3.2^. \ jo^vAAvX/d^ 
 
 
Gass . 
 
 Book ^ B \? 3 
 
o2 7^ 
 
 1775. MECKLENBURG'S 1882^ 
 
 DECLARATION OF 'INDEPENDENCE D 
 
 107th ANNIVERSABT. 
 
 SENATOR BAYARD'S GREAT SPEEOHtl 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY 
 
 SENATORS RANSOM AND YANCE. 
 
 Senator M. W. Kansom, by request, 
 read the Declaration, introduced by 
 eloquent and patriotic allusions to 
 the Declaration itself, and to the 
 men who made it, referring in terras 
 highly eulogistic to the distinguished 
 representatives from other States who 
 were present. The Declaration having 
 been read, the Senator made some 
 remarks which were worth their weight 
 in gold. Speaking of the difficulty of 
 proving the Declaration at this remote 
 date he said : "Great truths do not al- 
 ways depend on human testimony— they 
 are like God's light, they live forever, 
 are eternal and stand without question. 
 We stand to-day in the blaze and light 
 of a^hundred and seven years of civili- 
 zation, and a hundred years from now 
 unborn generations will come to kneel 
 at the shrine and pay homage to the 
 altars of liberty erected in Mecklenburg 
 county in 1775— this Bethlehem of the 
 new continent. Nothing can dim its 
 luster. It will shine on and from gen- 
 eration to generation it will be the 
 guiding star of nations in the years 
 which. are to come." 
 
 After whiQh the orator of the day,. 
 Hon. Thos. F. Bayard, of Delaware^. 
 was introduced by Senator Z. B. Vance., 
 as follows : 
 
 Mbn of Mecklenbl'ec :— I con-- 
 gratulate you to-day upon this happy; 
 occasion which has brought together 
 so many of our people, citizens and 
 strangers, to bear living witness to ihtf 
 virtues and to the patriotiSiii of our 
 forefathers. I rejoice to know that our 
 country and people at large are pros- 
 perous and happy, and that they are* 
 once more enjoyine in peace the divine 
 fruits of that industry which is guided.' 
 by uprightness. One huudied and sev- 
 en years ago this day, the foundations 
 of our liberties were laid broad and 
 deep on this spot ; and now that through, 
 the intervening years of war and peaces;, 
 of rejoicing and sorrt^, through good 
 and through evil report, we have con- 
 tended earnestly for the^ faith which 
 was once delivered to us bj the fath- 
 ers, and held fast the form of sound 
 words in which they are embedded, we 
 have met once more to do them honor. 
 We have met to worship once again at 
 
SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 
 at" by the talons of autocratic power; ^ 
 when the very air was filled with ap- 
 prehension and uncertainty, and the 
 upraised hand of the tyrant put every 
 man in peril; when the question 
 was: "Who shall bell the cat?" 
 A little band of men in a remote 
 and inland county of North Carolina, 
 were found willing to take the risk,— 
 to set their lives upon the hazard of the 
 die;— who 
 
 "Freeman stand or 
 
 "Freeman fa'—" * 
 
 were first found ready 
 
 "Freedom's sword to strongly draw." 
 Who, whether they pledged "their lives, 
 their fortunes and their most sacred 
 honor" to maintain their independence 
 from the Crown of Great Britain, and 
 to the success of the cause of American 
 Liberty, on the 20th, or on the 31st of 
 May, 1775, without doubt did so in that 
 month ;— and who, when they did, step- 
 ped in advance of their fellow-colonists 
 to do it, at a time when 
 
 "Those behind cried 'Forward!' 
 And those In front cried 'back!' " 
 
 The Spartan mother said to her son~ 
 "If your sword is short, add a step to 
 it"— and the men of Mecklenburg added 
 that step, and went down into the dread 
 arena of life or death for liberty, grave- 
 ly, quietly, and steadily. 
 
 And because they did so, we have as- 
 sembled to-day with uncovered heads 
 and reverential hearts to do honor to 
 their memory ;— to recall their deeds, 
 refresh our spirts, and re-invigorate our 
 purposes, by draughts from the clear 
 spring of their simple and noble ex- 
 ample. 
 
 And who were these men,— this un- 
 titlied nobility of homespun ? 
 
 It was not amid the blare of trum- 
 pets, or surrounded by the pomp and 
 circumstance of wealth and power, that 
 the grave and deliberate action of the 
 men of the county of Mecklenburg was 
 
 the shrine of American liberty, upon 
 
 ' the very spot where it was born. And 
 what happier conjunction of auspicious 
 
 omens could be found than the fact 
 that the High Priest who is to minister 
 before us to-day. is one of the noblest, 
 truest, and knightliest of all the great 
 
 /American citizens, who ever stood up 
 •itt the high places of the Goverment 
 (applause) with eloquent tongue, in de- 
 fence of constitutional rights and hu- 
 
 • jaaan freedom. 
 
 Such, my fellow-countrymen, is our 
 good fortune to-day, and I now intro- 
 dace Lim to you, ladies and gentlemen, 
 as worthy of all the honor and all the 
 respect which you can bestow upon 
 3iim, in the person of Thomas F. Bay- 
 ard. (Long and continued applause.) 
 
 batakd's speech. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen; My Fellow- 
 ^Countrymen : If I were to follow the 
 dictates ®f my own feelings at this mo- 
 sment, 1 should cast this manuscript to 
 thewiuds; I would speak under the 
 laspiration of this place and of this 
 people. (Applause.) It would be to 
 me a relief to pour forth my heart to 
 yeu in unpremeditated strains of grati- 
 ttado to God, that the spirit of liberty 
 jet ^o dwells and is felt by every man, 
 w-oman and child, within the sound of 
 my voice. But I came not to give ut- 
 terance to mere feeling. I came, so far 
 aal-v/as able, to gather the time from 
 tfce-varied and engrossing occupations 
 of an American legislator, to express 
 to you, not sudden emotions, but the 
 tleliberate recital and examination of 
 the great facts here wrought, more 
 than a century ago, and the vitality of 
 wfei<;h brings us here again together 
 to-dK,y, and will bring our posterity for 
 tttany a generation in the long years to 
 eoEae, (Applause.) 
 
