The following are copies of speeches of Dr. F.L.Hawks and Dr. Moses W. Alexander.

 

Charlotte Daily Observer 5/20/1906, sec.3, p.2 and 5/20/1906 sec.3, p.3

 

AN ADDRESS BY REV. DR. F. L. HAWKS 5/20/1906, sec.3, p.2  

Delivered on the Occasion of the Celebration of the Signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, Held May 20th, 1827 in Charlotte.  [The headline is in error. As the text shows, the address was delivered in 1857]  

Charlotte Democrat.  May 20th, 1857.  

On Wednesday last, May 20th, 1857, the Anniversary of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence of May 20th, 1775, was duly celebrated in Charlotte according to previous announcement.  

At 12 o’clock a procession was formed at Public Square under the direction of Gen. John A. Young, Marshal of the Day, and Messrs. Gillespie, Torrence, Grier and Gen. Walkup, Assistant Marshals.  

The stand was occupied by Chief Justice Nash and other officers of the Day, together with the Orator and Reader, His Excellency Gov. Bragg, and the Rev. Dr. Lacy.  

The Marshal announced the Order of Proceedings, which commenced with a fervent, eloquent and patriotic prayer by the Rev. Dr. Lacy.  

James W. Osborne, Esq., then arose for the purpose of reading the Mecklenburg Declaration, which he did in a clear and distinct tone, prefacing it with some highly patriotic and appropriate remarks.  

THE ADDRESS BY REV. DR. HAWKS.  

Dr. Hawks was introduced to the audience in a brief and appropriate manner by the venerable Chief Justice Nash.  

Dr. Hawks exordium was a beautiful and most touching enforcement of the idea of veneration with which we look upon places, by which either our patriotism or our affections are stirred.  He applied this thought, this feeling, to the present occasion in the following eloquent passage:  

“When, therefore, in the distant home where I dwell, an unwilling exile from the land of my fathers, I was honored with a summons to meet you here to-day, I felt that the only proper place is here, for the commemoration of the events we would recall.  For on this day, four-score and two years ago, and on this spot, our fathers wrote their part of a large chapter in history, in the brave, but then perilous word -- independence.”  

He next passed to the consideration of the American Revolution, that “spectacle of unequaled moral sublimity,” which, “whether considered with reference to the motive that prompted it, the men who led it, the patient self-denial, and the cheerfully borne sacrifices involved in it, or the incredibly marvelous consequences which have flowed from it, looms up before us in colossal proportions, and stands unequalled in the magnificent grandeur.”  

From the Revolution generally, he passed on to a delineation of the character of the people of this part of North Carolina, their origin, training, and the principles of civil and religious liberty which were instilled into their minds, more than in any other parts of the colony, from their youth up.  

We pass over, as having neither time nor room for them, brilliant passages relating to the Union, to Northern fanaticism, to the Southern duty of calm watchfulness, preparation for whatever may happen, and a determination to stand by the Constitution.  “Develop your resources,” said he, “God has made them surpassingly great.”  Open communication by railroads, allowing no local rivalries to interfere.  The interest of each section of the State is the interest of all.  

Of the closing and historical part of the address, we add the following carefully prepared synopsis, in which we do not pretend to completeness, but merely to give a general idea of the very interesting facts and arguments.  And we will here remark that we are indebted to our old friend E. J. Hales, Esq., of The Fayetteville Observer, for valuable assistance in preparing the abstract below, and thus enabling us to place before the public so much important and interesting testimony on the subject under consideration:  

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION.  

There are those who assert that no meeting was held in Charlotte on the 19th and 20th of May, 1775, and no Declaration of Independence then and there made, but that a meeting was held on the 30th of May in that year, in which certain resolutions were adopted, and that this constitutes the only action of the people of Mecklenburg during May, 1775.  

On the other hand the Legislature of North Carolina has affirmed, and the people of the Sate have concurred in that affirmation, that there was a meeting held in Charlotte on the 19th and 20th days of May, 1775; that certain resolutions declaring independence, abjuring allegiance to the British crown, and claiming the right of self-government were then and there adopted.  North Carolina further affirms that there was also a meeting of a Committee on the 30th of May, 1775, by virtue of their appointment at the meeting of the 20th; that their meeting was founded on the previous action of that day (the 20th), and that its end and object was to improvise a temporary system of government for Mecklenburg, inasmuch as it had been declared in rebellion and out of the protection of the laws of the British Crown.  

PRESUMPTIVE PROOF.  

Dr. H. stated that there were certain facts connected with the paper made in Mecklenburg, whether on the 20th or 30th, and irrespective of its contents which were established beyond dispute, and had not been controverted.  These were the following:  

 

1. Whatever paper was prepared was made when the news had just been received in Charlotte of the battle of Lexington, and the people assembled in the town were greatly excited by the intelligence.

 

1. Whatever paper was made was prepared upon a call of the people here assembled, crying out, “let us be independent.”

 

1. The document was made when there was an assemblage at Charlotte of the larger part of the residents of the county; that assemblage lasted part of two days, and some of the work was done in the intervening night.

 

1. The document, after having been prepared, was read from the steps of the Court House by Col. Thomas Polk.

 

1. The contents of the paper were preserved at the time, both in memory and by means of writing, on the part of some of those then present.

 

1. The document has been repeatedly declared by several of those who heard it read, to have renounced allegiance, declared independence, and affirmed the right of self-government.

 

These were facts connected with the making of the paper, no matter whether prepared on the 20th or 30th.  

From these facts Dr. H. proceeded to show that the paper of the 30th could not have been the only document prepared in Mecklenburg in May, 1775, for that in many particulars, that document was utterly irreconcilable with the foregoing facts.  

 

1. News was received of the battle of Lexington the day the paper was made.  Dr. H. then proceeded to show from Drayton’s memoirs of South Carolina, and Gibb’s Revolutionary documents of the same State, the printed copy from the letter of intelligence of the battle of Lexington that was sent South, showing the day and the hour endorsed on it, as it passed through the hands of every Vigilance Committee from Connecticut to Charleston; and conclusively established the fact that the news of the battle of Lexington reached Charlotte on the night of the 18th of May, or rather early in the morning of the 19th of that month, in 1775.  This fact, therefore, did not harmonize with the claim made for the document of the 30th.

 

1. The paper was made in response to the people’s call, “let us be independent,”—Dr. H. argued on the improbability that in answer to such a call made by an excited multitude, a paper would be prepared which should contain nothing about independence, and yet that the people should be satisfied with it as a Declaration of Independence. 

  This fact, therefore, did not seem to agree with the claim made for the document of the 30th, which was just such as is above described.  

 

1. There was a large assembly of the people of the county in Charlotte when the paper was prepared, and this assemblage continued for part of two days, some of the work having been done in the intervening night.

