USA > Georgia > A school history of Georgia. Georgia as a colony and a state, 1733-1893 > Part 8
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2. Governor Jenkins took all the state's money, amounting to $400,000, and the great seal of the state to New York city, and deposited the funds and the seal in a bank for safe keeping. He then filed a bill before the Supreme Court of the United States to compel the reversal of the arbitrary proceedings of the military authorities in Georgia; but the court was thoroughly Republican and nothing was done.
3. The convention had ordered an election for governor, to be held in April, 1868. The Republican candidate was Rufus B. