USA > Alabama > Reminiscences of public men in Alabama : for thirty years, with an appendix > Part 47
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87
The new and young city of Birmingham, named for its renowned predecessor in England, is situated at the intersection of all these railroads, and in the heart of the coal and iron region of the State, in a high and healthy latitude, with soil and climate suitable for all the grasses and cereals grown in the most favored localities of Tennessee and Kentucky.
All articles made of iron, and used in the Southern, Southwestern, Northern, and Northwestern States, ought to be more cheaply made here than any point in the Union. It is here that the raw material required can be most cheaply ob- tained. Here can the fuel be bought to be used in the manufacture of iron at a less cost than at any other point where ore and labor needed can mingle in the production. The labor, too, can be had at less rates than in any other locality. When it is domiciled here, and provision for its support can be got into cheap and expeditious channels, we presume no one will dispute this. With direct railroad communication with Louisville during the present year, and direct rail communi- cation with St. Louis, which is in contemplation, the difference in cost of living at Birmingham and at Louisville or St. Louis, will only be the difference in the cost of transportation of breadstuffs by competing lines of transportation, which will be more than compensated by cheap rents, cheaper and less heavy clothing, cheaper and less fuel, with the advantage of having every day in the year utilized in work, while in frozen regions three or four months of every year are compar- atively lost by the rigidity of the climate.
446
Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama.
The intelligent and well-informed will need no array of facts as to the cost of ore, coal, labor, etc., at this point, as compared with others that may become our rivals in manufacturing. Nor will it be necessary to call attention to facilities for distribution by rail to a larger extent of country than can be reached in a few years from any other locality on equal terms. A glance at the maps will be needed only to show the extensive region we ought to supply.
To become the Birmingham of the United States, we have only to harmonize these advantages, and develop into practiced utility the resources at our disposal. Then what? What factories ought we to have? Every variety requisite for the making of every article of a metalic character. There should be, and doubtless will be, extensive manufactories here of every article, from the largest steam en- gines, hydraulic presses, or crystal palaces, down to the smallest toy, pin or needle.
With a rapidly increasing population estimated at four hundred thousand, being double the number of inhabitants when I visited it in 1866, Birmingham, England, produces annually nearly £5,000,000 worth of manufactured articles. This amount, in our money, would be equal to $25,000,000, a colossal sum to be distributed to four hundred thousand inhabitants, or to-allowing one man for every five of population-each man over $3,000 a year. If one-fifth of this be the profit, or production from labor, it will be giving every man in that city six hundred dollars per annum as the net proceeds or return from the manufacturing alone. It would be an interesting subject for investigation to estimate the amount that this city, the American Birmingham, would receive per annum, when her railroad system shall be further advanced, in supplying the country tributary to her commerce and trade, and legitimately within the scope of her transportations, at less rates than it can be supplied for from any other point.
With proper effort, the time is not far distant when all metalic articles, as well as those into which wood and iron mingle, will be made here, whether of gold, silver, brass, steel, or of the hard lumber so easily obtained at this point.
In maturer years, we will make engines, presses, fire-arms, swords, jewelry, Japanned articles, ornaments, hardware and cutlery of all kinds. The population this would bring here, in addition to that which other pursuits command, which, by the concentration of many railways permeating the cotton belt, and making this a great distributing point for Western products and manufactured materials, would cause this city to acquire, in due time, a population, the estimation of which at this time, would be incredible. Indeed, with an inexhaustible supply of iron ore, and coal, sandstone for furnaces, and limestone for fluxing, and all sur- rounding the city of Birmingham, Jefferson county, Alabama, with the advantages of cheap living in a healthy region, there can be no limit to the capital to be in- vested, and the laboring population which must in time congregate to this favored locality, where the making of iron, on account of its increasing value and demand, affords, and will ever continue to afford, such remunerative compensation for labor.
I am, very truly, your friend, J. R. POWELL.
JOSEPH W. TAYLOR, of Greene, was born in Cumberland county, Kentucky, about the year 1820. His parents were Vir- ginians. He graduated at Princeton College, Kentucky, and came to Alabama in 1838, where he studied law in the office and under the direction of Judge H. I. Thornton, in Greene county. After his admission to the bar, he practiced law several years. In the Presidential canvass of 1840, Mr. Taylor, young as he was, entered warmly into the support of Gen. Harrison, by making speeches in the Tippacanoe Clubs common at that day. His strength of character was then, for the first time, made known to the public. He also wrote a number of articles which were pub- lished in the Whig papers, defending the policy and measures of
447
Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama.
that party. In 1844, he was appointed a District Elector on the Clay ticket for President, and made a number of speeches during the canvass to promote the success of the great Western statesman.
In 1845, Mr. Taylor was elected a member of the House of Representatives, at the age of twenty-five years. His speech against the removal of the Seat of Government was considered a masterly effort.
