, 334 . 
 
 3 ' 
 
 Letter to Ex— Confederates 
 
 Carr 
 
 t 
 
C.2. 
 
GEN. J. S. CARR’S 
 
 Letter to Ex-Confederates. 
 
 — - M - » - ■—--- 
 
 THE OLD SOLDIERS WILL NOT BE 
 
 DISFRANCHISED. 
 
 THEIR RIGHTS ARE SECURE — EXTRAVA¬ 
 GANCE AND CORRUPTION FOLLOW 
 
 NEGRO RULE. 
 
’ll 
 
p j 
 
 Gen. J. S. Carr’s Letter to Ex-Confederates 
 
 To the People of North Carolina : 
 
 The following letter refers to some unrest in the minds of 
 some of the brave men who have made North Carolina the 
 heir of their immortal fame. 
 
 In response to the appeal it contains, this answer is given, 
 and in behalf of my fellow-citizens of the great Democratic 
 party, who are battling, in sincerity and in truth, for the wel¬ 
 fare of every good man, within our borders, and of his children 
 to the remotest generation : 
 
 Wentworth, N. C-, May 7,1900. 
 
 Dear General: —The Republicans in this and Western 
 counties are making a house-to-house campaign against the 
 Amendment, telling the people that in the event it carries, the 
 illiterate white voter will be disfranchised. 
 
 The prejudiced being engendered among this class, especial¬ 
 ly among the illiterate sons of Confederate veterans, is alarm¬ 
 ing. The statement put to these men is about like this: “You 
 father fought four years for this country, and now that he is 
 old and no longer fit for use, the Democrats propose to dis¬ 
 franchise him.” The Veteran seems to have a vague idea 
 that he is safe, but it needs confirmation. 
 
 Now I but voice a common sentiment, when I say that not 
 only the Confederate Veteran, but every true son of North 
 Carolina recognizes in you the champion of the peoples cause, 
 and feeling thus, I beg to make this suggestion: That you pub¬ 
 lish in the papers a card of assurance, that the sons of a Con¬ 
 federate Veteran have nothing to fear at the hands of the 
 Democratic party, and appealing to them to stand up for the 
 safety of our homes and firesides, as their fathers did in the 
 dark days of the sixties. Such a card coming from you, will 
 to my mind (and in the opinion of those whom I have consult¬ 
 ed) be worth all the Amendment literature now being pub¬ 
 lished. 
 
 I am myself the son of a Confederate soldier, who was one 
 of the first to leave for the front, and one of the last to return, 
 and because of the fraternal ties which bound you men to 
 fight a common enemy, so should we, their sons, fight what¬ 
 ever threatens the peace of our homes and firesides, leaving 
 
no stone unturned in our effort to thrust aside the vicious, ig¬ 
 norant element who threaten us, and establish a government 
 at home, and a representation in Washington, worthy of our 
 good old heritage. 
 
 I trust you will find my zeal a sufficient excuse for the lib¬ 
 erty I take with your time, 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 P. H. Scales. 
 
 To Gen. J. S. Carr, Durham, N. C. 
 
 In the last letter penned by Thomas Jefferson, upon the eve 
 of the fiftieth birthday of American independence, and the 
 death-day of the immortal statesmen, these words may be 
 found: 
 
 “The form of government which we have adopted, restores 
 the free right to the unbounded exercise of reasonable free¬ 
 dom of opinion.” 
 
 For this Jefferson toiled, and Washington fought. This was 
 the end of which the prayers of women, the labors of men, 
 the struggles of patriots for seven long years were given, that 
 the fathers of the republic might establish upon the earth the 
 government best adapted to the happiness of a free, enligten- 
 ed and virtuous people. 
 
 Conceive the astonishment with which the signers of the 
 Declaration, and framers of the Constitution, would have heard 
 a prophecy that in less than a century the greater number of 
 the sovereign States that nobly won their independence of 
 foreign control should impose their rule upon the lesser num¬ 
 ber of the States of the South, and attempt to enforce gov¬ 
 ernmental policy through the elevation of the negro race, up 
 to that period slaves, into political mastership over the free 
 white descendants of the builders republic! 
 
