The period from i790 to 1835 was marked by a prolonged con test between the eastern and the western counties. In 1790 the West began to urge a new division of the State into representative districts according to population and taxation. This was stub bornly resisted, and the West assumed a threatening attitude as the East opposed its projects for internal improvements for which the West had the greater need. In 1823 the West called an extra legal convention to meet at Raleigh, and delegates from 24 of the 28 western counties responded, but a lack of agreement over the counting of slaves as well as whites as a basis of representation caused little to be accomplished. Finally in Jan. 1835 the legis lature passed a bill for submitting the question of calling a Con stitutional convention legally to all the voters of the State. When the popular vote was taken, in the following April, every eastern county gave a majority against the convention, but the West voted strongly for it and carried the election with a total majority in the State of 5,856 votes. In the convention, the East made some concessions : such as the popular election of the governor, the disfranchisement of free negroes, the choosing of senators from districts according to public taxes and the apportioning of commoners to districts according to population based on the Federal ratio. The electorate gave its approval to the revision by a vote of 26,771 to 21,606, and with this the agitation over representation ceased.
The fundamental points of difference between North Carolina and South Carolina were exemplified in the slavery conflict. South Carolina led the extreme radical element in the South and was the first State to secede. North Carolina held back, worked for a compromise, sent delegates to the Washington Peace convention in Feb. 1861, and did not secede until May 20, 1861, after Presi dent Lincoln's call for troops to preserve the Union. Liberal support was given to the Confederacy, both in men and supplies, but Gov. Vance, one of the ablest of the Southern war governors, engaged in acrimonious controversies with President Jefferson Davis, contending that the general Government of the Confederacy was encroaching upon the prerogatives of the separate States. Owing to its distance from the border, the State escaped serious invasion until near the close of the war. Wilmington was captured by the Federals in Feb. 1865; Gen. Sherman's army crossed the southern boundary in March ; a battle was fought at Bentonville, March 19-21 ; Raleigh was entered on April 13 ; and the Con federates under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered near Dur ham station, in Durham county, on the 26th.
Reconstruction was a costly experience here as in other Southern States. Jonathan Worth (1802-69), elected governor under the
presidential plan in 1865, was an honest and capable official, but the Government established in accordance with the views of Congress in 1868 was corrupt, inefficient and tyrannical. Carpet baggers, negroes and unscrupulous native whites, known as scala wags, were in control of affairs, while the people of wealth, refine ment and education were disfranchised. Gov. William Woods Holden (1818-92 ; governor 1868-7o) was so weak and tyran nical that he was impeached by the legislature in Dec. 187o. Under his successor, Tod R. Caldwell (1818-74), there was some improvement in the condition of affairs, and in 1875 a Con stitutional Convention, in session at Raleigh, with the Democrats slightly in the majority, amended the Constitution, their work being ratified by the people at the State election in 1875. The native white element completely regained possession of the Gov ernment in the following year, when the Democrats came into office under Gov. Zebulon B. Vance. Since that time the most interesting feature in the political history has been the rise and fall of the People's Party. The hard times which followed the panic of 1893 enabled them, in alliance with the Republicans, to carry the state in 1894. The race question dominated the elec tion of 1898, when the Democrats came again into power; and two years later a constitutional amendment virtually disfranchising negroes was adopted. In 1928 Mr. Hoover carried the State by 62,00o. But in the national elections of 1932 and 1936, the State resumed its place with the "solid South" by voting Democratic.