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THE CEREMONIES
^
ATTENDING THE
UNVEILING OF THE BRONZE STATUE
ZEB. B. VANCE, L.L. D.,
CAPITOL SQUARE, RALEIGH, N. C.
AND THE
^^ 13 13 Fi E^ S fe>
RICHARD H/ BATTLE, L.L. D.,
'i
RALFIGH ADVOCATE CO. PnlNT. RALEIGH, N. C,
In Exchange • IJjliv. of North Caroling, SEP 27 1933
■u
THE STATUE
OF
ZEBULON B. VANCE,
IN
CAPITOL SQUARE,
AT
RALEIGH, N. C.
By the General Assembly of 1899 an Act was passed (Chapter 570) appropriating $5,000 "to be used with a fund in the hands of Joseph G. Brown, Treasurer of the Vance Monument Association, for the purpose of erecting a bronze statue of Z. B. Vance;" and it was further provided that three members, with the President and Treasurer of the Association, should constitute a committee to purchase and erect the statue in the Capitol Square.
Richard H. Battle and Joseph G. Brown, of the city of Raleigh, were, respectively. President and Treasurer of the Association; and Dr. Richard H. Speight, Senator from Edgecombe, and Joseph D. Boushall and M. S. Hart, Rep- resentatives from Wake and Edgecombe, respectively, were appointed members of the Committee, Mr. Hart died be- fore the statue was finished, and Representative J. C. Curtis, of Buncombe, was appointed in his place.
About $2,000 was in the hands of Treasurer Brown, and the Committee invited leading sculptors of the country to submit models of such a statue as was desired, with suit- able pedestal, etc., in accordance with elaborate specifica- tions, at a total cost of $7,000. Of a dozen models sub- mitted that of Henry J. Ellicott, of Washington, D. C. was accepted, and the contract awarded to him.
The statue was to be eight and a half feet high and the pedestal and mound eleven and a half feet, the whole to stand twenty feet above the ground. The site selected is in the middle of the walk, half way between the east front of the Capitol and the head of New Bern Avenue.
After some unavoidable delays the statue was finished, accepted and erected, and August 22, 1900, was selected as the day for removing the veil, which covered it from its erection, with an address and appropriate ceremonies.
The railroads made special rates for the occasion of the unveiling, and, notwithstanding the oppressive weather pre- vailing at the time, many thousands of interested people, including a number of military companies, were present, nearly filling the eastern half of the Capitol Square. Upon a stand erected at the eastern portico of the Capitol were seated, besides the Governor and other State officers, ladies and distinguished men from different parts of the State, the widow, a son and step-son, and the two granddaughters of Senator Vance, and the architect and his wife.
Mr. Richard H. Battle, L.L. D,, had been selected to de- liver the address, as appears from the following corres- pondence :
Raleigh, May 12, 1900. Mr. Richard H. Battle :
Dear Sir: — We the undersigned, members of the Committee ap- pointed under the Act of Assembly of 1899, Chapter 570, "to purchase and erect on Capitol Square a bronze monument of Zebulon B. Vance," respectfully extend to you an invitation to deliver the address at the un- veiling of the monument — date to be fixed soon.
We do this as individual members of the Committee and without call- ing a meeting to select an orator for the occasion, 1 ec iiise you are one of the Committee and can by this method be relieved of any embarrassment which would otherwise attend the selection of yourself as our choice.
You were perhaps one of the most intimate friends of the late Gov- ernor and Senator, having been associated with him, officially and per-
sonally, for many years during his career. For this reason we believe you ought not to decline this invitation, and we know of no one who would more appropriately and more ably meet the demands of the oc- casion.
Yours very truly,
R. H. Speight,
J. D. BOUSHAI.1,,
Jos. G. Brown,
Committee. Thos. S. Kenan, Ai,F. A. Thompson,
Local Committee.
Rai,eigh, N. C, 2ist May, 1900. Messrs. R. H. Speight, M. D., j. D. Boushai.1., Jos. G. Bronn, Thos. S. KenAn and Ai,f. a. Thompson, Committee, etc.
GenTi^emen: — Your letter of the 12th, asking me to deliver the ad- dress at the unveiling of the Vance statue, has to-day been handed to me.
The invitation, coming as it does, without my privity, and urged for the reasons given, and being signed by the surviving members of the Legislative Committee, and by active members of our Local Association, the objection occurring to me that I am Chairman of that Association, seems to be removed; and I know you would not ask me to do what is justly liable to criticism on the score of delicacy.
My friendship for Governor Vance, and my admiration of him, founded upon intimate official and personal relations with him, would make me hesitate to refuse to do anything in my power that might contribute to a proper appreciation of his character and services to the State and country, among those who did not know him as we did.
Therefore, though. fully sensible of my inability to do justice to the man and the occasion, I will accept your invitation and do the best I can.
Thanking you for the compliment, expressed as well as implied, in your letter, I am.
Yours very truly, R. H. BATTLE.
At 12 M., after music by a band, Rev. Eugene Daniel, D, D., pastor of the Presbyterian church of Raleigh, intro- duced by Thos. S. Kenan, who served as Marshal, offered a fervent prayer.
Colonel Kenan then introduced the orator of the day in the following words :
*' It is gratifying to know that our people have this day furnished additional evidence of their intention to honor the memory of our great men.
" That intention has been practically manifested by in- dividual contributions and an appropriation of public money by the Legislature. The result is the erection of that statue in its enduring form ; and it represents the ideal North Carolinian.
"What manner of man he was, and what are the inter- esting and prominent features of his remarkable career, will be told to you by one of his most intimate personal and official friends, Hon. Richard H. Battle, whom I have the honor of presenting to you, ladies and gentlemen, as the orator of this occasion."
At the conclusion of Mr. Battle's address, after benedic- tion by Dr. Daniel, Misses Espy and Ruth Vance drew the cords and the statue was unveiled amid the shouts of the multitude.
The following programme was distributed that morning:
PROGRAMME OF CEREMONIES.
UNVEILING OF STATUE ERECTED IN HONOR OF ZEBULON BAIRD VANCE
IN CAPITOI. SQUARE,
Raleigh, North Carolina, Wednesday, August 22, /poo.
ORDER OF PROCESSION.
Procession will form in front of Metropolitan Hall, on Fayetteville Street,
at 11.30 A. M., and move to the Capitol Square in
the following order:
Platoon of Police.
Raleigh Cornet Band.
Confederate Veterans.
Governor's Guard,
And Other Military Organizations.
State Officers.
Officials of Counties and Towns.
Citizens Generally.
Orator and Chaplain.
AT CAPITOL SQUARE.
PRAYER.
By Rev. Eugene Daniel.
INTRODUCTION OF ORATOR.
By Thos. S, Kenan.
ORATION.
By Richard H. Battle.
UNVEILING OF STATUE.
By Misses Espy and Ruth Vance.
BENEDICTION.
LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE. R. H. Speight, of Edgecombe. J. D. BouSHALL, of Wake. J. C. Curtis, of Buncombe.
LOCAL COMMITTEE. (Of Vance Memorial Association).
R H. Battle, W. N. Jones,
Jos. G. Brown, A. A. Thompson,
C, M. BusBEE, Thos. S. Kenan.
OF
RICHARD H. BATTLE, LL D.
Ladies and Gentlemen : — North Carolina honors her- self to-day by presenting to the world, and the ages to come, this manifestation of her love for the son who so loved her ; and we, his brothers and sisters, because children of a com- mon mother, honor ourselves by being here to manifest our love and admiration of him, who was ever true to that mother and to us.
North Carolina has always been patriotic, and glad to honor the best representatives of our national virtues and the country's greatest achievements. It is true, she failed to discriminate among her own sons, her heroes in the war of the Revolution, and her statesmen who showed them- selves wise in counsel, during the chaotic times when Con- stitutions were being devised, and stable governments evolved, for the State and Nation, and to mark one or more of them as worthier than the rest, by erecting monuments, or statues in their honor. While she could boast her Caswell, her Ashes, her Davie, her Nashes, her Moores and Waddells, her Iredell, her Davidsons and Grahams, her Polks, her Macon, and others scarcely less distinguished in her early history, and her Gaston, her Badger, her Branch, her Mangum, her Graham, her Morehead, her Ruffin, her Swain, her Dobbin, her Bragg, and other great and faithful sons, in the more recent past, to none of them would she assign the first place, and hold him up for the special ad- miration of the world and of the ages, by a costly statue bearing his likeness. And this was not because she was unwilling to incur the expense of such a monument ; for she was ahead of her sister States in testifying her admira- tion and love for America's greatest product, the father of his country ; and she sent an order across the seas to
Antonio Canova, the leading sculptor of his time, and at a cost of $10,000, erected a splendid statue of the peerless Washington in the rotunda of her first State House ; and and as an inspiration to her legislators, she also hung a potrait of him, heroic in size, upon the wall of the House of Commons. And when that capitol was was burnt, and the marble statue was crumbled by the fire, patriotic citi- zens, though unable to save it, bore the large picture on their shoulders from the blazing ruins, and it now adorns the wall of this beautiful Capitol. North Carolina was not satisfied to be without a permanent likeness of Washington ; and after this Capitol was completed, she erected yonder statue in bronze, at its south front, to meet the eyes of all who walk her principal street. There may it stand, or a larger and more imposing one in its place, as long as virtue and patriotism shall live in the world.
And now, nearly a century and a quarter after she adopt- ed a Constitution, as a Sovereign State, North Carolina has discovered, that one of her own sons, nourished at her breast, was, for reasons satisfactory to her, worthy of similar honor, and to be distinguished from her other great and good sons by like testimonials in his memory. To-day we can see on, the wall of the House of Representatives, a large portrait in oil, opposite to that of Washington, and this noble statue at the east front of her Capitol, corresponding in position to Washington's on the south, both representing the figure, the face and the pose of North Carolina's best beloved son? Zebulon Baird Vance.
The question arises. Why was he thus selected ? Why this discrimination in his favor over his brethren of great and admitted talents, virtue and public services ? The pleasant duty assigned to me to-day, is to attempt to give an answer to this question.
It is to be remembered that the portrait of Governor Vance was hung in the Capitol by the votes of Legislators, the majority of whom were not of his political faith, three
years after his death, and this statue is erected, by a unani- mous vote of the General Assembly, political friend and political enemy uniting in the tribute, five years after he had passed away. So this decision by the State, that he was to be so marked, was reached after due deliberation, and with ample opportunity to the people to criticise or dissent. For nearly forty years his was a public life, lived in the glare of noon-day, or subjected to the search-light of political foes. If then, Lincoln's aphorism, that " One cannot fool all the people all the time," be true, this practically unanimous verdict of the people of North Carolina, that Vance was most worthy of this distinction, must be accepted as a true and righteous verdict.
I will be pardoned for a personal allusion, in saying that I was selected to address you, on this interesting occasion, rather than an orator like Ransom, Waddell, Jarvis, Ben- nett, Robbins, or some other eloquent man associated with him in public life, because it was known to those having the selection in charge, that I was more intimately acquainted with Vance than any of them, and that I probably best knew the thoughts of his heart and the motives of his con- duct. Such I believe to be the fact. We were contem- poraries at Chapel Hill, and fellow members of the same literary society, he entering as a Law student and taking a partial course with the senior class, when a young man just twenty-one, and I an impressionable youth of fifteen years. I was his Private Secretary, from the day of his inauguration, as Governor, September 8, 1862, for two years, and then, by his appointment. State Auditor, and often his legal counsel in questions and cases growing out of the Conscript law, until we left the Capitol, April 12, 1865, the day before its occupation by Sherman. During these three years, while his labors were herculean and his anxieties intense, I was in daily association with him, sometimes in the privacy of his home, and I had the best of opportunities to hear what he said, to see what he did, and
to sound the depths of his great soul. Then and ever afterwards he treated me with the kindness and confidence, and (may I not say ?) with the affection of an older brother. I would have been blind indeed not to have learned his real character, and callous indeed not to have felt for him the affection of a brother.
If then, in a cursory review of the leading events of his life, and an attempt to delineate his character, I seem to be influenced by a natural bias, I can only say, I try to tell things as they were, and remind you that I am only giving reasons for the verdict of the people, attested by what we see here to-day, that taking into consideration the many elements which constitute greatness, and measuring all her sons by its many standards, in all the history of North Carolina, Zebulon B. Vance was her greatest son. For Senatorial wisdom and the exercise of the civic virtues of a Cincinnatus, we may assign the pre-eminence to Na- thaniel Macon ; for polished statesmanship, in times of peace, to William Gaston or William A. Graham ; for pro- foundity as an advocate and a logician to Geo. E. Badger ; as a great jurist to Thomas Ruffin ; for the graces of magni- ficent oratory to Willie P. Mangum ; for the talent to develop the internal resources of a State to John M. More- head ; but in achievement as a leader, in inducing others to follow him by the strength of his personality, for what he said and what he did, in peace and in war, towards shaping the destiny of the State and for promoting the welfare of the people, Vance was ahead of them all.
Some writer has said that it takes three generations to make a gentleman. The history of Western North Caro- lina shows that it took three generations of heroic and patriotic citizens to make our Vance. His father was David Vance, and his mother, Margaret, a daughter of Zebulon Baird ; and the Vances and the Bairds, sturdy Scotch-Irish people, from King's Mountain down, were patriots and leading citizens. He inherited from such
lO
ancestors a spirit of independence, a love of freedom, and a reverence for the true, the pure and the good, along with a strong mind and sound body. He inherited little else ^ for his father died when he was a boy, leaving a widow and eight children to be supported on a small farm, and besides a few slaves, scarcely more personal property than was necessary to pay his debts and funeral expenses. So Zebulon was a poor boy, who had to make his own way in the world. When about twelve years old, his father sent him across the mountains on horse-back, to enter as a pupil in a high school, known as Washington College, in East Tennessee ; but he was soon called home by the mortal illness of his father, whose bedside he reached only in time to see him die. All the education, in schools, he then had or acquired afterwards, until he became of age, was obtained in little schools in the neighborhood of his native home. That home was about ten miles northwest of Asheville, in the County of Buncombe, and but a few hundred yards from the French Broad River. Born and reared in the shadows of the highest peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains^ with Mount Mitchell and Pisgah in full view from the surrounding hills, and with the music of the mountain streams and birds in the air, the boy, endowed with uncom- mon intelligence and an active imagination, was early in- spired with a love of his native land, while his soul was attuned to the poetry of nature. Patriotism and poetry, lofty sentiments, are closely akin ; and these sentiments most abound where nature is most picturesque and grand^ where the mists of morning are dispelled from glowing peaks by the rising sun, and the lengthening shadows of evening change the form and color of cloud, forest and mountain ; where rushing streams and leaping cascades furnish to eyes which can see, and ears attuned to hear, a beauty and charm unknown to dwellers among the foot- hills or on the level lands below. The intelligent inhabi- tants of such a region learn to love their homes intensely ^
II
and are ever ready to fight and die for them. So it was^ ever, with the Swiss and the Highland Scotch, where mountains echoed and re-echoed their patriotic songs ; and we read in sacred history, that when the chosen people were taken by their conquerers from the mountains and hills of Galilee and Judea, and carried captive to the plains of Babylon, they "hung their harps upon the willows," and wept tears of despair for their country. Certain it is, that, in my observation of the great and patriotic men of our State, her two most devoted sons were born and reared among the mountains of Buncombe, David L,. Swain and Zebulon B. Vance. Inspired alike by the poetry of the Bible and of nature, their souls were open to all high and patriotic emotions. At first their love was given to their native homes ; but as the sphere of their lives and labor widened it was extended to State and country. Was it due to this special quality or virtue, apparent in them, that they, each, became the chief magistrate of the State at the early age of thirty-two years, when younger than any other in our long list of Governors ?