 Overwhelmed by immense numbers, shut out by slander, 
 fraud, and trickery from the sympathy of mankind, with the 
 country desolate with ravaged homes, struggling with the 
 pangs'of poverty that followed the rapine of the conqueror, and 
 the exaction of his taxation to the last manhood of the South 
 protested against the ballot for he negro. It was hung as a 
 millstone upon our necks, after temptation had been rejected, 
 only through the disfranchisment of our best and truest men, 
 and through secret military electorial tribunals, whose actions 
 were directed by satraps without responsibility to the people. 
 
With the advent of the negro voter, en masse, necessarily 
 ignorant, wholly inexperienced, and without political con¬ 
 science, except a dim idea that the Republican party had 
 waged a terrible war, not for the economic benefit of the 
 North, but for his freedom, and might add thereto, forty 
 acres and a mule from the possessions of his former masters, 
 they became as a whole the prey of unscrupulous demagogues, 
 the carpet-bagger, many of whom migrated to the South for 
 the purpose. 
 
 The dreadful consequences of the governments which fol¬ 
 lowed throughout the South, and were only governments in 
 name, but legalized systems of plunder, in truth, were felt 
 everywhere. Intelligence and virtue were prostrate under 
 the weight of enormous ignorance, manipulated by cunning 
 and greed 
 
 That I might not write with any bitterness of personal rec¬ 
 ollection, let me quote the words of Senator McEnery of the 
 conditon of Louisiana, at that time, delivered in the United 
 States Senate : 
 
 “Negroes became justices of the peace, constables, sheriffs, 
 legislators, state officials, lieutenant-governor, generals of the 
 militia. Even the high office of Governor was awarded to him. 
 They were ignorant, insolent, and oppressive; and corrupt 
 beyond mention. The State debt in eight years increased from 
 four to fifty million dollars. They were police jurors in the 
 parishes, and councilmen in the towns and cities. All paro¬ 
 chial and municipal indebtedness increased in the same pro¬ 
 portion that the State debt had increased. The State expenses 
 alone went to $19,000,000 a year, when the legitimate expenses 
 ought to have been then, as now, one and a quarter millions of 
 dollars. 
 
 “It is well known that laws were enacted during recess. 
 They were promulgated after the adjournment of the Legisla¬ 
 ture as having been passed, when they never were presented 
 to that body. The journals were fraudulently manipulated in 
 order to show that they went through the regular course of 
 legislation. The courts, as a rule, were corrupt. Negro jurors 
 were empaneled, and no white man had an opportunity in 
 criminal cases for a fair trial. 
 
“A drunken judge on the United States bench at midnight 
 signed an order organizing the Legislature of the State, and no 
 member was permitted to enter the statehouse without «a per¬ 
 mit signed by the United States Marshal. Polling places were 
 before dawn taken possession of by negroes, who stood in long 
 lines, and it was with great difficulty and humiliation that a 
 white man could vote. White men under arrest for some 
 fancied wrong were brought to the polls under a guard of 
 United States soldiers to encourage, edify and amuse the negro 
 voters. 
 
 “The entire State was a military camp, and United States 
 troops were almost daily employed as political agents. Detach¬ 
 ments were furnished sheriffs and constables to make arrests on 
 warrants issued by courts of record and justices of the peace. 
 United States Marshals forged by the hundreds the names of 
 United States Commissioners to warrants, and arrested with 
 United States cavalry the most respectable citizens, on ficti¬ 
 tious charges, and placed them in irons and confined them in 
 loathsome dungeons. People lived in terror. Every man went 
 armed, expecting an attack at any moment from the negroes. 
 It was the pastime of drunken negroes riding along the roads, 
 to fire into dwelling houses. At the end, the State was in a 
 pitiable condition. Tax collectors had stolen the collections 
 they had made. The State Treasury had been looted, and the 
 Auditor’s books made way with, to prevent prosecution. 
 Warrants on the Treasury were begging on the streets, at 20 
 cents on the dollar. 
 
 “The recollection of that period is like a hell-born dream, 
 and one is almost unnerved at the mention. It is the darkest 
 and most shameful period in the history of the human race. 
 The wonder now is that by force it was not sooner terminated 
 by an outraged people.” 
 
 The people of North Carolina know that this recital had its 
 precise parallel in our own State, and only the interposition of 
 one fearless judge arrested the progress of a civil war, for 
 which forces were actually, enrolled. 
 
