To the Citizens of the State of North-Carolina, [1803]
TO THE
Citizens of the State of North-Carolina.
THE Trustees of the UNIVERSITY of the State of NORTH-CAROLINA, deeply impressed with a sense of the important trusts to them committed by an Act of the General Assembly which established that Institution, again solicit the attention of their fellow-citizens to a subject, on the support of which, their individual happiness, the prosperity and honour of the State, greatly depend. They need not repeat the importance of Literary Institutions in our country: That they are the grand security of our Liberties, founded on a Republican Form of Gevernment: That from them, in a great measure, all civil and religious Information flows: That they greatly aid and adorn private and professional life: That they qualify and enable our young Citizens to discharge the several political duties of the Government with honor and reputation, which, from their respective merits, may be assigned them by their Country: That to support the fiscal and commercial transactions of the State a considerable quantity of specie will be retained therein, which otherwise must be transmitted abroad with our Youth, to acquire that Education which so easily may be attained at home. These inestimable advantages derived from Science, have been often held up to your view, and require no further arguments to enforce its establishment; and from the small experiment of Literature already made in this infant Seminary of the State, the Trustees boast, with honest pride, their Guardianship hath not been in vain; that from the learning, morals and assiduity of the Officers of the Institution, the Youth committed to their care have done honour to their Teachers and themselves in their literary acquirements. But the Students, unprovided with, still claim the necessary accommodation of Buildings promised by their Country. The want of resources and funds to complete the principal Building, the walls of which are yet incomplete, fetter the Trustees with difficulties and embarrassments, which lay them under the necessity to call upon a liberal and patriotic Public to remove. They flattered themselves, from the funds with which they supposed they were amply supplied by the Acts for establishing and endowing the University, they would never have occasion to call upon their fellow-citizens for pecuniary aid; but, unfortunately, bring deprived of those aids, solemnly guaranteed by the Legislature, they were reduced to the disagreeable necessity to raise money by way of Lottery—a mode not the most honorable of raising money for an Institution of which the Constitution of our Government hath enjoined a different and liberal support.
Judging from the late unfavorable appearances of the public funds as to their smallness, that unless increased the Teachers of the University must soon leave their employments, for the non-payment of their salaries, the Trustees have caused the monies raised by the late Lotteries, to be funded in the Bank of the United States, to preserve a small fund, contemplated in some measure to be permanent, not to be drawn upon but under a pressing emergence; in the mean time, trusting to their liberal and enlightened fellow-citizens to complete the principal Building, that must soon fall to ruin, unless supported by their aid. The Trustees, therefore, earnestly request such Donations of Money as you may think proper generously to grant, without compelling them to impair the small stock they have as above reserved. And for this purpose, Subscription-Papers will be sent forward with this Address, to such of you whose influence and patronage they have confidence in will be exerted to carry the subject hereof into effect.
While the Trustees are thus us urgent on a subject which so greatly concerns the Public, and the honour of the State, whose population and importance have claimed the fourth rank in the Union, their fellow-citizens must be sensible and assured, they have no interest of their own to support, or are actuated with other views separate from the Community at large, but to discharge the duties assigned them by their Country. That they are the more emboldened in these their solicitations, from the generous support Seminaries of Learning in several of the United States have been lately favored with, from private donations and legislative endowments; and therefore hope, that you, their fellow-citizens, from such patriotic examples, will not be deficient in equal liberality on this interesting occasion.
Three hundred copies of the above Address to be printed, and with Subscription-Papers, to be distributed by the Secretary, to each of the Trustees of the University, and to others in various parts of the State, whose zeal for the cause of Science will probably induce their co-operation with the Board in the collection of Money for completing the Principal Building of the University.
GAVIN ALVES, SECRETARY.