On the 9th of August, 1847, Mr. Taylor made "A PLEA FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA," being "An address delivered before the Erosophic and Philomathic Societies of the University of Alabama, on the Anniversary occasion," which was published in a pamphlet of 57 pages, and is a performance of great ability. In it is a correspondence between a Committee consisting of Messrs. John A. Foster, Alexander C. Davidson, and James T. Killough, on the part of the Philomathic Society; and Messrs. Elmore J. Fitzpatrick, Thaddeus H. Perry, and A. A. Archibald, on the part of the Erosophic Society, and Mr. Taylor, requesting a copy of the address for publication. The note of the Committee on the part of the Trustees, and the reply of Mr. Taylor are here inserted :
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, Aug. 11, 1847.
JOSEPH W. TAYLOR, Esq .:
Dear Sir :- The Trustees of the University, at a meeting on the 10th instant, Resolved unanimously, that they, as a body, felt very great pleasure and high grat- ification in listening to your able and interesting Address before the Literary Soci- ties of the University, on Monday last; and that you be respectfully requested to let a copy be taken for publication.
The undersigned were appointed a committee to convey to you the sentiments and wishes of the Board of Trustees.
In discharging that pleasant duty, you will permit us to add our individual congratulations at the successful accomplishment of the object of your address in making an able and powerful Plea for the Institution; and our sincere desire that you will comply with the wishes of the Board of Trustees.
Very respectfully, your obedient servants, JAS. GUILD, RICH. T. NOTT, F. G. NORMAN,
TUSKALOOSA, Aug. 12, 1847.
Gentlemen :- I take great pleasure in complying with the request of the Trustees of the University, contained in your note of the 11th instant.
Please convey to them very grateful acknowledgments for so flattering a mark of their approval of my address before the Literary Societies of the University, and accept for yourselves, my thanks for the complimentary terms in which you have communicated the wishes of those you represent.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
JOSEPH W. TAYLOR.
To Messrs. Jas. Guild, Rich. T. Nott, F. G. Norman, Committee of the Trustees, &c.
In 1847, Mr. Taylor was elected to the House, and served through the first session at Montgomery. The record establishes
-
448
Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama.
his position. In 1855, he was returned to the Senate, and made Chairman of the Committee on Education-the very place for hin as a public benefactor.
Mr. Taylor married a daughter of Solomon McAlpin, Sr., a wealthy and influential citizen of Greene county. In 1851, he, with Mr. McAlpin and a few other gentlemen, represented the Alabama State Agricultural Society, at the State Fair held at Ma- con, Georgia. By his family alliance, he probably became con- nected with agricultural pursuits, and thus reduced to practice, to some extent, his stores of theoretical knowledge on the subject.
After the war terminated, and the State had complied with the terms required by President Johnson, to be restored to all her former relations with the Federal Government, Mr. Taylor was elected a Representative to Congress in the Fall of 1865, and, with his colleagues, visited Washington City with their credentials, at the opening of Congress, in December of that year. They were not permitted to take their seats. While awaiting the final action of Congress in the matter, Mr. Taylor wrote a series of articles signed "Madison," which were published in the "National Intel- ligencer," under the title of "The case of the Southern members of Congress," averaging about two columns. Owing to their length, it will not be practicable to transfer all of them to this work, as their merits deserve; but, as the first number opens the whole question so fairly and accurately, on a documentary basis, we make room for it entire :
MESSRS. EDITORS: I propose, with your permission, to submit to the public, through the columns of your conservative and truly national journal, some consid- erations touching the application of the Southern members for seats in Congress. I do so of my own motion and upon my individual responsibility alone. I have had no consultation with the gentlemen composing the delegations from the South as to the propriety of such a discussion. They will be in no manner respon- sible either for the arguments I may use or the appeals which I may make. So far as I am advised, these gentlemen are behaving with the most becoming pro- priety in the trying and very embarrassing position in which they have been placed by the resolution of exclusion adopted by the House of Representatives on the first day of the session. They have made no public complaints as to its injus- tice. They have uttered no protest as to the infraction of the great right of free discussion made by an arbitrary decree which has silenced discussion upon the floor or at the bar of the House upon the most momentous question ever sub- mitted for the decision of a deliberative assembly. The representatives of great constituencies, they have maintained the dignity of their position by quietly pre- senting their credentials and patiently awaiting the action of Congress upon them. Such a course is a silent, but eloquent appeal, not only to the justiee of that body, but to the magnanimity and sense of night of the whole American people. As one of that people I confess that I am not insensible to its force, and feel impelled to respond to its demands upon me by submitting a sincere, though it may be a fee- ble and unavailing argument, in behalf of the claims of these Southern members to their seats.
