USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Federal Period 1783-1860, Volume II > Part 24
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on land, property in land became a more obvious sign of wealth. Moreover capital came to be invested in other forms of property; especially after 1830 did factories and small shops multiply, each having its landless workers or owners. The same fact also held true of the professional class. Thus there was an increasing number of citizens without property in land who were deprived of the senatorial suffrage. Here was the possibility of a new issue. It was broached in 1842 when a mass meeting in Kinston protested against the free- hold requirements and Green W. Caldwell raised the question in the succeeding legislature, but without results.
Thus the matter rested until the campaign of 1848. The democrats nominated for governor David S. Reid, of Rock- ingham County, a young man thirty-four years old, who had seen two terms in Congress and several years in the legisla- ture. The platform was of the perfunctory type, endorsing the Polk administration and condemning certain state pol- icies of the whigs and also their attitude toward the Mexican War. When Mr. Reid, who was not a member of the dem- ocratic state convention, heard of his nomination, he de- clined to accept. Holden, editor of the Standard, a member of the democratic state executive committee, was on the point of publishing the letter of declination, but was per- suaded by one Julian Wheedon to delay for a week. Holden then consulted other democrats in Raleigh and it was decided to send a special message to Mr. Reid, urging him not to decline but to come to Raleigh immediately and open the cam- paign. The proposed consultation was eventually held, those present being Holden, Reid, James B. Shepard, Perrin Busbee, and a few other democratic leaders. To them Mr. Reid presented the question of manhood suffrage in senator- ial elections.
"Gentlemen," he said, "this nomination was not sought by me, and it has been my purpose for a long time if I should be a candidate for a state office before the public, to broach one issue, which I deem very important. What I mean is that the state constitution shall be so amended by the mode pre- scribed by that instrument itself, that all voters of the House of Commons shall be allowed to vote for senators. I mean, of Vol. II-19
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DAVID S. REID
GOV. CHARLES MANLY
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course, no disrespect to the convention that nominated me, but I wish to discuss the question before the people. I want your opinion."
According to tradition, those present were divided; Shep- ard, for instance, is said to have advised against raising the issue, and Holden to have favored it. Mr. Reid, after con- sulting other politicians in Goldsboro and Newbern, found his conviction strengthened and he presented the issue in a joint debate with Manly, the whig candidate, at Beaufort, on May 10. Manly, taken unaware, asked a day to consider, and at Newbern his reply was against widening the suffrage. The ground of his opposition was the necessity of protect- ing property interests, also that the proposed reform would destroy the symmetry of the constitution, which made prop- erty the basis of representation in the Senate and population in the House of Commons. But the issue took like wildfire. Although Manly was elected, his majority was only 864. In the legislature of 1848, which was equally divided between both parties, Mr. Sheek of Surry County, a democrat and a member of the House of Commons, introduced a resolution for a constitutional amendment removing property restriction in senatorial elections. It received the necessary three-fifths majority, but failed to secure the required number of votes in the Senate. The immediate result of the issue was its liberalizing influence on the democrats. Having found a plausible and winning issue, they changed front on the matter of internal improvements and other reforms; their prominent leaders gave support to the North Carolina railroad bill, the insane asylum bill, and other progressive measures of the session.1
The question of suffrage reform was naturally carried into the campaign of 1850. The democrats again nominated Reid on a platform demanding manhood suffrage and also the election of judges by the people. The whigs likewise renom- inated Manly, but straddled the question of suffrage reform, declaring that a vote of the people should be taken on the proposed change before action by the legislature. During
1 Carr, The Manhood Suffrage Movement (Papers Trinity College Hist. Soc., XI).
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the campaign Manly, realizing that the tide was turning toward the democrats, came out in favor of a constitutional convenl- tion, which should have the power not only to change the suf- frage, but also to alter the basis of representation in the House of Commons from federal to white population. This proposition found favor among the whigs of the western counties, where there were few slaves; but in the east, where the slave system was extensively developed, it met bitter opposition. Thus the whigs were divided among themselves. The result was the election of Reid by a majority of 2,733, a victory which marked a revolution in party politics, for never again were the whigs of North Carolina able to elect a governor.
