United States to
assist in the execution of the laws whenever it should be lawful for
him to call out the militia for the same purpose. The Act of 1795,
referred to by Jackson, which he did not pretend he had a right
to use against the nullifiers of the tariff act, unless it should
be revived by Congress, and which he proposed should be revived,
modified, and adapted to meet the emergency confronting him, in
the same way Congress had formerly adapted and modified the Act of
1792 by the Act of 1795, to meet the emergency of the latter year,
was the very act Lincoln used to cover his assumption of power to
make war on the South without the authority of Congress! He had
this precedent before him, in which the warrior Jackson, swift in
defense of the nation's honor against her foreign foes, was slow
to dye his hands in his brothers' blood. He had before him the act
in which Congress had revived the provisions of the Act of 1795,
and expressly limited the duration of that revival to the time
intervening before its next session; and he was lawyer enough to
know, though not learned in his profession, that the substantial
reenactment and enlargement of the old act, and its repeal, or
limitation to a definite period, was, after the expiration of that
period, a practical repeal of both--especially when it may be seen
that the one was to take the place the other took in its day. See
_Tynen_ vs. _The United States_, 11 Wallace U. S. Reports, page 88;
_Pana_ vs. _Bowles_, 107 U. S. Reports, page 529, and cases cited
therein; _Norris_ vs. _Crocker_, 13 Howard, page 429.

Jackson, in spite of his camp association and military methods, was
the embodiment of caution and conservatism, when compared to Lincoln
and his "kitchen cabinet" of revenue-hunting Governors, who were
as swift to declare war against their own people, under a forced
construction of an old, unused, obsolete, special act, as those who
now speculate in their names and fame are eager to seek treaties of
partnership with our hereditary foreign foe.

They shall never, unchallenged, teach our children that Abraham
Lincoln's usurpations were lawful, justified by necessity, or
commended by God; lest "necessity, the plea of tyrants," or "divine
right," the plea of kings and priests, or "implied powers," the
plea of those who are powerful only to oppress the people and to
collect and spend their revenues, should constitute the excuse for
destroying the remaining safeguards of our liberties.

Those accustomed to analyze motive and conduct will note with
attention that the Act of August 6, 1861, intended to legalize
the call for troops, was passed after the "force bill" had been
reenacted and amplified by the Acts of July 13, 29, and 31,
1861--after the President had been expressly authorized by these
acts and another to accept the service of volunteers and to use the
army, navy, and militia to make war upon _States and combinations of
States_, as well as upon the inhabitants of districts therein--after
Congress had in these acts twice gone out of its way to refer to the
old Act of 1795 as still in force, and once expressly treated it
as giving the authority, which had been assumed, to begin the war;
and the legalizing act itself was covered under a caption which was
calculated to excite as little attention as possible. The caption
reads: "An act to increase the pay of privates in the regular army
and in the volunteers, and for other purposes."

The Act of 1795, when in force, gave the President no authority to
determine when a state of insurrection existed, even in a Federal
district; Congress proved that it realized this defect of power by
hastening (July 13 and 29, 1861) to supply it to Lincoln--in respect
to States as well as districts--a double confession of the weakness
of his position.

The Act of 1795 afforded no assistance to collect customs, for the
Whiskey Insurrectionists, against whom it was passed, resisted
only the internal revenue taxes; Congress practically acknowledged
this limitation, by Act of July 13, 1861, expressly and separately
authorizing the President to use the army, navy, and militia to
"collect the customs" of the United States.

"Even our enemies themselves being judges," there were doubts
everywhere, and these doubts were everywhere resolved in favor of
absolute authority and against the received construction of law and
the Constitution.

An executive who usurps powers ought to be placed on a moral plane
as much lower than that of a treasurer who embezzles public funds as
the love of liberty in the minds of the virtuous is higher than the
love of money.

Those who would derive Lincoln's assumed power to declare war from
the clause of the Constitution which requires that the "President
shall see that the laws are faithfully executed" betray the flimsy
foundation upon which they would erect the throne of an autocrat.
The faithful execution of the laws is to be secured in a lawful
manner, under such powers as the Constitution gives or Congress
may lawfully give to the President. If he is the sole judge of the
extent of the powers conferred and the appropriateness of the means
of execution, he does not need any other clause to make him the
field-overseer of both the other departments of government; and
this the Supreme Court has decided he is not. _Tyndall_ vs. _The
United States_, 12 Peters, p. 524. Lincoln did not rely upon this
clause, but upon the Act of 1795, the language of which he quoted in
his call for the militia of the States; and Congress, by the fifth
section of the Act of July 13, 1861, showed very plainly that it
recognized that he had professed to act under the Statute of 1795.

The frightful experiences of the civil war and the serpent-brood of
evils which have since followed in its trail are plenary proof that
the fathers were wise in not lodging the war power in the hands of
any one man.

A summary of Lincoln's conduct, while there was yet peace in the
land, brings out in startling relief the facts: that he dared at the
behest of pampered privilege greedy for revenue, and partisan rancor
thirsting for blood, without precedent, or the support of either
of the other branches of the government, to place his own private
interpretation upon a statute, in effect repealed, and thereby to
make war on six millions of his fellow-citizens, whom he refused
a right of opinion sustained by abundant authority and precedent
and by some of his own acts and utterances. The idol of the "higher
law" fanatics, the chief of whom he placed in his cabinet--nominated
on a platform which denounced the Supreme Court decision in the
Dred Scott case as "a dangerous political heresy, revolutionary
in its tendency and subversive of the peace and harmony of the
country"--elected by States, many of which defied Federal authority
attempting to execute the fugitive slave law, and none of which
supported such authority, except New Jersey and California--and
having never publicly or privately condemned the nullification of
their constitutional obligations (Article IV, section 2, clause 3)
by the States of Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Maine, Wisconsin, Kansas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania--he still
proclaimed that his only motive in taking up the sword was to assert
the paramount authority of Federal law!

His political campaign of 1864 was fought upon a platform which
pledged its supporters to "bring to punishment due their crimes
the rebels and traitors arrayed against the Government"; and be
it remembered by all posterity that at the end of that campaign,
almost at the close of a successful war, and in spite of military
interference at the polls, one million eight hundred and eight
thousand seven hundred and twenty-five citizens of his own section
voted to condemn him, and endorsed a platform which declared that
"under pretense of a military necessity for a war power higher than
the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded
in every part" by him, and that "justice, humanity, liberty, and
the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a
cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of
all the States; * * * that peace may be restored on the basis of
the Federal Union of all the States," * * * that the aim of their
party was "to preserve the Federal Union and the rights of all the
States unimpaired," and that they considered "the administrative
usurpations of extraordinary and dangerous powers not granted by
the Constitution * * * as calculated to prevent a restoration of
the Union; that the shameful disregard of the administration of its
duty to our fellow-citizens, * * * prisoners of war, deserves the
severest reprobation."

As at the beginning, so at the end of the war, a vast majority of
our nation was opposed to Lincoln's policy of coercion and blood;
for his total vote, with the army and navy to back him, was only
about four hundred thousand in excess of McClellan's, and this would
have been far more than offset by the Southern vote.

The immediate cause of Lincoln's death was a sentence in his
speech of April 11, 1865: "If universal amnesty is granted
to the insurgents I cannot see how I can avoid exacting, in
return, universal suffrage, or, at least, suffrage on a basis of
intelligence and military service." "That means nigger citizenship,"
said his slayer to a witness. "Now, by God, I'll put him
through!"--_Life of Lincoln_, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. III, p. 579.

It was a singular decree of Providence that, according to his own
forebodings, Lincoln should have perished by the hand of violence,
and that too on the fatal 15th of April, the anniversary of his
proclamation for the seventy-five thousand volunteers to begin the
dance of death. "He that killeth with the sword must be killed with
the sword."

Let us be as thankful as we can that we are still one nation, that
African slavery has ceased, and that the safeguards of liberty may
be still sufficient if we are vigilant, unselfish, and brave.

The world has long respected the courage of the South; when the
whole truth shall be well told it will equally respect her cause.
One obvious effect of the civil war, clearly foreseen and foretold
by Southern statesmen, was to Europeanize American institutions.
This was a fearful price to pay even for keeping the sections under
one government.

Let us hope that the present war with Spain may destroy the
stock-in-trade of the speculator in past patriotism.

       *       *       *       *       *

An unoccupied field of investigation for a future historian is the
part which Great Britain played in dissension, disunion, and war
between the States, the sections, and the political parties. Her
purpose has been accomplished. She has annihilated our foreign
ocean-carrying trade--once threatening her own supremacy--and has
thereby made us a third-rate naval power, for seamen, rather than
ships, make a navy.

"Will your people divide?" General Clingman was frequently asked
while in England in 1860. Never once was he asked if slavery would
be abolished. The form of the question, in a land where abolition
took its rise, struck him forcibly. Hear its explanation: "In this
connection I remember a statement made to me by the late American
Minister at Paris, Mr. Mason. He spoke of having had a conversation
with one whose name I do not feel at liberty to mention, but whose
influence on the opinion of continental Europe is considerable,
who declared to him that if the Union of our States continued at
no distant day we should control the world; and, therefore, as an
European, he felt it to be his duty to press anti-slavery views as
the only chance to divide us. I have many reasons to know that the
monarchies of Europe, threatened with downfall from revolutionary
movements, seek, through such channels as they control, to make
similar impressions."--_Speeches and Writings of T. L. Clingman_,
pp. 482, 483: extract from speech in United States Senate, delivered
January 16, 1860.

To prove that democracy is a failure is among the chief aims of
European monarchs.

Lloyd Garrison seems to have been a sincere fanatic, but all the
better may have served British policy. Listen to a group of facts
about him, appearing at random in a friendly encyclopedia: "In 1833"
[the year the stars fell] "he visited Great Britain, and on his
return organized 'The American Anti-slavery Society.' He visited
England again in 1846, 1848, and 1867, in which last year he was
publicly breakfasted in St. James' Hall."

An extract from the _London Telegraph_ of 1856 contains food
for thought: "The aggressive spirit of the people of the United
States requires an humbling, and it is for us to perform the task.
England's mission is to complete the great work commenced by her
in 1834, when she liberated her slaves. There are now over three
million human beings in cruel bondage in the United States. If,
therefore, the United States Government deny, and is resolved
to question the right of Great Britain to her Central American
possessions, we, the people of the British empire, are resolved to
strike off the shackles from the feet of her three million slaves."

The _London News_, also of about the same time, encouraging its
people against the possibility of rupture between England and this
country, said: "However strong is the unprincipled appeal at present
made to the anti-British feeling of the Northern States, that
feeling is counterbalanced by another which has grown up within the
last quarter of a century. _The abolitionists would be with us to a
man. The best of them are so now._"

In 1798 the federalistic school of tax-gatherers, under the guidance
of their founders, Rufus King and Hamilton, once actually lifted
their eyes from the plunder of their own countrymen long enough to
adopt an aggressive foreign policy, but it was a conspiracy with
England, called the "Mirandy Plot," by which they sought to despoil
our late allies in our war for independence, the French people, of
their territory beyond the Mississippi, the honest and honorable
purchase of which by Jefferson, a few years later, this school
denounced as unconstitutional and void.

Better than any American statesman, General Clingman seems to have
understood the motives and interests of Great Britain in fomenting
the slavery agitation and the estrangement of the sections. Hear
him, in his address to the people of the Eighth Congressional
District of North Carolina, March 16, 1856: "The United States
is the great republic of the earth, and the example of our free
institutions was shaking the foundations of the monarchical and
aristocratic governments of Europe. This was especially the case
as respects the political system of Great Britain, owing to our
common language, literature, and extended commercial intercourse.
The aristocracy there hold the mass of the people in subjection, and
under a condition so oppressive that large numbers of white men of
their own race are liable to perish miserably by famine in years of
scarcity. A knowledge of the successful working of our institutions
was increasing the discontent of the common people, and, fearing
the loss of its sway, the aristocracy, which controls the entire
power of the government, began a crusade for the abolition of
slavery in the United States. They expected, in the first place, by
affected sympathy for the negroes here, to divert the minds of the
people at home, to some extent, from the consideration of their own
sufferings, and to create the impression that other laborers were
much worse off than their own. And should they succeed in breaking
up our system they would exultingly point to it as an evidence
against the durability of free institutions.

"With a view, therefore, to effect these objects, more than twenty
years ago the British press, and book-makers generally were
stimulated to embark in a systematic war against negro slavery in
the United States. Abolition lecturers were sent over and money
furnished to establish papers and circulate pamphlets to inflame
the minds of the citizens of the Northern States.

"Looking far ahead, they sought to incorporate their doctrines into
the school-books and publications best calculated to influence the
minds of the young and ignorant. Their views were most readily
received in Massachusetts, where British influence has, for the last
half century, been greatest. From this State these doctrines were
gradually diffused to a great extent throughout the North."

At the time that the British politicians were taking so much
interest in the slavery question of America, and deprecating with
many crocodile tears our treatment of the negroes they had sold
us, the _Edinburgh Review_ of January, 1856, charges the British
Government with collecting rents and taxes from its subjects in
India by means of the thumb-screw and other tortures as devilish
as ingenuity could devise. See _Speeches and Writings of T. L.
Clingman_.

