Page:The North Carolina Historical Review - Volume 1, Number 1.pdf/15

Rh to observe the American stock in its original variations, and in its fine blendings as one goes westward, I have had no sense of prejudice or preference. On the contrary, I have felt a great admiration for all of the types and strains—all of the population elements—of the early colonization.

I do not undervalue the later contributions that Europe has made to our population, usually under special exigencies in those overcrowded countries. Nevertheless, I have come to a mature conviction that we should have settled the United States satisfactorily, and with sufficient rapidity, if we had received no further acquisition of population after the census of 1790. I am perfectly aware that to have drawn the line sharply and harshly then would have excluded a great number of families that afterwards came to reinforce the earlier stock, and that have proved to be as valuable as the descendants of the original pioneers. But I am speaking in general, and without regard to exceptions, when I express the view that the old American stock rather than the newer populations of more alien blood and tradition ought to be the basis of a permanent American nationality.

North Carolina has the distinction of having contributed a very high percentage of her best and most enterprising sons and daughters during the past century and a half to the upbuilding of other States in the general westward movement, while continuing to carry on her own life without appreciable access of newer populations from Europe. Unlike Florida, there has been no great rush of people to North Carolina from other States; and the consequence has been that the North Carolinian type has had a better opportunity for distinctive development than that of almost any other of our entire sisterhood of States.

A study of the famous townships of Massachusetts, or "towns" as these local divisions are designated in New England, is painful in many instances to those who love to find permanence of tradition and prosperous survival of early family names. Not in all these communities, but in very many, the old stock has well-nigh disappeared. It was not in vain that the forefathers established these little democracies of the New England towns, for their influence has permeated the life of the