Agenda 02-03-2026; 8-i - National Register Recommendation for Moorefields

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40 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service/National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB Control No.1024-0018 Moorefields (Additional Documentation) Orange County, N.C. Name of Property County and State that the state's recent legislature defied the Treat of Paris and the state's constitution,but there had been to date no precedent for overturning state laws.Ultimately,the judges decided that they could not enforce a law (such as the 1785 prohibition against hearing cases brought by Loyalists) that were in violation of the constitution, and Bayard v. Singleton went to trial. The court ruled with Singleton, but the case and the decision leading to it "soon served as a precedent for the exercise of judicial review by other American courts,partly because it was one of the first such opinions to be published and widely circulated among lawyers [and by]the early 1800s,the practice of judicial review would become common in the United States."98 In 1788, Moore led the Federalist's cause and lobbied the state legislature (returned temporarily to Hillsborough) to ratify the U.S. Constitution. However, the role of Attorney General required Moore to travel by horse and carriage on a constant circuit throughout the state.99 He resigned the position in January 1791, and although some biographers cite health concerns for his resignation, Junius Davis,writing about Moore in 1899, elaborated with the statement, In 1790, indignant at what he considered an unconstitutional infringement upon his rights by the creation of the office of the Solicitor General, and being worn and exhausted by the constant and arduous toil and labor entailed upon him by a large practice, he resigned his office; and virtually abandoning his practice, retired to his plantation!00 Almost as soon as he occupied Moorefields, Moore devoted his time to promoting education in the region. In 1788,Moore acted as a trustee to the local Hillsborough Academy.101 The University of North Carolina was chartered in 1789, sited in Chapel Hill, and opened to students in 1795. From 1789 through 1807, Moore sat on the nascent university's board of trustees. Moore and his former colleague, Davie, "had done most to prepare the public mind for the establishment of this University," by lobbying the General Assembly to pass the bill for its creation.102 Then, in 1791, Moore and Davie drafted the ordinance that would seat the university in Chapel Hill and presented the measure to the state legislature for approval. By December 1792, Moore was named one of seven commissioners tasked with surveying the campus and overseeing the construction of buildings at the New Hope Chapel Hill site. Moreover, Moore donated $200 (the largest single sum collected)by 1793.103 But whatever retirement from politics Moore may have taken after resigning as Attorney General was short-lived at best. From 1792 to 1794, he served in the state's House of Commons as a representative of Brunswick County. In 1794, Moore campaigned for the U.S. Senate as a Federalist,to replace Senator Benjamin Hawkins,but at a time when such decisions were made by legislators and not the populace, he lost by one vote. An advertisement in the May 31, 1798 issue of The Wilmington Gazette shows that Moore promoted himself for the position a second time, this time to replace Senator Alexander Martin, but he was not elected.104 However, in his retirement,Moore gained the notice of political elites at the federal level. Correspondence between President John Adams and James McHenry, the Secretary of War, in 1797 mention Moore, who McHenry thought was"perhaps a man of more genius that Mr. [William] Davie.Was very iminent [sic] at the bar from which he has retired. He is a good federalist and very wealthy. Mr. Davie's manners more popular."10' By 1798, President Adams had appointed Moore as a commissioner to Section 8 page 38