USA > Alabama > Reminiscences of public men in Alabama : for thirty years, with an appendix > Part 37
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From this specimen, the abilities of Mr. Baldwin in debate will be at once recognized. He was a Whig, and a skillful tactician, giving trouble and anxiety to his opponents at every move on the political chess-board. He was courteous, and always confined himself within parliamentary rules in his efforts on the floor. A man of great firmness, he never blustered. He respected the personal rights and feelings of others in discussion, and demanded the like civilities to himself. On a few occasions, his strong blows touched the nerves of an opponent, so as to provoke interruption; but he was at all times self-possessed, and never failed to satisfy the complaint by a'candid explanation. ,
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In 1849, Mr. Baldwin was brought forward by the Whig party as a candidate for Congress in opposition to the Hon. Samuel W. Inge, in the Tuskaloosa District; but his Democratic rival had the advantage of knocking down an abolition member on the floor of Congress in a general melee, and this gave him much pres- tige. The District was ably canvassed by both gentlemen, and Mr. Baldwin defeated by a small majority.
In the midst of his professional labors, Mr. Baldwin found leisure to write the "Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi," mostly descriptive of persons and scenes well known in the section where he resided, at a period extending from 1833 to 1840, when commercial credits were freely given, and speculation prevailed on a very small money basis, and extensively at times without any basis at all. Then a series of financial experiments followed, in loans from the State Bank to debtors, and the formation of pri- vate banking associations, whose stock consisted of real estate on mortgage, upon the faith of which notes were issued for circula- tion, generally payable twelve months after date in gold or silver. How the latter was to be provided, did not exactly appear; nor did the people seem to care so that they had lots of money to trade upon while the times were flush. This work of Mr. Baldwin was an admirable hit, containing a variety of transactions in detail, with scenes in Court and elsewhere, rich in originality and char- acters, and rarely surpassed in the humor of the narrative. The work was published in New York, and found ready sale.
Mr. Baldwin was also the author of another work of merit, entitled, "Party Leaders," in which Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Randolph and Clay were introduced as representative men, with contrasts and parallels well delineated, showing a great fund of information, and remarkable power of analysis, in the writer.
He married a daughter of the Hon. John White, a Judge of the Circuit Court previous to 1830. Not satisfied to remain in Alabama, where the political majority precluded the gratification of his hopes of preferment, Mr. Baldwin, not long after his defeat for Congress, removed to California, where his distinguished tal- ents and legal capacity soon obtained for him a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of that State, an office which he held at the time of his death, a few years ago.
FRANCIS BUGBEE, of Montgomery, is a Northern man by birth, but settled in Alabama at an early day, to practice his profession as a lawyer. He served in the Legislature only at the session of 1843, but brought with him into the House an extensive knowl- edge of business which made him a useful member. He was thirty-five years consecutively a Trustee of the University, hav- ing been elected in 1836 to that honorable position.
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In 1844, Col. Bugbee was selected by the other Trustees to examine the financial condition of the University, the lands granted by Congress, the endowment and income from all sources, the expenditures of the fund, and the amount borrowed from the State Bank. At the session of 1845, he made an exceedingly able report, minute in detail, and complete in statement, which was published in pamphlet form by order of the Legislature.
The account of the State in relation to University lands, and the loan from the State Bank to the Trustees is thus condensed :
Loss to University by Relief Laws $144,239.18
Interest for 3 years at 6 per cent .. 25,963.05
Profits, estimating same at 12 per cent., made by the Bank previous to 1837, over 6 per cent. allowed. 108,962.00
Balance due University from the State $279,164.23
Deduct notes of University held by the Bank. 64,500.00
Balance due the University $214,664.23
This document afforded evidence of the superior business and legal qualifications of Col. Bugbee. During the whole period in which he served as Trustee, be seldom failed to attend a meet- ing of the Board, or a Commencement at the University. To his zeal and fostering care the institution is greatly indebted for its good management in former years.
