North Carolina and the Federal Union

    By the end of the Revolutionary war North Carolina was very weak.  The state's economy was ruined and the people were divided.  This war proved that the state government was not yet stable enough to deal with  the state's problems.  A Moravian leader at Salem, Frederic William Marshall, compared North Carolina in the early 1780's to a patient in need of medicine and care.

    The state was in major need of help.  North Carolina was $3.5 million in dept, and had more bills to pay than it collected it taxes.  Paper currency (issued during the war) was now nearly worthless.  Tariffs (taxes) were imposed by the General Assembly to help pay off the state's debt and prop up the paper currency.  These taxes were to be collected on imported goods such as sugar, coffee, wine, and pepper.  Law to clear up the confusion over titles to property were also passed by the General Assembly to help the state's economic recovery.  Lawmakers passed a state law giving debtors (people who owe money to others) another year to settle with creditors (those to whom money is owed).

    Trade began to look up for North Carolinians.  By 1790, the state's trade was about double that in 1769.  Exports on corn, lumber, and tobacco had reached their highest by the end of the 1780's. 

  During the war, North Carolina had confiscated the lands of the Loyalists and sold them to get money.  This was forbidden later on by the Treaty of Paris.  North Carolina, however, continued to seize and sell the Loyalists' land during the 1780's by using the Confiscation Acts of 1777 and 1779.  A law was passed in 1785 forbidding Loyalists from filing lawsuits in state courts to recover their property.  This law laid out the path for one of the most famous legal cases in North Carolina history.  In 1786, Mrs. Elizabeth Bayard brought up a lawsuit against Spyers Singleton, who had purchase property confiscated from her father.  Her lawyers argued that no law could rob a citizen of their property without a jury trial, and the judges agreed.  Judges of the superior court ruled that the 1785 law passed by the General Assembly was unconstitutional.