North Carolina historical review

              The North Carolina
Historical Review
Volume II January, 1925 Number 1
CULTURE AND THE NEW ERA IN NORTH CAROLINA'
By W. C. Jackson
Some time ago, Mr. H. L. Mencken referred to the South in the
following words
:
Down there a poet is now almost as rare as an oboeplayer, a dry-paint
etcher, or a metaphysician. It is, indeed, amazing to contemplate so vast a
vacuity. One thinks of the interstellar spaces, of the colossal reaches of the
now mythical ether. Nearly the whole of Europe could be lost in that stupen-dous
region of fat farms, shoddy cities and paralyzed cerebrums; one could
throw in France, Germany and Italy, and still have room for the British Isles.
And yet, for all its size and all its wealth and all the 'progress' it bab-bles
of, it is almost as sterile, artistically, intellectually, culturally, as the
Sahara Desert.
There are single acres in Europe that house more first-rate men than
all the states South of the Potomac; there are probably single square miles
in America. If the whole of the late Confederacy were to be engulfed by a
tidal wave tomorrow, the effect upon the civilized minority of men in the
world would be but little greater than that of a flood on the Yang-tse-Kiang.
It would be impossible in all history to match so complete a drying up
of a civilization.
In all that gargantuan paradise of the fourth-rate, there is not a single
picture gallery worth going into, or a single orchestra capable of playing
the nine symphonies of Beethoven, or a single opera house, or a single
theater, devoted to decent plays, or a single public monument (built since
the war) that is worth looking at, or a single work shop devoted to the
making of beautiful things. Once you have counted Robert Loveman (an
Ohioan by birth) and John McLure (an Oklahoman), you will not find a
single Southern poet above the rank of a neighborhood rhymester. Once
you have counted James Branch Cabell (a lingering survivor of the ancient
regime: a scarlet dragon-fly imbedded in opaque amber), you will not find
a single Southern prose writer who can actually write. And once you have
—
but when you come to critics, musical composers, painters, sculptors, archi-tects
and the like, you will have to give it up, for there is not even a bad one
between the Potomac mud-flats and the Gulf. Nor an historian. Nor a so-
^ This paper was read by the writer as his address as president before the State Literary
and Historical Association, December 4, 1924.
[3 ]
4 The North Carolina Historical Review
ciologist. Nor a philosopher. Nor a theologian. Nor a scientist. In all
these fields the South is an awe inspiring blank—a brother to Portugal,
Serbia and Esthonia.
These are harsh words. They are the most terrific arraignment
of a whole people that I have ever read. Since they are the words
of one of America's foremost critics, spoken deliberately, and evi-dently
without malice, they cannot be dismissed as a prejudiced,
ignorant, and vicious attack. His words should be carefully weighed.
If Mr. Mencken is wrong, and I am positive that he is in some par-ticulars,
it ought to be demonstrable. If he is right, as I believe
he is in some respects, the facts ought to be admitted. His
criticism has not provoked me to rejoinder, but it has suggested
that a careful, dispassionate, truthful inquiry concerning culture in
North Carolina, which is an integral part of his Sahara, would not be
inappropriate upon this occasion.
The history of culture in I^orth Carolina falls definitely and easily
into two general periods. The first dates from the very beginning
of English settlement within the colony and extends to about the
year 1875, that is, to the time of the civil war and its aftermath.
The second period dates from about 1875, that is, from the time of
that general revolution in North Carolina which followed close upon
the heels of what we generally designate reconstruction. The basis
of my selection of these periods rests upon the principle of cultural
standards. During the first period one standard of cultural life pre-vailed;
quite another standard came to prevail in the second era.
During this first period of the state's history the cultural ideal that
dominated it and the South was one that was based on the ideal that
had dominated English life and society, which in turn was based
on the Greek originally and derived thence through Roman and then
through Western European civilization. This culture has been best
defined and illustrated by Matthew Arnold, who said that it was
"a coming to know the best that the race had thought and felt" ; ''a
study of perfection" ; it is ''sweetness and light" ; it is ''making right
thinking prevail." In the usual sense in which we use the term,
it concerned matters of taste and knowledge. It signified a certain
mode of life and its accompanying artistic, literary, and scientific
expression, a certain elegance of living and appreciation of the highest
Culture and the New Era in North Carolina 5
and best that the race had thought and felt and known. This idea
of culture carried with it certain definite implications dating from
the Greeks and derived from them and carried through Roman and
Western European civilization into England, namely, that it rested,
as Edward Kidder Graham has stated, on a basis of leisure and
caste. As the Greeks proclaimed it, as the Romans and Western
Europeans adopted it, and as all practiced it, leisure was indispen-sable
to culture. In fact, work was actually degrading. Work was,
therefore, left to another, a lesser and inferior group. Caste inevit-ably
followed. A specially nurtured group, then, based upon leisure
and caste, constituted the limits of this cultural standard, a group
which we may call a limited aristocracy. This was the ideal of cul-ture
that was brought over from England to !N'orth Carolina—and
to other parts of the country as well, of course. Whatever of culture
we had in this state up to 1875 was the product of a civilization
builded upon this ideal.
What Avere its fruits in North Carolina ? The story is soon told.
There was comparatively, even absolutely, a small amount of culture
in North Carolina in this period. There did exist a definite, highly
cultured group, a group that lived in good homes, that read books,
that lived a life of elegance, of leisure, of ease. As Mencken says,
^^some attention was given to the art of living—life got beyond and
above the state of a mere infliction and became an exhilarating ex-perience;
a certain noble spaciousness was in the ancient Southern
scheme of things. The Ur-Confederate had leisure; he liked to toy
with ideas; he was hospitable and tolerant; he had the vague thing
that w^e call culture." Although the exact size of this group in
North Carolina is a matter of some dispute, it was, at best, only a
very small per cent of the state's population. In the earlier history
of the state it w^as confined almost exclusively to the East where
the English predominated and w^here the old plantation system
flourished. Of course, there were cultured people in all parts of the
state as the years passed, but, in proportion to the entire population,
I maintain that the number was small. Furthermore, the articulate
expression of this group during this period was limited. During the
two hundred years of this first cultural era there was not in the state
a library worth mentioning. There were few books of any kind.
6 The North Carolina Historical Review
There was not an art gallery. Indeed, there were no pictures. There
was not a concert hall, not a theater, l^orth Carolina did not produce
in these years, so far as my information goes, a painter, a sculptor,
an architect, a musician (composer or performer), a dramatist, an
actor, a critic. She did not produce a physician, a scientist, a his-torian,
a poet, a teacher, an editor, an essayist, a novelist, an inventor,
or a scholar of the very first rank or of more than local reputation.
Her one definite contribution, aside from the art of living as practiced
by a small group, was in the field of government and jurisprudence.
In this realm her contribution was considerable. Nevertheless, in
political leadership she did not produce a statesman or a jurist or a
diplomat or an orator who is admittedly of the first rank in American
statesmanship and government. (I exclude from this enumeration
Johnson, Polk, Benton, King, and others who, it is true, were born
in iNorth Carolina, but who were manifestly not products of the
cultural life of this state). Of course, Harnett, Iredell, Johnston,
Jones, Murphy, Gaston, Rufiin, Pearson, Morehead, Wiley, Badger,
Graham, Vance, and others were gifted and able men, quite the equal
in character and ability of many whose names are known to every
school boy in America. However, their activities were in the main
confined to N'orth Carolina, and today their names are generally
unknown in America and totally so to the rest of the world.
It is surely unnecessary for me to state that these things are not
said in disparagement. What I have said is not that our ancestors
were without virtue. It is simply that they were in the
main without culture. It is not saying that we should withhold our
great admiration for their character and their many great deeds and
accomplishments, but it is saying that these things, good and neces-sary
as they were, did not produce that fine art of living, that taste
and knowledge, that sweetness and light, that we have designated as
culture. In the words of Walter Hines Page, "these things I men-tion,
not in blame of our ancestors. If we could have chosen them
I doubt if we could have chosen more capable ancestors. It is out of
just such stock that men came who today rule the world, but I mention
these things because we, ourselves, have written and spoken much
nonsense about ourselves and about our ancestors, and have made our-selves
believe that we were in some way different from other sturdy
Culture and the New Era in North Carolina 7
folk and that we were in some way better than other common people.
Thus we came to put a false value on our social structure, and we have
never looked ourselves in the face and seen ourselves as others see us.
This false view has done incalculable hurt. All social progress must
begin with a clear understanding of men as they are. We are all
common folk then, who were once dominated by a little aristocracy
which, in its social and economic character, made a failure and left
a stubborn crop of wrong social notions behind it."
X- -x- *
We come now to our second era and my main thesis. iSTorth Caro-lina
adopted a new culture standard in the closing years of the 19th
century. Edward Kidder Graham, JN'orth Carolina's great apostle
of culture and one of its finest illustrations and exponents in America,
in a remarkable essay, entitled ^^Culture and Commercialism," has
pointed out, with keen insight, how America, outside of the South,
prior to the Civil War, although"~dominated to a large extent by the
aristocratic ideal itself, refused to accept the Graeco-Roman-English
standard of culture and gradually, through the very nature of the
problem of subjugating a new world, gave culture a new meaning.
He maintains that ^'leisure and caste, the basis of academic culture,
is an impossible basis for American life." ^'So America," he says,
^^generally speaking, has failed to make any but weakly imitative or
weirdly original contributions to conventional art or literature and
but slight contributions to conventional culture in any form. Yet it
has made important contributions to the spiritual progress of the race.
These have their obvious origin, not in leisure and caste, but in the
precisely opposite principles of work and democracy." He maintains
that "knowing how to do is also culture," that "culture is the com-plete
art of life and democracy is its main active manifestation,"
that "culture is truth alive," that "the culture of a people is in the
heart of the life that it lives and not in what, by some past standard,
however beautiful, it ought to be." "As American civilization con-fidently
follows it," he says, "and it does follow it, it is not a study
of perfection through coming to know; it is the development of the
spirit through work—it is achievement touched by fine feeling/' This
ideal of democracy and work, as opposed to caste and leisure, not only
8 The North Carolina Historical Review
was a slow evolution in American experience, but was not of universal
application. The South had but a small part in its development be-cause,
as previously pointed out, it clung to another standard. This,
of course, is only partially true so far as North Carolina is concerned,
because the Scotch-Irish and German elements in the population of
this state undoubtedly contributed directly to the doctrine of work
and democracy. This ideal of the establishment of a democracy
through work, which gained a strong hold upon a part of American
life, has grown out of the very nature of life in the new world. It has
its roots deep in the economic forces that underlie human affairs.
This new ideal ^North Carolina, along with the rest of the South,
began to adopt, slowly but surely, immediately after the close of the
war period. It was not an easy thing to do. In fact, it meant nothing
short of a revolution, but the revolution did occur. A profound
change took place in the state. Our whole economic system was dis-rupted.
The old plantation was gone. The aristocrats were dead or
powerless. Labor was demoralized and our agricultural system par-alyzed.
In the midst of this economic demoralization we started
upon a new course. We began to erect factories, to build railroads, to
construct power plants. We became, in part, an industrial people.
The town came into existence. There was a new order economically
in North Carolina. As Alderman says, ^'we finally triumphed over
the ruin and exhaustion of war and found the way to industrialize
our society and to modernize our spirit without commercializing our
souls." While we were changing the economic order, we set about,
at the same time, the business of universal education. We also made
a profound change in our politics, for, although a portion of the pop-ulation
was disfranchised in this period, the basic principle of uni-versal
suffrage was written into the fundamental law of the state.
Furthermore, there was something of a new freedom in intellectual
and religious thought.
So it came about that by the beginning of the 20th century we had
shifted, in large measure, our point of view in North Carolina. In-stead
of building an aristocracy, we turned our faces toward a de-mocracy.
These are large terms and, of course, cannot be taken too
literally, for there are exceptions and reservations to them. Never-theless,
they indicate the predominant idea of the life of the people
Culture and the New Era in North Carolina 9
of the state. Charles Brantley Aycock, who was the true incarnation
of the new North Carolina, pledged the state to the ideal in these
words: "The royal right of every child bom on earth to have the
opportunity to burgeon out all there is within him." And Walter
Hines Page has phrased it thus : "In any scheme of man culture, one
man must be regarded of as great importance as another. The doc-trine
of equality of opportunity is at the bottom of social progress."
Thus, as Graham says, the South presents the interesting picture of
a nation that abruptly changed its culture source. North Carolina,
along with the rest of the South, and with at least one distinct part
of American life outside the South, sets its face steadfastly towards
the high goal of a civilization in which all men shall have an oppor-tunity,
an equal opportunity, "to burgeon out all there is within
them." This means that North Carolina, in this new day, declares it is
her aim to produce a civilization in which a great mass, instead of a
small class, shall become cultured. It is her aim to bring about a so-ciety
in which "achievement touched by fine feeling" will not only be
possible but will be real to the masses of men within her borders.
This is a high adventure. Never before has it been undertaken.
Full success, if possible at all, is certainly afar off. Culture can
exist, has existed, without democracy. Can a democracy become cul-tured
? Nobody knows. But to undertake the experiment is worthy
of the highest efforts of a great people.
* * *
It is now pertinent to inquire what progress we have made in
North Carolina in these short years towards the realization of our
ideal.
