xt7n8p5v7g99 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7n8p5v7g99/data/mets.xml Page, Thomas Nelson, 1853-1922. 190618  books b92-230-31280747v12 English C. Scribner's sons, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Novels, stories, sketches, and poems of Thomas Nelson Page (vol. 12) text Novels, stories, sketches, and poems of Thomas Nelson Page (vol. 12) 1906 2002 true xt7n8p5v7g99 section xt7n8p5v7g99 












PLANTATION

  EDITION



VOLUME XII

 
















































Thomas Nelson Page.

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-ft THE NOVELS, STORIES,
SKETCHES AND POEMS OF



THOMAS NELSON



PAGE 4-



  T-HE OLD SOUTH
  ESSAYS SOCIAL AND POLITICAL









CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK, I N L - 1906



I

 

































Copyright, 1892, 1904, 1906, by
CRARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS


    All Rights Keserved

 






















     TO
MY COUNTRYMEN

    AND
COUNTRYWOMEN

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PREFAX CE



SEVERAL of the within es'says were delivered as
addresses before literary Alumni Societies, and
revision has not wholly availed to clear them
from the rhetoric which insensibly crept into
them. Being, however, upon topics as to which
there is much diversity cf sentiment, this form
of expression will at least serve to show the
state of feeling where they were delivered and
thus may not be without its use. The substance
of the papers is what the author earnestly be-
lieves and what lie is satisfied history will
establish.
  The essays are given to the public in the hope
that they may serve to help awaken inquiry into
the true history of the Southern people and may
aid in dispelling the misapprehension under
which the Old South has lain so long.



vii

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               CONTENTS

                                         PAGE
THE OLD SOUTH ..... .   . .. . . . ..   . 3
AUTHORSHIP IN THE SOUTH BEFORE THE WAR . 67
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN COLONIAL VIRGINIA . . . . 113
SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD VIRGINIA BEFORE THE WAR . 171

TWO OLD COLONIAL PLACES. . . . . . . 9. . 225
THE OLD VIRGINIA LAWYER ......... . 281
THE OLD-TIME NEGRO. . . .. . . . . . .. . 301
THE WANT OF A HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN
  PEOPLE ................. 345

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                 ILLUSTRAT IONS


PORTRAIT OF THOMAS NELSON PAGE .. .. . .     Fron-ipwiece
                                            FAC.:XG PAGE
"SHE WAS NEVER ANYTHING BUTr TENDER WITH THE
   OTHERS' -. ..            . .. . . ..       .. 198
   Drawn by G. Cowles.


"AT LAST THE 'BIG GATE' IS REACHED " . . . . . . . . 215
  Drawn by M. Cowles.

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THE OLD SOUTH

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       THE OLD SOUTH


IN the selection of a theme for this occasion,
   I have, curious to relate, been somewhat em-
l)arrassed. Not that good subjects were not
inanifold, and material plentiful; but for me, on
this occasion, when I am to address this au-
dience, in this presence, there could be but one
subject-the best.
  I deem myself fortunate that I amn permitted
to address you on this spot; for this lUniver-
sity, whose friend was George Washington and
whose establisher was Robert E. Lee, impresses
me as the spot on earth to which my discourse
is most appropriate. Broad enough to realize
the magnificent ideal of its first benefactor as
a university where the youth of this whole
country may meet and acquire the grand idea
of this American Union, it is yet so distinctly
free from the materialistic tendencies which of
late are assailing kindred institutions and in-
                     3

 


