Bartholomew F. Moore

Bartholomew Figures Moore (January 29, 1801 – November 27, 1878) was an American attorney and politician. As a Whig, he served in the North Carolina legislature then as Attorney General of the state from 1848 to 1851. He also was head of the North Carolina Bar for several years, becoming known as "father of the bar". A Unionist, he staunchly and vocally opposed secession and the Confederacy.

Early life Moore was born January 29, 1801, in Halifax, North Carolina. His parents were Sally Lowe and James Moore, who served as a sailor in the Revolutionary War. He attended Vine Hill Academy in Scotland Neck, North Carolina. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1820 and was admitted to the bar in 1823.

Career Moore began practicing law in Nashville, North Carolina. Initially unsuccessful, he gained a reputation as a skilled attorney in the 1834 North Carolina v. Negro Will case invoking slave's rights which gained national interest. The case center around Will, a slave who was convicted of murdering his overseer. Following an altercation with another slave over a hoe, Will broke the hoe then left to resume work elsewhere. After learning of the incident, the overseer pursued Will on horseback; Will fled so the overseer shot him in the back. Eventually the overseer caught him and in the struggle the overseer was injured causing his death. Will was convicted of murder and sentenced to be hung as the lower court held a slave had no right to self-defense against a master. Representing the Will's owner on appeal, Moore successfully argued before the North Carolina Supreme Court a slave had the right the defend himself from his overseer if under threat of life, thus not murder arguing "Absolute power is irresponsible power, circumscribed by no limits save its own imbecility".

In 1835 Moore returned to Halifax opening a practice there. In that same year, Moore was appointed Attorney General by then Governor William Graham to replace Edward Stanly who had resigned. Moore left the office in 1851 to join the commission to revise North Carolina's statutes along with Asa Biggs and Romulus M. Saunders, codifying the Revised Code of North Carolina enacted by the General Assembly in 1854.

Civil War Quote frame|"Civil war can be glorious news to none but demons, or thoughtless fools, or maddened men."|Bartholomew F. Moore|4=April 15, 1861 he staunchly and vocally opposed secession believing it was unconstitutional and detested the proposition of going to war, pleading to the public in letters to the press to keep the Union intact. When a judge required attorneys coming before the newly formed Federal court to plead oath to the Confederate States, Moore gathered his belongings and walked out.

Holden appointed Moore to lead the North Carolina Commission of the Freeman, a three person commission charged with recommending changes to North Carolina's law required for emancipated freedman. To establish both equal rights and responsibilities as whites, the commission recommended repealing references to color. Major exceptions were interracial marriage was explicitly illegal and no provisions for the right to serve on juries or vote. Even so, the recommendations were considered the most liberal compared to other states and largely adopted by the legislature in 1866.

In the decade after the war, Moore's practice mostly focused on Federal cases with his son-in-law joining the practice in 1871.

In his will he wrote: