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The Revolutionary conflict
in North Carolina has three characteristics : the local conditions which
opened the way for permanent separation from the mother country, the
zealous activity of the patriot party, and the strength of the loyalists.
These factors were so pronounced as to give North Carolina an unique place
in the history of the Revolution, and around them may be grouped all the
essential incidents in the struggle for independence.
Governor Martin's
Administration.
In 1771 Josiah Martin, last
colonial governor, began his administration. He was a plain, blunt,
outspoken man, in sympathy with the oppressed, but his lack of tact and
his military training unfitted him for mastery in the long-standing
conflict between the Executive and colonial Assembly. Indeed three grave
problems demanded immediate settlement, and in trying to force a solution,
Governor Martin lost control of the government and left the colony to its
fate.
First of these was the
question of finance. A special tax on polls and liquors had been levied
for some time to meet certain emissions of paper currency. In 1771 the
Assembly, learning that the paper had been liquidated, enacted a bill to
stop the collection of the tax ; the governor disallowed the bill and
prorogued the Assembly; the controversy continued, culminating in the
critical year 1774 when the Assembly, defying the governor, ordered the
revenue officials not to levy the tax.
A second cause of
controversy was the South Carolina boundary. In accordance with royal
instructions Martin asked the Assembly for an appropriation to complete
the boundary, the line to run in a northwest direction from the
neighborhood of the Catawba River, but the North Carolinians desired the
line to run directly west, and thus save a large amount of land for
settlement. The Assembly therefore refused to make the appropriation
called for, and when the governor established the line through an
arbitrary commission, the Assembly, in 1775, refused to grant any money
for payment.
More serious yet was the
controversy over the court system. The laws establishing courts in the
colony were made by the Assembly and were temporary, being renewed from
time to time. The last law of 1768 was unusually effective; it introduced
a foreign attachment clause, by which the property of foreigners and
non-residents might be seized in payment of debts. Now Martin's
instructions forbade the reenactment of this attachment provision without
a clause referring its enforcement to the approval of the Crown. But the
Assembly, in framing a new court law in 1773, insisted on the attachment
without a modifying clause. The Governor attempted to enforce his
instructions. The result was a deadlock; the law of 1768 expired before a
new one had been framed, and from 1773 to 1776 the colony was without a
system of courts (except magistrates).
These controversies,
revealing Governor Martin's inefficiency, opened the way for the
Revolutionary movement. Sympathy with the grievances of other colonies bad
long been felt. Governor Tryon had prevented radical action during the
Stamp Act excitement by refusing to call the Assembly; but in 1773 a
committee of correspondence was formed, its principal members being John
Harvey, Robert Howe, Cornelius Harnett, William Hooper, Richard Caswell,
Joseph Hewes and Samuel Johnston. Early in 1774 the people of Wilmington
and New Bern collected provisions to aid Boston, and in October of that
year the ladies of Edenton, at a tea party, agreed not to drink tea or use
goods brought from England. In order to prevent delegates being sent to
the Continental Congress, Governor Martin decided not to convene the
Assembly of 1774 until autumn. Learning of this, John Harvey and a few
other patriots determined to take matters into their own hands. They held
a meeting in Wilmington, and following its recommendation thirty counties
sent delegates to the First Provincial Congress of North Carolina, which
met at New Bern on Aug. 25, 1774. Three delegates to the Continental
Congress were chosen-William Hooper, Joseph Hewes and Richard Caswell.
Resolutions were adopted asserting the right of self-taxation, denouncing
the British policy toward Massachusetts, and providing for non-intercourse
with Great Britain. Also, in accord with the advice of the Congress, the
freeholders of the several counties met and elected County Committees of
Safety. Thus was formed an effective Revolutionary organization, which
fixed prices, enforced non-intercourse, collected subscriptions, regulated
the conduct of individuals, stirred the fire of protest and revolt and
became the foundation of the Revolutionary movement.
Provincial Congress.
The next step in the
Revolution was the meeting of the second Provincial Congress at New Bern,
April, 1775. It is one of the most interesting bodies that ever met in
North Carolina. Governor Martin had called a meeting of the Assembly for
April 4; Harvey called the Congress for April 3; sixty-one of the
sixty-eight members of the Assembly were also delegates to the Congress;
John Harvey, speaker of the Assembly, was also president of the Congress.