 

Dr. H. then asked what there was in the document of the 30th, or what evidence had ever been produced its contents were preserved at the time, both in writing and in memory by some of those present who heard it.  Now, Gen. Graham, Rev. H. Hunter and Col. Wm. Polk, of Raleigh, (three more respectable and creditable witnesses never lived anywhere) were all present, all heard the paper read, all remembered its substance, and one reduced to writing the date as the 20th, and copied the paper read at the time; and what they remembered and what they copied, did not contain one particle of the document of the 30th, but a totally different paper.  Not of all those present who heard the paper read was there ever found one who retained in memory as what he then heard, the paper of 30th, while a great many did remember a totally different document as what they then heard.  This fact, therefore, does not agree with the claim set up for the paper of the 30th.  

The last fact alluded to was that the document read according to the testimony of some twenty witnesses, did contain three most important particulars, expressly and unequivocally announced; these were, 1st, renunciation of allegiance; 2nd, a Declaration of Independence; and 3rd, the right of self-government.  Now, an inspection of the document of the 20th will show that in it, the two particulars first named are not explicitly declared and the last is not named at all.  But it declares its object to be simply “regulating the jurisprudence of the province.”  

From the inconsistency of all these facts with the paper of the 30th, Dr. H. inferred that if the case stopped here, if there were no further proof behind, one would be justified in saying that the paper of the 20th could not be the document referred to in the facts above stated, and therefore, we might safely lay it aside.  

DIRECT PROOF.  

Having thus removed for the present the document of the 30th out of his path to return hereafter to an analysis of it, Dr. H. entered on the direct affirmative testimony which went to from any source to show that the meeting of the 30th sat also on either the 29th or 31st of May?  What proof that there was any assemblage of the people of the county at all on or about the 30th?  What evidence from the document itself, or from any other source, that any gentleman of the county met in Charlotte on that day, except the gentlemen of the Committee?  The answer was that on all those points not a particle of testimony had ever been produced to sustain them—This fact, therefore, seemed inconsistent with the claim for the document of the 30th.  

4—5.  The next known facts were, the document prepared was publicly read by Col. Thomas Polk, and that show that was the document put forth by the Mecklenburg men as a Declaration of Independence that deserved the name, and what the date at which they issued it.  In this part of his argument he took up the following facts, adding the proof for each as he proceeded.  

1. There was a meeting at Charlotte of the larger part of the inhabitants of Mecklenburg county, held on the 19th and 20th days of May 1775.

 

To prove this he adduced no less than fourteen witnesses, men in their day well known in Mecklenburg and of irreproachable characters, who all testify that they were all present at such a meeting.  Seven positively name the date (the 19th and 20th days of May 1775) and one of the seven testifies from a written memorandum, still in existence, and made at the time, as to date.  The other seven without expressly naming the day of the month, testify to incidents and occurrences at the meeting precisely the same as those deposed to by witnesses who do name the exact day of the month; thus identifying the meeting as the same.  We are bound, therefore, to believe there was such a meeting.  Now if this be so, it must inevitably follow that if any paper was prepared and read at that meeting, it could not have been one which by its own date (May 30th) shows it must have been made ten days afterward.  The only issue then to which we are brought in this stage of the discussion is raised by the question:  Was any paper prepared and adopted at the meeting of the 20th?  If there was, it puts an end at once and forever to the hypothesis that the document of the 30th is the only one that was put forth in Mecklenburg in May 1775.  

 

1. Dr. H. then proceeded to the issue thus made, and affirmed as a fact susceptible of proof, that at the meeting on the 20th a paper was prepared by Dr. Ephriam Brevard and presented by a committee appointed for that purpose, that such paper was publicly read by Colonel Thomas Polk; that it unequivocally declared independence, ipso verbo; and that its contents when read were assented to by the people present.

 

As to the first particular, the preparation of the paper by Dr. Brevard, he adduced the testimony of nine witnesses, some of whom were of the committee who reported it.  As to the second, the public reading, he proved it by eight witnesses, all of whom specify the reader name Col. Thomas Polk as the individual.  

As to the third particular, that the paper declared Independence, he quoted the very words of no less than fourteen witnesses who heard the paper read, every one of whom distinctly called it a Declaration of Independence.  We give the language of some:  

One calls it “the Declaration of Independence, made in Charlotte, on the 20th of May, 1775.”  

Another says of the people of Mecklenburg they “met on a certain day in Charlotte, and from the head of the Court House stairs, proclaimed Independence of English government by Col. Thomas Polk.”  

Another says, “they resolved to declare themselves independent.”  

Four others thus speak:  “they formed several resolves which were read, and which went to declare themselves and the people of Mecklenburg county free and independent of the King and parliament of Great Britain; and that from that day thenceforth, all allegiance and political relation was absolved between the good people of Mecklenburg and the King of Great Britain.”  

Another thus speaks:  “It was however (the declaration made) in substance and form, like that great national act, agreed on thirteen months after.”  

The testimony of the whole fourteen, whom, by the way, the people between the Yadkin and Catawba know to have been men of unimpeachable integrity, was remarkable in the particular that every one used the word “independence,” or “Independent” in describing the character of the declaration.  

From this testimony, which, he said strangers who know nothing of the characters of the witnesses might question, but those who lived in North Carolina never would, the speaker drew two inferences, viz.:  1st, that there could be no reasonable doubt as to what the contents of the paper of the 20th were; and 2nd there could not be any difficulty in identifying it by these contents.  

He then took the next step for which he had thus prepared the way, and produced the well known document of the 20th, showing that “in substance and in form” it does agree with the national declaration; that it does expressly renounce allegiance; does meet specifically the call proved to have been made by the excited multitude for Independence and that it does allude to the bloody events at Lexington, the news of which had just reached them, and thus excited them.  

 

1. The next fact he affirmed and proceeded to prove was that the paper then read passed into the hands of its proper custodian, the Secretary of the meeting; and he stated that this was important because he meant to trace it step by step from his hands into the honorable publicity.  It was important too because it involved the reputation for integrity of a man who lived with unblemished character for more than four score years in this country, and who is now in his grave.  He said that either John McKnitt Alexander, the Secretary of the meeting, had in his possession honorably and honestly such a paper as that which bears the date of May 20th, 1775, and it was a true part of the proceedings of that day; or—John McKnitt Alexander was guilty of fraud and falsehood by forging such a paper.  There is no escape from one or the other of these alternatives.  Dr. H. then affirmed what all Mecklenburg knows to be true, that no man now living or that ever did live, has or had any right to cast such an imputation on John McKnitt Alexander.  He was as honest a man as any one who ever assailed our Declaration of Independence, be they high or low.

 

But, as Dr. H. proceeded to remark, Providence has in a striking manner taken care of a worthy Christian man thus cruelly assailed; and this the speaker made appear by a succession of facts which he established by incontrovertible testimony.  

