Constitutional Tales

Original documents to tell the story of the President of the Convention

2010-10-27T04:54:00.000-07:00

This is the second in a series of essays about the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868. Please see the October 15, 2010 blog for the beginning of this series.

I left the last blog with the following question: was Calvin Cowles – the president of the 1868 N.C. Constitutional Convention – merely a puppet of the “carpetbaggers” or a part of a coalition to promote change? Before answering this question, I am going to take a detour to delve more into Cowles’ story that is told through original documents available at the North Carolina Department of Archives and History.

As a starting point, I used a number of books, articles, and web sources for the research that was the basis for my story in the last blog. I was out of town, however, and not able to investigate original documents. After returning, I spent a couple of days at the State Archives. Culling through collections of original documents can be both exciting and daunting. No doubt there are historians out there who could tell you more about the research process, but here’s what happened on this trip.

I knew from some of my other research that the State Archives had a collection of Calvin Cowles’ papers. I had no idea how big the collection was until I reviewed the Archives’ description found in a well-aged 3-ring binder. It explains that the collection consists of 23,000 items contained in 24 manuscript boxes and 24 tissue letterpress books. If you tend to imagine that frequent communication began with email or text messages, it is rather amazing that the collection holds approximately 18,000 letters written by Calvin Cowles between November 1850 and February 1877.

All of his letters are handwritten and are difficult to read. Cowles’ cursive is very swooopy: his “s” looks like a “p” or an “l”. Deciphering is made more difficult by the use of words and phrasing now uncommon and the physical aging of the letters. Reading letters on fragile tissue in the letterpress books is even more challenging. With these books, Cowles would write on the tissue with a piece of carbon paper behind it to make a copy on stationery. He then would send the stationery copy and the tissue version remained in the letterpress book.

Without some idea of what to look for, it would be extremely time-consuming to read through entire letterpress books. In this case, I was helped by an excellent “finding-aid” prepared by staff of the Archives. It mentions a letter written to another postmaster about the conflict Cowles felt in working for the federal government as postmaster in a seceded state. In the story I created in the last blog, I tell about how Cowles is forced to resign from his postmaster responsibilities because of his allegiance to the Union. This letter to postmaster A. Hamilton Horton at Elkville shares an ambivalence not clear in Cowles’ later recounting of his forced resignation. Here’s an excerpt:

Wilkesboro, N.C. Aprl 26/61

My dear sir

…

You and I and thousands of others are in a pretty fix – Federal offices in a seceded state –not yet seceded but will be as soon as the forms can be gone through with --- what are we to do? Our oaths bind us to support a Constitution that is ignored. For my part I wish I had not accepted office. I intend to try to guard myself against perjury & to do that I can not raise my hand (nor voice) against the Federal government. For my dear Hamilton these are the days that will try our pluck – our sworn duty one side & impulse & feelings the others for section will be on is arrayed against section. Who can refrain from sympathizing with his fellows – the fruit of the same soil. Moral courage is greater than physical courage or more to be commended – we must do nothing to compromise our oaths of Office and therefore must remain neutral at least.

With a date range in mind, it is then easier to begin looking through the other files for related original documents. A typed notice dated November 12, 1861, requires the postmaster to register all arrivals and departures of the mail from the office and make it available to the Inspection Office of the Post Office Department of the Confederate States of America. Such a requirement would have aided the Confederacy in monitoring activities of potential Unionists. Surely this must have caused Cowles some angst. It may have even aided the Confederacy in intercepting the letter from Cowles that led to his forced resignation from his postmaster position. But as can be the case in constructing stories from primary documents, the story stops short of giving us this answer.

Another part of the story I tell in the blog is that “the Confederate Calvary also made its way through, wiping out families’ paltry provisions. The actions of the Calvary appalled Calvin Cowles and in April of 1864 he wrote to complain to Governor Zebulon Vance.”[1] This was important as a part of the story for showing the dissatisfaction with the Civil War in Wilkes County and Cowles’ position as a prominent local businessman. Using the cite listed in my footnote, I was able to retrieve the letter. However, it was not in Cowles’ letterpress book: instead the original is in the collection of papers for Governor Vance. Holding the letter in your hands (carefully), you can see how the brown ink spreads across the paper. The red wax seal Governor Vance broke to read the letter remains in the two pieces on the back of the letter.

From this letter, we get a fuller description of what occurred when the Confederate Calvary came through. It is admittedly much more interesting than my summary statement:

Wilkesboro N.C. Aprl 4^th 1864

Gov. Vance

My dear sir

Longstreets men are here pressing cattle & corn – they are making clean work of it too… Yesterday 40 wagons with long teams came down the river hunting corn – 6 of them being loaded turned across the river toward Jefferson – the others have gone on down the river. They called here & left a rept [receipt] for 49 Bus. [bushels] Corn which they found on my farm in Caldwell Co. & took – took it though it was all I had there & my tenant not enough to do him and I with less than – 2 bbls [handwriting not clear] in my cribs here and a farm – a grazing farm in Ashe to supply. It is generally known that the Hokes Geo. Cavalry turned their horses on to my growing crop last fall to eat it up which I had hoped would have given me an immunity from this visit…what can the hundreds of our farmers do toward making a crop this season when deprived of the grain to feed their work horses as they have been & are being? … What are the poor day laborers to do for bread when every crib in the land is depleted to the lowest possible standard – just enough left for the family & stock? I see a dark way ahead for the poor sons of toil and in face for us all unless some unforeseen good luck should happen. Why were these men sent here instead of S.C. or elsewhere where Grain is plenty – it would be better to have Corn sent up to Statesville for them if it can not reach them over the Va RR. .. I throw out the suggestion hoping you will feel significant interest in the subject to propose the adoption of the plan to the secretary of war or others having the control of such matters…

In the next blog, I’ll return to the story line. This blog is a chance to pause to think about the process of discovery available to all of us at the State Archives and other repositories of original documents. It is becoming more common in collections such as at the Library of Congress to make available only microfilm copies. There is no touching or handling, just squinting and hitting the forward button. But even that is much better than relying solely on textbooks or other secondary sources. These original documents bring a richness to our understanding of events important in our lives as North Carolinians.

Primary Sources:

C. J. Cowles to A. Hamilton Horton, Apr. 24, 1861, Calvin Cowles Papers, NC Department of Archives and History, Box 111.30, letterpress book December 1859-October-1862.

Confederate States of America, Post Office Department, Inspectio Office, Richmond , VA., Nov. 12, 1861, Calvin Cowles Papers, NC Department of Archives and History, Box 111.5, Folder Correspondence 1860-61.

C.J. Cowles to Z.B. Vance, Apr. 4, 1864, Z. B. Vance Papers NC Department of Archives and History G.P. 175, Correspondence Folder Apr 1-6, 1864.

Other useful resource:

For more information about the State Archives, go to: http://www.archives.ncdcr.gov/

Ann McColl

Constitutionaltales.net

[1] C.J. Cowles to Z.B. Vance, Apr. 4, 1864, Z. B. Vance Papers NC Department of Archives and History, cited in Barrett, John G., The Civil War in North Carolina, p. 241 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press 1963)

The unexpected choice in President of the 1868 Constitutional Convention

2010-10-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

This is the first in a series of essays about the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868. North Carolina has been governed by three constitutions known by their dates of 1776, 1868, and 1971. The 1868 Constitution is created at a constitutional convention. This essay begins the exploration of the leadership and coalitions important at the convention in creating this constitution.

Calvin Cowles was as surprised as anyone by his nomination to be president of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1868. The band of reformers behind his nomination made a tactical decision that this political neophyte was the right person to lead the convention. But it was a gamble.

Cowles was a delegate from Wilkes County. Situated in the northwestern mountains, Wilkes lies just below Ashe and Alleghany Counties, which extend to the Virginia border. Wilkes County was formed in 1777 and named in honor of John Wilkes, a rebel defender of popular rights who was not allowed to take his elected seat in England’s Parliament in retaliation for his politics.[1]

Wilkes County continued to have a rebellious character. During the Civil War, the state’s “interior war” played out here. Residents resented the harsh and disproportionate effects of conscription on those without wealth or privilege; they suffered from the requirement that farmer’s hand over one-tenth of all their produce to the Confederacy, and were outraged by the Confederate army’s right to seize personal property – paying only whatever the Army thought appropriate.[2] Dissatisfaction grew as poverty descended on the region. By the summer of 1863, over 500 deserters hid in Wilkes County.[3] The Confederate Calvary also made its way through, wiping out families’ paltry provisions.