According to some New England testimony, the work of the British
emissaries who had been sent out to divide the Union was uphill
at first. Hear the words of Representative Isaac Hill, from New
Hampshire, speaking in Congress in 1836: "I have said the people of
the North were more united in their opposition to the plans of the
advocates of anti-slavery than on any other subject. This opposition
is confined to no political party. It pervades every class of
the community. They deprecate all interference with the subject
of slavery because they believe such interference may involve
the existence and welfare of the Union itself, and because they
understand the obligations which the non-slaveholding States owe to
the slaveholding States by the compact of confederation. It is the
strong desire to perpetuate the Union; it is the determination which
every patriotic and virtuous citizen has made in no event to abandon
the 'ark of our safety' that now impels the united North to take
its stand against the agitators of the anti-slavery project. So
effectually has the strong public sentiment put down that agitation
in New England that it is now kept alive only by the power of money
which the agitators have collected and apply in the hiring of agents
and in the issue from presses that are kept in their employ.

"The anti-slavery movement which brings in petitions from various
parts of the country, asking Congress to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia, originates with a few persons who have been in
the habit of making charitable religious institutions subservient
to political purposes, and who have even controlled some of those
charitable associations.

"Many of the clergymen who have been the instruments of the
agitators have been such from no bad motive. Some of them,
discovering the purpose of the agitators, discovering that their
labors were calculated to make the condition of the slave worse,
and to create animosity between the people of the North and the
South, have paused in their course and desisted from the further
application of a mistaken philanthropy."

Even if it be admitted that, as early as the year 1836, the
strongest elements in New England were united against the South,
it is by no means true that they were then unanimous in selecting
slavery as the most advantageous ground of battle. A cry of distress
arose from Great Britain at the way some of the distributors of
her secret service money were being treated; a paragraph from an
English newspaper, the _Leeds Mercury_, read on the floor of the
House of Representatives by Mr. King, of Georgia, in corroboration
of what Mr. Hill had said, will serve as an illustration: "Letters
of the most distressing nature have been received from Mr. George
Thompson, the zealous and devoted missionary of slave emancipation,
who has gone from this country to the United States, and who writes
from Boston. He says that 'the North (that is, New England, where
slavery does not exist) has universally sympathized with the South
in opposition to the abolitionists; that the North has let fall the
mask; that the merchants and mechanics, priests and politicians
have alike stood forth the defenders of Southern despots and the
furious denouncers of Northern philanthropy'; that all parties of
politics, especially the supporters of the two rival candidates for
the Presidential office (Van Buren and Webster) vie with each other
in denouncing the abolitionists; and that even religious men shun
them, except when the abolitionists can fairly gain a hearing from
them. With regard to himself he speaks as follows: 'Rewards are
offered for my abduction and assassination; and, in every direction,
I meet with those who believe they would be doing God and their
country service by depriving me of life. I have appeared in public,
and some of my escapes from the hands of my foes have been truly
providential. On Friday last I narrowly escaped losing my life in
Concord, New Hampshire.' 'Boston, September 11.--This morning a
short gallows was found standing opposite the door of my house, 23
Bay street, in this city, now occupied by Garrison. Two halters hung
from the beam, with the words above them: By Order of Judge Lynch!'"

Responding to this, the New Hampshire Representative (Hill) said:
"The present agitation in the North is kept up by the application of
money; it is a state of things altogether forced. Agents are hired,
disguised in the character of ministers of the gospel, to preach
abolition of slavery where slavery does not exist; and presses
are kept in constant employment to scatter abolition publications
through the country."

Yes, and this constant "application" of money finally overcame the
Yankee. The love of it has been the root of much evil with him.
Then, too, eventually, his politicians and manufacturers found that
the best use they could make of the negro was to hold him betwixt
them and the fire of Southern indignation, kindled by their cupidity.

To show the dangerous reciprocity of feeling between old and New
England long before it was intensified as it now is by the community
of interest in untold millions of investments, the words uttered
by John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States,
fall with the weight of state's evidence: "That their object (_i.
e._ that of the New England States) was, and had been for several
years, a dissolution of the Union and the establishment of a
separate confederation, he knew from unequivocal evidence, although
not provable in a court of law; and that in case of a civil war
the aid of Great Britain to effect that purpose would as assuredly
be resorted to as it would be indispensably necessary to their
design."--_Adams' letter in reply to Harrison Gray Otis and others_,
December 28, 1828, quoted by Raphael Semmes in his _Memoirs of
Service Afloat_, p. 43. This attachment to British interests was so
pronounced in 1812 that the New England States refused to furnish
their quota of troops to help conduct our defense; and, while the
nation was locked in deadly conflict with the ruthless invader,
these States actually held a convention at Hartford looking to
secession. The Governor of Massachusetts proclaimed a public fast
day for deploring a war against a nation which had long been "the
bulwark of the religion we profess"; its Supreme Court decided
that neither the President nor Congress could control its State
troops in time of war, and the Legislature declared the war to be
unholy, and urged its people to do what they could to thwart it.
These States forced a treaty of peace in which Great Britain was
not even required to cease the outrages on account of which the
war was undertaken--outrages which might have been begun again but
for Jackson's victory with the Southern soldiers at New Orleans.
Jefferson, in a letter to Lafayette, says: "During that war four
of the Eastern States were only attached to the Union like so many
inanimate bodies to living men."

That will be the saddest chapter of American history which
faithfully compares the treasonable obstruction of these States to
this war with their Cain-like swiftness to shed their brothers'
blood because of an alleged difference of opinion on a question
of constitutional law. It will be remembered, in this connection,
that these States had their troops mobilized and waiting for the
President's call before Fort Sumter was fired on. In four days after
the call the troops of Massachusetts (the most protected State save
one) had invaded the State of Maryland and were shooting down the
astonished and outraged citizens of Baltimore.

The next saddest chapter of our national history will show that
the section which has been greediest to gain power from the States
and revenues from the people has been the readiest to use these
powers and revenues against those from whom they were stolen, and
the most reluctant to use them to defend the nation against foreign
aggressions. "It is a principle of human nature," remarks Tacitus,
"to hate those we have injured more than those who have injured us."

And who, now, but the beneficiaries of implied powers (which they
fought a civil war to preserve and maintain in all their latitude),
under real or affected dread of a foreign war, are zealous for
the late proposed bondholders' treaty with England? As though
that nation could afford to kill or even injure the goose which
lays the golden egg in the shape of four hundred million dollars
annual interest on British investments in this country! The sole
purpose of this treaty is that this egg shall be _golden_ and not
_bimetallic_; and instead of preventing, it may be the cause of war,
as soon as the people resume control of their government and feel
the effects of an arbitration judgment on the financial question.
I pause to remark, in this connection, that many well-meaning
people who petitioned the Senate for the confirmation of this treaty
had not read it with sufficient care to observe that it delegated
to a commission, composed partly of foreigners and to a majority
of the Senate, powers which have heretofore been only exercised
by two-thirds of the Senate, as the Constitution provides. And
this apparently slight though subtle change in the conduct of our
government was sought to be inaugurated in the name of peace!

What a Southern statesman exclaimed, arguing against the adoption of
the Federal Constitution, in 1787, may be appositely repeated here:
"But the character of the partners (meaning the Northern States)
causes me more alarm than the terms of the partnership." England's
partnership with Australia, South Africa, and India has spread such
a pall of universal indebtedness over the fairest portions of the
globe that we may well hesitate before we make more permanent the
stipulations in the "bond" of her blighting friendship.

Undoubtedly the seeds of the War of 1812 were sown by the treaty
of 1794, negotiated by John Jay, who took "a mild and conciliatory
part in the Revolutionary war," and by Lord Grenville, the son of
the author of the Stamp Act. The "Jay treaty," as it was called,
provided for the shameful curtailment of the American ocean-carrying
trade, and for the free navigation of the Mississippi for Great
Britain. And if the proposed arbitration treaty is not finally
rejected by the Senate, the prominence given to the present British
Minister at McKinley's inauguration, accidental though it may have
been, will serve as a fine prototype of British influence in the
administration of our government.

"Woe to the nation that trusts England's friendship," exclaimed the
thoughtful Pettigrew, after studying her national character on the
narrow island where it grew. What he says, given under the sketch
of him in this book, is a valuable side-light upon the suggestion
that her influence more than any other (except original sin)
has changed the half of our nation nearest to her into a race of
"dollar-hunters and breeders of dollar-hunters." The way to make
England our ally is to show her that we are able to take care of
ourselves. Her government fears nothing so much as the democratic
spirit of America, and would fain bind that down by treaty; but
when it serves her purposes, Old England, like New England, finds
a "higher law" than a contract. Unity of interest and of purpose
unites peoples--compacts often unite governments in a conspiracy to
plunder.

In dwelling specially upon the main cause of our civil war, because
of attempts to ignore it, I do not mean to encourage the student
to neglect the other causes: the control by the Confederacy of the
lower Mississippi--the ocean outlet of its headwater States; the
fear of protected labor that the slaves would learn to manufacture,
and reduce wages; the jealousy and friction in the newly-settled
West, caused by the actual contact of the two systems of labor
(for slavery was a practical and serious question there); the
belief that slavery was at the bottom of the forty-four years of
sectional political wrangling, and that this must cease or the
Union be dissolved; the honest and the prejudiced opposition to the
institution itself; the zeal and ambition of machine politicians, in
both sections, anxious to get in "on the ground floor" of personal
advantage--these together, acted on by the main cause, and reacting
on each other, constitute the causes of the war.

And it must not be forgotten, too, that Calhoun, for the South,
accepted the slavery issue as the gage of battle, though he knew
for what purpose it was manufactured. Unity of the South against
Northern aggression was what he was fighting for; and, having
failed to present a solid front against the tariff because Clay's
ambition and Louisiana's influence disintegrated his forces in the
Southwest, he was the more easily betrayed into adopting a temporary
expedient--the policy of shifting the issue from its high ground.
In this way, too, he got "hay and stubble" in his foundation, and
gave the enemies of civil liberty among the whites a chance to pose
as the friends of civil liberty among the blacks.

       *       *       *       *       *

Standing among the statutes at large, with but a page between,
is the proclamation of Thomas Jefferson, thundering against the
aggressions of Great Britain, and the proclamation of John Adams,
breathing out threatenings and slaughter against his own countrymen
for resisting the plunder of an unjust revenue tax. These two
proclamations, looming up in the horizon of American history
like the Mountains of Blessing and Cursing, are the embodiment
of the two spirits which are contending for the mastery of this
nation--the one the source of our independence gained by a foreign
war and the territory on this side of the Mississippi, and of our
independence maintained by a foreign war and the territory beyond
the Mississippi--the other the source of our national debt in
its monstrous cumulation, of Federal extravagance, of sectional
expenditures of public funds, of class legislation for protected
industries, of unequal taxes, and of a frightful civil war,
unlawfully begun to collect them.

"To do justice" is the only way to "insure domestic tranquillity."
A government is "strong" only when its foundations are laid deep in
the affections and best interests of the people who support it and
for whose benefit it was created. God's government is strong and
will last forever because it is based upon the eternal principle of
mutual affinity.

       *       *       *       *       *

Through the long mystery of prehistoric ages the spirit of God's
love brooded over the desolation of a void and formless world;
continents laden with life were born out of the womb of the
great deep--Life which still lives in the love of its Infinite
Author--and the great deep which still with measured pulse is
beating out the changes of our times and booming in our ears the
faith that we, too, are somewhere in the sweep of Nature's mighty
moving heart. So, statesmen and philosophers, deeply pondering in
love of country over the dreary waste of failures and disasters
lying thick along the track of History and Experience, have wrought
out for us wise laws and constitutions, have rescued from the
"bottomless deep of theory and possibility" the institutions under
which we live, but the virtue to interpret and maintain them is not
transmitted nor transmissible--that we must gain, as they did, from
Heaven.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sloping in a long, gradual sweep of undulating hills and valleys,
overspread with the silver network of her myriad streams, from
her lofty green-bannered battlements, erected by God, down to her
shifting shore, where Hatteras lies in wait for her enemies by sea,
North Carolina spreads out the peaceful lap of her bounteous land
for her children and for all who cherish her.

Born before the Union, which is but an offspring of the States, and
surviving disunion, the child of sectional advantage, unbroken by
the shock of radical changes in the Constitutions of the State and
nation, North Carolina stands among the firmest of the forty-five
pillars of the national superstructure, will sustain it as long as
it answers the purposes of its creation, and, if greed or necessity
or the will of Heaven should destroy it, will stand above its wreck,
the sure foundation and protection of her people's liberties and the
sure support of a more perfect Union of the States which have been
purified in the crucible of disaster.

  W. J. PEELE.




LIVES OF DISTINGUISHED NORTH CAROLINIANS.




WILLIAM R. DAVIE.

BY WALTER CLARK.


William Richardson Davie was born at Egremont, near Whitehaven,
Cumberland county, in the north of England, on June 20, 1756. He was
brought over to this country by his father, Archibald Davie, who,
upon the peace of 1763, made a visit to America, and was left in the
care of his maternal uncle, Rev. William Richardson, a Presbyterian
clergyman residing in the Waxhaw settlement on the Catawba river,
in South Carolina. Having no children, Mr. Richardson adopted his
nephew and namesake, who became heir to his estate. At the usual age
young Davie was sent to the "Queen's Museum," the well-known academy
and high school in Charlotte. From thence he entered at Nassau Hall,
Princeton College, New Jersey, of which the famous Dr. Witherspoon
was then President. In the summer of 1776, with the consent of
the President, a party of students, among whom Davie was one, was
raised and served as volunteers in the patriot army. In the fall of
that year he returned to college, and, passing his examinations,
took his college degree of Bachelor of Arts with the first honors
of the institution. His uncle died before his return home. Davie
selected the profession of law and began his studies at Salisbury.
In 1777 he joined a detachment of twelve hundred men under General
Jones, ordered to be raised for the defense of Charleston, then
threatened with another attack, but on reaching Camden it was found
that the design was abandoned by the enemy, and the detachment
returned home after a service of three months. In 1779 a troop
of cavalry was raised in the Salisbury district. Of this William
Barnett, of Mecklenburg, was chosen captain and Davie lieutenant.
His commission, signed by Governor Caswell, is dated 5 April, 1779.
With two hundred horse he was immediately sent into the back country
to suppress a Tory rising, but it was quelled before their arrival.
Soon afterward the troop joined the Southern Army and was attached
to Pulaski's Legion.

