North Carolina Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

An English legal system

North Carolina's law came from England. The colony began under the Carolina charter of 1663, and English common law (judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature) governed from the start. After independence the state kept it deliberately, by statute: all parts of the common law then in force and use in North Carolina remained in full force¹. The courts have held that the common law preserved by that statute is the common law of England as it stood in 1776.

The system was English through and through. One practical consequence is worth knowing at the outset: North Carolina handled probate — the proving of a will in court — in the county courts from the earliest period, so wills were proved there and probate records sit with county government.

A common law steadily rewritten by statute

The General Assembly replaced common-law rules with statutes over time, and those dates make useful anchors — each one marks a change you will see in the records:

• 1784 — primogeniture abolished; land was divided among all the children rather than passing to the eldest son.
• 1868 — the new Constitution gave married women a separate estate of their own.
• 1911 — married women given nearly full power to make contracts.
• 1959–60 — dower and curtesy (a surviving wife’s or husband’s right to use the other’s land for life) and the two-track system for dividing the estate of someone who died without a will (intestate) were replaced by the Intestate Succession Act².

For any given year, the rule in force is the statute where one had been passed by then, and the common law otherwise.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Majority at twenty-one

Full legal age in North Carolina was 21, a rule drawn from the common law³. Anyone under 21 was an "infant" in legal language, even a 20-year-old.

The age dropped to 18 in 1971⁴.

A minor's legal capacity

A minor could own property. What the law limited was the minor's power to dispose of it:

• Contracts could be avoided by the minor, either during minority or promptly after coming of age⁵.
• A deed made by a minor was voidable (valid until the minor chose to undo it): it stood unless the minor rejected it within a reasonable time after turning 21, which the courts fixed at three years⁶.
• A married minor remained a minor until 21. Marriage freed the minor from a parent's control and let them keep their own earnings, while the other legal limits of being a minor continued to 21⁷.

Full legal capacity could be granted early only by a private act of the General Assembly.

Ages that differed by sex

Majority was 21 for both sexes, without variation, through 1950. Only the minimum marrying age differed by sex, and it is easy to confuse with majority: a girl could marry younger than a boy could (below), but a married 15-year-old was still a minor in every other respect.

Marriage

Who was old enough to marry

From 1670 to 1854 the common-law ages governed: a boy could marry at 14, a girl at 12. The Revised Statutes of 1837 regulated licenses, banns (the public announcement of an intended marriage), and penalties, but set no marrying age at all, so the common-law ages stayed in force under the reception statute⁸.

The 16 and 14 rule first appears in the Revised Code of 1854: females under 14 and males under 16 were incapable of contracting marriage⁹. The general marriage act of 1871–72 re-enacted the same ages¹⁰.

By the 1930s the rule had tightened in practice: males and females of 16 and over could marry outright, and a girl aged 14 to 16 could marry under a special license issued after a parent filed written consent¹¹.

An underage marriage was voidable: it stood unless someone went to court to undo it¹². In practice an ancestor's underage marriage was almost certainly valid.

Parental consent

Two dates matter here, and they are not the same date. The record changed in 1868, when an act of that year abolished the marriage bond and gave the register of deeds the duty of issuing marriage licenses¹³. The consent rule itself did not change until 1871–72.

From 1820 until 1871–72 the rule targeted girls. An act of that year made it an indictable offense to marry a female under 15 without her father's written consent, and on conviction the court appointed trustees to take charge of the girl's property¹⁴. By 1854, a clerk who issued a license — or a minister or justice who performed the marriage — of a female under 15 without written permission forfeited $1,000¹⁵. If her parents or guardian lived out of state, the applicant had to produce a written certificate from them stating she had reached 15, or had leave to marry¹⁶. Those sections of the Revised Code stayed in force through the change of 1868 and were not replaced until 1871–72.

The line then moved to 18, for both sexes, with the general marriage act of 1871–72. Written consent of a parent, of the relative the person lived with, or of whoever had custody was required whenever either party was under 18¹⁷. The register of deeds could issue no license until that consent was handed in, and filed it when he did. The filed consent names the parent or guardian who gave it.

Void and annullable marriages

By the 1930s a marriage was absolutely void if it was interracial¹⁸ or bigamous¹⁹.

A marriage could be annulled by the superior court if the male was under 16 or the female under 14; if the parties were within the forbidden degrees of kindred (too closely related); if either was physically impotent; or if either was unable to understand or agree to the marriage. Two North Carolina peculiarities sit in the same list: it separately barred a Cherokee Indian of Robeson County from marrying a person of Black descent to the third generation, and it forbade double first cousins to marry²⁰. Both of those are twentieth-century additions and are not in the earlier law.

The list in 1854 was shorter. The Revised Code of that year voided marriages between a white person and a free person of color to the third generation from 8 January 1839, and marriages between persons nearer of kin than first cousins from 27 December 1852²¹.

Marriage required a formal ceremony

A valid marriage required a ceremony before an authorized official. From the colony's earliest laws, a marriage had to be celebrated by someone in a sacred office, or entered into before someone holding a public and judicial trust²². Marriage came from that ceremony: a couple who lived together as husband and wife acquired the status only by going through one.

North Carolina therefore did not recognize common-law marriage — a marriage created by agreement and living together, with no ceremony. Cohabitation and reputation could be evidence that a ceremony had taken place, but they could not make a marriage on their own²³. A couple who simply lived together were not married in North Carolina law, and the one statutory exception is the 1866 cohabitation act for freedpeople, below.

Two points matter for research. North Carolina honored a marriage that was valid where it was contracted²⁴, except where the couple were North Carolina residents who left in order to evade North Carolina law and then returned²⁵. And the 1866 cohabitation act, below, provided a statutory route for freedpeople.

Enslaved people and people of color

Enslaved people had no legal capacity to marry, so no civil marriage record exists for them²⁶.

Interracial marriage was banned from 1715, with a £50 penalty on the officiant²⁷. The 1741 act extended the ban to people of color "to the third generation"²⁸; an 1838 act tightened it²⁹; the amendments framed in 1875 and ratified in 1876 wrote it into the Constitution³⁰. It remained in the constitutional text until the Constitution of 1971 replaced it.

A free person of color and an enslaved person were barred from marrying or cohabiting from 1830³¹.

The 1866 cohabitation act is the single most important marriage record for African American research. "An Act Concerning Negroes and Persons of Color or of Mixed Blood"³² declared that formerly enslaved couples then living together as man and wife were lawfully married from the time their cohabitation began. Couples had to appear before the clerk of the county court or a justice of the peace and acknowledge the fact. The original deadline of 1 September 1866 was extended to 1 January 1868³³. The resulting cohabitation records, entered by the clerk in a book kept for the purpose, typically give the names and ages of both parties, how long they had been together, and often the name of the former enslaver.

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

The right to acquire, hold, and convey land belonged to every free man in North Carolina, of any race. The right rested on the fact of being free, and on that alone. Free Black, mixed-race, and Indian men held this right on the same terms as white men and exercised it throughout the period — the restrictions that surrounded their ownership appear under "Enslaved people and free people of color," below³⁴.

Enslaved men had no legal capacity to own property of any kind; land they lived on or worked belonged in law to the enslaver.

A foreign-born man's right turned on citizenship. Once naturalized he owned and inherited land like any other citizen. Before naturalization he could buy and hold land, though he could not inherit it — where a landowner's nearest kin were aliens, the citizen relations inherited in their place³⁵.

