t. i. HALE: * SON } 
 
 Yorh.
 
 GIFT OF 
 SEELEY W. MUDD 
 
 and 
 
 GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER 
 DR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD 
 JAM ES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI 
 
 to the 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH 
 
 JOHN FISKE
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 J93?' 
 
 r JUL 
 
 
 
 Southern Branch 
 of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Lo* Angeles 
 
 Form L 1 
 
 E 
 
 15.9 
 GTG
 
 THE ADDRESS 
 
 HON. WM. A. GRAHAM 
 
 gkhltnburg gctlaration of 
 
 20TH OF MAT, 1775. 
 
 DELIVERED AT CHARLOTTE, ON THE 4TH DAT OP FEB'Y, 1875, BY REQUEST 
 
 OF THE CITIZENS OF MECKLENBURG COUNTY. WITH ACCOMPANYING 
 
 DOCUMENTS, INCLUDING THOSE PUBLISHED- BY ORDER OF THE 
 
 LEGISLATURE OF NORTH CAROLINA IN THE YEAR 1831. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE 
 CENTENNIAL AND MONUMENTAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 E. J. HALE & SON, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 HURRA Y STREET. 
 1875. 
 
 86954
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 
 
 E. J. HALE & SON, 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 
 
 LANGE, LITTLE & Co., 
 108 TO 114 WOOSTEB ST., N. Y.
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 BY THE COMMITTEE OF THE PEOPLE OP 
 
 MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N. C., 
 
 ON THE 
 
 TWENTIETH OF MAY, 1775. 
 
 Viewed in the light of History, American and English, Congressional and Pro- 
 vincial, with observations on the characters of the chief witnesses 
 who testified of it, as known to the writer from personal 
 acquaintance, or their reputation among 
 their contemporaries. 
 
 A MEMORIAL ADDRESS 
 
 At a Mass Meeting in Charlotte, Feb. 4th, 1875, preparatory to its Centennial 
 Celebration. 
 
 BY WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 I ESTEEM it the duty of some one who has had op- 
 portunities of acquaintance with the Revolutionary 
 history of the State, and this a fit occasion, to vindi- 
 cate the authenticity of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence by the delegates of the people of the County of 
 Mecklenburg on the 20th of May, 1775, against the 
 attempts recently made to bring it into discredit. 
 With some recollections of the discussion of this 
 topic, running back more than half a century, I have 
 taken no part in it heretofore. The event occurred 
 (as I believe it did occur) in the immediate vicinity 
 of the residence of the families from which I am de- 
 scended. Several of my near relatives, including my 
 Father, when it was called in question soon after its 
 publication in the gazettes of 1819-20, gave their
 
 4 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 testimony as witnesses who had been personally pres- 
 ent at the transaction, with references to some of the 
 circumstances of the occasion, as well as to precedent 
 and subsequent events. I deemed it proper not to 
 participate in the controversy as to the credibility of 
 this testimony while these witnesses were alive the 
 more especially as I thought the claim on the part of 
 Mecklenburg well sustained by others. But those 
 who championed the cause of the State (for it has 
 been made a State matter) have all passed away 
 Martin, Jo. Seawell Jones, Foote, Hawks, are no 
 longer among the living. The witnesses to whom I 
 have alluded, and those others whose evidence was 
 then taken, their comrades and neighbors, with whom 
 they had passed through the fiery trials of the war 
 which ensued, are all likewise dead. We may now 
 speak of them without flattery, and, I trust, without 
 vanity. If my connection with some of them shall 
 induce a suspicion of bias on the one hand, unfavorable 
 to impartial consideration, I hope it will be conceded 
 on the other that it gave me opportunities of infor- 
 mation in respect to their traditions, and to public 
 opinion in the region of this occurrence, as far back 
 as my memory extends, not accessible to strangers, 
 and not possessed by many now surviving. I had 
 preferred that the duty of this vindication should 
 have been undertaken by other hands, but on consul- 
 tation with the Hunters, Brevards, Polks, Alexan- 
 ders, and others, whose ancestors were either actors 
 in or witnesses of the event in question, though they 
 felt that injustice had been done by the publications
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 5 
 
 referred to, and desired that the truth of history. as 
 we understood it in the. State, should be asserted, 
 they were unprepared for the discussion. Of twenty 
 copies of the publication, by order of the Legislature 
 in 1830, of the evidence in relation to the Mecklen- 
 burg Declaration, directed to be deposited in the 
 State Library, but one remains. Of the local news- 
 paper*, the Western Carolinian, established at Salis- 
 bury in 1820, and the Yadkin and Gataioba Jour- 
 nal, and MIIX-I-X and Farmers' Journal, published 
 in Charlotte at a later period, which may contain ar- 
 ticles on this theme when its agitation was fresh, and 
 eye and ear witnesses of the event were alive, the 
 files are nowhere to be found. The difficulty, there- 
 fore, of now procuring all the evidence bearing on 
 this subject which satisfied the country fifty odd 
 years ago, rises to an impossibility. Enough, how- 
 ever, I apprehend, is within our reach to establish the 
 authentic character of the Mecklenburg Declaration, 
 according to the accepted evidence of historical 
 truth. 
 
 The position we maintain is very readily stated. 
 It is, that the resistance to British authority, which 
 assumed the form of war in 1775, was not begun, or 
 waired on the part of the colonies generally, or the 
 ( 'i mgress which represented them, witli any view to a 
 s 'venture of the empire, before late in the spring of 
 1 77'!. Like the risings against King John. Charles I. 
 and James II., it contemplated only a reformation of 
 abuses and redress of grievances, as British subjects 
 niuler the crown. of the monarch, but did not contein-
 
 6 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 plate a change of government or freedom from the 
 dominion of their King and country beyond the sea : 
 that North Carolina, and especially the people of 
 Mecklenburg, formed an exception to this general sen- 
 timent of loyalty. The leading spirits, in that coun- 
 ty and elsewhere, were ripe for revolution from the 
 beginning. They were opposed to monarchy, had 
 little or no attachment to the mother country, were 
 chafed by recent provocations in the actual operation 
 of the government, and were ready to throw it off at 
 any favorable opportunity. Hence their decided and 
 manly action in proclaiming Independence on the 
 20th of May, 1775, in advance of all the other colo- 
 nies. This proud distinction we claim for them, and, 
 at the disadvantage of having to meet a challenge of 
 
 o o o 
 
 this claim at the end of nearly a hundred years from 
 the act, and more than the third of a century after the 
 last of the attesting witnesses departed this life, trust 
 to make it good. 
 
 It may conduce to the better understanding of our 
 observations, before proceeding further in the discus- 
 sion, to state the condition of the question as to the 
 genuineness of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence in North Carolina. There are some facts 
 which have occurred within the time of living memory 
 about which I presume there can be no dispute : 
 
 I. No one, I apprehend, doubts that the men of 
 Mecklenburg, who were old enough to remember the 
 events of 1775, and survived till 1819 and 1820 and 
 1830, believed there had been a Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence at Charlotte, on the 20th of May, in the year
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 7 
 
 first mentioned, and that they themselves witnessed 
 its promulgation. 
 
 II. That not only was this conviction prevalent 
 among those who had remained in that county in the 
 interim, but was shared by those who had emigrated 
 to Georgia, Tennessee and elsewhere. 
 
 III. That the whole people of Mecklenburg, with- 
 out distinction from difference in religious opinion, 
 political parties or personal antipathies or rivalries, 
 were likewise impressed with this conviction, and 
 from early after the year 1820 onward, united in cel- 
 ebrating the anniversary of the day of the Declaration 
 at Charlotte, with all the demonstrations tending to 
 commemorate a great event. Among these celebra- 
 tions we have reports of three of the most memora- 
 ble. 
 
 In 1825,* as we learn from the Raleigh Register^ 
 an immense concourse attended, and beside a parade 
 of the military, an oration was pronounced by Wash- 
 ington Morrison, Esq., a lawyer of repute, subsequent- 
 ly a Senator from the county in the State Legislature, 
 but since 'deceased : and the religious exercises were 
 conducted by the Rev. Humphrey Hunter, who also 
 read the Mecklenburg Declaration, of the announce- 
 ment of which he had been a witness fifty years an- 
 terior, when past the age of twenty, with comments 
 on the circumstances which had accompanied it. At 
 the public festival of the occasion General George 
 Graham acted as President, and Clerk Isaac Alexan- 
 der as Vice President, both of whom had given their 
 
 June 7th, 1825.
 
 8 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 written testimony, as had Mr. Hunter, as personal wit- 
 nesses of the Declaration, and both of whom, like him. 
 had done soldiers' duty in the war which followed. But 
 the most interesting feature of the day, of which the 
 published report informs us, was that a band of Rev- 
 olutionary soldiers, numbering from sixty to seventy, 
 probably all then residing in this old county of sol- 
 diers, marched at the head of the procession with the 
 simple badge "75 on the lappel of the coat. 
 
 On the anniversary in 1835, there was probably 
 the most imposing assemblage that ever attended a 
 like celebration in the State. The Hon. D. L. Swain, 
 the Governor then in office, the Hon. Willie P. Man- 
 gum, one of the Senators in Congress, were present, 
 with many of the most prominent public characters 
 of the State, and others, who did not attend in person, 
 sent letters of apology. The Western Carolinian, of 
 which' I have a single number, copying from the Mi- 
 ners and Farmers' Journal, printed in Charlotte, 
 May 29th, 1835, gives a detailed report of the cele- 
 bration, and, among other things, that letters were 
 read from Judge Gaston, Judge Ruffin, Hon. II. "\V. 
 Conner, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Preston, and Gov. Mc- 
 Duffie of South Carolina, Judge White of Tennessee, 
 J3. "Watkins Leigh of Virginia, and others. 
 
 The sentiment accompanying the letter of Judge 
 Gaston was as follows: "American liberty here 
 first declared and here most sacredly cherished 
 boldly resolved on long struggled for and nobly de- 
 fended it must be preserved by the virtue, wisdom, 
 vigilance, and union of American freemen."
 
 ADDKESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 9 
 
 The oration of the day was delivered by Franklin 
 L. Smith, a native of Charlotte, a young advocate of 
 hiii'h promise, who was consigned to an early grave 
 in Mississippi, to which State he had emigrated. 
 The Declaration was read, with appropriate remarks, 
 by James "W. Osborne, Esq., of Charlotte, subse- 
 quently a Judge of the Superior Court, a gentleman 
 of acknowledged ability and culture, and probably 
 better versed in the local history of that section of 
 the State than any one of his time. 
 
 Now, as on the former occasion, also appear the 
 revolutionary soldiers of that region, 27 in number, 
 with the white satin badge of '75, and two regiments, 
 one of cavalry the other of infantry, from Mecklen- 
 burg and Cabarrus counties, they constituting the old 
 Mecklenburg of 1775. 
 
 Again in 1857 was another grand celebration of 
 the day, when Rev. Dr. F. L. Hawks, then residing 
 in New York, but retaining an affection for his native 
 State which never flagged in defending her fame, in- 
 terest, and honor, delivered an oration in which he 
 elaborately considered the evidence of the truth of 
 this act of patriotism of the people of Mecklenburg, 
 and boldly combated the objections which had been 
 urged against it. Gov. Swain, at this time President 
 of the University, accompanied Dr. Hawks to this 
 celebration, and at the festival of the day made an 
 address which was not understood to imply any doubt 
 of the positions assumed by him. 
 
 This oration was only a week or two later delivered 
 by Dr. Hawks on the day preceding Commencement
 
 10 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 at the University of the State, to a large audience, of 
 which I was one. The public press was then as free 
 from objectors as it is now ; all was known then touch- 
 ing the evidence of the genuineness of the Declara- 
 tion that is known now. But I am not aware that 
 then any one took up the gauntlet that he boldly 
 threw down. 
 
 The point, however, to which I am now directing 
 attention, is, that the men of Mecklenburg, who had 
 reached the age of discretion in 1775, and survived 
 till 1820 and beyond it, satisfied her entire people of 
 the truth of the Declaration which they averred to 
 have been made, and induced them proudly to unite 
 in its observance as a national holiday. In effecting 
 this result, they were doubtless fortified and assisted 
 by a tradition, which had made it as much a part of 
 the history of Mecklenburg as any other public event. 
 
 IV. More than this, they convinced those best in- 
 formed in our history, the most sagacious and intelli- 
 gent of the public men of the day, men as little capa- 
 ble of being deceived by what was spurious or false, 
 as any who have succeeded them, of the same thing. 
 In illustration of this, it may be brought back to re- 
 collection that the late John Stanly, occupying a 
 place certainly among the first of the' statesmen, law- 
 yers, and men of letters that the State has reared, in 
 an elaborate and instructive funeral oration on the 
 life and character of John Adams, at JNewbern, a 
 short time after the death of Mr. Adams in 1826, 
 contained in a pamphlet which may yet be found 
 among those who are careful to preserve the memo-
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 11 
 
 rials of literature, takes an extended notice of the 
 Declaration of Independence by the people of Meck- 
 lenburg on the 20th May, 1775. 
 
 Judge R. M. Saunders, of Raleigh, as President of 
 a Convention of Internal Improvements which assem- 
 bled in that city in November, 1838, in a memorial 
 which this Convention presented to the Legislature, 
 referred to it likewise in terms of the highest 
 
 '6' 
 
 eulogy. 
 
 At the session of the General Assembly in 1842, a 
 memorial of a number of citizens who had united to- 
 gether under the name of the Mecklenburg Monument 
 Association, was presented to that body, praying an 
 act of incorporation for the purpose of erecting a 
 monument in commemoration of this great event. It 
 was signed by a committee in their behalf consisting 
 of Frederick Nash, Win. J. Alexander, D. F. Cal'd- 
 well, James W. Osborne, H. C. Jones, Paul Barringer, 
 John Phifer, John H. Wheeler, Isaac T. Avery, 
 Michael Iloke, Charles Fisher, Joseph McDowell 
 Carson, Robert Strange. James Iredell, D. L. Swain, 
 Win. H. Haywood, Jr., Burton Craige; and the act 
 of incorporation was readily granted. 
 
 V. But it was not merely our citizens, including 
 those of the highest eminence in intelligence, culture 
 and patriotism throughout the State, who were 
 charmed into the belief of the truthfulness of this oc- 
 currence ; the State itself took up the fame of her 
 heroic people of Mecklenburg, as a flower not un- 
 worthy to be worn in the garland which decked her 
 own brow. At the session of 1830-'31, with a view
 
 12 ADDEESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 to perpetuate some evidence of the transaction, certain 
 certificates, in the nature of depositions of witnesses 
 then living, who had personal knowledge of it, were 
 procured and laid before the General Assembly 
 witnesses whose characters were all known through 
 their representatives, and who could readily have been 
 subjected to cross-examination. These were referred 
 to a Committee composed of Thomas G. Polk, John 
 Bragg, Evan Alexander, Louis D. Henry, Alexander 
 McNeill. This committee made a report affirming 
 the evidence to be satisfactory, and directing the 
 Governor to cause to be published in pamphlet the said 
 report, with an introductory narrative to be prepared 
 by himself, together with the Mecklenburg Declara- 
 tion, the names of the delegates composing the meeting, 
 and the certificates of the witnesses testifying to the 
 circumstances attending said Declaration ; * also, the 
 proceedings of the Cumberland Association ; and that 
 in a separate pamphlet there should be reprinted the 
 Journal of the Provincial Congress held at Halifax 
 on the 3d of April, 1776, in which the delegates in 
 the Continental Congress from North Carolina were 
 instructed to unite in voting for absolute indepen- 
 dence," an instruction given in advance of all the 
 other colonies. These resolutions further directed 
 that copies should be deposited in the Libraries of 
 the State and the University, and in that of Congress, 
 and transmitted to the Executives of the several 
 States of the Union. It is fortunate for the cause of 
 truth in relation to this matter, that the then Gov- 
 
 * See Davie Copy, A, page 105.
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 13 
 
 ernor of the State was Montfort Stokes, an officer in 
 the war of .the Revolution, who afterwards held 
 many public trusts, including that of Senator of the 
 United States, as well as Governor of the State, and 
 who in the preface to the pamphlet published gives 
 strong corroborative evidence in support of the other 
 witnesses, in the statement of the fact, that in 1793 
 Dr. Hugh Williamson, of the city of New York, ex- 
 hibited to him a copy of the Mecklenburg Declara- 
 tion of Independence in the hand-writing of John 
 McKnitt Alexander. 
 
 In 1836, on the occasion of revising the statutes of 
 the State and printing them for distribution, the 
 Legislature enacted, by a law drawn by the late Gov- 
 erner Iredell, Chairman of the Commission of Re- 
 visal, that a copy of the Mecklenburg Declaration of 
 Independence, with the names of the delegates, should 
 be prefixed to that work. 
 
 In 18-46, by a joint resolution, the two Houses au- 
 thorized a new edition of the pamphlet of 1830-31, 
 concerning the Mecklenburg Declaration, to be pub- 
 lished with certain other documents pertaining to our 
 Revolutionary history. 
 
 In 1854, upon a new revision of the statutes, they 
 again, by solemn act, directed that the Mecklenburg 
 Declaration of Independence be prefixed to that 
 work. 
 
 Let it be noted, that all of the three acts of the 
 Legislature last mentioned, were after the discoveries 
 of Peter Force and Jared Sparks of the resolutions 
 of the Mecklenburg Committee of the 31st of May,
 
 14: ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 1775, and the dispatches and proclamation of Gov. 
 Martin, in June and July of that year. 
 
 Thus has North Carolina stamped with the seal of 
 her approbation as history, our account of this trans- 
 action, as it had long been enshrined in the hearts of 
 her people, not only in Mecklenburg, but in the whole 
 State, and incorporated with their affection for the 
 liberty and glory of their native land. 
 
 What has been the testimony borne of it, by writers 
 of history ? And first, by those of North Carolina. 
 
 1. Francis Xavier Martin, a native Frenchman, but 
 long a citizen of North Carolina, a compiler of one 
 edition of her statutes by order of the Legislature, 
 before removing to Louisiana, where he was for 
 many years an eminent Judge, in the second volume 
 of his History of the State, published in 1829, near 
 the close of the work (it was continued no further 
 than 1 776), gives the Mecklenburg Declaration with 
 the accompanying circumstances in full. * 
 
 2. Joseph Sea well Jones, in 1834, published his 
 volume, a Defense of North Carolina, upon this very 
 question, which may now be referred to with advan- 
 tage, especially as depicting that condition of dis- 
 satisfaction and quarrel between North Carolina and 
 
 'the mother country, from which a severance of em- 
 pire might have been expected. 
 
 3. The Eev. Dr. Wm. H. Foote, of Virginia, in his 
 interesting u Sketches of North Carolina," put forth 
 in 1844, also gives full particulars of this great event, 
 
 * See Martin's Copy, B, page 106.
 
 ADDBESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 15 
 
 with as approving an admiration as if he had been a 
 native of the State. 
 
 4. Col. J. H. Wheeler, in his "Sketches of the His- 
 tory of North Carolina," in 1851, who had resided in 
 Mecklenburg or on its frontier for fifteen or twenty 
 years while compiling this useful work, gives to this 
 heroic act of her provincial inhabitants his cordial 
 approbation ; and I am happy to observe that, upon 
 the recent attempt to discredit it, he has reiterated his 
 decided convictions. 
 
 5. The Rev. Dr. Hawks, to whom every citizen of 
 the State should feel indebted for the zeal and in- 
 telligence of his interest in behalf of the fame and 
 honor of his native land, in a Lecture before the New 
 York Historical Society in 1852, and in a still more 
 elaborate performance of the same nature at Char- 
 lotte, and at the University of the State, in 1857, 
 maintained it to the satisfaction of our most ardent 
 patriots. 
 
 6. It was recognized in Pitkin's "Political and 
 Civil History of the United States." 
 
 7. The Rev. Dr. Augustine T. Smythe, a distin- 
 guished Presbyterian Divine of Charleston, S. C., in 
 a pamphlet issued in 1847, to which I shall have oc- 
 casion again to refer, does not discuss the evidence of 
 its authenticity, but affirming that this is clearly es- 
 tablished, writes an interesting dissertation to prove 
 that both the Mecklenburg and the National Declara- 
 tions, in the particulars in which they resemble each 
 other, were suggested or taken from "A General 
 Confession or General Bond for the Maintainance of
 
 16 ADDEESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 True Religion and the King's Person and Estate," put 
 forth to be signed by the members of the Presbyterian 
 Church of Scotland, more than a century before 
 American Independence was resolved on. 
 
 8. Lossing, in his " Lives of the Signers of the 
 National Declaration of Independence," in a note to 
 that of Win. Hooper, records that as early as the 
 twentieth of May, 1775, at a meeting in Charlotte, 
 the committee made a Declaration of Independence 
 of the British crown, to the support of which they 
 pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
 honor. On this subject he refers also to his work, 
 " 1776, or the War of Independence." 
 
 But it is said this Declaration is denied, or is not 
 supported, by the History of Mr. Bancroft. His 
 theory, from page 371, etc., of the 7th volume, 
 seems to be, that the result of the deliberations of the 
 committee is found in the resolutions adopted on the 
 31st of May, and discovered by Mr. Force in the Colo- 
 nial Office, in England, which he interprets to mean 
 Independence. " Thus," says he, " was Mecklenburg 
 county in North Carolina separated from the British 
 Empire,'' etc. We are thankful for the admission 
 that Independence was effected by the men of Meck- 
 lenburg on any day in May, 1775, or by any form of 
 resolutions. The critics who quote Bancroft with so 
 much confidence, contradict him by maintaining that 
 the resolutions of the 31st of May do not amount to 
 Independence, separation from the British Empire, as 
 he expresses it. These resolutions, as copied by 
 Wheeler, page 255, begin thus : " Charlotte town,
 
 ADDKESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 17 
 
 Mecklenburg county. May 31st, 1775. This day 
 the Committee of this county met and passed the 
 following resolves. Whereas, etc. (See C, page 
 108.) Signed, Eph. Brevard, Clerk of the Commit- 
 tee." 
 
 This is the whole proceeding the name of no mem- 
 ber of the Committee is given unless it be implied 
 from the last resolution : " That the committee ap- 
 point Col. Thomas Folk and Dr. Jos. Kennedy to 
 purchase powder, lead, and flints," shall -imply, that 
 these two were members, and that Brevard, being clerk 
 was also a member. How was this committee ap- 
 pointed and brought together, and when ? who com- 
 posed it ? who was its Chairman ? or President ? The 
 simple resolutions as found published, give us no light 
 on these points. Yet Mr. Bancroft had light. He 
 satisfies curiosity in respect to them ; but how did he 
 get the material for it in these proceedings of the 31st 
 of May ? He says, " The People of the county of 
 Mecklenburg had carefully observed the progress of 
 the controversy with Britain ; and during the winter 
 (1774-5), political meetings had repeatedly been held 
 in Charlotte. That town had been chosen for the 
 seat of the Presbyterian College which the Legislature 
 of North Carolina had chartered, but which the King 
 had disallowed ; and it was the centre of the culture 
 of that part of the province. Some time in May, 
 news was received that both Houses of Parliament, by 
 an address to the King, had declared the American 
 colonies to be in a state of actual rebellion. This was 
 to them evidence that the crisis in American affairs
 
 18 ADDEESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 was corae, and the people proposed among themselves 
 to abrogate all dependence on the royal authority." 
 Mark what follows : " But the militia companies were 
 sworn to allegiance; and how, it was objected, can 
 we be absolved from our oath." The oath, it was an- 
 swered, " binds only while the King protects " the 
 quotation marks are correctly copied. And how, we 
 respectfully inquire, did Mr. Bancroft get the report 
 of this discussion, except from the evidence of Gen- 
 eral J. Graham, in support of the theory of the 20th 
 of May, in which the question put in argument, " if 
 you resolve on independence how shall we be absolved 
 from the oath we took to be true to King George 
 about four years ago, after the Regulation, when we 
 were sworn whole militia companies together," was 
 answered by the reply that " when protection was 
 withdrawn the oath no longer bound : and was illus- 
 trated by the case of leaves falling from a tree." 
 
 Again we quote Mr. Bancroft : " At the instance of 
 Thomas Polk, the commander of the militia of the 
 county, two delegates from each company were called 
 together at Charlotte as a representative committee. 
 Before these consultations had ended, the message of 
 the innocent blood shed at Lexington came up from 
 Charleston and inflamed their zeal." Ao;ain we ask 
 
 O 
 
 how was Mr. Bancroft informed that Thomas Polk 
 was commander of the militia of the county, that he 
 called for the appointment of two delegates from each 
 company, that while their deliberations were going on 
 the message arrived of the battle of Lexington, ex- 
 cept from the testimony of the Rev. Mr. Hunter,
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 19 
 
 Major Davidson, Captain Jack, and other witnesses, 
 as to the meeting on the 20th ? Further lie says, with 
 a justice in which all concur, that " of the delegates to 
 that memorable assembly, the name of Eplirahn Bre- 
 vard should be remembered with honor by his coun- 
 trymen ; he was one of a numerous family of broth- 
 ers, and himself in the end fell a martyr to the public 
 cause. Trained in the College at Princeton, ripened 
 among the brave Presbyterians of middle Carolina, he 
 digested the system which was then adopted and which 
 formed in effect a declaration of independence, as 
 well as a complete system of government." The Res- 
 olutions to which the name of Brevard was signed as 
 clerk of the committee, give no information as to his 
 education, ripening, authorship of the resolutions, and 
 of course none as to his melancholy death in his coun- 
 try's cause; and the question* remains, from whom 
 did Mr. Bancroft derive this information, especially 
 as to the authorship of the resolutions of the 31st of 
 May, except from the witnesses, several of them Bre- 
 vard's connections and all his acquaintances, who do 
 not speak of this authorship, though it is no doubt a 
 true inference, but who all concur in ascribing to his 
 pen the resolutions of the 20th of May and it is a 
 jnst inference that he wrote those of the 31st, only 
 from the proof we have from these witnesses that he 
 wrote those of the 20th. The clerkship of a com- 
 mittee does not imply authorship of its resolutions. 
 The documentary evidence is dumb in all these mat- 
 
 * See 0. Resolutions on 3tst May, page 108.
 
 20 ADDKESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 ters ; the verbal testimony of those who speak to the 
 resolutions of the 20th is adopted by Mr. Bancroft iu 
 all things, except as to the day and the form of the 
 resolutions" of the 20th; and without the approval of 
 these witnesses he transfers their evidence to the 
 31st, in regard to which there is no evidence except 
 the naked resolutions themselves bearing the latter 
 date the witnesses who do testify, all contending 
 that the most memorable meeting was on the 20th, 
 and that Independence was resolved on then. And 
 I may add. that such, I know, is the tradition in the 
 family of the Brevards to w T hich he belonged, and 
 that. of the Polks in which he married. 
 
 The question is on the bold brave act of resolving 
 on Independence. Let it be observed that Mr. Ban- 
 croft fully admits that / and the month; and is only 
 at issue with us as to the day and form. He is there- 
 fore no authority with the critics who deny any asser- 
 tion of Independence, but is against them. 
 
 In addition to Mr. Bancroft, who, when rightly un- 
 derstood, affords but slender support to them, our 
 opponents present the name of Peter Force as sustain- 
 ing their views. Mr. Force was a worthy gentleman 
 of the city of Washington, and an editor of a political 
 paper in that city about 1828 ; but I am not aware 
 that he left any written work on this or any other 
 subject of American history. He and Matthew St. 
 Clair Clark, in 1833, I think, entered into a contract 
 with the Government to publish the American 
 Archives, or documentary History of the United 
 States. In the search for documents to publish in
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 21 
 
 fulfillment of this contract, he, Mr. Force, found a 
 newspaper containing the Mecklenburg resolutions 
 already referred to, of the date 31st May, 1775. I 
 presume he never did find a copy of those alleged to 
 have been adopted on the 20th of May in that year. 
 If he had any reasons for doubting the genuineness 
 of the latter, except that he did not discover a copy 
 in the course of his researches, they have never been 
 given to the public. He may have expressed the 
 opinion attributed, but the loose conversations of 
 any one on such a subject are entitled to little 
 weight, and there is no little evidence bearing 
 upon it, which, I feel confident, never eame^^fco^his 
 knowledge. 
 
 To discredit the oral evidence of living witnesses, 
 or even the traditions of a people, and respect nothing 
 but printed documentary proof m a country and at a 
 time when no printing press existed within hundreds 
 of miles when but two papers were printed in the 
 State, and no copy of a single number of either is 
 known to be preserved, is to reduce history merely 
 contemporary annals. 
 
 9. But there are other American historians to 
 whom attention should be directed by those who de- 
 sign to deal with this topic in candor. Hildreth, a 
 very painstaking, accurate, and instructive writer, to 
 whom I shall recur at another stage, in his third vol- 
 ume, published in 1854, asserts " that the citizens of 
 Mecklenburg county (North Carolina) carried their 
 zeal so far as to resolve at a public meeting to throw 
 off the British connection, and they framed a formal
 
 22 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM 
 
 Declaration of Independence. But this feeling was 
 by no means general." 
 