The first corollary of the problem of a cultured democracy is
universal education. If culture is to be widely diffused, education
must be widely diffused. There may be intelligence without culture.
There is no culture without intelligence. This may appear contra-dictory
in the light of our definition that "knowing how to do is also
culture." But emphasis must be put upon "knowing" as well as
upon "to do," or we reduce our definition to the level of mere ac-tivity.
"Achievement," by our standard, "must be touched by fine
feeling." And certainly this work of the spirit must be realized, not
10 The North Carolina Historical Review
alone through work, but through intelligent work. An ignorant,
uninformed, unlettered, unskilled people, even though given to work,
do not become a cultured people.
With the zeal and fine fervor of the new convert, ISTorth Carolina,
in the closing years of the 19th century, set about the education of
all her people. The thrilling story of the crusading days of Alderman,
Aycock and Mclver—with a host of others of scarcely less leadership
—is familiar to every one. The state began its great public school
system. It began to levy taxes, to build school houses, to lengthen
school terms, to grade schools, to prepare teachers, to enlarge its
colleges, to enrich its educational curriculum. True to its new found
ideal, it built colleges for women, professional schools, technical
schools, schools for its Indian population and schools for the negroes.
As the years passed, the school term was lengthened, a compulsory at-tendance
law was enacted, literally thousands of buildings were
erected, taxes were vastly increased, summer schools were opened,
college extension courses offered, public libraries were built, moonlight
schools and Chautauquas flourished, newspapers and magazines were
founded. The state had undergone a revolution and was on its
way toward the education of all the people. The progress made is
nothing short of extraordinary, and its importance is emphasized in
the words of Walter Hines Page, who says : ^'In my judgment, there
has been no other event in ]^orth Carolina since the formation of the
American Union that is comparable in importance to this new educa-tional
progress.''
While rejoicing in this marvelous record, even glorying in it, we
must still restate our ideal or goal, namely, a cultured democracy,
which implies universal education, and we must remind ourselves
that our goal is not yet attained.
We have a population in ^Rorth Carolina of about 2,600,000.
There are 300,000 of these people that cannot even read or write.
There are thousands and thousands of children in North Carolina
whose schooling does not extend upon an average beyond the third
grade. There are tens of thousands of people in our State who never
see a newspaper or a magazine or have access to books of any kind.
The public school term in North Carolina, according to the statutes,
is six months. The average number of days that a child goes to
Culture and the New Era in North Carolina 11
school in North Carolina is 140. There are some 5,000 teachers in
our public schools whose rating is below standard grade. Literally
hundreds of thousands of our people (and let me remind you that
we have, all told, only twenty-six hundred thousand) have only the
slightest rudiments of an education, if any at all. They are far,
most of them very far as yet, from attaining that degree of intelli-gence
which will entitle them to qualify, from this standpoint alone,
as cultured men and women.
JSTow, the ideal of universal education is the basic factor in the
realization of a democracy, certainly of a cultured democracy, be-cause
education will bring intelligence, multiply industries, increase
wealth, enlighten government, broaden religion, harmonize social
differences, and clear the vision. If we educate all our people, we
lay the first and basic foundation for the realization of our ideal.
The progress we have made in North Carolina in these few short
years gives some hope—the highest hope we have—of the ultimate
partial realization of a cultured people.
The second corollary of a cultured democracy is prosperity, eco-nomic
independence, wide spread, material well-being. There is no
greater fallacy than the belief that mere wealth produces culture, a
fallacy into which not a few Americans have fallen in recent years.
Wealth has been made and private fortimes acquired in the United
States on a scale heretofore unknown in the world. The vulgar dis-play
of this wealth—the utter negation of culture—has been a marked
incident of American life. We have not altogether escaped it in
North Carolina. Nevertheless, it is obvious that a certain economic
independence, a certain degree of material well-being, a certain
standard of living, is, generally speaking, an indispensable prere-quisite
to a life of richness and fullness and creative effort. We
cannot have '^achievement touched by fine feeling" while living in
poverty. The art of life cannot be practiced in squalor and dirt and
servitude. Work and leisure are relative terms. Nor must they
be confounded with drudgery and idleness. Without some time to
devote to literature, to art, to music, to the drama, to study, to
thinking, to practicing the fine art of living, as well as of working,
there can be no genuine culture.
12 The North Carolina Historical Review
The emphasis upon economic development is the most striking fact
in recent IsTorth Carolina history. We are becoming a prosperous
—
in a measure a rich—people. The increase of our wealth is a sub-ject
of universal attention. It is the theme of our newspapers, our
trade journals and magazine articles; of chambers of commerce, of
advertising agencies, of commercial travelers, verily, of every citizen
who talks to his neighbor; of commencement speakers, of Rotary,
Kiwanis, Civitan and Lions clubs ; of political speakers and religious
leaders. Our bank deposits, our agricultural products, our income
tax receipts, our spindles, our furniture factories, our tobacco fac-tories,
our power plants, our good road mileage, are the wonder and
pride of the commonwealth. We are building good homes, we are
buying good food and good clothes; we are riding in automobiles.
I^orth Carolina is prosperous in a degree and is beginning to live
comfortably.
This prosperity is reasonably wide spread. There is, of course,
a certain amount of concentration of wealth, but, after all, we have
very few millionaires. We have few large banking houses, a large
number of small ones. We have no large cities. We have a goodly
number of prosperous small towns. We have few large corpora-tions
; a number of smaller ones. We have a great variety of indus-tries
and a varied agriculture. It is evident that we are laying a
foundation in our economic order that may support a cultured people.
Yet, it is equally apparent that, if we think of the entire popula-tion
of the State, we have no more than made a good beginning. The
countless thousands of wretched farm houses, the thousands of houses
of mill operatives, the vast number of tenant houses in our cities and
towns, with the drabness, the ugliness, the cheapness that is found in
them all, bear unanswerable testimony to the fact that culture does
not yet abound in our State. Unless some way can be found whereby
our vast tenant farmer population, our quarter million textile
workers, our multitude of common laborers, can rise above the level
of the life they now live, we may not hope to more than repeat in
the main the sort of civilization that has preceded us, wherein the
great mass of men were unhonored, unlettered and unsung and only
a handful attained to a life that was really worth living.
Culture and the New Era in North Carolina 13
The third corollary of our problem of a cultured democracy is the
question of freedom—intellectual, spiritual, economic and political
freedom. Culture must breathe air that is free. As I have already
stated, work which in its very nature must be creative if not pure
drudgery, lies at the heart of our problem. Creative work is the
essence of American culture. A shackled and fettered mind cannot
create. If we are to produce the fruits of culture, if we are to have
artists, poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, dramatists, architects,
novelists, orators, statesmen; if we are to produce a race of men
whose lives will be rich and full and abundant, we must let them be
free. We cannot be in bondage to ignorance or tradition or bigotry
or fear or to any man or to any power—political, ecclesiastic, eco-nomic
or social—and produce a culture worthy of the name. A man
must be permitted to speak his mind in North Carolina. ]^ay, he
must be encouraged to say what he believes about religion, about
government, about science, about economics. We have spoken over
much of liberty and freedom and individual right in IN'orth Carolina.
Just how much progress we have actually made in their exercise and
use, it is difficult to say. How free we are, I find it hard to estimate.
How long can a minister hold his charge in IsTorth Carolina or re-main
in good standing in his church if he speaks his mind in dis-agreement
with orthodoxy or with the prevalent social and economic
order? How long can a teacher hold his professorial chair if he
openly advocates an economic system or a political program or a
scientific theory which is at variance with current thought? How
long can an editor survive whose newspaper columns are not filled
with orthodox patriotism, orthodox religion, and orthodox economics ?
How long can the laborer stay by his. machine who openly advocates
an economic idea at variance with that of his employer ? How will
the political leader in E'orth Carolina, who presumes to champion an
economic or social or political progTam that is unorthodox, escape
without being branded as socialistic, red, bolshevistic? These ques-tions
are hard to answer, for these things have been so seldom tried
in North Carolina. Undoubtedly, there are some courageous souls
who are speaking their minds. Here and there an editor, a minister,
a teacher, a statesman, a man of affairs, does have the courage to say
what he believes. And undoubtedly such courageous speaking is re-ceiving
an increasingly generous response. However, I am persuaded
14 The North Carolina Historical Review
that there is still much bigotry and prejudice and intolerance in the
State. There are honest men, intelligent, thinking men, who are
afraid to say openly and boldly what they are thinking about religion,
about politics, about education, about our economic problems and our
social problems. I do not know that this condition is any worse in
JSTorth Carolina than elsewhere, nor does it matter. As a matter of
fact, I think it is far better here than in some parts of the country.
However, we are chiefly concerned about here, not elsewhere.
We may not hope to reach that high level of creative work which
is the highest evidence of real culture, unless our people are released
from fear of every sort and are encouraged to express to the utter-most
all that they may think and feel.
A fourth corollary of our problem of a cultured people is a demo-cratic
social order. What progress have we made these forty years
in making possible a wide spread culture by establishing a social
order in which there prevails our doctrine of equality of opportunity
for all men ? All that has been said so far has, of course, a general
application here, and additional evidence of our conception of democ-racy
and our attempt to realize it may be found in our public health
work, our farm demonstration service, the work in our charitable
institutions, our public welfare work, and in the steps taken by a
variety of other agencies which indicate the nature and purpose of
our people. JSTevertheless, we do face the most discouraging aspect
of our progress when we come to consider the structure of our social
order. I shall omit from my discussion other pertinent conditions
that might be included, such as the tenant farmer population and the
status of our negro population.
I wish to call particular attention to one problem in our State,
namely, the formation of a distinct, definite, well defined caste in our
population ; a class which is apart, which is regarded and treated as
inferior by the rest of the people, a class whose present existence
makes it impossible for it to rise to a high level of life. I speak of
the textile mill population of our State. I estimate that there are
at least 250,000 people living in mill villages in IvTorth Carolina.
This is nearly one-tenth of our entire population. It is about one-eighth
of our entire white population. The number is rapidly in-creasing.
The people who make up these mill villages have come
almost exclusively from the country, from the farms. Yet, it is a
Culture and the New Era in North Carolina 15
well known fact that as soon as they enter the mills they are gen-erally
ostracized by the country people. The country people no longer
associate with them. They have lost caste with the farmer. They
have joined an inferior group. Of course, they do not associate with
the town people. They are looked upon by the town group even more
exclusively as of an inferior social order. They are, therefore, com-pletely
cut off from the rest of our population. They are apart. They
are hedged about. The line of cleavage between them and the rest
of the population is clearly drawn and is rarely crossed. If these
people move, they move to another village. They do not return to
the country nor go to town. They do not change their occupation.
Paternalism in its frankest and rankest form exists in these com-munities.
The people live in houses not their own. They worship
in churches not their own. They send their children to schools not
their ovni. Their children are taught by teachers not of their choos-ing.
They trade at a store not of their choosing. The
streets they walk, the water they drink, the recreation they take,
often the very grass on their lawns and the flowers in their
yards, are bestowed upon them by the hand of another. I do not here
undertake to argue the merits or demerits of our industrial system.
I seek here only to point out that this is not democracy, and that
it does not and cannot produce a cultured people. That the stand-ard
of material well-being of these people is raised, is evident ; that
the educational advantages of these people is raised above their
former status is evident, even with the definite restrictions usually
imposed upon the number of years of their schooling; that it has
increased the freedom of spirit, that it has really enlarged the op-portunities
of life, that it has broadened the vision and brought
"sweetness and light" to its people, is open to serious question. That
it has signally failed, so far, to produce any evidences of leadership
and culture is apparent. That it fixes a limit under its present
operation, and a low limit too, beyond which the people cannot go,
appears to be absolutely certain. Here is a dead level of existence,
a level well below the cultural line, above which these people cannot
rise. This industrial population is steadily and rapidly increasing
in E^orth Carolina, and more certainly every day it is becoming
crystalized and encysted in our social structure. It is by way of
16 The North Carolina Historical Review
becoming almost, if not quite, as distinct a caste as feudalism pro-duced.
If paternalism in industry persists, not merely in textile manu-facturing,
"but in other industries; if the tenant farmer remains a
virtual serf in North Carolina, and if the constant stratification of
society continues, we cannot hope to do more than repeat the work
of our antebellum fathers. We will simply build another aristocracy
with a shifted emphasis, with different groups of the people in differ-ent
occupations for the privileged and the under privileged classes.
It remains for me finally to sketch briefly and hastily the progress
we have made in the new era in the articulate expression of our ideal.
Culture finds its truest and highest expression in creative effort.
Our books, our poems, our statues and our pictures, our music, our
songs, and our laws even, reveal the true nature and character of
our civilization. What does the record show ? In statesmanship and
oratory, there is Charles Brantley Aycock. Aycock is not a national
figure, but circumstance, and not his own limitations, restricted his
services to his State and set bounds to his reputation. Whether H. L.
Mencken has ever heard of him or not, Charles B. Aycock was a
statesman of the first order, and in his day was the peer of the states-men
north of the Potomac mud fiats and west of the Alleghany
Mountains. In diplomacy, letters and statesmanship, there is Walter
Hines Page; in letters, the incomparable O. Henry; in histor}-,
Weeks, Dodd, Bassett; in politics, Simmons, Kitchin, Daniels; in
the law and jurisprudence, the lamented Henry Groves Connor,
Hannis Taylor and George Gordon Battle; in poetry. Boner and
McN'eill, not of the first rank but surely not to be omitted ; in educa-tion.
