DOCSLIB.ORG

The People's Law: Popular Sovereignty and State Formation In

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The People's Law: Popular Sovereignty and State Formation In The People‘s Law: Popular Sovereignty and State Formation in North Carolina, 1780- 1805 Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Gregory Scott King-Owen Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2011 Dissertation Committee: Dr. John L. Brooke, Advisor Dr. Alan Gallay Dr. Margaret E. Newell Copyright By Gregory Scott King-Owen 2011 Abstract Between 1780 and 1805 North Carolina‘s government struggled to define the parameters of statehood through its policies. In the creation of the state, petitions from ordinary citizens played a central role in the debate over the people and their relationship to the government. Courted by emerging Federalists in the late 1780s, the people found themselves elevated to a central role in the political life of the state through their petitioning power. By the late 1790s, however, lawyers turned away from the people as a source of power through petitioning and tried to channel grievances through a court system whose rules would protect the purity of process over the substantive claims of petitioners. ii Dedication To Shawn Ἡ ἀγάπη οὐδέποτε ἐκπίπτει iii Acknowledgments The hard-working staff of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History retrieved the more than two hundred boxes of archival material upon which this dissertation depends for its life-blood. Their help and the work of the archivists in saving and organizing the mundane documents of North Carolina‘s early government after the Revolution deserves not only my thanks but the generous applause and support of every citizen of the state. Archivists and staff at the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Duke University‘s Manuscripts and Special Collections library have also earned my gratitude for their help. The librarians at the Ohio State University who worked hard to obtain inter-library loan materials allowed me to continue my research when away from North Carolina. As a scholar, I‘ve benefitted from the trail blazed before me by so many other scholars of North Carolina history. Two deserve special thanks: Alan Watson and Milton Ready. To Milton Ready I owe my penchant for metaphor and analogy in argumentation and the injunction to not forget western North Carolina. To Alan Watson I owe a deep appreciation for looking over previously used sources and coming up with something new to say. Both have been excellent mentors and models. At The Ohio State University, I have found intellectual communities who have nurtured my interests, quirky though they were. Dr. Margaret Newell graciously honed iv my sloppy thinking about state formation in two papers while Dr. Alan Gallay has provided helpful feedback; both provided excellent commentary and suggestions for improvement for this project. From Dr. Stephen Kern I learned all the joys of phenomenology though I can hardly say that I practice it well. Dr. Ken Andrien taught me much about state formation in Latin America. And my comrades in the program— Melissah, Colin, Katie, Joseph, and Glenn—you kept listening (or at least I think you did) when I wouldn‘t shut up about state formation. I have learned much from all of your projects. Without generous support from the Department of History, this dissertation could not have taken shape. I benefitted from several department grants which paid for research trips to North Carolina. The exceptionally liberal Kauffman Summer Research Award allowed me to do most of the counting of petitions that form the core of this book. John Brooke has nurtured and encouraged this project from my early interest in the public sphere in early America to the moment on April 21, 2008 at 3:30 pm when the idea behind this dissertation bubbled up during a conversation. Then, and since, he has played the roles of critic and nurturer with grace. I could not have asked for a better adviser. ii Vita 1994..........................................................Brevard High School 1998..........................................................B.A. History and Classics, UNC-Asheville 2006..........................................................M.A. History, UNC-Wilmington 2007 to 2011 ............................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State University Publications ―‗To Write Down the Republican Administration‘: William Boylan, the Federalists, and Newspaper Politics in North Carolina.‖ The North Carolina Historical Review 89:1 (April 2012) ―Conditional Confederates: Absenteeism in Western North Carolina Soldiers, 1861- 1865.‖ Civil War History 57:3 (December 2011). Fields of Study Major Field: Early American History Minor Field: Atlantic World Minor Field: Modern American History ii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Vita ...................................................................................................................................... ii List of Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... ii List of Illustrations ............................................................................................................. iii Prologue He That Ruleth Over Men Must Be Just: Law and Popular Rule ...................... 