Often the Provincial Congress would be in session when the governor's
secretary would be announced, and then Proteus-like, the Congress would
change itself into the legislative Assembly and proceed to despatch public
business. Governor Martin was embarrassed; he issued a proclamation
against the Congress and ordered the Assembly to oppose the illegal
gathering, but the Assembly replied by endorsing both provincial and
continental congresses and arraigning the British Parliament. After four
days' session the governor dissolved the Assembly; the members remained as
delegates to the Congress, which now adopted the Association of the
Continental Congress, reappointed delegates and asserted the right of
petition.
Governor Martin, feeling
that the tide was against him, collected a few cannon at the palace and
opened negotiations with the Scotch at the upper Cape Fear and with
General Gage. Vigilant eyes were upon him, and sometime in April, the
Committee of New Bern carried off the cannon; the next month the Governor
left New Bern for Fort Johnston on the Cape Fear, and when the people of
Wilmington, led by James Moore and John Ashe, seized the fort in July,
they found that he had deserted it for a British man-of-war. Royal rule in
North Carolina was really at an end; the Executive had left the seat of
government for the protection of the British flag.
An Independent State.
In the meantime the local
committees of safety in other parts of the colony were active. News of the
battle of Lexington stimulated the revolutionary spirit. In two counties
the sentiment voiced by the committees was radical, equal if not beyond
that so far expressed in the whole country. On May 31 the Mecklenburg
Committee at Charlotte adopted resolutions that, since the American
colonies have been declared in a state of rebellion, the constitution of
each colony is suspended, and that the provincial congresses under the
Continental Congress have all executive, legislative and judicial power,
and that the people of Mecklenburg county should fashion a form of
government to last in full force and virtue until instructions from the
provincial congress regulating the jurisprudence of the province shall
provide otherwise, or the legislative body of Great Britain resign its
unjust and arbitrary pretentions with respect to America. By declaring
British authority suspended, the Mecklenburg Resolves took a very advanced
step toward independence; moreover this attempt at a new form of local
government was undertaken several days before the Provincial Congress of
Massachusetts sought advice of the Continental Congress about a new
government for that colony, and several months before Congress advised New
Hampshire, South Carolina and Virginia to form governments of their own;
indeed at this time the Olive Branch Petition was being proposed and the
North Carolina delegates in Congress therefore sent back advice to be a
little more patient until Congress should take measures thought best, and
the resolves were not printed in Philadelphia newspapers. These resolves
of May 31 should not be confused with those of May 20, the so-called
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. Another set of resolutions,
adopted in New Hanover and Cumberland counties, declared that "We do unite
ourselves under every tie of religion and honor, and associate ourselves
as a band in her defense against every foe, hereby solemnly engaging that
whenever our continental or provincial counsel shall decree it necessary,
we will go forth and be ready to sacrifice our lives and fortunes to
secure her freedom and safety."
This revolutionary
propaganda was soon followed by military preparations and armed conflict.
The third provincial congress which met at Hillsboro in August, ]_775,
established a provincial council, a temporary central organ to guard a
colony deserted by its legal governor, instituted a military system and
provided for finance. In the meantime events in the colony had attracted
the attention of the British authorities and an invasion was planned. Sir
Henry Clinton, from New York, and Lord Cornwallis, from England, were
ordered to join Governor Martin and the loyalists at the mouth of the Cape
Fear. Fortune and prompt action averted this great menace. In December the
first regiment under Col. Robert Howe marched to Virginia and aided in the
defeat of Lord Dunmore, who was rousing the Tories of that province ; in
the same month 900 men were sent to South Carolina on a similar errand.
North Carolina was thus the first colony to send troops beyond her borders
for defense of the revolutionary cause. At home military achievement was
no less worthy. The Scotch settlers on the upper Cape Fear, in the region
of Fayettville, in answer to an appeal of Governor Martin, raised the
royal standard in January, 1776, and two thousand strong prepared to join
Governor Martin and the British. But they were intercepted on February 27
at Moore's Creek Bridge, eighteen miles from Wilmington, and defeated.
