Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/10

 2 Southern IRstorical Society /'>//><rs.

hand the brow-beating and the villainies, as well as the flattery, of proprietary and royal governors and put them among the leaders in the movement that culminated in the Revolution.

Then came a time of peace and calm when the people pursued the even tenor of their way, and sought in field and forum to find solution for the problems amid which their lot was cast. This period lasted for about two generations, and during it the University of North Carolina had been founded and was seeking a greater expan- sion. During the period from the end of the Revolution to the Civil War there are no mountain peaks in her history; the level of uniformity is hardly broken by a single event of importance, and there is little in it to attract the attention of the student of the phil- osophy of history. But there is a period in the history of North Carolina which stands pre-eminent. There is a time which deserves to be characterized as the HEROIC PEROID of the State. This is the period of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Let all other parts of our history be forgotten, this period of itself, though it be less than half a generation in all, will place North Carolina among the heroic in history.

During those terrible years we see a renaissance of the ideas which characterized pre-eminently the men of the Colonial period. The men of '61 showed that the spirit of Colonial North Carolina was still abroad in the land, and their watchword became again resist- ance to what they believed to be unjust government, and with this as a basis they conducted a struggle for success that has few parallels in history. They sought to carry out again the program of their colonial ancestors, even to the impeachment and deposition of their governor.

In the movement which led up to the war North Carolina took the part of a conservative, ambitious for peace. She sought to escape the necessity of war by all the means in her power; but, when the die was cast and war was no longer avoidable, she entered into the struggle with characteristic energy, and prosecuted it to the end, and when the end came, no State accepted the crushing defeat with more steadfast loyalty than North Carolina, or sought with more energy to build up the waste places. Then came what was worse than defeat, " impartial suffrage," which meant disfranchisement of whites and enfranchisement of blacks, then the terrors of recon- struction and negro rule broke over us like the roar of some terrible simoon, bearing in its path further humiliation, accompanied by a corrupt government, increased taxes, and a depreciation of values.