The actions of the Calvary appalled Calvin Cowles and in April of 1864 he wrote to complain to Governor Zebulon Vance.[4] His letter likely garnered attention as Cowles was a well-known merchant and owned a store in Wilkesboro. He exported roots and herbs to the North and England and had deep connections in the community, including with those that eked out a living “yarbin’ it” – collecting roots and herbs for sale.[5] He was respected and prosperous.

He also was a Unionist. For this he was arrested and spent time in jail. It also cost him his position as postmaster. This happened one day when he returned to his home, a “clapboarded residence” with a “graceful portico”[6], and found the vigilance committee waiting for him. They had in their possession an intercepted letter Cowles had written and charged that he had said that he would not hold office under the Confederacy. As Cowles recounted, “There was a home guard parade that day, and the rabble were clamoring in the street. They told me it was too serious a matter to be trifled with. They had hung a negro a day or so before on my lot. So I consulted with my wife, and a loyal friend, who told me that I would be hung unless submitted [to resigning from postmaster]”.[7]

Other than postmaster, Cowles had never held any office. But he was clear in his opinions and conversed with leaders across the state. During the War, he sided with those seeking a broad peace movement, which placed him at odds with North Carolina Senator Andrew Cowles, his half brother.[8] In 1864, newspaper editor William W. Holden shared with Cowles his desire to run a gubernatorial campaign that focused on ceasing hostilities and beginning negotiations.[9] Holden was unsuccessful in this campaign, but directly after the Civil War, he was appointed as provisional Governor. Holden also would become Cowles’ father-in-law.

Besides the appointment of Governor Holden, little changed in who held power from before the Civil War to the initial years afterward, and thus, little changed in antebellum practices. It took intervention by Congress. In order to be readmitted to the Union, Congress required Confederate states to revise their constitutions to establish and protect specified rights, including the right of males to vote without regard to race. Federal law enfranchised black men and disenfranchised men loyal to the confederate cause in voting for holding a constitutional convention and in electing delegates. Under these conditions, the Republican party – the reform party – won 107 of 120 seats to North Carolina’s constitutional convention.

This was an extraordinary opportunity to reform the system. It would be important for the cohesiveness of the party to all stand behind one nominee for president. On the second day of the convention, January 15, 1868, Cowles won the presidency, receiving 101 of 109 votes cast.[10] “My friends had run me for the Convention,” Cowles later explained. “I had done all I could then, and was returned with the highest vote on the ticket. Coming here to take a back seat, I had been elevated to the Presidency much to my astonishment.”[11]

An historian’s account of the election is similar. Professor J.D. de Roulhac Hamilton wrote, “The election of Cowles caused general surprise in the State, as it was supposed that General Abbott and Heaton both desired the position and that one of them would be elected… Cowles was a sincere man of unimpeachable honesty, of only fair ability, and of no political experience”.[12]

And indeed Abbott and Heaton were both better versed in politics and had legislative experience. Joseph Abbott, delegate for the coastal county of New Hanover, had been a U.S. senator for New Hampshire, editor, lawyer, and Union general. David Heaton, delegate for another coastal community, Craven County, had been a U.S. representative as well as a state senator in Ohio and Minnesota.[13] He had been a Union colonel, serving as a special agent of the treasury department in New Bern during the War.

So why Cowles? Why did the reformers not elect someone already well known as a leader who was versed in parliamentary procedures? And why would Abbott and Heaton give up the opportunity for the prominence of being the president of convention? Hamilton speculated: “Each was ambitious, but probably each concluded that more reputation and influence could be gained on the floor of the convention than as its residing officer. Hamilton further speculated, “[Cowles] was entirely favorable to reconstruction and, accepting the carpetbaggers as leaders, was thoroughly under their influence. Their support, combined with the fact that he was a close connection of Holden’s by marriage, procured his election.”[14]

Professor Hamilton’s assessment of Abbott’s and Heaton’s interests might be correct; however, his view of Cowles and the tyranny of northern whites is perhaps too harsh. Hamilton’s scholarship, while often cited as authoritative, also has been widely criticized by later historians for sanctioning white supremacy and promoting an understanding of history that glorified the established elite and denigrated the contributions of blacks, northerners, and local whites who sought reform. And in this case, at least one of his facts important to his conclusions is wrong: Cowles did not marry Ida Holden until four months after the convention was over.[15]

The question remains: was Cowles merely a puppet of the “carpetbaggers” or a part of a coalition to promote change? That’s the subject for the next blog.

[1] Corbitt, David L., The Formation of the North Carolina Counties 1663-1943, p. 227 (Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Division of Archives and History 1950); Federal Writers' Project (N.C.), North Carolina, a guide to the old north State, p. 408-09 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, American Guide Series 1939)

[2] Barrett, John G., The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press 1963)

[3] Escott, Paul D., Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850-1900, p. 47 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press 1985).

[4] C.J. Cowles to Z.B. Vance, Apr. 4, 1864, Z. B. Vance Papers NC Department of Archives and History, cited in Barrett, John G., The Civil War in North Carolina, p. 241 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press 1963)

[5] Federal Writers' Project (N.C.), North Carolina, a guide to the old north State, p. 408 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, American Guide Series 1939)

[6] North Carolina Guide, p. 409.

[7] Ferrell, Joseph, ed., Compilation of the Official Report of the Proceedings of the Convention, March 9, p. 545 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: unpublished manuscript 2007). This document compiles the official Report of the Proceedings of the Convention published each day in the Daily Standard by Joseph Holden, the official reporter of the Convention. The editor has expanded Holden's report by adding material from the Daily Sentinel, the newspaper followed by Conservatives, when the Sentinel reported remarks or occurrences omitted from Holden's report, and inserted material from the Journal of the Convention (the record of official actions) to fully identify the action being taken. In Holden’s report speeches were changed from first to third person accounts. I have changed these pronouns back to what the speaker likely said, such as changing “he” to “I” or “his” to “my.” I added the bracketed language as this is an excerpt from his account.

[8] A.C. Cowles to Calvin Cowles, 18 Aug. 1863, in Calvin J. Cowles Papers, NCDAH, cited in Escott, Paul D., Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850-1900, p. 47, fn. 47.

[9] W.W. Holden to C.J. Cowles, 18 Mar. 1864 in W.W. Holden Papers, NCDAH, cited in Escott, Paul D., Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850-1900, p. 47, fn. 48.

[10] North Carolina, Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the State of North-Carolina, at its Session 1868, p. 11 (Raleigh, N.C.: J.W. Holden, convention printer 1868); transcribed with online access by same title (Documenting the American South, University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Electronic ed. 2002) available at http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/conv1868/conv1868.html.

[11] Ferrell, Joseph, ed., Compilation of the Official Report of the Proceedings of the Convention, March 9, p. 545.

[12] Hamilton, J.D. de Roulhac, Reconstruction in North Carolina, p. 255 (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith 1964).

[13] Hamilton, J.D. de Roulhac, Reconstruction in North Carolina, p. 253; Hume, Richard L. & Gough, Jerry B., Blacks, Carpetbaggers, and Scalawags: The Constitutional Conventions of Radical Reconstruction, Appendix C (no page number) (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press 2008)

[14] Hamilton, J.D. de Roulhac, Reconstruction in North Carolina, p. 255

[15] Daily Sentinel of Raleigh, July 24, 1868, retrieved by Steve Case, Librarian, Government and Heritage Library of the State Library of North Carolina: “Married: On the morning of the 23^rd inst., at the residence of the bride’s father, by the Rev. Dr. Mason, C.J. Cowles of Wilkes Co., and Ida A., daughter of Gov. W. H. Holden.”

What would Albion Tourgée think of the Wake County School Board?

2010-10-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

Note: this is in a series of essays that I will be using to form the written version of the Tales. Some are ideas and themes I am exploring -- others may be rough drafts of portions of the Tales. --Ann McColl

Last night a new majority was formed among Wake County School Board members based on a shared frustration with the process used by the other board members for dismantling the student assignment policy. They said the other four members moved too quickly and shut out board members and the public from the deliberative process. (See News and Observer, 10/6/2010) In searching for the broader context, I cannot help but wonder, what would Albion Tourgée think of all of this?

