USA > Alabama > Reminiscences of public men in Alabama : for thirty years, with an appendix > Part 60
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Few men who have lived in Alabama wielded in their day a greater influence on men, and on party measures, than Captain Abercombie. He was identified with the State in all her inter- ests-was jealous of her rights and honor; he made his home
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with her when she was feeble in population and development, and participated in bringing her resources to light, until she attained great strength and prosperity. He was wealthy, and extensively connected in blood and by affinity. He was a large man, tall and well-proportioned, and had a manly carriage. His face bore the marks of decision and kindness equally blended, and the tone of his voice was usually soft and assuring. If I mistake not, he died in the communion of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
It is a relief and a support to the mind to contemplate such a character. Although he may have had some infirmities of temper, Captain Abercombie was one of Nature's true nobility, in all the qualities which constitute a solid man, who never varied from the path of honor, and who never feared the face of man. His mem- ory, like a lofty pillar of granite, will endure for many years as among the men of note who have figured in Alabama. Whoever has seen him can never forget the impression of moral grandeur which his very looks inspired. Nothing more need be said to give an idea of his peerless individuality.
Captain Abercombie raised a large family of children-four sons and six daughters. His son James represented Escambia county in the Florida Legislature, and died at Pensacola; his son John Lucas died near Glennville; Thomas Anderson resides at Rayville, Louisiana, and George Hargraves Abercombie died at Pineville, Tennessee. His daughters married, respectively, the following gentlemen: William C. Wright, of Tallapoosa county ; Gazaway D. Williams, of Barbour county; Dr. John E. Bacon, of Columbus; Gen. James H. Clanton, of Montgomery; William C. Cook, of Pensacola, and L. R. Davis, of Limestone county.
JOHN BRAGG, elected to Congress from the Mobile District, was a North Carolinian, and a brother of Gov. Thomas Bragg and of Gen. Braxton Bragg-a talented and influential family. He settled in Mobile about the year 1836, to pursue the law as a pro- fession, and was for some time Attorney for the Branch Bank at Mobile.
In 1842, Gov. Fitzpatrick appointed him Judge of the Tenth Circuit, and at the next session he was elected by the Legislature over Gen. Crabb, his principal competitor, and was reëlected in 1847, and again in 1850 by the people of his Circuit. He made a good Judge, held the scale of justice equally poised, was strict in the enforcement of law and order; and when people entered his court-room, they at once saw that a Judge was on the bench who was alike feared and respected. He was well adapted to the judicial station he filled, by his quiet firmness, his cultivated taste, and investigating mind.
It has been seen that he was nominated and elected to Congress
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in 1851. He served but one term, and in due time notified his constituents of his purpose to retire-that the business did not suit him, and he did not think, from his experience, that he suited the business of legislation.
By marriage with a lady of Lowndes, Miss Hall, Judge Bragg became possessed of a large planting interest, and retired from public and professional pursuits. In 1860, he was elected from Mobite a delegate to the Convention which met in Montgomery, in January, 1861, and took a prominent part in the proceedings. This closed his public employments, for which he always said he had but little taste or inclination. But he possessed talents of no ordinary stamp, and filled with scrupulous fidelity every position to which he was called.
WILLIAM RUSSELL SMITH has had a career, political and liter- ary, which deserves particular attention. When a mere boy, friendless and neglected, he was observed by the late Gen. Crabb, who saw in him signs of genius and capacity. This noble-hearted gentleman determined to rescue him from his obscure fate, and at once provided for his education. After being duly prepared, he entered the University of Alabama, but his name does not appear on the list of graduates. While at college, or very soon after leaving it, he wrote and published two small volumes, one a ro- mance, entitled "The Bridal Eve," and the other a poem, styled "College Musings," both evincing a rich imagination, refined sen- sibilities, and good scholarship for an author still in his minority.