 

1. Alexander declared, while yet alive, that he had given copies of that paper to two men, both of whom lived for nearly twenty years after his declaration.  These men were Gen. William Richardson Davie and Dr. Hugh Williamson.  He had given these copies prior to the year 1800.  He never made a secret of having furnished these copies.  Nothing therefore was easier than to disprove the authenticity of these papers by a comparison of them with the original, prior to 1800, when Alexander’s house was burned and many of his papers destroyed, the original Declaration among the rest.  If therefore he was wicked enough to forge the papers he gave Davie and Williamson before 1800, he was silly enough to afford the means of his own detection by so readily and frequently telling to others in whose possession these pretended copies might be found.

 

But who was William Richardson Davie?  Reared in this country, at College in 1775, he left in 1776, and in 1777 was here at home fighting the battles of freedom.  Every good whig in both the Carolinas knew him as a true man, even as he knew them.  He knew too, all the past history of his country; and to crown all, he was an intellectual, high-toned, honorable, brave gentleman.  Well, it is to this man, of all others, that Alexander gives a copy of the document most remarkable for the distinct boldness of language in which it renounces allegiance and asserts independence.  Now we must suppose that Davie read the paper thus given to him; that he deemed it valuable is proved by the fact that he carefully preserved it.  We must also suppose that as he perused it, it necessarily must have presented to his mind either something of which he had heard before, or something that was entirely new to him.  If the latter were the case, then it must have led to inquiries which he would make of his old companions and fellow patriots, and it would especially have prompted him to an examination of the original of so remarkable a historical novelty.  And when he thus inquired if the whole story were fabrication he must have discovered the fact and consequently baseness of Alexander.  But Davie keeps the paper, and after his death it is found treasured up among his most precious manuscripts and retains his respect and confidence for the man from whom he received it, as long as that man lived.  Can any other inference be drawn than that Davie knew the paper to be authentic?  Some of you (said the speaker) knew Gen. Davie, and you know he was just the man who would indignantly have spurned Alexander from his presence forever, if he had found himself deceived by him.  

 

1. The next fact is that Alexander said he had also given a copy to Dr. Hugh Williamson.  Governor Stokes testifies that in 1793, he saw a copy in the hands of Williamson, together with a letter to him, both in the hand writing of Alexander, which he knew, and that he conversed with Williamson on the subject of the letter and copy enclosed.  But as Williamson made no use of it in his book which he miscalled “a History of North Carolina,” it has been insinuated that he never had such a document.  We might as well infer that he never had the printed resolutions of May 30th, for he does not mention that meeting.  In fact, he disposes of the whole revolutionary history of the State in two short sentences.  His work does not deserve the name of a history.

 

1. But further confirmation of Alexander’s perfect truth and honesty is furnished by facts connected with the copy he said he had given to Davie, and which was found among Davie’s papers.  Alexander must have known the contents of the paper he gave Davie; he therefore must have known whether they were resolves of a meeting on May 20th, or those adopted at the meeting on the 30th, for he was at both.  After his house was consumed, talking with his old friend Judge Cameron, lamenting the loss of the original Declaration, he demarked to the judge emphatically, “But the document is safe.”  What document?  He explains:  “the Declaration for,” adds he, “I gave Davie a copy which I know to be correct.”  No copy of the resolves of the 30th in Alexander’s handwriting or that of any one else, was ever found among Davie’s papers.  Besides, he would not have said so emphatically of the resolves of the 30th, “the document is safe,” for those resolves as he well knew, were to be found in print in divers publications.  They, consequently, were safe enough.

 

1. But the proof of Alexander’s truthfulness still accumulates—for the next fact affirmed by Dr. H. was that a copy substantially the same as Davie’s was in the hands of Martin, of Louisiana, and was published by him in 1829.  Dr. H. then stated that he himself had particularly questioned Judge Martin in person, not long before his death, as to the source whence he had derived his copy.  The judge said expressly, “not from Alexander,” but from some one in the western part of the State, prior to 1800.  —Here, then, was a copy substantially agreeing with Davie’s, which, before 1800, was by some means or other, in existence in this part of the world, and not traced to Alexander.  As to the fact of substantial agreement, the Doctor remarked that as some had been pleased to say there were “material differences of phraseology in each resolution of the series containing the declaration,” he begged indulgence while he examined that point.  He then showed that there really was no difference in sense, in a single resolution of either of the copies—that the one was the first draft as made by Dr. Brevard at the request of the committee, and the other that draft with the corrections of the committee.  From the fact of the slight disagreement, however, he drew the inference, that the very differences showed there had been no forgery of the paper; for had it been forged there never would have been found disagreeing copies.  The fraudulent fabricator would have taken pains to make all copies alike.

 

1. He then brought forward another fact hitherto unnoticed, viz.:  the first publication of a copy of the resolutions in the form in which Martin presents them.  This was in the second volume of Major Garden’s revolutionary anecdotes and reminiscences.  They are there accompanied by a history of the proceedings at Charlotte on the 20th of May, and a statement that the transaction so creditable to North Carolina was not known as generally as it should be to the citizens of the United States.  He then discussed the question “whence did Garden obtain his copy?”  He first showed that it could not have been from Martin’s book, for Garden’s was published in 1828, while Martin’s did not appear until the end of 1829.  He testified from his own communications with Judge Martin that the latter had never given Garden a copy, for he did not even know the last year of his life that Garden had never printed them.  He next showed that he could not have obtained them from Alexander’s copy; because, first, they did not agree with Alexander’s copy exactly, and second, the pamphlet put forth by the State containing Alexander’s copy, found among Davie’s papers, was not published until the winter of 1830-‘31—neither could they have been obtained from the publication of Col. Polk in “The Raleigh Register” of 1819, for the resolutions as set forth there agree with Alexander’s, and not with Martin’s or Garden’s copies.  He was in possession then of a totally distinct copy from any heretofore noticed.  He next showed that Major Garden was, during the revolution, in Lee’s legion, and during part of the time, one of Gen. Greene’s military family; that in both of these situations his duties brought him into constant communication with Mecklenburg and all the country around about, and hence concluded that he must have obtained them from some of his fellow soldiers and companions, who were numerous enough in all this region of country, and familiar enough with all the doings of Mecklenburg.

 

1. Another, and the last fact adduced by the speaker in this part of the case was that another copy of the document not emanating from Alexander, and never under his control, though agreeing with Davie’s copy verbatim, was made at the time of the meeting by one present, who kept a diary in which he inserted the copy, and stated the date, May 20th, 1775.  This diary was preserved in the family of the Rev. H. Humphrey, who made it, and is yet in existence.

 

On this mass of direct testimony, Dr. H. thought we might safely adopt two conclusions, viz.:  First, if there was a large meeting in Charlotte of the Mecklenburg men on the 19th and 20th days of May, 1775; if they were then and there greatly excited by the news of the affair at Lexington just received; if they resolved upon a public expression of their opposition to tyranny and called for independence co nomine, and if they caused any paper at all to be prepared at the meeting (and these things he submitted must be believed, or we must relinquish all faith in human testimony), then it must follow that the attempt to make the document of the 30th of May the Mecklenburg declaration of independence utterly fails; and second, that all the particulars above named having occurred here on the 19th and 20th days of May, 1775, the document we now produce of that date is the Declaration of Independence that was then promulgated in this town.  

