Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1859-06-15
I he Standard.
THE LATE .COMMEN CEMENT AT THE UNI
VERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA.

Speeches Of Co., Strain, Of president Buchanan,
and Secretary Themgeen, at Chapel Hill
We extract the following reports of the speeches
at the reception Of President Buchanan and Secre-
tary Thompson, AT the University from The Tri-
Weekly South Casolinan," to whose accomplished
reporter, Mr. Woodruff, the public is indebted for
an account Of the proceedings at Commencement"
more'fuE and minute than any we have seen. His
are the only reports of these speeches and gre very
credtable to him. because of the difficulties under
which they were secured We have taken the lib
erty of correcting them in few Ynimportant par
ticulars:
President SWAIN said When your predecessor,
Mr. President twelve years ago, visited this insti-
tuition, he was regarded as paying a grateful and
graceful compliment to his Alma Mater. He re-
turned to the scenes and associates of his boyhood
The Secretary Of the Navy, in the Cabinet of which
you were the Premier, the present estmable Minis
ter to France with him as of his collegiate
companions Your visit is the more complimentary,
because your associations less intimate than his
The selection Of two children of this institution Zone
of whom we rejoice to see standing by your side,
while we mourn the absence of the other with un-
affected sorrow,) as members of your Cabinet, is
compliment which entities you to grateful consid-
Grafton at hands. Your presence as that of the
Chief Magistrate of the Republic is distinction Of
which we may well feel proud Still we welcome
YOU not merely in your official character but also
as Mr. Buchanan, citizen of Pennsylvania.
1t is somewhat remarkable, Sir, that two States
SO distant from each other as North Carolina and
Pennsylvania should be so intimately connected and
blended in their history. The greatest of Pennsyl-
vanians, and, with single exception the greatest
of Americans, smote the rock of Plymouth with his
electric wand, and the waters of Liberty gushed
forth for the healing of nations. Benjamin Franklin
was the main spring of the Revolution at the South
as well as at the North
orth-Carolna was originally settled to very
great extent, by emigrants from Pennsylvania As
early as 1856, VIM. Penn, in letter to confiden-
tial friend states that fifteen thousand of the most
substantial citizens of his province were about to
seek home in the wilderness of Carolina. But it
is not merely the Quaker element in our population
that constitutes the bond of union between North
Carolina and Pennsylvania. The Scotch Irish came
at subsequent period, and among them the Alex
anders, the Caldwes, the Davidsons, the Grahams,
the McDOwellS, the OSbOrneS, the Folks and the
Steeles found their way to our borders through
Pennsylvania. jackson and Davie and others came
to the Waxhaws through South Carolina. The third
element in our population, for which we indebt-
ed to Pennsylvania are the Lutherans, descendants
of the Protesants, who fought under William the
L
Second. The Phifers the Barringers and their
neighbors were among the earliest of these emil
grants.
These united stocks formed race of men rarely
equaed in any age or in any country. God forbid,
Mr.. President, that should disparage, in the small
est degree, the character of the Puritan. 1t is
matter of honest pride to myself that l am hum
BILE scion of that stock. But feel free to declare
that believe in my conscience that no portion of
so well, and fought so stouty to maintain it. the
Mecklenburg men. There are considerations which
mark the Revolution in North Carolina as peculiar,
and distinguish it from that in any other portion of
our country. With the Puritan it was war against
taxaton in Mecklenburg it was eminenty con-
test for civil and religious freedom. The Scotch
Irish, wherever they were found were emphaticaly
the sons of liberty, and the population of the val
leys of the Yadkin and the Catawba that gave rise
to the Mecklenburg Declaration, were Scotch-Irish
and Pennsylvanans, among whom you also number
your own forefathers
The country Immediately west of you was the
final resting place of these emigrants. They fur
nished those who are known as the Regulators, and
on the 10th of May, It'll, four years before the
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, they
fought the battle of Aamance within twenty-five
miles of the place where you stand. Whether you
consider the principles involved the number of the
combatants or the number that was slain, the affair
at Lexington, in April ITS, was less imposing in
circumstances and in consequences. The great chief
OF the Regulators was Herman Husbands, who is
understood to have been relative of Benjamin
Franklin, and to have acted as his confidential agent
In the battle the Regulators were unfortunate but
many OF them retreated successfully from it. and
found safe retreat in the wild gorges of the ALE
ghanies whence they returned and wreaked ample
vengeance for their wrongs at the battle of Kings
Mountain, on the 7th of October 1880.
The defeat of Major Ferguson was the pivot on
which the war in the SOUTH if not upon the CONT
nent, turned. IfFerguson had not fallen the battle
OF Gulford would not have been fought, and the
Revolution would not have closed at Yorktown
Alamance was the initial, Kings Mountain the de-
clsye and Guford the closing battle of the Revo-
luton Yorktown was a siege Very recently
have been impressed more deeply than before with
this state Of facts by the papers of CORVALLIS,
which have just issued from the press The defeat
of Ferguson was fatal to the invasion of 1870, and
Corvallis in the volume to which refer, express
ly states the fact that before attempting the second
invasion in 1871, he had, by his emissaries nvolv-
ed our whole western border in the flames of saw
age war. But for this the men who focd him at
Kings Mountain would have turned his finally fatal
triumph at Guilford into an Immediately disastrous
defeat. In brief note written after his retreat to
Wilmington to Sir Henry Clinton he saws. that
much to his surprise he found the North arolnans
comparatively united people, and was we'll satisfied
that owing to the peculiar condition and singular
character OF the country, it would be the most diff
cult of the thirteen provinces to subdue
Such, Mr.. President are the characteristics and
antecedents of the people, to whose University /
bid you heartfelt welcome; welcome to which Won
have the strongest personal and ancestral claims
To which President BUCHANAN replied:
thank you for your kindness, and am thankful
for the cordially with which have been received
by the citizens Of North Carolina. l have always
had Partially for this good old North State Her
emnently prudent, wise and conservative sons have
always stood by the Constitution and the Laws and
are destined in the history of this country to dc
much to preserve our glorious Union.
thank you most heartily for the kind reference
which you have made to my native State. I am
proud to hear her associated with North Carolina
The two sisters have generally agreed together If
all important questions And there is another link
between them besides those you have mentioned
You had an early Observation-Disclosures {, VII,