 10. But what says our great and beloved author, 
 the first of Americans who gave to his country a 
 character for literature in Europe ; and appropriately 
 closed his long and bright career by a Biography of 
 Washington, published in 1857 ? I speak of Wash- 
 ington Irving, all of whose works are American 
 classics. In the fourth volume of this work, speak- 
 ing of the invasion of North Carolina, which had 
 been assigned to Lord Cornwallis, he says : " It was 
 "an enterprise in which much difficulty was to be ap- 
 prehended, both from the character of the people arid 
 the country. The original settlers were from various 
 parts, most of them men who had experienced polit- 
 ical or religious oppression, and brought with them a 
 quick sensibility to wrong, a stern appreciation of 
 their rights, and an indomitable spirit of freedom and 
 independence. In this part of the State was a hardy 
 Presbyterian stock, the Scotch-Irish, as they were 
 called, having emigrated from Scotland to Ireland 
 and thence to America, and were said to possess the 
 impulsiveness of the Irishman with the dogged reso- 
 lution of the Covenanter. The early history of the 
 colony abounds with instances of this spirit among 
 its people. ' They always behaved insolently to their 
 Governors/ complains Governor Burrington in 1731, 
 ' some, they have driven out of the country at other 
 times they set up a government of their own choice, 
 supported by men under arms.' It was in fact the 
 spirit of popular liberty and self-government which
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 23 
 
 stirred within them, and gave birth to the glorious 
 axiom : the rights of the many against the exactions of 
 the few. * * * * It was this spirit that gave rise 
 to the Confederacy called the Regulation, formed to 
 withstood the abuses of power ; and the first blood 
 shed in our country in resistance to arbitrary taxation 
 was at Alamance in this province, in a conflict be- 
 tween the Regulators and Governor Tryon. Above 
 all it should never be forgotten that at Mecklenburg, 
 in the heart of North Carolina, was fulminated the 
 first Declaration of Independence of the British crown 
 upwards of a year before a like declaration by Con- 
 gress." 
 
 Again : " Cornwallis decamped from Camden and 
 set out for North Carolina. * * * * Advanc- 
 ing into the latter province Cornwallis took post at 
 Charlotte, where he had given rendezvous to Fergu- 
 son. 
 
 ' Mecklenburg, of which it was the capital, was, the 
 reader may recollect, the ' heady high-minded ' coun- 
 ty where the first Declaration of Independence had 
 been made ; and his Lordship, from uncomfortable 
 experience, soon pronounced Charlotte ' the hornet's 
 nest of North Carolina.' * * * * 
 
 " Instead of remaining at home and receiving the 
 King's money in exchange for their produce, the} 7 
 (the inhabitants) turned out with their rifles, stationed 
 themselves in covert places, fired upon the foraging 
 parties ; convoys of provisions from Camden had to 
 fight their way, and expresses were shot down and 
 their despatches seized."
 
 24 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 11. In the recent School History of the United 
 States by the Hon. A. II. Stephens, of Georgia (a 
 valuable acquisition to our school literature), the Dec- 
 laration of Independence at Mecklenburg, on the 
 20th of May, 1775,. is distinctly acknowledged, and 
 full justice is done to the early and manly action of 
 the State in the cause of Independence at this critical 
 period. 
 
 To these authorities I here annex the testimonial 
 of the late President Jackson. My two friends, the 
 Hon. Theodore W. Brevard and his nephew Col. 
 Isaac W. Elayne, the former Comptroller-General of 
 Florida, and the latter Attorney-General of South 
 Carolina, until displaced from these offices by the re- 
 sults of the recent war, the former residing now at 
 Cleaveland Springs, and the latter still pursuing his 
 profession in the City of Charleston, in the year 1828, 
 when both very young men, making together a tour 
 of pleasure and observation in Kentucky and Tennes- 
 see, visited the Hermicage. What they then saw 
 and heard from its distinguished proprietor touching 
 the event in question, I will relate in the words of 
 a recent letter from Col. Hayne. "I bore a letter of 
 introduction from Col. A. P. Hayne, a personal 
 friend and formerly of the military staff of Gen. 
 Jackson. * * * * The General received us 
 with even more than his usual warmth and cordiality. 
 After some inquiries as to my relations (the Haynes) 
 he asked my uncle of what family of Brevards he 
 was; and learning that of Capt. Alexander Brevard, of 
 Lincoln County, North Carolina, he said he Had heard
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 25 
 
 of that family all his life, and that some of them 
 were then, and had been for many years, residents of 
 Tennessee. He then remarked to Mr. Brevard, 
 * You know I lived in Mecklenburg, the adjoining 
 county to Lincoln, in my youth, and 1 have always 
 taken a special interest in that region and its early 
 history. I have,' he said, ' in the opposite room a 
 copy of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, framed and hung up, and I think it well wor- 
 thy of the position.' He then asked us into the next 
 room and pointed out a copy of the Declaration, with 
 the signatures attached, printed on satin and in a gilt 
 frame. In the course of the conversation he stated 
 that the authorship was always attributed to Dr. 
 Ephraim Brevard. I have no recollection that any 
 allusion was made to any doubt ever having been ex- 
 pressed as to the authenticity of the document. Gen. 
 Jackson unquestionably treated the incident as a well- 
 known fact in the history of that region of country, 
 the memory of which he desired to perpetuate." 
 
 Let it be noted, that at the time of this conversa- 
 tion, the Legislature of N"orth Carolina had never no- 
 ticed the matter of the Declaration, and no publica- 
 tions had been made touching it, except the original 
 < iimnunication by Joseph McKnitt Alexander, in 
 
 1819, and the evidence collected by Col. Polk, in 
 
 1820, and two or three letters collected by Mr. Macon, 
 as will be hereafter shown ; neither had Martin's His- 
 tory appeared : it came out in 1 829. 
 
 Let it also be borne in mind, f1 ijlti (T PJI J 
 
 a native of Mecklenburg, had received his education
 
 26 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 in Charlotte, and did not emigrate till probably 
 twenty-one years of age ; and the inference fairly 
 follows, that the tribute of honor he was paying to 
 this act of patriotism in his native land, was induced, 
 not by the testimony which had at that time been ta- 
 ken in support of its authenticity, but from his own 
 knowledge of the reputation of the transaction before 
 he removed to Tennessee. He was too young, of 
 course, to have been present at its occurrence, but that 
 he had heard of it as one of the many incidents of the 
 Revolution in Mecklenburg, is in the highest degree 
 probable. He, therefore, referred to it as he would 
 have done to a diagram of the battlefield of King's 
 Mountain, had he possessed one, and spoke of it in a 
 like tone of confidence in its reality. How long this 
 copy had been displayed in his mansion we are not 
 informed. Conceding that the form of the docu- 
 ment may have been derived from the publications 
 eight or nine years preceding, it was only a memen- 
 to of what, no doubt, he had long been familiar with 
 as a fact of history from the repute and concurrence 
 of the community in which he was brought up. Con- 
 sidering how many of the officers and soldiers of the 
 Revolution, after its close, removed from Mecklen- 
 burg and its neighboring counties to Tennessee, arid 
 that a goodly number of these were surviving in 1828, 
 there is little question that evidence of a similar na- 
 ture to this in regard to the declaration at Charlotte, 
 might have been at that time abundantly obtained in 
 that State. 
 
 It will be observed that, in the Legislative pam-
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 27 
 
 phlet, the testimony of a Mr. Montgomery in Tennes- 
 see had been taken as to his knowledge of the fact by 
 reputation, but was not published by the committee, 
 because they confined the proof to that of witnesses 
 personally present at the meeting in which the declara- 
 tion was promulged ; though it was a subject in 
 which hearsay at an early period was certainly legiti- 
 mate. 
 
 Again : about the time that Gen. Jackson left 
 Mecklenburg for the West, Dr. Charles Caldwell, 
 another of her sons, took his departure for Philadel- 
 phia, where he attained the highest distinction in the 
 profession of medicine, becoming an author in the 
 science, and a lecturer in the medical schools of that 
 city, and subsequently in those at Lexington and 
 Louisville, Ky. In the year 1819, while still in Phil- 
 adelphia, Dr. Caldwell published a volume entitled 
 " Memoirs of the Life and Campaigns of General 
 Greene, Commander of the Southern Department in 
 the War of the Revolution ; " with an appendix con- 
 taining in full the Declaration of Independence in 
 Mecklenburg, on the 20th May, 1775: remarking that, 
 " On the authenticity of the document perfect reliance 
 may be placed ; " and adding that, with the chairman 
 and Secretary of the meeting, as well as with Col. 
 Thomas Polk, the writer was well acquainted, and 
 knew them to have been capable of all that was vir- 
 tuous, patriotic, and daring." 
 
 Whether this book appeared before or after the 30th 
 April, 1819, when the first publication of this pro- 
 ceeding was made in the Raleigh Register, I am not
 
 28 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 informed. The author evidently intends to give the 
 truth of the transaction the impress of his personal 
 testimony, no doubt from the reputation prevailing 
 before he emigrated from Mecklenburg, and at a time 
 when, if the Alexander article had appeared in the 
 public prints, not a scintilla of evidence had been, 
 taken in its support. 
 
 After the repeated and decisive action of the State 
 in this matter, and the concurrent recognition of the 
 claim of a portion of her people to the renown which 
 attaches to it, not merely within her own limits but 
 by the great authorities of American History, it natu- 
 rally occasions surprise to have seen deliberate and 
 labored attempts to write it down in the estimation 
 of the present generation, and to convince them that 
 the pretension set up by their ancestors to an honor- 
 able fame was a myth and a delusion that, true, the 
 act was testified to by certain " respectable old gentle- 
 men in a frontier county," but they had reached the age 
 of sixty or seventy years, (the average age at which our 
 Presidents have gone into office), and their testimony 
 is not to be credited ; and that the acquiescence of the 
 State and her people, for more than a half century, in 
 yielding it their belief, was all deception. This 
 assault comes upon us not only after a great lapse of 
 time from the event itself, and from the collection of 
 the evidence in support of its verity, but at the con- 
 clusion of a great war, when those who have shared 
 the fortunes of the State have had their thoughts too 
 much distracted by the events and necessities of re- 
 cent history to give much study to that which is re-
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GPiAHAM. 29 
 
 mote. It is, therefore, a question, how far it becomes 
 us, in the present state of the affair, to submit to an 
 arraignment and be impleaded in a proceeding set on 
 foot for no purpose, that I can imagine, except to 
 amuse leisure and test our capacity to defend our past 
 action on this subject by antiquarian research. It 
 takes us unawares, and requires time, labor, and con- 
 sultation of authorities, some of them not to be found, 
 in private libraries to deal with it as if it were now 
 new. I may have deceived myself, but with all the 
 disadvantages surrounding ns, I trust it can be shown 
 that we have nothing to lose by reopening the contro- 
 versy ; that there are several facts and considerations 
 connected with it which have not been heretofore 
 presented to the public view, and that, in the end, the 
 star of old Mecklenburg and of North Carolina will 
 shine the brighter, from having come to the ascen- 
 dant in a deeper gloom at the time it rose than she 
 herself was then aware. 
 
 Let us see in what manner, and by whom, it was 
 first brought to notice in the public prints. 
 
 On the 30th of April, 1819, the paper purporting 
 to contain a copy of the proceedings of the meeting 
 of the committee of the people of Mecklenburg, in 
 Charlotte, on the 20th May, 1775, and their resolu- 
 tions of Independence, appeared in the Raleigh Regis- 
 ter, in a communication from Dr. Joseph McKnitt 
 Alexander, a prominent citizen of Mecklenburg, 
 signed Joseph McKnitt, a signature which he is well 
 known to have often used, omitting his surname, from 
 the commonness of the name of Alexander in that re-
 
 30 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 gion, and by the same designation he was frequently 
 spoken of and addressed.* Along with it, as another 
 relic of antiquity, was sent by him and published in 
 the same paper, a copy of a proclamation of the Roy- 
 al Governor, Josiah Martin, dated " Charlotte Town, 
 October 3d, 17SO," while the army of Lord Cornwal- 
 lis occupied that town. On this latter I may, in the 
 sequel, make a further remark. The first of the 
 above-mentioned papers was, prefaced by an editorial 
 notice, stating that the fact it announced was not 
 generally known to the world, but that the editor had 
 it from unquestionable authority, and he published it 
 that it might go down to posterity. Being copied 
 into the Essex Register, of Massachusetts, this paper 
 was sent by Mr. John Adams to Mr. Jefferson, with a 
 letter remarking that " the common sentiment of 
 America at that period was never so well expressed 
 before or since." Mr. Jefferson, in a reply dated 
 July 9th, 1819, among other observations said : " I 
 believe it spurious I deem it a very un justifiable 
 quiz, like that of the volcano, so minutely related to 
 us as having broken out in North Carolina some half 
 dozen years ago, in that part of the country, and, per- 
 haps, in that very county of Mecklenburg, for I do 
 
 * He was a graduate of Princeton about 1792, and a well ed- 
 ucated physician. His signature, as above stated, was so well 
 known, that Gov. Stokes deemed no explanation of it necessary, 
 but speaks of him as Dr. Alexander in the publication of 1831. 
 
 Mr. Isaac Alexander, mentioned in these remarks, is character- 
 ized as Clerk Isaac, to distinguish him from others, there being 
 at that time in that region many Alexanders answering to all the 
 usual Christian names.
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 31 
 
 not remember its precise locality." After expressing 
 doubt as to whether this paper had been really taken 
 from the Raleigh Register, saying that it had not been 
 seen by him in the paper of Mr. Ritchie, or the No- 
 i'mnitl Intrll!t/,-ii(>cr, nor in Williamson's History of 
 Xorth Carolina, nor other authors whom he names, 
 and that it appeals to Mr. Alexander who was dead, 
 to Gas well, Ilewes and Hooper, all dead, he proceeds: 
 *' When Mr. Henry's resolution, far short of indepen- 
 dence, flew like lightning through every paper, and 
 kindled both sides of the Atlantic, this flaming dec- 
 laration of the same date of the independence of 
 Mecklenburg county of Xorth Carolina, absolving it 
 from British allegiance, and abjuring all political con- 
 nection with that nation, although sent to Congress, 
 was never heard of. It is not known even a twelve 
 month after when a similar proposition was first made 
 in that body. Armed with this bold example, would 
 you not have addressed our timid brethren in peals of 
 thunder on their tardy fears ? Would not every ad- 
 vocate of independence have rung the glories of Meck- 
 lenburg county in Xorth Carolina in the ears of the 
 doubting Dickinson and others who hung so heavily 
 on us ? Yet the example of independent Mecklen- 
 burg is never once quoted." He proceeds to pro- 
 nounce Hooper a tory, Hewes very wavering, Casweli 
 and Penn firm patriots ; and we quote again : u I 
 must not be understood as suggesting any doubtful- 
 ness of the State of Xorth Carolina. Xo State was 
 more fixed or forward. Xor do I aftirm positively 
 that this paper is a fabrication ; because the proof of
 
 dZ ADDEESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 a negative is only presumptive. But I shall believe 
 it such until positive and solemn proof of its authen- 
 ticity shall be produced. And if the name of McKnitt 
 be real, and not a part of the fabrication, it needs 
 verification by the production of such proof," etc. 
 
 With all due respect for its eminent author, he did 
 himself and others great injustice in the composition 
 of this letter. It is conceived in a spirit of conteinptu- 
 ousness and carelessness very unfavorable to the as- 
 certainment of truth on the question it discusses. 
 He does not remember the locality of Mecklenburg 
 county, and will not even turn to the map to learn it. 
 He does not recollect anything of its history in 1775, 
 and will take no pains to investigate it. He does not 
 remember even to have heard of the Resolutions of 
 the 31st of May, which Mr. Bancroft admits estab- 
 lished independence, and which were published at the 
 time in at least two newspapers that have been pre- 
 served nor, we must infer, of the resolutions of the 
 State of North Carolina, adopted on the 12th of April, 
 1776, empowering her delegates to concur in declar- 
 ing independence in advance of any other colony; 
 otherwise it is to be presumed he would have recurred 
 to so conspicuous a fact in remarks on that period. 
 Had he turned to Tarleton's Campaigns in America, he 
 would have discovered that even in the very crisis of 
 the War in 1780 -'81, after South Carolina and Geor- 
 gia had been overrun -and conquered, that British offi- 
 cer declares that Mecklenburg and Rohan (Rowan) was 
 the most rebellious district in America a fact which 
 he had proved by wager of battle. Had he consulted
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 33 
 
 Lee's Memoirs, or S ted man's American "War, he would 
 have found it the centre of some of the most Stirling 
 military events of that war that within a radius of 40 
 miles of its capital are situated the scenes of the battles 
 of Hanging Rock, Buford's defeat, Sumter's defeat, 
 Rocky Mount, King's Mountain, Ramsour's Mill, 
 Cowan's Ford : that the town of Charlotte itself was 
 the theatre of a well-contested action between Davie 
 and Tarleton's cavalry .; and although Lord Cornwal- 
 lis occupied it for a brief season afterwards, he re- 
 treated thence in the night upon learning of the de- 
 struction of Ferguson at King's Mountain. 
 
 He might further have learned, upon inquiry, that 
 so heroic and true had been her inhabitants in the 
 cause of independence, that when General Greene 
 superseded Gates in command of the Army of 
 the South at Charlotte, in December, 1780, with the 
 British in his front at Winnsboro', he was able to dis- 
 patch Morgan across the Catawba and Broad Rivers to 
 the West, and withdraw his remaining force for sub- 
 sistence to Cheraw Hills, relying upon the militia of 
 Mecklenburg under Davidson as his Central Army, to 
 be cantoned w r ith their families and called forth when- 
 ever the exigencies of the campaign might require 
 a disposition wholly un military, except for the reliance 
 of that great commander upon their fidelity and 
 valor. And that in 1781, in addition to furnishing 
 her contingent to re-establish the North Carolina 
 Continental Line which had all been captured in the 
 surrender of Charleston, this county, with Rowan, 
 furnished the greater part of three regiments of 
 2*
 
 34 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 South Carolina State Troops under Polk, Hampton 
 and Middleton, who fought under Smnter at 
 Eutaw.* 
 
 Had Mr. Jefferson inquired into the social and civil 
 condition of the county of Mecklenburg in 1775, he 
 would have learned that Charlotte was the "centre of 
 the culture of that part of .the Province" (as Mr. 
 Bancroft has expressed it) ; that it was the seat of the 
 highest seminary of learning south of Princeton (ex- 
 cept the college of William and Mary, in Virginia), 
 in the institution of Queen's Museum, and thither 
 were sent young men from Wilmington, Camden, 
 Winnsborough, Chester, and from the Academies of 
 Poplar Tent and Bethany ; that this College was pre- 
 sided over by the Rev. Dr. McWhorter, an alumnus 
 of Princeton ; that around it were settled Dr. 
 Ephraim Brevard, a graduate likewise of Nassau Hall ; 
 Waightstill Avery, a graduate of Yale, and William 
 Kennon, lawyers of reputation, the former being af- 
 terwards elected the first Attorney-General of the 
 State, upon the establishment of the republican Con- 
 stitution ; the Rev. Tlezekiah Balch, Afjlai Osborne^ 
 and other gentlemen of no mean education ; that the 
 spirit of the people was high ; that they had been 
 provoked by the long struggle between the Colony 
 and Crown concerning the attachment of lands in the 
 Province to satisfy debts due from owners residing in 
 England ; f by the refusal of the King to approve 
 the charter of their College, an act which the Legis- 
 
 * Gen'l J. Graham's memoranda. f Jones's Defense.
 
 ADDKESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 35 
 
 lature had granted and which he had annulled by 
 royal proclamation ; * by the enforced regulations of 
 an Established Church, which at no distant day had 
 imposed impediments and delays in the celebration 
 of marriages, except by its own clergy; f and, although 
 this county had not participated in the Regulation, 
 by the exaction of a new oath of allegiance after that 
 event, the population being called out for this pur- 
 pose by military companies. ^ To guide this spirit of 
 discontent and resistance, they had an ample number 
 of educated and intelligent leaders 
 
 " Stern, heroic spirits, roughly brave, by aucient learning 
 To the enlightened love of ancient freedom warmed." 
 
 Had Mr. Jefferson been advised of this attitude of 
 affairs, and of the characteristics of this people, his 
 incredulity in respect to their action would probably 
 have been abated. These are matters of local history, 
 to be sure, but it is a question of local history we are 
 considering. A knowledge of them is necessary to 
 show that the tinder of revolution was ready in that 
 section whenever an occasion should arise for the ap- 
 plication of the match. 
 
 But his letter of 'denial demanded proof of the 
 declaration of independence alleged to have been 
 made. The matter was then taken up by Col. Wil- 
 liam Polk (a son of Col. Thomas Polk, a leader in the 
 movement of the 20th of May, 1775), who had been 
 himself an officer of the Continental Line of North 
 
 * Caruthers' Life of Rev. Dr. Caldwell. 
 
 f Ibidem. J Gen. Graham's Certificate.
 
 30 ADDEESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 Carolina, who had commenced his military service 
 under his father in the expedition against the Scovil- 
 ite* Tories in upper South Carolina in the autumn of 
 1775, was under Nash at Germantowri, Penn., in 
 1777, with Davidson on the Catawba in February, 
 1781, and distinguished in the command of a regi- 
 ment of South Carolina State Troops at Eutaw, in 
 September of that year. He was at this time resid- 
 ing in Raleigh and President of the principal Bank of 
 the State. He procured and communicated to the 
 Raleigh Register, of February 18th, 1820, the certifi- 
 cate of Gen. George Graham, Wm. Hutchison, Jonas 
 Clark and Robert Robinson, all inhabitants of Mecklen- 
 burg, his old neighbors, men of the first character as 
 soldiers and citizens, to the effect that they were each 
 present at the meeting of the 19th and 20th of May, 
 1775, and that on the latter day " resolves were read 
 which went to declare the people of Mecklenburg 
 county Free and Independent of the King and Par- 
 liament of Great Britain, and from that day thence- 
 forth all allegiance and political relation was dissolved 
 between the good people of Mecklenburg and the 
 King of Great Britain ; which declaration was signed 
 by every member of the delegation amid the shouts 
 and huzzas of a very large assembly of the people of 
 the county, who had come to know the issue of the 
 meeting. We further believe (say they) that the 
 Declaration of Independence was drawn up by Dr. 
 Ephraim Brevard, and that it was conceived and 
 
 * From Scovil, the name of a British emissary among them.
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 37 
 
 brought about through the instrumentality and pop- 
 ularity of Col. Thomas Polk, Abraham Alexander, 
 John McKnitt Alexander, Adam Alexander, Ephraim 
 Brevard, John Phifer, Hezekiah Alexander, and 
 some others," They further certified that within a 
 few days thereafter, Captain James Jack, of the town 
 of Charlotte, went as a messenger to bear those re- 
 solves to the Congress, etc. The signatures to this 
 certificate are 
 
 GEO. GRAHAM, aged 61, near 62. 
 
 WM. HUTCHISON, " 68. 
 
 JONAS CLARK, " 61. 
 
 ROB'T ROBINSON, " 68. 
 
 A letter from John Simmerson. of Providence, in 
 Mecklenburg, addressed to Colonel Polk, January 20th, 
 1820, follows this in general confirmation of the facts 
 stated in the certificate, with the anecdote that on 
 mentioning the subject of the correspondence to an 
 old neighbor, he replied, " Och, aye ; Tain Polk de- 
 clared independence long before anybody else." 
 
 The testimony of Captain Jack, of the date of 7th 
 December, 1819, who was then residing in Georgia, 
 was also procured to the same import with the above, 
 and that he had been privy to a number of meetings 
 of the most influential and leading characters of the 
 county, prior to that at which these resolutions were 
 adopted ; that he bore the Declaration to Philadelphia 
 and delivered it to Richard Caswell and William 
 Hooper, delegates in Congress from North Carolina. 
 He also refers to the Rev. Francis Cummins, a Pres- 
 byterian clergyman then living in Greene county, 
 
 86954
 
 38 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 Georgia, who was a student in Charlotte at the time 
 of the adoption of said resolutions, as 'a person who 
 was well acquainted with the proceedings in question, 
 and as also having a recollection of them. 
 
 The Hon. Nathaniel Macon, then a Senator in 
 Congress from North Carolina, was communicated 
 with in reference to the matter, and entered upon the 
 inquiry in a patriotic spirit, and through him the cer- 
 tificate of Mr. Cummins was obtained, and is found 
 in the State publication of 1830-31, addressed to Mr. 
 Macon. Through him, also, a second letter was ob- 
 tained from Captain Jack. (See D, page 142.) Though 
 Col. Polk, as I have been informed, also furnished his 
 own certificate in corroboration of these, I regret not 
 to find it among the published testimony of 1830, and 
 can only suggest that inasmuch us a prominent part 
 in the great drama had been acted by his father, and 
 the chairman of the committee of the Legislature was 
 his son, and the proof was ample without his recol- 
 lections, he caused it to be omitted from motives of 
 delicacy. That he felt a deep interest in the establish- 
 ment of the fact, and continued to do so till his 
 death, there is abundant evidence.* 
 
 *In an article on this topic, in the April number of the 
 North American Review for 1874, by Dr. J. C. Welling, of 
 Columbian College, D. C., it is represented, that Col. Polk pro- 
 cured evidence to contradict some points of John McKnitt Alex- 
 ander's story, and himself left no written statement as to the 
 matter in question. We have seen how earnestly he took up 
 the controversy, which had been opened by the letter of Mr. 
 Jefferson, and what testimony he procured. It is difficult to 
 perceive in what particular this testimony contradicts the ac-
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 39 
 
 We are not informed that Mr. Jefferson ever re- 
 curred to the subject again. No. one in Mecklen- 
 burg appeared to contradict it. The Raleigh Reg- 
 ister expressed the decided opinion " that no doubt 
 can now exist of the truth and genuineness of the 
 Declaration of the 20th May, 1775," and it seemed 
 
 count of Alexander, or in what it was intended to have that ef- 
 fect. 
 
 General Thomas G. Polk, the eldest son of the same Col. Wm. 
 Polk, was chairman of the committee in the Legislature, which 
 prepared for publication the pamphlet of 1830-31, being then 
 a member from the county of Rowan, and a lodger in the house 
 of his father in Raleigh daring the session. The Hon. Louis D. 
 Henry, a brother-in-law of Col. Polk, was also a member of this 
 committee. There is, therefore, good reason to believe that 
 Col. Polk was fully informed of the statements made in this 
 publication before their adoption, and approved them. This is 
 certainly the impression of his descendants and connections, 
 who are well known in several of the Southern States. 
 
 2. It may be proper here also to notice that in the same article 
 General Joseph Graham is said to be the son-in-law of John 
 McKnitt Alexander: and it seems to be considered so important 
 a fact in the writer's argument, that it is twice or thrice repeat- 
 ed. It is not a fact, but a palpable error. An intermarriage 
 between a couple of their descendants, years after the death of 
 Alexander, in the third generation from him, is the only ground 
 for this surmise. 
 
 3. Equally unfounded is the statement made by the same 
 authority, that it is a tradition in the Brevard family, that 
 their ancestor, Dr. Ephraim Brevard, was inspired to write the 
 Mecklenburg Declaration by the Westminster Confession of 
 Faith. A family whose men, as officers in the continental line 
 of North Carolina, followed "Washington upon the Hudson, 
 through the Jerseys and Pennsylvania, and Greene at Eutaw, 
 and who have borne a like creditable part in civil life, can af- 
 ford to smile at such trifling as this.
 
 40 ADDBESS OF WM. A. GKAHAM. 
 
 no longer to he a matter of controversy. Cele- 
 brations of the day were held with the enthusiastic 
 concurrence of the people. Had there been 
 any cavil against this proof at that time (1820), 
 it doubtless could then have been greatly corrobo- 
 rated. 
 
 By or before the year 1830, however, Dr. Alexan- 
 der, who had made the first publication already men- 
 tioned, came to the conclusion that it would be a wise 
 precaution to procure confirmatory evidence while 
 witnesses were yet living who remembered the event. 
 And as John McKnitt Alexander had been heard to 
 state that he had placed copies of these proceedings 
 in the hands of General Davie, and of Dr. Hugh 
 Williamson, Dr. Samuel Henderson, of Charlotte, 
 was prevailed on to apply to the family of General 
 Davie, who had died in the latter part of the year 
 1820, and the copy was found accordingly at his man- 
 sion in South Carolina, in the handwriting of John 
 McKnitt Alexander, who had expired, according to 
 Wheeler, in 181T. The characters of General Davie, 
 of his son Frederic William Davie, and of Dr. Hen- 
 derson, afford every assurance that there could have 
 been no collusion or imposture in relation to this copy. 
 The lateness of its production only shows that this 
 being a public affair, and the business of no one in 
 particular, but little diligence was exercised in hunt- 
 ing up evidence but the circumstances of the dis- 
 covery after such delay, and the proof of handwriting, 
 tend powerfully to establish the fact of deposit in the 
 life time of General Davie, which the elder Alexander
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 41 
 
 had stated to Judge Cameron in 1801, not long subse- 
 quent to the conflagration of his mansion. 
 
 Further evidence was procured in the form of a 
 written memoir of the Rev. Humphrey Hunter, 
 whose memory was particularly impressed with the 
 proceedings, from the fact, that he was at the time 
 (20th of May, 1775) a few days over 20 years of age. 
 lie is positive and precise as to the date, and that the 
 resolutions declared Independence. His subsequent 
 life to the age of seventy-three years, in his Profes- 
 sion as a Minister of the Gospel, was spent in this re- 
 gion of country, in intimate association with the other 
 Revolutionary worthies of Mecklenburg, and his ashes 
 repose in her soil. For his character as a soldier, 
 citizen and Divine, see Wheeler's History of North 
 Carolina. I remember him well in my youth ; and 
 he is yet represented in the person of a son residing 
 in Lincoln county, who in scientific attainment and 
 moral elevation is among the first gentlemen of the 
 State. 
 
 To the same purport are the statements of Capt. 
 Samuel Wilson, (Clerk) Isaac Alexander, Major John 
 Davidson, of Mecklenburg, Jas. Johnston, of Tennes- 
 see, and Rev. Francis Cummins, of Georgia. It will 
 be observed that when these statements were made 
 no question had been raised as to the meeting having 
 been held on the 31st instead of the 20th of May 
 they were given in rejoinder to a denial that any 
 meeting at all had been held which looked to inde- 
 pendence. Therefore these witnesses do not specify 
 the day of the month, but they are all emphatic in
 
 42 ADDBESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 the assertion, that in the meeting at which they at- 
 tended, independence was declared, which is the 
 great point at issue. 
 