Upon the reorganization of the State Government in 1865, Pro- visional Governor Parsons appointed Col. Bugbee a Judge of the Circuit Court. In his brief administration on the bench, he dis- played an ability and fitness for the high place which was credit- able to his character and satisfactory to the public. In 1866, President Johnson appointed him United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, a position which he filled in a praiseworthy manner until he was displaced by President Grant.
Enough has been said to show that Judge Bugbee is an old, faithful public servant, and deserves, what is accorded to him with great unanimity, the respect and confidence of the people. He would have made an excellent Master of the Rolls in a British Court of Chancery, where learning, patience, and strong power of analysis, are required to bring order out of confusion. Judge Bugbee still resides at Montgomery, and, with his mature experi- ence, is engaged in the practice of the law.
CHARLES DEAR, of Wilcox, was returned to the House in 1842. His first effort on the floor made it necessary to refer to a number of legal authorities in support of a measure he had introduced in relation to land titles; and from the facility and closeness with which he urged the point, he convinced the House that he was no
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stranger to the books of his profession, or the mode of establishing his premises. He was an industrious member, and a diligent ob- server of proceedings. When he engaged in debate, he usually dealt in facts and figures, and in sensible views of any question before the House-never in empty generalities, as if for the mere pleasure of showing how well he could talk.
At the session of 1843, Mr. Dear was again a member, and was appointed Chairman of the Committee on Propositions and Griev- ances, and his frequent reports on the multiplicity of matters re- ferred to that Committee brought him prominently and favorably before the House. He generally searched for the truth, and spared no labor in the pursuit. Indeed, he was so given to books and legislative documents, that he rarely found time for social intercourse, on which, indeed, he seemed to place but little value as a source of enjoyment. He established a good name in the public service, and voluntarily retired, to follow more profitably his double vocation of planter and lawyer. He was a Whig in politics, and still resides in Wilcox.
PLEASANT HILL, of Bibb, was returned to the House in 1843. He was a son of James Hill, Esq., who was for many years a prominent Senator from Bibb county, and who participated freely in the movements of the Democratic party in his day. Mr. Pleas- ant Hill was liberally educated, and endowed by nature with a good mind and much genial humor. His social qualities were of a character to draw around him many friends and admirers.
In 1839, and again in 1840, he was elected Secretary of the Senate, which position brought him and the writer, who was the Clerk of the House of Representatives, into constant communica- tion, official and otherwise, which enabled him to understand and appreciate the many good qualities of his associate. In 1844 and in 1855, he was again Secretary of the Senate, and made an effi- cient and popular officer. He had many friends wherever known, and was his own worst enemy.
Mr. Hill married Catharine J., a daughter of S. W. Davidson, Esq., a wealthy planter of Bibb county, who was also a member of the House in 1840. In looking back on the past, there is no one associate in public life of whom the writer has more agreeable memories, than of Pleasant Hill. He died before he reached mid- dle age.
WILLIAM B. H. HOWARD, of Monroe, appeared for the first time as a member of the House at this session. He was from South Carolina, and was well educated. After completing a course of legal studies, he was admitted to the bar, and settled in Clai- borne for the practice of his profession. He married Miss Gail-
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lard, a connexion of the distinguished Carolina family of that name, of whom was the Hon. John Gaillard, a Senator in Con- gress from 1804 until his death in 1826, during which time he was President, pro tempore, of the Senate, continually, from 1814, except in the rear 1819, when the Hon. James Barbour, of Vir- ginia, officiated.
It was the law in 1843, and for years previously and subse- quently, for members of the Legislature to take an oath, that they had not been concerned, as principals or as seconds, in fighting a duel within a specified time. When Mr. Howard advanced to the Speaker's chair to be sworn, that oath was not administered to him, as he had been specially exempted from taking it by an act of Assembly for his relief-he having been engaged, within a few years, in a dueling transaction. Indeed, a mere glance at his physiognomy and bearing would satisfy any one that chivalry was a part of his nature.