1 Chapter 1 Ask, And It Shall Be Given You: Petitions and State Formation ................... 25 Chapter 2 Their Hearts Were Not Loyal: Postwar Politics, 1780-1784 .......................... 59 Chapter 3 Woe to You Experts in the Law: Law and Petitions, 1784-1787 .................... 96 Chapter 4 Where There is No Vision, The People Perish: Ratification, 1787-1790 ..... 133 Chapter 5 Not Slothful In Business: Legislative Professionalization, 1790-1805......... 176 Chapter 6 As Iron Sharpens Iron: The Clash of State and Federal, 1790-1795 ............. 216 Chapter 7 Throw Away the Foreign Gods: Rise of Public Opinion, 1793-1798 ........... 265 Chapter 8 How Long Will You Halt Between Two Opinions?: Political Parties .......... 308 Chapter 9 Return to the Land of Thy Fathers: Revolutionary Settlement to 1805 ........ 346 Epilogue The Days When the Judges Ruled: Resolution of Local and State Law ........ 401 References ....................................................................................................................... 413 iii Appendix A: Counting Early American Petitions .......................................................... 446 ii List of Abbreviations GASR, General Assembly Session Records (NCDAH) GLB, Governor‘s Letterbooks (NCDAH) GPSS, Governor‘s Papers, State Series (NCDAH) JSH, The Journal of Southern History NCDAH, North Carolina Division of Archives and History NCHR, The North Carolina Historical Review PAH, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (Library of Congress, microfilm edition) PLD, Perkins Library, Special Collections, Duke University SHC, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill WMQ, The William and Mary Quarterly ii List of Illustrations Figure 1. James Iredell, Sr. ................................................................................................. 3 Figure 2. Map of North Carolina in 1783. ........................................................................ 69 Figure 3. Petitions to the General Assembly for Ratification, 1788. .............................. 158 Figure 4. North Carolina‘s First Legislative Building. ................................................... 180 Figure 5. Sectional Vote on Proposed Constitutional Reform, 1795. ............................. 199 Figure 6. Governor Martin‘s Proposed State Seal. ......................................................... 218 Figure 7. Distribution of Addresses in Support of President Adams, 1798. ................... 292 Figure 8. General Emancipation and Divorce Bill Votes. .............................................. 325 Figure 9. Popular Vote, Presidential Election of 1800. .................................................. 340 Figure 10. John Stanly and Richard Dobbs Spaight. ...................................................... 350 iii Prologue He That Ruleth Over Men Must Be Just: Law and Popular Politics North Carolina‘s state of affairs in 1786 vexed James Iredell. Just five years after Americans had worn down the British Army under Lord Cornwallis, Iredell‘s countrymen bickered over property rights, reintegration of Loyalists, taxes, paper money, and the miniscule powers of the prostrate central American government. Iredell‘s own state leaders, sitting in their sovereign capacity as the General Assembly, precipitated much of the public acrimony by intervening in the relationships between creditors and debtors and by denying jury trials to Loyalists seeking the return of their state-confiscated property under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, 1783. A lawyer by training, James Iredell considered North Carolina legislators‘ interposition between the fundamental law of the land and the individual unjustifiable; putting his analytical mind to the task of guarding against ―abuses of unlimited power,‖
Load more

Recommended publications
  • United Confederate Veterans Association Records
    UNITED CONFEDERATE VETERANS ASSOCIATION RECORDS (Mss. 1357) Inventory Compiled by Luana Henderson 1996 Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library Louisiana State University Libraries Baton Rouge, Louisiana Revised 2009 UNITED CONFEDERATE VETERANS ASSOCIATION RECORDS Mss. 1357 1861-1944 Special Collections, LSU Libraries CONTENTS OF INVENTORY SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................... 3 BIOGRAPHICAL/HISTORICAL NOTE ...................................................................................... 4 SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE ................................................................................................... 6 LIST OF SUBGROUPS AND SERIES ......................................................................................... 7 SUBGROUPS AND SERIES DESCRIPTIONS ............................................................................ 8 INDEX TERMS ............................................................................................................................ 13 CONTAINER LIST ...................................................................................................................... 15 APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................................... 22 APPENDIX B .............................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Music and the American Civil War
