School History of North Carolina : from 1584 to the present time

by John W. Moore

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE CONDITION OF THE STATE.

A. D. 1827 TO 1836.

1. While the Republic of the United States was so divided and agitated as to matters of policy touching the interests of all the Union, there were, at the same time, many issues of local importance confined to North Carolina.

2. The old habit of annually changing the place for holding the sessions of the Legislature had first brought about a feeling of sectionalism between the eastern and western counties. Western men had first learned to combine in securing Hillsboro rather than New Bern for this purpose. It was natural and right for them to seek to lessen as much as possible the distance that separated the State capital from their homes.

1829.

3. The western counties were also anxious to change the system of representation, so that their weight in population should be felt in legislation. As it was, the east held control of both Houses of the General Assembly. Hertford, with five hundred voters, had exactly the weight of Buncombe or Orange, with its thousands. Eastern men would not consent to modify this hardship. They insisted that the Halifax Constitution was still to be adhered to, and refused to go into a constitutional convention for fear of changes that might subject eastern wealth to taxation in order to secure the construction of highways in the west.

1831.

4. On the morning of the 21st of June the capitol at Raleigh was burned. The fire was caused by the carelessness of a workman who was covering the roof. The building was a total loss, as was also the beautiful statue of Washington, which stood in the rotunda. A new capitol was erected upon the site of the old building, by act of the Legislature of 1832. It is an elegant structure, and was built of native granite, at a cost of over a half million of dollars.

5. The burning of the Capitol, or State-House, as it was called, was a calamity and inconvenience, but the chief regret was over the loss of the marble statue of Washington. This fine work had recently been received from the famous sculptor Canova, in Italy, and was said to be one of his finest productions.

[NOTE—By a freak of liberality, unusual in those good old days, when the State never spent over ninety thousand dollars a year for all purposes, when taxes were six cents on the one hundred dollars value of real estate only, and personal property was entirely exempt, the General Assembly had placed in the rotunda a magnificent statue of Washington, of Carrara marble, by the great Canova. It was the pride and boast of the state. Our people remembered with peculiar pleasure that La Fayette had stood at its base and commended the beauty of the carving and fitness of the honor to the great man, under whom he had served in our war of independence, and whom he regarded with a passionate and reverential love. —(Hon. Kemp P. Battle. LL. D. ).]

1834.

6. On the 4th day of June, 1823, a political convention, composed of gentlemen from the western portion of the State, met in Raleigh. It was presided over by Bartle Yancey. The object of the convention was to devise measure to secure greater weight in the Legislature to their great and growing popular majorities. Many wise and desirable changes in the Constitution of 1776 were suggested, and the result was that sectional feeling ran very high. So much so, that in time the people of the west might have proceeded to extreme measures had not the Legislature of 1834 come to the rescue in the passage of the "Convention Bill."

7. On a close vote, aided by the votes of eastern borough members, the bill was passed which provided that, in case a call for a convention therein contained should be endorsed by a majority of the voters in the State, then a convention should be held; and each member chosen, before taking his seat should take oath that he would not be a party to any further alterations of the Constitution than those specified in the enabling act.

1835.

8. The Convention met in Raleigh on June 4th 1835, and Nathaniel Macon was made President. Many of the ablest men in the State were members. Judge Gastor, Governor David L. Swain and Judge J. J. Daniel were leaders in the debates. Borough representation and free negro suffrage were abolished. The election of Governor was taken from the Assembly and committed to the people. The legislative sessions were made biennial instead of annual, as of old. Each county was to send one member to the House of Commons, and more if its population justified so doing. One hundred and twenty members constituted this body, while the Senators were limited to fifty. The upper House was to represent taxation; and the lower, population.

9. These organic changes were ratified by a popular majority of more than five thousand votes. This change of Constitution was soon followed by the first popular election for Governor. Governors Miller, Burton, Owen and Swain had successively occupied the Executive Office in North Carolina, until the Legislature, in 1835, for the last time, selected a Governor in the person of Richard Dobbs Spaight, of Craven.

10. This gentleman did not equal his father in the brilliance of his endowments, but he was well fitted for the exigencies of a contest before the people. He was nominated for re-election by the Democrats the next year, but was beaten by the Whig nominee, Edward B. Dudley, of Wilmington. Mr. Dudley was not only a very able lawyer, but proved himself a statesman of enduring worth.