Gentlemen of the North Carolina Bar Association, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It gives me great pleasure to have the privilege to present to you this evening, that distinguished jurist, Honorable C. A. Woods, a Justice of the Supreme Court of our sister State of South Carolina, who has kindly consented to deliver before you, the annual address provided for by our Association. Mr. Pruden, I will ask you and Mr. Skinner to conduct Mr. Woods to the chair.

Mr. Woods then delivered his address, which was as follows:

Gentlemen of the Bar Association, Ladies and Gentle

men:

For reasons which have no need of explanation, the State of North Carolina has been distinguished above its sister States from its early settlement to the present time for the great deliberation in its public affairs, for slowness of its action, and persistency in the course when taken.

Considering the character of this people, led by the Bar of North Carolina, I have deemed it not improper to ask your attention this evening to the subject of deliberation and slowness in public affairs.

If in the year 732, one intelligent man, capable of impartial judgment had been found who could have watched the struggle on the battlefield of Tours, with the lights then before him, it is probable he would have prayed for the triumph of the Mohammedan army. That army represented a civilization in which religious belief had been harmonized with political power and removed from public agitation, in which there was freedom of research and expression in the sciences and most of the arts.

This toleration had resulted in preserving much that was valuable of the knowledge and customary law of other peoples and more ancient times, and adding to it discoveries in astronomy, geography, chemistry, medi

Gentlemen of the North Carolina Bar Association, Ladies and Gentlemen:

It gives me great pleasure to have the privilege to present to you this evening, that distinguished jurist, Honorable C. A. Woods, a Justice of the Supreme Court of our sister State of South Carolina, who has kindly consented to deliver before you, the annual address provided for by our Association. Mr. Pruden, I will ask you and Mr. Skinner to conduct Mr. Woods to the chair:

Mr. Woods then delivered his address, which was as follows:

Gentlemen of the Bar Association, Ladies and Gentle

men:

For reasons which have no need of explanation, the State of North Carolina has been distinguished above its sister States from its early settlement to the present time for the great deliberation in its public affairs, for slowness of its action, and persistency in the course when taken.

Considering the character of this people, led by the Bar of North Carolina, I have deemed it not improper to ask your attention this evening to the subject of deliberation and slowness in public affairs.

If in the year 732, one intelligent man, capable of impartial judgment had been found who could have watched the struggle on the battlefield of Tours, with the lights then before him, it is probable he would have prayed for the triumph of the Mohammedan army. That army represented a civilization in which religious belief had been harmonized with political power and removed from public agitation, in which there was freedom of research and expression in the sciences and most of the arts.

This toleration had resulted in preserving much that was valuable of the knowledge and customary law of other peoples and more ancient times, and adding to it discoveries in astronomy, geography, chemistry, medi