Single women and widows

A single woman or widow — a feme sole, "woman alone" — could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could. The statutes that restrict a woman's power over property all turn on her being married³⁶. A woman transacting freely in the deed books is almost always unmarried or widowed.

Married women before 1868

A married woman was a feme covert, "covered woman," under coverture — the common-law rule that a wife's legal identity merged into her husband's. Her husband controlled her property: he took the rents and profits of her land and owned her wages, and her contracts had no force on their own. Her own land could be sold only with her privy examination (a private interview with an official, apart from her husband, certifying she acted voluntarily)³⁷. Wealthy families arranged around this by placing property in a trust for her "sole and separate use" — a private arrangement that gave her the separate ownership statute would provide later.

Married women after 1868

The Constitution of 1868 gave a married woman her own estate: property she owned before marriage, or acquired after, remained her sole and separate estate, was not liable for her husband's debts, could be left by her freely in a will (given away as a gift after death), and — with the written assent of her husband — could be conveyed by her as if she were unmarried³⁸.

The 1868 change went only so far. She owned her property and could will it away, and she could deal with her personal property freely³⁹. To convey her real estate she needed her husband's written assent and, until 1945, a privy examination⁴⁰. The "Martin Act" of 1911 let married women make any and all contracts as if unmarried, while keeping those two requirements and adding a third — contracts with her own husband⁴¹.

Estates by the entirety kept their old form longest. Where land was conveyed to husband and wife together, the survivor took the whole — and during the marriage the husband alone controlled it and took the rents and profits⁴².

Free traders

The route out of coverture was registration as a free trader. A married woman of 21 or over could become one with her husband's consent⁴³. More useful to genealogists, a wife became a free trader by operation of law — able to convey her real and personal estate on her own — if she was legally separated, if her husband had been adjudged an idiot or lunatic, or if she had been abandoned or maliciously turned out of doors⁴⁴. A free-trader entry in the register of deeds is strong evidence that a marriage had collapsed.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

A wife's signature — or its absence — tells you both the period and whether the man was married.

The driver is dower: a widow's life estate in one-third of her husband's land. Whether a buyer needed her to release it depended on which land dower attached to.

The 1868 rule is explicit. Widows were to be "endowed as at common law," meaning a one-third interest in all lands the husband was "seized and possessed of" — owned and held — at any time during coverture, including the dwelling house the family usually lived in⁴⁶. A husband's own deed therefore passed two-thirds⁴⁷, and the wife released dower by joining in the deed and being privately examined⁴⁸. The rule carried forward into the twentieth century⁴⁹.

Three other situations called for a wife's signature regardless of dower:

• The homestead — the family dwelling and land set aside by law beyond the reach of creditors. A deed conveying an allotted homestead was valid only with the wife's voluntary signature and assent on her private examination⁵⁰.
• The "home site" — a husband could convey the family home site, except for purchase money, only with her joinder and privy examination⁵¹.
• Household and kitchen furniture — a married man's mortgage of it required her joinder and private examination to be valid⁵².

Two exceptions worth knowing: a husband whose wife had been adjudged insane could convey free of dower without her signature if he attached the proper certificate⁵³; and married persons under 21 could renounce dower and curtesy and give written assent exactly as if they were of full age⁵⁴ — so never assume a signing wife had reached 21.

The private examination ended in 1945⁵⁵. A wife still had to sign her husband’s deed to give up dower, but the separate interview was no longer taken. On a deed from 1945 to 1950 there is no certificate to look for.

Curtesy was the husband’s version of dower. If a child had been born alive of the marriage, a widower kept the use of his late wife’s land for the rest of his life⁵⁶. Dower and curtesy both ended in 1960 with the Intestate Succession Act⁵⁷.

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase just as an adult did. Conveying it was the constraint: a minor's deed was voidable and could be canceled within three years of turning 21⁵⁸. In practice a minor's land was managed by a guardian, and any sale went through a court proceeding. Own at any age; convey freely at 21.

Witnessing a deed

A witness of any age could serve, provided they understood an oath and could relate what they had seen. A deed was made ready for registration by being proved by a subscribing witness (a witness who had signed it) or acknowledged by the grantor (the person making the deed confirming it before an official)⁵⁹. Competency, not age, was the test; the common law's "age of discretion" of about 14 is a fair practical guide, and in practice deed witnesses were adults, since a witness might have to appear in court years later to prove the deed.

Enslaved people and free people of color

Enslaved people had no legal capacity to own property; anything in their possession belonged in law to the enslaver.

Free people of color could own land, and did, through 1950. Free Black, mixed-race, and Indian people held the right to acquire, own, and convey land, and kept it even after the 1835 Constitution took away the vote from free men of color. This matters: deeds, land grants, and estate records for free families of color exist in quantity, and the genealogical and historical literature on North Carolina's free families of color is built largely out of them⁶⁰.

The restrictions fell on the freedoms around ownership. An 1826 act criminalized free Black migration into the state⁶¹. The 1830 act on slaves and free persons of color required newly emancipated people to leave within 90 days⁶². An 1861 act barred Black people from owning or controlling enslaved people⁶³. And the 1866 Black Code added a witnessing rule aimed at people of color: any contract in which one or more party was a person of color — for the sale of livestock of any value, or for other goods or money worth $10 or more — was void unless it was put in writing, signed, and witnessed by a white person who could read and write⁶⁴. That requirement fell with the federal Civil Rights Act of 1866, which declared freed people citizens with the right to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey property. In 1866–68 deed books, expect to see that white witness.

Separately, from 18 May 1838 a contract worth $10 or more with a Cherokee person, or with anyone of Cherokee descent within the second degree, was void unless it was put in writing and signed before two witnesses, who also signed the document. This one long outlasted the others: it was carried through every revision of the statutes, narrowed in 1907 to exempt anyone who understood English and could read and write it, and not repealed until 1995. It was therefore in force through 1950⁶⁵.

Inheritance

Two separate systems

When a person died without a will (intestate), North Carolina divided the estate under two separate systems, one for land and one for personal property, and they worked differently:

• Land passed by the canons of descent — automatically, directly to the heirs, at the moment of death.
• Personal property (money, livestock, furniture, debts owed to the deceased, and before 1865 enslaved people) passed under the Statute of Distributions — through an administrator (the person the court appointed to settle an estate that had no will), after debts were paid.

Land: the canons of descent

Land descended by rules that changed three times before settling into the canons of descent that ran for a century and a half:

Under the canons, females inherited equally with males, and younger with older children — subject to advancements, meaning a child already given land or goods during the parent's lifetime had that gift counted against their share⁶⁸. Descent in North Carolina was governed by statute⁶⁹.

The widow's interest in the land was dower — a life estate in one-third. Dower gave her the use of that third for life, while ownership passed to the heirs; she took land as an heir herself only in the last resort, when no one else could claim⁷⁰. This is why you so often find a widow holding a life interest while the children hold the title.

Personal property: the Statute of Distributions

The shares are precise, and they turn on the number of children. Next of kin means the nearest blood relatives — parents, then brothers and sisters, then outward. The widow’s first three shares ran unchanged from the Revised Code of 1854 into the 1930s; the last of her rows and both of the surviving husband’s are later additions, given here as they stood in the 1930s⁷¹:

So a widow with five children took one-sixth; a widow with two children took a third. Getting this right can make or break a family reconstruction built from an estate division.

