USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1584 1783, Volume I > Part 9
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smoking their pipes during the meeting, Edmundson at first thought they had "little or no religion"; but the readiness with which they "received the testimony" and confessed their faith soon undeceived him. Among the converts at this meet- ing were a prominent justice of the peace, Francis Toms, and his wife, both of whom "received the truth with gladness." At their urgent request, Edmundson held another meeting at their plantation where they had "a blessed time for several were tendered with a sense of the power of God, received the truth, and abode in it."
The work so successfully begun by Edmundson was taken up by others. In the winter of 1672, George Fox himself, the founder of the Society of Friends, visited the colony where he received an hospitable welcome not only from the Friends but also from the governor and other officials. Passing through Chowan, Pasquotank, and Perquimans precincts, he held several "precious" meetings and made many converts. Then, as he recorded in his journal, "having visited the north part of Carolina and made a little entrance for the truth among the people there, we began to return again towards Virginia, having several meetings on our way, wherein we had good service for the Lord, the people being generally ten- der and open." Four years later Edmundson returned to Carolina following about the same route that he had taken in 1672. These four years had worked a great change in the colony. Whereas on his first visit, Edmundson had found only two Friends, Henry Phillips and his wife, he now found the Friends quite numerous and well established. "I had several precious meetings in that colony," he says, "and several turned to the Lord. People were tender and loving, and there was no room for the priests, for Friends were firmly settled, and I left things well amongst them." From time to time, during the next quarter of a century, other Quaker mission- aries came to Carolina, held "many comfortable meetings," made converts, and organized quarterly meetings. The Caro- lina Quakers also received accessions to their strength by immigration, especially from Pennsylvania, but the greatest impetus given to their cause was the appointment, in 1694, of John Archdale, a convert of George Fox, as governor. Un- der Archdale the influence of the Quakers reached its climax. They not only had the governor, but also gained control of the courts, the Council, and the Assembly, for, as Doctor Weeks says, "There was a material reward for being a Quak- er, and Churchmen and others who thus found it to their in-
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terest deserted their own creeds to enroll themselves among the Friends." 1
Though the Quakers were the most influential religious body in the colony, there were other bodies of Dissenters who were not so well organized. Rev. John Blair, a missionary of the Church, writing in 1704, declared that according to re- ligious preferences, the people of the colony fell into four classes : (1) the Quakers, who "stand truly to one another in whatsoever may be to their interest"; (2) "a great many who have no religion, but would be Quakers if by that they were not obliged to lead a more moral life than they are willing to comply to"; (3) a class "something like Presby- terians," whose leaders "preach and baptize through the country, without any manner of orders from any sect or pre- tended Church"; and (4) Churchmen, "who are really zeal- ous for the interest of the Church, [but] are the fewest in number." Under the leadership of the Quakers, who, says Blair, "are the most powerful enemies to Church govern- ment," the first three classes had united "in one common cause to prevent any thing that will be chargeable to them, as they allege the Church government will be, if once estab- lished by law," and against this combination the Church party had been unable to make any headway.
For this situation the Church had only herself to blame. The elaborate organization provided for in the Fundamental Constitutions existed in theory only; no parishes had been laid off, no churches erected, no tithes levied, and no minister had been sent to the colony. Governor Walker wrote to the Bishop of London, within whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction all the American colonies lay, that for fifty years the colony had been "without priest or altar," adding: "George Fox, some years ago, came into these parts, and, by strange infatuations, did infuse the Quakers' principles into some small number of the people; which did and hath continued to grow ever since very numerous, by reason of their yearly sending in men to encourage and exhort them to their wicked principles ; and there was none to dispute nor to oppose them in carrying on their pernicious principles for many years." At last, in 1700, the Church in England, aroused to a show of interest in the welfare of her scattered flock in Carolina, sent out a cler- gyman, Rev. Daniel Brett, to that colony. This sudden in- terest, however, proved more disastrous than the long neglect
1 The Religious Development in the Province of North Carolina, p. 33. (J. H. U. Studies, 10th Series, Nos. V-VI.)
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which had preceded it for Brett turned out to be "ye Monster of ye Age." His conduct in North Carolina was so shameful that it wrung from Governor Walker, a zealous Churchman, a bitter cry of protest to the Bishop of London. "It hath been a great trouble and grief to us who have a great venera- tion for the Church," he wrote, "that the first minister who was sent to us should prove so ill as to give the Dissenters so much occasion to charge us with him."
