Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

My subject is the Old South; the Old South of pure women and brave men; the South of Washington and Jefferson; of Carroll and Rutledge; of Marshall and Taney; of the Pinckneys of Maryland and South Carolina (for they were of the same stock); of Andrew Jackson and Winfield Scott; of Decatur, Mcdonough, and Tattnall; the generous Old South, which, rich, prosperous, and peaceful under British domination, cried "The cause of Boston is the cause of us all," and had her sons slain and her land desolated in defense of her Northern sister; the magnanimous Old South, which, without ships and commerce, hoisted in 1812, in the interest of the carrying trade, the banner inscribed "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights"; the chivalrous Old South, crying out in the person of Randolph Ridgeley, when Charley May was about trying the novel experiment of a charge of cavalry upon a battery of Mexican artillery, "Hold on, Charley, till I draw their fire upon myself." Ah! my countrymen, that Old South did many unselfish deeds which, in the slang of the day, "didn't pay." But the world was made purer, nobler, and better by them, and they should be as ointment poured forth, fragrant through all the ages.

Christopher Columbus has justly been considered mankind's greatest benefactor, and surely no one ever did great deeds under more adverse circumstances. Crowned heads had tantalized him with hope but to baffle his expectations; jealous courtiers sneered at him; men of science called him a dreamer and a madman; his own sailors were insubordinate and mutinous. Through it all, this wonderful man had borne himself grandly, never losing heart or hope until success had crowned his efforts. The fame won by Columbus stimulated the enterprise of the world for the next three hundred and fifty years, until all the highways and byways of the ocean had been thoroughly explored, and all its creeks, bays, and estuaries had been thoroughly surveyed. Then discoveries ceased, and it was said that there were no more continents, no more islands, no more coral reefs, no more sand-bars to be found in all the wide waste of waters. This lull in discovery continued until 1868, when an enterprising brother from somewhere north of Mason and Dixon's line announced to the startled world that he had discovered a hitherto unknown region of vast extent, with fertile soil, varied and wonderful products, the loveliest scenery and the finest climate on the globe—cities, towns, villages, and a vast rural population—all speaking the English language, though it was not told whether they were Christian or heathen. The great navigator had called his discovery the New World, and other navigators had called theirs New Caledonia, New Zealand, New Britain, New Hebrides, New Holland, etc.; this land navigator, of the year of grace 1868, called his discovery the "New South." The thing stranger to me than even finding this hitherto unknown land is that the English-speaking race discovered there have adopted the name given them, are proud of it, brag about it, and roll it as a sweet morsel under their tongues. All other barbarians have resented the name imposed upon them by their discoverers, and have clung to their old names, their old ideas, and their old traditions.

It will be my business at this time to speak to you, Veterans of this Association, of the Old South for which we fought, and for which so many of our comrades, as dear to us as our own heart's blood, laid down their precious lives. I would tell you, young people, of that dear Old South which has passed away, that you may admire and imitate whatever was grand and noble in its history and reject whatever was wrong and defective.

Dr. Channing, of Boston, one of the ablest and fairest of the many gifted men of the North, said more than forty years ago, that the great passion of the South was for political power and the great passion of the North was for wealth. I quote his words: "The South has abler politicians than the North, and almost necessarily so, because its opulent class makes politics the business of life.... In the South, an unnatural state of things turns men's thoughts to political ascendency, but in the Free States men think little of it. Prosperity is the goal for which they toil perseveringly from morning until night. Even the political partisan among us (the Northern people) has an eye to property and seeks office as the best, perhaps the only way, of subsistence."

This was a frank confession from a Northern scholar and thinker, that Northern politicians sought office with an eye to property and subsistence, while ambitious Southerners sought for place and power from love of political supremacy. Now, the motive of the latter class was not good, but these lovers of high position did have a restraining influence upon the lovers of money. The scandals that have brought shame upon the American name occurred when the Old South was out of power. Who has not heard of the Credit Mobilier swindle, in which high government officers, Senators and Representatives, were implicated? Then there were frauds known as Emma Mine stock, Seneca Stone contract, Whiskey Ring swindles, Pacific Mail subsidies, sales of Sutlers' Posts, steals of Government lands, "back salary" grabs, Star Route robberies, etc., etc. When Southern statesmen had a controlling influence these knaveries were unknown, because they were impossible. No official from the Old South, whether in Cabinet, Congress, Foreign Mission or public position of any kind, was ever charged with roguery. No great statesman of that period ever corruptly made money out of his office. Calhoun, Clay, and Webster were comparatively poor. Some of our greatest Presidents were almost paupers, notably Jefferson, Monroe, and Harrison.

