Although my mother grew up in the Deep South, she always considered herself a political liberal, especially on matters of race. Yet she often expressed admiration for senators Richard Russell and Sam Ervin, who fought against proposed civil rights legislation during the 1950s and 1960s.

I think my mother overlooked her differences with Sen. Ervin on civil rights because she had a high regard for his character and temperament -- and because he often was helpful to her and her friends when she called his office.

Certainly, she shared the pride many other North Carolinians felt about "Senator Sam" after he became a folk hero during the Watergate crisis that brought down President Richard Nixon.

But even before Watergate, other political liberals across the country grudgingly came to respect and admire Ervin, even though his views on civil rights were abhorrent to them. That respect came because at the same time he was fighting against civil rights legislation, Ervin became a champion for civil liberties and the protection of individuals against an overreaching government.

How did Ervin come to these seemingly contradictory viewpoints? Were his philosophical and political underpinnings conservative or liberal? And just what was it about his background and personality that prepared him so well to chair Watergate hearings? In a biography of Ervin ("Senator Sam Ervin, Last of the Founding Fathers") being released this month by UNC Press, Appalachian State University associate professor Karl Campbell wrestles with these questions as he charts Ervin's life from his birth in 1896 in Morganton to its climax in 1973-74 when he became America's folk hero as chair of the Senate Watergate hearings.

Growing up in Morganton and as a university student in Chapel Hill, he was optimistic and studious. He passed the bar, graduated from Harvard Law School, made a happy marriage, found himself elected to the legislature and began law practice in association with his father.

He was on a fast track to a successful career in law and public service in his home state. In 1937, then-Gov. Clyde Hoey made Ervin a superior court judge. In 1946 he served a partial term in Congress. In 1948 Gov. Gregg Cherry appointed him to the N.C. Supreme Court. He would have remained there, except for several events in 1954. First, Clyde Hoey, then a U.S. senator, died in office. Second, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregation in the public schools. Third, North Carolina Gov. William Umstead wanted to appoint as Hoey's successor someone who opposed the Brown decision and would use legal means to fight it. He appointed Ervin.

Campbell's compact description of Ervin's pre-Senate life is interesting and entertaining. But there is a point to the early biography: It is to prepare the reader to understand the complexities and seemingly contradictory views of Ervin as a senator.

Ervin believed, according to Campbell, that "the society of order and a government of balance" founded by his forbearers "should be maintained and defended." His defense of this order made him a conservative. But his other passion was protecting individual freedom, which led him, well before Watergate, to fight side-by-side with liberals against the Nixon administration's efforts to expand government intelligence-gathering activities.

Campbell shows how those early battles with Nixon hardened Ervin's skepticism about the president's trustworthiness and prepared Senator Sam for the role in which he earned a permanent place in American history.