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Day 39 of the Convention

Thursday, February 27, 1868

The convention was called to order at 10:30 o’clock. The official reporter of the convention, the Daily Standard, provides no coverage of this day. The convention did not take up suffrage as discussed on February 25.

According to the Sentinel – the “conservative” newspaper that criticized the convention, “Mr. Hodnett wished to know by what authority the postage on large packets of mail that regularly went from this Hall every day was paid out of the people’s money. He thought that they received high enough per diem to pay for their own correspondence…. Various other points of order were sprung upon Mr. Hodnett, when he took his seat saying “yes, you rule out of order everything that has a tendency to show to the people the reckless extravagance with which you squander their money.”

On motion the Convention adjourned.

 

For further information on Philip Hodnett of Caswell County, J.D. de Roulhac Hamilton, an historian of the time period explains that Hodnett “was elected as an independent candidate and was supposed to be a moderate Republican, but he soon became disgusted with the radicals and acted throughout with the Conservatives.” While Hamilton’s Reconstruction in North Carolina is an authoritative source, his perspectives may not match contemporary points of view.

 

Resources

Ferrell, Joseph, ed., Compilation of the Official Report of the Proceedings of the Convention (Chapel Hill, N.C.: unpublished manuscript 2007). (See day 8 for fuller explanation of this resource.)

Hamilton, J.D. de Roulhac, Reconstruction in North Carolina (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith 1964) (p. 257).

 

*The debate and other quotes are close to verbatim from the reported resources with some adjustment to put all comments in first person, present tense.

 

 

Ann McColl

Ann McColl is an attorney and state constitutional scholar.