certainly, we of the South know what a part of that burden is, and akin to it, is the burden resting on the great nations, to control the world. This will not come today; there will be a struggle in its acceptance, but the national problems will approach a solution in accordance with the development of the individual. Man is a fighting animal, the Anglo-Saxon is a colonizing race. It will be many a year before the love of strife for strife's sake has ceased, but if the strife is directed toward the control of those nations which need control, we should look forward to a gradual international development as rapid as the development of the individual will permit, resulting ultimately, in the domination of the world by the great powers, and the elimination of armies, except such as are needed for the control of revolutionary elements, an ultimate international congress, and a world living in peace, happiness and brotherly love.

Our nation has done more to shape modern international law, than any other couutry. We first really enunciated the doctrine fixing rules of neutrality in the time of war. The Monroe doctrine was the first real enunciation founded on sound reason, of the right of a great nation to assert authority within the sphere of its influence, maintain the status quo, and in the great evolution of international law which is gradually taking place and which must eventually assert and sustain the position which I have taken, no nation is more appropriate than America, to announce and defend these positions, no where in America can these positions be asserted more appropriately than in Mecklenburg where the first great Declaration of Independence was issued; in that State the first in which an American Colony was planted, that State whose regiments led the long lines of heroic men in the great charge at Gettysburg; that State, calm and strong, slow to quarrel or complain and ever ready to die for conviction and conviction's sake.

Married Women.

By B. B. WINBORNE, Murfreesboro, N. C.

Constitution, Article 10, Section 6, Code Section 1826. Stare Decisis. Vann vs. Edwards.

In 1888 Mrs. Edwards and her husband were living together. She had a separate real and personal estate. They had seven or eight children. The wife owned a tract of land. Her oldest son wanted her to give it to him by deed. The husband objected. He then proposed to buy the land from his mother for $500, take a deed from mother and father, give a bond for purchase money payable several years after date, with 8 per cent. interest, and secure it by a deed of trust on the land. To this arrangement the husband agreed. Neither of the parents could read. They met in a lawyers office and had the papers prepared and executed. While the husband was talking to the attorney, the son "winked" at his mother, and got her out and went across the street, and she gave him possession of the bond. The husband knew nothing of it for some time. When he found it out, the son returned the note to his mother. She was old and of feeble mind and died about 1891, leaving her husband surviving her and who died in January 1897 at the house of the son, while there on a visit, and had all his valuable papers with him, including the $500 note. The son says in his answer his mother gave it to him-next he paid it in full to his mother before her death, and on the trial he attempted to prove that his father gave the note to him in October 1896. He was defeated and he appealed. The case had been argued before the Supreme Court twice before and in each opinion, Walton vs. Bristol 125, was held to be the law governing the alledged gift from the wife, and if that had been the only point in the case said the Court the defendant had no title. The son had access to the papers, after fathers death. The Administrator

of husband brings suit for bond. At common law a feme covert was incapacitated from making a contract. But in Equity she was allowed to hold separate estates free from the control of her husband, and held as if she were a feme sale, and to contract in reference to it under the limitations and conditions of the law. Withers vs. Sparrow 66-129. The law is the same now, as then, except as changed by the constitution of 1868 and marriage act. Bank vs. Howell, 118, 273; Armstrong vs. Best, 112, 64; Mayo vs. Farror, 112, 68; Flaum vs. Wallace, 103, 304; Loan Asso. vs. Black, 119, 325; "A wider latitude of construction would take the protection which the law gives to women under the disability of marriage and imperil their estates," said chief Justice Smith, in Clark vs. Hoy, 98, 421; and quoted with approval in Sanderlin vs. Sanderlin, 122, 4. Art. 10 Sec. 6 of the Constitution of 1868 reads as follows: "The real and personal property of any female in this State, acquired before marriage, and all property, real and personal, to which she may, after marriage become in any manner entitled, shall be and remain the sole and separate estate and property of such female, and shall not be liable for any debts, obligations or engagements of her husband, and may be devised and bequeathed, and, with the written assent of her husband, conveyed by her as if she were unmarried."

It is perfectly plain that the purpose of the framers of this section of the Constitution was to make a married woman, the owner of both, her real and personal property, acquired before, as well as after marriage, and that she might devise her real property, and bequeath her personal property, as if she were unmarried. And with the written assent of her husband, she might convey her property, as if she were unmarried. Our Supreme Court in Vann vs. Edwards (at the last term), say, that the word convey, is a technical word, and can only mean a transfer of the title to real estate by a deed. This is a strained and

unfriendly construction of the Constitution, which speaks of both "real and personal" property. The use of the conjunctive word, "and," clearly shows that the framers of this section, intended that the written assent of the husband, should apply to a disposition, by the wife, of either her real or personal property. To get the meaning of the framers of the written law, is the paramount rule of construction of all laws.

The General Assembly at its session of 1871-2 passed an enabling act which reads as follows and which is Sec. 1826 of the Code.

"No woman during her coverture shall be capable of making any contract to affect her real or personal estate, except for her neccessary personal expenses, or for the support of the family, or such as may be necessary in order to pay her debts existing before marriage, without the written consent of her husband, unless she be a free trader, as hereinafter allowed."

Our Supreme Court, in the recent case of Vann vs. Edwards, hold, that the above statute, in so far as it requires the written consent of the wife's husband, to give binding effect to her gift of a bond given to her for the purchase money of her land conveyed by her and her husband, and secured by deed of trust on the land, was unconstitutional, in violation of Art. 10 Sec. 6, above quoted and void, and the gift was valid. This is strange legal logic, and not sustained by learned precedents, and the highest authorities in this state. The statute says, she can make no contract, etc. To sustain the position of the Court, it is claimed that a gift is not a contract. Strictly speaking it is not a contract in the technical sense-but it is elementry learning that no one can make a gift, unless the donor is capable of making a valid contract.

8 Amer. and Eng. En. 14th, 1st Ed., page 1313.

Does Vann vs. Edwards overrule the established law of the State? We think it does. The Court says it does not.

As far back as 1875, in the case of Harris vs. Jenkins, 72, 183, the Supreme Court of this State, had under consideration the interpretation of Art. 10 Sec. 6 of the Constitution and of the Act of 1871-2 (Code, Sec. 1826) and after hearing arguments from some of the ablest lawyers in North Carolina, held, after mature consideration, that a bond executed by a married woman was void, and that she could not convey under the constitution any part of her property without the written consent of her husband, and under the Act of 1871-2 could not make any contract to affect either her real or personal property, without the written assent of her husband.

In the case of Pippin vs. Wesson, 74, 437 (decided in 1876) was a case where a wife signed a bond as surety for her husband. While the facts in that case differ from those in Vann vs. Edwards, yet, Art. 10, Sec. 6, of the Constitution, and the Act of 1871-2, (Code, Sec. 1826) were before the Court for interpretation and the same were interpreted by the Court. The Court says: "It is contended (by counsel) that when the Constitution gave married women separate estates in their property it gave them by a necessary implication an unrestricted dominion over the property, to bind it, directly or indirectly, except when expressly forbidden; and an unrestricted power to contract such as a feme sole or a man has." The Court in answer to the argument, said: We think there is no such grant implied.

The term, "sale and separate estate," had a known and definite meaning in the law when the Constitution was framed, and it must be taken that they were used in that instrument in the sense which had been affixed to them by prior decisions of this Court. Such an estate had never been held to confer on the married woman an absolute power of disposition over the estate as if she were a feme sole."

The Court further, holds, in this same case, that the