As we once again celebrate our nation’s birthday, why not take a moment to reflect on our state’s role in the dramatic story of American independence?
Three North Carolinians signed the Declaration of Independence. Thousands of North Carolinians volunteered to serve in the Continental Army and local militias. Some of the most significant battles of the Revolutionary War (including Moore's Creek Bridge, Ramsar's Mill, Guilford Court House and Kings Mountain) either took place here or involved large numbers of North Carolinians.
You probably already know this, but did you know that a legal dispute between North Carolina’s elected legislature and the British government helped lead to this bloody rupture?
The Declaration of Independence is 1,320 words long, but today most people only focus on its second paragraph. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” the Declaration begins. “That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
These are powerful words. They are words to commemorate today and every day. But the Declaration was more than just a theoretical assertion for the creation and maintenance of a legitimate government. Practical The case for independence is based on specific accusations against the British Parliament, the royal governors, and King George III himself. “The history of the present King of Great Britain is one of repeated usurps and usurps, with the direct object of establishing an absolute despotism over these States,” it states.
The eighth charge was that King George had “obstructed the administration of justice by refusing to give his assent to laws for establishing judicial power.” While the sentence did not name us, it did refer to a controversy over the courts in North Carolina, or, more accurately, the lack of them.
For decades, Americans enjoyed the right to sue other parties in the colonial courts and, if successful, receive compensation for monetary and other damages suffered in the colony in question. If the defendant refused to appear in court (because he had fled to another jurisdiction or had never lived in the colony in the first place), the court could compel him to appear in court by having the local sheriff seize any property the defendant held in the jurisdiction. If the defendant still did not appear, the plaintiff could receive the proceeds as compensation.
Absentee British landlords and investors never liked the idea of such “foreign appendages” being used in colonial courts. Why should they have to sail or send agents to America to represent their interests? They pressured British authorities to limit the jurisdiction of colonial courts.
North Carolina served as a test case. In 1767, the colonial assembly passed a new Courts Act that codified the use of foreign courts. Then-Governor William Tryon signed the act into law the following year. After Tryon was re-elected, the new Royal Governor, Josiah Martin, refused to sign the rechartering of North Carolina's courts unless lawmakers agreed to abolish the foreign courts. After several attempts to compromise, Martin stuck to his guns and vetoed the Courts Bill.
“This impasse effectively wiped out judicial power in North Carolina,” Boston University law professor Ryan Williams wrote, “and left the colony's residents without a fully functioning court system for more than three years.”
One North Carolina resident was so outraged that he penned a scathing rebuttal in a New Bern newspaper. North Carolina Gazette, September 1773. Governor Martin and his superiors in London had abolished the rule of law and resorted instead to “tyrannical rule” which “should never be admitted in any free state,” he wrote (under the pseudonym “The Planter”).
Its author, Edenton lawyer James Iredell, helped reorganize North Carolina's court system after the Revolutionary War began and later served as a Superior Court judge, North Carolina Attorney General, and one of the first justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.
North Carolina had many champions of American independence, and while not all of them fired muskets, all were worthy of respect.
John Hood is a trustee of the John Locke Foundation. His latest book is Mountain People and Forest people, cAn epic fantasy about early American history.