Alderman, Mclver, Graham; in science, Venable, McNider
and Poteat; in criticism, Archibald Henderson.
It is scarcely justifiable to call these names, all of which are per-haps
of unique distinction, but not all of which are admittedly of the
first rank in their respective fields, without enumeration of a long
list of men and women whose achievements entitle them to high
rank in literary, political, scientific, and artistic expression. Mani-festly,
the limits of this paper make such enumeration impossible.
There are numerous other evidences of an increasingly rich cul-tural
life in the State and of the effort to give it adequate expres-sion.
We see these evidences in the increase in the size and circulation
Culture and the New Era in North Carolina 17
of our newspapers and their changed character, the establishment of
that remarkable publication, the Journal of Social Forces, the estab-lishment
of the North Carolina Historical Review, and the other
work of the Historical Commission, the continued excellence of the
South Atlantic Quarterly, the publications of the University of North
Carolina Press, the Trinity College Press and various other publica-tions
; we see further evidences in the building of libraries, the growth
of the circulating library, the wide spread extent of college extension
work ; and in the broadening of the curricula of the high schools and
colleges. We see such evidences even in the State-wide debating con-tests
fostered by the University of North Carolina, and the musical
contests fostered by the North Carolina College for Women ; in the
concert courses and music festivals in our colleges and cities, and in
the hundreds of study clubs that diligently give encouragement to the
study of literature and art.
A North Carolina woman writes a play that has more than a
one-night stand on Broadway. Another writes short stories that are
the delight of thousands of readers. Another wins the high praise
of an award of merit from this Association. Another plays the violin
to discriminating audiences. A North Carolina man writes a play
that evokes the praise of critics and public alike. Another plays the
leading role in a Broadway production. Another is a contributor to
one of our leading journals of criticism. Another is the editor of one
of the foremost magazines in the United States. The Play Makers,
of the University of North Carolina, interpret the life of our people
to ever increasingly appreciative audiences. These things, enumer-ated
as representative and not as exhaustive, make surely but a mod-est
showing and give no grounds for boasting; but they indicate the
trend of events and give some evidence that North Carolina is making
progress in the mastery of the technique of the expression of its cul-tured
life.
It is but a single generation that we have wrought in the new era
in North Carolina. In the main, we have held a true course in the
pursuit of our ideal. We have tried to keep steadfastly before us
our great principle of democracy, and in seeking to bring it to pass,
we have fully embraced the gospel of work. All of our people, women
as well as men, professional men and farmers, the capitalist and the
18 The North Carolina Historical Review
laborer, have consecrated themselves to the task of building a great
commonwealth. But we know full well that our gospel of work,
even if it bring a vast achievement, will be futile unless it be touched
by fine feeling ; that our intelligence, prosperity, freedom, and equal-ity
of opportunity will be a vain thing unless transformed by the
alchemy of the spirit into tolerance and sympathy and faith and
goodness.
How far will we go ?
Will we ever be able to create a civilization in N'orth Carolina in
which there will be no forgotten man, in which every child bom in
the State will have the opportunity to burgeon out all there is within
him, in which the great mass of the people will be intelligent, pros-perous,
free, tolerant, sympathetic, just; a civilization in which the
great mass of the people will have that fine, real, even if somewhat
vague, thing we call culture ?
I do not know. But this I believe : our cause is just, and if we but
keep our purpose pure, we will go far toward realizing in our state
our ideal of a cultured democracy.
THE PROBLEM OF HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION^
By B. B. Kendkick
The writing and publishing of history manuals has become a
business enterprise of no mean proportion. The rewards of success,
expressed in professional standing within the guild as well as in
pecuniary terms, are considerable. Competition is therefore keen
among both authors and publishers. Each author writes a preface
to his book in which he explains in a modest way why his contribution
is superior to other works of a similar nature within the field. On
the covers of the text and in the advertising mediums of the trade,
the publisher declaims, in what in modern parlance is called a
''blurb,'' the merits of the new volume. In either the preface or
the blurb or very likely in both, something will be said about the in-terpretation
of the facts. It is described as novel, penetrating, dis-criminating,
or by some other appropriate word or phrase. It is a
matter of regret that these high promises frequently are left un-fulfilled.
This emphasis upon interpretation is a tribute to the fact that we
are never entirely satisfied in history with a mere account of events,
but must needs insist upon some sort of explanation of causes. A
simple statement of the more obvious cause of an event may satisfy
the less curious, especially if it appeal to their common sense, which,
in spite of the high praise such empirical knowledge has recently
received from the successful candidate for the vice-presidential
office, is not very exacting in its demands after all. A few examples
from Homer will suffice to illustrate this point. That Alexandros
should be saved from a well-merited death at the hands of the out-raged
Menelaus on the plains of Ilium by the intervention of the
goddess Aphrodite and miraculously translated to the bed-chamber
of fair Helen in high-walled Troytown, appealed to the common
sense of the simple-minded listeners to the Homeric epic. That this
same Alexandros had made himself the favorite of the goddess in
the first place by judging her, albeit as the result of a bribe, fairer
than her rival goddesses, was quite understandable on a common-sense
basis. The ultimate destruction of Alexandros, his house, and
*This article was read by the writer as a paper before the State Literarj' and Historical
Association, December 5, 1924.
[ 19 ]
20 The North Carolina Historical Review
his country, was satisfactorily interpreted to Homer's hearers as the
natural outcome of the wrath of Aphrodite's disappointed rivals.
Likewise is nearly every action of humans as recorded in the great
Homeric epics attributahle to divine intervention in the affairs of
men. But while such interpretation seems to have been entirely sat-isfactory
to the primitive Greek, in fact Homer succeeds only in
transferring the problem to a higher sphere. His gods and god-desses
are supermen and women endowed with immortality. They
are motivated in much the same way as are Agamemnon and Ulysses,
Hector and Alexandres, Clytemnestra and Penelope, Andromache
and Helen. Like the mortals they display such human emotions
as fear, anger, jealousy, hatred on the one hand and courage, joy,
pity, love on the other. Inasmuch as the immortals possess human
traits, and human events are largely shaped by divine intervention,
the Iliad and the Odyssey are interesting documents illustrative of
an early attempt to interpret historical phenomena.
So far as facts are concerned, Herodotus's history is in advance
of any of his predecessors who had dealt with historical material.
The same can scarcely be said of his interpretations. In place of
numbers of gods interfering in man's affairs, all the events of human
history are referable to the principle of divine IsTemesis. If we
may by a wrench of the imagination, identify divine l^emesis with
a supreme God, we can find in Herodotus a resemblance to the for-mulators
of the Christian epic.
The background of the Christian epic is to be found in the sacred
writings of the ancient Hebrews, especially that part of them which
are familiar to us as the Old Testament. The writers of the religio-historical
stories which compose the principal part of the Hebrew
Bible, conceived of a tribal god, whose unpronounceable name was
Yahweh and who was publicly acknowledged as The Lord. In the
earlier stories this Yahweh reveals himself as much the same sort of
god as the Greek Zeus or Roman Jupiter. He is human in his out-bursts
of anger, his jealousy of other tribal gods, and the relent-less
cruelty with which he urges his people on against such tribes as
do not propitiate him with worship and sacrifice. By the time we
reach the age of the prophets, the character of Yahweh has under-gone
considerable change for the better. He is decidely less cruel,
less jealous and is much more of a father to his people than he had
formerly been. He is beginning to be repelled rather than propiti-
The Problem of Historical Interpretation 21
ated by sacrifices. He is better pleased with a contrite heart and a
pure spirit than with the smell of burnt offerings. There is some
ground for supposing that he is becoming more than a tribal god,
although it is saying too much to maintain that even the greatest of
the prophets conceived him as a universal father. It was left to the
founder of Christianity to arrive at this conception of him. This
is his character as revealed in the new dispensation, or what we call
the 'New Testament. Despite the fact that the early non-Hebrew
Christians were evidently profoundly affected by the developing
character of the divine plan, it seems clear that they did not conceive
of Yahweh himself as a developing god. The god of Abraham and
Isaac, of Samuel and Saul, of Elijah and Elisha, of Jesus and Paul,
was one and the same and all his acts and judgments were equally
righteous. Although he was so good and loving that he gave his
son to die for our sins, he was still a jealous and vengeful god. In
his name and to asist in the unraveling of the Divine plan and
the establishment of the Celestial City, all true believers were justi-fied
in their efforts to extirpate heresy, conquer the infidel, and con-vert
the heathen by force or by fraud. Like the gods of Homer,
he interposed in the affairs of man. In his name and in the sign
of the cross of his co-equal son, maraculously displayed in the sky, he
permitted Constantine to overcome his enemies in battle and win for
himself the imperial toga. By virtue of his interposition through
one of his earthly saints, Rome was ridded of the plague and with
similar assistance Ireland was freed of its pest of snakes by another.
This brief and wholly inadequate excursus into the origin of the
Christian epic has been made merely as a preface to the statement
that by the time Christianity had become the all-dominant religion
of the rapidly declining Roman Empire, all history, at least in the
western (Christian) world, had already come to be interpreted as a
revelation of God's wisdom and power. The classic statement of
this idea is to be found in St. Augustine's City of God, while Augus-tine's
disciple, Paulus Orosius, exhibited its truth in his Seven Boohs
of Histories Against the Pagans. With Augustine and Orosius, all
pagan history, that is all history except that contained in the Old
and New Testaments, was profane as appertaining to the civitas
terrena, and was therefore useless except in so far as it served as a
sort of chamber of horrors illustrative of the fate of all who were
not citizens of the Civitas Dei. All history henceforth would be an
22 The North Carolina Historical Review
account of the expansion of the City of God until its final triumph
in the millenium/
This conception of history still persists although it no longer
attracts much attention from serious scholars. If we grant that all
history is but the revelation by God of himself, we must ask our-selves
the question, what is the process ? We are therefore thrown
back exactly where Thucydides found himself when he began to
write the history of the Peloponnesian War. Without specifically
rejecting the Homeric idea of divine interposition in the affairs of
men or the Herodotus doctrine of a controlling ISTemesis, Thucydides
undertook to find natural causes for events. Whether these natural
causes were parts of the law of the gods or no, he did not inquire.
The fact that Boeotia had been several times invaded was attributed
to the "goodness of the land," while Attica had escaped invasion
because of ''the poverty of its soil." And again when the Athenian
envoys are defending before the assembly of the Lacedaemonians the
course pursued by their state in building up an empire, Thucy-dides
put into the mouth of their spokesman the following words
:
It follows that it was not a very wonderful action, or contrary to the
common practice of mankind, if we did accept an empire that was offered
to us, and refused to give it up under the pressure of three of the strongest
motives, fear, honor, and interest. And it was not we who set the example,
for it has always been the law that the weaker should be subject to the
stronger. Besides, we believed ourselves to be worthy of our position, and
so you thought us 'till now, when calculations of interest have made you take
up the cry of justice—a consideration which no one ever yet brought for-ward
to hinder his ambition when he had a chance of gaining anything by
might. And praise is due to all who, if not so superior to human nature
as to refuse domination, yet respect justice more than their position com-pels
them to do.^
In this brief paragraph we have the germs of much of the histor-ical
interpretation of our own day. For instance, how many wars
have been begun from fear? It was this emotion that formed the
very cornerstone of Hobbes's philosophical structure of the state,
while interest became in the eighteenth century in the hands of
Adam Smith the keystone for the interpretation of all economic ac-tivity.
National honor as a motive for action of states needs no
comment. Finally it is perhaps claiming too much for Thucydides
1 See article History, by J. T. Shotwell, in H ed. Ency. Br.
2 Crawley tr. of Thucydides, p. 50—Everymans.
i
The Problem of Historical Interpretation 23
to place him among the Darwinians and the Freudians, and yet we
should pause to note that the words, ^'It has always been the law
that the weaker should be subject to the stronger" would not have
sounded out of place in Darwin's discourses on natural selection.
Moreover they might be the very language of one of those German
Darwinians who found favor in the eyes of his recent Majesty
William of Hohenzollern ; while ''Calculations of interest have made
you take up the cry of justice," is quite understandable to a disciple
of Sigmund Freud.
Unfortunately for historical science Thucydides had few follow-ers
even among the Greeks and Romans. INTever again did a historian
arise who was at once his peer in the laborious task of gathering
and sifting material, criticising his sources and interpreting his
facts until we come down to quite recent times. As we have seen,
under the influence of the formulators of the Christian epic, history
became a subject for edifying discourses upon the revelations of
God's power and wisdom and there it remained for a thousand
years or more. It is outside the scope of this paper to trace the
sfceps by which history tended during the 17th and 18th centuries to
become a painstaking inquiry into the past for the sole purpose
of finding out what had actually happened. We are not attempting
to trace here a history of history or of historiography. Nor indeed
are we endeavoring to summarize the various schools of historical
interpretation. It may not be out of place to remark in passing
that each age has undertaken to interpret history in the light of its
own major interest. This is true of the medieval monkish chron-icler
as well as of the present-day materialist or pseudo-psychologist.
