Negro Legislators in The North Carolina General Assembly, July, 1868-February, 1872

North Carolina Office of Archives and History
Negro Legislators in the North Carolina General Assembly, July, 1868-February, 1872
Author(s): Elizabeth Balanoff
Source: The North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 49, No. 1 (January, 1972), pp. 22-55
Published by: North Carolina Office of Archives and History
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Negro Legislators in the North Carolina
General Assembly, July, 1868-February, 1872
By Elizabeth Balanoff*
November, 1868, seemed like the dawning of an era to the twenty North
Carolina Negroes who took their seats in the General Assembly. The institution
of slavery had been dissolved through bloody conflict, and the Fourteenth
Amendment was
grudgingly ratified as southern Negroes assumed the re
sponsibilities of citizenship and a share of political power. They expressed their

anticipation of a new role in American society in a statement signed by four
teen black legislators on the election of Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency: "Our
cause has triumphed," they exclaimed. "By his election our status is settled. We
are men!
Yet, many of their expectations were and still remain unfulfilled. Their num
bers were insufficient to move the North Carolina legislature; even in alliance
with white
Republicans, they were able to wield influence only two years.
Gradually—but by the turn of the century completely—they lost all political
power.
then, can a detailed examination of such a select group be justified?
How,
Simply stated, consensus history is not enough. If past is prologue, an appraisal
of the present requires a fuller, more complex of the past, and
understanding
the aspirations and frustrations of those who failed to enter the mainstream
of American life as wfill as of those who succeeded must be studied.
Thefirst Negro legislators in the Reconstruction the confron
experienced
tations, the failures, and the anguish which still characterize race relations in
America in the 1970s. These twenty North Carolina
Negroes were prophets of
the tensions that rend the nation's cities; are models for the men of the
they
1950s and the 1960s who faced similar
questions.
Some of these legislators came out of
slavery, others were born free; a few
*
Mrs. Balanoff is assistant
professor of history at Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois. She
was one of seven seminar students who Dr.
graduate accompanied John Hope Franklin,
distinguished professor of history at the University of
Chicago, to North Carolina in January,
1967, to study the Reconstruction era through research in the collections, documents,
manuscript
official papers, and libraries at the State of Archives and
newspapers, Department History, Raleigh;
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and at Duke Durham.
1 This University,
statement, which appeared in the North Carolina Standard on December 2,
(Raleigh)
1868, was signed by Thomas A. Sykes, John H. Williamson, A. H. Galloway,
Henry Eppes,
John A. Hyman, James Harris, George W. Price, H. J. T.
Hayes, J. S. Leary, Isham Sweat,
Wilson Carey, B. W. Morris, John Thomas and Ivey Hutchings. This
Reynolds, newspaper
will be hereinafter cited as the North Carolina Standard.
THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

Negro Legislators, July, 1868-February, 1872 23
were educated for professions, others were nearly illiterate. A majority of them
had had some prior political experience between the end of the Civil War and
the 1868 election. They were the most conciliatory group represented in the
General Assembly, and they were more willing to see the end of southern Con
servative disfranchisement than were white Republicans.
As representatives of local constituencies, they sought to advance the interests
of their own communities. Most of them also saw themselves as reformers trying
to reconstruct southern society. They were interested in such issues as women's
suffrage, temperance, and the ten-hour workday. They showed continuing

concern for the protection of women and children, the alleviation of poverty, and
particularly for providing mass education and for securing the political rights of
Negroes. On
integration, they differed. Most could accept some segregation
temporarily, especially in schools, rather than jeopardize their newly developing
school system. But on certain issues which they felt were crucial to the welfare
of Negroes, they were united and militant. Protection of the lives of Negroes
was one such issue. Another was the attempt to prevent changes in election laws
and local boundaries which would reduce Negro representation.
The 1868 North Carolina legislature marked a major, though temporary, break
with the past. Republicans won a majority in the state legislature, and for a two
year period, a coalition of "carpetbaggers," blacks, and "scalawags" controlled

state politics.
Three Negro senators and seventeen Negro representatives sat in the 1868
legislature.2 Two representatives, Wilson Carey of Caswell and John Eagles of
2 The
Negro senators in the 1868 legislature were Henry Eppes of Halifax County, Abraham H.
Galloway of New Hanover County, and John A. Hyman of Warren County. The representatives
were Parker D. Robbins of Bertie County, Wilson Carey of Caswell County, B. W. Morris of
Craven County, John S. Leary and Isham Sweat of Cumberland County, Henry C. Cherry of
Edgecombe County, John H. Williamson of Franklin County, A. H. Crawford and Cuffie Mayo
of Granville County, H. J. T. Hayes and Ivey Hutchings of Halifax County, John S. W. Eagles
and George W. Price of New Hanover County, Thomas A. Sykes of Pasquotank County,
James H. Harris of Wake County, and William Cawthorne and Richard Falkner of Warren
County.
These names were compiled by Donald R. Lennon, a former member of the staff of the
State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh. The complete list of the legislators who
served in the North Carolina General Assembly, 1868-1872, which is published following the
text of this article, was based on information from R. D. W. Connor (comp. and éd.), A Manual
of North Carolina . . . 1913 (Raleigh: North Carolina Historical Commission [State Department
of Archives and History], 1913); J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina
(Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton, 1906), hereinafter cited as Hamilton, Reconstruction in North
Carolina; Frenise A. Logan, TheNegro in North Carolina, 1876-1894 (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 1964), hereinafter cited as Logan, The Negro in North Carolina;
Helen G. Edmonds, The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina, 1894-1901 (Chapel Hill:
of North Carolina Press, 1951); the journals of the Senate and the House of
University
of the North Carolina General Assembly for the years 1868 through 1872; and
Representatives
sketch books of the various General Assemblies, which are hereinafter cited. There
biographical
is strong evidence that John Thomas Reynolds was also a Negro. Information from the Sentinel
hereinafter cited as Sentinel, the North Carolina Standard, and the Wilmington
(Raleigh),
indicate this to be the case. Newspapers have at times, however, misidentified people
Journal
as to race. The name of Ivey Hutchings was spelled Hudgings in some of these sources; and
Richard Falkner was frequently listed as Richard Forkner.
VOLUME XLIX, NUMBER 1. JANUARY, 1972

24 Elizabeth Balanoff
White Men of No h
Carolina, Help your Eastern Brethren by Voting
: tor the
Constitutional Amendments!
The feeling prevalent in the eastern part of the state following the Civil
strong anti-Negro
War is evident in this satirical cartoon which shows a white man being auctioned off as a slave
to Negro bidders. The original sketch, probably circulated as a handbill, is in the Manuscript
Department, Duke University Library, Durham, by whose courtesy it is reproduced here.
New Hanover, took their seats only after the legislature was in session. Carey
waited while the election in Caswell County was being contested, and Eagles
was elected to replace a white representative, Llewellen G. Estes, who resigned.
All of the counties electing Negro representatives were in the eastern half
of the state, most of them in the northeastern section. All had more than 50
percent Negro population except Wake, Cumberland, and Pasquotank counties,

which had between 40 and 50 percent. Several counties with more than 50
percent Negro population failed to elect any Negro legislators.3

By 1870 the Republican coalition had been shattered. Many carpetbaggers
had returned to the North. Many southern
Republicans had switched political
allegiance or had lost their elections; and the state legislature was controlled
by white Conservatives. Negroes continued to win a significant minority of

state offices, but what little power they formerly had was gone.
3 These were and Richmond

Jones, Lenoir, Greene, Hertford, Northampton, Chowan,
counties. Superintendent of the Census, Office of the Secretary of the Interior, Ninth Census
of the United States, 1870 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 3 volumes, 1872), I,
52-54.

Negro Legislators, July, 1 868-February, 1872 25
All three Negro senators were returned to office in the 1870 election. Senator
A. H. Galloway of New Hanover died before the General Assembly began its
first session, and George W. Price, who had previously served in the House of
Representatives, was elected to replace him. In the House, Negroes held their
own in numbers, but less than one third of those in the 1870 legislature had
been members of the 1868 legislature. The most noticeable absence was that
of James H. Harris, who ran for Congress instead of the state legislature. After
losing the congressional election, Harris returned to state politics where he had
a long and active career.4
Wilson Carey from Caswell County, who had battled for his seat in the
1868 General Assembly, won again in 1870; however, this time he was un
seated by the legislature. Caswell County was in a state of insurrection and was
occupied by the militia at the time of the election. The House Committee on
Privileges and Elections thus assumed that the election had been controlled.5
Five other representatives from the 1868 legislature were returned to office.6
One of the new members, Representative W. D. Newsome, won his seat
only after the election in Hertford County was contested and he unseated the
Conservative candidate, Thomas Snipes. In both Caswell and Alamance coun
ties, which were also occupied by militia due to Klan violence, contested seats
were given to Conservative candidates.7
There was little change in the counties with black representation. Cumberland
County, a population
with of slightly less than 50 percent Negro, sent no
Negroes to the state legislature in 1870. Hertford and Richmond, which had
no black representatives in 1868, sent some in 1870. Both of these counties had
a population of more than 50 percent Negroes.8
A few of these men attracted enough public attention to leave biographical
information in public records, and fragments of information are available for
others. But sixteen of the thirty-four Negro legislators
serving in this four-year
4 Harris had received

the congressional nomination from the Republicans in 1868 as well
but had then been
persuaded to give it up. A white candidate, John T. DeWeese, was con
sidered more likely to win than a black man. Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina, 281;
Jonathan Daniels, Prince of Carpetbaggers (Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Com
pany, 1958), 177, hereinafter cited as Daniels, Prince of Carpetbaggers.
5
Journal of the House of Representatives of North Carolina, 1870-'71, 41, 51, hereinafter cited
as House Journal, with appropriate date.
6
They were Parker D. Robbins of Bertie County, John H. Williamson of Franklin County,
Thomas A. Sykes of Pasquotank County, and William Cawthorne and Richard Falkner of
Warren County.
7 Other new were
members John R. Page of Chowan County; Richard Tucker, Edward
Richard Dudley, and G. W. Willis of Craven County; Willis Bunn and R. M. Johnson of
Edgecombe County; W. H. Reavis of Granville County; John R. Bryant and Charles Smith of
Halifax County; George L. Mabson of New Hanover County; Robert Fletcher of Richmond
County; and Willis Morgan and Stewart Ellison of Wake County. Hamilton, Reconstruction in
North Carolina, 535.
8 and Northampton counties still sent no Negro and
Jones, Greene, Lenoir, representatives,
Bertie and Caswell counties, formerly with Negro representation, had none in 1870. More than
50 percent of the population of all of these counties was Negro.
VOLUME XL1X, NUMBER 1, JANUARY, 1972