Albion Tourgée was one of the most prominent public intellectuals of the nineteenth century, writing and speaking extensively about race relations and the process of social reform. As an elected delegate to the 1868 constitutional convention, Tourgée shaped North Carolina’s Constitution. (For more background see today’s companion blog, “the problem with ‘re’ words”.) Given his concerns about equality, I suspect he would be troubled by plans to eliminate factors that provide for diversity in the schools. But that is speculation. We can know what he thinks about processes of reform. First, he places confidence in “the people,” not elected leaders:

“If I were to write any political creed it would be Lincoln’s favorite aphorism. ‘A government of the people, by the people and for the people,’ including in the term ‘people’ the entire population of the United States. You know, for we have often talked freely of these matters, how broad and deep the foundations of my faith in the people lie. I have no faith in politicians, aristocrats, or classes of any sort.” (Letter to E. S. Parker, 1875, p. 54.)

Second, he calls for giving adequate time to the process. Even though he fully supported the objectives of equality in reconstruction-era reforms sought by Congress and the Republican party, he finds fault in the impatience for change:

“We have no faith in time! Milton wrote that the railroad and telegraph have annihilated time and space! Milton wrote that on of the attributes of Hell was the power to compress eternity into an hour. The Republican Party and Congress got an idea that they also had this power. Hence this ‘serious error.’ You remember somebody’s idea that if a Yankee had the contract of creation he would have finished it all up in five days and gone fishing on Saturday? It was so with our Republican Congress at the close of the war. They wanted to do the work of a generation in a day.” (Letter to E. S. Parker, 1875, p. 56.)

Process is not all that matters, however. Tourgée is critical of a shift he saw from what “What is Right to What will Win” (“The Reaction,”1868, p. 33.) He asserts,

“Now and then comes a time when the question that is uppermost in all minds is not ‘How?’ but ‘What’ – when the question of method, the mere economy of administration, sinks into insignificance in the presence of some peril which threatens the very fact of existence.” (“Aaron’s Rod in Politics,” 1881, p.66.)

The Wake County School Board has yet to agree on the “what.” Perhaps by slowing down the process, this can begin to happen. If they need more advice, I suggest that they read more of the writings of Tourgée. Just published this year, Mark Elliot and John David Smith provide an excellent anthology of his works. Check it out.

Source:

Elliot, Mark, & Smith, John David, eds., Undaunted Radical: The Selected Writings and Speeches of Albion Tourgée (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press 2010)

Other Useful Resource:

Elliott, Mark Emory, Color-blind Justice: Albion Tourgée and the Quest for Racial Equality from the Civil War to Plessy v. Ferguson (Oxford, N.Y.: Oxford University Press 2006).

The problem with "re" words

2010-10-06T11:52:00.001-07:00

Albion Tourgée is generally recognized as the most famous “carpetbagger” to participate in North Carolina politics after the Civil War. He left a significant imprint on North Carolina in his role in state constitutional and statutory revisions and as a lawyer and judge. At the national level, Tourgée had a prominent career that included serving as lead attorney for the plaintiff in Plessy v. Ferguson – a case he lost that established the constitutional principle of separate but equal. He shared his views as a civil rights activist in both political writings and fiction, including his well-read novel, A Fool’s Errand, which draws on his experiences in North Carolina. I will use blogs to share brief excerpts and quotes from Tourgée that relate to themes explored in Constitutional Tales.

Tourgée is in North Carolina during Reconstruction and is an influential delegate to the 1868 N.C. Constitutional Convention. While fully supportive of the agenda of Congress and the Republican party of securing political rights for blacks, he is critical of the approach, including the choice of term, “reconstruction.”

“The word itself was one of ill-omen, in that it rushed back into the past for the type and model of what was to be in the future. By its very force it accustomed the people to the idea that the work which was to be done was but the patching up of an old garment; that it was an act of restoration rather than one of creation.” (“Root, Hog, or Die,” 1876, p. 58.)

It is an interesting commentary on the importance of terms. And “re” words have hardly gone out of style. We use them to endorse a prior act: we reaffirm (presumably meaning more than once), reapply, reauthorize, recommission, rededicate, and reestablish. Perhaps Tourgée would not be concerned by this kind of intentional affirmation. Other times, however, we use “re” words to describe a process of analysis: we reanalyze, reassess, recalibrate, recompute, reevaluate, reexamine, reformulate, revalidate, and revise. Does the “re” limit the scope of inquiry? Are we closer here to Tourgée’s concern that we begin an endeavor with a limited intention of patching it up? And perhaps most problematic is the use of “re” words when we intend a new beginning: we say we will reconceive, reconceptualize, reconfigure, rediscover, reenvision, reimagine, reorient, retheorize, and rethink. Are these words of creation? Or do they keep us from starting anew?

A constitutional tale tells us something important about history. But it also should tell something important about us. Tourgée was one of the most significant public intellectuals of the nineteenth century. Perhaps he can still be of help.

Source:

Elliot, Mark, & Smith, John David, eds., Undaunted Radical: The Selected Writings and Speeches of Albion Tourgée (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press 2010)

Other Useful Resource:

Elliott, Mark Emory, Color-blind Justice: Albion Tourgée and the Quest for Racial Equality from the Civil War to Plessy v. Ferguson (Oxford, N.Y.: Oxford University Press 2006).

Where are the women in the Tales?: The stories of Mary Jane Conner and Sylvia

2010-09-30T15:27:00.000-07:00

I have caught grief for giving presentations of the Constitutional Tales with a cast of all male actors. Getting beyond personal insinuations (to which I think are unwise to respond), the more serious concern is the lack of presence of women in the Tales. In part, this is unavoidable: women were not elected as delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1868 and did not play a direct role in the writing of the North Carolina Constitution. I do include references to women in the presentations and writing the Tales will give me an opportunity to share a little more about the lives of women. These stories help explain the “spirit of the times” that is essential to our understanding of our constitutional history. I will use this blog to share the lives of Mary Jane Conner and Sylvia.

I first saw pictures of them on a visit to the New Bern Academy, a museum operated by Tryon Palace (currently closed during restoration). Their pictures are captivating. In this blog, Mary Jane is to the right, Sylvia, to the left. From the captions on the photos we know that Mary Jane was a cook and boardinghouse keeper and Sylvia, a seamstress. The photographs were taken June 5, 1863, placing them during the Civil War and after the Union had taken control of New Bern. I requested electronic copies of these photos from Tryon Palace and have since used them in the Constitutional Tales presentations as they demonstrate how blacks took advantage of opportunities in federally-controlled areas to create businesses.

But there was more to learn. I happened to be browsing in one of my favorite bookstores, the Literary Bookpost in Salisbury. It was after recently being chastised for not including enough about women in the Tales so when I saw North Carolina Women: Making History, I grabbed it off the shelf and it fell open to a page that had these same pictures of Mary Jane Conner and Sylvia. It may be not a particularly sophisticated version of fate, but it was enough for me to decide to buy the book on the spot. (I highly recommend it: you can purchase it t from the Literary Bookpost or Amazon).

From this book I learned that Mary Jane and Sylvia were related – they were sisters-in-law. Sylvia’s last name probably is Conner as well, although that is not documented. Further, Mary Jane was famous as a cook and boarding keeper and praised as a “remarkable woman” by a Union soldier. Following the citation for this quote led me to other books and finally I came to the original source of the quote from the Union soldier, a collection of letters by Private Henry A. Clapp. And through his words, their stories unfold a little more.

But first, to tell you about the storyteller (for that is always important). Private Clapp is from Dorchester, Massachusetts, and is 21 years old when he arrives in New Bern in the Fall of 1862. He is Harvard educated –a graduate and halfway through his law studies at Harvard when he enlists, joining the Forty-Fourth Regiment from Massachusetts. As Henry’s mother notes, this particular regiment includes “large numbers of the educated, the refined and the pious.” They are sent to New Bern after it already is under federal control. Clapp participates in a variety of military missions leading him into different parts of eastern North Carolina. He also is the chief census taker among African Americans in New Bern. Clapp writes home to his family to describe this unusual land of the South and approaches its occupants with the curiosity of a scientist. So below, I offer you excerpts of his letters that describe in greater detail who these women are in the eyes of this young Union soldier.