We tend to give history an economic or psychological interpretation
because these are the two fields of our major interest. To the eigh-teenth
century philosoph, preoccupied in his speculation upon
natural rights and upon the laws of nature, history served as a sort
of museum where he could find the particular specimens that he
wanted to examine. Likewise the 19th century had its own interests
and the 20th has its own—quite a variety in fact.
One curious thing about the 18th and especially the 19 th century
historian is, that on the whole, he served in the capacity of a sort
of maid-of-all-work to his brethren in the other social sciences.
Speaking broadly it was his function to find facts and leave their
24 The North Carolina Historical Review
interpretation to philosophers, economists, biologists, and psychol-ogists.
This situation has changed somewhat in the 20th century,
but until then we must look mainly to the works of others than
strictly historians for interpretation. It is hardly too much to say
that the 19th century historian felt that he was committing a sin
against the Holy Ghost if he departed from the strait and narrow
path of fact-finding to wander abroad into the byways of interpre-tation
or of philosophising. If he was so tempted and fell, he im-mediately
lost cast with his former colleagues. One has but to
recall the coolness, not to say hostility with which C. A. Beard's
Economic Interpretation of the Constitution was received hardly
more than a decade ago by his fellow-craftsmen in the history guild,
to realize how much this spirit has carried over into our own time.
I myself had opportunity to observe at first hand the perturbation
James Harvey Robinson used to occasion among his colleagues at
Columbia by his incorrigible tendency to reflect upon the meaning
of the whole historical process. Despite their personal regard for
him, he was always looked upon as a sort of enfant terrible and
there was more than one sigh of relief when he voluntarily with-drew
himself from among the orthodox and attached himself to the
heretics.
Of the non-professionals who have endeavored to interpret history,
I think we owe least to the philosophers. Happily we are little con-cerned
now-a-days with Rousseau and his mythical natural man,
with Voltaire and his devotion to reason, with Hegel and his spiritual
development theory and the three-phase dialetic, or even with
Carlyle and his "great" man. These intellectual speculators were
more prone than the commonalty to see what was behind their eyes
regardless of the facts before them, and we have a right to demand
that there be some apparent relation between fact and theory. In
the case of the philosophers there was but little.
On the other hand, the economists gave us a clue for historical in-terpretation
that has been very valuable. They undertook to demon-strate
that self-interest had been the most important factor in shap-ing
man's institutional history. The hedonistic utilitarian principle
that in seeking one's own interest each individual inevitably contri-buted
to the general good of society, was perhaps too naive. ITever-theless
it became the guiding principle of all liberal governments
The Problem of Historical Interpretation 25
and despite many serious defects it has worked in practice. There
may be a better general principle for the guidance of governmental
action than individualism, and the advocates of conscious social
control are industriously searching for one, but v^^hether they are
successful in their quest or no, remains to be seen. That all
^'natural" laws operate beneficently, however, is no longer a tenable
proposition. Hardly had the proposition been advanced by the
French physiocrats and endorsed by Adam Smith when doubts were
thrown upon it by no less orthodox economists than Malthus and
Eicardo. The former's ' 'natural" law of population was, on the
whole, a pessimistic law. In general, as is well known, Malthus
maintained that population tends to increase in a geometrical pro-portion
while the means of subsistence increases in an arithmetical
one. It flows from this that population always tends to press
upon the means of subsistence. As a consequence of this phenom-enon
we may expect to have the poor with us always, bringing in
their train hunger, poverty, crime, vice, disease, war, death.
Whether willing to subscribe unreservedly to Malthus's law or no,
the historian who would interpret the facts of his subject cannot
afford to neglect it altogether.
Ricardo's law of rent, based on the economic doctrine of diminish-ing
returns, is equally significant. Assuming an individual pro-prietary
interest in land, maintained in full vigor by the state, it
follows that the owners of the earth can secure from the remainder
of the population a very comfortable living indeed without toiling or
spinning on their own account. What private ownership of land
failed to accomplish in the way of dividing society into the two
classes of owners and workers, bade fair to be completed by the in-troduction
of the factory system carrying with it the capitalistic
control of the means of production and exchange of goods other than
those obtained from the extractive industries. Henceforth the form-erly
independent hand-i-crafitsman, would become a proletarian
tender of a machine not owned by himself, and attached to his
work solely by means of the wage nexus. So far had the industrial
revolution proceeded in proletarianizing the lower middle classes by
the middle of the 19th century that an intelligent observer might
well expect the process to continue until only two classes remained
—
owners and workers. The scene was therefore prepared for Karl
Marx and his significant contribution to historical interpretation.
26 The North Carolina Historical Review
The details of tlie Marxian system were not new. As we have
seen the idea of men being actuated by motives of self-interest was
as old as Thucydides at least, and nearly a hundred years before
Marx published the first volume of Das Kapital, the idea had become
the main foundation of nauch of Adam Smith's political economy.
Contrary to some popular misconception, Marx's doctrine was not
the outcome of the Utopian socialism of the schools of Saint Simon,
Fourier or Robert Owen. Its background is to be found in Hegelian
philosophy on the one hand and the economics of the classical school
on the other. It is Hegelian in that it is dominated by the conception
of movement, development, progress, which takes place as a result
of struggle. With Hegel the struggle is for spirtual self-realization
;
with Marx it is for economic advantage. In both cases it is a result
of inner necessity. With Marx this inner necessity finds outlet in
the struggle between economic classes. The nature of the class strug-gle
is determined at any one time by "the prevailing mode of economic
production and exchange," but it is always teleological in character.
It is this fact that separates Marxism from Darwinism. In the
view of both Darwin and Marx struggle is inevitable, but according
to the scheme of the former it is a result of blindly cumulative
causation and is essentially mechanical, whereas in Marx's scheme
it is a result of reasoned conduct and calculated advantage. In
Marx's view, such was the nature of the struggle then going on in the
western world between proletarians and capitalists. It could only
end with the ascendancy of the former.
In addition to giving the knock-out blow to those natural rights
economists who assumed the general benevolence of natural laws, the
evolutionists were destined also in the long run to undermine the
Marxian idea that the class struggle was of an essentially teleological
nature. Both groups, however, were exceedingly slow in realizing
what had happened, but certainly at the present day, no reputable
economist invests "natural laws" with a prescriptive rectitude, but
as Thorstein Veblen, speaking on behalf of his economist co-freres,
wittily puts it, "So far has this animus progressed toward disuse
that it is now chiefly a matter for expatiation in the pulpit, the ac-credited
vent for the exudation of effete matter from the cultural or-ganism."^
As to the socialists, it may be said that the evolutionary
3 rpfiQ Place of Science m Modern Civilization, p. 53.
The Problem of Historical Interpretation 27
theory was making considerable progress even before 19 lY in convinc-ing
them that Marx may have erred in thinking that the class struggle
was the inevitable and efficacious method of adjusting human industry
to human uses. What it failed to accomplish in this respect has been
supplied by the actual experience of Russia during the past seven
years. Few fair-minded men will now maintain that the dictator-ship
of the proletariat based upon a seizure of power by force, has
noticeably improved the conditions of the working classes, although
it has succeeded in substituting one set of exploiters for another.
It is found, however, that the new set maintain their control by all
the apparatus of coercion, mastery and subservience in much the
same way as the old. set maintained theirs. In this respect it has
not differed essentially from the normal outcome of previous revolu-tionary
movements. Although the Socialists may claim that the long
run effects of the Russian revolution will be good, this is much less
than an orthodox Marxian had a right to expect.
We now know that Marx was entirely too naive, but this is not to
say that there is nothing whatever in his idea of the class struggle.
In fact no proposition is more susceptible of historical proof than
that there is a tendency for various economic groups to become aware
of their class interests and to work consciously for the fulfillment of
ends which they consider good. An excellent history of the United
States, for instance, could be written with this thesis as its unifying
theme, and a beginning in that direction has been made by C. A.
Beard and a small band of faithful disciples. On the other hand it
cannot be claimed that anything like a majority of the American
people are actuated by motives of conscious class interest, as the
sixteen million popular votes for Coolidge and Dawes and the bare
handful for Mr. W. Z. Foster sufficiently attest.
Hence it falls out that while the philosophers and the economists
can teach us something about the interpretation of history, they can-not
teach us everything. Both have depended too exclusively on
logic and. reason in their methods, and every historian knows that
logic and reason have frequently proven mere whirlpools where the
human intellect splashes around and around making much noise but
little progress. A great deal may be expected from such sciences as
anthropology, biology and psychology as aids to the historian in
making interpretations. These sciences are still young and immature
28 The North Carolina Historical Review
and they have all suffered from over-much popularity, or perhaps I
should say popularization, but the genuine scientists should not he
held responsible for the outpourings of a host of fakirs who call
themselves scientists. Space does not permit of an elaboration of
how each of these sciences may be of assistance to historical interpre-tation,
but suggestions should be apparent from the conclusion to
which we shall now direct our attention.
Considerable history-writing must ever be a painstaking search
for facts without much effort at interpretation. Doctoral disserta-tions,
publications of historical research societies, monographs in
general, will necessarily remain factual in character. But history
of a general nature, including textbooks, should be interpretative
rather than factual. The average person who studies or reads history
cannot be brought to any great interest in the subject by a mere
recital of facts and even if he could they would not do him very
much good. What we need to do is to popularize the great processes
of history. To do this I would suggest a sort of formula or method
of procedure for the historian who undertakes to write a popular
text or treatise. It is this.
History consists of two constants viz: (a) the world of nature;
(b) the world of human nature; and two variables, viz: (c) the
relations of b to a; and (d) the relationship among the units of (b).
To construct a textbook of history on the basis of this formula re-quires
that the historian be something more than a collector of facts,
mainly political in nature. He must be aware of the bearings of
natural science on his subject, of geography, of climate, topography,
soil, natural resources, the state of the industrial arts at any given
period—in short he must ever keep in mind the fact that man
makes his history on a stage which is the world in which he lives.
'Now all this sounds apparent enough, and yet few indeed of the text-books
give indication that the author has kept it continuously in
mind. But even more is required. Years ago Alexander Pope said,
"The proper study of mankind is man." That historian fails who
attempts to deal with man along logical or rational lines, for he is
neither logical nor rational. He is a creature of instincts, habits,
emotions, complexes, and only rarely is he reflective. This means
that the historian must be something of a psychologist and the science
of history ought to advance as the science of psychology advances.
The Problem of Historical Interpretation 29
'Nor can the historian afford to neglect the great driving force of
self-interest. Henrick Van Loon's definition of man as "a hungry
creature looking for food" is no doubt conceived too narrov^ly, but as
far as it goes, it is true. A very large part of the activity of the
human race, of its accomplishments in the way of institutional
development, have come about as a result of this great original drive.
However much the old classical historians may sneer at the eco-nomic
interpretation of history, it is here to stay, and while as has
been indicated in this paper, it is not the sole factor in historical
interpretation, as the Marxians and some of the post-Darwinians
seemed to think, it is a factor that cannot be ignored or lightly passed
over. Finally, if we are ever to succeed in gaining for history the
allegiance of the ordinary citizen and giving to him some of its
meaning and sense, we must bring to the subject an understanding
of those less tangible human relationships that have found descrip-tion
in the works of poets, philosophers, dramatists and savants.
Only in this way may history regain its rightful place as a branch
of literature and become a living science.
SOME NORTH CAROLINA TRACTS OF THE
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
WiixiAM K. Boyd, Duke University*
I
A True and Faithful IsTaiirative of the Proceedings of the
House of Burgesses of E"orth Carolina
(C. 1740)
INTRODUCTION
This pamphlet is illustrative of a notable incident in the history
of the colonial judiciary of N^orth Carolina, the attempt to impeach
William Smith, Chief Justice of the Province in 1739.
Little is known of the antecedents of William Smith. He is said
to have been a graduate of one of the English universities and to
have been a barrister for two years before coming to ISTorth Carolina.
When he arrived is unknown, but early in 1731 upon the nomination
of Governor George Burrington he was appointed a member of the
Council and was commissioned Chief Justice. In April he was
also appointed Treasurer of the Province, vice Edward Moseley.
However he soon took a part in the controversies of the time as an
opponent of Governor Burrington. On three matters the Governor
and the Chief Justice differed. First, the Governor held that the
assistants appointed along with the Chief Justice were associate
judges and had the right to appear on the bench ; on the other hand,
Smith claimed that they were merely masters in chancery and not
judges, and so he held court without them. Second, Governor Bur-rington
in consulting the Council submitted questions in writing and
asked for an opinion; Smith held that he should appear in person
*In all the literature pertaining' to the history of North Carolina, no titles are more
scarce than pamphlets and broadsides printed before 1800. This is undoubtedly explained
by the fact that there M^as no printing press in the colony before 1749, that the editions of
ail publications were small, and that there were no libraries or institutions which made a
business of preserving contemporary records. However a number of pamphlets and broad-sides
were issued, some of them from presses existing in other colonies. While searching
for material relating to the South Atlantic region in the larger institutions and foundations
of the Northeast, it was my good fortune to disclose a number of such publications, of
which not more than two copies of any one are known to exist, and no copy of any one
is known to be in any collection in North Carolina. These and one pamphlet preserved
in the library of the University of North Carolina, the editors of the Review have thought
worthy to be reprinted, and the earliest one is herewith presented.
For the opportunity to find these pamphlets and broadsides, as well as to collect other
invaluable material, I am indebted to the University of Pennsylvania, through the tenure
of a Harrison Research Fellowship, held during the academic year 1921-22.