This was the first victory won by an American force in the War of the
Revolution. It strengthened the cause in North Carolina, disheartened the
Tories, and when the British arrived on the coast a few weeks later they
received so little sympathy that on June 1 they departed for Charleston,
S. C.
In the flush of victory the
North Carolina patriots made a most radical decision. On April 12, 1776,
the fourth provincial congress in session at Halifax resolved that "The
delegates for this colony in the Continental Congress be empowered to
concur with the delegates of the other colonies in declaring Independence,
and forming foreign alliances, reserving to this colony the sole and
exclusive right of forming a constitution and laws for this colony, and of
appointing delegates from time to time (under the direction of a general
representation thereof) to meet delegates of the other colonies for such
purposes as shall be hereafter pointed out." This was the first
instruction for independence by any colony. It gives North Carolina
patriots a high place in the history of the time.
The Congress then turned to
the formation of a permanent frame of government and state constitution.
Its efforts were not successful. Two factions appeared: one represented
the ideals of radical democracy, demanding that all officers be chosen by
the people, the other holding to the more conservative British forms of
government. Both factions appealed to the people in the election for the
Fifth Congress. Though Samuel Johnston, leader of the conservatives, was
defeated, many of his followers were elected and the constitution which
was framed was conservative. Many features of the colonial constitution
were preserved. Property qualifications were required for membership in
both houses of the legislature, representation was apportioned according
to counties, not population, and to vote for state senator fifty acres of
land was a prerequisite. The legislature was supreme; it elected the
governor and all state officers; its annual sessions were the only check
on legislative tyranny.
North Carolina in
Revolutionary War.
The high fervor that
carried the colony into revolt and created an independent government, was
followed by a period of reaction. "After the first outburst of local
patriotism in the spring of 1776, the support of the cause as far as the
people were concerned was purely compulsory." The state's quota in the
continental line was never complete, and the militia were also recruited
with difficulty. There were three causes of this apathy. First, most of
those who had participated in the Regulation movement were neutral; they
saw in the Revolution a continuation of the old control of the colony by
the eastern counties; 'indeed the same men who led Tryon's army in 1771
commanded the patriots in 1776. Equally important was the influence of the
Scotch, who had very recently settled on the Cape Fear. Having been loyal
to the cause of monarchy, they sympathized with Governor Martin. Thus a
large portion of the state was neutralized. Finally there was a cleavage
within the patriot party, similar to the alignment in the formation of the
constitution, and many conservatives, among them Samuel Johnston and
William Hooper, retired from public life and became luke-warm when the
radicals, under Willie Jones, became important in state politics.
Yet the North Carolina
patriots were directly concerned in some notable military achievements of
the Revolution. They served with distinction at Brandywine and Germantown,
and North Carolina troops composed most of the opposition to the British
invasion of Georgia and South Carolina during 1778-1779; with the capture
of Charleston in 1781, all of the North Carolina Continentals and
considerable militia were captured. The way for invasion seemed open, the
Tories also lifted their heads and Cornwallis promised to take advantage
as soon as the harvest was gathered. For defense, the militia was the only
reliance. Gen. Griffith Rutherford soon assembled 900 men at Charlotte,
and with the aid of other militia leaders gave confidence by victories
over the Tories at Ramsour's Mill (near Lincolnton, N. C.), Colson's Mill
and Hanging Rock. During these activities in the summer of 1780, regulars
from the Continental army arrived over whom Gen. Horatio Gates was given
command. On August 16 occurred the disastrous battle of Camden; further
resistance seemed impossible for Col. Patrick Ferguson, Cornwallis's able
lieutenant, advanced as far north as Lincolnton, N. C., in pursuit of the
patriot militia. Suddenly relief came from beyond the mountains. Alarmed
at Ferguson's advance and his threats, the men of Watauga, 1,000 strong,
started for the front. Learning of their approach Ferguson fell back to
King's Mountain, and there his army was surrounded and defeated, and he
himself was killed on October 7. The effect of the battle was to check
Cornwallis's advance and to give time for the reorganization of the
American army. This was accomplished by Gen. Nathaniel Greene, who took
command at Charlotte in December. Soon he sent Gen. Daniel Morgan across
the South Carolina line to collect supplies and to check the Tories. He
met and defeated Tarleton at Cowpens on Jan. 17, 1781. Then began the
famous Greene retreat, the withdrawal of Morgan, also of Greene, across
North Carolina to the Virginia line, which culminated in the battle of
Guilford Court House, and Cornwallis's retreat to Wilmington, eventually
to Yorktown.