The widow's year's allowance and right to dissent

On top of her share, a widow received a year's allowance — a year's support for herself and her family, free of her husband's creditors and on top of her distributive share (her portion of the personal property); the amount was fixed by statute at $300, raised to $500 in 1937, plus $100 — $150 from 1937 — for every other member of the family⁷³. It is a separate court record, and it usually names the widow and the children.

Where her husband left a will she disliked, a widow could dissent within six months of probate and take exactly as though he had died without a will⁷⁴. The right to dissent belonged to the widow.

All of this changed in 1959–60, when the Intestate Succession Act combined the two systems into one and made the surviving spouse a true heir⁷⁵.

Minors and guardians

A minor inherited immediately — title passed to the heirs the moment the ancestor died⁷⁶. Managing that inheritance fell to a guardian, who gave bond, invested it, accounted annually, and handed it over — with a formal receipt — when the minor turned 21. That final settlement at 21 is one of the most valuable documents in North Carolina genealogy: it dates the minor's majority, and therefore approximates a birth year, and it frequently reveals a woman's married surname.

A guardian was appointed chiefly because a minor owned property; where a child inherited nothing, often no guardianship record was created. Internalize one definition: an "orphan" in North Carolina records means a child whose father has died — the mother could be alive and well. The father was the natural guardian during his life; on his death the mother became natural guardian⁷⁷.

The county courts had full power over orphans and their estates and appointed guardians where the father had appointed none, taking security from each one; the grand jury was charged with presenting any orphan left without a guardian⁷⁸. After 1868 the work moved from the county court to the court of probate — the clerk of the Superior Court sitting as judge of probate — so the records may be indexed under either name⁷⁹.

A father could also name a testamentary guardian — by deed during his life, with the mother's written consent and separate examination, or by will if she was dead⁸⁰. The guardian of the estate could be a different person from the guardian of the person⁸¹, so look for two records rather than one.

At fourteen a minor could nominate their own guardian, subject to the court's approval⁸². A guardianship record in which the child chooses is therefore evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year.

Guardianship ended when the minor reached 21, and the guardian was expected to settle within six months of that date⁸³.

Children born outside marriage

At common law a child born outside marriage was filius nullius, "nobody's child," and could inherit from no one. North Carolina extended inheritance first on the mother's side, then on the father's.

From the mother, from 1799. An act of that year made every illegitimate child of the mother, and the descendants of a deceased such child, an heir; the child inherited from the mother herself, though not as representing her in the estate of her kindred. A proviso kept an illegitimate child from inheriting land the mother had received from the father of her legitimate children⁸⁴. The same "next of kin to their mother" rule applied to her personal property⁸⁵. Under the wording in force until 1913 the right arose only where the mother left no legitimate issue; the modern wording, which lets an illegitimate child inherit alongside legitimate children, dates from that year⁸⁶.

From the father — after legitimation. There were three routes: a private act of the General Assembly⁸⁷; the subsequent marriage of the parents, which from 1917 legitimated the child automatically⁸⁸; and a court petition by the putative father (the alleged father), a route open from 1829⁸⁹. On that petition the superior court could declare the child legitimate, and the clerk recorded the decree; the decree let the child inherit from the father himself and no further, not from the father's relations⁹⁰.

Bastardy proceedings generated their own records, and they are worth knowing because they name a father the other records do not: the county court examined the mother, named the reputed father, and took a bastardy bond to spare the county the cost of the child's support⁹¹. A bastardy bond is not a legitimation and does not by itself let the child inherit.

Children of enslaved couples

One rule deserves its own heading, because it is the key to African American inheritance research.

An act of 1879 declared legitimate the children born before 1 January 1868 to parents of color who were living together as man and wife, and gave them the full rights of heirs at law and next of kin as to either parent; where such a child had died, that child's own issue stood in his place⁹². The cut-off date matches the extended deadline for recording cohabitations under the 1866 act, but the legitimation itself came eleven years later, so look for it in estates settled from 1879 onward.

Three consequences:

• Children of enslaved couples could inherit from both parents; earlier, such a child's inheritance had run to the mother's estate⁹³.
• The parents' relationship could be proved by reputation, declarations, and conduct — no document was required⁹⁴.
• The rule applied going forward. It legitimated the parent–child relationship for the future while leaving estates already settled in place, and it reached that parent–child relationship alone — so a sibling who had died before it took effect fell outside it⁹⁵.

Wills and executors

From 1854 the age to make a will was 21. One sentence sets it: no person was capable of disposing of real or personal estate by will, nor allowed to qualify as executor of a will, until reaching the age of twenty-one⁹⁶.

From 1811 to 1854 a person of 18 could make a will of chattels — personal property such as money, livestock, and household goods. The act that set the age says so in a single line, and the Revised Statutes carried it forward word for word⁹⁷. A will of land still called for 21.

Before 1811 a boy of 14 and a girl of 12 could make a will of personal property, under the common-law ages. A will of land called for 21⁹⁸.

From 1854 the age to serve as executor or executrix was also 21 — the same statute set both⁹⁹. By the 1930s the rule was stated plainly: an executor or administrator had to be of full age¹⁰⁰. Where a named executor was under 21, the court granted temporary administration until he came of age. One quirk worth watching: if an executrix married, her letters (the court's written authority for her to act) could be revoked if her new husband failed to give bond¹⁰¹, so a change of administrator right after a wedding is often the reason.

A witness to a will could be of any age; what mattered was that the witness had no interest in the gifts. An attested will (one signed in front of witnesses) had to be signed by the testator (the person making the will) — or by another in his presence and at his direction — and signed in his presence by at least two witnesses, each of them disinterested (having nothing to gain under the will)¹⁰². Two companion sections fit alongside this: a devise (a gift of land by will) to a witness was void¹⁰³, which left such a witness disinterested and so competent; and an executor was a competent witness¹⁰⁴.

A holographic will — one written entirely in the testator's own hand and found among his valuable papers or lodged with someone for safekeeping — was valid with no attesting witnesses¹⁰⁵. It still had to be proved, though: three credible witnesses had to swear that the whole of it was in the deceased's handwriting. These are common in the North Carolina record.

Taxation

What was taxed

Three taxes on individuals leave usable records: the poll (head, or "capitation") tax, a flat tax on a person rather than on property; the property tax, on land and, before 1865, on enslaved people; and, in the twentieth century, a state income tax (1921) and sales tax (1933)¹⁰⁶.

For genealogy, the poll tax is the prize, because it lists people who owned nothing — which makes early tax lists into census substitutes.

Tithables, 1715–1776

Under the acts of 1715, 1723, 1738, and 1749, a tithable (taxable person) was:

• every white male aged 16 and upwards;
• every Black, mixed-race, or mustee person (mustee meaning of mixed European and Indian descent) — male or female — and every person of mixed ancestry to the fourth generation, aged 12 and upwards; and
• any white person who married one of the above¹⁰⁷.

The constable went house to house to take the list in the five days after 10 June each year and returned it before 5 August, so the ages behind a list are ages that summer.

Being taxable is not the same as being named, and the difference decides what a list can prove. The list was returned under the name of the person answerable for the tax — the head of the household, whether a man, a widow, or a single woman — and the rest of that household's tithables were entered beneath it. Early lists frequently name each taxable individually, wives, sons over 16, and enslaved people among them. Later lists, and most of those forwarded to the colony's government, give the head of household, the acreage and valuation, and nothing more than the number of tithables, split white and Black. A household of six tithables can therefore yield one name and five tallies.