 By a supreme struggle the forces of good government ob¬ 
 tained control, many of the plunderers fled, and by toilsome 
 effort, prosperity and peace returned; yet, always demanding 
 sleepless vigilance, and with many drawbacks to progress, in 
 
[ 7 ] 
 
 the Eastern section of the State especially, from the existence 
 of the large, unintelligent, and corruptible vote in the populous 
 negro counties. 
 
 Accepting a situation always deplored, our people resolved 
 to conquer by kindness, by education, by privileges for the 
 unfortunate. The record of the Democratic party in its care 
 of the negro as the weaker race in the State may challenge 
 comparison with that of his warmest friends anywhere in the 
 world. He was given an even proportion of the hard earned 
 taxes of the whites, although the payment was as 94 to 6 for 
 many years. He had the first institutions especially" built for 
 the colored deaf and dumb and blind, and insane, in the history 
 of the world. He has to-day, in the colored graded schools of 
 the towns, chiefly supported by the whites, far greater advan¬ 
 tages than the white children of the country may hope for, in 
 long years to come. 
 
 He had also special normal schools to train his teachers, 
 supported by the State, and an excellent Agricultural and 
 Mechanical College, which, though organized by help from the 
 United States, is assisted by State funds, and public sympathy 
 and placed under a faculty wholly of his own race. 
 
 What was his response to all this? With a few shining 
 exceptions, he has invariably allied himself with the elements 
 of misrule and corruption, and the mass of 120,000 voters of 
 his color is the most serious menace to the stability of institu¬ 
 tions, the efficiency of law, and the purity of legislation in our 
 midst. 
 
 This was signally demonstrated upon the first occasion of 
 differences of opinion between white men formerly together, 
 upon certain questions of great economic interest, giving rise 
 to the division of parties in 1894. The moment that certain 
 men who loved self more than their country or their race could 
 use the negro as the balance of power, evil came upon the land. 
 The negro was not slow to demand a price that must have 
 appalled the very authors of his political power. In a short 
 time over a thousand office holders of his race were found in 
 Eastern North Carolina; our seaport towns were suffering from 
 his misrule; women were unsafe with negro police, or even 
 humiliated by negro school committeemen; and the only negro 
 representative in the United States Congress took his seat from 
 
a district whose convention was so overwhelmingly negro as 
 to eject unceremoniously the white men who had out-Heroded 
 Herod in surrendering their pride of race in the mad thirst for 
 place. 
 
 The negro, unfortunately, is less fitted for suffrage and office 
 to-day than he was a generation ago. The old instruction and 
 discipline of the master has vanished; the negro father, busy 
 in making his living at the best, and often given up to vice, 
 usually fails in moral training for his offspring, and we have a 
 vast body of the race, diverging into idleness, dissipation, vice 
 and crime. There is now universal complaint of the scarcity 
 of reliable labor. 
 
 Far be it from me to stir up unworthy prejudice against the 
 negro because he is not a white man. He was loyal and faith¬ 
 ful during the war; and there are yet old friends among his 
 race whom I shall honor for one, all the days of their lives. 
 And there are men of the race of virtue and intelligence, and 
 interested in the security of property and wise administration* 
 These men will suffer nothing by the Amendment. 
 
 And more, because in my make up, Providence has so con¬ 
 stituted me, that by nature, I am for the “under dog in the 
 fight,” for the weak as against the strong. I have always 
 cherished a kindly interest for the colored race, so much so, 
 that sometimes, I have perhaps, with good reason, given my 
 white friends just cause for criticism, and yet I make no 
 apologies. I am proud to believe that the colored man in the 
 South regards me as his friend, and I am glad to be in position 
 to state that I enjoy their confidence to that extent, that, per¬ 
 haps no man in the South receives so much correspondence 
 from the Negro race, as I do, and yet I have never failed to 
 advise them, that when they conceive that their interest leads 
 them to think and act, contrary to the best interest of the 
 White race in the Southern States, they were only turning 
 their faces toward the “setting sun,” of their people. Iam 
 yet their friends and profess to feel a peculiar interest in their 
 welfare. 
 
