wo best lawyers in the state. Davie’s most controversial case may have been his defense of three Tory officers charged with treason. Defeated in court, Davie secured pardons for the men from the governor. Elected to the House of Commons in 1784, Davie generally allied himself with the legislature’s conservative faction. Accordingly, he supported sound money and compliance with the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War, called for the payment of pre-war debts owed to British creditors, and encouraged the return of confiscated Loyalist property.
Davie’s effective performance in the House of Commons led to his selection as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention that assembled in Philadelphia in May 1787. Davie said little during the debates, seeming to defer to the experienced Hugh Williamson, the de facto leader of the North Carolina delegation. Yet Davie arguably cast the single most important vote of the convention. Serving on the Grand Committee appointed to consider the issue of representation in Congress, Davie voted for the Great Compromise providing for representation based on population in the House of Representatives and for state equality in the Senate. Davie’s vote made North Carolina the only large state to support the compromise, and it helped break the deadlock between the large and small states. Called away on legal business before the end of the convention, Davie did not sign the Constitution.
In North Carolina, however, Davie adamantly supported the ratification of the document. He served in the Hillsborough (1788) and Fayetteville (1789) conventions called to consider ratification of the Constitution. Even though Davie and Iredell led the outnumbered Federalist forces at the Hillsborough convention, delegates voted 184 to 84 against ratification. After the Constitution had taken effect, a second convention in Fayetteville finally approved it.
While remaining in the House of Commons until 1798, Davie was a staunch proponent of public education. In 1786, Davie helped establish the Warrenton Academy, and in 1789, he sponsored legislation to charter the University of North Carolina, the first public university in the United States. He served as the institution’s virtual president in its early years. For example, Davie helped select the Chapel Hill location, recruit faculty, and promote the adoption of an updated curriculum. Suspecting Federalist proclivities at the school, the General Assembly soon cut the school’s funding, but Davie later won a lawsuit that overturned the legislation.
Davie was a natural aristocrat with a polite yet slightly aloof demeanor. Archibald Murphey, the nineteenth-century North Carolina reformer, described Davie as “a tall, elegant man in his person, graceful and commanding in his manners.” He said little publicly regarding his religious beliefs, however. Although Davie never denounced his affiliation with the Presbyterian denomination, he was rumored to be a Deist, and from 1792 to 1798, he served as Grand Master of the North Carolina Masons.
Davie’s diplomatic skill played a vital role in early North Carolina and American history. Although the state legislature elected Davie governor in 1798, he did not complete his term, for in the following year, President John Adams appointed Davie to the American delegation to settle the Quasi-War with France. After an arduous voyage to Europe, Davie spent several months in Paris negotiating the Convention of 1800, which ended hostilities and reestablished normal commercial relations between the United States and France. In 1802, President Thomas Jefferson appointed Davie to negotiate a treaty with North Carolina’s remaining Tuscarora Indians. The agreement obligated the federal government to collect rent on Tuscarora land on behalf of the tribe until July 12, 1916, at which time the Tuscarora would relinquish their title to the state.
Running for public office once again in 1803, Davie soon grew disenchanted with politics and popular opinion. In particular, Davie made an unsuccessful effort to oust Democratic-Republican Congr