About the year 1834, Mr. Smith was admitted to the bar, and opened a law office in Greenesboro, where he was much respected for his talents and high social qualities, which rendered him a conspicuous figure in society. He dressed fashionably, with some- what the appearance of a Spanish cavalier in the cut and wearing of his cloak. When hostilities broke out in the Creek Nation, in 1836, he raised a company of mounted infantry, of which he was elected Captain, and proceeded to the seat of war. About the time he arrived for duty, Generals Scott and Jesup, and Gov. Clay, had succeeded in bringing the Indians to terms, and Capt. Smith and his command returned home without the opportunity of en- gaging in battle.
He then became deeply interested in behalf of Texas, then struggling for independence, and visited several of the adjoining counties, addressing audiences wherever he could find them, to rally to the support of their countrymen against the usurpations and tyranny of Santa Anna, and especially to avenge the blood of Crockett, Bowie, Fannin, and other patriots who had been slaughtered at the Alamo, and at Goliad. Capt. Smith seems to have started on the expedition, and halted in Mobile, where his
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military ardor was diverted into another channel. He established in Mobile a monthly or semi-monthly magazine called the "Bach- elor's Button," which contained many beautiful articles from his pen, and from the pen of select contributors. In about a year, the publication was discontinued; soon after which Mr. Smith re- moved to Tuskaloosa, where he succeeded the late Alexander M. Robinson, Esq., as editor of the "Monitor," in 1838, and in 1839, he was elected Mayor of the city.
In 1840, Mr. Smith supported Gen. Harrison for President, and in 1841, he was elected to the Legislature as a Whig, and in 1842, he was again elected to the House by the Whigs of Tuska- loosa county. Having occasion to address a portion of his con- stituents in November, 1842, he expressed his opposition to Mr. Clay's views on the tariff, land distribution, bankrupt law, and the veto power. This manifesto severed his connection with the Whig party.
In 1843, Mr. Smith opposed Gen. Dent for the Senate, and was defeated by a small majority, after a very heated canvass. He soon afterward removed to Fayette county, and was elected a Brig- adier-General of militia. In 1850, he was elected by the people Judge of the Seventh Circuit, which office he resigned on his election to Congress in 1851. He was again elected a Represent- ative in that body in 1853 and 1855. In 1857 he was defeated by Judge Sydenham Moore, after a regular hand-to-hand contest -the third between them.
In 1861, Judge Smith was a member of the Convention, and took an active part in opposition to the policy and Ordinance of Secession. But, after the State took her stand, he went with her in all proper measures of organization and defense in the new order of things. In 1861 he was elected a member of the Con- federate Congress, and was reelected in 1863, and held that rela- tion to the public at the time of the surrender. He is now (1871) President of the University of Alabama.
.' At various times Judge Smith has published several works of which he is the author, besides the two minor volumes about the time he was in college thirty-seven years ago. In 1841, "Smith's Alabama Justice" appeared, which has had a large circulation. He has since published an Abridgment, or Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court, and in 1861 he reported the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention which passed the Ordinance of Secession-a very handsome and interesting volume. He has been laborious with his pen, both in literature and in the law, with a style of much harmony and clearness, denoting mature schol- arship.
It will be remembered by the general reader that when the dis- tinguished Hungarian, Gov. Kossuth, visited the United States in
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1851, to obtain the intervention of the United States in Austrian affairs, his arrival in New York created the wildest enthusiasm. Foreseeing the evil of such a precedent, Judge Smith, within a few days after taking his seat in Congress, in December, 1851, rose in his place, and, addressing the Speaker. said:
I give notice to the House, that on to-morrow, or some subsequent day, I will introduce joint resolutions requiring the Secretary of State to furnish Louis Kos- suth with the laws of treason and misdemeanor against the United States.
"The resolutions go further to declare," says a published report, "that if, after reading the laws, Kossuth should continue to make his incendiary speeches, it shall be the solemn duty of the Presi- dent of the United States to cause him to be arrested."
Before proceeding further, it may be stated that, in February, 1851, the substitute offered by Mr. Shields to the resolution origin- ally proposed by Mr. Foote, was adopted by the Senate of the United States in the following words:
WHEREAS, The people of the United States sincerely sympathize with the Hun- garian exiles, Kossuth and his associates, and fully appreciate the magnanimous conduct of the Turkish Government in receiving and treating those noble exiles with kindness and hospitality ;
AND WHEREAS, It is the wish of these exiles to emigrate to the United States, and the will of the Sultan to permit them to leave his dominions; therefore,
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of Amer- ica, in Congress Assembled, That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, requested to authorise the employment of some one of the public ves- sels, which may be now cruising in the Mediterranean, to receive and convey to the United States Louis Kossuth and his associates in captivity.