 Gen. Joseph Graham,* then of Lincoln county, 
 also gave his testimony. His narrative is perhaps 
 more circumstantial than that of any of the other wit- 
 nesses except Capt. Jack and Mr. Hunter. I regret 
 the necessity of. speaking of his evidence, but I feel 
 that it would be a mistaken delicacy, not to claim for 
 it that weight to which it is entitled, in a matter in 
 which he makes no pretension for himself, but is giv- 
 ing his recollection of a transaction conducted alto- 
 gether by his seniors. To the suggestion that he was 
 at the time but in the sixteenth year of his age, I re- 
 ply that in that time and country, boys often fought 
 in the ranks of men at an earlier age than this, as they 
 have done at all times on our frontiers ; and that it 
 was in this same region, while in military service at 
 the age of fourteen, Andrew Jackson received the only 
 wound that ever befell him in his great military ca- 
 reer..! In the then state of public feeling and public 
 events, with two elder brothers, one of whom has 
 been already named as a witness in this controversy, 
 both soldiers earlier than himself, a youth of his age 
 would have been dull of comprehension not to have 
 understood the proceedings of that meeting and been 
 duly impressed by them. Nor had age affected him 
 
 * The Father of the speaker. 
 
 f The military age established May 4th, 1776, was from sixteen 
 to sixty years. Journal Provincial Congress, p. 45.
 
 ADDRESS ^OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 43 
 
 when he testified of it in 1830. He had been inter- 
 ested in the controversy in regard to it since 1819 
 and 1820, and from him was obtained the copy of 
 the Proclamation of Governor Martin,* inserted in the 
 same paper with the first publication, as before stated, 
 of the Mecklenburg Declaration. He was more fa- 
 miliar with the history of the Revolutionary war in the 
 South, than any one I have ever been acquainted 
 with, and at the request of Judge Murphey, in 1820 
 and 1821, furnished him from memory with written 
 memoranda of the military history of the Revolution 
 in the State, to be used in his contemplated history 
 of Xorth Carolina, which from study and comparison 
 with documents he never saw, I have found singular- 
 ly accurate. To his pen in these papers, the State is 
 indebted for the rescue from oblivion of the narra- 
 tive of the battle of Ramsour's Mill (copied by Wheel- 
 er), the connection of the events of 1780-'81, in their 
 order of sequence, and the vindication of her fame, 
 by the correction of many errors into which the wri- 
 ters of history have fallen, to her disparagement. 
 Though he never designed them for the press, but as 
 mere notes for Mr. Murphey. after the failure of this 
 gentleman's undertaking, in which they were to have 
 been used, I consented to their publication in the 
 University Magazine in 1856, in the hope of preserv- 
 
 * This was found among the title deeds of an aged illiterate Ger- 
 man neighbor in Lincoln County, twenty-five miles from Char- 
 lotte, in 1816 or '17, on occasion of writing his will, and is copied 
 in University Magazine, March, 1856.
 
 44 ADDKESS OF WM. A. GKAHAM. 
 
 ing them for some author in the future. How Ju Ige 
 Murphey valued them may be seen in his correspond- 
 ence with General Graham in the University Mag- 
 azine, December, 1854. He had the best opportuni- 
 ties to observe what was done and said on public sub- 
 jects in Mecklenburg, and occasion for remembering 
 them in all this period of her history. In military 
 service with his neighbors of the county from 1778 
 till the end of the war her sheriff from early after 
 its close till 1788, when for the seven succeeding 
 years he washer Senator in the Legislature her dela- 
 gate in conjunction with General Robert Irwin in 
 both of the Conventions which considered the ques- 
 tion of the adoption of the Federal Constitution ; and 
 though removing to an adjoining county in 1794, he 
 kept up a familiar acquaintance in Mecklenburg 
 throughout his life. His recollections, therefore, I 
 esteem as reliable as any evidence of this nature can 
 be. At his death in 1836, at the age of seventy-seven, 
 hardly any decay of his faculties was perceptible. Of 
 General George Graham it may be stated, that with 
 two years greater age, he had equal opportunities of 
 information, and for keeping in his memory the events 
 of Mecklenburg. lie formed one of the party to 
 arrest and convey into South Carolina the Tory law- 
 yers of Salisbury a few weeks after this declaration 
 was under Col. Thomas Polk in the expedition 
 against the Highlanders and other Tories on the Cape 
 Fear in February, 1776 ; in that of Rutherford against 
 the Cherokee Indians in the summer of the same 
 year; under Sumter and Irwin at Hanging Rock;
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 45 
 
 under Col. "William Polk in the South Carolina State 
 troops at Eutaw ; he, too, was familiar with the men 
 of the county as comrades in arms, and as their public 
 servant almost to the close of life succeeded his 
 brother in the office of sheriff was clerk of the Supe- 
 rior Court, Major General of Militia, and a member 
 of the Legislature in the one or the other House from 
 this county, for more than twenty years terminating 
 in 1813. His death occurred in 1826, with mental 
 faculties unimpaired to the last. With Messrs. Wil- 
 liam Hutchison, Jonas Clark, and Robert Robinson, 
 who united with him in the testimonial given to Col. 
 Polk in 1820, my inferiority in age allowed no per- 
 sonal acquaintance, but I have assurance that they 
 had all been good soldiers of the Revolution, and en- 
 joyed the entire respect and confidence of their con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 Equal to these in their claims to credibility were 
 Capt. James Jack, of Georgia, Clerk Isaac Alexan- 
 der, Capt. Samuel Wilson, Maj. John Davidson, of 
 Mecklenburg, Mr. James Johnston, of Tennessee, 
 and the Rev. Francis Cummins, of Georgia. It is to 
 be observed, that no one of these witnesses in testi- 
 f} 7 ing sought to magnify his own consequence. 
 Major Davidson was the only one among them all, 
 who had been a delegate in the meeting. He had 
 reached a very old age at the time of deposing, but 
 gives an intelligent narrative, and did not assume to 
 have acted a conspicuous part. All the others declare 
 that they were spectators merely, at the council of 
 the grave and elderly men of their county and bear
 
 46 ADDRESS OP WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 witness of the patriotism and heroism of others, not 
 of their own. 
 
 It may be also confidently asserted that this mass 
 of testimony would, at the time it was given, have de- 
 termined the title of any estate in that county ; and 
 if the question were whether a deed which had been 
 lost was designed to convey the absolute property in 
 law or only an estate for years, or on condition, there 
 would have been no difficulty in this evidence in 
 maintaining that the entire fee had passed ; and, as 
 little that it bore date on the 20th of May, 1775 ; 
 and an impartial Chancellor would have directed the 
 conveyance to be renewed accordingly. It is, how- 
 ever, not a question at nisiprius, to be tried on the 
 testimony alone of the witnesses whose certificates 
 were taken. 
 
 The witnesses who gave written evidence are but 
 a tithe of those who testify to the Declaration of 
 Independence, and on the 20th of May, 1775. 
 Where are those Revolutionary soldiers, w r ho ap- 
 peared, as we have seen, at the celebration of 1825, 
 sixty to seventy in number; of whom twenty-seven 
 again attended at the celebration of 1835, the sur- 
 vivors of the fields of Stono, Eutaw, Camden and 
 'Hanging Rock at the South, and some of them at 
 least of White Plains, Brandywine, and German- 
 town at the North ? They were old enough to re- 
 member what had occurred in their own county in 
 1775, and though, it may be, not personally present 
 at the meeting on the 20th of May in that year, to 
 have heard by current report of every public event
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 47 
 
 of the times ; and if they had not heard of, and be- 
 lieved, this from 1775 onward, who supposes they 
 would have joined in the celebrations, or not contra- 
 dicted the error? Moreover, the juniors of these 
 who were of middle or younger age, .the descendants 
 of those, among whom almost every man had been a 
 soldier in no holiday sense, and who from the tradi- 
 tions of their fathers, knew the story of the Revolu- 
 tion by heart, if they had not heard of it, as they did 
 of the expeditions of 1775 and '76, who presumes 
 they would have yielded an universal belief upon the 
 announcement of the fact in a newspaper supported 
 by a half dozen testimonials from sources however 
 respectable ? The truth is, the publication of Dr. 
 Alexander, in 1819, announced nothing that was new 
 to Mecklenburg. Her people had this Declaration 
 in memory as they had the fame of the men they 
 had sent forth to battle for Independence, to whom 
 even yet history has never done justice, and therefore 
 they seconded its assertion with a unanimous voice. 
 
 Critics may amuse their ingenuity by strictures on 
 the certificates of veterans who, as I knew one to re- 
 mark, were " better at fighting than writing, and 
 could make better marks with their swords than with 
 their pens," but they can make no satisfactory plea to 
 that grand certificate of the concurrence of all the 
 surviving soldiers of the Revolution from 1819 to 
 1835, and the harmonious concord of the sons of 
 those who had perished in the struggle or died prior 
 to the publication in 1819. The old men knew it 
 from recollection or common report, the younger by
 
 48 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GEAHAM. 
 
 tradition. It is hardly possible that a whole people, 
 who may have their subjects of dispute as to other 
 matters, should be deceived and deluded into an un- 
 divided belief on this. Let us illustrate by an ex- 
 ample. It is within the remembrance of many now 
 living, that in 1814 a Regiment of Militia under Col. 
 Jesse A. Pearson, being part of a Brigade commanded 
 by the above-named Gen. Joseph Graham, was levied 
 in Mecklenburg and the adjacent counties, and 
 served for six months under Jackson against the 
 Creek Indians in Alabama Territory. It is also a 
 fact that owing to the want of a timely provision of 
 funds by the United States, these troops were delayed 
 a month or more at Salisbury, their place of rendez- 
 vous, and were therefore too late in arriving at the 
 seat of war for the battle of the Horse-Shoe, in which 
 they would otherwise have participated. Suppose 
 after the lapse of forty -five years, or even now at the 
 end of sixty years, a pretension had been set up that 
 this Regiment had won laurels, by bearing an active 
 part in the battle of the Horse-Shoe, and it had been 
 proposed to celebrate it by a public demonstration. 
 Independently of other evidence to the contrary, who 
 believes that the officers and soldiers of that expedi- 
 tion who survived, or the children of the dead, could 
 have been engaged in any such imposture or delusion ? 
 If a contemporaneous exposition is generally the 
 best construction of a statute made long ago, because 
 it gives the sense of a community living at the time 
 of enactment, of the terms made use of by the Legis- 
 lature, surely the acquiescence of a people in the Teal-
 
 ADDRESS OF \YM. A. GRAHAM. 49 
 
 ity of a transaction, which was asserted more than fifty 
 years back, and when, if untrue, there were scores of 
 living persons who could and would have contradicted 
 it, is equally convincing proof of its actual occurrence.* 
 Curiosity, however, is excited to learn in what 
 manner the memorial of this declaration of inde- 
 pendence was preserved to later times. The expla- 
 nation is, that the journal of the proceedings of the 
 Mecklenburg Committee, originating at the incipi- 
 ent period of the Revolution and continued long 
 years afterwards as a county organization, which con- 
 tained the Declaration of Independence of 20th of 
 
 * At the mass meeting in Charlotte, February 4th, 1875, I was 
 shown a number of the Catawba Journal, published in that 
 town October 19th, 1824, containing a copy of an Oration by Dr. 
 M. W. Alexander, at Hopewell Church in Mecklenburg, deliv- 
 ered on the 4th of July in. that year, in which the Resolutions 
 of Independence by that county on the 20th of May, 1775, are 
 inserted in full, with a narration of the circumstances of their 
 adoption. The speaker then proceeds as follows: "These are 
 transactions with which you, together with the citizens of the 
 neighboring counties, have long been familiar ; that have been 
 the frequent topics of conversation among us for fifty years. 
 These were the proceedings of our fathers, our relatives, and 
 fellow-citizens, every individual of whom has descended to the 
 tomb but these are their living deeds of patriotism," etc. 
 
 This oration also recites the resolutions of the Provincial Con- 
 gress at Halifax, on the 12th of April, 1776, empowering the 
 delegates from North Carolina in the Continental Congress to 
 vote for absolute independence in advance of the other Colonies, 
 and corrects the claim, in Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, that tha 
 Virginia resolutions of like import, on the 15th of May, 1776, were 
 prior to those of any other State. Upon which, the editor re- 
 marks that the fact that the instruction of North Carolina to her
 
 50 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 May, 1775, was preserved in the care of John McKnitt 
 Alexander, as Secretary, and was consumed in the 
 destruction of his mansion by fire in the year 1800. 
 And that prior to its destruction he had endeavored 
 to give this document publicity by furnishing one 
 copy to Dr. Hugh Williamson, who had announced 
 his purpose to publish a history of North. Carolina, 
 and another to Gen. Wm. R. Davie, a distinguished 
 soldier of the Revolution, and subsequently Governor 
 of the State. It is probable, also, that he or his son, 
 before-named, who was of mature years and head of 
 a family before 1800, retained still another copy 
 
 delegates in Congress to vote for independence as early as 12th 
 of April, 1776, was new to him, but is verified by a copy of the 
 Journal of the Congress which had been left in his office. But 
 the Mecklenburg proceedings, being a well known transaction, 
 called forth no comment. 
 
 At the same meeting, the Hon. J. Harvey Wilson, of Char- 
 lotte, a former Speaker of the State Senate, in a public speech, 
 stated that, as a young lawyer, he had drawn the declarations for 
 pensions, under the Act of Congress of 1832, of from twenty to 
 thirty Revolutionary soldiers in Mecklenburg, recently after the 
 passage of that act, and that nearly all of them in giving ac- 
 counts of their lives, as required by the regulations of the Pen- 
 sion Office, made allusion to the Declaration of Independence in 
 that county on the 20th of May, 1775, and verified the state- 
 ment by their affidavits. 
 
 He further mentioned, that about the same time, he had heard 
 a description of the scene, at the adoption of the resolutions of 
 Independence on the 20th of May, 1775, and the demonstrations 
 of the populace which ensued, from Mrs. Smart, a Mecklenburg 
 lady of remarkable intelligence, then surviving, who was in Char- 
 lotte on that day, and that her narrative corresponded with those 
 of the witnesses who gave written evidence of the transaction.
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 51 
 
 which escaped the conflagration of his house. The 
 averment which we have from Mr. Alexander of his 
 delivering the copies to Williamson and Davie is con- 
 tinued : 
 
 1st. By the testimony of Gov. Stokes, already cited, 
 stating in substance that in the year 1793 Dr. Wil- 
 liamson exhibited to him, in Fayetteville, N. C., a copy 
 of the said Mecklenburg Declaration in the hand- 
 writing of John McKnitt Alexander, which was 
 known to Governor Stokes. 
 
 2d. By the statement of Duncan Cameron, then 
 a practicing lawyer, subsequently a Judge of the 
 Superior Courts and President of the Bank of the 
 State, to the effect that Mr. Alexander had informed 
 him of the circumstances of this declaration, and of 
 his placing a copy in the possession of Gen. Davie ; 
 and that after the destruction of the original in his 
 dwelling, he referred again to the same topic, remark- 
 ing that by reason of this deposit " the document was 
 safe." Dr. Williamson was a Pennsylvanian, who 
 came to the State about the close of the Revolution- 
 ary AVar, and resided in Edenton. He represented 
 North Carolina in the Continental and first Federal 
 Congress, and in the Federal Convention, after which 
 he went to reside in New York. His work, entitled 
 a History of North Carolina, published in 1812, 
 is confined to the colonial period, and extends only to 
 the time of the Regulators in 1771. 
 
 3d. It is likewise corroborated by a letter from Mr. 
 D. G. Stinson, a gentleman now above 80 years of 
 age, who in a recent letter from Rock Hill, S. C., in-
 
 52 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 forms me that in 1813, when himself a student in the 
 Academy of the Rev. Mr. Wallace of Providence, 
 Mecklenburg, a son-in-law of John McKnitt Alexan- 
 der, he heard said Alexander, upon occasion of a visit 
 of a month at that place, relate the circumstances of 
 the Declaration of Independence on the 20th of May, 
 1775 ; and the further fact, that having been in 
 Philadelphia afterwards in that year, he communi- 
 cated the facts and circumstances to Dr. Franklin, 
 who expressed approbation of the act. 
 
 Of John McKnitt Alexander, I have no personal 
 recollection. That he was one of the leading spirits in 
 those days of peril and revolution appears from the tes- 
 timony of Gen. George Graham, and others, already 
 recited, and from the facts stated by Wheeler, that 
 he was one of the delegates from Mecklenburg to the 
 Provincial Congress at Hillsboro' in August, 1775, at 
 Halifax in April, 1776, her first senator under the 
 republican Constitution, in 1777, one of the Trustees 
 of the College of " Queen's Museum," subsequently 
 changed to "Liberty Hall," and from the correspon- 
 dence of the Board of War that Gen. Davidson, at the 
 head of the militia in 1780, named his encampment 
 in Mecklenburg, " Camp McKnitt Alexander." 
 
 Mr. Wheeler also extracts from a Charlotte news- 
 paper of 1837, a paper entitled Instructions for the 
 delegates of Mecklenburg county, proposed to the con- 
 sideration of the county, dated 1st of September, 1775, 
 stated to have been found among his papers, doubt- 
 less furnished by his son already mentioned, begin- 
 ning thus : " You are instructed to vote that the late
 
 ADDEESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 53 
 
 Province of North Carolina is, and of right ought to 
 be, a free and independent State, invested with all 
 power of Legislation, capable of making laws to regu- 
 late all its internal policy, subject only in its external 
 connections and foreign commerce, to a negative of a 
 Continental Senate." 
 
 Whether this was adopted by the county does not 
 appear, but the spirit of it was fully carried out at 
 the Congress, in April, 1776, of which Mr. Alexander 
 was a member, in the resolutions instructing the 
 North Carolina delegates in the Continental Con- 
 gress to concur in voting for absolute independence. 
 
 That this striking event was not made the subject 
 of commentary in our newspapers until published in 
 1819, should occasion no surprise to those who have 
 studied the history of the State, and know in what a 
 confused and neglected mass all its materials then lay. 
 If so well informed an American as Mr. Jefferson 
 must be conceded to have been, in 1819, did not 
 know the position of Mecklenburg on the map, and 
 supposed it might adjoin Buncombe, the locality of 
 the fictitious volcano played off as a newspaper hoax, 
 from which it is one hundred miles distant, with the 
 Blue Ridge towering between, who except her own 
 people should be expected to know her history ? The 
 historians to whom he refers Williamson, whose 
 work extends but to 1771, Horry, Ramsay, Marshall, 
 Jones, Girardin, Wirt, not one of them had pene- 
 trated so far into our public history as to be aware 
 of the Resolutions of the 31st of May, 1775, or to 
 discover the well-established fact, that North Caro-
 
 54 ADDRESS OF \VM. A. GEAHAM. 
 
 lina in her Provincial Congress at Halifax on the 12th 
 of April, 1776, instructed her delegates in the Conti- 
 nental Congress to vote for absolute independence of 
 the British Crown. (I impute no unjust design ; it 
 was perhaps our own fault in not causing it to be 
 made generally known.) Some of them do mention 
 that Yirginia gave such instruction in Maj- succeed- 
 ing, and suppose that to have been the earliest move- 
 ment of the kind. If they were thus uninformed as 
 to our public and general history, how are their omis- 
 sions authority in respect to a popular meeting, a 
 local assemblage in the county of Mecklenburg, some 
 months earlier ? The fact is, the revival of the know- 
 ledge of the Resolutions at Halifax was made about 
 the same time and by the same individual, Dr. Jos. 
 McKnitt Alexander, with the publication of the 
 Mecklenburg Declaration in the Raleigh Register: 
 and it produced as much surprise among writers of 
 history, and as much satisfaction among the people of 
 the State, as the declaration at Charlotte. It was 
 permitted to pass unchallenged upon the authority of 
 the Journal of the Congress which Alexander had 
 inherited from his father, as would, in my belief, the 
 Mecklenburg proceeding, except that the latter was 
 questioned by Mr. Jefferson, and was supposed by 
 some to lay claim to a domain in which he was en- 
 titled to a monopoly a domain to which in May, 
 1775, as will presently appear, he had set up no claim 
 in mind or heart. 
 
 The first forty-five years of the Republic of North 
 Carolina did not produce even a pamphlet on any sub-
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 55 
 
 jeet of her history, except the abortive effort of Wil- 
 liamson, heretofore noticed. This utter want of a 
 history was felt as a public misfortune by the intelli- 
 gent men of the State, and by none more than the 
 surviving officers and soldiers of the Revolution. In 
 1819, or 1820, the Hon. Archibald D. Murphey, who 
 in the preceding seven or eight years, as a senator 
 from the county of Orange in the State Legislature, 
 had aroused the pride and spirit of the people of the 
 State on the subject of internal improvement and 
 popular education, at the instance of many friends 
 undertook the task of writing her history an office 
 to which he was eminently adapted by scholarship, 
 patience, and capacity for research, facility in compo- 
 sition, a philosophic mind and a zealous patriotism. 
 Although, from causes not necessary to be related, 
 Mr. Murphey failed in the brief remainder of his life 
 to execute this work, the very undertaking accom- 
 plished for the State, though in an inferior degree, 
 what had been done by historical societies for other 
 States, in collecting materials for history, from the 
 recollections of old men then alive, the correspond- 
 ence and papers found with the families of the dead, 
 the public records, and other sources. How barren 
 Mr. Murphey then found the field he undertook to 
 till, though with abundant materials for improvement 
 if sought out from their hidden recesses, we shall re- 
 late in his own words, in a correspondence, July 20th, 
 1821, with General Joseph Graham, from whom he 
 requested reminiscences of the military history of the 
 State durinir the Revolution :
 
 56 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM 
 
 " Your letter to Col. Conner," says he, " first sug- 
 gested to me the plan of a work which I will execute 
 if I live. It is a work on the history, soil, climate, 
 legislation, civil institutions, literature, etc., of this 
 State. Soon after reading your letter, I turned my 
 attention to the subject in the few hours I could 
 snatch from business, and I was surprised to find 
 what abundant materials could, with care and dili- 
 gence, be collected ; materials which, if well disposed, 
 would furnish matter for one of the most interesting 
 works that has been published in this country. We 
 want such a work. We neither know ourselves nor 
 are we known to others. Such a work, well execu- 
 ted, would add very much to our standing in the 
 Union, and make us respectable in our own eyes. I 
 love North Carolina ; and love her the more because 
 so much injustice has been done to her. We want 
 pride ; we want independence ; we want magnanimity. 
 Knowing nothing of ourselves, we have nothing in 
 our history to which we can turn with conscious pride. 
 We know nothing of our State, and care nothing 
 about it. I feel some zeal upon the subject, for a 
 large portion of our history now lives only in the re- 
 collection of a few survivors of the Revolution. We 
 must soon embody it, or it will be entirely lost." * 
 
 With so ID uch of the materials of the history of the 
 State thus in the condition of waifs, floating in the 
 memories of a few surviving veterans of the war of 
 
 o 
 
 independence, does it surprise any one that the brave 
 * University Magazine, Dec., 1854.
 
 ADDEESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 57 
 
 men of Mecklenburg, who proclaimed independence 
 on the 20th of May, 1775, should thus long have 
 shared the fate of those who lived before Agamemnon, 
 in not finding an author to celebrate their deeds? 
 Caswell, Hooper and Hewes, the delegates in Congress 
 to whom the paper was conveyed in Philadelphia by 
 Captain Jack, and who might have given it publicity 
 had their lives been prolonged, all passed away with- 
 in six or seven years after the close of the war, before 
 the general government had become settled under 
 the Federal Constitution, or the State had even fixed 
 a permanent seat of government. 
 
 Col. Thomas Polk, after an active and useful mili- 
 tary career, died within the same period. Brevard 
 fell a victim to confinement in a British prisonship 
 after the surrender of Charleston in 1780, living only to 
 reach the house of John McKnitt Alexander in 
 Mecklenburg. 
 
 The College at Charlotte was broken up by the 
 British invasion ; no newspaper was published in all 
 the State west of Raleigh, from the Revolution down 
 till the Summer of 1820, unless it was one very tem- 
 porarily in Salisbury, and the general impoverishment 
 of the country induced by the war was such as to en- 
 gross all in the ordinary avocations of business, so 
 that no one in that region turned attention to author- 
 ship, either in history or any branch of letters. The 
 men who had served their country either in council 
 or in the field, left to others the task of commemo- 
 rating their acts. The historians in other States had 
 given but little attention to Revolutionary events in
 
 58 ADDRESS OF \YM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 this; and one of the difficulties of illustrating our 
 subject at present, is the uncertainty as to how much 
 acquaintance with local history in that section is to 
 be presumed in the mind of the reader or hearer. 
 Of the battle of Ramsour's Mill, no written notice 
 was ever taken, until the account furnished by Gen- 
 eral Graham to Judge Murphey, and by him to the pub- 
 lic in 1820, which has been republished by Wheeler. 
 Yet but for this timely and decisive blow by Locke 
 and his brave associates in dispersing a body of loyal- 
 ists, thirteen hundred in number, and which would 
 have grown to thousands, then assembling under 
 Moore and Welsh, in order to join the British in 
 South Carolina, when exulting in the fall of Charleston, 
 and the subsequent massacre of Buford's command on 
 our own frontier, the result might have sealed the doom 
 of the American cause in the South in the Summer of 
 1780. In its salutary effect it was like to the brilliant 
 victory at King's Mountain three months later, and 
 that at Moore's Creek in New Hanover in February, 
 1776. Of King's Mountain, though generally known 
 as a decisive victory, no details had been given of the 
 campaign which it terminated, the levies of men un- 
 der the several commanders, the number of each or- 
 ganization, their pursuit of Ferguson, the order and 
 incidents of the battle, with a diagram of the field, 
 until collected and brought out by the same hand, in 
 the report which has been republished in Foote's 
 Sketches of North Carolina. 
 
 Again, where are the particulars of the service of 
 the men of Mecklenburg, Rowan, and Gaston, in the
 
 ADDKESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 59 
 
 two British invasions of the State in 17SO-'81 the 
 action at Charlotte, and skirmishing before and after 
 Mclntire's farm Cowan's Ford Torrence's Tav- 
 ern Trading Ford the investment of General 
 Pickens, of South Carolina, with the command of 
 Davidson's Brigade after the fall of their General 
 (which occasions them to be mistaken by Lee, in his 
 " Memoirs of the War in the South," for South 
 Carolina troops) of Clapp's Mill Whitsell's Mill 
 the expedition of Rutherford against "Wilmington in 
 the autumn of 1781, when held by Major Craig and 
 his Tory allies ? Where are these to be found, ex- 
 cept in these Murphey memoranda, written in 1820- 
 '21, and published in the University Magazine in 
 1856? If, therefore, the Mecklenburg Declaration 
 was destined to a long night of negligence and ob 
 scurity before being presented to the muse of history, 
 it slept by the side of military exploits, the traditions 
 of which form no inconsiderable part of the Revolu- 
 tionary fame of the State. In the process of ex- 
 humation it came out of the rubbish a year or two 
 in advance of them. And let it not be forgotten, 
 that its authenticity rests upon the evidence of other 
 witnesses in addition to his, who is the author of these 
 narratives. And the incredulity which rejects it is 
 much more prepared to blot out all that we have 
 heard and believed in relation to the military inci- 
 dents in the same part of the country, by which it 
 was in no long time followed. All history is but the 
 narration of the author, from personal knowledge or 
 upon information from credible sources. We believe
 
 60 ADDKESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 that Csesar invaded Gaul, because he so wrote two 
 thousand years ago. We believe that Davie 
 slaughtered a Tory regiment on the very edge of the 
 British camp, near Hanging Rock, having not time 
 to give quarter and take prisoners ; we believe that 
 he made a gallant stand in Charlotte against the ad- 
 vance of Tarleton's cavalry ; but among American 
 historians we first had these events from Lee, who 
 did not join the Southern army till months after their 
 occurrence, in memoirs not published till thirty years 
 later. And it requires no strain on credulity to be- 
 lieve the followers of Davie who bear witness of the 
 Declaration of Mecklenburg, as an incident of which 
 they had the evidence of their senses only five years 
 earlier than of these achievements in arms. 
 
 It is deemed hardly necessary to notice the objec- 
 tion that the courts of justice were at this time held 
 under the authority of the King, and that the inci- 
 dent related of the reading of the declaration borne 
 by Captain Jack in court at Salisbury could not have 
 been true. Any one acquainted with the history of 
 the period, knows that the royal authority in the 
 State was everywhere in the feeblest condition. The 
 Provincial Congresses, since August, 1774, had been 
 composed of members of the Legislature who, while 
 sitting as such, found intervals to carry forward their 
 patriotic work notwithstanding inhibiting Proclama- 
 tions from the Governor ; and the Governor himself, 
 as early as July, made his exit from our shores at 
 Wilmington to a refuge on board the Cruiser. Magis- 
 trates, if they did not sympathize in the proceeding,
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 61 
 
 observed only ordinary prudence in stepping aside for 
 the occasion lest the breezes that passed over them 
 should rise into gales. 
 