Becoming of age, young Vance in the summer of 1851 applied to ex-Governor Swain, President of the University, for a loan, to enable him to enter the Law School and take some of the studies of the senior class in that State institu- tion. President Swain, though eminently prudent in busi- ness, was so struck by the manly tone of the application, that, with his proverbial partiality for the mountain boys, and knowing young Vance's people, he at once acceded to the request ; and a friendship was then cemented between them that ended only with the life of the patron in 1868. Vance remained at the University only a year, but it is a testi- mony of those who best knew him there, that in so short a time no young man had made a greater impression on Law teachers. Faculty, fellow students, and villagers than did this mountain youth. It is true, that this impression was largely due to a vivacity more striking, a humor more
12
genial and a wit more sparkling- than any other youth had displayed at that secluded seat of learning before. His mountain yarns, his witty illustrations in debate and con- versation, and even his funny, though not disrespectful, replies to solemn questions from president or professor, in the absence of a perfect knowledge of the subject in hand, contributed to the enlivenment of college and village life. "Have you heard Vance's last?" was a question frequently asked by one student of another, and a laugh attending its recital always followed. But he availed himself, with avidity, of the opportunities of improvement afforded him, and President Swain, Professor Mitchell and Law teachers, Judge Battle and Hon. S. F. Phillips, and the more dis- criminating of his fellows, in class and Society, saw, beneath- all this, solid ability, earnest purpose and a power to in- fluence others, which made them predict for him leadership in the future. He had then acquired a fair English edu- cation, and some knowledge of the Latin language and literature ; but his forte was an uncommon mastery of the Bible, Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott. These classics he had learned, inwardiy digested and thoroughly assimi- lated, and they ever furnished him ready quotation and apt illustration for essays, speeches and conversation.
The estimate of him by the Dialectic Society, in his one college year, is shown by his election as one of its represen- tatives in the editorship of the University Magazine. In the May No., 1852, is the following notice of him: "Mr. Zeb. B. Vance, one of the corps, left us recently for his mountain home. Our warmest wishes for his welfare went with him, and we are much gratified to learn, that he has been elected County Solicitor of the State of Buncombe. Gratulanmr ei victor ia^n?''
Before 1868 two licenses from the Supreme Court were requited to practitice law in this State, one for the County Courts, and the other for the Superior Courts. At Ral- eigh, in December, 1851, young Vance obtained his County
13
Court license, and at the Morganton term, in August, 1853, license to practice in the Superior Courts. Having com- pleted the course at Chapel Hill he had prescribed for himself, in May, 1852, he returned home with County Court license in his pocket, opened an office in Asheville, and threw himself into life's battle in earnest. It is true that the fight had begun long before. His animal spirits, when a boy, had sought an outlet in mischievous pranks, practical jokes and daring escapades, which, though un- tainted with malice, often put him in Coventry, and made his judicious mother and pious aunts tremble for his future. I well remember how, in a journey we made together in a one-horse conveyance from Chapel Hill, after the Comence- ment of 1864, he characterized this mischievous disposition. In reply to some question about his older brother, Gen. Robert B. Vance, then a prisoner of war, he said, '• I really think Bob is one of the best men I ever knew ; but he does not deserve more credit for being good than I do for not being meaner than I am. Bob was born good, and I've had to fight the devil ever since I was knee-high." His love for his mother and an innate sense of honor and truth- fulness, that ever prevented his concealment of peccadilloes and sins by falsehood, where his shield in the fight, while incourage and, possibly, an intuition that he was intended for something in the world, he found offensive weapons. At all events, at twenty-two years of age he had so far triumphed over the spirit of evil, that we fiud him master of himself, a great victory for a young man. By measur- ing himself himself with other young men of admitted ability, he had acquired a just estimate of his own powers, and it would appear, from what follows, that estimate was high. But he was free from egotism in conversation, a fault usually conpicuous in "self-made" men, and his tact prevented any appearance of undue self-assertion in his manner. I have often wondered at what stage of his career, if ever, he realized how much was in him. " The
14
child is father of the man ;" and therefore I have dwelt at some length on his early years.
That he had friends, and was thought to have made good use of his time, as a student of the Law, is evidenced by the fact that the Justices of Buncombe at once elected him to the office of County Solicitor, whose duties were to prosecute offenders against the criminal law, and to advise the Justices in their management of the finances of the county. His competitor for the office was a young man of high promise, licensed with him, then and subsequently his rival for popular favor, and destined to become United States Senator and Chief Justice of our Supreme Court, Hon. Augustus S. Merrimon. In their early contests at the bar Merrimon displayed, fiom closer application, a more accurate knowledge of the law, while Vance, by his ever ready tact, popular address and skilful management, sel- dom failed when he was entitled to a verdict, and some- times won when law and facts were against him. Once at a County Court in Madison, tradition tells, that to sustain his position in a case on trial Vance cited with confidence a decision of the Supreme Court in an opinion written by Ruffin, C. J., not adverting to a repeal of the law as set forth in that opinion, by a late Act of Assembly. Mr. Merrimon, representing the other side, rose with a volume of the Laws in his hand, and triumphantly read the repeal- ing act. Vance had the last speech, and with impudence unparalleled, gravely said: ''Gentlemen of the jury, are you not amazed at the assurance of my friend, Mr. Merri- mon, in citing an act of the Legislature, passed by such men as your good neighbor, John Smith, who knows no more law than you, do and Bill Jones of Yancey, who knows less, against the decision of our Supreme Court, constituted of such men as Ruffin Gaston and Daniel?" It may have been a surprise to both lawyers that the jury found for the Supreme Court. Vance's excuse to his conscience, for his
15
imposition on the jury, was th^ gaitdiufn certaminis^ and the fact that the wrong was easily reparable by an appeal to the Superior Court, where the trial would be de novo ; and doubtless he advised his client, quickly to agree with his adversary, and settle according to law, with, possibly, an abatement of costs. This example of his extrication of himself from a sudden and hopeless dilemna must not be taken as an indication of his usual honesty in dealing with court and jury, then and in after life. On the contrary, his rule and practice were, to commend himself to the Court by a fair statement of the law, as he understood it, and to command the confidence of juries by accurate recital of the testimony of witnessess His success with juries ap- pears from a story he used to tell on himself, in depreciation of his legal knowledge — that, in discussing the merits of the lawyers by some countrymen on the court green of one of the far western counties, one of them, partial to him, said, " If Zeb. Vance can only get past the jedge he is 'bout as good as any of 'em."
The popularity of young Vance and his natural bent soon took him into politics; and he became a candidate of the Whig party for a seat in the House of Commons of the State Legislature, in the summer of 1854, when he was twenty-foui years of age. His opponent, a man of double "his age and of high standing in the county, expected easily to distance his youthful competitor. At their first dis- cussion, in the court-house at Asheville, the senior, who led off, forgetful of the history of Goliath and David, made sport of the beardless youth, who wanted his seat in the Legislature. When Vance rose to reply, he assumed an air of comic diffidence, and said, in a hesitating manner : Fel- low citizens, I admit I am young; but it is not my fault. My parents did not consult me as to the time when I should be born. All I can do is to promise you to try to do better next time." The crowd was captured by this unexpected reply, and raised a yell, that deterred his opponent from
i6
alluding to his youthfulness again. Vance was elected, and proved a punctual and faithful member of the Legisla- ture. That body then met in November, and adjourned over for a few days at Christmas. I remember that Vance spent part of the holidays at Chapel Hill, where I then lived, and upon my asking him how he was getting on down at Raleigh, he replied : " Pretty well ; but I thought when I went there, all I had to do was to open my mouth and be famous, and I soon learned that the less I opened my mouth the better for my fame." This experience bv a man of his gifts, apparent even then, may be of benefit to some brilliant young member-elect of our Senate or House of Representatives, next winter. " Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown," was doubtless his advice to over- aspiring young men.
He returned home with increased popularity among his constituents and elsewhere in the State, and in 1856 he was the Whig-American candidate for the Senate in the Buncombe Senatorial district. His opponent was David Coleman, Esq., a former officer in the United States nav>, a Democrat of fine ability, and afterwards a gallant Con- federate colonel. The Democratic majority in the district was considerable, but that was only a stimulus to Vance's zeal and activity ; and though defeated on election day (the only time in his life when a candidate before the peo- ple) his opponent went in with a diminished majority and the laurels of the contest were fairly divided between them.
His motto seems to have been, " Excelsior." In 1858 Thos. L. Clingman, long the member of Congress from the large mountain district, of fifteen counties, having been appointed by Governor Bragg to a vacancy in the United States Senate, resigned his seat, and W. W. Avery of Burke, to whom he had transferred his mantle, and David Coleman, both Democrats, were candidates for the succession. Young Vance leaped into the arena. Coleman retired, and threw his influence in favor of Avery. Clingman's majority had
• 17
been about 2,000. Avery was an able man and his family one of large influence, and even Vance's intimate friends, at first, regarded his candidacy as but little better than a joke. One of his uncles, at whose house I chanced to spend a night in the summer of that year, upon reference being made to his candidacy, said, " Zeb. is a fool for running for Congress. He is getting a pretty good practice in the Law, and is throwing it all away, running for Congress, with no more chance of being elected than I have."
It seems that by that time, at least, the young aspirant knew himself and his powers better than his confident opponent and his near relatives did. Before the contest was over they realized that a new star of the first magni- tude had risen in the mountains, and that its radiance might dim those whose briliancy had been so much ad- mired. His campaign was marked by a variety and versa- tility never known before. Mr. Avery, a thoroughly equipped politician and an able debater, often found the strength of his weighty arguments avoided by witty repartee or unexpected counter-thrust. To strike, or corner so subtle anatagonist, was well nigh impossible. For instance, he charged that Vance represented a moribund party, that many of its leaders were abandoning it, and sons of other leaders. "For instance," he said, "John B. Clay, son of Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster's son." Vance, at the moment remembering only Mr. Webster's daughters, inter- jected, " Daniel Webster has no sons, his children are all daughters." " Is it possible," said Avery, turning on him in triumph, "you do not remember Col. Fletcher Webster, of the Mexican war?" Vance then remembered Fletcher, but too well, and with a sndden impulse to get out of his corner, somehoiv^ cried out, striking his nose with his dexter finger," Noah Webster's son, the Spelling-book man's son!" Whereat the boys raised such a yell that Mr. Avery des- paired of setting the matter straight. As he descended from the stand, he said, " Vance that was a mean trick. " " I
i8
know it was, Avery, but you had me so fast I just had to wriggle out somehow." Sometimes their encounters were v^aried by surprises of a different kind. Once, when they were advertised to speak at a cross-roads, at the top of a hill, at 12 o'clock on a certain day, Avery was there f/n time, and surprised not to see or hear of Vance, who could ever boast of punctuality in meeting engagements. He waited a few moments after the hour for speaking, and was getting ready to address a few sedate citizens on the ground, when down the hill, toward a branch, he saw a little cloud of dust rising, and then he heard a sound of revelry. He had not long to wonder what was the matter, for soon there came a crowd of young men and boys, leaping, dancing and shouting, with Vance in the midst of them, a-foot, dis- placing one of his early accomplishments, by giving the music of " Molly put the kittle on," or other rustic tune, with the " fiddle and the bow." Like Michal, when she saw David dancing before the ark, Mr. Avery questioned the dignity of the proceeding, but he could not doubt that Vance had alread^ captured a part of their crowd. Such a departure in Congressional campaigning indicated origi- nality^ if not genius; and originality is a leading feature of genius. On occasions, his speeches were characterized by impassioned denunciation of a growing tendency toward secession^ in the Democratic party, and by eloquent appeals for the Union, In one way or another, by election day, he had, to use the langtiage of his ardent followers, " Set the mountains on fire," and he confounded the Democratic leaders by carrying the district by 2,049 majority.
In i860 he was again elected to Congress, his opponent being Col. David Coleman, to whom he returned the com- pliment for his defeat for the State Senate four years be- fore. In the campaign with Coleman, his speeches were generally on a higher plane, because he was then a United States Congressman, and because of the momentous issues upon the country ; though he still enlivened the debates
19
with sallies of wit and anecdotes illustrative of his argu- ment, as before. That he could be pathetic, as well as amusing, is shown by his reply, before a crowd filling the court-house in Asheville, to a charge from Mr. Coleman that he had voted, during the preceding session, for extravagant pensions for soldiers of the war of 1812. During the same session leading Democrats, upon the recommendation of President Buchanan, had urged the passage of a bill ap- propriating $100,000,000 for the purchase of Cuba ; and Mr. Vance, in his reply, contrasted with that contemplated expenditure, in a purchase of worse than doubful wisdom, the poor pittance he had voted the surviving heroes of 181 2. He proceeded to paint, in vivid colors, the old soldiers, batter- ed, some with one eye, some with one arm, and still others stumping along on wooden legs, presenting their petitions for pensions to keep them and their helpless families from suffering. The sympathy of his hearers was so aroused that many of them were in tears. It was ever one of his elements of ability, and skill in debate, to thus turn the charges of his adversaries to their confusion and dismay. Coleman was a gentleman of reserved and sensitive nature, as well as of dignified bearing, and smarting under defeat, after the election he called Mr. Vance to account for offen- sive words during one of their debates, and demanded an apology. The demand was not complied with. A chal- lenge from Coleman was the next step, and it was promptly accepted. Both parties proceeded to prepare for an early meeting ; but Dr. Jas. F. E. Hardy, of blessed memory, a chivalrous gentleman, and a friend of both, getting wind of the hostile meeting, found away to prevent it, and bring about a reconciliation. Vance never attempted to defend his acceptance of the challenge, except upon the ground of a public sentiment, then existing in his district, which de- manded such evidence of physical courage from a man in public life — the same sentiment that, in 1824, caused his uncle Dr. Robert Vance, late a member of Congress, to
20
lose his life in a duel with Hon. Samuel P. Carson, and, in 1804, impelled Alexander Hamilton, the statesman he had been taught most to revere, to accept a challenge and die at the hand of Aaron Burr. Thanks be to Heaven, that we have lived to see the day when no such sentiment exists in any part of our State !
