The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1891-1893, 1892-05-21

among them, parish councils. He saws
81 wish to know what they are to do
Parishes are very strange, very une
quail division of the country. You will
find parishes very small and parisbe
very large. They have no duties so fa,
as l know to perform, and when I an
told you ought to give them parish
councils in order to make rural life NOR,
interesting than it is l really canno
admit that the object of Representative
institutions is to amuse the electors who
send representatives to them. If amono
the many duties the modern state under
takes the duty of amusing the rural pop
ulation should be included, / should rathe,
recommend circus or something of tina,
kind. But l am quite certain if YOU at
tempt to amuse them by giving them
parish councils you will not satisfy the
demand you have raised"
looked for the reply to these oibes OF
Lord Salisbury by some of the politicians
opposed to him, and found it land had j,
copied from the Lol.ion Times OF April
~ in aspeech by Sir William Harcourt
who is thought likely to be one dav Mr.
|
''We want to give life, occupation,
interest, to the villagers. We do not
rldicule them and tell them to 90 to q
circus. We want these men to have an
interest in and an authority over theil
own affairs, to have something to fill
their minds and hearts on the long, dull,
dreary round of weekly labor-some
thing that will give them sense of Sc
curlty for themselves and their families
and not sense of dependence upon the
variable and eleemosynary favors ol
others, however generous and kind they
may be-"
| l do not know which one of these
British statesmen would be thought the
more insolent by Mecklenburg citizen
addicted to self government and capable
of it-Sir William Harcourt. with his
supercilious sympathy, or Lord Sails
bury and his circus and his contempt.
But | ask all critics Of the American
| citizen to compare that stereoscopie
figure of the British citizen, seen with
one liberal and one tory eye.
The Mecklenburg' patriots, in their
parish or county council, struck for self
| government, Instantly resolved to risk
poverty, defeat, outlawry, danger, i'm
prisonment, and death. We'll did they
know their undertaking was no holiday
affair. 1t meant privation, bankruptcy,
separation from home and friends, pro.
tracted military service, sickness, suffer
ing, and every peril incident to a hazard
Gus rebellion. Defeat did not dismay
them, treachery did not destroy thei,
confidence. jealousies did not divide
their councils, blunders did not
cast them down, and success
did not unduly exalt them They were
plain people-honest, earnest, steadfast
and true. They fought for principles
and not for spoils; ior their country, and
not for power; for posterity, and not fol-
themselves alone. They contended
against the injustice of taxation without
due presentation, against the ineqnal
ity of governmental burdens, against the
exactions of arbitrary power, against the
imposition of standing armies to harass
the people and eat out their substance
against nonresident otfice-holders. and
against the attempt to make the military
superior to the civil authority A holiel
cause never enlisted the efforts of free
man; nobler type of freemen never
walked this earth
The circumstances of the Mecklen burg
declaration were most extraordinary
There had been no recent conflict upon
North Carolina soil; she had no griev
ances which were not common to all the
colonies. Mecklenburg was in portion
of the country remote from the centres
of population; there was no Immediate
prospect of foreign invasion of it's terri
tory or actual impending injury to its
citizens; it was period of darkness and
uncertainty in which the future could not
be predicted; yet this people, without
consultation with other localities, and
| without pledges of assistance from other
colonies, relying upon the truth and jus
tlce OF their cause, with ''war in each
heart and freedom on each brow" un
aided and alone set the ball in motion
and boldly inaugurated a righteous re-
bellion, the result of which no one coul6
foretell. The recollection of thi:
chivalric but perilous undertaking con
stitutes source of pride to the State o.
North Carolina "ever to be cherished
never to be forgotten"
1t was step for which, as yet, neithe
the State at large nor the Colonial Con
gress was prepared. 1t evinced tn,
highest courage and the loftiest patriot
ism, but it nevertheless seemed to man,
patriots premature. Resistance to Brit
ish authority at that time had not as
sumed anywhere else the form of &c
mand for separation. Such resistance
was elsewhere made as protest agains
abuses and as an effort to secure the cor
rection of grievances rather than to es
tablish new government. Reformation
under royal rule was all that had thu
far been generally contemplated.
But to this general sentiment of loyalt,
the citizens of Mecklenburg presented
notable exception The leading charsc
ters are said to have been ripe for revou
ton from the very beginning of the diff
culties, and the popular sentiment re
sponded in one decisive act which W.
this day commemorate. Their decisiv
and daring action gave to North Caro-
lima the proud distinction which it ha
ever since enjoyed, of having been tn
first of all the colonies to sound the tocsil
of revolution and to assert the right O
independence
The same firm determination and hiCI
spirit which led to the early pronuncia
mento of 1775, more than year in ad