RALEIGH -- In 1871, North Carolina Gov. W.W. Holden, a Republican, became the first American governor impeached and removed from office, largely because he tried to crack down on the Ku Klux Klan's campaign of terror.
Now, 140 years later, a bipartisan effort is under way in the state legislature to pardon Holden and right a historical wrong.
The effort is being led by Arch T. Allen, a Raleigh lawyer and former Wake County Republican Party chairman. Although Allen, 70, has long been interested in history, the campaign is also a personal matter. His wife, Nell Ward Allen, who died in September, was Holden's great-granddaughter.
As a result of Allen's lobbying, state Sen. Neal Hunt of Raleigh, a Republican conservative, last week introduced a bill to pardon Holden. The measure also has the enthusiastic backing of state Sen. Dan Blue of Raleigh, a liberal Democrat.
"It would be nice to set the historical record straight," Allen said in an interview Monday. "He was impeached by the Senate and removed in a highly partisan fashion. The evidence is that he was trying to suppress the Ku Klux Klan violence."
Holden was one of North Carolina's most influential 19th-century newspapermen. A former Democrat, he was a co-founder of the Tar Heel Republican Party and was twice governor Reconstruction. President Andrew Johnson appointed him provisional governor in 1865, but he was defeated in the 1866 election.
Holden was elected in 1868. But because of Klan efforts to keep black voters away from the ballots in 1870, he found himself faced with a Democratic legislature. At the time, the Democrats were the conservative party and the one associated with white supremacy, while most African-Americans supported the Republican Party.
A Klan rampage
Klan violence spread across North Carolina during the 1870 election including arson, lynching and political assassination. A white Republican sheriff was among those killed.
Two Klan murders were particularly high profile. The Klan hanged Wyatt Outlaw, the leader of the black Republicans in Alamance County, in the town square of Graham. In Caswell County, the Klan trapped Republican state Sen. John W. Stephens in the county courthouse and cut his throat and stabbed him in the heart. At the time Stephens was collecting evidence of Klan activity for the governor. Twenty-one other people, black and white, in Caswell County were whipped.
Holden declared the counties of Alamance and Caswell to be in insurrection and dispatched the state militia. The troops took control of the two courthouses and arrested more than 100 accused Klan members.
As a result, the newly elected Democratic House brought eight impeachment charges against Holden. It charged that he had acted unlawfully in sending the militia, made illegal arrests and refused to obey state Supreme Court writs of habeas corpus to release several of those arrested.
The Senate trial took seven weeks, with 57 witnesses against Holden and 113 witnesses for him . The Senate acquitted him of two charges, but convicted on him six others in a party line vote.
Enemies reconciled
After being forced out as governor, Holden moved to Washington to work as a newspaper editor, returned to Raleigh as postmaster, became involved in family and church matters and, for a while, wrote a column on religion for The News & Observer. When he died in 1892, Edenton Street Methodist Church was filled for his funeral, many of his old political enemies having reconciled with him. He was buried at Oakwood Cemetery.
His life has been the subject of three biographies.
With the election of the first Republican legislature since Holden's time, Allen decided it was time to clear Holden's name. Allen said he has been pleased with the support the resolution has received.
Hunt, the bill's chief sponsor, said, "It sounded like something that needed to happen."
Blue, who was the first African-American House speaker in the modern South, said he is interested in Reconstruction.
"Holden had some history of fighting in the era for the newly emancipated slaves," Blue said. "History has a way of correcting human error. Being impeached because he believed in those things is not sufficient for kicking someone out of office."
There have been efforts in the past to pardon Holden. In 1885, when a senator lined up a majority to pass a pardon, Holden asked him to drop the effort.
"I think I did nothing in 1870 which deserved impeachment," Holden wrote. "I feel that I was unjustly convicted, and to ask pardon would be to confess my guilt."
