USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Federal Period 1783-1860, Volume II > Part 12
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The test of years soon revealed serious defects. Among these was the absence of a strong, independent executive, a weakness caused by the dependence of the executive on the legislature. William Hooper is reported to have said that "the governor was given just enough power to receipt for his salary and even this was left in the hands of the General Assembly." Annual elections brought forth many candidates ; the dead lock and the dark horse were the result. Said Mr. Speight in 1835: "No member knows until he gets to Raleigh who will be the candidate for that office. Sometimes three or four candidates will be run and so many days spent without either obtaining a majority; and then probably by some arrangement among the members one of the lower candidates in the former ballotings may be elected." 1 A greater evil was the annual term which gave the governor no time to initiate
1 Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of North Carolina, p. 334.
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ideas or to formulate a constructive policy. The result was that the office of governor was too often sought as a stepping stone to higher honors. Says a pamphlet of 1833: "Is the office of governor oftener coveted for its own sake or a step- ping stone to other stations of preferment in the gift of the legislature? Does it comport with the dignity of the office that the incumbent shall be forced to win it by personal elec- tioneering among the members of the Assembly ?'' 2
There were also evils in the legislative system. The Consti- tution did not fix the time of sessions; custom made them annual. The result was all the evils of over-legislation. The law became diffuse, obscure, and uncertain. Statutes whose value was questionable were often enacted with the intent of repealing them the next year if they proved unsatisfactory. There were thus frequent changes in the law, and, as roads and mail service were poor, the knowledge of a statute often barely reached the people before it was repealed or super- seded by another. The scope of legislative action was also very wide. Many of the present-day duties of local government and the courts were performed by the General Assembly. Among these were the opening of roads, the construction of bridges, the granting of divorces, and the legitimization of children. Here was an opportunity for the local Solons. De- siring fame or re-election, they introduced many bills of a purely local nature which were often modified or repealed to meet the demand of popular opinion. There was a strong tendency for local legislation to occupy most of the time of the General Assembly. The session of 1833 may be taken as an example. It lasted nearly three months, enacted thirty-two public laws, one hundred and fifty-five private acts, and fifty resolutions. Such a record caused criticism in all parts of the state.
Besides producing inefficiency in the law, annual sessions were the cause of increasing expense. As new counties were formed, the number of members increased. Thus in 1776 there were only thirty-six counties which, together with the boroughs, elected 114 senators and representatives; in 1833
2 Address to the Freemen of North Carolina, etc., p. 8.
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the counties had increased to sixty-four and the number of legislators to 199. Moreover as membership expanded, there was a tendency for the sessions to become longer. The ex- pense of legislation therefore increased. In the early years of statehood the annual expense of the legislature was $15,000; by 1830 it had increased to $40,000. Under the existing con- dition of the finances this was a burden. In 1833 the treasurer estimated the total expense of the state government at $160,- 000, the available resources at $140,000, and the largest single item, the cost of the legislature, at $42,000.
In addition to these larger constitutional issues, there was also a demand for minor reforms-such as equalization of the poll tax among whites and blacks, prohibiting members of the legislature from holding office under both state and federal governments, and shortening the term of office of the attor- ney general from life to a number of years. Equally impor- tant in the agitation for reform were certain political and social issues,-borough representation, religious disabilities for office-holding, and free-negro suffrage.
Of these institutions and customs, borough representa- tion was by far the oldest. It illustrates the transfer of British institutions to Carolina. The Charter of 1663 authorized the Lords Proprietors to give "letters patent of incorporation with all liberties, franchises, and privileges requisite and use- ful within this our kingdom of England, granted or belong- ing." As there was neither vigorous commercial life nor dis- tinct economic interest to be specially guarded during the colonial period, the only reason for establishing boroughs was to encourage town life and to perpetuate British institutions. Nine boroughs were incorporated, viz .: Newbern, Bath, Eden- ton, Wilmington, Brunswick, Halifax, Salisbury, Hillsboro, and Campbelton. In these suffrage was limited to freeholders or householders, and representation to freeliolders. By 1776 there was a widespread discontent with the borough franchise. and in the Constitution the franchises of Bath, Brunswick and Campbelton were not perpetuated ; but, as a concession to com- merce, the privileges of Newbern, Wilmington, Halifax and Edenton were continued. However, these were eastern boroughs; to conciliate the west the franchises of Hillsboro
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and Salisbury were also preserved; and in 1789 the conven- tion which ratified the Federal Constitution revived the fran- chise of Campbelton, changing the name of the borough to Fayetteville.