THE DOCUMENT OF 20th OF MAY.  

The speaker then, returning to this, subjected it to a minute, searching analysis; and conclusively showed that it was no more than a temporary body of laws, as they expressed it in the instrument, “certain rules and regulations for the internal government of the county,” necessary as they judged, “for the better preservation of good order.”  He showed from one of the witnesses of the meeting of the 20th, that, at that meeting, a committee was appointed for that very purpose; that the meeting of the 30th was composed of the members of that committee; that they supposed themselves to be without laws, courts, or civil officers, because parliament in the preceding February had declared them to be in rebellion.  They proceeded, therefore, under the name of resolves to make laws.  The meeting of May 20th had done no more than assert, as a general principle, their voluntary adoption of the existing laws of the colony “as a rule of life,” with an express disclaimer of any recognition thereby of the Crown or any of its officers.  The committee was now to prescribe in detail measures which would carry out the general principle, with its disclaimer.  Accordingly they passed 20 resolves.  When we examine them we find that from the third to the nineteenth they relate entirely to matters purely civil, in the administration of justice in the county; and in the nineteenth and twentieth they put the military in a fit state for service, and provide a proper authority over them.  Thus, they extemporize a species of court in each military company’s district, fix the extent of jurisdiction, provide officers to execute process, establish an appellate tribunal, regulate the duties of tax collectors and other accounting officers, and, incidentally, to insure the working of the system thus devised, and to prevent a conflict of authorities, they disallow the powers of the former crown officials of the county, and pledge themselves to save harmless their own officers whom they now appoint.  As to the meeting, they had by their action on the 20th, continued in command all officers who would conform to the principles of the declaration; and they now give directions for providing the men with arms and ammunition, with instructions to hold themselves in readiness to execute the orders received from them or from the provincial Congress.  This sketch embodies all the laws they made, and constitutes nearly the whole document of the 30th.  The only other particular not yet named, is the declaration that those laws are to be in force no longer than necessity absolutely demands; and this is made in these words, “that these resolves be in full force and virtue until instructions from the provincial Congress, regulating the jurisprudence of the province shall provide otherwise; or the legislative body of Great Britain resign its unjust and arbitrary pretensions with respect to America.”  The latter clause of this passage has been urged as proof that they never made a previous declaration renouncing allegiance, or they never would, as here, have implied a willingness to submit themselves again to British legislation.   Dr. H. remarked that had those who have thus interpreted this clause, been as well acquainted as Mecklenburg men are, with the then existing facts, they would scarcely have committed themselves to such a conclusion.  But without this knowledge of facts, they might have seen the fallacy of their inference.  Very slight critical acumen might have shown them that men in their senses would never have made the cessation of their laws depend upon the happening of either one of two contingencies, so utterly irreconcilable and inconsistent as legislative action by the provincial Congress and similar action by the British Parliament.  For this would be, in effect, to make them say, “our action shall cease when either of two bodies now in a state of open antagonism and hostility shall act with reference to us; and as we are indifferent on the subject, we will yield at once to that body which acts first”: and this declaration, too, must be made in the face of their own positive assertion in the second resolve of the very same instrument, that the right to act was then in one of those antagonistic bodies only, viz.:  the provincial Congress; and further that they meant their resolves to be a mere temporary substitute for laws, only until that Congress did act.  

It might have been seen too, without any extraordinary sagacity, that this supposed state of indifference as to which body should rule them, (contradicted as we know it to have been by all concurrent history) even if real, implied no acknowledgement of allegiance inconsistent with a previous declaration of independence; for these interpreters had but to look for a moment to its practical working on the happening of one of the contingencies.  Suppose, for instance, the first action to proceed from the provincial Congress:  what must follow?  Why on their hypothesis of an indifferent choice between the alternatives, the colonists would necessarily submit to the Congress; and then, of course, as submission could be yielded to but one authority, any action of Parliament afterwards, no matter what, would have been too late to induce obedience to it; and then, of course again, the colonists must have been in open opposition to the British government, refusing to acknowledge allegiance to it; though the very hypothesis which thus inevitably leads to this opposition and refusal of allegiance to Great Britain, assumes the willingness of the colonists to submit to Great Britain.  

He who would understand the action of the Mecklenburg men must inform himself accurately of the facts which were then existing around them.  A knowledge of these will show why the clause was inserted, and what it meant; and will demonstrate the perfect consistence of the actors.  What were the facts?  Briefly these:  The British Parliament had a short time before declared these men to be in rebellion, out of the King’s protection.  They conceived, that the effect of this was to leave them without officers, civil or military, without law to govern them, even if they had it.  There was, consequently, in their view, nothing to oppose any restraint to the wildest anarchy.  But they saw that this would very soon destroy the peace and quiet of the whole country, and accordingly at their first meeting on the 20th of May, in the memorable document of that date, made primarily for another purpose, they attempted to provide a remedy, so far as their own county was concerned, by declaring in their fourth resolution, that as there was no law or legal officer in the county who could be recognized by men of any political opinion, Loyalist or Whig, (for the whole country was proclaimed in rebellion), they would ordain and adopt as a rule of life, each and every of their former laws already existing and known to all, saving only that they did not thereby mean to acknowledge the rights of the power than had thus wantonly and deliberately put them outside of the protection of those laws.  They thus affirmed the general principle of adhering to their existing and well-known laws, not because the Crown had once sanctioned them, but simply because they chose to adopt them “as a rule of life.”  And they further declared that all existing officers in the county who chose to adopt the principles asserted on the 20th of May, might continue to exercise their office under this temporary arrangement until—when?—“until (say they) a more general and organized government is established in the province.”  And having done this, they appoint a committee of delegates to hold future meetings and arrange the details which would carry out these general principles.  

Well, ten days afterward, these delegates convene to promulgate those details which they had by that time arranged; and on the 30th, this work was done and sent to Wilmington to be printed, because it was to be “a rule of life” for every man in the country, that “peace and order might be preserved.”  In arranging these details the delegates had no difficulty in declaring for themselves and all other confirmed Whigs, they recognized the provincial Congress, and in shaping for themselves ordinances in harmony with such a recognition—but there were others in the country, who, though not very numerous, were still influential, whose sympathies were not with the Whigs, who rather, inclined to the Crown.  These men were, however, to be brought under the influence of the temporary laws, but they were not prepared to admit that these laws should cease upon the action of a provincial Congress, for they recognized no authority in such a Congress.  And the existence and opinion of these men form a most important historical fact which has been entirely overlooked by those who have undertaken to interpret the document of the 30th.  “What was to be done with these men?”  was a question presented to the minds of the delegates.  To have insisted on their obeying the temporary laws and recognizing the provincial Congress, would, at once, have produced a forcible contest, civil strife would probably have been commenced.  But this on every account was to be avoided, and not the least of the reasons why it should be avoided was, that many men who then wavered, would (as events afterwards proved they did) find that their loyal hopes in the justice of the Crown were doomed to disappointment, and they must cast in their lot with the mass of their countrymen, or be the victims of a misplaced and unrequited loyalty.  

