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Although frequently short of cash, the family enslaved as many as eighteen people. Vance's family had an unusually large library for its era and location, left to them by an uncle. A prolific writer and noted public speaker, Vance became one of the most influential Southern leaders of the Civil War and postbellum periods. As a leader of the New South, Vance favored the rapid modernization of the Southern economy, railroad expansion, school construction, and reconciliation with the North. Although historians consider Vance progressive for his era, he was also a slave owner and is now regarded a racist.
Swain was a former North Carolina governor and then president of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Vance, who was dealing with poor health at the time, wrote a letter, rather than speaking in public, about the need for Democrats to fight the Republicans who want to limit rights given by the Constitution. Vance stated that the "situation is most critical" and cautioned against splitting the Democratic Party into two parties as this would only benefit the Republicans.
Ku Klux Klan
One modern historian notes that the Blue Ridge railroad project became Vance's "personal crusade." Despite his ambitious goal of completing the railroad in two years, Vance wanted the convicts to be treated well. In July 1877, he wrote the Penitentiary Board when he learned that convicts working on both the Chester & Lenoir Narrow Gauge Railroad and the Spartanburg and Asheville Railroad had been subjected to cruel treatment, including being overworked and whipped. Vance wrote that such conditions were "not to be tolerated for a moment" and requested immediate punishment of those who were guilty of "such disgraceful conduct." However, the state only provided seven cents a day to feed each convict and the schedule worked the men seven days a week. On May 29, 1865, William Woods Holden, Vance's former political opponent, was appointed governor of North Carolina by President Andrew Johnson. Ignoring the figures and charts presented by his colleagues, Vance said, "As we are in debt, and spending more than our income, and our income is derived principally from the tariff, we have to do one of three things; either raise that income, lower our expenses, or walk into the insolvent court and file our schedule. I do not think there is, or ever was, a political economist on earth who could deny these propositions." When the Whig Party collapsed over the issue of slavery in 1854, Vance refused to join the primarily Southern Democratic Party or the anti-slavery Republicans, ultimately settling on the American Party or Know-Nothings.
Vance received an LL.D in 1852 and repaid the loan from the university with interest. Woodson, Esq., first at Flat Creek and, later, on the French Broad River. Around 1833, the Vance family moved to Lapland, now Marshall, North Carolina. There, David Vance operated a stand, providing drovers with provisions as they moved hogs and other animals along the Buncombe Turnpike to markets to the south and east.
Why pre-plan a funeral or cremation?
Vance stopped working as joint editor of the Spectator after a year, but became half-owner of the newspaper. However, Hyman's steadfast support of Vance in the Spectator was a huge help to Vance's political career. The opposition paper, the Asheville News wrote, "Mr. Vance is the Spectator's specialty, and at every mention of his name it sputters and snaps and snarls like a cat with its tail in a steel trap. To question the correctness of his views on a public issue, the Spectator seems to regard as little short of treason." In March 1855, John D. Hyman of the Asheville Spectator convinced Vance to join the newspaper as an editorial assistant.
In 1875 when the university revived after the war, he was asked to be its president; following in the footsteps of former Governor David Lowry Swain. He said, "No, say to my friends that it would kill me in a few weeks to be obliged to behave as is required for a college president in order to furnish an example to the boys." He was a member of the Southern Historical Society, serving as its vice-president of North Carolina around 1873. In her 1924 self-published book, Authentic History Ku Klux Klan, 1865–1877, Susan Lawrence Davis states that Vance was the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan for North Carolina. Davis had a history of fakery and appears to have plagiarized a 1906 historical romance novel by Thomas Dixon Jr. when writing her nonfiction Klan history. Modern experts note other discrepancies in Authentic History, including fabricated descriptions of Klan costumes, giving reason to question any claims she made about Vance.
