Vance
ZEBULON BAIRD, American lawyer; born in Buncombe co., that largely owing to his declared oppo- N. C., May 13, 1830. He was educated sition to "slightest interference" with slavery. Van Buren's four years of office were darkened by the gloom of financial panic; but what one man could he did to lighten it, by wringing from Congress its assent to a measure for a treasury independent of private banks.
This and his firm adherence to obligations of neutrality during the Canadian rebellion of 1837 are his most statesmanlike acts, but both cost him popиlarity and votes; in 1840 he and his party were overwhelmingly defeated by the Whigs. He lost the nomination in MARTIN VAN BUREN 1844, because he opposed the annexation of Texas; and his nomination by the Free Soil party in 1848 only secured the return of the Whig candidate and the rejection of both Democrats. This was his last important appearance. Van Buren was a master of the politician's arts, but he used his great skill for what he counted the highest ends. He loved not to follow but rather to make public opinion and a party for himself; for he had on the whole a statesman's soul and not a place-hunter's. So we see him often doggedly ranging himself on the unpopular side-favoring negro suffrage, and opposing an elective judiciary. He was intensely partisan, trained a Jefferson Democrat, and loyal to his at Washington College, Tenn., and at the University of North Carolina, and was admitted to the bar in 1852. He was member of Congress from North Carolina in 1858-1861; colonel in the Confederate army in the Civil War; governor of North Carolina in 1862-1865, and 1877-1879; and United States Senator from 1879 till his death in Washington, D. C., April 14, 1894.