These campaigns were
accompanied by a fratricidal conflict, a civil strife between the Tories
and the Whigs. An interesting incident was the capture of Gov. Thomas
Burke and his staff in 1781 at Hillsboro by David Fanning, a noted Tory
leader. He was sent to Charleston for imprisonment, but he soon escaped,
returned to North Carolina and resumed his duties as governor. In the same
year the strength of the Tories was broken at the battle of Elizabethtown
and by a campaign of Gen. Griffith Rutherford in the Cape Fear region.
This enmity of Whig and Tory survived the Revolution and caused an
extensive confiscation of loyalist property by the state government.
North Carolina's Attitude
to the Federal Constitution.
The first political problem
after the Revolution was that of the Federal constitution; indeed North
Carolina has an unique place in the formation of the Union in being the
last state, except Rhode Island, to ratify the constitution. For this
hesitation there were various reasons. A strong sense of individualism,
inherent in the people, bred indifference toward any central government
whatever. Moreover, the old alignment of conservative and radical was
still alive, and over the Federal constitution controversy was even more
bitter than in 1776 over the state constitution. The radicals, under the
leadership of Willie Jones, Rev. David Caldwell, Timothy Bloodworth and
others, feared a consolidated republic, claiming that the words "We the
people" in the constitution should read "We the States," criticised the
Federal judiciary, believing it would encroach upon the state courts,
opposed Federal taxation, and demanded that a Bill of Rights should
precede the constitution. On the other hand the Conservatives, led by
James Iredell, Wm. R. Davie, Samuel Johnston and Richard Dobbs Spaight
favored ratification, but the Constitutional Convention which met at
Hillsboro in July, 1788, was controlled by the radicals or
Anti-Federalists, failed to ratify the constitution, although ten states
had done so, and recommended a Bill of Rights and twenty-six amendments.
But public opinion soon began to change: New York ratified just after the
North Carolina Convention closed, leaving this state and Rhode Island the
only ones outside the Union. The people also realized that the friends of
the constitution in North Carolina regarded it as a compact and the
Federal government as an agent of the states; consequently a second
Constitutional Convention at Fayetteville on Nov. 21, 1789, ratified the
constitution after a stormy session.
A strong sense of state
individualism, however, ]on,, prevailed and aroused the suspicion and
hostility toward the measures of the central government. In Congress, Hugh
Williamson led the opposition to assumption of state debts, and in western
North Carolina opposition to the excise law was as effective as in
Pennsylvania. In 1790 the House of Commons, excited over the assumption of
state debts, refused to take an oath to support the constitution, and the
Court of Equity refused to obey a writ of certiorari issued by the Federal
District Court removing a case to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The general discontent
which these incidents suggest caused a reaction to Anti-Federalism; in
1793 that party carried all the Congressional districts save one, and in
the person of Nathaniel Macon, North Carolina Anti-Federalism had a
prominent place in the councils of the party. Yet the milder type of
Anti-Federalism and Federalist policies prevailed in North Carolina. In
1797 the Assembly, in which the Federalists had a majority, instructed the
state's delegates in Congress to labor for the repeal of the Alien and
Sedition Laws, while the succeeding Assembly, having an Anti-Federalist
majority, failed to approve the Virginia-Kentucky Resolves. The year 1800
marks the beginning of the decline of the Federalists in North Carolina.
An important factor in the Anti-Federalist victory was Joseph Gales and
the newly founded Raleigh Register. But as long as the party lasted, the
Federalists had a strong hold in the Fayetteville and Salisbury districts,
and during the War of 1812 one of the most prominent anti-administration
leaders of Congress was William Gaston, of Craven county.
Domestic Affairs.