The issue now took a singular and unexpected turn. Man- ly's suggestion of a change in the basis of representation in the House of Commons caused the whig leaders in the more western counties to demand in addition a change in the basis of representation in the Senate from property to white pop- ulation. Thus was revived the old sectional issue between the east and the west which had been compromised in 1835, because the east, on account of its greater property values, now held a majority in the Senate. By way of illustration it was shown that of the fifty senators, seventeen from the west had a constitutency which was a majority of the white pop- ulation of the state; yet the census returns of 1850 indicated a further reduction of western representation on account of the increasing property values in the east. To be more specific, three senatorial districts in the west, including Buncombe, Henderson, Yancey, Guilford, Surry, Watauga and Ashe counties, had five times the white population and paid double the taxes of three senatorial districts in the east, which consisted of the three counties of Martin, Hertford, and Onslow. Moreover, the issue of equitable rep- resentation involved the larger question of the privilege of slavery. "The Senate," it was pointed out, "represents property and not persons-money, not men-matter, not mind. But its odiousness does not stop here. * All white males between the ages of 21 and 45 are sub- ยท ject to a poll tax; and all slaves, male and female, between
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the ages of 12 and 50, are subject to the like tax. So that three-fifthis of the negroes are represented in the House of Commons, and all the negroes between the ages above des- ignated are represented in the Senate, but your wives and children have no political rights. Peddlars, billiard tables, bowling alleys, circus riders, playing cards, retailers of spirit- uous liquors, brokers, merchants, watches and carriages, are all taxed. They have their senators in the state legislature. But your wives and your daughters; your old men who have served their country, your young men who are rising up to be its hope and its strength; and your poor men upon whom misfortune has hit its heavy hand; have no one there to plead their cause and protect their rights. Is this Liberty? Is this Freedom? Is this Republican Equality ?" 2
The remedy, according to the western whigs, was a con- stitutional convention which would make a change in the unjust representation and also consider such other questions as the popular election of judges, justices of the peace, and all executive officers. To such a program the eastern whigs were bitterly opposed, since it meant a reduction of eastern representation in the legislature and an assault on the slavoc- racy. Thus the unity of the whig party was broken; eastern whigs and western whigs tended to fall apart. On the other hand, the democratic leaders held strictly to the original issue of manhood suffrage and its adoption through a constitutional amendment submitted to the people by legislative initiative; yet the proposed amendment was required to have the en- dorsement of a three-fifths majority in the session which originated it and a two-thirds majority in the succeeding legis- lature. Clinging to one simple issue, the democrats avoided the cleavage between the east and the west; thereby the party profited by the issue while the whigs suffered by the sectional cleavage.
These conflicting tendencies were well reflected in the policy of the legislature. In the House of Commons of 1850 three resolutions were introduced and referred to a com- mittee of five on constitutional reform. One, introduced by
2 Address to the People of North Carolina, 1851.
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Love, a whig from the mountain county of Haywood, called for a convention of unlimited power; the second, by Fleming, a democrat from Yancey, another mountain county, recom- mended a vote of the people on the general question of re- form; a third called for an amendment to be submitted to the people by the legislature. The committee, the majority of whom were democrats, reported a bill for manhood suffrage by an amendment to be submitted by the legislature, but a minority report signed by Foster, of Davidson, one of the two whig committeemen, favored the convention method. Af- ter extensive debate the report of the majority was carried by the required three-fifths vote, on January 14, 1851. How- ever in the Senate, the seat of conservatism, some eastern democrats were lukewarm, some of the western whigs were also bitter in their criticism, and there was danger that the bill would fail. Favorable action was at length forced by the democratic members of the committee on constitutional reform, who rushed through the Commons a new bill for a convention; thus alarmed, the Senate democrats rallied to the bill before them, and it was passed by the required ma- jority on January 23, 1851, with an amendment, exacted by the Commons, that no construction of it should be made per- mitting free negroes to vote.