 But on the whole, the negro is a child, and like a child, loves 
 to play with fire. We cannot risk the safety of the household 
 longer. We will guard and protect his interests safely, but 
 we will govern, according to the will of the Creator who made 
 the diverse races, as we honestly believe. 
 
Nowhere else on the globe, does the Anglo-Saxon race per¬ 
 mit the possible turning of the house up-side down by negro 
 balance of power overwhite civilization. Hayti and Liberia are 
 object lesssos for mankind. Few are the negroes from this 
 country who reach either without longing to get away. 
 
 Nor is there any State of this Union from Maine to Oregon, 
 that would submit to the introduction of the negro element, 
 in sufficient number to control its government and fill its 
 offices, break up its established polity, and imperil its financial 
 safety. Self -preservation, in the last analysis, would command 
 4l the survival of the fittest.” 
 
 It is therefore sheer ignorance, or arrant hypocrisy that 
 would cry out against the adoption of the Constitutional 
 Amendment on our part. For we will not submit to a great 
 upheaval of society, to preserve our civilization, the honor of 
 our firesides and the prospects of our children, at every recurr¬ 
 ing election. We are tired of the insolent boasts of the negro 
 Congressman who has himself drawn the color line in his 
 own party conventions, official appointments, and outrageous 
 language, even toward his white republican allies. 
 
 Nor will we longer bear this burden, which is a hideous 
 mockery of representative freedom. A child without judg¬ 
 ment, knowledge or discretion, cannot be suffered longer to 
 be led by demagogues to use the brute strength of votes shifted 
 en masse by trickery or petty corruption. We will not hang 
 the promise of suffrage before his eyes and filch it away, nor 
 drive him by force from the polls. But we will protect the 
 purity of suffrage, as Massachusetts and other States have 
 done, through educational or other requirements, and when he 
 is fit to exercise the privilege and not before, will we consent. 
 There are no evasions to make—no concealments to effect—we 
 are determined to demand and to secure white supremacy. 
 
 Will the adoption of the Amendment effect the result de¬ 
 sired? Let us reply in the language again of Senator McEnery: 
 
 ‘‘Under white rule the State recovered rapidly. Levees 
 were rebuilt; bonds have gone above par. The State Treasury 
 is full. Schools are prosperous for white and colored. Peace 
 prevails everywhere. The whites and negroes are on cordial 
 terms. Crime has decreased; the courts impartially adminis¬ 
 ter justice. White immigrants from the West have come to 
 
[ 10 ] 
 
 \ 
 
 Louisiana in large numbers, where only the corrupt carpet¬ 
 bagger ventured before. Annual the legislation of the 
 
 State which has for its sole object the advancement of both 
 races, and the tragic period of 1876 would be re-enacted. The 
 white Republicans make no complaint against the pro¬ 
 visions of the present constitution regarding suffrage. The 
 more intelligent negroes accept it as a wise settlement of the 
 question of suffrage. The ignorant of the negro race are in¬ 
 different about it, as they have long ceased to have any po¬ 
 litical affiliations except as created by the purchase of their 
 vote.” 
 
 The next inquiry made by those who fear to lose the ladder 
 up which they have climbed to seats, once to be reached only 
 by the voice of intelligent freemen of the white race, is the 
 question, will the courts sustain the Amendment as permissi¬ 
 ble by the Constitution of the United States? Time need not 
 be absorbed in the discussion of this point. Senator Morgan, 
 the greatest constitutional authority in the Senate, has affimed 
 it in extented argument, and the best men of the profession in 
 our State have shown its consistency with the Constitution of 
 the Union. 
 
 Why so much concern for the constitutionality of the 
 Amendment on the part of those who oppose it? Why, if so 
 well satisfied that the best legal minds are wrong, and the 
 judgment of trained statesmen is valueless, before their own 
 opinions, and desires, do not they rather rejoice in the blunder 
 of the Democratic party, soon to see its works undone? 
 
 No, their anxiety is not for a broken Constitution and a dis¬ 
 appointed Democracy; they will lose no sleep grieving over 
 our check; it is only that they dread to render up the talent 
 they have misused—to see the day of reckoning come, and the 
 opportunity forever lost of holding place and power, through 
 the hosts of the ignorant negro, blind to his interest, deceived 
 by his corruptors, mislead by the arts of the demagogue who 
 sacrifices principle, society, and virtue for a mess of pottage 1 
 
 The fears of such men for the constitutionality of the Amend¬ 
 ment can only amuse—they can no longer deceive. 
 