Photographs of Negro legislators who served in the North Carolina General Assembly between
1868 and 1872 are rare. Of thirty-four discussed in this article, likenesses of only two were
located. Left, Senator John A. Hyman of Warren County, who later was elected to the United
States House of Representatives; right, John R. Bryant of Halifax County, who was elected
a staterepresentative in 1870 and 1872 and a state senator and 1876. Photograph of
Senator Hyman reproduced by courtesy of the Manuscript Department, Duke University Library;
photograph of Representative Bryant from the files of the State Department of Archives and
History.
period are now known only by their names which are recorded with their votes in
the legislative journals.9
John A. Hyman, a mulatto slave, was born on July 23, 1840, near Warrenton.
He was sold to a resident of Alabama; later he returned to North Carolina where
he became acquainted with a northern storekeeper named King. King taught
Hyman to read and write, acts which led a mob to attack King and drive
him from North Carolina during the Civil War. At the end of the war Hyman
established a small grocery store in Warrenton and became active in Republican
politics. In 1868 he was elected to represent Warren County in the Consti

tutional Convention and in the state Senate.10
9 No information was found for John R. Bryant, A. H. Crawford,

biographical John S. W.
Eagles, Richard Falkner, Robert Fletcher, H. J. T. Hayes, Ivey Hutchings, R. M. Johnson,
Willis Morgan, John R. Page, George W. Price, W. H. Reavis, Parker D. Robbins, Charles
Smith, Richard Tucker, or G. W. Willis.
10Lizzie Wilson Montgomery, Sketches of Old Warrenton, North Carolina (Raleigh:
Edwards & Broughton Printing Company, 1924), 88-89. Hyman later was elected as a Re
publican representative to the United States Congress (1875-1877), and served as special
deputy collector of internal revenue for the fourth district of North Carolina from July 1, 1877,
to June 30, 1878. Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1961: The Continental
Congress, September 5, 1774, to October 12, 1788, and the Congress of the United States from
the First to the Eighty-sixth Congress, March 4, 1789, to January 3, 1961, Inclusive (Washing
ton: United States Government Printing Office, 1961), 1102.

Henry Eppes was born in Halifax County on September 16, 1831. Lacking
a formal education, he taught himself to read and write. He was a brickmason
and plasterer, and he became a Methodist minister as well, achieving some
prominence in the Methodist Conference of the State of North Carolina. Prior

to entering the Senate, he too represented his county in the Constitutional
Convention.11
Abraham H. Galloway was the most vocal and the most active of the three
Negro senators of 1868.

Unfortunately, his private life remains the most ob
scure. He was a mulatto, a native of Fayetteville; he attended the Freedmen's
Convention of 1865 and the Constitutional Convention of 1868. He had some
education, for the governors papers, preserved in the State Department of
Archives and History, contain a few letters from him.12 He spoke frequently,
and from all reports fluently in the Senate, introducing a mass of legislation
before death cut short his career in 1870.13
In the House of Representatives, James H. Harris was clearly the leading
spokesman for North Carolina Negroes. Born in Granville County in 1832,
he was apprenticed in his youth to J. C. Wagstalf of Warren County to learn
the upholsterer's trade. He served Wagstaff as foreman until the business went
bankrupt; then Harris opened his own business. Later he moved to Oberlin,
Ohio, and during the two years there he obtained his formal education. He
visited Canada, then returned to the United States for a tour of his native land.
In the fall of 1862 he traveled to Liberia and Sierra Leone. Weakened by the
fever he contractedin Africa, he returned home in 1863 to learn that his wife
and her parents had left North Carolina and settled in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Harris followed and in Indiana he was commissioned by Governor Levi P.
Morton to raise the Twenty-eighth Regiment of the United States Colored
Troops for the Union Army.

At war's end Harris returned to North Carolina to take an active in
part
state and local politics, remaining there, despite a reputed offer from President
Andrew Johnson of a ministry to Haiti.14 He played a leading role in the North
Carolina Freedmen's Convention of 1865 and became actively engaged in raising
11 Sketch-Book. Session 1887 & Co.,

Legislative Biographical (Raleigh: Edwards, Broughton
1887), 4; J. S. Tomlinson, Tar Heel Sketch-Book. A Brief Biographical Sketch of the Life and
Public Acts of the Members of the General Assembly of North Carolina. Session of 1879
(Raleigh: Raleigh News Steam Book and Job Print., 1879), 9, hereinafter cited as Tomlinson,
Tor Heel Sketch-Book, 1879.
12 Letter from A. H. Z. French, and J. S. W.
Galloway, senator; George representative;
Eagles, representative-elect, to Governor Efolden, August 10, 1869, Governors Letter Book 60,
hereinafter cited as Holden Letter Book. The letter, which is signed by all three men, appears to
have been written by Galloway.
13 Elaine "The
Joan Nowaczyk, North Carolina Negro in Politics, 1865-1876" (unpublished
master's thesis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1957), 96.
14 W. H. Quick, Stars in All Ages of the World S. B. Adkins and
Negro (Richmond:
Company, second edition, 1898), 125, hereinafter cited as Quick, Negro Stars. Quick does
not cite the source of his information but says that Harris was offered an $8,000 yearly salary
with the appointment.

relief money for destitute Negroes to supplement the inadequate funds of the
Freemen's Aid Society. When the Freemen's Aid Society proved unable to deal
with the postwar poverty through traditional methods of private charity, the
government funded the Freedmen's Bureau. Harris's connections with the Freed
men's Bureau date from its founding; and in August, 1865, he became one of its
education agents.
Throughout his career, Harris took a major interest in education. He helped
persuade the 1867 legislature, which included no Negroes, to incorporate the

Colored Educational Association of North Carolina to establish schools and
promote education among Negroes. A prominent North Carolina lawyer, P errin

Busbee, described him as an "intelligent and I may almost say intellectual
>>IK
15
man.
Harris became a charter member of the Union League of America in North

Carolina. The Union League, which was founded in Philadelphia in 1862 to
promote support for the Union, had become the radical wing of the Re
publican party. Working closely with the Freedmen's Bureau after the war,
it encouraged Negroes to assert their rights as political equals of white people
and also to vote Republican.16 Harris served as president of the State Equal
Rights League, which

petitioned Congress to remove Governor William W.
Holden's political disabilities. The avowed purpose of this organization was to
bring about the repeal of all state and national laws based on color distinction.17
Harris maintained close ties with northern abolitionists, and in 1868 he toured
the northern states with North Carolina's famous
carpetbagger, Albion Tourgee,
to solicit contributions for the destitute of both races. That
year he was appointed
an alderman for the of and was elected to Wake in
city Raleigh represent County
the Constitutional Convention and in the state House of Representatives.18
Two other Negro representatives in the 1868 legislature spoke frequently on
the floor of the General were John S. Leary of Cumberland
Assembly. They
County and George W. Price, Jr., of New Hanover
County. Price has left little
record of his private life, but it is known that he was a minister of the Zion
Methodist Episcopal church and served as a delegate to the Freedmen's Con
vention of 1865 before
entering the House of Representatives in 1868.19
John Sinclair was born free in Fayetteville, on
Leary August 17, 1845. His
grandfather, Aaron Revels, was a free Negro who fought with the Patriots dur
ing the American Revolution. His father, whose
occupation was listed as
harness maker, was the owner of land and numerous a brick store in the
slaves,
business part of town, and a fine home. A brother, Sheridan
Leary, fought with
15 Perrin Busbee to Benjamin Hedrick, January, 1866, Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick Papers,
Manuscript Department, Duke University Library, Durham.
16
John Hope Franklin, Reconstruction after the Civil War (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1961), 123-125.
17
Weekly Progress (Raleigh), January 6, 1866.
18
Quick, Negro Stars, 119-126.
19 Branson's North Carolina Business Directory, 1867-68 Levi
(Raleigh: Branson, 1868).

John Brown at Harper's Ferry and died there. John Leary had eight years of
formal schooling in Fayetteville, chiefly from white teachers. He was a member
of the Episcopal church, a leading lawyer, and was reputed to be the first
Negro to be admitted to the bar in North Carolina.20
Only sketchy information

is available on the backgrounds of the other
representatives. John Williamson was born a slave in Covington, Georgia, in

1844; at thirteen he was taken by his master, General J. H. Williamson to
Louisburg, North Carolina. He educated himself and in 1868 was elected to

the Constitutional Convention and the North Carolina House of Repre
sentatives.21
Thomas A. Sykes was born a slave.22 He and James Harris served together on
the Republican State Executive Committee in 1868.23 Isham Sweat was a free
mulatto, a native of North Carolina, a barber by trade. He served in the First
Confederate Volunteers of North Carolina during the Civil War and was one
of those in attendance at the Freedmen's Convention in 1865.24 William Caw
thorne served as one of two assistant secretaries during the Freedmen's Con
vention of 1865 and also as secretary of the State Equal Rights
League.25
Henry Cherry was a mulatto. Cuffie Mayo was free before the Civil War
and worked as a painter.2" And Wilson
Carey, whose major activity as a
legislator consisted in fighting for his seat in the legislature, was born and
educated in Virginia; he moved to North Carolina in 18 5 5.27 J. T. Reynolds
was probably free.28 B. W. Morris was a minister.29
Stewart Ellison
was widely known. He was born in slavery in
Washington,
Beaufort County, probably in 1832. His master, Abner Neel, apprenticed him
at the age of thirteen to Marrs Newton, a Negro mechanic, to learn the
carpenter's trade. In 1852 Ellison went to Raleigh to work on new buildings