             THE OLD SOUTH
sidiolisly threatening even the existence of the
Union itself, that it may be justly regarded as
the citadel of that conservatism which, mated
with immortal devotion to duty, may be termed
the cardinal doctrine of the Southern civiliza-
tion.
  Something more-than twenty years ago there
fell upon the South a blow for which there is
no parallel among the casualties which may
happen to an individual, and which has rarely
in history befallen nations. Under the euphem-
ism of reconstruction an attempt was made af-
ter the war to destroy the South. She was dis-
membered, disfranchised, denationalized. The
States which composed her were turned by her
conquerors into military districts, and their
governments were subverted to Military tribuni-
als. Virginia, that had given Washington, Jef-
ferson, Henry, Nelson, the Lees, Madison, Mar-
shall, and a host of others who had made the
nation, became "District No. 1."
  The South was believed to be no more. It
wa.s intended that she should be no more. But
God in his providence had his great purpose
for her and He called her forth. With the old
spirit strong within her she renewed her youth
like the eagles, fixed her gaze upon the sum,
                     4

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
and once more spreading her strong pinions,
lifted herself for another flight.
  The outside world gazed astonished at her
cour se, and said, this is not the Old South,
but a new civilization, a New South.
  The phrase by imperative inference insti-
tutes invidious comparison with and implies
censure of something else-of some other or-
der--of a different civilization.
  Trhat order, that civilization, I propose to
discuss briefly this evening; to, so far as may
be in the narrow limits of an address, repel
this censure; show that comparison is absurd,
and that the New South is, in fact, simply the
Old South with its energies directed into new
1ines.
  The civilization which is known byr this namo
was as unique as it was distinct. It combined
elements of the three great civilizations which
since the dawn of history have enlightened the
world. It partook of the philosophic tone of
the Grecian, of the dominant spirit of the
Utoman, and of the gua-rdfuIlness of individual
rights of the Saxon civilization. And over all
blrooded a softness and beauty, the joint pro-
duct of Chivalry and Christianity.
  This individuality began almost with the
                      5

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
first permanent Anglo-Saxon settlement of this
continent; for the existence of its distinguish-
ing characteristics may be traced fromn the very
beginning of the colonial period. The civiliza-
tion flourished for two hundred and fifty years,
and until its vitality, after four years of in-
vasion and war, expired in the convulsive throes
of reconstruction.
  Its distinctiveness, like others of its charac-
teristics, was referable to its origin, and to its
subsequent environing conditions.
  Its tendency was towards exclusiveness and
conservatism. It tolerated no invasion of its
rights. It admitted the jurisdiction of no other
tribunal than itself. The result was not unnat-
ural. The world, barred out, took its revenge,
and the Old South stands to-day charged with
sterility, with attempting to perpetuate human
slavery, and with rebellion.
  That there was shortcoming in certain di-
rections may not be denied; but it was not
what is charged.
  If, when judged by the narrow standard of
mere, common materialism, the Southern civil-
ization fell short, yet there is another standard
bv which it measured the fullest stature: the
sudden supremacy of the American people to-
                      6

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
day is largely due to the Old South, and to its
contemCned civilization.
  The difference between the Southern civiliza-
tion and the Northern was the result of the
difference between their origins and subsequent
surromi clings.
  TI'le Northern colonies of Great Britain in
Amnerica were the asylums of religious zealots
and vevolutionists who at their first coming
were l)ent less on the enlargement of their for-
tunes than on the freedom to exercise their re-
ligious convictions, however m.nuch the sudden
ti.ansition from dependence and restriction to
freedom and license may in -I brief time have
tempered their views of liberty and changed
them into proscriptors of the most tyrannical
type.
  The Southern colonies, on the other hand,
were from the first the product simply of a
desire for adventure, for conquest, and for
wealth.
  Tlie Northern settlements were, it is true,
founded under the law; but it was well under-
stood that they contained an element which
was not friendly to the government and that
the latter was well satisfied to have the seas
stretch between them. The Southern, on the
                      7