[30]
Some N. C. Tracts of the Eighteenth Century 31
and discuss the matters with the Council. Finally, there were com-plaints
regarding excessive fees, especially the port fees; the Gov-ernor
held that these were determined by the Chief Justice, Smith
that Burrington was responsible for them.
In the meantime Governor Burrington had differences with other
officials and also won the enmity of the Assembly. Late in the
spring of 1731 Smith went to England where he filed complaint
against the Governor on behalf of the Assembly as well as himself.
Burrington, hearing of Smith's action, filed countercharges. The
result was the appointment of Smith as Chief Baron of the
Exchequer of I^orth Carolina in May 1732, the recall of Burrington,
and the appointment of Gabriel Johnston as Governor in March,
1733. For his services in England the Assembly gave Smith a
vote of thanks and also appropriated £1,000 to cover his expenses.
In the meantime, during his absence, Burrington appointed John
Palin Chief Justice. He resigned because of poor health and was
succeeded by William Little, who soon died. Daniel Hanmer then
became Chief Justice.
When Smith returned from England in June, 1732, the enmity be-tween
him and Burrington became more intense. The Governor de-clared
that he barely escaped assassination by Smith and that Smith
and his confederates, in order to avoid prosecution, fled to Virginia.
There Smith remained until the arrival of the new Governor, Gabriel
Johnston, in October, 1734. One of Johnston's first acts was to
restore to office Smith and other officials who had been removed by
Burrington.
With Governor Johnston the Chief Justice was on intimate and
friendly terms. The two men cooperated very closely. Of this
there were three notable examples. One was the question of the
payment of quit rents. Governor Johnston insisted that they be
paid, according to royal instructions, in proclamation money: viz.
specie of foreign coinage, the relation of which to the English
pound should be fixed by proclamation of the Crown. To this the
Assembly objected, holding that the rents should be paid in com-modities
or the paper money of the colony. Smith supported the
views of the Governor and pointed out that since only six acts of the
Assembly had been formally approved by the Proprietors, none of
which concerned quit rents, the existing statutes on the question were
null and void. In one of the discussions of the subject there was
32 The North Carolina Historical Review
considerable excitement and Edward Moseley, exponent of the policy
advocated by the Assembly, struck the Chief Justice, for which action
he was bound over to the General Court on a charge of assault.
The second example of the cooperation of the Governor and the
Chief Justice was in the controversy over the incorporation of Wil-mington.
Governor Johnston was keenly interested in the develop-ment
of the southern part of the province. He made his home on
the lower Cape Fear and from that region he chose most of the mem-bers
of the Council. But he had little sympathy with Brunswick
and its chief family, the Moores. He therefore favored J^ewtown,
a rival settlement. In its vicinity he procured a plantation and
there in 1735 he opened a land office and established a seat of justice,
where the Court Exchequer as well as a court of oyer and terminer
was held. There, too, he held sessions of the Council. In 1736 a
bill was introduced in the Assembly to incorporate I^Tewtown as
Wilmington, in honor of Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, the
patron of Governor Johnston. Through the influence of the Moores
the bill was defeated, but in February, 1736 a second bill of incor-poration
passed. However in the Council the vote was a tie, stand-ing
four to four. Thereupon Smith, who was then President of the
Council, declared that he had a right as presiding officer to cast a
second ballot. As he favored incorporation the bill became a law.
The third example of the cooperation of the Chief Justice and
the Governor is found in the movement to impeach Smith. There
was an effort to prefer charges against him in the session of E^ovem-ber,
1738, but the attendance was small and pressure was brought
to bear upon four members by the Chief Justice to absent themselves.
As a result there was no quorum and the Governor dissolved the As-sembly.
In the language of the time the four members under
Smith's influence "took to the bushes," and the Assembly was popu-larly
known as the ''Bush Assembly." However the movement to
impeach could not be circumvented ; it was an issue in the elections
for the next Assembly which met in February, 1739, the same ses-sion
at which Wilmington was incorporated. On Monday, February
11, the Chief Justice was formally charged with high crimes and
misdemeanors by Sir Richard Everard, son of the proprietary Gov-ernor
of that name, and Samuel Swann, a man for many years prom-inent
in the legislative annals of the province. It was requested that
Some N. C. Tracts of the Eighteenth Century 33
the time for filing formal articles of impeachm.ent and the presenta-tion
of evidence be fixed for the following Saturday. But the Smith
faction was strong enough to make the date Wednesday, the 13th.
On that day seventeen articles of complaint were submitted. After
a review of such evidence as could be produced, the Assembly voted
by a majority of six that it was insufiicient for impeachment. There-upon
certain members of the faction opposed to Smith prepared and
published the following pamphlet : A True and Faithful Narrative
of the Proceedings of the House of Burgesses of North Carolina.
There was no printing press in ]!^orth Carolina at that time, and ap-parently
the pamphlet was published in Boston. The type and gen-eral
style are suggestive of the press of William Prince and the copy
from which this reprint is made, the only copy known to exist in
the great collections of this country, is in the possession of the Mas-sachusetts
Historical Society. Through the courtesy of that Society
it is here reproduced.
The True and Faithful Narrative has a threefold value. It con-tains
the formal articles of complaint and the evidence in support
of them, which are not to be found in the Colonial Records of North
Carolina. It gives a fuller account of the proceedings in the As-sembly
relative to impeachment than is to be found in the ofiicial
journals. It also illustrates the violations of technicalities of pro-ceedure
on the part of the Chief Justice and his high-handed conduct
on the bench—a characteristic of the colonial judiciary confined by
no means to William Smith. Indeed in a frontier province it was nat-urally
difficult to follow all the technicalities in the law of the Old
World, and when judges were appointed, not elected, when their
income was from fees, and when politics centred largely in a contest
for local power, such conditions as are laid bare by the career of
William Smith are not surprising.
In the spring of 1740 Daniel Hanmer, last of those who had acted
as Chief Justice during Smith's absence in England, was prose-cuted
in the General Court on a charge of perjury and was found
guilty. We do not know all the terms of the sentence which was im-posed
by the Chief Justice (it included imprisonment), but it w^as so
severe that Hanmer declared it would ruin his business and petitioned
the Chief Justice for clemency, which was denied. In 1743 Hanmer,
apparently having met the terms of the sentence, petitioned the King
3
34 The North Carolina Historical Review
in Council for an investigation, claiming that the proceedings by
which he had been sentenced were such as 'Svere never known in the
Dominions belonging to the Crown of Great Britain, or the like heard
of in the most dissolute and uncivilized Government." Apparently
the petition was fruitless ; no reply is known to exist.
William Smith died in the same year that Hanmer made his ap-peal
to British authority, viz. 1743. Apparently he was unmarried
and without family, for he left his property to Governor Johnston.
All that is knovni of him may be gleaned from the Colonial Records
of North Carolina (Vols. Ill and IV) and The True and Faithful
Narrative.
|
i^i.uiiu,mjKy^uamjw
l
l^p JJ^»^^^yl mi'^^^^sffj^immm^^^mi^^ ^. yj. .; .-^Mm^ 4m
Mi1fl'rt-li iiiiMiiiiiiiiiSii
(1)
A True and Faithful Narrative, &c.
THE slow and confused Proceeding of the late Assembly held at
Newhern for this Province, the little regard the Majority of that
House seemed to have for the Interest of their Country, in rejecting
the Evidence brought to support the Articles of Complaint, exhibited
before them against Mr. Chief Justice Smith, makes it necessary for
those Gentlemen w^ho happened to differ in Opinion from the Ma-jority
to appeal to the World for their Justification, and to acquit
themselves of any Blame that may lay at their Doors, by publishing
those Articles against the Chief Justice, with the Proceedings there-upon,
to the World, and they are the more inclined to this Method of
Proceeding, not only because it will open the Eyes of the deluded
People of this Province, but that the Iniquities committed by Mr.
Smith in the Courts of Justice where he presides may meet with the
Censure they deserve.
Before I enter further into the Proceedings of the last Assembly
it will not be amiss to look back into, and inquire out the Causes of
the Dissolution of the former, who took more pains to reconcile and
unite the divided Interests of their Country, than any that went be-fore
them. That Assembly was, (according to it's Prorogation) to
have met at Newhern, on the fifth Day of November last ; accordingly
Twenty-six Members met [2]* at that Town, but four of those Gentle-men
being more attached to the Chief Justice, than to the Service
of their Country refused to attend the House, by which Means,
there wanted two Members, to make a Majority without which
their could not be a House ; His Excellency the Governour being ac-quainted
with the true State of the Affair, prorogued the Assembly
several Times, in hopes more Members would come, but the Season
of the Year and the intemperance of the Weather, prevented the
coming of any more, until after the Dissolution of that Assembly,
which happened a Week after the Time appointed for it's Meeting.
Thus after many Prorogations within the space of a Week at the end
*This and the other numerals inserted in the text are Editorial, and indicate the begin-ning
of a page in the original edition of the pamphlet.
[ 37 ]
38 The North Carolina Historical Review
of each of those Prorogations the four Gentlemen constantly neglect-ing
to attend the Service of the House; the Assembly was put an
end to by Dissolution to the great Damage of the Province.
I think it would not be just, should I neglect to acquaint the World
with the ISTames of those abdicating Gentlemen, their Conduct, since
sufficiently convinces us, what Motive occasioned their Desertion, and
as those Gentlemen this present Assembly moved to have the Thanks
of the House for the Service done their Country, by their Abdica-tion.
I imagine (notwithstanding the House was not so kind as to
comply with their Desires) that I cannot offer a more pleasing In-cense
to the vanity of the illustrious Patriots; and so without any
kind of Apology, I inform our Readers they were, John Tlogson, Esq
;
the present Speaker, Colonel Benjamin Hill, Mr. John Blount, and
Colonel Benjamin Peyton. The Reasons which induced those Gen-tlemen
to such Conduct were notoriously known to proceed from Mr.
Chief Justice, that Gentleman was acquainted, that Articles of Com-plaint
would be exhibited against him, for Male Administrations in
his office, and he plainly foresaw that if there should be at that Time
a House, a strict Inquiry would be made into his Conduct, which he
was well [3] convinced would not bear a nice Scrutiny, and that
there was no Way so effectual to prevent the Danger he was exposed
to, as breaking the House, v/hich could not be effected but by per-swading
those Gentlemen to Abdicate: This is Evident to any one,
who considers the Correspondence the Chief Justice kept with those
Gentlemen in the Time of their Desertion, and more especially from
a very remarkable Letter sent from the Chief Justice, to the now
Speaker in their last Retreat, which Letter for the Elegance of it's
Stile, deserves to be handed down to Posterity with great Care and
Circumspection; but as we have not been so happy as to peruse
that extraordinary Epistle, we can only communicate the Substance
of it, as we received the same, from one of those abdicating Gentle-men;
"Sir, the Assembly is Dissolved and the Members sent to the
Devil, tantarararo, tantwive, tantwive," If our Readers will con-sider
this Correspondence, & how steadily those Gentlemen have
since adherred to the Chief Justice's Interest in the Affair of the
Articles, exhibited against him, they will not think, those Gentlemen
unjustly charged with deserting the Service of their Country at that
Time with intent to screen the said Chief Justice from a deserved
A True and Faithful Narrative 39
P.ublick Censure. Immediately after the Dissolution of the last
Assembly, his Excellency the Governour, was pleased to issue Writs
for Electing Members for a new Assembly; We imagine it cannot
supprize any judicious Persons, that the Articles of Complaint,
against Mr. Chief Justice Smith should miscarry, when he shall be
acquainted with the great Expence and Diligence of that Gentleman
to get his Friends into the House, he work'd upon the Hopes, the
Fears and the Avarice of the Electors to gain his Point, every
Election throughout the whole Province was more or less influenced
by that Gentleman or his Friend : It is indeed much greater Cause
of wonder, how there came to be so great a Minority as was in
that House, and that in so great a [4] Defection from the Interest of
their Country, and notwithstanding so powerful, so assiduous an
Interest carried on by that Gentleman and his Friends at the last
Election, with so much Profuseness and Extravagance, so many
Gentlemen should obtain Seats in that House, contrary to the Expec-tations
and Designs of himself and his Friends. And that notwith-standing
all Mr. Chief Justice, his Assiduity and Expence at New-hern,
all his Perswasions and Promises of passing such favourite
Bills as those, he depended upon were most Interested in, that after
this, this very Assembly, which he flatter'd himself he had moulded
to his Wishes, should refuse to Vote the Articles against him, false,
or him Innocent and Upright, contrary to the Motion of his securer
Friends in that House, and his own Expectations, and that those
his own Friends, should not reject the Articles against him, but only
reject the Evidence and should unfortunately leave those Articles so
much his dread, upon their Journals, still subject to a further
Examination and Inquiry.
We shall now proceed to the Journals of the Assembly as far as
relates to the Subject of this Narrative.
^ Feb. 11, 1739 Mr. Benjamin Peyton moved this House, as
' Mr. Chief Justice Smith was the last Assembly if they had sat, to
' have been Charged with several Crimes and Misdemeanors, and
^ they were not yet produced to this House, that they might be
^ produced immediately, or the said Chief Justice might be declared
' a just and upright Judge, upon which Sir Richard Everard Baronet
' one of the Members of this House charged the said Chief Justice
^ with high Crimes and Misdemeanors, and was seconded by Mr.
