Zebulon Baird Vance

Background

Zebulon Baird was born on May 13, 1830, in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. He was the third child and second son of David Vance, a farmer and country merchant, and Mira Margaret Baird.

Education

After attending the neighborhood schools, Vance went to Washington College, Tennessee in 1843 (at age thirteen), but withdrew the next year on the death of his father, who left a widow and seven children.

Later, he studied law at the University of North Carolina from 1851 to 1852.

He was never a close student of the law and such success as he won at the bar was as an advocate.

Career

Zebulon Baird Vance received his county-court license in 1852, settled at Asheville, and was immediately elected county solicitor. In 1853, he was admitted to practice in the superior court.

His congressional career was characterized by support of Union measures and opposition to the disunion sentiment then arising in the South. He was elected to the 37th Congress but was prevented from taking his seat by the secession of North Carolina. In the presidential election of 1860, Vance supported the Bell and Everett ticket. He came out of the campaign with a reputation as a masterly stump speaker. Though upholding the constitutional right of secession, before April 1861, he opposed the exercise of the right for any cause then existing but favored calling a state convention as a means of "demanding terms of the Northern people" and of making "our voices heard among the Southern states whose course is rapidly inoculating the people with dogmas which we cannot approve."

The convention was defeated by popular vote but Vance continued his campaign against secession until Lincoln's call for troops. Thereupon he promptly reversed his position and urged North Carolina to support the other Southern states. On May 20, a state convention, called by the legislature, adopted an ordinance of secession. In the meantime, Vance had organized at Asheville (May 4) a company of "Rough and Ready Guards" of which he was elected captain. During the summer of 1861, he was on active duty with his company along the North Carolina coast. In August, he was elected colonel of the 26th North Carolina Regiment and led it with conspicuous gallantry in the New Bern campaign and in the Seven Days' battle near Richmond.

In the state election of 1862, the Confederate administration, which had become unpopular in North Carolina, furnished the chief issues. For governor, the Confederate party, as the Democrats then called themselves, nominated William Johnston, an "original secessionist;" the Conservatives, composed chiefly of old-line Union Whigs, led by W. W. Holden, editor of the North Carolina Standard and a caustic critic of the Davis administration, selected Vance. Accepting the nomination, Vance pledged himself to "the prosecution of the war at all hazards and to the utmost extremity". Despite this positive statement, the Raleigh Register, organ of the Confederate party, denounced his action as disloyal, dubbed him "the Yankee candidate," and warned the people that the North would accept his election as "an indisputable sign that the Union sentiment is in the ascendancy in the heart of the Southern Confederacy". He won by an unprecedented majority, was inaugurated September 8, and in his inaugural address committed his administration to vigorous war policy.

Unfortunately, the Richmond government chose to accept the Confederate party's misrepresentation of Vance's position and thus laid the basis for most of the controversies it had with him during his two administrations. In his efforts to keep the North Carolina regiments recruited to their full strength, to equip and provision them, and to sustain the morale of the civilian population, Vance was handicapped by the critical, if not hostile, attitude of the Confederate administration.

Its officials charged him with deliberately obstructing the enforcement of the conscription acts. Vance certainly thought them "harsh and odious, " and probably unconstitutional, and insisted that it was for the courts, not the conscription officers, to determine that question. He refused to permit the conscription of state officials and demanded that military officers respect the writ of habeas corpus when issued by a proper court. Afterward, he made it his "proudest boast" that during his administration no man in North Carolina was denied the privilege of the great writ, the right of trial by jury, or the equal protection of the law. He tried in vain to explain to President Davis that his policy was designed to mitigate as far as possible the severities of the law that might be enforced among an "unwilling people."

Though critical of their administration of the law, Vance gave the conscription officers his full support in every effort to enforce it that he thought legal. In 1864, he wrote to the President that its enforcement in the state had been "ruthless and unrelenting," and the fact that 18, 585 North Carolina conscripts were enrolled in the Confederate armies by September 1864 seems to justify his statement. By 1863, the North Carolina mountains were filled with evaders of conscription and soldiers from practically every Confederate state.

To the Confederate authorities, these men were "deserters" and deserved no consideration; to Vance, they were "absentees" who should be "persuaded" to return to their duty. Accordingly, in January by proclamation, he offered a pardon to all North Carolina soldiers who should return to their regiments by a stated date. His proclamation reported a colonel, "has brought in a great many stragglers, deserters, or other absentees that never would have otherwise come in". Vance himself wrote in a private letter: "Deserters are pouring thro'. To supplement the inadequate resources of the state, Vance procured from the legislature of 1862-63 an appropriation of $2, 324, 000 for the purchase of cotton and naval stores to be exchanged for supplies abroad, sent agents to England to make purchases, and organized a fleet of swift steamers to run the blockade into the port of Wilmington. They were distributed chiefly to North Carolina soldiers and civilians, but "large quantities were turned over to the Confederate Government for the troops for other states."

