Lives of Distinguished North Carolinians, with Illustrations and Speeches

by Unknown

ADDRESS AT THE UNIVERSITY.

BY ARCHIBALD D. MURPHY.

The Literary Societies of this institution have resolved that an address be delivered before them annually by some one of their members. This resolution, if carried into effect in the spirit in which it has been adopted, will be creditable to the Societies and favorable to the general literature of the State. It is now more than thirty years since these Societies were established, and all the alumni of this University have been members of one or the other of them. Upon these alumni, and upon others who shall go forth from this University, our hopes must chiefly rest for improvement in our literary character; and their zeal for such improvement cannot fail to be excited by being annually called together, and one of them selected to deliver a public discourse upon the progress and state of our literature, or some subject connected therewith. The Societies have conferred on me an unmerited honor by appointing me to deliver the first of these discourses. I accepted the appointment with pride, as it was an evidence of their esteem; yet with humility, from a conviction of my inability to meet public expectation—an inability of which I am conscious at all times, but particularly so after a painful and tedious illness.

Little that is interesting in the history of literature can be expected in the infancy of a colony planted on a continent three thousand miles distant from the mother-country, in the midst of a wilderness and surrounded by savages. Under such circumstances civilization declines, and manners and language degenerate. When the first patent was granted to Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1584, the English language had received considerable improvement. Spenser had published his Faerie Queene, Shakespeare his Plays, Sir Philip Sidney his Arcadia, Knolles his General History of the Turks, and our theology had been enriched by the eloquent writings of Hooker. This improvement was not confined to the learned; it had already extended itself to the common people, particularly in the towns and villages, and the language of the first colonists no doubt partook of this improvement. But these colonists were all adventurers; they joined in Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition only for the purpose of making fortunes, and their chief hope was that they would quickly find gold in abundance and return home to enjoy their wealth. This delusive hope continued for many years to beguile adventurers; who, not finding the treasure they came in quest of, became idle and profligate, and abandoned a country in which they had met with nothing but disappointment. Sir Walter Raleigh, after expending a large part of his estate in attempts to settle a colony, assigned to Thomas Smith, of London, and his associates, the privilege of trading to Virginia and of continuing the colony. Under the advice of Raleigh he directed his efforts to the waters of the Chesapeake, and there caused to be planted a colony which became permanent, and from which Virginia and Carolina were peopled. A new charter was granted to Thomas Smith and his associates in 1606, and enlarged in 1609. Their company continued with many vicissitudes of fortune until the year 1626, when it was dissolved. The history of the colony to the time of this dissolution was written by John Smith and also by Stith. They were contemporary with Lord Clarendon, who wrote the History of the Great Rebellion in England. Their style and manner of writing, and the public papers published by the President and Council of the Colony, during this period, evidence great improvement in our language. The chaos in which it lay in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth gradually gave way to the order and method which good sense introduced into every pursuit; the pedantry and conceits which disfigured our literature in the reign of James I. yielded to the influence of good taste. Sir Walter Raleigh published his History of the World, Lord Bacon his historical and philosophical works and moral essays, and our poetry was adorned by the writings of Milton, Dryden, Butler, and Otway. Shortly afterwards came Sir William Temple, Archbishop Tillotson and others, who gave facility and grace to composition. These were new beauties and pleased the nation more as they gave to style the charm of polished conversation.

Whilst the literary taste of the nation was thus improving, religious intolerance drove from England a great number of Quakers, Presbyterians and other sectarians, who sought refuge in the Virginia colony. They there soon met with the same persecution which had driven them from their native country. They were compelled to leave the colony; and Providence directing their course through the wilderness, they settled near Pasquotank and Perquimans, and formed the germ of the Carolina colony. Many of them were Quakers, and their descendants continue to occupy that district of country to this day.

In the year 1663, Charles II. granted the soil and seigniory of Carolina to eight Lords Proprietors, who, to encourage emigration, held out favorable terms. They promised to adventurers gratuities in land according to the number of their respective families, and the most perfect freedom in the exercise of religion. A civil government was established purely representative; a circumstance to which may be attributed, in a great degree, the republican feelings and opinions which soon characterized the colony, and which led to the plan of civil polity under which we now live. When the Lords Proprietors discovered that the colony was likely to become numerous and powerful they endeavored to restrain the civil and religious liberty which they had promised to emigrants: they established a new form of government, declaring their object to be "to make the government of the colony agree as nearly as possible with the monarchy of which it was a part, and to avoid erecting a numerous democracy." This plan of government was the joint work of Lord Ashley and the celebrated John Locke; and its chief aim was to appoint orders of nobility, establish a powerful aristocracy and check the progress of republican opinions and manners. A more ridiculous plan for the government of the colony could not have been devised. The people were accustomed to equality and self-government; a rank of nobility was odious to them, and they disregarded laws which they had not been consulted in making. The prosperity of the colony declined, public morals relaxed, the laws lost their energy, a general spirit of discontent grew up and ripened into rebellion; the Governors became corrupt, and the people idle and vicious. The attempt to give effect to the new plan of government entirely failed, and the Lords Proprietors abolished it as unsuited to the condition of the colony. Two factions then arose; one that wished to establish a high-toned prerogative government; the other consisted of High-churchmen, who gained the ascendency, and by their violence brought the government into contempt. Their object was to deprive all dissenters of the right of suffrage, to curtail their civil rights, and render their situation so oppressive as to compel them to leave the colony. A party of French Huguenots had emigrated to the colony to enjoy that liberty of conscience and of worship which was denied to them in their native country. These people, entitled by their sufferings no less than by their Protestantism to the friendship and hospitality of the colonists, were treated with a cruelty that disgraced the High-church party. Being aliens, they were incapable of holding lands until they were naturalized; and this party having the ascendency in the Assembly, not only refused to naturalize them, but declared their marriages by ministers not ordained by Episcopal Bishops illegal and their children illegitimate. The progress of this violent, persecuting spirit was checked by the wise and conciliating measures adopted by Governor Archdale. He assumed the government of the colony in 1695; he was a Quaker, and possessed in an eminent degree the philanthropy and command of temper for which this sect has been distinguished. He was one of the Proprietors of the province, and by the mere force of his character overawed the turbulent and restored good order. To this excellent man our ancestors are indebted for that tolerant provision in their militia law which we still retain as part of our code, for granting exemption to men who were restrained by religious principles from bearing arms.