Captain Barnett having resigned, Davie was promoted to captain, and
shortly thereafter was made major. On June 20th of that year Davie
took part in the battle of Stono, near Charleston. In this battle
the North Carolina brigade was commanded by General Jethro Sumner.
In a cavalry charge on that day Davie was wounded and fell from his
horse, but retained hold of the bridle. The cavalry, dispirited by
his fall, were in full retreat when a private in another company,
whose horse had been shot under him and was carrying off his saddle,
saw Major Davie standing by his horse unable to mount him, his thigh
being disabled by his wound. Though the enemy were in a few yards,
this man deliberately placed him on his horse and led him from the
field. His deliverer then disappeared and resumed his place in the
ranks, and Davie could find no trace of him. The wound was a severe
one and kept Davie long in the hospital at Charleston, rendering him
incapable of further service that year. At the siege of Ninety-Six,
two years later, when Davie was present as Commissary-General of
the Southern Army, on the morning of the attack a stranger came to
his tent and introduced himself as the man who had saved his life
at Stono. He promised to visit him again, but when the troops were
recalled from the fruitless attempt to storm the fort the body of
the gallant unknown was found among the dead. On his return from
the Charleston hospital in September, 1779, Davie being unfit for
service, applied for and received his County Court license and was
sent by the Governor to attend the courts on the Holston river,
then in North Carolina, that he might ascertain public sentiment
in that section. In the spring of 1780 he received his Superior
Court license. About the same time he obtained authority from the
Legislature of North Carolina to raise a troop of cavalry and two
companies of mounted infantry. The authority was all that the State
could give, its funds being too low to provide the means. Major
Davie, with a patriotism worthy of perpetual remembrance, disposed
of the estate inherited from his uncle and thus raised the funds to
equip his command.

The surrender of Charleston, 12th May, 1780, and the surprise and
butchery of Buford's men by Colonel Tarleton on the 29th of the same
month, completed the subjugation of South Carolina. Colonel Moore,
with eleven hundred Tories, having collected at Ramsour's Mills, in
the edge of the present town of Lincolnton, Colonel Francis Locke
with three hundred militia of Burke, Lincoln, and Rowan, crossed
the Catawba at Beattie's Ford, while General Rutherford, acting in
concert with him with seven hundred troops, among whom was Davie
and his command, crossed at Tuckaseege Ford. The two divisions were
to meet in the night near the enemy and attack at break of day.
Rutherford's march being circuitous, was delayed, but Colonel Locke,
notwithstanding the disparity of force, attacked alone and won a
complete victory. Rutherford arrived about an hour after the action
and dispatched Major Davie in pursuit of the fugitives. Shortly
after Major Davie was ordered to take post near the South Carolina
line, opposite Hanging Rock, to prevent the enemy from foraging and
to check the depredations of the Tories who infested that section.
He was reenforced by some South Carolinians under Major Crawford,
by thirty-five Catawba Indians under their chief, New River, and
by part of the Mecklenburg militia. With part of his dragoons and
some volunteers he left camp 20th July, 1780, to intercept a convoy
of provisions and clothing destined for the enemy at Hanging Rock,
eighteen miles distant. Marching all night, he turned the enemy's
flank and fell into the Camden road five miles below Hanging Rock.
Here he awaited the convoy, which appeared in the afternoon, and it
was surprised and completely captured, with all the stores.

About the last of July, Colonel Sumter, with the South Carolina
refugees, and Colonel Irwin, with the North Carolina troops,
advanced to the attack of Rocky Mount, while Major Davie was to
make a diversion to engage the attention of the enemy at Hanging
Rock. His detachment consisted of eighty mounted men. In sight of
the enemy's camp, he fell upon three companies of their mounted
infantry returning from an excursion. Taken by surprise, they
were literally cut to pieces almost before they were aware of his
presence. Sixty valuable horses, with their furniture, and one
hundred rifles and muskets, were carried off by Davie in safety
without the loss of a man. On August 5th an attack was ordered upon
Hanging Rock by Colonel Sumter, who commanded in person the eight
hundred troops engaged in the expedition. Of these five hundred
were North Carolinians, commanded by Colonel Irwin and Major Davie.
The troops halted at midnight within two miles of the enemy's camp,
which they attacked next morning at daylight. The British regulars
were commanded by Major Carden, while among the auxiliaries were
several Tory regiments. One was composed of Tories from the upper
Yadkin, commanded by Colonel Bryan (whom Davie afterwards defended
when tried for treason at Salisbury), and another, mostly of South
Carolinians, was led by Colonel John Hamilton, of Halifax, who for
many years after the war was British Consul at Norfolk. The attack
at first was completely successful, but from lack of discipline
many of the troops plundered the camps and became intoxicated. A
part of the British troops remaining intact, formed a hollow square
and necessitated a retreat, which, however, was made in good order,
Davie's corps covering the rear. The wounded were safely convoyed
by him to Charlotte, where, by his foresight, a hospital had been
established. It is worthy of note that on this march to the attack
at Hanging Rock, by Davie's side rode, as guides conversant with the
roads and of undoubted courage and patriotism, two country lads,
brothers, respectively aged thirteen and fifteen years. The younger
of the two was destined to see many another field of carnage, and
his name has filled long and well the sounding trump of fame--Andrew
Jackson. Long years after, in the retirement of the Hermitage, he
said that Davie was the best soldier he had ever known and that his
best lessons in the art of war had been learned from him.

On Davie's return from Charlotte he hastened to the general
rendezvous of Gates' army at Rugely's Mills. On August 16th, while
proceeding to join General Gates at Camden, and ten miles from the
battle-field, Major Davie met the defeated army with the General
leading the retreat. He ordered Davie to fall back on Charlotte, but
he replied that his men had formed the acquaintance of Tarleton's
Legion and did not fear to meet them again. He continued his
course towards the battle-ground, meeting the flying fragments of
the routed army. He secured several wagons loaded with clothing
and medicine, which had been abandoned. With characteristic
thoughtfulness he immediately sent an officer to notify Colonel
Sumter of the great disaster which had befallen our arms. He reached
Sumter that evening, who at once began his retreat along the west
bank of the Catawba, towards the up-country. Not taking sufficient
precaution, however, Sumter was surprised on the 18th by Tarleton
at Fishing Creek, and his entire command of eight hundred men was
captured or put to flight with the loss of all his artillery, arms,
and baggage. Colonel Sumter himself, who was asleep under a wagon
when the attack was made, barely escaped, and the next day reached
Davie's camp at Charlotte alone, riding on horseback, without saddle
or bridle. The tidings carried consternation into the fragments of
Gates' army which had rallied there, and in a few moments Davie and
his command were the only force left in front of the enemy. Instead
of retiring, he boldly advanced to the Waxhaws, and found that the
enemy had fallen back to Camden.

On the 5th of September, 1780, Davie was appointed by Governor
Nash Colonel Commandant of Cavalry in the Western District of
North Carolina, with instructions to raise a regiment. When he
had collected only about seventy men, with that force and two
small companies of riflemen, commanded by Major George Davidson,
he took post at Providence, twenty-five miles from the British
camp. Cornwallis, after resting at Camden till the first week in
September, had advanced to the Waxhaws, forty miles below Charlotte,
while the fragments of the American army were slowly gathering at
Hillsborough, two hundred miles distant. South Carolina was wholly
subjugated, and North Carolina had not recovered from the shock
of Gates' defeat. Under these circumstances, Colonel Davie, with
unprecedented boldness, with a command not exceeding one hundred
and fifty men all told, on the 20th of September, turning the right
flank of the British army by a circuitous march, fell upon three or
four hundred of the enemy at Wahab's plantation. The attack was made
at daylight. The surprise was complete.

The enemy left fifteen or twenty dead on the field and had some
forty wounded. Davie got off safely with the captured horses and had
only one man wounded. The enemy at once caused the farm buildings
which belonged to Captain Wahab, then a volunteer with Davie, to
be laid in ashes. Davie brought off ninety-six horses and their
furniture and one hundred and twenty stand of arms, and arrived
in camp the same afternoon, having marched sixty miles in less
than twenty-four hours, including the time employed in seeking and
beating the enemy. That evening Generals Sumner and Davidson arrived
at his camp with their force of one thousand badly equipped militia.

On the 24th of September the American patrols gave notice that the
force of the enemy was in motion on the Steele Creek road, leading
to Charlotte. Generals Sumner and Davidson retreated by Phifer's on
the nearest road to Salisbury. Colonel Davie, with one hundred and
fifty mounted men and some volunteers under Major Joseph Graham,
was left alone in front of the British army, and he was ordered to
observe the enemy and skirmish with his advance. On the afternoon
and night of the 25th he took a number of prisoners, and at midnight
took up his position at Charlotte, seven miles from the spot where
Earl Cornwallis had encamped. Early on the 26th his patrols were
driven in by the enemy's light troops, and in a few moments the
Legion and light infantry were seen advancing, followed by the whole
army. Charlotte was then a village of about twenty houses, built
on two streets which crossed each other at right angles. At their
intersection stood the court-house. Colonel Davie dismounted one
company and stationed it under the court-house, where they were
protected by a stone wall. The other two companies were advanced
about eighty yards and posted behind some houses and gardens. The
Legion formed at a distance of three hundred yards with a front
to fill the street. On sounding the charge the enemy's cavalry
advanced at full gallop, but at sixty yards from the court-house the
Americans opened fire and drove them back with great precipitation.
A second and third charge had the same result, but being outflanked
by the Legion infantry, Davie withdrew his companies in good
order, they successively covering each other, and retreated on the
Salisbury road. The enemy followed with great caution and respect
for some distance, when they at length ventured to charge the small
rear guard. In this charge Lieutenant Locks and four privates were
killed and Major Graham and five privates wounded. The coolness and
skill of Davie in this ever-memorable combat, in which, with a mere
handful of men, he held the whole British army for hours at bay and
drove back repeatedly its best troops and finally brought off his
command unbroken and in good order, stamp him as a soldier of no
ordinary capacity. He was at this time twenty-four years of age.
Governor Graham says of him: "He was prudent, vigilant, intrepid,
and skillful in his movements against the enemy, and with a charming
presence, a ready eloquence, and an undaunted spirit, he was among
the young men of the day as was Harry Percy to the chivalry of
England." He also terms him "one of the most accomplished and
elegant gentlemen of the Revolutionary race." Besides his abilities
as a leader he was an expert swordsman. It is said in _Garden's
Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War_, that he had slain more men in
personal encounters in battle than any man in the army.

The next day, after the brilliant affair at Charlotte, Colonel
Davie joined the army at Salisbury, where, recruits having come
in and Colonel Taylor from Granville having joined him, his force
consisted of three hundred mounted infantry and a few dragoons.
Generals Sumner and Davidson continued their retreat across the
Yadkin, while Davie returned towards Charlotte, where he so vexed
the British by cutting off the foraging parties and beating up
their advanced posts that Cornwallis began to feel great distress
for want of forage and supplies. (_Tarleton's Campaigns_, p. 184).
The British officer declared he had "found a rebel in every bush
outside his encampment." On October 7th occurred the disastrous
defeat of Ferguson at King's Mountain, and on the night of October
14th, Cornwallis began his retreat to South Carolina, followed by
Davie, who harassed his rear and captured part of his baggage.
On the 19th the British crossed the Catawba at Land's Ford and
completely evacuated the State of North Carolina. When General
Greene took command of the Southern Army in December, 1780, he and
Colonel Davie met for the first time. The commissary department
became vacant by the resignation of Colonel Thomas Polk. The
subsistence of the army had become very difficult, and Colonel
Polk declared that it had become impossible. General Greene having
formed a high estimate of Colonel Davie's abilities, earnestly, and
in most flattering terms, solicited him to relinquish his hopes of
brilliant service in the field and accept the vacant office. At
the call of patriotism he abandoned the tempting career which lay
before him and assumed the not less important but more unpleasant
and arduous duties of a station which offered no distinctions.
General Greene had himself set the example, having relinquished a
brilliant career in the field to assume for years the duties of
Quartermaster-General of the army. Colonel Davie assumed the duties
of his new post in January, 1781, and continued with the army for
the next five months. Hardly any combination of circumstances could
exist presenting greater difficulties to the commissary of an
army than those under which he began. With a depreciated, almost
worthless, currency and an exhausted country, his only resource was
to receive from the willing and extort from the reluctant such means
of subsistence as they possessed, a service requiring promptness
and vigor among the disaffected and skill and discretion among
the friendly. These duties were well performed, and, while they
make no display on the page of history, their efficient discharge
was more really useful to the cause and contributed more to the
success of the army than the most brilliant services of the most
brilliant officer in the field. In that capacity he was present in
the memorable battle at Guilford Court House. Though he had, of
course, no command, he was a watchful observer of all the movements
of the fight and distinguished himself by his efforts to rally
the broken ranks and bring them again into the field. After Judge
Schenck's vivid description of this battle it would be a twice-told
tale to recount its incidents. It may be well to recall, however,
that Eaton's Brigade was composed of men from Warren, Franklin,
Nash, Halifax, and Northampton counties, while Butler's men were
from the present counties of Wake, Durham, Orange, Alamance, Vance,
Granville, Person, and Caswell. No race of people has changed less
by infiltration of foreign immigration. It is in warp and woof the
same it was a hundred years ago. Those who know them well, know that
they are "the blue hen's own chickens," and it is not to be believed
(if all other proof was wanting) that men of that stock ever left
any fair field of fight in a body save in honor.

