ADDRESS OF GOV. VANCE ON THE CONDITION OF COUNTRY [caption drop title over the first column of text]. Delivered at Wilkesboro, N.C., February 22d, '64 [followed by two pages of dense text, in five columns on two pages]

Single sheet, printed both sides, 20 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches. "I have come among you to beg you in the name of reason, of humanity, to obey the law, to recognize order and authority, to do nothing except in the manner prescribed by the Constitution, to bear the Constitution, to bear the ills you have rather than fly to evils you know not of . I have no more doubt now about the establishment of the independence of the Southern Confederacy than I have of my own existence, provided we remain true to the cause we have solemnly taken to support . [North Carolina] will dare endure to the bitter end. The men who suffer are the men who win." This address also appeared in the April 16, 1864, issue of the Raleigh newspaper "The Daily Conservative." Not in Thornton, Parrish & Willingham, or Hummel. Apparently not recorded on OCLC. Old folds, some old browning, a few small holes along short separations at a central vertical fold (with the loss of several words and affecting a number letters); some archival repairs along folds on verso. A good copy of a rare and important Confederate North Carolina broadside, so far as we have been able to ascertain, otherwise unrecorded. (10367). Zebulon Vance (1830-1894; member U.S. House of Representatives 1858-1861, Governor of North Carolina, 1862-1865 and 1877-1879, U. S. Senator 1879-1894), one of the most important North Carolina politicians of the 19th century, was born and raised in Buncombe County and largely schooled there. After reading law briefly in 1850, he attended the University of North Carolina for a year before returning home to begin his practice, using his vocation to prepare for a career in politics, which he started as Solicitor of Buncombe County before serving in Congress for most of two terms leading up to the Civil War. During that time he argued against secession, but quickly changed his position after the firing on Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for troops. In May, 1861, Vance raised a company of troops, serving as its commander as it joined the 14th N.C. Regiment; in August he was elected colonel of the 26th N.C. which he led in battle at New Bern in March, 1862, and during the Seven Days before Richmond in late June. Shortly after, Vance accepted the nomination of the Conservative party (mostly remnants of the Whigs) to run as its candidate for Governor in the upcoming election which he won handily against the "Confederate Party" candidate, a sign that the people of North Carolina were not particularly happy with the state of things in the Confederacy. The important political address offered here, delivered as a campaign speech for re-election, presents Vance's case to reject calls for secession from the Confederacy for the purpose of concluding a separate peace; he argued that only by continuing the struggle could a just compromise be reached. In the run-up to the 1864 election Vance was seen by the Confederate administration as blocking its efforts at conscription because of his unswerving support of the continuance of the writ of habeas corpus. During 1863 the North Carolina mountains filled with evaders of conscription and deserters. Vance believed they should be persuaded to duty rather than prosecuted; by late in that year, W.W. Holden, the influential editor of Raleigh's "North Carolina Standard" who had been a staunch supporter of Vance, became convinced that defeat was inevitable and argued for Confederate-Union negotiations as he ran against Vance in the 1864 Governor's race. Against that background, Vance delivered this address of about 15,000 words to the citizens of Wilkes County, outlining his complex moral and political attitudes, eventually winning re-election easily. Arrested and briefly imprisoned following the war, Vance returned to his law practice, was pardoned in 1867, and resumed his political career, first winning election to the U.S. Senate in 1870 (but unable to take his seat under the terms of the 14th amendment). He accepted the nomination of the Dem.…