USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1584 1783, Volume I > Part 36
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To agree upon a plan of civil government was a more diffi- cult task than the organization of the army. Most men will frankly confess their ignorance of military matters, and will- ingly submit to the opinions of experts, but no American would consider himself loyal to the teachings of the fathers were he to admit himself incapable of manufacturing offhand a perfect plan of civil government. Congress, therefore, found no lack of plans and ideas. On August 24th a strong committee was appointed to prepare a plan of government made necessary by the "absence" of Governor Martin. The committee reported September 9th. The plan proposed and adopted continued the Congress as the supreme branch of the government with a few changes that will be noticed. The executive and judicial authority was vested in a Provincial Council, six district committees of safety, and the local com- mittees of safety.
Congress was to be the supreme power in the province. Henceforth it was to meet annually at such time and place . as should be designated by the Provincial Council. Delegates were to be elected annually in October. Each county was to be entitled to five delegates, and each borough town to one.
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The privilege of suffrage was limited to freeholders. The members of Congress were to qualify by taking an oath in the presence of three members of the Provincial Council, acknowledging allegiance to the Crown, denying the right of Parliament to levy internal taxes on the colonies, and agree- ing to abide by the acts and resolutions of the Provincial and Continental Congresses. Each county and each town was to have one vote in Congress. No constitutional limitation was placed on the authority of Congress, and as the supreme power in the province it could review the acts of the executive branches of the government.
The executive powers of the government were vested in the committees. The committees of the counties and towns were continued practically as they were. Some limitation was placed on their power by making their acts reviewable by the district committees with the right of appeal to the Pro- vincial Council. They were empowered to make such rules and regulations as they saw fit for the enforcement of their authority, but they could not inflict corporal punishment ex- cept by imprisonment. Within their own jurisdictions, they were to execute the orders of the district committees and the Provincial Council. They were to enforce the Continental Association and the ordinances of the Provincial and Conti- nental Congresses. Each committee was required to organize a sub-committee of secrecy, intelligence and observation to correspond with other committees and with the Council. They were vested with the power to arrest and examine suspected persons and if deemed necessary to hold them for trial by a higher tribunal. Members of the committees were to be elected annually by the freeholders.
Above these local committees was placed a system of dis- trict committees, one in each of the military districts, com- posed of a president and twelve members. The members were to be elected by the delegates in Congress from the counties which composed the several districts. They were to sit at least once in every three months. Power was given to them, subject to the authority of the Provincial Council, to direct the movements of the militia and other troops within their districts. They were to sit as courts for the trial of civil causes, for investigations into charges of disaffection to the American cause, and as appellate courts over the town and county committees. They shared with the Council authority to compel debtors suspected of intention to leave the prov-
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ince to give security to their creditors. Finally, they were to superintend the collection of the public revenue.
The Provincial Council was the chief executive authority of the new government. It was to be composed of thirteen members, one elected by the Congress for the province at at large, and two from each of the military districts. Vacan- cies occurring during the recess of Congress were to be filled by the committee of safety for the district in which the va- cancy fell. Military officers, except officers of the militia, were ineligible for membership. The members were to qualify by subscribing the oath prescribed for members of Congress. The Council was to meet once every three months, and a ma- jority of the members was to constitute a quorum. Authority was given to them to direct the military operations of the province, to call out the militia when needed, and to execute the acts of the Assembly that were still in force with respect to the militia. They could issue commissions, suspend officers, order courts-martial, reject officers of the militia chosen by the people, and fill vacancies. But their real power lay in a sort of "general welfare" clause which empowered them "to do and Transact all such matters and things as they may judge expedient to strengthen, secure and defend the Colony." To carry out their powers, they were authorized to draw on the public treasury for such sums of money as they needed, for which they were accountable to Congress. In all matters they were given an appellate jurisdiction over the district committees, and in turn were subject to the authority of Con- gress. Their authority continued only during the recess of Congress, and Congress at each session was to review and pass upon their proceedings.
