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North Carolinian championed freedom for all

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Tuesday, 29 April 2025

Written by John Hood

The United States is celebrating its semiquincentennial — Americans launched their rebellion against British rule 250 years ago this month at Lexington and Concord.
Today’s subject doesn’t fall precisely within the chronology. It does fit the broader theme, however: how North Carolinians have helped our country establish and honor its commitment to liberty. Some did so with words, others with deeds.
John Swanson Jacobs did both. Born in Edenton around 1815 to enslaved parents, both John and his older sister Harriet came to be owned by a local physician named James Norcom. As related in her famous 1861 memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet was repeatedly subjected to sexual harassment by Norcom. First taking up with a white lawyer, Samuel Spencer, to protect herself, Harriet Jacobs would later spend seven years hiding from Norcom in the crawl space of her grandmother’s roof.
Infuriated by her apparent escape, Norcom sold Harriet’s brother John and the two children she’d had with Spencer to a slave trader. Unbeknownst to Norcom, the trader was in cahoots with Spencer and transferred the three to him.
When Spencer took John on a trip to the free state of New York in 1838, the latter seized the opportunity to liberate himself, penning Spencer the following note: “Sir — I have left you not to return; when I have got settled I will give you further satisfaction. No longer yours, John S Jacob.” After several years at sea on a whaling ship, John returned to find that Harriet had finally escaped northward. They reunited in Boston and became committed abolitionists. John Jacobs helped manage anti-slavery organizations and went on speaking tours with the likes of Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.
After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, however, neither Jacobs sibling could rest easy. John spent much of the next two decades abroad, pursuing mining and other professions in Australia and England.
It was during John’s time Down Under that he followed the lead of Douglass and began writing the story of his life. The work first saw publication 170 years ago this week in an Australian newspaper called The Empire. Headlined “The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery,” it was attributed to “A Fugitive Slave.” Six years later, an abridged version entitled “A True Tale of Slavery” ran in four weekly installments in an American periodical called The Leisure Hour.
Deftly combining autobiography and argument, John Jacobs excoriated slaveowners for their cruelty and questioned how white Americans could profess a love of liberty and virtue while tolerating the institution anywhere in their country. “The Christian religion, that binds heart to heart and hand to hand, and makes each and every man a brother, is at war with it,” he wrote, and “the experience of the past, the present feeling, and above all this, the promise of God, assure me that the oppressor’s rod shall be broken.”
But would moral suasion be sufficient to snap it? “Human nature will be human nature,” Jacobs warned. “Crush it as you may, it changes not; but woe to that country where the sun of liberty has to rise up out of a sea of blood.”
These were prophetic words, unfortunately. It took a bloody war to abolish slavery. It took many decades of further activism, against implacable and often-violent opposition, to secure the rights of black Americans. Jacobs and his successors were fighting not to undermine the American republic but to fulfill its promise — to redeem the “promissory note” of the Declaration of Independence, as Martin Luther King Jr. memorably put it.
“Freedom is as natural for man as the air he breathes,” Jacobs wrote, “and he who robs him of his freedom is also guilty of murder; for he has robbed him of his natural existence.”

Editor’s note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

Three ways our state governs differently

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Tuesday, 22 April 2025

Written by John Hood

North Carolina’s motto is a Latin phrase: Esse quam videri. Popularized by the ancient Roman statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero, who likely first read the Greek version from Plato and Aeschylus, the phrase means “to be rather than to seem.”
The General Assembly adopted it as our official state motto in 1893. Ever since then, North Carolinians have disputed whether we’ve ever really lived up to it, that we have truly been rather than just seemed.
Guess what? That makes North Carolina just like every other country, state, city, or club that espouses high ideals and then argues about them.
What sets our state apart politically isn’t a motto, or arguments about a motto, or even the specific issues our state and local leaders are currently trying to tackle. What truly makes North Carolina distinctive are several longstanding practices — some formal rules, others informal traditions — that shape our public policy debates.
One of them is how our state constitution apportions the coercive power of government. All states have legislative, executive, and judicial branches. But North Carolina’s legislative branch is one of the strongest in the country. It possesses fully the power to make laws and policies in our state. When executive officers or agencies issue rules and make decisions, they do so in most cases only because the legislature has specifically granted them the power to do so. That means lawmakers can also take it back.
Correspondingly, our executive branch is one of the weakest, its responsibilities distributed across 10 independently elected officers and our governor enjoying comparatively limited powers of appointment and veto. Unlike other states, North Carolina gives its governors no formal control over our public institutions of higher education. That power is specifically awarded to the General Assembly, like it or not.
All states also apportion power between localities and a central government. In North Carolina, however, localities don’t have home rule. They are legislative creations and have only the powers delegated to them by the General Assembly, which the latter is free to revise.
Here’s a second distinguishing characteristic, related to the first but extending beyond our constitutional structure: North Carolina governs and funds roads and schools primarily at the state level, not the local level.
Most states have county (or parish) road systems. We don’t. Even our city streets are technically state roads administered by localities. As for K-12 education, while we have elected school boards with the power to hire district superintendents and make some policy choices, the most important actors are the General Assembly and the State Board of Education.
So when you read that North Carolina has one of the highest gas taxes in the United States, that’s just another way of saying our county taxes are relatively low (because they don’t fund county roads). And on a per-pupil basis, our state spends more than twice as much on schools as counties do. Nationally, the two funding sources tend to be roughly comparable.
A third policy difference between North Carolina and most other states involves public finance. For nearly a century, it has been our common practice to borrow relatively little and pay for public assets with cash. According to the latest Facts & Figures report from the Tax Foundation, North Carolina ranks 48th in state and local debt, at $4,314 per person.
Only Idaho ($1,915) and Wyoming ($3,913) have lower debt burdens than we do. Neighboring Tennessee ($6,312), South Carolina ($7,254), and Virginia ($9,236) borrow quite a bit more, although none is quite in the league of a California ($14,273) or New York ($17,846).
Now, you and I might argue about whether North Carolina ought to strengthen the hand of the governor, or give localities more responsibility for roads and schools, or finance more infrastructure with debt. Still, productive argument requires some common definitions and at least some shared understanding of the facts.
Our state doesn’t just appear to be distinctive. It really is. Esse quam videri, indeed.

