She also inspected almshouses along the way. The South gave her solace. She loved the scents of magnolia and jasmine, the thick spanish moss hanging from the branches of so many trees. The beauty and orderliness of the sweeping plantations appealed to her sense of propriety, but now she felt guilty with Anne’s words about slavery still ringing in her ears. She spent the winter at Raleigh and drafted a memorial for the legislature. Her Whig friends told her the bill would be defeated because the state was poor and lacked resources. Undaunted and encouraged by prominent North Carolinians and people of faith with personal concerns about the insane, she implemented the same strategy she used in Washington: she selected a member of the opposition party, “Miss-Dixed” him with her passion and her charm, and convinced her Whig friends and their colleagues to support him when he introduced the bill in the state senate. The bill passed, and she allowed herself a celebratory moment with a glass of tea at the Raleigh boardinghouse in which she was staying.
