EdNC. Essential education news. Important stories. Your voice.

Search ednc.org

Day 16 of the Convention

Share this story

Our republishing policy

EdNC is a nonprofit, online, daily, independent newspaper. All of EdNC’s content is open source and free to republish. Please use the following guidelines when republishing our content.
  • Our content must be republished in full. If your organization uses a paywall, the content must be provided in full for free.
  • Credit our team by including both the author name and EdNC.org in the byline. Example: Alex Granados, EdNC.org.
  • If republishing the story online, please provide a link to EdNC.org or a link to the original article in either the byline or credit line.
  • The original headline of the article must be used. Allowable edits to the content of the piece include changes to meet your publication’s style guide and references to dates (i.e. this week changed to last week). Other edits must be approved by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
  • Photos and other multimedia elements (audio, video, etc.) may not be republished without prior permission. Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you are interested in sharing a multimedia element.
  • If you republish a story, please let us know by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you have any questions. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Canonical tag

Please include the following canonical tag in the <head> of the republished story.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.ednc.org/day-16-convention/">

HTML content

This includes the title, byline, content, and tracking pixel required for republishing this story.

Copy & paste HTML
This story is tagged:

Friday, January 31, 1868

The Convention was called to order on Friday at 11 o’clock, Mr. Pres. Cowles in the Chair. No issues related to public schools were addressed on this day.

After various business of the Convention, Mr. Galloway lodged a complaint against one of the reporters for the Carolinian for a racist slur and called for his expulsion. Mr. Galloway said that delegates were called “niggers.” The President explained that a reporter of the Carolinian had come forward and laid his notes of today’s proceedings on the President’s desk. The reporter objected to his reading them and took back possession. The President then called for getting back the notes of the Reporter. The Reporter objected, stating that they were only rough notes. The President said that the note were among the most infamous thing that he had ever read. The President said he would exercise his authority to expel the reporter from the floor. 

The Convention then proceeded to other business, including another lengthy debate on political disabilities.   Mr. May complained, stating that “from the beginning of the Convention there has been a disposition manifested to shoulder anything foreign from the true duties of the Convention.—This body had scarcely met in the morning, to enter upon its important duties, before some foreign subject was introduced, which usually tended to an alienation of feeling and discussions, which would bring the Convention into disgrace among the people.—They are anxiously waiting for the formation of a Constitution. They have looked in vain. The Convention must pursue a different course, or two weeks longer will pass away and it will have hardly commenced its duties.

After voting on a resolution at hand, Mr. Durham returned to the issue of the reporter, stating that the reporter had told him that the President was erroneous in his statement. After an exchange, the President said that “the character of the President for veracity is at stake. I pitied the young man and had not been disposed to expel him, and certainly it was not done for malice. I would have kept him if I could but I couldn’t have allowed him to stay in my own house after the use of such language.” To this the delegates applauded.

On motion the Convention adjourned.

EdNC remarks

In the House Chambers, the President sat at the top tier of the Dias, clerk(s) on the second level, and reporters, on the third tier closest to the floor. Presumably this reporter was sitting here when making these notes.

 

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.)

 

Note: EdNC has converted quotes back to first person/present tense.