Such was the government that was to organize, equip and direct the military forces raised by Congress and to inaug- urate the great war about to burst upon the colony. As Saunders says, the die was now cast and North Carolina was at last a self-governing commonwealth. The people had so declared through representatives whom they had chosen after a campaign of forty days. Nobody was taken by surprise, for all knew that the Congress elected in that campaign would formulate a provisional government. This action was taken fully eight months before the Continental Congress advised the colonies to adopt new constitutions. "The more the action of this great Hillsborough Congress is studied, and the events immediately preceding," writes Saunders, "the more wonder-
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ful seems the deliberate, well-considered, resolute boldness of our ancestors." 2
The efficiency of the new government depended, of course, upon the men chosen to administer it. The members of the Provincial Council were elected Saturday, September 9th. Samuel Johnston was chosen by the Congress for the province at large. The other members were: Cornelius Harnett and Samuel Ashe, for the Wilmington District; Thomas Jones and Whitmill Hill, for the Edenton District; Abner Nash and James Coor, for the New Bern District; Thomas Person and John Kinchen, for the Hillsboro District; Willie Jones and Thomas Eaton, for the Halifax District; Samuel Spencer and Waightstill Avery, for the Salisbury District. On October 18th the Council held their first session at Johnston Court House and elected Cornelius Harnett president.
Cornelius Harnett thus became the first chief executive of North Carolina independent of the British Crown. Gover- nor in all but name, he exercised greater authority than the people have since conferred on their governor, and occupied a position of honor and power, but also of great responsibility and peril. He had long been in the public service. Entering the Assembly in 1754 as the representative of the borough of Wilmington, he had represented that town in every Assem- bly since that date. His legislative career covered a period of twenty-seven years, embracing service in the Assembly, in the Provincial Congress, and in the Continental Congress. From 1765 he was conspicuous in every movement in opposi- tion to the colonial policy of the British ministry. He led the resistance to the Stamp Act on the Cape Fear; was chair- man of the Sons of Liberty and their leader in enforcing the Non-Importation Association; and was among the foremost in organizing and directing the activities of the Committee of Correspondence. Perhaps his chief service was rendered as chairman of the Wilmington-New Hanover committees of safety. Of these he was the acknowledged master spirit. By his activity in "warning and watching the disaffected, en- couraging the timid, collecting the means of defence, and com- municating its enthusiasm to all orders," he made this local committee the most effective agency, except the Provincial Congress itself, in getting the Revolution under way in North Carolina. Governor Martin recognized in him the chief source
2 Prefatory Notes to Colonial Records of North Carolina, Vol. X. p. viii-ix.
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of opposition to the royal government, marked him out for special punishment, and induced Sir Henry Clinton to except him, together with Robert Howe, from his offer of general amnesty to all who would return to their allegiance. As presi- dent of the Provincial Council, he fully sustained his repu- tation for executive skill, energy and foresight. From the outbreak of the Revolution Harnett had taken a broad and liberal view of the relations of the colonies to each other, and he inspired his colleagues on the Council with the same continental spirit that was the chief characteristic of his own statesmanship. He was foremost among the advocates of a united Declaration of Independence, and wrote the first reso- lution adopted by any of the colonies favoring such a step by the Continental Congress. As a delegate to the Conti- nental Congress he bore an important part in framing the Articles of Confederation, which he regarded as "the best confederacy that could be formed, especially when we con- sider the number of states, their different interests [and] cus- toms."
