The effort by a local historical preservation group to save the mostly deconstructed Vance Monument continues to await a decision from the North Carolina Court of Appeals going into the Christmas holiday, H. Edward Phillips III, the plaintiff’s attorney, told the Daily Planet during a lengthy telephone interview on Dec. 11.

“The last filing (in the case) was on Nov. 12” with the Court of Appeals on behalf of his clients, the Society for the Historical Preservation of the 26th North Carolina Troops (the plaintiffs), Phillips said.

“So right now, we’re waiting for the courtt — at some point in time — to set a date for an oral argument. I have no idea when that date will be set,” but when pressed by the Daily Planet, the attorney said it most certainly will not happen until after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

“After that, the court has to make a decision... How much time it will take them to do that” is unpredictable.

During the Dec. 11 interview, Phillips also spoke at length about what he sees as the close parallels between the Vance Monument case in Asheville and the Gen. Robert E. Lee statue case in Charlottesville, Va.

While Phillips, on behalf of the the plaintiffs, is trying to save the Vance Monument and have it reassembled on the same site, or on some other similarly prominent location downtown, the city is still seeking the court’s approval to resume — and complete — its demolition of the monument.

Specifically, it was built to honor Zebulon Baird Vance (1830-1894) who twice served as the state’s governor, as well as a congressman and a U.S. senator. Vance was known as a highly skilled public speaker who used his humor and oratorical skills to achieve a remarkable success rate in elections. What’s more, Vance was reputed to be one of his era’s top defenders of the Jews in the United States and often was a lone voice speaking against anti-Semitism.

However, the man and monument honoring him recently were termed evil by city officials, who have noted that he served as a Confederate military officer during the Civil War, was the owner of slaves and for some vile quotes in a few of his speeches and writing, disparaging blacks.

The monument was erected in the heart of downtown Asheville in 1897 on Pack Square and has been long considered the centerpiece and — by some — “the crown jewel” of the city’s downtown. 

Following a number of protests billed as seeking social justice downtown in 2020, a sympathetic City Council voted to take down the monument, a granite obelisk standing 65 feet tall — block by block, starting from the top — using a construction crew the city hired.

As Phillips has lamented in previous interviews with the Daily Planet, the city — even while the case to save it was being waged in the legal system — proceeded with demolition of the monument until the the court finally ordered the city halt the work at once. At that point, only the monument’s base remained intact. The base since has been encased in a protective cover — and the monument’s many blocks are being held for safekeeping in secure, undisclosed locations around Asheville, in case the city is ordered by the court to reassemble the monument, City Attorney Brad Branham recently told the Daily Planet.

Meanwhile, Phillips said in the Dec. 11 interview that “the big thing is, I’ve tried to reach out and even though sometimes both sides are boisterous in the media, as each of us are trying to make a point … I reached out to Brad Branham and said, despite the vitriol and how we want to support our positions, at the end of the day, we understand it’s nothing personal. ‘It’s just a case.’

“Look, we’re talking about the all-out destruction of the (Vance) monument. But it seems to me that we’ve moved far afield (as a society) from all the compromise positions we’ve been told about over the years — ‘We want to move them to museums... to battlefields... to historic sites.’ 

“Now there’s something even more ominous — ‘We need to destroy them because we know what evil these monuments represent.’ ‘They’re so evil... so toxic.’ Whether it’s outside influences or the government saying, ‘You people are too stupid... too uneducated to know what these monuments are. We need to take these monuments down because they will cause heartache and sorrow. We want to protect you.’”

In a reference to the aforementioned perceived government sentiment, Phillips lamented, “I mean that in the most cynical way I can.”

He added, “‘Museums, museums, museums’ were the mantra. There is nothing in this nation (organizationally or politically) that’s anything like the Nazis,” contrary to assertions by many on the political left.

“People water-down words, ‘Nazi.’ ‘Fascist,’ ‘Genocide.’ They don’t really go into the real import of these words. They just bandy them about, like its candy corn,” Phillips asserted.

In Russia, where many of that nation’s monuments have been preserved, “they stare their history in the face,” with an attitude toward unpleasant aspects that “we’re keeping this as a memory of the past, as we have to put it into perspective.”

