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North Carolina's Governors
Montfort Stokes (1762-1842), who served in the U.S. Senate prior to his term as governor, went to sea at thirteen, and during the Revolution enlisted in the Continental Navy. He settled briefly in Halifax and then in Salisbury, where he read law and began a lifelong and politically important friendship with Andrew Jackson. During the War of 1812, Stokes held the rank of major general in the state militia. In 1816 he was selected by the General Assembly to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat. As a senator, his committee work focused on the District of Columbia and on postal and military affairs. He embraced Jacksonian democracy and was conspicuously more liberal than his Senate colleague Nathaniel Macon. Stokes opposed further extension of slavery in the Missouri Compromise, and expressed his support for a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. Returning to North Carolina, Stokes in 1824 was defeated for the governorship by Hutchins G. Burton. He represented Wilkes County in the upper and lower houses of the Assembly. Stokes was elected to his first term as governor in 1830, defeating Richard Dobbs Spaight Jr. Despite strong opposition from the eastern part of the state, he won election to a second term the following year. As governor, Stokes was strongly identified with the interests of western North Carolina, political and constitutional reform, internal improvements, and a sound banking system. Only secondarily did he lend his support to the tentative efforts underway to provide for public education. During the widespread hysteria following the Nat Turner uprising of 1831, he acted to minimize violence. In November of 1832 Stokes resigned his governorship to accept President Jackson's appointment as chairman of a federal commission charged with the resettlement of Indians from the southeastern United States. Relocating to Fort Gibson in present-day Oklahoma, he continued to work in Indian affairs. Stokes died at Fort Gibson in 1842, and was buried near the post.
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