By 1835 there was a strong feeling that borough franchise must go. For this there were several reasons. One was the general decline among the eastern boroughs. Their commerce did not flourish and their population did not increase. In the convention of 1835 this criticism was well stated by Mr. Wilson of Perquimans, an easterner: "If it be true that this right of representation is essential to the protection of their interests, why has not the fostering care of the legislature for more than fifty years been able to prevent them from sinking into ruin? Halifax, sir, is gone; Edenton is gone, and Newbern is not far behind but, sir, it is said that there are mysteries about this trade and commerce that only mercantile gentle- men can understand. Why, then, sir, do they not send here merchants instead of lawyers or doctors ?" 3 Of more weight than this were the violence and abuses in the borough elections. Said Mr. Smith, of Hillsboro: "Has the moral condition of the borough towns been improved by the privilege which they possess of sending members to the legislature? On the con- trary, the annual elections, it is notorious, in most of the towns are productive of feuds, quarrels, and bloodshed. Mechanics and others are excited by the parties interested in such elec- tions, business is neglected, and the morals of the people are corrupted." 4 Similar criticisms were made by delegates from Halifax and Wilmington.
The provisions of the Constitution regarding religion were no more satisfactory than borough representation. While they had no large place in the agitation for reform, they illus- trate some of the prejudices of the past and the inadequacy of the Constitution for actual conditions. Three principles were fixed in 1776; that there should be no established reli- gion, that no minister of the gospel while in the active dis- charge of his pastoral duties should be a member of the legis- lature or the council of state, and that no one who denied the
3 Proceedings and Debates, pp. 34-35.
4 Ibid., 36.
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"being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority of either the Old or the New Testament, or who shall hold Religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State," should hold office or position of trust. The sources and meaning of these clauses are not uniformly clear. The prohibition of an established church is natural in the light of the ecclesiastical controversies of the colonial period; but the disability of clergymen while in the active discharge of their duties is peculiar, as Dr. David Cald- well was a member of the Congress which framed the Consti- tution and other clergymen did much for the Revolutionary cause. A similar provision in the constitution of Delaware suggests that the restriction was the result of general ideas rather than a particular grievance. The denial of the Protest- ant religion or the divine authority of the Old and New Testament as a disability is at least vague. Did it contemplate the establishment of a test oath? What was meant by the term Protestant religion ?
The prohibition of an established church never raised any question, but the application of the other two clauses was sometimes a source of irritation. As the Constitution did not state when a minister should be considered in the discharge of his pastoral duties, the way was left open for a conflict be- tween a political and an ecclesiastical interpretation thereof. In 1801 John Culpepper and William Taylor were expelled from the State Senate because of their ministerial activities; Culpepper then entered federal politics and was elected to Congress. In 1820 Rev. Josiah Crudup, Baptist, was found to be a "regular ordained minister," preaching the gospel, ad- ministering baptism, and performing the marriage ceremony, and it was therefore recommended that his seat in the Senate be vacated. Mr. Crudup's defense was that no Baptist min- ister was a pastor until he became the head of a congregation, and such he had never been, that he had never received money for his services, and that he had not performed any religious sacraments since his election. But the view prevailed that any ordained minister was in a pastoral function, and his seat was vacated. Like Culpepper, Mr. Crudup turned to federal poli- tics, was elected to Congress in 1821 from the Eighth Dis- Vol. II-10
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trict, and served one term. He was succeeded by Willie P. Mangum, but in 1825 he opposed Mangum's re-election. Man- gum won by a vote of fifty-six, and is reported to have con- sidered Crudup the most formidable opponent he had ever known.