That Vance faithfully performed his duty in the House, and in its Committees, and established a reputation for ability as well as wit, and was recognized as one of the leading champions of the Union from the South, I have but to refer to the eulogies of him delivered in the United States Senate, after his death, by those able and venerable Republican Senators, Lot M. Morrill, of Vermont, and John Sherman, of Ohio, who stood with him as champions of the Union in the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth Congresses. Mr. Sherman says of his debut in Congress, '' He did not rush into the arena of debate, but his personal and social qualities, and especially his wit and humor, were well known and gained him many friends. After a month or two he was drawn into a brief casual debate, and was at once recognized as a young man of marked ability. Later, in the same session, he made one speech defining his opin- ion on the leading questions of the day. From this time his ability as a debater was conceded."" He was then but twenty-eight years of age, and the youngest member of Congress; and the tact and modesty he learned four years before, in our State Legislature, still characterized him. Then, and always, he knew when to speak and when to keep silent.
Besides the part he took in Congress and his campaigns of 1858 and i860, it is well to remember the impression he m ^de and the services he rendered on two other occasions. In the summer of i860, a great mass- meeting of the friends of the Union in North Carolina was held in Salisbury. Bell and Everett had recently been nominated as the Con- stitutional-Union candidates for President and Vice-Presi-
21
dent, and that mass-meeting was held to insure the electoral vote of this State for them. Geo. E. Badger, John M. Morehead, William A, Graham, Kenneth Rayner, Alfred Dockery, and other great leaders were there, including the young champion from the mountains, and delegations from all parts of the State. The throng was immense, and patriot- ism and enthusiasm were in the air. From a stand erected for the purpose, masterly speeches were made by the vet- eran orators, and when the day was waning, and the crowd tired of standing, and hoarse with shouting, Vance was called out. His youthful face, his ruddy countenance, his twinkling eye, and his familiar greeting at once attracted the crowd ; and as they listened to his clear statement' of existing conditions, his apt illustrations, his amusing sto- ries and his impassioned appeals, or held up to their gaze dark pictures of horrors to follow secession and disunion all became subject to his magnetism ; their weariness and hoarseness were forgotten, and when he closed the streets of the town and the hills around long reverberated with their enthusiastic shouts. That night, flaming tar-barrels, and lighted torches in the hands of excited citizens and visitors, in procession, illuminated the streets, and the popular speaker of the afternoon was again in requisition. At different street corners he was almost forced to speak, again and again, to admiring hearers, of both sexes and all ages. Referring to the remarkable impression he made as a popular speaker that day and night, Mr. Badger, in reply to a compliment from a friend to his own great speech, said, " But you ought to have heard young Vance. He is the greatest stump-speaker that ever was ; the greatest that ever was !" repeating with emphasis. The other oc- casion was in December, i860, when he stopped in this city during the recess of Congress for the Christmas holidays. South Carolina had then called a Conven- tion for the purpose of seceding from the Union. Two f)f her Congressmen, Boyce and Keitt, had stopped in Raleieh
22
at the same time. Our Legislature was in session and at the instance of a few of its ultra Democratic members and their sympathizers, they made secession speeches, in front of the Yarborough House, to people called together to hear them. The prevailing sentiment in Raleigh was then intensely Union, and the indignation of many was aroused to a high pitch. Threats of violence were being muttered from citizen to citizen, and there was danger of a riot and of insult, or worse, to the indiscreet visitors. Sion H. Rogers, our gallant Congressman, always vigilant, per- ceived this, and at once had the court-house lighted and the bell rung, and a meeting to listen to Union speeches announced. He got Vance to go with him, and the latter fully appreciating the condition, made to the excited crowd, which followed him and Rogers from the street, a speech semi-jocose and semi-serious, in which he excused his South Carolina friends on the ground that they were crazy fanatics, upon whom the indignation of sane people was wasted. He soon got his hearers in a good humor, and with "Hurrah for Vance!" they dispersed to their homes. Vance, doubtless, reported to the secession orators the argu- ment with which he defended their folly.
In common with the other Union men of the State, while contending that the election of Lincoln in i860 was no cause for secession, Vance had committed himself to oppose the coercion of a seceded State, if any of them should exercise, what he considered, the revolutionary right of secession. The people were with him, and in February, 1861, voted against holding a convention to Con- sider the question of secession. But when, in April, the clash of arms came, and President Lincoln called for troops, from this State in part, to restore the authority of the United States in South Carolina and other seceded States, a Convention was at once called, on the historic 20th of May, and an ordinance of secession adopted. Vance raised the second company organized in his district, the " Rough
23
and Ready Guards," of study mountaineers, and brought them to Raleigh, as their Captain, early in May. The company became part of the Fourth Regiment of North Carolina Troops, afterwards designated as the Fourteenth, under command of Colonel W. D. Pender, a splendid soldier and a superior disciplinarian. They were sent down to our Eastern coast, and there Captain Vance proved his zeal and daring by suggesting that picked men should make a dash upon Fort Hatteras and overpower the Federal soldiers in charge ; but it was deemed too hazardous by his superior officers. In August, 1861, he was elected Colonel of the Twenty-Sixth North Carolina Regiment, and led it in victory and defeat, in stirring campaigns in North Carolina and Virginia, for twelve months. He ex- hibited intrepidity in the battle with Burnside's forces at New Bern, in March, 1862, and skill in preventing his regiment from being cut off by the burning of Trent river bridge and the gun-boats ascending the river. He gal- lantly led his command in the fights around Richmond, about July ist, against the protest of its officers and men, who recognized how much his life would be worth, as Governor of the State, to which office he was then about to be elected. They all delighted to follow him, but they felt that the regiment was safe under the leadership of such men as Lieutenant-Colonel Harry Burgwyn, who was to close his gallant career one year later at Gettysburg, and John R. Lane, afterwards to distinguish himself as their commander, and who, battle-scarred as he is, still illus- trates the best citizenship of the State; while if Colonel Vance were slain, they thought the loss to the State and its soldiers would be irreparable. He listened not to tl eir entreaties, however, and shared the fortunes of his com- mand until duly notified of his election in August. He was besought, in 1861, to be a candidate for the Confed- erate Congress, but positively refused to do so, or even to to serve if elected. His nomination for the Governorship
24
was unsought, and it was accepted only after assurances from many friends representing both the old parties of the State, and whose opinion he could not disregard, that, in that office, he could best serve the Confederate cause as well as the people of North Carolina. His popularity as a soldier was attested by the fact that he received every vote in his regiment, while the rank and file of our soldiers of other commands voted the same way. Many officers of other regiments expressed their preference for his com- petitor. Colonel William Johnston, of Charlotte, a man of affairs and a distinguished member of the Convention of i86i-'62. He had earlier espoused the cause of the South, Some of the appointees of Governors Ellis and Clark par- ticipated in the mistake President Jefferson Davis evidently made, that those who did not espouse the Southern cause before Lincoln's proclamation of 1861, could not be as zeal- ous in its support as those who were originally secessionists, or who advocated secession on the election of Lincoln. Some were not fully convinced that Vance could be, at heart, a true Confederate, until later in the war. How little they knew the nature of the man ! Having cast in his lot with the South and pledged his faith to its cause, that faith he thenceforth did "bear of life and limb and terrene honor." When the term of enlistment of his old Company expired, many of its members expressed their intention to return to their homes and families. He had them called out and formed in a square, and standing in their midst made them a speech on what he thought to be the duty of the hour. It breathed such fervor and devot'on to the Southern banner that not one failed to re-enlist ; and even fathers, who had come to take their boys home, resolved to remain with them and share their fortunes.
That they did not resent the advice was proved by the number of their sons, born during or soon after the war, whom they named for him. It is said that when he was canvassing the section of the mountains from which they
25
hailed, in 1876, he began by presenting a five dollar bill to each lad introduced as his namesake ; but they began to come so fast that, to avoid bankruptcy, he was obliged to reduce the present to $2.00 a head.
But Vance's right to the epithet of " The War Gov- ernor of the South " is due as much to the earnest support of the Confederate cause, by his State through him, as its Executive head, as to what he did for its people, their pro- tection under the law and their general welfare. For nearly three years, from September 8, 1862, to the evening he left Raleigh, April 12, 1865, to avoid capture by Sher- man, he did all that vigilance, zeal and energy could do to have and keep every man to whom Lee, Johnston, and others were entitled, as soldiers, at the front. To him it is due, laro^ely, that the seventy-five regiments and some unat- tached commands from North Carolina, were kept fuller than those from any other State, notwithstanding that the bodies of more North Carolina dead strewed the battlefields of the country than those of any other State ; that quite one-sixth of the Confederate troops hailed from this State ; that we had a soldier for nearly every voter ; and that one-fifth the Confederates surrendered by Lee at Appamattox and one- half surrendered by Johnston at Greensboro, were North Carolinians. And what was the testimony of our great Captain, Robert E. Lee, as to the value of Vance's services to his Army? In the winter of 1863-64, in view of the disasters of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the summer before, desertion was depleting his ranks and despondency was settling like a pall over his army and the country. Gov- ernor Vance saw that the good name of his State and its soldiers was imperilled, and he was moved to leave his ofhce at Raleigh, visit the army, and make to brigades and divisions, in which there were North Carolina troops, those wonderful speeches, whereby hope was substituted for des- pondency, and our battered regiments, from other states as well as this, were nerved again with the courage and
26
resolve to do or to die. Was it not partly due to this cam- paign of oratory, that General Lee was able to make his wonderful resistance to General Grant, who had double or treble his numbers, and the world's resources at his com- mand, from the Rapidan to Petersburg, and to make him- self the peer of Hannibal, Frederick, and Washington, and his noble army to share the immortality of the Spartan band at Thermopylae ? It is reported that he said that Vance's visits and speeches were worth as much to him as 50,000 recruits. After hearing some of those speeches, General J. E. B. Stewart, who followed him from corps to corps and from division to division, asserted, that if oratory is to be measured by its effects. Governor Vance was the greatest orator that ever lived. And President Davis, who had not at first been so partial to Vance or North Carolina, said, when on the eve of the collapse they parted at Greens- boro, with tears in his eyes and in his voice, and with a warm grasp of the hand, "God bless you Governor and your noble State !" One evening, a few days after Sherman had crossed the Cape Fear, on his victorious march toward Raleigh, he and I were walking towards his residence at the foot of Fayetteville street. I said, " Governor, I sup- pose nobody can longer doubt that the end is near at hand." His reply was, " No ! It must be so, but so far as I am per- sonally concerned, and but for my wife and children I would rather die than to see it." He spoke with much feeling and with tears in his eyes. The gaiidhim certam- inis was strong in him ; he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard when he entered the army. He was ever ready to sacrifice life to the cause ; he foresaw the deso- lation and degradation of his beloved State, if it failed, and he imagined unexampled horrors as the result of the sud- den emancipation of 4,000,000 slaves. And then the ardent wish of his heart, that the honor of North Carolina should be maintained, and the faith she had pledged to the sisters of the South redeemed, to the utmost !
27
The executive ability and the unwearying industry in attending to the details of business he exhibited, after he became Governor, were a surprise, even to those who had been forward in forcing his consent to stand for the office, and in securing his election. The remembrance of what he accomplished, amid the countless and various demands upon his time, fills me with amazement even now. The Legislative sessions were frequent and long, and to it he had to send messages on matters of public importance, and confer with its members and committees ; the Eastern sec- tion was within the Federal lines and some of the Western Counties were subject to incursions by Kirk's desperadoes, and others, from East Tennessee ; and lawlessness from buffaloes in the East and deserters in some of the Western and Central counties, and their sympathizers, demanded constant vigilance from him and the Home Guards under his command. These had to be officered, fed, and equipped ; salt must be provided to cure meat for the support of citizens and slaves at home and soldiers in the field ; the supply of clothing was nearly exhausted and the machinery for homespun cloth nearly worn out ; to avoid privation and suffering new supplies must be had ; the Public Schools, for the education of poor children, must not be closed ; the railroads and other modes of transportation, in which the State was interested, were to be kept in order for our peo- ple, and to transport Confederate troops ; Courts must be kept open, and Special Terms, for punishment and preven- tion of crime, provided for ; deserters had to be arrested and sent back of their command. All these thing-s were upon him. The execution of the Confederate Conscript Law raised numerous issues, which required the interven- tion of the Governor, who must see that those subject to it did not evade, and those exempt from it were not sent to the front ; unlawful exactions from impoverished farmers had to be prevented ; and a hundred other troublesome ■questions had to be met and solved. His correspondence
28
was immense, and he was without stenographers or type- writers. Two Aides, Cols. D. A. Barnes and Geo. Little, and Private Secretary and Executive Clerk, Mr. A. M. McPheeters, were kept constantly busy, while important letters to the President, Secretary of War and others were written by his own hand. He clearly saw that State's Rights were the corner-stone of the Confederate Govern- ment, and his reverence for the law and dertermination to see that it was observed, made him as firm in preventing unlawful encroachments. from the authorities at Richmond, or Confederate officers without authority, as he was to see that the laws or the State, insuring justice between man and man, were obeyed, and that crime was repressed ; while no fair-minded man, however ardent a Confederate, could deny that, through him and otherwise, that State was doing its full duty to the common cause.
What he did for the relief and comfort of our people, and the soldiers from the State, will appear from the following figures derived from the State Quartermasters's department. By the use of blockade running steamers, notably the "Advance" (called for him by a play upon his name), run- ning to Nassau and thence to Liverpool, and carrying out cotton and rosin and bringing in supplies most needed, he provided, besides a quantity of heavy machinery, 60,000 pairs of hand (cotton) cards, 10,000 scythes, 200 barrels of blue-stone for wheat growers, 250,000 pairs of shoes and leather to make them, 50,000 blue blankets, gray cloth to make 250,000 suits of uniform; 12,000 overcoats, 2,000 Enfield rifles with one hundred rounds of amunition for each, 100,000 pounds of bacon, 500 sacks of coffee for hos- pital use, $50,000 worth (in gold) of medicines, etc., etc. The shoes and clothing were not only sufficient for the North Carolina troops, but he turned over a large quantity to the Confederate troops from other States. After the battle of Chicamauga, when Longstreet's corps were nearly in rags, he sent them 12,000 suits of uniform. At the
29
surrender, though the "Advance" had been captared and the blockade rendered so effective as to prevent further im- portation, he had on hand nearly 100,000 suits and large quantities of blankets and shoes. Part of these invaluable articles had been purchased on the credit of his and the State's good name, but he had procured to redeem it, and had stored, over 10,000 bales of cotton and 100 000 barrels of rosin. That the cotton and rosm were partly destroyed and part fell into the hands of Federal officers at the col- lapse of the Confederacy, was one of the fortunes of war, for which he was not held morally responsible by our creditors across the waters. They or their next-of-kin still have our State bonds as souvenirs of the war between the States, "redeemable five years after the treaty of peace between the United States and the Confederate States of America."
But more than for these material benefits, provided for the people of North Carolina, their great debt to him was the maintenance of the civil authority and the supremacy of law amid the clash of arms and his protection of the hum- blest citizen against illegal arrest. Alone, of all the States of the United States and of the Confederate States, with one possible exception, in North Carolina, during those four long dark years of war, the writ of habeas corpus was never suspended. Well, and with pardonable piide, might he say, in an address in January, 1877, when for the third time, by the election of the people, he was inaugurated Governor: "It was in North Carolina, and I believe only in North Carolina, that, in the midst of the greatest civil war of modern times, when 40,000,000 people were engaged in desperate strife, and amid the gleaming of bayonets, the roaring of cannon, the thunder of charging squadrons and the light of burning cities, the civil power maintained its supremacy over the military, the Judge was obeyed, and ''''inter arma aiidiebantiir leges.''''
The following is an instance of his prompt and resolute
30
manner in dealing with infringements on the rights of citi- zens and the dignity of the State. In the fall of 1863, the Raleigh Standard, edited by W. W. Holden, subsequently Governor of the State during the period of reconstruction, was thought to be hostile in spirit to the Confederate cause, and to be looking toward peace by separate State action. On the night of September 9th, a Georgia regiment of General Benning's brigade, passing through Raleigh, stop- ped long enough to lead a mob and destroy the Standard office. Next morning a mob of citizens, friendly to the editor of the Standard, destroyed the office of the State Journal, a paper of strongly opposite views. Governor Vance at once telegraphed the facts to President Davis, and in a letter to him next day used the following vigorous language: "As it is my intention to enforce the laws rigidly against all citizens who participated in the second mob, so I feel it my duty to demand that punishment may be inflicted on the officers who assisted or countenanced the first. Should this not be done, I shall feel it my duty to demand the persons of these officers of the State of Georgia to answer the demands of justice. I feel very sad at these outrages. The distance is quite short to either anarchy or despotism, when armed soldiers, led by their ofiicers. can with impunity outrage the laws of a State. A few more such exhibitions will bring the North Carolina troops home to the defence of their own State and her insti- tutions. I pray you to see that it does not occur again. Should any newspaper in the State commit treason, I would have its editor arrested and tried by the laws, which many of us yet respect. I thank you for your prompt orders, by telegraph, to Major Pierce concerning the passage of troops through the city. They are now being enforced, and peace can be preserved if they are rigidly obeyed."
This threat of separate State action, made to emphasize his determination to have the laws of the State respected, is off-set by an incident over twelve months later, when
31
stout hearts began to quail at what they feared to be the approaching downfall of our cause. I had some knowledge of it at the time, but years after Governor Vance gave it to me in its details. A gentleman of the highest character and standing, and whom Governor Vance greatly respected for his wisdom and patriotism, was here from Richmond. He called at the Executive office and informed the Gov- ernor that he was commissioned to deliver an important message to him, and wished an audience with him alone. Others having retired from the room, the gentleman in- formed Governor Vance, that certain members of Congress from this and other States had recently held a conference, and, in view of what appeared to them the utter hopelessness of the cause, came to the conclusion that steps should be taken to prevent further effusion of blood and loss of property; and that North Carolina was, by its location in respect to in- vading armies, in a position to bring about the result ; and their message conveyed a request, that he should issue an order requiring the North Carolina Troops in the field to return home, and so end the war. Governor Vance rose from his seat, in great excitement, and standing with his back to the fire asked his companion, courteously, whether that was his advice; and receiving as a reply, "No, I only deliver the message I was requested to bring," he swore, in his wrath, a great oath. "No! I would see the last one of them in perdition before I would do it. Were I to do that, the last of it would not be heard for generations to come. It would be charged that the Confederacy might have suc- ceeded but for the treachery of North Carolina. So far as the honor of the State is in my keeping it shall be un- tarnished. She must stand or fall with her sisters." His friend replied, "1 am not sure but you are right;" and, on his return to Richmond, reported to those who sent the message that they need not expect anything by separate action from North Carolina.
32
In 1864, Governer Vance was again a candidate and elec- ted Governor, his opponent being Mr. Holden, who was understood to favor peace on almost any terms. If the value of the currency of the country was an indication of the probability of its making good its independence, then its chances of success must have been considered very slim at best ; for, from January to August in that year, the average value of Confederate money was one hundred dollars to five dollars, in gold. Mr. Holden had many followers among" the timid and despondent at home and in the field, and especially in those sections where deserters were hiding in mountains or in forests. They generally had little to say, though in some counties secret societies, known as Red Sfu-ings^ were organized. Governor Vance had to meet and overcome these these secret influences ; and he did it by a remarkable campaign. His resourcefulness was ex- hibited as never before ; and I doubt whether any orator of this countr}^, before or since, has displayed greater variety in his speeches on public issues. Speeches he made, for example, in Wilkesboro and Fayetteville, within a forinight of each other, were published almost literally, and it is hard for a reader, wdio did not know Governor Vaece, to believe the same man could make both speeches. But analyzed, they were not inconsistent. He spoke at Wilkesboro (prolific as that town had been in gallant Con- federate officers and men, such as Gordon, Barber, Brown, Cowles and others) to many who were friends of, or related to, deserters or hiding conscripts, and his objects was to win their waning allegiance back to State and Confederacy, by arguments addressed to their sense of prudence as well patriotism, and by gentle reminders of what was his duty as well as theirs in the crisis, then upon them ; while at Fayetteville, his hearers were ardent Confederates, who needed only encouragement, and stimulus to renewed hope- fulness. The color of one side of the shield was shown at one place and that of the other side at the other. As St.
S3
Paul at Caesarea complimented the vicious King Agrippa upon his expertness in the customs of the Jews, so Vance at Wilkesboro praised the faithfulness, of some who heard him, to relatives or friends in hiding, and appealed to that as an influence to redeem their friends from crime and bring them back to paths of honor. The effect of these speeches, and a few others at leading points, was marked. His speech in this city, from a stand between the south- east corner of the Court-house and the "Gales offices," was, I think, all things considered, the most effective speech I have ever heard. Here the Standard and Daily Progress, which nearly echoed its sentiments, were published, and in this city and county, Mr. Holden had many friends and adherents, while some extreme Confederates, in view of his maintenance of habeas corpus against illegal conscription, etc., would not yet forget that Vance was once a Union man. He spoke to vindicate law and order, to denounce unfaithfulness tending toward treason, to dispel the clouds of despondency and clear the air of suspicion, to strengthen the weak, to give courage to the timid, establish the wavering and enthuse the brave. He accomplished all he undertook to do. Men and boys filled the streets and the area about the court-house, while ladies filled the balcony, the doors and the windows of the hotel opposite, and the portico of the Cape Fear Bank below. By lucid statement of conditions environing us, arguments as to duties of citi- zens incident to such conditions, by wit, by illustrations, by pathos, by playful irony, by scathing denunciation, and by lofty appeal to patriotism, he held the crowd as under hypnotic influence, enlightening, amusing, arousing, inspir- ing, alternately exciting them to tears and indignation, and convincing them that in weal or in woe they could safely trust him as their, and the State's friend. I give an in- stance of his aptness in disposing of an adversary, by an original turn. After discussing the editor of the Standard, and the hurtful influence of that paper, he paid his respects
34
to the "Daily Progress." It was generally understood that its manager had begun his business life selling lemonade in a traveling circus. Without preliminary comment, the speaker introduced him to his audience by throwing his head back and body forward, with his hands extended as if holding a platter filled with glasses, and saying in mono- tone at the top of his voice, " O yes ! ladies and gentlemen, here is your ice cold lemonade at five cents a glass !" While he never undervalued any honest employment, he relied upon his hearers agreeing with him that selling red, or water-colored circus lemonade was hardly a proper training for a public educator. Certainly, half an hour's denuncia- tion would hardly have so effectually disposed of this editor ; and he dismissed him with a few more words. When he concluded, amid enthusiastic cheers, personal friends and retainers of Mr. Holden, including a near con- nection who had experienced personal favors from him, were heard to say, they could not withhold their votes from Governor Vance after that speech. He was again triumph- antly elected, by fair vote and open count, and held his office until it was vacated by the surrender of the Southern armies. He left Raleigh on horse-back late in the after- noon of April the 12, and, as I am informed, attended, a day or two afterwards, the last council of war held by Gen- eral Jos. E. Johnston, near Durham.
He surrendered himself to the Federal General in com- mand at Greensboro, in May, 1865, and being paroled, joined his family at Statesville. I give his own account of his arrest in a spicy letter provoked by a false rsport of it hy a famous United States general of cavalry. You will commend it for the pluck it displays, even if you doubt its piudence, he being then under policical disabilities. You will agree that it was deserved, and eminently characteristic of the writer :
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Charlotte, October 13, iJ To the Editor of the Nezv York Herald:
I see by the public prints that General Kilpatrick has decorated me with his disapprobation before the people of Pennsylvania. He informs them, substantially, that he tamed me by capturing me and riding me two hundred miles on a bare- back mule. I will do him the honor to say, that he knew that was a lie when he uttered it. I surrendered in Greensboro, N. C, on the 2d of May, 1865, to General Schofield, who told me to go to my home and remain there, saying if he got any orders to arrest me he would send there for me.
Accordingly I went home and there remained until I was arrested on the 13th of May by a detachment of three hundred cavalry under Major Porter, of Harrisburg, from whom I received nothing but kindness and courtesy. I came in a buggy to Salisbury, where we took the cars. I saw no mule on the trip, yet I thought I saw an ass at the General's headquarters ; this impression has since been con- firmed.
Respectfully yours,
Z. B. Vance.
On the way to Washington he was brought through this city, where he was taken to the office of the Provost Mar- shal, at the corner of the lot then owned and occupied by Hon. Kemp P. Battle, with whom he was permitted to breakfast. I, with other friends, was allowed to see him. It was generally feared that he, with President Davis and a few other men of prominence, whose special arrest had been ordered from Washington, was to be tried and con- demned to death for treason. Well do I remem.ber with what courage and dignity he bore himself, while beneath the easy cordiality with which he greeted old friends, in the presence of Federal guards, I could see anxious fore- boding for the helpless wife and four little boys he was
36
leaving behind, it might be forever, among impoverished friends. He had had ample opportunity in the times of blockade-running to send a few bales of cotton, on his own account, to Liverpool, and have money put to his credit across the waters, and provide against contingencies for himself and family. Prudent friends, including masters of the blockade-runners, and A. Collie & Co., commercial agents at Liverpool, advised him to this course, and offered to advance the money to purchase the cotton ; but he had positively refused, saying he preferred to share the fortunes of the people of the State, whatever they might be, taking no advantage of such accidents of his official position. And so he left with his heart-broken wife a little money, a few friends happened to have and offered to share with him, and went to prison in the old Capitol at Washington.
A few incidents connected with his imprisonment illus- trate his pluck and irrepressible spirits. Arriving at Wash- ington, his guard took him to Willard's hotel to await orders, and he took his seat beside the guard against the wall in the reception room. Soon old Thad. Stephens, the arch enemy of the South and its institutions, who had known Vance well in Congress before the war, walked in front of him and gazed at him as at a caged animal in a menagerie. Vance returned his gaze for a moment, and seeing no sign of friendly recognition, dismissed him from his notice with a gesture of contempt. Old Thad. turned away, feeling that he had been worsted in the encounter. After Vance had been lodged in prison, an acquaintance who was permitted to see him, asked him how he came to be there. ''Security debt," Vance replied. "How so?" asked the friend. " Why, you see, Holden, a leading Demo- crat in my State, pledged the last man and the last dollar for the war, and I went his security. He didn't pay, and here I am." Tom Corwin, of Ohio, an old Whig Con- gressman, distinguished for his wit and ability, also called to see him. After cordial greeting given and received, he
2>7
said, "Vance, I don't understand this. I knew you as a warm advocate for the Union; and here you are a prisoner for treason or something of the kind, while your old secession opponents are left at home. I can't get the hang of it." With a countenance purposely elongated, Vance replied, "I am afraid I will get the hang of it before long." Corwin laughed, and said, a man who could so take a doubtful fate should be relieved, if he could help him. It may have been due to his influence that Secretary Stanton had the prisoner's case looked into, and had him discharged on his record. By his orders the Governor's Letter-book had been sent to the War Office, and upon examination of them he found that Vance, with his big heart that would not endure the maltreatment of a surrendered foe, had renu nstrated in most earnest terms, during the war, with the authorities at Richmond upon learning that Federal prisoners at Salisbury were insufficiently fed and clothed. This mercy to Stanton's soldiers, when helpless in a prison in Vance's State, aroused his sense of justice to one of his most dangerous enemies, and he said, 'Let the man be paroled and allowed to go home to his family."
While he ever kept a bold front, as a result of his anxiety and confinement, and may-be partly from the excessive use of tobacco (" for company's sake ") without necessary exer- cise, Governor Vance, soon after his return, had a stroke of facial paralysis, which for a time left its mark on his coun- tenance and caused some alarm to his friends.