Editor’s Note: John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His books Mountain Folk, Forest Folk, and Water Folk combine epic fantasy with American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

A look back: The world according to 1968

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Tuesday, 22 April 2025

Written by Pitt Dickey

Once upon a time, 57 years ago, there was a year called 1968. It was a rowdy year filled with more stuff than you can shake a stick at. The weekly Life magazine chronicled said events. As Petula would say: “It was a sign o’ the times.”
My Life special 1968 Year in Review edition summarized the good, bad, and the ugly happenings, which I will share with both my readers today.
The most interesting things were the ads, which clearly were written by Don Draper.
We shall get to the ads shortly, but first, the mandatory and mercifully brief chronological recitation of 1968’s world events. The year began with North Koreans capturing the USS Pueblo. Vietnam was in full bore with the iconic photo of the Saigon police chief executing a Viet Cong.
LBJ announced he would not run for re-election. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. Famine came to Biafra. Nixon and Humphrey were nominated for President. (Trigger warning: Nixon won.)
Jackie Kennedy married the Billionaire Shipping Magnate and Human Toad Hybrid Aristotle Onassis. The Apollo astronauts circled the moon on Christmas Eve. The Pueblo hostages were released. That is all.
On to the good stuff: the ads. Anacin invented the cure for the “Housewife Headache,” which was brought on “when Boredom and Emotional Fatigue” hits the little lady. It was caused by “making beds, getting meals, acting as the family chauffeur- having to do the same dull, tiresome work day after day is a mild form of torture.”
Take 2 Anacin tablets and “feel better all over with a brighter outlook.” Or have 4 glasses of wine with lunch.
Cigarette ads were fun. Lark cigarettes invented the “Gas Trap Filter,” which you were directed to tell someone you like about the filter. The Marlboro Man was out west doing cowboy things on Broke Back Mountain, where you could come to where the flavor is.
Pall Mall invited you to come to “the cool part of the forest where a lady wearing a green bikini was waiting with a pack of Menthol filter 100s, which were extra long at both ends.” Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch, wearing a black eye to prove it.
The power companies were pushing Gold Medallion Homes, “where everything is electric, including the heat.” In addition to a larger electric bill, you got a Gold Medallion plaque to nail to your house to prove you were susceptible to advertising.
Personal hygiene was a primary concern to humans and fish. Ol’ Skipper Fish Attractor balm announced: “Fish think you stink.” Using Ol’ Skipper would “counteract human and tackle box odors and would stimulate and excite fish to feed.”
Sounds like fish Viagra. Not sure I would want to be around an excited, stimulated fish, but that is a personal choice. Mitchum’s Anti-Perspirant helped a sweaty lady who had “despaired of effective help” for her drippy underarms. For only $3, you could get a 90-day supply guaranteeing dryness. DERMA-SOFT home medication had a personal testimonial from a happy customer who had been “tortured 9 years by two corns and a wart, but now they are gone.”
Two Corns and a Wart sounds like a Heavy Metal band. It remains unclear if DERMA-SOFT could handle 3 corns and 2 warts.
Have a cold? Contac not only had 600 tiny time pills in each capsule but came with a poem from a winsome lady person who said: “Button up your overcoat/ When the wind is free/ Take Contac for your cold/ You belong to me/ Roger.”
Roger better do as he is told. The lady person appeared to brook no rebellion.
The new Toyota Corona came with nylon carpeting, vinyl upholstery, fully reclining bucket seats, synchromesh transmission, backup lights, and a cigarette lighter!!! Who could ask for anything more?
The issue closed out with 1968’s winners and losers. Denny McLain of the Detroit Tigers won over 30 games. Andy Warhol “lives after a kooky feminist tried to zap him with her .32.”
Tiny Tim was America’s leading male vocalist. Janice Joplin was chosen as the year’s female vocalist for “her raspy songs she belted, then belted bourbon by the bottle.” OJ Simpson “may be the best college running back ever. His name will come up first in the pro draft where it will be drawn by the last place team. Look for OJ Simpson when you go to Buffalo.”
OJ went on to be known for other things.
Have we learned anything today? Not much, other than 1968 was 57 years ago.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)

Remembering a friend: A life in two centuries

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Tuesday, 15 April 2025

Written by Margaret Dickson

Now that it is over, I cannot help but think of all that happened and how much changed during Mary’s long life.