    “LIBERTY’S GREAT AUXILIARY”: MUSIC AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR by CHRISTIAN MCWHIRTER A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2009 Copyright Christian McWhirter 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT Music was almost omnipresent during the American Civil War. Soldiers, civilians, and slaves listened to and performed popular songs almost constantly. The heightened political and emotional climate of the war created a need for Americans to express themselves in a variety of ways, and music was one of the best. It did not require a high level of literacy and it could be performed in groups to ensure that the ideas embedded in each song immediately reached a large audience. Previous studies of Civil War music have focused on the music itself. Historians and musicologists have examined the types of songs published during the war and considered how they reflected the popular mood of northerners and southerners. This study utilizes the letters, diaries, memoirs, and newspapers of the 1860s to delve deeper and determine what roles music played in Civil War America. This study begins by examining the explosion of professional and amateur music that accompanied the onset of the Civil War. Of the songs produced by this explosion, the most popular and resonant were those that addressed the political causes of the war and were adopted as the rallying cries of northerners and southerners. All classes of Americans used songs in a variety of ways, and this study specifically examines the role of music on the home-front, in the armies, and among African Americans.
    [Show full text]
  • Appomattox Court House Is on the Crest of a 770-Foot High Ridge
    NFS Form 1MOO OWB No. 1024-O01S United States Department of the Interior National Park Service I 9 /98g National Register of Historic Places Registration Form This form is for use in nominating or requesting determinations of eligibility for individual properties or districts. See instructions in Guidelines for Completing National Register Forms (National Register Bulletin 16). Complete each item by marking "x" in the appropriate box or by entering the requested information. If an item does not apply to the property being documented, enter "N/A" for "not applicable." For functions, styles, materials, and areas of significance, enter only the categories and subcategories listed in the instructions. For additional space use continuation sheets (Form 10-900a). Type all entries. 1. Name of Property historic name APPnMATTnY rnriPT unn^F other names/site number APPOM ATTnY ^HITBT HHTTC;P MATTDMAT HISTOPICAT. PARK 2. Location , : _ | not for publication street & nurnberAPPOMATTOX COUPT" HOUSE NATIONAL HISTO RICAL PAR city, town APPOMATTOX v| vicinity code " ~ "* state TrrnrrxTTA code CH county APPnMATTnY Q I T_ zip code 2^579 3. Classification Ownership of Property Category of Property Number of Resources within Property a private n building(s) Contributing Noncontributing public-local B district 31 3 buildings 1 1 public-State site Q sites f_xl public-Federal 1 1 structure lit 1 fl structures CH object 1 objects Name of related multiple property listing: Number of contributing resources previously None_________ listed in the National Register 0_____ 4. State/Federal Agency Certification Asjhe designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, I hereby certify that this Sd nomination I I request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60.
    [Show full text]
  • Ch 5 NC Legislature.Indd
    The State Legislature The General Assembly is the oldest governmental body in North Carolina. According to tradition, a “legislative assembly of free holders” met for the first time around 1666. No documentary proof, however, exists proving that this assembly actually met. Provisions for a representative assembly in Proprietary North Carolina can be traced to the Concessions and Agreements, adopted in 1665, which called for an unicameral body composed of the governor, his council and twelve delegates selected annually to sit as a legislature. This system of representation prevailed until 1670, when Albemarle County was divided into three precincts. Berkeley Precinct, Carteret Precinct and Shaftsbury Precinct were apparently each allowed five representatives. Around 1682, four new precincts were created from the original three as the colony’s population grew and the frontier moved westward. The new precincts were usually allotted two representatives, although some were granted more. Beginning with the Assembly of 1723, several of the larger, more important towns were allowed to elect their own representatives. Edenton was the first town granted this privilege, followed by Bath, New Bern, Wilmington, Brunswick, Halifax, Campbellton (Fayetteville), Salisbury, Hillsborough and Tarborough. Around 1735 Albemarle and Bath Counties were dissolved and the precincts became counties. The unicameral legislature continued until around 1697, when a bicameral form was adopted. The governor or chief executive at the time, and his council constituted the upper house. The lower house, the House of Burgesses, was composed of representatives elected from the colony’s various precincts. The lower house could adopt its own rules of procedure and elect its own speaker and other officers.