40 The North Carolina Historical Review
Samuel Swann, and pray'd leave to exhibit Articles to that pur-pose
against him, and moved this House to have Leave till
Wednesday to bring in the said Articles, which was accordingly
granted. Vera Copia Test William Heritage Gierke Dom Bur And
a Warrant issue Sign'd by Mr. Speaker to bring all [5] Persons, Pa-pers
and Records before them, to enable them to make good their
said Articles.
True Copy, William Heritage CI. Dom. Bur.
' Sir Richard Everard moved this House, as he was ordered to
^ draw the Articles against the Honourable William Smith, Esq.
^ Chief Justice, that Mr. Maurice Moore, might assist therein, and
^ that they might withdraw from the Service of the House, till To-
' morrow Morning to prepare the said Articles
:
Ordered, that they have Leave to withdraw themselves Accordingly.
We aprehend it will be proper for the clearer Understanding of
the present Controversy for us to make our Observations upon the
Proceedings as they passed in the House, Day by Day, rather then to
Observe upon the whole at once, which may possibly render them
confused and intricate so that we may unfortunately by that Means
disappoint the World.
On Monday Feb. 11th Mr. Benjamin Peyton Member for the
County of Beaufort, made the Motion aforementioned, upon which
ensued a very warm Debate, in which the Gentlemen, who were con-cerned
in the Articles, seemed to decline the producing them to the
House, at that Juncture for Reasons very plain and obvious, but
the Gentlemen on the other Side tumultuously insisting that the
Chief Justice should be voted innocent and upright, notwithstanding
no Accusation then lay against him, and Mr. Speaker being very
forward to put the Question, which he often during the Debate stated
thus, Viz Whether Mr. Chief Justice Smith should not be declared
by the House an imparial and upright Judge, and that he should re-ceive
the Thanks of the House for his good Services ? It was then
thought high Time to put a stop to such extravagant Proceedings,
and since Argument and Reason, had been found ineffectual, to have
recourse to some other Method, which induced Sir Richard Everard
Baronet to rise up and accuse the said Chief Justice [6] of high
A True and Faithful Narrative 41
Crimes & Misdemeanors, and to pray a sufficient Time might be
granted to exhibit Articles for that purpose to the House, and he was
seconded by Mr. Samuel Swann. The Chief Justice's Friends, who
did not apprehend such a Consequence would proceed from Mr.
Peyton s Motion, were very much Alarm'd thereat, and they knew
that nothing could save their Friend, but straitning the Gentlemen
who were to produce the Articles, as to Time, upon which those
Gentlemen insisted that they might be produced the next Morning,
which occasioned another Debate, and the House were told that it
looked as if they had no real Design to give their Country any
Relief as to the Matters which might be contained in the Articles,
since they seemed so desirous to Contract the Time, that the Articles
ought to be well considered before they appeared in the House, and
that in the like Cases at home, sufficient Time was never deny'd ; at
last Mr. Speaker put the Question, If the Gentlemen should be
allowed Time till Saturday, to prepare and bring in their Articles?
which was carried in the Negative, but no notice is taken of this
Division in the Journals of the House, and as many other Things
are neglected in the course of this Proceeding, we shall upon every
Division which happened upon any Question, relating to the Affair
in Hand, constantly set down the Names of the Persons who Voted
for and against the Question.
For the said Question. Against the Question.
Col. Maurice Moore Mr. Thomas Loowich Col-
Mr. James Castelaw lector of Port Beaufort.
Mr. Thomas Bryan Mr. George Rohers
Mr. John Brown Mr. George Bould
Mr. Simon Alderson Mr. Benjamin Peyton
Mr. John Banbury Mr. Richard Righy
Mr. John Starhey Mr. Joseph Tart
Mr. William Brice Mr. John Blount
Mr. Edmund Smithwich Col. Benjamin Hill
Mr. William Gardiner Doct. Ahra BlacTcall
Mr. Samuel Swann Deputy Post-Master.
Mr. John Swann Mr. James Cravin
Sir. Rich Everard Bar. Clerk of the Gen. Court
42 The North Carolina Historical Review
[Y] For the Question Against the Question.
Mr. Arthur Mahson Mr. Walton
Mr. Samuel Sinclair Col. Macrora Scarhow
Mr. William Bertram Mr. Carruthers
John Montgomery Esq ; His Mr. James Sumner
Majesty's Atty. Gen. Mr. Tho. PendiUon
Mr. Joseph Sutton Col. Tho. Hunter
Mr. Joshua Long Mr. David Bayly
Mr. William Relf
Mr. Jo/^^i Caron
Mr. Jacob Carrow
Mr. Leary
Mr. Thomas Louther.
The Question thus carried against allowing Time till Saturday,
the House was at last prevailed with to grant Time till Wednesday.
Soon after the House adjourned, Sir Richard Everard and Mr.
Samuel Swann waited upon the Speaker, with a List of the Persons,
Eecords, and Papers which were wanting as Proofs of the Articles.
Mr. Speaker declared after he had perused the Lists he could not,
nor would not grant his Warrant for every Thing contained in the
said Lists, hut that he would for the Persons therein named, and
that he would the next Day ask the Opinion of the House thereupon,
and Mr. Speaker returned the Lists, which were the next Day
laid before the House by Sir Richard Everard, as appears by the fol-lowing
Transcript of the Journals.
^^ Tuesday Feh. 12, 1739 Sir Richard Everard Bart gave in a
" List to this House of the following Persons necessary for Evidences,
^^ and pray'd they might be Summoned to make good the Articles
" against the Honourable William Smith Esq. Chief Justice, viz.
William Dudley of Onslow County.
"Cornelius Harnet, Esq; Sheriff of New Hanover County.
[8] "Samuel Bridgin of New Hanover.
'' Rufus Marsden Merchant in Newton.
" Daniel Dunhihin Merchant in Newton.
" Mr. Benjamin Wheatly of New Hanover.
A True and Faithful Narrative 43
Mr. John Smithers, Dep. Sheriff of New Hanover County.
Thomas Morphy
William Tunnielif
" Rohert Pitts
" Rohert Kirhland
" James Kieth
of Craven County
" And also a List of Persons and Copies of Eecords wanting
^^ from Bath, Bertie, Choioan and Edenton, in the Articles of Ac-
" cusation of high Crimes and Misdemeanors against the Honorable
" William Smith, Esq. Chief Justice of North Carolina, to be sent
^^ for, by the Speaker^s Warrant, Viz.
" Copies of the Venires and Pannels since Mr. Smith was Chief
'^ Justice, Copies of the four Writs for Executing the Criminals at
" Edenton signed by the Chief Justice, Copy of Mr. Smith's Com-
^^ mission as Chief Justice, Copy of the Commissions of Grand Ses-
" sions, and Commissions Si non Omnes. (If any) Copy of the
^^ Record of Mr. Daiosons contempt about Trotter July 1Y37. ditto
" concerning the Presentment of John Boude, March 1736. Diddo of
" Rohert Calahorn, Andreiv Conner and others at Bath August 1739.
" Copy of the Execution in the Case of Bridgin against Fullivood,
" ditto Copy of the Indictment against Kelly for forcible entry into
" Mr. Andersons Land, and Copies in the two Cases per Anthony
Bo'oth, ditto in the Case of William Dudley, against William
" Croshy for Assault, Rohert Forster, Esq. Joseph Anderson, Esq.
" Thomas Jones Attorney at law, Orlando Champion of Chowan,
" Rohert Calahorn and Andreiv Conner of Bath Town, James Kelly
" of Edenton, Anthony Booth of Mr. DucJcenfield's Plantation in
^' Bertie County, William Machy late of Edenton but now of Bertie
" County.
The House notwithstanding the List given in as a [9] foresaid,
gave no other Directions to Mr. Speaker concerning the same, nor
does any Order of that Day appear upon the Journal concerning
them, neither did Mr. Speaker deliver his Warrant for any of the
Persons, Records or Papers mentioned in those Lists, until Wednesday
the Day appointed for Exhibiting the Articles. And then only for
some of the Persons desired, and not for any Papers or Records, not-withstanding
the repeated Applications to him for the same.
44 The North Carolina Historical Review
It cannot be deny'd that the whole Conduct of the Speaker was
such as plainly shewed how much he was interested in the safety of
Mr. Chief Justice at that Time, tho' he has heretofore more than
once deceived, betray'd, and by solemn Oath has conspir'd with others,
{per fac et nesas) to destroy the said Chief Justice, notwithsanding
at that very Juncture he was receiving distinguishing Marks of that
Gentleman's grace and favour; Mr. Speaker's Warrant I have men-tioned
(an exact Copy of which is hereafter Inserted) is attended
with a remarkable Circumstance as to it's Date, it being dated Feb.
10th 1739, the Day before Mr. Peyton s Motion; and consequently
before any Charge against the Chief Justice was moved for in the
House, the Preamble of the Warrant suggests that was granted the
very Day the Charge of high Crimes and Misdemeanors against
the Chief Justice was moved in the House, by Sir. Richard Everard
and Mr. Samuel Swann; whereas in fact, the said Charge was made
on Monday the 11th of Feh and not on Sunday the 10th as the
Speaker in his Warrant wou'd suggest, neither was the Warrant
(notwithstanding it's Date,) ever seen by any of the Gentlemen who
were for the Articles, until Wednesday the 13th, the very same
Time the Articles were exhibited to the House, when Mr. Speaker
delivered that Warrant; 'and another unsigned Warrant, for some
Persons in Craven County to the House, which Warrants were
directed to no Person.
North-Carolina, ss. Whereas Sir Richard Everard, Baronet, and
Mr. Samuel Swann have the Day of the Date hereof before this
House, charged the Hon. [10] William Smith, Esq; Chief Justice
of this Province, with high Crimes and Misdemeanors, and have
in order to make good their said Charge moved this House, that the
Speaker Issue his Warrant to Summons Persons &c These are
therefore to Will, Require, and Command you to Summons Wil-liam
Dudley of Onsloiv County, Cornelius Harnett Esq ; Sheriff of
New Hanover County, Samuel Brigdin of New-Hanover, Gentle-man,
Rufus Marsden 'and Daniel Dunbihin Merchants of Newton,
Mr. Benjamin Wheatly of New Hanover, John Smithers Deputy
Sheriff of New Hanover, to attend this House on Wednesday next
the thirteenth Instant at Newhern, Herein fail not at your Peril,
and for so doing this shall be your Warrant. Given under my
Hand at Newhern the Tenth Day of Feb 1739. By Order.
John Hodgson, Speaker.
A True and Faithful Narrative 45
^ To
Upon reading this Warrant, would any Man alive imagine New
Hanover County, to be One Hundred Miles from Newhem, and
the Persons within that Warrant contained to, live at so great a dis-tance
from Newhem, as in fact they do ? Is it not wonderfully con-sistent
with honour and uprightness of the House of Burgesses, to
compel Gentlemen to accuse the Chief Justice of high Crimes and
Misdemeanors in the Administration of his Office ; and then to limit
them to the space of three Days, to prepare and exhibit Articles
which contained ten Sheets of Paper ; and to prevent them as far as
was in their Power, from obtaining one Proof to support their
Charge, by their obstinate Resolution of having the Articles the
very Day they were exhibited, to be fully and substantially proved,
they declared they wou'd not be satisfied with such Proof, as would
be sufficient to induce a Grand Jury to find a Billa Vera upon an
Indictment, because they were confident that such Evidence, notwith-standing
all obstacles cou'd be produced, but \vou'd have such
Evidence as should be sufficient for a petit Jury to Convict upon,
which they imagined as Circumstances [11] then stood with the Gen-tlemen
who produced the Articles, were not to be had, tho' many
of them afterwards owned that they were perswaded if Time had
been allowed, such Evidence cou'd have been produced to have sup-ported
the Charge ; nay the Gentlemen of that side the Question have
made further discoveries of the Motives which induced them to such
unaccountable Conduct, as shall be shewn in it's proper Place.
Take the whole Affair relating to summoning Evidences, and to pro-duce
Records and Papers before the House, to support the high
and heinous Accusations exhibited against the Chief Justice, and
consider it in all it's Progressions, Mr. Speaker's Conduct in
relation to the Warrants, the Order of the House of Feb. 11th, two
Days before the Exhibition of the Articles, for Mr. Speaker to
Issue his Warrants to bring Persons, Papers and Records before
the House, that Order intimates Time for such Things to be done
in; Mr. Speaker's Warrant commands Persons to be summoned to
appear before the House on Wednesday, who most of them lived up-wards
of one Hundred Miles from the Place where the Assembly sat,
and supposing the Date of that Warrant to be right; and a Mes-senger
immediately posted away to Execute it, was there a possibility
46 The North Carolina Historical Review
of performing that Service within the Time expressed in that War-rant?
JSTo one will presume there was. But from the Time Mr.
Speaker produced his Warrant to the Time the Articles were ex-hibited
to the House, no Man cou'd have gone one Mile. The Gen-tlemen
accusers of the Chief Justice were ordered to lay before
the House Articles for that purpose on Wednesday the 13, but no
Part of the Order directed the Articles to be then proved, nor
could any one in his Senses imagine it was intended ; the very Order
plainly intimates the contrary, it directs that the Speaker Issue his
Warrant for Persons, Records and Papers, to make good the said
Charge; the House thereby granted Time for such Proofs; and by
what Art and Management, they were perswaded afterwards to in-sist
upon Proof on Wednesday, shall appear before we leave this
Subject.