 My friends recognize that I am no lawyer qualified to dis¬ 
 cuss constitutional questions. I would not if I could, I could 
 not if I would, but I do most solemnly affirm that the peace 
 
C 11 ] 
 
 and prosperity of the State, the safety of om homes and fire¬ 
 sides, the welfare of the white race and the black race in 
 thunder tones demand the adoption of the Amendment, and to 
 me these are sufficient. I pray that the Amendment may be 
 constitutional for these reasons. 
 
 But there is one feature of the opposition which deserves 
 severe condemnation. It is the attempt to mislead the people 
 by the assertion that there is danger that white men who are 
 illiterate are to be thrown out, and by this discrimination class 
 government formed. 
 
 The folly of this accusation is only equaled by its absurdity. 
 Centuries of heredity are behind rhe white man who may be 
 illiterate—his associations, instincts, traditions, are all educa¬ 
 tive of the better part of man, the conscience and the will. 
 The habit of hearing both sides discussed, of attending the 
 courts, of mingling with his fellow white man of like feelings 
 and aspirations, and his social position in life, place a great 
 gulf between him and the negro, in regard to the best elements 
 of education, which is not book-knowledge, but the drawing 
 out or development of character. Besides these, he has his 
 God-given patent of race, with all its inheritance. 
 
 The every day man of the plough, the poor white man in the 
 country, if you please, is the salt of this republic. He mastered 
 the Indian, he was by Morgan’s side with his trusty rifle, he 
 slew the Tories of Kings Mountain. In my generation he won 
 the bloody day of Fredericksburg and a hundred like it, and 
 died in the trenches at Petersburg—he shed immortal glory 
 upon North Carolina at Fort Fisher, and baptized New Bern, 
 Kinston, Plymouth and Bentonsville with his blood. I have 
 lain by his side a private in the ranks, in our scanty blanket 
 under the watching stars—I have eaten with him the parched 
 corn, and when his brother was stricken at my side, have 
 closed his eyelids down in the repose that comes to him who 
 hath done his duty well. Tell me not that the great Demo¬ 
 cratic party of North Carolina will ever suffer an injustice to 
 the grandest, largest, most unselfish of all her people, the plain 
 every day man “who knows his rights, and knowing, dares 
 maintain!" 
 
 On the contrary, the Democratic party, speaking through the 
 proposed Constitutional Amendment, has expressly declared 
 
[ 12 ] 
 
 that the uneducated white man shall not be denied the right to 
 Tote; it has created of them in recognition of their services, 
 and the illustrious record of themselves and their fore fathers, 
 a favored class; he can vote whether he can read or write. 
 The Republicans, seeing the great care of the Democratic party 
 to preserve to these people their franchise rights, undertakes 
 to degrade them from their high plane and put them on equality 
 with the negro; and to deceive and mislead them by the cry 
 that the Amendment will disfranchise the “poor white man 
 the negro!” The Democratic party put and preserves the uned¬ 
 ucated white man on a higher plane; forever draws the line of 
 separation between him and the negro. The Republican party 
 classes them together; that party regards one as no better than 
 the other. 
 
 The Amendment challenges the support of every well-wisher 
 of his fellowman, irrespective of party. It is embodied com¬ 
 mon sense. It is, in the most straight-forward way, a proposi¬ 
 tion for the permanence, protection and lasting benefit of every 
 substantial business, and deserves the support of the sensible 
 business men on the ground of enlightened self-interest, no less 
 than of patriotic devotion to the State. 
 
 The honest Republican should support it, because its adop¬ 
 tion will so far take the negro out of politics as to enable him 
 to present the views of his party without the danger of, and 
 odium attached to, black domination. 
 
 The sincere populist should vote for it, because as a measure 
 of reform it is in line with his aspirations for improvement in 
 legislation, and is in direct opposition to monopoly, which 
 triumphs by use of votes that can be purchased. 
 
 The Democrat who is worthy of the name will not only vote 
 for it, but work for it to the triumphant end of victory, for the 
 sake of all that he holds dear in the civilization received from 
 his fathers, the preservation of republican liberty, the hopes 
 and happiness of the generations to come. 
 