While, therefore, it was declared that for the preservation of peace and order, these men, like all others, must submit to the temporary ordinance of the 30th, yet for their sakes it was also inserted that the moment the British Legislature should, and the language is remarkably guarded, “resign its unjust and arbitrary pretensions with respect to America,” that is revoke their edict of a pretended rebellion which nullified the law, thus reviving the ancient laws of the colony; that then these men might obey these revived colonial laws, and no longer consider themselves bound by the temporary ordinances of the 30th of May.  This they could assent to with their existing loyalty unimpeached, for they did recognize the authority of the British Legislature, and this the delegates also could permit in perfect harmony with their own declaration of the 20th, because in that they “adopted and ordained” these very same laws “as a rule of life.”  In framing the clause therefore which made the resolves of the 30th obligatory upon all, except on the happening of one or two contingencies as to suit the prejudices or consciences of both classes in the community and thus insure peace and order by the temporary obedience of all.  

As to the delegates themselves, they had already declared in the instrument itself that the only contingency which should release them was the action of a provincial Congress.  The other contingency was inserted to serve the scruples of wavering and uncertain Whigs or avowed Loyalists.  If there had been no friends of the Crown in Mecklenburg, it would not have been inserted at all.  Doubtless, the delegates expected the provincial Congress to act first.  Doubtless, they were not so visionary as to entertain the hope that the British Parliament would ever undo its iniquity or revive the laws by revoking its wanton degree of rebellion.  They saw what the end must be, and their minds were fully prepared for it; but there were others whose vision as yet reached not so far, and who still thought of the Crown with lingerings of old habit and honest loyalty of affection.  But these could be best cured of their delusion by the progress of fast ripening events; and in the meantime, they, as well as all others, must obey the temporary laws made to preserve peace and order.  

And this is the true and simple explanation of this clause in the document of the 20th, on which so much stress has been laid.  Dr. H. then stated that without the previous declaration of the 20th, that of the 30th could not be made to appear appropriate and sensible.  The two must be studied together as parts of one res gesta, and thus studied, that of the 20th, instead of being contradicted by, or found inconsistent with the 30th, receives from it the strongest corroboration.  

SPECIFIC OBJECTIONS.  

Dr. H. next proceeded to consider these:  1. – It was said the paper of the 20th was not printed at the time, nor alluded to in the proceedings of the 30th.

 

Directly alluded to it was not, though its existence shaped the course of action on the 30th.  But the cause was the same that led to no direct allusion, and to not printing.  It was because the paper of the 20th asserted great governmental principles involving great national questions, even independence; and though the men of Mecklenburg might entertain and avow what principles they liked for themselves on this subject, and though they might desire to influence the continental Congress, if they could, to the adoption and expression of opinions like their own; yet they felt that independence was not a national, not a county nor even a colony question.  What they did was for the constitutional Congress to judge of, not for the people of the colonies at large.  Hence, they would not print, for it might interfere with plans and purposes of the Congress to do so, but they sent a special messenger to Congress to lay their doings before that body, through their delegates, content to submit the great national matter to their decision, and on less than a question which they deemed national, they would never have sent a messenger to Congress, on a journey which, at that day, was as long and laborious and almost as expensive as a voyage to Europe now is.  At the meeting of the 30th, there was no need of allusion to the proceedings of the 20th, for the same individuals composed both meetings, and as the action of the 20th was a matter not for the people, but for the continental Congress to determine, they preserved a silence on the subject which future events showed to have been discreet.  

2.  But they did publish the proceedings of the 30th.  The reason was they embodied laws for the people, “a rule of life” for the country.  Hence they printed that the people might know them.  But does not the simple fact of their thus printing, show that they never sent a special messenger at great trouble and expense to carry to Congress a document which they well knew Congress would see in a few days in the public papers?  Now, as a special messenger certainly was sent, and as certainly carried some document; must it not have been some other paper than that of the 30th, and as the messenger himself called the paper entrusted to him “a declaration of independence,” was it not probably that of the 20th already produced?  

Dr. H. then proceeded to say, that as the document of the 30th showed the men who made it not to have been fools, a questions presented itself which it was difficult satisfactorily to answer on the part of those who affirmed the document made in Mecklenburg county, in North Carolina, appointed her constables and justices of the peace, the extent of jurisdiction given to the latter, the mode of dealing with petty rogues and runaway debtors, with similar matters?  

It is indeed quite possible that the messenger may have had a copy of this paper of the 30th, though there was no need of it, for before 10 days it was printed in Wilmington and in S. Carolina and on the 20th of June we know that Gov. Wright of Georgia sent a newspaper containing it to the British government.  But it is remarkable that there is no resolve among those of the 30th ordering that paper to be sent to Congress, while in Brevard’s first draught there is a resolution to send that paper; and there was sense and reason in sending that, for on it was to be founded an application by our delegates to the general Congress to do for all the colonies what Mecklenburg had done for herself, viz.: Declare Independence!  

Well, the answer came back that it was deemed premature.  What?  The Continental Congress informing Mecklenburg county that it was premature to make constables and justices of the peace, and to catch thieves and runaway rogues scattered around its flourishing capitol of twenty houses?  Why, what did the Continental Congress know or care about the temporary  local arrangements on subjects of this kind?  There were a hundred places in the country where that business was going on.  Not a colony existed from South to North, where the people were not, in the beginning, obliged to take the business of government into their own hands, and extemporize some system of law.  Whigs were to be protected and tories watched and made powerless for harm everywhere.  The general Congress left all this to the local authority.  They never said that work of this kind was premature.  

But if this document of the 30th showed such action in Mecklenburg as was deemed by the Continental Congress to be premature, it must have been in one of but two things, either in the entertainment of such sentiments as it contained or, in the public expression of them.  Now we are told that the leading sentiment expressed in the document was a willingness, on certain contingency, to return again under the dominion of England.  How could this be deemed premature by the Continental Congress, when she had previously in her respectful remonstrances expressed the same thing?  She had said to England, “cease to tyrannize and we will be loyal subjects.”  Well, was it premature to embody in writing the sentiments of the Mecklenburg men as to the best mode of improving a temporary government?  Why, every colony had done or was doing the same thing, and the Continental Congress not only approved of it, but actually, within a few days after the paper reached them, advised the colonies to arm, and recommended to these parts of the country where the militia had already been organized by loyal authority (Mecklenburg of course was included) to exercise their discretion plan suggested, or by adhering to their own, according to circumstances.  