The Church party needed a leader who could unite and organize its scattered forces. This leader was found in Gov- ernor Walker who, upon assuming his duties as governor in 1699, resolved to devote his best energies to the task of se- curing the necessary legislation for the support of an estab- lishment. Success crowned his efforts in 1701 when the Church party, under his leadership, by "a great deal of care and management," secured control of the Assembly which passed the first vestry act in the history of the colony. This act provided for the organization of vestries, the laying off of parishes, the erection of churches, the maintenance of a clergy, and the levy and collection of a poll tax for these pur- poses. Elated at their success, the Churchmen of the prov- ince began at once to carry the act into execution, and within the next two years erected three churches. The first parish organized in the colony was the Chowan Parish, afterwards known as St. Paul's. Its vestry met for organization Decem- ber 15, 1701, and has had a continuous existence since that date. "It is not only the oldest organized religious body in the State," observes Bishop Cheshire, "it is the oldest cor- poration of any kind in North Carolina." 2 The activity of the Churchmen aroused a determined opposition. Those who opposed an establishment on principle allied themselves with those who merely objected to the new taxes to overthrow the Church party and repeal the obnoxious act. "We have an Assembly to sit the 3d November next," wrote Walker to the Bishop of London, in October, 1703, "and there is above one half of the burgesses that are chosen that are Quakers, and have declared their designs of making void the act for estab- lishing the Church." In this, however, they were anticipated by the Lords Proprietors themselves who returned the act with their disapproval because of the inadequacy of the sup- port provided for clergymen.
The ground on which the Lords Proprietors based their
2 "How Our Church Came to North Carolina" in The Spirit of Missions, Vol. LXXXIII, No. 5, p. 350.
ST. PAUL'S CHURCH AT EDENTON
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veto indicated that the struggle had just begun and both parties prepared themselves for it. Two new influences entered the contest in the Church party's favor. One was a new gov- ernor, the other the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Lord John Granville, palatine and zealous Churchman, about this time determined on a more vigorous policy with regard to the Church in Carolina and issued posi- tive instructions to the governor-general, Sir Nathaniel John- son, to secure whatever legislation was necessary. Sir Na- thaniel undertook to direct personally the fight in South Caro- lina, while in the summer of 1703 he superseded Walker as deputy-governor of North Carolina with Col. Robert Daniel of South Carolina. It was an unfortunate change. While Walker was a zealous Churchman, he was also a patriotic citi- zen and was greatly concerned for the welfare of the province; and although he had earnestly favored the act of 1701, he had done so in such a way as to arouse as little friction and strife as possible; compared with what was to follow he had given to the colony, as the inscription on his tombstone justly claims, "that tranquillity which it is to be wished it may never want." Daniel was also a zealous Churchman, but his zeal ran into bigotry, and he was ruthless and unscrupulous in his methods. Coincident with his appointment, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, recently organized in England, sent its first missionary, Rev. John Blair, to North Carolina. The two events were part of the . same scheme for pushing the Establishment. Blair reached North Carolina in January, 1704, and although he remained here only a few months his presence was not without in- fluence on the situation. It helped to bring out clearly the views of every public man in the colony and to array him on one side or the other; it solidified the Dissenters and their sympathizers and united and encouraged the Churchmen for the struggle which all knew was at hand.