    [Show full text]
  • GOVERNOR ALEXANDER MARTIN (First Administration), 1781-1785, N.D
    Governors’ Papers 1 Alexander Martin GOVERNOR ALEXANDER MARTIN (First Administration), 1781-1785, n.d. Arrangement: By record series, then chronological Reprocessed by: James Mark Valsame Date: September 3, 2009 Alexander Martin (1738 – November 2, 1807), merchant, lawyer, legislator, governor, and senator, was born at Lebanon, Amwell Township, Hunterdon County, NJ, the oldest son of Hugh and Jane Hunter Martin. Hugh Martin was born near Inniskilling, County Tyrone, Ireland, about 1700; Jane Hunter Martin was born in County Antrim, Ireland, about 1720. The two families migrated within a few years of each other in the late 1720s, landing at New Castle, DE, but settling soon afterwards in New Jersey, where Hugh and Jane first met and were married. Little is known of Alexander Martin’s childhood except for a comment of his brother that he did not speak a word until four. His father became a moderately prosperous farmer, served as a justice of the peace, and for a period conducted an English school. Alexander attended Francis Alison’s academy at New London, Connecticut, and then Newark College, which, while he was a student, was moved, under the direction of President Aaron Burr, to Princeton, N.J. Martin received A.B. (September 29,1756) and A.M. (1759) degrees from Princeton. After graduation he moved to Cumberland, Virginia, where, for just over a year, he served as a tutor to the son of N. Davies and conducted a school. He returned briefly to New Jersey, apparently on family business, before making a permanent move south to seek his fortune. Martin settled in Salisbury, NC, about 1760, and became a merchant.
    [Show full text]
  • 4£—«(7')Mlu Ezdmp<:E__4U)<Au—1Om<Uibrz
    Z0rz.BI U<mOu—1a< U)E__4<:Pm DZELUm(7‘)£—«>4 COMMENCEMENT MAY 14I 2011 NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY COMMENCEMENT MAY 14, 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS Greetings from the Chancellor ............................................................................................. ii Exercises of Commencement...............................................................................................iii Musical Program ...................................................................................................................iv Academic Costume, Academic Honors, and the Alma Mater ........................................ v Honorary Degrees.................................................................................................................vi Robert Weiss ..............................................................................................................vi James E. Rogers ........................................................................................................vii Commencement Speaker, James E. Rogers .....................................................................Vii Time and Location for Departmental Ceremonies........................................................ viii ROTC Commissionees........................................................................................................... x Commencement Marshalls, Ushers, and Color Guard xi University Mace ................................................................................................................... xii University Medallion..........................................................................................................xiii
    [Show full text]
  • Honor New Bern's 300Th Anniversary
    GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF NORTH CAROLINA SESSION 2009 RATIFIED BILL RESOLUTION 2010-19 HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 2077 A JOINT RESOLUTION HONORING THE FOUNDERS OF THE CITY OF NEW BERN ON THE OCCASION OF THE CITY'S THREE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY. Whereas, New Bern was founded in 1710 by Swiss and German settlers at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent Rivers on the site of a former Native American community called Chattawka; and Whereas, Christopher de Graffenried, a member of a prominent family from the area around Bern, Switzerland, founded and laid out the center of the City, which he named New Bern in honor of his native home; and Whereas, despite early difficulties, including disagreements with the native population, New Bern prospered during the mid-eighteenth century as a major port and