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
other hand, came with the consent of the crown.,
the blessing of the Church, and under the aus-
pices and favor of -men of high standing in
the kingdom. They came with all the ceremon-
ial of an elaborate civil government-with an
executive, a council deputed by authorities at
home, and formal and minute instructions and
regulations.
  The crown hoped to annex the unknown land
lying between the El Dorado, which Spain had
obtained amid the summer seas, and the un-
bounded claims of its hereditary enemy, France,
to the North and West.
  The Church, which viewed the independence
of the Northern refugees as schism, if not her-
esy, gave to this enterprise its benison in the
belief that "the adventurers for the plantations
of Virginia were the most noble and worthy
advancers of the standard of Christ among the
Gentiles. "  The  company  organized  and
equipped successive expeditions in the hope of
gain; and soldiers of fortune, and gentlemen
in misfortune, threw in their lot in the cer-
taintv of adventure and the probability that
they might better their condition.
  Under such auspices the Southern colonies
necessarily were rooted in the faith of the Eng-
                     8

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
land from which they came--political, religious,
and civil. Thus from the very beginning the
spirit of the two sections was absolutely differ-
ent, and their surrounding conditions were
for a long time such as to keep them diverse.
  The first governor of the colony of Virginia
was a member of a gentle Huntingdonshire
family, and he was succeeded in office by a long
line of men, most of them of high degree. In
the first ship-load of colonisi;s there were "four
carpenters, twelve laborers, and fifty-four gen-
tlemen. "
  ,Tohn Smith, the strongest soul that planted
the British spirit upon this continent, and who
was himself a soldier of fortune, cried out in
the bitterness of his heart against such colon-
ists; yet he came afterwards to note that these
" gentlemen" cut down more trees in a day
than the ordinary laborers.
  With the controversy as to whether or not
the inhabitants of the Southern colonies were
generally the descendants of Cavaliers it is
not necessary to deal. It makes no difference
now to the race which established this Union
whether its ancestors fought with the Norman
conqueror on Senlac lill or whether they were
among the "villains" who followed the stand-
                      9

 

              THE OLD SOUTH
ards of Harold's earls. It may, however, be
averred that the gentle blood and high connec-
tion which undoubtedly existed in a consider-
able degree exerted widely a strengthening and
refining power, and were potent in their influ-
ence to elevate and sustain not only the fam-
ilies which claimed to be their immediate pos-
sessors, but through them the entire colonial
body, social and politic.
  I make a prouder claim than this: the in-
habitants of these colonies were the strongest
strains of many stocks-Saxon, Celt, and Teu-
ton; Cavalier and Puritan.
  The ship-loads of artisans and adventurers
who came, caught in time the general spirit,
and found in the new country possibilities never
dreamed of in the old. Each man, whether
gentle or simple, was compelled to assert him-
self in the land where personal force was of
more worth than family position, however ex-
alted; but having proved his personal title to
individual respect, lie was eager to approve
likewise his claim to honorable lineage, which
still was held at high value. The royal govern-
ors, with all the accompaniments of a vice-
regal court, only so much modified as was nec-
essary to suit the surroundings, kept before
                     10

 

              THE OLD SOUTH
the people the similitude of royal state; and
generation after generation of large planters
and thriving merchants, with broad grants ac-
quired from the crown or by their own enter-
prise, as they rose, fell into the tendency of
the age and perpetuated or augmented the
spirit of the preceding generation.
  With the Huguenot immigration came a new
accession of the same spirit, intensified in some
directions, if tempered in others.
  As society grew more and more indulgent
its demands became greater; the comforts of
life became more readil y obtainable in the
colonies just at the time that civil and religious
restrictions became more burdensome in the old
country, and the stream of immigration began
to flow more freely.
  Slavery had become meantime a factor in the
problem-potent at first for perhaps mitigated
good, finally for immeasurable ill to all except
the slaves themselves.
  This class of labor was so perfectly suited
to the low alluvial lands of the tide-water sec-
tion that each generation found itself wealth-
ier than that which had preceded it, and it was
evident that the limits between the mountains
and the coast would soon be too narrow for a
                      11

 

