Address Delivered Before the Philanthropic and Dialectic Societies at Chapel Hill, June 20, 1832, by the Hon. William Gaston

"William Gaston was one of North Carolina's most prominent public men of the antebellum period, and one of the few prominent Roman Catholics in the state. This address is perhaps his most famous and was delivered on commencement day at the University of North Carolina in 1832. For nearly twenty pages, Gaston exhorts the students to strive for excellence, to maintain honesty and integrity in all things, and to serve the public. Then he tells them: "On you too will devolve the duty which has been too long neglected, for the ultimate extirpation of the worst evil that afflicts the Southern part of our Confederacy. Full well do you know to what I refer. It is Slavery which, more than any other cause, keeps us back in the career of improvement." Gaston ends by imploring his audience not to allow the conflict over slavery to result in disunion. Gaston also tells the young men to uphold the Constitution, "or your sons will blush for your degeneracy." Rare contemporary statement against slavery by a former Congressman and one of the South's leading men. (C-5.).…