Letter 30

March 31, 1863

To Mother

Mary Ann (as she is called, though her name is Mary Jane Conner) is about the most remarkable colored woman I ever saw…She had been a slave for years (all her life) before our troops took Newbern and been hired out as cook at the great Hotel here the Washington House – and which was burnt by the rebs when we came into Newbern. She supports an aged and infirm mother. She told me once or twice in answer to my questions, that if it were not that she felt as if she ought to stay and take care of her mother she would go to New York at once. She could earn a handsome living any where, for she is thoroughly capable.

Letter 33

April 10, 1863

To Willie (brother)

I want you to tell mother about the seamstress whom we employ to mend our clothes. She is a sister in law of our famous boarding-house keeper, Mary Jane, and glories in the classical name of “Sylvia.” She was formerly the slave of one of the richest men in New Berne who owned the house Gen Foster now lives in, and was the family seamstress I should judge. She is about forty, and though very dark of very pleasant appearance. Her address and manners are remarkably agreeable and really of unusual refinement. I’ve seen the wives of millionaires who were much her inferiors in urbanity and polish of manner. She is a superb seamstress, as my dress-coat just rescued from many rents will bear happy witness. She seems also to be a woman of very good sense & well worth listening to. We often wait in the house whilst they are putting the finishing touches on the dinner and spend the time in talking with her and Mary Jane.

Letter 41

May 18^th, 1863

To Father

The pieces of clothing and the presents for Mary, Sylvia, and Eunice were sent with admirable judgment, as Mother’s always is. .. The bundle was opened in the presence of Mary and the elegant Sylvia who had just returned to her home with Mary after quite a severe illness, and it was very interesting to watch the faces of the spectators as I passed them their separate packages with a few appropriate remarks in each case, and information, as to who the giver was. … Sylvia remarked that mother “seemed to have guessed her taste exactly” and Mary reechoed the sentiments.

So now we know a little more. The beautiful dresses Mary Jane and Sylvia wear in the photographs likely were sent by Private Clapp’s mother, as they received the gifts less than three weeks before their pictures were taken. More importantly, we know the sisters-in-law were perceived as highly capable, intelligent businesswomen. Having successful businesses sets the stage for blacks to be able to establish their own schools and churches – which occurs sooner in New Bern than in other parts of North Carolina. It also means that New Bern will be important politically. African American leaders will emerge from New Bern who will influence state politics and even become a part of the Constitutional Convention of 1868, including James Walker Hood. But I won’t say anything more about men in this blog. This is all about the women who, in extraordinary times, created prosperous businesses while taking care of their families.

Primary Sources:

Barden, John R., ed., Letters to the Home Circle: The North Carolina Service of Pvt. Henry A. Clapp (Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Division of Archives and History 1998) (pages xxii, 164-64, 175-77, 210-212 with photos on pages 212-212)

“Mary Jane Connor, Cook and boardinghouse keeper, Photographed in New Berne, N.C., June 5^th, 1863,” photograph from the Henry A. Clapp collection (TP.84.5.4), Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens [her name is spelled Connor on the caption but in Clapp’s letters, it is spelled as Conner].

“Sylvia, Seamstress of New Berne, Photographed in New Berne, N.C., June 5^th, 1863,” photograph from Henry A. Clapp Collection (TP.84.5.3), Tryon Palace Historic Sites & Gardens

Secondary Sources:

Smith, Margaret S. & Wilson, Emily H., North Carolina Women: Making History (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press 1999) (pages 131-132)

Other Useful Resources:

Crow, Jeffrey J., Escott, Paul D., & Hatley, Flora J., A History of African Americans in North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.: N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History 1992)

Escott, Paul D., Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850-1900 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press 1985)

Mobley, Joe A., James City: A Black Community in North Carolina, 1863-1900 (Raleigh, N.C. Division of Archives and History, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources 1981, 2000)

Reverend S.S. Ashley's Path to North Carolina

2010-09-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

It is as if Samuel Stanford Ashley’s life was pointing him towards North Carolina all along.

There were the several years in which he taught and served as principal of the Meeting Street School. And no doubt, his fifteen years as a Congregational minister shaped his passions and brought clarity to his words. But Ashley’s path to North Carolina began even earlier when George Whipple, mathematics professor at Oberlin College, took a “homesick lad” under his care.

In this Jacksonian era, the college is known not only for its academics, but also as a driving force in the anti-slavery movement. Whipple is in the thick of it. He also is Ashley’s professor and mentor. Ashley graduates in 1840 and returns in 1846 to begin his theological studies. The same year, the American Missionary Association is formed with Whipple’s help. The AMA is a Christian organization dedicated to abolishing slavery and promoting rights of blacks. Whipple continues to have a pivotal role with the organization, serving as corresponding secretary beginning in the 1850s.

The AMA’s beliefs are consistent with those of Congregationalists and Ashley is committed to abolition. In 1860, he collects and sends $6.00 to the AMA to help in releasing Reverend Daniel Worth from prison in North Carolina for circulating antislavery materials. Once the war begins, Ashley promptly offers his services to the AMA to go to the South as a missionary. But they do not call upon him – not yet. More than a year later, in December of 1862, Reverend Ashley writes to his friend at the AMA, George Whipple, “inasmuch as I have heard nothing from you I suppose you do not think it worth while for me to engage in any such work among the freed men. Perhaps I am not needed. I am the Lord’s servant; he may send or not as he pleases. I am glad to labor wherever he places me.”

Two years later, Ashley still has not heard from the AMA. Forty-five years old, married and with two children, he steps down from his position as minister of the Congregational Church of Northborough, Massachusetts, to distribute religious tracks to soldiers in Virginia for the United States Christian Commission. Finally, in March of 1865, the AMA summons him.

A serious problem has arisen in North Carolina. Captain Horace James of the Twenty-fifth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment is a mutual friend of Whipple’s and Ashley’s. A Congregational minister, James is serving as a chaplain in New Bern when the military gives him broad supervisory authority over services for freedmen across the state. The AMA is aligned with the Union in efforts to provide education for freedmen, believing it essential as a part of efforts to provide moral, spiritual, and economic support. Early in 1865, James gives his approval for the AMA to send Brother J.G. Longely to Wilmington to coordinate the efforts to provide schools.

It does not go well. Longely quickly accumulates a long list of complaints against him: he is accused of being arrogant and dismissive toward blacks, sexually harassing at least one female teacher, cheating freedmen from pay for their labor, meddling in church affairs, and having a volatile temper. Teachers write in protest, demanding his removal. It is a crisis requiring immediate action. They need someone from the AMA who can repair relationships with the military, ameliorate the friction with the community, and assure the teachers of their well-being.

James and Whipple both believe Ashley is the right person. With great haste, Ashley is brought by steamer from Fortress Monroe, Virginia, to Wilmington, stopping in New Bern to pick up James. They arrive in Wilmington on April 2, 1865. About a week later, James writes to Whipple of the transition, praising Ashley: “he is calm and judicious and has already won the confidence of teachers and freedmen.” The military also is impressed: to give “unity and systems to the operations” James reports that the Generals have named Ashley their superintendent of education for the district. James notes that there “is great work to be done here. Mr. Ashley will have his hands full.”

And indeed, given the timing, there will be much to be done. This, however, relates to the circumstances in Wilmington and that will be the subject of other blogs. It is enough for now to consider the forces that have brought this man to North Carolina – a man who several years later will propose a constitutional right to education that still matters today. In words unchanged from the 1868 North Carolina Constitution, our current constitution declares that “The people have a right to the privilege of education and it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain that right.” It is striking to think that we might not enjoy this right if back in the 1840s Samuel Ashley had not befriended George Whipple at Oberlin College.

Primary Sources:

N.C. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 15 (1971).

N.C. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 27 (1868.

Samuel S Ashley to ____, Northboro [now Northborough], Mass., August 29, 1860, No. 54775, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

S.S. Ashley to George Whipple, Northboro, Mass., December 15, 1862, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

William L. Coan to A.M.A., Wilmington, N.C., April 5, 1865, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

Captain Horace James to George Whipple, April 10, 1865, No. 99993, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

Secondary Sources:

Bell, John L., Samuel Stanford Ashley, Carpetbagger and Educator, 72 N.C. Hist. Rev. 456-483 (1995).

