A Way to Repair the Past

These days, the judgment of history saturates our public discourse. We battle over the meaning of Confederate statues; we discuss reparations for slavery; even the “#MeToo” movement brings the transgressions of the past into the present. Unfortunately, all this division is breaking the nation apart.

In North Carolina, there is a way to address the past in a positive way. It is by pardoning a governor who, during Reconstruction, put down an uprising of the Ku Klux Klan—and was impeached for it. Strangely enough, in spite of all the chatter these days about atoning for the sins of the past, obtaining a posthumous pardon for the governor has been impossible so far.

Governor William Woods Holden, impeached in 1871.

I know this because Arch T. Allen, a retired attorney in Raleigh, conducted an extensive study of Holden in 2010 and petitioned the North Carolina state legislature to pardon him. Allen’s paper was reviewed by several prominent historians in the state, so it is accurate.[1] Here is the story.

In 1868, William W. Holden was elected governor of North Carolina. “There had been little Klan activity in the state prior to the 1868 elections,” writes Allen, “but after the Republican victories violence erupted in several parts of the state. . . . The Klan committed arson, lynching, and political assassination, including one of a white Republic sheriff by ambush.” A black Republican, Wyatt Outlaw, was dragged from his home and hanged; four Klan members killed Republican senator John W. Stephens by cutting his throat and stabbing him in the heart. Several children were killed.

“Beseeched by white and black Republicans to protect them from Klan violence, Holden acted pursuant to constitutional and statutory authority to execute the law and suppress riots and insurrections,” writes Allen. He declared Alamance and Caswell [counties] in insurrection and dispatched the state militia there.” The militia arrested about 100 Klan members and stopped the violence.

Conflict soon arose over detention of the Klan members without a writ of habeas corpus. The chief justice of North Carolina ordered Holden to turn the dissidents over to local authorities; but Holden said that because they had not kept order he could not hand them over now. “It would be mockery in me to declare that the civil authority was unable to protect the citizens against the insurgents [the Klansmen] and then turn the insurgents over to the civil authority,” he said.

However, when a federal district court judge required that the prisoners be released, Holden did so. Ironically, the federal judge acted in the name of the post-Civil War fourteenth amendment, which was meant to protect the blacks freed by the war.

Then, in 1871, the North Carolina House impeached Holden.

As Allen observes, “Although he received no official vindication, Holden has been vindicated by modern historians, especially his biographers Horace W. Raper and William C. Harris.” But not by the North Carolina legislature, except in part. In 2011, as the North Carolina legislature met for nostalgic reasons in the Old State Capitol (used until 1963). In somewhat of a surprise action, the Senate voted 48-0 to pardon Holden.

But the House (the body that had impeached Holden in the first place) has yet to act. The pardon simply never came up for a vote. And this is despite the fact that three past governors (two of them Republicans, one a Democrat) wrote a letter supporting the pardon.

Why? Some people, especially in the Alamance and Caswell counties where the insurrection was put down, may have had more sympathy for Ku Klux Klan members of the past than for redress of the harms they did. But Republicans are in the majority in North Carolina’s House, Holden was a Republican, and he was clearly addressing horrendous violence, so why did the Republican-majority House fail to act?

I know enough about politics to know that political leaders have only so much political capital, and each has priorities. To persuade a few recalcitrant Republicans, possibly those from the affected counties, might diminish the stock of political capital that can be used for some purpose that in their minds is more urgent.

I have asked the key people in the House—the chairman of the committee to which the bill was submitted and the speaker of the House, now a U.S. senator—for explanations. I await them.

Meanwhile, I wonder if perhaps, in the era of mea culpa, it will be the Democrats who take up this challenge. After all, it was Democrats (then known as Democratic-Conservatives) who impeached Governor Holden. How honorable it would be if they would look back, regret the actions of their political forbears, and carry out the pardon that the Republicans failed to complete.

[1] Arch T. Allen III, “A Plea for Pardon: The Impeachment and Removal of North Carolina’s Republican Reconstruction Governor.” (Available upon request.)

One Reply to “A Way to Repair the Past”

Fine essay, Jane. The past is always with us. Best. Bill Dennis

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