Background

Daniel Reaves Goodloe was born on May 28, 1814, in Louisburg, North Carolina. He was the son of Dr. Kemp Strother and Mary Reaves (Jones) Goodloe.

Education

Goodloe attended a local academy for some years and was then apprenticed to a printer in Oxford, North Carolina. True to the adage, he never thereafter got far away from printer’s ink, beginning his journalistic career as soon as he reached his majority by publishing the Examiner in Oxford. It soon failed and he went to Tennessee and attended a school in Mount Pleasant.

In North Carolina, he studied law under Robert B. Gilliam and was admitted to the bar but was unsuccessful in practice.

Career

In 1836, Goodloe volunteered for service against the Creek Indians in Alabama. They soon made peace and his company then volunteered for the Seminole War and served in Florida. The pension Goodloe later received for this service supported him in his old age.

He was offered a nomination to the legislature but declined because he was out of harmony with the people of the state on the subject of slavery, and finally in 1844 drifted to Washington where Senator Willie P. Mangum secured for him a position with the Whig-Standard, of which he shortly became an editor.

That soon failed, and he edited the Georgetown Advocate and later the Christian Statesman until 1852 when he was made assistant editor of the National Era, an anti-slavery paper established in 1847 to advocate the principles of the Liberty party. When Gamaliel Bailey, the founder and editor, died, Goodloe succeeded him and held the position until the outbreak of the war caused the collapse of the paper.

Into its columns, he brought writers of distinction, such as Grace Greenwood, Mary Mapes Dodge, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Mrs. Southworth.

In 1844, he published in the New-York American an anti-slavery article, the first of a considerable number which came from his pen. After the suspension of the National Era, he was Washington correspondent for the New York Times until 1862, when President Lincoln appointed him chairman of the commission to carry out the compensation provision of the act emancipating slaves in the District of Columbia.

From the close of 1863, he did editorial work on the Washington Chronicle, and later in 1865, President Johnson appointed him United States marshal for North Carolina.

Achievements

• Goodloe’s most important writings include the New-York American article of 1844, later published as a pamphlet entitled, Inquiry into the Causes. During 1894-95, he wrote a series of articles on the same subject for the Raleigh News and Observer. A close friend of Greeley and Raymond, he wrote constantly for the New York Tribune and the New York Times.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The southern platform: Volume 1

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The southern platform: Volume 2

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Inquiry Into the Causes Which Have Retarded the Accumulation of Wealth and Increase of Population in the Southern States: In Which the Question of ... in a Politico-Economical Point of View

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The southern platform: or, Manual of southern sentiment on the subject of slavery

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Two tracts for the times: the one entitled Negro-slavery, no evil: by B.F. Stringfellow, of Missouri : The other, an answer to the inquiry Is it ... Kanzas? by D.R. Goodloe, of North Carolina.

    (This volume is produced from digital images from the Corn...)

Politics

Goodloe supported Johnson’s policy of restoration until 1866 when he became convinced that it was not sufficiently drastic.

He accordingly signed the call for the Southern Loyalist convention, and, advocating congressional reconstruction, joined in the organization of the Republican party in the state in 1867. He was violently opposed, however, to the prescriptive tendencies of the Carpet-baggers and of certain native leaders, such as Holden, whom he disliked and distrusted, and he soon parted company with them.

In 1868, he bitterly opposed the ratification of the “Carpet-bag” constitution and was an independent candidate for governor against Holden.

Views

While Goodloe was still an apprentice, his reading in the Richmond Whig and Richmond Examiner, both advocates of emancipation in Virginia, of the debates on the subject, had converted him to anti-slavery views; and he quickly became a full-fledged Abolitionist.

Personality

Goodloe was attractive and genial, generous to a fault, unswervingly courageous, charitable, and tender-hearted. He had a genius for friendship and held the affection and confidence even of political enemies.

Connections

Father:

Kemp Strother Goodloe

Mother:

Mary Reaves (Jones) Goodloe