Zebulon Vance was known for thinking on his feet

I’ve made no secret on this blog about my fascination of Zebulon Vance, who served as North Carolina’s governor during the Civil War and later as a senator.

He was a flawed person — like all of us — but he was quite a character. But I truly enjoyed learning more about him while researching Galvanized and he was one of the most popular politicians in North Carolina history.

Late North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin — of Watergate prosecution fame — used to like to tell Vance stories. One of my favorites was when he was running as representative from Buncombe County (home of “bunk” from a previous post) in the N.C. House.

His opponent was an older man and said during the event that Vance’s character was good, but that his opponent was too young and too inexperienced to serve the county in Raleigh.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Vance replied in part, “It would not be fair for you to hold me responsible for my youth … nobody has anything to do with the time of his entrance into the world or his exit from it … If you will overlook my youth and inexperience this time and send me to the legislature, I’ll never be so young and inexperienced again as long as I live.”

Vance won the election.

A previous post covered an exchange he had with a Union general after the war in the pages of a New York newspaper.

Source:

Discovering North Carolina, edited by Jack Claiborne and William Price.

NCPedia