Daniel had been instructed to secure the establishment of the Church in North Carolina, and Blair had come to the col- ony expecting to find those instructions already enacted into law. But in the Assembly of November, 1703, the first to meet after Daniel's arrival, the Quakers as we have seen were in the majority, and in the March Assembly, 1704, which Blair expected "would propose a settlement of my [his] main- tenance," they still were "the greatest number" and unani- mously resolved "to prevent any such law passing." The only hope of the Church party, therefore, was to find some means of purging the General Assembly of its Quaker mem-
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bers; but this seemed so improbable that Blair gave up in despair and withdrew from his mission. Governor Daniel, however, was determined and fertile in resources; and he soon found a weapon suitable for his purpose. This weapon was the act of Parliament of 1702, which settled the oath of allegiance to Queen Anne who had recently come to the throne. It was nothing more than the usual oath which any good Protestant could take, but as the Quakers would take no oath, their scruples had always been respected in North Carolina. In the new oath, which did not reach North Carolina until the summer of 1704, Daniel saw the weapon he was looking for and resolved to require all officials to take it before enter- ing upon their offices. The Quakers, as he anticipated, de- clined, and the governor accordingly refused to permit them to take their seats in the courts, the Council, and the Assem- bly. The expulsion of the Quakers left the Church party in control of the government, and by a majority of "one or two votes" that party put through the Assembly a second vestry act. To make assurance doubly sure, by preventing the return of the Quakers to power, the same Assembly pro- vided an oath of office, without making any exception for Quakers, which all officials and members of the Assembly must take in the future. But the Quakers were not helpless. The other Dissenters rallied to their support; and it seems certain that some influential Churchmen, either because they were opposed to an establishment, or because they resented Daniel's highhanded methods, also came to their assistance. Complaints against Daniel were sent to Sir Nathaniel John- son, accompanied by a petition for his removal; and Sir Na- thaniel, who was involved in a bitter fight over the same ques- tion in South Carolina, thought it wise to comply with the North Carolina petition. He removed Daniel and sent Thomas Cary to succeed him.
Cary had long been prominent in the affairs of South Car- olina. Although he had been implicated in a rebellion in that province, this offense was more than counter-balanced in the eyes of Governor Johnson by the fact that he was one of the governor's bondsmen. Restless, ambitious, without settled political principles, he knew no rule of action in politics ex- cept to support the party which could best advance liis own fortunes. Since Cary's chief had so promptly removed Daniel upon complaint of the Quakers, members of that party at once jumped to the conclusion that Cary would espouse their cause, and they accepted his appointment as a signal for a renewal of their political activities. Great was their wrath,
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therefore, when they found in him a more serious obstacle than Daniel himself had been. Coming into North Carolina with an eye to his own interests, Cary found the Church party strongly entrenched in power and promptly aligned himself with it. He not only repudiated the claims of the Quakers and dismissed them from office upon their refusal to take the oaths, but prevailed upon the Assembly to pass an act imposing a heavy fine upon any person who should presume to perform an official duty without taking the required oaths, or who should promote his own election to any office. Exasperated by this unexpected turn of affairs, the Quakers and their al- lies determined to carry their case directly to the Lords Pro- prietors, and in 1706 they sent John Porter to England to seek a redress of their grievances.
Porter was successful in his mission. Through the influ- ence of John Archdale, he obtained from the Lords Propri- etors an order suspending the authority of Sir Nathaniel Johnson in North Carolina, removing Cary, naming five new deputies, and authorizing the Council to elect a president who should perform the duties of governor. Returning to North Carolina in October, 1707, armed with this order, Porter found Cary absent and William Glover temporarily adminis- tering the government. Since Glover's administration seemed to be giving satisfaction, Porter determined not to disturb it; he, therefore, called together the newly appointed deputies and induced them to elect Glover president of the Council. Though the commission under which he acted required the presence of Cary and the former deputies to make this elec- tion legal, Porter concealed this fact from the deputies as well as from Glover; and later when he found that he could not dictate the latter's policy, he pleaded the illegality of Glover's election to justify himself in forcing his removal from office. Porter's apologists have not been able to discern in his conduct anything more than a shrewd political move, but less partial critics will doubtless think it deserving of a severer condemnation.3 However reprehensible, measured by modern ideals, the policy of the Church party may have been, the actions of its leaders throughout these controversies had been open and above board: on the other hand concealment and dissimulation characterized Porter's conduct in this af- fair and it cannot be justified by any standard of political ethics that places the public welfare above a partisan tri-
.