 But, say our objectors, if such resolutions were 
 ever sent to Philadelphia, there should be found some 
 evidence of the fact in the journals of Congress. It 
 requires but little research to show that this is but a 
 cavil, proceeding from an utter ignorance of the mode 
 of conducting business in the Congress, and the state 
 of sentiment then prevailing among its members. It 
 was among the first rules of order of the body, 
 adopted in September, 1774, "that the door be kept 
 shut during the time of business, and that members 
 consider themselves under the strongest obligations of 
 honor to keep the proceedings secret, until the ma- 
 jority shall direct them to be made public." But 
 there was a far more potential reason than this ; and 
 Congress at that time, say May or June, 177'5, would 
 as soon have thought of entering on their Journal a 
 proposition to assassinate King George, or to burn the 
 city of London, as to declare independence of Great 
 Britain. N"o single member favored it, or, judging 
 from the best evidence afforded us, desired it. 
 
 Here I approach considerations pertaining to this 
 topic which I am surprised should have been over- 
 looked in all former discussions, and which appear to 
 have faded entirely from the memory of Mr. Jefferson, 
 and also, as now appears, from that of Mr. Adams 
 at the date of the letter from which we have quoted. 
 
 The second Continental Congress met on the 10th 
 of May, 1775. Mr. Jefferson then first took his seat
 
 62 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 as a member, and successor to Peyton Randolph. It 
 is a fact, capable of the clearest demonstration, that 
 Congress were more nearly unanimous against inde- 
 pendence during this entire session, and I know not 
 how much longer, than they were for it on the 4th 
 of July, 1776. That this was then the feeling of 
 Mr. Jefferson, we have more than general evidence. 
 It has been fashionable among historians and fourth 
 of July orators to treat of Independence as if it had 
 been w r ith our Congress a foregone conclusion, and a 
 mere question of policy as to the time of proclaiming 
 it, and that in this sentiment the whole country par- 
 ticipated. There is no more gross and unfounded 
 error. Independently of the danger and uncertainty 
 of the issue of such a revolution, the feeling of loyalty 
 to the King and attachment to the mother country 
 was warm ; and though blood had been shed and 
 hostile armies had been levied and were facing each 
 other at Boston, the expectation and desire of recon- 
 ciliation was ardently entertained in Congress, and by 
 many citizens who a year later became the most de- 
 voted adherents of independence and a Republic. 
 Let us look into the Journal of Congress, now no 
 
 o 
 
 longer secret, but then wisely kept as a sealed book 
 from public view. 
 
 On the 8th of July, 1775, a Petition to the King was 
 signed by every member of Congress, praying for re- 
 dress of grievances, as British subjects, in the hum- 
 blest terms ; and referring to the accusation which had 
 been made in England, that they desired separation, 
 they declare, " We have not raised armies with the
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 63 
 
 ambitious design of separating from Great Britain 
 and establishing independent States." At the same 
 time an address of like import was drawn up, and 
 signed, to the people of Great Britain, a species of 
 appeal from the King and Parliament, which had 
 been made on more than one occasion already. These 
 documents, containing the unanimous expression of 
 denial by Congress of aspiring to independence, were 
 despatched to England by Richard Penn the his- 
 torian Bisset calls him the celebrated Mr. Penn a 
 grand-son gf the founder of Pennsylvania, himself an 
 ex-Governor, and a brother of her then Chief Magis- 
 trate. (Ilildreth's History, vol. 3, p. 87-88.) Upon 
 Peim's arrival in England, he procured the Petition 
 to the King to be presented through Lord Dartmouth, 
 the Colonial Secretary, who informed Penn that no 
 answer would be returned. 
 
 On the 16th of November, 1Y75, Penn, through 
 the agency of Lord Dartmouth, was introduced be- 
 fore the House of Lords, and examined as a witness 
 touching affairs in America, and he testified to a pos- 
 itive opinion that " no designs of independency had 
 been formed by Congress " and, says Hildreth, (p. 
 112,) " as he had been lately a resident of Philadelphia, 
 and was personally acquainted with many of the mem- 
 bers, his opinion seemed entitled to great weight." 
 
 Bisset informs us that, after Penn's examination, 
 the Duke of Richmond moved that the petition from 
 the Continental Congress to the King was a ground 
 for conciliation of the unhappy differences subsisting 
 between Great Britain and America, and argued that
 
 64 ADDEESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 the Americans wished for reconcilement, and desired 
 no concession from us derogatory to the honor of the 
 mother country. But the motion wa"s lost by a vote 
 of 86 to 33 upon which the historian expatiates on 
 the folly of Lord North and the Ministry, in not em- 
 bracing the overture of Congress, and saving America 
 to Great Britain. 
 
 As a further evidence that public sentiment in 
 America generally was still on the side of adhesion to 
 Britain, the Colonial Assemblies of three States sever- 
 ally recommended to the attention of Congress at this 
 session, Lord North's conciliatory proposition, and it 
 was not until the 31st July that a committee, to whom 
 it was referred, reported it to be unsatisfactory. 
 
 That Mr. Jefferson had not yet embraced the idea 
 of independence, I conceive to be asserted in the fol- 
 lowing passage of a letter addressed by him to John 
 Randolph, dated Aug. 25, 1775 Jefferson's Works, 
 2d edition, vol i., p. 151. " I am sincerely one of 
 those. I would rather be in dependence on Great 
 Britain, properly limited, than on any nation on 
 earth, or than on no nation." 
 
 General Washington made it no secret that such 
 were his sentiments. In Mr. Irving's Life we are 
 treated to a ludicrous scene, in the narrative, that in 
 June 1775, when Washington was on his way from 
 Philadelphia to take command of the army before 
 Boston, the authorities of the city of New York, 
 through which he had to pass, were in a great dilemma 
 upon the question, whether they should compliment 
 him or Gov. Tryon, then their Governor, who had
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. G5 
 
 just arrived in the harbor from a visit to England ; 
 and that the perplexity was solved by ordering out a 
 Regiment of militia with instructions to the colonel 
 to pay military honors to whichever of these function- 
 aries should first arrive. "Washington happened to be 
 prior in time and in an address to him by Mr. 
 Livingston, President of the Provincial Congress of 
 Xew York, it was said : " We have the fullest assur- 
 ance, that whenever this important contest shall be de- 
 cided, by that fondest wish of each American soul, 
 an accommodation with our mother country, you will 
 cheerfully resign the important deposit committed into 
 your hands and reassume the character of our wor- 
 thiest citizen." 
 
 In the General's reply he says : " We shall sincerely 
 rejoice with you in that happy hour when the estab- 
 lishment of American liberty on the most firm and 
 solid foundations, shall enable us to return to our 
 private station in the bosom of a free, peaceful and 
 happy country." A most earnest aspiration for 
 reconcilement in the address and not the most dis- 
 tant allusion to independence in the reply ; and within 
 eight hours afterwards, Tryon was received with like 
 military honors and demonstrations of respect, by the 
 city authorities and the royalist inhabitants. 
 
 Again, in February, 1776, "Washington writes : " I 
 am entirely of your opinion that, should an accom- 
 modation take place, the terms will be severe or 
 favorable in proportion to our ability to resist, and 
 that we ought to be on a respectable footing to receive 
 their armaments in the spring." Thus, says a great
 
 66 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 authority in history, " the possibility of conciliation 
 seems here taken for granted ; that is, independence 
 was not then the idea of Washington, five months 
 before the declaration." 
 
 But in May, 1776, we have his own emphatic 
 words : " A reconciliation with Great Britain is im- 
 possible When I took command of the army 
 
 (June, 1775) / abhorred the idea of independence, 
 but I am now fully satisfied that nothing else will 
 save us." 
 
 They who incline to trace the progress of opinion 
 in respect to independence, will iind in the pages of 
 Hildreth particulars of the proceedings in Congress 
 from the 28th of June, the date of the report of the 
 committee on that. subject, till the 4th of July, 1776, 
 and subsequently, tending to show at last, 
 
 " Quantce molis erat, adfinem condere gentem." 
 
 " The fact seems to have been, (says the historical 
 authority before referred to,) that resistance ripened 
 gradually and insensibly into rebellion. The leaders 
 had incurred the penalties of treason, before they 
 could well have asked themselves to what lengths 
 they were prepared to go they always debated with 
 closed doors, so that what were their exact views and 
 the progress of their opinions cannot now be known." 
 And the same authority states i't as the most curious 
 and difficult question w^hich the whole contest affords, 
 " Whether the American leaders did not hurry into 
 positive rebellion before they had sufficient grounds 
 to suppose they could resist what was then the great- 
 est empire upon earth."
 
 ADDKESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 67 
 
 Dr. Ramsay, of South Carolina, himself a member 
 of Congress, in his history of the United States, pub- 
 lished no long time after the war, says, " the affair of 
 Lexington in April, 1775, exhibited the mother 
 country in an odious point of view ;" yet he thinks, 
 " for twelve months after, a majority wished only to 
 be re-established as subjects of Great Britain in their 
 ancient rights." 
 
 It is far from my purpose to make invidious com- 
 parisons, or to disparage the action of any State or 
 individual, much less to insinuate that any State did 
 not perform her full duty in maintaining the cause of 
 independence after it was made a national measure. 
 But the point in dispute is, who first proclaimed inde- 
 pendence ; not the wisdom or prudence of the step, 
 but its priority in point of time ? And the objection 
 that the records of Congress made no mention of the 
 early action of Mecklenburg, has rendered the expo- 
 sition of the state of opinion in that body in regard 
 to Independence in May or June, 1775, and the slow 
 progress of its conception and development there, 
 down to July, 1776, an indispen&ible duty. 
 
 It now appears, since the Journals of Congress have 
 been published and we are admitted behind the scenes, 
 that when the Mecklenburg messenger arrived in 
 Philadelphia in June, 1775 (the time is fixed by wit- 
 nesses who show that it was about the time that 
 Washington set out to take command of the army), 
 that Congress was not at all in accord with the spirit 
 of the people by whom he had been sent. How could 
 that august assembly give countenance to a declaration
 
 68 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GEAHAM. 
 
 of independence, albeit in a remote region of the 
 country, when their thoughts still clung to reconcili- 
 ation, and every member was about to set his hand to 
 a petition professing loyalty to the King, love for the 
 mother country, and disclaiming, as an unjust impu- 
 tation, the " ambitious design" of independence, which 
 their enemies had ascribed to them 2 
 
 No closed doors upon a deliberative assembly ever 
 served a more valuable purpose, than those of the 
 Continental Congress in this emergency against their 
 most confiding friends. The message was doubtless 
 most unwelcome, and might have met with rebuke, 
 but that war was already begun ; it was necessary to 
 keep the spirit of the people up to the fighting point ; 
 the co-operation of all would probably be iieeded, even 
 in a war such as wa"s then being waged for the rights 
 of British subjects in America ; and it would not do 
 to send back a discouraging reply to men whose con- 
 duct implied that they were ready for the most des- 
 perate conflict. The North Carolina delegation in 
 Congress were authorized to return for answer, that 
 Congress admired the spirit and patriotism of the 
 people, but deemed their action premature. It is ob- 
 vious that Congress, .with its then sentiments and 
 views of policy, while speaking words of encourage- 
 ment in their ears, would gladly pass over the affair 
 in a manner to attract to it as little of public attention 
 as possible. It was, as it were, afire opened upon the 
 enemy, when Congress was sending out a flag of 
 truce with professions of fraternization. And if the 
 Mecklenburg resolutions were not published in the
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 69 
 
 newspapers of the time, or if so printed, measures 
 were taken to destroy the copies, so that they have 
 not come down to us, it is no violent presumption, 
 that such measures were prompted by the agency of 
 Congress in aid of the policy of reconciliation in which 
 that body was then so earnestly engaged. Certainly in 
 the mind of no impartial judge, with the information 
 now open to us, can the credit of the testimony in 
 favor of the authenticity of the Mecklenburg declara- 
 tion suffer any impairment from the failure of Con- 
 gress to leave some memorial of it. 
 
 But it is asked, where is the letter or message re- 
 
 
 
 turned by the delegates in Congress ? If this mes- 
 sage were in writing, and the chairman or clerk of 
 the meeting could rise from the grave, he probably 
 could answer. But the whole proceeding was that of 
 a popular assembly, having no official depository of 
 its minutes. If there was such a paper, and it did not 
 share the fate of the original declaration in being con- 
 sumed by tire, the attention of those to whom it was 
 addressed was too earnestly devoted to maintaining 
 the independence they had proclaimed, and they 
 passed through too many vicissitudes of war, to give 
 heed to the preservation of the evidence of their 
 deeds. They forthwith established a surveillance 
 over the neighboring country, arresting disaffected 
 persons, and sending them to places of confinement 
 beyond the sphere of their influence, and organizing a 
 police by which passports were required as to the sen- 
 timents of the bearer when he chanced to be a 
 stranger in the neighborhood where he was found 
 (Jones's Defence, 303).
 
 70 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 The autumn of 1775 found these men of Mecklen- 
 burg, as militia under their leader, Col. Thomas Polk, 
 in an expedition against the Scovilite Tories, in north- 
 western South Carolina, whom, with the patriot troops 
 of that State, they assisted to disperse and subdue. 
 With but a brief interval from this service, early in 
 February, 1776, they were on the march to encounter 
 the Tory forces levied on the Cape Fear and Yadkin, 
 under McDonald and McLeod, to restore Gov. Mar- 
 tin to authority a call from which they were relieved 
 at Cross Creeks (Fayetteville), on receiving there in- 
 telligence of the decisive victory over' the enemy at 
 Moore's Creek by Caswell and Lillington. 
 
 The writer has a manuscript journal of this expedi- 
 tion, by Dr. John Graham, a volunteer with 19 
 others, all then students of Queen's Museum, under 
 Ephraim Brevard, their tutor, as captain, in Col. Thos. 
 Folk's Regiment. 
 
 Again, ere the summer had opened, they are seen 
 under Rutherford, scaling our western mountains into 
 Tennessee, and chastising and subduing the Cherokee 
 Indians, who, under British influence, had commenced 
 murdering the inhabitants of the frontiers thus 
 taking a prominent part in three diverse military ex- 
 peditions made by the militia of the State, besides 
 furnishing contingents to the Continental troops of 
 North Carolina, under Moore and Nash, for the de- 
 fence of Charleston against Sir Peter Parker's attack 
 in June, 1776, all anterior to the national declara- 
 tion of independence on the 4th of July, 1776. These 
 glimpses of contemporaneous events are necessary to
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 71 
 
 be taken, in order to comprehend and apply the 
 evidence touching the point in dispute, 
 
 It may be appropriate here also to call to mind : 1. 
 That the first Provincial Congress of North Carolina, 
 called to consider grievances alleged against the 
 mother countiy, convened at Newborn on the 25th 
 of August, 1774, the same day being that for the 
 meeting of the colonial assembly, and elected Caswell, 
 Hooper, and Hewes, delegates to the first Continental 
 Congress. 
 
 2. That the second Provincial Congress met at the 
 same place on the 4th of April, 1775, the day of the 
 meeting of the colonial assembly ; and the latter body 
 being rebuked by Governor Martin for insubordina- 
 tion, especially in approving the ^reappointment of 
 delegates to the Continental Congress, made a spirited 
 reply in maintenance of their rights, for which, after a 
 session of five days, they were dissolved by the proc- 
 lamation of the Governor, and no legislative assem- 
 bly under the crown ever again convened in the State. 
 
 3. The Governor himself within a brief period 
 became a fugitive on board the Cruiser in Cape Fear 
 river, and never afterwards exercised any of the ex- 
 ecutive powers, except in the issuance of proclama- 
 tions from his places of retreat. 
 
 4. The law for the establishment of superior courts 
 of justice having expired by limitation, and the Legis- 
 lature and Governor, by reason of disagreement on a 
 clause subjecting the lands of debtors residing in 
 England to process of attachment, failed to re-enact? 
 any statute on this head, so that from 1774 to 1777,
 
 72 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 no Superior Courts were held in the Province, and the 
 office of a Royal Judge was a sinecure. Thus, by ab- 
 dication, as it were, English authority, in every depart- 
 ment of Government, ceased in the Province, from, 
 say, May 1775 : and the Provincial Congress assumed 
 and held every function, Legislative, Executive and 
 Judicial, except in the very limited jurisdiction of the 
 Inferior Courts, held by justices of the peace.* There 
 was therefore everything in the situation to invite re- 
 volution as a refuge from anarchy. 
 
 It will be recollected that Mr. Jefferson, in his letter 
 before quoted, denied knowledge of any resolutions 
 of the description alleged, from Mecklenburg, and 
 appealing to Mr. Adams, continues : " Armed with 
 "this bold example, would you not have addressed 
 "our timid brethren in peals of thunder on their 
 "tardy fears? Would not every advocate of inde- 
 " pendence have rung the glories of Mecklenburg 
 county in ISTorth Carolina ? " etc. And it appears, since 
 the publication of the correspondence of Mr. Adams, 
 that although crediting its authority at first, he sub- 
 sequently expressed his disbelief. In transmitting 
 the paper to Mr. Jefferson on the 22d of June, 1819, 
 he says : " Had it been communicated to me in the time 
 " of it, I know if you do not know that it would have 
 " been printed in every Whig newspaper upon the 
 '* continent. You know that if I had possessed it, 1 
 " would have made the halls of Congress echo and re- 
 
 * Jones's Defence, and McRee's Life of Iredell. Martin, 
 vol. 2.
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 73 
 
 " echo with it, fifteen months before your declaration 
 "of independence. What a poor, ignorant, malicious, 
 "and short-sighted, crapulous mass is Tom Paine's 
 " Common Sense, in comparison Avith this paper. 
 "Had I known it, I would have commented upon it 
 " from the day you entered Congress till the 4th of 
 " July, 1776." 
 
 The whirl of events in a revolution, independently 
 of the access of age, is well calculated to confuse and 
 impair the memory. And without detracting from the 
 reverence due to either of these venerable ex-Presi- 
 dents, it is manifest that the memory of both was 
 sadly at fault as to the views of Congress, and in re- 
 gard to their own individual sentiments, at least in all 
 the year 1775, and how much later is unknown. Their 
 letters both imply that they were eager for independ- 
 ence as early as the date of this paper, and were de- 
 layed by the doubts and fears of others ; whereas, at 
 the very time of the arrival of the messenger from 
 Mecklenburg, the Congress was, no doubt, employed 
 in the preparation of a petition to the King for re- 
 dress of grievances, disclaiming any design of inde- 
 pendence, which was signed by these two, with all 
 the other members, on the 8th of July, 1775. While 
 the whole mind and heart of Congress (so far as we 
 have any means of judging) were intent on reconcil- 
 iation, the agitation of independence from a single 
 county on the continent would not have called forth 
 the appeals in tones of thunder imagined. On the 
 contrary, it would have been regarded, at most, as an 
 inopportune and embarrassing demonstration, which
 
 74 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 it was most -hazard ous and inconsistent to encourage, 
 and yet not expedient to rebuke. The emergency, 
 therefore, required politic treatment, and would have 
 sent out from the closed doors of Congress, or the 
 chambers of the delegates from the State, just such 
 an answer as that borne by Capt. Jack, to wit : that 
 Congress admired the patriotism and courage of the 
 people, but the step was as yet premature. 
 
 Moreover, it is now conceded, nay insisted upon by 
 our critics, that- Mecklenburg did pass resolutions in 
 this month of May, 1775, (the 31st) far transcending 
 in revolutionary purpose those of Mr. Henry in the 
 colonial assembly of Virginia ; yet neither Mr. Adams 
 nor Mr. Jefferson remembered to have heard of them. 
 But nevertheless, such resolutions there were. They 
 were caught up by the Royal Governors of other colo- 
 nies than North Carolina, and transmitted to the Brit- 
 ish ministry. * 
 
 Gov. Martin, on the 30th of June, also sent de- 
 spatches to the Colonial Secretary, with the denuncia- 
 tion that " The resolves of the Committee of Mecklen- 
 burg, which your Lordship will find in the inclosed 
 newspaper, surpass all the horrid and treasonable pub- 
 lications the inflammatory spirits of this Continent 
 have yet produced ; and your Lordship may depend 
 its authors and abettors will not escape my notice, 
 whenever my hands are sufficiently strengthened to 
 attempt the recovery of the lost authority of Govern- 
 ment. A copy of these resolves, I am informed, was 
 
 * Gov. Wright of Ga. Wheeler, 254.
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 75 
 
 sent off to the Congress at Philadelphia as soon as 
 they were passed in the committee."* Not content 
 with this, the Governor, on the 8th of August, on 
 board the Cruiser, issued a Proclamation, reciting that 
 " Whereas, I have seen a most infamous publication 
 in the Cape Fear Mercury, importing to be resolves 
 of a set of people styling themselves a Committee of 
 the County of Mecklenburg, most traitorously declar- 
 ing the entire dissolution of laws, Government, and 
 Constitution of this country, and setting up a system 
 of rule and regulation repugnant to the laws, and sub- 
 versive of His Majesty's Government," etc. The 
 resolves, though thus publicly denounced, and though 
 published at the time in the papers of South Caro- 
 lina, New York, and Massachusetts, and sent to Con- 
 gress, were never heard of or if heard of totally for- 
 gotten by its two eminent members, whose correspon- 
 dence we have before us. If either of them was so 
 intent at that time on independence as their letters 
 in 1819 would indicate, the resolves of the 31st of 
 May, declaring that " all Commissions civil and mil- 
 itary heretofore granted by the Crown to be exercised 
 in these Colonies, are null and void, and that whatev- 
 er person should receive an office from the Crown in 
 future, should be deemed an enemy of his country," 
 etc., would have furnished ample material for that 
 eloquence which it seems was but waiting on popu- 
 lar demonstrations for independence. Of these, at 
 least, they must have had knowledge in June, 1775, 
 
 * Wheeler, 257.
 
 76 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GEAHAM. 
 
 according to all reasonable probability, as well as the 
 instructions of the Provincial Congress of North Car- 
 olina to her Continental delegates, to unite in voting 
 for independence, in advance of the other Colonies, 
 April 12th, 1776 ; but no allusion is made to either of 
 these daring measures to which the correspondence 
 naturally led ; and both of the writers seem to have 
 passed from the stage of human existence, in perfect 
 obliviousness that either Mecklenburg or North Caro- 
 lina had taken any advanced position in favor of 
 throwing off British authority. 
 
 Now, upon every principle of evidence, upon the 
 ground that a \vitness who makes positive affirmation 
 of an event is to be credited in preference to one who 
 does not remember it, that forty-five years added to 
 the lives of men, the one forty and the other thirty- 
 three (the ages of Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson), will 
 more tend to impair their recollections than the same 
 term added to those of youths and men from fifteen 
 to twenty-five (the ages of the Mecklenburg witnesses 
 with two exceptions), as well as upon the documentary 
 proof of the despatches and Proclamation aforesaid, 
 we claim it as established, that resolutions were 
 adopted at Charlotte in Mecklenburg, in May, 1775, 
 declaring " the entire dissolution of the laws, Govern- 
 ment and Constitution of Great Britain," which had 
 theretofore obtained, and that a copy of these pro- 
 ceedings was transmitted to Philadelphia by a special 
 messenger, and delivered to the delegation of North 
 Carolina in the Continental Congress ; and that in 
 return an approving message was received by the
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 77 
 
 same messenger, but with the admonition that the 
 movement was too early. And if in history, as in 
 law, it is sufficient to prove the substance of the issue, 
 our position is established. In professional phrase 
 we have prevailed on the general issue the only issue 
 originally made. 
 
 But a new ground is more recently assumed, that 
 conceding the affirmation to be true, there is error in 
 the day of the month on which the alleged meeting 
 was held, and in the import of the resolutions, for 
 that it was not the 20th but the 31st of May ; and 
 that the resolutions adopted, though very spirited and 
 defiant, did not import permanent separation from 
 Great Britain. The day is not at all material, in so 
 small a difference in the dates ; and we are thankful 
 to the last learned critic in the North American 
 Review, that " the people of Mecklenburg were the 
 first to cut the ' Gordian knot,' of the political situa- 
 tion by their incisive declaration made on the 31st of 
 May, 1775." If this were all that had been done, it 
 would be an event worthy of commemoration to re- 
 mote ages. But we contend that the resolutions 
 adopted were resolutions of independence. The word 
 implies so grand and stupendous an idea to the sub- 
 jects of a monarchy, that there is little liability to 
 mistake it for anything else, on the part of a witness 
 of ordinary intelligence. Governor Martin unques- 
 tionably so understood them " Most traitorously 
 declaring the dissolution of the laws, Government 
 and Constitution, and setting up a system of rule and 
 regulation, repugnant to the laws and subversive of
 
 78 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GEAHAM. 
 
 His Majesty's Government," the words of which he 
 made use, are satisfied by no other meaning than that 
 of independence. Such is the concurrent recollection 
 of every witness at the scene, of every one who was 
 heard to speak of it afterwards, among the then 
 inhabitants of that country. And no one, we appre- 
 hend, even at a remote period, could probably mis- 
 take the four or five resolutions of the 20th, for the 
 series of twenty on the 31st, arranging details in mat- 
 ters civil and military. Such is the evidence of tradi- 
 tion, and of those who desired to have it kept in re- 
 membrance. 
 
 But why were not the resolutions of the 20th print- 
 ed in the gazettes? The Cape Fear Mercury, in 
 which were seen the resolutions denounced with such 
 severity by Governor Martin, and referred to in his 
 despatch, as transmitted with it, the only North Car- 
 olina paper in which we are informed of any such 
 publication, was lost from the British Colonial Office 
 before Mr. Sparks made his researches therein and 
 Mr. Wheeler states that he found a memorandum 
 upon his visit there in 1858, or thereabout, informing 
 that it had been lost from the files since 1837. What 
 series of resolutions it contained is therefore unknown. 
 But if they were the series of the 31st of May, and 
 those of the 20th were not published by printing till 
 1819, is it not manifest that their publication shortly 
 after their date would have thwarted the unanimous 
 policy of Congress, flying as they did in the very 
 teeth of its professions of loyalty and desire for re- 
 conciliation ? And is it any violent presumption
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 79 
 
 that the non-publication, if none was made, was oc- 
 casioned by the advice and influence of that body ? 
 
 Very serious question is also made as to the genu- 
 ineness of the copy of the resolutions, the original 
 having been destroyed as is alleged by the conflagra- 
 tion of a building in the year 1800 and Judge Mar- 
 tin in his history of North Carolina having published a 
 series not identical with the copy published by the legis- 
 lature (See Appendix for copy.) The difference be- 
 tween the two is not a matter of substance both de- 
 clare independence. And I esteem the production of a 
 separate and slightly varied copy by Martin as corrobo- 
 ration rather than impeachment of the verity of the 
 transaction ; especially when coupled with the state- 
 ment of Dr. Hawks, that he had conversed with 
 Judge Martin on this subject when both were resid- 
 ing in New Orleans, and learned from him that he 
 had obtained his copy in manuscript from the West- 
 ern part of North Carolina, before the year 1800. 
 But the integrity of the copy mainly depends upon 
 the testimony of John McKnitt Alexander, and that 
 of the witnesses sustaining him. His account was, 
 that as Secretary, he had preserved the record of it, 
 from the time of adoption till it was destroyed with 
 his dwelling by fire in 1800 ; that he had furnished 
 a copy to Dr. Hugh Williamson, who had undertaken 
 to write a history of the State, in order that the dec- 
 laration might be noticed in that work that he fur- 
 nished another copy to Gen. Davie. Williamson did 
 publish a History of North Carolina in 1812, and in 
 his preface asserts that he "had received muchinfor-
 
 80 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 ination from some of the most ancient and respectable 
 citizens of the State, who continue to serve the country, 
 and from others who had lately been numbered with 
 the great majority." He says further that he con- 
 templated to bring the history of the State down to 
 1790, but declined from the arduousness of the task 
 and confined his work to Colonial history prior to 
 1771.* 
 
 ~Now Alexander is corroborated in the foregoing 
 statement, as we have seen : 1st, by the evidence of 
 Gov. Stokes, who testified that Dr. Williamson had 
 exhibited to him a copy of the Mecklenburg Declara- 
 tion of Independence, in the handwriting of John Mc- 
 Knitt Alexander, in 1793. 2d, by the testimony of 
 Judge Cameron to Dr. Foote, that Alexander had in 
 formed him of such a declaration in 1800, and that 
 copies had been delivered to Dr. Williamson and Gen. 
 Davie. 3d, by the testimony of D. G. Stinson, Esq., 
 as already rehearsed. 4th, by the testimony of Dr. 
 Samuel Henderson as to the finding of the copy in 
 Alexander's handwriting in the mansion of Gen. 
 Davie after the General's death. 5th, by his char- 
 acter, public and private. He seems to have made 
 
 * Mr. Jefferson in his letter asserts, that Dr. Williamson " in 
 the history he has written of North Carolina did not recollect 
 this gigantic step of its county of Mecklenburg." Williamson 
 himself informs us in his preface that he had collected much 
 historical matter with a view to continue his history to 1790 ; 
 but as his narrative stops with 1771, we do not know what he 
 would have written of events of 1775. We have shown, it is 
 submitted, convincingly, that he had a copy of the Mecklenburg 
 Declaration in his possession in 1793.
 
 ADDKESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 81 
 
 continual claim to this transaction for the people of 
 Mecklenburg : was solicitous to see it incorporated 
 into history, at least as early as 1793 and 1800 ex- 
 pected to see it in Williamson's promised work, or in 
 some other, to which Davie from his eminence in en- 
 acting history might be called on to contribute ; and 
 of course, as we infer, to make satisfactory proof of it, 
 if called in question in his day, which, according to 
 Wheeler, lasted nearly a quarter of a century after 
 1793. There was an ingenuousness and confidence in 
 the assertion of this claim on his part, while it could 
 have been readily settled by living witnesses, which 
 indicate no dread of controversy as to its rightful ness, 
 if any had then arisen, and -which well comports with 
 the character of an actor in the transaction itself. 
 