The denial of religious ideas as a disability was never put into practice. Catholics, free thinkers, and Jews held offices of honor as well as Protestants. But there was prejudice against all non-Protestants, especially against non-Christians, and there were some attempts to use this prejudice for politi- cal purposes. A notable case was that of Joseph Henry, a Jew, who was elected to the House of Commons from Carteret County in 1808. The following year a resolution was pre- sented that he was not entitled to a seat because he denied the divine authority of the New Testament. After a long debate, in which Mr. Henry made a speech that was widely circulated, the resolution was rejected. Thus toleration triumphed when it was pitted against persecution. But by 1835 disabilities based on religious conviction had become entirely ineffective, for in 1834 William Gaston, a Catholic, was elected to the Supreme Court. The contrast between the theory of the Constitution and political custom was apparent to all. It did much to spread a conviction that the Constitution was not per- fect, and the revision of the thirty-second article was therefore undertaken.
The question of free negro suffrage was peculiar. Its origin is obscure, evidently due to that clause in the Constitu- tion which gave all free men the right to vote for members of the House of Commons. Individual free negroes attained eminence in religious and industrial life. But by 1830 there was a movement to restrict the liberties of free men of color, and the question of denying them the suffrage was naturally injected into the movement for constitutional reform, although there was no distinct agitation of the matter.
By all odds the greatest issue in the movement for con -. stitutional revision was that of local sectionalism and eco- nomic reform. The cleavage between the eastern and western counties,. so apparent in the days of the Regulation, still existed. An irregular line, including the present eastern
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boundary of Granville, and extending thence along the western boundaries of Wake, Harnett, Cumberland, and Scotland counties, divided the state into two factions. The counties to the east were more numerous, and as the Constitution appor- tioned representation equally, two representatives and one senator to each county, they had a majority in the legislature. This supremacy became unjust in the light of economic condi- tions. The average size of the western counties was greater than that of the eastern, their resources were larger, their development more rapid. Population, outlined in the follow- ing table, illustrates the inequality.
West Increase Per Ct.
East Increase Per Ct.
1790
159,752
234,297
1800
219,904
60,152
37510
258,179
23,882
103/10
1810
263,219
43,315
197/10
292,280
34,101
13210
1820
. 308,139
44,920
171/10
330,690
38,410 131/10
1830
374,092
65,953
214/10
363,896
33,206
10
These figures show that at each decade there was a larger increase in population in the west than in the east until in 1830 the west surpassed the east. Moreover, between 1820 and 1830 there was a decline of population in three eastern counties. In defence the east pointed to its larger wealth, for its taxes were greater than those paid by the west.
However, if representation be viewed from the interests of the state at large, it was clearly unjust. According to the assessment of 1815 eight counties, eastern and western, (Gates, Columbus, Lenoir, Ashe, Haywood, Perquimons, Pas- quotank, and Tyrrell) had a total land value less than Rowan, a large western county, or Halifax, a large eastern county ; yet these eight counties chose sixteen representatives, Rowan and. Halifax four each (boroughs included). By the assess- ment of 1833 thirty-three of the sixty-four counties con- tributed less than one-third of the state's revenue; forty did not pay taxes enough to cover their cost to the state, yet they had a majority in the legislature. Indeed there were twenty-four counties whose aggregate expenses more than doubled their public taxes. There were twenty that did not
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
pay into the treasury enough to meet the expenses of their representatives in the legislature; twelve paid an aggregate state tax of $5,400, while the expenses of their representatives averaged $8,000 per annum. Population from this state-wide view showed similar results. In 1820 twelve small counties sent thirty-six members to the assembly; Rowan and Orange, two western counties, sent six, but the population of the two groups was approximately equal. In 1833 thirty-three coun- ties, with little more than one-third of the total population, sent ninety-nine members, but on the basis of white popula- tion they had larger representation than thirty-one counties with more than two-thirds of the white population.
