Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/84

power of the country was in their hands,) they grew up, generation after generation, with a proud spirit of personal independence, on which was naturally engrafted a high sense of honor. A Virginian or Maryland gentleman of the olden time, seated on domains that spread over hundreds of acres, and living in what was very like a baronial state, and educated, perhaps, in Europe, polished in manners, hospitable, generous, cordial, manly, "with high thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy," was a noble specimen of men. When the revolution commenced, they to whom this description would apply, soon showed themselves.

If we turn further south, the picture, in many of its aspects, is still the same. In the old towns at the east, and on the shores of North Carolina, were men who in some instances were large proprietors, many of them educated and trained to the learned professions abroad, filling all the important offices of the colony, as high-toned and independent as any men on the continent. To these the common people had long been used to look with deference and respect; and these swayed public opinion in the East. In a broad belt, at the West, between the Catawba and Yadkin rivers, were a sturdy and brave race of yeomen, known as the "Scotch Irish" Presbyterians, lovers of liberty, from their very cradles, who looked up to their spiritual teachers and the leading laymen of the country for direction. These leaders were men of cultivated minds. Frankness and fearlessness were the characteristics of these brave yeomen. When the revolution commenced, no men answered more promptly at the first call of their leaders than the common people of North Carolina; no leaders sounded the alarm and uttered the call sooner; and nowhere, throughout the colonies, did the leaders more completely possess the confidence of the people, or more perfectly control and sway their actions.

In South Carolina, it was very much the custom to educate the