being erected on Fayetteville Street, then on the asylum for the insane; he re
20 William Men
J. Simmons, of Mark (Cleveland: George M. Rewell and Company, 1887),
432; Quick, Negro Stars, 242-244; Booker T. Washington, The Story of the Negro (London:
T. Fisher Unwin, 2 volumes, 1909), I, 203-204; Charlotte Observer, December 13, 1904.
21 Edward Hill Davis, Historical Sketches of Franklin County (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton
Company, 1948), 206.
22
Sykes referred to his slave background when he cast his vote for the Fifteenth Amendment.
Wilmington Journal, March 6, 1869.
23 North Carolina Standard, January 16, 1868.
24
Sentinel, April 18, 1868.
25 Minutes
of the Freedmen's Convention held in the City of Raleigh, 1865 (N.p. :
N.p., n.d.),
copy in the Arthur A. Schomburg Collection, New York Public Library, New York City, as
cited in Erich Shtob, "The Freedmen Face the Future: Negro Organization in North Carolina
during Reconstruction, 1865-1866" (unpublished seminar paper, of Chicago, 1967).
University
26 List of free in North Carolina extracted
Negroes by Dr. John Hope Franklin, University
of Chicago, from Superintendent of the Census, Office of the Secretary of Interior, Eighth Census
of the United States, 1860 (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1864-1866); list in the
files of Dr. Franklin and hereinafter cited as Franklin list of free
Negroes in North Carolina, 1860.
27Tomlinson, Tar Heel Sketch-Book, 1879, 62.
28 Franklin list of free Negroes in North Carolina, 1860.
29 House 24. On November
Journal, 1868-'69, 20, 1868, and on several subsequent dates the
session opened with prayer by "the Rev. Mr. Morris, of the House."
VOLUME XLIX, NUMBER 1, JANUARY, 1972

turned to Washington in 1854. At the end of the war he moved to Raleigh,

first opening a grocery store and later becoming a building contractor. He
was in demand as a builder, and he erected a number of large homes in
Raleigh. In 1865 he attended the North Carolina Freedmen's Convention

and in 1866 was present at a state convention for education called by Negroes
of the state. During 1867 and 1868 he built schools, hospitals, and offices for
the Freedmen's Bureau. He was appointed to the Board of City Commissioners
in Raleigh in 1868 and served eight years in that capacity; and in 1870 he
entered the state legislature. Though self-educated, except for some night school
training, he was a good debater and a leader of the Negro members in the
1870 General Assembly.30
Edward Richard Dudley, was born in New Bern on June 10, 1840. His
father, a free Negro, purchased the freedom of his mother; but because she
was not emancipated under the laws of the state, she and their son, Edward,
were sold again into slavery when the boy was about three years old. They
were purchased by R. N. Taylor of New Bern and lived in that town until
the Union Army arrived. Dudley's mother taught him to read and write.
He became a cooper and was involved in local public affairs beginning in 1865.
In 1869 he was a member of the Common Council of New Bern, later be
coming a city marshal. Dudley was religious and held office in the Methodist
church. He also became a leader of the temperance movement in North Caro
lina in the 1870s.31
Little information is available about other newly elected Negro members of
the 1870 legislature. Willis Bunn was a farmer, a former slave, and had
served as a before elected to the General W. D.
magistrate being Assembly.82
Newsome was reportedly born free.33 And George L. Mabson was a Methodist
minister.34
The extent to which

Negro legislators were included on committees reveals
the change in political climate in the state between 1868 and 1870. In the 1868
legislature the Negro members were given unusual to serve

opportunities
on committees. Each of the three senators was
appointed to two of the standing
30 The Negro in North

Logan, Carolina, 29; Tomlinson, Tar Heel Sketch-Book, 1879, 123;
clipping from the Daily Examiner 19, 1874, inCharles N. Hunter
(Raleigh), February Scrap
book with Charles N. Hunter Duke hereinafter cited as
Papers, Manuscript Department,
Charles N. Hunter Scrapbook.
31 from the Daily Examiner
Clipping (Raleigh), February 15, 1874, in Charles N. Hunter
Scrapbook.
32
J. Kelly Turner and John L. Bridgers, Jr.,
History of Edgecombe County, North Carolina
(Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton 1920), 274, hereinafter cited as Turner and
Printing Company,
Bridgers, History of Edgecombe County.
33 B. Winborne, The
Benjamin Colonial and State Political of Hertford
History County,
North Carolina ([Murfreesboro?]: Printed for the author
by Edwards & Broughton, 1906),
232-233.
34 Turner and Bridgers, History of Edgecombe
County, 270.

committees, as well as to special during the course of the session.35

committees,
The House committees, which varied from nine to thirteen in membership,
each had at least one
Negro member and often two or three.36 Every Negro
representative then sitting in the House was placed on some standing com
mittee. During the second session of this legislature, meeting from November,
1869, to April, 1870, there was some shuffling of membership on committees;
however, Negro members continued to hold prominent positions.37 No com
mittee was dominated by Negro members, but Negroes were widely dispersed
through most of the major committees.38 All of the important committees, such
as the Committee on Propositions and Grievances, the Judiciary Committee, the
Committee on Education, and the Committee on Military Affairs, included
leading Negro members, and James Harris chaired the Committee on Propo
sitions and Grievances through both the 1868 and 1869 sessions of this legis
lature.
35 served on the Committee on Claims and on the Education and

John Hyman Literary
Board, as well as on a special committee to choose a location for the new state penitentiary. A. H.
Galloway served on the Committee on Propositions and Grievances, the Committee on Military
Affairs, and the State Prison and Penitentiary Committee. For a time he was also on the com
mittee to select
a penitentiary site. Henry Eppes served on the Committee on Privileges and
Elections andon the Committee on Corporations, as well as on the committee to choose a peni
tentiary site. This last committee with its fluctuating membership proved to be a most difficult one
as various towns began to compete for the penitentiary, and conflicts among localities became
bitter. Journal of the Senate of North Carolina, Special Session, 1868, hereinafter cited as
Senate Journal, with appropriate date. This session of the General Assembly convened immediately
following the effective date of the new constitution and sat from July 1, 1868, to August 24,
1868. The regular session of the General Assembly convened on November 16, 1868, and
adjourned on April 12, 1869.
36
James Harris, Isham Sweat, and B. W. Morris served on the Committee on Propositions and
Grievances, which Harris chaired. Cuffie Mayo served on the Claims Committee; James Harris
on the Judiciary Committee; John H. Williamson on the Agriculture, Mechanics, and Mining
Committee; and Thomas A. Sykes on the Committee on Privileges and Elections. John S. Leary,
Ivey Hutchings, and Parker D. Robbins served on the Committee on Corporations; George W.
Price and H. J. T. Hayes on the Committee on Military Affairs; and James Harris and William
Cawthorne on the Education Committee. H. C. Cherry and William Crawford served on the
Committee on Penal Institutions, and the Committee on Engrossed Bills included Ivey Huchings
and Richard Falkner. When joint committees were appointed, Thomas A. Sykes was placed
on the Committee on PublicBuildings and Grounds; H. J. T. Hayes on the Library Committee;
and John S. Leary on the Committee
on the Deaf, Dumb and Blind Asylum. House Journal,
Special Session, 1868, 36, 37, 56.
37 continued on the Education and Literary Board and also served on the
John Hyman
Committee on Corporations. A. H. Galloway remained on the Committee on Propositions and
Grievances and the Committee on Military Affairs; and Henry Eppes was placed on the Com
mittee on Agriculture and on a special committee on roads. Senate Journal, 1869-'70, 48-50.
38 Harris continued to chair the very important Committee on Propositions and
James
Grievances; other Negro members of that committee were B. W. Morris, Richard Falkner, and
William Crawford. Mayo remained on the Claims Committee and was joined by H. C. Cherry.
John S. Leary joined James on the Judiciary Committee.
Harris Leary and Parker D. Robbins
remained on the Committee on
Corporations and were joined by Wilson Carey. John Eagles,
Ivey Hutchings, and William Cawthorne were placed on the Committee on Privileges and
Elections. Insofar as joint standing committees were concerned, John Leary served on the Com
mittee on the Public Library; Thomas A. Sykes on the Committee on Public Buildings; H. C.
Cherry and Isham Sweat on the Committee on Finance; Sykes and Harris on the Committee on
Education; and William Cawthorne on the Committee on Internal Improvements. House Journal,
1869-70, 61-62, 72, 73, 260.

But a marked change is noticeable

in Negro participation in committees
in the 1870 legislature. The number of committee appointments Negroes re
ceived was cut in both House and Senate. In 1868 each Negro senator had
occupied a seat on two or three committees. In 1870 Senator Hyman was
placed on the Claims Committee, Senator Price on the Education Committee,

and Senator Eppes on the Agriculture Committee.39
Similarly, Negro representation on committees in the House was drastically

reduced. Only Representatives Bunn and Sykes served on more than one
committee.40 Among the Negro representatives, neither Bunn nor Sykes was
a major spokesman. A number of the important committees, such as the
Judiciary
Committee and the Committee on Military Affairs, had no
Negro members
in the 1870 legislature, and eight of the nineteen
Negro representatives served
on no committees. This was a sharp contrast to their extensive committee
representation in the 1868 legislature.
Negro legislators in 1868 demonstrated conciliatory attitudes toward former

Confederates. Many favored the removal of political disabilities to allow the
disfranchised former Confederates to retain the offices to which they had been
illegally elected. When in July, 1868, a resolution requesting to

Congress
remove immediately all disabilities of those elected was first
presented in the
House of Representatives, eight Negroes were among the majority voting to table
it. By the end of the month, eleven
Negroes favored such a resolution, and only
three opposed it.41 They still opposed the immediate
seating of those legislators
whose status was in question.
In November introduced another resolution to instruct
Representative Leary
North Caroliniansin Congress to use their influence to remove
political dis
abilities from all North Carolina citizens. In the discussion,
Representative
Morris objected, saying that while he favored the removal of all disabilities,
he felt those involved should
apply directly to Congress for a pardon and
should bypass the state legislature. Representative Harris
supported this position,
adding that resolutions from state legislatures were ineffective and wasteful of
the taxpayer's money. Morris insisted that the disfranchisement was a federal
not a state matter. But the primary right of the state to
Leary upheld grant the
39 Senate 40-41.
Journal, 1870-'71,
40 Bunn was to the Committee
appointed on Engrossed Bills, and he and Mabson served on
the Committee on Penal Institutions.
Sykes served on the Joint Committee on Per Diem, on the
Committee on Enrolled Bills, and on the Committee on Privileges and Elections. Cawthorne was
appointed to the Education Committee; Williamson to the Committee on Propositions and
Grievances; Falkner to the Committee on Agriculture, and Mining; to the
Mechanics, Dudley
Joint Committee on Per Diem and
Mileage; Smith to the Committee on Counties, Cities, Towns,
and Townships;
Page to the Committee on Internal
Improvements; Reavis to the Committee on
Salaries and Fees; and
Bryant to the Joint Committee on Public
Buildings and Grounds. House
Journal, 1870-71, 39, 44, 52, 53, 64, 81, 114, 164, 174.
41 House
Journal, 1868, 37-38.