One remedy for this inequality was to increase the number of western representatives by dividing the large counties. But the east was opposed to any reduction of its political power, and the organization of new western counties was usually fol- lowed by an increase in the east. From 1776 to 1833 eighteen counties were organized in the west, while fifteen were formed in the east. This small gain of three counties was by no means strong enough to overthrow the sectional majority. As time passed the organization of new western counties became more and more difficult, because the territory available for corre- sponding counties in the east was gradually exhausted. As- tuteness on the part of western leaders was always necessary to secure the organization of a new county. A favorite method to secure eastern votes was to name the new counties for eastern leaders; thus Burke, Caswell, Iredell, Ashe, Moore, and Macon were named for active eastern men, and Buncombe, Stanly, and Davie for deceased leaders of the east. How acute was the sectional hostility to new counties is illustrated by events in 1822 and 1823. A bill was introduced and passed to create the new County of Davidson during the session of 1822; the next year every eastern man who voted for it failed to be re-elected. Among these was Ex-Governor Miller, of Warren, who was defeated by Gen. M. T. Hawkins, on the ground that a new western county endangered the interests of the east and placed the Constitution of the state in jeop- ardy.
As the creation of new western counties was checked, the
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
only hope for a more equitable representation of the west lay in the revision of the Constitution by a convention. The agi- tation for reform is almost as old as statehood itself. Much of the literature relating to it has been lost; but the perspec- tive of years outlines distinctly certain landmarks.
First of these was in 1787. Eleven years had passed since equal representation had been embodied in the State Constitu- tion. The great question of ratifying the Federal Constitu- tion was now before the people. On the legislature devolved the duty of summoning a convention to consider federal rela- tions. In the Senate a group of members hoped to refer to the convention the question of local constitutional reform. Indeed they were able to carry a resolution for a joint committee to investigate the changes that were needed and to report to the convention, but the measure was lost in the Commons. The reforms specified were a change in the system of representa- tion and less frequent sessions of the legislature. Later authorities state that members of the legislature, who had been members of the Convention of 1776 which framed the Con- stitution, with one exception favored the resolutions looking to reform and that their rejection was due to the representa- tives from the seven trans-montane counties that soon became a part of Tennessee. Was this a log-roll by which the far western counties were promised the aid of the east in the move- ment for separation in return for votes against reform? In spite of failure in the legislature, the reform proposition was brought up in the convention of 1788; again it was defeated, according to tradition, by the votes of the trans-montane counties.
No sooner was the issue of ratification of the Federal Con- stitution settled in 1789 than the question of reform again appeared. In 1790 a committee of investigation was appointed in the Commons, but there was so much lack of agreement among its members that no plan of action was recommended. At almost every session for a number of years there were resolutions and debates on reform. The sectional issue even influenced the location of the capital. The convention of 1788 authorized the General Assembly to select a permanent seat of government within ten miles of the Hunter plantation in Wake
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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA
County. But the instruction was not carried out because the Cape Fear and western members favored Fayetteville. In 1790 a bill to carry out the instruction was carried in the Com- mons by the deciding vote of the Speaker, Stephen Cabarrus, an eastern man, but was rejected in the Senate by the casting vote of its Speaker, Wm. L. Lenoir, a western leader. The next session of the legislature was then ordered to meet at Newbern; there the eastern influences were strong enough to pass a bill locating the capital in Wake. Tradition says that the success of the east was due to the votes of the trans-mon- tane counties; was this also a log-roll?
The controversy over the capital lends interest to an effort for reform in 1808, when Jesse A. Pearson of Rowan intro- duced the following resolution in the Senate:
"Whereas representation should bear an equal ratio with taxation and population, whereas frequent sessions are un- necessary and expensive, whereas public interest and com- merce would be promoted by removal of the Seat of Govern- ment from Raleigh to Fayetteville, resolved that a law be made for calling a convention," etc.