The resolutions he offered, to accept the distributive share of the proceeds of the public lands to which Alabama was entitled, have been included in a preceding chapter. His speech in their support was able, spirited and patriotic, savoring, perhaps, a little too much of party bias, as he, a Whig, undertook to teach the Democratic majority their duty in behalf of a measure to which they were disinclined on principle. The views of Mr. Howard, and the principles on which he acted were no less worthy of respect; and it must have been a triumph to him that his policy was adopted by the Democratic majority at another session.
As a debater, Mr. Howard had considerable power. He had fine command of language, a well disciplined mind, and a delivery at once animate and pleasant. Owing to a sanguine temperament, and the lofty standard of action which he had prescribed to him- self, he was at times a little rash and intolerant toward those who differed from him in opinion. Yet the departure from the strict- est parliamentary decorum was but momentary, and he seldom failed to rectify, of his own accord, any seeming error or injustice into which his strong feelings had betrayed him in the ardor of debate. Bold, impetuous and daring in his flights of eloquence, he often surprised and gatified his audience, and perhaps as often wounded the sensibilities of a portion whose political tenets did not accord with his own. Had he been less fiery in his disposi- tion, and more conciliating in his manner, his influence would, no doubt, have been more largely extended. At all events, his talents were beyond question, and he was acknowledged as a leading member on the Whig side of the House. His social intercourse partook, to some extent, of his earnest political attain- ments, and it is probable that he was satisfied to let the Demo- crats, who controlled the Legislature for their own purposes, as he
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imagined, remain undisturbed by his personal attention. At least, such appeared to be his course at the first session. Further experience, it is belived, led to a more generous habit, and his former sternness has been partially laid aside.
At the session of 1844, Mr. Howard again returned to the House, and took a high position. Afterward he withdrew from public life for a while and in 1848 he removed to New Orleans, as a better field for professional enterprise and success. At the bar of that city he was brought in contact with many distinguished gentlemen, who exchanged with him the courtesies due a stranger. About that time, Messrs. S. S. Prentiss, Isaac T. Preston, William Elmore, Pierre Soulé, Randall Hunt, J. P. Benjamin, M. M. Cohen, Christian Roselius, William C. Micou, and William J. Vason, were in full practice among the recognized lights of the profession. The Hon. John Slidell, and the veterans, John R. Grymes and Mr. Mazareau, were then retiring, and seldom ap- peared in court unless on important occasions. The Civil Law being of force in Louisiana, which in its principles, rules, and prac- tice, was so wholly different from the common and statute law sys- tem to which Mr. Howard had been accustomed in Alabama, that he no doubt became discouraged. From New Orleans he went to California, where he remained several years.
Returning to Alabama, Mr. Howard settled in Mobile, and, in 1855, was one of the members elected to the House from that county, on the Know-Nothing, or American ticket. His confi- dence in Gov. Fitzpatrick, who was that year reelected to the Senate of the United States, induced him to interest himself ac- tively to prevent any organized opposition to him, and in this he succeeded to a great extent. After 1855, Mr. Howard retired from public life, and I saw but little of him until 1864, when the war was raging, and all the energies of the South were called for to arrest the onward march of the Federal armies. I met him in Montgomery, dressed in the coarse homespun gray of a Confede- rate soldier, a private, hastening to report for duty, in the ditches, after a short visit to his home on furlough. The contrast between his appearance in 1843-a bold, finely dressed, dashing young Southerner, battling manfully for his principles on the floor of the House-and the private soldier of 1864, in the garb mentioned, was truly striking. But he carried in his heart the same devo- tion to the South in the one position as in the other, always heroic in courage, always ready to give his fortune or his life to his country whenever she needed the sacrifice. A nobler spirit never breathed in legislative halls, or flashed its energies in the field.
After the war, Mr. Howard, in 1865, was elected Solicitor of the Twelfth Circuit, over very formidable opposition. He con- tinued to discharge the duties of that office witli ability and effi-
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ciency, until he was superseded by the reconstruction measures of Congress. He now resides in Camden, Wilcox county, engaged in the practice of the law. The lights and shadows of life, and the vicissitudes of the last twenty-seven years, of an active, spir- ited career, have left some marks upon Mr. Howard; but, in addi- tion to his mature intellect, he still retains the manly form, the expanded forehead, and the beaming face of former years.