 In a season of doubt and danger, 
 I when the spirit of liberty was "hawked 
 
SENATOR BAYARD'S S PS BOH. 
 
 taken 107 years ago. The importance 
 of the step lay in the great principle of 
 political liberty which it asserted, and 
 its success was due to the steady force 
 of conscientious conviction which ani- 
 mated the men who proclaimed it, and 
 which dignifies their memories for all 
 time. 
 
 In May, 1775, Charlotte was a very 
 smalltown, in fact a little village of 
 twenty small dwelling houses, sur- 
 rounded by the scattered habitations of 
 an agricultural and pastoral commu- 
 nity. 
 
 Charlotte had been chosen as the 
 seat of the Presbyterian college which 
 the Legislature of North Carolina had 
 chartered, but which charter the King 
 had disallowed. It was the centre of 
 culture of that part of the province • 
 andEphraim Brevard, the draughts- 
 man of the "Declaration" had been edu- 
 cated at Princeton, New Jersey. 
 
 The men who led that colony to 
 America had evidently read and profit- 
 ed by the warning of my Lord Bacon 
 when in his essay on "Plantations" he 
 had told them : 
 
 "It is a shameful and unblessed thing 
 to take the scum of evil and wicked and 
 degraded men to be the people with 
 whom you plant; and not only so, but 
 It spoUeth the plantation, and they ever 
 live like rogues and not fall to work 
 buttelazyanddo mischief and spend 
 victuals, and be quickly weary, and 
 then certify over to their country to 
 the discredit of the plantation." 
 
 Such as these were unknown in that 
 settlement. Probably not an individual 
 among those inhabitants but who was 
 compelled to rely in greater or less de- 
 gree upon manual labor for his support 
 and in rural simplicity— 
 
 "Along the cool sequestered rale of life 
 They kept the nolseleas tenor of their way." 
 It is worth while to note the origin 
 
 and stock from which these forefathers 
 of Mecklenburg sprung. 
 
 They were nearly all of Scotch-Irish 
 descent, and were the children of those 
 hardy pioneers who left the north of 
 Ireland early in the 18th century and 
 came to America. The main column 
 came up the Delaware bay and river 
 and passing over to the Cumberland ' 
 valley from Philadelphia, following 
 that valley in its Southerly sweep, made 
 their homes in North Carqlina. 
 
 History tells us that these immi- 
 grants dwelt for some years on the 
 banks of the Delaware, and some of 
 their family names remain there yet 
 accompanied by honor and respect-the 
 Polks. Pattons, Morrisons, Alexanders 
 and others; and, it is not therefore al- 
 together inappropriate, that after the 
 lapse of many generations, a man 
 whose forefathers tarried longer on the 
 banks of the Delaware, and whose home 
 is still there, should make his pilgrim- 
 age hither and join with you in reviv- 
 ing memories of a glory common to 
 us all. 
 
 For I confess to you, fellow country- 
 men, the glories of our Union are those 
 I value most. lam not insensible to 
 local ties, and I feel as much as any, 
 the sense of home— in the spot where' 
 I was born— but when a theme 
 is found and a chorus is raised in which 
 all of our countrymen can join, and a 
 thrill runs from the Lakes to the Gulf, 
 and vibrates along our 13,000 miles of 
 sea coast— when a song is sung, of 
 which every American knows the 
 words, to which every American foot 
 keeps step, and of which every heart 
 beats the measure— then I feel most the 
 true strength and power and worth of 
 American citizenship. 
 
 As akin to this thought I copied the 
 other day, from the inscription upon an 
 engraving of Judge Andrew Pickens 
 
SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 Butler of South Carolina, tbe former 
 United States Senator from that State, 
 (whose kinsman and successor so well 
 and honorably fills his place, and by 
 whose presence here to-day, as well as 
 that of his distinguished colleague,we all 
 are gratified,) the following sentence, 
 which was selected from a speech of 
 Judge Butler, made long before thecivil 
 war.byoneofhiacolleaguesin the Senate 
 (my honored father) as descriptive of 
 Butler's sentiment and character : 
 
 "How it has happened I cannot tell, 
 but from some cause— not certainly de- 
 served—Massachusetts and South Caro- 
 lina have been made to take opposite 
 positions in Federal politics ; nay, more, 
 to be made ostensibly bitter adversa- 
 ries. If I knew at this moment that all 
 political connection was to cease be- 
 tween the North and the South, I would, 
 as a matter of choice, hang lip in my 
 parlor the portraits of such men as 
 Adams, Hancock and Sherman, and 
 they would be full of historical instruc- 
 tion ; one lesson they especially teach, 
 never to submit to a wrongful and op- 
 jt^ressive exercise of authority., Dio- 
 medes was the youngest hero at the 
 siege of Troy. His courage was marked 
 by promptness and intrepidity and 
 compared well with the sagacious and 
 perhaps selfish courage of Ulysses. 
 Georgia was the youngest sister of the 
 thirteen. She had made her pledge in 
 the spirit of Diomedes. And, sir, she 
 will with her sisters maintain her 
 motto: Equality or Independence." 
 
 None of these hardy colonists of 
 Mecklenburg would seem to have been 
 men of rank, or to have been the de- 
 scendants of men of rank. They were 
 of the sturdy, hard-working, middle 
 class. When their ancestors had been 
 forced from Scotland by the destruc- 
 tion of their land tenures, and had 
 proudly refused to seek their "sheep- 
 skins" from manorial lords, and coald 
 
 no longer maintain the tenures whicb 
 from time immemorial had been their 
 right, they crossed the narrow sea and 
 settled in the north of Ireland in th© 
 "Kingdom of Ulster." 
 
 There again after a century of strug- 
 gle and unrest, they found themselves- 
 the victims of renewed dislocations of 
 the tenure of their lands, and wearying 
 of the uncertainties, and unsubmissive 
 to the caprice of arbitrary rulera, they 
 made their way across the broad At- 
 lantic to a new country, where the 
 right to property should have security 
 and stability, and where the fruits of 
 honest labor could be transmitted ta 
 their posterity. 
 
 The school in which they had been 
 trained was that of adversity. No one 
 can read their public declarations, their 
 resolves, their State papers, bills of 
 rights and constitutions promulgated 
 here in North Carolina, without catch- 
 ing the echo ot Magna Charta^and every 
 hard won battle for civil and religious- 
 liberty in the long history of England. 
 
