The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-06-05

4 10 the laSI IN asserting TO the COHStitu-
ton OF the Union. so jealous were her
people of the liberties they had won.
| 1t is quite natural therefore. that in
casting about for some live topic upon
which 10 address you today my mind
should incline to a theme that relates to
the preservation of our liberties.
| Memory carries me back today for
more than half a century. Within that
! period mighty events have happened;
| theories of government have been chang
| ing governments. Federal State and
| municipal have been taking on new
| functions economic changes have been
| continuous and are still going on with
constantly accelerating rapdity. Gov
eminent, society, industries, all are in
| condition of evolution. and it does not
| clearly appear from the effiorescence
what the full fruitage of the marvellous
| development of this age is to be.
My topic will be Evolution, political
| and econmic. Where is it to stop?
The problem of the hour, when / stood,
young gentlemen, many years ago where
| you stand today, on the door steps and
about to bid my alma mater goodbye,
was precisely the question that had kept
North Carolina out of the Union antil
| long after every other State, except
| Rhode Island, had given in it's adhesion
| to the Constitution of 17S7-was the
| Federal Government to be the absolute
| judge in the last resort of it's own pow
| ers, or. on the other hand. could the
States, if they should become dissats-
| fled in the Union and come to the belief
| that their reservesd rights were in dan
| ger. secede and resume. each for itself,
| the right of self-government?
This, as a political question, had been
| debated ever since the Union was form
| ed, but slavery which was both moral
| and an economic problem had now given
| it sharp and practical turn, and a
Presidential election involving it was
| soon to engulf our country in the mael-
strom of dreadful civil war. The time
will never come, unless in the inscrutable
! future this fair land shall at some time
| lapse into barbarsm. when the people
| of North Carolina will not boast re-
| joicingly that, though this was not Ollie
| of the first States to secede, yet it was
nevertheless on her soil that the last of
| the great Confederate armies surrender
| ed. and that on every important field of
that mighty struggle the sons of North
| Carolina were in the forefront of battle.
And yet We are not here to lament the
issue of the contest We were defeated.
and have settled ourselves down to an
acceptance of the conditions of defeat
with a degree of content that is not more
astonishing to those who were our an
tagonists than it is to ourselves. Slavery
has happily been abolished the ques-
tion of secession fortunately is settled,
and our happiness and prosperity and
that of our children, we now recognize
are indissolubly linked with the fate of
the Union.
We recognize, too, with genuine pride
and satisfaction, that no other country
has prospered as have We the people of
, the United States, within the period that
has elapsed since our civil war, and it is
plain to us also that this prosperity is
the result largely of the free interchange
and exchange of capital and commodi-
ties throughout the States. Free trade
over widely extended territory is among
the greatest of political blessings
By processes of mental evolution like
this we have come at last perhaps all
of us. and yet there has been many
thorn in the pathway by which we trav-
eled to that conclusion. Just after the
civil war closed there came to North
Carolina, as there did to the other
Southern States, the carpet Dagger, on a
fools Grand You convinced him of
his folly, be went back North and wrote
about it, and to his surprise and our
qualification all the North has finally
| agreed that he had given his book
proper entitlement, and further that the
carpet Dagger had not only done a fool
ish thing, but that generally he was a
Bnave into the bargain. He will not
come here any more
Then there was and is another develop
ment, the evolution of the negro ques-
ton in many phases, but l have not
time to discuss that. We are placing
1T now where it is to be hoped it will
never again be SO perplexing.
The two opposite extremes in govern
ment are, socialism and theory of laissez
faire individualism in all things The
laissez faire, or ''let alone" theory first
had full play when in 1916 England
adopted free trade. Her laws gave COM
petition full sway. She opened her ports
to all the world. The theory is liberty
itself Labor was free to make its own
contracts; men were free to work when
ard where they would; the State was TO
keep hands off. /" Individualism had sup
planted paternalism and England soon
became the richest of all countries the
financial center of the world.
In America not only was individual