In the meanwhile the western whigs had become alarmed over the matter of internal improvements; resolutions had been introduced to repeal the charter of the North Carolina Railroad and to repudiate the state subscription to its stock, and also a bill had been submitted prohibiting in the future any appropriation above $100,000 for internal improvements without a majority vote of two consecutive sessions of the leg- islature. Evidently there was some sentiment to wreck the policy on which depended the economic development of the western counties. This strengthened the agitation for a change in the basis of representation, which would naturally give the west a stronger influence in the legislature. Hence the western whig members and one western democrat, Flem- ing, of Yancey, before the legislature adjourned held a meet- ing and issued an "Address to the People of North Carolina," which pointed out the injustice of the existing basis of rep-
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resentation and urged an unlimited convention to bring about the desired constitutional reform. A series of popular meet- ings in the interest of the cause was held in the more western counties during the spring of 1851, notably in Watauga, Buncombe, Henderson, Burke, Caldwell, McDowell, Ruther- ford, and Cleveland. Indeed an effort was made to launch a new party, the Republican Party of North Carolina, but it failed because the western democrats would not cooperate and the eastern whigs repudiated any suggestion of a change in the basis of representation.
Thus the schism among the whigs increased while the democrats continued to stand firm and united. In the whig convention of 1852 an effort at compromise was made by a resolution endorsing an amendment to the constitution, to be made by a constitutional convention, elected on the basis of representation in the House of Commons, provided that such a convention should first be approved by the people at an elec- tion. On the other hand, the democratic platform stood squarely for manhood suffrage by submitting the amendment to the people provided it should receive the necessary two- thirds vote of the next legislature. In the meantime the North Carolina whigs, like the members of the party in the other states of the South, had suffered since 1850 by the slavery agitation. This, and the greater unity among the democrats, resulted in the re-election of Reid over Kerr, the whig candi- date, by a majority of 5,500.
In spite of the favorable outlook, the cause of manhood suffrage was checked in the legislature of 1852. By accident its opponents had a majority in the House Committee on Con- stitutional Reform, but a bill favoring the amendment, re- ported by the minority of the committee, was adopted with the two-thirds majority required for sanction by the second legislature. In the Senate, however, the bill failed to secure the necessary majority. The membership was 50, the re- quired two-thirds vote was 3313; but the count showed 33 ayes and 15 nays, the bill failing by one-third of one vote. A direct cause of this defeat was the defection of Weldon N. Edwards, an eastern democrat of Warren County. He re- fused to cast his vote on the ground that he had always
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opposed the measure and had been elected because of that opposition. Thus the whole legislative process for the amend- ment had to be repeated. An effort was made to begin at once by securing a three-fifths vote, but it failed, and the issue had to be considered again in the two succeeding state elec- tions and legislatures.
In 1854 the whigs backed and filled. New propositions for internal improvements in the west had been brought for- ward in 1852 and the democrats, desiring to keep in power, dared not oppose state aid. Thus much of the reason for the west to urge a change in the basis of representation was removed. Moreover, the whig platform of 1854 favored a convention with full power to alter the constitution with the exception of the basis of representation. Some of the whigs of the mountain counties were still discontented, and a whig meeting held in Asheville in April, 1854, repudiated the plank of the platform relating to a convention. Again the demo- crats, united on the single issue of manhood suffrage by legis- lative initiative, were victorious, Bragg defeating Dockery by a majority of 2,061. In the succeeding legislature the whig opposition to manhood suffrage by amendment through leg- islative action was led by ex-Governor Graham, who pointed out the injustice of removing the protection given property interests by the freehold qualification while retaining the protection to slave property in the guarantee of equality of the capitation tax on whites and slaves. He thus forecast the issue of slave taxation, raised in 1858. Haughton, another whig, injected the Know Nothing issue of Americanism by proposing the limitation of senatorial suffrage to native or naturalized citizens of the United States, which was accepted. The bill submitting the amendment to the people then passed both houses by the necessary three-fifths majority. In the campaign of 1856 the parties again divided on the issue, the whigs favoring a convention, the democrats the amendment through legislative initiative. Again the democrats won. In the legislature of 1856 the whig opposition was negligible, and the bill providing for the amendment was passed by an overwhelming vote. In August, 1857, the amendment was re- ferred to the people and ratified by a vote of 50,075 to 19,382,
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much of the opposition coming from the eastern slave-hold- ing counties. The whole movement marks another step in the development of democracy, for it extended the senatorial suf- frage to thousands. The democratic party had found an ag- gressive and winning issue, while the whigs had been divided and out-generaled.