This resolution in so far as it coupled removal of the capi- tal with constitutional reform was no more than a threat, for it was not introduced until the last day of the session. It was laid on the table, but it forecasts the effort to unite the issues of a new capital and that of reform, which marked the agita- tion of 1832.
The next aggressive action was in 1811. John Reid, sena- tor from Lincoln County, introduced comprehensive resolu- tions which provided for biennial sessions and elections, and the apportionment of representation in the Senate according to districts and in the House of Commons according to coun- ties. The Senate sent a message to the House advising that the resolutions be printed, which was agreed to. Yet in spite of this auspicious opening and Mr. Reid's able argument, the Senate, on December 6th, rejected the resolutions by a large majority.
Five years later, in 1816, the cause of reform received its first able literary expression. The militia officers of Ruther- ford County petitioned the Senate on the constitutional ques-
1
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tion. Their memorial was referred to a committee of which Archibald DeBow Murphey was chairman. Its report, written in the unmistakable style of Murphey, was a dignified state- ment of principles as well as needs.
Another effort toward reform was made in the Senate of 1819 by Duncan Cameron. For three days his resolutions, which called for the popular election of the governor and sheriffs, biennial sessions, revision of representation and the submission of the convention question to the people, were de- bated; by a vote of thirty-six nays to thirty-two yeas they were defeated. Similar resolutions introduced into the Commons by Mr. Mangum were also rejected. The following year John A. Cameron of Fayetteville submitted a resolution in the Com- mons for a convention, which was postponed indefinitely. Then in 1821 Charles Fisher of Salisbury introduced resolu- tions in the Commons that representation should be appor- tioned according to free white population and taxes; these were rejected by the large vote of eighty-one to forty-seven.
The agitation from 1819 to 1821 was very intense. A later authority says the whole state was convulsed from mountains to sea. Finding their efforts for reform of no avail, the leaders of the movement decided to appeal directly to the people. A caucus of western senators and representatives was held during the last days of the legislative session of 1822. A popular convention, to meet at Raleigh in the following November, was deemed the best way of crystallizing public sentiment. An election of delegates was recommended, and to conduct the campaign a general committee of correspondence was appointed, and the members of the legislature were au- thorized to appoint local committees in their respective coun- ties. An address to the people was drawn up, of which 10,000 copies were ordered to be printed.
Twenty-four out of twenty-six counties appealed to re- sponded by sending forty-seven delegates to Raleigh on No- vember 10, 1823, just ten days before the meeting of the General Assembly. General Montford Stokes was elected president. The work of the convention was done by three committees ; one which examined the condition of population and taxes, one which drafted amendments to the Constitution,
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and one which formed a plan submitting the proposed reforms to the people. . The reports of these committees reveal a cleavage among the leaders of the reform movement. In the committee on amendments the delegates from the extreme west, where there were few slaves, favored free white popula- tion as the basis of representation, while those from the central west, where slaves were more numerous, desired that federal numbers, whites and three-fifths of the blacks, be made the basis. The plan of the central counties prevailed, the com- mittee recommending that 4,000 federal population be made the unit of representation in the Commons and 10,000 in the Senate. Adopting federal numbers not only alienated the extreme west; it also robbed the convention of all claim to be a popular movement, for the committee on population and taxes showed that on the basis of federal numbers the body represented 272,431 people, 11,833 less than the unrepresented population; while on the basis of white population 233,333 were represented, a majority of 33,954. The same committee also found that the taxes of the represented counties were nearly $10,000 less than those of the unrepresented counties. Clearly, unless white population were adopted as the basis of representation, the convention itself was not a representative body. Moreover, its proposed adoption of federal numbers would be of little benefit to the extreme west; it would merely unite the central slave-holding counties and the east, and thus block all future efforts at reform. Yet the proposed amend- ments were adopted by the convention. According to the report of the committee on submitting reforms to the people, the issues were to be voted on at the next general election, when delegates should also be chosen for a second convention, on the basis of federal numbers.
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