The attorney for the preservationists seeking to save the Vance Monument in downtown Asheville from demolition is aware that new court documents show — and Asheville City Attorney Brad Branham has admitted — that the City of Asheville has spent $13,824.52 in additional expenses, as of June 24, to secure the remnants of the Vance Monument in downtown Asheville after the removal was halted by court order on June 24,  with expenses projected to continue to soar until the court makes a decision, but he says all of this could have been avoided and taxpayer money saved.

H. Edward Phillips III, representing the Society for the Historical Preservtion of the 26th North Carolina Troops, told the Daily Planet on June 25 the following: “So they (the city attorneys) took these actions and failed to comply with the court’s order in doing so. They could have even placed a motion before the court asking for some relief based on some rationale to remove the blocks and construction equipment from the site. But they didn’t do that. This situation is entirely of their own making....”

Phillips added, “Had they just paused for a couple of weeks and not done anything to see what the court was going to do, they would have been in place to not spend any money whatsoever... It’s this belief, ‘Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!’ regardless of the consequences. I don’t know why people believe that’s the right thing to do. The city is fixated on having removed the monument in its entirety and destroying it as quickly as possible regardless of the fact that the matter was on appeal and regardless of the fact that the court said it wasn’t going to grant the emergency order.”

In opening the June 25 interview with the Daily Planet, Phillips said, “As I understand the court’s June 4 order, it prohibited them (the City of Asheville) from deconstructing, demolishing or removing the (Vance) monument from Pack Square.

“They have to hold all the pieces from the monument. So here’s where ‘the rubber meets the road.’ If you read the June 4 order, you can see the language clearly says nothing has to be removed from Pack Square. All the legal counsel had to do was reach out to me to ask” if the plaintiff would allow the pieces to remain in the park. “But they didn’t do that. Instead they moved everything.”

Edwards added, “So they (the city) took these actions and failed to comply with the court’s order in doing so. They could have even placed a motion before the court asking for some relief based on some rationale to remove the blocks and construction equipment from the site. But they didn’t do that. This situation is entirely of their own making.

“The city is taking the legal position … because the current state of the law with the (state) Court of Appeals decision with the UDC (United Daughters of the Confederacy) case in Winston-Salem….”

(In the UDC-Winston Salem case, the city says a lawsuit filed to force the return of a Confederate statue downtown is flawed because the United Daughters of the Confederacy group cannot show it has any rights over the placement of the statue.

(It is not clear when the N.C. Court of Appeals might take up the case.

(The UDC is appealing a May 8 decision by Judge Eric Morgan in Forsyth County Superior Court that dismissed the group’s suit over the statue, and did so in a way that prevents the UDC from filing additional lawsuits in the case.)

“However,” Edwards said, “the problem with that type of thinking” (by City of Asheville attorneys) is that “the state Supreme Court is looking at the matter. So now I filed my notice of appeal and kept communicating with the city and said my client hasn’t finished the appellate effort...

“If they had cause to feel that something was going to happen to the monument,” the prudent approach would have been to hold back on demolition of the monument, he said.

“The city keeps saying that they (the plaintiffs for which Phillips is the attorney) haven’t shown they can succeed on the merits of their case. I do believe we did make the case.

“The (state) Court of Appeals must believe that something is there for them to take this extraordinary action” to call for an immediate halt of the demolition of the Vance Monument.

To that end, Phillips asserted, “I can say the court put the brakes on (Asheville) because they know the state of the law in North Carolina in regard to the Monument Protection Act is in a state of flux.

“Because it’s in a state of flux — what the Supreme Court will do, they will make a decision one way or another that will resolve these monument cases for good or ill, regardless of how you feel about it.

“I still believe these courts of appeals got the law wrong, Subsection B (of the Monument Protection Act) clearly talks about ‘objects of remembrance’ on ‘public property.’ But the City of Asheville would have everyone believe that ‘public property’ means state property — and I think that’s a very, very narrow reading of it....”

Phillips also spoke of the MPA’s requirements for “similar prominence” and “equal access” for monuments to be moved to another location.

“It’s one of those things where ‘the Supreme Court will be right — not because they’re right, but because they’re last,’” he said, attributing the quote to Judge Learned Hand. 

{Learned Hand (1872-1961), a district and appeals judge and judicial philosopher, ruled in influential First Amendment cases. He also is remembered for his much-lauded “Spirit of Liberty” speech, given in 1944 in New York City’s Central Park.}

Continuing, Phillips asserted, “And so, from my perspective, when we get down to brass tacks, sometimes it’s better for litigants (such as the City of Asheville) to wait and not do harm to themselves or taxpayers because they’re in too much of a rush.”