In a single shipment in 1863, for instance, Vance sent 14, 000 uniforms to Longstreet's army in Tennessee. The Confederate government disapproved of Vance's blockade-running operations and offered "downright opposition" to them. Nevertheless, these operations not only supplied the soldiers but also caught the imagination of the people and greatly strengthened their morale. By 1863, Holden had become convinced that the struggle for Southern independence was hopeless and inaugurated a campaign for peace and the restoration of the Union. At first, he advocated peace through negotiations by the Confederate government with the United States government, but failing to move President Davis, he shifted his position to a demand for peace by separate state action. The movement received widespread support and Holden counted on its popularity to force Vance to take the lead. But Vance proved unexpectedly independent, declared his inflexible opposition to the scheme, and on it broke with Holden. Thereupon Holden announced his candidacy for governor in 1864. The issue, he declared, was simply peace or war.

Accepting the issue as thus defined, Vance threw himself into the campaign with all his vigor. Hitherto Holden's pen had been the most effective political weapon in the state; it was now matched by one which proved even more powerful the oratory of Vance. Vance was elected by an overwhelming majority, and thus held the great mass of North Carolinians to the support of a cause which most of them felt to be contrary to their real interests. In 1865, certain Confederate congressmen and senators, unable to persuade President Davis to open peace negotiations with the United States government, agreed upon a plan of peace by separate state action and selected North Carolina to lead the way. At their request, William A. Graham laid their plan before Vance, but Vance flatly refused to have anything to do with it. If other states were whipped, he said, let them say so; as for himself, he declined to have his state "lead the roll of infamy".

When Sherman approached Raleigh in April 1865, Vance attempted to negotiate with him with a view to procuring his recognition of the state government. Failing, and being erroneously informed that Sherman intended to arrest him as a political prisoner, Vance left Raleigh, April 12, for Charlotte to consult with President Davis as to his future course. After an unsatisfactory conference, he determined to proceed without further regard for the Confederate authorities. Accordingly, on May 2, at Greensboro, he surrendered to General Schofield, who directed him to join his family at Statesville and there await further orders. Arrested by order of President Johnson on his thirty-fifth birthday, he was sent to Washington and imprisoned in the Old Capitol Prison. He was held there until July 6, when he was released on parole. No reason was ever officially assigned for his arrest or his release.

Returning to North Carolina, Vance formed a law partnership in Charlotte. On June 3, 1865, while in prison, in compliance with the President's amnesty proclamation of May 29, he filed his application for a pardon, which was finally granted March 11, 1867. Again free to enter politics, he was elected in 1870 to the United States Senate, but after two years of vain effort to have his disabilities under the Fourteenth Amendment removed, he surrendered his certificate of election to the legislature in January 20, 1872. Soon thereafter Congress removed his disabilities. At the next session of the legislature (1872-1873), he was the Democratic nominee for the Senate but was defeated by another Democrat through a combination of bolting Democrats and the Republican members.

In 1876, the Democrats girded themselves to overthrow the Republican regime and undo the work of Reconstruction, and selected Vance as their candidate for governor. The Republicans nominated Judge Thomas Settle, who challenged Vance to a joint debate. In Settle, Vance found the ablest opponent he had ever met on the stump; but in all that makes up a great popular orator, Vance was much his superior. He was elected and inaugurated on January 1, 1877. His administration was distinguished by a revival of railroad enterprises; the stimulus it gave to agriculture and industry; the enlargement and improvement of public schools and charitable institutions for both races; the repudiation of the fraudulent Reconstruction state bonds and the adjustment of the state's legal debt on a basis acceptable to its creditors. It marked the beginning of a new era in North Carolina. Vance served only two of the four years of his term.

In 1879, he was again elected to the United States Senate and took his seat on March 18. Reelected in 1885 and in 1891, he served in the Senate until his death. His senatorial career added both to his fame and to his hold on his constituents. He was a prodigious worker, a diligent student of public problems, and an able debater. An important function of Southern senators in those years was to serve as mediators between the victorious North and the defeated South. In this work, few senators were so effective as Vance. His colleagues, with whom he was very popular, soon learned that while devoted to the interests of the South, he nursed no bitterness toward the North.

To the North, he was a defender and interpreter of, but never an apologist for, the South; upon the South, he urged the duty of genuine acceptance of the verdict of the war and unfeigned loyalty to the restored Union. It was Vance's misfortune throughout most of his senatorial career to be cast in the role of a minority senator, whether the Republicans or the Democrats were in power. Upon him, in 1890, fell the chief burden of opposition in the Senate to the McKinley Tariff Bill.

Achievements

• Zebulon Baird Vance is a name known to most North Carolinians. Having served his state as governor during the critical years of the Civil War, Vance became a symbol of leadership, integrity, and loyalty.
  
  Vance's engaging personality and lengthy public career gained for him an admiration from North Carolinians that no other state official has ever enjoyed. To the multitude especially he was a beloved leader. Ex-Confederate soldiers and their families were not quick to forget his efforts to care for them in time of war and how he defended their liberties and preserved their honor.
  
