Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/12

 6 Southern Historical Society Papers.

citizens and great men. They did not dispute that the liberties of the subject might consist with royal authority, but the religious creed of these immigrants was made part of their politics, and they held that no law of human government ought to be tolerated in opposi- tion to the expressed will of God. They claimed the right to choose those who should frame their laws, contending that rulers as well as the meanest subjects were bound by law. These principles, brought with them to America and modified by experience, were the republi- can principles of the Scotch -Irish who settled this section of the State.*

I have dwelt upon the eminently religious character of these people because it was this trait which perhaps led them to take the part they did in the Revolution. It is true that some of them, notably those in Mecklenburg led by the Alexanders, Brevards, McKnitts and others, who joined in the famous Declaration of independence, were foremost in resistance to British rule. But these people generally were rather disposed to side with the Loyalists. The very isolation of their position and condition had kept them out of the contentions which had been growing up between the colonists on the coast and the mother country.

Granviile's trade laws, the enforcement of the restrictions placed upon colonial commerce for the protection of English manufactures, and the attempt to enforce the regulations against smuggling in vio- lation of these laws, which so roused the patriotism of New England, had not perceptibly affected them. The Stamp Act and the tax on tea had not pressed upon them. In fact, they probably knew of and cared little for these things Living upon their own resources, unac- customed to ask or receive protection or assistance from the govern- ment on the coast, whose authority theoretically extended over them, they felt little attachment to it, while their loyalty induced them to stand rather to the government abroad, whose exactions and oppres- sions they had not felt. Except, therefore, where the American or Irish influence predominated, the sentiments of these people favored the cause of the Loyalists, f

" But," as Judge Johnson, in his Life of Greene, says, "fortunately the enemy were too confident in themselves or had too much con- tempt for their opponents to act with moderation or policy." As the dissenters of New England had the reputation of having excited the war, dissenters generally became objects of odium to the enemy.

t Parton's Life of Jackson p. 76.
 * See Footers Sketches of North Carolina.