[12] ^'Wednesday 13. 1739. Sir Richard Everard pursuant to his
Motion of Monday last, laid before this House the several Articles
against the Hon. William Smithy, Esq; Chief Justice; which he read
in his Place, as follows, Viz.
'^ To his Excellency Gabriel Johnston, Esq; Governor and Com-mander
in Chief of His Majesty's Province of North Carolina in
Council.
^' Articles of Complaint against William Smith, Esq ; Chief
Justice of the Province of North Carolina by the General Assembly
of the said Province, as well in their own E'am.e, as for and in the
ISTame and on the behalf of all His Majesty's Leige People of this
Province for divers high Crimes and Misdemeanors done and com-mitted
by him the said William Smith in the Execution of his said
Office.
1 " That he the said William Smith at sundry Times since his
Admission into the said Office of Chief Justice, hath endeavour'd
in a m.ost violent, arbitrary and illegal Manner, to subvert, the Laws
both of Great Britain and this Province, made for the preservation of
the Lives, Liberties and Estates of His Majesty's Leige Subjects
living and residing within the same. And also by divers others
illegal, violent and abitrary Proceedings, doth frequently disturb
the Peace and good Order of this His Majesty's Government; and
all these Things he hath openly and avowedly declared, acted and
done, not only in Words, but premediately and deliberately, in his
A True and Faithful Narrative 47
Opinions, Judgment, Practices, and Actions contrary to liis Duty,
and in manifest Violation of liis Oaths, and Breach and Derogation
of the great and high Trust reposed in him
2 '^ And the said General Assembly do more particularly and
expresly Charge that by an Act of the General Assembly of this
Province passed the 23d Day of June 1723 entitled, An Act to
provide indifferent Jurymen in all Cases civil and criminal, it is
Enacted among other Things, that all Jurors should be drawn
[13] by balloting according to the Method and Rules by the Act pre-scribed,
and that no Person should be a Juryman but such whose
]^ames were written in the List thereunto annexed, or such as should
then after be added by Authority of Assembly ; and every Judge, Jus-tice,
and Officer of the said General Court is required to take an Oath
for the due observance of the said Act, and the Penalty of One
Hundred Pounds thereby annexed for each default, in non observance
of the same, as by the said Act, to which they refer, doth more fully
appear; and the said Act hath been strictly observed and put in
Execution by all the Justices of the General Court of this Province
from the Time of it's passing until the said William Smith acted as
Chief Justice. That pursuant to said Act, the said William Smith
Chief Justice, upon his entering into the said Office took the Oath
thereby enjoined for the due Observance of the said Act: Never-theless
the said Chief Justice having no Regard to the said Act, nor
to his solemn Oath which he took on the Holy Evangelist of Almighty
God for the due Observance thereof, nor to the Penalty thereby in-flicted
for each default for JSTon-observance of the same, hath for
divers Years last past in manifest and open Violation of the said
Act, and by, and of his own mere Will, contrary to the Practice of
all former Justices, caused Jurors to be summoned by Venire, without
ever drawing the said Jurors or any of them by w^ay of I>ot or Ballot,
either before the Venire issued, or after the Jurors were Sum-moned,
returned and appeared, as by the said Act is required, by
Means of which illegal Proceeding of the said Chief Justice ; all the
Care taken by the Ligislature for preventing Corruptions of Ofiicers
in packing of Jurors, are entirely obstructed and defeated. Divers
Criminals have been illegally convicted, condemned and Executed.
All Judgments in civil Cases after Verdict liable to be reversed,
and the Lives, Liberties, Properties, and Estates of His Majesty's
48 The North Carolina Historical Review
Subjects in this Province continually exposed to mucli Hazard and
Danger.
[14] 3. ^'That tlie said Chief Justice being appointed by his
Excellency's Commission of the 29th of July last to hold several
Courts of Assizes, Oyer and Terminer, and General Goal delivery, at
the several Tov^nis of Bath, Newhern, and Neivton, held all the said
Courts accordingly at the several Times appointed, but never took
any Oath for the due Execution of the said Conunission, nor the
Oaths to His Majesty at any Time since the Issuing the said Com-mission
as by Law required, tho' it is now many Months since. Thus
sometimes neither regarding the Oaths he has taken, nor the Statutes
enjoining the Oaths to be taken, nor the Penalty of Five Hundred
Pounds Sterling thereby inflicted for not taking the same.
4 " That the said Chief Justice assuming to himself an equal
Power and Authority with His Majesty's Ancient Court of King's
Bench at Westminster, when Criminals are convicted of capital Of-fenses
without waiting for any Warrant from the Governor or
Commander in Chief for the Time being, doth cause Execution
to be done on the Bodies of such Offenders by his own Orders and
Eules of Court and Precept, thereby depriving his Excellency the
Governor of all Opportunities of showing His Majesty's Grace and
Pardon, to such Persons as might happen to be real Objects of Mercy
and which your Excellency is impower'd to do by His most gracious
Commission and Instructions.
5. " That one John Powel at a Court of Grand Sessions held at
Edenton the last Tuesday in July 1Y36. being Convicted of Murther
in poisoning his Wife, Sentence of Death was awarded against him,
and he was accordingly hung up by the !N^eck at the usual Place of
Execution, but the said Chief Justice having caused him to be cut
down while he was yet alive, soon afterwards, notwithstanding Judg-ment,
and in Part executed as above said, and without ever any
Pardon being granted to said Powel; did constitute and appoint the
said Powel to be Cryer of the General Court at Edenton; and he
continued to hold the said Office till July last.
[15] 6. "And for as much as by the Great Charter passed of
King Henry Third, and at divers Times since confirmed, it is among
other Things Ordained, that a Ereeman shall not be Amerced for a
small Eault, but after the manner of the Eault : Yet the said Chief
A True and Faithful Narrative 49
Justice hath on the most trivial and light Occasions, contrary to the
said Charter, and divers other the Laws of the Kingdom of Great
Britain, frequently imposed excessive Fines on divers of His Maj-esty's
good Subjects in the Province, in no wise adaquate to the
Offence, and Imprisoned them till the same were paid, and that in a
most illegal and arbitrary Manner, without any Bill of Indictment
found, or Information fil'd, by His Majesty's Attorney General, or
any due Process or Trial at Law, or the Parties ever being legally
convicted of such Offences by the Oath of twelve Jurors, contrary like
wise to the Statute of Magna Charta, which expressly enjoins that
no Man shall be taken, imprisoned or condemned but by lawful Judg-ment
of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land, and this some Times,
under pretence, that such Offences were Contempts of Court; altho'
the said General Assembly are inform'd that the Offences for which
the said Persons were so illegally Fined and Imprisoned were in
themselves no Crimes or Offences that could subject the Parties to
any Criminal Prosecutions, and that if they were so, they were not
committed in the Presence, or within View of the said Court, or
against the process of the same; and the said General Assembly in
further Maintainance of their Allegations above said, do expresly
Charge that one John Dawson a Member of the General Assembly,
being summoned to serve as Petit Juryman at the General Court held
at Edenton the last Tuesday in July 1737, by one James Trotter a
common Bailif or Deputy Marshal, told the said Deputy Marshaal
that he need not have given himself the trouble, for that he had been
summoned already, or was obliged to attend, whereupon the said
Trotter told the said Dawson, that he need not expect any Favour from
him, the said Dawson reply'd he did not, and further [16] told the
said Trotter, that if he the said Trotter had any Trump Cards in his
Hand, to play them for he (meaning himself) might chance one Time
or other to get JacJc and Ace in his Hand, and should make LTse of
them; and the said Chief Justice being informed of the said Dawson s
having spoken and uttered such Words out of Court, the Court being
then adjourned, did the next Day without any legal Tryal set a Fine
on the said Dawson of Ten Pounds Proclamation Money, and or-dered
him to be Committed to Goal without Bail or Mainprise till he
should pay the same, and to find good Security for his the said Daiu-
4
50 The North Carolina Historical Review
son^s good Behaviour for a Year and a Bay, as by Record, Minutes,
or Docket of the same Court doth appear; and the said Daioson
after having lain about ^Ye Days in Gaol paid the said Ten Pounds
Proclamation Money, or Value thereof accordingly : Altho' the said
General Assembly do conceive that the Words so spoken are frivolous
and senceless, and in Case any Indictment had been prefer'd against
the said Dawson for the same, they cou'd not by the most far fetched
Innuendo have been strained to Mean or Signify any Thing, and was
a very small Fault, if any, nor can the same be any Ways deemed
(as they conceive) to be a Contempt offered to the Court
7 "That the said Chief Justice at a Court of Oyer and Ter-miner
held at Newhern the first Tuesday in September 1739, did set
a Fine upon one John Bryan one of His Majesty's Justices of the
Peace for the County of Craven, of Ten Pounds Proclamation Money
for a supposed Misdemeanor, without ever the said Bryan s being-called
to Answer the same, either by Presentment, Indictment, or any
due Process of Law whatsoever ; and when one Mr. Heritage an At-torney
moved the said Chief Justice, that he would be pleased at
least to send for the said Bryan to know if he had any Thing to say,
the said Chief Justice refused it, saying, do you know my Sentiments
Sir, better than I do my self? I Fine him the said Bryan Ten
Pounds Proclamation Money, to enlighten the Gentleman's [17]
Understanding, and did afterwards issue Process accordingly, and
levied the Sum of Seventy five Pounds this Currency on the said
Bryan.
8. " The said General Assembly further Charge and Alledge that
by An Act entitled An Act concerning Fees and Officers, pass'd the 19
of October 1722 they did Provide and Establish sufficient Fees for the
Support and Dignity of the said Office of Chief Justice; and by
another Act entitled An Act to ascertain Officers Fees pass'd before
that Time (to wit) the 19th Day of January 1715, they did likewise
provide sufficient Fees for the Maintenance and Support of a Clerk
of the said Court, notwithstanding which the said General Assembly
do expresly Charge that the said William Smith Chief Justice, hath
oft Times in a most illegal and arbitrary Manner, extorted from divers
of His Majesty's Subjects within this Colony, most extravagant and
exorbitant Fees, where no Fees are at all due by Law, and at other
Times doth exact and extort from His said Majesty's Subjects much
A True and Faithful Narrative 51
greater Fees than ever were allowed or established, in manifest vio-lation
and defiance of the several Acts of Assembly made for as-certaining
of Officers Fees, and to the grievous Oppression of His
Majesty's Subjects ; and the said General Assembly in further
Maintenance of this their Charge, do particularly and expresly
Charge and Alledge that one James Kelly sometime in the Month
of March 1739 at the General Court held at Edenton, being indicted
for a forcible entry into the Lands and Tenements of Joseph Ander-son,
Mr. Vernon Attorney for the Defendant moved to quash the
Indictment for some Defect found therein, and the said Indictment
was quashed by the said Chief Justice accordingly, nevertheless the
said Chief Justice issued an Execution for Twenty tivo Pounds ten
Shillings Proclamation Money for Fees pretended by him to be
due on the said Indictment, altho' there were no Fees whatsoever
due on that Account that the said General Assembly ever knew or
heard of, save Fifty Shillings to the Attorney General, and three
Shillings and six Pence to the Clerk of the Crown. [18] And the
said General Assembly further Charge that one John Boude Gen-tleman,
at a General Court held at Edenton the last Tuesday in
March 1736 was presented for being the Father of a Bastard Child
;
but it appearing to the Court that the said Boude had comply'd
with the Laws of this Province by indemnifying the Parish, and
paying the Fine by Law inflicted there were no further Proceed-ings
had upon the said Presentment, nevertheless the said William
Smith, Chief Justice did then exact and extort from the said Boude,
Twenty-six Pounds odd Shillings current Bills of the said Province,
for Fees pretended to be due on such a bare Presentment, altho'
in Truth there are no Fees due to the said Chief Justice on any
such Account, as they conceive ; that the said Chief Justice where one
Indictment has been brought for a Piot against divers, doth exact
and extort from each Defendant the whole Fees pretended to be
due to him on the said Indictment, and tho' the whole Fees he
pretended to Claim for himself and Clerk, is as he says. Twenty two
Pounds Eight Shillings, yet the said Chief Justice exacts Twenty-tivo
Pounds Eight Shillings from each Defendant, altho' in Truth
there is not one Penny due to the Chief Justice, and but Six
Shillings to the Clerk; and the said General Assembly do particu-larly
Charge that the said Chief Justice at a Court of Oyer and Ter-
52 The North Carolina Historical Review
miner held at Baih Town in August last upon an Indictment for a
Riot against Andrew Conner, Robert Calahom and others, did
exact and extort from each of the Defendants Conner and Calahom
Tiventy two Pounds Eight Shillings, and Process upon the same
Indictment Issued against others for the like Sum, so that each De-fendant
is made chargeable with the whole Twenty two Pounds
Eight Shillings, altho' as they are ready to prove, there are no Tees
whatsoever due or allowed to the Chief Justice in Criminal Cases,
but he takes and exacts the same, and what he thinks fit of his own
mere arbritrary Will.
