Willie Jones

This chapter examines the political thought of Anti-Federalist leader Willie Jones and attempts to situate him in the broader context of American intellectual history. A Virginia native from a prominent family, Jones established a plantation in Halifax County, which he represented in a series of colonial and state assemblies. After the colonies declared independence, Jones took charge of the radical faction in the North Carolina legislature. At the Hillsborough convention of 1788, Jones saw no need for North Carolina to ratify the Constitution immediately. He believed emotional and cultural ties united the thirteen states whatever their political status. North Carolina could join the Union whenever it wished. In the meantime, it could demand amendments to protect individual and states’ rights. Jones’s position reflected the long standing and widespread belief that small republics best protected individual liberty.

An Ordinary Founder

Born in New Bern in 1758 to a prominent colonial official, Richard Dobbs Spaight rose quickly in North Carolina politics, becoming an aide-de-camp to Governor Richard Caswell in 1778. He later served as speaker of the lower house of the state assembly, as a member of Congress under the Articles of Confederation, and as governor. As a delegate to the federal Constitutional Convention, Spaight made one highly significant procedural motion: to permit a delegate to request reconsideration of a previously decided issue. A Federalist and a conservative, Spaight believed in the rule of elite, and in his mind, public-spirited slave-owners. In the late 1790s, however, he became a Democratic-Republican. A partisan feud led to his death in a duel with Federalist John Stanly in 1802.

Samuel Spencer, Anti-Federalist

This essay is a sympathetic treatment of the often maligned Anson County judge Samuel Spencer. He is usually remembered, if at all, for the seemingly absurdist circumstances surrounding his death: according to legend, he was mortally wounded by a turkey. Yet Spencer was arguably the most thoughtful and eloquent critic of the Constitution at the Hillsborough convention of 1788. A Princeton alumnus, a wealthy landowner, and an early opponent of Great Britain’s colonial policies, Spencer joined the North Carolina superior court in 1777 and concurred in the court’s Bayard v. Singleton decision, a critical precedent in the development of judicial review. Well within the mainstream of Anti-Federalist thought, Spencer was not unalterably opposed to a stronger central government, but he recognized federal power could be abused, and he hoped his opposition to the Constitution would create pressure for amendments, including a bill of rights.

James Iredell

This essay examines the public career of James Iredell, who was probably Revolutionary-era North Carolina’s most influential propagandist. His first published essay, which appeared in September 1773, defended the jurisdiction of colonial courts in the foreign attachment controversy, and he was one of the first Whig writers to reject the sovereignty of Parliament in America. During the Revolution, Iredell continued to write on behalf of the American cause, but financial woes limited his political activities. During the debate over the ratification of the Constitution, however, Iredell emerged as one of North Carolina’s most energetic Federalists, and George Washington rewarded him with an appointment to the United States Supreme Court. Like many southern Federalists, Iredell supported the new government, but was wary of pushing federal power too far, and in his best known opinion, a dissent in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), he argued that a state could not be sued in federal court without its consent.

The Political Views of Richard Caswell and the Founding of the New Nation

Richard Caswell was the first and fifth governor of North Carolina, a member of the Continental Congress, and the co-author of the North Carolina constitution of 1776. Caswell’s political success owed much to his role as a leader of North Carolina forces at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, one of the first American victories in the southern phase of the American Revolution. The American defeat at the Battle of Camden in 1780, where Caswell was a militia commander, tarnished his reputation only slightly. Citing ill health, he declined an appointment to serve in the federal Constitutional Convention, although he supported strengthening the national government. Caswell might best be described as a popular conservative who often supported reform, including the creation of a public school system and a state university.

Our Common Country

John Sevier settled in the Watauga region on the North Carolina frontier shortly before the American Revolution. A veteran Indian fighter, Sevier soon entered politics and received a commission as a militia officer. Campaigns against the Cherokee and his role in the defeat of British forces at the Battle of King’s Mountain made him a hero among many backcountry whites. After North Carolina indicated a willingness to cede its western lands to Congress, Sevier served briefly as governor of the ill-fated “state” of Franklin. After the cession was completed, Sevier became the first governor of the new state of Tennessee. A pragmatist if not an opportunist, Sevier seems to have been driven by a desire for western land, not by political ideology or a sense of American nationalism.

Afterword

This brief epilogue concludes that state-level leaders, or what one contributor described as “ordinary founders,” were essential to mobilizing a largely parochial population to fight a long war for independence and later to support a new national government. In closing, the editors make three final observations. First, by the late 1780s, North Carolina’s Revolutionary founders began to pass from the scene, and the state entered a new political era. Second, although the individuals profiled in this book were a diverse group, probably none of them could be characterized as extreme nationalists. Third, many other figures and topics from this period in North Carolina history remain to be explored.

Two North Carolinians, Same Goal, Different Approaches

The volume’s final substantive essay compares and contrasts the public careers of two of the most important members of that generation of North Carolina politicians who rose to prominence after the founding era. Archibald D. Murphey was an Orange County judge and state senator who became known as a champion of constitutional reform and state support for education and internal improvements. Nathaniel Macon served 24 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and 13 years in the Senate and acquired a reputation as an archconsevative. This essay suggests traditional accounts may exaggerate their differences. Macon’s opposition to the Sedition Bill of 1798 showed a civil libertarian streak. Both men owned slaves and neither supported any significant steps to end slavery. Both men supported the University of North Carolina. Their differences stemmed in part from the different realms in which they operated. As a member of Congress, Macon felt compelled to address the constitutional limits of federal power, issues which Murphey, as a state politician, did not have to confront.

John Chavis

This essay on the life of John Chavis illustrates both the opportunities and the obstacles facing free African Americans in post-Revolutionary North Carolina. Details of his early life are uncertain. Reportedly a Revolutionary War veteran, Chavis studied at the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, and at Liberty Hall Academy, the forerunner of Washington and Lee University. Licensed in 1801 by the Presbyterian General Assembly as a missionary to enslaved African Americans, Chavis proved more popular with white audiences. His principal income for much of his life came from a school he operated in Raleigh, where he taught black and white students and became a confidant of North Carolina senator William P. Mangum. A conservative and an old-line Federalist, Chavis bemoaned the rise of Jacksonian Democracy and opposed the immediate abolition of slavery. Yet restrictions imposed on black teachers and ministers after Nat Turner’s rebellion made his last years difficult. He died in 1838 almost certainly of natural causes, not, as is sometimes reported, of mob violence.

William R. Davie

This profile of the lawyer and planter William R. Davie illustrates the relative decline of North Carolina’s conservative, political elite in the post-Revolutionary era. Educated at Princeton, Davie served as a cavalry commander and as state commissary general during the Revolution. As a member of the North Carolina assembly in the 1780s, he favored modernization of the state court system and the lenient treatment of Loyalists while opposing paper money. As a delegate to the federal Constitutional Convention,Davie supported the Connecticut Compromise, which resolved the issue of congressional representation, and was an outspoken advocate of the Three-Fifths Compromise regarding the counting of slaves. He played a more influential role in championing the ratification of the Constitution in North Carolina. Davie also sponsored legislation creating the University of North Carolina, served as a university trustee and briefly as governor, and helped negotiate a settlement of the Quasi-War with France. But public opinion soon turned against Davie’s aristocratic leadership style, and after losing a race for Congress in 1803, he left North Carolina in disgust.