  There are several monuments dedicated to Vance: Vance Monument in Asheville, North Carolina, with the Biltmore Building in the rear; An obelisk similar to the Washington Monument in Washington, D. C. is dedicated to Vance in Pack Square, Asheville. Historic Museum on West Sharpe Street in Statesville, North Carolina, a home to which Vance fled after Sherman captured Raleigh. A statue on the south grounds of the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh. A bronze in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D. C. A small monument located where his post-war home once stood (1865–1894), at Sixth and College Streets, in Charlotte. One of the administrative buildings at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is named Vance Hall in his honor. A portrait of Vance hangs in the Dialectic Chamber of The Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His birthplace is a state historic site in Weaverville. Several locations and schools in North Carolina bear Vance's name: The town of Zebulon, in Wake County. The town of Vanceboro, in Craven County; Vance County, NC; Zebulon B. Vance High School in Charlotte; Zeb Vance Elementary School in Kittrell.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Scattered Nation

    ( )

    1916
  • The papers of Zebulon Vance 1987
  • Sketches of North Carolina 1857
  • The Duties of Defeat: An Address Delivered Before the Two Literary Societies of the University of North Carolina, June 7th, 1866 1866
  • The Last Days of the War in North Carolina: An Address by Hon. Z. B. Vance, Delivered Feb. 23, 1885, at the Third Annual Reunion of the Association of ... Academy of Music, Baltimore 1855
  • To the Citizens of the Eighth Congressional District of North Carolina

Politics

Politics, not the law, was Vance's major interest. Having been reared in "devotion to the Federal Union," he began his political career as a Henry Clay Whig. Upon the dissolution of the Whig party, he declined to follow some of his fellow Whigs into the Democratic party, which he believed to be saturated with a "bitter spirit of disunion," and aligned himself with the newly organized American party.

Views

Vance was a determined opponent of the internal revenue system, not only because it adversely affected the whiskey and tobacco industries of his state but also because it was notoriously a source of fraud and political corruption. During Cleveland's two administrations, he broke with the President on civil service reform and the money question.

He thought the Civil Service Act unconstitutional and as an ardent party man was indignant that the President treated his recommendations as to federal appointments in North Carolina with but scant respect. His last speech in the Senate was in opposition to the repeal of the Sherman Silver Act.

Quotations: "My arm was extended upward pleading for peace and the Union of our Fathers. When my hand came down, it fell slowly and sadly by the side of a Secessionist."

Personality

Vance was a tariff-for-revenue man and for many years was the minority leader on the finance committee. With the crude, unlettered farmers of his mountain circuit from whom the jurors were drawn, ready wit, broad humor, quick repartee, and boisterous eloquence were indispensable to success, and in the use of these weapons, Vance was unsurpassed.

He was a great opposition senator, but his name is not connected with any piece of constructive legislation. Vance's close application to his work undermined his health and impaired one of his eyes. An operation for its removal in 1891 left him almost a nervous wreck. He vainly sought rest and health in foreign travel. In 1894, his physician ordered a complete rest in Florida.

Quotes from others about the person

• "He was the Mount Mitchell of all our great men, and in the affections and love of the people, he towered above them all. As ages to come will not be able to mar the grandeur and greatness of Mount Mitchell, so they will not be able to efface from the hearts and minds of the people the name of their beloved Vance." - T. J. Jarvis
  
  "There never lived such a stump speaker as Zeb Vance." - George Edmund Badger
  
  "As war governor, Vance endeared himself forever to his people. He mitigated the horrors of war by insisting on the precedence of civil law and stoutly protected the state from the uncomfortable militarism of the Confederate government."

Interests

• Vance was fond of books and read widely in history and biography.

Connections

By Vance's first wife, Harriette Newell Espy, of North Carolina, to whom he was married on August 3, 1853, Vance had five sons. She died in 1878 and in 1880, he married Florence Steele Martin, of Kentucky, who survived him. They had no children.

Father:

David Vance

1792-1844

Mother:

Mira Baird Vance

1802-1878

Wife:

Florence Steele Martin Vance

1840-1924

late wife:

Harriette Newell Espy Vance

1832-1878

Sister:

Laura Henrietta Vance Neilson

1826-1900

Brother:

Robert Brank Vance

1828-1899

Brother:

James Noel Vance

1832-1855

Sister:

Ann Edgeworth Vance Price

1835-1915

Sister:

Sarah Priscilla Vance Hale

1838-1914

Son:

Robert Espy Vance

1854-1855

Son:

Charles Noel Vance

1856-1922

Son:

David Mitchell Vance

1857-1894

Son:

Zebulon Baird Vance

1860-1926

Son:

Thomas Malvern Vance

1862-1928

References

• Life of Zebulon B. Vance
  2018
• Zeb Vance: North Carolina's Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader
  2004
• The Papers of Zebulon Baird Vance, Volume 1: 1843-1862
  1963
• The Papers of Zebulon Baird Vance, Volume 3: 1864-1865
  2013
• Man to match the mountains: The childhood of Zebulon Baird Vance
  1980
• My Beloved Zebulon: The Correspondence of Zebulon Baird Vance and Harriett Newell Espy
  2011