DAVID C. HUMPHREYS, of Morgan, served, in 1843, his first session in the House. He afterward removed to Huntsville, and represented Madison county several years. He was a lawyer by profession, with a clear, penetrating, logical mind, which gave him prominence in debate. In fact, he was intellectually a strong man, in a small, nervous, feeble frame, which sometimes operated against the full exhibition of his powers. His manner was sim- ple and unpretending, and in his associations he was true and con- fiding. A National Democrat, he espoused the cause of Mr. Douglas in 1860, and was a delegate to the Convention of that party in Baltimore. He was opposed to secession, and did all he could to prevent it; but after the act was done, and trouble came, he entered the Confederate service as a private, and, I think, rose to the command of a regiment. He afterward left the army, and remained at home to the end of the war.
In the organization of parties in the South, after the surrender, . he allied himself with the Republicans, and under their control of the Government of Alabama, he was a candidate before the Legislature for United States Senator, but was beaten by another member of the party. Soon thereafter he was elected to fill a vacancy in the House from Madison county, and served to the end of the term. More retently, he has been appointed by the Pres- ident, and confirmed by the Senate, as Judge of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, which office he now holds.
While the late political course of Mr. Humphreys has sepa- rated him from many old and long-cherished friends in Alabama, it is due him to say that in other days he was esteemed a gentle- man of probity and character, and of kind, generous impulses. He is no doubt an excellent Judge, upright and impartial.
BAKUS W. HUNTINGTON, of Tuskaloosa, was from one of the New England States, and settled in Alabama as a young lawyer, about 1838. He became a professional partner of the Hon. Joshua L. Martin, and married a daughter of Daniel M. Riggs, Esq., formerly Cashier of the State Bank. Thus favorably con- nected, both in the practice of the law and in his social relations, he seemed to press forward to a bright destiny. He was well educated, and his talents were far beyond ordinary.
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In 1843, he was elected to the House as a Democrat, and plunged at once, with great self-reliance, in the debates on all im- portant questions. His literary culture gave him a good style, and his legal training supplied him with arguments, so that he often appeared to much advantage on the floor. On the white basis he made a very elaborate speech, which was creditable to his intelligence, and his manner as a speaker. Mr. Baldwin deemed it worthy of a reply, and gave it special attention. The misfor- tune of Mr. Huntington seemed to be too great a consciousness of superiority on his part on all occasions, whether in the Legisla- ture, or in the court-house. This conviction of power in himself led him too often into discussion, as if his opinions, and his reasoning faculties, were essential to unfold almost any subject be- fore the House. By this unfortunate habit, he lost much of his influence. A man is sometimes more valued for his silence, after he has shown the ability to talk well. This lesson might be use- fully studied by many others in the Legislature who have pro- clivities in the same direction.
Mr. Huntington was again a candidate for the House in 1845, and was beaten. After the election of Judges was given to the people, he canvassed for office in the Seventh Circuit, and was elected Judge of the Circuit Court. After occupying the bench a few years, he resigned, and returned to the North, settling in the city of New York, for the practice of his profession. From last accounts, between 1854 and 1858, he was indulging a little too freely in the use of wines and other comforting beverages. Since then, I have no very precise information about him. He had merit enough to command success anywhere, if his personal ad- dress could be a little more subdued, and less tinged with self- complacency.
HENRY C. JONES, of Franklin, served in the House at this session. He was raised in North-Alabama, and educated at La Grange College.
In 1841, a young man, comparatively a stranger to the Legis- lature, he came to Tuskaloosa, seeking the office of County Judge, but received little encouragement from the members of his county. Indeed, by some of them he was repelled, and told that he might go home, for he could not get the office. Timid and discouraged, he left; but he had mingled to some extent among the members, and made a good impression, among whom the opinion soon got abroad that he had been badly treated. The tide then began to flow in his favor, so that when the election came on, he had a majority of votes in his favor, although he was not present, and ceased to. expect the office.