This resolution also passed the House of Representatives, and, in compliance with it, Kossuth and his followers were brought to the United States. After their arrival, Mr. Seward, on the 8th December, 1851, submitted this joint resolution in the Senate:
Resolved by the Seenate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Con- gress Assembled, That the Congress of the United States, in the name and behalf of the people of the United States, give to Louis Kossuth a cordial welcome to the capital and to the country, and that a copy of this resolution be transmitted him ·
by the President of the United States.
That the sentiments of Kossuth and the object of his visit to this country may be known, an extract is here given from his speech at his public reception in New York, as follows:
I do not come here to ask your sympathy. That is gratifying, but valueless. I come here to invoke the aid of the great American Republic to protect my peo- ple-peaceably, if they may, by the moral influence of their declarations, but forcibly, if they must, by the physical power of their arms-to prevent any foreign interference in the struggle about to be renewed for the liberties of my country. I am a plain man. I am in a land of freedom. I am permitted to speak freely my sentiments. This is what I ask. If this be accorded to me, I go home, and the liberties, not merely of Hungary, but of Europe, are secured. If not, I go with my countrymen alone to renew the struggle for the achievement of our liberties.
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The interference to which Kossuth alluded was that of Russia as an ally of Austria, against which he desired the American Gov- ernment to protest, even to the use of its physical power, if neces- sary to prevent it. This was the doctrine, in substance, to which Judge Smith objected.
After voting down several amendments offered by Mr. Berrien to modify the resolution of welcome, it was finally adopted in the Senate, on the 12th December, 1851, by a vote of 33 to 6. It passed the House of Representatives, and its adoption was notified to the Senate on 15th December.
In the meantime, on a motion to amend the title, Judge Smith addressed the House in relation to the doctrines avowed by Kos- suth, and the popular feeling exhibited in New York. His speech was of some length, from which a few passages are quoted to show the mania which prevailed for the time being, and the severe hits given it. After a scene of confusion and disorder in the House while he had the floor, Judge Smith said:
I say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Carter), that I censure no one. I refer to facts, and show the record. That gentleman ought to know that the triumph of humbug is one of the characteristics of this age. But let no man be deceived. If he be wise, he will not. Yet public opinion is so easily manufactured in this country that the wisest and best of us know not how to take it-whether as the mirror of merit or the guile of speculation. It is a little remarkable, in this par- ticular case, that Mr. Genin, the man who paid $500 or $800 for the first prize seat, to be located near Jenny Lind, is the identical humbugarian who is the first to subscribe $1,000 to the Kossuth fund! His Jenny Lindism was an idea of spec- ulation-to increase his sale of hats; his Kossuthism may be traced to the same magnificent conceptions ! The fortunes of Barnum and Jenny Lind depended greatly upon the start-the beginning ; and the result showed that Genin's bid fixed the custom, and established, in a great measure, the price of the prize seats at the concerts.
The growth and power of mobism in New York is not surprising. Yes, with its 100,000 aliens always floating, and always under the control of its gang of alien editors, whose bed is restlessness, and whose food is sedition; with its 100,- 000 people who never go to church; with its 9,000 grog-shops, kept mostly by aliens; with its Barnums, Genins and Greeleys*, to lead and incite; I say the growth and power of mobism in New York is not surprising. But it is surprising that the old " solidarity" end of the Capitol of the United States should be rocked from its anchorage of dignity by the waves of popular commotion.
