Background
TURNER, Josiah, Jr. was born on December 27, 1821 in Hillsboro, North Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Josiah and Eliza (Evans) Turner.
Businessman congressman editor lawyer
TURNER, Josiah, Jr. was born on December 27, 1821 in Hillsboro, North Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Josiah and Eliza (Evans) Turner.
Private school, southern university.
He attended Caldwell Institute and the University of North Carolina, and in 1845, he was admitted to the North Carolina bar. In 1856, he married Sophia Devereux, by whom he had four sons and one daughter. Turner, who had a substantial law practice in Hillsboro, also served as a Whig in the North Carolina House from 1852 to 1856 and in the Senate from 1855 to 1862.
He voted against the calling of the state secession convention, but as soon as his state left the Union, he was commissioned a captain of cavalry. After he was disabled in the battle of New Bern, he was elected in 1863 as a peace candidate to the second Confederate House, where he was hostile to the Davis administration. He vehemently opposed the government’s use of slave labor and maintained that Davis had become an abolitionist.
Yet, he only owned four slaves. He opposed the tax-in-kind, believed Davis incompetent lo run the war, and, although in favor of peace, would not accept North Carolina’s plan for reconstruction in 1864. He served on the Foreign Affairs and Indian Affairs Committees.
When the war ended, he returned to his law practice in Hillsboro. He was elected to the U.S. House but was denied his seat by federal authorities. From 1866 to 1868, he was president of the North Carolina Railroad.
As editor of the Raleigh Sentinel that same year, he worked for the defeat of the carpetbag government in the state. Although Turner was considered erratic and violent, he was probably the person who was singly most responsible for the overthrow of Reconstruction in North Carolina. In 1876, he gave up his newspaper, and two years later, he lost a race in which he campaigned as an Independent for the U.S. House.
He was elected to the state House but was expelled in 1879 because he was accused of having supported the Reconstruction governments. He spent the years of his life after 1884 as a partisan Republican.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Spouse Sophia Devereux.