Harnett was not politically ambitious. He loved ease and pleasure, and had sufficient fortune to enjoy both. Public office, therefore, as such, made no appeal to him. He did not need its emoluments. He cared little for its distinctions. In- deed, the offices which he held brought more of sacrifice than of gain, more of drudgery than of glory. Desire to serve his country, regardless of the cost to himself, alone held him to the duties, burdens and dangers of the public service. With a profound faith in popular government, he had in his nature none of the elements of the demagogue. He appealed neither to the prejudices nor to the passions of mankind. His work lay not on the hustings, nor in the legislative hall, but rather in the council chamber. His chief service was executive in its nature. In the performance of his duties, we are told, "he could be wary and circumspect, or decided and daring, as exigency dictated or emergency required." Such work as he did was the backbone of the Revolution, without which the eloquence of the orator, the wisdom of the legislator, and the daring of the soldier would have been barren of results. Yet it was work that offered but little opportunity for display, and brought but little fame. For Cornelius Harnett its only opportunity was for service, its only reward a wasted body and a martyr's grave.
The Provincial Council were forced to work under the most unfavorable conditions. To begin with there was not a place
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in the province, except possibly the Palace at New Bern, suit- able for their sessions. From necessity, as well as from pol- icy, they became a migratory body. The members were subjected to almost every personal inconvenience and dis- comfort. But these were among the least of their difficulties. Almost without any of the means with which governments usually administer public affairs, they were compelled to struggle against political and economic conditions that might well have daunted the most determined. They had to rely for success on a public sentiment which they themselves, to a large extent, had to create, and at the same time to enforce measures that were at once burdensome and irritating. They had no powerful press to uphold their hands. The people were scattered over an immense area, with means of com- munication crudely primitive. There were no public high- ways except a few rough and dangerous forest paths fre- quently impassable. Their principal river was held at the mouth by hostile ships of war, and at the head of navigation by an enemy bold, hardy, and enthusiastic in the king's cause. The East was dominated by an oligarchy of wealthy planters and merchants, living in an almost feudal state, supported by slave labor; the West was a pure democracy, composed of small farmers, living on isolated farms, tilled by their own hands. Both East and West, aristocracy and democracy, were equally determined in their opposition to the British gov- ernment, but between the two, right through the heart of the province, were projected the Scotch Highlanders and the for- mer Regulators-the one eager to prove their loyalty to the throne against which they were but recently in rebellion, the other equally as eager to wreak vengeance upon the men who had but lately crushed and humiliated them at Alamance. The province was a rural community without a single center of population. There were no mills or factories. The only port of any consequence was in the hands of the enemy. Thus the Council's task was to organize an army among a people divided in sentiment and unused to war; to equip it without factories for the manufacture of clothes, arms or ammuni- tion; to train it without officers of experience; to maintain it without money; and to direct its movements in the face of an enemy superior in numbers, in equipment, and in military experience.
The Council was created as a war measure, and its prin- cipal work related to military affairs. The province was threatened in front and in the rear. In front Governor Mar-
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tin was organizing the Highlanders and Regulators for a de- scent on the lower Cape Fear, and Governor Dunmore of Virginia was encouraging an insurrection of slaves on the Albemarle. In the rear bands of Tories were overrunning Western South Carolina and threatening the frontier of North Carolina. while the Indians, instigated by British agents, were showing signs of restlessness. Foreseeing that the province would "soon be invaded by British troops," the Council issued orders to Colonel Moore and Colonel Howe of the con- tinental regiments to resist "to the utmost of their power" any attempt to invade the province; directed the committees of Wilmington and Brunswick to stop all communications, "on any pretense whatever," between the people and the gov- ernor, and "to cut off all supplies of provisions to any of the ships of war lying in Cape Fear River;" and commanded Colonel Griffith Rutherford and Colonel Thomas Polk of the Salisbury District to raise two regiments for defense of the frontier. Had they been less than tragical, these high- sounding orders, in comparison with the Council's means for enforcing them, would have been ludicrous. The Council found the minute-men and continental troops practically with- out clothes, arms, ammunition, or any of the necessary equip- ment of war, the people "destitute of sufficient arms for de- fense of their lives and property," and the outlook for supplying them unpromising enough. They drew upon every conceivable source. They bought and borrowed, made and mended, begged and confiscated, and though their efforts fell far short of what the emergency required, yet they were suffi- cient to enable the western militia to march to the aid of South Carolina on the famous "Snow Campaign", to enable Colonel Howe to drive Lord Dunmore out of Norfolk, and to enable Colonel Moore to win a brilliant campaign against the Highlanders at Moore's Creek Bridge. South Carolina and Virginia were profuse in their thanks to President Har- nett for important assistance in their hour of need, while Governor Martin expressed great "mortification," and de- clared it was a matter "greatly to be lamented."
