Curtis Hooks Brogden

Curtis Hooks Brogden
42nd Governor of North Carolina
In office July 11, 1874 – January 1, 1877
Preceded by	Tod R. Caldwell
Succeeded by	Zebulon Baird Vance
2nd Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina
In office 1873 – July 1874
Governor	Tod R. Caldwell
Preceded by	Tod R. Caldwell
Succeeded by	Thomas J. Jarvis
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina's 2nd district
In office March 4, 1877 - March 3, 1879
Preceded by	John A. Hyman
Succeeded by	William H. Kitchin
Personal details
Born	Curtis Hooks Brogden November 6, 1816 Wayne County, North Carolina
Died	January 5, 1901 (aged 84) Goldsboro, North Carolina
Political party	Democrat, Republican (after 1867)
Spouse(s)	none
Residence	Goldsboro, North Carolina
Profession	Farmer, Soldier, Politician
Religion	Quaker
Military service
Service/branch	North Carolina State Militia
Years of service	1834 -
Rank	major general

Curtis Hooks Brogden (November 6, 1816 – January 5, 1901) was a yeoman farmer and politician, and the 42nd Governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1874 to 1877 during the Reconstruction era. He succeeded to the position after the death of Governor Tod R. Caldwell, after having been elected as the 2nd Lieutenant Governor of the state on the Republican ticket in 1872.

Brogden had a long political career, first elected to state office in 1838 at the age of 22. Building a close friendship with editor William Woods Holden of the North Carolina Standard, he served nearly without a break in various state offices and lastly as US Congressman, essentially retiring from politics in 1878. He was elected to one more term in the state legislature in 1886.

Early life and education

He was born on November 6, 1816 in the Brogden family home ten miles southwest of Goldsboro, North Carolina, the son of a yeoman farmer. Although he attended the local district schools, like most North Carolina farm boys of his time his opportunity for higher education was limited, but Brogden was an auto-didact, learning by his own studies.

Military service

His father Pierce Brogden was a veteran of the War of 1812, and his grandfather, Thomas Brogden, served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Brogden continued the family tradition of military service and joined the North Carolina state militia at the age of 18. He was elected Captain at his second muster, and eventually rose to the rank of major general.

Political career

First elected to the North Carolina House of Commons in 1838 as a Jacksonian Democrat, Brogden was its youngest member at age 22. He became known as the "Eloquent Plowboy from Wayne" and served in the House until 1851. In 1838, he was also elected as Wayne County Justice of the Peace, a position he held for 20 consecutive years.

In 1852, Brogden was elected to the North Carolina Senate, where he served until 1857. That year he was elected by the General Assembly as State Comptroller, a post he held for ten years. He continued in office through the crises of secession, Civil War, and emancipation. During these decades he formed a political alliance with Holden who was appointed Governor of North Carolina by President Andrew Johnson in 1865 for a brief term, and then elected in 1868.

Support of Negro suffrage

After the Civil War, Radical Republicans in Congress were not content with President Johnson's moderate approach for reconstruction. Concerned that southern states passed Black Codes restricting freedmen, they passed the Military Reconstruction Act to temporarily replace state governments and try to remake the societies to incorporate full emancipation of African-American slaves, establish free labor and other rights of citizens for blacks. The Act stipulated that the former Confederate states had to include Negro male suffrage in their new constitutions.

These measures were opposed by most whites in the South, although North Carolina had extended the franchise to free blacks before rescinding it in 1835, following Nat Turner's slave rebellion. In North Carolina before the war, blacks made up about one-third of the population of the state, with a majority in the coastal areas and near parity in some Piedmont counties. Wilmington had had the largest proportion and number of free blacks before the war. Brogden supported extending the franchise.

He followed Holden into the Republican Party after the war. Brogden briefly left the Senate in 1867 after being elected on that issue to represent Wayne County at a state constitutional convention. In 1868 he was elected to the State Senate as a Republican, serving for three terms. He also was a member of the Electoral College supporting Republican, Ulysses S. Grant. In 1870 he was appointed as a US Collector of Internal Revenue. He supported Holden as governor and voted in the state legislature against his impeachment.

After being elected to the North Carolina Senate in 1868, Brogden served for four more years. In 1872 he was elected on the Republican ticket as lieutenant governor with Tod R. Caldwell. When Gov. Caldwell died in office in 1874, Brogden succeeded to the position of governor. By then white Democrats had regained control of the state legislature, in part by a program of suppression of black voting carried out by the Red Shirts.

During his term as Governor, Brogden tried to work with the legislature, and focused on higher education. He worked diligently to re-open the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he had been an appointed trustee from 1869 to 1872. Brogden also called for founding a college for blacks. While making efforts to lower the state debt, he supported construction of a state penitentiary as a public good.

While serving as Governor, Brogden was elected in 1876 as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district, which was majority black in the Piedmont area. It elected four of the African-American Republicans to serve in Congress from the state following the Civil War, three of them elected after the Reconstruction era.

Brogden served one term and was not re-nominated in 1878. By that time, federal troops had been withdrawn across the South and the Reconstruction era had decisively ended. Two years later Brogden attempted to regain his seat in Congress running as an independent in a three way race against Democratic incumbent William H. Kitchin, and Republican Orlando Hubbs but was unsuccessful. After leaving Congress, Brogden essentially retired from public life (with the exception of a single term, in 1887, representing Wayne County in the North Carolina House of Representatives). By then one of the largest landowners in Wayne County, Brogden devoted himself to farming.

Brogden's goal of establishing a college for blacks was finally realized more than a decade after he left the Governor's office. On March 7, 1887 The North Carolina General Assembly founded North Carolina State University as a land-grant college under the name "North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts." In the segregated system, it was open only to white students. Under terms of the The Second Morrill Act, in 1890 states were required to have colleges available to all races of students. In order to qualify for the land grants, North Carolina in 1891 established qualifying programs at what became North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a historically black college, first as part of Shaw Collegiate Institute in Raleigh.

Brogden died on January 5, 1901 in his hometown of Goldsboro, North Carolina and is buried there.

References

• Curtis Hooks Brogden at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Political offices
Preceded by Tod R. Caldwell	Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina 1873–1874	Succeeded by Thomas J. Jarvis
Preceded by Tod R. Caldwell	Governor of North Carolina July 11, 1874–January 1, 1877	Succeeded by Zebulon B. Vance
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by John A. Hyman	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina's 2nd congressional district 1877–1879	Succeeded by William H. Kitchin