 The patriot of whatever shade of political opinion upon 
 policies where division of sentiment is possible, may well unite, 
 ought to unite with the men of his race who have resolved, 
 once and for all, to set the corner-stone of government in its 
 old foundation, committing it as Jefferson had it, to those only 
 who have the “exercise of reason and freedom of opinion.” 
 
t 13 ] 
 
 We need it by every consideration of policy no less than of 
 right. It will tranqnilize labor, and send the cross roads negro 
 politicians back to the support of his family, now crowding the 
 county homes, or forming a new army of mendicants on our 
 streets. In this respect the negro who loves the welfare of his 
 own race might well hail the removal of the apple of Sodom, 
 which, however gaudy in outward show, has in the eating 
 brought only ashes and bitterness to him. 
 
 Again, it will so stimulate education, in the eight years’ 
 interval for preparation, that those who have long toiled to this 
 end will rejoice in the magnificent awakening of the common¬ 
 wealth, and the development of her grandest resources: the 
 intelligence, skill and virtue of her children. To that end the 
 Democratic party stands pledged by every consideration of 
 State pride and self-respect. 
 
 It will freely open the purse-strings of the State, until every 
 child in our midst shall enjoy the four months of school term 
 contemplated by the Constitution, aye, and more. There shall 
 be no boy so humble and obscure, that in eight years he may 
 not have the opportunity, if he wills, to qualify himself for 
 suffrage, and at the same time put on the educational armor 
 that will be his strength and support in the struggle to improve 
 his position and win his way in life. 
 
 And side by side with that march to the front will be found 
 those from abroad eager to share in the new prosperity, and 
 capital will be glad to seek the shelter of laws made for the 
 common good; no longer shifted by every whim of the evil 
 spirits who direct the huge make-weight of a vote that repre¬ 
 sents no opinion, no reason, no conscience, no intelligent will, 
 but solely blind power mistakenly misplaced in the delicate 
 wheels of our political life. 
 
 Unable to meet the issue in fair debate, the opponents of this 
 safe guard against tyranny from a political boss or the anarchy 
 of an ignorant mob, maddened at the prospect of judgment 
 upon their betrayal of the people for a mess of pottage, have 
 dared to leave argument, to resort to threats. 
 
 In the effort to extort from our fears what cannot be won 
 from our judgment, we are told that Congress is to be invoked, 
 that if need be, the military arm is to surround the polls, per¬ 
 haps to repeat the injury and outrage which exists to-day in 
 
[ 14 ] • 
 
 the bull-pen of Idaho. That, at least, is the reasonable infer¬ 
 ence behind the cloudy rhetoric that talks of driving from the 
 State its free-born citizens. 
 
 As to the threats of Federal influence, there is no good man 
 who loves his people and his State, and who sees our duty in 
 this crisis, who will not fling back the taunt of scorn, and in 
 the words of Alexander Stephens, of immortal memory, reply: 
 
 “I am afraid of nothing on earth, or above the earth, or under 
 the earth but to do wrong. The path of duty I shall endeavor 
 to travel, fearing no evil and dreading no consequences. I 
 would rather be defeated in a good cause, than to triumph in 
 a bad one. I would not give a fig for a man who would shrink 
 from the discharge of duty for fear of defeat. ” 
 
 We will not split hairs with the officers of the black battalion 
 of 1896. All together, in line, leaving all other things aside, 
 for the Amendment and the supreme welfare of the people. 
 
 At the last we are told that the Supreme court will treat the 
 Amendment as a nullity, and the struggle will have been in 
 vain. 
 
 But behind the Supreme court is a power that is greater 
 than a monarch upon the throne. It envelops men by an irre¬ 
 sistible influence, it enters their mental constitution, as the 
 very atmosphere of thought. That is the power of righteous 
 public opinion. Like gravitation, it sweeps each fact to its 
 own place, in the realm of action. The Chinese may not di¬ 
 rect the affairs of society in the Pacific coast, or the Indian in 
 the West, or even the native Hawaiian in its own island; so the 
 hour has come when we may challenge mankind as against 
 negro rule, in any form. 
 