This is a useful fact in North Carolina tax records before 1776. Because free women of color counted as taxable from age 12 while white women did not, free families of color can be identified in the tax lists by the taxation of their women — sometimes because the taker wrote their names down, and sometimes only because the household returned more tithables than its men can account for. You will even find collectors noting that a man "refuses to list his wife" — a man resisting being classed as non-white.

From statehood to the Civil War

The state reinstated the property tax after 1777, and settled in 1784 on taxing free males 21 and upwards, and enslaved people, male and female, aged 12 to 50. There was no upper age limit on a free poll between 1784 and 1835; a man stayed taxable for life unless the county court exempted him¹⁰⁸.

The 1835 constitutional amendments fixed the categories in the Constitution itself: the capitation tax was to be equal throughout the state, and all free males over 21 and under 45, and all slaves over 12 and under 50, were subject to it, with an exemption for bodily infirmity¹⁰⁹.

The Revised Code put a figure on it: 40 cents on every free male aged 21 to 45, and the same on every enslaved person of either sex aged 12 to 50 — payable by the owner¹¹⁰.

The same distinction runs through the state lists, and it cuts the other way for the two groups. Each free poll was a man entered under his own name, so a list of this period works as a name index to the taxable men of the county. But a taxable son still living at home was often entered as a second poll under his father rather than on a line of his own, so a jump from one poll to two is worth reading as a son coming of age rather than a stranger arriving. Enslaved people were counted, not named, under the person who paid for them; some takers did write out their names, and later lists often break the count down by age and sex, but a name is the exception.

After 1868

The Reconstruction Constitution levied a capitation tax on every male inhabitant over 21 and under 50, equal to the tax on $300 of property, with the proceeds applied to education and the support of the poor (up to a quarter to the poor). County and town boards could exempt individuals for poverty or infirmity¹¹¹. With the enslaved category gone, everyone subject to the tax now appears under his own name, and the counting of unnamed people ends with it.

The suffrage amendment of 1900 made payment of the poll tax a prerequisite to voting — a central tool of disfranchisement. That voting requirement was repealed in 1920. The tax itself survived until the Constitution of 1971 (ratified 1970) forbade it¹¹².

Taxable ages at a glance

Throughout, an exemption for bodily infirmity was available by order of the county court. When a man drops off a poll list while still alive elsewhere in the record, an infirmity exemption — or simply his 45th or 50th birthday — is usually the explanation.

Courts

Jury service

Jurors had to be 21, a rule the courts established rather than the jury statute¹¹³. It carried weight: an indictment (a grand jury's formal charge) could be quashed (thrown out) where a grand juror had been under 21 when the charge was brought¹¹⁴.

The statutory qualifications were that a juror had paid all taxes assessed against him for the preceding year, and was of good moral character and sufficient intelligence¹¹⁵.

Land ownership requirements changed in 1868. Before the Civil War the jury list was made up from the taxable freeholders of the county (men who owned land outright), so a man on the regular panel owned land¹¹⁶. The Reconstruction jury act of 1868 dropped the freeholder requirement and drew the list from taxpayers of good moral character and sufficient intelligence, which is the form it kept into the twentieth century¹¹⁷. From 1868 only a talesman still had to be a freeholder: a juror on the regular panel could serve without owning land¹¹⁸; a talesman — a bystander summoned on the spot to fill out a short jury — had to be a freeholder owning real estate in the county where the court sat¹¹⁹.

So the working test from 1868 onward was an adult man of 21 who had paid his taxes; before the war, add land ownership to that. That tax-payment requirement was the mechanism by which poor men, and after 1900 Black men in particular, were kept off juries.

Criminal responsibility

Before 1919 the common-law ages governed:

• Under 7 — a child was legally incapable of committing a crime, and could not be indicted at all¹²⁰.
• 7 to 14 — presumed incapable of wrong, a presumption the State could rebut by proving the child knew right from wrong and understood the wrongfulness of the act¹²¹.
• 14 and over — full criminal responsibility, tried and punished as an adult¹²².

From 1919 a statute changed this. North Carolina's first Juvenile Court Act gave the courts exclusive original jurisdiction over any case of a child less than sixteen years of age who was delinquent, violated any law or ordinance, or was truant, unruly, wayward, or misdirected¹²³. A child under 16 was adjudicated delinquent rather than convicted — the statute provided that the adjudication counted as neither a crime nor a conviction — while a 16-year-old was tried as an adult. The line was not quite absolute: where a child of fourteen was charged with a felony, the juvenile judge could send the case to the judge of the Superior Court, and the child was then held or bound over to the next term¹²⁴.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify, if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could relate facts. The trial judge examined a child personally before allowing testimony. A very young child's uncorroborated word carried little weight, but that was a question of weight rather than competency. The competency statutes turned on other matters — such as being a party to a transaction with someone since deceased — rather than on age¹²⁵.

Women as witnesses and jurors

Women could testify. A spouse was generally competent and compellable in civil cases, with carve-outs for adultery; in criminal cases a wife could be a witness for her husband, and against him to prove marriage in a bigamy prosecution, or where he was charged with assaulting her, abandoning his family, or failing to support them¹²⁶.

Jury service was limited to men until 1946–47. The Constitution guaranteed trial by a jury of "good and lawful men"¹²⁷, and that word was read literally.

In 1938 the Supreme Court noted a trial court’s finding that women were systematically excluded from the Guilford County jury lists even when of good character, sufficient intelligence, and property-owning¹²⁸. In 1944 it settled the question: “good and lawful men” meant men, so a panel of ten men and two women summoned as talesmen was improperly constituted, and women remained ineligible propter defectum sexus, “on account of the defect of sex”¹²⁹. The General Assembly then proposed a constitutional amendment changing “men” to “persons”¹³⁰, the voters ratified it in 1946, and the enabling act followed in 1947¹³¹, broadening the jury list beyond the tax rolls to take in county residents over 21 who did not appear on the tax lists — added because so many women were absent from them¹³².

People of color as witnesses and jurors

People of color could give evidence only in cases between other people of color, until Reconstruction. From 1777, people of color — including anyone descended from Black or Indian ancestors to the fourth generation, whether enslaved or free — were competent as witnesses only in cases between other people of color¹³³.

Under the 1866 Black Code a person of color became competent wherever the rights of persons or property of persons of color were in issue, and in pleas of the State where the violence, fraud or injury was charged to have been done by or to a person of color. In all other civil and criminal cases the evidence stayed inadmissible unless the parties of record consented¹³⁴. The federal Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Constitution of 1868 then gave people of color full competence to testify.

On juries, Black men were legally eligible after 1868, though in practice they were kept off. The tax-payment requirement served as a lever, and exclusion intensified after the disfranchisement campaign of 1900¹³⁵.

Sources & Where to Verify

Constitutions

• 50constitutions.org. Side-by-side text of successive versions of individual constitutional sections. https://50constitutions.org/nc/constitution (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Amendments to the Constitution, ratified 1835, § III, cl. 1–2 (capitation tax on free males 21–45 and slaves 12–50). Printed in the front matter of the Revised Code of 1854.
• North Carolina Constitution (current), art. V, § 1 (poll and capitation tax). https://www.ncleg.gov/Laws/Constitution/Article5 (accessed 22 July 2026).
• North Carolina Constitution of 1776, and Declaration of Rights (art. IX, jury of "good and lawful men"). Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/nc07.asp (accessed 22 July 2026).
• North Carolina Constitution of 1868. Art. I, § 13 (jury); art. V, §§ 1–2 (capitation tax); art. X, § 6 (married woman's separate estate); art. X, § 8 (homestead conveyance); art. XIV, § 8 (interracial marriage, as amended 1875–76). North Carolina General Assembly. https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Constitution/NCConstitution.html (accessed 22 July 2026).