 But it is contended that the resolutions of the 31st 
 of May are so incompatible with those alleged to have 
 been passed on the 20th, that they negative the adop- 
 tion of the last-mentioned altogether ; and this, in my 
 conception, is the only plausible argument adduced 
 against our position. The resolutions of the 31st fol- 
 low very well as an appropriate sequence to those of 
 the 20th, in everything except in a single particular. 
 It was natural, that after having annulled and thrown 
 off the British authority and dominion in a public 
 meeting in the presence of, and with shouts of ap- 
 probation from the multitude, inflamed by the intel- 
 ligence just received of the battle of Lexington, that 
 the Committee should hold a subsequent meeting to 
 establish a system of government adequate to the ex- 
 igency of the crisis. This was the more necessary
 
 82. ADDEESS OF WM. A. GHAHAM. 
 
 since by their resolutions of the 20th, " all, each and 
 every military officer was reinstated in his former 
 command and authority, he acting conformably to 
 these regulations, and every member of the Com- 
 mittee was made a civil officer, namely, a justice of 
 the peace in the character of a committee man ; " 
 while upon the popular principle which governed 
 their proceedings, it should have been, and no doubt 
 was, more satisfactory, to choose all these officers by 
 popular election. Accordingly we find that on the 
 31st, provision was made for a new organization of 
 the military into companies, " and for the choice of a 
 Colonel and other officers by the inhabitants of the 
 county, and for the choosing in like manner of two 
 discreet freeholders from each company with the juris- 
 diction of justices of the peace, with sundry other wise 
 regulations, for the administration of justice, the pre- 
 servation of the peace, the suppression of disloyalty to 
 the new governing power by adherence to Britain, 
 and in preparation for war. 
 
 But the 18th resolution, in the series of twenty, is 
 as follows : " That these resolves be in full force and 
 virtue until instructions from the Provincial Con- 
 gress regulating the jurisprudence of the Province 
 shall provide otherwise, or until the Legislative body 
 of Great Britain resign its unjust and arbitrary pre- 
 tensions with respect to America" These last words 
 constitute the only seeming inconsistency between 
 the two sets of resolutions. They present a thread of 
 apparent connection with British authority in a re- 
 mote contingency, to which our opponents point, as
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 83 
 
 proof that there was no dissolution on the 20th, and 
 as if the previous resolutions of the same series had 
 not rendered reconcilement to that authority impos- 
 sible. 
 
 As has been already remarked, we have no tradi- 
 tions of the resolutions of the 31st, and know noth- 
 ing of them except as they appear in contemporary 
 newspapers, discovered at a comparatively recent 
 date ; and though Tory papers, transmitted by Royal 
 Governors, we assume the copies to be correct. We 
 are left, therefore, very much to conjecture in the 
 solution of the question how these words became in- 
 corporated in the resolutions of a Committee which 
 had already pronounced for independence. The 
 most probable one which occurs to us, is, that when 
 the Committee came to more deliberate consideration 
 than was practicable in the excitement of the 20th, 
 under the influence of the news that blood had al- 
 ready begun to flow, and to frame regulations under 
 which every man was required to array himself 
 against the dominion of England at the hazard of be- 
 ing seized as a prisoner, it was deemed humane as 
 well as politic towards the doubtful or disaffected, to 
 leave them the hope that the regulations to which 
 they were required to conform might be terminated 
 by the abandonment of its oppressive policy by the 
 British Parliament. These regulations are essential- 
 ly municipal laws, in which the lawgiver might well 
 prescribe conditions to those over whom he exercised 
 jurisdiction, which he would not observe towards an 
 alien Government.
 
 84 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 It is certain this limitation could not have been 
 designed as a loop-hole for future retreat from the po- 
 sition of independence which had been assumed. On 
 the contrary, the requirement that " The Legislative 
 body of Great Britain resign its unjust and arbitrary 
 pretensions with respect to America," renders this 
 resolution more provokingly offensive to British 
 authority than if that clause had been omitted alto- 
 gether. To that authority it was a defiance, with 
 epithets of opprobrium, while to the wavering, irres- 
 olute, or loyalist citizen, it may have afforded a dis- 
 tant expectation of reconcilement. However this 
 may be, the verbal and circumstantial evidence of in- 
 dependence, is too powerful to be overcome by the 
 unexplained passage in one of the resolutions of the 
 31st of May. 
 
 There are some of us who can look back through 
 many, years of recollection, and, if blessed with ordi- 
 nary faculties, can test the capacity and extent of hu- 
 man memory in retaining a knowledge of facts and 
 . events. Fifty years carries us back to 1825, the year 
 of the election of John Quincy Adams to the Presi- 
 dency, by the House of Representatives, over Jackson 
 and Crawford, and of the visit of Gen. Lafayette to 
 this country and his reception in lialeigh. While 
 forty-five years transports us to the second year of Jack- 
 son's administration, the great debate between Hayne 
 and Webster, the incipiency of nullification, and a 
 year or two later to the agitation of that question in 
 the State Legislature and in popular assemblies. 
 Who, between the ages of 60 and 75 does not remem-
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 85 
 
 ber at least this latter period, the public meetings and 
 discussions, and the parts taken by the several public 
 men then upon the stage ? Yet none of these equalled 
 in magnitude, or were so adapted deeply to impress 
 the memory, as the determination of the people of a 
 colony to dissolve its connection with the parent 
 kingdom, and incur the hazards of treason and of 
 war. 
 
 There are two most striking points of difference be- 
 tween the resolutions of the 20th and those of the 
 31st. The first breathe the spirit of a popular assem- 
 bly, by which we are informed the committee was 
 surrounded, just possessed of the news of the battle 
 of Lexington, which is denounced in one of the reso- 
 lutions as the " inhuman shedding of American blood 
 at Lexington," are impassioned in tone, and declara- 
 tive merely of position and principles. The latter are 
 business-like, considerate and minute, providing for 
 the necessities of a civilized community which had 
 cast off its former organism. They make no reference 
 to the battle of Lexington, the startling event of the 
 times, which no public assembly would have failed to 
 notice in the existing state of public feeling, unless 
 they had given expression to their indignation al- 
 ready. For aught that is know r n, or apparent in them, 
 they may be the offspring of a session of the Com- 
 mittee held in Dr. Brevard's private office, and there 
 being no printing press at hand, were promulged 
 among the people by sending out copies, some of 
 which were procured by spies and forwarded to the 
 royalist paper of Wells in Charleston, and to Governor
 
 86 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 Wright in Georgia, by whom they were so speedily 
 posted off to London. We can therefore say with 
 confidence, that of the resolutions of the 31st we have 
 no information except as they are printed with the 
 signature of a clerk in a contemporary paper; while 
 as to those of the 20th we have a detailed account 
 from witnesses of character, of capacity to understand 
 the transaction, as our intercourse with them and our 
 own experience abundantly prove, with the best op- 
 portunities for observation ; and confirmed in their 
 recollection by a life-long conversancy with the actors 
 in the scene, among whom it was doubtless a topic of 
 not infrequent conversation, with the other incidents 
 of the revolution, in their camps and marches, court- 
 yards, public assemblages, and at their hospitable fire- 
 sides. 
 
 The learned have a theory, that upon presenting to 
 a naturalist a bone of one of the extremities of an 
 animal, he can thence infer the structure, form, and 
 habits of the animal, and whether he subsists on flesh 
 or grass. This, in the absence of more convincing in- 
 formation, may answer very well. But to the practi- 
 cal common mind, the description of a witness who 
 had seen the beast, clothed in his skin, pasturing in 
 the fields or roaming the forest, would be more satis- 
 factory than the opinion on these points of Cuvier 
 himself. The political or literary philosophers who 
 undertake to tell us what Mecklenburg should have 
 done, or abstained from doing, on the 20th of May, by 
 inference frointhe fragment of a resolution passed on 
 the 31st, must excuse us for preferring the account
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 87 
 
 of veritable witnesses, who testify what she did do. 1 
 regret to understand that the manuscript of that copy 
 of the resolutions of the 20th of May, known as the 
 Davie paper, cannot, be found. I remember to have 
 seen it in the Executive office at Raleigh, in 1845, 
 considerably soiled, probably from having passed 
 through the hands of the printers of 1831. I do not 
 recollect to have read it, having often seen the copies 
 in print, and am sure that my attention was not at- 
 tracted to any certificate to the effect that the copy 
 was made from memory by John Mclvnitt Alexander, 
 as is alleged in the recent article on this topic in the 
 North American Review a circumstance implying an 
 imputation at least of negligence on the part of the 
 Committee, by whom the publication of 1830-'31 was 
 made, not at all consistent with the characters of the 
 gentlemen composing it. If it were so, however, it 
 probably accounts for the discrepancy between the 
 Davie and Martin copies, in both of which the battle 
 of Lexington is referred to, and in both of which in- 
 dependence is declared. ISTo one in an attempt to re- 
 produce the series of twenty resolutions of the 31st, 
 could ever have brought forth those four or five de- 
 posited with either Davie or Martin ; while the two 
 latter are very nearly identical with each other. And 
 in the absence of the copy furnished to Williamson, it 
 may be that that of Martin, which we have seen was 
 obtained before the year 1800, is the more accurate. 
 But either is sufficient to establish the great fact of the 
 declaration of independence on the 20th of May, 1775, 
 under the circumstances detailed in the oral evidence.
 
 00 ADDKESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 The coincidence of certain language in these reso- 
 lutions, with that employed in the national declara- 
 tion of independence on the 4th of July, 1776, from 
 which it is insisted that they are of subsequent ori- 
 gin, is, when properly considered, an argument of little 
 weight. And here let me remark that the fame of 
 Mr. Jefferson, as one of the very first of American 
 writers, will not suffer diminution even by the estab- 
 lishment of the fact, that in the national document lie 
 used language and expressions which had been before 
 employed to express like sentiments in this and other 
 countries even with the knowledge that they had 
 been so employed. In the phrase of Governor Stokes, 
 in the pamphlet already mentioned, it was but the 
 expression of the common feeling, and was the com- 
 mon language of the country at that eventful period. 
 The learned writer of the article in the North Ameri- 
 can Review brings forward the fact, that Richard 
 Henry Lee, in his resolutions of the 7th of June, 
 1776, had employed the words, "That these united 
 colonies are, and of right ought to he, free and in- 
 dependent States / that they are absolved from all 
 allegiance to the British Crown and that all politi- 
 cal connection between them and the State of Great 
 Britain is, and of right ought to he, dissolved" Yet 
 nothing improper can be imputed upon finding that 
 these expressions are adopted into the national de- 
 claration ; and as little, we presume, in discovering 
 in the concluding sentence the pledge of "lives, for- 
 tunes," etc., all of which, in substance, we maintain 
 had been previously used in the Mecklenburg resolu-
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 89 
 
 tions. Whether this prior use had ever come to the 
 knowledge of the writer of the national declaration 
 or not, is wholly immaterial. No nation or people 
 ever went to war without in fact staking up their 
 lives and fortunes and honor, and it requires no ex- 
 traordinary rhetorical skill to give expression to the 
 idea. Without going out of our way in the search 
 for examples, we accidentally find that Gibbon, vol. 
 1, p. 416, speaks of Constantino as a popular leader, 
 to whose service, from a principle of conscience, the 
 early Christians had devoted their " lives and for- 
 tunes." In Martin's History of North Carolina it is 
 mentioned, that after the departure of the Regulat- 
 ors, who had broken up the session of the Superior 
 Court at Hillsborough and compelled the judges to 
 flee, an association paper was drawn up by the sup- 
 porters of the Crown, in which the subscribers sol- 
 emnly engaged to support the government against 
 the insurgents at the risk of their " lives and for- 
 tunes," etc.* This is an American precedent of the 
 use of these terms as early as September, 1770. The 
 essay of the Rev. Dr. Smythe, of Charleston, to which 
 reference has been already made, in the use of like 
 words and phrases to those contained in either de- 
 claration, in the Scottish document, which he men- 
 tions, as early as 1670, may likewise be consulted for 
 many expressions similar to those in these papers, 
 notwithstanding the summary and not very respect- 
 ful manner in which it is passed over by the North 
 American Review. 
 
 * Vol. 2, 276.
 
 90 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 The reviewer apparently considers himself fortu- 
 nate in finding an expression of Judge Iredell, of 
 North Carolina, to the effect, " that until very near 
 the time when the arbitrary obstinacy of the King 
 left no other alternative than indefinite submission or 
 unreserved resistance, he never heard a man speak on 
 the subject of independence who did not speak of 
 it with abhorrence and indignation." And the emi- 
 nent character of Judge Iredell is very justly com- 
 mented on. 
 
 The time for decision on this alternative is left very 
 indefinite, and might be fixed at different periods by 
 different minds. But where is this asseveration found ? 
 It is in a document addressed to His Majesty George 
 the Third, King of Great Britain, etc., and signed, 
 "A British American, March, 1777" never for- 
 warded to the King nor printed till 1857, but circu- 
 lated in manuscript among the friends of Mr. Iredell, 
 as what has since come to be known as a campaign 
 document, to reconcile the people to independence 
 and rouse them to its defence. It is, at most, a rhe- 
 torical effusion in the argument of an anonymous ad- 
 vocate, never expected to be seen by his correspondent, 
 and not heavily taxing his memory for facts, but in- 
 tent on exposing the tyranny and folly of the King. 
 It so turns out that in the same first volume of Iredell's 
 Life and Correspondence, p. 193-4-6, quoted by the 
 reviewer, w r e find independence shadowed forth in a 
 letter from William Hooper to Iredel), bearing date 
 April 26th, 1774, in which the writer says: "With 
 you I anticipate the important share which the colo-
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 91 
 
 nies must soon have in regulating the political bal- 
 ance. They are striding fast to independence, and 
 ere long will build an empire upon the ruins of 
 Great Britain" The letter is copied at length in 
 the Defence of J. SeavvellJones, p. 312, who remarks, 
 " I look upon this letter as not inferior to any event 
 in the history of the country, and in the boldness and 
 originality of it, a document without a rival at the 
 period of its date. It takes precedence of the Meck- 
 lenburg declaration, as that does of the national de- 
 claration of independence." Mr. McRee, the biog- 
 rapher of Iredell, copies these remarks of Jones ap- 
 provingly, and in his work refers often to the Meck- 
 lenburg declaration as a historical event, especially in 
 the mention of Waightstill Averv as a delegate at its 
 
 O tt 
 
 adoption. It is quite probable that Mr. Iredell, had 
 the matter been called to his recollection, would have 
 admitted that he had heard of the resolution of the 
 Provincial Congress urging independence on the 12th 
 of April, 1776, and possibly also of the proceeding in 
 Mecklenburg in 1775, though three hundred and fifty 
 miles distant, with no business intercourse between 
 Edenton and Charlotte, and no printing press at either 
 point. But whatever may be our conjectures on this 
 head, it is demonstrated that Mr. Iredell had known 
 of a suggestion of independence in no equivocal, but 
 in an approving sense, and apparently in reply to a 
 like meditation on his own part. 
 
 It remains to take some notice of the arguments of 
 the reviewer drawn from the proceedings of the Pro- 
 vincial Congress at Ilillsborough on the 20th of
 
 92 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 August, 1775, in which he seems to suppose that he 
 has found a dilemma, from which there can be no 
 escape. The journal of this Congress, which was 
 printed and published at that time, has ever bee re- 
 garded as a noble monument of the patriotism and wis- 
 dom of the men who were its members. It is very copi- 
 ously extracted from by Martin and Jones, neither of 
 whom discovered in it anything irreconcilable with the 
 Mecklenburg declaration of independence, which they 
 both affirm. But the reviewer raises upon it a ques- 
 tion of conscience, and goes so far as to declare it in- 
 famous, if Mecklenburg had made the declaration in 
 question, that her delegates should have concurred in 
 the action of this Congress. To this we have to reply, 
 first, that the casuistry of a professor's chair would be 
 as well applicable to the sailing of a ship in a storm, 
 as to measures of war and revolution. It has never 
 been presumed to aid in planning expeditions, win- 
 ning battles, or overturning governments ; and second, 
 that although Mecklenburg had declared her inde- 
 pendence of Great Britain, there were two other 
 authorities from which she had no purpose to break, 
 and on which she acknowledged her dependence in 
 her very declaration, namely, the Continental Con- 
 gress of the United States, and the Provincial Con- 
 gress of North Carolina. It was, therefore, in entire 
 consonance with her attitude towards Great Britain, 
 that she should appoint her delegates as theretofore, 
 to this Congress, consisting, as we are told, of Thomas 
 Polk, John McKnitt Alexander, John Phifer and 
 "Waightstill Avery, and conform her conduct to the
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 93 
 
 decrees of that Assembly, which was then the sole 
 depository of the sovereign powers of government in 
 the Province, legislative, executive and judicial. She 
 was not quite so demented or obstinate as to have her 
 delegates withdraw or protest whenever a measure 
 should be proposed or carried, which compromised 
 the independence she had set up for herself ; after 
 the example of certain fanatical Jews commented on 
 by Yattel, who, when attacked by their enemies on 
 Sunday, suffered themselves to be cut to pieces, rather 
 than be considered as violating the fourth command- 
 ment in making defence. This is the position the 
 argument of the reviewer would have had them to 
 assume, rather than permit the representation of the 
 whole Province, consisting of nearly all its most illus- 
 trious men, to control the destinies of the whole peo- 
 ple in the perils which environed them. The same 
 fanaticism would have required them, on the return 
 of Capt. Jack from Philadelphia, to denounce the 
 Continental Congress as dastards, and resolve to 
 prosecute the war and maintain independence with- 
 out allies outside of the limits of their own county, 
 or at least of the Province. But they were advised 
 it was too early for the united colonies to venture so 
 far, and they abided by the counsel then given by the 
 authority to which they had appealed. And when 
 their delegates went to Hillsborough, less than two 
 months after Jack's return, they there found Gas- 
 well, Hooper and Hewes, who sent the message from 
 Philadelphia to Mecklenburg, all members of the 
 Provincial Congress from their respective counties.
 
 94 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 In the interim, on the 8th of July they had each set 
 his name, with all the. other members of the Conti- 
 nental Congress to the petition to the King for a 
 redress of grievances and disclaiming designs of inde- 
 pendence. This we now see, though it was probably 
 not revealed to the Provincial Congress, and we can 
 readily understand, that in a body of which they were 
 members, to which they brought intelligence, doubt- 
 less, as to the state of sentiment in all the colonies, 
 and in which they from their station would exert a 
 decisive influence, there was no likelihood of a pro- 
 clamation of independence. No one has ever pre- 
 tended that the whole colony was then ready for inde- 
 pendence. And, as Mecklenburg had deterred to the 
 views of the Continental Congress, so she but yielded 
 a like deference through her delegates to this Provin- 
 cial Congress in not making a demonstration of her 
 local sentiment, which she was doubtless advised 
 would not be seconded, and could but lead to dissen- 
 sion. No yeas and nays were taken on any question. 
 No one desired to make up "a journal to be afterwards 
 quoted to exhibit his personal consistency. All were 
 intent only on the deliverance of their country some 
 doubtless with views of policy far more advanced than 
 others and an undivided vote in all important sub- 
 jects was of great moment.* 
 
 But what did this Congress do that was so deroga- 
 tory to the honor of the delegates from Mecklen- 
 burg, that they should have withheld from it their 
 
 * See Journal of Congress, August, 1775.
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 95 
 
 consent ? We are told that, 1st, a test was established 
 to which they submitted. A test of what ? of loy- 
 alty to the King, or of fidelity to the Continen- 
 tal and Provincial Congresses? This paper is copied 
 but in part, in the article in the North American 
 Review^ and that which we may term the British 
 part. Its full import is not to be comprehended 
 from the Review. We therefore give it in full, as 
 follows : 
 
 " We the subscribers, professing our allegiance to 
 the King, and acknowledging the Constitutional, Ex- 
 ecutive power of Government, do solemnly profess, 
 testify and declare, that we do absolutely believe that 
 neither the Parliament of Great Britain, nor any 
 member or constituent branch thereof, have a right 
 to impose Taxes upon the colonies to regulate the in- 
 ternal policy thereof, and all attempts, by fraud or 
 force, to establish and exercise such claims and pow- 
 ers, are violations of the peace and security of the 
 people, and ought to be resisted to the utmost." [So 
 far goes the copy in the Review.'} " And that the 
 people of this Province, singly and collectively, are 
 bound by the acts and resolutions of the Continental 
 and Provincial Congress, because in both they are 
 freely represented by persons chosen by themselves ; 
 and we solemnly and sincerely promise and engage, 
 under the sanction of virtue and honor, and the sacred 
 love of liberty and our country, to maintain and sup- 
 port all and every the acts, resolutions and regulations 
 of the said Continental and Provincial Congresses, to 
 the utmost of our power and abilities. In testimony
 
 96 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 whereof we have hereto set our hands, this 23d of 
 August, 1775." 
 
 Saving the first two lines, thrown in for the sake of 
 the scrupulous or disaffected, to afford a semblance of 
 remaining loyalty to the King as an Executive power, 
 this test contains an emphatic denial of all authority 
 of Parliament over the colonies a declaration that it 
 should be resisted to the utmost, and a solemn engage- 
 ment to maintain and support all and every the acts, re- 
 gulations and resolutions of the Continental and Pro- 
 vincial Congresses. It is in these latter particulars 
 quite equal to the oath now required of a foreigner upon 
 his naturalization as a citizen of the United States, to 
 renounce his native allegiance and be faithful to his new 
 government. There was among the people of the 
 Province, a large number who had been engaged in 
 the Regulation, been overcome at Alamance some 
 punished capitally, and all the survivors compelled to 
 take anew the oath of allegiance to the King : another 
 large settlement of Scotch Highlanders, recently 
 arrived, and still arriving from their native country, 
 who remembered a like defeat at Culloden in the year 
 '45. Both of these were inclined to the support of 
 the Crown, as well from scruples of conscience as from 
 dread of punishment. The first object of this Con- 
 gress, no doubt, was to exact a bond of obedience to 
 itself and the Continental Congress, " to the utmost 
 of his power and abilities," from every citizen ; but 
 so to attemper the requirement that these classes 
 might be brought into the engagement, and that even 
 the disaffected should have no excuse for refusal.
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 97 
 
 Thus understood it excites a smile to see this test 
 treated by our reviewer as a test of loyalty to the 
 King, the more especially when we read in the Jour- 
 nals of many individuals being arrested and brought 
 before the Congress under this test, charged with dis- 
 affection to its authority, but of no one charged with 
 disloyalty to the King, nor of any military or police 
 force, to hunt out such, and make arrests.* It is need- 
 less to add, that a force of this latter class would have 
 been itself promptly arrested, if not summarily exe- 
 cuted. This test was deemed so essential that it was 
 administered to all officials under the Congress, with- 
 out distinction of person, in this and the succeeding 
 body of April 4th, 1776. Even after the passage of 
 the famous resolutions, on the 12th of April, 1776, 
 instructing the delegates of the Province in the Con- 
 tinental Congress to vote for independence, we read 
 in the Journal of April 15th. 1776, that " William 
 Hooper and John Penn, Esqs., delegates of the Con- 
 tinental Congress, and members of this House, 
 appeared, subscribed the test and took their seats." 
 And it may be a matter of surprise to the scrupulous 
 of a later day, that Messrs. Hooper and Penn should 
 thus unnecessarily involve their consciences by taking 
 this test to the King, if it was such, after they 
 had been instructed to vote for independence, and 
 then, within three months, giving their votes and sub- 
 scription to the national declaration. But' thus it 
 appears of record. 
 
 * See in Journal cases of Coulson, Farq'd, Campbell and others.
 
 98 ADDRESS OP WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 2. But the Congress resolved unanimously (Meck- 
 lenburg -included) that "the Proclamation of Governor 
 Martin, of the 8th of August inst., is a false, scanda- 
 lous, scurrilous, malicious and seditious libel, tending 
 to disunite the good people of this Province, and stir 
 up tumults and insurrections, dangerous to the peace 
 of his Majesty's government, and the safety of the in- 
 habitants, and highly injurious to the character of 
 several gentlemen of acknowledged virtue and loyalty 
 and further, that the paper be burned by the com- 
 mon hangman." 
 
 This Proclamation, which is copied in "Jones's De- 
 fence " (p. 183), and covers near ten pages of that vol- 
 ume, is too long for minute comment here. It is 
 sufficient to say, that in applying to it the term 
 " false," it was not to be implied that the facts recited 
 in it were untrue. In the criminal law of that time 
 it was a maxim, " The greater the truth the greater 
 the libel," if the publication tended to expose the 
 subject of it " to public hatred, contempt or ridicule," 
 and the term " false " was but a formula for charac- 
 terizing a libel. The Congress, therefore, did not in- 
 tend by the resolution to deny that " a committee for 
 the county of Mecklenburg had passed resolves 
 declaring the entire dissolution of the laws, govern- 
 ment and constitution of this country," etc., (as Gov- 
 ernor Martin alleged,) any more than to deny that 
 John Ashe and his associates had burned Fort John- 
 ston, or that Caswell, Hooper and Hewes had writ- 
 ten the letter imputed to them, for the purpose of 
 carrying into effect the resolutions of the Continental
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 99 
 
 Congress, or that Samuel Johnston had convoked this 
 Congress (all which with many other acts and per- 
 sons were denounced in the Proclamation) : but the 
 libel consisted in holding up the several acts and per- 
 sons mentioned to public hatred and contempt, by the 
 publication. As to the loyalty the resolution may 
 imply, we have seen how far that extended in the 
 test, into which the members of the Congress had en- 
 tered, and which they prescribed to all the inhabi- 
 tants of the Province. Measured by this it was not a 
 span in length. 
 
 3. We have not space or time to investigate the ad- 
 dress to the people of Britain, which does not appear 
 ever to have been transmitted or the rejection of 
 the proposition for a plan of confederation of the 
 American colonies, mentioned in the Review. Let it 
 suffice to say, that the new Whig Government, 
 through the Provincial Congresses, and in their vaca- 
 tion by the Provincial Council, with the standard of 
 political duty established by the test before recited, 
 ruled the country with a bold yet politic and in- 
 dulgent hand. Great pains were taken, through com- 
 mittees and otherwise, to explain the situation to the 
 people ; but those who were friends to the King, 
 rather than to this Provincial authority, were sought 
 out and arrested, and then imprisoned or exiled, until 
 they renounced such adhesion or gave pledges for 
 right behavior. Not only this, the Congress organized 
 a war establishment upon a substantial footing made 
 expeditions, fought battles, and won victories over the 
 King's friends, in South Carolina and Virginia, in con-
 
 100 ADDEESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 junction with the patriot troops of those States, as 
 well as at Moore's Creek, within our own borders ; 
 and by the time the Congress met again the ensuing 
 Spring, was prompt to reward these exploits with the 
 honors of a triumph, in votes of thanks to her heroic 
 commanders.* 
 
 If the delegates from Mecklenburg did not find an 
 echo to her declaration of principles, and made com- 
 pliances which may appear to have occasioned them 
 chagrin, in practical results they could have desired 
 nothing better than was planned and executed by this 
 Congress. 
 
 They might well have said to their people at home, 
 " Oui' strength is to sit still." The Congress was ef- 
 fecting all that they desired, and at this Spring ses- 
 sion they had the great satisfaction to see the Congress 
 nobly resolve on independence, as they had done on the 
 20th of May, 1775, before the representatives of any 
 
 *1. The thanks of Congress were voted to Brigadier Genl. 
 Howe for his manly, generous and warlike conduct in these un- 
 happy times : more especially for the reputation which our Pro- 
 vincial troops acquired under him at the conflagration of Nor- 
 folk (Deer., 1775). Journal, p. 33. 
 
 2. Likewise to Col. Richard Caswell, and the brave officers and 
 soldiers under his command, for the very essential service by 
 them rendered this country, at the battle of Moore's Creek (Feb. 
 27th, 1776). Journal, p. 12. 
 
 3. The expedition of Cols. Polk, of Mecklenburg, Rutherford, 
 of Rowan, Neel, of Tryon, and two companies of N. C. Conti- 
 nental troops under Col. Alexander Martin, in conjunction with 
 the troops of South Carolina, against the Scovilites in that State, 
 called the Snow Campaign, was also made in December. 1775.- 
 Genl. Graham's Memoranda.
 
 ADDRESS OP WM. A. GRAHAM. 101 
 
 other colony had taken this decisive step. Congress 
 met at Halifax on the 4th of April, 1776. " On the 
 8th it was resolved, that Mr. Harnett, Mr. Allen 
 Jones, Mr. Burke, Mr. Nash, Mr. Kinchen, Mr. Per- 
 son and Mr. Thomas Jones, be a select committee to 
 take into consideration the usurpations and vio- 
 lences attempted and committed by the King and 
 Parliament of Great Britain against America, and 
 the further measures to be taken for frustrating the 
 
 O 
 
 same, and for the better defence of this Province." 
 On the 12th of April, 1776, the select committee re- 
 ported as follows, to wit : " It appears to your com- 
 mittee that pursuant to the plan concerted by the 
 British Ministry for the subjugation of America, the 
 King and Parliament of Great Brrtain have usurped 
 a power over the persons and properties of the peo- 
 ple unlimited and uncontrolled ; and disregarding 
 their humble petitions for peace, liberty and safety, 
 have made divers legislative acts denouncing war, 
 famine and every species of calamity against the con- 
 tinent in general. The British fleets and armies have 
 been and still are daily employed in destroying the 
 people, and committing the most horrid devastations on 
 the country. The Governors in different colonies have 
 declared protection to slaves who should imbrue their 
 hands in the blood of their masters. That the ships 
 belonging to America are declared prizes of war, and 
 many of them have been violently seized and confis- 
 pated. In consequence of all which, multitudes of 
 the people have been destroyed, or from easy circum- 
 stances reduced to the most lamentable distress. And
 
 102 ADDEESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 
 
 whereas, the moderation hitherto manifested by the 
 united colonies, and their sincere desire to be recon- 
 ciled to the mother country on constitutional princi- 
 ples, have procured no mitigation of the aforesaid 
 wrongs and usurpations, and no hopes remain of ob- 
 taining redress by these means alone, which have been 
 hitherto tried, your committee are of opinion the 
 House should enter into the following resolve, to wit : 
 
 Resolved, "that the delegates from this colony in 
 the Continental Congress be empowered to concur 
 with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring 
 Independency, and forming foreign alliances, reserv- 
 ing to the colony the sole and exclusive right of form- 
 ing a constitution and laws for this colony, and of 
 appointing delegates from time to time, (under the 
 direction of a general representation thereof) to meet 
 the delegates of the other colonies, for such purposes 
 as shall be hereafter pointed out." 
 
