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)
[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 23rd 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.”
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