3 Weeks: The Religious Development in the Province of North Carolina, p. 56.
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umph. Not only did Porter induce the newly appointed depu- ties, by concealing from them their lack of legal power to act, to choose Glover as president, he himself later joined such of the former deputies as were retained by the new commission from the Lords Proprietors, including Thomas Cary, in an official proclamation calling upon the people to render to Glover that obedience which was due to him as governor of the province.
Porter, however, soon discovered that he could not con- trol Glover. When the newly appointed Quaker deputies ap- peared to take their seats in the Council, Glover tendered them the prescribed oaths and upon their declining to take them, refused to admit them to their seats. The old quarrel flared up with renewed bitterness. Fuel was added to the flame by the recent arrival in the colony of two missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the pros- pect of a revival of the activities of the Church party in- creased the alarm of the Dissenters, who now felt justified in resorting to violent measures to protect their interests. Ac- cordingly Porter summoned both the old and the new depu- ties, informed them of the alleged defect in Glover's title to his office, and over the protest of Glover induced them to de- clare his election illegal and void. In the meantime the Quaker party had gained a new recruit. When Cary saw how the tide was running, he deserted the Church party and went over, bag and baggage, to its opponents. He and Porter struck a bargain as a result of which Cary was chosen president "by the votes of the very same Councillors who had before chosen Mr. Glover, and all this by virtue of that very same commis- sion which removed him [Cary] from the government." Glov- er refused to yield; both sides took up arms; blood was shed and the colony reduced to the verge of civil war.
However, better counsels prevailed and the contending factions agreed to submit their claims to an Assembly. At once a new complication arose: by whose writ could an elec- tion be legally held? To answer this question was to decide the dispute; accordingly both Glover and Cary issued writs and the election was held amid bitter strife and tumult. When the Assembly met, October 11, 1708, both the Glover set of councillors and the Cary set appeared each claiming the right to be recognized as the upper house of the Assembly. An amusing side-light on this curious situation is found in the action of former Deputy-Governor Daniel. As a landgrave, one of the ranks of nobility under the Fundamental Constitu- tions, he was entitled to sit in the Council ; but unable to decide
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which was the true and lawful Council, an l fearful of making a mistake, he sat first with one group and then with the other, "and," as one historian facetiously remarks, "was equally uncomfortable with both."+ Glover refused to recognize the newly appointed Quaker deputies because they declined to take the required oaths. But in the election of assemblymen, the Cary party had carried the colony, and they proceeded at once to organize the lower house regardless of Glover's pro- tests.
The Cary party organized the Assembly by the election of Edward Moseley as speaker. This election was the beginning of the most remarkable career in our colonial history. For forty years Moseley's biography is practically the history of North Carolina, so varied were his activities and so deeply did he impress his personality on his times. His was that sort of character toward which men cannot be neutral. Those who did not hate him adored him. The explanation of this fact is found not merely in the forcefulness of his personality, but also in the contradictions of his life and career. An aris- tocrat by nature, he was a democrat by convictions and in practice. Often an official of the Lords Proprietors and later of the Crown, he firmly resisted all encroachments on the rights of the people. Possessed of vast estates, of many slaves, and of great wealth, he lived in great simplicity and was genuinely sympathetic with the poor and the unfortunate. A devoted Churchman, he steadfastly espoused the cause of the Dissenters in their fight against an establishment. His en- emies while condemning his character could not withhold their admiration of his abilities. The Virginia boundary-line com- missioners in 1710, who could find no terms too strong for denouncing his motives, at the same time could not refrain from testifying to "the subtlety [in debate] whereof he is Master"; and Governor Burrington, his uncompromising foe, while admitting that Moseley was "a person of sufficient ability" to be public treasurer, wished that his "integrity was equal to his ability." The denunciations of his enemies no less than the eulogies of his friends reveal the dynamics inherent in the man. He had, as has been well said, the bold- ness of thought and of action that people admire in their leaders; the common sense and self-poise on which people rely in troublous times; and the honesty of purpose which, regardless of his own interests, made it impossible for him to wink at the usurpations of authority. An active man of