It was here that Colonel Davie, seeing the veteran First Maryland
permit the enemy to approach to close quarters while it remained
apparently inert and impassive, exclaimed with great emotion, "Great
God! is it possible Colonel Gunby will surrender himself and his
whole regiment to the British?" He had scarce spoken when, the
command having been given, their fire, like a sheet of flame, swept
off the enemy's first line. This was followed up by a bayonet charge
from Gunby. The hostile lines became so intermingled and the moment
so critical that Cornwallis, to save himself, caused his cannon
to open upon the mass of struggling men and swept off friend and
foe alike. This he did against the remonstrance of General O'Hara,
who was lying wounded on the ground, and whose men were thus being
destroyed at short range by the cannon of their own army.

Colonel Davie continued with the army and was present at Hobkirk's
Hill on April 25th, and also at the evacuation of Camden and the
siege of Ninety-Six. While the army lay before Ninety-Six, General
Greene found it necessary to send him as a confidential messenger
to the Legislature of North Carolina to represent to that body the
wants of his army, and that his almost sole reliance for assistance
was on them. Colonel Davie's knowledge of the members and his tact
were such that he procured a most generous contribution from
the General Assembly of men and supplies. The exigencies of the
service and the equipment of the new levies required him to remain
in North Carolina, and in July, 1781, he entered on his duties as
Commissary-General of this State, which post he filled till the end
of the war. The finances of the State were in a desperate condition,
and the country was well-nigh exhausted by the requisitions of
both hostile and friendly armies, and, besides, supplies had to be
dispatched to our troops operating in South Carolina. No duties
could be more arduous or more admirably performed than those which
fell to Colonel Davie's lot at this stage of the war. Transportation
was lacking even for the supplies which could be obtained. The
future seemed uncertain as to everything. No post could more sorely
have tried the patience of any man. It argues great versatility
of talents that the brilliant cavalry officer should execute with
patience the duties of such a station, and it required a rare
self-denial to lay aside the opportunities of distinction for the
humdrum exactions of his wearying post. To add to other troubles, he
had to deal, during the year 1781, with three different Governors
of entirely different views and dispositions. Governor Nash had
resigned in disgust at the proceedings of the Legislature; Governor
Burke had been taken prisoner, and Governor Martin completed the
year. So feeble at times was the support of the government that
some of the most pressing supplies were procured by Davie on his
own credit. Complex and numerous as were his accounts, when he laid
down his office he invited the severest legislative scrutiny, but no
objection to them could be found.

The war being over, Colonel Davie resumed the practice of his
profession in February, 1783. About the same time he married Miss
Sarah Jones, the daughter of General Allen Jones, of Northampton,
a niece of Willie Jones, and settled in the town of Halifax,
which place he made his future residence. It was at that time
practically the capital of the State. The sessions of the General
Assembly had been frequently held at that place, and it was there
that most of the executive business of the State was transacted.
He was a brilliant advocate and possessed a natural aptitude
for the practice of law. The State at that time was divided into
seven judicial districts: Halifax, New Bern, Wilmington, Edenton,
Hillsboro, Salisbury, and Morganton. To these, in 1787, Fayetteville
was added. The Superior Courts were held only at these places, and
not as now at a court-house in each county. Colonel Davie took the
circuit and attended in turn all the Superior Courts of the State,
except that held at Morganton. He soon commanded a leading practice
in all these courts. At some places and at some terms the dockets
show that he appeared without exception on one side or the other of
every civil case. His practice was very lucrative and he quickly
accumulated a large estate. An examination of our published Reports
shows numerous cases of importance in which he was counsel. Probably
the most important were _Hamilton_ vs. _Eaton_, 1 N. C., 84, which
held the State Confiscation Act repealed by the United States treaty
of peace with England, and _Bayard_ vs. _Singleton_, 1 N. C., 42,
the first case in America which asserted the power and duty of the
courts to declare an act of the Legislature unconstitutional. It
also held the confiscation acts against the late Tories invalid.
Iredell, Johnston, and Davie appeared for the successful plaintiff
and Moore and Nash for the defendant.

With the chivalry of his nature, it was most natural that when the
Tory, Colonel Bryan, with whom he had so often crossed swords,
was arraigned and tried at Salisbury, in 1782, for treason,
Colonel Davie was one of the counsel who conducted his defense.
In this he displayed a courage of the forum no less brilliant and
commendable than his conduct in the field. Indeed Davie, though
the youngest, became in fact the principal counsel. Excitement
ran so high that no lesser favorite than "the hero of Charlotte"
could command attention. Bryan was convicted with several others,
and was sentenced to be hanged the 14th of April, 1782, but was
pardoned and exchanged. Judge Murphy, who had the opportunity of
judging, and whose opinion is of high value, says: "Davie took
Lord Bolingbroke for his model, and applied himself with so much
diligence to the study of his master that literary men could easily
recognize his lofty and flowing style. He was a tall, elegant man
in his person; graceful and commanding in his manners. His voice was
mellow and adapted to the expression of every passion. His style
was magnificent and flowing. He had a greatness of manner in public
speaking which suited his style and gave his speeches an imposing
effect. He was a laborious student and arranged his discourses
with care, and, when the subject suited his genius, poured forth a
torrent of eloquence that astonished and delighted his audience.
They looked upon him with delight, listened to his long, harmonious
periods, caught his emotions, and indulged that ecstasy of feeling
which fine speaking and powerful eloquence can alone produce. He is
certainly to be ranked among the first orators whom the American
nation has produced." It is said of him, with probably small
exaggeration, that during fifteen years while he was at the bar
there was not a capital trial in North Carolina in which he was not
retained for the defense. Eminent as he was, it was not for the lack
of worthy competitors. James Iredell and Alfred Moore, successively
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, François
Xavier Martin, afterwards Chief Justice of Louisiana, and Judge
John Haywood, afterwards of Tennessee, were his contemporaries.
His brief-books, some of which are still in existence, are models
of neatness and show a most careful summary of the evidence and
citation of authority in each case. Among his law students were
Governor and United Stales Senator David Stone, Mr. Justice Daniel,
of our Supreme Court, and many others who became distinguished men.
Judge Daniel said that he was the best lawyer and most accomplished
man he had ever known. It is stated of him, in comparison with his
great legal rival, John Haywood, that while the latter carefully
prepared every point, Davie would seize the strong points of the
case and throw his whole strength upon them. In this he seems to
have retained the experience and instincts of his soldier-life. As
a characteristic of his elegant tastes and attention to details it
is said that an examination of his correspondence shows that his
letters were invariably written upon gilt-edge paper.

When the Convention which formed our present Federal Constitution
was called to meet at Philadelphia in May, 1787, he was elected
one of the delegates. The delegates were the then Governor, Richard
Caswell, ex-Governor Alexander Martin, Richard Dobbs Spaight, who,
like Davie, was subsequently Governor, William Blount, afterwards
United States Senator, and Hugh Williamson, afterwards a member
of Congress and an historian. Governor Caswell did not attend.
Colonel Davie was the junior member of the delegation, being
then, notwithstanding his distinguished career as a soldier and
his high standing at the bar, not yet thirty-one years of age.
Still his eloquence and influence made a decided impression upon
the Convention. The Constitution all through is the result of
compromise; but the critical question was the equal representation
of each State in the Senate. Upon this it seemed likely the
Convention would be dissolved. The large States were firm for
proportional representation. With the smaller States an equal
voice in the Senate was a _sine qua non_. On that question North
Carolina voted with the other large States against the demands of
the smaller States, and this made the vote a tie, as Georgia, on
purpose, evenly divided her vote. The friends of the Constitution,
fearing a disruption, referred the question to a committee composed
of one from each State. Davie was the member of the committee from
North Carolina. When the committee made its report, Davie, acting
for North Carolina, gave her vote with the smaller States, and thus,
by one majority, was equal representation in the Senate secured.
Without it the Convention would doubtless have adjourned after a
useless session. The Constitution, without that wise concession,
could not have been adopted, and if adopted by the Convention, its
ratification by the smaller States could not have been expected.
This act was certainly against the wishes of his own State, then
the third, in point of population, in the Confederation, ranking
next after Virginia and Massachusetts and ahead of New York. It was
also apparently against the interests of his State, but the act was
that of a statesman, and should be recalled to his lasting honor. It
was a critical moment, for a narrow-minded man in his place, timid
of responsibility and fearful of his own popularity at home, would
have prevented or postponed for many years the American Union. He
remained in Philadelphia till the deliberations of the Convention
were virtually over and the adoption of the Constitution had become
certain. Then, in obedience to his duty to his clients, as the fall
circuit was about to begin, he left for home. Hence it is that his
name does not appear among those appended to that instrument. The
Constitution being the work of many hands and containing so many
alterations and amendments, would naturally have been rough and
ill-joined, containing a variety of styles. It is worthy of note
that the Convention considerately referred it to a committee of
one--Gouverneur Morris--an accomplished scholar, to make changes "of
form, not of substance." Under his hand it was polished and put in
shape, and hence the uniform flow and regularity of its language.

But the work was not yet done. The Constitution was yet to be
ratified by the conventions of the several States. When the North
Carolina Convention met at Hillsborough, July 21, 1788, a formidable
opposition was arrayed against its adoption, headed by Willie Jones,
David Caldwell, Judge Spencer, and others. The friends of adoption
were led by James Iredell, a remarkably able man, and Colonel Davie,
aided by Spaight, Maclaine, Steele, and others. The adoption of
the Constitution was at that time defeated. After its subsequent
adoption by North Carolina, President Washington tendered the
appointment of United States District Judge to Davie, who declined
it. Colonel Stokes was appointed, but, soon dying, John Sitgreaves
was appointed, probably through Davie's influence. He had married
his wife's sister.

By his wife he had acquired a valuable plantation near Halifax,
which he took pleasure in cultivating, and he evinced a deep
interest in introducing there a better system of farming. His
enterprise and public spirit procured the organization of a company
for the proposed drainage of Lake Scuppernong.

A friend of education, in 1786 he obtained from the General
Assembly the charter of Warrenton Academy, and had himself, with
Willie Jones, Thomas Person, Benjamin Hawkins, and other prominent
men named as the board of trustees. He was chosen repeatedly,
except when his private business constrained him to decline an
election, to represent the borough of Halifax in the House of
Commons. He served thus in the years 1786, 1787, 1789, 1791, 1793,
1794, 1796, and 1798. He was the real founder of the University of
North Carolina, and is so styled in the journal of 1810 of that
institution, and well deserved to be so called. Judge Murphy bears
this testimony: "I was present in the House of Commons when Davie
addressed that body (in 1789) for a loan of money to erect the
buildings of the University, and, although more than thirty years
have elapsed, I have the most vivid recollection of the greatness
of his manner and the power of his eloquence upon that occasion. In
the House of Commons he had no rival, and on all questions before
that body his eloquence was irresistible." He procured the act of
incorporation to be passed in 1789, and other aid, and was always a
fostering friend.

The opposition to all the measures in favor of the University
was great. The cry of "economy" and the fear expressed that the
institution was one step towards the founding of an aristocracy
made it difficult to carry any measure through. Gifted with less
tact, with less eloquence or with less popularity, Davie must have
failed. The institution is no less a monument also to his public
spirit, boldness, and foresight. He was a member of the first
board of trustees. The selection of a site for the University, the
superintendence of the erection of the buildings, the choice of
professors, the arrangement of a course of studies, the adoption of
regulations, the maintenance of discipline engaged his personal and
active attention. Truly he might have exclaimed "_Exegi monumentum
aere perennius_." The course of studies adopted at Davie's instance
in 1795 was the "optional" system which now generally obtains. In
this he anticipated the course of other colleges full fifty years.
When Dr. David Caldwell was elected President this was set aside
and the old iron-bound curriculum was adopted and remained in force
eighty years.

On December 9, 1787, in the town of Tarboro, the Free Masons of this
State organized the Grand Lodge of North Carolina. At that meeting
many of the most distinguished men of the State attended, Colonel
Davie among them. Governor Johnston was elected the first Grand
Master of North Carolina, and Governor Caswell the second. Davie
was elected Grand Master in December, 1792, and was successively
reelected for seven years. In that capacity he laid the cornerstone
of the University, October 12, 1793 (the old East Building), and on
April 14, 1798, he laid the cornerstone of the South Building at the
same place.

The project of a digest of the laws was brought forward by him, and
the appointment of Judge Iredell, the accomplished jurist, to do
the work, was made at his suggestion. The cession of the territory
which now forms the State of Tennessee was effected mainly by his
influence. In 1791 he was appointed by the Legislature one of the
three commissioners to establish the unsettled part of the boundary
between this State and South Carolina. He was again elected for the
same purpose in 1796, and again in 1803. None of these commissions,
however, were successful.

