Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1986
Publication Information
4 Law & Hist. Rev. 129 (1986)
Abstract
The Supreme Court of North Carolina is an anomaly among state courts in the antebellum years. In a period dominated by democratic reforms of state government, the court did not merely survive unscathed it actually increased its independence. The remarkable success of this court is largely attributable to the personal reputations and political acumen of two of its judges, Thomas Ruffin and William Gaston. Without those two men it is likely that the Supreme Court would have been abolished in a wave of democratic reforms that peaked in North Carolina with the constitutional amendments of 1835.
Recommended Citation
Walter F. Pratt,
The Struggle for Judicial Independence in Antebellum North Carolina: The Story of Two Judges,
4 Law & Hist. Rev. 129 (1986).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/127
Comments
Reprinted with permission of the Law and History Review.