There was nothing premature, therefore, in entertaining the sentiments of which the document of the 30th was the exponent.  Well then, as to the other branch of the alternative, we ask, did they suppose it premature to publish it?  How could this be when the Continental Congress knew full well that it had been already printed in Wilmington and Charleston before they ever saw it; that a printed copy of it was sent to the British government by Gov. Wright, of Georgia, just 20 days after the document was made, and that it was reprinted in New York from the Southern papers at the very time the messenger from Mecklenburg was in Philadelphia?  But now just suppose the unprinted declaration of the 20th, which renounced allegiance and proclaimed and we may soon see from their language what it was they deemed premature.  On the 8th of July, 1775, the Continental Congress sent forth a document which, from the date, must have been in preparation at or about the very time the messenger from Mecklenburg reached Philadelphia, for it is proof that his countrymen met him there in the latter part of June.  This document was entitled, “The twelve united Colonies, by their Delegates in Congress, to the inhabitants of Great Britain,” whom it addresses as “friends, countrymen, and brethren.”  In this instrument they declare their hearty desire for reconciliation on equitable and honorable terms, and thus speak:  “Our enemies charge us with sedition; in what does it consist?  In our refusal to submit to unwarrantable acts of injustice and cruelty?  If so, show us a period in your history in which you have not been equally seditious.  We are accused of aiming at independence; but how is this accusation supported?  By the allegation of your minister?  Abused, insulted and condemned, what steps have we pursued to obtain redress?  We have carried out petitions to the throne; we have applied to your justice for relief; we have retrenched our luxury and withheld our trade.  The advantages of our commerce were designed as a compensation for our protection.   – When you ceased to protect, for what were we compensate?  What has been the success of our endeavors?  The clemency of our sovereign is unhappily diverted; our petitions are treated with indignity; our prayers answered by insults.  Our application to you remains unnoticed, and leaves us the melancholy apprehension of your wanting either the will or the power to assist us.  Even under these circumstances what measures have we taken that betray a desire for independence?  Have we called in the aid of those foreign powers who are the rivals of your grandeur?  When your troops were few and defenceless, did we take advantage of their distress and expel them from our towns?  Or have we permitted them to fortify, to receive new aid, and to acquire additional defence?”  

With this solemn and elaborate exculpation of themselves from a desire of independence, which they were just on the eve of ushering into the world, it is easy to see what the Continental Congress thought premature.  It was not a few resolutions providing temporary laws merely to secure peace and order in Mecklenburg county.  It was the sterner, stouter Declaration which was uttered in fearless tones on the twentieth that did, to use their language, “bear a desire of independence.”  This was premature as long as the Congress indulged the slightest hope of reconciliation!  

The distinguished orator was frequently and enthusiastically applauded during the delivery of the address, which was pronounced by all to be a masterly and successful effort.  Its delivery occupied three hours and ten minutes.  

 

 

SPEECH OF DR. MOSES W. ALEXANDER 5/20/1906 sec.3, p.3  

DELIVERED IN HOPEWELL CHURCH ON JULY 5TH, 1776, IN WHICH TRIBUTE IS PAID TO THE MECKLENGURG DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.  [The headline is in error. As the text shows, the speech was delivered in 1824]  

(The following account of Dr. Moses Winslow Alexander’s speech was copied from The Catawba Journal, of October 18, 1824, a weekly newspaper published in Charlotte by Lemuel Bigham.  Dr. Alexander was a son of Dr. Joseph McKnitt Alexander, a grandson of John McKnitt Alexander and father of Capt. S. B. Alexander.  He was born in 1798 and was acquainted personally with most of the signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration.)  

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.  

By the Citizens of Mecklenburg County, N. C., May 20, 1775; and by act of the Legislature of North Carolina, April 12, 1776.  

The following address was delivered in Hopewell church, Mecklenburg County, N. C., by Doct. M. Winslow Alexander, previous to a very appropriate and eloquent discourse delivered by the Rev. John Williamson, Pastor of said church, July 5, 1824.  

Fellow Citizens:  I have this day the honor of being appointed to read to you the Declaration of Independence, made by Congress on the 4th of July, 1776.  Before proceeding to read that dignified and all important production of our government, I hope it will not be considered irrelevant to the business of the day, nor repugnant to the feelings of true patriotism if we, the citizens of Mecklenburg County, should claim a more than equal honor in that transaction.  From the sensibility which has latterly existed amongst our members of Congress on this subject, and the excitement which has in consequence been diffused through the United States, the high honor and feeling of importance of this event may be adduced.  

More correctly to estimate the importance of that honor we now claim in behalf of the citizens of this county, and of this State, let us pass over that circumscribed view which is generally taken of this subject, and devote our limited moment in tracing the efforts, developed by those principles resulting from the establishment of American Independence, on ourselves, on the world at large, —on the general destiny of man.  

The policy of previous ages, the most extensive and refined views of the greatest politicians of previous nations, have been unlimited conquest or, as a last resort, they have always resolved the peace, harmony and happiness of nations into an equilibrium of power—hence the great desideratum, the great climax of polity in Europe, has been to establish that political balance on which they rest, that efficacy of political order which alone protects them from the greatest national calamities—hence the necessity of standing armies—hence the degradation, the vassalage, the misery of man.  How uncivilized, how barbarous, how brutish the principle thus to substitute power to the exclusion of the refined and more operative principles of virtue, intelligence, national justice and equal benevolence, as the foundation of national order, of reciprocal happiness.  

America alone has reversed this order of things, by establishing a written Constitution, sanctioned by the people—by identifying the individual with the national interests, and thus permanently establishing the power and energy of government on the affections of the citizens.  Hence our example and influence are dreaded by despots.  Hence the open, firm and dignified policy pursued by our President in his message to our last Congress, as to South American independence, and as to our rights on the Pacific coasts, has made that league of despots fear and tremble, and caused even Russia to accede to every principle of national justice and reciprocity.  

We, as a nation the most highly favored by heaven, are now independent, prosperous and happy; plenty smiles within our borders—peace encompasses our shores.  Here we enjoy free and unbiased suffrage, the only palladium of permanent and correct republican government; by which talents, integrity, moral and political excellence, become the qualifications of office and requisites to promotion.  Here we are blessed with an uncontrolled liberty of the press, regulated alone by intelligence and virtue—without which liberty is licentiousness.  Here, taught by the experience of ages, that knowledge constitutes the power, religion and virtue, the wealth and happiness of the nations—literary, scientific and religious institutions have spread their illuminating and ameliorating influence over our land, and have pointed the ability and enterprise of our citizens to every laudable and beneficial internal embellishment and improvement.  

As a nation we now stand exalted above our fellow-men.  Discarding the utopian principles of theoretic philosophy and sophisticated policy, our Cabinet, unwavering and candid, dignified and prudent, resting on the firm and impartial principles of national justice, of free, equal, and reciprocal intercourse, have latterly borne the palm in all our diplomatic intercourse with foreign nations, and have written to conviction, and thus frowned to silence, every attempt which has been made to drive us from those principles which have marked our march to national preeminence.  (a)  

Our navy, in opposition to every effort of visionary policy, pusillanimity and sectional jealousy, has rode triumphantly over the waves of prejudice, and in every instance, on equal terms, has borne our star spangled banner victorious over the couchant British lion.  Whilst by land, our patriot band of undisciplined freemen, impelled by love of country, and guided by that heroic genius of undaunted patriotism and unbiased rectitude have witnessed at New Orleans the last death groan of British glory.  