Codes and Compilations

• The Code of North Carolina. New York: Banks & Brothers, Law Publishers, 1883. 2 vols. The first consolidation after Reconstruction, and the volume that shows the jury, marriage, bastardy, and legitimation law as it stood between the Revised Code and the Revisal. Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/codeofnorthcarol011883; vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/codeofnorthcarol02nort (accessed 11 August 2026).
• Revisal of 1905 of North Carolina. Raleigh: E. M. Uzzell & Co., 1905. 2 vols. The compilation between The Code and the Consolidated Statutes, and the middle link in most of the citation chains in the notes. Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/revisalof1905ofn01nort; vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/revisalof1905ofn02nort (accessed 11 August 2026).
• Consolidated Statutes of North Carolina. Raleigh: Commercial Printing Co., 1919. 2 vols. Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/consolidatedstat01nort; vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/consolidatedstat02nort (accessed 22 July 2026).
• General Statutes of North Carolina (current). Each section printed with its full citation chain. North Carolina General Assembly. https://www.ncleg.gov/Laws/GeneralStatutes (accessed 22 July 2026).
• The North Carolina Code of 1935. Charlottesville, Va.: Michie Co., 1935. The code in force in the last decades covered here, and the edition the notes cite. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/northcarolinacod1935nort. The adjacent printings are The North Carolina Code of 1931, https://archive.org/details/northcarolinacod1931nort, and The North Carolina Code of 1939, https://archive.org/details/northcarolinacod1939nort (accessed 22 July 2026).
• The Revised Code of North Carolina. Boston: Little, Brown, 1855. The essential volume for the years from 1855 to 1868 (common law, jurors, deeds and conveyances, descents, guardianship, distributive shares, marriage, dower, wills, revenue, and ch. 107 on slavery and free people of color). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/revisedcodeofnor1854nort (accessed 22 July 2026).
• The Revised Statutes of the State of North Carolina. Raleigh: Turner and Hughes, 1837. 2 vols. Ch. 71 (marriage), ch. 122 (wills). Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/revisedstatuteso01nort; vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/revisedstatuteso02nort (accessed 22 July 2026).

Session Laws and Colonial and State Records

• Colonial and State Records of North Carolina. Documenting the American South. The acts passed before 1776 in full — the tithable acts of 1715, 1723, 1738, and 1749 (State Records vol. XXIII); Laws of 1715, ch. XLVI, and Laws of 1741, ch. I (interracial marriage). https://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/ (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Laws of the State of North-Carolina. [Potter’s Revisal.] Raleigh: Printed and sold by J. Gales, 1821. 2 vols. The collected public acts from 1715 to 1820: the Act of 1762 on guardians and orphans, the Act of 1778 receiving the common law, the Act of 1784 on descent and entails, the Act of 1808 on descent, and the Act of 1811, ch. 820, fixing 18 as the age to make a will of chattels. Potter numbers chapters continuously from 1715, so a chapter number taken from a session printing will not match the number here. Digital images. Internet Archive. Vol. 1, https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofnor01nort; vol. 2, https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofnor02nort (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Public Laws and Resolutions of the State of North Carolina, 1917. Ch. 219 (legitimation by the subsequent marriage of the parents). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/publiclawsresolu1917nort (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Public Laws and Resolutions of the State of North Carolina, 1919. Ch. 97, the Juvenile Court Act (exclusive jurisdiction over children under 16). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/publiclawsresolu1919nort (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Public Laws and Resolutions of the State of North Carolina, 1933. Ch. 228 (proceedings for the support of children born outside marriage, replacing the older bastardy chapter). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/publiclawsresolu1933nort (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1860–61. Ch. 36 (free people of color not to own, hire or control slaves). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/publiclawsofstat186061nor (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1865–66. "An Act Concerning Negroes and Persons of Color or of Mixed Blood" (ch. 40): §§ 5–6 (cohabitation), § 7 (contracts involving a person of color, void unless witnessed by a literate white person), and § 9 (testimony). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/publiclawsofstat186566nor (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1866–67. Ch. 70, extending the cohabitation-recording deadline to 1 January 1868. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/publiclawsofstat186667nor (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1868–69. Raleigh: M. S. Littlefield, State Printer & Binder, 1869. Ch. 93 (common-law dower restored; homestead conveyance) and ch. 201, § 4 (guardianship). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/publiclawsofstat186869nor (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1871–72. Raleigh: Theo. N. Ramsay, State Printer and Binder, 1872. Ch. 193, the marriage act; licenses replace bonds, the consent age moves to 18, and the register of deeds files the written consent. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/publiclawsofstat187172nor (accessed 22 July 2026).

A few acts have no separately digitized volume in this run. The Act of 1868, ch. 5, on marriage licenses, and the Act of 1868, ch. 9, on jury lists, are most easily read as carried forward in The Code (1883), §§ 1722–1723 and 1814–1819, linked above. The Act of 1826, ch. 21, and the Acts of 1830, chs. 4 and 9, are most easily read where they were carried forward, in the Revised Statutes of 1837, ch. 111, and the Revised Code of 1854, ch. 107, both linked above. The Acts of 1937, chs. 225 and 432, and the Session Laws of 1945, chs. 73 and 634, 1947, ch. 1007, 1951, ch. 154, 1955, ch. 540, and 1959, ch. 879, fall after the open-access run ends; read them in a session-law volume or in the annotated General Statutes, where each section carries its citation chain. Acts named only as links in a citation chain — the amendments of 1889, 1897, 1899, 1923, 1939 and the like — are read in the session volume for their year; the Internet Archive run covers the sessions from 1854 to 1941.

Court Cases

• Baggett v. Jackson. 160 N.C. 26 (1912).
• Battle v. Vick. 15 N.C. 294 (1833).
• Bettis v. Avery. 140 N.C. 184 (1905).
• Grant v. Whitaker. 5 N.C. 231 (1809).
• Hale v. Whitehead. 115 N.C. 29 (1894).
• Harris v. Russell. 124 N.C. 547 (1899).
• Hight v. Harris. 188 N.C. 328 (1924).
• Hogan v. Utter. 175 N.C. 332 (1918).
• Jones v. Hoggard. 108 N.C. 178 (1891).
• Lewis v. Pate. 212 N.C. 253 (1937).
• Price v. Slagle. 189 N.C. 757 (1925).
• Sawyer v. Slack. 196 N.C. 697 (1929).
• Spaugh v. Hartman. 150 N.C. 454 (1909).
• State v. Brown. 233 N.C. 202 (1951).
• State v. Emery. 224 N.C. 581 (1944).
• State v. Freeman. 100 N.C. 432 (1888).
• State v. Griffice. 74 N.C. 316 (1876).
• State v. Kennedy. 76 N.C. 251 (1877).
• State v. Peoples. 131 N.C. 785 (1902).
• State v. Ross. 76 N.C. 242 (1877).
• State v. Samuel. 19 N.C. 177 (1836).
• State v. Sims. 213 N.C. 590 (1938).
• State v. Wilson. 121 N.C. 650 (1897).
• State v. Wincroft. 76 N.C. 38 (1877).
• Tucker v. Bellamy. 98 N.C. 31 (1887).
• University v. Markham. 174 N.C. 338 (1917).
• Vann v. Edwards. 135 N.C. 661 (1904).
• Warren v. Dail. 170 N.C. 406 (1915).
• Wynne v. Alway. 5 N.C. 38 (1804).