 " The Congress taking the same into consideration 
 unanimously concurred therewith." 
 
 Our progress to independence then, was by these 
 steps : 
 
 1st. Mecklenburg dissolved her connection on the 
 20th May, 1775, from the mother country, but Avas still 
 subject to the government of the Provincial Congress 
 which was in alliance with the Continental Congress. 
 
 2d. The test adopted by the Provincial Congress 
 on the 23d of August, 1775, in effect cut the cord of 
 connection between the Province of North Carolina 
 and Great Britain, and required an obligation of al- 
 legiance to the Provincial and Continental Con-
 
 ADDRESS OF WM. A. GRAHAM. 103 
 
 presses, without limit of time a transfer of fealty, 
 but as yet, without a change of flag. 
 
 3d. This severance was acknowledged, and pro- 
 posed for the adoption of the Continent, by the re- 
 port and resolution of the 12th April, 1776. 
 
 4th. Other colonies subsequently adopted like reso- 
 lutions, and the great National Declaration followed 
 on the 4th July, 1776, converting Provinces into 
 States, and uniting all in bonds of harmony, and mu- 
 tual defence and protection. 
 
 The learned, elaborate, and minute criticism in the 
 I\"i-th American Review, controverting the truth of 
 the Mecklenburg Declaration of the 20th May, though 
 conceding and allowing due credit for the resolutions 
 of the 31st, will, I trust, plead due apology for the 
 prolixity of this vindication. Perhaps it may be well, 
 even irrespective of this commentary, on the approach 
 of the hundredth birthday of the event, when all of 
 the old thirteen States seem to be brushing off the dust 
 from their armor, and brightening their escutcheon 
 for display on the great Centennial of the Union, that 
 we should review history and see the foundations on 
 which our faith in it may rest. This I have sought 
 to do by the lights within our approach, candidly 
 and without a particle of vanity or envy towards any 
 of our sister States. All stood bravely side by side 
 in the achievement of the end proclaimed ; and with- 
 out the material resources, the gallant armies, the 
 sages and heroes of all, and even with these, without 
 the repeated favors of a benign Providence, any De- 
 claration of Independence would have been but an 
 empty sound.
 
 DOCUMENTS CITED IN PRECEDING ADDRESS. 
 
 A. The Dame Copy of the Declaration. (See p. 12.) 
 
 1st. Resolved, That whosoever directly or indi- 
 rectly abetted, or in any way, form, or manner, coun- 
 tenanced 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. 
 
 2d. Resolved, That we, the citizens of Mecklen- 
 burg county, do hereby dissolve the political bands 
 which have connected us to 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. 
 
 3d. Resolved, That we do hereby declare ourselves 
 a free and independent people ; are, and of right 
 ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing Associa- 
 tion, under the control of no power other than that 
 of our God and the general government of the Con- 
 gress; to the maintenance of which independence, 
 we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual co- 
 operation, 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 county, we do hereby ordain
 
 10G DOCUMENTS CITED IN PEECEDING ADDEESS. 
 
 and adopt as a 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 here- 
 by 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 " Committee-man" to 
 issue process, hear and determine all matters of con- 
 troversy, according to said adopted laws, and to pre- 
 serve peace, union and harmony in said county ; 
 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. 
 
 JB. Resolutions as in Martins History r , Vol. 2, 
 Page 373. (See p. 14.) 
 
 Resolved. That whosoever directly or indirectly 
 abets or in any way, form or manner countenances the 
 invasion of our rights, as attempted by the Parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain, is an enemy to his country, to 
 America, and the rights of men. 
 
 Resolved. That we the citizens of Mecklenburg 
 county do hereby dissolve the political bands which 
 have connected us with the mother country, and* ab-
 
 DOCUMENTS CITED IN PRECEDING ADDRESS. 107 
 
 solve ourselves from all allegiance to the British 
 crown, abjuring all political connection with a nation 
 that has wantonly trampled on our rights and liber- 
 ties and inhumanly shed the innocent blood of Ameri- 
 cans at Lexington. 
 
 Resolved. That we do hereby declare ourselves a 
 free and independent people, are, and of right ought to 
 be, a sovereign and self-governing people, under the 
 power of God and the General Congress; to the main- 
 tenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to 
 each other our mutual co-operation, our lives, our for- 
 tunes, and our most sacred honor. 
 
 Resolved. That we hereby ordain and adopt as 
 rules of conduct, all and each of our former laws, and 
 the crown of Great Britain cannot be considered 
 hereafter as holding any rights, privileges or immu- 
 nities amongst us. 
 
 Resolved. That all officers, both civil and military, 
 in this county, be entitled to exercise the same powers 
 and authorities as heretofore : that every member of 
 this delegation shall henceforth be a civil officer and 
 exercise the powers of a justice of the peace, issue pro- 
 cess, hear and determine controversies according to law, 
 preserve peace, union and harmony, in the county, 
 and use every exertion to spread the love of liberty 
 and of country, until a more general, and better or- 
 ganized system of Government be established. 
 
 Resolved. That a -copy of these resolutions be 
 transmitted by express to the President of the Conti- 
 nental Congress assembled in Philadelphia, to be laid 
 before that body.
 
 103 DOCUMENTS CITED IN PRECEDING ADDEESS. 
 
 C. KESOLUTIONS OF 31 ST MAY. (See p. 19.) 
 
 Extract from the South Carolina Gazette and County 
 
 Journal, of June, 1775, No. 498 Printed at 
 
 Charlestoiun ~by Charles Crouch, on the 
 
 Bay, corner of Elliott Street. 
 
 CHAKLOTTETOWN, Mecklenburg County, 
 
 May 31st, 1775. 
 
 This day the Committee of this county met and 
 passed the following resolves : 
 Whereas, By an address presented to His Majesty 
 by both Houses of Parliament in February last, the 
 American Colonies are declared to be in a state of ac- 
 tual rebellion, we conceive that all laws and commis- 
 sions confirmed by or derived from the authority of 
 the King and Parliament are annulled and vacated, 
 and the former civil constitution of these colonies for 
 the present wholly suspended. To provide in some 
 degree for the exigencies of this county in the present 
 alarming period, we deem it proper and necessary to 
 pass the following resolves, viz : 
 
 I. That all commissions, civil and military, hereto- 
 fore granted by the crown to be exercised in these 
 colonies, are null and void, and the constitution 
 of each particular colony wholly suspended. 
 
 II. That the Provincial Congress of each Province, 
 under the direction of the Great Continental Con- 
 gress, is invested with all legislative and executive 
 powers within their respective provinces, and that no 
 other legislative or executive power does or can exist 
 at this time in any of these colonies. 
 
 III. As all former laws are now suspended in this
 
 DOCUMENTS CITED IN PEECEDING ADDRESS. 109 
 
 Province, and the Congress has not yet provided 
 others, we judge it necessary for the better preserva- 
 tion of good order, to form certain rules and regula- 
 tions for the Internal Government of this county, un- 
 til laws shall be provided for us by the Congress. 
 
 IY. That the inhabitants of this county do meet on 
 a certain day appointed by the Committee, and having 
 formed themselves into nine companies (to wit : eight 
 for the county and one for the town), do choose 
 a colonel and other military officers, who shall hold 
 and exercise their several powers by virtue of the 
 choice, and independent of the crown of Great Bri- 
 tain, and former constitution of this province. 
 
 Y. That for the better preservation of the peace 
 and administration of justice, each of those companies 
 do choose from their own body two discreet free- 
 holders, who shall be empowered each by himself, and 
 singly, to decide and determine all matters of contro- 
 versy arising within said company, under the sum of 
 twenty shillings, and jointly and together all contro- 
 versies under the sum of forty shillings, yet so as their 
 decisions may admit of appeal to the Convention of 
 the Select Men of the County, and also that any one 
 of these men shall have power to examine and commit 
 to confinement persons accused of- petit larceny. 
 
 YI. That those two select men thus chosen do 
 jointly and together choose from the body of their 
 particular company two persons to act as constables, 
 who may assist them in the execution of their office. 
 
 YII. That upon the complaint of any persons to 
 either of these select men, he do issue his warrant di-
 
 110 DOCUMENTS CITED IN PRECEDING ADDEESS. 
 
 rected to the constable, commanding him to bring the 
 aggressor before him to answer said complaint. 
 
 "VIII. That these select eighteen select men thus 
 appointed do meet every third Thursday in January, 
 April, July and October at the Court House in 
 Charlotte, to hear and determine all matters of con- 
 troversy for sums exceeding 4:0,9., also appeals ; and 
 in case of felony to commit the persons convicted 
 thereof to close confinement until the Provincial 
 Congress shall provide and establish laws and modes 
 of proceeding in all such cases. 
 
 IX. That these eighteen select men thus convened 
 do choose a clerk, to record the transactions of said 
 convention, and that said clerk, upon the application 
 of any person or persons aggrieved, do issue his war- 
 rant to any of the constables of the company to which 
 the offender belongs, directing said constable to sum- 
 mon and warn said offender to appear before said 
 convention at their next sitting, to answer the afore- 
 said complaint. 
 
 X. That any person making complaint, upon oath, 
 to the clerk, or any member of the convention, that 
 he has reason to suspect that. any person or persons 
 indebted to him in a sum above forty shillings intend 
 clandestinely to withdraw from the county without 
 paying the debt, the clerk or such member shall issue 
 his warrant to the constable, commanding him to take 
 said person or persons into. safe custody until the next 
 sitting of the convention. 
 
 XL That when a debtor for a sum above forty shil- 
 lings shall abscond and leave the county, the warrant
 
 DOCUMENTS CITED IN PRECEDING ADDRESS. Ill 
 
 granted as aforesaid shall extend to any goods or chat- 
 tels of said debtor as may be found, and such goods 
 or chattels be seized and held in custody by the con- 
 stable for the space of thirty days, in which time, if 
 the debtor fail to return and discharge the debt, the 
 constable shall return the warrant to one of the 
 select men of the company where the goods are 
 found, who shall issue orders to the constable to sell 
 such a part of said goods as shall amount to the sum 
 due. 
 
 That when the debt exceeds forty shillings, the re- 
 turn shall be made to the convention, who shall issue 
 orders for sale. 
 
 XII. That all receivers and collectors of quit rents, 
 public and county taxes, do pay the same into the 
 hands of the chairman ofthis committee, to be by them 
 disbursed as the public exigencies may require, and 
 that such receivers and collectors proceed no further 
 in their office until they be approved of by, and have 
 given to this committee good and sufficient security 
 for a faithful return of such moneys when col- 
 lected. 
 
 XIII. That the committee be accountable to the 
 county for the application of all moneys received 
 from such public officers. 
 
 XIV. That all these officers hold their commissions 
 during the pleasure of their several constituents. 
 
 XY. That this committee will sustain all damages 
 to all or any of their officers thus appointed, and thus 
 acting, on account of their obedience and conformity 
 to these rules.
 
 112 DOCUMENTS CITED IN PKECEDING ADDKESS. 
 
 XVI. That whatever person shall hereafter receive 
 a commission from the crown, or attempt to exercise 
 any such commission heretofore received, shall he 
 deemed an enem,y to his country, and upon confir- 
 mation being made to the captain of the company in 
 which he resides, the said company shall cause him to 
 be apprehended and conveyed before two select men, 
 who, upon proof of the fact, shall commit said 
 offender to safe custody, until the next sitting of the 
 committee, who shall deal with him as prudence may 
 direct. 
 
 XYII. That any person refusing to yield obedience 
 to the above rules shall be considered equally crimi- 
 nal, and liable to the same punishment, as the 
 offenders above last mentioned. 
 
 XVIII. 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. 
 
 XIX. That the eight militia companies in this 
 county provide themselves with proper arms and 
 accoutrements, and hold themselves in readiness .to 
 execute the commands and directions of the Gen- 
 eral Congress of this province and this Commit- 
 tee. 
 
 XX. That the Committee appoint Col. Thomas 
 Polk and Dr. Joseph Kennedy to purchase 300 
 pounds of powder, 600 pounds of lead, 1000 flints, for 
 the use of the militia of this county, and deposit the
 
 DOCUMENTS CITED IN PRECEDING ADDRESS. 113 
 
 same in such place as the Committee may hereafter 
 direct. 
 
 Signed by order of the Committee, 
 
 EPIL BREVARD, 
 
 Clerk of the Committee. 
 
 D. (See page 38.) 
 
 Letter from Son. C. Tait, Member of Congress 
 from Georgia. 
 
 "WASHINGTON, Jan'y 25th, 1819. 
 
 DEAR SIK : Of late an inquiry, and in some 
 instances a controversy, has arisen respecting the 
 origin of the American Revolution. Some say it be- 
 gan in Virginia, and for this honor the Virginians 
 strenuously contend. The people of New England 
 assert that it commenced in the Town of Boston, 
 and much has been written of late on the subject. 
 This controversy has been dignified by a correspond- 
 ence between two ex-Presidents of the U. 8., Adams 
 and Jefferson. Other parts of the country begin to 
 put in their pretensions to an early movem't in this 
 great event, which is destined to influence the affairs of 
 mankind. North Carolina thinks she has some claims 
 in this regard ; and Mr. Macon of the Senate is collect- 
 ing what information he can on the subject. It appears 
 by a document lately furnished him that the people 
 of the count}' of Mecklenburg of that State, so early as 
 on the 20th of May, 1775, declared themselves inde-
 
 -114 DOCUMENTS CITED IN PRECEDING ADDRESS. 
 
 pendent in dne form in a Convention at the town of 
 Charlotte. That Adam or Abram Alexander was 
 the President of this Convention, and that John Mc- 
 Nitt Alexander was its Secretary or Clerk. It also 
 appears by this curious Document that Cap^n James 
 Jack was the person chosen to carry the proceedings 
 of this Convention to the Continental Congress sit- 
 
 o 
 
 ting at Philadelphia. Presuming that the Cap'n 
 Jack is no other person than your respected father, I 
 informed Mr. Macon he is still living in the County 
 of Elbert and State of Georgia. This information 
 has produced a request from Mr. Macon that I would 
 write to you and request it as a favour of you to for- 
 ward to him any Document, or copy of a Document, 
 which has any relation to the Mecklenburg Conven- 
 tion, or of the revolutionary movements in that part 
 of the country, at that early period. This I persuade 
 myself you will with pleasure do. By possibility 
 your father may have preserved, as a precious relic 
 of those days, some papers relating to the proceed- 
 ings alluded to, and in which he bore an honorable 
 part. If this is the case it will gratify Mr. Macon 
 very much to get them or a copy of them. 
 
 Present my respects to Mrs. Jack, to your father 
 and mother, and believe me, 
 
 Yours, <fec., &c., 
 
 (Signed.) C. TAIT. 
 
 Gen. P. Jack. 
 
 P. S. Mr. Macon will be very glad to hear from 
 you before the adjournment- of Congress; his given 
 name is Nathaniel. 0. T.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 
 
 By the Citizens of Mecklenburg County, on the twentieth day of 
 May, 1775, icith accompanying documents, published by 
 the Governor, under the authority and direc- 
 tion of the General Assembly of the 
 State of North Carolina. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE resolution of the General Assembly directing 
 this publication, makes it the duty of the Governor to 
 cause to be published in pamphlet form the Report of 
 the Committee relative to the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, and the accompanying documents, in the follow- 
 ing order, viz. : 1. The Mecklenburg Declaration, with 
 the names of the Delegates composing the meeting. 
 2. The certificates testifying to the circumstances at- 
 tending the Declaration; and 3. The proceedings of 
 the Cumberland Association. 
 
 In the discharge of this duty, the Governor has deemed 
 it proper to prefix to the publication the following brief 
 review of the evidence by which the authenticity of this 
 interesting portion of the history of North Carolina is 
 controverted and sustained. 
 
 On the 30th of April, 1819, the publication marked 
 A, made its appearance in the Raleigh Register. It 
 was communicated to the editors of that paper by Doct. 
 Joseph McKnitt, then and now a citizen of the county of 
 Mecklenburg, and was speedily repnblished in most of
 
 116 APPENDIX. 
 
 the newspapers in the Union. A paper containing it 
 (the Essex Register) was, it seems, on the 22d June, 
 1819, enclosed to Mr. Jefferson, by his illustrious com- 
 patriot, John Adams, accompanied with the remark, 
 that he thought it genuine ; and this suggestion of Mr. 
 Adams elicited the following reply, which was at that 
 time published in various newspapers, and has been 
 since given to the world in the 4th volume of Mr. 
 Jefferson's Works, page 314 : 
 
 TO JOHN ADAMS. 
 
 " Monticello, July 9, 1819. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, I am in debt to you for your letters of 
 May the 21st, 27th, and June the 22nd. The first, de- 
 livered me by Mr. Greenwood, gave me the gratification 
 of his acquaintance ; and a gratification it always is, to 
 be made acquainted with gentlemen of candor, worth, 
 and information, as I found Mr. Greenwood to be. 
 That on the subject of Mr. Samuel Adams Wells, shall 
 not be forgotten in time and place, when it can be used 
 to his advantage. 
 
 " But what has attracted my peculiar notice, is the 
 paper from Mecklenburg county, of North Carolina, 
 published in the Essex Kegister, which you were so kind 
 as to enclose in your last, of June the 22nd. And you 
 seem to think it genuine. I believe it spurious. I 
 deem it to be a very unjustifiable quiz, like that of the 
 volcano, so minutely -related to us as having broken out 
 in North Carolina, some half dozen years ago, in that 
 part of the country, and perhaps in that very county 
 of Mecklenburg, for I do not remember its precise 
 locality. If this paper be really taken from the Ealeigh
 
 APPENDIX. 117 
 
 Register, as quoted, I wonder it should have escaped 
 Ritchie, who culls what is good from every paper, as the 
 bee from every flower; and the National Intelligencer, 
 too, which is edited by a North Carolinian ; and that 
 the fire should blaze out all at once in Essex, one thou- 
 sand miles from where the spark is said to have fallen. 
 But if really taken from the Raleigh Register, who is 
 the narrator, and is the name subscribed real, or is it as 
 fictitious as the paper itself? It appeals, too, to an orig- 
 inal book, which is burnt, to Mr. Alexander, who is 
 dead, to a joint letter from Caswell, Hewes, and 
 Hooper, all dead, to a copy sent to the dead Caswell, and 
 another sent to Doctor Williamson, now probably dead, 
 whose memory did not recollect, in the history he has 
 written of North Carolina, this gigantic step of its 
 county of Mecklenburg. Horry, too, is silent in his 
 history of Marion, whose scene of action was the country 
 bordering on Mecklenburg. Ramsay, Marshall, Jones, 
 Girardin, Wirt, historians of the adjacent States, all 
 silent. When Mr. Henry's resolutions, far short of in- 
 dependence, flew like lightning through every paper, 
 and kindled both sides of the Atlantic, this flaming 
 declaration of the same date, of the independence of 
 Mecklenburg county, of North Carolina, absolving it 
 from the British allegiance, and abjuring all political 
 connection with that nation, although sent to Congress, 
 too, is never heard of. It is not known even a twelve- 
 month after, when a similar proposition is first made in 
 that body. Armed with this bold example, would not 
 you have addressed our timid brethren in peals of thun- 
 der, on their tardy fears ? Would not every advocate 
 of independence have rung the glories of Mecklenburg 
 county, in North Carolina, in the ears of the doubting
 
 118 APPENDIX. 
 
 Dickinson and others, who hung so heavily on us ? 
 Yet the example of independent Mecklenburg county, 
 in North Carolina, was never once quoted. The paper 
 speaks, too, of the continued exertions of their delega- 
 tion (Casvrell, Hooper, Hewes.) 'in the cause of liberty 
 and independence.' Now, yon remember as well as I 
 do, that we had not a greater tory in Congress than 
 Hooper ; that Hewes was very wavering, sometimes 
 firm, 'sometimes feeble, according as the day was clear 
 or cloudy ; that Caswell, indeed, was a good whig, and 
 kept these gentlemen to the notch, while he was pres- 
 ent ; but that he left us soon, and their line of conduct 
 became then uncertain until Penn came, who fixed 
 Hewes, and the vote of the State. I must not be un- 
 derstood as suggesting any doubtfulness in the State of 
 North Carolina. No State was more fixed or forward. 
 Nor do I affirm, positively, that this paperis a fabrica- 
 tion, because the proof of a negative can only be pre- 
 sumptive. But I shall believe it such until positive 
 and solemn proof of its authenticity shall be produced. 
 And if the name of McKnitt be real, and not a part of 
 the fabrication, it needs a vindication by the production 
 of such proof. For the present, I must be an unbeliever 
 in the apocryphal gospel. 
 
 " I am glad to learn that Mr. Ticknor has safely re- 
 turned to his friends; but should have been much more 
 pleased had he accepted the Professorship in our Uni- 
 versity, which we should have offered him in form. 
 Mr. Bowditch, too, refuses us ; so fascinating is the vin- 
 cnlum of the dulce natale solum. Our wish is to pro- 
 cure natives, where they can be found, like these gen- 
 tlemen, of the first order of acquirement in their respect- 
 ive lines; but preferring foreigners of the first order to
 
 APPENDIX. 119 
 
 natives of the second, we shall certainly have to go, for 
 several of our Professors, to countries more advanced 
 in science than we are. 
 
 "I set out within three or four days for my other 
 home, the distance of which, and its cross mails, are 
 great impediments to epistolary communications. I 
 shall remain there about two months; and there, here, 
 and everywhere, I am and shall always be, affectionately 
 and respectfully yours, 
 
 TH : JEFFERSON." 
 
 The republication of this letter in a work which is 
 intended for, and will go down to posterity, recom- 
 mended alike by its intrinsic excellence, and the illus- 
 trious name of the author, has imposed upon the Legis- 
 lature the task of proving that, with regard to this 
 particular fact, Mr. Jefferson was mistaken, and that 
 his opinion was made up from a very superficial and 
 inaccurate examination of the publication in the Raleigh 
 Register, the only evidence then before him, and upon 
 which his letter is a commentary. 
 
 The letter itself was evidently written currente cala- 
 ino, and for that reason may not be regarded as a fair 
 subject for severe criticism. It is not intended to subject 
 it to such a test, nor is it designed to examine it further 
 than may be necessary to the ascertainment of truth. 
 Of the ability, the purity, the patriotism of the author, 
 it is unnecessary to speak. His love of country was not 
 bounded by the confines of Virginia; but it is no dis- 
 credit to his memory that her institutions, her heroes 
 and her statesmen occupied the first place in his affec- 
 tions. She was emphatically 'the mother of great 
 men,' and ' his own, his native land; ' and it is no mat-
 
 120 APPENDIX. 
 
 ter of surprise that he should be unwilling, without the 
 most ample proof, to transfer the brightest page of her 
 history to emblazon the records of a sister State. Mr. 
 Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry had just been published, 
 and for the latter was claimed the high distinction of 
 having been the first to give motion to the ball of the 
 Revolution. Mr. Jefferson himself was the author of 
 the Declaration of Independence by Congress, and was 
 not disposed to share in any degree the immortality 
 with which it had crowned him, with a comparatively 
 obscure citizen of North Carolina; and, therefore, the 
 evidence which was at once satisfactory to Mr. Adams, 
 is by him pronounced " to be a very unjustifiable quiz." 
 The grounds for this opinion, in the order in which 
 they are given to Mr. Adams, are, 1. That the story is 
 "like that of the volcano* having broken out in that 
 part of the country, and perhaps in that very county of 
 Mecklenburg." 2. " If this paper be really taken from 
 the Raleigh Register, as quoted, I wonder it should 
 have escaped Ritchie," &c., "and that the fire should blaze 
 out all at once in Essex, one thousand miles from where 
 the spark is said to have fallen." 3. " But if really 
 taken from the Raleigh Register, who is the narrator, 
 and is the name subscribed real, or is it as fictitious 
 as the paper itself?" 4. "It appeals, too, to an original 
 book, which is burnt, to Mr. Alexander, who is dead, 
 to a joint letter from Caswell, Hewes, and Hooper, all 
 dead, to a copy sent to the dead Caswell, and another 
 
 * The hoax alluded to was published in 1812, and represented 
 the volcano as having broken out in the neighborhood of the 
 Warm Springs, in Buncombe, a point nearly as distant from the 
 county of Mecklenburg as from Monticello.
 
 APPENDIX. 121 
 
 sent to Doctor Williamson, now probably dead, whose 
 memory did not recollect, in the history he has written 
 of North Carolina, this gigantic step of its county of 
 Mecklenburg" &c., &c. 
 
 Without further remark with regard to the first 
 point the quiz about the volcano or the second, 
 whether the " spurious " paper was really published in 
 the Raleigh Register, it is proper to say, in reply to the 
 third argument, that the name subscribed is real, that 
 the individual still lives, that he is moreover a credible 
 witness, and that it is to his laudable attention and ex- 
 ertions that the State is indebted for the preservation 
 of much of the testimony which is now offered to the 
 public. The fourth argument demands, and will re- 
 ceive more particular attention and examination. 
 
 The paper appeals to a book, which is burnt; to Mr. 
 Alexander, who is dead; to Messrs. Caswell, Hooper, 
 and Hewes, all dead; to a copy sent to "THE DEAD 
 CASWELL," and another, sent to Doct.Williamson, proba- 
 bly dead, are the consecutive facts which Mr. Jeffer- 
 son states, and on which lie relies. Admit the premises, 
 and the conclusion would be probable, though not inevi- 
 table ; and a writer of much less ability, if permitted to 
 assume his facts, might predicate upon them not only 
 a very plausible, but an unanswerable argument. The 
 very fact, however, on which Mr. Jefferson rests, as the 
 climax of improbabilities, is not only not proved to 
 exist, but, upon his own showing, does not exist; and 
 justifies the remark in the outset, that his letter was 
 written in haste, upon a very superficial and imperfect 
 view of the subject. The paper does not appeal "TO 
 THE DEAD CASWELL,*' but to the then LIVING DAVIE, a 
 native of the section of country in which the event
 
 122 APPENDIX. 
 
 occurred, like the former, a distinguished hero of the 
 Revolution, and, in every respect, a proper depositary of 
 the record. The following is the statement in question : 
 (See the paper A.) ("The foregoing is a true copy of 
 the papers, on the above subject, left in my hands by 
 John McKnitt Alexander, dec'd. I find it mentioned on 
 file, that the original book was burned April, 1800. That 
 a copy of the proceedings was sent to *Hugh Williamson, 
 in New York, then writing a history of North Carolina, 
 and that a copy was sent to Gen. W. R. DAVIE.") Gen. 
 Davie died shortly after the date of Mr. Jefferson's let- 
 ter; but this identical copy, known by the writer of 
 these remarks to be in the hand-writing of John McKnitt 
 Alexander, one of the Secretaries of the Mecklenburg 
 meeting, is now in the Executive Office of this State. (See 
 Doc fc. Henderson's certificate, B.) Casivell, Hooper, and 
 Heives are all dead ; but Capt. Jack, who was appointed 
 to carry to them, at Philadelphia, this Mecklenburg 
 Declaration, lived long enough to bear testimony to the 
 truth; and his statement (C) is circumstantial, expli- 
 cit and satisfactory. If it needed confirmation, it 
 would be found to be fully sustained by the interesting 
 communication (D) of the late Rev. Francis Cummins, 
 D.D., of Georgia, to the Hon. Nathaniel Macon. More 
 
 * This copy the writer well recollects to have seen in the pos- 
 session of Doct. Williamson, in the year 1793, in Fayetteville, 
 together with a letter to him from John McKnitt Alexander, and 
 to have conversed with him on the subject. Why it is not men- 
 tioned in his History, is not strange to any one who knows the 
 State, and has read the book. It cannot be regarded as a history 
 of any country. The memorable Report and Resolutions of the 
 Congress of April, 1776, are alike unnoticed. A correct and sat- 
 isfactory account of both proceedings will be found in the last 
 chapter of Martin's History of North Carolina.
 
 APPENDIX. 123 
 
 satisfactory evidence, drawn from more respectable 
 sources, Mr. Jefferson, if alive, could not, and would not 
 require. It is not hazarding too much to say, that there 
 is no one event of the Revolution which has been, or can 
 be more fully or clearly authenticated. 
 
 It is. perhaps, needless to multiply proofs, or to ex- 
 tend this article. Col. William Polk is a resident of 
 this city, a venerable remnant of the Revolutionary stock, 
 has passed the common boundary of human life, and in 
 a green old age, is in the full possession of his faculties. 
 His compatriots, Caswell, and Hooper, and Hewes, are 
 dead, but he lives, was present, heard his father proclaim 
 the Declaration to the assembled multitude ; and need it 
 be inquired, in any portion of this Union, if he will be 
 believed ? 
 
 The letter (E) of Gen. Joseph Graham, another sur- 
 viving officer of the Revolution, a citizen and a soldier 
 worthy of the best days of the Republic, will be read 
 with pleasure and perfect confidence throughout the 
 wide range of his acquaintance. 
 
