Richard Spaight Donnell

Richard Spaight Donnell (September 20, 1820 – June 3, 1867) was a United States Congressional Representative from North Carolina and a prominent state political leader before, during, and after the Civil War. He was born in New Bern, Craven County, North Carolina, into a distinguished political family; he was the grandson of Richard Dobbs Spaight, a signer of the United States Constitution and one of the Founding Fathers. A scion of a pioneering and aristocratic family, Donnell was raised on his father’s plantation and in town homes in and around New Bern, where he grew up in an environment of political influence and social responsibility that shaped his later public career.

Donnell received his early education from private tutors and then attended the elite New Bern Academy, one of the leading preparatory schools in the state. Because of his religious and academic qualifications, he was admitted to Yale College, where he pursued further education in civil and church law and history, gaining a grounding in legal and constitutional principles that would inform his later political life. After his studies at Yale, he returned to North Carolina and enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1839 to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1840 and commenced the practice of law in New Bern, North Carolina, establishing himself as a young attorney in a region long associated with his family’s public service.

In addition to his legal practice, Donnell became involved in the North Carolina militia, in keeping with the expectations of men of his social standing in the antebellum South. He raised a force for the state and, as commanding officer, organized volunteers for service in the Mexican–American War. In that capacity he trained and hired captains and lower-ranking officers, contributing to the state’s military preparedness and gaining experience in organization and leadership that would later be sought by state authorities during the Civil War.

During the Mexican–American War, Donnell entered national politics. As a member of the Whig Party representing North Carolina, he was elected to the Thirtieth Congress and served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1847, to March 3, 1849. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history marked by territorial expansion and intensifying sectional tensions. While in Congress he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his constituents as a Southern Whig. However, his support for the war proved controversial among some in his own party, and it cost him the backing of other Whigs. As a result, he was not a candidate for renomination in 1848. After leaving Congress, he resumed the practice of law, relocating his principal practice to Washington, North Carolina, and became increasingly involved in state politics as national debates over slavery and the Union grew more heated in the 1850s.

Originally supportive of maintaining the Union, Donnell sought compromise as the secession crisis deepened. As a delegate to the North Carolina state secession convention in 1861, he was a proponent of calling a national constitutional convention to resolve the crisis through constitutional means. When that proposal was rejected and, following President Abraham Lincoln’s call for militia forces to occupy the seceding Southern states, Donnell concluded that reconciliation on those terms was impossible and voted in support of North Carolina’s secession from the Union. During the American Civil War he was elected to the North Carolina General Assembly for the 1862–1864 term and served as speaker of the House. Because of his prior experience in military organization, his counsel on military matters was sought by state leaders, and he helped develop and organize North Carolina for a war footing, contributing to the mobilization of men and resources for the Confederate cause.

The war proved disastrous for Donnell and his family, as it did for many members of the antebellum Southern elite. The Union’s total war campaign in North Carolina and neighboring regions inflicted heavy damage on his family’s fortunes. Properties that had been built up since the colonial era, including holdings associated with his grandfather Richard Dobbs Spaight, suffered severely; several properties were burned by invading and looting Union soldiers. As Confederate resistance collapsed in 1865, Donnell, like other Confederate political leaders, was pursued by Union military authorities and was hunted by Union army forces until an armistice was declared. The end of the conflict left his health and finances badly impaired.

With the restoration of peace and the beginning of Presidential Reconstruction, North Carolina was invited to reestablish its civil government and seek readmission to the Union. In recognition of his long-standing leadership in the state, Donnell was elected a delegate to the North Carolina constitutional convention of 1865, which was charged with revising the state’s fundamental law to meet postwar conditions. He was subsequently elected to the United States Congress in 1866 as part of North Carolina’s effort to resume representation in the federal legislature. However, the so‑called Radical Republican “Rump Congress,” which controlled national Reconstruction policy, refused to seat many Southern representatives, including Donnell, on the grounds that Reconstruction in the former Confederate states was incomplete and that additional guarantees of civil and political rights were required.

In 1867, as Congressional Reconstruction intensified, federal military authorities assumed direct control over much of the South. When what his contemporaries in North Carolina described as a Republican coup d’état of 1867 was launched under the Reconstruction Acts, Donnell was arrested by the U.S. Army along with other members of the North Carolina state leadership. His health, already weakened by the strains of war and its aftermath, further declined while under military detention. Richard Spaight Donnell died in custody in New Bern, North Carolina, on June 3, 1867. His death marked the end of a family line that had played a central role in North Carolina’s political life from the colonial period through the Civil War, and his family’s properties, including those established by his grandfather, never fully recovered from the economic and physical devastation of the conflict.