William Gaston (1778-1844) of New Bern, N.C., was a lawyer, state legislator, United States representative, and North Carolina Supreme Court judge. The collection consists of the papers of William Gaston, including personal, business, and political correspondence, 1791-1844; law notes and other papers; notes, 1896-1915, of Judge Henry Groves Connor (1852-1924) for his proposed biography of Gaston; and pictures. Topics include the Catholic Church in America; banks and banking; family life; national elections; preparations for war with France in 1800 and subsequent negotiations with France; financial affairs of the United States; anticipated effects upon the United States of the ending of the Napoleonic wars; Federalist Party strategies; legal matters concerning the outbreak of the War of 1812; the nullification controversy; proposals for the appropriation of public lands for the support of public education; internal improvements; life in West Florida in the 1830s; and an 1832 speech in Chapel Hill, N.C., in which Gaston condemned both the nullification scheme and the institution of slavery. Major correspondents include George E. Badger, John Fanning Burgwyn, Thomas Pollock Devereux, Robert Donaldson, Alexander Hamilton, Francis Joseph Kron, Willie Person Mangum, Matthias Manly, John Marshall, Thomas Ruffin, Marcus Cicero Stephens, David Lowry Swain, Roger B. Taney, and Daniel Webster. The Addition of February 2001 is a Gaston family register dated through the 1880s, along with enclosures, 1834-1901.