Judge Jones brought into the Legislature a mind well culti-
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vated, and practical, with ready speaking abilities, and soon be- came one of the active business members. After serving many years in the House, he was transferred to the Senate, exhibiting maturity of mind and legislative talent which gained him promi- nence in the deliberations of that body. He was a Democrat, and entered fully into the councils of the party. In 1861 he was a member of the State Convention called upon the election of Mr. Lincoln, and took a decided stand against the Ordinance of Seces- sion, opposing it with all his influence and ability in debate. Not- withstanding, he was elected by the Convention a deputy to the Congress of States, to assemble at Montgomery, for the purpose of forming a separate Government for the South. This was no small compliment to him, considering how he had opposed the wishes and views of the majority. After this service he retired, and en- gaged in his profession as a lawyer, settling, I think, in Florence, where he now resides, in the meridian of life, enjoying the confi- dence and friendship of his fellow-citizens. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
NORMAN MCLEOD, of Pike, was a North Carolinian who settled in that county a few years previous to 1840. In 1841, he first took his seat in the House, and served again in 1843, and at the session of 1849. He was a weakly man, physically, and retired, after 1849, and never again sought legislative honors.
Mr. McLeod was a planter, and a citizen of influence, maintain- ing, through life, an unblemished reputation. He was a Demo- crat in principle, but Catholic in his general views, and social in his disposition. As a member, he took decided position among the business men of the Legislature, with a mind strong, and com- prehending the questions of State policy under consideration. He was much respected for his frank and straightforward course, and for his attention to business, as well as for his high traits of Chris- tian character. When he died, a few years ago, the State lost a good citizen and an honest man. He was a member of the Pres- byterian Church.
JOHN W. PORTIS, of Clarke, was elected to the House in 1843 as a mixed basis Democrat, and took an active part in the debates upon that and other questions during the session. He considered the adoption of the white basis as a serious blunder, and predicted trouble from it. He was reelected in 1844, and served through the session with the activity and usefulness of a well educated, intelligent young lawyer.
He was a Trustee of the University from 1844 to 1858, earn- estly endeavoring to promote the success of the institution in the changes which had been adopted some years previously in the
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course of study. He usually attended the State Democratic Con- ventions, and was a delegate to the Conventions of that party at Cincinnati, Charleston and Baltimore.
In the war which followed the secession of the Southern States, he warmly embarked-volunteered as a private in April, 1861, and was thereafter placed in command of a regiment. Col. Portis is a native of North Carolina, born in 1818, but removed to Ala- bama when quite young. He received his education at the Uni- versity of Virginia, and studied law in the office of Messrs. Cooper & Parsons, at Claiborne, and after his admission to the bar, he settled at Suggsville, where he engaged in the practice of the law and in planting in the vicinity. He is connected with a large family, some of whom have held public places in the State. He is justly esteemed a well-read lawyer and cultivated gentleman, and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
Col. Portis is a brother of David Y. Portis, Esq., formerly of Livingston, an eloquent young lawyer who, about the year 1837, emigrated to Texas. By his marriage with an heiress in the Re- public, he became a very large land-owner-perhaps of not less than 100,000 acres. The gifted mind, the exuberant social nature, and the lofty ambition of Mr. D. Y. Portis can be at no loss to enjoy to the best of advantage such a magnificent turn of fortune.
HOWELL ROSE, of Coosa, who took his seat in the House at the session of 1843, was a member of the Senate at the first session of the Legislature of Alabama, which met at Huntsville in 1819. He then represented Autauga county. Afterward, he was involved in many fierce political and personal broils, and was defeated in his aspirations for public life. He then turned his attention for many years to the business of planting and operations in land, by which he acquired large possessions. In the meantime, he removed to Coosa county, and settled a few miles from Wetumpka. He owned extensive bodies of land in this county, besides his quar- ters on the West, in Autauga and Lowndes.
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