Gradually domestic problems
assumed importance. In 1788 Wake county was chosen the seat of government;
in 1791 the city of Raleigh was laid off, and in 1794 the Assembly held
its sessions in the new capitol. In 1810 a system of state banks was
inaugurated. The cause of internal improvements became popular. In the
last decade of the Eighteenth century bounties for iron manufactures were
offered, and in 1790 the Dismal Swamp Canal, connecting the Pasquotank
River with Elizabeth River in Virginia was chartered; although begun as a
private enterprise, it was ultimately finished by state aid, and later the
state took stock in various navigation companies, whose aim was to improve
rivers and harbors, but no step was made toward organized effort by the
state until a Board of Internal Improvements was created in 1819. The need
of better educational facilities was also felt; the constitution provided
for "a school or schools" for the instruction of youth with salaries paid
by the public, which shall enable them to instruct at low prices and for
higher learning in one or more universities. The University of North
Carolina was founded, but nothing was accomplished for public education,
although various governors urged the cause and Archibald D. Murphy, in
1817, presented to the Assembly a comprehensive and searching educational
report. Even more vital than these issues, and profoundly influencing
them, was the cause of constitutional reform. The system of
representation, which apportioned membership in the Assembly according to
counties rather than population, fostered the old hostility of the eastern
and western counties; for during the early years of the century those of
the west so developed that they surpassed the east in population and
wealth, but by virtue of a larger number of counties, the east controlled
legislation. Gradually the two sections were divided on all important
issues, the east opposing further aid to internal improvements and public
education, the west demanding a progressive policy. In 1824, the year of
national political ferment, the west supported Jackson, the east Crawford,
for the presidency, but when, in 1828, the east adopted Jackson on account
of his state's rights' principles, the west became lukewarm, and by 1832
was identified with the new Whig party.
New Constitution.
After prolonged agitation
which threatened to rend the state, the western counties under the
leadership of David Lowry Swain and Willie P. Mangum forced the submission
of reform to the people. In 1834, and in accordance with a popular but
sectional vote, a constitutional convention met at Raleigh in 1835. In a
series of amendments representation in the House of Commons was
apportioned among counties according to their population, in the Senate
according to districts formed according to taxes. The Assembly was robbed
of much of its power by establishing biennial instead of annual sessions,
and by giving the election of governor to the people. Free negroes were
disfranchised, and largely through the efforts of William Gaston the 32d
clause of the constitution, which excluded from public office those
denying the truth of the Protestant religion, was made to read the truth
of the Christian religion. These reforms were ratified by a sectional
vote, all western counties giving a majority for the amendment, the
eastern, except one, voting against it.
Whig Ascendency.
The leaders in the cause of
constitutional reform were Whigs, and the succeeding fifteen years (1835
to 1850) marked the period of Whig ascendency. In national politics such
able leaders as Mangum, William A. Graham and Geo. E. Badger kept North
Carolina loyal to the party when the real interests of the South seemed to
be with the Democrats, and brought into the state a sentiment of
nationality which later opposed secession. The real explanation of the
party's supremacy, however, was its identification with the cause of
domestic progress. Three notable achievements were made under Whig
leadership. Chief of these was the inauguration of a public school system.
Public Education.
In 1825 the Assembly
provided for a literary fund to be used for educational purposes. By 1838
this amounted to $1,732,485. After a few appropriations had been made a
revised school law was enacted in 1840, framed by Bartlett Yancey, which
distributed the income among the counties according to Federal population,
and empowered the county courts to supplement it by a local county tax.
There were many difficulties; local taxation of the counties not being
mandatory, many failed to give local support. Not until 1846 were schools
established in all counties, and there was no attempt at organized
educational administration until 1852, when Calvin H. Wiley was appointed
Superintendent of Common Schools. In 1860, on the eve of the War of
Secession, the sum of $255,641.12 was spent for public education, and
throughout that conflict the schools were kept open and the literary fund
was kept a sacred trust. With the failure of banks and the collapse after
the war, the literary fund was lost.
During the same period
(1840 to 1860) the number of male colleges increased from three to six,
the foremost being, besides the University already established, Davidson,
Wake Forest and Trinity; and the number of female colleges increased from
one to thirteen.
Internal Improvements.
The Whig leaders adopted a
more liberal policy toward internal improvements. Better transportation
facilities were necessary, but the failure of earlier corporations and the
state's investment in them aroused opposition to further state aid. A new
period opened with the completion of the Wilmington and Weldon and Raleigh
and Gaston lines in 1840, both lines being assisted by liberal state aid.
The western counties were unsupplied, and in 1845 a failure of crops
created a famine, although corn was rotting in the fields of the eastern
counties. The Whig leaders, principally William A. Graham, John M.
Morehead and William S. Ashe, urged the building of a road from the coast
to the mountains; but the Democrats and the eastern counties, partly from
the embarrassment of the existing roads and the state's investment in
them, partly from old sectional feeling, opposed the movement. But in
1849, after a prolonged debate, the North Carolina Railroad Company was
chartered, by vote of Mr. Graves, speaker of the Senate, a Democrat, the
state guaranteeing two-fifths of the capital stock. In a few years the
road was completed from Goldsboro to Charlotte, and an extension toward
Asheville was begun, while the Atlantic and North Carolina road was built
to connect Goldsboro and the coast. The enterprise proved a success
financially, while socially it was of great service, doing much to abolish
the old hostility of the eastern and western counties.
