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)
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