Almost contemporary with the contest for suffrage reform came the agitation of another question which likewise con- tributed to a division within the whig party, and also to its decline. That was the question of the extension of slavery into territories acquired by the Mexican War. The North- west, disgruntled because Polk compromised with England on the Oregon boundary, inspired the Wilmot Proviso of 1846, an amendment to the bill appropriating two million dollars for peace negotiations, which declared that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should exist in any territory acquired from Mexico. It passed the House, but failed to reach a vote in the Senate. At the next session, to a bill appropriating $3,000,000 for negotiations of a more drastic treaty, an amend- ment was added, prohibiting slavery in any territory that might be annexed to the United States in any way whatso- ever. The amendment failed in the Senate and the appropria- tion, without restriction, was made. But the two measures were full of significance; in the discussion of them, party lines dissolved: congressmen and senators from the slave states, , with the exception of Delaware, being a unit in opposition, while those from the free states, with the exception of a score of democrats, favored restriction. A fundamental constitutional question was also raised, the power of Congress to restrict slavery in the territories. Finally, the resolutions were an unmistakable notice that the question of slavery would be a subject of discussion if the treaty with Mexico resulted in the acquisition of new territory.
The whigs suffered most by the agitation, for they were divided over the fundamental issue, the power of Congress to restrict slavery in territories. In North Carolina those with federalistic inclinations, led by Badger, believed that the power existed; while the states rights element, notably Man- gum, asserted that the power did not exist. This division
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was clearly revealed in 1848 during the discussion of the treaty with Mexico. Through the initiative of Senator Clayton, of Delaware, a compromise was proposed which prohibited the territorial legislatures of New Mexico and California from legislating on slavery until the Supreme Court of the United States had passed on the legality of slavery in territories. In the Senate, where the measure carried, Mangum favored it but Badger was among the nays, the only other southern senators in opposition being John Bell, of Tennessee, and
GEORGE E. BADGER
Metcalf and Underwood of Kentucky. Badger's argument was that if Congress could acquire territory, it could also govern territory, even to the exclusion of slavery, which was a state, not a federal institution; that the courts would cer- tainly so decide, and thereby the South had everything to lose by accepting the Clayton compromise. In its stead he sug- gested that Congress should explicitly permit slavery in those parts of the territory acquired which were adapted to the cultivation of cotton and sugar. In the House the compromise was supported by four North Carolina whigs, Barringer, Clingman, Outlaw, and Shepperd, and three democrats,
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Daniel, Mckay, and Venable. It was opposed by two whigs, Boyden and Donnell. Alarmed at the anti-expansion senti- ment in the North, Calhoun called a meeting of southern senators and representatives with the purpose of forming a southern phalanx in Congress and unifying southern opinion through an address to the southern people. In the caucus Venable, democratic congressman from the Fifth District, was secretary, but he and Daniel of the Sixth District were the only North Carolinians to sign the Southern Address. With this piece of propaganda Badger would have nothing to do. Writing to Crittenden, of Kentucky, he said: "I have sworn to support the constitution and will never concur in any movement which may, very remotely, endanger its continuance -certainly not for the privilege of carrying slaves to Cali- fornia or keeping up private gaols of slaveholders in this district. Would to heaven there were a little true moderation in our councils and that Southern gentlemen were less like a half blind horse, starting at every bush and even shadow of a bush." 3
In the meantime the issue was injected into state pol- itics. Although the whig press had loudly denounced the Wilmot Proviso, the platform of the Whig State Convention did not mention it, while the democratic platform condemned the measure in no uncertain terms. In the national contest of 1848 the North Carolina whigs favored Clayton for the presidential nomination. But matters of expediency led the state's delegation in the national convention to give Taylor six votes and Clayton five. Sentiment among the democrats favored Buchanan for the presidential nomination, but after the third ballot in their national convention, the North Caro- lina votes went to Cass. The principal feature of the cam- paign was the criticism of the candidates; the whigs ques- tioned Cass' soundness on slavery expansion, the democrats disparaged the ability of Taylor, and doubted Fillmore's atti- tude towards abolition. A most interesting feature of the campaign was the free soil ticket in support of Van Buren;