Charities.
The domestic policy of the
Whig party was also pervaded by a humanitarian spirit. In 1845 the
Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind was founded, and in 1849, largely
through the appeal of Dorothea Dix and James C. Dobbin, the Assembly
established the present Central Asylum for the Insane at Raleigh. In 1848,
also, the right of married women before the common law was amended by a
statutory provision that maiden lands of wives should not be liable to
execution for the husband's debts, and that no man could sell his wife's
property without her consent, given in presence of witnesses.
Whigs Defeated.
Notwithstanding this
program of progress, the Whig party lost its supremacy in 1850. For this
there were two causes, one local and one national. The constitutional
reforms in 1835 had made taxes the basis of membership in the Senate, and
had preserved the property qualification as a requisite to vote for state
senators. In 1848 David S. Reid, Democratic candidate for governor,
through the advice of Stephen A. Douglas, made manhood suffrage the issue
of his campaign, demanding the abolition of the property qualification and
an apportionment of senators according to Federal population. Though
defeated in 1848, Reid and also a Democratic Assembly were elected in
1850, but on account of obstruction by the Whigs the proposed reform did
not pass the Assembly until 1854, and was ratified by the people the
following year.
Slavery.
In addition to the local
issue, a division in national policy toward slavery was fatal to the
Whigs. In discussion of the proposed Wilmot Proviso, which excluded
slavery from the territory acquired from Mexico, George E. Badger, in the
Senate of the United States, admitted the right, though doubting the
expediency of Congress, to exclude slavery from territories and denied the
right of a state to secede from the Union; while Thomas L. Clingman, a
Whig leader of the western counties, in a letter to Mr. Foote, of
Mississippi, declared that the policy of exclusion would be revolutionary
and leaned toward secession as a means of protection for the South. The
North Carolina Whigs, however, supported the Compromise of 1850, but in
1852 an irreparable schism developed. Mr. Clingman favored the nomination
of Millard Fillmore for the Presidency, and when General Scott was
nominated he left the party, declaring that it had been captured by the
abolitionists, and supported Franklin Pierce, the Democratic candidate.
This defection was fatal, for although the Whigs nominated William A.
Graham for the vice-presidency, the electoral vote of North Carolina
showed a majority for Pierce. Thus, after years of service, the Whig party
lost control of local and national political issues in North Carolina.
Some of its members joined the- short-lived Know Nothing party; among
these were John A. Gilmer and Kenneth Raynor, both prominent in the Know
Nothing movement.
Toward the slavery question
and the agitation which resulted in secession, North Carolina's attitude
was conservative. For this there were various reasons. The small farm and
the middle class planter being the dominant factors in industry, the
milder type of slavery prevailed and the slave system never secured so
strong a hold on the life of the people as in most other Southern states.
Moreover, in the middle and western counties, there was a strong
anti-slavery sentiment. These counties had been settled by Scotch-Irish,
Germans and Quakers, and slavery had far less hold than in the east.
Illustrative of this sentiment were Hinton Rowan Helper, Benjamin S.
Hedrick, Daniel R. Goodloe, men who opposed slavery in the interest of the
whites rather than the negroes. Indeed, in spite of the intense political
controversy over slavery, there seems to have been a steady undercurrent
of feeling among thinking people that sooner or later the institution must
end.
Therefore, sympathy with
other states and the logic of events, rather than personal grievances, led
North Carolina into the Confederacy. Although secession had been advocated
by political leaders, notably Thomas L. Clingman and William W. Holden,
the principle made no headway among the people until 1857. Then the
publication of Helper's Impending Crisis and John Brown's raid aroused
public sentiment. Possession of Helper's book at once became a political
crime, and sympathy for Virginia was expressed. The Council of State
adopted resolutions threatening a new form of government unless slave
property was protected. Public meetings were held in various counties that
expressed defiance to the North and to abolition. In one year secession
sentiment had grown more than in all the preceding ones, and a secession
party, small but active, had come into existence.
