University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Abstract

North Carolina's first state constitution [3], drafted in 1776, contained a provision for public support of education. However, it was not until 1789 that the state succeeded in chartering an institution, a "university supported by permanent funds and well endowed." When the University of North Carolina opened its doors in 1795, it became the first state institution of higher learning in the nation. Patriot leader and Revolutionary War [4] hero William Richardson Davie [5] led the fight to establish the university, an effort that sprang out of the mutual strivings for enlightenment and freedom of the backcountry settlers of Piedmont North Carolina and the plantation federalists of the Coastal Plain [6].