In 1794 he was commissioned by Governor Spaight to be Major-General
of the Third State Division, in view of the likelihood of war
with France. Congress, by the Act of June 24, 1797, directed an
embodiment of troops from the several States. The number to be
raised by this State under the act was seven thousand two hundred
and sixty-eight, and in September of that year Davie was appointed
by Governor Ashe Major-General to command this detachment. As
matters became more serious, Congress, in May, 1798, authorized a
provisional army of the United States of ten thousand men, and in
this he was appointed a brigadier-general by President Adams, July
17, 1798, and was confirmed by the Senate on July 19th. Of this army
Washington was made commander-in-chief, and he, in effect, committed
to General Davie the selection of the officers for that part of
the troops which should be raised in this State. In the same year
General Davie prepared a system of cavalry tactics which was adopted
by the Legislature and ordered to be printed. A copy of this is now
in our State Library.

General Davie came out of the war with the first military reputation
in the State, and these successive appointments, so many years
after, prove that North Carolina still turned to him as her greatest
soldier.

Just at this time, singularly enough, when in the receipt of high
honors, State and national, his election for the borough of Halifax
was first endangered. The circumstance is thus stated in a private
letter from that town, written in August, 1798: "The 'true whigs,'
as they styled themselves, dined together under the oaks and toasted
Mr. Jefferson. The other party, who were called 'aristocrats,' ate
and drank in the house on entirely different principles. General
Davie dined in the house with the 'aristocrats.' The 'true whigs'
took offense at this and resolved to oppose his election, and it was
only with much address that they were kept quiet." The writer adds:
"If any person had had the impudence to dispute the election General
Davie would certainly not have been returned. The rabble, which in
all places is the majority, would have voted against him."

He took his seat when the Legislature met. By that body, under
the then constitutional mode, he was, on joint ballot, elected
Governor of the State on December 4th, 1798, over Benjamin Williams
(afterwards Governor), and was inaugurated December 7th. Nothing
of special note took place during his tenure of office. President
Adams appointed an embassy to treat with the French Directory,
consisting of Mr. Murray, then our Minister to Holland, Chief
Justice Ellsworth, and Patrick Henry. The latter having declined on
the ground of age and ill health, Governor Davie was appointed in
his stead, June 1, 1799. On September 10th he resigned the office
of Governor, and on the 22nd, left Halifax to join Mr. Ellsworth
at Trenton. At his departure the people of Halifax and vicinity
presented him with a complimentary address, which was written by a
political adversary and signed by large numbers of the same party.

On November 3, 1799, Messrs. Ellsworth and Davie embarked in the
frigate _United States_, from Newport, Rhode Island. Aware of the
changes constantly taking place in the French government, they
touched at Lisbon on the 27th of November. They left on the 21st
of December, but being driven out of their course by a storm, they
put into Corunna the 11th of January, 1800, which they left by land
on the 27th, and on February 9th, at Burgos, in Spain, they met a
courier from Talleyrand, the French Minister, inviting them, on
the part of Bonaparte, who had become First Consul, to proceed to
Paris, which place they reached on March 2d. These dates will show
the vast difference which less than a century has made in the modes
of traveling and the transmission of intelligence. On April 8th the
Commissioners were received with marked politeness by the First
Consul. Napoleon having left for Italy on the famous campaign of
Marengo, the negotiations dragged till his return. On September 30,
1800, the treaty between the United States and France was signed by
our Commissioners and by Joseph Bonaparte, Roederer, and Fleurieu,
on the part of France. The conclusion of the treaty was celebrated
with _éclat_ at Morfontaine (the country-seat of Joseph Bonaparte),
the First Consul and a brilliant staff attending. One who was then
in Paris writes: "A man of his (Davie's) imposing appearance and
dignified deportment could not fail to attract especial attention
and remark wherever he went. I could not but remark that Bonaparte,
in addressing the American legation at his levees, seemed for the
time to forget that Governor Davie was _second_ in the commission,
his attention being more particularly directed to him." In the
brilliant circles of the nascent empire of Napoleon he was
distinguished by his elegance and his popular manners. His sojourn
in Paris was very agreeable to him. He was an accomplished linguist
and spoke French and Spanish fluently.

In the fall of that year Governor Davie returned directly home.
It is significant that the very day after the treaty was signed,
France, by the treaty of St. Ildefonso, reacquired Louisiana from
Spain, which it so soon after sold to the United States.

On his return home Davie was solicited to become a candidate for
Congress in 1801, but his private affairs, by reason of his long
absence, required his attention, and he declined. Willis Alston,
then a member of the same political party, was elected. In June
of that year President Jefferson appointed Governor Davie head
of a commission, with General Wilkinson and Benjamin Hawkins, to
negotiate with the Creeks and other Indians for further cession of
lands. This he declined for the same reason that he had refused
an election to Congress. In 1802 he was appointed by President
Jefferson a commissioner on the part of the United States in the
treaty to be made between North Carolina and the Tuscaroras, most of
whom had moved from this State, but had retained a valuable landed
interest in Bertie county. He met the agents of the State and the
chiefs of the Indians at Raleigh, and the treaty was signed December
4th, 1802, by virtue of which King Blount and the remainder of the
tribe removed to New York in June, 1803. In the spring of 1803,
Alston having gone over to the opposite political party, General
Davie was again solicited by his friends to become a candidate for
Congress. He accepted the nomination, but declined to make any
canvass. He was charged with being an aristocrat and with being
opposed to Mr. Jefferson, whose prestige was then all-powerful. He
was defeated at the polls.

He had lost his wife not long after his return from France. This,
together with his political defeat, determined him to withdraw
altogether from public life. In November, 1805, he removed to an
estate he possessed at Tivoli, near Landsford, in South Carolina,
just across the line from Mecklenburg county in this State. Here he
lived in dignified ease and leisure.

Many men, after the bufferings of a stormy or a busy life, have in
like manner felt the need of rest before going hence. It was thus
that the Emperor Charles V., at Juste, and Wolsey, who had "sounded
all the depths and shoals of honor," at Leicester Abbey, had sought
to put a space of contemplation between the active duties of life
and the grave. Davie's country, however, did not forget him. During
the second war with Great Britain, President Madison appointed him
a major-general in the United States army, and he was confirmed by
the Senate, March 2d, 1813. But "time steals fire from the mind
as vigor from the limbs." Though not an old man, General Davie's
early campaigns had told upon him. The sword which twenty-five
years before had almost leapt of itself from the scabbard was
now constrained to hang idly by his side, and he declined the
appointment. General Harrison (afterwards President) was appointed
in his stead and fought the battle of the Thames, October 5, 1813
in which Tecumseh was slain. The next year he in turn resigned and
General Andrew Jackson was appointed to succeed him, and the battle
of New Orleans followed on January 8, 1815.

General Davie's seat at Tivoli, on the Catawba, was the resort of
many of the Revolutionary characters. In their journeys by private
conveyance to Virginia or the North, the custom was to arrange to
spend a day or two there with him, where he kept open house for his
friends, and, sitting under an immense oak, from which there was a
view of miles of the Catawba, they fought over the war together or
discussed the workings of the new government and the Constitution
they had established. This was all the more interesting, as much of
his campaigning had taken place on and around this very spot. In
this connection it is interesting to state that after his retirement
to Tivoli he was much sought after in drawing wills. He drew some
of the most famous wills in that State--indeed, it is said, all of
them in that part in which he resided, not one of which, except
his own, was ever assailed. In this respect he had the fortune of
Sugden (Lord Saint Leonard's), Governor Tilden, and many other
famous lawyers. The contest over Governor Davie's will has just been
settled by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States,
filed the 28th of March of this year (1892), in the case of _Bedon_
vs. _Davie_, 144 U. S., 142, a very interesting case.

His correspondence and other materials for history must have been
very large and very valuable. It was from his papers that the copy
of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20th, 1775, was procured,
which is known as the "Davie Copy." Unfortunately all his family
papers and all the historical material which had been carefully
preserved by him for publication at some future time were destroyed
during Sherman's raid. The banks of the Catawba were said to have
been strewn with them, and nothing of the collection now remains.

In retirement he displayed his accustomed public spirit by
introducing improved methods of farming, and mainly at his instance
a State Agricultural Society in South Carolina was formed, of which
he was the first president. By his practice at the bar he had
accumulated a large estate, which he dispensed with liberality and
hospitality.

When the end came he met it with the firmness of a soldier. His sun
of life went down in a cloudless sky. He passed away the 18th of
November, 1820, in his sixty-fifth year.

    "The hero lies still, while the dew-drooping willows,
      Like fond weeping mourners, lean over his grave.
    The lightnings may flash and the loud cannon rattle,
      He heeds not, he hears not, he's free from all pain;
    He sleeps his last sleep, he has fought his last battle,
      No sound can awake him to glory again!"

He was buried at Waxhaw Church, Lancaster county, South Carolina,
just across the Catawba river from his Tivoli plantation. The
following modest and truthful inscription in his tomb is said to be
from the pen of his friend, Governor Gaston, of South Carolina:

  IN THIS GRAVE ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF
  WILLIAM R. DAVIE,
  THE SOLDIER, JURIST, STATESMAN, AND PATRIOT.
  IN THE GLORIOUS WAR FOR
  AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
  HE FOUGHT AMONG THE FOREMOST OF THE BRAVE.
  AS AN ADVOCATE AT THE BAR,
  HE WAS DILIGENT, SAGACIOUS, ZEALOUS,
  INCORRUPTIBLY HONEST, OF COMMANDING ELOQUENCE.
  IN THE LEGISLATIVE HALL
  HE HAD NO SUPERIOR IN ENLARGED VISION
  AND PROFOUND PLANS OF POLICY.
  SINGLE IN HIS ENDS, VARIED IN HIS MEANS, INDEFATIGABLE
  IN HIS EXERTIONS.
  REPRESENTING HIS NATION IN AN IMPORTANT EMBASSY,
  HE EVINCED HIS CHARACTERISTIC DEVOTION TO HER INTERESTS
  AND MANIFESTED A PECULIAR FITNESS FOR DIPLOMACY.
  POLISHED IN MANNERS, FIRM IN ACTION,
  CANDID WITHOUT IMPRUDENCE, WISE ABOVE DECEIT.
  A TRUE LOVER OF HIS COUNTRY,
  ALWAYS PREFERRING THE PEOPLE'S GOOD TO THE PEOPLE'S FAVOR.
  THOUGH HE DISDAINED TO FAWN FOR OFFICE,
  HE FILLED MOST OF THE STATIONS TO WHICH AMBITION MIGHT ASPIRE,
  AND DECLINING NO PUBLIC TRUST,
  ENNOBLED WHATEVER HE ACCEPTED
  BY TRUE DIGNITY AND TALENT,
  WHICH HE BROUGHT INTO THE DISCHARGE OF ITS FUNCTIONS.
  A GREAT MAN IN AN AGE OF GREAT MEN.
  IN LIFE HE WAS ADMIRED AND BELOVED BY THE VIRTUOUS AND THE WISE,
  IN DEATH HE HAS SILENCED CALUMNY AND CAUSED ENVY TO MOURN.
  HE WAS BORN IN EDINBURGH,[1] 1756,
  AND DIED IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN 1820.

  [1] A mistake.

The foregoing is the main body and more strictly biographical
part of an address delivered by Judge Clark, July 4th, 1892, at
the celebration of the battle of Guilford Court House, on the
battle-field.

Davie's life has been written more at length by Prof. Fordyce M.
Hubbard and published in _Sparks' American Biography_; but I have
used Judge Clark's sketch, and have slightly abbreviated it to suit
the scope of my purpose.

I am reminded by Colonel Benehan Cameron, a member of the North
Carolina Publishing Society, that the lovers of fine horses will be
glad to have it noted here that General Davie was once the owner of
the celebrated "Sir Archie"--the sire of American thoroughbreds--the
Godolphin of the American turf. Like all great commanders, Davie was
a fine judge of a horse; he readily paid five thousand dollars for
"Sir Archie" as a colt, and only parted from him in deference to
his friends, who urged him that such a price was very extravagant.
Davie's judgment, however, was abundantly vindicated; for, many
years afterwards, the commissioner of the court found that the horse
had been worth to the estate of William Amis, his subsequent owner,
the round sum of eighty thousand dollars.

Some idea may be gathered of the interest of the turfmen in this
great horse--the great-grandsire of "Lexington"--from the fact that
they are still disputing about the places of his birth and death.

The truth of the matter is, says Colonel Cameron, who takes interest
in this controversy, he was born at Carter Hall, in Virginia, died
in North Carolina, and was buried on the "Mowfield" plantation of
Colonel Amis in Northampton county. The place of his burial is still
pointed out by old people, for human nature is loath to allow the
memory of great excellence to perish, even though exemplified in a
dumb beast. It is said that some years ago his bones were taken up
and carried to a museum in Philadelphia.

[Illustration: NATHANIEL MACON.]




NATHANIEL MACON.

BY THOMAS H. BENTON.