The rising tide of
secession and proslavery sentiment at once met strong opposition. In 1858
John W. Ellis, a states-rights Democrat, received the nomination of his
party for governor. He was opposed by Duncan K. McRae, Independent, who
sought to turn the people's mind from slavery to economic development and
education. Though Ellis was victorious, McRae received a large vote, and
W. W. Holden, disappointed at the nomination of Ellis, now drifted from
the radicals to conservatism. Two years later opposition to slavery
agitation and secession was even stronger. The Whig party revived,
nominated John Pool for governor, ridiculed secession in its convention,
and on a local issue, advalorem slave taxation, sought to divert the
people from slavery questions. The Democrats renominated Ellis, and
incorporated a strong states-rights clause in their platform. In the
campaign Ellis in vain tried to arouse the people on the national
question. He was forced to face the local issue; by adroit argument he won
the fight, but the Democratic majority was reduced to 10,000 below that of
1858, though the vote was the largest ever polled in the state. Clearly
the conservatism of the people made them hesitate to endorse radical views
regarding slavery and secession.
The election of Lincoln
gave new life to secession agitation. Public meetings were held in the
interest of secession, and in the Assembly which met in November, 1860,
resolutions asserting and denying the right of secession were introduced,
but neither were adopted. The secessionists demanded the call of a state
convention to consider Federal relations, and after prolonged-discussion
in the Assembly and throughout the state on Jan. 30, 1861, both factions
agreed to submit to the people the question of a convention whose work, if
called, should be ratified by the people, while the election of delegates
was to be held at the same time. The vote was cast on February 28; by a
majority of 651 the call of a convention was rejected, and the majority of
the delegates elected were Union men. The conservatism of the people was
greater than that of their leaders. But the efforts of the secessionists
did not abate and the trend of events soon favored them. The fall of Fort
Sumter and a request by the secretary of war for two regiments of troops
from North Carolina were decisive. Even the Union newspapers and leaders
gave up the fight. Governor Ellis called a special session of the Assembly
which met on May 1, 1861. A state convention with unlimited powers was
ordered, and preparations were made for war. Public sentiment had quickly
changed ; there was no opposition to military activity, to the convention
or to separation from the Union. The social bond was stronger than the
political bond; in the critical hour, the choice of North Carolina was to
fight with sister states, although conservative political sentiment and
love of the Union had heretofore been supreme.
Secession.
There remained one final
problem, viz.: the manner of withdrawal from the Union. In the convention
which assembled at Raleigh on May 20, there were two distinct factions-one
dominated by the principles of the old Whig party, the other representing
the opinion of the advanced Democracy. In the preliminary test of strength
the latter element proved supreme, Weldon N. Edwards being chosen
president over William A. Graham. Two sets of resolutions looking to the
withdrawal from the Union were then offered-one by George E. Badger
providing for separation by means of revolution, without mentioning
secession in its applied meaning; the other framed by Judah P. Benjamin,
introduced by Burton Craige, based on the idea of constitutional
secession, abrogated and rescinded the ordinance of the convention by
which North Carolina had ratified the constitution of the United States in
1789. Mr. Badger's resolutions were rejected, and after a test vote those
of Mr. Craige were unanimously adopted, the Whigs and Conservatives
sacrificing their political convictions in the interest of a great cause.
Thus on May 20, 1861, North Carolina left the Union.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. - Moore's
History of North Carolina (2 vols., 1880) is the only book that covers the
entire period of this chapter, is very incomplete and must be supplemented
by other studies. For the Revolution, Colonial and State Records (Vols.
X.-XXIV.) are an invaluable repository of documents; Ashe, History of
North Carolina (Vol. L, 1908) Is written close to the sources; Sykes,
Transition from Colony to Commonwealth (Johns Hopkins Studies); Hoyt,
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence (1906) and Schenck, North Carolina
1780-81 (1888) are useful studies, while Caruthers, Old North State (1854,
second series 1856) contains illustrative material derived from legend and
tradition. Political history from 1789-1861 is well outlined in Wagstaff's
States Rights and Political Parties in North Carolina (Johns Hopkins
Press).
Contributions to social
history are Weaver, History of Internal Improvements in North Carolina
(Johns Hopkins Press); Bassett, Slavery in North Carolina and Anti-Slavery
(Ibid) Weeks, History of the Common School System in the South (U. S.
Bureau of Education) and Coon, Documentary History of Education in North
Carolina (N. C. Historical Commission).
WILLIAM K. BOYD,
Professor of History, Trinity College, N. C. |