The following sources provide additional information:

Anderson, James D., The Education of Blacks in the South, 1869-1935 (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press 1988)

O’Quinn, Marion Nolan, Carpetbagger Samuel S. Ashley and his role in North Carolina education 1865-1871 (Unpublished Thesis, available at Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina State University 1975).

Williams, Heather Andrea, Self-taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press 2005).

A good man in Wilmington

2010-09-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

Joseph R. Hawley spends the first 11 years of his life in North Carolina, in Stewartsville – near Laurinburg- where his father is pastor of a Baptist church. He returns to North Carolina 28 years later as a brigadier general of the Union Army.

On February 28, 1865, Hawley writes to his wife, Hattie, “If I don’t write you a line or two, I shan’t be able to write you at all. We have been every moment active since Saturday the 19^th when we started toward Wilmington.” While they are in route, Wilmington surrenders on George Washington’s birthday, February 22, to the commander of the troops that captured Fort Fisher. The surrender is seen as inevitable: in anticipation, confederate forces destroy the naval stores and the cotton and tobacco stored in Wilmington.

Hawley enters a city impoverished by war. And it gets worse. Official civil war documents recount:

“About 8,600 Union prisoners were released on parole at Northeast Bridge, ten miles above Wilmington, and cared for at Wilmington, and thence transported North; several thousand of them were put into hospital. This delivery was wholly unexpected, and the district was almost without proper material to care for them properly. They were in a frightful condition in all respects, and a camp or jail fever broke out among them.”

Hawley also describes the conditions to his wife.

“Gen. Schofield, under instructions from Gen. Grant agreed to receive 10,000 prisoners. They have been coming at the rate of nearly 2000 per day. Awful – awful-awful! I do assure you that nothing whatever has been exaggerated in the report concerning the treatment of our men – nothing whatever. I stood dumb before the great misery. Actually I literally, every few minutes for hours my throat would choke and my eyes fill as I looked on.”

As desperate as these conditions are, Hawley wants to be a part moving the city forward. He concludes his four-page letter to Hattie,

I want you to get permission to come down here immediately. I take great interest in North Carolina, as my native state. I would greatly desire to do much in reconciling it to the new state of affairs. There are many good Union people here: and there are others who will be such with good management. I think this is the place where my mixed legal political and military training will do most service to the country. Socially and in the hospitals and in various ways you can aid me greatly.”

And Hawley is given the opportunity. The next day, March 1, the following special order is issued:

Special Orders No. 18

Head Quarters, Dept of North Carolina

Army of the Ohio

Wilmington, N.C. March 1^st 1865

Brig. Genl. Jos. R. Hawley is hereby assigned to the command of the District of Wilmington which will embrace all the territory under Military control in rear of the Army operating from Cape Fear River as a base.

Genl. Hawley will be responsible for the protection of the depot at Wilmington, Cape Fear Harbor and the line of railroad in rear of the Army. He will also perform the duties of Provost Marshall Genl. for the District under his Command.

By command of Major General Schofield

We can read this now with a sense of optimism that a native would be placed in charge of Wilmington. But that brings a sensibility that we are focusing on how we will move forward. History books exclude this kind of information, emphasizing instead the role of the surrender of Wilmington in the demise of the Confederate’s cause. An authoritative book on the Civil War in North Carolina closes this chapter on Wilmington with the following:

“The Federal soldiers took the fall of Wilmington as a good omen since it occurred on George Washington’s birthday. ‘I think we celebrated the day well, don’t you’ one of them wrote. But for the residents of Wilmington it was a time of sadness, not celebration. The omen was bad, not good. The Confederacy, without supplies from abroad, surely could not stand much longer.”

For the Constitutional Tales, we’ll pick up from here on what happens next in Wilmington. (There’s definitely more to come.)

And for Hawley? After Hawley leaves Wilmington at the end of the War, he returns to Connecticut where he is elected Governor. Over his distinguished career, he also serves as chairman of the Republican Party (“Lincoln’s Party”) in 1868, briefly as a U.S. representative and 24 years as a U.S. senator from Connecticut.

And for all of us? Perhaps we can all be inspired by the idea of finding service that is the best combination of our skills and passions.

Primary Sources:

Joseph R. Hawley, to wife, Hattie, Wilmington, N.C., February 28, 1865, Reel 6, Joseph R. Hawley Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Special Order No. 18, Wilmington, N.C., March 1, 1865, Reel 6, Joseph R. Hawley Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

United States War Department, The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies Series 1 – Volume 47 (part I), Chap. LIX, 164-65 (Washington Government Printing Office 1895), online(Ithica, New York: Cornell University Library), available at: http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moawar;idno=waro0098

Secondary Sources:

Barrett, John G., The Civil War in North Carolina (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press 1963), p. 284.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Roswell_Hawley

Importance of the Address of the Equal Rights League,1866

2010-09-09T08:20:00.001-07:00

Peaceably organizing to assert equal rights – including for education – is a revered tradition in this country. And yet, any particular effort at organizing may be viewed at the time with suspicion and fear so that it is also a tradition to fear bait – to make those seeking change seem different from the mainstream, to cast doubt on their motives and methods, and to incite fear in others of the change.

This was certainly true when blacks began to organize after the Civil War in North Carolina. At the 1865 Freedmen’s Convention, blacks across the state agreed to form an Equal Rights League. Blacks then created local associations to hold meetings, marches, and parades and to pass resolutions seeking equal rights and protection under the law. Wilmington – the largest city in the state at the time – had such a local organization. In January of 1866, James Harris, a leader from the Freedmen’s convention, came from Raleigh to speak to blacks in Wilmington. It appears that about the same time, the League issued an address to the citizens of Wilmington. You can read a copy of this address by clicking here. (Please do so – the rest of this blog can wait!)

This address captures the nature of the League as well as its opposition. We can use it as a window into the growing tension over changes in the social order. The address begins by noting its opposition:

“As the objects of this League have been misrepresented as well as misunderstood, and as the League as been the occasion of much unjust suspicion and anxious fear, we desire to make know its real object and purpose. We do this with pleasure. Our object is a public one. We invite, therefore, public scrutiny.”

They are clear on their purpose to remove inequality in the law and that they would denounce a man who urged insurrection. They go on to state:

“If we wish property, we mean to save it by honest labor. If we aspire to positions of trust and honor, we mean to merit them by our intelligence and virtue. If we ask for citizenship, we mean to show, through our respect of persons and property, and by our reverence for law and order, that we are worthy to be taken into the great company of American citizens.”

And what is the rest of the story? These local associations continue to meet. They elect delegates to the state convention of the Equal Rights League to be held in October, 1866, at the Saint Paul AME Church in downtown Raleigh. James Harris presides as president of the Equal Rights League. At this meeting, the organization continues to press for political rights and opportunities for education. They also form the Educational Association of the Colored People of North Carolina. A year later, Harris, now a legislator, persuades the General Assembly to pass legislation incorporating the Equal Rights League so that it is a legally recognized institution.

It is no coincidence that in this time of organizing for political rights, the Ku Klux Klan becomes active in North Carolina, committing the most violence between 1867 and 1870. And once again, it is James Harris, who delivers a speech to the North Carolina House of Representatives on January 7, 1870, denouncing the crimes committed by the KKK against blacks and their supporters. He cites specific incidents that occurred in Chatham, Forsyth, Iredell, and Johnston counties with the most detailed and numerous crimes in Orange County.

But let’s return to the address to the citizens of Wilmington. What do we gain from examining this address in its historical context? It is for each of us to decide. I would argue that this one-page address is clear, eloquent, and powerful: it is a model for how to state a position well. It is also a story in which one figure – James Harris – continuously appears as a leader who is willing to speak his convictions. And it is a story of the role of local organizations and the courage of people to form associations even in the midst of fear and violence. To make this relevant to our times, these assertions lead to more questions. Who are the James Harris’s of our times? What can grassroots organizations learn from the courage and strength of these local associations? How can we best respond to intentional efforts to incite fear? These questions I will leave unanswered but would be interested in your thoughts.