With war impending, both sides began to give anxious thought to the attitude of the Indian tribes along the frontier. The British expected their active aid, the Americans knew they could hope for nothing better than their neutrality. Un- fortunately, in the competition which immediately arose the Americans were at every disadvantage. It was they who, coming in daily contact with the red man, had driven him
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from his hunting grounds, destroyed his property, burned his towns, reduced his women and children to slavery, and slain his warriors. Eternal enmity seemed to be decreed between them. On the other hand, since the expulsion of the French in 1763, the Indians had been trained to look to British officials and agents as the sole representatives of authority standing between them and the encroachments of the American bor- derer. Licensed British traders dwelt in almost every Indian village, married Indian women, adopted Indian customs, and made the Indians' interests their own. The British govern- ment, too, had been especially fortunate in its agents among the Indians. In the Northern Department Sir William John- son and in the Southern Department Captain John Stuart were known to the Indians as generous, sympathetic friends, ever watchful over their interests. From the Americans, there- fore, ever steadily encroaching upon their possessions, the Indians knew they could expect nothing but rivalry and op- pression; from the British they had been taught to expect assistance and protection.
Accordingly when the severance came the Indians, almost , to a tribe, threw their power into the scale with the Crown. As early as June, 1775, the British government decided to call them into active service. Presents and clothing were dis- tributed among all the tribes from the Great Lakes to the Gulf; hatchets, arms and ammunition were issued to the war- riors, and liberal bounties were offered for American scalps. All along the border the Indians awaited the command to begin their work of fire and slaughter. In August, 1775, the Chero- kee sent to Alexander Cameron, the deputy agent resident among them, a "talk," assuring him that they were ready at a signal to fall upon the frontier settlements of Georgia and the Carolinas. Circulars were distributed among the border Tories, apprising them of the plans and directing them to repair to Cameron's headquarters to join in the assault. For- tunately, the Cherokee "talk" fell into the hands of the Americans and warned them of the impending danger.
The Americans themselves had not been inactive. Indian affairs had received the attention of both the Continental Congress and the Provincial Congress. The former divided the colonies into three Indian departments and appointed agents in each. In the Southern Department the agents were John Walker of Virginia, Willie Jones of North Carolina, Robert Rae, Edward Wilkinson and George Galphin of South Carolina. The Provincial Congress at Hillsboro directed
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that all persons who had any information about Indian affairs should submit it to Willie Jones. Accordingly Thomas Wade, Thomas Polk and John Walker laid before him information relative to the "hostile intentions" of Governor Martin and the Indians which was of "so serious and important a Nature" that it was referred to the Congress for considera- tion. The necessity for placating the Indians was urgent. Congress, therefore, appropriated £1,000 to be used by Willie Jones in the purchase of presents for them. The southern agents also were active. Galphin and Rae held a "talk" with the Creek Indians at Augusta, and in November, 1775, all five agents met a delegation of Creek warriors at Salisbury. The burden of their "talks" was neutrality; "you have been repeatedly told the nature of the disputes between the father and his children," they said, "and we desire you to have no concern in it."