Dr. Channing gave the distinction between the North and the South with great candor and fairness. But we might still inquire: Why did the North seek property, and why did the South seek political supremacy, as the chief good? The reason of the differences between the two sections seems to me perfectly plain. It was not a race difference between the two peoples, for they were of the same blood and the same speech. The ambition of each section as to the avenues in which it should seek its own self-aggrandizement was determined by its surroundings. The Northern States of the old thirteen had magnificent bays and harbors, but a bleak, inhospitable climate, in which African slaves could not thrive, and a soil not adapted to producing the things which the world specially needed. The people of that region then freed or sold into the South the negroes whom they had brought from Africa and whom they found to be unprofitable slaves in their latitude. Naturally, these Northerners turned away from unremunerative agriculture to the wealth-giving sea and became the boldest and hardiest navigators the world had ever seen; but with all their courage, pluck, and energy they were averse to war and personal conflicts as interfering with the peaceful gains of trade. They were too busy to be turbulent. They put thousands of ships upon the ocean as fishing-smacks, whalers, and merchantmen. Their shipping interest called for great centers of trade and for foundries and machine-shops. They built great cities and huge dock-yards; they opened vast mines and established rich factories. They became a money-getting people from the situation in which their surroundings had placed them. Anglo-Saxon energy and indomitable will had made them masters of whatever was at first unfavorable in their situation.

The South had but few ports, and these were in unhealthy places; it had a climate well suited to the African, and a soil well adapted to produce those things which the world most needed. Hence the people of the Old South maintained slavery and devoted themselves almost exclusively to agriculture. They built no great cities, for they had no trade; they developed no mines and erected no factories, for their laborers were better at field work than at anything else. The Southern men of property went to the country and became feudal lords of black retainers, the best fed, the best clothed, the gayest, happiest, healthiest, strongest serfs the world had ever seen. The towns and villages at the South were shackly, mostly with unpaved and unlighted streets. The rural mansions were spacious and comfortable, seldom grand or elegant. An agricultural people are seldom rich and the profuse hospitality of the Southern planter kept him generally straitened in his means. The Old South labored under a more serious disadvantage; there were few literary and scientific men among them. History shows that the great men of the world have been born chiefly in the country, and that they gained distinction, not there, but in cities and towns. The fire may be hid in a flint for countless ages, and the spark only be given out when the flint is struck by the steel. So the intellectual giants reared in the free, fresh air of the country have only given out their grand thoughts under the influence of other minds in populous places.

Thus, the men of the Old South, being cut off from wealth, from mining, manufacture, commerce, art, science, and literature, found but two fields open in which they could distinguish themselves—war and politics—and into these they entered boldly and successfully and became leading statesmen and renowned warriors. So the surroundings of the Old South determined the destiny of its sons, just as the surroundings of the North determined that of its sons. Exceptional cases occurred at the South where fame was won outside of politics. Thus, Audubon, of Louisiana, was the first as he is the most distinguished, of American ornithologists. Washington Allston, of South Carolina, ranks among the foremost of American painters. M. F. Maury, of Virginia, has done more for navigation than any one of this century, and he received more medals, diplomas, and honors as a man of science from European nations than any other American. John Gill, of New Bern, N. C., is the true inventor of the revolver which has revolutionized the tactics of the world. Dr. Clemens, of Salisbury, N. C., is the true inventor of the telegraph, which has made almost instantaneous the intercourse between the most distant nations of the earth. McCormick, of Virginia, was the first to put the reaper into the field, which has done so much to develop the vast grain fields of the West. Stevens, of South Carolina, was the first to use iron as a protection against artillery, and thus the whole system of naval warfare has been changed. Dr. Reed, of Tuscaloosa, Ala., is the inventor of rifled cannon, which have made useless fortifications of stone and brick. Richard Jordan Gatling, of Hertford county, N. C., is the inventor of the terrible gun that bears his name. The Georgians claim that their countryman, Rev. F. R. Goulding, is the inventor of the sewing machine. General Gabriel J. Rains, by the construction of a peculiar friction primer, made the use of torpedoes successful in the Southern waters during the civil war, and demonstrated that weak maritime nations could be protected against the most powerful. The Le Contes, of Georgia, are to-day among our foremost men of science. Dr. J. Marion Sims, of South Carolina, had more reputation abroad than any other American physician. In literature, we have had such men as Marshall, Kennedy, Gayarre, Wirt, Gilmore Simms, Hawks, Legaré, Hayne, Ryan, Timrod, the Elliotts, of South Carolina, Ticknor, Lanier, Thornwell, Archibald Alexander and his sons, Addison and James W., A. T. Bledsoe, Mrs. Welby, Mrs. Terhune. Brooke, of Virginia, solved the problem of deep-sea sounding, which had so long baffled men of science. But the other day, General John Newton, of Virginia, was at the head of the Engineering Department of the United States. Stephen V. Benet, of Florida, is now head of the United States Ordnance Department, and Dr. Robert Murray, of Maryland, is Surgeon-General.

