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The State in the
Confederation
As you read, look for:
• the first government set up by the new United States
• the problems faced by North Carolina after the war
• vocabulary terms Articles of Confederation,
precedent, judicial review
This section will help you meet the
following objective:
8.2.05 Describe the impact of
various significant documents on the
formation of the state and national
governments.
During the War for Independence, the Continental Congress adopted the
country’s first constitution, called the Articles of Confederation. The
Articles created a one-house national legislature—Congress—in which
each state had one vote. There was no president and no court system.
The Confederation, as that government was called, provided for national
defense and foreign policy during those years. (Foreign policy refers to a
nation’s international relations.) The Confederation Congress did succeed
in signing a peace treaty with the British and securing new lands west of
the Appalachian Mountains. However, the Confederation was most often
ineffective because it lacked money and resources. Its difficulties were much
the same, but on a larger scale, as those of North Carolina.
North Carolina After the War
North Carolina only slowly recovered from the hate and destruction
left over from the War for Independence. The state was so disorganized
that the General Assembly moved from place to place after the war. Some
host towns, like Tarboro, Smithfield, or Wake Court House, had fewer
houses than there were legislators. There was even less money for the
state to spend than there were places to meet. The paper money issued
to pay for military expenses was worthless, and state residents did not
want to accept it. Trade suffered at ports like Ocracoke. New towns like
Kinston on the Neuse River were slow to grow.
To raise money, the state continued to sell the confiscated lands of Tories, even though the Treaty of Paris of 1783 said that was illegal. The state
also could not make up its mind whether to give its lands west of the
Appalachians to the Confederation. In 1784, the state decided to cede those
lands. Then it reversed that decision when it thought it could raise money
from their sale. Some North Carolinians also wanted to get rich by being
Above: Samuel Johnston of Edenton
was a member of the Continental
Congress. In the government formed
under the Articles of Confederation,
he was chosen the first “President
of the United States in Congress
Assembled.” However, he chose not
to serve. He was North Carolina’s
first U.S. senator.
Section 1: The State in the Confederation
189
the agents for the sales. As William Hooper, a signer of the Declaration
of Independence, observed, what some North Carolinians called “political zeal” was really “avarice clothed in the cover of patriotism.”
A Landmark Case
Above: James Iredell, an Edenton
lawyer, helped the state supreme
court develop the idea of judicial
review, where a court can void a
legislative act as unconstitutional.
Iredell went on to become one of
the first justices of the United
States Supreme Court.
In her court case, Mrs.
Bayard was represented
by Samuel Johnston
and William R. Davie.
Spyers Singleton was
represented by Abner
Nash and Alfred Moore.
Since Tories could show that the Treaty of Paris protected their property, they sued to recover their possessions in the new state courts. The
General Assembly then passed a law that said no one could sue that way.
What resulted was one of the most important court cases in state history.
Mrs. Elizabeth Bayard, a resident of England, challenged the new law.
She took her case to the state’s supreme court. She wanted the property
willed to her by her father, a Tory merchant in New Bern. Spyers Singleton had bought it after the state confiscated it. In 1787, the very best
lawyers in the state gathered in the courthouse in New Bern to participate in the case. Among them were William R. Davie and James Iredell.
Singleton’s lawyers asked for the case to be dismissed, because the law
clearly stated that suing was not permitted. The state court refused, even
though the legislature made clear what to do.
The court, led by Chief Justice Samuel Ashe, argued that the Declaration of Rights in the state constitution guaranteed a trial by jury. The state
legislature had no authority to take away that right. Thus, they argued,
the Confiscation Act was “unconstitutional.” It violated one of the rights
that protected every North Carolinian. But, the justices continued, since
Mrs. Bayard was a British citizen and her father was dead, she was not
entitled to the same right. They dismissed Mrs. Bayard’s case, as well as
twenty-seven similar ones.
Samuel Ashe in particular was honored by North Carolinians for his
brave stand. The cities of Asheville and Asheboro and the county of Ashe
were named for him. Ashe was eventually the second North Carolinian
named to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bayard v. Singleton became an important legal precedent, that is, a
case used later as a guide to judge other disputes. It was the first time a
court had so strongly challenged what a legislature had done. This idea
of judicial review (that a court could judge the constitutionality of a law)
became part of the checks-and-balances approach to government in the
United States. In 1803, the case was also a precedent for the first judicial
review by the United States Supreme Court.
The State of Franklin
While North Carolinians in the east argued over Tory rights, residents
west of the Blue Ridge wanted more control over their own rights. Most
of these settlers lived on the tributaries of the Tennessee River like the
Holston or the Watauga. Some had moved to this fertile, but remote, area
to escape the Regulation. Others were veterans of the War of Independence who went west to claim lands the state owed them for their military service. They did not particularly like the leaders from the Coastal
Plain who had beaten them at Alamance and deserted them after Camden.
190
Chapter 6: A Fledgling State in a New Nation
One eastern legislator returned the scorn. The Watauga settlers, he
claimed, were “the offscourings of the earth.”
When North Carolina’s General Assembly in 1784 ceded its western
lands to the Confederation government, the leaders of the Watauga area
immediately petitioned Congress to set up a new state. They wanted to
name the state Franklin, after Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, one of
the great leaders of the Revolution. When North Carolina took back the
land, the organizers of the state of Franklin went ahead anyway. In 1784,
they met in Jonesborough, wrote a constitution, and elected John Sevier,
one of the commanders of the Overmountain Men, as their governor.
Like most other events in North Carolina history, the state of Franklin
was controversial. Both the Confederation Congress and the North Carolina General Assembly refused to recognize the new state. Soon Franklin’s
residents began to fight among themselves. Some people were actually
killed over the issue. Split from within, and scorned elsewhere, the “state
of Franklin” ceased to exist by 1787.
The fight over Franklin, however, did help create the state of Tennessee. The long distance to the mountains made it impractical for North
Carolina to provide a fair government. After North Carolina joined the
new United States in 1789, the lands were once again ceded. The territory of Tennessee was set up in 1794, and statehood was granted in 1796.
Map 18
The State of
Franklin
Map Skill: Approximately how
far was the State of Franklin
from New Bern?
There is a bank based in
Johnson City, Tennessee,
called the “State of
Franklin Savings Bank.”
It’s Your Turn
1. What was the Articles of Confederation?
2. What is a precedent?
3. Why did the settlers in western North Carolina want to form their
own state?
Section 1: The State in the Confederation
191