CHAPTER XLI.

CONTINUED PROGRESS.

1876. THE "Canby Constitution" of 1868 was amended in 1875, and still further in 1876. Just one hundred years before this last amendment our first constitution had been adopted at Halifax, with Richard Caswell president of the convention. As it exists now, it is fairly equitable and satisfactory, the repeated amendments having adjusted it to the wants and wishes of the people. The justices of the peace are now the only public officers who are appointed by the legislature. Every other officer, from the governor down to the constables, is elected by the popular vote.

General Grant, who was idolized by the Northern people as the savior of the Union, was President for eight years from the close of Johnson's term.

General Lee had accepted the presidency of a college in Virginia immediately after the war ended, and remained there till his death in 1870. He was an object of the deepest love and veneration to the Southern people. The failure of our cause seemed to invest every man who fought for it with a more tender interest than if we had been victors.

In 1874, Governor Caldwell died, after a short illness, while in office. He was an upright man, of hot temper and stiff and unyielding in his prejudices, but disposed to be fair, and able to command respect. His lieutenant-governor, C. H. Brogden of Wayne county, a plain man of sense, filled out his term of office.

At the next general election Governor Vance was again chosen governor, to the satisfaction of North Carolina in general, his personal popularity lifting him above mere party considerations. The campaign, however, was a very exciting one, Judge Settle, an able man and a fine speaker, being the Republican candidate. Those who opposed the Republican rule took at first the name of Conservatives; then, as the old voters were gradually "reconstructed" and permitted to vote again, Democratic principles once more began to assert themselves, and the name of Democrat was reassumed. But there was a good deal of difference between this and the Democracy of twenty years before.

Whigs and Democrats were now one at the South. Governor Vance, a "Henry Clay Whig," was elected with enthusiasm by a Democratic party which has ever since supported him as a trusted leader. He remained our governor but two years, being elected in 1878 to the United States Senate, which at last allowed his entrance.

1878. The bitter resentment felt among the Northern people against the South and Southern leaders was now giving way to more reasonable and generous feelings. The soothing influence of time, the renewal of business relations between North and South, the revival of trade,—all

were silently but irresistibly restoring the Union in spite of the fanatics.

One by one the restrictions and humiliations put upon the South were removed. In 1868 we were allowed Representatives in Congress, though they were elected under the inspiration of Federal bayonets. Carpet-baggers and men who were qualified to take such oaths as were required for admittance had not been felt to be the true representatives of our people. But when Judge Merrimon in 1874 and General M. W. Ransom in 1873 entered the Senate and took their seats as members, we felt reinstated. Vance succeeded Merrimon, and he and General Ransom have remained our Senators. Our Representatives in the lower house have of late years been mostly Democratic.

For some of our high-hearted Southern gentlemen this conciliatory policy came too late. Governor Graham, "the noblest Roman of them all," had been steadily refused admission to his former high place in the nation's councils. What North Carolina in her low estate could then do to show him unabated affection and confidence was done. But his health failed. In 1875, when his noble presence was ardently expected at the reopening of the University, the tidings of his death came, and were felt as a calamity from the mountains to the seashore. For more than forty years William A. Graham had served his native State in every public capacity, and with signal ability in all. He stood a typical North Carolinian, and went to his grave without a blot on his honored name.

The ten years immediately succeeding the war bore hardly

on the gray-haired men who had passed through the storm and now beheld the wreck of so much that was dear and hallowed. In 1866, Governor John M. Morehead of Greensboro, long identified with the railroads and manufacturing interests of the State, passed away, and in him we lost one of our foremost and most useful, most honored and trusted public men. Judge Badger of Raleigh, for many years at the head of the Bar, died the same year.

Governor Swain died in 1868; Governor Clark, Governor Bragg, General D. M. Barringer, Weldon N. Edwards, and many other valuable and venerable men who had been more or less prominent and useful, closed their eyes wearily in dark days when North Carolina's need of their experience, their prudence, their patriotism, and their unblenching courage and integrity was never stronger.

When Chief-justice Thomas Ruffin died in the year 1870 we lost a man whose reputation had long been established as one of the first jurists in America. His decisions while on the bench are recorded among the undisputed authorities of the profession. While he wore it, the purity of the judge's ermine was never sullied by suspicion of partisanship or undue bias. His whole life, public and private, was an honor to the State. We should cherish the memories of these men and believe in the tradition of their virtues.

While Vance was still governor he inaugurated, in conjunction with Mr. K. P. Battle, president of the University, and Mr. Scarborough, superintendent of public education, a very important move in favor of the teachers of the State.

A normal institute, or summer school for the free training and instruction of teachers, was established at the University by their united exertions. Both sexes were invited to attend, the best masters were procured, and all the resources of the University were placed before them. The State paid the running expenses of the school.

This new enterprise proved from the first a very popular measure and very successful. It was continued for seven successive summers, from 1877 to 1884, and meanwhile was imitated at home and abroad: similar schools were formed in other places and in other States, and hundreds of teachers have received untold benefit and encouragement from them. Teaching as a profession has been greatly elevated in the South, and teachers themselves have been taught to raise their own standards higher.

Every school, male and female, and every college in the State, has felt the impulse thus given. Davidson, Wake Forest, and Trinity have all gone forward with fresh zeal and enlarged prosperity. North Carolina has always had good schools for her boys. Bingham's school is one of the oldest, as well as one of the best, in the United States, having been continued from father to son since 1790. There are many others in the State now that equal it in vigor and efficiency.

Our common schools were revived to a much better life, and the introduction of excellent "graded schools" in all our large towns marked the advance of the new

era.

To elevate and dignify the teachers is to elevate and im