was nominated by the temperance forces. Governor Johnson, however, was elected, receiving 53,478 votes against 43,228 cast for Judge Andrews, and 6,284 cast for Colonel Overby. The last-named gentleman is today revered as one of the great pioneer leaders in crusade of reform which has since swept over the state and is destined in the near future to sweep the nation.* Two new judicial circuits were created by the State Legislature in 1854: the Brunswick and the Tallapoosa. To preside over the courts of the Brunswick Circuit, Hon. A. E. Cochran was the first judge elected, while the first presiding officer of the Tallapoosa Circuit was Hon. Denis F. Hammond. In 1855, the Legislature created six new counties, to wit: Berrien, Colquitt, Haralson, Terrell, Towns and Webster. All of these, except the county last mentioned, were named for distinguished Georgians who had recently passed away: John MacPherson Berrien, Walter T. Colquitt, Hugh A. Haralson, William Terrell, and George W. Towns. Webster was named for the illustrious orator of New England, though the original name proposed for the county was Kinchafoonee, for a creek constituting one of its water courses.† On May 3, 1856, ex-Governor George M. Troup, while visiting one of his plantations in what was then Montgomery County, now Wheeler, died in an overseer's cabin (on the Mitchell place). For more than twenty years, Governor Troup had lived in modest retirement on his favorite plantation, called by him, Valdosta, in Laurens County, some few miles to the south of the present city of Dublin. Governor Troup owned something like ten plantations in this section of Georgia, most of them on the banks of the Oconee River; and for the times he was a man of princely means, though he cared nothing for ostentatious display. He was buried on the Rosemont plantation, in Montgomery County, beside a beloved brother, whom he survived. His grave in the midst of a dense thicket is approached by a path leading through a field of corn. It is marked by a substantial monument occupying the center of a walled enclosure; but this shrine of patriotism, sacred to all Georgians, is seldom visited because of its remoteness from any traveled highway. It is reached by a drive of seven miles from Soperton, a town on the Macon and Dublin Road, between Dublin and Vidalia. Governor Troup was a man of eccentric habits, but fearless, upright, and uncompromising in his allegiance to principle. Altogether, he was one of the most unique, one of the most courageous, and one of the most patriotic of all the public men of Georgia; and his own rugged character is the only quarry which can furnish the memorial granite worthy to bear the name of Georgia's stout apostle of state rights: George M. Troup. + Supplementary data relative to these counties may be obtained from the section entitled "Georgia Miscellanies.'' Vol. II-7 CHAPTER I TWO FUNDAMENTAL CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA: THE COTTON GIN AND THE DOCTRINE OF SECESSION-THE CONVENTION OF 1867 IN A DEADLOCK-FIVE CANDIDATES, LUMPKIN, GARDNER, LAMAR, STILES AND WARNER-JOSEPH E. BROWN A COMPROMISE CANDIDATE AT WORK IN HIS WHEAT FIELD WHEN NOTIFIED-HOW MR. TOOмBS RECEIVED THE NEWS-BENJAMIN H. HILL NOMINATED BY THE OPPOSITION-CANDIDATES CONTRASTED THE BED-QUILT EPISODE-BROWN WINS THE GOVERNORSHIP BY 10,000 VOTES-GEORGIA'S WAR GOVERNOR -HIS HUMBLE START IN LIFE-WITHOUT INHERITING SLAVE PROPERTY, HE BECOMES AN ARDENT CHAMPION OF THE SOUTH'S PECULIAR INSTITUTION-THE CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION—THE NEW STATE LEGISLATURE-ROBERT TOOMBS RE-ELECTED UNITED STATES SENATOR— GOVERNOR BROWN'S INAUGURAL-THE NEW EXECUTIVE IN A CLASH WITH THE STATE BANKS-FORFEITURE OF CHARTERS THREATENEDBILL TO DELAY PROCEEDINGS PASSED OVER THE GOVERNOR'S VETO -PUBLIC SENTIMENT SUSTAINS THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR BROWN UPROOTS ESTABLISHED CUSTOMS, PUTTING AN END TO SOCIAL LEVEES AND OUTLAWING INTOXICANTS FROM THE MANSION. When Eli Whitney, a New Englander, then visiting the family of Gen. Nathanael Greene, near Savannah, Georgia, invented the cotton gin in 1793, he unconsciously riveted the institution of slavery upon the South and changed the whole future course of American history. When, in 1814, the Hartford convention boldly asserted the right of secession, it spoke only for the merchants of New England whose commerce was endangered by our second war for independence. But the doctrine enunciated by the Hartford convention became a disturbing factor in American politics, destined to play the part of Banquo's ghost.* Great events are ofttimes cradled in obscure beginnings. To find the headwaters of the Mississippi River we must follow its current back to a secluded lake, in the great heart of the Rocky Mountains; and from these two apparently unrelated facts, the invention of the cotton gin and the right of a state to secede, first boldly asserted in the form of a threat by the Hartford convention, we may date the beginnings of our great Civil war. Ten years in advance of Mr. Lincoln's election to the presidency, William L. Yancey, a native Georgian, led a revolt which shook the * See "History of the Hartford Convention," by Timothy Dwight, secretary of the convention, 1833. Schuyler's "History of United States, " Vol. II, pp. 469-476. Going still further back, three states, before entering the Union, expressly reserved the right to secede. These were, Rhode Island, New York, and North Carolina. Bancroft's "History of the United States.' Author's last revision. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1884, pp. 452-462. Chapter on "The Lingering States.'' |