Holden

party. The Whigs reviled him as a turncoat and
traitor, but the Democrats soon regarded him as
a gift from heaven. A fighter and an intuitive
and masterly politician, he led them to victory
and made the Standard more powerful than any
other newspaper has ever been in North Caro-
lina. During these years he preached editorially
the most advanced secession doctrine. In 1858
he was a candidate for the gubernatorial nomina-
tion, but was defeated by John Willis Ellis \_q.v.~],
chiefly through the efforts of former Whigs.
Embittered by this disappointment and by his
defeat for the Senate in the following legisla-
ture, he drifted away from his old party asso-
ciates until in 1860 he was out of accord with
them on state issues and wavering with respect
to state rights between advanced secessionist and
pure nationalistic doctrine.

He was a delegate to the Charleston and Balti-
more conventions and refused to withdraw from
the latter. In the campaign he supported Breck-
inridge, though his heart was probably with
Douglas, and after Lincoln's election, favoring
a "watch and wait" policy, he was elected a
Union delegate to the convention which the peo-
ple rejected. He was also elected to the seces-
sion convention, where he voted for secession and
pledged "the last man and the last dollar" to the
Southern cause. Rapidly cooling towards the
war, he aided in the establishment of a conserva-
tive party. He supported Z. B. Vance \_q.vJ\ for
governor in 1862, believing undoubtedly that he
would himself control the administration and
bring about a breach with the Confederate gov-
ernment. When he discovered his mistake, he
broke with Vance, and in the summer of 1863
was the leading figure in the peace movement.
As a result, a Georgia regiment destroyed his
press and his friends retaliated by similar injury
to the administration organ. In February 1864,
immediately after the suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus, he suspended the Standard for
several months. In May he announced his can-
didacy for governor with no platform but a gen-
eral understanding that his election would re-
sult either in a convention to secede from the
Confederacy, or in direct negotiation with the
Federal government. He was defeated and re-
mained quiet until May 1865, when President
Johnson made him provisional governor. Since
Holden had played fast and loose with parties,
men, and principles, few had any confidence in
him. He used his official power for personal
ends, to punish old enemies, reward new friends,
or stifle opposition, and in consequence he was
defeated at the November election. Once more
he shifted position, and, cooling from his fervid

Holden

support of the President, favored the adoption of
the Fourteenth Amendment. In the spring of
1866 the President appointed him minister to
San Salvador, but the Senate refused confirma-
tion. Increasingly bitter, he now advocated rig-
orous punishment of the "rebels," and urged that
Congress control reconstruction. The Four-
teenth Amendment soon seemed too lenient, and
in the winter of 1866-67 he spent much time in
Washington advising radical leaders and work-
ing for the overthrow of the state government.
In 1865 he had opposed the liberal policy adopted
by the legislature towards the freedmen, but on
Jan. i, 1867, addressing the negroes in Raleigh,
he advocated unrestricted negro suffrage. He
early won the favor of the Carpet-bagger element
which flattered and entirely controlled him.
Elected governor in 1868, he began a highly
partisan administration which was characterized
by the most brazen corruption, extravagance,
and incompetency. No one charged him with
personal financial profit, but he screened and
protected the guilty. The cause which he up-
held was soon doomed. The legislature of 1870,
at his urgent insistence, passed a number of acts
directed against the Ku Klux, one of which au-
thorized him to proclaim any county in a state
of insurrection and to use the militia to suppress
the uprising. In March he declared Alamance
in insurrection; in June, with an election ap-
proaching and every indication pointing to a
Democratic victory, following the advice of Sen-
ator John Pool and assured of aid from Presi-
dent Grant, he planned to raise two regiments
of state troops with which to suppress the oppo-
sition and carry the election. In July he pro-
claimed Caswell County in insurrection. George
W. Kirk, a noted Tennessee bushwhacker in
command of one illegally recruited regiment, oc-
cupied both Caswell and Alamance, arresting a
number of peaceful citizens and treating them
with great brutality. By Holden's personal or-
der Josiah Turner, editor of the Sentinel, the
leading Democratic paper, was arrested outside
the insurrectionary area. When Kirk, under
Holden's order, refused to obey the writ of
habeas corpus, Chief Justice Pearson declared
the power of the judiciary exhausted Civil war
was impending when Judge George W. Brooks
of the federal district court issued the writ and
discharged the prisoners, the President declin-
ing to interfere. Meantime the Democrats had
swept the state in the election. The state troops
dispersed and the House of Representatives im-
peached Holden, presenting eight articles against
him, on six of which he was convicted. He was

139