1. While the Republic of the United States was so divided and agitated as to matters of policy touching the interests of all the Union, there were, at the same time, many issues of local importance confined to North Carolina. 2. The old habit of annually changing the place for holding the sessions of the Legislature had first brought about a feeling of sectionalism between the eastern and western counties. Western men had first learned to combine in securing Hillsboro rather than New Bern for this purpose. It was natural and right for them to seek to lessen as much as possible the distance that separated the State capital from their homes. 1829. 3. The western counties were also anxious to change the system of representation, so that their weight in population should be felt in legislation. As it was, the east held control of both Houses of the General Assembly. Hertford, with five hundred voters, had exactly the weight of Buncombe or Orange, with its thousands. Eastern men would not consent to modify this hardship. They insisted that the Halifax Constitution was still to be adhered to, and refused to go into a constitutional convention for fear of changes that might subject eastern wealth to taxation in order to secure the construction of highways in the west. 1831. 4. On the morning of the 21st of June the capitol at Raleigh was burned. The fire was caused by the carelessness of a workman who was covering the roof. The building was a total loss, as was also the beautiful statue of Washington, which stood in the rotunda. A new capitol was erected upon the site of the old building, by act of the Legislature of 1832. It is an elegant structure, and was built of native granite, at a cost of over a half million of dollars. 5. The burning of the Capitol, or State-House, as it was called, was a calamity and inconvenience, but the chief regret was over the loss of the marble statue of Washington. This fine work had recently been received from the famous sculptor Canova, in Italy, and was said to be one of his finest productions. [NOTE--By a freak of liberality, unusual in those good old days, when the State never spent over ninety thousand dollars a year for all purposes, when taxes were six cents on the one hundred dollars value of real estate only, and personal property was entirely exempt, the General Assembly had placed in the rotunda a magnificent statue of Washington, of Carrara marble, by the great Canova. It was the pride and boast of the state. Our people remembered with peculiar pleasure that La Fayette had stood at its base and commended the beauty of the carving and fitness of the honor to the great man, under whom he had served in our war of independence, and whom he regarded with a passionate and reverential love. --(Hon. Kemp P. Battle. LL. D. ).] 1834.