Primary Sources:

Address: The Members of the Equal Rights League of Wilmington, N.C. to the Citizens of Wilmington and Vicinity, American Missionary Association Archives, Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, North Carolina # 100288. (Note: undated; however documents are numbered chronologically and documents before and after it are dated January, 1866.)

Wilmington Herald, January 18, 1866 p. 1.

Hon. James H. Harris on the Militia Bill, delivered in the NC House of Representatives Monday, January 7, 1870, Library of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina Collection (Cp970.82, H318).

Secondary Sources:

Alexander, Roberta Sue, North Carolina Faces the Freedmen (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press 1985).

Crow, Jeffrey J., Escott, Paul D., & Hatley, Flora J., A History of African Americans in North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.: N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History 1992).

Whites and the Schools for Freedmen

2010-08-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

Whites and the Schools for Freedmen

Note: this is in a series of essays that I will be using to form the written version of the Tales. Some are ideas and themes I am exploring -- others may be rough drafts of portions of the Tales.

The Congressional Freedmen’s Bureau, northern philanthropists, and missionaries - including the American Missionary Association - were dedicated to improving educational opportunities for blacks during and after the Civil War. And yet in the most extensive archives of those efforts we find descriptions of issues related to whites and the schools for Freedmen. This blog is about those records and how they relate to the Constitutional Convention of 1868 and continuing debates on public education.

Our best source of records is from the American Missionary Association. The AMA had a detailed reporting system: teachers submitted monthly statistical reports to the area superintendent who filed a composite statistical summary with AMA leaders. Teachers also were expected to write narrative reports on the general progress of the schools, chief obstacles encountered, cases of insubordination, the mode of administering discipline, and any suggestions for its prosperity. These reports and letters are part of the extensive archives of the AMA. Here are some excerpts. Just remember that terminology and the expressions of even more progressive people of their time may sound out of kilter with our words and views.

David Dickson is a teacher in Fayetteville. At his school, “First Colored,” he reports having 119 students with an average daily attendance of 95 in February of 1866. Of these, 103 can read and spell and 19 can write, study mental arithmetic, and geography. In late January, Dickson writes, “We have had some requests to admit poor white children. What will we do in such cases? We have in school now many called colored that would pass for white in any northern school. I have been told that the whiter the scholar the smarter. But I think this has exceptions, for I know one or more very black who keep at or near the head of the class.”

H.S. Beals of Beaufort writes to Rev. Hunt on February 28, 1866: “We have had another prosperous month of labor. The schools have been unbroken – each teacher in her accustomed place each day. The schools have become so crowded that my wife in addition to the family cares, her evening class, and visiting among the sick, has assisted constantly in my department of the school. I wrote to you, I think, some three months since, the great need of a teacher here for the poor whites. At the commencement of this month, several of these people sought admission to the Col. Schools. They pleaded so earnestly for these crumbs of knowledge, though they should gather them at the Freedmen’s table, that I had no heart to deny them. So I have an entire class of them varying from nine years to forty-five in their ages and sitting side by side with colored children without seeming to know or care what is the complexion of their fellow students.”

H.S. Beals’ wife, Sara Beals, and Helen Todd are teachers at the school at Purvis Chapel in Beaufort, North Carolina. Purvis Chapel is the second oldest African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in the state and in the south, having switched from Methodist Episcopal to AMEZ after a visit from Rev. James Walker Hood in 1864. On the monthly form for March, 1866, Sara and Helen complete the following information:

No. of different pupils: 122

No. of males: 59

No. of females: 63

No. of mulattoes: 48

No. of pure blacks: 74

Do the mulattoes show any more capacity than the pure blacks?: They do not.

Reverend Samuel S. Ashley came to the same conclusion. In his November, 1865 report, in response to the question, “Do the mulattoes show any more capacity than blacks?” Ashley states, “I think not.” (The form is slightly different in wording from blacks in November, 1865 to “pure blacks” on the form completed in March, 1866.)

Through these letters and forms we can see dynamics that will be significant in the 1868 Constitutional Convention and in debates on public education. Poor whites were searching for schools because the public school system was on the verge of shutting down. Indeed, in March of 1866, the General Assembly abolishes the system that had been in place, eliminating the state-level positions, allowing state-level education funds to be used for other purposes, and removing local requirements. Whites with resources could look to private academies. Poor whites virtually had nowhere else to turn than to schools being established for blacks with resources primarily from the north. This is important because the coalition formed in the 1868 Constitutional Convention brought together race and class interests. Forming a majority, northern whites, blacks, and local whites sought public schools that would be available to all students, regardless of race or ability to pay. A coalition that brings together the interests of race and class continues to be important in ensuring equal educational opportunities for all students as guaranteed by the North Carolina Constitution.

It is worth noting that in just months after the Civil War is over, we have blacks and whites sitting next to each other learning. We have integration. In the 1868 Constitutional Convention, delegates engage in intense arguments over whether to require separation of the races as a matter of the constitution. James Walker Hood’s arguments prevail to prevent the language in the North Carolina Constitution, but it is added in the statutes and the Constitution is amended in 1875 to provide for this separation. It then takes almost one hundred years to integrate our schools. And now many of our schools have once again become segregated.

To our 21^st century eyes, a survey to determine whether mulattoes had more capacity than blacks may be offensive. But the intelligence of the races was on the minds of many at this time and comparing mixed race children with black children was one way to examine the issue. Darwinian-based theories were commonly used at this time to assert superiority of the white race. (Reverend Hood gives a long speech disputing this on the floor of the constitutional convention.) Rather than be surprised that they are asking the question, what seems more significant is the response. Here we have records from 1865 and 1866 indicating no racial differences. Yet it is not until the publication of the Black-White Test Score Gap in 1998 that we fully dispel theories of innate racial differences with scientific evidence. Further, lower expectations of blacks continues to be identified as a part of the problem in the persistent racial gap in test scores, suggesting that almost 150 years later and with plenty of scientific data, we have not put this question to rest.

We can connect the past to today – literally – with the headline story of today’s News & Observer, “Guidelines encourage minorities in math.” The article reports that data from the SAS Institute show that half of minority students who qualified by their tests scores for advanced math courses were not placed in those courses under guidelines that gave greater weight to teacher judgment. Wake County Schools assistant superintendent Marvin Connelly says, “Sometimes we have to help staff realize what students can do.” (N&O, August 31, 2010, A1.)

Your thoughts?

Primary Sources:

These documents will be posted to the Constitutional Tales Website soon.

David Dickson to Reverent Samuel Hunt, Supt. Of Educ., Fayetteville, NC., Jan. 26, 1866, No. 100275, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

H.S. Beals to Rev. Samuel Hunt, Beaufort, NC, February 28, 1866, No. 100345, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

Monthly Report, Purvis Chapel, Helen Todd and Sara Beals, Beaufort, NC, March, 1868, No. 100420, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

Teacher’s Monthly Report, First Colored School, David Dickson, Fayetteville, NC, February, 1866, No. 100355, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

Teacher’s Monthly Report, Night School, S.S. Ashley, Wilmington, NC, November, 1865, No. 100209, American Missionary Association, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.

Secondary Sources:

Christopher Jencks, Meredith Phillips, Eds., The Black-White Test Score Gap (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press 1998).

Railroads and Constitutional Tales: progress, politics, and social inequities

2010-08-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

Note: this is in a series of essays that I will be using to form the written version of the Tales. Some are ideas and themes I am exploring -- others may be rough drafts of portions of the Tales.

Tales about the North Carolina Constitution would not seem to have much to do with railroads. So I’ve been intrigued to uncover the many intersections in the lives and events that led to the 1868 Constitutional Convention.

There are the stories of railroads as a part of progress of North Carolina. Our Rip Van Winkle reputation in the 1840s could well be characterized by not only our lack of interest in education but in our muddy, narrow roads that impeded the movement of ideas, people, and goods.

Our effort to switch to railroads was no fairy tale. It was full of politics, bickering, and jealousy. Even though the state took the majority ownership of the primary railroad line (North Carolina Railroad) it deferred to private interests. Although the railway offered the promise of connecting the east to the west, transportation patterns to the north and south were instead reinforced through the Wilmington to Weldon line that ran up the eastern coast and the NCRR line that was added during the Civil War to connect the Piedmont to Virginia.

