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# For Raleigh, North Carolina N AND April 17, 1945 and DEMOCRACY ON THE MARCH Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Guests and Fellow Democrats: We Democrats are meeting tonight here in Raleigh, capital of the Old North State, to honor a good neighbor from Virginia, the founder of our Party, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson is probably best known for his famous Declaration of Independence, which stated so eloquently the rights of free man. However, it is interesting to recall that in Charlotte, North Garolina, your Democratic ancestors signed the first Declaration of Independence in America, many months before the Philadelphia version was proclaimed. It is quite evident that, even before our country was officially formed, political pioneers from the Tar Heel State were in the vanguard of the fight for freedom. From that time on, statesmen from North Carolina have remained among the leaders in the endless struggle for real democracy. Even after the Constitutional Convention agreed upon the basic law of our new Republic, North Carolina constantly insisted upon the inclusion of our Bill of Rights to protect every individual against any undemocratic abuses. It was the strong insistence of a few States, like North Carolina, which insured all Americans that our Constitution would guarantee freedom of speech, freedom of religions, and the various other basic prerogatives of freemen, which todey we consider so essentially American! Recently our hard-won rights were challenged by the most powerful array of despotic force this world has ever seen. We are still engaged in that bitter war to decide, once and for all, if our great democratic principles will live and grow.