 The extract from the memoir of the late Rev. Hum- 
 phrey Hunter (F), of Lincoln, is equally explicit, full 
 and satisfactory. He, with several other respectable 
 gentlemen, whose statements are appended, was an eye- 
 witness of what he relates ; and the combined testimony 
 of all these individuals prove the existence of the 
 Mecklenburg Declaration, and all the circumstances 
 connected with it, as fully and clearly as any fact can 
 be shown by human testimony. 
 
 The following extract from "The Journal of the 
 Provincial Congress of North Carolina, held at Halifax, 
 on the 4th April, 1776" (pp. 11, 12), shows that the first 
 h'(/i,4ative recommendation of a DECLARATION OF INDE-
 
 121 APPENDIX. 
 
 PENDENCE by the CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, originated 
 likewise in the State of North Carolina. It is worthy 
 of remark, that John McKnitt Alexander, the Secretary 
 of the meeting, Waightstill Avery, John Pfifer and 
 Robert Invin, who were conspicuous actors in the pro- 
 ceedings in Mecklenburg, were active and influential 
 members of this Provincial Congress. 
 
 " 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 defence of this Province, re- 
 ported as follows, to wit : 
 
 "It appears to your committee, that pursuant to the 
 plan concerted by the British Ministry for subjugating 
 America, the King and Parliament of Great Britain have 
 usurped a power over the persons and properties of the 
 people unlimited and uncontrolled; and disregarding 
 their humble petitions of peace, liberty, and safety, have 
 made divers legislative acts, denouncing war, famine, 
 and every species of calamity, against the Continent in 
 general. The British fleets and armies have been, and 
 still are daily employed in destroying the people, and 
 committing the most horrid devastations on the coun- 
 try. That Grovernors in different Colonies have de- 
 clared protection to slaves who should imbrue their 
 hands in the blood of their masters. That the ships 
 belonging to America are declared prizes of war, and 
 many of them have been violently seized and confisca- 
 ted. In consequence of all which multitudes of the 
 people have been destroyed, or from easy circumstances 
 reduced to the most lamentable distress.
 
 APPENDIX. 1 25 
 
 "And whereas the moderation hitherto manifested 
 by the United Colonies, and their sincere desire to be 
 reconciled to the mother country on constitutional prin- 
 ciples, have procured no mitigation of the aforesaid 
 wrongs and usurpations, and no hopes remain of ob- 
 taining redress by those means alone which have been 
 hitherto tried, your committee are of opinion that the 
 House should enter into the following resolve, to wit: 
 
 " Resolved, That the DELEGATES FOR THIS COLONY 
 IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS BE IMPOWERED TO 
 CONCUR WITH THE DELEGATES OF THE OTHER COLO- 
 NIES IN DECLARING INDEPENDENCY, 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 representation 
 thereof), to meet the Delegates of the other Colonies, 
 for such purposes as shall be hereafter pointed out. 
 
 " The Congress .taking the same into consideration, 
 unanimously concurred therewith." 
 
 The striking similarity of expression in the conclud- 
 ing sentences of the Mecklenburg Declaration, and the 
 Declaration by Congress on the 4th of July, 1776, has 
 been repeatedly urged and relied upon as disproving 
 the authenticity of the former. It is scarcely necessary 
 to reply to this suggestion. It is not very strange 
 that men who think alike should speak alike upon the 
 same subject, more especially when high-toned patriotic 
 feeling seeks for utterance. This similarity of expres- 
 sion is not confined, however, to these two papers. A 
 comparison of the foregoing resolutions with the Dec- 
 laration, as drawn by Mr. Jefferson, will satisfy the
 
 126 APPENDIX. 
 
 most credulous upon this subject. Who suspects Mr. 
 Jefferson of intentional plagiarism? and yet he might 
 be charged with having appropriated the language of 
 the Provincial Legislature, with at least as much pro- 
 priety as Mr. Alexander with having forged the Meck- 
 lenburg Declaration. The sentiments embodied by Mr. 
 Jefferson were not peculiar to himself, but adopted by 
 him as expressive of the common feeling in the common 
 language of that eventful period. 
 
 ADOPTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AT THE SESSION 
 OF 1830-31, UPON WHICH THIS PUBLICATION IS 
 PREDICATED. 
 
 THE committee to whom it was referred to examine, 
 collate and arrange in proper order such parts of the 
 Journals of the Provincial Assemblies of North Caro- 
 lina, as relate to the Declaration of American Independ- 
 ence ; also such documents as relate to the Declaration 
 of Independence made by the patriotic men of Mecklen- 
 burg in" May, 1775 ; and also such measures as relate to 
 the same cause, adopted by the freemen of Cumberland 
 county, previous to the 4th of July, 1776, in order to 
 the publication and distribution of sncli documents, 
 having performed the duty assigned them, respectfully 
 report : 
 
 That upon an attentive examination of the Journals 
 of the Provincial Assembly of North Carolina, which 
 met at Halifax in the month of April, 1776, the com- 
 mittee are of opinion, that no selection could be made
 
 APPENDIX. 127 
 
 from the said Journal to answer the purpose of the 
 House. But as everything relating to that period 
 must be interesting to those who value the blessing of 
 national independence, the committee recommend that 
 the whole of the Journal be printed, and receive the 
 same extended distribution which the resolution of the 
 House contemplates for the proceedings in Mecklen- 
 burg and Cumberland. This course is deemed by the 
 committee the more proper, because the Journal is now 
 out of print, and it is highly probable that the copy in 
 the possession of the committee is the only one now 
 extant. 
 
 Your committee have also examined, collated, and ar- 
 ranged all the documents which have been accessible 
 to them, touching the Declaration of Independence by 
 the citizens of Mecklenburg, and the proceedings of the 
 freemen of Cumberland. 
 
 By the publication of these papers, it will be fully 
 verified, that us early as the month of May, 1775, a por- 
 tion of the people of North Carolina, sensible that their 
 wrongs could no longer be borne, without sacrificing 
 both safety and honor, and that redress so often sought, 
 so patiently waited for, and so cruelly delayed, was no 
 longer to be expected, did, by a public and solemn act, 
 declare the dissolution of the ties which bound them to 
 the crown and people of Great Britain, and did estab- 
 lish an independent, though temporary government for 
 their own control and direction. 
 
 The first claim of Independence evinces such high 
 sentiments of valor and patriotism, that we cannot, and 
 ought not, lightly to esteem the honor of having made 
 it. The fact of the Declaration should be announced, 
 its language should be published and perpetuated, and
 
 128 APPENDIX. 
 
 the names of the gallant representatives of Mecklen- 
 burg, with whom it originated, should be preserved 
 from an oblivion, which, should it involve them, would 
 as much dishonor us, as injure them. If the thought 
 of Independence did not first occur to them, to them, 
 at least, belongs the proud distinction of having first 
 given language to the thought; and it should be 
 known, and, fortunately, it can still be conclusively es- 
 tablished, that the Revolution received it first impulse 
 towards Independence, however feeble that impulse 
 might have been, in North Carolina. The committee 
 are aware that this assertion has elsewhere been received 
 with doubt, and at times met with denial ; and it is, 
 therefore, believed to be more strongly incumbent upon 
 the House to usher to the world the Mecklenburg Dec- 
 laration, accompanied with such testimonials of its 
 genuineness, as shall silence incredulity, and with such 
 care for its general diffusion, as shall forever secure it. 
 from being forgotten. And in recounting the causes, 
 the origin and the progress of our Revolutionary strug- 
 gle, till its final issue in acknowledged independence, 
 whatever the brilliant achievements of other States may 
 have been, let it never be forgotten, that at a period of 
 darkness and oppression, without concert with others, 
 without assurances of support from any quarter, a few 
 gallant North Carolinians, all fear of consequences lost 
 in a sense of their country's wrongs, relying, under 
 Heaven, solely upon themselves, nobly dared to assert, 
 and resolved to maintain, that independence, of which, 
 whoever might have thought, none had then spoken ; 
 and thus earned for themselves, and for their fellow- 
 citizens of North Carolina, the honor of giving birth 
 to the first Declaration of Independence.
 
 APPENDIX. 129 
 
 The committee respectfully recommend the adoption 
 of the following resolutions. , 
 All of which is submitted. 
 
 TIIOS. G. POLK, ChrX 
 JOHN BRAGG, 
 EVAN ALEXANDER, 
 LOUIS D. HENRY, 
 ALEX. M'NEILL. 
 
 Resolved, That his Excellency the Governor be di- 
 rected to cause to be published in pamphlet form the 
 above Report and the accompanying documents, in the 
 manner and order following, viz. : AfDer the Report, 
 first, the Mecklenburg Declaration, with the names of 
 the Delegates composing the meeting ; second, the Cer- 
 tificates, testifying to the circumstances attending the 
 Declaration ; third, the proceedings of the Cumberland 
 Association. And that he be further directed to have 
 reprinted, in like manner, separate and distinct from 
 the above, the accompanying Journal of the Provincial 
 Assembly, held at Halifax in 1776. 
 
 Resolved further, That after publication, the Govern- 
 or be instructed to distribute said documents as follows, 
 to wit: Twenty copies of each to the Library of the 
 State ; to each of the Libraries at the University, ten 
 copies ; to the Library of the Congress of the United 
 States, ten copies ; and one copy to each of the Execu- 
 tives of the several States of the Union.
 
 130 APPENDIX. 
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 May 20, 1775. 
 NAMES OF THE DELEGATES PRESENT. 
 
 COL. THOMAS POLK, JNO. M'KNITT ALEXANDER, 
 
 EPHRATM BREVARD, HEZEKIAH ALEXANDER, 
 
 HEZEKIAH J. BALCH, ADAM ALEXANDER, 
 
 JOHN PHIFER, CHARLES ALEXANDER, 
 
 JAMES HARRIS, ZACHEUS WILSON, Sen., 
 
 WILLIAM KENNON, WAIGHTSTILL AVERY, 
 
 JOHN FOBD, BENJAMIN PATTON, 
 
 KICHARD BARRY, MATTHEW M'CLURE, 
 
 HENRY DOWNS, NEIL MORRISON, 
 
 EZRA ALEXANDER, ROBERT IRWIN, 
 
 WILLIAM GRAHAM, JOHN FLENNIKEN, 
 
 JOHN QUEARY, DAVID EEESE, 
 ABRAHAM ALEXANDER, KICHARD HARRIS, Sen. 
 
 ABRAHAM ALEXANDER, was appointed Chairman, 
 and JOHN M'KNITT ALEXANDER, Clerk. The follow- 
 ing resolutions were offered, viz. : 
 
 1st. Resolved, That whosoever 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 coun- 
 try, to America, and to the inherent and inalienable 
 rights of man. 
 
 2d. Resolved, That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg 
 county, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have 
 connected us to the mother country, and hereby absolve 
 ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, and 
 abjure all political connection, contract, or association,
 
 APPENDIX. 131 
 
 with that nation, who have wantonly trampled on our 
 rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed the blood of 
 American patriots at Lexington. 
 
 3d. 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, under 
 the control of no power other than that of our God and 
 the general government of the Congress ; to the main- 
 tenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to 
 each other our mutual co-operation, our lives, our for- 
 tunes, and our most sacred honor. 
 
 4th. Resolved, That as we now acknowledge the exist- 
 ence and control of no law or legal officer, civil or mili- 
 tary, within this county, we do hereby ordain and 
 adopt as a rule of life, all, each and every of our former 
 laws, wherein, nevertheless, the Crown of Great Bri- 
 tain never can be considered as holding rights, privil- 
 eges, 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 hence- 
 forth be a civil officer, viz., a Justice of the Peace, in 
 the character of a " Committee-man, 7 ' to issue process, 
 hear and determine all matters of controversy, accord- 
 ing to said adopted laws, and to preserve peace, union 
 and harmony in said county; and to use every exertion 
 to spread the love of country and fire of freedom 
 throughout America, until a more general and organ- 
 ized government be established in this province. 
 
 After discussing the foregoing resolves, and arranging 
 bye-laws and regulations for the government of a Stand-
 
 132 APPENDIX. 
 
 ing Committee of Public Safety, who were selected from 
 these delegates, the whole proceedings were unani- 
 mously adopted and signed. A select committee was 
 then appointed to draw a more full and definite state- 
 ment of grievances, and a more formal Declaration of 
 Independence. The Delegation then adjourned about 
 2 o'clock, A.M., May 20. 
 
 A. 
 
 PKOM THE EALEIGH KEGISTER OF APKIL 30, 1819. 
 
 IT is not, probably, known to many of our readers, 
 that the citizens of Mecklenburg county, in this State, 
 made a Declaration of Independence more than a year 
 before Congress made theirs. The following document 
 on the subject has lately come to the hands of the Edi- 
 tor from unquestionable authority, and is published 
 that it may go down to posterity. 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA, MECKLENBURG COUNTY, ) 
 May 20, 1775. ) 
 
 In the spring of 1775, the leading characters of Meck- 
 lenburg county, stimulated by that enthusiastic patri- 
 otism which elevates the mind above considerations of 
 individual aggrandizement, and scorning to shelter 
 themselves from the impending storm by submission to 
 lawless power, etc., etc., held several detached meetings, 
 in each of which the individual sentiments were, " that 
 the cause of Boston was the cause of all; that their des- 
 tinies were indissolubly connected with those of their 
 Eastern fellow-citizens and that they must either sub- 
 mit to all the impositions which an unprincipled, and
 
 APPENDIX. 133 
 
 to them an unrepresented, Parliament might impose or 
 support their brethren who were doomed to sustain the 
 first shock of that power, which, if successful there, 
 would ultimately overwhelm all in the common calami- 
 ty." Conformably to these principles, Colonel T. Polk, 
 through solicitation, issued an order to each Captain's 
 company in the county of Mecklenburg, (then compris- 
 ing the present county of Cabarrus,) directing each mili- 
 tia company to elect two persons, and delegate to them, 
 ample power to devise ways and means to aid and 
 assist their suffering brethren in Boston, and also 
 generally to adopt measures to extricate themselves 
 from the impending storm, and to secure unimpaired 
 their inalienable rights, privileges and liberties, from 
 the dominant grasp of British imposition and tyranny. 
 In conformity to said order, on the 19th of .May, 
 1775, the said delegation met in Charlotte, vested with 
 unlimited powers; at which time official news, by ex- 
 press, 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 cri- 
 sis which had arrived every bosom swelled with indig- 
 nation at the malice, inveteracy, and insatiable revenge, 
 developed in the late attack at Lexington. The univer- 
 sal sentiment was : let us not flatter ourselves that popu- 
 lar harangues, or resolves ; that popular vapour will avert 
 the storm, or vanquish our common enemy let us de- 
 liberate let us calculate the issue the probable result; 
 and then let us act with energy, as brethren leagued to 
 preserve our property our lives and what is still more 
 endearing, the liberties of America. Abraham Alexan- 
 der was then elected Chairman, and John M'Knitt 
 Alexander, Clerk. After a free and full discussion of
 
 134: APPENDIX. 
 
 the various objects for which the delegation had been 
 convened, it was unanimously ordained 
 
 1. 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 coun- 
 try- to America and to the inherent and inalienable 
 rights of man. 
 
 2. Resolved, That we the citizens of Mecklenburg 
 county, do hereby dissolve the political bands which 
 have connected us to 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 tram- 
 pled on our rights and liberties and inhumanly shed 
 the innocent blood of American patriots at Lexington. 
 
 3. 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, under 
 the control of no power other than that of our God and 
 the General Government of the Congress ; to the main- 
 tenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to 
 each other, our mutual co-operation, our lives, our for- 
 tunes, and our most sacred honor. 
 
 4. Resolved, That as we now acknowledge the exis- 
 tence and control of no law or legal officer, civil or 
 military, within this county, we do hereby ordain and 
 adopt, as a 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. 
 
 5. Re&olved, That it is also further decreed, that all,
 
 APPENDIX. 135 
 
 each and every military officer in this county, is hereby 
 reinstated to 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 char- 
 acter of a " Committee-man" to issue process, hear and 
 determine all matters of controversy, according to said 
 adopted laws, and to preserve peace, and union, and 
 harmony, in said county, and to use every exertion to 
 spread the love of country and fire of freedom through- 
 out America, until a more general and organized gov- 
 ernment be established in this province! 
 
 A number of by-laws were also added, merely to pro- 
 tect the association from confusion, and to regulate 
 their general conduct as citizens. After sitting in the 
 Court House all night, neither sleepy, hungry, nor 
 fatigued, and after discussing every paragraph, they 
 were all passed, sanctioned, and decreed, unanimously, 
 about 2 o'clock, A.M., May 20. In a few days, a depu- 
 tation of said delegation convened, when Capt James 
 Jack, of Charlotte, was deputed as express to the Con- 
 gress at Philadelphia, with a copy of said Resolves and 
 Proceedings, together with a letter addressed to our 
 three representatives there, viz., Richard Caswell, Wil- 
 liam Hooper and Joseph Heives under express in- 
 junction, personally, and through the State representa- 
 tion, to use all possible means to have said pro- 
 ceedings sanctioned and approved by the General 
 Congress. On the return of Captain Jack, the delega- 
 tion learned that their proceedings were individually 
 approved by the Members of Congress, but that it was 
 deemed premature to lay them before the House. A
 
 136 APPENDIX. 
 
 joint letter from said three Members of Congress was 
 also received, complimentary 'of the ze.al in the common 
 cause, and recommending perseverance, order and energy. 
 
 The subsequent harmony, unanimity, and exertion in 
 the cause of liberty and independence, evidently result- 
 ing from these regulations and the continued exertion 
 of said delegation, apparently tranquillized this section 
 of the State, and met with the concurrence and high 
 approbation of the Council of Safety, who held their 
 sessions at Newbern and Wilmington, alternately, and 
 who confirmed the nomination and acts of the delega- 
 tion in their official capacity. 
 
 From this delegation originated the Court of Enquiry 
 of this county, who constituted and held their first ses- 
 sion in Charlotte they then held their meetings regu- 
 larly at Charlotte, at Col. James Harris's, and at Col. 
 Phifer's, alternately, one week at each place. It was a 
 Civil Court founded on military process. Before this 
 Judicature, all suspicious persons were made to appear, 
 who were formally tried and banished, or continued 
 under guard. Its jurisdiction was as unlimited as tory- 
 ism, and its decrees as final as the confidence and patri- 
 otism of the county. Several were arrested and brought 
 before them from Lincoln, Eowan and the adjacent 
 counties. 
 
 [The foregoing is a true copy of the papers on the 
 above subject, left in my hands by John McKnitt Alex- 
 ander, dec'd. I find it mentioned on file that the origi- 
 nal book was burned April, 1800. That a copy of the 
 proceedings was sent to Hugh Williamson, in New 
 York, then writing a History of North Carolina, and 
 that a copy was sent to Gen. W. R. Davie. 
 
 J. McKNITT.l
 
 APPENDIX. 137 
 
 B. 
 
 STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA,) 
 
 MECKLENBURG COUNTY. j 
 
 I, Samuel Henderson, do hereby certify, that the 
 paper annexed Avas obtained by me from Maj. William 
 Davie in its present situation, soon after the death of 
 his father, Gen. William R. Davie, and given to Doct. 
 Joseph McKnitt by me. In searching for some par- 
 ticular paper, I came across this, and, knowing the 
 hand-writing of John McKnitt Alexander, took it up, 
 and examined it. Maj. Davie said to me (when asked 
 how it became torn) his sisters had torn it, not know- 
 ing what it was. 
 
 Given under my hand, this 25th Nov., 1830. 
 
 SAM. HENDERSON. 
 
 [NOTE. To this certificate of Doct. Henderson is annexed the 
 copy of the paper A, originally deposited by John McKnitt Alex- 
 ander in the hands of Gen. Davie, whose name seems to have 
 been mistaken by Mr. Jefferson for that of Gov. Caswell. See 
 preface, pages 5 and 6. This paper is somewhat torn, but is 
 entirely legible, and constitutes the " solemn and positive proof 
 of authenticity " which Mr. Jefferson required, and which would 
 doubtless have been satisfactory, had it been submitted to him.] 
 
 c. 
 
 CAPTAIN JACK'S CERTIFICATE. 
 
 Having seen in the newspapers some pieces respect- 
 ing the Declaration of Independence by the people of 
 Mecklenburg county, in the State of North Carolina, in 
 May, 1775, and being solicited to state what I know of 
 that transaction ; I would observe, that for some time 
 previous to, and at the time those resolutions were
 
 138 APPENDIX. 
 
 agreed upon, I resided in the town of Charlotte, Meck- 
 lenburg county ; was privy to a number of meetings of 
 some of the most influential and leading characters of 
 that county on the subject, before the final adoption of 
 the resolutions and at the time they were adopted ; 
 among those who appeared to take the lead, may be 
 mentioned Hezekiah Alexander, who generally acted as 
 Chairman, John McKnitt Alexander, as Secretary, 
 Abraham Alexander, Adam Alexander, Maj. John Da- 
 vidson, Maj. (afterwards Gen.) Wm. Davidson, Col. 
 Thomas Polk, Ezekiel Polk, Dr. Ephraim Brevard, 
 Samuel Martin, Duncan Ochletree, William Willson, 
 Robert Irvin. 
 
 When the resolutions were finally agreed on, they 
 were publicly proclaimed from the Court-house door 
 in the town of Charlotte, and received with every dem- 
 onstration of joy by the inhabitants. 
 
 I was then solicited to be the bearer of the proceed- 
 ings to Congress. I set out the following month, say 
 June, and in passing through Salisbury, the General 
 Court was sitting at the request of the court I handed 
 a copy of the resolutions to Col. Kennon, an Attorney, 
 and they were read aloud in open court. Major William 
 Davidson, and Mr. Avery, an attorney, called on me at 
 my lodgings the evening after, and observed, they had 
 heard of but one person, (a Mr. Beard) but approved 
 of them. 
 
 I then proceeded on to Philadelphia, and delivered 
 the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence of May, 
 1775, to Richard Caswell and William Hooper, the 
 Delegates to Congress from the State of North Carolina. 
 
 I am now in the eighty-eighth year of my age, resid- 
 ing in the county of Elbert, in the State of Georgia. I
 
 APPENDIX. 139 
 
 was in the Revolutionary War, from the commence- 
 ment to the close. I would further observe, that the 
 Rev. Francis Cummins, a Presbyterian Clergyman, of 
 Greene county, in this State, was a student in the town 
 of Charlotte at the time of the adoption of the resolu- 
 tions, and is as well, or perhaps better acquainted with 
 the proceedings at that time, than any man now 
 living. 
 
 Col. William Polk, of Raleigh, in North Carolina, 
 was living with his father Thomas, in Charlotte, at the 
 time I have been speaking of, and although then too 
 young to be forward in the business, yet the leading 
 circumstances I have related cannot have escaped his 
 recollection. 
 
 JAMES JACK. 
 
 Signed this 7th Dec., 1819, in presence of 
 
 JOB WESTON, C. C-0. 
 JAMES OLIVER, Atto. at Law. 
 
 C 2. 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA, ) 
 Cabarrus County, Nov. 29, 1830. j 
 
 "We, the undersigned, do hereby certify that we have 
 frequently heard William S. Alexander, dec'd, say that 
 Jie, the said Wm. S. Alexander, was at Philadelphia, on 
 mercantile business, in the early part of the summer of 
 1775, say in June; and that on the day that Gen. 
 Washington left Philadelphia to take the command of 
 the Northern army, he, the said Wm. S. Alexander, met 
 with Capt. James Jack, who informed him, the said 
 William S. Alexander, that he, the said James Jack,
 
 140 . APPENDIX. 
 
 was there as the agent or bearer of the Declaration of 
 Independence made in Charlotte, on the twentieth day 
 of May, seventeen hundred and seven ty-five, by the 
 citizens of Mecklenburg, then including Cabarrus, with 
 instructions to present the same to the Delegates from. 
 North Carolina, and by them to be laid before Congress, 
 and which he said he had done ; in which Declaration 
 the aforesaid citizens of Mecklenburg renounced their 
 allegiance to the crown of Great Britain, and set up a 
 government for themselves, under the title of The Com- 
 mittee of Safety. 
 
 Given under our hands the date above written. 
 
 ALPHONSO ALEXANDER, 
 AMOS ALEXANDER, 
 J. McKNITT. 
 
 D. 
 
 Lexington, (Georgia,} November 10, 1819. 
 
 DEAR SIR : The bearer, the Hon. Thomas W. Cobb, 
 has suggested to me that you had a desire to know 
 something particularly of the proceedings of the citizens 
 of Mecklenburg county, in North Carolina, about the 
 beginning of our Revolutionary War. 
 
 Previous to my becoming more particular, I will sup- 
 pose you remember the Regulation business, which 
 took its rise in or before the year 1770, and issued and 
 ended in a battle, between the Regulators and Governor 
 Tryon, in the spring of 1771. Some of the Regulators 
 were killed, and the whole dispersed. The Regulators' 
 conduct " was a rudis indigestaque moles" as Ovid says,
 
 APPENDIX. 141 
 
 about the beginning of creation; but the embryotic 
 principles of the Revolution were in their temper and 
 views. They wanted strength, consistency, a Congress 
 and a Washington at their head. Tryon sent his offi- 
 cers and minions through the State, and imposed the 
 oath of allegiance upon the people, even as far up as 
 Mecklenburg county. In the year 1775, after our Revo- 
 lution began, the principal characters of Mecklenburg 
 county met on two sundry days, in Queen's Museum in 
 Charlotte, to digest Articles for a State Constitution, in 
 anticipation that the Province would proceed to do so. 
 In this business the leading characters were, the Rev. 
 Hezekiah James Balch, a graduate of Princeton Col- 
 lege, an elegant scholar; Waightstill Avery, Esq., At- 
 torney at Law ; Hezekiah and John McKuitt Alexan- 
 der, Esqrs.,Col. Thomas Polk, etc., etc. 
 
 Many men, and young men, (myself one,) before 
 magistrates, abjured allegiance to George III., or any 
 other foreign power. At length, in the same year, 1775, 
 I think, at least positively before July 4th, 1776, the 
 males generally of that county met on a certain day in 
 Charlotte, and from the head of the Court-house stairs 
 proclaimed Independence on English Government, by 
 their herald Col. Thomas Polk. I was present, and 
 saw and heard it, and as a young man, and then a 
 student in Queen's Museum, was an agent in these 
 things. I did not then, take and keep the dates, and 
 cannot, as to date, be so particular as I could wish. 
 Capt. James Jack, then of Charlotte, but now of Elbert 
 county, in Georgia, was sent with the account of these 
 proceedings to Congress, then in Philadelphia and 
 brought back to the county, the thanks of Congress for 
 their zeal and the advice of Congress to be a little
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 more patient, until Congress should take the measures 
 thought to be best. 
 
 I would suppose, sir, that some minutes of these 
 things must be found among the records of the first 
 Congress, that would perfectly settle their dates. I am 
 perfectly sure, being present at the whole of them, 
 they were before our National Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 Hon. Sir, if the above few things can afford you any 
 gratification, it will add to the happiness of your friend 
 and humble servant. 
 
 FKANCIS CUMMINS. 
 
 HOH. NATHANIEL MACON". 
 
 E. 
 
 Vesuvius Furnace, tli October, 1830. 
 
 DEAK SIK, Agreeably to your request, I will give 
 you the details of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence on the 20th of May, 1775, as well as I can rec- 
 ollect after a lapse of fifty-five years. I was then a lad 
 about half grown, was present on that occasion (a 
 looker on). 
 
 During the Winter and Spring preceding that event, 
 several popular meetings of the people were held in 
 Charlotte ; two of which I attended. Papers were read, 
 grievances stated, and public measures discussed. As 
 printing was not then common in the South, the papers 
 were mostly manuscript ; one or more of which waa 
 from the pen of the Eeverend Doctor Keese, (then of 
 Mecklenburg,) which met with general approbation, 
 and copies of it circulated. It is to be regretted that
 
 APPENDIX. 143 
 
 those and other papers published at that period, and 
 the journal of their proceedings, are lost. They would 
 show much of the spirit and tone of thinking which 
 prepared them for the measures they afterwards adopted. 
 On the 20th of May, 1775, besides the two persons 
 elected from each militia company, (usually called 
 Committee-men,) a much larger number of citizens at- 
 tended in Charlotte than at any former meeting per- 
 haps half the men in the county. The news of the bat- 
 tle of Lexington, the 19th of April preceding, had 
 arrived. There appeared among the people much ex- 
 citement. The committee were organized in the Court- 
 house by appointing Abraham Alexander, Esq., Chair- 
 man, and John McKnitt Alexander, Esq., Clerk or Sec- 
 retary to the meeting. 
 
 After reading a number of papers as usual, and much 
 animated discussion, the question was taken, and they 
 resolved to declare themselves independent. One among 
 other reasons offered, that the King or Ministry 
 had, by proclamation or some edict, declared the Col- 
 onies out of the protection of the British Crown ; they 
 ought, therefore, to declare themselves out of his pro- 
 tection, and resolve on independence. That their pro- 
 ceedings might be in due form, a sub-committee, con- 
 sisting of Doctor Ephraim Brevard, a Mr. Kennon, an 
 attorney, and a third person, whom I do not recol- 
 lect, were appointed to draft their Declaration. They 
 retired from the Court-house for some time ; but the 
 committee continued in session in it. One circum- 
 stance occurred I distinctly remember: A member of 
 the committee, who had said but little before, addressed 
 the Chairman as follows: " If you resolve on independ- 
 ence, how shall we all be absolved from the obligations of
 
 144 APPENDIX. 
 
 the oath we took to be true to King George the 3d about 
 four years ago, after the Regulation battle, when we 
 were sworn whole militia companies together. I should 
 be glad to know how gentlemen can clear their con- 
 sciences after taking that oath/' This speech produced 
 confusion. The Chairman could scarcely preserve order, 
 so many wished to reply. There appeared great indig- 
 nation and contempt at the speech of the member. 
 Some said it was nonsense ; others that allegiance and 
 protection were reciprocal ; when protection was with- 
 drawn, allegiance ceased ; that the oath was only binding 
 while the King protected us in the enjoyment of our 
 rights and liberties as they existed at the time it 
 was taken; which he had not done, but now declared 
 us out of his protection ; therefore was not binding. 
 Any man who would interpret it otherwise, was a fool. 
 Byway of illustration, (pointing to a green tree near 
 the Court-house,) stated, if he was sworn to do any 
 thing as long as the leaves continued on that tree, it 
 was so long binding; but when the leaves fell, he was 
 discharged from its obligation. This was said to be 
 certainly applicable in the present case. Out of respect 
 for a worthy citizen, long since deceased, and his respect- 
 able connections, I forbear to mention names ; for, 
 though he was a friend to the cause, a suspicion rested 
 on him in the public mind for some time after. 
 
