|
North Carolina's Governors
Samuel Ashe (1725-1813), prominent leader for the Patriot cause, was born near Bath to parents of considerable wealth, social status, and political influence. Orphaned soon after his family's move to the lower Cape Fear region, Ashe was reared to maturity in the elegant plantation home of an uncle. There he benefited from the best in educational opportunities and from cultured and cosmopolitan surroundings. Ashe became actively involved in the Stamp Act resistance and played a leading role in the radical Sons of Liberty. In 1774 he became active in the North Carolina Council of Safety, serving briefly as president in 1776. Ashe was appointed to the committee that drafted the state's constitution at Halifax in 1776. In 1787 he was one of three judges to decide the landmark case of Bayard v. Singleton, which asserted the constitutional doctrine of legislative review. On November 11, 1795, Ashe resigned his judgeship in order to accept election as governor. Reelected on two subsequent occasions, he served the constitutional maximum of three consecutive years. Although earlier a Federalist, Ashe had since become an ardent Republican and a supporter of states' rights. It therefore was only with difficulty that he weathered the storm of pro-Federalist, anti-French feelings that arose along the coast and swept through maritime and commercial circles in 1797-1798. The feelings were brought about by repeated French violations of America's neutrality, the seizure of her ships, and the mistreatment of her seamen. It was during the last year of Ashe's administration that information began to surface regarding massive land frauds in that portion of North Carolina that had become Tennessee. Ashe cooperated fully with the early phases of the investigation of those frauds, and helped to prevent the destruction of crucial evidence. Ashe died at "The Neck," his plantation, on February 3, 1813, and was interred there on the grounds.
|
