 In total, the slaves tended to the Vance children, cooked the family's meals, made the housing wares, fetched the water, cultivated the farm crops, and, otherwise, allowing Vance to spend his formative years pursuing his education and reading the classics from a 500-volume library that his family inherited from his uncle

Like his brother, Zeb, Vance was a Whig who subscribed to the political philosophy of Henry Clay.When Vance was twenty, he was elected clerk of the Buncombe County Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions, the position his father held until his death.Rather than seek re-election, in 1858, he decided to become a merchant in Asheville.