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Chapter one Most Horrible of Crimes Suicide in the Old South I n 1798, the Philanthropic Society, one of the Universityof North Carolina ’s two debating societies, considered whether suicidewas ever justifiable . Although vigorous debate ensued on both sides of the issue, the final resolution was unanimous: suicide was never justifiable. Even in the case of the legendary Roman matron Lucretia, whose suicide after being raped inspired the Roman Republic and countless Renaissance artists, the students concluded that her act was unwarranted.1 This absolute condemnation of suicide typified the attitude of antebellum white North Carolinians . In their public and private discourse, they damned suicide as one of the most deplorable acts that an individual could commit. Their rhetoric affirmed a deeply held belief that suicide violated divine, social, and natural order. Antebellum newspaper accounts routinely condemned white suicide victims for their action. Describing the death of John Domler, a German immigrant living in Salisbury, theWinston-Salem People’s Press claimed that he “put a period to his life by committing that most horrible of crimes, suicide , with a pistol.”2 In 1843, the Highland Messenger adopted a similar tone to describe the shooting suicide of Francis M. Peeples, the eighteen-yearold son of a prominent lawyer. Declaring that the suicide was “horrible to relate,” the paper explained that it printed an account of “the horrid affair” in the hope that it would “deter others from pursuing the same course. What a solemn warning to theyouth of ourcountry!”3 Likewise, the People’s Press reported in 1857 on the suicide of James Henry Robinson, a student at the University of North Carolina, observing that “we have not learned what cause led him to commit the terrible deed.”4 Newspapers repeatedly suicide 12 described suicides in such terms, “horrible” and “terrible” the most common labels. Newspaper accounts reported the physical minutiae of suicides in graphic detail. For example, the Raleigh Register described Henry Picard’s 1851 suicide at length, reporting that he “first attempted to cut his throat, and inflicted upon himself a frightful wound; failing in this, he took down a gun, put the muzzle in his mouth, and attempted to blow out his brains— but it would not go off. He finally seized a canister of powder, to which he applied a torch, and a terrible explosion followed, tearing open thewindows and shattering everything in its way. The unfortunate victim of his own rashness was found in a shockingly mutilated condition, but not yet dead! He lingered until the next day, when he was released from his agonizing pains by death.”5 Likewise, the Highland Messenger described the suicide of Henry Johnson in bloody detail, noting that “the head was half disengaged from the body, his clothes and the ground around him were dyed in blood, and by his side lay a dull pocket knife with which no doubt the desperate deed was perpetrated.”6 The inclusion of these ghastly descriptions ostensibly condemned suicide victims. The private discourse about suicide revealed similar sentiments. Burdened by failing business prospects, Enoch Faw, a lawyer and recent graduate of Trinity College in Randolph County, wrote in his diary in 1858, “Doing nothing will kill me. It makes me tired of life. It leads to no good result. If life don’t amount to something noble I don’t want to live longer.The sooner I get off the stage the better. Suicide would be a temptation. Lest I could commit suicide rather than live an inglorious life.” Fearing the social stigma associated with killing himself, however, Faw could not bring himself to act upon his impulses. In his next diary entry, dated less than seven months later, he noted, “I feel peculiarly well this morning—comfortable, cheerful, just-right.”7 Business had improved. While Faw feared the social condemnation that suicidewould bring, H.T. Brown, a student at the University of North Carolina, could not bring himself to end his own life because of what he thought might happen to his soul after death. Emotionally and physically abused by his father and plagued by his own sense of inadequacy, Brown wrote in his diary in December 1857, “I sometimes have a high and vaulting ambition, and think I will someday make a grand man, but then I have too much common sense to delude myself with that dream for any length of time.” A month later, his depression led him to the brink of suicide. However, fear that suicide would sentence him...

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