Elsewhere in his speech, Judge Smith continued:
Mr. Speaker, is it the object of the resolution you have just adopted to con- tribute to the happiness of Kossuth? Let us inquire, a moment, into his condi- tion. It is thought by some persons to be the greatest evil that can happen to a man, to be banished from his country. But this is not always the fact. The extent of the misfortune depends upon circumstances-the country from which he is banished, its situation, its wealth, its poverty, its laws, and the home-condi- tion of the party banished at the time. Indeed, it is not always a misfortune. I remember that Diogenes counterfeited coin in order to be banished from Pontus;
* Events have since transpired which induced the Democratic party, North and South, to unite, through the Baltimore Convention, in July, 1872, in the support of the Hon. Horace Greeley, who was nominated for President of the United States by the Liberal Republicans in a Convention at Cincinnati, the May preceding,
36
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that Stratonicus committed forgery in order that he might be banished from Stra- phos. They thought that to be banished from such countries, was getting out of prison.
The visit of Kossuth and suite, consisting of twenty-one persons, to the Capitol, for a period of ten days, and his public reception as the guest of the American people, gave rise to the following reso- lution, offered by Mr. Seward, on the 12th of February, 1852:
Resolved, That the expenses incurred in the reception of Louis Kossuth and suite, during their late visit to the Capitol by invitation of Congress, be paid out of the Contingent Fund of the Senate, when approved by the Committee of Re- ception, to an amount not exceeding five thousand dollars.
After considerable debate, the resolution was adopted on the . 11th of March, 1852, by a vote of 31 to 6.
It is unnecessary to remark that after the delivery of his Kos- suth speech, Judge Smith was a prominent man in Congress. He did not take the floor often, but when he did occupy it, he was thoroughly prepared, and was heard with much attention. All his speeches read well. Owing to a weak voice, he is sometimes in- audible in distant parts of a large room. His delivery is at other times very animated and impressive, and always pleasant.
While serving in Congress in 1855-'56, when the American or Know-Nothing organization was striving for power as the rival of the Democratic party in public favor, Judge Smith was a member of it, and his name was suggested in some of the papers for the Vice-Presidency. When he was in the political arena he was quite a tactician, and whatever he fixed his mind upon, he had the industry and the tenacity of will to accomplish.
For some time since the war, Judge Smith was President of the University of Alabama, and exerted himself to revive the institu- tion, after its buildings were destroyed by the Federal troops in 1865. He has retired from that office, and devotes himself to the practice of the law, and to literary pursuits. He is a gentleman of finished attainments, and of great personal worth.
ALEXANDER WHITE, elected to Congress from the Talladega District, in 1851, was a Whig, and in favor of the Compromise measures. He was a son of the Hon. John White, who, for sev- eral years from 1825, was a Judge of the Circuit Court in North- Alabama, and in that capacity, with his associate Judges, Saffold, Crenshaw, Taylor, Perry, and others of the Circuit Bench, consti- tuted a Court of Errors, or Appeals, for consultation, in the nature of a Supreme Court, previous to the establishment, in 1832, of the regular tribunal of that name now existing.
Mr. A. White located at Talladega at an early day after the settlement of that portion of the State, and at once took a leading rank at the bar, distinguished for his legal attainments and powers
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as a speaker and debater. He served only one term in Congress, and was a warm supporter of Gen. Scott for the Presidency, to aid in whose election he exercised the franking privilege quite liber- ally in the distribution of campaign documents, but on a plan, no doubt, less extensive than that of which the Hon. F. W. Bowdon boasted in 1848, while supporting Gen. Cass and acting on the Executive Committee at Washington-that he had franked and distributed through the mail more than a million copies of speeches and documents for electioneering purposes !
In 1860, Mr. White earnestly supported Mr. Bell for President, and was opposed to secession; but after the Ordinance passed, he acted with the State throughout the struggle that ensued. After the war he advocated with zeal the reconstruction policy of Presi- dent Johnson, and was a leading member of the Convention which assembled in Selma, in June, 1866, to send delegates to the Na- tional Union Convention appointed to be held in Philadelphia on the 4th of July. In the Selma council he submitted resolutions which he had prepared. These he asked permission to read, and leave being granted, he gave them all the power and charm of his effective elocution. They were bold and defiant, and, among other things, declared that "Alabama had hung her banner upon the outer wall, and would defend it to the last." The reading of these resolutions by their eloquent author came near firing the Convention, and their lofty tone, under a consciousness of right, reminded one of former days, when the process of firing the South- ern heart was going on.