 Who did not recognize in the resolu- 
 tions of Mecklenburg of May, 1175, as. 
 read by our honored friend Senator 
 Ransom, the spirit and almost the words 
 themselves of the great charter, forced 
 from the unwilling hand of a treacher- 
 ous and tyrannical king by the barons 
 who camped upon the field of Runny- 
 mede in June, 1215. 
 
 Magna Charta was itself but a revival 
 of still more ancient laws and cJharters 
 extorted by persistent liberty from 
 unwilling power. 
 
 What more did the men of Mecklen- 
 burg demand a hundred years ago, than 
 was asked at Runnymede nearly seven 
 centuries before ? What was asked by 
 them then, that we do not ask to-day f 
 and which it behooves us to see is not 
 withheld to-day? 
 
 "That no freeman shall be seized or 
 , imprisoned or dispossessed^or outlawed. 
 
SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH, 
 
 'Or in any degree brought to ruin. 
 
 "That no man shall be pursued except 
 by the legal judgment of his peers, or by 
 the laws of the land. 
 
 ♦•That justice and right shall neither 
 •be sold nor denied, nor delayed to any 
 'man." 
 
 And then mindful that a pure and 
 independent judiciary is essential to 
 every man's safety, it declared : 
 
 "That judges of assize were to make 
 •regular circuits four times a year. 
 
 "That justiciaries were to be chosen 
 ft-om among men well versed in law. 
 
 "That royal officers were not to hold 
 pleas. 
 
 "That royal Heralds were not to bring 
 •men to trial for their own pleasure, nor 
 without credible witnesses." 
 
 Here we have the germs of the great 
 principle, that the administration of 
 justice is to be independent of the po- 
 litical administration. iTo matt**r 
 whether it be King or Congress, wheth- 
 er it be President or Parliament, the 
 independence and separation of judi- 
 cial from political power is an essential 
 that can never be lost sight of —whether 
 in England in the I3th century, in 
 North Carolina in the ISth century, or 
 in South Carolina in the 19th century. 
 
 The Declaration and Eesolves which 
 <Gen. Ransom has just read to us, were 
 •carried to the first Provincial Congress 
 ^-^f Korth Carolina, and on April 12th, 
 1776, that Congress unanimously adopt- 
 ■ed this resolution : 
 
 _ Resolv ed, That the delegates for this 
 colony in theContinentalJCongress, be 
 empowered to concur with the dele- 
 :gates of other colonies infdeclaring in- 
 ■dependence, and forming foreign alli- 
 ances ; reserving to this colony the sole 
 and exclusive right of forming a con- 
 'Stitution and laws for this colony, and 
 of appointing delegates from time to 
 4ime, under the direction of the Gener- 
 
 al Representative Assembly thereof, to 
 meet the.delegates of other colonies." 
 
 Here we see. the men of Mecklen- 
 turg, having quickened the feeling and 
 the vision of the Provincial Congress 
 of their own State, sending an electric 
 spark still further on into the councils 
 of the Confederated colonies. 
 
 Let the mists and vapors of time be 
 dense as they may— let ignorance or 
 envy raise what doubts they may as to 
 the precise date of the original action 
 of the men of Mecklenburg ; of this fact 
 t?iere is no doubt ; of this fact there can 
 be no contradiction, none so foolhardy 
 as to make it; that the resolutioi 
 which I have just read to you preceded 
 the National Declaration of Independ- 
 ence nearly three montfls. It is also 
 one month older than the action of the 
 Virginia Provincial Congress, which 
 also recommended a declaration of Na- 
 tional Independence. 
 
 These facts leave the men of Meck- 
 lenburg and the State of North Caroli- 
 na the admitted leaders of the United 
 Colonies in the great march of Ameri- 
 can Independence. 
 
 Well might John Adams write to 
 Thomaa Jefferson in June, 1819, when 
 these papers seemed first to have met 
 his eye: 
 
 "You know that if I had possessed it 
 I would have made the halls of Con- 
 gress to echo and re-echo with it fifteen 
 months before your Declaration of In- 
 dependence. What a poor, ignorant, 
 malicious, short-sighted, crapulous mass 
 is Tom Paino's Common Sense, in com- 
 parison with this paper. Had I known 
 it, I would have commented upon it 
 from the day you entered Congress un- 
 til the 4th of July, 1776. 
 
 "The genuine sense of America at this 
 moment was never so well expressed be- 
 fore, nor since. Richard Caswell, Wil- 
 liam Hooper, Joseph Hewes, the then 
 
6 
 
 SENATOR BA YARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 representatives of North Carolina in 
 Congress, you kn«w as well as I ; and 
 you know that the unanimity of the 
 States finally depended upon the rote 
 of Joseph Hewes, and was finally de- 
 termined by him ; and yet, history is to 
 ascribe American revolution to Thomas 
 Paine ! Sat verbum sapienti." 
 
 Therefore, fellow-citizens, it seems to 
 me a matter of little importance, 
 whether it was on the 20th day of May 
 oron the 31st day of May, 1775, that the 
 paper was prepared by Ephraim Bre- 
 vard, and signed by Abraham Alexan- 
 der as chairman and John McKnitt 
 Alexander as secretary, and their 25 
 associates ; suffice it to say, it will stand 
 forever as a monument of the dignity 
 of humanity, all the more impressive 
 in its moral force and elevation, be- 
 cause of the total absence of that pomp 
 of circumstance with which the stage 
 managers of history so often seek to 
 surround their action. 
 
 The first step in the work of English 
 colonization in America was the voyage 
 of Amadas and Barlow, Lieutenants of 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, who, under the 
 charter of Elizabeth, commenced the 
 voyage which terminated at Roanoke 
 Island in 15S4. 
 
 There is not one in the great sister- 
 hood of States who has earlier record, 
 or one richer in interest, or more honor- 
 able in its facts than North Carolina, 
 from the days when its great founder 
 united his name and mournful history 
 with her own, although he was fated 
 never to see the colony or the city in 
 which so much of his hopes and pride 
 were centered. 
 
 In no spirit of reproach, but in the 
 earnest suggestion of friendship, let me 
 to-day impress upon you who hear me, 
 the need and duty of preserving and 
 perpetuating home chronicles. To use 
 the language of my beloved preceptor, 
 
 that distinguished son of North Caro- 
 lina, Francis L. Hawks : 
 
 "The attempt to preserve the story of 
 their childhood's home is the duty of 
 every American." 
 