But our national polity, equally generous as energetic, has here afforded to oppressed humanity of every clime, the welcome asylum of benevolence.  Here alone on earth, the sons of Abraham, after a vassalage of two thousand years, may become citizens and enjoy the blessings of civil and religious liberty.  Here alone has been attained the full object of human government—the perfection of civil polity—human happiness—happiness in justice—justice in liberty.  Here alone has been established those civil and moral principles, which must ultimately influence every age and clime:  which will quicken the lapse of years; spread as they endure, and brighten as they spread, until they eradicate that spirit of civil intolerance, and break those spiritual fetters, forged by subtlety and riveted by superstition, which for ages have shrouded all the civil and religious, moral and physical powers of the human mind, in darkness, ignorance and apathy.  

To this period in the history of man, to those views and principles developed in the establishment of our independence, we justly attribute the only correct understanding of the civil and religious rights of man, and the consequent enjoyment of civil and religious liberty.  On these principles is here founded the only government that has ever existed on earth, where the religious has not been blended with the civil institutions of the country.  The greatest civilians and philosophers, and the most eminent divines of previous ages, have not even treated this subject as problematical; but, pleased with the illusions of a brilliant sophistry, and mistaking the splendid delineations of courtly consequence and superstitious rectitude for the benign influence of correct morals and pure religion, they have universally maintained that religion could never long exist uncorrupted without an establishment—without the mandate of a tyrant and the coercion of penal sanctions the most severe.  

To America, under the fostering hand of a kind providence, has been confided the almost miraculous development of the fact, that a pure and uncorrupted religion can better exist without than with aid of coercion of civil authority.  

These are the views and principles which have impressed the powers and elicited the brilliancy of the human mind with such energy, and pointed its exertion to such profitable and splendid extent, that the astonished eye of wonder gazes on the unfolding mysteries of invention, and cheerfully conceded that the useful inventions and improvements of the last thirty years have far transcended those of an entire previous century.

 

The knowledge diffused throughout the world, in consequence of these correct principles, has not only laid the foundation, but has given rise to all those charitable and patriotic institutions which latterly have done so much honor to the human character.  The energy and enterprise resulting from these views, have originated all those Bible, missionary, education, abolition and other institutions, which are now extending their ameliorating effects through every region and clime; proclaiming glad tidings of great joy, peace on earth and good will towards man.  

When we thus view the declaration and establishment of American independence, in all its extensive bearings, and trace those consequences which have already resulted from it to the welfare and happiness of the human race, we are lost in an illimitable scale of events, which, from their progressive increase and silent lapse, have perhaps not sufficiently arrested the attention of Americans; but which we must pronounce the most important since the birth of Christ, and the celebration of which ought to be handed down, with religious veneration and gratitude, to our latest posterity.  

Thus has the tree of civil and religious liberty been planted here by the most enlightened patriotism and nourished by the purest virtue.  It has become the happiness of millions, its shade defending them from the rays of anarchy, persecution and tyranny—flourishing with immortal youth, and blooming with unfading verdure—its fruit will increase with the lapse of time, and its branches extend to the confines of the universe.  

Who would not glory in being instrumental in originating that which has led to such all important, such happy results?  And who can so justly boast of originating this happy era, as the citizens of this county, the citizens of this State?  Our claim is fairly and honestly asserted—it is our indubitable right.  

It was on the 19th of May, 1775, that a delegation of two representatives from each militia company of Mecklenburg county, then comprising the present county of Cabarrus, met in the town of Charlotte.  You will now permit me to read the proceedings of the meeting as drawn and certified by their clerk, and deposited in the safe keeping of Gen. W. R. Davie, for the benefit of some future historian.  

Agreeably to the arrangements made by the most respectable citizens of this county, Col. Thomas Polk issued an order to the captains of each militia company to elect two persons and delegate to them ample powers to devise ways and means to assist their suffering brethren in Boston, and generally to adopt measures to extricate themselves from the impending storm—and to secure unimpaired their invaluable rights, privileges and liberties, from the dominant grasp of British imposition and tyranny.  

In conformity to said order, on the 19th day of May, 1775, the said delegation met in Charlotte, vested with unlimited powers; at which time official news arrived of the battle of Lexington on that day of the preceding month.  Every delegate felt the value and importance of the prize and the awful and solemn crisis which had arrived; every bosom swelled with indignation at the malice and insatiable revenge developed in the late attack at Lexington.  The universal sentiment was, let us act with energy as brethren leagued to preserve our property, our lives, and what is still more endearing, the liberties of America.  Conformably to this view, the meeting was organized.  

Delegates present: Col. Thos. Polk, Jno. McKnitt Alexander, Ephraim Brevard, Hez. Alexander, Hezekiah J. Balch, Adam Alexander, John Phifer, Charles Alexander, James Harris, Zacheus Wilson, Sen., William Kennon, Wrightstill Avery, John Ford, Benjamin Patton, Richard Barry, Matthew McClure, Henry Downs, Neil Morrison, Ezra Alexander, Robert Irwin, William Graham, John Flenniken, John Query, David Reese, Abraham Alexander.  

Abraham Alexander was then elected Chairman, John McKnitt Alexander, Clerk.  After a free and full discussion of the various objects for which the delegation had been convened, it was unanimously ordained:  

1st. RESOLVED, That whoever directly or indirectly abetted, or in any way, form or manner, countenanced the unchartered and dangerous invasion of our rights, as claimed by Great Britain, is an enemy to this country, to America, and to the inherent and inalienable rights of man.  

2nd. RESOLVED, That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg county, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us with the mother country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British crown, and abjure all political connection, contract, or association, with that nation, who have wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed the blood of American patriots at Lexington.  

3rd RESOLVED, That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people; are, and of right ought to be a sovereign and self-governing association, and under the control of no power than that of our God and the general government of the Congress, to the maintenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes and our most sacred honor.  

4th. RESOLVED, That as we now acknowledge the existence and control of no law or legal officer, civil or military, within this country, we do hereby ordain and adopt as a new rule of life, all, each, and every of our former laws—wherein, nevertheless, the crown of Great Britain never can be considered as holding rights, privileges, immunities or authority therein.  

5th. RESOLVED, That it is further decreed, that all, each and every military officer in this county is hereby reinstated in his former command and authority, he acting conformably to these regulations.  And that every member present, of this delegation, shall henceforth be a civil officer, viz: a Justice of the Peace, in the character of a “committeeman,” to issue process, hear and determine all matters of controversy, according to said adopted laws, and to preserve peace, union and harmony in said country—and to use every exertion to spread the love of country and fire of freedom throughout America, until a more general and organized government be established in this province.  