It cannot be denied, Messrs. Editors, that the question of their admission or exclusion is one of transcendent interest and importance. It deeply concerns the present, and takes large hold upon the future of the whole country. It relates to the unity of the Republic and the representative equality of the people of its dif-
449
Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama.
ferent sections. It comprehends, within the range of its possible results, the peace of a section, the prosperity of a nation, and, perhaps, the repose of a conti- nent. The fraternal feelings and the intersectional comities of millions of freemen, and much either of glory or of shame to our common country, depend upon the solution which this question is destined to receive at the hands of the present Congress.
The parties to it are the most august and respectable that ever stood suitors for the right at the bar of a nation, or sat as judges in its loftiest seats of justice. Eleven commonwealths-some of them venerable for age and illustrious for ser- vice in the great war of American Independence, and all of them distinguished for the fertility of their soil, the salubrity of their clime, the abundance of their resources, and for the intelligence, the bravery, and the high-toned character of their people-stand at the bar of the National Congress, by their representatives, to demand the right so dear to American freemen, and which they believe to be indisputably theirs under the common Constitution of the country: the right to be represented in the council halls of the nation. Twenty-six other common- wealths, many of them also venerable for age and illustrious for service in the same Revolutionary struggle, and all of them abounding in wealth, in intelligence, and in the activities of a teeming and busy population, sit within the bar of the National Congress, by their representatives, as judges to decide, under the sanctity of solemn oaths and high official responsibility, and by the lights of reason and law, one of the mightiest questions ever submitted to the arbitrament of an earthly tribunal.
It is deeply to be deplored that a question of such transcendent interest and importance, requiring for its adjustment the exercise of the calmest and most un- prejudiced reason, should be surrounded with so many circumstances unfavorable to its proper solution. The country has just emerged from a long and desolating civil war. The passions engendered by its conflicts of arms and of opinion have not yet had time to cool. The memory of its numerous dead who perished on the battle-field or by the multitudinous casualties of war; the spectacle of its widows and orphans asking for bread, and of its maimed and halt victims hobbling through the land; its numberless social and domestic bereavements; the sight, in one sec- tion, of ravaged fields, of burnt homesteads, of ruined villages and towns, of a demoralized people and an impoverished land; the pressure of an immense public debt, exhausting the resources of the country to meet its demands, and taxing the skill of its financiers to maintain the public credit unimpaired; the mighty arrest placed, for four years, upon the commerce, the industrial development, and the general improvement of the country; these and numberless other fierce mementos of the struggle remain to embitter the feelings and to alienate the affections of the people of the two sections, and to disqualify their representatives for the calm consideration and the impartial umpirage of the question submitted for their decis- ion. Happy would it be for the people of America, now that the terrible conflict is over, could they and their representatives mutually both forgive and forget its wrongs, its desolations, and its crimes, and address themselves with the energies of united hands and hearts to the great work of reconstructing the fallen fabric of our country's greatness and prosperity.
It is a circumstance also much to be regretted that the question of the admissi- bility of Southern members to seats in Congress has been drawn into the arena of party politics, and made the theme of party discussion in the newspaper press of this country. Alas! that such a question should be dragged down from the serene heights of reason and the Constitution, where it should be permitted to remain for solution, to be steeped in the mire of party, distorted by its passions, and decided at the bar of its distempered fancies! He who brings to the consideration of this great question the spirit and purposes of a partisan, instead of an American patriot, disqualifies himself by that very fact for sitting as a judge in the cause, and impeaches, in advance, the correctness of the decision which he may render.
The true spirit, Messrs. Editors, in which all of us, both people and official representatives of the people, should address ourselves to the solution of this par- ticular question, and to the great work of the general pacification of the country, is that of conciliation, compromise, and mutual forbearance. We are poltical
29
450
Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama.
brethren of one lineage and household. We have a common country in the pres- ent to protect, and common destiny in the future to advance. In an evil hour we quarrelled among ourselves, and appealed to the sword as the arbiter of the strife. After four years of unparalleled struggle, the work of mutual destruction has been stayed. Brethren still, we meet either as people or representatives of the late warring sections, to take counsel for repairing the desolations of the past and for improving the future fortunes of the Republic. Here in the metropolis of our coutry, standing upon the hearthstone of the nation, and in full view, as it were, of its household gods, let us renew our broken family vows, and forgetting that we have once been foes, and remember only that we are political brethren, having henceforth one common country, and one common destiny, let us pledge our fealty anew to the flag and the fortunes of the Great Republic.
Having glanced at those topics to which I deemed a preleminary reference both useful and appropriate, I proceed next to state and discuss the great question of the right of the Southern members to seats in Congress. A somewhat formal and elaborate statement of the question itself will contribute no little to its elucida- tion and much to the clearness of the argument which I am about to submit.