 The glory of our common country be- 
 longs to U8 all ; it is built up by the 
 contributions of each part, and in no 
 spirit of detraction would I remark 
 upon the habit of our brethren of New 
 England of allowing no occasion and 
 no opportunity to hide under a bushel* 
 the light of their local history. On the 
 contrary I praise and commend them 
 for their activity in having forced to 
 the front the claims of Massachusetts, 
 to be considered the leading spirit in 
 the great struggle that led to the inde- 
 pendence of the United Colonies. But 
 while withholding nothing of due 
 acknowledgement from the courage, 
 spirit and self-sacrifice of the men of 
 New England in "the times that tried 
 men's souls," I do make claim for at 
 least An equal co-operative share in the 
 great work, for their fellow colonists 
 whose homes lay further South. 
 
 It was on the 16th of December, lt73» 
 that the famous "tea party" of Boston 
 took place; which, according to New 
 England chroniclers, would seem the 
 great revolutionary landmark of spirit- 
 ed popular uprising against tyranny. 
 The lustre of this event is so brilliant 
 in their minds as to pale the ineffectual 
 fires of the struggling colonists else;- 
 where. 
 
 But let it not be forgotten that more* 
 than eight years prior to that date, ear- 
 ly in 1765, when His Majesty^s sloop of 
 war "Defiance" arrived in Cape Fear 
 River, having on board stamped paper 
 for use in this colony, that a body of 
 citizens, headed by Col. John Ashe and 
 Col. Hugh Waddell boarded the vessel; 
 took from her the paper and, in one of 
 her own boats, conveyed it to the shore ; 
 and they compelled Houston, the royal 
 
SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 stamp master for Nortli Carolina, then 
 an inmate of the official family of Gov. 
 Tryon, to go before the citizens and 
 take a solemn oath not to attempt to 
 execute his office. 
 
 This was, so far as my readings of 
 the history of that period have gone, 
 the first, the most spirited and defiant 
 act to be found in the records. 
 
 The city of Philadelphia commenced 
 opposition to the shipments of tea be- 
 fore the city of Boston, and m October, 
 1773 learning the arrival of two vessels 
 laden with tea, a committee of her citi- 
 zens in pursuance of prior public re- 
 solves went down the Kiver Dele- 
 ware as far as the town of Chester, 
 boarded the vessels lying there in the 
 stream, ordered them back to England, 
 and their command was obeyed. At the 
 same time the agents of the East India 
 Company were compelled to resign 
 their positions. After this, we are told 
 by the historian (Bancroft,) Boston 
 "adopted the Philadelphia Resolves." 
 
 In New York every preparation was 
 made in November 1773 to prevent the 
 landing of any tea, and grievous was 
 the disappointment of those people that 
 the tea ships failed to appear in their 
 harbor. And in April 1774 tea-cheets 
 were in open daylight tumbled into the 
 dock from the decks of the ships that 
 came in. 
 
 In Charleston, South Carolina, on De- 
 cember 2d, 1773 the consignees of a car- 
 go of tea resigned, the tax was refused, 
 and the collector of the port was 
 obliged to store it in cellars where it 
 lay until it rotted. 
 
 Then followed the destruction of the 
 tea in Boston harbor.— When, after a 
 vast public meeting held on the night 
 of December 16, 1773, a body of 40 or 50 
 men, all of whom were disguised as In- 
 dians, "having posted guards to pre- 
 vent the intrusion of spies," proceeded 
 on board the ship "D-irtmouth" lying 
 
 at the wharf, and threw overboard her 
 cargo of tea. 
 
 The Province of Maryland made its 
 early and vigorous contributiors to 
 this honorable history. 
 
 In June 1774, it resolved on a cessa- 
 tion of intercourse with the mother 
 country, and passed resolutions br-a'h- 
 ing a spirit of the most determiir-l re- 
 sistance to tyranny. A substii prion 
 was made for the relief of Bos .»fi. — 
 whose port had just been closed i y t he- 
 order of Lord North,— and they d eel ar ac 
 that Maryland would break off all trade 
 or dealing with any colony, province oe 
 town, that refused to come iato the 
 common league. 
 
 The brigantine "Mary Jane" baving^ 
 tea on board consigned to parties in 
 Georgetown and Bladensburg, arrived^ 
 in St. Mary's River. Instantly the co3s>- 
 mittee of Charles county summonedi 
 the master and ccinsignee before *hem^ 
 They explained that the duty Lj- -^lot 
 been paid, and pledged themselves that, 
 the tea should be sent back to London. 
 With this apology, coupled with the in- 
 stant return of the vessel with the tea- 
 on board, the committee were satisfied^ 
 In October 1774, the brig "Peggy- 
 Stewart" arrived at Annapolis, having 
 on board a few packages of tea, the da- 
 ty having been paid by Mr. Stewart, 
 whereupon a public meeting was called^, 
 and great excitement ensued, in which ^ 
 the life of Mr. Stewart was put in great- 
 danger. 
 
 By the interposition of Charles Car- 
 roll, of Carrollton, Governor Pace, and 
 others, the people were induced to ac- 
 cept an apology from Mr. Stewart, 
 coupled with his offer to destroy with 
 his own hand, the obnoxious vessel and • 
 the "detestable weed" as it was called 
 in the language of the day. According- 
 ly the ship was run aground at Wind- 
 mill Point, at the mouth of the Severn 
 river, fired by the hand of her owner^ 
 
SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 and utterly- destroyed, in the presence 
 of 5,000 people who lined the banks. 
 
 At Hagerstown in Maryland, about 
 the same time, one John Parks was 
 compelled to walk "bare-headed to the 
 market-place, bearing lighted candles 
 in his hand, and there destroy certain 
 boxes of bis own tea upon which the 
 tax had been paid. 
 
 These acts it will be observed were 
 not committed by disguised men, nor 
 by night; but openly in the face of day, 
 by men well known to the royal authori- 
 ties, and who did not flinch from any 
 of the cciisequeuces of their bold deeds. 
 Let us theretore,when we commemo- 
 ^rate the the spirited act of our brethren 
 <of M-^sjic.' ''tv rot forget *hp evrn 
 inoi . ST ii c ; ■ uot of their c«. J 'J u- 
 tors fc' lii .ie i •r'.Ln r South and who have 
 been Jets careful to place upou record 
 those facts, in which to-day all Ameri- 
 cans avow their pride. 
 