4 Hill, D. H .: Young People's History of North Carolina, p. 75.
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affairs, he was also a student and a lover of learning; his pri- vate library, which late in life he gave to the town of Eden- ton as a foundation for a public library, contained a large collection of books on law, theology, history, and general lit- erature. Looking beneath the surface of the tumult and strife in which his life was largely passed; putting to the acid test of impartial history the hasty and prejudiced judgment of his contemporaries; studying his career in the light of subse- quent developments, one is prepared to accept the verdict of the careful historian who says of Edward Moseley: "it was not necessary for him 'to usurp a patriot's all-atoning name,' for he seems to have sincerely loved his adopted colony, and to have served it with the steadfast purpose of making it a home fit for free men." 5
Such was the man whom the Cary party in the first flush of their triumph elevated to the leadership of the General Assembly. The victors were not disposed to show the van- quished much consideration. They brushed aside the claims of the contesting Glover delegations ; passed an act nullifying the test oaths; recognized the Cary councillors as the upper house; and declared Cary president of the Council and ex- officio governor. Against these actions Glover protested. He declared first, that members returned under Cary's writ could not constitute a lawful Assembly because Cary, not being president of the Council, had no authority to issue a writ; and, secondly, that even if legally elected they could not sit as assemblymen until they had taken the oaths required by law, which, of course, the Quaker members had not done. It was, he declared, "a betraying of the trust reposed in the Lords Proprietors by the Crown, to submit the determinations of the Government to any number of men howsoever chosen and delegated, though by the unanimous voice of the whole coun- trys Except such persons shall first acknowledge their al- legiance to the Queen, which both the Common Law and the Statute Law requires to be done by an oath : with which Law the Queen hath not, and the Lords Proprietors can not dis- pence." This protest was addressed "To the Gentlemen met and pretending themselves to be the House of Burgesses." Glover unquestionably had the better of the legal argument; but Cary had the votes and his Assembly returned Glover's protest to him with the curt statement "that they would not concern themselves in that matter." Glover, seeing that he
5 Hill, D. H .: Edward Moseley: Character Sketch. (North Car- olina Booklet, Vol. V, No. 3, p. 205.)
Porth Carolina25.
IV. D. FOUR PENCE Proclamation Mony according to act of afsembly payed the 4 of april 1748
un Marked 6. Mareley
1 Pence
2
dam Swann
COLONIAL CURRENCY Showing autograph of Edward Moseley
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had lost his fight, wisely abandoned the field and beat a stra- tegic retreat into Virginia, leaving Cary in possession of the government and the colony in confusion.
This condition continued for nearly two years before the Lords Proprietors decided to interfere. Finally in 1710 they sent out Edward Hyde, a near kinsman of the queen, as deputy-governor. Hyde arrived in Virginia in August ex- pecting to receive there his commission from Edward Tynte of Charleston, who had succeeded Sir Nathaniel Johnson as governor of Carolina. But before Hyde's arrival Governor Tynte had died without having made out Hyde's commission and although Hyde had in his possession private letters that confirmed his appointment, without a commission he could not legally take over the government. This technical defect in his title, the Gloverites, in their eagerness to dispossess Cary, were willing to overlook, while Cary and his immediate sup- porters, whatever may have been their personal sentiments, were over-awed by the evident desire of the people for the res- toration of peace and harmony and by the "awefull respect" felt for Hyde on account of his family connections. Accord- ingly all who could pretend to any right to a voice in the mat- ter, including Cary himself, joined in a petition to Hyde to assume the duties of president of the Council until his com- mission should arrive from the Lords Proprietors, and Hyde promptly complied with their request. In the meantime the Lords Proprietors had decided, December 7, 1710, to appoint a governor of North Carolina "independent of the Governour of South Carolina," and had nominated Hyde for that dig- nity; but as a recent act of Parliament required the assent of the Crown to appointments of governors of proprietary colo- nies, a full year passed before all the formalities were finally completed. Hyde's commission as the first governor of North Carolina, therefore, was not issued until January 24, 1712; he opened it and qualified before the Council May 9th. Henceforth the governments of North Carolina and Southi Carolina were separate and distinct.
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