trading center; and Whereas, Royal Governor William Tryon selected New Bern as the site of the first permanent capital of colonial North Carolina and had a palace built to serve as the seat of government and the home of the Governor; and Whereas, New Bern served as the location of a number of noteworthy events, including the first Provincial Congress in defiance of British orders in 1774; the first meeting of the General Assembly in 1777; visits by George Washington and sitting Presidents James Monroe and Harry Truman; during Civil War occupation developed important black leaders who contributed to the Union Army and helped begin the Freedmen's Bank and Bureau; and the invention of "Brad's Drink" by pharmacy owner, Caleb Bradham, in 1898, which was later known
    [Show full text]
  • North Carolina Considers the Constitution
    Notre Dame Law School NDLScholarship Journal Articles Publications 1987 Law and the Experience of Politics in Late Eighteenth-Century North Carolina: North Carolina Considers the Constitution Walter F. Pratt Notre Dame Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Legal History Commons, and the State and Local Government Law Commons Recommended Citation Walter F. Pratt, Law and the Experience of Politics in Late Eighteenth-Century North Carolina: North Carolina Considers the Constitution, 22 Wake Forest L. Rev. 577 (1987). Available at: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/378 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Publications at NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LAW AND THE EXPERIENCE OF POLITICS IN LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NORTH CAROLINA: NORTH CAROLINA CONSIDERS THE CONSTITUTION Walter F. Pratt,Jr.* In mid-summer 1788, nearly three hundred delegates assembled in Hillsborough to consider whether North Carolina would ratify the Consti- tution drafted the previous year in Philadelphia.1 When the convention began the delegates were certain of two facts: First, regardless of their decision, a government would soon be established; ten states had already ratified the Constitution, one more than necessary.2 Second, the oppo- nents of the Constitution knew they had a substantial majority in the * Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame. I am indebted to the editors of the Documentary History of the Constitutional Convention at the University of Wiscon- sin, Madison, for so graciously allowing me access to their files.
    [Show full text]
  • List of Freemasons from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia Jump To: Navigation , Search
    List of Freemasons From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation , search Part of a series on Masonic youth organizations Freemasonry DeMolay • A.J.E.F. • Job's Daughters International Order of the Rainbow for Girls Core articles Views of Masonry Freemasonry • Grand Lodge • Masonic • Lodge • Anti-Masonry • Anti-Masonic Party • Masonic Lodge Officers • Grand Master • Prince Hall Anti-Freemason Exhibition • Freemasonry • Regular Masonic jurisdictions • Opposition to Freemasonry within • Christianity • Continental Freemasonry Suppression of Freemasonry • History Masonic conspiracy theories • History of Freemasonry • Liberté chérie • Papal ban of Freemasonry • Taxil hoax • Masonic manuscripts • People and places Masonic bodies Masonic Temple • James Anderson • Masonic Albert Mackey • Albert Pike • Prince Hall • Masonic bodies • York Rite • Order of Mark Master John the Evangelist • John the Baptist • Masons • Holy Royal Arch • Royal Arch Masonry • William Schaw • Elizabeth Aldworth • List of Cryptic Masonry • Knights Templar • Red Cross of Freemasons • Lodge Mother Kilwinning • Constantine • Freemasons' Hall, London • House of the Temple • Scottish Rite • Knight Kadosh • The Shrine • Royal Solomon's Temple • Detroit Masonic Temple • List of Order of Jesters • Tall Cedars of Lebanon • The Grotto • Masonic buildings Societas Rosicruciana • Grand College of Rites • Other related articles Swedish Rite • Order of St. Thomas of Acon • Royal Great Architect of the Universe • Square and Compasses Order of Scotland • Order of Knight Masons • Research • Pigpen cipher • Lodge • Corks Eye of Providence • Hiram Abiff • Masonic groups for women Sprig of Acacia • Masonic Landmarks • Women and Freemasonry • Order of the Amaranth • Pike's Morals and Dogma • Propaganda Due • Dermott's Order of the Eastern Star • Co-Freemasonry • DeMolay • Ahiman Rezon • A.J.E.F.