 Do you not agreee with me therefore 
 'that it is well worth while, nay, that it 
 is an obvious duty, that local historical 
 societies should be instituted, into 
 which contributions of records, corres- 
 pondtncf^, all the material relating to 
 interesting periods in our histoiy as a 
 ;Peop*e, should be carefully gathered ? 
 
 It ib dblighb'ul to observe in the his- 
 tory of that early day how little trace 
 of local jealousy exhibited itself, how 
 ^'None were for faction and all for the 
 State." When tlie port of Boston was 
 closed by Lord North's act, Charleston 
 an South Carolina, was the first to min- 
 ister to the wants of Boston and sent 
 early in June, 1774, 2U0 barrels ot rice, 
 promi9inj» 800 more. Wilmington, in 
 Nortli Carolina raised and sent prompt- 
 ly £2000 in currency. Delaware devised 
 plans for regular and systematic relief. 
 Maryland and Virginia gave liberally 
 •from their store; the great Washington 
 himself heading the subscription list 
 <with £")0, p.'iying : 
 
 "We are not contending against pay- 
 ing the duty of three pence on tea; it is 
 the right, only, to lay the tax we dis- 
 pute." 
 
 It is a pleasant thing, I say, to observe 
 the words of cheer and brotherhood 
 that ran all along the Atlantic coast, 
 and made the cause of Boston the cause 
 of the United Colonies. 
 
 Can you not picture to yourselves 
 how, on a pleasant day in May, 107 
 years ago, where we stand to-day, little 
 groups of plain and earnest citizens 
 were discussing the progress of this ap- 
 proaching collision between them and 
 their distant and ignorant ruler, who 
 was seeking by unwise laws to compel 
 thejr ^:'i'r«m::-«ion to a principle repug- 
 n vnl iO r \i. u-od and self-respect; who, 
 I'orrreiting they were loving subjects, 
 sought :o make them his abject slaves? 
 Engaged in such themes as these, a 
 horseman is described in the distance 
 urging his weary steed towards them ; 
 travel-stained and dusty, and with 
 troubled face, he recites the news of 
 Lexington and Concord, and the blood 
 of their distant countrymen shed in the 
 cause of Liberty. 
 
 The spark has been struck ; the flame 
 has been kindled ; and higher and high- 
 er it mounts to the sky, destined in its 
 conflagration to dest. y the la.st rem- 
 nant of British powi . in the United 
 Colonies. 
 
 Then it was that tho spirit of Magna 
 Charta was revived. Then it was that 
 every lesson embodied in English his- 
 tory came to mind. In such a time, 
 amid such memories, the words of the 
 Declaration of Mecklenburg were 
 framed ; and can you not hear to-day 
 the deep, strong voice of Col. Thomas 
 Polk, as he stood at the little court- 
 house door, and read aloud to the as- 
 sembly the Declaration we have again 
 heard to-day? And Graham, and Rhees, 
 i and Kennedy, and Davidson, and Mor- 
 
8ENATNR BAYATL'S SPEECH. 
 
 rison, and Barry, were the committee 
 to transmit copies to the Continental 
 Congress at Philadelphia. And Col. 
 Thomas Polk and Dr. Joseph Kennedy, 
 were appointed a committee to pur- 
 chase powder and flints and ball tor 
 use by the militia of Mecklenburg coun- 
 ty. 
 
 The men of that day knew the value 
 of the militia. They had declared : 
 
 "That all able-bodied men in the 
 State should be trained for its defence 
 under such regulations, restrictions and 
 exceptions as the General Assembly 
 should direct by law." 
 
 They knew then, as we know now, 
 that the art of true obedience is the 
 best guide to the art of true command, 
 and that while learning to obey, men 
 best become fitted to rule, that men 
 comprehend how to rule, when they 
 have learned how to be ruled. 
 
 They recognized the truth of what 
 old Sam Johnson said of courage— 
 "which," said he, "is reckoned the great- 
 est of all virtues, because, unless a man 
 has that virtue he has no security for 
 preserving any other." 
 
 Solon said to Croesus when in osten- 
 tation he showed him his gold : "Sir, if 
 any other come thart hath better iro7i 
 than you he will be master of all this 
 gold." Therefore, said my Lord Bacon, 
 ■"Let any prince or State think soberly 
 ot his forces except his militia of na- 
 tives be of good and valiant soldiers." 
 
 It cannot be said, fellow-citizens, that 
 the people of Mecklenburg, or indeed of 
 North Carolina, ever exhibited a taste 
 for peace without honor. They seem 
 ever to haye been restless under op- 
 pression, unhappy when suspicious that 
 their rights were to be infringed. The 
 name of the "Hornets' Nest" was not 
 misapplied to this locality, and those 
 who rudely disturbed it were apt to 
 discover the truth of the simile. 
 In the month of May, 1771, the battle 
 
 of the Alamance proved to the Koyal 
 Governor Try on that the Eegulators of 
 the county which now bears that name, 
 were a people not to be bullied or scared 
 out of their rights; and I myself have 
 knowledge of how history repeated it- 
 self precisely one hundred years later, 
 when another Governor, Ilolden by 
 name, sought by the same means em- 
 ployed by Tryon to repress by brutal 
 force, social and political disturbance in 
 the same counties, and met with the 
 same success. The history of this last 
 campaign can be read in the testimony 
 and reports of May, 1871, to the Con- 
 gress of the United States. 
 And as— 
 "Now after ages of sorrow and wrong 
 
 The lark still carols the selfsame song 
 As she did to the uncurst Adam." 
 
 So to the human heart the song of the 
 passions continues, and it is the same 
 as it was when its first owners found 
 themselves outside the Garden of Eden. 
 It is beset with the same seductions, 
 and IS as weak to resist as ever. 
 
 The men who founded the civiliza- 
 tion of this country were especially en- 
 dowed with the attributes needful for 
 the work, and their records written not 
 merely in words, but emblazoned on the 
 very face of nature herself, here and all 
 around us, speak to-day in the contrasts 
 in physical fact betweeiv- the days of 
 1776 and 1876. 
 
 They were hard-working and indus- 
 trious, because the struggle for subsis- 
 tence compelled them to be so; they 
 were temperate, hardy, resolute and 
 watchful, because without such quali- 
 ties they could not have sustained 
 themselves in a remote and wild' coun- 
 try, in the neighborhood of superior 
 numbers of savage and crafty Indians. 
 And underlying all, they came here to 
 their life-work, with intellects educated 
 to the comprehension of the true prin- 
 
10 
 
 SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 ciples of civil and religious liberty, and 
 they were animated by convictions 
 ■which were based in the conscience, 
 and illuminated by the rays of a divine- 
 ly revealed religion. Under such sanc- 
 tions and conditions, moral and intel- 
 lectual, they laid the foundations of 
 this great State. 
 
 And has human nature changed? 
 Have the dangers and temptations 
 which beset it, all passed away ? and 
 have we the inheritors of a fertile soil, 
 discovered by their enterprise and re- 
 deemed by their industry and valor 
 from savagery, and of institutes of free 
 government framed and established by 
 their learning and ability, and sealed 
 with their life blood: Have we nothing 
 more to do than to receive and to en- 
 Joy? 
 
 Is our lot one of easy, placid enjoy- 
 ment? 
 
 Is there no longer need for the exhi- 
 bition and active practice of the same 
 virtues that founded and established 
 free government, in order to continue 
 and maintain it ? 
 
 Are truthfulness, courage, fortitude, 
 self-denial, industry and unselfishness 
 become obsolete and useless, in our new 
 conditions of modern life, with all its 
 luxuries, comforts conveniences, and 
 countless inventions? 
 
 In other words, has human nature 
 changed, or have its manifestations only 
 changed in name, in form, in number, 
 but not in its reality. 
 
 My fellow countrymen I ^ur work 
 of to-day calls upon us to be just as 
 watchful, just as prompt, just as reso- 
 lute in defence of our rights and our 
 welfare, as it did the men in homespun 
 who, in this town of Charlotte and 
 county of Mecklenburg, assembled to 
 make their solemn, single handed de- 
 claration of independence of tyranny 
 and misrule 107 years ago. 
 
 It is true the manual labor which 
 
 then attached itself in a greater or less 
 degree to every station in society has, 
 by the invention of machinery and the 
 sub-division of pursuits, been lessened^ 
 but is less industry, and other kinds of 
 labor than with the hands, less requisite, 
 or is it not more than necessarry to re- 
 spond to the present requirements of 
 society as now organized ? 
 
 It is true the farmer can now go to 
 his distant field without his rifie, and 
 free from danger of the arrow or bul- 
 let of his Indian foe. But because his 
 agricultural machinery surrounds him» 
 is his need of watchful industry the 
 less, to enable him profitably to com- 
 pete with his rivals in the market ? 
 
 No ; no : we have changed the forms, 
 but we have not altered the reality. 
 
 The same blue sky, the same green 
 earth, the same breezes, the same rains, 
 the same Nature surrounds us to-day, 
 and finds us the same human creatures 
 as those upon whom the sun shone 
 down a century ago in this very spot — 
 notwithstanding the fact that Char- 
 lotte is no longer a straggling village 
 but a beautiful and flourishing city. 
 
 Courage is as much needed now as 
 ever in our daily lives. Its tests are 
 varied, and we are not called so often 
 to face a violent death, or serious perso- 
 nal pain or danger, because the spirit of 
 force :s differently manifested and is 
 more regulated by the operation of the 
 spirit of law. 
 
 Instances of personal intrepidity in 
 battle and conflict, are countless in the 
 chronicles and traditions of the colo- 
 nists, who made the Atlantic sea-board 
 a continuous battle-field from 1776 to 
 1782— but none touch me more than an 
 exhibition of our own time. 
 
 But a little while ago a deadly fever 
 ravaged the communities in our south- 
 western border, and all along the val- 
 ley of the Mississippi rose the wail of 
 
SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 11 
 
 sorrow and the cry for help! And at 
 such a time were there no knights-er- 
 rant—no leaders of the forlorn hope ? 
 
 The hospital records will show how 
 young men, trained in the cure of sick 
 bodies, and others in the cure of sad 
 hearts and sick souls, pale students of 
 the healing art, left their homes in the 
 North, where dwelt health and happi- 
 ness, and, with unfaltering step, went 
 down to scenes of suffering and high 
 duty, soon alas ! to be the scene of their 
 own death. As they fell in the ranks, 
 their places were rapidly filled, and 
 surely "The noble army of martyrs," 
 never had a more ready or splendid body 
 of recruits than the quiet geintlemen 
 who died in 1878, in their endeavor to 
 comfort and save their stricken fellow- 
 «ountrymen. 
 
 But are there not other fevers to be 
 cured ? Is there not a fever of avari- 
 cious and pecuniary gain? Is there 
 not the consuming fire of personal and 
 political ambition, filling the breasts of 
 men and urging them to gratify its de- 
 mands at the cost of all considerations 
 of delicacy, virtue and a generous sense 
 of public welfare? 
 
 Are there not local jealousies, sec- 
 tional animosities, tempting men to nar- 
 row and unpatriotic action ? 
 
 In short, is not the sense of narrow 
 personal aggrandizement — the desire to 
 procure personal advancement and dis- 
 tinction, to reach place and power in 
 politics, to-day threatening the welfare, 
 the honor, and the credit of North Caro- 
 lina, as dangerously as ever did British 
 oppression or Indian warfare in May, 
 1775 ? And must not these foes of North 
 Carolina of to-day be met and over- 
 thrown by the exercise of the same vii- 
 tues that saved her a century ago ? 
 
 Gentlemen ! The enemy comes inadil- 
 ferent shape ; he wears a different garb, 
 but the evil intent is the same. 
 
 For what did your forefathers strug- 
 gle and bleed and die ? For a free gov- 
 ernment of laws, and not of men ; to 
 prevent the rights of property and per- 
 son from falling into untrustworthy 
 and unfriendly bands. 
 
 At one time kingly oppression sought 
 to take from them their rights and lib- 
 erties by force,— to-day you are solicited 
 and tempted by personal and partizan 
 selfishness, and undermined rather than 
 openly overthrown. 
 
 There is ever a struggle of forces go- 
 ing on in society between those that 
 would destroy and those that would 
 preserve it. Selfishness and cor- 
 ruption are all the time making com- 
 binations with ignorance and credulity, 
 to obtain public power for other than 
 public uses. 
 