franchise and insisted every man should have it as well as the right to hold
office if elected.42
In March, 1869, another resolution
sought the removal of all disabilities by
Congress. Representative Price spoke in favor of it, saying he thought the men
who had fought against his rights and the rights of men in general should
be made friends of the government through the removal of their own political
disabilities.
Representative Hutchings inquired whether he felt that he (Price)
would still have his rights if these men sat in the
legislature. Price replied
that he had his rights now and knew he could not be deprived of them—an
opinion he soon changed. Representatives Cawthorne and Leary agreed with

Price, Leary insisting that if they lived under a free government all men
must have the same rights. Representative Mayo remained unconvinced. The
men affected by this resolution, he said, didn't even recognize the federal
government or the state legislature, and it would be time enough to remove

their disabilities when they asked for them. The resolution was referred to com
mittee, and no vote was taken.43
When votes were taken on such resolutions, the majority of Negro members
favored removing all political disabilities, and even those who demurred
indicated they only wanted some assurance that their own rights would not
be endangered by such a move. Senator Galloway proposed an amendment to
the state constitution to allow women, too, to
enjoy the suffrage, but this sug
gestion was too radical to win support from his colleagues.44
Few issues interested Negro legislators as much as education. An education
bill passed in the spring of 1869 provided for public schools for at least four
months each year, with a minimum of sixteen months' total attendance for
all mentally and physically normal children. It also
provided for the creation of
a Board of Education and a system of public instruction, to Article
pursuant
IX of the 1868 Constitution.45
A major argument developed in the Senate over whether local communities
would be allowed to tax themselves to permit more than the four months'
minimum schooling provided by state law if they desired. Negro legislators
favored this proposal. Some other legislators suggested that only property
owners be allowed to vote on such local propositions or that the
legislature
should limit the amount of additional local taxation allowed. They feared the
poor might pauperize the rich to educate themselves. Senator Galloway strongly
42North Carolina Standard, November 28, December 1, 1868.

43 House North Carolina March
Journal, 1868-69, 410-411, 425-427, 433; Standard, 18, 1869;
Sentinel, March 18, 1869.
44 Senate 466.
Journal, 1869-70,
45 Public Laws of North Carolina, c. 184; Constitution
1868-'69, of the State of North Caro
lina, Together with the Ordinances and Resolutions of the Constitutional Convention, Assembled
in the City of Raleigh, Jan. 14th, 1868
(Raleigh: Joseph W. Holden, Convention Printer, 1868),
Article IX, "Education," 31-34, hereinafter cited as Constitution of the State of North Caro
lina . . . Jan. 14th, 1868.

£%t1. J t
The first building on what is now Shaw University campus, Raleigh, was begun in 1870 and
completed in 1872. It was named Shaw Hall in honor of Elijah Shaw, who had donated the then
enormous sum of $8,000 toward the construction costs. The founder of Shaw University was
Dr. Henry Martin Tupper, a former Union Army chaplain, who held theological classes for
Negroes in a local hotel beginning in 1865. Photograph of Shaw Hall, which has been demolished,
is from Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina for the
Scholastic Years 1896-'97 and 1897-'98, Part II, facing page 16.
opposed any limitations on the ability of local communities to tax themselves

for education. Those who owned much property, he said, owned it because of
the leniency of the government. If it had acted as rigorously as had other
governments in similar circumstances many of them would have been executed;

because the government was lenient was no reason they should make all
decisions about the future.46
When the Committee on Education recommended striking out the section
of a proposed amendment to the House education bill which provided that
towns could call a meeting of taxpayers or residents to vote on a proposal to
continue their schools longer than four months by additional local taxation,
Harris opposed deleting that section in almost the words Galloway had used in
the Senate. a decision, he said, should be made at the grass roots level,
Such
and the reasoning behind the attempt to deprive the majority of the voters of
that power went back to the theory that a few landed aristocrats should govern
all. White representatives divided on this issue. Some expressed fears that the
poor would use property taxes to vote them all into poverty. Others feared, as
did the Negroes, that if property owners had all of the power of decision they
Senate Journal, 1868-'69, 300, 311, 339, 345, 358, 365, 382, 387, 399, 404, 418, 421, 441,
481, 640, 646, 666, 667, 703; North Carolina Standard, March 2, 1869.

would oppose the support of schools even if surplus taxes were available. The
motion to strike out the controversial section of the amendment was passed
with thirteen Negro votes in solid opposition.47 Harris moved to reconsider this
decision; he had the full support of the Negro representatives, and he charged
certain unnamed Republicans with conspiring with Democrats either to prevent
passage of the bill or to prevent it from accomplishing anything.48 The amend

ment was not reconsidered, and the final bill made no mention of allowing
towns to extend their school terms through local option.49
Even greater controversy arose over the question of separate schools for
each race. Negroes favored a moderate course to allow but not to require
mixed schools. When one of the white representatives moved to delete the issue
of race, he lost by a vote of 72 to 4. Three of his four supporters were Negro
representatives, Hayes, Hutchings, and Cherry. Representative Leary then

moved to change section 56 of the bill to read: "School authorities may [not
shall] a separate school for each race." His proposal was soundly de
establish
feated, but it had the support of twelve Negro representatives. There were no
Negro votes in opposition.50
Representative Morris proposed reconsideration of this vote, stating that
he favored separate schools but was loath to write such a requirement into
law. There were, Morris argued, some towns with only a few colored children
in them, and those towns should decide whether they would maintain separate
schools. This motion failed, despite a long speech by Representative Reynolds
in which he deplored the inclusion of specifications on race or color.51 Repre
sentative Hayes suggested a substitute for section 51 of the bill to read: "That
separate and distinct schools may be provided for any class of citizens in
the several school districts of this state; Provided, That in all cases, when district
schools shall be established, there shall be as amply sufficient and as complete
facilities for the one class as the other, and entirely adequate for all classes."
This, too, failed to pass.52
Despite their reluctance to write into
the state laws, Negro
segregation
legislators indicated a willingness to accept separate schools if they received
guarantees of equal education. Receiving neither integrated schools nor guaran

tees of equal education, they became alarmed about their educational prospects
and discouraged by the behavior of their fellow Republicans. Representative
Hayes suggested flying the flag on the Capitol at half-mast because the edu
cation bill, as it passed, meant "the death of all weak kneed Republicans."53
47 North March
Carolina Standard, 31, 1869.
48 North Carolina Standard, April 2, 1869.
49 Bill of the Report from the Committee on Education, March
Engrossed 7, 1869, Legislative
Papers, 1868-1869, Archives, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, hereinafter
cited as Legislative Papers.
50 House 482-535
Journal, 1868-'69, passim.
52 Sentinel,
April 3, 1869.
53 North Carolina Standard, 3, 1869.
April
VOLUME XL1X. NUMBER 1, JANUARY. 197»

This concern with is further shown in the wrangling over the

education
salaries of various
public officials. James Harris, especially, chided the legis
lators for their "cheek" in voting themselves a per diem of $7.00 and then saying
that department heads were not worth that much. He insisted that the superin
tendent of public instruction, above all others, must have a good salary and
that all who loved public schools would be glad to grant it. On the third
attempt, after vigorous debate, he succeeded in getting the salary for that
-.:v4
"IS
James Walker Hood (1831-1918) was sent to North Carolina in 1864 to serve as a missionary
to freedmen within Union lines for the AME Zion church. He worked for his church in New
Bern, Charlotte, and Fayetteville. Hood represented Cumberland County in the 1868 Consti
tutional Convention, and from 1868 to 1870 he held the post of assistant superintendent of public
instruction. He was ordained a bishop of the AME Zion churchin 1872. From its founding until
his death, Bishop Hood was chairman of the Board of Trustees of Livingstone College, Salisbury.
Photograph from Carter G. Woodson, The History of the Negro Church (Washington, D.C.:
Associated Publishers, 1921), 236.

office raised from $1,800 to $2,005 per year. In defending his proposal, Harris
described a long conflict between slavery and ignorance on the one hand and
liberty and intelligence on the other. Although this was an issue supposedly
resolved by the Civil War, he said, the conflict still raged. He attributed to the
Democrats the idea that farmers, mechanics, and laborers needed no education
and insisted that Republicans must take their stand for education for all by
supporting adequate remuneration for the office of the superintendent of public

instruction.54
Thenecessity for an office of superintendent of public instruction was
questioned in the 1870 legislature by a Conservative who suggested cutting the
superintendent's salary to $50.00 per year.56 All of the Negro representatives

strongly opposed reductions in educational expenditures, and while the superin
tendent's salary was reduced, the reduction was more in line with salary cuts
meted out to other state civil appointees.
No provision was made for an assistant to the superintendent in the edu
cation bill offered in 1870. This
position had been traditionally filled by a
Negro who had supervised the Negro schools of the state. When a white repre
sentative, A. B. Johns of Rockingham County, proposed an amendment to
allow an assistant and to specify that he must be an intelligent colored man,
Representative Mabson objected again that the segregated school system was
unconstitutional. Another Negro, Representative Dudley, wanted the racial
qualification maintained in the amendment, arguing that without it there might

be no Negro supervision at higher levels. The provision was kept, and the
amendment passed. The well-known northern-educated minister, James W.
Hood of Cumberland County, received the appointment.56
In the unfriendly 1870 legislature, Negro representatives continued to
speak for increased

revenue for educational purposes. Representative Sykes
proposed levying a tax of one tenth of 1 percent on all taxable property for
educational purposes. After this failed, in January, 1872, he introduced a reso
lution to appropriate income from the sale of public lands for educational
purposes, which passed.57

Another controversial issue was the choice of a penitentiary site. All three
Negro senators at one time or another served on the committee to choose

the site. In November, 1868, the committee selected a location on Deep River
consisting of a 25-acre building site and 8,000 additional acres of timberland.
In late December, Senator John S. Harrington of Harnett County revealed
84 North Carolina Standard, March 16, 17, 18, 1869.

