William Woods Holden (November 24, 1818 – March 1, 1892) was an American politician who served as the 38th and 40th governor of North Carolina. He was appointed by President Andrew Johnson in 1865 for a brief term and then elected in 1868. He served until 1871 and was the leader of the state's Republican Party during the Reconstruction Era.
Holden was the second governor in American history to be impeached, and the first to be removed from office through that process. His impeachment was politically motivated due to his suppression of the Ku Klux Klan. After Republicans lost the 1870 election, Democrats impeached Holden on eight charges relating to the Kirk–Holden war. He is the only North Carolina governor to have been impeached.
Early life William Woods Holden was born on November 24, 1818 in a log cabin near Hillsborough, North Carolina. His parents, Priscilla Woods and Thomas Holden, were not married. Holden married Sally Nichols a year or two later, and together they had 10 children of their own. In 1824, Nichols arranged for William to live with her and Holden, and thereafter was incorporated into the family. His relationship with his half-siblings was often strained in his adult life, but he remained in contact with his parents and his stepmother as an adult. His formal education in his youth was minimal, comprising several months' enrollment in a school.
At age 10, Holden began an apprenticeship under Dennis Heartt, the pro-Whig Party editor of the Hillsborough Recorder, a newspaper. In that capacity he sorted type and delivered copies of the paper, and in later years partook in typesetting. While he spoke little of his apprenticeship in his later life, Holden described Heartt as "the best man in all respects". When he was 16 years of age, he negotiated terms with Heartt to abrogate his apprenticeship and moved to Milton, where he found work with the Milton Spectator edited by Nathaniel J. Palmer. Several months later he moved to Danville, Virginia and set type for a local newspaper edited by Joseph C. Megginson. He also wrote his first article while working for the publication.
Within a year of his move to Danville, Holden returned to Hillsborough and found work as a store clerk. He engaged in private study during this time before moving to Raleigh in October 1836. He quickly found employment as a journeyman typesetter and compositor for the Raleigh Star, a Whig paper edited by Thomas J. Lemay. Aside from a brief attempt to help Lemay inaugurate the Oxford Kaleidoscope and Republican in Oxford in 1837, he worked for the Star until 1841, living in a cabin adjacent to Lemay's home and eating with his family.
With Lemay's encouragement, Holden undertook the reading of law at night under the supervision of a local attorney. He passed the bar examination and was licensed to practice in county courts of North Carolina on January 1, 1841.
He then studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1841, and became a member of the Whig party. However, he never practiced law and instead participated in the newspaper business.
In 1843, he became owner and editor of the North Carolina Standard in Raleigh. He changed the newspaper's party affiliation to the Democratic Party. When Holden took over the newspaper, it was struggling financially. Under his leadership, it became one of the most widely read newspapers in the state. He continued as owner and editor of the newspaper until he was elected governor., alternate url: NCPEDIA
Political career In December 1843, Holden became a delegate to the Democratic state party convention, where he was elected to the North Carolina Democratic Party state executive committee. In 1846, Holden was elected to represent Wake County in the North Carolina House of Commons and chose to only serve one term. His tenure was uneventful; he voted the Democratic Party line and sponsored one bill which provided for the construction of a building in Raleigh to house deaf mutes in the state. During the 1850 elections he served a major role in ending the Whig dominance in the state. By 1858, he was chairman of the party. That year, he unsuccessfully attempted to gain the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, but was defeated by John W. Ellis, and then his party passed him over for a Senate seat.
In April 1860, Holden served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Charleston. He personally favored the candidacies of Joseph Lane of Oregon and John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky for the presidential nomination. He also attended the following convention in Baltimore in July, where the party fractured and nominated two separate tickets, one led by Breckinridge and another led by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The Standard subsequently endorsed Breckinridge as a representative of Southern interests.
Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, Holden advocated for the expansion of slavery and sometimes supported the right of secession, but by 1860 he had shifted his position to support the Union. Holden and his newspaper fell out of favor with the state Democratic Party, and he was removed as the state's printer when he editorialized against secession in 1860. In 1861, Holden was sent to a state convention to vote against secession representing Wake County.
Holden was dissatisfied with Confederate policies and the early conduct of the war—particularly federal incursions into North Carolina's weakly-defended coast, and worked to consolidate a new political organization opposed to the incumbent state administration, led by Governor Henry Toole Clark. By 1862, with the help of erstwhile Unionists, Holden had created the Conservative Party. The new grouping was predominated by former Whigs, including William Alexander Graham, George E. Badger, and Jonathan Worth. Holden and Graham served as the party's leading figures. Under this new emerging political system, the faction of the Democratic Party associated with the incumbent administration and occupied by the more ardent secessionists became known as the "Confederate Party".