 The form in which robbery is accom- 
 plished makes no difference to the vic- 
 tim ; ruin can be brought upon a coun- 
 try by false interpretations of its con- 
 stitution, or under the pretences of leg- 
 islation ; while a corrupt and vicious ad- 
 ministration of any government, how- 
 ever wise its form, will wholly defeat 
 and overthrow the real objects of all 
 government— the care of property and 
 person— as completely as a hostile army 
 sword in hand, could openly do the evil 
 work. 
 
 And when it becomes plain that the 
 public welfare is imperilled, a true 
 man's duty is the same under all cir- 
 cumstances, simply to do his best to 
 save and protect it, and in performing 
 this duty the class of virtues brought 
 into exercise are always the same. 
 
 If open, violent war assails his gov- 
 ernment and people, he will not only 
 reject all offers of rank and pay, all 
 temptations of the false ambitions 
 which the enemy may offer— but he will 
 go at once into the service of his coun- 
 try in just such capacity as he is en- 
 
12 
 
 SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 abled, but serve her he will, either in 
 •high rank, or in the ranks. 
 
 If public safety, and the honor and 
 welfare of his State is assailed by a po- 
 litical foe;— if profligate self-seekers 
 combine to capture the legislative and 
 other powers, and the weapons employ- 
 •edare those of corruption, combined 
 with ignorance and vice,— he must shun 
 all such contaminating alliances, and 
 spurn all offers of power, place or for- 
 tune to be acquired at the cost of the 
 •welfare and reputation of his State and 
 the respect of the good and true. 
 
 He must steadily maintain the organ- 
 ization which he believes will guard the 
 public councils from the presence and 
 intrusion of the venal, ignorant and in- 
 competent; he will sedulously maintain 
 upon the bench, learning, purity and 
 justice, and bestow executive power in 
 honest, intelligent and trustworthy 
 band^. By his vote and efforts he will 
 prove himself the unselfish, steady sol- 
 dier of North Carolina, on the same 
 principles and under as many trials and 
 difficulties as the men of Mecklenburg 
 of 1115. 
 
 There is courage especially required 
 at this day in the United States of as 
 liigh a type as any hitherto exhibited in 
 our history. I mean the courage to pro- 
 claim and maintain opinions and con- 
 victions upon public questions, which 
 .are in opposition to temporary public 
 clamor. To stand by the truth, until 
 the sober second thought of the people 
 shall come— as it always ultimately 
 will— to its rescue. 
 There are hundreds of men who would 
 risk their lives in the heat of battle, 
 who will not vote or speak, even upon 
 the most important public questions, in 
 a way that they believe would subject 
 them to the disapproval of a majority 
 of their fellow-^citizens. They have not, 
 in short, the same spirit of conscien- 
 tious independence and public devotion 
 
 which breathed in the Declaration of 
 Mecklenburg in May, 1775, and was 
 caught up and reiterated by all the col- 
 onies in chorus on the 4th of July, a 
 year and two months later. 
 
 The Mecklenburg men pledged "their 
 lives, their fortunes, and their oaost 
 sacred honor" to the cause of liberty 
 and independence. It cost them severe- 
 ly afterwards to keep that pledge, hut 
 they did it. 
 
 And I am persuaded that the one 
 thing the politics of the United States 
 needs, and will always need (and which 
 is needed by every people, no matter 
 under what form of government they 
 may live) is the same spirit of noble 
 courage, to assert an independent con- 
 viction of the truth, in any and every 
 essential question affecting the welfare, 
 the honor and Ifhppiness of our coun- 
 try. 
 
 It is true, we have prohibited the 
 grant of any title of nobility by a State 
 or by the United States ; but a system 
 of practical politics that tends to pro- 
 hibit great men and noble men, as well 
 as titles, Avill end in giving power to a 
 set of political spoilsmen and parasites, 
 who, in that hour of trial, which must 
 come to every country, will prove their 
 total want of those conscientious, man- 
 ly, self-respecting qualities, which make 
 men faithful friends and safe counsel- 
 lors in private life, and trustworthy and 
 patriotic public servants. 
 
 It lies in public opinion to reward or 
 punish, to encourage or discourage, 
 these qualities which make the true 
 cornerstone of good government, what- 
 ever may be its form. 
 
 We train up our children to look back 
 to the patriotic examples of the men 
 who, with truth in their hearts and 
 courage on their foreheads, steadily in 
 the face of the frowns of power and the 
 seductions of ease and gain, served their 
 country unselfishly, and secured its gov- 
 
SENATOR BA YARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 ernment on the foundations of virtue 
 and honor. 
 
 Such traditions are of untold value 
 to a people; they are a treasure which 
 grows with its use; they give a tone of 
 character ; they create a moral atmos- 
 phere which permeates every branch 
 of their government and strengthens 
 every institution, 
 
 If we would create such memories for 
 posterity, let us create such hopes for 
 the living ; let us encourage the actors 
 in public events of our own day and 
 generation to feel that— "last infirmity 
 of noble mind " — the ambition to live 
 in the memory of a grateful people. 
 
 In the generation of such a public 
 spirit, the baser passions of politics will 
 be rebuked and discredited; so that 
 time- serving and petty self-seeking will 
 give place to a nobler solicitude for the 
 public wefare; and in which the el- 
 ements of an enduring and real nation- 
 al greatness will be found. 
 
 When John of England, with knitted 
 brow and trembling hand set his seal 
 at Runnymede to the Great Charter, he 
 was ** girt with many a Baron bold " 
 who stripped him of undue powers in- 
 imical to the safety, honor and self re- 
 spect of free-born Englishmen, and 
 what the Barons gained that day for 
 themselves they could not keep from all 
 other classes of their countrymen. 
 
 The Federal Constitution is our Mag- 
 na Charta; it contains every principle 
 for which freedom struggled in Eng- 
 land, through the nine centuries, from 
 the Saxon Alfred to George the Third ; 
 and additional checks upon governmen- 
 tal power, and safeguards to individu- 
 als and minorities were placed in its 
 provisions. 
 