55 North Carolina Standard, December 24, 1870.
58 House 1870-'71, 294-295; Sentinel, 7, 1871; 1870
Journal, February Legislative Papers,
1871. Hood was a northern bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church who went to
the South in 1864 to work as a missionary among North Carolinafreedmen. Allen Johnson,
Dumas Malone, and others (eds.), Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 20 volumes, 1928; index and updating supplements), IX, 192-193.
n House
Journal, 1869-70, 382; 1871-72, 309, 335.
VOLUME XL1X, NUMBER 1, JANUARY. 1971

that a northern company had purchased the land for 65 cents an acre; the
state had purchased it at $12.00 an acre.58 The Senate then voted to repudiate
the agreement rather than confirm the site and to order the public treasurer
not to pay for it in state bonds, as had been agreed. Senators Eppes and Galloway
voted with the minority to confirm the site.59
In January, 1869, a committee was appointed to investigate the purchase.
James Harris was the only member of the site committee recommending the
purchase who had seen any of the area except the building site. The investigat
ing committee reported that the building site was as good as the purchasing
committee had indicated, but that the 8,000 acres had been much overrated.
The water power, a major consideration, was excellent. The timber was over
valued; they found no granite; and the iron seam had not been opened, so
the quality of the ore was unknown. Furthermore, the land had been purchased
cheaply and later sold at an extremely high price to the state. No charges of
fraud or collusion were made against any members of the committee which
chose the site, but the investigating committee believed that the members had
been "imposed upon by parties who cared only to make a
good thing out of the
State...."60
In March Senator G. W.
Welker, the chairman of the investigating com
mittee, reported favorably a bill to locate the penitentiary in Greensboro, in his
own county of Guilford. Many communities then scrambled to obtain the state
prison, and numerous proposals followed.61 Several towns held mass meetings
to devise ways of
attracting the legislators to their localities. Some offered money
and free land, the highest bidder
being Greensboro, which offered $15,000 and
90 acres of land to the state.62 Because of Raleigh's central location, however,
it was finally chosen as the site for the
penitentiary.63
Conservatives accused both Hyman and Harris of corruption. And there
seems little doubt that several
businessmen, from the North and the South,
would have made an
unreasonable profit on the sale of the land. But no
evidence was ever offered to show that Hyman or Harris shared in such a
profit.64 The behavior of the accusers in
maneuvering to acquire the penitentiary
for their own localities casts further doubt on their
allegations.
were also accused of
Negro legislators corruption in relation
to the issuance
of the railroad bonds for repairing and the
extending railroads, especially
Western Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad, the Chatham Rail
r>8Western Democrat (Charlotte), December 22, 1868.

59 Senate
journal, 1868-'69, 84.
60 of the Committee
"Report appointed by the Senate of North Carolina to inquire into the
facts attending the purchase of the site for the
Penitentiary," signed by G. W. Welker, W. L.
Love, and Silas Burns and in the North Carolina
published Standard, January 18, 1869.
61 Senate Journal, 1869-70, 580, 599, 601, 603, 636, 639.
63 Senate journal, 1869-70, 639.
64 Prince
Daniels, of Carpetbaggers, 213.

road, and the Wilmington, Charlotte and Rutherford Railroad. A Conservative

southern banker, George W. Swepson, in league with a northern carpetbagger,
General Milton S. Littlefield, were found guilty of having defrauded both
the states of North Carolina and Florida through their railroad bond manipu
lations.J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, historian of the Reconstruction era in
North Carolina concluded that Littlefield bought Negro and northern Republi
can votes to pass the bills, allowing the railroads to sell too many bonds,
although he acknowledged that Littlefield's "bar," which dispensed free alco

holic beverages in the Capitol, was patronized by Conservative legislators as
frequently as by Republicans.05 Hamilton ignored the fact that the sale of such
bonds was the normal procedure to subsidize railroad building in all states.
More importantly, he failed to realize that General Littlefield was so trusted
and admired by Negroes for having led Negro troops in South Carolina
during
the Civil War that he could count on their support without bribery.66
It is interesting to note that each group in the
legislature exhibited some dis
trust of the swindler with the opposite party, but neither suspected
associated
crooks in their own ranks. Josiah Turner, editor of the Conservative
newspaper,
the Raleigh Sentinel, was deeply indebted to Swepson for a loan to
purchase
his newspaper. Republican Governor Holden and the Republican legislators
thought of Littlefield, who edited the pro-Republican North Carolina Standard,
as an "idealist" persecuted by Turner for his politics instead of his
corruption.
On the other hand,Turner, who hounded Littlefield, seemed oblivious of
Littlefield's connections
with Swepson, who was the real mastermind of the
swindle, until the whole affair became public knowledge. In a society polarized
around white supremacy or black civil rights, a few men owed their
primary
allegiance neither to white nor black, but to the great green dollar. The
avaricious alone were able to surmount the barriers of race or sectionalism in a
cooperative fraud of gigantic proportions.67
Professor Hamilton's assumption of blackcorruption in the railroad matter
is based on the reports of the Senate fraud commission chaired by former
governor Thomas S. Bragg and the independent fraud commission headed by
Judge W. M. Shipp, showing loans from Swepson to a dozen legislators, includ

ing three Negroes, Eppes, Harris, and Hyman.68 Other historians accepted the
indictment without question until Jonathan Daniels's study of the careers of
Swepson and Littlefield revealed that almost every legislator owed money to
65 Reconstruction in North see also Prince

Hamilton, Carolina, 430-431; Daniels, of Carpet
baggers, 176.
66Littlefield joined the Union Army on May 25, 1861, and served in various in
capacities,
cluding the position of provost marshal to General William T. Sherman. As General
Inspector
of the Colored Troops at Hilton Head, South Carolina, Littlefield won the admiration and
gratitude of America's Negroes. See Daniels's biography of Littlefield, Prince of Carpetbaggers,
particularly chapters VI and VII, 94-131.
67 Prince of Carpetbaggers,
Daniels, 137, 189, 190, 211.
68 Reconstruction in North 430-431.
Hamilton, Carolina,
VOLUME XL1X. NUMBER 1, JANUARY, 197i

Swepson, who was

Raleigh's leading banker.69 Daniels pointed out that the
legislators, who came from straitened
circumstances (as did most southerners
following the Civil War) had to borrow advances on their salaries because their
per diems were not paid immediately by the state treasurer. Working from
Littlefield's private papers, Daniels absolved the Negroes of North Carolina of
the charges of corruption:
in North Carolina and Florida there were plenty of white men, most of them native,
insisting, as a natural, racial right, upon the first places in line. No Negro politicians
or financiers were involved in the Swepson-directed strategy in North Carolina, New
York and Florida in the summer of 1869. . . .70
Clearly, race as an issue could not be ignored by the 1868 legislature. There
were several occasions when friction developed because of it. The first involved
the removal of a Sentinel reporter for failing to comply with the decision
of the speaker of the House that the race of House members should not be
designated in newspaper reports of legislative proceedings.71 The episode was

similar to one which occurred in the Constitutional Convention of 1868 when
several Negro members objected to this practice.
Generally, Negroes took the position that social mixing should be allowed
but not forced. This was Senator Galloway's attitude when another senator
suggested that the galleries be allotted to the two races with one side for
each. Galloway proposed that each race should have one side but that the
middle should be kept open for both.72 Representatives Hayes, Leary, and
Morris expressed similar views when the question of
separate schools arose.
Much early legislation proposed by Negro legislators was directed toward
changing laws which discriminated against Negroes. The laws enacted in 1866
to redefine the legal position of
Negroes following the Civil War gave them
some privileges free Negroes had not had before the war but still retained a
double standard.'3 While the enactments
made in 1866 were an improvement
over previous laws, Negroes desired total
equality before the law. Representative
Reynolds introduced a bill in 1868 to repeal all parts of Chapter 107 of the
Revised Code (1854) which referred to slaves, free
Negroes, and persons of
color. It was referred to the Committee and was not enacted.74
Judiciary
89 Prince
Daniels, of Carpetbaggers, 171-179; see also Hamilton, Reconstruction in North
Carolina, 431.
70 Prince 213.
Daniels, of Carpetbaggers,
71 House
Journal, 1868, 45-47; Sentinel,
July 18, 1868; North Carolina Standard, July 14,
1868.
72 Senate
Journal, 1868, 41-42; Wilmington Journal, July 17, 1868.
73 For while
example, were given the of suing in court,
Negroes privilege they could not
testify in altercations between two white men unless both
agreed to accept the testimony. An
other example of the double standard was the punishment for rape, which carried a
mandatory
death penalty for
Negroes only. Laws of North Carolina, Special Session, 1866, c. 40.
74 House
Journal, 1868-69, 42-43; North Carolina Standard, December 1, 1868. Chapter
107 of the Revised Statutes of North Carolina . . . 1854, entitled "Slaves and Free Negroes,"
contained 79 sections which covered all
aspects of civil and criminal law pertaining to "persons
of color."

When another bill was proposed to declare all persons of color qualified
to testify in all cases, Representative Leary questioned the wisdom of passing
any bill about color. He thought that all laws which discriminated on the basis
of color were nullified by the adoption of the 1868 Constitution and that attempts
to repeal the old bills would cast doubt on the validity of that constitution.
Representative Harris, more concerned with practical politics than with legal
consistency, favored the bill, saying that it would harmonize the law with
the constitution, then adding that it would require more work to undo what
they had accomplished if future legislatures were inclined to retract the legal
gains Negroes had made.75

Representative Sweat supported Leary's position that the adoption of the
new constitution had nullified all statutes which denied equal rights to both
races. He argued that passing a specific bill giving Negroes one right they had
been denied in the legal code would imply that all other discriminatory laws
not similarly repealed were in force. Harris insisted that equality must be written
into both the constitution and the laws, and the bill passed.76
Several weeks later Harris introduced a bill to regulate the drawing of jurors
to ensure the inclusion of Negroes. They had been excluded "as an off-shoot of
old slave ideas," not by law.77 The bill did not pass. Another bill was introduced
in the Senate by Galloway in 1870 for the purpose of guaranteeing Negroes
a jury of their peers, but action on it was postponed at its second reading.78
Senator Eppes introduced a bill in March, 1869, to protect the rights of all
citizens traveling on public conveyances.70 This was similar to a resolution
proposed by Galloway at the 1868 Gonstitutional Convention to the effect that

all conveyances or businesses of a public nature for which either state or
municipal licenses were required should be open to all persons.80 Representative

Parker D. Robbins of Bertie introduced an additional bill in December, 1869,
to prevent distinctions of color on steamboats.81 Neither bill passed, nor did one
introduced by Representative Sykes on February 21, 1870, to protect the rights
of all citizens while traveling in public conveyances.82
Numerous other reforms attracted the Negro legislators. In 1868 the Consti
tutional Convention passed a resolution asking the legislature to make it
possible, through loans or some other arrangement, for all citizens to be settled
on a small freehold; the House then passed a resolution asking for a joint com
76 North Carolina Standard, 12, 1869.

