AHC/WI - Delayed North Carolina constitutional change

North Carolina before 1835 was going through some major growing pains. The population has shifted West but the power of mean in the East because of several factors, such as a few cities having the same rights counties did, as far as the legislature, all power being in the legislature - and thus most of the power being used by the Easterners - and in fact of the Senate even picking the governor instead of the governor being popularly elected, and so on.

The result was that after a variety of complaints by the Western part of North Carolina, including some calls for being another state, the railroads wound up being a reason for enough easterners to join with the westerners that a new state constitution was possible.

However, approval for a constitutional convention only passed the Senate by one vote and the legislature by a few.

What if this is delayed? How long could it be delayed? Would it be possible for the western part to become another state? Could it be delayed long enough that the Western part remains part of the Union in the Civil War?

It seems like with the way the railroads were growing a state constitutional change would be inevitable by the 1840s but it is an interesting question to see how long it could be dragged out, if it could be to the Civil War.
 
If it's delayed I think that we're not unlikely to see an armed rebellion or extensive political violence within NC long before we get to the Civil War. The east-west economic divide of North Carolina had been a major boiling point for decades, even under British rule, and had resulted in the War of Regulation just before the Revolution. The west of the state was growing in population, if not comparatively in wealth, and eventually the lack of proper representation is going to explode. There would be talk of reviving the State of Franklin but that likely wouldn't happen. I think that after some armed conflicts the East would compromise enough to settle the situation down.

But assuming there's no substantial reforms I'm not sure that would necessarily trigger a major pro-Union sentiment. Unlike western Virginia, western NC was fairly pro-Confederate. Something like only 7% of the soldiers from that region fought for the Union despite owning few slaves themselves. More people were probably ambivalent to the war than were Unionist. Even if we double or triple support it's still not a majority.

Interestingly though I think that the reforms demanded by western NC were part of a general political and economic movement in the US at the time to increase democracy and reduce the influence of the wealthy land owning class that had dominated since before the Revolution. The 1835 constitution has a lot of echos in the Anti-Rent War of New York that was happening only a few years later. Seems very much like a proto-Populist movement.

Once fascinating point of your link that I was unaware of is that pre-1835 the NC constitution didn't care about your race as long as you were wealthy and landed. Keeping that would probably have some strange repercussions. Race in NC was often used to keep the focus away from the significant class divides so allowing the wealthy black vote may have some ability to push poor whites and blacks closer politically.
 
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