Most of the Southern inventions were lost to those whose genius devised them, because the Old South had no foundries and machine-shops in which they could be made, and no great centers of trade by which they could be put upon the market. With rare magnanimity, Southern Congressmen had voted for protective tariffs, fishing bounties and coast-trade regulations, which did so much to build up the big cities and great commerce of the North and to fill its coffers to overflowing. Even Mr. Calhoun had voted to protect "infant industries," believing that the infants would in the course of time learn to crawl and walk, and do without pap. But that time has not yet come. Thomas Prentice Kettell, a Northern man, estimates that in these three ways the Old South contributed from 1789 to 1861 $2,770,000,000 of her wealth to Northern profits. Our statesmen knew, surely, that their own section would never get one dollar in return from this enormous expenditure. But they were patriotic enough to be willing to make the nation rich and prosperous, even at the expense, for a season, of their own beloved South. My Countrymen! that Old South was a generous Old South. The world scoffs at such generosity and says, "it don't pay." The Old South believed with the wise man that "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and loving favor than gold and silver." But the world does not think with Solomon and the Old South, and chooses great riches rather than the good name, and gives its loving favor to the holders of the gold and silver. But while the Old South had some success in literature, art, and science, the character of its people ought to be judged mainly by what they accomplished in two departments to which their efforts were mostly restricted—politics and war. Did the Old South give to the country wise statesmen and brave warriors? This will be the subject of the present investigation.

Mr. Bancroft says: "American Independence, like the great rivers of the country, had many sources, but the head-spring which colored all the stream was the Navigation Act." The whole of New England was in a blaze of fury because of it. The effect of it upon their commerce and shipping interest was most disastrous, and they believed that ruin impended over them. The Old South was equally excited, though it had no carrying trade and was in nowise affected by the act. But an agricultural people, living much by themselves, develop large individuality, and are always liberty-loving. Hence, though in many respects the gainers by intercourse with England, the sons of the Old South stoutly resisted all encroachments upon their freedom by the Mother Country—a term of endearment they still loved to use. The Old South denounced the Navigation Act, which did not hurt its interests at all, just as severely as it did the Stamp and Revenue Acts. All were blows at the inalienable rights of freemen, and all were alike opposed. Christopher Gadsden, of South Carolina, in a speech delivered in Charleston in 1766, advocated the independence of the colonies, and he was the first American to proclaim that thought. The first American Congress met in Philadelphia on the 7th of October, 1774. Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, was elected President of that body. On the 20th of May, 1775, the Scotch-Irish of Mecklenburg county, N. C., absolved all allegiance to the crown of Great Britain, and set up a government of its own. On the 12th of April, 1776, the Provincial Congress of North Carolina took the lead of all the States in passing resolutions of independence. On the 7th of June that year, Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, moved: "These United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States." It was upon this motion in the Continental Congress that the separation from Great Britain took place. It was a Virginian who wrote the Declaration of Independence. It was a Virginian who led the rebel armies to victory and to freedom. It was a Southerner, Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, whose draft of the Constitution was mainly adopted.