These resolutions were referred to the Committee on Platforms, of which Mr. White was Chairman. They at once placed him in the front rank of resistance to the assumptions of undue power by Congress in its demands upon the Southern States. The Com- mittee on Platforms refused to report Mr. White's resolutions. They were considered too strong for the occasion, and, it was thought, would do more harm than good in our prostrate condition.
Mr. White was a member of the Convention of 1865, and of course took a leading part, such as his eminent abilities and stirring eloquence rendered proper. His devotion to the State, his devo- tion to the South, was expressed in language and with emotions which consecrated him anew as a patriot. He had loved his coun- try, he had loved the land of his birth, his native Alabama, before her disasters, before she was stricken down by armed battalions; but now in her misfortunes and desolation, now that she was in chains, he loved her more than ever. This beautiful affection of a son for his mother, was much admired at the time, and exten- sively published in the papers, with the highest eulogies upon its inspired author. It is pleasant to think of Mr. White as he stood in the Convention and uttered these noble sentiments:
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MR. PRESIDENT: The Bonnie Blue Flag no longer reflects the light of the morning sunbeam, or kisses with its silken folds the genial breezes of our South- ern clime. The hands that waved it along the crest of a hundred battle-fields, and the hearts, for the love they bore it, that so often defied danger and death, no longer rally around it. Another banner waves in triumph over its closed and prostrate folds; but proud memories and glorious reccollections cluster around. Sir, I will refrain. The South needs no eulogy. The faithful record of her achievements will encircle her brow with glory bright and enduring as the diadem that crowns the night of her cloudless skies. The scenes of Marathon and Pla- tæ have been reenacted in the New World without the beneficent results which flow from those battle-fields of freedom, and our country lies prostrate at the feet of the conqueror. But dearer to me is she in this hour of her humiliation than she was in the day and hour of her pride and her power. Each blood-stained battle-field, each track of her devastation, each new-made grave of her sons fallen in her defense, each mutilated form of the Confederate soldier-her widow's tear, her orphan's cry, are but so many chords that bind me to her in her desolation, and draw my affections closer around my stricken country. When I raise my voice or lift my hand against her, may the thunders rive me where I stand ! Though I be false in all else, I will be true to her. Though all others may prove faithless, I will be faithful still. And when, in obedience to the great summons, "Dust to dust," my heart shall return to that earth from whence it sprang, it shall sink into her bosom with the proud consciousness that it never knew one beat not in unison with the honor, the interests, the glory of my country.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Session of 1851 Continued-Members of the Legislature Specially Noticed.
At the session of 1851, several new Senators appeared and took their seats for a term of four years, among whom were Messrs. Baker, Flewellen, Hefflin, Pearson and Perrine. These gentle- men will here receive the customary attention.
BENJAMIN A. BAKER, of Russell, was returned to the House in 1847, and again in 1849. In 1851, he succeeded Capt. Aber- combie in the Senate, where he continued until the end of the session of 1855. He then retired, and resumed the practice of the law, remaining in private life until the stormy times of 1860- 61. He was a member of the Convention, and voted for the Ordi- nance of Secession; but he did so reluctantly-for afterward, in a speech before the Convention, he declared as follows :
I voted for the Ordinance of Secession, not because I favored secession per se, but because, under the circumstances, I regarded it necessary in order to promote the safety of the South, and to protect her honor. No act of mine in the past has tended to bring about the state of affairs which made it necessary to resort to
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secession. When, from the conduct of others, however, I saw that a dissolution of the old Government was inevitable, and that separate State action was the policy by which it was to be accomplished, and that those who adhered to that view were largely in the majority in the Gulf States, I felt it to be my duty to rise above all merely party considerations, and accept, as a last resort, the mode of redress for existing evils presented by others.
After hostilities commenced, Mr. Baker entered the service as Lieutenant-Colonel, and was for some time actively in the front; but a weakly and frail constitution, which unfitted him for the exposure and hardships of the camp, forced him to return home, and he died before the conclusion of the war. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
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