 The Mecklenburg Declaration was 
 the first clarion note heard among the 
 mountains of North Carolina, whose 
 echo reverberated through the Provin- 
 cial Congress of this State, until it 
 
 reached the Continental Congress at- 
 Philadelphia, and ended only in the 
 Federal Constitution of the great Union, 
 of States. 
 "Cervantes smiled Spain's Chivalry away." 
 
 said Lord Byron ;— and Burke nearly a 
 century ago despairingly declared : 
 
 "The age of chivalry has gone ; that 
 of sophists, economists, and calcula- 
 tors has succeeded." 
 
 As an institution this is true, but aa 
 to that which created chivalry, it is 
 surely untrue, and never will be true ; 
 —for it was not the helmet, nor shield, 
 nor corslet, nor lance, nor spurs, that 
 made the true knight ;— but the brave 
 heart, the dauntless will, the unselfish 
 and gentle soul that lay within his breast.. 
 The plain attire, the homespun gaib 
 may cover— nay does cover to-day, all 
 that made chivalry, first the precursor, 
 and at last the hand-maid of religion 
 and law. 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh landed his expe- 
 ditions on your shores three hundred 
 years ago, and his name is linked with 
 the capital of the State— whose soil he 
 was destined never to see. 
 
 History tells us how he gained favor 
 with the Virgin Queen of England by 
 casting his costly and embroidered 
 mantle before her in the mire, that she 
 might pass dry shod. In this lofty 
 courtesy he typified the dignity of un- 
 hesitating service to his lawful ruler. 
 
 And because we are citizens of a Re- 
 public, is there nothing to which we 
 owe unhesitating service? Is there 
 no cause in which we would as willing- 
 ly throw down our cloak, and if need 
 be go down with it ? Is not Queen Car- 
 olina as worthy of devotion as Queea 
 Elizabeth ? and are not the men of Car- 
 olina as devoted to the cause of her 
 safety, honor and welfare? 
 
 Filled with such a sentiment, how 
 infinitely poor and small become the 
 
14 
 
 SENATOR BA YARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 tradiDg,s and hucksterings of patronage 
 and petty politics ! How much better 
 and nobler and wiser, to be true to the 
 fortunes of a grand old common wealth, 
 than to see them endangered at the be- 
 hests of selfish and self-seeking person- 
 al ambition. 
 
 Our dangers to-day are not from a 
 savage and treacherous foe, whose 
 scalping-knife and keen arrow were 
 the dread of our forefathers ; nor a tyr- 
 anical ruler across the sea in all the big- 
 otry of power, seeking to oppress and 
 strangle freedom. But evils and dan- 
 gers arising from a false arrangement 
 of the forces of our government threat- 
 en us on every side. 
 
 We must recur to the fundamental 
 principles upon which liberty was 
 founded, and which must be revived, 
 If liberty ia to be maintained. 
 
 It was in the balance of its forces 
 that the equilibrium of free society was 
 found. Each force needs recognition 
 and in the distribution and diffusion of 
 power safety was found. Observing this 
 rule powers were not suffered to accu- 
 mulate.— Not being consDlidated men 
 of moderate abilities were enabled to 
 execute them. — No governing class was 
 was created, and it was never intended 
 to have a privileged class. Property 
 was to be made secure by law and to 
 have its due weight, but the political 
 power of wealth, or plutocracy was nev- 
 er to be permitted. Numbers were to 
 have weight, but the whole arrange- 
 ment of our government, showed the 
 principle of absolute numerical majori- 
 ty was never admitted, but, on the con- 
 trary rendered impossible in every de- 
 partment. 
 
 Elections were made frequent,'forthe 
 purpose of bringing the holders of offi- 
 cial power, back to the people at stated 
 periods, to receive judgment upon their 
 administration ;— but whoever contem- 
 
 plated that which we now see of every 
 engine of public power ? 
 
 Legislative, executive and judicial, 
 all lent to prolong the term of power, 
 and prevent a change or reformation of 
 administration. 
 
 Nearly a century and a half ago, an 
 English statute, punished by heavy-fine 
 the solicitation of a vote by an officer 
 of the government, for, said Black- 
 stone : 
 
 "To use the offices of society to con- 
 trol society, what is this but to cut up 
 government by its very roots." 
 
 And yet here in the United States 
 to-day, the official who does not active- 
 ly exercise his powars, and use his salary 
 and influence to prolong party power, 
 is deprived of his office for that reason. 
 Do not men sit openly in public to re- 
 ceive involuntary contributions from 
 the civil officers of the government, 
 just as regularly as the collector of law- 
 ful taxes? Are not thanks publicly 
 rendered by men high in station, for 
 the debauchery of a canvass and over- 
 throw of the free elections in a great 
 State? 
 
 The campaign of to-day is against 
 the allied armies of greed and corrup- 
 tion, combining with ignorance and 
 corruptibility, to use the powers of the 
 government for personal and party 
 ends. The weapons to be used in op- 
 position to these forces, are education, 
 moral and intellectual, conscience and 
 dignity, appealing to all that is best in 
 men's natures to preserve those things 
 which are most essential to their wel- 
 fare. 
 
 And now, my countrymen, my part 
 in the commemoration of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence by the freemen of 
 Mecklenburg county has been perform- 
 ed. No one is more conscious than I of 
 the imperfect manner in which the duty 
 assigned me has been executed, for 
 when I yielded to the friendly influence 
 
SENATOR BAYARD'S SPEECH. 
 
 15 
 
 of your invitation, I confess I did not 
 :3ufficiently weigh the difficulties of the 
 attempt to reconcile the demands of 
 legislative duties with the preparation 
 of such an address. 
 
 When again I shall see the good peo- 
 ple of Mecklenburg county I know not, 
 but I cannot forbear the wish, that from 
 the rich quaries of the old North State, 
 marble and granite will be found with 
 which to build a fitting monument to 
 the simple and heroic men, to com- 
 memorate whose deeds we have here 
 to-day assembled. 
 
 Surely as Timrod, the sweet poet of 
 
 South Carolina, has sung : 
 
 "Somewhere waiting for Its birth 
 The Shalt lies In the stone." 
 
 The time has come when the shaft 
 should rise, and be inscribed with the 
 names of the signers of the Mecklen* 
 burg Declaration of Independence, and 
 hither shall be led the youth of this 
 and later generations yet unborn, to 
 learn the lesson how men should live 
 and die for their country. 
 
 To the dead I have paid my tribute of 
 respect and honor; to the living I have 
 tendered the earnest and afEectionate 
 counsel of a friend;— and my task is 
 done. 
 

 LBAg'05