1898- Dr. George W. Graham's defense of the Mecklenburg Declaration

The following is a letter published in defense of the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence.

Charlotte Daily Observer 5/19/1898 p. 3

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION.

Its Authenticity Challenged by a Boston Paper, Whose Editor is Routed and Argument Demolished by Dr. Graham.  

To the Editor of The Observer:  

My attention has been called to an editorial in The Boston Transcript of May 24th, 1898, denying the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence of May 20, 1775, and asserting that instead a set of resolutions were adopted on May 31, 1775, which “did not go so far as to propose a formal and definitive secession from the mother country, but on the contrary, distinctly avowed that they were meant to be merely provisional, temporary and contingent in their force and effect.”  

Now let us compare the statements of the editor of The Transcript and those of the Colonial Governor of North Carolina, in 1775, with the Mecklenburg resolutions of May 20, 1775, and the so-called resolves of May 31, 1775, and see to which set of resolutions the executive alluded.  The first reference royal Governor of North Carolina makes to the action of the citizens of Mecklenburg county is found in an address to the Executive Council on June 25, 1775 (North Carolina Colonial Records, volume X, pages 38-39), in which he speaks of the “late most treasonable publication (in The Cape Fear Mercury), by a committee in the county of Mecklenburg, explicitly renouncing obedience to His Majesty’s government and all lawful authority whatsoever,” etc.  Now, the resolves of the so-called 31st do not, as the editor of The Transcript says, renounce obedience to His Majesty’s government, explicitly or otherwise, but state in their preamble, that “we conceive that all laws and commissions derived from the authority of the King are annulled and vacated, and the former civil constitution of these Colonies, for the present, are wholly suspended,” not by the committee for the county of Mecklenburg, but by “both houses of Parliament, in an address presented to His Majesty in February last.”  While the resolves of May 20th fulfill the royal Governor’s statement in the following language of Resolve II:  “That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg county do hereby dissolve the political bonds which have connected us with the mother country, and absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown.”  

Again, in a proclamation, on pages 144-145 of volume X, of the same Records, dated August 8, 1775, the Governor recites:  “Whereas, I have seen a most infamous publication in The Cape Fear Mercury, purporting to be resolves of a set of people styling themselves a committee for the county of Mecklenburg, most traitorously declaring the entire dissolution of the laws, government and constitution of this country.”  The editor of The Transcript says the 31st resolutions “did not go so far as to propose a formal and definitive secession from the mother country,” while number III of the resolutions, which the Governor read, “declare the entire dissolution of the laws, government and constitution of this country,” as follows:  

“That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people; that we are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing people, under the power of God and the general Congress, to the maintenance of which independence we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, our lives, our fortunes and our most sacred honor.”  

There are other allusions, in the North Carolina Colonial Records, of the royal Governor to Mecklenburg Declaration, but I deem those cited sufficient to show that the Governor of North Carolina, in 1775, knew more about what was done in Mecklenburg county at that time than the editor of The Boston Transcript in 1898.  

GEORGE W. GRAHAM, M. D. May 28, 1898.