              THE OLD SOUTH
race which had colonized under a charter that
ran "up into the land to the farthest sea."
  To this reason was added that thirst for ad-
venture and that desire for glory which is a
characteristic of the people, and in Virginia
Spottswood and his Knights of the Golden
Horseshoe set out to ride to the top of the Blue
Ridge, which till then was the barricade beyond
which no Saxon was known to have ventured,
and from which it was supposed the Great
Lakes might be visible. They found not "the
unsalted seas," but one of the fairest valleys
on earth stretched before them; and the Old
Dominion suddenly expanded from a narrow
province to a land from whose fecund womnb
commonwealths and peoples have sprung.
  By a strange destiny, almost immediately
succeeding this discovery, the vitality of the
colony received an infusion of another element,
which became in the sequel a strong part of
that life which in its development made the
"Sout)Aern civilization. "
  This element occupied the new valley and
changed it from a hunting-ground to a gar-
den. The first settler, it is said, came to it
by an instinct as imperative as that which
brought the dove back to the ark of safety.
                     12

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
It was not the dove, however, which came when
4John Lewis settled in this valley; but an eagle,
and in his eyry he reared a brood of young
who have been ever ready to strike for the
South. He had been forced to leave Ireland
because he bad slain his landlord, who was
attempting to illegally evict him, and the c.u-
rious epitaph on his tomb begins, "'Here lies
.Johbn Lewis, who slew the Irish Lord."
  lie was followed by the McDowells, Alex-
anders, Prestons, Graham s, Reids, McLaugh-
lins, AMoores, XWallaces, AMcCluers, Mathews,
Woods,   Campbells,   Waddeils,  Greenlees,
Bowyers, Andersons, Breckenridges, Paxtons,
1-oustons, Stuarts, Gambles, McCorkles, Wil-
sons, McNutts, and many) others, whose de-
scendants have held the hiighest offices in the
land which their fortitude created, and who
have ever thrown on the side of principle
the courage, resolution, and loyalty with which
they held out for liberty and Protestantisn
in the land from which they came.
  It was a sturdy strain which had suddenly
flung itself along the frontier, and its effect
has been plainly discernible in the subsequent
history of the Old South, running a somewhat
sombre thread in the woof of its civilization,
                     13

 

             THE OLD) SOUTH
but giving it "a body" which perhaps it might
otherwise not have possessed. A somewhat
similar element, though springing from  a
different source, held the frontier in the
other States. Its force was not towards the
East, but towards the West; not towards the
sea and the old country, but towards the
mountains and the new; and to its energy was
due the Western settlement, as to the other
and the older class was due the Eastern.
  As the latter had created and opened up
the first tier of States along the sea-coast, so
these newcomers now (crossed the mountains,
penetrated "the dark and bloody ground,"
and conquered the second tier, hewing out of
primeval forests-and holding them alike
against Indians, French and British-the
States of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee,
and opening up for the first time the possibil-
ity of a great American continent.
  They were not slave-holders to a great ex-
tent; for they were frontiersmen, who mainly
performed their own work; they were not
generally connected with the old families of
the Piedmont and Tidewater, for they had in
large part entered the State by her northern
boundary, or had been brought to take up
                     14

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
land under "cabin rights," or had come
across the mountain barrier and had cut their
own way into the forests, and they traced
their lineage to Caledonian stock; they were
not bound to them by the ties of a common
religion, for they repudiated the Anglican
Church, with its hierarchy and "inalignant
doctrines," as that Church had repudiated
them, and they worshipped God, according to
their own consciences, "in a way agreable
to the principles of thcir education.,,
  Thus, neither by interest, blood, nor relig-
ion, were theyr for a time connected with the
original settlers of the Southern colonies; and
yet they were distinctly and irrevocably an
integral part of the South and of the Southern
civilization,-as the waters of the Missouri
and the upper Mississippi are said to flow
side by side for a hundred miles, each dis-
tinguishable, yet both together mingling to
make the majestic Father of Waters.
  There was something potent in the South-
erm soil, which drew to it all who once rested
on its bosom, without reference to race, or
class, or station. Let men but once breathe
the air of the South and generally they were
thenceforth Southerners, forever. So, having
                     115