Secondary and Reference Works

• Heinegg, Paul. Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina. Includes the text of the tithable acts. https://freeafricanamericans.com/introduction.htm (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Henderson, Bob. "Tithables" and "Primogeniture and Succession." Bob's Genealogy Filing Cabinet. https://genfiles.com/articles/tithables/; https://genfiles.com/articles/primogeniture-succession/ (accessed 22 July 2026).
• Milteer, Warren E., Jr. North Carolina's Free People of Color, 1715–1885. LSU Press, 2020.
• NCpedia (North Carolina Government & Heritage Library). Entries on marriage, primogeniture, slavery, and free people of color. https://www.ncpedia.org (accessed 22 July 2026).
• North Carolina Digital Collections. "Cohabitation Records." https://digital.ncdcr.gov/collections/cohabitation-records (accessed 22 July 2026).
• "North Carolina's New Intestate Succession Act." North Carolina Law Review (1960). https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/ (accessed 22 July 2026).
• UNC School of Government. History of juvenile court jurisdiction and the age-16 line. https://www.sog.unc.edu (accessed 22 July 2026).
• U.S. Women's Bureau. "The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for North Carolina." Bulletin 157-32. Documenting the American South. https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/legalstatus/legalstatus.html (accessed 22 July 2026).

Citations

1. Act of 1778, ch. 133; the rule traced through Laws of 1715, ch. 5, §§ 2–3, the Revised Code of North Carolina (Boston: Little, Brown, 1855), ch. 22 (digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/revisedcodeofnor1854nort : accessed 22 July 2026)), The Code (1883), § 641, the Revisal (1905), § 932, and the Consolidated Statutes of North Carolina (Raleigh: Commercial Printing Co., 1919), § 970 (digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/consolidatedstat01nort : accessed 22 July 2026)), now G.S. 4-1 (accessed 11 August 2026) ↩
2. Session Laws of North Carolina, 1959, ch. 879, the Intestate Succession Act; codified as N.C. Gen. Stat. ch. 29 (G.S. Chapter 29) ↩
3. Price v. Slagle, 189 N.C. 757, 765 (1925); and see the reception statute above, Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 970 ↩
4. Session Laws of North Carolina, 1971, ch. 1231, lowering the age of majority to 18 ↩
5. Hight v. Harris, 188 N.C. 328 (1924) ↩
6. Hogan v. Utter, 175 N.C. 332, 334 (1918) ↩
7. Baggett v. Jackson, 160 N.C. 26 (1912) ↩
8. The Revised Statutes of the State of North Carolina (Raleigh: Turner and Hughes, 1837), ch. 71, which regulates licenses, banns and penalties but fixes no marrying age; the common-law ages of 14 for males and 12 for females therefore governed under the reception statute, Act of 1778, ch. 133. The first statutory ages are Revised Code of 1854, ch. 68, § 14 ↩
9. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 68, § 14 ↩
10. Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1871–72 (Raleigh: Theo. N. Ramsay, State Printer and Binder, 1872), ch. 193, § 1, “An Act Concerning Marriages, Marriage Settlements and the Contracts of Married Women,” which cites the Revised Code of 1854, ch. 68, § 14 on its face; carried through The Code (1883), § 1809, “Who may contract a marriage,” the Revisal (1905), § 2089, and Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 2495, now G.S. 51-3 ↩
11. The North Carolina Code of 1935 (Charlottesville, Va.: Michie Co., 1935), § 2494; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/northcarolinacod1935nort : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
12. Sawyer v. Slack, 196 N.C. 697 (1929) ↩
13. Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1868, ch. 5, § 1, "An Act in Relation to Marriage Licenses," placing the duty of issuing marriage licenses with the register of deeds; the 1868 session volume is not separately digitized in the open-access run, and the provisions are read as carried forward in The Code (1883), §§ 1814–1819. And see State Library of North Carolina, "Vital Records: Marriages" (https://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/blog/2021/02/15/vital-records-marriages : accessed 11 August 2026) ↩
14. The Revised Statutes of the State of North Carolina (Raleigh: Turner and Hughes, 1837), ch. 34, § 47 (the offense) and ch. 71, §§ 7–8 (the trustees), both carried from the Act of 1820, ch. 1041, §§ 1–4, which is where the rule begins; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/revisedstatuteso01nort : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
15. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 68, § 13 ↩
16. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 68, § 12 ↩
17. N.C. Code of 1935, § 2500; carried from Laws of 1871–72, ch. 193, § 5, through The Code (1883), § 1814, “License, when to be issued by register of deeds,” whose prescribed form of license recites the written consent where either party is under eighteen, and the Revisal (1905), § 2082, Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 2500, and the acts of 1923, ch. 75, 1933, ch. 269, 1939, ch. 375, and 1947, ch. 383, now G.S. 51-2 ↩
18. N.C. Constitution of 1868, art. XIV, § 8, as amended 1875–76; North Carolina General Assembly (https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Constitution/NCConstitution.html : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
19. N.C. Code of 1935, § 2495 ↩
20. N.C. Code of 1935, § 2495; the section declares all of these marriages void, while the working distinction between a marriage void outright and one that stood until annulled comes from the case law and the annulment procedure rather than from the face of the statute ↩
21. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 68, § 7 (marriages between a white person and a free person of color to the third generation void from 8 January 1839) and § 9 (marriages between persons nearer of kin than first cousins void from 27 December 1852) ↩
22. State v. Samuel, 19 N.C. 177, 181 (1836); State v. Wilson, 121 N.C. 650, 656 (1897) ↩
23. State v. Samuel, 19 N.C. 177, 181 (1836); State v. Wilson, 121 N.C. 650, 656 (1897). Marriages valid where contracted are still honored, so a common-law marriage validly formed in another state is recognized in North Carolina ↩
24. State v. Ross, 76 N.C. 242, 245 (1877) ↩
25. State v. Kennedy, 76 N.C. 251 (1877) ↩
26. State v. Samuel, 19 N.C. 177, 181 (1836), holding that an enslaved couple's union was not a marriage known to the law; Revised Code of 1854, ch. 68, whose marriage provisions reach free persons only ↩
27. Laws of 1715, ch. XLVI, § XVI; State Records of North Carolina, vol. 23, p. 65; digital images, Documenting the American South (https://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/ : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
28. Laws of 1741, ch. I, § XIII ↩
29. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 68, § 7, voiding such marriages from 8 January 1839; re-enacted, with a $500 penalty on the officiant or clerk, by Public Laws of 1865–66, ch. 40, § 8 ↩
30. N.C. Constitution of 1868, art. XIV, § 8, as amended 1875–76 ↩
31. Laws of 1830, ch. 4, § 3; carried into the Revised Code of 1854 ↩
32. Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1865–66, ch. 40 (ratified 10 March 1866); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/publiclawsofstat186566nor : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
33. Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1866–67, ch. 70, amending § 6 of ch. 40; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/publiclawsofstat186667nor : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