Resolving to begin the practice of law again, he hesitated for a time between Charlotte and Raleigh, as the best place to open the office ; and it was agreed that, if he came to Raleigh, he and I would form a partnership. But Char- lotte being near his old home and the friends of youth, he chose that place. He first practiced in partnership with Col. H. C. Jones and General Robt. D. Johnston, and after- wards as a partner of Major Clement Dowd. His circuit was extensive, and his practice brought him fair remunera-
38
tion, but it did not occupy all of his time, and his evenings at home and on circuit, when not in conference with client or associate counsel, were employed in the preparation of lectures, by the delivery of which he could add to his in- come for the support, of his family, and to pay debts incur- red before the courts were fairly opened. Some of these lectures were eloquent, and exhibited much literary skill, and they were all interesting and instructive. One, on " The Scattered Nation," suggested, doubtless, by the high qualities he observ^ed in some of his Jewish friends and neighbors in Statesville and Charlotte, gave him real fame as a lecturer, and was delivered with great acceptability to Jew and Gentile, by request, in different parts of the country. North and South. One, on the" Demagogue," in the derivative sense of the word, as a leader of the people^ should be in print. It contains a very amusing account of the experiences of an enterprising canvasser for Congress, doubtless his own, and some excellent lessons to public speakers as to the use of illustrations and anecdotes in popu- lar speeches. Neither, he says, should be used except as part of the speaker's argument, and to accentuate a thought and impress it upon the minds and memory of the audience. He insists that a speaker has failed of his purpose, if his hearers remember only his stories and jests, and forget the points they were intended to illustrate, and that he should reseive them until the exigency demanded them. For example, when the speaker, watchful of all his audience, sees a man, in the outskirts of the crowd, balance himself on one foot, shut one eye and spit at a chip, it is time to throw in an anecdote, to arrest his flagging attention. This serves to illustrate his own method as a popular speaker. His anecdotes were so amusing that they were, after every speech, widely circulated ; and not to repeat well known stories he must either have a had a wonderfully large repertory, or have manufactured many of them for the occasion. I have often thought, that both he and Abraham
39
Lincoln, the only man, who, in the history of American oratory, compares with him in the variety and aptness of of the stories and homely illnstrations, with which he in- strncted his hearers, made their anecdotes to hand, or changed old ones to suit their purpose. Governor Vance was accustomed, on account of having devoted so much of his time to other things than the law, to speak lightly, with his friends, of his accomplishments as a lawyer ; but he was well-grounded in legal principles, and his sense of justice was so strong, and he was so quick to apprehend a point suggested by judge or counsel, that his client's cause seldom suffered from his want of technical knowledge ; and his influence with the juries was more than sufficient to make up for any deficiency in that direction. He took no notes of testimony, but he always remembered what a wit- ness had said, and his array of what was material, and made for his side, was masterful. He commanded the confidence of Court and jury, and illustrated his own sincerity and condor by misrepresenting nothing. To be for, and with Vance was a great temptation to the average juror. An opponent in some of his cases, himself an able and success- ful lawyer, said, after some of Vance's triumphs, that a law ought to be passed by the Legislature, denying the last speech to Vance before a Mecklenburg jury. His quick- ness and knowledge of human nature made him very skill- ful in examination of witnesses, while by unexpected re- partee, by apt illustration and mirthful stories, he often upset the decorum of the Court and convulsed jurors and bystanders. I give two instances, as samples of his variety of illustration. In a case in Union Court, a man who, from former official positions in the county, was frequently a witness in litigated cases, was reluctant to tell what he knew that might benefit Vance's client. When Vance came to comment on his testimony, he told the jury that J\lr. A. must have reminded them of what they often saw in their stable-yards — an old cow holding back her milk
40
from the pail of the milker, but with open legs letting it flow in copious streams when the calf's time came. Severest denunciation would not have served his purpose better. The other is of widely different character. It was told me by the late Chief Justice Merrimon. In February, 1867, as Jucge of the Superior Courts, he held, by assignment of the Governor, a Special Term in Chowan County, for the trial of the caveat to the will of James C. Johnston, a wealthy bachelor, who, d5ing near the end of the war, left a paper writing cutting off relatives who expected to be his legatees, and giving his estate to those not of his blood. The relatives attacked the will on the ground of insanity, and ex-Governors Graham, Bragg and Vance, and ex-Attorney General Eaton were retained to break it, while the propounders had an array of equal legal ability to support it. Four weeks were consumed in the trial, and intense interest was felt in the result. When Governor Vance arose to make his argument, the court-house was filled to its utmost capacity, the most intelligent people of Edenton of both sexes being present. He read a paper, written after the execution of the will, at the dictation of Mr. Johnston, in which he spoke of the selfishness and in- gratitude of people, who fawn upon and flatter one when in prosperity, and turn their backs upon him in time of his adversity. "This," said Governor Vance, " is a libel on human nature. I myself am a living contradiction of all such statements. The people of my district sent me to Congress when but a little more than a boy, and the people of the State twice made me their Governor, and have honored me otherwise far beyond my deserts. Adver- sity came upon me and upon them ; I was deprived of my office, and sent a prisoner, and for what I knew to a felon's doom, at Washington. I now stand before you, gentlemen, without money or place, a paroled prisoner ; but in all my life I never had the consciousness that I had the good will
41
and affection of the people of North Carolina in a greater degree than I have to-day."
Judge Merrimon, who was an excellent Nisi /Vzwj Judge, and commanded great respect for the administration of the law in his Court, said he never witnessed such enthusiasm and excitement as followed. Ladies waved their handker- chief, weeping in sympathy, and men and boys applauded with voice, hands and feet ; and "Hurrah for Vance" came in spontaneous outbursts from almost every throat. The hubbub continued, in repeated rounds of applause, for ten oi fifteen minutes, the Judge and Sheriff being powerless to suppress it, and the offense being fully pardoned as free from any element of intentional contempt of Court.
He was courteous to brethren of the bar, and conspicu- ously fair to honest and truthful parties and witnesses, though opposed to his client ; but his denunciation of fraud, oppression, and manifest lying or prevarication was terrible to the offender.
That he was possessed of the acumen and logical ability that would have made him a great lawyer, if he had devoted his time chiefly to the study of legal questions, is proved by the very able constitutional argument he made in the United States Senate in August, 1893, upon the minority report presented by him as a member of the committee on Privileges and Elections on the right of Lee Mantle to a seat as Senator from Montana. The majority report, made by Mr. Hoar as Chairman and championed by him, was in favor of seating Mr. Mantle ; the minority report was against it. Mr. Mantle was appointed by the Governor of Montana to fill a vacancy the Legislature of that State had the opportunity to fill, but adjourned without filling. It was understood that the majority of the Senate favored Mr. Mantle's right to the seat, but several of the abler law- yers among them had their opinions changed, some against their wills, by Senator Vance's logical and convincing ar- gument. Mantle's case was the leading precedent, by which
42
the right of Mr. Quay to a seat as Senator from Pennsyl- vania, depending on the same question, was decided ad- versely to hitn last winter
This by way of parenthesis !
The degree of L-L. D. was conferred upon Governor Vance many years ago by both Davidson College and the University of the State.
While a paroled prisoner of the United States, Governor Vance did not think it proper to take an active part in politics, but his advice was often sought and freely given to the Conservative-Democratic leaders in the State. He at once realized that North Carolina must again become part of the United States, and he advised his fellow citi- zens to shape their conduct as citizens on that basis, to accept the situation as cheerfully as possible, and without sulking to proceed to mend their broken fortunes — just as did our great military chieftain and Christian hero, when he became a College President at Lexington, Virginia, who, by example and precept, inspired the young men committed to his charge to recognize, as the result of the arbitrament or war, that they and he were citizens of the United States, as well as of Virginia or Noith Carolina, and owed it faith- ful and, as far as possible, cheerful allegiance.
At theCommencement of our University in June, 1866, Gov- ernor Vance delivered, to the few young men who had found means, at that time of lost fortunes and general desolation, to complete there a higher education, an address on " The Duties of Defeat." In that address, after earnest words expressing admiration for the gallant officer, leading a charge on the enemy, rallying his wavering men, or cheer- ing their advance, with the resolution to conquer or to die, he used this language: "We thrill and burn as we read the glowing story, and exhaust the language of praise in extolling his virtues. But not less glorious, not less worthy of the commendation of his countrymen, is he wha
43
iu an hour like this bravely submits to fate ; and scorning- alike the promptings of despair and the unmanly refuge of expatriation, rushes to the rescue of his perishing coun- try, inspires his fellow-citizens with hope, cheers the dis- consolate, arouses the sluggish, lifts up the helpless and the feeble, and by voice and example, in every possible way, urges forward all the blessed and bloodless and crowning victories of peace. It is a noble thing to die for one's country ; it is a higher and a nobler thing to live for it. The greatest campaign for which soldiers ever buckled on armor is before you. The drum beats and the bugle sounds, to arms, to repel invading poverty and destitution, which have seized our strongholds and are waging war, cruel and relentless, upon our women and children. The teeming earth is blockaded by the terrible lassitude of exhaustion^ and we are required, through toil and tribulation, to retake by storm that prosperity and happiness which once were our own, aud to plant our banners firmly upon their ever- lasting ramparts, amid the plaudits of a redeemed and re- generated people."
With patriotic pride he recalled the achievements of our Southland for the common country, and the constancy and courage of our soldiers in the war, ended only a year before, in confidence that such qualtities must everywhere be ad- mired, and said : " I would as soon believe that there was no room for such things in the breast of men as truth and honor, as that every soldier in the Army of the Potomac, from its General to the humblest private that followed its banners, did not in his heart respect and honor the lofty courage, consummate skill, and patriotic constancy of that other army^ which, though vastly inferior in numbers and appointments, yet kept it four years on the short but bloody journey from the Potomac to the James, and filled every inch of its pathway with ghastly monuments of the slain."
He ended the address with these inspiring words : " May this honored and revered University, speedily and from
44
time to time, open its gates and send forth to the work of the regeneration of their country as many high-souled and generous, brave and enthusiastic youths as rushed through its portals to untimely graves, during the years of our tribulation. I could not endure to live, but for the com- forting hope that compensating years of peace and happi- ness are yet in store for those who have struggled so man- fully and endured so nobly. Having gone down into the lowest depths of the fiery furnace of affliction, seven times heated by the cruel malice of civil war, I believe there will yet appear, walking with and comforting our mourning people, one whose form is like unto that of the Son of God."
What a bugle note of hope and faith and cheei such words were, in that day of gloom, when Federal garrisons here and elsewhere were guarding us as a subjugated peo- ple, and many were yielding to despair, not only to the young men to whom they were spoken, but to multitudes in all parts of the State, who were listening for the voice of the Oracle which never yet had failed them ! My young friends, heed these words ! His prophecy of prosperity and happiness, for his and your State, has been more than fulfilled, and we are on the threshhold of still brighter things. North Carolina in its darkest days was a home nothing could induce him to forsake. Tempting ofTers were made to him to settle elsewhere, and wealth and political honors would certainly have followed ; but he re- fused them all, preferring poverty here to material pros- perity elsewhere. Follow his example ! He loved North Carolina with undying love, in her darkest adversity. •Surely in her new life of prosperity you can, and will love, honor and cherish her.
Until his parole as a United States prisoner was, in effect, cancelled by the dismissal, at Washington, of all thought of prosecuting him for treason, he made no political speeches; but in 1868, he, as the representative of the
45
younger, and ex-Governor Wm. A. Graham of the older statesmen of our Commonwealth, then in the throes of re- construction, made, by invitation, before the Democratic Convention of that year, great speeches, advising the peo- ple of the State to maintain their dignity and self-respect at all hazards, and outlining a policy to be pursued in that dark hour. Their wise words were heeded ; no people in the world's history ever displayed more fortitude, or bided their time with more patient dignity than you, your fathers, and older brothers did, while the rule of the carpet-baggers and scalawags (as Governor Vance named the meaner natives among us), by votes of recent slaves, and backed by the dominant party at Wathington, was imposed upon us.
Before Governor Vance thought it proper to enter the political arena again, a temptation was offered him, which would have proved irresistible to one less incorruptible than he. A man of acknowledged influence in the new Repnbtican party in the State, and whom Governor Vance well knew as a blunt outspoken man, and who had been his friend, visited Charlotte and sought a private interview with him. He informed Vance that he was there to offer him the leadership of the Republican party in North Caro- lina, as one who could direct public sentiment. "You are poor," he said, "and we will see that you have plenty of money. You are under political disabilities, and we will have them at once removed. You are ambitious, and we will see that you take a seat now vacant in the United States Senate. You can persuade your friends, it is better for you and them to have the control than to leave it to such men as we now have." "No," said Vance, with em- phasis. " I am not ready to sell out yet." " Well, good-bye," said the tempter, jocularly, " I always knew you were a durn fool," and left. Later, during Governor Holden's impeach- ment trial, in 187 1, his incorruptibility, and his sense of what he owed, as an example, to the people, were put to the test ; and he was called on to meet a more subtle tempta-
46
tion. It came at a time when, for some reason, he was in greater need of money than usual, and a friend, who was with him daily, noticed an unwonted depression about him. His mail was handed him, and in it a letter from Raleigh. He read and re-read it, with knitted brow. 'What is the matter Governor?" his friend asked. He replied, "I am in particular need of money just now, and here is a letter from a friend of Governor Holden's offering me a large fee to help in his defense. Now I know he can get better law- yers than I am, and I am satisfied this offer is made to have my personal influence with the members of the Legislature thrown in the scales for him. I feel that it would be a prostitution of that influence, and I must refuse the offer."