Philosophic in his temperament and wise in his conduct, governed
in all his actions by reason and judgment, and deeply imbued with
Bible images, this virtuous and patriotic man (whom Mr. Jefferson
called "the last of the Romans") had long fixed the term of his
political existence at the age which the Psalmist assigns for the
limit of manly life: "The days of our years are threescore years
and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet
is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and
we fly away." He touched that age in 1828; and, true to all his
purposes, he was true to his resolve in this, and executed it with
the quietude and indifference of an ordinary transaction. He was in
the middle of a third senatorial term, and in the full possession
of all his faculties of mind and body; but his time for retirement
had come--the time fixed by himself; but fixed upon conviction and
for well considered reasons, and as inexorable to him as if fixed by
fate. To the friends who urged him to remain to the end of his term,
and who insisted that his mind was as good as ever, he would answer
that it was good enough yet to let him know that he ought to quit
office before his mind quit him, and that he did not mean to risk
the fate of the Archbishop of Grenada. He resigned his senatorial
honors as he had worn them--meekly, unostentatiously, in a letter of
thanks and gratitude to the General Assembly of his State, and gave
to repose at home that interval of thought and quietude which every
wise man would wish to place between the turmoil of strife and the
stillness of eternity. He had nine years of this tranquil enjoyment,
and died without pain or suffering, June 29, 1837--characteristic
in death as in life. It was eight o'clock in the morning when he
felt that the supreme hour had come, had himself full-dressed with
his habitual neatness, walked in the room and lay upon the bed, by
turns conversing kindly with those who were about him, and showing
by his conduct that he was ready and waiting, but hurrying nothing.
It was the death of Socrates, all but the hemlock, and in that full
faith of which the Grecian sage had only a glimmering. He directed
his own grave on a point of sterile ridge (where nobody would wish
to plough), and covered with a pile of rough flint-stone (which
nobody would wish to build with), deeming this sterility and the
uselessness of this rock the best security for that undisturbed
repose of the bones which is still desirable to those who are
indifferent to monuments.

In almost all strongly marked characters there is usually some
incident or sign, in early life, which shows that character and
reveals to the close observer the type of the future man. So it
was with Mr. Macon. His firmness, his patriotism, his self-denial,
his devotion to duty, and disregard of office and emolument; his
modesty, integrity, self-control, and subjection of conduct to the
convictions of reason and the dictates of virtue, all so steadily
exemplified in a long life, were all shown from the early age of
eighteen, in the miniature representation of individual action,
and only confirmed in the subsequent public exhibitions of a long,
beautiful, and exalted career.

He was of that age, and a student at Princeton College, at the time
of the Declaration of American Independence. A small volunteer
corps was then on the Delaware. He quit his books, joined it,
served a term, returned to Princeton, and resumed his studies. In
the year 1778 the Southern States had become a battle-field, big
with their own fate, and possibly involving the issue of the war.
British fleets and armies appeared there, strongly supported by
the friends of the British cause; and the conquest of the South
was fully counted upon. Help was needed in these States; and Mr.
Macon, quitting college, returned to his native county in North
Carolina, joined a militia company as a private, and marched to
South Carolina--then the theatre of the enemy's operations. He
had his share in all the hardships and disasters of that trying
time; was at the fall of Fort Moultrie, surrender of Charleston,
defeat at Camden, and in the rapid winter retreat across the upper
part of North Carolina. He was in the camp on the left bank of
the Yadkin when the sudden flooding of that river, in the brief
interval between the crossing of the Americans and the coming up of
the British, arrested the pursuit of Cornwallis and enabled Greene
to allow some rest to his wearied and exhausted men. In this camp,
destitute of everything and with gloomy prospects ahead, a summons
came to Mr. Macon from the Governor of North Carolina, requiring
him to attend a meeting of the General Assembly, of which he had
been elected a member, without his knowledge, by the people of his
county. He refused to go, and the incident being talked of through
the camp, came to the knowledge of the general. Greene was a _man_
himself and able to know a _man_. He felt at once that, if this
report was true, this young soldier was no common character, and
determined to verify the fact. He sent for the young man, inquired
of him, heard the truth, and then asked for the reason of this
unexpected conduct--this preference for a suffering camp over a
comfortable seat in the General Assembly. Mr. Macon answered him,
in his quaint and sententious way, that he had seen the _faces_ of
the British many times, but had never seen their _backs_, and meant
to stay in the army till he did. Greene instantly saw the material
the young man was made of and the handle by which he was to be
worked. That material was patriotism, that handle a sense of duty;
and laying hold of this handle, he quickly worked the young soldier
into a different conclusion from the one that he had arrived at. He
told him he could do more good as a member of the General Assembly
than as a soldier; that in the army he was but one man, and in
the General Assembly he might obtain many, with the supplies they
needed, by showing the destitution and suffering which he had seen
in the camp; and that it was his duty to go. This view of duty and
usefulness was decisive. Mr. Macon obeyed the Governor's summons,
and by his representations contributed to obtain the supplier which
enabled Greene to turn back and face Cornwallis--fight him, cripple
him, drive him further back than he had advanced (for Wilmington is
south of Camden), disable him from remaining in the South (of which,
up to the battle of Guilford, he believed himself to be master),
and sending him to Yorktown, where he was captured and the war ended.

The philosophy of history has not yet laid hold of the battle of
Guilford, its consequences and effects. That battle made the capture
of Yorktown. The events are told in every history: their connection
and dependence in none. It broke up the plan of Cornwallis in the
South, and changed the plan of Washington in the North. Cornwallis
was to subdue the Southern States, and was doing it until Greene
turned upon him at Guilford. Washington was occupied with Sir Henry
Clinton, then in New York with twelve thousand British troops.
He had formed the heroic design to capture Clinton and his army
(the French fleet cooperating) in that city, and thereby putting
an end to the war. All his preparations were going on for that
grand consummation when he got news of the battle of Guilford, the
retreat of Cornwallis to Wilmington, his inability to keep the
field in the South, and his return northward through the lower
part of Virginia. He saw his advantage--an easier prey--and the
same result, if successful. Cornwallis or Clinton, either of them
captured, would put an end to the war. Washington changed his plan,
deceived Clinton, moved rapidly upon the weaker general, captured
him and his seven thousand men, and ended the Revolutionary war. The
battle of Guilford put that capture into Washington's hands; and
thus Guilford and Yorktown became connected; and the philosophy of
history shows their dependence, and that the lesser event was father
to the greater. The State of North Carolina gave General Greene
twenty-five thousand acres of western land for that day's work, now
worth a million of dollars; but the day itself has not yet obtained
its proper place in American history.

The military life of Mr. Macon finished with his departure from
the camp on the Yadkin, and his civil public life commenced on his
arrival at the General Assembly, to which he had been summoned--that
civil public life in which he was continued above forty years
by free elections--Representative in Congress under Washington,
Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, and long the Speaker of the House;
Senator in Congress under Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams;
and often elected President of the Senate, and until voluntarily
declining; twice refusing to be Postmaster-General under Jefferson;
never taking any office but that to which he was elected; and
resigning his last senatorial term when it was only half run. But a
characteristic trait remains to be told of his military life--one
that has neither precedent nor imitation (the example of Washington
being out of the line of comparison): he refused to receive pay or
to accept promotion, and served three years as a private through
mere devotion to his country. And all the long length of his life
was conformable to this patriotic and disinterested beginning:
and thus the patriotic principles of the future Senator were all
revealed in early life and in the obscurity of an unknown situation.
Conformably to this beginning, he refused to take anything under
the modern acts of Congress for the benefit of the surviving
officers and soldiers of the Revolution, and voted against them
all, saying they had suffered alike (citizens and military), and
all been rewarded together in the establishment of independence;
that the debt to the army had been settled by pay, by pensions to
the wounded, by half-pay and land to the officers: that no military
claim could be founded on depreciated continental paper money, from
which the civil functionaries who performed service, and farmers
who furnished supplies, suffered as much as any. On this principle
he voted against the bill for Lafayette, against all the modern
Revolutionary pensions and land bounty acts, and refused to take
anything under them (for many were applicable to himself).

His political principles were deep-rooted, innate, subject to no
change and to no machinery of party. He was democratic in the
broad sense of the word, as signifying a capacity in the people
for self-government; and in its party sense, as in favor of a
plain and economical administration of the Federal Government, and
against latitudinarian constructions of the Constitution. He was a
party man, not in the hackneyed sense of the word, but only where
principle was concerned; and was independent of party in all his
social relations, and in all the proceedings which he disapproved.
Of this he gave a strong instance in the case of General Hamilton,
whom he deemed honorable and patriotic; and utterly refused to be
concerned in a movement proposed to affect him personally, though
politically opposed to him. He venerated Washington, admired the
varied abilities and high qualities of Hamilton, and esteemed
and respected the eminent Federal gentlemen of his time. He had
affectionate regard for Madison and Monroe; but Mr. Jefferson was
to him the full and perfect exemplification of the republican
statesman. His almost fifty years of personal and political
friendship and association with Mr. Randolph is historical, and
indissolubly connects their names and memories in the recollection
of their friends, and in history, if it does them justice. He was
the early friend of General Jackson, and intimate with him when he
was a Senator in Congress under the administration of the elder Mr.
Adams; and was able to tell Congress and the world who he was when
he began to astonish Europe and America by his victories. He was
the kind observer of the conduct of young men, encouraging them by
judicious commendation when he saw them making efforts to become
useful and respectable, and never noting their faults. He was just
in all things, and in that most difficult of all things, judging
political opponents, to whom he would do no wrong, not merely in
word or act, but in thought. He spoke frequently in Congress, always
to the point, and briefly and wisely; and was one of those speakers
whom Mr. Jefferson described Dr. Franklin to have been--a speaker of
no pretension and great performance, who spoke more good sense while
he was getting up out of his chair, and getting back into it, than
many others did in long discourses; and he suffered no reporter to
dress up a speech for him.

He was above the pursuit of wealth, but also above dependence and
idleness; and, like an old Roman of the elder Cato's time, worked
in the fields at the head of his slaves in the intervals of public
duty, and did not cease this labor until advancing age rendered
him unable to stand the hot sun of summer--the only season of the
year when senatorial duties left him at liberty to follow the
plough or handle the hoe. I think it was the summer of 1817--that
was the last time (he told me) he tried it, and found the sun too
hot for him--then sixty years of age, a Senator, and the refuser
of all office. How often I think of him when I see at Washington
robustious men going through a scene of supplication, tribulation,
and degradation, to obtain office, which the salvation of the soul
does not impose upon the vilest sinner. His fields, his flocks and
his herds yielded an ample supply of domestic productions. A small
crop of tobacco--three hogsheads when the season was good, two when
bad--purchased the exotics which comfort and necessity required and
which the farm did not produce. He was not rich, but rich enough
to dispense hospitality and charity, to receive all guests in his
house, from the President to the day-laborer--no other title being
necessary to enter his house but that of an honest man; rich enough
to bring up his family (two daughters) as accomplished ladies,
and marry them to accomplished gentlemen--one to William Martin,
Esq., and the other to William Eaton, Esq., of Roanoke, my early
schoolfellow and friend for more than half a century; and, above
all, he was rich enough to pay as he went and never to owe a dollar
to any man.

He was steadfast in his friendships and would stake himself for
a friend, but would violate no point of public duty to please
or oblige him. Of this his relations with Mr. Randolph gave a
signal instance. He drew a knife to defend him in the theatre at
Philadelphia, when menaced by some naval and military officers for
words spoken in debate and deemed offensive to their professions;
yet, when Speaker of the House of Representatives, he displaced Mr.
Randolph from the head of the Committee of Ways and Means because
the chairman of that committee should be on terms of political
friendship with the administration--which Mr. Randolph had then
ceased to be with Mr. Jefferson's. He was above executive office,
even the highest the President could give; but not above the lowest
the people could give, taking that of justice of the peace in his
county, and refusing that of Postmaster-General at Washington. He
was opposed to nepotism, and to all quartering of his connections
on the government; and in the course of his forty-years' service,
with the absolute friendship of many administrations and the
perfect respect of all, he never had office or contract for any of
his blood. He refused to be a candidate for the Vice-Presidency,
but took the place of Elector on the Van Buren ticket in 1836. He
was against paper money and the paper system, and was accustomed
to present the strong argument against both, in the simple phrase
that this was a hard-money government, made by hard-money men, who
had seen the evil of paper money and meant to save their posterity
from it. He was opposed to security-ships, and held that no man
ought to be entangled in the affairs of another, and that the
interested parties alone--those who expected to find their profit
in the transaction--should bear the bad consequences, as well as
enjoy the good ones, of their own dealings. He never called any one
"friend" without being so, and never expressed faith in the honor
and integrity of a man without acting up to the declaration when
the occasion required it. Thus, in constituting his friend, Weldon
N. Edwards, Esq., his testamentary and sole executor, with large
discretionary powers, he left all to his honor, and forbade him to
account to any court or power for the manner in which he should
execute that trust. This prohibition was so characteristic, and so
honorable to both parties, and has been so well justified by the
event, that I give it in his own words, as copied from his will,
to-wit:

"I subjoin the following, in my own handwriting, as a codicil to
this my last will and testament, and direct that it be a part
thereof--that is to say, having full faith in the honor and
integrity of my executor above named, he shall not be held to
account to any court or power whatever for the discharge of the
trust confided by me to him in and by the foregoing will."

And the event has proved that his judgment, as always, committed
no mistake when it bestowed that confidence. He had his
peculiarities--idiosyncrasies, if any one pleases--but they were
born with him, suited to him, constituting a part of his character,
and necessary to its completeness. He never subscribed to charities,
but gave, and freely, according to his means--the left hand not
knowing what the right hand did. He never subscribed for new books,
giving as a reason to the soliciting agent that nobody purchased
his tobacco until it was inspected, and he could buy no book until
he had examined it. He would not attend the Congress Presidential
Caucus of 1824, although it was sure to nominate his own choice (Mr.
Crawford); and, when a reason was wanted, he gave it in the brief
answer that he attended one once and they cheated him, and he had
said that he would never attend another. He always wore the same
dress--that is to say, a suit of the same material, cut, and color
superfine navy blue--the whole suit from the same piece, and in the
fashion of the time of the Revolution; and always replaced by a new
one before it showed age. He was neat in his person, always wore
fine linen, a fine cambric stock, a fine fur hat with a brim to it,
fair top-boots--the boot outside the pantaloons, on the principle
that leather was stronger than cloth. He would wear no man's honors,
and when complimented on the report on the Panama mission, which,
as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he had presented
to the Senate, he would answer, "Yes, it is a good report; Tazewell
wrote it." Left to himself, he was ready to take the last place
and the lowest seat anywhere; but, in his representative capacity
he would suffer no derogation of a constitutional or of a popular
right. Thus, when Speaker of the House, and a place behind the
President's Secretaries had been assigned him in some ceremony, he
disregarded the programme, and, as the elect of the elect of all the
people, took his place next after those whom the national vote had
elected. And in 1803, on the question to change the form of voting
for President and Vice-President, and the vote wanting one of the
constitutional number of two-thirds, he resisted the rule of the
House which restricted the Speaker's vote to a tie, or to a vote
which would make a tie--claimed his constitutional right to vote
as a member, obtained it, gave the vote, made the two-thirds, and
carried the amendment.

