The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1897-08-03
JUDGE WALTER CLARK.
ADDRESS TO THE TENNESSEE
LAWYERS, AT NASHVIL LF,
JULY GOTH. 1897.

PEOPLE,
Gentlemen Of the Bar Association OF
Tennessee:
To North Carolinians, the success
and progress of Tennesseeare almost as
gratifying as our own. Tennessee is
the daughter, and the mother State
can never forget it. When North
Carolina was recognized as a sovereign
State by the treaty of 1888 With Great
Britain, her limits extended from the
storm-lashed Atlantic to the mighty
inland River, which was then the
boundary of Spain. When we set you
up in house keeping, we acted most
generously. We gave you that por
ton of our soils which Tennesseeans
will claim was the richest and choicest
part Of our domain. In extent we gave
you nearly half of our possessions.
North Carolinians first settled your
territory and then we sent you from
time to time, as achievements g large
part of the most energetic and enter
prising element Of our population. You
were not unappreciative. Three mon
whom we sent you, you made
PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.
We sent you others that you made
Governors, Senators, Judges, Generals
and Bishops, and besides, you have
dotted your map with the names Of
counties and towns which duplicate
the names Of those IN the old home.
We have 8 common inheritance Of
glory. No small part of the North
Car0linians who swarmed up the fiery
crest at Kings Mountain were men
from HOlston anG Nolachucky. When
the stress Of the great civil war came
we were cot divided, but the two
States stood together in good and in
evil fortune, and alike demonstrated
the native valor Of the came hardy
race. If T~ennesseeans rode with Nor
gan ''to the farthest North" beg ond the
Ohio, it was North CaroIinians who
carried the cross barred emblem Of our
fiery Southern faith farthest beyond
the stone wall at Gettysburg. Together
we endured the unepeakRble horrors of
Reconstruction, end together we have
emerged from the furnace to take our
places in building up a restored and
glorious UniCn Of indestrUcgible and
co-Cqual States.
In peace and IN var we have stood
together, and if Louis XIV could say
after his memorable treaty with Spain
There are no Pyrenees." we can more
truly say that between North Carolina
and Tennessee there are no mountains,
the land merely slopes both ways from
an imaginary line which marks out
where we join each other and which has
never divided u.s.. You have now in
progress a canvass for a revision Of
your Constitutional movement which
I am informed was largely set OF foot
by your Bar Association. OF course,
however, on that subject there are
lawyers on both sides. Our profession
is too broad minded and subtle not to
perceive that there are two sides to
every question and we take to arguing
them as naturally as a duck takes to
water. OF the merits and probable
fate Of the pending question Of the re-
vision of your own Constitution, I am
not informed and it would be highly
improper in me to express any opinion
upon q subject which concerns your
selves alone. But the tendency Of that
question has suggested q cognate one
which concerns the citizens Of all the
States, and which is beginning to exer-
else the minds of men everywhere
THE REVISION OF e CONSTITUTION OF
THE UNITED STATES.
Indeed, it lie strange that the subject
has not heretofore more powerfully at
tracted the attention of the electorate
Of the Union. Our Federal Constitu
ton was adopted 10 years ago. In
that time every State then existing
haa, n after another, radically re
vised it's Constitution, and most OF
them more than n Indeed there is
no State that has not revised It's Con
stitution except those most lately ad
mitted, and such have been the rapid
changes from our growth in population
and wealth and the new dangers eris-
ing to be guarded against that the Con-
stiution of New York imperatively re-
quires that the question of a constitu-
tional convention shall be submitted to
the people every 90 years, and permits
it oft5ner than that il the legislature
shall think proper.
Even in so conservative a State as
North Carolina we have had three con-
stitutional conventions since the wal
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