Chief Justice Faircloth
lie uns flu» last It <‘|»ul»li<’ an fo serve in this
capacity in North Carolina, and lie left a
record of loyal service which is outstanding
in the history of the state.
OUR last Republican Senator
was Jeter C. Pritchard: our
last Governor of that politi¬
cal faith was Daniel L. Russell; the
last Chief Justice William T. Fair-
cloth. Our State has never had a
more illustrious son than Pritchard:
one of loftier ideals of public serv¬
ice than Faircloth; one of greater
personal courage than Russell,
although his administration was
marked by turbulent violence.
The county of Edgecombe gave
the state its last agricultural Gov¬
ernor in the person of Elias Carr;
and this ancient county was the
scene of the nativity of my subject
in 1829. He came of purely an
agricultural ancestry, and he too
followed that oldest and most
essential of human activities until
he entered Wake Forest College,
from which he was graduated,
valedictorian of his class in 1854.
He took his legal education at the
famous law school of Chief Justice
Pearson. "Richmond Hill," where,
as did so many eminent Carolina
lawyers, he sat at the feet of the
scholarly and distinguished Chief
Justice, whose lot and fate it was
to sit upon the woolsack during
the most turbulent and hectic
l>criod in all our history, embracing
the bitter political and partisan
strife of the era. he engraved his
name deeply in the legal annals
of our Commonwealth.
Appointed Solicitor
Young Faircloth came to the Bar
in 1856 and his qualities of leader¬
ship caused his immediate appoint¬
ment as Solicitor of the county
court of Greene County; but he
soon moved his residence to Golds¬
boro, where he became the most
illustrious of all the lawyers who
have graced that bar with the ex¬
ception only of the peerless Gover¬
nor Charles B. Aycock. who is in a
class by himself. Faircloth was.
like Vance and other leaders of
К
lie thought, an Old-line Union
ig. opposed both to the principle
and to the policy of secession. None
the less, when our state adopted
the Ordinance of Secession, he
patriotically volunteered for the
Confederate service as a private
By R. C*. LAU RENCE
in the ranks, becoming a member
of the Second North Carolina, com¬
manded by Colonel
С.
C. Tew. He
served with conspicuous gallantry
throughout the war, rising to the
rank of Captain of Cavalry, which
rank he held when the order “cease
firing” was issued at Appomattox.
No sooner had he returned to
his home in Wayne than he was
elected as a representative in the
Provisional State Convention
which convened in October. 1865;
and the same year saw his election
as a member of the first Legislature
to convene in our State after the
Civil War. So soon had he evinced
his superb gifts for leadership; so
early had he become the favorite
of his home people, that while yet
serving in the Legislature he was
elected as Superior Court Solicitor,
a position which he occupied with
conspicuous ability until all the
duly elected state officers were
displaced as a result of the despot¬
ism set up by the Federal military
authorities during the regime of
Reconstruction.
Upon the disintegration of the
Whig party, young Faircloth, as
did many of the former followers
of Henry Clay, associated himself
with the recently organized Re¬
publican party, and with that
political organization he w a s
thenceforth prominently identified.
As a Republican he was elected as
a delegate to the Constitutional
Convention of 1875, in which the
two major political parties were
so evenly balanced that it required
two weeks to elect a presiding offi¬
cer; and in which the Democrats,
by effecting a political “trade"
with three “independents” had the
slender majority of just one vote.
Appointed as a Justice
So rapidly had he forged to the
forefront in his profession, that in
1875 he was appointed as a Justice
of the Supreme Court and took his
seat upon the bench, where his
old legal preceptor Richmond Pear¬
son still sat as Chief Justice. His
other colleagues were Justices
Edwin G. Reade, William B. Rod-
man and William P. Bynum; and
he continued his service upon this
bench until the Democrats under
the superb leadership of the im¬
mortal Vance, swept the State in
the elections of 1876.
In 1884 he was the candidate of
his party for Lieutenant Governor
and made an active and energetic
canvass of the state from the sand
dunes of Currituck to the high hills
of Cherokee, and here he first made
known his name to the great mass
of the common people. In 1888 he
was the candidate of his party for
membership upon the Supreme
Court. During all these years he
not only enjoyed a large and lucra¬
tive practice at the bar, but he
had become a man of large means
and an important figure in the
business and economic life of his
section. He was a director in what
is now the Atlantic Coast Line, in
the Atlantic and North Carolina
Railroad, in the Bank of Wayne,
and other large corporations; and
he had large property interests in
Wayne and Edgecombe. For many
years he served the public as Di¬
rector of the State Hospital and in
other non-profit positions of public
trust and confidence.
When Fusion was effected be¬
tween the Populists and Republi¬
cans in the 'nineties. Judge Fair¬
cloth was the Fusion nominee for
Chief Justice, and as that ticket
swept the State, when Russell was
inaugurated as Governor. Fair¬
cloth was installed as Chief Justice,
his colleagues being the Democrat
Walter Clark, the Populist Walter
A. Montgomery; and the Republi¬
cans David M. Furches and Robert
M. Douglas; the last named being
a son of the famous Stephen A.
Douglas, the “Little Giant" of
Illinois, rival of Lincoln for both
the United States Senate and the
Presidency.
Turbulent Times
It was a time of intense and bit¬
ter political strife and partisan
feeling, and had the Chief Justice
( Continued on page 21 )
THE STATE. August to. 1946