As the result of the reaction caused by the Holden-Kirk war, and by a determined effort, the Democrats captured the Legislative branch of the Government in 1870, and about the first of December of that year, Governor Vance, notwithstanding he was still under political disability, was elected to the United States Senate, being preferred to ■General, Ransom, who had so distinguished himself in the war between the States, and Honorable A. S. Merrimon, distinguished as a lawyer and judge, and in political life. But Governor Vance was so obnoxious to Republicans at the North, because, of the vigor and eloquence of his pro- clamations during the war, and because he was the acknowl- edged War Governor of the South, that he was refused his seat in the Senate. After long waiting, and finding the tan- talizing hopes held out to him, from time to time, of the re- moval of his disabilities to be vain, he resigned his contingent right to be Senator, and General Ransom was elected in his place. This soldier and statesman, a born displomatist, had not been long in the Senate before he succeeded in having Governor Vance's disabilities removed. There was another vacancy in the Senate to be filled by the General Assembly, in the fall of 1872, and he was the favored can-
47
didate of a large majority of his party for the seat ; but a few Democratic friends of Judge Merrimon's bolted the action of the caucus, and the Republicans in the Legisla- ture, diverting their votes from their party candidate, help- ed them to elect Merrimon. This was the greatest disap- pointment Governor Vance experienced in his political career ; and for a time he was really depressed. The sympathy of his friends, whose love for him was incieased by this reverse, however, his natural bouyancy, and the growing demands of his family, requiring his constant labor, soon restored his equanimity. In view of what he was able to accomplish, after he became a Senator, six years later, when he was nearly forty-nine years old, and when his capacity for labor was possibly not so great as it had been, and notwithstanding that Judge Merrimon made a faithful and able Senator, it seems a matter for regret, that so many years of Vance's life, as a champion of the South and of low tariff, were lost to the country, by his failure to get the seat his party intended for him six and eight years before. But a great work was reserved for him to do in North Carolina. The Judicial aud Executive branches of our State Government were still in the hands of the Republi- cans, notwithstanding the vigorous campaign made by Judge Merrimon as the Democratic candidate for Governor, and his associates on the ticket, in 1872. In 1876 the Conservative-Democratic people of the State looked for somebody to lead them to victory. The eyes of the masses turned toward Vance as their leader in the struggle ; though politicians suggested that his nomination would not be wise, because he had made enemies among some whose sympa- thies remained with the Union during the war, and among friends of deserters, because of his vigorous prosecution of the war, and they proposed the names of men of eminence who had not been so pronounced iu theii views, or whose conduct at least had excited no such prejudice. Long be- fore the meeting of the Convention, friends from all sec-
48
tions wrote him on the subject of being a cadidate, myself among the number. His candid reply was, that having had all the honor there was to be had from being Governor, it would be a great personal sacrifice to have to make the canvass ; but the people had done so much for him that he could not refuse if there should be a popular demand for him to be the candidate. Some Democratic newspapers, as well as the politicians referred to, were on the side of prudence^ and favored the nomination of others. But when the delegates, alternates and other representatives of pupu- lar sentiment, in full numbers, assembled here, it was seen that there could be but one result. The people demanded Vance, and nobody else. The names of other good men were before the Convention ; but, at the end of the first and only roll-call, 962 out of 966 votes were announced for Vance. That night, he made a speech to a large crowd in front of the National Hotel, now the Agricultural Build- ing, accepting the nomination. It was very earnest, and more serious that his speeches were wont to be, and im- pressed his hearers with the gravity of the work before him and them. He seldom said anything that sounded boastful, about himself, in speeches or conversation, but then, alluding to the corruption of the times and the tempta- tions to which he and others had been subjected during the war and since, to save or make something out of the wreck, he raised his hands above his head and solemnly said : " Before high heaven, these hands are clean ; no charge can be made that one dishonest dollar has ever soiled these palms." The effect was electric ; and every man there felt ready to stake his life on the truth of his words, and those words rang, with conviction to all, throughout the length and breadth of the State. The Republicans had put forth as their candidate their ablest speaker, and most accomplished and popular politician, Hon. Thomas Settle, then on the Supreme Court Bench of the State. He had signified his acceptance of the nomination, and the " Battle
49
of the Giants," was soon to begin. Because of the different character of the audiences which naturally assembled to hear the Republican and Democratic candidates for high office, it had not been the custom to have joint discussions ; and some members of the State Democratic Committee advised against a joint canvass between Vance and Settle, and others doubted its advisability. Not so thought Vance ; and a few of us concurred in his opinion. The result was, that he promptly accepted an expected challenge from Settle, and for weeks the greatest and most exciting compaign ever known in the State was waged. The champions were buth men of conspicuous ability and high character. Judge Settle had been long a student of party politics, and stood so high as a Republican leader, that he was Chairman of the Convention in which General Grant was nominated for the Presidency, at Baltimore, and was a most skilful debater. Both candidates were possessed of splendid physique, about six feet in height, and weighing near two hundred pounds. Settle being a little the taller and Vance, probably, a little the heavier of the two. Both presented a very handsome appearance on stump and plat- form— Settle being more regular of feature and Vance the more winning in expression. The campaign was conduc- ted on a high plane, and both fully satisfied their friends. As the rewards of their labors, Vance became Governor and afterwards United States Senator, and Settle was made United States Judge of the District Court of Florida.
Va nee had not miscalculated his hold upon the people, and his power to excite enthusiasm among his hearers. It was aroused to fever heat wherever the speakers went, and Henry Clay was never more of an idol in Kentucky then Vance was in North Carolina. The Confederate veterans rallied to his banner, sixty thousand strong, and with their sons and younger brothers, recently come of age, one hundred thousand strong. They well knew who had been their best friend. The battle terminated by his triumphant
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election, with a majority of over thirteen thousand votes. I mention an incident of the campaign, as illustrative of his magnanimous nature. When Settle went to Charlotte, to meet their appointment, it became understood that he would be very coldly received. It was Vance's home, and to prevent mortification to his opponent there, he called for Judge Settle himself, with the handsomest turnout he could find, and took him to the place of speaking.
Taking his seat for the third time as Chief Magistrate of the State, in January, 1877, he proceeded to do all that a patriot and statesman could do for its upbuilding. Time forbids me to do more than refer to the plans outlined, and the earnest recommendations made in his Inaugural Ad- dress and his Messages to the Legislatures of 1877 and 1879. Nothing seems to have been omitted. Increased facilities for education of the people, of all conditions, nor- mal schools for training of teachers of both colors, the employment of women as well as men in the public schools, and improvement in different ways in our charitable insti- tutions, so as to enlarge their capacity for good to the poor unfortunates of the State, were urged generally and in de- tail. His recommendations were heeded by the General Assembly, and our Ship of State was fairly launched to- ward the haven of unwonted prosperity. Hon. Thos. J. Jarvis, Lieutenant-Governor, who succeeded Vance on his transfer to the United States Senate, in March, 1879, ^^^ so ably performed the duties of our Chief Fxecutive for six years (and none have performed them more ably) with that candor which has ever charactered him as a public man, will tell you that he had little to do but to follow the lead of his predecessor, and carry out the plans Vance had outlined. If anything, the education of the people, all the people, was his hobby, as appears from his messages, and many public addresses, and the State was fortunate in that Jarvis adopted and successfully rode that hobby.
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Elected to the Senate about the last of November, 1878, and January, 1885 and January, 1891, he served his State and Country in that great field of labor from the day he was sworn in March, 1879, until stricken down by disease, a short time before his death in April, 1894. How he served, how he labored, how he bore himself in the hard fought battles of those fifteen years, against open enemy or insidious foe, how vigilant he was to protect the liberties of the people and defend the fair name of his own con- stituents and their brethren of the South ; how by incessant toil, day and night, which caused him the loss of an eye and then shortened his days, he mastered the great ques- tions of the tariff and finance and became the recognized leader of his party on those questions; how he used the battle-axe of logic or the scimitar of irony and wit, with equal ease, as exigency demanded; how by courage, candor and sincerity, in all he said and did, on the floor and in committee-rooms, he commanded the respect and confidence of all honest adversaries, and undoubting support of his followers; how by kindly, if bluff, courtesy and merry jest, in lobby and cloak room, he overcame the prejudice of Northern Senators, and made personal friends of political opponents; how he enlivened the dullest debates by unex- pected sallies, neat epigrams and witty illustrations; how his arguments were so interesting that the seats were better filled when he spoke, than when others had the floor, and how crowded galleries hung upon his words; how his weight and influence in the councils of his party, in the House as well as the Senate, were ever growing; how his solemn words as he spoke for the last time, September ist, 1893, from his place in the Senate Chamber, warning the people of the country against the encroachments of the money power and its allies, sounded through the land like the tones of a fire-bell at night, are all part of the history of the times.
The eulogies of him, as orator, statesman, and man, pro-
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noiinced in the Senate and House of Representatives, nine and ten months after his death, and in words well weighed, by leading men of both parties, are sufficient to satisfy his most ardent friends, and justify me fully in saying, that in the opinion of his fellows he stood in the fore-front of the great men of the country, and that in him passed away the most interesting personality of our day. Not to quote the language in which our Senators, Ransom and Jarvis, and our Representatives, Alexander, Branch, Bower, Bunn, Crawford, Henderson and Woodard extolled his life, his services and his character, truthful as well as eloquent their eulogies were, I beg to call attention to ihe fact, that in his own Chamber such political opponents as Morrill, of Vermont, Sherman of Ohio, Chandler of New Hampshire, Dubois of Idaho, as well as such political friends as Bate of Tennessee, Blackburn of Kentucky, Call of Florida, George of Mississippi, and Gras' of Delaware, and Repre- sentatives Bland of Missouri, Bryan of. Nebraska, Caruth of Kentucky , Daniels and Warner of New York, Hender- son of Iowa, Hooper of Mississippi, McMillin (now Gov- ernor) of Tennessee, Springer of Illinois, Swanson of Vir- ginia, and Wheeler of Alabama, spoke of him in terms of praise scarcely les« strong, and of admiration hardly less warm. I cite the words of a few of them, as fair samples of them all. Senator Sherman, who had served with him in the House from 1858 to 1861, said: ''He carried with him wherever he went cheerfulness and joy. The humor and pathos with which he illustrated an argument, the sin- cerity and moderation of his opinion?, his fidelity to his friends, the apparent honesty of his convictions — these were the attributes of our departed friend. In his life among us in the Senate he was cheerful, kind and mod- erate. He left no enemies here."
Senator Gray, now United States Circuit Court Judge, said : " Senator Vance had become, more than is usual, a part, an almost necessary part, it seemed, of our
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daily life here. In hira the humanities were so active and abundant that he seemed made to brighten social life and strengthen the social instinct. In this hour of sad retrospect his kindness of heart, his ready and re- sponsive sympathy, his catholicity of spirit, his free- dom from bigotry, envy and all uncharitableness, are the qualities upon which we, who knew and loved him, fain would dwell, to the exclusion of those attributes of intel- lect and character which excited our admiration and so distinguished his public career. His public life was a long and full one. It covered a period replete with interest to his State and countrv. Fearless in the expression of his mature convictions, he had an almost unequalled power of impressing them on the Senate and the country. His equipment as an orator was strong and unique. Great quickness of perception was united to great facility and felicity of speech. His mind was well disciplined and logical, and he maintained the purpose and continuity of his arguments with great ability and skill. But it was in what is called running debate that, it seemed to me, his greatest power was displayed The quick play of his in- tellectual forces made him pre-eminent. Sarcasm, repartee, humor, were all at his instant command. Of these weapons he had always a quiver full ; and woe to the antagonist who carelessly exposed to them. But the ready wit never left scars behind.
' He never made a brow look dark, Nor caused a tear but when he died.'
Like lambent lightning his wit was softly bright ; it illuminated but did not burn." Again : " No one who heard the long debate, on the tariff bill of 1890, will ever forget the part which was taken in it by Senator Vance. As a member of the Finance Committee of this body he bore a large measure of the burden of that memorable discussion. The details of the bill were thoroughly mastered by him, and he devoted laborious days and nights to the study of
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the complex and difficult questions involved in its consid- eration. He sacrificed his ease and comfort to the per- formance of his duty, and his unremitting devotion to the work before him, through the long weeks and months of that spring and summer, cost him the sight of an eye and greatly impaired his naturally strong constitution. * * * It has been given to few men to carve for themselves so secure a niche in the temple of their country's fame."
Mr. George, Mississippi's great Senator, now dead, after speaking of his leadership on the Democratic side, said : " From the very first I was attached to him not more by his many high social qualities than by a conviction on my part of his great value as a statesman. * * * His powers of debate were remarkable, and in many respects unrivalled. He possessed sound logic, which enabled him to solve the most difficult problems and present his views on them with great clearness and force. * * * He used his great powers of wit and humor not as mere ornaments of discourse, but always as a substantial aid to his argument. This gift was always made subordinate to, and servant of, his powers of reasoning. He was one of the few men I have known who, being possessed of brilliant powers to please and attract by wit, humor and anecdote, never succumbed to the temptation to be agreeable and amusing at the expense of being in- structive. In any legislative body in the world he would have been esteemed great." He proceeded to hold up the moral side of Senator Vance's character, and his noble ambition to serve faithfully the great mass of his country- men, and concluded with these words: "I feel warranted in saying, that the sober verdict of history will assign to Senator Vance a very high place in the front rank of American statesmen, and that his death, at that stage of the development of his high powers, when his greatness and usefulness were recognized by all, came too soon for the public good, and was a great national loss."
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Representative Wheeler of Alabama, the famous Confed- erate Cavalry General, and one of the hero of Santiago, said: "Senator Vance, probably more than any other man of his generation, possessed qualities which peculiarly fitted him for a public servant in a Republic like ours. * * * His whole life was an exemplification of love and devotion to the people whom he served. To this was largely due the bounteous outpouring of the love from his people to their idolized leader."
Representative Hooker, of Mississippi, a native of South Carolinu, went even further and said : " He will take his position side by side with that venerable trio that passed away long ago, of whom we are in the habit of speaking when the Senate is named, Calhoun, Clay, and Webster, He will take his position as one of the great orators and statesmen of the land in which he lived."
Representative Springer, of Illinois, likened him to his own Abraham Lincoln, in his aptness with the use of humorous illustrations to rivet the attention of the audi- ence upon the more solid and instructive portions of his discourse, and alluding to his appearance pronounced him "a man of commanding presence and who in any assembly would be observed of all observers, and in appearance an ideal Governor and model Senator." * * * "A statesman in the broadest sense, a devoted friend of the common peo- ple, and a fearless advocate of the equal rights of all before the law." He, like several others of the eulogists, was attracted, as the fatal disease was wasting the strength of Senator Vance, by the " calm resignation and cheerfulness, with which he approached the life to come, in anticipation of a brighter and better existence beyond the tomb."
Representative Caruth of Kentucky, attracted to him, in part, because from that State Senator Vance had taken his ''life companion," asserted that, "In modern times there has appeared in this Republic no more thronghly equipped or better prepared debater or orator than Zebulon
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B. Vance." And he quoted and fully endorsed this glow- ing tribute in the address of Senator Ransom: "What Tell was to Switzerland, what Bruce was to Scotland, what William of Orange was to Holland, I had almost said what Moses was to Israel, Vance was to North Carolina. I can give you but a faint idea of the deep, fervid, exalted senti- ments which our people cherished for their greatest tribune. He was of them. He was one of them. He was with them. His thoughts, his feelings, his words, were theirs. He was their shepherd, their champion, their friend, their guide, blood of them blood, great, good, noble, true, human like they were in all respects, no better, but wiser, abler, with higher knowledge and profounder learning."
I cite briefly from two others, representiug the extremes of the two great parties of the country.