February
North Carolina Standard, February 12, 1869.
77 House 313.
Journal, 1868-'69,
78 of the 1868 Constitution, of all discrimi
Despite the apparent removal, with the acceptance
insisted some county commissioners still
nation required by the Black Codes of 1866, Galloway
refused to put Negroes on juries. North Carolina Standard, February 10, 1870.
79 Senate 1869-'70, 618.
Journal,
"North Carolina Standard, January 21, 1868.
81 House 1869-'70, 122.
Journal,
& House 355.
Journal, 1869-70,

mittee to prepare such a bill.83 In March, 1869, Senator Hyman introduced

a resolution urging both the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress
to aid in providing land for the poor and homeless in North Carolina.84 Efforts
to obtain land for the landless on a broad scale failed. Negro legislators were
only slightly more successful in getting some legislation passed which would
help poor people hold land when they were able to obtain it. Harris and
Hyman both spoke forcefully on the difficulties confronting the poor in keeping
their land.85 Representative Hayes joined in appeals for poor debtors.86
Senator Galloway introduced a bill to change the rule of evidence in certain
cases to secure landowners in the possession of their property.87 This bill, which
did pass, was intended to ensure the retention of land or houses given to
Negroes while they were slaves but for which they could not always produce
titles, as well as to protect those persons who had been away from their premises
from May 1, 1861, to January 1, 1866.88
The issue regulation was taken up by the 1868 legislature and
of labor
Negro legislators strongly favored all of the bills helping labor and protecting
Negro labor in particular. In July, 1868, an argument developed over a bill
for the ten-hour working day. Senator Galloway bitterly attacked the Con
servatives for opposing it. North Carolina was backward, he said, as most states
already had the ten-hour workday.89

Negro legislators temporarily blocked a proposal to incorporate the Ridgeway
Land and Emigration Company because they feared the backers were pro
posing a scheme to depress wages or eliminate Negroes from jobs by drawing
outside labor to the state. Representative Leary opposed the measure
indirectly,
complaining that it concentrated too much power in the hands of too few men.
But Representative William Cawthorne of Warren County opposed it openly
as a threat to Negro employment opportunities. When the
proposal was enacted,
the law was called simply "An Act to
Incorporate the Ridgeway Company."
The issue was postponed, not resolved.90 Numerous
immigration societies already
existed in the state.
On December
11, 1868, Representative Harris introduced a bill for the
protection of mechanics and other laborers. One of the few labor bills ever
enacted was the mechanics lien measure, which
passed the House in March,
83 Constitution
of the State of North Carolina . . . Jan. 14th, 1868, 129; at its
special session
of 1868, the
General established a joint committee to make recommendations con
Assembly
cerning "the landless population." House Journal, Special Session, 1868, 51.
8* Western Democrat (Charlotte), March 30, 1869, hereinafter cited as Western Democrat.
86 Senate
Journal, 1868-'69, 439; North Carolina Standard, December 17, 1868.
88 House 118.
Journal, 1868-69,
87 Senate 182.
Journal, 1869-70,
88 Laws
of North Carolina, 1869-'70, c. 77; Sentinel,
February 4, 1870.
88 Senate
Journal, Special Session, 1868, 58, 106, 110.
90 House
Journal, Special Session, 1868, 213; Senate Journal, Special Session, 1868, 260;
Private Laws of North Carolina, Session, 1868, c. 32; North Carolina
Special Standard, August 20,
1868.

1869, and eventually became law. It was supported by all of the Negro
members.91
Negro legislators continued to express interest in labor legislation in the 1870
legislature. Representative John R. Page of Chowan introduced another bill for

the ten-hour day which the committee failed to recommend; Representative
Stewart Ellison of Wake County introduced a bill to provide additional pro
tection for mechanics and other laborers.92
Prohibition was one of the minor issues to be considered by the General
Assembly, but some of the Negro legislators showed great interest in it. The
less vocal and less politically oriented Negro legislators spoke on this issue, and
prohibition received substantial Negro support. When the question of distilling

grain was brought up at the Constitutional Convention of 1868, Galloway urged
concentration on more pressing matters. Harris also tried to evade consideration
of the prohibition question, saying that they needed more time to determine the
wishes of the people.
In February, 1869, Representative of Halifax, one of the
Ivey Hutchings
less active Negro representatives, introduced a bill once
again to prevent the
distillation of grain.93 Two issues were actually involved,
prohibition as a moral
issue and the use of grain for food rather than
liquor. The majority of Negro
members favored Hutchings's
proposal. Although they failed to secure passage
of the bill, several Negro legislators continued to raise the prohibition issue.94
Several—particularly Representative Harris and Senator Galloway—were con
cerned with the protection of women. Harris introduced a bill in
February,
1869, to prevent the abandonment or neglect of wives by husbands.95 The
following January Representative A. H. Crawford of Granville proposed a

measure to allow females to sign deeds before
township commissioners, claiming
the discrimination against women caused
gross hardships to widows and to poor
families.90 The bill was killed by an unfavorable report from the Judiciary
Committee.97
That same month

Senator Galloway tried unsuccessfully to force the
Judiciary Committee to report a bill for the better protection of married
women, expressing grave concern over a jury's decision that a man had a right
to beat his wife.98 Representative Harris tried to amend the divorce law,
making
91 House
Journal, 1868-69, 75, 436. The law provided a lien in favor of builders, mechanics,
farm laborers, and suppliers of materials on buildings,
building repairs, and crops which could
be enforced through attachment. Public Laws of North Carolina, 1868-'69, c. 117.
92 House 371.
Journal, 1870-71, 46, 308,
93 House 261.
Journal, 1868-'69,
94 For Williamson in 1869 and Representative
example, Representative Newsome in 1872
proposed bills to prevent the sale of liquor within five miles of White's Franklin
Chapel,
County, and Murfreesboro, House Journal, 1868-'69, 227; House
respectively. Journal, 1871-72,
230.
95 House 301.
Journal, 1868-'69,
9« House 177.
Journal, 1869-70,
97 House 249.
Journal, 1869-70,
98 Senate
Journal, 1869-70, 264; North Carolina Standard, February 1, 1870.
VOLUME XLIX, NUMBER 1, JANUARY. 1972

abandonment for two years adequate cause for divorce. By 1871 both abandon
ment and barbarous treatment were made legal grounds for divorce."
Despite the bill designed to improve the status of Negroes or to alleviate

the distress of deprived groups, the bulk of legislation proposed by Negro
representatives was not racial or social in character. More of it consisted of

bills to incorporate societies of various kinds, school boards, local fire departments,
or businesses. There were numerous bills concerning private matters—for relief
(i.e., payment for services which had been performed for the state or reimburse
ment for expenses incurred while performing such services), for divorce, and for
liquor licenses. And there were many bills designed to promote the interests
of various towns, legislation to change boundaries, to set aside land for schools,
to prevent the sale of liquor in certain areas, or to allow towns to tax themselves
for special purposes. Negro legislators were politicians with local constituencies
to satisfy. In this role they were faithful to the interests of their own areas, and
in this capacity they were most successful. These bills generally passed easily,
unlike bills calling for social reforms.
Most controversial
was a bill to organize the state militia. On July 20, 1868, a
resolution had been proposed by Representative Byron Laflin of Pitt County to
request two regiments of United States troops as protection against terrorism.

Representatives Sweat and Williamson opposed the move because they feared
federal soldiers would be won over by southern Conservatives and as a result
would fail to give protection to Harris favored the
Negroes. Representative
proposal. He felt that continued atrocities against the
Negroes required
presence of armed forces and feared the state could not afford to a state
support
militia.100
In early August an act was proposed for the
organization of a state militia. By
this time Harris had been won over. Representative
Leary opposed the bill
because section 3 called for racially separate militia
companies and section 13
of a substitute bill promised that white and colored members would not be
compelled to serve together. Representative Sykes objected because of the ex
involved and because he believed the constitution
pense provided for a militia,
hence no additional act was needed. The bill
finally passed the House; seven
Negro representatives voted for it, and three opposed it.101
In the Senate, and Eppes spoke in favor of the bill.
Galloway Galloway
said he had seen men
arming with the intent to drive loyal citizens out of the
state and that force must be available to
protect the political rights of all the
people. Eppes expressed similar sentiments, and all three Negro senators sup
ported the militia bill in the senate.102
99 Revised Statutes of the State of North Carolina . . . 1873, c. 37.

100 House
Journal, Special Session, 1868, 74, 96; Wilmington Journal, July 31, 1868.
101 House
Journal, Special Session, 1868, 142; Legislative Papers, 1868-1869; North Carolina
Standard, August 10, 1868.
102 Senate
Journal, Special Session, 1868, 181; North Carolina Standard, 10, 1868.
August

A banner used by the Ku Klux Klan is on

exhibit in the North Carolina Room at the
Confederate Museum, Richmond. The motto
omnibus! is "what has been believed always, every
where, and by everyone." Photograph supplied
and reprinted by courtesy of the of
University
North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.
In January, 1870, the struggle over a militia bill reached a peak; Negroes
solidly supported the bill. In a moving speech to the House, James Harris
attacked the Raleigh Sentinel for stirring up racial antagonisms and for equating
the Union League with the terrorists of the Ku Klux Klan. He recited a long
list of atrocities against Negroes and northern white teachers, giving names,
dates, and places. He said, "These are the facts that cannot be contradicted, and
yet we are told that it is not necessary to enact a militia law in North Carolina."
He assured Conservatives that Negroes could not be intimidated to support their
party: "The colored man will not always submit in silence to wrongs. All history
shows that when illiterate men are roused to desperation by acts of oppression
their vengeance is terrible." Then, switching from threats to "moral suasion,"
he tried to shame the members of the House into enacting the bill. In the days
of slavery, he told them, their own forebears would have condemned such
atrocities:
I would appeal to you in the name of this defenseless and class whose blood
outraged
has been shed and which cried to Heaven for vengeance, but I ask only justice and
I appeal to you now as men, as honest, and men, as human to
upright, just beings,
pass this measure for the protection of the innocent and for the and
peace, progress,
prosperity of the whole people of North Carolina. . . . While we are willing to submit
to the laws we are not to bear the shackles of slaverv. ... I believe
willing political
VOLUME XL1X, NUMBER 1, JANUARY. 1972

there is moral force enough in the hands of the intelligent and honest white people
as well as the colored to enforce this law.103
people
One
by one, Representatives Reynolds, Mayo, and Hutchings added their
support to Harris's plea, offering more evidence of oppression and violence

