Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/352

 346 Southern Historical Society Papers.

victions then embodied in the Mecklenburg assumption of self- government have been vindicated by over a hundred years' suc- cessful administration of this Republic. We may safely assert that our form of government is no longer an experiment. This people have demonstrated their capacity to govern themselves. The most intrepid pioneers who, more than a century ago, led the advance in the great struggle for political liberty and self-government, could hardly have anticipated so complete and so large an outcome as that which we behold between the two oceans, the great lakes and the gulf.

The people of North Carolina contributed their full share through- out the whole revolutionary struggle which followed the county and the Colonial Declarations of Independence. The valor of their troops was displayed on every Southern battle-field. The State itself was the constant theatre of important engagements and stirring events. We do not need to be reminded of the achievements at Guilford Courthouse and King's Mountain and other notable and bloody contests, where your citizen soldiers won enduring laurels over Eng- land's best disciplined forces. The glorious victory at King's Mountain, occurring as it did at a most gloomy period of the Revo- lution, when the hopes of patriots had been prostrated and the enemies of America encouraged by the disaster of Camden, turned the tide in the South in favor of the patriot cause as did the victory of Trenton under Washington at the North.

The battle of Guilford Courthouse, where Greene measured swords with Cornwallis, was an important struggle, where great military genius and valor contended for mastery, and where the cause of the whole country seemed to be in jeopardy. The heroism of your fore- fathers made your soil an uncomfortable abiding place for British soldiers.

But it is unnecessary to repeat in your presence the story of the American Revolution, because you are as familiar with it as house- hold words. Next to the story of the Saviour it is the first one you teach your children to read. It sounds like a romance. It partakes of some of the features of a legend. It is a tale of resistance to unjust exactions; of opposition to a restricted commerce; of the struggle of a brave people of thirteen colonies seeking to be free; o the effort to establish the right of revolution for just cause; of an^ unequal contest of right against might for seven long years; of numerous bloody battles and serious defeats; of many privations,