Carolina writers have praised such as have done well mainly for themselves; and while I do not remember that, in the collection here published, place and station are set forth as an end rather than a means to good, yet here, as elsewhere and everywhere, the thoughtful reader will be on his guard against any squint in favor of false ideals.

As Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses by the art of counterfeiting the symbols of Heaven's appointment, a devilish power, so this age suffers much from spurious greatness, persistently advertised, as bearing the image and superscription of virtue.

Human limitation is such that a character is sometimes worthy of study which only effectually illustrates one great virtue growing among defects; and human nature, unless morbid, instead of being contaminated, will be encouraged that weakness can deserve fame. The defects which criticism may discover in any character here portrayed may be used, under intelligent guidance, to gain the sympathy of the young rather than mar their ideals—which must be composite pictures of the virtues of many, or else imaged on the soul by contemplation of the life and work of One who was the Servant of all.

W. J. P.

INTRODUCTION.

This book is written of North Carolinians by North Carolinians. Many of the writers are no less distinguished than their subjects, and these together give it local color, distinctiveness, and personality which ought to make it interesting to ourselves and valuable to those who seek to know us through intrinsic evidence.

Wherever practicable the subjects are allowed also to speak for themselves. "Biography is the only true history," says Carlyle. The history of North Carolina has not yet been written, and never will be, until each pioneer investigator confines himself to a short period—say a decade. Then, eventually, perhaps, some genius for generalization and condensation will arise and in a single life-time combine the whole into one work. Meanwhile this generation may bind up and preserve the material.

There is not sufficient political homogeneity among North Carolinians at this time to enable us to endorse with unanimity the true theory of our history for the past seventy years—especially in our relation to the General Government.

This generation, too, is inundated with cheap and often insidiously false sectional literature from the North.

Such literature is gradually glozing over and reconciling our people to the sinister changes which are being subtly wrought in American institutions.

The innovators can now persuade the misinformed and careless that just criticism of themselves and their cupidity, and just defense of the principles and motives which actuated us in the late war between the States, is rank treason against the United States Government.

To publish what our sages and warriors have taught and fought for rises, therefore, to the dignity of a duty, as tending to correct erroneous impressions common among us and still more common among others, and as giving a particular account rendered by many witnesses, of men and times to be remembered by posterity, rightly or wrongly, forever.

This introduction is intended to present also a bird's-eye view of the field in which were cast the lives and labors of the subjects of this book. Incidentally, too, I indicate a theory of Southern history which, if not obvious enough upon its bare statement, or from the facts here briefly set forth, will one day be demonstrated to the satisfaction of the seeker after truth. It involves an analysis of the character, influence, and interests of the North acting on the South.

The inoculation of New England semi-foreign views of the Federal Constitution (for half New England is foreign born) goes on apace. With conceit, born of provincialism, these people have magnified their Mayflower scrap of local history into national importance; they have dinned it with such Codrus-like persistency into our ears that the average North Carolinian knows their story better than he does that of the settlement of Roanoke Island. We read their books, papers, and periodicals, though many reflect upon us, and nearly all are unfair to us; but they do not read ours. It would be a surprise to the publishers if one hundred copies of this book should be sold north of Mason and Dixon's line—a line which still exists against our literature, our ideas, and our construction of fundamental law. Most probably not one of their monthlies would publish what I am now writing.

The most un-American section of the Union is New England. Bounded on the west and north by British Canada and on the east by the Atlantic ocean (which may be said now to belong also to Great Britain), it is the hotbed of British ideas of government and society; and, in the event of a third war with the "mother country" (as it still affectionately terms the nation whose government has always been the enemy of our liberty, growth, and progress) it may be a hotbed for a hundred times more traitors than it had in the War of 1812. Like our great cities, this section is a danger-spot in the Union.

Many of its political and social leaders vie with those of New York in rushing over to England and Germany to get the foreign construction of our Federal Constitution, and foreign consent to proposed financial legislation by Congress, and foreign sanction of the orders, social preferences and privileges, and marriages of our "corner"-made aristocracy.

These leaders, too, are less and less the owners of the wealth they handle, and are becoming more and more the mere agents of English capitalists and the dupes and tools of foreign marriage-brokers. About three thousand million dollars of British capital is said to be invested in a section of the Union. This copartnership of foreign and domestic wealth gives to Great Britain a voice in our government—a representation in Congress from whole groups of States. How many Northeastern Senators and Representatives have differed in late years from British views of what our financial policy should be? Foreign and domestic monopolists and bondholders have the same interests, the same social sympathies and affinities, a common cause, the same victims and enemies, the same want of confidence in popular government; therefore, what doth hinder them from forming a treasonable alliance, offensive and defensive, against the people? They have already formed it: the money-kings in all nations, in control of all kings and governments, have an understanding with one another, and, by concentration, they can easily crush any movement, for amelioration, among the people of any one nation at a time. There is a brotherhood, too, of incorporated rate, fare, and tax collectors as well as of bondholders. United they stand.

The Hamiltonian theory of government has been in adoption, and the Hamiltonian school of politicians has been in control of the Union for nearly forty years, and they may now be judged by their fruits: they have given us a more corruptly administered government than that our fathers rebelled against in 1775; and they are fulfilling with startling fidelity and rapidity all the prophecies which Henry, Jefferson, Macon, and Randolph made about them.

It is a knowledge of these things which has organized a great rebellion in the United States, especially among those who live outside the great cities and homes of monopoly—a rebellion which has begun to control political parties, and which, in the last general election, mustered nearly six and a half million voters—voters who were hurled, for once, against the great international brotherhood of plunderers by legislation. Some, however, who were in it are not of it; these, when they comprehend it, will