NC Senate weighs Reconstruction governor’s pardon

RALEIGH, N.C.RALEIGH, N.C.— North Carolina’s present-day lawmakers are deciding whether to pass judgment on a decision by their Reconstruction-era predecessors 140 years ago to impeach and kick out a governor whose chief offense stemmed from stopping Ku Klux Klan violence during the turbulent years after the Civil War. In a move that could compel legislators to confront the state’s racist past, the Senate wants to debate this week a resolution pardoning the late Republican Gov. William Woods Holden, who became the first governor removed from office in the United States on March 22, 1871. Holden’s impeachment took place months after Democrats – the party that had favored Secession and the formation of the Confederacy – took back control of the statehouse from Republicans, the party of Lincoln. Republicans did not take charge of the North Carolina Senate again until this year. Democrats were angry with Holden for bringing in a state militia to quell a Klan insurrection that killed newly-...