Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Addresses at the Unveiling of the Bust of William A. Graham: By the North Carolina Historical Commission in the Rotunda of the State Capitol
Introduction Office is the most natural and proper sphere of a public man's ambi tion, as that in which he can most freely use his powers for the common good of his country. - Lord Palmerston.
In recent years it has been the endeavor of some writers to strain the facts of history a little in order that North Caro lina may appear to have been first in some great political, or other, movement. This not only makes our State motto an hypocrisy, but it has no sound moral basis, is untrue in fact, and is foolish from the standpoint of philosophy. That she was first at Bethel was an accident; that she was farthest at Gettysburg and last at Appomattox, means daring, but steady, courage and staunch unfailing fidelity. Indeed the things in which she was last have done her more credit than those in which she was first. I do not like to think of her as a meretricious, volatile, impulsive figure, but as a noble, steadfast one, unadorne-d (certainly by gewgaws and jim cracks), and like the Mother of the Gracchi pointing to her sons as her jewels. Certainly she has a right to be proud of them, for, at no time from the days of Glasgow to the days of the Carpetbagger and from the days of the Carpetbagger to the present, did any of these sons prey upon her. Fecula tion and fraud in public life may have existed elsewhere, but not in North Carolina.
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