 

              THE OLD SOUTH
crossed the mountains, this race made Ken-
tucky and Tennessee Southern States, and,
against the allurements of their own interest
and the appeals of the Ncrth, held them so,
and infused a strong Southern element into
the State of Ohio.
  Steam had not been then invented, and the
infinite forces of electricity were as vet un-
known; vet, without these two great civil-
izers, the Southern spirit bore the ensign of
the Anglo-Saxon across the mountains, seized
the West, and created this American continent.
  There is another work which the South may
justly claim. As it pushed advance up first
against the French confines and then beyond
them, and made this country English, so it
preserved the spirit of civil and religious li-
berty pure and undefiled, and established it
as the guiding star of the American people
forever.
  I believe that the subordination of every-
thing else to this principle is the key to the
Southern character.
  The first charter of Virginia, the leading
Southern colony, "secured" to her people
"the privileges, franchises, and immunities
of native-born Englishmen forever," and they
                     16

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
never forgot it nor permitted others to over-
look it.
  She had a Legislative Assembly as early
as 1619, and the records show that it guarded
with watchful vigilance against all encroach-
ments those rights which, thanks to it, are to-
day regarded as inalienable among all Eng-
lish-speaking races.
  The assembly was hardly established be-
fore it struck its first blow for constitutional
liberty.
  When the royal commissioners sent by
James to investigate the "Seditious Parlia-
ment" came and demanded the records of the
Assembly it refused to give them up; and
when the clerk, under a bribe, surrendered
them, the Assembly stood him in the pillory and
cut off one of his ears. This did not save
their charter; but in the sequel it turned out
that the forfeiture of the charter was a great
blessing.
  As early as 1623-24 the General Assemnbly
of the colony adopted resolutions defining
and declaring the right of the colonists, and
limiting the powers of the executive.
  The governor was not " to lay any taxes or
impositions upon the colony, their lands, or
                     17

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
other way than by authority of the General
Assembly, to be levied and employed as the
General Assembly shall appoint." Moreover,
the governor -was not to withdraw the inhab-
itants from their labor for his service, and
the Burgesses attending the General Assembly
were to be privileged from arrest.
  The colony of MNarvland went farthest yet
in the way of liberty, and, under the direction
of Lord Baltimore, passed the famous Act of
Toleration on the 2d of April, 1649, which first
established the principle of freedom of con-
science on the earth.
  Thus early was the South striking for those
great principles of liberty which are funda-
mental now mainly because of the spirit of
our forefathers. It was not until some years
after Virginia had declared herself that the
issue was finally joined in England.
  From this time the light of liberty flamed
like a beacon. The colonies declared them-
selves devotedly loyal to the crown, but were
more true to their own rights; and they fre-
quently found themselves opposed to the gov-
ernmrent as vested in and manifested by the
royal governor.
  During the time of the Commonwealth the
                     18

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
Southern colonies held byr the crown, and be-
came the asylum of many hard-pressed Cava-
liers who found Cromwell's interest in them
too urgent to permit them to remain at home.
And Charles IJ himself was offered a crown
by his loyal subjects in Virginia when he was
a fugitive with a price set on his head.
  So  notorious was this fealty that tie
Great Protector was obliged to send a war
fleet to Virginia to quell this spirit and to
make terms of peace. The treaty is made as
between independent powers.
  The colonies were to obey the Common-
wealth; but this submission was to be acknowl-
edged a voluntary act, rnot forced nor con-
strained by a conquest upon the country. The
people were "to enjoy such freedom     and
privileges as belong to free-born people in
England." The continuance of their Repre-
sentative Assembly was guaranteed.   There
was to be total indemnity. The colony was
to have free trade, notwithstanding the Navi-
gation Act.   The General Assembly alone
was to have the power to levy taxes; and there
were other provisions securing those privi-
leges and immunities which were claimed as
the birthright of the race.
                     19