After discussing the foreign resolves, and arranging by-laws and regulations for the government of a standing committee of public safety, who were selected from these delegates, the whole proceedings were unanimously adopted and signed.  A select committee was then appointed to draw a more full and definite statement of grievances, and a more formal declaration of independence.  The delegation then adjourned about 2 o’clock a. m. May 20.  

May 20, delegation met.  The Select committee reported a formal Declaration of Independence, (believed to have been drawn by Dr. Ephraim Brevard, chairman of said Committee), which was unanimously approved and signed; and which, together with the foregoing resolves, was publically read and proclaimed from the court house door by Colonel Thomas Polk, to a large and approving concourse of citizens, who had convened to sanction the proceedings of their delegates—being 13 months previous to the Declaration of Independence by Congress.  

A full copy of the whole proceedings was then made out and attested and Captain James Jack, of Charlotte, was deputed as express to Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia, accompanying said proceedings with a letter addressed to Richard Caswell, Wm. Hooper and Joseph Hughes, our then representatives from this province, enjoining it on our said representatives to use all possible means to have the said proceedings sanctioned and approved by the General Congress.  On the return of Captain Jack, the Delegates learned, by a joint letter from said three representatives, that their proceedings were individually approved by the members of Congress, but it was deemed premature to lay them before the House; recommending perseverance, order, energy, &c.  

The Committee of Safety, of which Abraham Alexander was chairman, held their regular and stated meetings alternately at Charlotte at James Harris’s and John Phifer’s.  This was a civil court, founded on military process.  Before this judicature all suspicious persons were made to appear, who were formally tried, banished, or bound to good behaviour.  Its jurisdiction was unlimited as to area, and its decrees as final as the confidence and patriotism of the county.  Several were arrested and brought before them from Tryon (now Lincoln), Rowan and the adjacent counties.  (b)  

It is also gratifying to every citizen of this State to learn that our Provincial Assembly, held at Halifax, on the 12th of April, 1776, a law unanimously passed the House authorizing and empowering our representatives at Congress to concur in declaring the United Colonies free and independent, to form foreign alliances, &c.  This was nearly three months previous to the declaration by Congress, and stands the first legislative act on the subject of independence in the United States.  The delegates from this county at that time were John Phifer, Robert Irwin, and John McKnitt Alexander.  (c)    

The boasted resolve of the Provincial Legislature of Virginia, instructing their representatives in Congress to declare the United Colonies free and independent, was passed the 15th day of May, 1776, over one month after the North Carolina act, from which it evidently originated.  (Wirt’s Life of P. Henry, page 193-4).  

These are transactions with which you, together with the citizens of this and the adjoining counties, have long been familiar—these have been the frequent topics of conversation amongst us for nearly fifty years—these were the proceedings of our fathers, of our relatives, of our fellow citizens, every individual of whom has descended to the silent tomb; but these are their living deeds of patriotism, which misfortune cannot now tarnish, and which the malignant breath of envy durst not now assail to blast.  

Who would relinquish the glory of preeminently participating in those transactions, which can hereafter barely be imitated which will forever stand firm as the eternal principles of justice—a model on the summit of civil and moral grandeur; to which all the benighted world may turn their eyes for a genial and regenerating light, until time shall be lost in eternity and this globe itself dissolve in chaos.  Compared with such characters, what is the glitter of an empire, what the pageantry of state or what are the empty unmerited titles of nobility?  Who would not glory in such ancestors—who would not emulate such virtue—who would not sanction such principles?  Principles which have so preeminently distinguished and crowned with never fading laurels of mental and moral grandeur those illustrious patriots who occupy the brightest pages in the history of human greatness, which, deposited in its proper soil, springs up to luxuriance and bears the bloom of bliss—its fruit is that balm of life, which secures and perpetuates the felicity of man; and its unfading verdure, fanned with the virtuous zephyrs of civil and religious liberty, beautifies and embellishes the scenery of life, and coolly shades our pilgrimage down this valley of toil, anxiety and trouble, to that peaceful bourne from whence no traveler returns.  

NOTES.  

(a)  It is perhaps unparalleled in the history of national diplomacy, that in every instance )now recalled) from the various important national subjects discussed at the treaty of Ghent and those difficulties arising under it, together with all our subsequent collisions with England, Spain, France and Russia, the overwhelming argument and correct principles assumed by John Q. Adams, our present Sec. of State, have produced an entire acquiescence in those powers to the correctness of American principle and policy.  

(b)  The following certificate is in our possession, viz:  

North Carolina, Mecklenburg County, November 28, 1775.  

These may certify, to all whom it may concern, that the bearer hereof, William Henderson, is allowed here to be a true friend to liberty, and has signed the Association.  Certified by  

ABR’M ALEXANDER. Chairman of the Committee of Safety.  

Dunn and Booth, two lawyers residing in Salisbury, Rowan county, having threatened to have this delegation arrested for treason, the Committee of Safety issued an order for their arrest—a guard was sent on to Salisbury with said order—they were arrested and banished to Charleston, S. C.  Gen. George Graham, now living near Charlotte, was one of the guard who escorted them from Charlotte to Camden, and delivered them to Capt. Chesnit, who in a few hours set out with a detachment of his cavalry to place them in Charleston.  

The certified statements relative to the transaction in Charlotte, of May 19th and 20th, 1775, by Gen. George Graham, William Hutchison, Jonas Clark, Robert Robison, John Simeson, of Mecklenburg county, and Rev. Francis Cummins, of the State of Georgia, as published in a pamphlet, at Raleigh, 1822.  

(c)  As the journal of Provincial Assembly, held at Halifax, April 4th, 1776, is in the possession of a very few, a copy of the resolve, it is presumed, will be acceptable.  

“The Select Committee to take into consideration the usurpations and violences attempted and committed by the king and Parliament of Britain, against America, and the further measures to be taken for frustrating the same and for the better defense of this province, report as follows, viz:  (Here follows a particular and formal statement of grievances, &c.)  And whereas the moderation hitherto manifested by the United Colonies and their sincere desire to be reconciled to the mother country on constitutional principles, have procured no mitigation of the aforesaid wrongs and usurpations, and on hopes remain of obtaining redress by those means alone which have hitherto been tried, your committee are of the opinion that the House should enter into the following resolve, viz:  

RESOLVED, That the delegates of this Colony of the Continental Congress be empowered to concur with the delegates of other colonies, in declaring independence, and forming foreign alliances, reserving to this colony the sole and exclusive right of forming a constitution and laws for this colony, and of appointing delegates, from time to time, under the direction of a general representative thereof, to meet the delegates of the other colonies, for such purposes as shall hereafter be pointed out.”  The House unanimously concurred therein, April 12, 1776.  

It ought to be observed that the enacting clause to every law passed by this legislature was “Resolved, &c.”  

The last Colonial Congress was held March, 1774. First General Assembly at Newbern, August 1774. Second General Assembly at Halifax, August, 1775. Third General Assembly at Halifax, April, 1776. Convention which formed our present Constitution, Halifax, December, 1776.