3 Badger to J. J. Crittenden, Jan. 13, 1849. Crittenden MSS.
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it received forty-seven votes in Guilford, sixteen in Orange, and thirteen in Chatham counties, and also the support of William H. Haywood, retired democratic leader. Taylor carried the state by 8,154, whereas Manly had won the state elections by 854. Evidently Taylor's southern birth rather than relative party values decided the election. North Car- olina's reward for again supporting the whig cause was the appointment of William A. Graham as Secretary of the Navy, an honor conferred, however, upon the reorganization of the cabinet after the death of President Taylor. During his ad- ministration the department undertook four notable policies : the reorganization of the coast survey, the reorganization of the personnel, the exploration of the Amazon, and the Perry expedition to Japan.
The question of slavery extension was next injected into the proceedings of the legislature of 1848, the session so not- able for its railroad legislation, the establishment of the insane asylum, and the introduction of the issue of manhood suffrage. William L. Steele, a state's rights whig and a member of the House of Commons, introduced resolutions to the effect that the territories were the joint property of the state, that the federal government as an agent of the states could make no laws destructive of the equal rights of the states in the territories, and that to deprive a citizen of the right to migrate to territories with slaves would be unconstitutional. These propositions were almost identical with resolutions which Mr. Calhoun had introduced into the Senate of the United States in 1847. The debates which followed revealed a cleav- age of opinion regarding federal powers as marked as that in the discussion of nullification two decades before. Edward Stanly, an eastern whig, led the attack on the resolutions, holding that Congress had the right to restrict, but advocat- ing an extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific. The Raleigh Register, though it disapproved of the expediency of the Wilmot Proviso, spoke definitely in defense of its constitutionality, and pointed to Jefferson's interest in the Northwest Ordinance as a precedent. Among the de- fenders of the resolutions was another whig, William B.
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Shepard. A notable incident in the controversy was the atti- tude of Thomas L. Clingman, whig congressman from the mountain district. Appealed to for an opinion, he replied that the Wilmot Proviso was a violation of the Constitution which would justify resistance by all means in the power of the South-a sentiment prophetic for the rising discontent among many Southern whigs. In the end, the Steele resolu- tions were set aside for others less radical, which admitted the main contention, but recommended an extension of the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific and deprecated any attempt to dissolve the Union. Copies were ordered sent to the state's representatives in Congress for transmission to that body. To these resolutions Stanly and a few other ultra- nationalists filed protests.
Closely related to the slavery debates was the election of a United States senator, Badger's term having expired. The whigs had a majority on joint ballot; the democrats sought to divide them by supporting Clingman, who now made known his repudiation of the whig ideal of a national bank, his approval of the democratic tariff of 1846, and his views on the Wilmot Proviso. In the balloting there was for a time a deadlock, but eventually Badger was reelected, -- a triumph for the conservative federal whigs. Clingman util- ized his defeat for partisan purposes, charging that the whigs of the Raleigh District, which always went democratic, dic- tated the party's nominees. The record of the parties and the candidates on the slavery question was also a factor in the congressional elections of 1849. The Register and the Standard in controversial editorials fully discussed the prin- ciple of slavery restriction, the Register defending the legal and the constitutional right of restriction, the Standard oppos- ing it. Attention centered on the contest in two districts ; the Fifth, where Venable's relationship to the Calhoun ad- dress was strongly criticised, and the Eighth, the district of Stanly, who had led the fight against the Steele resolutions. Both were elected, but on the whole the whigs carried five, and the democrats three, of the districts. The victory was a marked contrast to the congressional elections in the other southern states, where whig leadership suffered severe reverses.
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