Turning to broader issues, Phillips said, “Everything that has been espoused (on a wide range of issues) since the horrific death of George Floyd (a black man) is attributed to white supremacy.

“Ultimately, it comes down to this whole notion that it can’t be anything else but white supremacy.”

Also, the attorney for those seeking to preserve the Vance Monument took issue with the Asheville Citizen Times, asserting that the newspaper “always uses one terrible quote” from Vance, while ignoring everything else he said and did.

The quote to which Phillips is referring is when Vance said that African-Americans had a “putrid stream of African barbarism” in their veins.

Phillips lamented that “it becomes a mantra when they keep using” the same terrible quote, “instead of (for instance) ever mentioning his (Vance’s) defense of Jews.”

Phillips also said, “In their casting aspersions on us (those seeking to preserve a monument) as objects, I have to come to the conclusion that these monuments are what people make of them. People have the right to put up monuments that they think are more worthy. I think that’s appropriate, but taking them down is not appropriate.”

Ultimately, he said of the “woke” crowd in general and the Vance Monument opponents in particular, “It’s just a bunch of people yelling in the street and threatening to do damage unless they get their way — ‘We will set things ablaze.’ They’re holding everyone else hostage. But what they’re doing by fomenting this violence is not good, either....

“There are better solutions. But it’s become the mantra of taking everything down that offends ‘thee.’ It’s about revenge. It’s not about bringing forward voices that haven’t been heard in the public forum. It’s easier to take something down than to put something new up,” Phillips said.

He noted that the city enterted into a “$114,000 contract to take it (the monument) down. Instead, the city could have spent $114,000 to build a new monument,” while leaving the Vance Monument standing.

Phillips said that he thinks AshevilleCouncilwoman Sandra Kilgore, who is African-American, had a point when “she said she is afraid it (destroying the Vance Monument) is going to sour the attitude of other people toward blacks.”

Speaking personally, Phillips noted that “I had family on both sides (of the Civil War).”

He then returned to assessing what is going on with those espousing a social justice agenda around the United States.

“Back in early spring in New York City this one young lady had been arrested by the New York City Police because she spat in the face” of an officer... It’s about revenge. And anything bent on revenge is going to end in a disastrous way,” Phillips said.

“Things should be built on brotherhood, sisterhood, our common bonds and things that would unite us as an American people — not as one people or another.”

Regarding the reported storage of parts of the Vance Monument in off-site locations, Phillips said, “My clients and I do not know what has happened to the blocks, the capstone and the other elements that were components of the monument.

“I believe they (Asheville’s city attorneys) should have communicated with me, as opposing counsel, to potentially enter into a consent order to be given the court’s permission to move the components to a safe and secure warehouse.

“What’s really happening right now, with a wink and a nod, they’re saying, ‘Everything’s safe!’ I don’t know that. How would I know that?”

At that point, Phillips take another verbal jab at the Citizen Times, noting, “I’ve been working on the (Nathan Bedford) Forrest case” and  I “really detest how the Citizen Times” depicted Phillips as an attorney defending the Ku Klux Klan.

The Daily Planet searched and found the reference cited by Phillips in a March 29 story in the Citizen Times by Joel Burgess, which follows:

“Phillips was hired by the 26th N.C. for his experience fighting monument removal, the group’s officials said. He represented descendants of confederate cavalry commander and original Ku Klux Klan grand dragon Nathan Bedford Forrest whose remains were buried under his statue in a Memphis park.”

 While Phillips feels he was savaged by the Citizen Times, he said, “The way for Southerners forward is embracing their fellow community…. not the KKK.

“The thing with the Confederate memorials — they are, in fact, monuments to the dead,” not to the so-called “Lost Cause,” he said.

While Asheville City Council, city officials, the Citizen Times and other news media have referred to the Vance Monument as “a Confederate memorial” ... what is Phillips’ assessment? the Daily Planet asked.

“The Vance Monument is not a Confederate memorial — it represents George Willis Pack, who gave the land to the (Buncombe) county to build the monument and two-thirds of the money to build it ($2,000) for all he (Vance) had done for North Carolinians.”

Vance “was an anti-secessionist,” Phillips said. “He did two things that were remarkable during the Civil War as governor — he shifted supplies to Union POW camps in North Carolina to ease their suffering — humanitarianism... and when the Confederate government wanted to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, as did Lincoln (for the Union), he threatened to pull back his North Carolina troops” in protest. Vance’s threat kept the South from suspending critical-to-freedom habeas corpus, Phillips contended.

With a sigh, Phillips concluded, “People want perfection — there’s no such thing as perfection... They want to take down the Washington and Jefferson monuments in Washington. Where’s the end? They keep moving the goalposts....”