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North Carolina's Governors
In addition to serving as governor, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of the Navy, William Alexander Graham (1804-1875) was the Whig nominee for Vice-President in 1852. The son of Gen. Joseph Graham, Patriot in the Revolutionary War and iron manufacturer, he was born at "Vesuvius," the family home in Lincoln County. Young Graham attended Hillsborough Academy and the University of North Carolina. Attracted to the political arena, Graham the basic platform of the emerging Whig Party. He served in the U.S. Senate, 1840-1843. Graham won the gubernatorial election of 1844. Three problems confronted him: foreclosure of state held mortgages on the Raleigh & Gaston Railroad; collection of documents relating to the state's Revolutionary War history, a task imposed by the 1844 legislature; and execution of the earlier law establishing a school for the deaf and mute. Graham pushed the Whig agenda of internal improvements and education. He advocated a central railroad to connect with the existing Raleigh and Gaston and the Charlotte and Columbia then under construction. To help stabilize the fledgling school system, he proposed the appointment of a commissioner of education. Graham returned to his law practice in Hillsborough in 1849. He accepted the appointment as Secretary of the Navy extended by President Millard Fillmore in 1850. Achievements during his tenure included efficient reorganization of the coast survey and naval personnel, exploration of the Amazon, and the opening of foreign relations and trade with Japan. In 1852 the Whig Party nominated William A. Graham for vice-president on the ticket headed by Gen. Winfield Scott. Defeated in the general election, Graham returned to Orange County. Graham detested the idea of secession, equating it to Southern self-destruction. He urged caution, patience, and compromise. In the 1861 State Convention, he tried to divert the issue of secession but acquiesced when no honorable alternative remained. As state senator from 1862 to 1864, his views frequently conflicted with those of the Confederate government; still, he sent five sons to fight for the South. The General Assembly elected Graham to the U. S. Senate in December 1865, but Radical Republicans gained control of Congress and refused to seat the Southern delegates. Officially retired, he took a leading role in the effort to overthrow Republican rule in North Carolina. He died while in Saratoga Springs, New York. His body was returned to Hillsborough and interred in the cemetery adjacent to the Presbyterian Church.
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