The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 states of the United States,formerly the Thirteen Colonies,that served as the nation's first frame of government. It was debated by the Second Continental Congress at Independence Hall in Philadelphia between July 1776 and November 1777,and finalized by the Congress on November 15,1777. It came into force on March 1,1781,after being ratified by all 13 colonial states. A guiding principle of the Articles was the establishment and preservation of the independence and sovereignty of the states. The Articles consciously established a weak confederal government,affording it only those powers the former colonies had recognized as belonging to king and parliament. The document provided clearly written rules for how the states' league of friendship,known as the Perpetual Union,would be organized.
The Continental Congress was a series of legislative bodies,with some executive function,for the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain in North America,and the newly declared United States before,during,and after the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress refers to both the First and Second Congresses of 1774–1781 and at the time,also described the Congress of the Confederation of 1781–1789. The Confederation Congress operated as the first federal government until being replaced following ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Until 1785,the Congress met predominantly at what is today Independence Hall in Philadelphia,though it was relocated temporarily on several occasions during the Revolutionary War and the fall of Philadelphia.
The United States Constitution has served as the supreme law of the United States since taking effect in 1789. The document was written at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention and was ratified through a series of state conventions held in 1787 and 1788. Since 1789,the Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times;particularly important amendments include the ten amendments of the United States Bill of Rights and the three Reconstruction Amendments.
James Gillespie was an American lawyer,politician,and Revolutionary War veteran from North Carolina. He was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1793 and died in office on January 10,1805. Prior to serving in the U.S. Congress,Gillespie was a member of the North Carolina House of Commons,the North Carolina Senate,the North Carolina Council of State,and held various other positions in the state government. An ardent Anti-Federalist,he voted twice against the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
What is known today as the Tryon Resolves was a brief declaration adopted and signed by "subscribers" to the Tryon County Association that was formed in Tryon County,North Carolina in the early days of the American Revolution. In the Resolves—a modern name for the Association's charter document—the county representatives vowed resistance to the increasingly coercive actions being enacted by the government of Great Britain against its North American colonies. The document was signed on August 14,1775,but—like other similar declarations of the time—stopped short of calling for total independence from Britain.
Robert Carlos De Large was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina,serving 1871 to 1873. He was earlier a delegate to the 1868 state constitutional convention and elected in 1868 to the South Carolina House of Representatives for one term.
The 36th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government,consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington,D.C. from March 4,1859,to March 4,1861,during the third and fourth years of James Buchanan's presidency. The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the 1850 United States census. The Senate had a Democratic majority,and the House had a Republican plurality.
Michael Hoke Smith was an American attorney,politician,and newspaper owner who served as United States secretary of the interior (1893–1896),58th governor of Georgia,and a United States senator (1911–1920) from Georgia. He was a leader of the progressive movement in the South and in the successful campaign to disenfranchise African American voters in 1907.
A convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution,also referred to as an Article V Convention,state convention,or amendatory convention is one of two methods authorized by Article Five of the United States Constitution whereby amendments to the United States Constitution may be proposed:on the Application of two thirds of the State legislatures the Congress shall call a convention for proposing amendments,which become law only after ratification by three-fourths of the states. The Article V convention method has never been used;but 33 amendments have been proposed by the other method,a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress;and 27 of these have been ratified by three-fourths of the States. Although there has never been a federal constitutional convention since the original one,at the state level more than 230 constitutional conventions have assembled in the United States.
The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage was an American organization formed in 1913 led by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns to campaign for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women's suffrage. It was inspired by the United Kingdom's suffragette movement,which Paul and Burns had taken part in. Their continuous campaigning drew attention from congressmen,and in 1914 they were successful in forcing the amendment onto the floor for the first time in decades.
Wallace Augustus Rayfield (1874–1941),was an American architect and educator. He was the second formally educated practicing African American architect in the United States.
More than 1,500 African American officeholders served during the Reconstruction era (1865–1877) and in the years after Reconstruction before white supremacy,disenfranchisement,and the Democratic Party fully reasserted control in Southern states. Historian Canter Brown Jr. noted that in some states,such as Florida,the highest number of African Americans were elected or appointed to offices after the end of Reconstruction in 1877. The following is a partial list of notable African American officeholders from the end of the Civil War until before 1900. Dates listed are the year that a term states or the range of years served if multiple terms.
The drafting of the Constitution of the United States began on May 25,1787,when the Constitutional Convention met for the first time with a quorum at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania to revise the Articles of Confederation. It ended on September 17,1787,the day the Frame of Government drafted by the convention's delegates to replace the Articles was adopted and signed. The ratification process for the Constitution began that day,and ended when the final state,Rhode Island,ratified it on May 29,1790.
Joseph Hardin Sr. was an Assemblyman for the Province of North Carolina,and was a signatory of the Tryon Resolves. Early in the War for Independence,as a member of the militia from Tryon County,Hardin fought the Cherokee allies of Britain along the western frontier. Later in the war,having taken his family over the Appalachian Mountains to the Washington District for safety against the advance of the Red Coats out of South Carolina,Hardin joined the Overmountain Men. He saw action at the Battle of Ramsour's Mill and the decisive Battle of Kings Mountain. Following the peace with Britain,Hardin was a co-founder and second Speaker of the House for the State of Franklin;and an Assemblyman in the Southwest Territory before its statehood as Tennessee.
The Edenton Tea Party was a political protest in Edenton,North Carolina,in response to the Tea Act,passed by the British Parliament in 1773.
The Hillsborough Convention,was the first of two North Carolina conventions to ratify the United States Constitution. Delegates represented 7 boroughs and 59 counties,including six western counties that became part of Tennessee when it was created in 1796. They met in Hillsborough,North Carolina from July 21 to August 4,1788 to deliberate and determine whether to ratify the Constitution recommended to the states by the General Convention that had been held in Philadelphia the previous summer. The delegates had won their seats through special elections held in March 1788,as mandated by the North Carolina General Assembly. Governor Samuel Johnston presided over the Convention. The Hillsborough Convention was dominated by anti-Federalists,and North Carolina did not ratify the Constitution until the Fayetteville Convention,which met a year later.
The Signing of the United States Constitution occurred on September 17,1787,at Independence Hall in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,when 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention,representing 12 states,endorsed the Constitution created during the four-month-long convention. In addition to signatures,this endorsement,the Constitution's closing protocol,included a brief declaration that the delegates' work has been successfully completed and that those whose signatures appear on it subscribe to the final document. Included are,a statement pronouncing the document's adoption by the states present,a formulaic dating of its adoption,along with the signatures of those endorsing it. Additionally,the convention's secretary,William Jackson,added a note to verify four amendments made by hand to the final document,and signed the note to authenticate its validity.
The Caucasian (1884–1913) also published as The Daily Caucasian in 1895,was a newspaper in North Carolina which operated from 1884 to 1913. Established as a Democratic Party aligned paper,it became Populist with the era of fusion politics. The paper relocated several times including to Raleigh,the state capitol.
Africo-American Presbyterian was a religious weekly newspaper for African American missionaries published from 1879 until 1938 by the Africo-American Presbyterian Publishing Company and Daniel J. Sanders in Wilmington,North Carolina,U.S. The paper was not an official publication by the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA),however it did provide a needed Black perspective.
