Source: Vance Statue, Raleigh NC
Zebulon Vance Statue, Raleigh
Henry Jackson Ellicott, Sculptor
Raleigh Marble Works, Builder
Scoggins Memorial Art Shop of Charlotte, NC, Builder
Gorham Manufacturing Company, Foundry
An 8.5-foot tall bronze statue depicts a majestic Vance in the midst of debate. The statue occupies a niche in a wall of granite. The right wing of the wall shows a bronze relief plaque depicting a scene of North Carolina industry; the left displays a bronze relief plaque depicting a scene of North Carolina agriculture. The original statue stood on an 11.5-foot tall base made of Mt. Airy granite.
Front: VANCE
Right: THE SUBJECTION OF EVERY PASSION AND PREJUDICE. . .TO THE COOLER SWAY OF JUDGMENT AND REASON, WHEN THE COMMON WELFARE IS CONCERNED, IS THE FIRST VICTORY TO BE WON.
Left: IF THERE BE A PEOPLE ON EARTH GIVEN TO SOBER SECOND THOUGHT, AMENABLE TO REASON AND REGARDFUL OF THEIR PLIGHTED HONOR I BELIEVE THAT…IT IS THE PEOPLE OF NORTH CAROLINA.
Rear: ZEBULON BAIRD VANCE / 1830-1894
The State of North Carolina
August 22, 1900
35.779820 , -78.638850
"A Statue of Vance," News Observer Chronicle (Raleigh, NC), April 19, 1894, 1 Link
"Capitol Building," in the North Carolina County Photographic Collection #P0001, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Link
"For the Vance Monument," News Observer Chronicle (Raleigh, NC), July 28, 1895, 5 Link
"Glimpse of Capitol Grounds from Vance Monument, Raleigh, N.C." in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill Link
"Raleigh, N.C. State Capitol--Front View, showing Vance Statue" in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill Link
"Raleigh, N.C. Vance Monument," in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill Link
"Statue of Vance is Unveiled Today," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), August 22, 1900
"Statues and Monuments on Union Square," NC Historic Sites, (accessed February 8, 2012) Link
"The Monument to Senator Vance," Fayetteville News and Observer (Fayetteville, NC), October 31, 1895, 1 Link
"The Vance Monument," Fayetteville News and Observer (Fayetteville, NC), November 7, 1895, 1-2 Link
"The Vance Monument," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), August 22, 1900, 1 Link
"The Vance Monument," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), December 15, 1897 Link
"The Vance Monument," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), July 2, 1899 Link
"The Vance Monument," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), July 9, 1899 Link
"The Vance Monument: Col. Cowles' Speech," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), May 24, 1895 Link
"To Form an Association," The News and Observer Chronicle (Raleigh, NC), April 25, 1894, 1 Link
"To the Memory of Zebulon B. Vance," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), March 4, 1899 Link
"Vance Laid to Rest," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), April 19, 1894, 1 Link
"Vance's Statue," News Observer Chronicle (Raleigh, NC), April 19, 1894, 2 Link
"Vance, the Immortal," The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), August 22, 1900 Link
"Zebulon Baird Vance Papers 1894 & 1899," Division of Archives and History, Department of Cultural Resources, Raleigh. State Archives (Folder 169 & 170-173) CN: 03952 at the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"Zebulon Baird Vance," Art Inventories Catalog, Smithsonian American Art Museum, (accessed February 2, 2012) Link
"Zebulon Vance Monument Unveiled," The New York Times, August 23, 1900, (accessed January 30, 2011) Link
Index of American Sculpture, (Newark, DE: University of Delaware, 1985)
Adler, Selig. "Zebulon B. Vance and the 'Scattered Nation,'" The Journal of Southern History 7.3 (1941), 357-377
Battle, Richard H. "The Ceremonies Attending the Unveiling of the Bronze Statue of Zeb. B. Vance, in Capitol Square, Raleigh, N.C.," (Raleigh, NC: Advocate Company, 1900), (accessed December 20, 2011) Link
Bishir, Catherine W. "Landmarks of Power," in Where These Memories Grow: History, Memory, and Southern Identity, edited by W. Fitzhugh Brundage, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 150-151
Bishir, Catherine W. "North Carolina’s Union Square," Commemorative Landscapes of North Carolina, (accessed May 15, 2012) Link
Folder 168 in the Zebulon Baird Vance Papers #3952, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill see scans 13-15 Link
Folder 170 in the Zebulon Baird Vance Papers #3952, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. See scans 35-38 Link
Mebane, Charles Harden. Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina, for the Scholastic Years 1898-'99 to 1899-1900, (Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 1900), (accessed February 8, 2012) Link
United Daughters of the Confederacy, North Carolina Division. Minutes of the Fourth Annual Convention of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, North Carolina Division Held in Raleigh, N.C., October 10, 11, 12, 1900 (Raleigh, N.C.: Capital Printing Company, Printers and Binders, 1901), 116, (accessed September 12, 2012) Link
“The Vance Statue Unveiled Yesterday,” The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), August 23, 1900
Yes
Bronze sculpture, Mount Airy granite base (original), granite base (current), bronze plaques
The Vance Monumental Association, formed on April 24, 1894, raised $3,000 toward the cost of the monument (of that $1,970.65 was raised from public contributions and $218.00 was collected from the interest accrued from the selling of old war bonds). In 1899 the state legislature appropriated another $5,000.
$8,000.00
August 22, 1900
Zebulon Baird Vance was the governor of North Carolina from 1862 to 1865 and from 1877 to 1879. He also served in the Confederate army until 1862. He is remembered for having worked hard to supply the Confederate troops and to protect the rights of North Carolina during the war. He served in the United States Senate from 1879 to his death in 1894. He was a very popular Democratic figure in North Carolina.
Friends and supporters of Vance wanted a monument soon after Vance’s death, but at the time the legislature was too racially and politically divided to support the project. After 1898, when Democrats regained control of the state legislature, Democrats used their majority to approve funding for the monument to their party hero.
The sculpture of Vance received criticism for its unattractive representation of the state’s noted politico. The height of the pedestal upon which the sculpture of Vance posed also aroused criticism for preventing viewers from admiring the details of the statue. When the Vance monument was relocated in 1949 to face the Charles Aycock monument, it was lowered from its former height to match the level of the Aycock monument.
Today the monument stands in Raleigh’s Union Square, facing a monument of Charles Aycock.
Union Square in downtown Raleigh has 14 monuments in total, including “Presidents North Carolina Gave the Nation”, George Washington, Women of the Confederacy, a Confederate Monument, North Carolina Veterans’ Monument, and Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial.
The statue originally stood 100 feet east of the eastern front doors of the North Carolina State Capitol. In 1949, it was relocated to its current position in order to make room for the monument to the Presidents North Carolina Gave the Nation. The original granite pedestal was replaced with the base that currently holds the monument to match the monument to Charles Aycock.
On Vance's birthday (May 13th), members of the Asheville United Daughters of the Confederacy and B'nai B’rith held a program near the monument to honor his birth.
The Vance Monument Association was formed shortly after Vance’s death but sufficient funds were not approved until after the Democratic victory in the election of 1898. The legislature appropriated $5000 to honor Vance in form of a monument in 1899.
Total was approximately $8,000. The cost of the construction and assembly of the newer pedestal totaled approximately $15,000, of which $12,000 was paid to the Scoggins Memorial Art Shop of Charlotte.
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