And, what may well be deemed idiosyncratic in these days, he was
punctual in the performance of all his minor duties to the Senate,
attending its sittings to the moment, attending all the committees
to which he was appointed, attending all the funerals of the members
and officers of the Houses, always in time at every place where duty
required him; and refusing double mileage for one traveling when
elected from the House of Representatives to the Senate or summoned
to an extra session. He was an habitual reader and student of the
Bible, a pious and religious man, and of the "_Baptist persuasion_,"
as he was accustomed to express it.

I have a pleasure in recalling the recollections of this wise, just
and good man, and in writing them down, not without profit, I hope,
to rising generations, and at least as extending the knowledge of
the kind of men to whom we are indebted for our independence and for
the form of government which they established for us. Mr. Macon was
the real Cincinnatus of America, the pride and ornament of my native
State, my hereditary friend through four generations, my mentor in
the first seven years of my senatorial, and the last seven of his
senatorial life; and a feeling of gratitude and of filial affection
mingles itself with this discharge of historical duty to his memory.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Benton called his sketch, which appears in his _Thirty-years'
View_, "Retiring of Mr. Macon." It is well done, and interesting
also because it is what one great man said of another. Yet I confess
with some mortification that I have never seen it in print in North
Carolina except in Benton's book.

To the foregoing admirable sketch by Benton I subjoin the following
copious extracts from the _Memoir of Nathaniel Macon_ by Weldon N.
Edwards, published in July, 1862:

     Nathaniel Macon was born on the 17th of December, 1758, in the
     county of Bute, of the then province of North Carolina, in
     the part of it now Warren, within a few miles of the present
     village of Warrenton, of poor and respectable parents. His
     great-grandfather was a Huguenot and came over from France to
     escape the persecutions consequent upon the revocation of the
     Edict of Nantes, in 1685. His father, Gideon H. Macon, was born
     in Virginia, whence he came to North Carolina. His mother was
     a native of North Carolina and a daughter of Edward Jones, of
     Shocco. He lost his father in early boyhood, and was left, with
     many brothers and sisters, in the care of his widowed mother,
     with such moderate means of support as to require the utmost
     care and industry to get on even tolerably in the world. He
     assisted in all the domestic offices and labors common with
     boys at that day. He acquired the rudiments of education in the
     neighborhood, at what was called an "old-field school." The
     application, progress, and good habits of the boy gave such
     promise of the future man that it was resolved to make every
     effort to give him a thorough education, and he was accordingly
     sent to Princeton College, New Jersey. His own inclinations
     eagerly seconded the hopeful purpose of his friends. While
     there, he prosecuted his studies with fond diligence, and sought
     all the avenues to useful knowledge with unflagging zeal. Nor
     did he relax his efforts in this respect after his return home,
     devoting to such books as were within his reach all the time he
     could spare from the ordinary duties of life; but he met with
     great difficulties, owing to the scarcity of books and his own
     poverty. In the latter part of his life he was often heard to
     say that his eyesight failed him sooner than it otherwise would
     have done, in consequence of his reading so much by firelight in
     his youth and early manhood, being then too poor to buy candles,
     his small patrimony having been exhausted during his minority in
     his support and education.

     His love for North Carolina was sincere and thorough. In all
     that concerned her character, her institutions, her welfare,
     he felt an ever-wakeful solicitude. Although he received his
     collegiate education in a distant State, he ever after gave a
     decided preference to the seminaries of his own loved North
     Carolina. When his son-in-law, William Eaton, Sr., in the
     year 1823 was about to send two of his sons to Cambridge, he
     dissuaded him from it and advised him to send them to the
     University of North Carolina, because, among other reasons, they
     would there make acquaintances of many of the future men of the
     State, and contract friendships that would be of service to them
     in the part they were destined to act in the great drama of life.

     He studied law, but never applied for a license to practice.
     There is now in possession of his grandson, William Eaton,
     Jr. (who shared his confidences and affections, and is a
     worthy representative of his principles and virtues), an old
     London-bound edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, which was
     used by him, and which is highly valued as a family relic. Like
     all persons of taste, he admired the classic elegance of this
     celebrated work, but regarded its author as too subservient to
     power, and wanting in manliness and independence. He considered
     Sir Edward Coke a much better friend to English liberty. * * * *
     * * * * *

     Stability and consistency were strong points in Mr. Macon's
     character, formed upon his uncompromising adherence to principle
     and unswerving fidelity to duty. In his conversation he was
     easy and unaffected, in his manners and dress a decided model
     of republican simplicity, pretentious in nothing; all who
     approached him felt conscious of receiving the civility and
     respect demanded by the nicest sense of propriety. To these
     characteristics did he owe much of that firm hold upon the
     confidence and esteem of his countrymen which sustained him in
     the severe trials always to be met in the great battle of life.
     His was an enduring popularity; it never waned; it existed in
     as much vigor and freshness at the close of his life as at any
     former period; it lived after him, and it is the source of the
     highest gratification to his numerous friends and admirers that
     he is still often quoted as the bright exemplar of "the honest
     man and the wise and virtuous statesman." * * * * * * * * *

     Though so long honored, and so many years the depositary of
     public honors and public trusts, Mr. Macon's was the rare
     merit of never having solicited any one to vote for him, or
     even intimated a wish that he should; and though no one shared
     more fully the confidence of a large circle of influential
     friends, his is the praise of never having solicited the
     slightest interest for his own preferment. Public honors
     sought him; he prized them only as the reward of faithful and
     virtuous performance, and regarded place as the means merely
     of bringing him in nearer contact with public duty. He made
     no popular harangues, seeking to avoid temptation of being
     betrayed into promises which he could not or would not fulfill,
     or into protestations which his heart would not sanction. He
     was never found rambling through his Congressional District,
     seeking to engineer himself into popular favor by means which
     self-respect and a just sense of the rights of others forbade.
     His rule was to attend punctually, once a year, if health
     permitted, the first court held in each county in his district
     after his return from Congress. There he met his constituents,
     there he received their greetings and heard their complaints;
     there, without simulation, gave a full account of his
     stewardship. In his intercourse with them he was easy, frank,
     and communicative, never withholding his opinion upon matters
     of public concernment, and always inviting them to the exercise
     of the utmost freedom of thought and of speech as the highest
     privilege of freemen and the surest guard of liberty. He never
     attended what, in his own characteristic language, he called "a
     man-dinner," regarding all such political pageants as having too
     much deceptious exterior, and as being too little calculated
     to better the popular heart or enlighten the popular mind. And
     when, upon his retirement from Congress, a large portion of his
     old constituents tendered him the compliment of a public dinner,
     he declined it in a brief note, saying that "he had never been
     at such a show, and that he had already received the most
     gratifying proofs of their good-will and esteem."

     To shun all ostentatious display and the emptiness of pride was,
     with him, a _principle_; and to do good to his fellow-men, and
     to society, a rule of action which he scrupulously observed,
     always abstaining, in the employment of his faculties, and
     in the use of the abundant goods with which frugal industry
     had blessed him, from the gratification of any passion, the
     indulgence of which prudence forbade to others less favored
     by fortune--thus teaching, by both precept and example, the
     necessity of temperance, frugality and industry, as the surest
     and best foundation for contentment and plenty.

     Of generous and unsuspicious nature, he never looked with
     uncharitableness on the actions of his fellow-men, but, with the
     strength and armor of a well-balanced mind, gave to them the
     calmest consideration and assigned to each its appropriate place
     in the scale of good and evil. Of philosophic mind, subdued
     temper, and great self-command, he met the incidents and
     accidents of life, not with stoic indifference, but with quiet
     submission--yielding nothing to passion, less to despondency,
     and looking to passing events as to a school for instruction,
     and deducing from them useful lessons to guide him in the
     pathway of life.

     Of him it may be emphatically said, that he thought for himself,
     but reposing, with confidence, on his discriminating sense of
     justice and integrity of purpose, he gave to all subjects the
     fullest deliberation, and never jumped to conclusions in advance
     of his judgment. But when he had formed an opinion he adhered to
     it with a fearless and virtuous inflexibility which yielded to
     no importunity or persuasion. This, with some, subjected him to
     the charge of obstinacy.

           "Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes."

* * * * * * * * * * *

     He was chary of promises, but always punctual and exact in
     performance; would give his bond or note to no man, contract no
     debts, would buy nothing without paying for it. "Pay as you go"
     was a law to him which he inflexibly observed. He mastered all
     his wants and kept them in strict subjection to reason. He would
     lend money to a friend, but never take interest. He classed
     labor among the virtues, never called for help in anything he
     could do himself, labored often in his fields at the head of his
     slaves, during the intervals allowed from public duties, and
     topped all his own tobacco, when at home at the proper season,
     till the infirmities of age rendered him unable to stand the
     heat of the sun. He was fond of the chase and indulged in his
     favorite amusement, the pursuit of the fox and the deer, as long
     as he lived.

     He spoke often in Congress--seldom long. His speeches were
     always to the point, strong, practical, sententious, often
     furnishing materials for the rhetorical displays of others. A
     most distinguished member once characterized his speeches as
     "dishes of the best material served up in the best manner."
     Unless prevented by bad health, he was always in his seat, voted
     on every question, was punctual in attendance upon committees,
     and ever ready at the call of duty.

     He was fond of reading, but his favorite study was man. "He made
     choice of human nature for the object of his thoughts." To this
     predilection did he owe that consummate knowledge of the human
     character, and those practical lessons of wisdom (of so much
     consequence in the conduct of life) which gave him rank among
     the "wisest and best."

     There is no surer test of merit than is found in the favorable
     opinions of the wise and the good, formed in the unrestricted
     freedom of social intercourse, when the seal of reserve is
     unloosed, and neither the pride of ostentation nor the dread
     of criticism or censure invites to concealment. Impressed with
     this truth, with a view to impart deeper interest to this
     sketch, by stamping the seal of verity upon the high and noble
     traits it portrays, recourse is had to the correspondence of
     eminent and distinguished statesmen, to whom all the avenues of
     knowledge were opened by close intimacy and long association in
     public life. Thomas Jefferson, whose monument is to be found in
     the Declaration of Independence, and in the enduring popular
     veneration which he so largely shared, but a few weeks after
     his first inauguration as President of the United States, in
     1801, thus writes to Mr. Macon: "And in all cases when an office
     becomes vacant in your State, as the distance would occasion a
     great delay, were you to wait to be regularly consulted, I shall
     be much obliged to you to recommend the best characters. There
     is nothing I am so anxious about as making the best possible
     appointments, and no case in which the best men are more liable
     to mislead us by yielding to the solicitations of applicants.
     For this reason your own spontaneous recommendation would be
     desirable." Thus did Mr. Jefferson stake an important portion of
     his administrative duties upon his high estimate of Mr. Macon's
     integrity and wisdom. Again, in another letter to Mr. Macon, the
     24th of March, 1826, Mr. Jefferson says: "My grandson, Thomas
     Jefferson Randolph, the bearer of this letter, on a journey to
     the North, will pass two or three days, perhaps, in Washington.
     I cannot permit him to do this without presenting him to a
     friend of so long standing, whom I consider as the strictest
     of our models of genuine republicanism. Let him be able to
     say, when you are gone, but not forgotten, that he had seen
     Nathaniel Macon, upon whose tomb will be written, '_Ultimus
     Romanorum!_' I only ask you to give him a hearty shake of the
     hand, on my account, as well as his own, assuring you he merits
     it as a citizen, to which I will add my unceasing affection to
     yourself." * * * * * * *

     Of Mr. Macon's claims to distinction, and to take rank on the
     roll of fame among the first of those who embellish the pages
     of American history, that sagacious statesman, John Randolph of
     Roanoke, whose perception of character was rarely at fault, in
     a letter to Mr. Macon, 14th December, 1828, thus speaks: "Your
     kind letter of the 10th is just now received. Many, many thanks
     for it. I am truly concerned at the causes which justly occasion
     you uneasiness; yet, when I reflect, I know of no man in the
     United States whom I would so soon be as yourself. There is no
     one who stands so fair in the public estimation; and, with the
     single exception of General Washington, there is not one of your
     times who will stand so fair with posterity as yourself. There
     are various sorts of reputations in the world. Some are obtained
     by cringing and puffing, some are actually begged for and given
     as an alms to importunity, some are carried by sheer impudence.
     No one has had a better opportunity of observing this than
     yourself; and there is no keener observer."

     Upon such testimonials as these, from such high and pure
     sources, the reputation of this just and virtuous man may safely
     repose. They bespeak a name and a fame which dignify humanity,
     and invest his memory with a usefulness scarcely less to be
     prized than his services while living.

