William Woods Holden

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Gov. William W. Holden

William Woods Holden (24 November 1818 – 1 March 1892) was the governor of North Carolina in 1865 and from 1868 to 1871. He was a "Scalawag" and leader of the state's Republican party during Reconstruction.

1 Early life
2 Political career
3 Governor, 1868 – 71
4 References
- 4.1 Primary sources
- 4.2 Secondary sources
5 External links
6 Notes

[edit] Early life

Holden was born and raised near what is now Eno River State Park in present-day Durham County. Around the age of 10, he began a six-year apprenticeship with Dennis Heartt at the Hillsborough Recorder newspaper (in Hillsborough, North Carolina). By the age of 19, Holden was working as a printer and writer at the Raleigh Star, in Raleigh, North Carolina. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1841, and became a member of the Whig party. In 1843, he became owner and editor of the North Carolina Standard newspaper, and changed party affiliation to the Democratic party (the Standard was a Democratic paper). When Holden took over the paper, it was struggling financially, but it became one of the most widely-read newspapers in the state under his leadership.

[edit] Political career

In 1844, Holden began his political career by being elected to the North Carolina House of Commons. In 1858, he unsuccessfully attempted to gain the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, and then the senatorial nomination. Owing to this and other difficulties with fellow Democrats, he and his newspaper fell out of favor with the state Democratic Party.

Throughout the 1840s and 1850s he advocated Southern rights to expand slavery and at times championed the right of secession, but by 1860 he had shifted his position to support the Union.[1] In 1861, Holden was sent to a State Convention to vote against secession by the voters of Wake County. But after President Abraham Lincoln called on North Carolina to provide troops to militarily suppress the seceding states, Holden joined in the vote to secede from the Union.

As the Civil War progressed, Holden became an outspoken critic of the Confederate government, and also a leader of the North Carolina peace movement. In 1864, he was the unsuccessful "peace candidate" (but under the "Confederate" party label) against incumbent Governor Zebulon B. Vance.[2] Holden was appointed Governor by President Andrew Johnson through Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles in 1865, and played a central role in stabilizing the state during the first days of Reconstruction. He was defeated by Jonathan Worth in a special 1865 election for governor.[3] He then organized the Republican Party in the state in 1866-67 and was elected governor at the head of the Republican ticket in 1868, defeating Thomas Samuel Ashe. [4] When he was elected governor, Holden gave up the editorship of the Standard.

[edit] Governor, 1868 – 71

To combat the Ku Klux Klan, Holden hired two dozen detectives in 1869-70. The detective unit was not overly successful in limiting Klan activities, yet Holden's efforts to suppress the Klan exceeded those of other Southern governors. When he called out the militia against the Klan in 1870, imposed martial law, and suspended the writ of habeas corpus for accused leaders of the Klan, the result was a political backlash that lost the Republicans the upcoming election.^[5]

After the Democratic Party regained majorities in both houses of the state legislature, he was impeached by the North Carolina House of Representatives and convicted on six of the eight charges against him by the North Carolina Senate. Holden was the first governor in American history to be impeached.

After being removed from office, he moved to Washington D.C. where he again worked for a newspaper. A few years later he returned to Raleigh, where President Ulysses Grant appoined him postmaster from 1873 to 1881. He died in 1892 and is buried at Historic Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh.

He was recognized as "one of the foremost men in intellectual power and daring that were ever born here" by North Carolinian Walter Hines Page.

[edit] References

[edit] Primary sources

Memoirs of W. W. Holden (1911) complete text
Holden, William Woods. The Papers of William Woods Holden. Vol. 1: 1841-1868. Horace Raper and Thornton W. Mitchell, ed. Raleigh, Division of Arch. and Hist., Dept. of Cultural Resources, 2000. 457 pp.

[edit] Secondary sources

Harris, William C. "William Woods Holden: in Search of Vindication." North Carolina Historical Review 1982 59(4): 354-372. ISSN 0029-2494
Harris, William C. William Woods Holden, Firebrand of North Carolina Politics. Louisiana State U. Press, 1987. 332 pp.
Folk, Edgar E. W.W. Holden, Political Journalist, Editor of N.C. Standard, 1843-1865. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of English, George Peabody College for Teachers. Nashville. 1934.
Massengill, Stephen E. "The Detectives of William W. Holden, 1869-1870." North Carolina Historical Review 1985 62(4): 448-487. ISSN 0029-2494
Raper, Horace W. William W. Holden: North Carolina's Political Enigma U. of North Carolina Press, 1985. 376 pp.
Reid, Richard. "William W. Holden and 'Disloyalty' in the Civil War." Canadian Journal of History 1985 20(1): 23-44. ISSN 0008-4107 Fulltext online in Ebsco
Wade, Wyn Craig. The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1987.

[edit] External links

An online bio about Holden
more on Holden

[edit] Notes

↑ Wade, 1987, p. 85.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject North Carolina, an effort to create, expand, organize, and improve North Carolina-related articles to a feature-quality standard.

Preceded by: (first term) Zebulon Baird Vance	Governor of North Carolina 1865, 1868-1871	Succeeded by: (first term) Jonathan Worth
Preceded by: (second term) Jonathan Worth	Governor of North Carolina 1865, 1868-1871	Succeeded by: (second term) Tod Robinson Caldwell