34. No North Carolina statute barred a free person from acquiring or holding land on account of race. The disabilities imposed on free people of color reached voting, migration, testimony, apprenticeship and the like, and are collected in the Revised Code of 1854, ch. 107, "Slaves and Free Negroes," which contains no bar on landholding. And see Warren E. Milteer Jr., North Carolina's Free People of Color, 1715–1885 (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2020) ↩
35. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 38, Rule 9 ↩
36. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 37, § 8, requiring the private examination of a wife on a deed of husband and wife, with no counterpart for a single woman or widow; Consolidated Statutes of North Carolina (Raleigh: Commercial Printing Co., 1919), §§ 2506, 2507 ↩
37. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 37, §§ 4, 8–10, "Deeds of husband and wife, how proved. Wife privately examined," with the form of the commission to take the private examination of a feme covert ↩
38. N.C. Constitution of 1868, art. X, § 6; Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 2506 ↩
39. Vann v. Edwards, 135 N.C. 661, 670 (1904) ↩
40. Consolidated Statutes (1919), §§ 997, 2506, 2507, 2509 ↩
41. Consolidated Statutes (1919), §§ 2507, 2515; Warren v. Dail, 170 N.C. 406, 415 (1915) ↩
42. Lewis v. Pate, 212 N.C. 253 (1937) ↩
43. Consolidated Statutes (1919), §§ 2525, 2526 ↩
44. Consolidated Statutes (1919), §§ 2529, 2530 ↩
45. Laws of 1784, ch. 22, the session numbering; the act is printed as ch. 204 in Laws of the State of North-Carolina [Potter’s Revisal] (Raleigh: Printed and sold by J. Gales, 1821), vol. 1, ch. 204; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofnor01nort : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
46. Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1868–69 (Raleigh: M. S. Littlefield, State Printer & Binder, 1869), ch. 93, §§ 32–33; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/publiclawsofstat186869nor : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
47. Public Laws of 1868–69, ch. 93, § 35 ↩
48. Public Laws of 1868–69, ch. 93, § 36 ↩
49. N.C. Code of 1935, §§ 4100–4102 ↩
50. N.C. Constitution of 1868, art. X, § 8 ↩
51. N.C. Code of 1935, § 4103 ↩
52. N.C. Code of 1935, § 2577 ↩
53. N.C. Code of 1935, § 4103a ↩
54. N.C. Code of 1935, § 4103b ↩
55. Session Laws of North Carolina, 1945, ch. 73, § 21, repealing every statute requiring the privy or private examination of a married woman from and after 7 February 1945, now G.S. 47-14.1; instruments executed since 7 November 1944 validated notwithstanding its absence, G.S. 39-13.1 ↩
56. N.C. Code of 1935, § 2519 ↩
57. Session Laws, 1959, ch. 879; G.S. 29-4 ↩
58. Hogan v. Utter, 175 N.C. at 332 ↩
59. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 37 ↩
60. Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina, introduction (https://freeafricanamericans.com/introduction.htm : accessed 11 August 2026); Warren E. Milteer Jr., North Carolina's Free People of Color, 1715–1885 (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2020) ↩
61. Laws of 1826, ch. 21, § 1; carried into the Revised Statutes of 1837, ch. 111, § 65, and the Revised Code of 1854, ch. 107, § 54, where migration into the State is a misdemeanor for the whole time of the free person’s stay, with a $500 fine ↩
62. Laws of 1830, ch. 9, §§ 1–2; carried into the Revised Statutes of 1837, ch. 111, §§ 57–58, and the Revised Code of 1854, ch. 107, §§ 45, 50 — the owner’s bond conditioned that the freed person “will, within ninety days after granting the prayer for emancipation, leave the State, and never afterwards come within the same,” on pain of being sold back into slavery ↩
63. Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1860–61, ch. 36, § 1, “An Act to Prevent Free Negroes from Hiring or Having the Control of Slaves” (ratified February 1861): no free negro or free person of color to buy, purchase or hire any slave, to take one as an apprentice, or otherwise to have the control, management or services of any slave; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/publiclawsofstat186061nor : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
64. Public Laws of 1865–66, ch. 40, § 7 ↩
65. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 50, § 16, headed “Contracts with Cherokee Indians to be in writing, subscribed by two witnesses,” reaching contracts made after 18 May 1838 with any Cherokee Indian or person of Cherokee Indian blood within the second degree; carried from the Revised Statutes of 1837, ch. 50, § 11, and forward as The Code (1883), § 1553, the Revisal (1905), § 975, and the Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 989, whose derivation reads "Rev., s. 975; Code, s. 1553; R.C., c. 50, s. 16; 1907, c. 1004, s. 1" and which carries the 1907 proviso; codified as G.S. 22-3 and repealed by Session Laws of North Carolina, 1995, ch. 379, § 15 (G.S. Chapter 22 : accessed 11 August 2026) ↩
66. Laws of 1784, ch. 22, the session numbering; printed as ch. 204 in Potter’s Revisal ↩
67. Laws of 1808, ch. 739, the continuous numbering used in Potter’s Revisal ↩
68. Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 1654, Rule 2; carried from the Revised Code of 1854, ch. 38, § 1, through The Code (1883), § 1281, and the Revisal (1905), § 1556 ↩
69. University v. Markham, 174 N.C. 338 (1917) ↩
70. Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 1654, Rule 8 ↩
71. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 64, § 1; N.C. Code of 1935, § 137 ↩
72. N.C. Code of 1935, § 137, subsec. 8 ↩
73. N.C. Code of 1935, §§ 4108 (who is entitled), 4109 (amount allowed); the figures were raised from $300 and $100 by Public Laws of 1937, ch. 225 ↩
74. N.C. Code of 1935, §§ 4096, 4097 ↩
75. Session Laws, 1959, ch. 879; G.S. Chapter 29 ↩
76. Harris v. Russell, 124 N.C. 547 (1899) ↩
77. N.C. Code of 1935, § 2152 ↩
78. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 54, §§ 2 (courts’ cognizance of orphans; guardians appointed and bonds taken), 18 (grand jury to present orphans left without a guardian); carried from the Act of 1762, ch. 69, §§ 5, 7, through The Code (1883), § 1566, and the Revisal (1905), § 1766 ↩
79. Public Laws of 1868–69, ch. 201, § 4 ↩
80. N.C. Code of 1935, § 2151 ↩
81. N.C. Code of 1935, § 2155 ↩
82. Grant v. Whitaker, 5 N.C. 231 (1809); Wynne v. Alway, 5 N.C. 38 (1804); appointment remained discretionary, Battle v. Vick, 15 N.C. 294 (1833) ↩
83. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 54, § 1, reaching a child "under the age of twenty-one and not married"; Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 2188, final account required at any time after six months from the minor's coming of full age or the cessation of the guardianship; carried from the Revisal (1905), § 1807, and The Code (1883), § 1619 ↩
84. Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 1654, Rule 9 ↩
85. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 64, §§ 5–6 ↩
86. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 38, Rule 10, and ch. 64, § 5, both conditioned on there being no legitimate issue; the condition is dropped by Public Laws of 1913, ch. 71, and the rule is printed in its later form at Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 1654, Rule 9, whose derivation reads "1799, c. 522; 1913, c. 71" ↩
87. Legitimation by private act of the General Assembly. Each act stands alone in the private-laws volume for its session; read the private acts in the session laws for the year in question ↩
88. Public Laws of the State of North Carolina, 1917, ch. 219, § 1 (legitimation by the subsequent marriage of the parents); Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 279; a 1955 amendment extended the child's right to inherit by, through, and from both parents — Session Laws of North Carolina, 1955, ch. 540, § 3, codified as G.S. 49-12 ↩