Five years ago, Abraham Lincoln and Hanibal Hamlin were elected President and Vice-President of the United States. Immediately on the occurrence of that event, or during the next succeeding year, ten States of the South, by formal ordinances of secession, and three others by Legislative resolves, declared their . separation from the Federal Union, formed a provisional and afterward a perma- nent government, elected a President, assembled a Congress, and proceeded to exercise all the functions of a separate political sovereignty, under the name of the Confederate States of America. The United States resisting this attempt to disintegrate its territory and its nationality, a civil war between the sections ensued and ended, after four years, in the unconditional submission of the people and States of the South to the National authority. Amid its closing scenes, Abra- ham Lincoln, who had been a second time elected to the Presidency, perished by the hand of an assassin, and Andrew Johnson, the Vice-President, became Pres- ident, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. Soon after his acces- sion to that 'office, he promulged, in Executive proclamations, his plan for the res- toration of the former relations between the States of the South and the Federal Union.
The fundamental and pervading idea of this scheme seems to be that of justice to the entire nation, and of favoritism to neither of its sections. It held that the integrity of the National Union was neither destroyed or impaired by the war be- tween its sections: that the insurrectionary States, not having the right to with- draw from the Federal compact by an ordinance of secession, and having failed to accomplish their separation by the sword, emerged from the struggle as they entered it, States and members of the Union; that these States retain their Con- stitutions, laws, and State boundaries, such as they were prior to the passage of their several ordinances of secession; that the two former have been placed in a state of abeyance or temporary suspension by the revolutionary action of the States themselves; that each one of these States for itself, and jointly with its co- States in the rebellion, submitted the institution of slavery, as an issue of the war, to the abitrament of the sword, and, having failed to sustain it by the sword, must accept the abolition of the institution as an accomplished and henceforth irreversible fact; that for the purpose of restoring the Constitution and laws of these States to their pristine vitality and force, by removing the hindrances cre- ated by a state of war, and the acts of a revolutionary and usurping government, and also for the purpose of engrafting upon both a recognition of the abolition of slavery as a result of the war, provisional governments are necessary and consti- tutional agencies; that all local citizens of those States- meaning by that term those who remained loyal to the Union during the war, and those who may take and subscribe the oath of allegiance prescribed in the amnesty proclamation of the President, or who, being included in one of its excepted classes shall have received a special pardon-should be allowed to participate in the work of restor- ing the State to its former relations with the Federal Union; that the citizens of each State are best entitled to fill the offices of its provisional government, and,
451
Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama.
should alone be appointed to them : that the masses of the people in the insurrec- tionary States, having been seduced and precipitated into rebellion by the arts and persuasions of their leaders, ought to be leniently treated and generally pardoned . by the Government, while the leaders themselves and their influential followers should be held to a stricter reckoning, both to vindicate the supremacy of the National authority in the punishment of treason, and because, as the really guilty authors of the rebellion, they deserve more, both of censure and of punishment, than the comparatively innocent masses; that the black race in the South have been forever freed by the emancipation proclamation of President Lincoln, and by the operation and issue of the war; that the emancipated blacks are not qualified to participate in the work of reconstructing the rebellious States ; that the Presi- dent has no constitutional power to confer upon them the right of suffrage, that power belonging, by express grant of the Constitution, exclusively to the States themselves; that the determination of their political status belongs to the people of the several States as a question of domestic policy, but that the blacks should be protected in their rights, both of person and property, by adequate State legis- lation; that the debt contracted by each Southern State in aid of the war should be wholly and forever repudiated; that the amendment to the Federal Constitu- tion abolishing slavery within the territorial limits of the United States should be adopted; and, finally, that after these States shall have passed through the brief pupilage of provisional government, complied with the conditions prescribed in the restoration policy of the President, and completed their organization under their amended Constitutions by the election of the Federal and State officers to which they are entitled, they shall be recognized and treated as restored to their former relations with the Federal Union.
Following out this scheme of restoration, the President appointed Provisional Governors for the Southern States, and issued proclamations prescribing the gen- eral outlines of his reconstruction policy. These Governors called conventions of the people of their several States, which abolished slavery, or rather recognized, by suitable averments in their Constitutions, the fact that it had been destroyed, provided that it should not again exist within their limits, and otherwise modified and amended those instruments so as to make them conform to the new order of things, and the altered relations of the two races in the South. These conven- tions also ordered elections to be held for the various State officers, and either or- dered themselves, or authorized and requested the Provisional Governors to issue writs for the election of members to the Congress of the United States. At the elections thus holden, the members from the South now claiming seats were chosen, by the free voice of their several constituencies representatives to Con- gress. Whether they are entitled to seats in that body is the great question which I proceed next to discuss.
The validity of the claims of Southern members to seats depends chiefly upon the constitutional validity of that scheme of provisional or military government under which they have been chosen. I propose, therefore, to show:
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.