toward the Negro. Harris insisted that the clerk read aloud the obligation
of members of the Union League as well as the Ku Klux Klan oath, so that
the peaceful and constitutional political aims of the League would be clearly
contrasted with the readiness of the Klan to resort to violence.104
In
the Senate, Galloway rose to denounce opponents of the militia bill.
Like Harris, he relied on concrete evidence. "Two negroes," he said, "were
brought in here with gashes in their backs and their flesh so torn and lacerated
that you could put your fingers in the gapes, negroes that were in the employ
of a Gentleman in this city. . . . Then you say these outrages are not committed;
then you say there is no need for this bill." If the state would make clear its
willingness to use the militia, he added, that very willingness might prevent
the need.105
Both houses passed the militia bill with an amendment allowing for a change
of venue for cases involving terrorism.106 Judge Albion
Tourgée had complained
that several counties were so thoroughly controlled by the Klan that convictions
could not be obtained on the best of evidence.107
During the summer of 1870
both Caswell and Alamance counties were declared in a state of insurrection.
The final phase
of this struggle took place in the next General
Assembly as
Negro legislators banded together to defend Governor Holden from impeach
ment for alleged misuse of the militia.
There had been Klan activity throughout 1869 in various
parts of the state,
but the largest number of atrocities occurred in
Orange, Alamance, Cleveland,
and Rutherford counties. Governor Holden's
papers contain affidavits indicating
that in Alamance and Orange counties alone
during that year there were fifty
five whippings, three one
hangings, drowning, one shooting, three houses shot
into, and two houses torn down.108 Urging an amendment to the militia bill
to make it more effective, Holden
plainly stated: "No war of races will be per
mitted in this country." 109
In 1870 bills for the
suppression of the Ku Klux Klan and the protection
of citizens against its activities became more
important to Negro legislators
than changing old laws. In line with the new Harris
situation, Representative
1(13
Speech of Hon. fames H. Harris on the Militia Bill Delivered in the North Carolina House
of Representatives, Monday, January 17, 1870 (N.p. : N.p., [1870]); North Carolina Standard,
January 18, 1870.
l0* House
journal, 1869-'70, 176-177, 184-192; North Carolina Standard, 19, 1870.
105 North January
Carolina Standard, January 22, 1870.
106 Public Laws of North Carolina, 1868-'69, c. 27.
i°7 North Carolina
Standard, January 25, 1870.
108 of William
Papers Woods Holden, Duke
109 "Address Manuscript Department.
to the General November
Assembly," 16, 1869, Holden Letter Book.

mm
M ■
K.-~
William Woods Holden (1818-1892) remains a controversial figure in North Carolina history.
Under his editorship from 1854 to 1868, the North Carolina Standard (Raleigh) became one of
the state's most influential newspapers. An ardent secessionist prior to 1861, he later led the move
ment for peace. President Andrew Johnson appointed him provisional governor in 1865; after
organizing the Republican party, Holden finally won election to the governorship in 1868. He
is the only North Carolina governor removed from office by impeachment. Photograph from
Ashe, Biographical History of North Carolina, III, 184.
introduced a bill to suppress outrages by disguised persons. Despite the con

tention that such a bill might make it illegal to go about in a Santa Claus costume,
the bill was passed.110
A congressional investigating committee later found that 260 Klan visitations
had occurred in 20 North Carolina counties by mid-1870, 174 of them involving
Negroes. Most of the white people visited by the Klan were northerners working
for the Freedmen's Bureau, teachers in Negro schools, or very conspicuous white
Republicans.111
In June, 1870, Governor Holden declared Alamance and Caswell counties
in a state of insurrection under the powers given him by the Shoffner Act
110 Public Laws of North Carolina, 1868-69, c. 267.

111 taken hy the ]oint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition
Testimony of Affairs
in the Late Insurrectionary States. North Carolina (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1872), passim.

and with President Grant's approval.112 Wyatt Outlaw, a popular Negro leader
and Union League official, had been hanged by the Klan in Alamance County;
and a native white Republican state senator, John W. Stephens, had been
murdered in the Caswell County courthouse during a Democratic political
meeting.113
Holdenplaced Colonel George Kirk in command of the Second North
Carolina State Troops and assigned them to Alamance and Caswell counties, a
most unpopular move. As commander of a Tennessee regiment in the Union
Army, Kirk had led North Carolina volunteers. Neither Kirk nor Holden
recognized writs of habeas corpus issued by state judges on behalf of prominent

North Carolinians who were arrested by Kirk's men. The most prominent of
these was Josiah Turner, editor of the Raleigh Sentinel and bitter enemy of
Holden. was a resident of Orange County, where many atrocities had
Turner
occurred but where a state of insurrection had not been proclaimed. He was
arrested there and moved to Caswell County. Though his arrest was illegal
it could hardly be regarded as unjust. Even the sticklers for legality among
the Negro legislators felt that Holden's error was not in arresting Turner but
in failing first to proclaim Orange County in a state of insurrection also. Turner
had derided and maligned the Negro legislators from the time they entered
politics. His newspaper reported Negro crime throughout the United States in a
style which could only be called "yellow journalism," while it glossed over
crimes committed against Negroes. No proof was offered, but some believed
Turner to be a Klan leader. The "insurrection" was declared ended when
President Grant would not support Holden's refusal to honor a writ of habeas
corpus issued by a federal judge, George W. Brooks.114

In their history of North Carolina, Hugh Talmage Lefler and Albert Ray
Newsome comment:
By rallying most of the native whites to its standard and from

keeping many Negroes
the polls, the Conservative party won an overwhelming victory [in 1870],
electing
five of seven to and both houses
representatives Congress capturing by large majorities
of the state 115
legislature."
Shortly after the new General Assembly began its first session in December,
112 The Shoffner Act empowered the governor to declare a county in a state of insurrection
and to activate the state militia when in his opinion the civil
authority in such county was unahle
to protect its citizens. Public Laws of North Carolina, 1869-'70, c. 27; Hamilton, Reconstruction
in North Carolina, 402; Lefler and Albert North Carolina:
Hugh Talmage Ray Newsome,
The of a Southern State (Chapel Hill: of North Carolina
History University Press, Revised
Edition, 1963), 467, hereinafter cited as Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina.
113 Luther M. Carlton, "The Assassination of John Walter
Stephens," in An Annual Publi
cation of Historical Papers. Legal and Studies (Durham: Historical of
Biographical Society
Trinity College, Series II, 1898), 1-11. Albion also gave an account of this incident in his
Tourgée
autobiographical novel, A Fool's Errand: By One of the Fools (New York: Fords, Howard, and
Hulbert, 1880), chapter XXX.
114 Lefler and North Carolina,
Newsome, 466-468.
115 Lefler and North Carolina, 469.
Newsome,

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These columns from the July

19, 1870, issue of the Conserva
tive newspaper, the Sentinel
(Raleigh), shows how Josiah

Turner, Jr. (1821-1901), used
the editorial page to attack
Republican Governor Holden,
George Kirk, John Pool, and the
North Carolina Standard. A na
tive of Orange County, Turner
was by profession a lawyer. He
served as an officer in the Con
federate Army until he was
wounded in 1862 and thereafter
represented North Carolina in
the Confederate Congress. Turn
er was elected a state senator in
1868 but was denied his seat
because his political disabilities
had not been removed as re
quired by the Fourteenth
Amendment. In November, 1868,
he purchased the Sentinel. Fol
lowing the impeachement of
Governor Holden, the General
Assembly awarded Turner the
contract as state printer. Photo
graph and sketch from Ashe,
Biographical History of North
Carolina, III, 415-426.

St. Ambrose Episcopal Church was built

for a Negro congregation on Raleigh's Wil
mington Street in 1868. The building was

demolished in 1965. Photograph from Richard
L. Zuber, North Carolina during Reconstruc
illmm tion (Raleigh: State Department of Archives
and History, 1969).
articles of impeachment for Governor Holden were drawn up. The eight articles
dealt with his use of militia in Caswell and Alamance during the time those
counties were in a state of insurrection. Members questioned the legality of
equipping the militia, the amount of money spent on it, the manner in which
prominent citizens had been treated, and, above all, the choice of George Kirk
to lead the Second Regiment.116
All of the Negro members of the House opposed the impeachment and seven
teen of them signed an "Address to the Colored People of North Carolina." It
was a passionate defense of Holden:
The only offence of Governor Holden and that which has brought down the wrath
of the dominant party upon him is that he thwarted the of a band of Assassins,
designs
who had prepared to saturate this State in the blood of the poor people on the
night
before the last election on account of their sentiments and to prevent them
political
from voting.
When Gov. Holden is disposed of those whom he protected will be the next
victims.117
118 House 1870-71, 146-162

Journal, passim.
117 "Address to the Colored of North L. Mabson,
People Carolina,"
signed by George
Edward R. Dudley, Robert Fletcher, George H. Willis, Richard Tucker, Stewart Ellison,
R. Falkener, W. H.
Reavis, Augustus Robbins, Wm. D. Newsom, B. H. Jones, Willis Bunn,
John Bryant, W. W. Morgan, Charles Smith, J. R. Page, and R. M. Johnson, published in the
Sentinel, December 30, 1870.

The in detail the steps which the Conservatives were taking

address described
to reduce Negro power by amending town charters, challenging votes at the
polls, and culminating in the repeal of the militia law and a wave of terror.
The next step, said the Negro legislators, would be an attempt to call a new
state constitutional convention, with Negroes denied full participation, which
would destroy all the gains they had made. The address concluded somberly
that only the power of God could help them now and called upon all the colored
people of the state to set aside the day of Friday, January 13, for fasting and
prayer, "in behalf of the Governor and our suffering people."
After the impeachment trial was under way, a ninth article was added to
the indictment, accusing Holden of conspiring to defraud the state in the rail
road bond matter. Three Negroes, Representatives Ellison, Page, and Sykes
joined the overwhelming majority of representatives in voting for this article;
but of the ten who opposed it, eight were Negro.118 By this time it was obvious
that some kind of fraud had occurred in connection with the railroad bonds, and
many Republicans as well as Conservatives wanted the matter investigated.

This ninth article, however, was never considered at the impeachment trial.119
The fear of losing their newly acquired political power appeared to pervade
the entire Negro community even before the 1870 election. This is well illus
trated by a letter to the editor of the Raleigh Sentinel from a Negro property
owner and a Conservative, J. B. Alford, of Smithfield. His advice to white con
servatives on how to appeal to Negro voters included these words:
the Negro feels that his right to vote is his greatest security against oppression, and
he is more apt to vote for a mean white man who himself to defend
pledges suifrage,
than for the best white citizen in the State, who refuses to promise that he will oppose
the of a so dear to the black man.120
taking away right
The Negro legislators of 1870 were convinced that a concerted move to
change state and local laws and the boundaries of electoral units in such a way
as to reduce their representation had begun. Ten Negro and six white repre
sentatives from seven counties protested vigorously an act passed by the Flouse
to amend the charter of the town of Washington in Beaufort County. In their
statement, the Flouse critics called the act "a violation of the Constitution and
to the people concerned." 121
injurious
When the bill calling for a new state convention was discussed in the Senate,
Senator Price opposed it on the ground that the suffrage in every municipality
in the state had been tampered with, so that voting was no longer representative.
His earlier request to retain all those on the voters list had been ignored. His
118 House Journal, 1870-71, 311-312; Sentinel, February 10, 1871.