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In 2004, author Sharyn McCrumb wrote the novel Ghost Riders which includes a fictionalized account of Vance's life told in the first person. McCrumb says, "In Ghost Riders I had a wonderful time bringing Zebulon Vance to life. He was such a colorful character, and certainly North Carolina’s most beloved statesman." She was also inspired to write The Ballad of Tom Dula because of Vance. During his third term as governor, Vance brought the railroad to Western North Carolina, finally realizing his dream from the meeting at Cumberland Gap in 1853. In his first message to the legislature on January 13, 1877, he suggested that convicts should be sent to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad in McDowell County. Many of the state's convicts were freed slaves arrested under North Carolina's vagrancy laws which essentially allowed the imprisonment of those without jobs.
He nearly drowned swimming 75 yards across the flooded Bryce's Creek to get boats for his men—the three soldiers who swam with him drowned. When he was thirteen years old in the fall of 1843, Vance went to the Washington College in Tennessee. In January 1844, his father died from a construction accident, forcing Vance to withdraw before the school year was over.
Although Vance's motives for "Scattered Nation" are not fully known, it was not for political gain as there were less than 500 Jews in North Carolina at the time and antisemitism was common. One modern writer suggests Vance's perspective may have been impacted by his involvement with Freemasonry as this organization accepted Jews. Historian Leonard Rogoff, president of Jewish Heritage North Carolina, also notes that Vance established a relationship with Samuel Wittkowsky, a Jew and fellow Mason. When Vance was arrested, he was physically unable to walk to the train station and was only offered a mule by the federal troops; Vance was rescued from this humiliation by Wittkowsky who gave Vance a ride in his wagon.
Schofield accepted Vance's surrender and told him to go to Statesville, North Carolina where Mrs. Vance and their children were living, as he had no orders for Vance's arrest. For this campaign, he went on a fifteen-county speaking tour that "set the mountains on fire". At 28 years old, he was the youngest member of Congress at the time. He was reelected in 1859 over his former political opponent David Coleman.
However, his wife Harriette died on November 3, 1878, after a long and painful illness, just one month after the death of Vance's mother. A train took Harriette's remains back to Asheville to be buried at Riverside Cemetery. Vance was in favor of increasing the volume of currency and silver coinage; at the time, the amount of paper and coin money released could not exceed the gold in the treasury. Vance made his last speech in the Senate on September 1, 1893, speaking against House Bill 1, regarding the unconditional repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act which was approved in 1890. Although noticeably weakened from illness, Vance spoke for two hours and gave what many consider the best speech of his career. Vance opposed important legislation of the era such as the McKinley Tariff, civil service programs, the internal revenue service, and the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act—gaining a reputation as an opposition senator.
Furthermore, the organization's origins in North Carolina started with Vance. Because Vance was against tariffs which he felt enriched the few and impoverished the many, he encouraged North Carolina's farmers to organize so they could collectively defend themselves against outside forces. Later, he introduced Senate Bill 2806, aka the sub-treasury scheme, at the request of North Carolina's first Commissioner of Agriculture, Leonidas L. Polk, who had become president of the National Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union. However, after investigating the sub-treasury scheme, Vance came to believe that it was both impracticable and unconstitutional. In his January 1879 address to the legislature, Vance acknowledged some problems with the convict labor program.
What his voting public remembered was that the new railroad network transported supplies to farms and factories, and then to markets, helping to stimulate the economy across the state. While he was kept out of politics, Vance earned income in the lecture circuit. His first important lecture was "The Duties of Defeat" which he gave at the University of North Carolina's commencement on June 7, 1866. Shortly afterward, he was speaking in venues ranging from county fairs to large lecture halls in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Baltimore. By the early 1870s, Vance had a national reputation as an outstanding platform speaker.
He paroled Vance on July 6, 1865, after an imprisonment of 47 days. Vance was arrested in Statesville on May 13, 1865, his 35th birthday, by General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick. Samuel Wittkowsky, the man who gave prisoner Vance a wagon ride to the train station, noted that Vance was silently shedding tears at first.