 Perhaps no man ever studied the institutions of this country 
 with closer appreciation, or keener insight into the dangers 
 that beset this effort of man after self-government than Mon¬ 
 tesquieu, and his dictum remains unassailable: 
 
 “The chief end of all States should be the security to each 
 member of the community of all those absolute rights which 
 are vested in them by the immutable laws of nature.” 
 
 True, and in this hour, we fall back upon those “laws of 
 nature,” to reach that security, in whose absence trade lan¬ 
 guishes, institutions suffer, society is disorganized, capital 
 takes wings, crime is rampant, the weak are trampled upon, 
 
t 15 ] 
 
 the home is outraged, the freedom of the citizens invaded, 
 property confiscated, and society with all its interests set upon 
 an inclined plane whose bottom is chaos. 
 
 The Democratic party since its earliest history, has been 
 conspicuous, as the champion of civil as well as of righteous 
 liberty; the defender of the weak as against the strong. It 
 has always been insisting upon the widest freedom of 
 opinion, and the fullest expression of thought. Its 
 leaders largely constitute the influential members of soci¬ 
 ety in every walk of life and in every avocation. The 
 rank and file of the party are largely the State’s best citi¬ 
 zens, and can be safely trusted, to meet the grave issue that 
 has been forced upon the party until final judgment shall be 
 pronounced in favor of White Supremacy. I appeal to the 
 sovereigns of a State, where the sparks of civil liberty was 
 born, whose patriotic forefathers, many' months before Jeffer¬ 
 son wrote the immortal Declaration of Independence, had pro¬ 
 mulgated a Bill of Rights, that embodied the same principles, 
 and that gave to history a Guilford Court House, that guaran¬ 
 teed the results at Yorktown. 
 
 I speak in behalf of a commonwealth which in the 60’s 
 counted a voting population of only 116,000 yet when the cry 
 went out that Southern homes and Southern liberties were 
 threatened, placed 125,000 of her brave sons, fully panoplied 
 for war upon the battlefield. 
 
 And 40,000 of these devoted North Carolinians, either sleep 
 the dreamless sleep of death in a hero soldier’s grave or maim¬ 
 ed and woundad live among us to-day, witnesses of what valor 
 can endure. I appeal to the sovereigns of such a State with 
 such a record. 
 
 I speak to the glorious remnant of an army that stretched 
 from Bethel to Appomattox, writing such pages with its blood 
 as astonish the Muse of History as she hastens to preserve them 
 as the tidal record of human heroism. 
 
 They who give to the world most magnificent example of pa¬ 
 tient endurance and sublime sacrifice for principle known to the 
 ages, will not fail the mother State which they have glorified 
 forever. 
 
 Nor will North Carolina tarnish her escutcheon with an in¬ 
 justice to the heroes of the battle-cross, nay, nor to their chil- 
 
[ 16 ] 
 
 dren. They are our jewels, those children. They are safe in 
 the casket of the love of the people. To save them from alien 
 domination, we call upon the fathers in this hour! 
 
 Leading as we are the grand procession of industrial prog¬ 
 ress, with yet undeveloped mines of untold wealth, with water 
 powers singing ceasless idle hours, unharnessed, hence, un¬ 
 profitable, but capable of making of themselves the State rich, 
 with miles and miles of timber lands, waiting for the trans¬ 
 forming hand of capital, with a climate unsurpassed, lets’ em¬ 
 brace the opportunity to clear away the only barrier, tha.t 
 prevents our being a great and happy people. Not with any 
 desire to oppress the weak, or wish to take advantage of posi¬ 
 tion and say, “might makes right,” but because North Caro¬ 
 lina is pre-eninently the home of the proud Anglo-Saxon, with 
 less admixture of race here than elsewhere for the same popu¬ 
 lation in the world, let’s resolve, that our ballots shall be as 
 our skins, and that we will draw our swords and fling away 
 the scabbards and swear upon the naked steel, that North 
 Carolina shall be free. 
 
 As Mr. Cleveland has remarked in another connection, “I 
 have written under the sanction of that freedom of speech 
 which Thomas Jefferson placed among the cardinal factors of 
 our Democratic creed. 
 
 My loving regards abide with all who are in sympathy with, 
 and who are laboring for the success of the Constitutional 
 Amendment. g Your most obedient servant, 
 
 J. S. CARR. 
 
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