The location and uses of the rail lines became integral to the strategies of the Civil War: New Bern went under Union control early in the war in part as an effort to control eastern shipments through the rail lines; Wilmington was a key city as supplies from blockade runners were loaded on trains headed to the fighting in Virginia and as a connecting point with railroads bringing supplies and soldiers from the deep South. Goldsboro was a critical hub because it was one of the few places in the state where railroad lines met to allow transportation both east to west and north to south. Salisbury was a central location on the piedmont railroad and become a key location for storing munitions, supplies, and for holding Union soldiers at the notorious military prison.

The weaknesses in the rail system also were deeply exposed during the Civil War. The die-on-the sword beliefs around states rights meant that it was difficult to coordinate use of the railroads between the southern states. Even within the state, the companies would not reach agreement on the gauge of the rails making it difficult if not impossible for trains to move across lines. (For anyone with a drawer full of cell phone chargers, you may be able to relate to this issue.)

While inadequate in their coverage and condition, North Carolina’s railroads were critical and still the best transportation available during the War. When forced to take the roads when the rails were destroyed, it took Jefferson Davis four days to travel from Greensboro to Charlotte. Still, the rails also had their own stories of excruciatingly slow travel. Especially as the war progressed and the rails suffered from deterioration and intentional assault, trips often were delayed. Traveling from Wilmington to Charleston - a trip that now could be made in between breakfast and lunch - took one brigade of soldiers 55 hours. And yet the confederate army was dependent on these rails. Until another rail line was built in 1863, ‘“the feeding of the animals and men of the Army of Northern Virginia and of a large proportion of the city of Richmond depended on a shaky, rundown railroad system culminating in 85 miles of single track” between the capital and Weldon.’

And the inequities? It begins with the building of the rails. It was the job of slaves and after the War, freed blacks often continued to do the most difficult labor. Blacks did not have equal access to the trains as passengers. And indeed, the court case that defined the Jim Crow era principle of separate but equal – Plessy v. Ferguson – was about railroad accommodations. But not to be fooled by this phrase, the cars were intentionally designed with unequal accommodations: a visit to the Transportation Museum in Spencer, North Carolina, dispels any assumptions to the contrary.

So the connection to the Tales?

The Tales relate the story of the emergence of James Walker Hood as a leader at the Constitutional Convention. Over his life, he has several significant connections to rails. His first is with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company – the most powerful railroad company in the world. It began the Jim Crow practices well before the Civil War of second-class separate accommodations for blacks and yet in the fifteen years that Hood road the train, he refused to move from the first class accommodations reserved for whites. The same kind of action 100 years later is celebrated in our history books when Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat on the bus.

The Tales pick up railroads again in setting the stage for Hood’s arrival in New Bern. The city was a target for Union control early in the war in part to disrupt the shipment of goods through the railroads. With the protection of federal troops in place, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion denomination sends Hood to New Bern to establish AMEZ churches for blacks. And that begins his extraordinary leadership in North Carolina.

And the story is not over for Hood and rails. In 1868, after the Constitutional Convention and state elections, Hood serves as the appointed associate superintendent of colored schools for the state. One of his primary responsibilities is to canvass the state to determine the condition and availability of schools for blacks. This he cannot do because, as he complains, he is denied the railroad passes he needs to travel across the state. It is not clear in his reports why he is denied – whether it is the cost or racial prejudice. While his travels are impeded in this job, he later in life becomes a bishop of the AMEZ denomination and travels around the globe.

The rails also set up the story of Reverend Samuel Stanford Ashley coming to Wilmington in 1865. As I mention above, Wilmington was a crucial depot on the rail line. But it was Sherman’s March towards Goldsboro to destroy the rail lines that triggered the key event leading to Ashley’s arrival. While in Fayetteville – on the way to Goldsboro – Sherman ordered 10,000 refugees to be sent to Wilmington so that they would no longer burden the troops. To address their needs, the American Missionary Association sent missionaries to Wilmington. One was Reverend Ashley, sent to build schools for the newly freed blacks. As his story unfolds, he becomes one of the strongest advocates for public education in the state, takes a leadership role in the Constitutional Convention of 1868, and becomes our first constitutional officer in charge of the public schools.

And there’s at least one more personal connection. Albion Tourgée, a lawyer, and later judge, comes to North Carolina from Ohio. A leader in the 1868 Constitutional Convention, he becomes a well-known speaker and writer on social justice and race relations. Tourgée takes up the mantle of equal rights in the context of railroad accommodations: he is the lawyer for the plaintiff, arguing that the railroad’s practices were unconstitutional, in Plessy v. Ferguson.

The plight of railroads in North Carolina in other ways foreshadow the kinds of disputes that occur in the Constitutional Convention: sectionalism between the west, east and Piedmont; disagreements on how much power should be given to centralized government; accusations of delegates seeking personal gains over the interests of the people; and intense arguments over how to invest and how much to invest in North Carolina’s future.

Railroads – and more broadly transportation – continue as both a symbol and condition for progress and equality. We are the “Good Roads” state. We celebrate the advent of faster rail service between metropolitan areas. Progress and educational opportunities also are linked. It would not be difficult to create an overlay of our transportation systems with school districts to find the areas that suffer economically and educationally. And this will be the final link in the Tales – the relationship between economic progress and the constitutional right to the opportunity for a sound, basic education.

Ann McColl

August 24, 2010

Secondary Sources:

Black, III, Robert C., The Railroads of the Confederacy (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press 1998) (quoted material from page 185)

Trelease, Allen W., The North Carolina Railroad, 1849-1871, and the Modernization of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press 1991)

Constitutional Tales Update

2010-08-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

A quick update on the Tales…

Constitutional Tales became a website in February of this year.

Thousands of visits to the site are recorded.

Presentations continued this year. With more than 30 performances across the state since its inception, hundreds of people have seen some version of the Tales.

In March, we gave our second full production with actors at the State Capitol.

This Spring also marked the first time of sharing it outside of the state with a presentation at the annual conference of the American Education Research Association.

The Tales now enjoy a non-profit status through its affiliation with the Resource Center for Women & Ministry in the South (RCWMS), allowing it to receive tax-deductible donations and to be eligible to apply for organizational grants.

So what’s next?

It is time to begin writing the Tales in earnest.

I have six boxes of research and many times that amount in computer files.

My bookshelves are crammed with an assortment of books I never would have imagined owning – Abebooks.com has become my most frequented website even over my personal favorites of Amazon and Title Nine (not a legal website).

I am reestablishing my pattern with my family of being gone on Monday and Tuesday. This time, instead of teaching at UNC Charlotte at the beginning of each week as I did for seven years, I will use our home at High Rock Lake as my residency for writing. Not bad duty.

I hope to use the blog to introduce portions of what I’m writing. The challenge with the Tales is to weave the historical and legal analysis in a way that maintains a sense of a story while explaining enough of the legal significance of events and documents to convey the importance of what transpired. For those familiar with writing terms, I’m planning to take a postmodernistic approach to historical creative non-fiction. For those with no reason to be acquainted with these categorizations, it means that I will tell a story using a structure that accommodates the fragmentation of working with historical records and that explores the lives of those understudied in official histories. This approach also assumes that I will not be uncovering the one correct interpretation of these events, but rather that I will offer a perspective in order to engage the reader in considering the significance of the events and the North Carolina Constitution for him or herself.

So feel free to check out the blog this Fall. Input is welcomed.

Ann McColl

August 24, 2010

Civil Rights in Education Heritage Trail in North Carolina

2010-04-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

On a recent research trip to Virginia, I came across a brochure, “Civil Rights in Education Heritage Trail” that identifies 41 sites significant in the development of the free public education system in Virginia. We should do likewise in North Carolina.

One spot should be New Bern and the year, 1864. This is when James Walker Hood arrived for the purpose of forming a congregation of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. He did so – the first in North Carolina and the entire South. More importantly for civil rights in education, he took the AME Zion message of religious freedom, equal political rights for blacks, and the importance of education to the Freedmen’s Convention in October of 1865 where he was elected to serve as president. This was one of the first formal assemblages of African Americans after the Civil War in the South and they created the first collective political document of African Americans in North Carolina. In the form of a resolution submitted to the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1865, it sought those freedoms Hood had been preaching, including seeking “education for our children, that they may be made useful in all the relations of life.”