The religious intolerance of the High-church party was exerted with new energy after the departure of Governor Archdale from the province. This party passed laws, which the Lords Proprietors ratified, to establish the Church of England and to disable dissenters from being members of the Assembly. This was in direct violation of the chartered rights of the colonists. The dissenters remonstrated to the House of Lords; and Queen Anne, upon the advice of that body, caused these laws to be repealed. But the High-church party, steady to their purpose, varied their mode of attack; the spirit of intolerance grew with the growth of the province; emigrations from the Virginia colony and the patronage of the Lords Proprietors gave to this party a decided majority in the Assembly; they levied a tax on each precinct for the support of a minister, and built churches. Protestant dissenters were only permitted to worship in public, and there to be subject to the rules and restrictions contained in the several acts of Parliament. Quakers were permitted to affirm instead of swearing; but they could not hold an office of profit or trust, serve as jurors, or give evidence by affirmation in any criminal case. This contest between the High-church party and the dissenters produced an hostility of feeling which time has softened, but which the lapse of more than a century has been insufficient to allay. This contest, however, promoted freedom of thought and inquiry among the people; it sharpened their understandings, and in a great degree supplied the place of books for instruction. At that time there were few books in the colony: the library of a common man consisted of a Bible and a spelling-book; the lawyers had a few books on law, and the ministers a few on theological subjects, and sometimes a few of the Greek and Roman classics: for they, particularly the Presbyterian ministers, were generally school-masters—and from them the poor young men of the colony, who wished to preach the gospel or plead law, received their humble education. The turbulent spirit of the colonists, their leaning towards republicanism and sectarianism, had induced the Lords Proprietors to forbid the establishment of printing presses in the colony; and Sir William Berkeley, who had the superintendence of this colony in 1661, gave thanks to heaven that there was not a printing office in any of the Southern provinces.

What improvement in literature could be expected among a people who were thus distracted by faction, destitute of books, and denied the use of the press? Notwithstanding all these discouragements and disadvantages, however, the literature of the colony evidently advanced. The public papers of that period are written in a conspicuous, nervous style, corresponding in force of expression, purity of language and perspicuity of arrangement, with similar writings in the reigns of Charles II., King William, and Queen Anne. The intelligence of the common people and the ability and learning of the men who managed the affairs of the colony in that period are matters of surprise and astonishment to any one acquainted with the disadvantages under which the colony labored. The Assembly and the courts of justice sat in private houses; the acts passed by the Assembly were not printed; they were read aloud to the people at the first court after they were passed; they were in force for only two years, and every biennial Assembly was under the necessity of reenacting all that were thought useful. There was no printing press in the colony before the year 1746, at which time the condition of the statute-book required a revisal, and the public interest called aloud for the printing of it. The learning and literature of the colony were confined to the lawyers and ministers of the gospel, most of whom were educated in England; and it was owing to this circumstance chiefly that the literature of the colony advanced so steadily with that of the mother-country.

The legislation of the colony began to assume form and system in the reign of Queen Anne; and in the year after her death, 1715, the Assembly passed sixty-six acts, most of which had been frequently reenacted before. Many of those acts remain in force to this day, and are monuments of the political wisdom and legal learning of that time. In style and composition they are equal to any part of our statute-book; they are the first statutes of the colony that have come down to our time.

In the year 1729 the Lords Proprietors, with the exception of Lord Granville, surrendered to the Crown their right to the soil and seigniory of North Carolina; and from that time the population and prosperity of the colony rapidly increased. But in a few years the great contest commenced between the prerogative of the Crown and the liberty of the colonial subject, which contest eventually terminated in the American Revolution. This contest gradually introduced into North Carolina, and into all the British colonies which took part in it, a style in composition which distinguishes this period from all others in English or American literature: a style founded upon and expressive of exalted feeling. Education embellished it and gave to it new beauties; but its force and impressive character were perceptible in the writings and speeches of ordinary men. What age or nation ever produced compositions superior to the addresses of the Continental Congress? When or where shall we find a parallel to the correspondence of General Washington and the general officers of the American army? The style of these addresses and of the correspondence is the style of high thought and of lofty, yet chastened feeling, and reminds the reader of the finest specimens of composition in Tacitus, and of the correspondence of Cicero and his friends after the death of Pompey.