The Confederate Party decided against nominating Governor Clark in the state's 1862 gubernatorial election, owing to his unpopularity and perceived lack of political skill, and instead endorsed William Johnston, a secessionist former Whig. The Conservative Party initially sought to back Graham but, after he declined to run, decided to support a candidacy by Colonel Zebulon Vance. Vance participated little in the actual campaign, with most of the effort being conducted by Holden and fellow newspaper editor Edward J. Hale. Through the Standard, Holden attacked Johnston and the incumbent forces as corrupt and inept and criticized the Conscription Act as inequitable. Vance easily won the election.
Following the electoral success, Holden created a plan adopted by the General Assembly to replace all non-Conservative state officials. He and Vance initially enjoyed a close relationship, with Vance consulting him on major political issues, while Holden's newspaper, the Standard, supported the governor's administration. Owing to Vance's influence, Holden was appointed state printer in November 1862. By 1863, their relationship had soured over differing opinions on pursuing peace. Holden believed North Carolina should advocate for an end to the war both as a means of curtailing a destructive conflict and securing favorable terms with the federal government as well as securing more favorable treatment from the Confederate government. This included threatening secession from the Confederacy. Vance only believed in pursuing peace with the cooperation of other secessionist states, and Holden's attempts as the Conservative Party leader to influence him proved futile.
In 1864, he ran against incumbent Governor Vance as a peace candidate, but Vance defeated him in a landslide receiving over eighty percent of the vote.
When the Civil War ended on May 9, 1865, Holden was appointed Governor on May 29, by President Andrew Johnson.Presidential Proclamation No. 38, May 29, 1865, During Reconstruction he served a major role in North Carolina and placed the Standard newspaper in the hands of his son, Joseph W. Holden. However, he was defeated by Jonathan Worth in a special election for governor in 1865.
Johnson then nominated Holden to be minister to El Salvador, but the Senate rejected his nomination, so he returned to editing the Standard, and became president of the North Carolina Union League, and organized the North Carolina Republican Party in 1866–67.
Governor
While voters were approving the new state constitution, Holden was elected governor at the head of the Republican ticket in 1868, defeating Thomas Samuel Ashe. When he was elected governor, Holden gave up editorship and ownership of the Standard, selling it for $15,000. He also quit the Union League, believing that a public official should not be a member of a secret society. During his tenure he chose to remain in his private home in Raleigh instead of the official Governor's Palace, which had been vandalized by federal troops.
On June 20, the U.S. Congress voted to remove Holden's political disabilities. General Edward Canby, then charged with the military administration in North Carolina as commander of the Second Military District, issued an order which called for Governor Worth to be replaced by Holden on July 1. Worth reluctantly resigned and Holden was sworn in. On that day, at Holden's call, the General Assembly convened. After Holden informed Canby that the legislature had ratified the new state constitution, Canby informed him that his subordinates would relinquish their administrative authority under the Reconstruction Acts and only act to preserve order on behalf of the civil government. Holden was formally inaugurated as governor on July 4. Canby officially restored all powers of governance to the civil authorities under his jurisdiction on July 24.
At the onset of his term, Holden was chiefly concerned with filling vacant offices and re-organizing the state militia. Article 14, Section 5 of the new state constitution empowered the governor "in the absence of any contrary provision" to appoint all public officials across the state "until their successors shall have been chosen and duly qualified according to the provisions of this Constitution." Holden argued in a letter to General Canby that the framers intended this to enable him to replace officials of the outgoing Worth administration until the General Assembly could organize elections. On July 24, owing to some opposition from incumbents, the General Assembly declared that all public offices were vacant, allowing Holden to proceed. He appointed Republicans to the vacancies, and they served until January 1869, when new elections provided for their successors. He hoped that by seeding a corps of officeholders throughout the state's counties, he could lay a foundation of loyal Republicans to bolster the state party. With regards to the militia issue, Holden wrote to the General Assembly on July 17, asking them for new legislation. The law, which passed on August 13, enabled the governor to organize infantry regiments, cavalry battalions, and artillery batteries, according to three divisions across the state and enabled him to call it into service to preserve order at the request of any five county magistrates. He completed his organization of the new militia by September and secured arms and equipment for them by November.