     This sketch would be imperfect did it not notice the suggestive
     fact that in his latter years Mr. Macon had painful misgivings
     for the future of his country. 'Tis true he did not parade his
     opinions before the public gaze, preferring rather to encourage,
     not to alarm, the popular mind; but often when his thoughts
     were turned on what he deemed the political distempers and
     proclivities of the times, did he say to a friend in his own
     pregnant language: "I am afraid of all my labors have been for
     nothing"--obviously referring to his hardships in the tented
     field and his arduous and well-directed labors in the councils
     of his country, having devoted to these patriotic offices the
     greater part of a long life, commencing before manhood and
     ending with its close. At one period he reposed with entire
     confidence on the conviction that popular rights and public
     liberty were effectually secured by the Constitution of the
     United States, but this hopeful reliance failed him as early
     as 1824. In a debate, at that period, in the Senate of the
     United States, on the bill for a subscription to the Delaware
     and Chesapeake Canal, Mr. Macon said: "I rise with a full heart
     to take my last farewell of an old friend that I have always
     admired and loved--the Constitution of the United States. * * *
     In times of old, whenever any question touching the Constitution
     was brought forward, it was discussed day after day; that time
     is now passed. * * * Do a little now and a little then, and by
     and by you will render the government as powerful and unlimited
     as the British government was. We go on deciding these things
     without looking at the Constitution; and I suppose we will,
     in a few years, do as was done in England. We shall appoint a
     committee to hunt for precedents. My heart is full when I think
     of all this; and what is to become of us I cannot say. * * * My
     fears may be groundless; they may be nothing but the suggestions
     of a worn-out old man; but they are sincere, and I am alarmed
     for the safety of this government."

     In vain did he then, as often before, raise his warning voice
     against the dangers of inroads upon the Constitution. And now
     that the direst calamities are upon us, resulting from its
     utter overthrow and its base prostitution by wicked men to the
     worst and most wicked purposes--how loudly do they proclaim the
     unerring sagacity of his gifted and far-reaching mind!

       *       *       *       *       *

In person Macon was above the middle size, of florid but fair
complexion, keen blue eyes, animated but kindly countenance, not
very good-looking, but possessed of a symmetrical form and strength
of body. His manners were simple and unostentatious, but not without
sufficient dignity and firmness.

He was married early in life to Miss Hannah Plummer, of Warren, his
own county.

A good story is told of the way he won her. He proposed in her
presence to his rival that they should settle their claim to her
hand by a game of cards. This was agreed to and Macon lost. He
then raised up his hands, and with eyes fixed on the object of his
affection, exclaimed: "Hannah, notwithstanding I have lost you
fairly, love is superior to honesty: I cannot give you up." He won,
and was married to her October 9th, 1783.

He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1791, and served
continuously until 1815, when he was elected to the Senate. He was
also a trustee of the University and a justice of the peace, both of
which offices he gave up in 1828, at the time he resigned his seat
in the Senate.

He was not a party man, but believed in true democracy. He
complained often that some of the most vital parts of the
Constitution had been construed or enacted away before he left
Congress. He was a strict constructionist.

He presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1835, and took
part in its deliberations upon the more important questions. With
Gaston, he favored religious toleration, and made a speech against
the clause in the old Constitution prohibiting all but those of the
Protestant religion from holding any office of trust or profit in
North Carolina.

He was averse to having his picture taken. This peculiarity grew
on him, until in very old age he is said to have threatened a
persistent picture-maker with libel if, as he had suggested, he
should take his (Macon's) picture without his knowledge. Hardly
a growth so strong and rugged without some gnarls and knots. The
picture of him given in this book is from a portrait by Randall, and
is pronounced a good likeness by Mr. J. A. Egerton (an old neighbor)
and others who knew him intimately.

He paid his physician attending him in his last illness before he
died, and directed the details of his burial.

The _Life of Macon_ was written in 1840 by Edward R. Cotten; but
in his book of two hundred and seventy-two pages, Cotten says
comparatively little of Macon, and devotes most of his space to his
own views on many subjects, Macon's opinions and acts sometimes
furnishing the text. If the book was not entitled _Life of Macon_
it would be more interesting. As indicating what a Warren county
gentleman of much leisure and considerable reading, of good
associates and ordinary capacity, was thinking about in 1840, the
book ought to be preserved.

In order to give an idea of Macon's directness and simplicity, I
offer an abbreviated report of one of his speeches made in the
Senate, taken almost at random from the _Abridgment of the Debates
of Congress_. The time was January 20, 1820. The question was
the admission of Missouri, as well as Maine, into the Union. The
protected States urged an amendment restricting slavery in Missouri
before it should be admitted as a State, which amendment Mr. Macon
opposed with his usual sound sense. The speech is imperfectly
reported, but contains the germ of almost all that could have been
said on the subject from his standpoint.


SPEECH ON THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE.

By NATHANIEL MACON.

Mr. Macon, of North Carolina, said that he agreed in opinion with
the gentleman who had declared this to be the greatest question ever
debated in the Senate, and that it ought to be discussed in the
calmest manner, without attempting to excite passion or prejudice.
It was, however, to be regretted that while some of those who
supported the motion were quite calm and cool they used a good many
hard words, which had no tendency to continue the good humor which
they recommended. He would endeavor to follow their advice, but
must be pardoned for not following their example in the use of hard
words. If, however, one should escape him, it would be contrary
to his intention, and an act of indiscretion, not of design or
premeditation. He hoped to examine the subject with great meekness
and humility.

The debate had brought forcibly to his recollection the anxiety
of the best patriots of the nation, when the present Constitution
was examined by the State conventions which adopted it. The public
mind was then greatly excited, and men in whom the people properly
placed the utmost confidence were divided. There was then no whisper
about disunion, for every one considered the Union as absolutely
necessary for the good of all. But to-day we have been told by the
honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Lowrie) that he would
prefer disunion rather than that slaves should be carried west of
the Mississippi. Age, Mr. Macon said, may have rendered him timid,
or education may have prevailed on him to attach greater blessings
to the Union and the Constitution than they deserve. If this be
the case, and it be an error, it was one he had no desire to be
free from even after what he had heard in this debate. Get clear
of this Union and it will be found vastly more difficult to unite
again and form another. There were no parties in the country at
the time it was formed, not even upon this question. The men who
carried the nation through the Revolution were alive, and members of
the Convention. Washington was at their head. Have we a Washington
now? No. Is there one in the nation to fill his place? No. His
like, if ever, has been rarely seen; nor can we, rationally, expect
another in our day. Let us not speak of disunion as an easy thing.
If ever it shall come, it will bring evils enough for the best men
to encounter, and all good men, in every nation, lovers of freedom,
will lament it. This Constitution is now as much an experiment as
it was in the year 1789. It went into operation about the time the
French Revolution commenced. The wars which grew out of that, and
the difficulties and perplexities which we had to encounter, in
consequence of the improper acts of belligerents, kept the people
constantly attached to the government. It has stood well the trial
of trouble and of war, and answered, in those times, the purposes
for which it was formed and adopted; but now it is to be tried, in
time of universal peace, whether a government within a government
can sustain itself and preserve the liberty of the citizen. When we
hear the exclamation "Disunion, rather than slaves be carried over
the Mississippi," it ought not to be forgotten that the union of the
people and the Confederation carried us through the Revolutionary
war (a war of which no man can wish to see the like again in this
country); but, as soon as peace came, the Confederation was found
to be entirely unfit for it; so unfit that it was given up for
the present Constitution. Destroy this Union, and what may be the
condition of the country, no man, not the most sagacious, can
even imagine. It will surely be much worse than it was before the
Constitution was adopted; and that must be well remembered.

The proposed amendment is calculated to produce geographical
parties, or why admonish us to discuss it with moderation and good
temper? No man who has witnessed the effect of parties nearly
geographical can wish to see them revived. Their acts formerly
produced uneasiness, to say the least of them, to good men of every
party. General Washington has warned us against them; but he is
now dead, and his advice may soon be forgotten; form geographical
parties and it will be discarded. Instead of forming sectional
parties it would be more patriotic to do them away. But party and
patriotism are not always the same. Town meetings and resolutions
to inflame one part of the nation against another can never benefit
the people, though they may gratify an individual. Leave the people
to form their own opinions, without the aid of inflammatory speeches
at town meetings, and they will always form them correctly. No town
meeting was necessary to inform or inflame the public mind against
the law giving members of Congress a salary instead of a daily
allowance. The people formed their own opinions, disapproved it,
and it was repealed. So they will always act if left to themselves.
Let not parties formed at home for State purposes be brought into
Congress to disturb and distract the Union. The general government
hitherto has been productive enough of parties to satisfy those
who most delight in them; so that they are not likely to be long
wanted in it. Enough, and more than enough, has been produced by the
difficulty of deciding what is and what is not within the limits of
the Constitution. And, at this moment, we have difficulties enough
to scuffle with without adding the present question. The dispute
between the Bank of the United States and the State banks, the want
of money by the government, the increase of taxes in the midst of
increasing debts, and the dispute with Spain might serve for this
session.

All the States now have equal rights and all are content. Deprive
one of the least right which it now enjoys in common with the
others, and it will no longer be content. So, if the Government had
an unlimited power to put whatever conditions it pleased on the
admission of a new State into the Union, a State admitted with a
condition unknown to the others would not be content, no matter what
might be the character of the condition, even though it was not to
steal or commit murder. The difference in the terms of admission
would not be acceptable. All the new States have the same rights
that the old have, and why make Missouri an exception? She has not
done a single act to deserve it, and why depart, in her case, from
the great American principle that the people of each State can
govern themselves? No reason has been assigned for the attempt at
the departure, nor can one be assigned which would not apply as
strongly to Louisiana. In every free country that ever existed the
first violations of the principles of government were indirect and
not well understood, or supported with great zeal by only a part of
the people.

All the country west of the Mississippi was acquired by the same
treaty, and on the same terms, and the people in every part have
the same rights; but, if the amendment be adopted, Missouri will
not have the same rights which Louisiana now enjoys. She has been
admitted into the Union as a full sister, but her twin-sister,
Missouri, under the proposed amendment, is to be admitted as a
sister of the half-blood, or rather as a stepdaughter, under an
unjust stepmother--for what? Because she, as well as Louisiana,
performed well her part during the late war, and because she has
never given the general government any trouble. The operation
of the amendment is unjust as it relates to the people who have
moved there from other States. They carried with them the property
which was common in the States they left, secured to them by the
Constitution and laws of the United States as well as by the treaty.
There they purchased public lands and settled with their slaves,
without a single objection to their owning and carrying them; but
now, unfortunately for them, after they have been to the trouble
and expense of building houses and clearing plantations in the new
country it has been discovered that they had no right to carry their
slaves with them and that they must now move and make room for those
who are considered a better people. The country was bought with the
money of all, slaveholders as well as those who are not; and every
one knew when he bought land and moved with his property he had a
perfect right to do so. And no one till last session ever said to
the contrary or moved the restriction about slaves. The object now
avowed is to pen up the slaves and their owners, and not permit
them to cross the Mississippi to better their condition, where
there is room enough for all and good range for man and beast. (And
man is as much improved by moving and range as the beast of the
field.) But what is still more unaccountable, a part of the land
granted to the soldiers for their services in the late war was
laid off in Missouri expressly for the soldiers who had enlisted
in the Southern States, and would prefer living where they might
have slaves. These too are now to leave the country of their choice
and the land obtained by fighting the battles of the nation. Is
this just in a government of law, supported only by opinion? for
it is not pretended that it is a government of force. In the most
alarming state of our affairs at home--and some of them have an
ugly appearance--public opinion alone has corrected and changed
that which seemed to threaten disorder and ill-will into order and
good-will, except once, when the military was called out in 1791.
Let this be compared to the case of individuals and it will not be
found to be more favorable to the amendment than the real case just
stated. A and B buy a tract of land large enough for both and for
their children, and settle it, build houses and open plantations.
When they have got it in good way to live comfortably, after ten
or fifteen years, A thinks there is not too much for him and his
children, and that they can, a long time hence, settle and cultivate
the whole land. He then for the first time tells B that he has some
property he does not like, and that he must get clear of it or move.
B states the bargain. A answers that it is true he understood it so
until of late, but that move he must or get clear of his property;
for that property should not be in his way. The kind or quality of
property cannot affect the question.

A wise legislature will always consider the character, condition
and feelings of those to be legislated for. In a government and
people like ours this is indispensable. The question now under
debate demands this consideration. To a part of the United States,
and that part which supports the amendment, it cannot be important
except as it is made so by the circumstances of the time. In all
questions like the present, in the United States, the strong may
yield without disgrace even in their own opinion; the weak cannot.
Hence the propriety of not attempting to impose this new condition
on the people of Missouri. Their numbers are few compared to those
of the whole United States. Let the United States then abandon this
new scheme, let their magnanimity and not their power be felt by
the people of Missouri. The attempt to govern too much has produced
every civil war that ever has been, and probably every one that ever
may be. All governments, no matter what their form, want more power
and more authority, and all the governed want less government. Great
Britain lost the United States by attempting to govern too much and
to introduce new principles of governing. The United States would
not submit to the attempt, and earnestly endeavored to persuade
Great Britain to abandon it, but in vain. The United States would
not yield, and the result is known to the world. The battle is not
always to the strong nor the race to the swift. What reason have
we to expect that we can persuade Missouri to yield to our opinion
that did not apply as strongly to Great Britain? They are as near
akin to us as we were to Great Britain. They are "flesh of our flesh
and bone of our bone." But as to kin, when they fall out they do
not make up sooner

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