Hood then was nominated as a delegate for the next constitutional convention that met in 1868 and successfully formed a new constitution for North Carolina. This constitution is the basis for the one we have today. Hood was one of the most impassioned speakers to argue against providing for separate schools in the constitution. As he argued, “make this distinction in your organic law and in many places the white children will have good schools at the expense of the whole people, while the colored people will have none better or what will be but little than none.” While he prevailed at the constitutional convention, the constitution was amended in 1876 to provide for separate schools. Sadly, Hood’s remarks proved to be prescient.

After the convention, Hood was appointed as the state associate superintendent to oversee public schools for blacks, an appointment he held for two years utnil the General Assembly removed his salary.

What is his relevance today? Our good fortune is the key education provisions crafted by the 1868 Constitutional Convention continue in our current NC Constitution. In the landmark 1997 Leandro v. State opinion, our Supreme Court held, “at the time this provision was originally written in 1868...the intent of the framers was that every child have a fundamental right to a sound basic education which would prepare the child to participate fully in society as it existed in his or her lifetime.” Bishop Hood was a member of the education committee that drafted the education article of the constitution and a frequent orator on the floor of the convention. He is one of these framers that we can thank for creating a fundamental right to education.

Under Judge Manning’s watchful eye, the right to a sound, basic educatin continues to shape public education in this state. He has scheduled the next hearing to address his concerns regarding inadequacies in educational opportunities for Tuesday, May 4 at the Wake County Courthouse.

I’ll be talking about James Walker Hood on Thursday, April 15 at Tryon Palace in New Bern. Interestingly, at the same time in Raleigh, civil rights leaders are coming together for the 50^th anniversary of the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee. No doubt they will be discussing other events that should be celebrated and recognized in a North Carolina Civil Rights Heritage Trail, including events coordinated at Shaw University. But let’s not forget about what happened 100 years earlier.

Deciding the Future for Constitutional Tales

2010-02-15T05:23:00.000-08:00

I have been working on Constitutional Tales for two and a half years. The first phase was immersion in the research and development of the Tales in 2007-2008. The second phase was giving many presentations and continuing some research in the 2008-2009 academic year and the Fall of 2009. I am now in the third phase of the project where I can devote more time but need to make decisions on the directions to take and the best ways to fund the project. I could use your help in developing the strategic plan for the Tales. I invite you to respond to any or all of the issues I outline below. Although I encourage the blog as a way to get a conversation going among many, please also feel free to contact me by email, constitutionaltales@gmail.com.

Audience

I have shared the Tales with a wide range of audiences: judges, lawyers, legislators, advocates, citizens, educators, students, policy-makers, historians, and legal scholars. This has been intentional since the concept of “constitutional popularism” is that the constitution and stories around it should be shared by everyone. That said, do you see certain audiences as more crucial than others? How important is it to focus on scholarship to aid the judicial branch? How much time should be spent developing curriculum materials that could be used in public schools or higher education? How much should the focus be on the stories of race relations and heroes that resonate with the public and advocacy organizations? How much effort should go into making the materials relevant to legislators and policymakers?

Media

The Constitutional Tales project so far has been available in a couple of forms – presentations and now this website. A third effort underway is to write the tales in more of a book form (whether hard copy or ebook).

The presentations have been important as a way to share the Tales and connect with audiences. The one full production with actors was the most successful at this and by far, the most challenging to develop. Should the Tales continue to focus on these live presentations even though they are time-consuming and reach relatively small audiences at a time? Should funding for full productions be a priority?

The current website is intended to show the structure of what could be a very rich, resource-intensive site. It could include more primary documents and links to digitized resources. It could include videos of presentations or other media specially formatted for effective communication on the web. It could include interactive materials of interest to individuals or that could be used in classrooms. The development and maintenance of a rich website is time intensive and costly. How much effort should go into this?

Many people have suggested that I write a book. Even with eight hours of presentation materials, I cannot begin to share the richness of the stories and analysis in presentation form that I could in written form. The first question may be, in the age of twitter, is there a sufficient audience for a book? Does it sound like the kind of thing you might read? Can you imagine it being used for a group or a class?

Some also have suggested a documentary film or PBS program or museum display. I expect that these may be more in phase 4 of the project, but I welcome your thoughts on these options as well.

Funds, Resources, and Organizational Structure

The website describes the kind of collaborations that have been crucial to getting the Tales to this stage of development (Go to Collaborators at www.constitutionaltales.net to read about it). While there have been significant contributions of time and resources, the need continues. We want to continue to find individuals and organizations who see the Tales as a worthwhile investment.

What organizational relationships do you think would best further the Tales? Should there be partnerships in higher ed or with nonprofit or government agencies? If you have specific ideas – particular agencies/university affiliations, please let me know.

What are potential funding sources for the Tales? Do you know of private donors who would want to be a part of the Tales? What foundations or other grant-issuing agencies are you familiar with that should be explored?

The Tales are currently housed in my law practice, the McColl Law Firm. Should the Tales become a separate 501(c)(3) organization or a sponsored project of an existing 501(c)(3) organization? Or can it create partnerships and receive adequate donations under the current structure?

I want to raise the questions here because this project is meant to benefit this state and I want to hear from people in making choices. Please post your reply or respond by email, constitutionaltales@gmail.com. If you think it would be helpful to have small group discussions, let me know that, too. Thanks.

Connecting Creativity in Public Schools with the Constitution

2010-02-15T05:21:00.000-08:00

What’s the connection between the North Carolina Constitution and creativity? Based on what I heard at the 25^th Annual Emerging Issues Forum last week in Raleigh, the connection is both fundamental and practical.

Governors, academics, authors and activists provided their perspective on the proposition that creativity is “America’s single greatest advantage in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.” The conference sought to advance “policies and practices that would enhance creativity’s impact on North Carolina’s economy.” As the conversation turned to public schools, and it frequently did, the focus was on whether our schools foster creativity and approach it as a teachable skill, or whether, instead, creativity is squelched through policies and practices like the testing program, graduation requirements, and outdated instructional methods. The consensus was that we’ve over-emphasized left-brain skills and we need to attend more to right-brain thinking to prepare students for success.

So how does an understanding of the North Carolina Constitution advance our discussion on creativity as a necessary part of the public school education?

For starters, the story behind the creation of the fundamental right to education is, itself, all about creativity and innovation. Reverend Samuel S. Ashley came as a missionary to Wilmington, North Carolina in April of 1865 – just as the Civil War was coming to a close -- to create schools for Freedmen. In situations that could hardly be more dire, he fought tenaciously for education demonstrating extraordinary resourcefulness in building schools, recruiting teachers, and raising funds. He brought this conviction to the floor of the constitutional convention in 1868 when he moved to amend the declaration of rights by adding “the people shall have a right to the privileges of education and it shall be the duty of the state to guard and maintain that right.”

This became one of our fundamental rights and our NC Supreme Court has interpreted that the framers of the constitution (including Ashley) intended “that every child have a fundamental right to a sound basic education which would prepare the child to participate fully in society as it existed in his or her lifetime.” This kind of standard breathes so that we get the best of both worlds: we hold onto the passionate conviction of Ashley of the need for education but apply it to contemporary standards.

And when we think about these standards, the North Carolina Supreme Court explicitly tells us that test scores are not enough to measure the constitutional right to education – we must use additional ways to assess whether our students are ready for further education or to compete in the job market. The experts who spoke at the Forum clearly demonstrated how participants in today’s society need fundamental right brain skills as much as left-brain abilities. So if creativity is so important, doesn’t this mean that we must find a way to address it (and assess it) in order to meet constitutional standards?

Our state constitution is where we have placed our fundamental principles as a state. When Ashley became the first elected superintendent of public instruction, he often cited the constitution in his efforts to garner support for improvements needed in the system of public schools and to remind people of the agreed-upon principles. We can continue to do so. Telling the stories helps us remember the kind of creativity and innovation that are a part of our legacy. Being clear on constitutional interpretation allows us to see how constitutional standards are relevant to these policy discussions. And notice that when we make these efforts to pay attention to the stories, integrate constitutional analysis, and look at issues in a new way, we are employing the kind of creative thinking that we seek to further for the state. That’s at least part of what the Constitutional Tales are about.