Mr. Henderson, now Speaker of the House of Representa- tives, said : " This man came of Revolutionary blood. The inspiration that followed the flag of Washington never ceased to permeate his great and mighty heart, and in 1861 he stood up like a bul wark against the waves that were beating against his cotmtry." He attributed to him "that greatness which cannot be dimmed by any clouds or any revolutions " and pronounced him a great orator and rare wit and humorist ; and then said : " I met him first to take his hand, when we were attending a meeting of the Sons of the Revolution in this city. And when he sat down, after describing eloquently and touchingly some of the scenes of the past, he sat down with me as his brother and his friend. The thought fllashed through my mind, if this was a Confed- erate soldier, the Confederary is truly gone, and we are sure of a permanent, solid and indissoluble Union."
Representative Bryan of Nebraska, and surely the words of William Jennings Bryan will have weight among some of my hearers, said : ''In the history of our country I think we could find few men as remarkable. When a man is elected once or twice and disappears, we may attribute his
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success to circumstances ; but when a man begins as Mr. Vance began, as a young man, and retains the confidence of those he served for a generation, we must conclude that his success is due to something more than chance or acci- dent. Senator Vance was a leader among men. Few in our day, in our history, even, have better earned that designation than Zebulon B. Vance. * * * pje ^^as a wise man. He was able to estimate causes and calculate effects. He wa? able to foresee what would come to pass, because he understood men. * ^k * j^ ^ag j-,q^ ^\^^ experience of age which he possessed ; it was a sort of intuitive judgment, an instinct for truth, that made him see in advance what others only found out afterwards." Then, after exemplifying this, he proceeded: 'Not only was he a wise men, but he was a courageous man; and that is a characteristic, too, that is essential in the man who is to be a leader of men. He had the courage to assume responsibility. He shirked no duty. What he be- lieved he said, and he was willing to stand or fall by the correctness of his conclusions. Jefferson, in speaking of some man, said ' he had not learned the sublime truth that a bold, unequivocal virtue is the best hand-maid even unto ambition.' Zebulon B. Vance had learned that sublime truth." Again : " He had more than wisdom and courage; he had that, without which wisdom and courage would have been of no avail. He loved the people, he would lead." He proceeded to eulogize him "as one of the great orators, because he possessed two of the characteristics of the orator — he knew what he was talking about when he talked, and he believed w^hat he said * * "*" Not only did he impart knowledge surcharged with earnestness, but he possessed rare ability in making truth pleasant to receive. He was a statesman as well as a leader of men and an orator. As a statesmen he was devoted to his work. As a statesman he was prepared to make every sacrifice which his position called for. As a statesman he was ready to give
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to every call that conscientious response which duty re- quired. As a statesman, he was pecuniarily honest. There is nothing in the life of Mr. Vance that I prize more than the fact, that with all his ability, with all his know- ledge, with all his influence, no person can say that he ever sold his influence, his ability, or his support for money." He ended with these words: " I beg to place on record my tribute of profound respect for a public servant, who at the close of his career was able to say to the people for whom he toiled. ' I have lived in your presence for a life- time ; I have received all my honors at your hands ; I stand before you without fear that any one can charge against me an official wrong.' I say, to such a man, I pay my tribute of respect."
I give one more extract, to show how our Senator en- deared himself to a sister State, while its better citizenship had no representative of its own, to whom to look.
Representative Swanson of Virginia said : " The people of no section heard with more profound grief and sorrow of the death of the late distinguished Senator from North Caro- lina than those I have the honor to represent on this floor. No people loved him more than we loved him ; none ad- mired him more than we admired him ; none have exper- ienced more than we his kind offices and generous aid. When to subserve partisan purposes the Senate of the United States, by a pretended investigation inaugurated by a recreant Senator from Virginia, sought to blacken the fair name and asperse the character of the good people of Danville and my District, we found in Senator Vance our brave chapion and our valiant defender." * * * <« \\/-e feel toward him that deep personal affection and pride which animate the people of his own State. I wish I had the power of voicing the tender love and admiration that my people entertain for this man. I wish my power of speech was commensurate with, and could do full justice to his splendid qualities of mind and heart."
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In view of these services so gladly rendered by him to Virginia, and the appreciation entertained by Virginians of those services, he was sometimes alluded to as " The Senator from North Carolina and Virginia."
Governor Vance was twice married. On August 3, 1853, he was married to Miss Harriet N. Espy, daughter of a deceased Presbyterian clergyman, a woman notable for her piety and devotion to duty. She was under medium size, and, with pretty auburn hair and regular profile, was attrac- tive in appearance, as she was in manners. She was loyalty itself to " Husband," as she always called him, and his tender affection for her was all she herself could wish. She was more rigorous in her notions of propriety than her husband, and with intimate friends he would occasionally allude to the restraining influence of his "Little red-headed Presbyterian wife." Like most good husbands of sensible wives, he dX^o^ys professed X.o be subject to "wife's rule at home." They had four sons, three of whom survived him. Their only difference in parental devotion to these boys was, that he inclined to greater indulgence, than she, to the faults arising from inherited exuberance of spirits. His loving attention to wife and children and considerate kindness to servants were conspicuous, and attracted my attention when, as his Secretary, I .saw him in the bosom of his family, off duty, while our War Governor ; and I was pleased to be assured by that brilliant woman, Mrs. Cor- nelia Phillips Spencer, a warm friend of Vance's from his Chapel Hill days, after a visit to Mrs. Vance at their home in Charlotte, that her observation agreed with mine, that great and attractive as Governor Vance was in public life, and socially, he appeared at his best, and was most attrac- tive, in his home^ as husband, father, and host. This wife died, after loug and painful disease, November 3, 1878, dur- ing his third term as Governor, in the house on Fayette- ville street now occupied by Mr. Pulaski Cowper ; and his
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patient tender nursing of her, as she suffered and weakened from da)' to day, so impressed a lady friend, much with them, that she declared to me, with emphasis, " His heart is as large as his big body." And so it was; for when a member of his family or dear friend was in afifliction he was all heart ; and relatives and friends would in turn almost have died for him. May-be a source of much of his power and influence was due to that large heart. The first ]\Irs. Vance was borne to her grave in the Mountains within a month after the burial of her husband's good mother.
In 1880, he married Mrs. Florence Steele IVIartin, a lad}- who is appositely described by Representative Caruth, from her native State, as " one of the fairest, brightest, most gifted daughters of Kentucky," and who still presides with winning grace in the home on Massachu- setts Avenue, in Washington, where she and her husband for man}' }-ears dispensed cordial hospitality to personal friends from North Carolina, Kentucky, and elsewhere, as well as to those high in public station in the Nation's Metropolis. As she still lives to mourn him, it is not fitting that I should raise the curtain, and attempt to depict the tender devotion of their married life.
His duties as Senator required him to spend most of each year in Washington, and there was his official home; but that his heart ever turned to the old North State, was ap- parent from the pictures on the walls, the photographs of scenes and friends on the table, and the Carolina pine he planted at his door, and whose sickly life was the object of his tender care. There, the humblest citizen from his State ever found him accessible to the story of his needs, and ready to help him, as he was able, whatever might be the demand of official duties upon the Senator's time. As age crept upon him, and with it a wish for rest and vaca- tion, he sought his native mountains for a summer home; and high up the side of the Old Black he built beautiful
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"Gombroon," where, with wife and kindred and friends, he enjoyed well earned respite from toil and communion with Nature and Nature's God. There still his widow spends her summers, reminded by every rock and tree and shrub, and the great mountain itself, of her large-hearted hus- band, who so loved them. When not on duty in Washing- ton, his habit was to hasten back to North Carolina. He loved his friends here too much to spend vacations in for- eign travel; but in 1891, under the advice of his physician, he and Mrs. Vance, with her son (who was as a son to him), visited Europe and spent some time in travel in the coun- tries that most interested him. But he became homesick, as he himself admitted, and returned at the expiration of a few months. In the winter of 1894 his health having be- come still further impaired, he was induced to go to Florida and spend some weeks in the hope that might be benefitted. This proved vain, however, and he returned to Washing- ton, hoping that he might be able to resume his seat in the Senate; but he went home only to linger and to die.
Soon after the death of his first wife he became a com- muning member of the Presbyterian Church, in this city. He had long been a regular attendant upon its services. It can do no harm now, for me to tell of the regret he ex- pressed to me, soon after his return from his first wife's burial, that he had not joined the Chuich in her lifetime. He had been influenced to stay out, he said, by the dishonest lives of some church members he knew. He admitted it was not a sufficient reason; but he despised hypocrisy and was reluctent to put himself in such fellowship with some who were hypocrites. He has long been a prime favorite with religious ministers, worthy of their calling, and few among them failed to find in him, if not a technical theo- logian, one as well ver.sed in the Bible and the history of Christianity as themselves. He could not but be broad and catholic in his views, and opposed to sectarian bigotry. While in earlier years his lighter conversation and occa-
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sional over-emphatic language led many to think otherwise, there was ever a strong religious element in him, and he had always a profound faith in an overruling Providence. In politics he was, by birth and education, an ardent Whig, and so continued until the war came on. The corner-stone of the Southern Confederacy being States' Rights, and having to labor during the war to protect the rights of his State, whose Constitution and laws were largely in his keeping, he began to change his political views. Federal aggression on the rights of the States during the war, and especially upon the rights of the Southern States during the terrible period of Reconstruc- tion, made him realize the value of the checks advocated by Thomas Jefferson to prevent the centralization of gov- ernmental power at the National Capital ; and he gradually became an earnest advocate of the principles of Jeffersonian Democracy. I doubt whether there is to be found a stronger defense and justification of the course of the Southern States in 1861, in so few words, as is to be found in an ad- dress he delivered December 8th, 1886, by invitation, be- fore the Andrew Post, No. 15, of the Grand Army of the Republic, in Boston, Mass. His large audience was com- posed mostly of the disciples of Wendell Phillips and Charles Sumner; but when he finished that address, in which bold candor was but little sweetened by the polite- ness due by him as a guest, his hearers hardly knew whether Massachusetts or South Carolina was more respon- sible for the sins of slavery and secession, if sins they were. It was to their credit, as weil as his, that the address was received with hearty applause. His audience were curious to hear the other side, from one who best knew it ; and surely they heard it. Their prejudices must have been shaken, if not, with some, broken down.
I have alluded to Governor Vance's physique at the time of the Vance-Setde campaign. From the time he was a
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student at Chapel Hill until after he became Governor, he was slim, and weighed, perhaps, under one hundred and sixty pounds; and, after the fashion then passing away, he wore his black hair long, almost to his shoulders, and thrown back from his brow. You can so see him in the portraits of the three successive Colonels of the Twenty- sixth North Carolina Regiment in the State Library. After he passed middle age he increased in fleshiness until, before fatal disease attacked him, he weighed, probably, two hundred and fifty pounds. One of his legs was broken by a fall from an apple-tree when he was a child, and was always a little shorter than the other. A limp was avoided by having the heel of the shoe, for the foot of the shorter limb, made higher than the other ; but this caused a sailor's roll or slightly swaggering gait in his walk. This seems to have been an aid to his beaming face and jovial manner, when he came in the presence of his friends; and they un- consciously greeted his advent with a smile of pleasure. After middle age his hair turned gray and gradually almost white. He then wore it short, and it ever remained thick. How well it suited his large, shapely head, and how it, with his portly figure, graced his seat in the Senate. Who, by the way, that visited Washington from this State, and took his seat in the Senate gallery during the )ears when Vance was a Senator, but felt proud of our representation in that body? We have seen what impression our junior Senator made. How about our senior Senator, General Matt. W. Ransom, who, now full of years and honors, is spending the evening of his life in man's most wholesome and inde- pendent occupation, the tilling of the soil, the largest farmer in the State. Tall, erect, of graceful figure, and handsome face, with eagle eye, polished in manners, and unsurpassed in dignity of bearing and courtesy, whether in his seat or conversing with fellow-Senators in aisle or lobby, the attention of every stranger was attracted by his distinguished appearance. His great natural ability and
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scholarly attainments are universally acknowledged. That, without military training, he rose to the rank of a General officer in the Confederate Army, attested his skill and gal- lantry^ in war. And when it is remembered that, after it w^as confessed by the Chief Justice of North Carolina, that the power of the Judiciary of the State was exhausted and unable to afford the equal protection of the laws, to leading citizens of Alamance and Caswell, imprisoned by military orders of the infamous Kirk and Bergen, it was upon Gen- eral Ransom's sugfffestion, after an interview with Hon. George W. Brooks, that the writ of habeas corpus^ from a United States Judge, was successfully invoked, and the prisoners set free, and peace restored in our borders, it must be admitted that our gratitude was due to him too. While not given to untiring labor like his colleague, on the great questions before the Senate, and not often participating in debate, few were as eloquent or listened to with greater attention when he did claim the floor ; and no one can deny that he was ever watchful for the interests of the State and his constituents, and that by tact and urbanit}- in his intercourse with other Senators, and by management (in the better sense of that abused word) he was largely instrumental in securing for North Carolina a fair share of appropriations and of appointments from the general Gov- ernment. Serving nearly four full terms in the Senate, longer than any other North Carolinian, by the election of the Legislature of his State, we had the benefit of his long experience, and the good will and confidence of a Demo- cratic President were shown by his appointment as Minis- ter to the Republic of Mexico. What State, we may well ask, was so well represented in the United States Senate, from 1879 to 1895, as North Carolina? And with all due respect to present and fviture Senators from this State, when will she again be represented by two statesmen of such influence, reputation and ability as Matt. W. Ransom and Zebulon B. Vance ?
