Introduction
Governor William H. Holden was the first Governor to ever be convicted of impeachment and removed from office in United States History. (Powell 1989, 400) Eight different charges were brought before the North Carolina senate and the State Supreme Court, most notable of which were the declaration of an insurrection in Alamance and Caswell Counties on the 7th of March, 1870. (Item #54) The declaration of an insurrection would eventually become known as the Kirk-Holden war and a center piece Holden's impeachment trial. Conservatives in Raleigh would argue that there was never a state of insurrection while Governor Holden and his defense team argued that there was.