1907- Baltimore Sun Critic on Mecklenburg Declaration

The Charlotte News, 5/22/1907, p. 7:

Baltimore Sun Critic on Mecklenburg Declaration

 
Following is a Criticism of Books, written by Mr. G. W. Graham, in defense of Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, and book of Mr. W. H. Hoyt, attacking the authenticity of the Declaration, which appeared in a recent issue of the Baltimore Sun:
 
“By George W. Graham (8x5½ , pp. 205, $1.25.) Neal Publishing Company. [Elchelberger, Baltimore.]
 
“By William Henry Hoyt, (9½ x6½, pp. 284, $2.) G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York. [Nunn, Baltimore.]
 
“Two books upon one of the moot questions of American colonial history.  The volume by Graham is a defense of the authenticity of the declaration and offers proof of the claim of importance of the acts of the patriots of Mecklenburg, N. C., in 1775.  The work of Hoyt is an attack upon “the proudest page in the history of North Carolina.”  What is the importance of the discussion upon the Mecklenburg Declaration?  Why has a dispute concerning it been acrimoniously carried on for more than a century?  Simply this:  The act of the patriots of North Carolina was one so fraught with importance, was such an epoch-making step in the progress of American history that the admirers of the patriots of other sections feel that if the statements of those who support the authenticity of the Mecklenburg document are true, then it was in North Carolina that the desire for independence from Great Britain first found voice, and that from the document drawn up at Mecklenburg Thomas Jefferson borrowed much that he incorporated into the Declaration of Independence.  Sectional feeling has played a large part in the discussion upon the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration and in the contest North Carolina has been assailed by New England and the Middle States and even by Virginia and South Carolina with a vehemence and bitterness that is extraordinary.  In the present attack, that by Hoyt, we find Vermont and South Carolina as allies.  As to the volumes before us, our appraisement runs:  In form, in the appeal to the reader who will not verify citations, who accepts conclusions as authors draw them and never thinks for himself, the Hoyt volume is superior.  Beside it, when viewed cursorily, the Graham work is distinctly less convincing.  We may go farther and say that Hoyt has made the strongest attack upon the Mecklenburg Declaration that has appeared.  He has, too, rendered a large service to historical students by reproducing many important texts, some in facsimile, bearing upon the general subject.  Graham’s book has little to commend it when appraised for its form.  It contains no verifications of statements; it lacks footnotes, documentary proof, and, in fact, is without any of the apparatus necessary to works designed for the use of students.  When placed beside the volume of Hoyt it is, when taken by itself, a most inadequate defense of the Mecklenburg Declaration—but it is the best of the publications supporting it.  So much for form.  But when the works of Hoyt and Graham are studied in connection with the facts we have a distinct reversal of opinion.  We find in Graham a convincing power that Hoyt lacks.  We find for Graham a clear statement of the causes that led to the meeting of the patriots of Mecklenburg, how the elected delegates met in Charlotte, N. C., on May 19, 1775, the very day the news of the battle of Lexington reached them; of their resolve to cast off all allegiance to Great Britain; of the resolutions drawn up by Dr. Ephraim Brevard, adopted May 20, 1775; of how a copy of these resolutions was sent to the Continental Congress and tabled as premature, and how, the original copy of the resolutions have been burned in 1800, they were rewritten from memory by John McKnitt Alexander, secretary of the Mecklenburg convention, and published.  Then Graham tells how Thomas Jefferson was tremendously annoyed, and in a petulant letter denied the genuineness of the Mecklenburg Declaration.
 
“Carefully, step by step, the author goes through the evidence and proves the text of the declaration as rewritten by John McKnitt Alexander to be substantially correct, and adds an interesting account of the lives of the signers—a body of men deserving parallel honors with those who later, in Philadelphia, signed what we call the Declaration.
 
“William Henry Hoyt does not write with a view to substantial things.  He is a quibbler.  He deals in “ifs” and “perhaps” in hypothesis and conjectures.  His mass of evidence on close examination will be found of little avail to prove his side of the controversy; it is often of advantage to his adversaries.  He takes the ground that he is a “critical student;” that, though he is “inspired with a special love for the history of the ‘Old North State,’” it is his duty to deny the truth of her historians, the reliability of the memories of some of her most distinguished citizens.  Mr. Hoyt has the delightful bumptiousness of a callow youth who conceives himself to be sent from heaven to overthrow the belief of the world.  Unfortunately for Mr. Hoyt, his attack is only effective against immaterial parts of the history of the Mecklenburg Declaration, and strange as it may seem to Mr. Hoyt, the facts that he successfully controverts have for long been rejected by the supporters of North Carolina’s claim to have promulgated the first Declaration of Independence.”—Baltimore Sun.