89. Act of 1829, ch. 19, § 3, carried into the Revised Code of 1854, ch. 12, § 9, and printed as The Code (1883), §§ 39–40, whose derivation reads "R. C., c. 12, s. 9. 1829, c. 19, s. 3" ↩
90. Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 277, headed “Legitimation of bastards” (petition to the superior court of the county where the father resides; the clerk records the decree), and § 278, “Effects of legitimation” (the child inherits from the father alone); carried from The Code (1883), §§ 39–40, and the Revisal (1905), §§ 263–264, now N.C. Code of 1935, §§ 277–278 and G.S. 49-10 ↩
91. The Code (1883), §§ 31–38, the bastardy chapter, giving justices of the peace exclusive original jurisdiction on the mother’s affidavit and providing for the bond; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/codeofnorthcarol011883 : accessed 11 August 2026); carried from the Revised Code of 1854, ch. 12, and replaced by Public Laws of 1933, ch. 228, now G.S. 49-2 ↩
92. Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 1654, Rule 13, “Issue of certain colored persons to inherit,” whose printed derivation reads “1897, c. 153; 1879, c. 78”; carried from The Code (1883), § 1281 ↩
93. Bettis v. Avery, 140 N.C. 184 (1905) ↩
94. Spaugh v. Hartman, 150 N.C. 454 (1909) ↩
95. Jones v. Hoggard, 108 N.C. 178 (1891); Tucker v. Bellamy, 98 N.C. 31 (1887) ↩
96. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 119, § 2, headed “Ages of testators and executors,” setting 21 for a will of real or personal estate and for qualifying as executor; carried through The Code (1883), § 2137, the Revisal (1905), § 3111, and Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 4128 (indexed as “Infants incapable”), now N.C. Code of 1935, § 4128 ↩
97. Act of 1811, ch. 820, “An act to fix the age at which persons shall be capable of disposing of chattels by will,” Potter’s Revisal, vol. 2; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofnor02nort : accessed 22 July 2026); carried forward as the Revised Statutes of 1837, ch. 122, § 14, headed “No person, under eighteen years, can make a will of chattels,” whose printed derivation reads “1811, c. 820” ↩
98. No statute fixed an age for a will of chattels before 1811; the first is the Act of 1811, ch. 820, cited above, whose title — "An act to fix the age at which persons shall be capable of disposing of chattels by will" — shows there was none before it, so the common-law ages governed under the reception statute, Act of 1778, ch. 133. A will of land took the age fixed for conveyancing, 21 ↩
99. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 119, § 2 ↩
100. N.C. Code of 1935, § 8, subsec. 1 ↩
101. N.C. Code of 1935, § 34, subsec. 2 ↩
102. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 119, § 1 ↩
103. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 119, § 10 ↩
104. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 119, § 9 ↩
105. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 119, § 1 ↩
106. The North Carolina Code of 1935 (Charlottesville, Va.: Michie Co., 1935), §§ 7880(1) ff., the Revenue Act, carrying the income tax from Public Laws of 1921, ch. 34, and the sales tax from Public Laws of 1933, ch. 445; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/northcarolinacod1935nort : accessed 11 August 2026). Neither leaves the kind of public, name-by-name list the poll tax does ↩
107. State Records of North Carolina, vol. XXIII, pp. 106–07, 345 ↩
108. Laws of 1784, ch. 195, § 1, "An act to amend an act, entitled, An act for ascertaining what property in this state shall be deemed taxable property," requiring a return of "the number of free males and servants twenty-one years old and upwards, the number of slaves male and female between the age of twelve and fifty years"; printed in Laws of the State of North-Carolina [Potter's Revisal] (Raleigh: Printed and sold by J. Gales, 1821), vol. 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsofstateofnor01nort : accessed 11 August 2026). No upper limit appears until the constitutional amendments of 1835 ↩
109. Amendments to the Constitution, ratified 1835, § III, cl. 1–2 ↩
110. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 99, § 4, headed “Tax on poll” ↩
111. N.C. Constitution of 1868, art. V, §§ 1–2 ↩
112. N.C. Constitution, art. V, § 1 ↩
113. State v. Griffice, 74 N.C. 316 (1876) ↩
114. State v. Griffice, 74 N.C. at 321 ↩
115. Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 2312; N.C. Code of 1935, § 2312; carried from Laws of 1806, ch. 694, through The Code (1883), §§ 1722, 1723, the acts of 1889, ch. 559, 1897, chs. 117, 539, and 1899, ch. 729, the Revisal (1905), § 1957, and 1947, ch. 1007, § 1; and see State v. Peoples, 131 N.C. 785, 788 (1902) ↩
116. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 31, § 25, the jury list to be made from the taxable freeholders of the county; compare Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 2312, drawing the list from taxpayers with no freeholder requirement ↩
117. Laws of 1868, ch. 9, §§ 1–2, printed as The Code (1883), §§ 1722–1723, "Jurors shall be selected" and "List of names to be made out," which select "the names of such persons only as have paid tax for the preceding year and are of good moral character and of sufficient intelligence," with no freeholder requirement; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/codeofnorthcarol011883 : accessed 11 August 2026); carried to the Revisal (1905), § 1957, and Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 2312 ↩
118. Hale v. Whitehead, 115 N.C. 29 (1894); State v. Freeman, 100 N.C. 432 (1888); State v. Wincroft, 76 N.C. 38 (1877) ↩
119. Consolidated Statutes (1919), § 2321; carried from Laws of 1779, ch. 156, § 69, through the Revised Code of 1854, ch. 31, § 29, and The Code (1883), § 1733 ↩
120. State v. Yeargan, 117 N.C. 706 (1895), stating the rule for North Carolina: a child under seven cannot be indicted and punished for any offense, because of the irrebuttable presumption that he is doli incapax ↩
121. State v. Yeargan, 117 N.C. 706 (1895), where a misdemeanor committed at 13 was held not punishable because the boy did not know he was breaking a law; restated in State v. Smith, 213 N.C. 299, 301 (1938) ↩
122. State v. Smith, 213 N.C. 299 (1938) ↩
123. Public Laws and Resolutions of the State of North Carolina, 1919, ch. 97, § 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/publiclawsresolu1919nort : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
124. Public Laws of 1919, ch. 97, § 9(f) ↩
125. Consolidated Statutes (1919), §§ 1792–1796 ↩
126. N.C. Code of 1935, §§ 1801, 1802 ↩
127. Declaration of Rights of 1776, art. IX; N.C. Constitution of 1868, art. I, § 13; Avalon Project, Yale Law School (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/nc07.asp : accessed 22 July 2026) ↩
128. State v. Sims, 213 N.C. 590 (1938) ↩
129. State v. Emery, 224 N.C. 581 (1944) ↩
130. Session Laws of North Carolina, 1945, ch. 634, proposing the constitutional amendment changing "men" to "persons" in the jury clause (ratified 1946) ↩
131. Session Laws of North Carolina, 1947, ch. 1007, § 1, the enabling act admitting women to jury service and broadening the jury list ↩
132. see State v. Brown, 233 N.C. 202 (1951) ↩
133. Revised Code of 1854, ch. 107, "Slaves and Free Negroes"; roots in Laws of 1741, ch. 35 ↩
134. Public Laws of 1865–66, ch. 40, § 9 ↩
135. see State v. Peoples, 131 N.C. at 785, an exclusion challenge by a Black defendant ↩

Note: This law guide was created with assistance from multiple AI tools. Though a diligent effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, there may be unintentional errors. It's important to check the primary sources as needed to ensure accuracy.