One of the results of these efforts to placate the Indians was the "Snow Campaign" to which allusion has just been made. In October, 1775, the Council of Safety of South Caro- lina, in accordance with their agreement with the Chero- kee, dispatched a large supply of powder and lead to the Lower Towns of that nation. The Loyalists of Western South Carolina, who were led to believe that the Whigs were plan- ning to bring the Indians down upon them, embodied in force under Major Joseph Robinson and Captain Patrick Cunning- ham, intercepted the supply wagons, seized the powder and lead, compelled a Whig force under Major Andrew William- son, who had been sent to disperse them, to seek refuge in the fort at Ninety-Six, and after a vigorous siege forced him to capitulate. Their success spread alarm among the Whigs of both the Carolinas. The South Carolina Congress immedi- ately dispatched a force of 2,500 men under Colonel Richard Richardson to the scene, while 700 men from Western North Carolina hastened into South Carolina to co-operate with him. This force was composed of 220 Continentals under Lieu- tenant-Colonel Alexander Martin, 200 militia of Rowan County under Colonel Griffith Rutherford, and 300 Mecklen- burg militia under Colonel Thomas Polk. Thus reinforced, in spite of the inclement weather and the indifferent equip- ment of his men, Colonel Richardson pushed forward vigor- ously against the enemy, breaking up such parties as ventured to oppose him and capturing several of their leaders. The campaign came to an end with a battle at Cane Brake on Reedy River, about four miles within the Cherokee reserva-
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tion, in which Colonel William Thomson surprised and destroyed a Loyalist force under Cunningham. Colonel Rich- ardson, considering the campaign now at an end and its ob- ject accomplished, dismissed the North Carolina troops and marched his own men back to their homes. In his campaign he had captured most of the Loyalist leaders and about 400 of their followers. Governor Martin in a letter to Lord Dart- mouth wrote that the reinforcements from North Carolina "put the Rebels of the Country in sufficient force to disarm the loyal people who had made so noble a stand and who were collecting strength so fast that they must have carried every- thing before them if it had been possible to afford them the least support. This check of the friends of Government in that Province is greatly to be lamented." In local tradition the campaign became known as the "Snow Campaign" be- cause of the heavy fall of snow in which it was waged.
In the meantime another force of North Carolinians had gone to the aid of the Virginians in their campaign against, their royal governor, Lord Dunmore. Like Martin of North Carolina and Campbell of South Carolina, Dunmore had fled from the province and sought refuge on board a man-of-war. During the summer he assembled in Chesapeake Bay a flotilla which enabled him to capture Norfolk, the chief town of the province with a population of 6,000. On November 7th, from his cabin on the Fowney, he issued a proclamation in which he declared war on the people of Virginia, denounced as trait- ors all persons capable of bearing arms who did not repair at once to his standard, and offered freedom to "all indentured servants, negroes, or others appertaining to rebels." His emissaries were also busy trying to incite the slaves of the Albemarle section of North Carolina to insurrection. To pre- vent the success of his schemes a force of Virginia militia under Colonel William Woodford fortified Great Bridge near Norfolk, where they were joined by 150 minute-men from North Carolina under Colonel Nicholas Long and Major Jethro Sumner. On December 8th a force of British regulars attempted to drive them away, but were repulsed with loss and forced to retreat into Norfolk. Three days later Colonel Robert Howe, with the Second North Carolina Continentals, arrived at Great Bridge and took command. Howe pushed forward immediately, compelled the British to evacuate Nor- folk, and entered the town December 14th. "Lord Dunmore had abandoned the town," wrote an officer, describing these events, "and several of the Tories had fled on board their
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vessels, with all their effects; others of them are applying for forgiveness to their injured countrymen." For this service Colonel Howe received the thanks of the Virginia Convention. Dunmore could not afford to leave the rebels in possession of Norfolk. On New Year's day, 1776, therefore, he began a bombardment of the town. "About four o'clock in the after- noon," wrote an officer on His Majesty's ship Otter, "the signal was given from the Liverpool, when a dreadful can- nonading began from the three ships, which lasted till it was too hot for the Rebels to stand on their wharves. Our boats now landed and set fire to the town in several places. It burnt fiercely all night and the next day; nor are the flames yet extinguished; but no more of Norfolk remains than about twelve houses, which have escaped the flames." The destruc- tion of Norfolk served no military purpose but it inflamed the people of Virginia and North Carolina and hastened the de- velopment of sentiment for independence.
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