119 Holden was convicted on six of the eight and removed
from the governorship.
charges
Lefier and Newsome, North Carolina, 469.
120 Letter dated December
29, 1869, reprinted in the Western Democrat, January 11, 1870.
121 House Carolina
Journal, 1870-'71, 84; North Standard, December 19, 1870.

people, he said, would not be allowed to participate but would be driven from
the polls as they had been in the last election.122 Negro members in the House
shared his view; they clearly indicated it by their solid black vote against the
House resolution to call a constitutional convention.123
An even more vigorous objection was raised by seven senators, including
the three Negroes, Eppes, Price, and Hyman, on February 11, 1871, when the
Senate passed a bill to change the boundary between Edgecombe and Nash
counties by making the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad the new dividing
line. This would transfer votes from Edgecombe County, which always elected
some Negroes to the legislature, to Nash County, which never did. In the
words of the protesting senators:
It will sever and divide the precincts, townships and incorporated towns through
which the Railroad runs. It will create confusion and dissatisfaction among the people
in that [:]
There is more than one thousand miles of railroad running through different
sections of North Carolina, and yet there is not another single mile of railroad in the
State that is made the dividing line between counties.
and the Senate by a direct vote positively refused to allow the

question of the transfer
to be submitted to the voters who are thus transferred from one to
qualified county
another, like stock or dumb beasts a farm.124
upon
Late in 1871, in both House and Senate,

Negro legislators temporarily took
the offensive. Representative Mabson read a petition from two citizens of
New Hanover County, Jacob Wise and S. T. Potts,
asking for the expulsion
of Senator H. C. Jones of F. A. Strudwicke of
Mecklenburg, Representative
Orange, and
Representative Lee N. McAfee of Cleveland from the General
Assembly because they were members of the Ku Klux Klan.125 The House
voted not to accept the resolution,
Negro Representative Cawthorne voting with
the white majority; and were made that all the protests were part of a
charges
plot emanating from Raleigh. When another protest petition, demanding proof of
such a plot, was read the
following day, it was rejected, with Representative
Cawthorne voting with the white majority.126
Fourdays later Senator Price attempted to read a similar memorial in the
Senate but was stopped because the was deemed disrespectful and
language
of another senator.127 A renewed
libeling attempt in January, 1872, by reluctant
122 Senate
Journal, 1870-71, 160-161.
123 House
Journal, 1870-71, 227.
124 Senate
Journal, 1870-71, 363-364.
125 House
Journal, 1871-72, 41; Sentinel, November 24, 1871.
i28 November
Sentinel, 25, 1871, reporting on the November 24, 1871, session in the House
of Representatives.
121 November
Sentinel, 28, 1871.

white representatives of militant Negro constituents to introduce similar petitions

also failed.128
The growing irritation of the frustrated Negro legislators was most frequently
demonstrated by their attempts to include an amendment in every new bill to
offer rewards for the capture of criminals. The amendment stated:
Resolved, further, That the Governor be and he is hereby authorized to offer a

reward of $5,000 for the arrest of each of the murderers of Menas murdered
Herring,
in Sampson County; $5,000 for each of the murderers of John W. Stephens[; and]
$5,000 for each of the murderers of Wyat[t] Outlaw.129
The amendment was rejected each time it was proposed. Though they con
tinued to occupy offices for another quarter of a century, the power of black
politicians in the state of North Carolina was effectively ended.

The thirty-four Negro legislators who served North Carolina between 1868 and
1872 came from varied backgrounds. A number of them who were educated and
and had experience saw their primary goal as the consolidation of their gains
as freedmen and the guarantee of their new status. They were willing to share
political power with women, who had never had it, and with those southern
conservativeswho had lost it. They wanted relief from extreme immediate want,
including opportunities for wider land ownership, and above all else they wanted
education. They were unwilling to accept permanently segregation or unequal
treatment in public places.
As legislators, they played a dual role as representatives of local constituencies
which they served faithfully and as builders of a new society. In this second
role they were often militant in defense of Negro rights and frequently pro
posed social legislation, much of which remains controversial in the twentieth
century. Their reform legislation was usually tabled, postponed indefinitely, or

buried forever in committee. a few of their reform became law.
Only proposals
They expressed doubts about

Republicans white and their failure to give
adequate support for the passage of strong bills which Negroes considered
crucial to their welfare, but they were firm in their loyalty to white politicians
who supported them, such as Governor Holden. At the same time that they
united in his defense they realistically assessed their own position. Political
power
was slipping through their fingers, and they knew it. They
fought on doggedly
as their earlier mood of jubilation turned into disillusionment and despair, but
they remained grimly determined not to abandon easily their goal of full
equality.
Most of these men remain "invisible" to posterity, but a few emerge from
scattered bits of information to show personalities with consistent patterns of
behavior and response. There were the totally committed yet often narrowly
128 Sentinel,
January 10, 1872.
lü9 Senate 176.
Journal, 1871-72, 151, 175,

legalistic Leary; the light-skinned, bitter Galloway, closest of them all to being
an idol of the black masses; the deeply religious Dudley, who innocently spent
the most crucial years of Reconstruction storming the state for temperance; and
James Harris, the most sophisticated, switching in a wink from politician to

statesman, from cool calculator to warm agitator. From a century of silence they
can still reach out through the poignant messages they left behind to tell of the
struggles and the failures and the anguish of another day. In their own words
as they lay one of their carpetbagger allies to rest :
But the world rolls on; nature loses none of its charms; the sun rises with un
diminished splendor; the grass loses none of its freshness; nor do the flowers cease to
fill the air with fragrance. Nature, untouched by human woe, proclaims the immutable
law of Providence, that decay follows growth. . . ,130
130 Funeral in the North Carolina

eulogy delivered House of Representatives on February 17,
1869, by Thomas Reynolds on the death of David J. Rich, state senator representing Pitt County,
as quoted in the North Carolina Standard, February 18, 1869. Rich was a native of Shoreham,
Vermont, and his body was returned to Vermont for burial.

APPENDIX
Negro Legislators in the

North Carolina General Assembly, July, 1868-February, 1872
Name County Office Years
Bryant, John R. Halifax Representative

Bunn, Willis Edgecombe
Carey, Wilson Caswell
Cawthorne, William Warren
Cherry, Henry Edgecombe

Crawford, A.H. Granville
Dudley, E.R. Craven
Eagles, John S.W. New Hanover

Ellison, Stewart Wake
Eppes, Henry Halifax Senator

Falkner, Richard Warren Representative
"
Fletcher, Robert Richmond
Galloway, A.H. New Hanover Senator

Harris, James H. Wake Representative
Hayes, H.J.T. Halifax
"
Hutchings, Ivey Halifax
Hyman, John A. Warren Senator
Johnson, R.M. Edgecombe Representative

Leary, John S. Cumberland
Mabson, George L. New Hanover
Mayo, Cuffie Granville

"
Morgan, Willis Wake
Morris, B.W. Craven
Newsome, W.D. Hertford
Page, John R. Chowan

Price, George W. New Hanover
" " " "
Senator
Reavis, W.H. Granville Representative
Robbins, Parker D. Bertie
'
Smith, Charles Halifax
Sweat, Isham Cumberland
Sykes, Thomas A. Pasquotank

Tucker, Richard Craven
Williamson, J.H. Franklin
Willis, G.W. Craven
Note: John Thomas Reynolds may also have heen a Negro. His racial identity is still in question.
This list does not include the names of those Negro senators and representatives elected to the
General Assembly in 1872.
VOLUME XL1X, NUMBER 1, JANUARY. 197»


Negro Legislators in The North Carolina General Assembly, July, 1868-February, 1872

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Negro Legislators in The North Carolina General Assembly, July, 1868-February, 1872

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North Carolina Office of Archives and History

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sponsibilities of citizenship and a share of political power. They expressed their

THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

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suffrage, temperance, and the ten-hour workday. They showed continuing

year period, a coalition of "carpetbaggers," blacks, and "scalawags" controlled

VOLUME XLIX, NUMBER 1. JANUARY, 1972

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percent Negro population except Wake, Cumberland, and Pasquotank counties,

percent Negro population failed to elect any Negro legislators.3

by white Conservatives. Negroes continued to win a significant minority of

3 These were and Richmond

THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

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4 Harris had received

VOLUME XL1X, NUMBER 1, JANUARY, 1972

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politics. In 1868 he was elected to represent Warren County in the Consti

9 No information was found for John R. Bryant, A. H. Crawford,

THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

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prominence in the Methodist Conference of the State of North Carolina. Prior

Negro senators of 1868.

Troops for the Union Army.

11 Sketch-Book. Session 1887 & Co.,

VOLUME XLIX, NUMBER 1. JANUARY, 1972

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Throughout his career, Harris took a major interest in education. He helped

persuade the 1867 legislature, which included no Negroes, to incorporate the

promote education among Negroes. A prominent North Carolina lawyer, P errin

Harris became a charter member of the Union League of America in North

Rights League, which

THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

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Only sketchy information

representatives. John Williamson was born a slave in Covington, Georgia, in

Louisburg, North Carolina. He educated himself and in 1868 was elected to

carpenter's trade. In 1852 Ellison went to Raleigh to work on new buildings

VOLUME XLIX, NUMBER 1, JANUARY, 1972

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turned to Washington in 1854. At the end of the war he moved to Raleigh,

Raleigh. In 1865 he attended the North Carolina Freedmen's Convention

The extent to which

legislature the Negro members were given unusual to serve

30 The Negro in North

THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

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committees, as well as to special during the course of the session.35

35 served on the Committee on Claims and on the Education and

VOLUME XLIX, NUMBER 1, JANUARY, 1972

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But a marked change is noticeable

occupied a seat on two or three committees. In 1870 Senator Hyman was

placed on the Claims Committee, Senator Price on the Education Committee,

Similarly, Negro representation on committees in the House was drastically

representation in the 1868 legislature.

Negro legislators in 1868 demonstrated conciliatory attitudes toward former

illegally elected. When in July, 1868, a resolution requesting to

THE NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

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opinion he soon changed. Representatives Cawthorne and Leary agreed with

government or the state legislature, and it would be time enough to remove