    [Show full text]
  • OBSERVANCE of SPECIAL DAYS
    i ! ii THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA THE COLLECTION OF NORTH CAROLINIANA 0394 K87p UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 00034037391 FOR USE ONLY IN THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION Form No. A-368, Rev. 8/95 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Ensuring Democracy through Digital Access (NC-LSTA) http://www.archive.org/details/observanceofspec1959nort A/ ^ -7 ,o OBSERVANCE of SPECIM DAYS FEBRUARY (;lNORTH CAROLINA PUBLIC SCHOOLS STATE FLAG OBSERVANCE of SPECIAL DAYS Issued by the: STATE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA 1959 PUBLICATION NUMBER 319 FOREWORD The provision of suitable material for the observance of special days in the public schools of the State is authorized by law. In this publication we have selected a number of days which might be appropriately celebrated ; and have pointed out the significance of each of these days and made suggestions as to how they might be observed. It is the purpose of this publication to give meaning to the events that lay back of the days which are to be observed. The material, therefore, is presented in three main parts: (1) Historical; (2) Concepts to be learned ; and (3) Activities which may be performed. Resources for other material which the teacher may want to use are also given, a specific list with each "day" material and a general list at the end of the publica- tion. It is our hope that teachers, principals and supervisors will use this bulletin as a guide in conveying to our boys and girls the significance of days which we observe and that they will learn the values inherent in such observance, I wish to thank the following committee for the preparation of this guide: L.
    [Show full text]
  • History of the U.S. Attorneys
    Bicentennial Celebration of the United States Attorneys 1789 - 1989 "The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor– indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one." QUOTED FROM STATEMENT OF MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND, BERGER V. UNITED STATES, 295 U. S. 88 (1935) Note: The information in this document was compiled from historical records maintained by the Offices of the United States Attorneys and by the Department of Justice. Every effort has been made to prepare accurate information. In some instances, this document mentions officials without the “United States Attorney” title, who nevertheless served under federal appointment to enforce the laws of the United States in federal territories prior to statehood and the creation of a federal judicial district. INTRODUCTION In this, the Bicentennial Year of the United States Constitution, the people of America find cause to celebrate the principles formulated at the inception of the nation Alexis de Tocqueville called, “The Great Experiment.” The experiment has worked, and the survival of the Constitution is proof of that.
    [Show full text]
  • Did You Know? North Carolina
    Did You Know? North Carolina Discover the history, geography, and government of North Carolina. The Land and Its People The state is divided into three distinct topographical regions: the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont Plateau, and the Appalachian Mountains. The Coastal Plain affords opportunities for farming, fishing, recreation, and manufacturing. The leading crops of this area are bright-leaf tobacco, peanuts, soybeans, and sweet potatoes. Large forested areas, mostly pine, support pulp manufacturing and other forest-related industries. Commercial and sport fishing are done extensively on the coast, and thousands of tourists visit the state’s many beaches. The mainland coast is protected by a slender chain of islands known as the Outer Banks. The Appalachian Mountains—including Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in eastern America (6,684 feet)—add to the variety that is apparent in the state’s topography. More than 200 mountains rise 5,000 feet or more. In this area, widely acclaimed for its beauty, tourism is an outstanding business. The valleys and some of the hillsides serve as small farms and apple orchards; and here and there are business enterprises, ranging from small craft shops to large paper and textile manufacturing plants. The Piedmont Plateau, though dotted with many small rolling farms, is primarily a manufacturing area in which the chief industries are furniture, tobacco, and textiles. Here are located North Carolina’s five largest cities. In the southeastern section of the Piedmont—known as the Sandhills, where peaches grow in abundance—is a winter resort area known also for its nationally famous golf courses and stables.
    [Show full text]