What’s more, Phillips said, “The Soviets didn’t need explanatory signs to know what to think.”

After another pause, the attorney said, “It’s kind of the ‘dumbing down of America.’ Because we’re too busy — almost totally focused on the social media ... We’re not reading books (any more). We’re not challenging ourselves to look at our biases. 

“An educated populace is one that ensures the stability of the republic. That’s what (Thomas) Jefferson saw. But now Jefferson is (depicted as) the beacon of all things that are evil and wrong in our society,” particularly in reference to “the things he did as a human being, especially as a slave-owner. Some say he was a pedophile, and that he raped his (biracial) slave Sally Hemings.” (Some experts say evidence — including modern DNA analyses — ties Jefferson to being the father of Hemmings’ six children.)

Regarding what Phillips referred to as “this bizarre institution known as chattel slavery, he said, “Again, it;’s a different time, a different place — read a book.” (Chattel slavery is defined as one person having total ownership of another.)

He added, “In the Constitution of the United States, we forbade slavery...

“People, unless they cracked open a book, don’t realize George Washington and Thomas Jefferson” did many great things in their lives and were champions of freedom.

“You’re so quick to condemn because you’re so simple-minded,” Phillips said, in noting what he would tell those who trash Washington, Jefferson and others who founded the United States.

“Knowing that God is a just God, I fear the day when this ‘tiger by the tail’ turns back — and there’s a price to pay....”

Phillips said there is no satisfying those claiming to be social justice advocates. “The people in the streets (sometimes violently) demanding that these monuments come down” was bad enough. “Now, there are people chanting that there’s no such thing as Western civilization.

“If we keep going through history, trying to make everyone ‘whole’ again… What’s the point? They’ll never be satisfied. And that’s what leads me to what’s happening in Charlottesville, Virginia....

“In Charlottesville, they’re now taking the statue of Robert E. Lee” — sculpted in 1924 by Henry Merwin Shrady and Leo Lentelli — and planning to melt it down and turn it into black-designed art.

“The City of Charlottesville government can’t show me where he (Lee) said, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m an avid white supremacist.’ That’s despotic” to make such claims, Phillips said.

“Destroying these monuments and melting them down — it is a farce. It’s lunacy at its best....

“My fear of all fears is if they keep watering down these words (by changing their definitions to suit their needs) and keep pushing the envelope harder and harder — at some time, there will be pushback and we fight evil with evil. That’s when we’re screwed. How far do we go?”

(Charlottesville City Council debated on Dec 6 whether to sell the statue, gift it or keep it. Ultimately, the councilreportedly voted 4-0 to donate it — for a meltdown — to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, which is located in Charlottesville.)

Phillips scoffed at the notion by Charlottesville officials that they will turn the remnants of the Lee statue “into a more equitable piece of art.”

Phillips also noted that “(Adolf) Hitler was evil to everyone” — not just to some, adding, “I’m incensed by these people who sit around and say, ‘70 million people (Donald Trump for president voters) are white supremacists or Nazis or fascists.”

To those making such assertions, the attorney asserted, “Until you can come up with real numbers, shut up!”

He also pointed out that recent estimates of Ku Klux Klan membership in the U.S. total “around 5,000 people,” a minuscule percentage of the nation’s population, despite assertions by some on the left that there has been a tremendous surge in anti-black hate groups.

“What it comes down to in Charlottesville is — this is part and parcel to this ripping away of American identity. They say there’s no such thing as ‘white people,’ but then they call us ‘white people.’ They characterize ‘Western civilization’ as an institution that doesn’t exist — and that all it (Western civilization) did was steal and borrow from everyone else in the world. Some say Rome and Greece were not part of Western civilization. There are some scholars now who say Rome didn’t exist...

“Soon, the only thing that matters… is what the government — or the (political) party — tells you to believe.”

As for the Gen. Robert E Lee statue in Charlottesville, Phillips said, “two of the best architects (sculptors) at the time worked on that monument.”

Noting that one of the Charlottesville monument’s sculptors, Leo Lentelli was of Italian descent, Phillips asserted, “I’m half-Italian. I was heckled for it as a child. Did I get mad? I didn’t like it. But at that time, which was in the 1970s and 1980s,” he says he took the heckling in stride and does not regret his response now.

“My main contention is it (Charlottesville’s Lee statue case) is the same thing the City of Asheville is doing with the Vance Monument, with baseless assertions that “It’s scary! It’s evil! Let’s destroy it!

“In the case of the Lee statue, it’s ‘Let’s melt it down into what we deem is right and just.’”

To the contrary, Phillips said surveys show “the majority of the people in Virginia want to keep their Confederate monuments. But the spineless people in government are listening to the people shouting in the streets — ‘We must tear them down!’”

He added, “Equity is something that’s very, very difficult to fashion. It is a difficult standard to put into place. But equality, itself, now that is obtainable — it’s a society where none of us see each other through the lens of race, religion, ethnicity, etc...”

Phillips told the Daily Planet in the interview that he had “talked to the attorneys before the law was changed in Virginia and” and “the final version of the ‘gutted’ Monument Protection Law in Virginia was within three words of what I wrote. 

“And so the radical (Virginia) Democrats in spring 2020 were really upset that that clause remained in there,” referring to: “We won’t rob graves to take down a monument.”

Further, Phillips said, “At the end of the day, Charlottesville and Asheville are similar — because they want to destroy something.”

Instead, “Why not leave monuments up and use them as a juxtaposition to your” modern sensibilities? he asked, rhetorically.

Confederate Gen. “Stonewall Jackson (1824-1863) is one of my cousins. Growing up in a half-Italian household, I admired his tenacity as a military leader. I don’t think Jackson was a slave-holder. Will I be thrown in a re-education camp” because of his genetic ties to Jackson? he queried, again rhetorically.

(Jackson, born in Clarksburg, Va., was a West Point graduate and was considered one of the most-skilled tacticians among the generals on either side during the Civil War.)

In Asheville, “They (city officials) want to turn the Vance Monument to dust. 

“With Charlottesville, my point is, you shouldn’t melt it (the Lee statue) down. Instead, why don’t you sell it? Or, if you don’t sell it, give it to some organization that will preserve it for posterity. From the sale, use the money to put up a monument you do support.

“The wanton destruction of a monument to make something else,” it “is (like) pouring gasoline on a fire... By taking monuments down, you’re ‘sanitizing the landscape.’

“The question really is, in a fundamental way: How far do we want government to control our history and our narrative and tell us what we need to think?” he asked. 

“As soon as you make your fellow Americans as ‘the other,’ that’s a scary place to be,” based on historical precedents.

Despite all that is happening, “I try to remain optimistic and hopeful, with my faith” in Christianity — and “in my fellow citizens, making me hold out hope. However, if we keep going down the path of destroying things to protect people — it seems really crazy. At some point, if we don’t change our course, this country will splinter, balkanize (divide) — and that will only benefit the Chinese...”

Also, he said, “If we fear retribution for saying what we know is right, then we’re no longer the United States of America.” 

Phillips then shared two of his favorite quotes of Ben Franklin (1706-1790), who is widely rated as one of the foremost of the American “founding fathers.” Franklin also was a printer and publisher, author, inventor and scientist, and diplomat.

In his first quote of Franklin, Phillips noted that, when asked upon emerging from the Constitutional Convention, ‘Dr. Franklin, what kind of government have you given us?’ his answer was: “A Republic, madam, if you can keep it!”

The second (and final) quote of Franklin cited by Phillips was the following: 

“If you’re so willing to trade your freedom for security, you will have neither.”

In concluding the interview, Phillips said, “The only hope is this… in the (values of the) majority of the people in the United States. They (the “woke” crowd) are not the majority of people” in the U.S. “We can either stand up and stop pretending” — or give in to them.

“The better path forward is to put up monuments to those who have been forgotten, along with (preserving) this other public art,” the attorney said. “It wasn’t people just of Western European ancestry who did great things in this country. What’s happened is we’ve created an artificial standard....

“The bottom line,” Phillips asserted, is that Americans need to stand up for the values they cherish — with courage and conviction.