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I would, if I fairly could, omit from this epitome a re- ference to a little chapter in the history of Senator Vance's political life. If properly understood, his conduct under the circumstances constituting it, was quite consistent with the high principles which ever guided him ; but it caused some unmerited criticism from party friends, and some un- happiness to him, who was so unaccustomed to such criti- cism. In 1 891, a decided majority of the General Assem- bly, elected the November preceding, belonged to the Far- mers' Alliance, which was then thoroughly organized and at the height of its influence. Its members were generally friends of Senator Vance, but they were resolved to elect no one to the Senate who was opposed to their leading political tenets. Senator Vance's second term was to expire March 4th, and he was a candidate for re-election. He was the unanimous choice of his party outside of the Alliance, and many of its members earnestly desired his continuance in his seat. In reply to a letter from Hon. Elias Carr, then President of- the Alliance, in December, 1890, he had admitted it to be the right of one's consti- tuents, to instruct him as to their wishes on public ques- tions, and that he ought to obey, if the instructions did not require what he thought to be morally wrong ; and if they did, he should resign his seat. At the opening of the ses- sion in January, the Alliance members held a caucus, and resolved to instruct our Senators and Representatives in Congress, " to vote for and use all honorable means to secure the financial reform demanded in the platform adopted at the Ocala meeting of the National Farmers' Alliance held in December, 1890." Vance was then in Raleigh, and he peremptorily refused to accept an election under such in- structions. A special friend of his, and a member of the Alliance, Hon. Samuel L. Patterson, now our excellent Commissioner of Agriculture, to remove the objection, after hard work secured an amendment to the proposed resolution, so that the instructions were, that our Senators
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and Representatives shonld use their efforts to secure the objects of the financial reform, conte7np/ated by the Ocala platform. As the objects contemplated were, in a general way, in the line of the financial policy the Senator had theretofore advocated, he, himself, saw no objection to the resolution as amended, and such staunch Democrats as Governor Jarvis and others, whom he knew to be his friends, were of the same opinion. The resolution as amended was passed, and he was relected, every Democrat voting for him. When it is remembered that Vance ever recognized the farmers of the State as his best friends, that before the existence of the Alliance in the State he had advised them to organize for their own protection, and that they, as well as he, were anxious that there should be no estraneement between them, nobodv could criticise him for making an apparent concession to such friends. But some Democrats, hostile to the Alliance, and not adverting to the life-long friendship between him and the farmers, as a class, wished him to set the Alliance at defiance, rather than appear even to make any concession ; and they found fault with him for taking more conserv^ative advice. Some of them were his personal friends, and never before having had anything but cordial approval of his conduct from friends, their criticism wounded him deeply ; and for months afterward he suffered under the apprehension that, possibly, the loving confidence of some, whose regard he valued, w^as estranged from him. He, and those who best knew him, did not doubt that he had done right ; and when the hand of disease was laid upon him, and it began to be whispered that his days might be numbered, and anxious inquiries were being made about his health, surely he real- ized that this was but a passing breeze, and that he still stood, as he had for a generation stood, the recognized Tri- bune of his people, and dearer to them than ever, because of the fear that they might soon have to give him up. And oh, if he could have foreseen the grief of the people — yes,
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hts people — when, on the beautiful Sunday morning, April 15, 1894, it was borne on the lightning's wings, to every city, town and village of the State, that Vance was dead! The whole State was a house of mourning, as for a father or brother. No event since the surrender of the Confed- erate armies had so moved all the people. It was my sad privilege to serve, by the appointment of Governor Carr, as a member of a committee with Golonel Tate, Public Treas- urer, and Captain Coke, Secretary of State, to hasten to Washington, and urge the family of our dead Senator to permit his body to be brought to Raleigh for burial ; or, failing in that, to bring it here to lie in state in the Capitol, where he had done such glorious work for his people. Arriving at Washington, in time to see his mortal body lying in his home, with face serene in death, with all signs of suifering gone, we learned that he had, years before, pointed out, to his eldest son, a beautiful spot near his old home, at Asheville, in view of his beloved mountains and the French Broad river, for his grave ; and we bowed to his wishes. After witnessing impressive ceremonies in the Senate Chamber, the scene of his forensic battles and triumphs, in the presence of both Houses of Congress, the President of the United States and his Cabinet, the Supreme Court and Foreign Ministers, the services being conducted by the Chaplain of the Senate and that most eloquent of divines. Rev. Dr. Moses Hoge, with an escort of leading Senators and Representatives, some accompanied by their wives, we brought his body here ; and in the rotunda behind us, on a catafalque covered with flowers, it lay in state from 10:30 A. M. to 4:20 P. M. of Tuesday, the 17th; and the face of our dead Tribune was viewed by thousands, passing with bowed heads and bated breath, in continuous procession. Then, with escort augmented by other friends, we took him to Asheville for burial. From Raleigh westward every station was crowded by mourners of all ages, at the towns, in the hope of seeing his face once
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more, and at other places, if only to see the car in which his body lay. On hillsides, far from town or station, bon- fires were burning, and men stood about them to the small hoiu's of the night, to catch but a glimpse of the funeral train as it sped towards and through the mountains. And then the outpouring of the people in Asheville, the scene of liis early labors, from cove and mountain side, with dele- gations from mountain towns, and Charlotte and other dis- tant places, the streets and roads, for two miles, from the Presbyterian Church, where the body was placed, on our arrival, to its last resting place, so thronged with people that with difficulty the long funeral procession could move, as a crippled soldier, unable to march with the rest, having begged the privilege, tolled the bell of a little church on the wayside, out of the city. Certainly, if he could have foreseen all this, he would have known that the hearts of all the people were his again, and possibly in fuller meas- ure ; because, for a brief space, a few had been estranged from him. Well might Senator Chandler say, after wit- nessing these expressions of affection and grief, that he was amazed to see that any man was so loved ; and a distinguished Georgian, that not only was no man ever so loved in North Carolina, but that no man had ever been so loved in any other State.
It is said that " the greatness of most men diminishes with the distance." That it was not so with Vance, among his inti- mate friends and in his own home, I think I have shown. That it was not so among his neighbors in Charlotte, where he so long lived, and that they conld not have been party or privy to the little estrangement alluded to, conclusively appears from an account given by the Charlotte Observer of his last pub- lic appearance in that city. It was on the evening of November i, 1892, and the occasion was that Mr. Ham, a distinguished Georgia orator and wit, by invitation, addressed the citizens in the largest auditorium of the city. At the conclusion of his speech, " Vance ! Vance ! " was
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the sound whicli burst continuously from the immense audience, as the applause for Mr. Ham subsided, and as the noble, loved " Zeb " arose, the people went wild ; old men, young men, women and children, jumped to their feet, waving handkerchiefs and hats, and cheering until the ver>^ building seemed to rock. Not a person in the house remained seated. Many stood on the benches ; hats were thrown up, and such an expression of love, affection and esteem was never shown to any son of North Carolina, at any time or anywhere, as was expressed in the great ova- tion over Vance. On the rostrum every man rose, and fol- lowing Mr. Ham's lead, all waved their handkerchiefs, and cheered for fully ten minutes. It was a great demonstra- tion, and one that did honor even to the loved Senator. As he stood on the rostrum, amid the deafening cheers of his people, he looked like a grand chieftain leading his people, and guiding them simply by his presence. It was a scene the like of which was never seen in Charlotte before."
I have said nothing about his last days and hours, when life was slowly ebbing away. No ! Those scenes are too painful for a friend to revive. I will not tell his kind words of thanks to the servant who waited on him to the last, nor the affectionate jest with which he greeted a brother Senator, the last permitted to see him in life, nor of the tender parting between him and wife and son. Suffice it to say, he met the last enemy with the manly courage with which he had met all the conflicts of life.
But, I may be asked, have you not painted our hero too perfect ? Had he no faults ? Yes ! he had his faults, as all men have. But his faults were insignificant compared with his great virtues, and could not dim the splendor of his character. And so he stands, as in loving memory we see him, totiis^ teres atqiie rotiitidus. So with Mt. Pisgah, the most symmetrical of the great mountains of the Appa- lachian chain. Stand at its foot, and you see inequalities in the surface of its steep ascent, barren rocks and deep
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chasms. They mar its symmetry, in a measure, but they do not impair the grandeur of its giant forests, climbing toward its lofty top, nor hush the sound of its limpid rivu- lets ; while to the beholder, removed afar, or but a little distance away, it stands forth a splendid product of great Nature's handiwork, sublime and beautiful.
Born May 13, 1830, and dying April 14, 1894, how much of labor well done, of duty well performed, of glory nobly achieved, in those sixty-four years of mortal life ! In the admiration and gratitude of his State he will continue to live as long as North Carolina shall be a State ! And in that other life, the higher life, he will live, we fondly trust, to all eternity, in that home prepared by Him, Who says to every son of man who has done his duty here : " Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
A few words about the Statue itself :
Not long after Senator Vance's death, a few of his friends in this city met at the Governor's Mansion, on the invita- tion of Governor Carr, and formed an association for the purpose of erecting a bronze statue of Vance in the Capitol Square. Governor Carr was made President, and Hon. A. A. Thompson, ex-Mayor of the city. Secretary, and Mr. Joseph G. Brown, President of the Citizens' National Bank, Treasurer of the Association. Some $2,000 was soon raised by subscription and otherwise, but the financial depression coming on, the efforts of the Association were suspended for awhile. Governor Carr going out of ofhce, and his health becoming impaired, resigned as President of the Association, and he who addresses you was put in his place. The officers had in contemplation a plan for the collection of the amount requisite for their purpose, by small sub- scriptions in each county, proportioned to the number of Confederate soldiers enlisted from the county. But the Legislature of 1899 having convened, Dr. Richard H. Speight, the wise and patriotic Senator from Edgecombe,
7^
offered a bill for the appropriation of $5,000 for the desired purpose, to be used with the funds raised by our Associa- tion ; and Dr. Speight, of the Senate, and Representatives J. D. Boushall, of Wake, and M. S. Hart, of Edgecombe, appointed by the presiding officers of the two Houses, were constituted, with the President and the Treasurer of the Association, a committee to procure and erect the statue. Plans and specifications were submitted to leading sculptors of the country, and of one dozen models pre- sented, that executed by Henr\^ J. Ellicott, of Washington City, was, all things considered, unanimously preferred. In March last, being informed that the statue in clay was ready for inspection, all the committee, with the exception of Mr. Hart, who had been removed by death (and Repre- sentative J. C. Curtis, of Buncombe, not then having been appointed to succeed him), went to Washington, and, after careful inspection and suggestions of slight alterations, cor- dially approved the work. The moulding was done at the foundr}^ of the Gorham Manufacturing Company, in Provi- dence, R. I., probably the best in the country. The statue in bronze was inspected at the foundry by Dr. Speight and the Chairman of the Association, and is now before us. I can only say that the committee have discharged their duties to the best of their ability. It has been a labor of love with us all, a large share of the labor, however, falling to the lot of the Treasurer, Mr. Brown. The Executive Officers in the Capitol lent ready help in locating the statue ; the Street Commissioner of the city, without charge, erected the mound, and the Keeper of the Capitol and his assist- ants have needed no suggestions to keep the grass on the mound green, by frequent waterings during the rainless weeks of July and August. Indeed, all who could render assistance, by advice or otherwise, have cheerfully done so. It is located where it is as the most appropriate place, in the opinion of the committee and the officers in the Capitol. Being a mountaineer, some have said
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that Vance's statue ought to be on the western side of the Capitol, and looking towards the mountains. Even did not the stately Confederate Monument at the west front preclude that, here is the place and that the position, in which the bronze likeness of our great North Carolinian should stand. The West was already subject to his magnetic influence when he first came to Raleigh, as the Governor of the whole State, and looking toward the East, sought, at that tempestuous period, to unify her people. Poetry, too, represents the Star of Hope as in the East ; and it is meet that one so hopeful as he for the triumph of the right, and of the righteous in the world, should have his face toward that Star. And then, again, those of us who knew how he admired, how he loved, the glorious rising of the Sun, dispelling darkness and sum- moning men to work and to duty, like to think of his brow as being lightened, illuminated,by the first rays of the Orb of Day as it rises in majesty over our eastern hills.
And now, what does this statue represent to us ? In it, when the veil shall be removed by the granddaughters of our statesman, we shall see, as I think, Vance as he stood, erect, gallant, self-confident, but without inidue self-asser- tion, the master of his subject and his audience, address- ing his peers in the Senate of the United States, the most augfust arena of earth.
As we look at the statue, we shall see him as I knew him, the qualities of his great mind, soul and heart in his beaming face and shining in every lineament of his coun- tenance ! Let us analyze those qualities. There is cour- age— moral and physical — inborn and augmented by three- score years of conflict with the hardships and in the battle of life. Akin to courage, herltwin-sister, truth,will speak from his lips ; truth, which his direct mind sought as the needle the pole, and when found, it was ever part of his very life. He valued it as a priceless jewel, and his honest heart im-
pelled him to display it to the world, for its guidance and improvement. He is speaking words of truth now. And honesty, you will see, a development of truth, its expres- sion in the life of the man as he dealt with his fellow-men, taking only what was his and freely according to others what was fairly theirs. And you can see benignancy and charity beaming from that face, tender kindness for his friends and indulgence to the faults of his adversaries (I say not enemies, for few could be enemies to one of so open and genial a nature as his ) ; and there is wit and Mmior — keen wit — twinkling from his eyes, and racy humor bubbling from his half-open lips. And behind them, a friend can see the playful irony with which he met the sophistry of a good-natured adversary, and the cutting sarcasm for the malicious charge of one who would traduce his people. Here again is the pose and confident power of the orate r — not the elocutionist merely — but the orator, whose words carry conviction to the unprejudiced, and confusion to the prejudiced hearer. And patriotism^ too, the love of his fatherland, needing not words to give it expression, and gratitude to his Creator for giving him so fair a land, and a nature so richly endowed for the enjoyment of its bless- ings. And there you may see consciousness of other gifts ^ to be used, not so much for his own glory, as for the good of his State and country. In a word, we may see in his manly form and expressive face a combination of those qualities, that virtus^ characterizing a man such as Mark Antony described Brutus to be, '' the noblest Roman of them all." " His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him, that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, ' This was a man !' "
Possibly, as ages roll by and dress and customs change, a critic, in view of Vance's eventful and successful life, may say, the sculptor ought to have put a crown of laurels on his brow ; but as long as the friends who knew him, and their tradition of him, shall live, the bushy locks will seem
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the better crown for his massive head. Thus he looked as we loved him, thus he looked as we buried him, beneath the soil of his native county, amid the scenes from which he drank those inspirations which made him, as I said in the beginning, and confidently repeat, North Carolina's most distinguished patriot, the best beloved of her children, and in all the annals of her history the greatest of her sons. North Carolinians, we can emulate the patriotism and other virtues, for which he will ever stand here as an exem- plar, though Nature has not given to us to approach him in his matchless ability.
There are two niches in Statuary Hall in the Capitol at Washington reserved for North Carolina, to fill with statues of two of her sons. Other States have filled their niches with costly statues, representing the most honored of their sons. Can North Carolina longer admit she has had no sons worthy to stand by them ? Surely, no ! We may not be agreed as to whose statue shall fill one of those niches ; but, I think, we are all agreed that, in one of them, should stand a statue like unto this, but of white and purest marble, representing the face and form of Zebulon B. Vance.
Let us see to it, my friends, that this duty we owe to ourselves, and to him, is not longer deferred !
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