9 '' And the said Assembly in further Maintenance of that Part
of this general Charge against the [19] said Chief Justice for ex-acting
and extorting more and greater Pees than ever were es-tablished
and allowed by Law, do particularly Charge and Allege
that one Anthony Booth being Indebted to in the
sum of Two Pounds Five Shillings, and to one
in the Sum of Two Pounds Ten Shillings, both this Country
Currency, sometime in the Month of 173 .
The said Chief Justice sent two Executions against the said De-fendant
for Seventy Pounds and upwards, including the said
original Debts, which both together made but Four Pounds Fifteen
Shillings, and the Defendant having no Money to satisfy for the
said Debts and Pees, was obliged to deliver to the Marshal four
Thousand Pounds of good fresh Beef in satisfaction of the Debts
and Charges aforesaid, tho' the said Beef at that Time was worth
One Hundred and Twenty Pounds computed at Three Pounds each
Hundred weight.
10. " That whenever any Capias Issues, altho' the Defendant
be never Arrested or Summoned, and without the Defendant being
made Party in Court by giving Bail, or Appearance otherwise; yet
nevertheless the said Chief Justice doth exact and extort from every
Plaintif the Sum of Six Pounds Current Money of this Province,
for Fees pretended to be due to himself and Clerk, whereas in
Truth the whole Fees due to himself and Clerk do amount to no
more than Twenty Shillings and seven Pence, as appears by the
said Acts, for ascertaining Officers Fees, and which according to the
said Chief Justice's own Estimation of taking four for one for the
difference of the Value of Money at that Time the Fees were
A True and Faithful Narrative 53
first settled, could amount to no more than Tioo Pounds two Shillings
and four Pence; and the said Chief Justice doth Ex Officio most
frequently issue a Fieri Facias Capias ad Satisfaciendum, as he
sees fit, without the Knowledge of, or Request made to him either
by Plaintif or Defendant or either of their Attorneys: And
the said General Assembly do particularly Charge that one
Samuel Bridgin, sometime before October General Court 1738, took
out a Writ against one Thomas Fulwood, but the Matter being [20]
made up between them, he proceeded no further therein, nor was
any Declaration fiPd against the Defendant, yet the said Chief
Justice did exact and extort from the said Bridgin the Sum of four
Pounds eight Shillings and three Pence Proclamation Money for
Fees pretended to be due to himself and Clerk, altho' in Truth the
whole Fees for the said Writ according to the Fee-Act could amount
but to ten Shillings and seven Pence Proclamation Money; and the
said Chief Justice without any request made by the Defendant or
his Attorney under pretence of a non pros before any such judg-ment
on a Non Pros was ever entered upon Record against him, did
issue an Execution against the Plaintiff for the said four Pounds
eight Shillings and three Pence Proclamation Money, and the
Plaintif paid the Sum of seventeen Pounds thirteen Shillings
this Currency, altho' computing four for one according to
the Chief Justice's own Method of Computation, the whole
Fees for the said Writ could amount to but two Pounds two
Shillings and four Pence, that the Plaintiff on Payment of the
said seventeen Pounds thirteen Shillings, had the Execution de-liver'd
up to him by the Marshal, which Execution he has ready
to produce. That sometime after the said Chief Justice on his own
mere Motion, issued another Execution against the Plaintif in the
same Cause, for the like Sum of four Pounds eight Shillings and
three Pence Proclamation Money, for which the Plaintif paid a
second Time the like Sum of seventeen Pounds thirteen Shillings,
and took Mr. James Craven the Chief Justice's Clerk his Receipt
for the same, as appears by the Receipt ready to be produced; and
the said General Assembly are ready to produce many Instances of
the like kind, not only of the said Chief Justice his exacting four
Times more than his the said Chief Justice's real due, but also of his
issuing Executions over again, for the same Fees, after the same
54 The North Carolina Historical Review
have been really paid sometimes to his Clerk, and at other Times
into the said Chief Justice's Hand.
11. " That the said Chief Justice the better to colour his illegal
Proceedings, doth always issue his Executions [21] on his supposed
non pros's in this Form {mutatis mutmidis) North Carolina ss.
George the Second by the Grace of God of Great Britian, &c. To
the Provost Marshal of our said Province. Greeting. " We Com-mand
you to take Samuel Bridgin of Cape Fear, so that you have
him before our Justices at our next General Court to be holden for
our said Province at the Court-House at Edenton on the last Tues-day
in March next, to satisfy four Pounds eight Shillings and three
Pence Proclamation Money, which in our said Court on the last
Tuesdaj' in October last was Adjudged and Taxed for his Cost in
his Suit against Thomas Fullw'ood, wherein he I would no further
prosecute, whereof he is Convicted and have you then and there
this Writ with your own Fees. Witness William Smithj Esq; our
Chief Justice of our said Province at Edenton the 15th Day of No-vember,
Annoque Domins 1738, W. Smith" Whereby the said
Chief Justice doth artfully avoid saying to satisfy to the said
Thomas Fullwood, because in truth the said Defendant Thomas Full-wood,
who is supposed to apply for this non pros, is to have no Part
of them paid to him, to reimburse him the Fees he hath paid his
Attorney ; for the Chief Justice keeps all to himself ; yet in the other
Part of the Execution, it seems as if such Fees belonged to the
Defendant, by saying for his Costs in his suit against Thomas Full-wood,
but there is no Antecedent to be found in the Pelative, his,
in all the precedent Part of the Writ, unless it be Samuel Bridgin
the Plaintif, and it cannot be presumed that Samuel Bridgin should
be taken into Custody to satisfy Samuel Bridgin. And the General
Assembly do not take Occasion to criticise on this Proceeding for
want of due Form, or as a jeosail, slip, or mistake of the Clerk, but
it is contrived on set purpose by the said Chief Justice to colour his
own illegal Exactions under pretence of doing Justice to the De-fendant,
who at the same Time never receives any Part of these
Fees, and over and besides this, the Chief Justice takes eleven Shill-ings
and three Pence Proclamation Money, for Fees for Execution
on [22] this non pros for himself and Clerk, tho' there is but five
Shillings and six Pence due to both and no more ; in which particular
A True and Faithful Narrative 55
Fee they conceive the Chief Justice is very modest, exacting very
little more than Cent per Cent more than is due.
12. '^ That sometime in December 1734 one William Dudley
apply'd to the said Chief Justice for a Warrant against one William
Crosby for an Assault, which the said Chief Justice, granted with-out
demanding any Fee, nevertheless the said Chief Justice hy a
certain Act entitled An Act for reviving An Act entitled an addi-tional
Act to the Act for Tryal of small and mean Causes, having
procured himself to be invested with the same Power as two Justices
of the Peace for trying small and mean Causes, the said Chief
Justice without ever demanding any Fee of the said Dudley for
the said Warrant, or summoning him to shew Cause why he did not
pay it, issued an Execution against the said Dudley for eight Pounds
seventeen Shillings and six Pence pretended to be due to him for
the Fees of the Warrant, altho' at the said General Assembly ap-prehended
there is but ten Shillings this Currency due to the said
Chief Justice for the said Warrant.
13. " That the said Chief Justice doth contrary to the Duty of
his Office execute an Officium merum et promotum and doth insti-gate,
promote, prosecute and carry on divers Suits and Prosecutions
both civil and criminal Causes against such Persons who have any
ways offended him in opposing his violent and arbitrary Measures,
and the said General Assembly in Maintenance and Support of this
their Charge, do particularly Charge and Alledge that Sir Richard
Everard Baronet, Son of Sir Richard Everard Baronet, heretofore
Governor of this Province, being a Member of the General Assembly,
and having frequently mentioned and taken notice of the illegal and
arbitrary Proceeding of the said Chief Justice, the said Chief Jus-tice
sometime in the Month of June 1Y38, did fill up, or cause to
be fill'd up a Writ of Capias against the said Sir Richard Everard,
Baronet, by the said Chief Justice [23]* philus Pugh of Nancemon
in Virginia Merchant, without the Order or Knowledge of the said
Pugh or his Attorney, the Chief Justice having before threatned
the said Sir Richard Everard.
14. ^'That one James Castelaiv a Member of the General As-sembly,
and now one of the Justices of Bertie Court, being in Com-pany
with the said Chief Justice on the 27th Day of July 1737
A line missing from the original manuscript.—W. K. B.
56 The North Carolina Historical Review
and the said Castelaw having been from Time to Time made ac-quainted
with the violent, and arbitrary Proceedings of the said
Chief Justice, did in freedom tell him the said Chief Justice that
the many Hardships and Grievances the People of the Province
labour'd under, wou'd at length put them either under a necessity of
rebelling and running away, and leaving all their Lands and
Houses behind them; whereupon the said Chief Justice
in a violent Passion said, and swore by God, I wish you wou'd that
is what we want; thereby intimating that he wou'd be glad to see
the People drove to such Extremities as to quit their Estates or
forfeit the same for Treason, which indeed as they conceive wou'd
be no small Advantage and Benefit to the Chief Justice.
15 ^^ That the Chief Justice is a Person of a most violent, pas-sionate,
and revengeful Temper and Behaviour, and instead of en-deavouring
to curb or restrain his Passions, does on all Occasions
give the utmost loose to such his Passions, and doth frequently and
most outrageously Insult and Abuse divers Persons of Credit and
Distruction with most opprobrious !N'ames, and abusive Language,
as well in open Court sitting in the Seat of Justice, as without;
and the said General Assembly do particularly Charge that one
Arthur Mahson being a Member of the General Assembly, at a
General Court held at Edenion on the last Tuesday in July 1739,
had Articles exhibited against him for a certain Contempt offered to
the said Court by the said Mahson, but the said Mahson appearing
and being examined was found by the said Chief Justice to be no
ways Guilty of any Contempt [24] whatsoever, and was accord-ingly
acquitted by the said Chief Justice, whereupon the said Mah-son
being fairly acquited of the said Contempt as abovesaid
scrupled to pay the Fees of the Court, and a dispute between the
Attorneys arising, whether the said Mahson ought to pay Costs, the
said Chief Justice without any Affront or Indignity offer'd to him
by the said Mahson, did in a most violent manner Villify and Abuse
the said Mahson, calling him Pogue, Villian, notorious Rogue, and
treacherous Villian, altho' the said Mahson is well known to be a
worthy Man, a Person of very good Repute, and a Man of a good
Estate.
16. " That the said William Smith having been advanced to be
Chief Justice of this Province and President of His Majesty's
A True and Faithful Narrative 57
Council, ought to be a Person of Virtue, and of a discreat, sober and
grave Conversation, giving good example to others, & to Demean
himself according to the Dignity of his Office, yet nevertheless the
said Chief Justice by the notorious Immorality of his Life, and his
constant prophane Cursing and Swearing, doth daily oifer indig-nity
to Almighty God, and give just Occasion of great Scandal and
Offence.
17. " That all the Articles aforegoing are only a few Instances
out of many of the said Chief Justice his violent, illegal and arbi-trary
Proceedings, for his Exactions and Extortions are more bur-thensome
than the General Tax of the whole Province, every Corner
of the Country is fill'd with his Oppressions, and all the People
cry aloud for Justice from your Excellency's Hands.
" And the said General Assembly do most humbly pray your Ex-cellency
that the said Chief Justice may be immediately put to
Answer all and singular the said Articles of Complaint, and that
a reasonable Time during this present Sessions of Assembly,
may be appointed by your Excellency for the said Gen-eral
Assembly to make good their said several Charges against the
said Chief Justice, and that if the said Chief Justice shall confess
the same or be found Guilty thereof, [25] that then your Excellency
will be pleased to cause the said Chief Justice to be immediately
and from thenceforth suspended from all his Offices and Imploy-ments,
until His Majesty's Pleasure be farther known thereupon,
'and in so doing, your Excellency will remove him who has been the
Source, Spring, and chief Author of most of the Differences and
Disturbances which have happened in Government since your Ex-cellency's
arrival, do a most examplary Piece of Justic both to the
King and People, and restore Peace and Tranquility to the Province.
^^ The General Assembly do further most humbly Pequest your
Excellency that the said Chief Justice be in the mean Time se-questered
from the Council Board pending the Debate and Examina-tion
of the said Articles, it being (as they conceive) contrary to nat-ural
Right and Justice that any Person should set and Vote in his
own Case.
^' And the said General Assembly by Protection reserving to
themselves the Liberty of exhibiting at any Time hereafter any
58 The North Carolina Historical Review
other and further Articles of Complaint against the said Chief
Justice, and of replying to any Answers, that he shall make thereon,
and offering Proofs of the Premises, and to any other Articles to be
by them hereafter exhibited against him, and gf further explaining
themselves upon all and every the same Articles of Complaint if
need require.
After reading the said Articles the House resolved itself into a
Committee of the v^hole House, to Debate on the said Articles,
unanimously chose Mr. Tliomas Hunter Chairman. " Mr. Speaker
moved, and was seconded by Mr. Benjamin Hill, that the Articles
exhibited against the Honourable William Smith, Esq ; Chief Justice
might be Debated, and that the Proofs of the same be produced
immediately that the House might resolve whither the Articles ex-hibited
are sufficiently proved to this House, for this House to Im-peach
the Chief Justice,
" To which Mr. Samuel Swann objected, and was seconded by
Sir Richard Everard.
[26] And it was put to the Vote, and carried in the Affirmative
of a Majority of ten Voices." Thus far the Journal in forms us.
I shall add the !N'ames of the Persons for and a