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
  After Cromwell's death the General Assem-
bly declared the supr emne power to be "resi-
dent in" itself until such command or commis-
sion should come out of England as the Gen-
eral Assembly adjudged lawful. And when
the king once more came into his own the Gen-
eral Assembly accepted his governor willingly,
as did the colony of Maryland, but held
firmly to the advantages it had secured dur-
ing the interregnum.
  The colony welcomed the followers of Crom-
well in the hour of their adversity, and offered
them as secure an asylum as it had done a
few years before to the hard-pressed Cava-
liers. Thus society came to be knit of the
strongest elements of all parties and classes,
who merged all factions into loyalty for their
collective rights.
  Then came the contest with Berkeley.
Charles forgot the people who offered him a
kingdom when he was an exile and a wanderer,
and his representative neglected their rights.
  England claimed the monopoly of the colo-
nial trade, and imposed a heavy duty on their
exports. Not content with this, the silly king
gave away half of the settled portion of Vir-
ginia to two of his followers. The colony sent
                     20

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
commissioners to protest, but before the trouble
could be remedied Virginia, demanding self-
government, flamed into revolution, with Na-
thaniel Bacon at its head.
  We are told that the great revolution of 1688
established the liberties of the English people.
The chief Southern colony of Great Britain
had fought out its revolution twelve years be-
fore, and although the revolution failed disas-
trously for its participants, and it has come
down in history as a rebellion, yet its ends were
gained.
  The troops of the fiery Bacon were beaten
and scattered, those who were captured were
hanged as insurrectionists, and the gallant
leader himself died of fever contracted in the
trenches, a fugitive andl an outlaw, with a
stigma so welded to his name that after two
centuries he is known but as "Bacon the
Rebel. "
  Judged by the narrow standard which makes
success the sole test, Nathaniel Bacon was a
rebel, and the uprising which he headed was a
rebellion; but there are "rebellions" which
are not rebellions, but great revolutions, and
there are "rebels" who, however absolutely
their immediate purposes may have failed, and
                     21

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
however unjustly contemporary history may
have recorded their actions, shall yet be knownt
to posterity as patriots pure and lofty, whose
motives and deeds shall evoke the admiration
of all succeeding time.
  Such was Nathaniel Bacon. They called
him rebel and outlawed him; but he headed a
revolution for the protection of the same rights,
the same "privileges, franchises, and immuni-
ties," whose infringement caused another rev-
olution just one hundred years later, the leader
of whose armies was the rebel George Wash-
ington, the founder of this University.
  The elder rebel failed of his purpose for the
time, yet haply but for that stalwart blow
struck at Jamestown for the rights of the col-
onists there had never been a Declaration of
Independence, a Bunker Hill, a Yorktown, or
the United States of America.
  The spirit never receded. The opening up
of lands, the increase of slaves, the extension
of commerce, made the Southern colonies
wealthier generation after generation, and
their population filled the territory up to the
mountains and then flowed over, as we have
seen, into the unknown regions beyond; and
generation after generation, as they grew
                     22

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
stronger, they grew more self-contained, more
independent, more assertive of their rights,
more repellant of any invasion, more jealous
of tyranny, more loving of liberty.
  Against governors, councils, metropolitans,
commissaries, and clergy, in the Burgesses and
in the vestries, they fought the fight with stead-
fast courage and persistency.
  The long contest between the vestries and
the Church was only a different phase of this
same spirit, and was in reality the same
struggle between the co. ony and the govern-
inent at home, transferred to a different the-
atre. The planters were churchmen; but they
claimed the right to control the Church, and
repudiated the right of the Church to control
them. It was the sacred right of self-govern-
ment for which they contended; and the first
cry of "treason" was when the contest culmi-
nated in that celebrated Parsons case, in which
the orator of the Revolution burst suddenly
into fame.
  "The gentleman has spoken treason," de-
clared the counsel for the plaintiff; but it was
the treason that was in all hearts, and was the
first step of the young advocate in his ascent
to a fame for oratory so transcending that the
                     23