 The sub-committee appointed to draft the resolutions 
 returned, and Doctor Ephraim Brevard read their re- 
 port, as near as I can recollect, in the very words we 
 have since seen them several times in print. It was 
 unanimously adopted, and shortly after it was moved 
 and seconded to have proclamation made and the peo- 
 ple collected, that the proceedings be read at the Court-
 
 APPENDIX. 145 
 
 house door, in order that all might hear them. It was 
 done, and they were received with enthusiasm. It was 
 then proposed by some one aloud to give three cheers and 
 throw up their hats. It was immediately adopted, and 
 the hats thrown. Several of them lit on the Court- 
 house roof. The owners had some difficulty to reclaim 
 them. 
 
 The foregoing is all from personal knowledge. 1 un- 
 derstood afterwards that Captain James Jack, then of 
 Charlotte, undertook, on the request of the committee, 
 to carry a copy of their proceedings to Congress, which 
 then sat in Philadelphia; and on his way, at Salisbury, 
 the time of court, Mr. Kennon, who was one of the com- 
 mittee who assisted in drawing the Declaration, pre- 
 vailed on Captain Jack to get his papers, and have them 
 read publicly; which was done, and the proceedings 
 met with general approbation. But two of the Lawyers, 
 John Dunn and a Mr. Booth, dissented, and asserted 
 they were treasonable, and endeavored to have Captain 
 Jack detained. He drew his pistols, and threatened to 
 kill the first man who would interrupt him, and passed 
 on. The news of this reached Charlotte in a short time 
 after, and the executive of the committee, whom they 
 had invested with suitable powers, ordered a party of 
 ten or twelve armed horsemen to bring said Lawyers from 
 Salisbury; when they were brought, and the case in- 
 vestigated before the committee. Dunn, on giving 
 security and making fair promises, was permitted to re- 
 turn, and Booth was sentenced to go to Camden, in 
 South Carolina, out of the sphere of his influence. My 
 brother George Graham and the late Col. John Carruth 
 were of the party that went to Salisbury; and it is dis- 
 tinctly remembered that when in Charlotte they came
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 home at night, in order to provide for their trip to 
 Camden ; and that they and two others of the party 
 took Booth to that place. This was the first military 
 expedition from Mecklenburg in the Revolutionary 
 war, and believed to be the first any where to the 
 South. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 J. GRAHAM. 
 Dr. Jos. M'KT. ALEXANDER, 
 
 Mecklenburg, N. Carolina. 
 
 R 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE MEMOIR OF THE LATE REV. HUM- 
 PHREY HUNTER. 
 
 Orders were presently issued by Col. Thos. Polk to 
 the several militia companies, that two men, selected 
 from each corps, should meet at the Court-house on the 
 19th of May, 1775, in order to consult with each other 
 upon such measures as might be thought best to be 
 pursued. Accordingly, on said day a far larger number 
 than two out of each company were present. There wa8 
 some difficulty in choosing the commissioners. To 
 have chosen all thought to be worthy, would have ren- 
 dered t}ie meeting too numerous. The following were 
 selected, and styled Delegates, and are here given, ac- 
 cording to my best recollection, as they were placed on 
 roll : Abram Alexander, sen'r, Thomas Pclk, Rich'd 
 Harris, sen'r, Adam Alexander, Richard Barry, John 
 McKnit Alexander, Neil Morison, Hezekiah Alexan- 
 der, Hezekiah J. Balch, Zacheus Wilson, John Phifer, 
 James Harris, William Kennon, John Ford, Henry 
 Downs, Ezra Alexander, William Graham, John Queary, 
 Chas. Alexander. Waightstill Avery, Ephraim Brevard,
 
 APPENDIX. 147 
 
 Benjamin Patton, Matthew McClure, Robert Invin, 
 John Flenniken, and David Reese. 
 
 Abram Alexander was nominated, and unanimously 
 voted to the Chair. John McKnit Alexander and 
 Ephraim Brevard were chosen Secretaries. The Chair 
 being occupied, and the Clerks seated, the House was 
 called to order and proceeded to business. Then a full, 
 a free, and dispassionate discussion obtained on the 
 various subjects for which the delegation had been con- 
 vened, and the following resolutions were unanimously 
 ordained: 
 
 1st. Resolved, That whosoever directly or indirectly 
 abetted, or in any way, form or manner, countenanced 
 the uncharteredand 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. 
 
 3d. Resolved, That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg 
 county, do hereby dissolve the political bands which 
 have connected us to 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 tram- 
 pled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed 
 the blood of American patriots at Lexington. 
 
 3d. 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, under 
 the control of no power other than that of our God and 
 the general government of the Congress ; to the mainten- 
 ance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to each 
 other our mutual co-operation, our lives, our fortunes, 
 and our most sacred honor.
 
 148 APPENDIX. 
 
 4th. Resolved, That as we now acknowledge the exist- 
 ence and control of no law or legal officer, civil or mili- 
 tary, within this county, we do hereby ordain and adopt 
 as a 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 charac- 
 ter of a " Committee-man" to issue process, hear and 
 determine all matters of controversy, according to said 
 adopted laws, and to preserve peace, union and harmony 
 in said county ; and to use every exertion to spread 
 the love of country and fire of freedom throughout 
 America, until a more general and organized govern- 
 ment be established in this province. 
 
 Those resolves having been concurred in, bye-laws and 
 regulations for the government of a standing Commit- 
 tee of Public Safety were enacted and acknowledged. 
 Then a select committee was appointed, to report on 
 the ensuing day a full and definite statement of griev-. 
 ances, together with a more correct and formal draft of 
 the Declaration of Independence. The proceedings 
 having been thus arranged and somewhat in readiness 
 for promulgation, the Delegation then adjourned until 
 to-morrow, at 12 o'clock. 
 
 The 20th of May, at 12 o'clock, the Delegation, 
 as above, had convened. The select committee were 
 also present, and reported agreeably to instructions, viz.
 
 APPENDIX. 149 
 
 a statement of grievances and formal draft of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence, written by Ephraim Brevard, 
 chairman of said committee, and read by him to the 
 Delegation. The resolves, bye-laws and regulations were 
 read by John McKnitt Alexander. It was then an- 
 nounced from the Chair, are you all agreed ? There 
 was not a dissenting voice. Finally, the whole proceed- 
 ings were read distinctly and audibly, at the Court- 
 house door, by Col. Thomas Polk, to a large, respectable 
 and approving assemblage of citizens, who were present, 
 and gave sanction to the business of the day. A copy 
 of all those transactions were then drawn off, and given 
 in charge to Capt. James Jack, then of Charlotte, that 
 he should present them to Congress, then in session in 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 On that memorable day, I was 20 years and 14 days 
 of age, a very deeply interested spectator, recollecting 
 the dire hand of oppression that had driven me from 
 my native clime, now pursuing me in this happy asy- 
 lum, and seeking to bind again in the fetters of bond- 
 age. 
 
 On the return of Capt. Jack, he reported that Con- 
 gress, individually, manifested their entire approbation 
 of the conduct of the Mecklenburg citizens ; but 
 deemed it premature to lay them officially before the 
 House. 
 
 NOTE. The foregoing extract is copied from a manuscript 
 account of the Revolutionary War in the South, addressed by 
 the writer to a friend, who had requested historical information 
 upon the subject. Mr. Hunter was in the battle of Camden, and 
 has given an interesting narrative of the circumstances connect- 
 ed with the death of Baron DeKalb. The manuscript gives the 
 biography of the writer, from which it appears he was a native
 
 150 APPENDIX. 
 
 of Ireland, and born on the 14th of May, 1755, and at an early age 
 emigrated from his native land to the Province of North 
 Carolina. 
 
 ADDITIONAL PAPERS, 
 
 NOT PARTICULAKLY KEFEEKED TO IK THE PKEFACB. 
 
 From the Raleigh Register, of February 18, 1820. 
 
 MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF INDE- 
 PENDENCE. 
 
 When this Declaration was first published in April 
 last, some doubts were expressed in the Eastern papers 
 as to its authenticity, (none of the Histories of the 
 Revolution having noticed the circumstance.) Col. 
 William Polk, of this City, (who, though a mere youth 
 at the time, was present at the meeting which made the 
 Declaration, and whose Father, being Colonel of the 
 county, appears to have acted a conspicuous part on the 
 occasion,) observing this, assured us of the correctness 
 of the facts generally, though he thought there were 
 errors as to the name of the Secretary, etc., and said that 
 he should probably be able to correct these, and throw 
 some further light on the subject, by inquiries amongst 
 some of his old friends in Mecklenburg county. He 
 has accordingly made inquiries, and communicated to 
 us the following Documents as the result, which, we 
 presume, will do away all doubts on the subject.
 
 APPENDIX. 151 
 
 CERTIFICATE. 
 
 STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, ) 
 
 MECKLEXBUKG COUNTY. j 
 
 At the request of Col. William Polk, of Raleigh, made 
 to Major-General George Graham, soliciting him to pro- 
 cure all the information that could be obtained at this 
 late period, of the transactions which took place in the 
 county of Mecklenburg, in the year 1775, as it respected 
 the people of that county having declared Independ- 
 ence ; of the time when the Declaration was made ; 
 who were the principal movers and leaders, and the 
 members who composed the body of Patriots who made 
 the Declaration, and signed the same. 
 
 We, the undersigned citizens of the said county, and 
 of the several ages set forth opposite to each of our 
 names, do certify, and on our honor declare, that we 
 were present in the town of Charlotte, in the said county 
 of Mecklenburg, on the 19th day of May, 1775, when two 
 persons elected from each Captain's Company in said 
 county, appeared as Delegates, to take into considera- 
 tion the state of the country, and to adopt such meas- 
 ures as to them seemed best, to secure their lives, liberty, 
 and property, from the storm which was gathering, and 
 had burst upon their fellow-citizens to the Eastward, 
 by a British Army, under the authority of the British 
 King and Parliament. 
 
 The order for the election of Delegates was given by 
 Col. Thomas Polk, the commanding officer of the mili- 
 tia of the county, with a request that their powers 
 should be ample, touching any measure that should be 
 proposed. 
 
 We do further certify and declare, that to the best of
 
 152 APPENDIX. 
 
 our recollection and belief, the delegation was complete 
 from every company, and that the meeting took place 
 in the Court-house, about 12 o'clock on the said 19th 
 day of May, 1775, when Abraham Alexander was chosen 
 Chairman, and Dr. Ephraim Brward Secretary. That 
 the Delegates continued in session until in the night of 
 that day ; that on the 20th they again met, when a com- 
 mittee, under the direction of the Delegates, had 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 Parlia- 
 ment of Great Britain and that, from that day thence- 
 forth, all allegiance and political relation was absolved 
 between the good people of Mecklenburg and the King 
 of Great Britain ; Avlrich Declaration Avas signed by 
 every member of the Delegation, under the shouts and 
 huzzas of a very large assembly of the people of the 
 county, who had come to know the issue of the meet- 
 ing. We further believe, that the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence was drawn up by the Secretary, Dr. Ephraim 
 Brevard, and that it was conceived and brought about 
 through the instrumentality and popularity of Col. 
 Thomas Polk, Abraham Alexander, John McKnit Alex- 
 ander, Adam Alexander, Ephraim Brevard, John Phi- 
 fer, and Hezekiah Alexander, with some others. 
 
 We do further certify and declare, that in a few days 
 after the Delegates adjourned, Captain James Jack, of 
 the town of Charlotte, was engaged to carry the resolves 
 to the President of Congress, and to our Representatives 
 one copy for each ; and that his expenses were paid by 
 a voluntary subscription. And we do knoAV that Capt. 
 Jack executed the trust, and returned with answers, 
 both from the President and our Delegates in Congress,
 
 APPENDIX. 153 
 
 expressive of their entire approbation of the course that 
 had been adopted, recommending a continuance in the 
 same ; and that the time would soon be, when the whole 
 Continent would follow our example. 
 
 We further certify and declare, that the measures 
 which were adopted at the time before mentioned, had 
 a general influence on the people of this county to 
 unite them in the cause of liberty and the country, at 
 that time; that the same unanimity and patriotism 
 continued unimpaired to the close of the war; and that 
 the resolutions had considerable effect in harmonizing 
 the people in two or three adjoining counties. 
 
 That a committee of .Safety for the county were elected, 
 who were clothed with civil and military power, and 
 under their authority several disaffected persons in 
 Rowan, and Tryon (now Lincoln county,) were sent for, 
 examined, and conveyed (after it was satisfactorily 
 proven they were inimical) to Camden, in South Caro- 
 lina, for safe-keeping. 
 
 We do further certify, that the acts passed by the 
 committee of Safety, were received as the Civil Law of 
 the land in many cases, and that Courts of Justice for 
 the decision of controversies between the people were 
 held, and we have no recollection that dissatisfaction 
 existed in any instance with regard to the judgments of 
 said courts. 
 
 We are not, at this late period, able to give the names 
 of all the Delegation who formed the Declaration of In- 
 dependence; but can safely declare as to the following 
 persons being of the number, viz. : Thomas Polk, 
 Abraham Alexander, John McKnitt Alexander, Adam. 
 Alexander, Ephraim Brevard, John Phifer, Hezekiah 
 James Balsh, Benjamin Patton, Hezekiah Alexander,
 
 154 APPENDIX. 
 
 Bichard Barry, William Graham, Matthew M'Clure, 
 Bobert Irvvin, Zachias Wilson, Neil Morrison, John 
 Flenniken, John Queary, Ezra Alexander. 
 
 In testimony of all and every part herein set forth, 
 we have hereunto set our hands. 
 
 GEO. GBAHAM, aged 61, near 62. 
 WM. HUTCHISON, 68. 
 JONAS CLABK, 61. 
 
 EOB'T BOBINSON, 68. 
 
 FROM JOHN SIMESON TO COL. WILLIAM POLK. 
 
 " Providence, January 20, 1820. 
 
 "DEAR SLR, After considerable delay, occasioned 
 partly to obtain what information I could, in addition 
 to my own knowledge of the facts in relation to our 
 Declaration of Independence, and partly by a precarious, 
 feeble old age, I now write to you in answer to yours of 
 the 24th ult. 
 
 "I have conversed with many of my old friends and 
 others, and all agree in the point, but few can state the 
 particulars; for although our county is renowned for 
 general intelligence, we have still some that don't read 
 the public prints. You know, in the language of the 
 day, every Province had its Congress, and Mecklenburg 
 had its county Congress, as legally chosen as any other, 
 and assumed an attitude until then without a preced- 
 ent ; but, alas ! those worthies who conceived and exe- 
 cuted that bold measure, are no more; and one reason 
 why so little new light can be thrown on an old truth, 
 may be this and I appeal to yourself for the correct- 
 ness of the remark we who are now called Bevolution-
 
 APPENDIX. 155 
 
 ary men, were then thoughtless, precipitate youths; we 
 cared not who conceived the bold act, onr business was 
 to adopt and support it. Yourself, sir, in your eigh- 
 teenth year and on the spot, your worthy father, the 
 most popular and influential character in the county, 
 and yet you cannot state much from recollection. Your 
 father, as commanding officer of the county, issued 
 orders to the Captains to appoint two men from each 
 company to represent them in the committee. It was 
 done. Neill Morrison, John Flenuikin, from this com- 
 pany ; Charles Alexander, John McKnitt Alexander, 
 Hezekiah Alexander, Abraham Alexander, Esq., John 
 Phifer, David Reese, Adam Alexander, Dickey Barry, 
 John Queary, with others, whose names I cannot ob- 
 tain. As to the names of those who drew up the Dec- 
 laration, I am inclined to think Doctor Brevard was 
 the principal, from his known talents in composition. 
 It was, however, in substance and form, like that great 
 national act agreed on thirteen months after. Ours 
 was towards the close of May, 1775. In addition to 
 what I have said, the same committee appointed three 
 men to secure all the military stores for the county's 
 use Thomas Polk, John Phifer, and Joseph Kennedy. 
 I was under arms near the head of the line, near Col. 
 Polk, and heard him distinctly read a long string of 
 Grievances, the Declaration and Military Order above. 
 I likewise heard Col. Polk have two warm disputes with 
 two men of the county, who said the measures were 
 rush and unnecessary. He was applauded and they 
 silenced. I was then in my 22d year, an enemy to 
 usurpation and tyranny of every kind, with a retentive 
 memory, and fond of liberty, that had a doubt arisen in 
 my mind that the act would be controverted, proof
 
 156 APPENDIX. 
 
 would not have been wanting; but I comfort myself 
 that none but the self-important peace-party and blue- 
 lights of the East, will have the assurance to oppose it 
 any further. The- biographer of Patrick Henry (Mr. 
 Wirt) says he first suggested Independence in the Vir- 
 ginia Convention ; but it is known they did not reduce 
 it to action so that it will pass for nothing. The Courts 
 likewise acted independently. I myself heard a dispute 
 take place on the bench, and an acting magistrate was 
 actually taken and sent to prison by an order of the 
 Chairman. 
 
 " Thus, sir, have I thrown together all that I can at 
 this time. I am too blind to write fair, and too old to 
 write much sense but if my deposition before the 
 Supreme Court of the United States would add more 
 weight to a truth so well known here, it should be at 
 the service of my fellow-citizens of the county and 
 State generally. 
 
 " I am, sir, your friend and humble servant, 
 
 "JOHN SIMESON, Sen. 
 
 " P. S. I will give you a short anecdote. An aged 
 man near me, on being asked if he knew anything of 
 this affair, replied, ' Och, aye, TAM POLK declared Inde- 
 pendence long before any body else' This old man is 81." 
 
 CERTIFICATE OF ISAAC ALEXANDER. 
 
 I hereby certify that I was present in Charlotte on the 
 19th and 20th days of May, 1775, when a regular depu- 
 tation from all the Captains' companies of militia in 
 the county of Mecklenburg, to wit: Col. Thomas Polk,
 
 APPENDIX. 157 
 
 Adam Alexander, Lieut. Col. Abram Alexander, John 
 McKnitt Alexander," Hezekiah Alexander, Ephraim 
 Brevard, and a number of others, who met to consult 
 and take measures for the peace and tranquillity of the 
 citizens of said county, and who appointed Abraham 
 Alexander their Chairman, and Doctor Ephraim Bre- 
 vard Secretary; who, after due consultation, declared 
 themselves absolved from their allegiance to the King 
 of Great Britain, and drew up a Declaration of their 
 Independence, which was unanimously adopted ; and 
 employed Capt. James Jack to carry copies thereof to 
 Congress, who accordingly went. These are a part of 
 the transactions that took place at that time, as far as 
 my recollection serves me. 
 
 ISAAC ALEXANDER. 
 October 8, 1830. 
 
 CERTIFICATE OF SAM*L WILSON. 
 
 STATE OE NORTH CAROLINA, ) 
 MECKLENBURG COUNTY. [ 
 
 I do hereby certify, that in May, 1775, a committee 
 or delegation from the different militia companies in 
 this county met in Charlotte; and after consulting 
 together, they publicly declared their independence on 
 Great Britain, and on her Government. This was done 
 before a large collection of people, who highly approved 
 of it. I was then and there present, and heard it read 
 from the Court House door. Certified by me, 
 
 SAM'L WILSON.
 
 158 APPENDIX. 
 
 CERTIFICATE OF JOHJST -DAVIDSON". 
 
 Beaver Dam, October 5, 1830. 
 
 DEAK SIR : I received your note of the 25th of last 
 month, requiring information relative to the Mecklen- 
 burg Declaration of Independence. As I am, perhaps, 
 the only person living, who was a member of that Con- 
 vention, and being far advanced in years, and not hav- 
 ing my mind frequently directed to that circumstance 
 for some years, I can give you but a very succinct history 
 of that transaction. There were two men chosen from 
 each captain's company, to meet, in Charlotte, to take the 
 subject into consideration. John McKnitt Alexander 
 and myself were chosen from one company; and many 
 other members were there that I now recollect, whose 
 names I deem unnecessary to mention. When the mem- 
 bers met, and were perfectly organized for business, a 
 motion was made to declare ourselves independent of 
 the Crown of Great Britain, which was carried by a 
 large majority. Dr. Ephraim Brevard was then ap- 
 pointed to give us a sketch of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, which he did. James Jack was appointed to 
 take it on to the American Congress, then sitting in 
 Philadelphia, with particular instructions to deliver it 
 to the North Carolina Delegation in Congress, (Hooper 
 and Caswell.) When Jack returned, he stated that the 
 Declaration was presented to Congress, and the reply 
 was, that they highly esteemed the patriotism of the 
 citizens of Mecklenburg ; but they thought the measure 
 too premature. 
 
 I am confident that the Declaration of Independence 
 by the people of Mecklenburg was made public at least
 
 APPENDIX. 159 
 
 twelve months before that of the Congress of the 
 United States. 
 
 I do certify that the foregoing statement, relative to 
 the Mecklenburg Independence is correct, and which I 
 ani willing to be quali6ed to, should it be required. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 JOHN DAVIDSON. 
 Doct. J. M. ALEXANDER. 
 
 NOTE. The following is a copy of an original paper furnished 
 by the writer of the foregoing certificate, from which it would 
 seem, that, from the period of the Mecklenburg Declaration, 
 every individual friendly to the American cause was furnished 
 by the Chairman of that meeting, ABRAM ALEXANDER, with tes- 
 timonials of the character he had assumed ; and in this point of 
 view the paper affords strong collateral testimony of the correct- 
 ness of many of the foregoing certificates. 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA, MECKLENBURG COUNTY,) 
 November 28, 1775. J 
 
 These may certify to all whom they may concern, that the 
 bearer hereof, William Henderson, is allowed here to be a true 
 friend to liberty, and signed the Association. 
 
 Certified by ABR'M ALEXANDER, Chairman 
 
 of the Committee of P. S. 
 
 LETTER FROM J. G. M. RAMSEY. 
 
 Mecklenburg, T. Oct. 1, 1830. 
 
 DEAR SIR: Yours of 21st ultimo was duly re- 
 ceived. In answer I have only to say, that little is in 
 my possession on the subject alluded to which you have
 
 160 APPENDIX. 
 
 not already seen. Subjoined are the certificates of two 
 gentlemen of this comity, whose respectability and 
 veracity are attested by their acquaintances here, as well 
 as by the accompanying testimonials of the magistrates 
 in whose neighborhood they reside. With this you will 
 also receive extracts from letters on the same subject 
 from gentlemen well known to you, and to the country 
 at large. 
 
 I am, very respectfully, yours, &c., 
 
 J. G. M. EAMSEY. 
 
 CEETIFICATE OF JAMES JOHNSON". 
 
 I, James Johnson, now of Knox county, Tennessee, 
 but formerly of Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, 
 do hereby certify, that to the best of my recollection, in 
 the month of May, 1775, there were several meetings in 
 Charlotte concerning the impending war. Being young, 
 I was not called on to take an active part in the same ; 
 but one thing I do positively remember, that she (Meck- 
 lenburg county) did meet and hold a Convention, de- 
 clared independence, and sent a man to Philadelphia 
 with the proceedings. And I do further certify, that I am 
 well acquainted with several of the men who formed or 
 constituted said Convention, viz. John McKnitt Alex- 
 ander, Hezekiah Alexander, Abraham Alexander, Adam 
 Alexander, Robert Irwin, Neill Morrison, John Flenni- 
 ken, John Qneary. 
 
 Certified by me this llth day of October, 1827. 
 JAMES JOHNSON", 
 
 In my seventy-third year.
 
 APPENDIX. 161 
 
 CEETIFICATE OF ELIJAH JOHXSOX AND JAMES WILHITE. 
 
 We, Elijah Johnson and James Wilhite, acting Jus- 
 tices of the Peace for the county of Knox, do certify, 
 that we have been a long time well acquainted with 
 Samuel Montgomery and James Johnson, both residents 
 of Knox county; and that they are entitled to full 
 credit, and any statement they may make to implicit 
 confidence. 
 
 Given under our hands and seals this 4th day of Oc- 
 tober, 1830. 
 
 ELIJAH JOHNSON, (Seal.) 
 JAMES WILHITE, (Seal.) 
 Justices of the Peace for Knox county. ' 
 
 NOTE. Mr. Montgomery's certificate does not purport to state 
 the facts as having come under his own personal observation. 
 It is therefore omitted in this publication.
 
 AUTOGRAPHS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SIGNERS OF THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION, 
 
 (&*~fy- 
 
 fotf 
 Jffar*/
 
 THE CELEBRATION OF THE 100TH ANNI- 
 VERSARY OF THE MECKLENBURG DE- 
 CLARATION. 
 
 The 20th May Celebration, 1875. 
 
 The following were the Committees appointed by 
 a citizens' meeting held at Charlotte, N. C., to make 
 arrangements for the 20th of May celebration, 1875 : 
 
 General Executive Committee. S. B. Alexander, 
 Thos. W. Dewey, ."Wm. Johnston, C. Dowd, J. C. 
 Burroughs, Thos. J. Moore, Robt. I. McDowell, S. 
 Wittkowsky, R. Y. McAden and John E. Brown. 
 Dr. Joseph Graham was added to the Committee as 
 chairman thereof. 
 
 Committee on Orators. Gov. Z. B. Vance, Hon. 
 W. M. Sliipp and Gen. D. H. Hill. 
 
 Committee on /Subscription. Gen. J. A. Young, 
 chairman ; Chas. R. Jones, D. G. Maxwell, A. Ma- 
 caulay, S. P. Smith, Jno. W. Wadsworth and F. A. 
 McNinch. 
 
 Committee on Finance. Jos. H. Wilson, chair- 
 man; Gen. R. Barringer and John L. Brown. 
 
 Committee on the Press. W. J. Yates, chairman ; 
 W. F. A very and C. R. Jones. 
 
 Committee on Fire and Military Companies. J. 
 H. Orr, chairman ; F. A. McNinch, N. C. Harry 
 and D. M. Rigler. 
 
 Committee on Artillery and Fire Works. Col. 
 Thos. H. Brem, Sr., chairman ; John Wilkes,' T. L. 
 Seigle, F. H. Dewey, Thos. II. Alien and P. Ludwig.
 
 166 COMMITTEES. 
 
 Committee to Canvass the County. Col. H. C. 
 Jones, chairman ; R. A. Springs, Jas. F. Johnston, 
 E. C. Davidson, T. L. Tail, Cof. W. R. Myers, Wm. 
 Johnston, R. Barringer, 0. Dowd and J. A. Young. 
 
 Commissary Committee. Jas. F. Johnston, chair- 
 man ; R. M. Miller, D. M. Rigler, Josiah Asburj, 
 Jas. F. Davidson, Thos. Grier, Robt. E. Cochrane, 
 L. W. Sanders, J. S. M. Davidson, Chas. "W. Alex- 
 ander, Capt. S. Roessler, P. S. Whisnant, Walter 
 Brem, Frank Wilson, A. R. Nisbet and D. W. Gates. 
 
 deception Committee. J. Y. Bryce, chairman; 
 J. M. Miller, J. L. Morehead, W. H. H. Gregory, R. 
 D. Graham, Geo. E. Wilson, W. W. Phifer, W. H. 
 Bailey, Gen. Prince, S. A. Cohen and A. B. David- 
 son. 
 
 AUXILIARY TOWNSHIP COMMITTEES. 
 
 Mallard Creek. Wm. D. Alexander, J. H. Che- 
 shire and J. R. DeArmond. 
 
 Lemley's. Dr. J. M. Wilson, Dr. Brevard Alexan- 
 der and W. B. Withers. 
 
 Deweese. H. P. Helper, W. P. Williams and Rev. 
 Chas. Phillips, D.D. 
 
 Long Creek. R. D. Whitley, J. Springs Davidson 
 and Dr. E. A. Sample. 
 
 Paw Creek. Wm. Todd, H. J. Rhyne, and Jas. 
 Beattie. 
 
 erryhill.R. D. Collins, B. F. Brown and T. B. 
 Price. 
 
 Steel OreehGen. W. H. Neal, Dr. J. M. Strong 
 and S. Watson Reid.
 
 COMMITTEES. 167 
 
 Pinemlle. J. A. Younts, J. "W. Morrow and J. 
 R. Kirkpatrick. 
 
 Providence. H. M. Parks, E. C. Grier and Henry 
 Bryant. 
 
 Clear Creek. Eli Hinson, D. W. Flow and Eobt. 
 Henderson. 
 
 Morning Star. 3. II. Irwin, J. W. Hood and D. 
 E. Hooks. 
 
 Sharon. I. N. Alexander, Dr. C. L. Hutchison 
 and R. B. Hunter. 
 
 Crab Orchard. J. R. Baker, E. P. Cochrane and 
 "VVm. McOombs. 
 
 Charlotte. B. H. Moore, J. P. Alexander and Dr. 
 W. J. Hayes.