No Longer under Cover(ture): Marriage, Divorce, and Gender in the 1868 Constitutional Convention
No Longer under Cover(ture): Marriage, Divorce, and Gender in the 1868 Constitutional Convention
This chapter shows why delegates had little reason to suspect that divorce petitions would consume a significant portion of the docket when the North Carolina Constitutional Convention assembled in January 1868. Delegates, elected by the state's registered voters in November 1867, gathered in Raleigh on January 14, 1868, to discharge their obligations under the Reconstruction Acts. The Reconstruction Acts divided all former Confederate states into military districts and required elections for delegates, who would become responsible for drafting new state constitutions that would bring the states in line with the requirements of Congress. In North Carolina, the vote to hold a constitutional convention passed easily, as the Reconstruction Acts had disfranchised former Confederates in punishment both for their traitorous behavior during the Civil War and for their deep antagonism toward racial equality when they briefly resumed political control in 1865.
Keywords: divorce petitions, North Carolina, Constitutional Convention, Reconstruction Acts, Confederate states, military districts
North Carolina Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