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
mind of a later and more prosaic generation
fails to grasp its wondrousness, and there is
nothing by which to measure it since the day
when the Athenian orator thundered against
the Macedonian tyrant.
  The same principles which inspired the up-
rising of Bacon a century before, and had ani-
mated the continuous struggle since, swept the
colonies into revolution now.
  The Stamp Act of 1766 set the. colonies into
flame, and from this time to the outbreak of
flagrant war, a decade later, the people stood
with steadfast faces set against all encroach-
ment; and when the time came for war the
South sprang to arms. She did not enter upon
the enterprise from ignorance of her danger,
nor yet in recklessness.
  The Southern planter sent his son to Eng-
land to be educated, and many of the men who
sat in the great conventions, or who subscribed
the Declaration of Independence, had been
themselves educated in England, and knew full
well the magnitude of the hazard they were
assuming in instituting with a handful of
straggling colonies a revolution against a
power which made Chatham the ruler of Eu-
rope, and which only a generation later tore
the victorious eagles of Napoleon himself.
                     2)4

 
             THE OLD SOUTH
  Thomas Nelson, Jr., the wealthiest man in
the Colony of Virginia, had sat by Charles
James Fox at Eton and kr ew England and her
power. Others did also.
  They knew all this full well; and yet for the
sake of those principles, of those rights and
liberties, which they believed were theirs of
right, and which they meant to transmit undi-
minished to their children, they gave up wealth
and ease and security, blazoned on their stand-
ard the motto "Virginia for Constitutional Lib-
erty," and launched undaunted on the sea of
revolution.
  There is an incident connected with the sign-
ing of the Declaration of Independence, which
illustrates at once the character of the Southern
planter and the point I am endeavoring to
make.
  You may have observed, in looking over the
signers of the Declaration of Independence,
that Charles Carroll of Maryland subscribed
himself "Charles   Carroll of Carrollton."
Unless you know the story it would appear that
simple arrogance prompted such a subscription.
The facts, however, were these: It was a se-
rious occasion, and a solemn act this group of
men were performing, assembled to affix their
names to this document, which was to be for-
                     25

 

             THE OLD SOUTH
ever a barrier between them and Great Britain;
it had not been so very long since the heads-
man's axe had fallen for a less overt treason
than they were then publicly declaring, and if
they failed they were likely to feel its weight
or else to meet a yet more disgraceful death.
  Benjamin Franklin had just replied to the
remark, "We must all hang together," with
his famous pleasantry, "Yes, or we shall all
hang separately," when Carro)lI, perhaps the
wealthiest man in Maryland, took the pen. As
he signed his name, Charles Carroll," and rose
from his seat, some one said, "Carroll, you will
get off easily; there are so many Charles Car-
rolls they will never know which one it is.,"
Carroll walked back to the table, and, seizing
the pen again, stooped and wrote under his
name "of Carrollton."
  They affixed their names to the Declaration,
comprehending the peril they were braving, as
well as they did the propositions which they
were enunciating to the world, and they in-
tended to shoulder all the responsibility of
their act.
  The South emerged from the Revolution
miiangled and torn, but free, and with the Anglo-
Saxon spirit whetted by success and intensified.
                     26

 
              THE OLED SOUTH
She emerged also with h4er character already
established, and with those qualities perma-
nently fixed which subsequently came to be
known through their results as the Southern
civilization.
  Succeeding the R-evolution came a period not
very distinctly marked in the common idea of
imnportant steps, but full of hazard and equally
replete with pregnant results-a period in
which the loose and impotent Confederation be-
came through the patriotism of the South this
Union.
  At last, the Constitution was somewhat of a
compromise, and the powers not expressly del-
egated to Congress were reserved to each State
in her sovereign capacity., and it was upon this
basis simply that the Union was established.
  It may throw light on the part that the South
took in this to recall the fact that when the point
was made that Virginia should relinquish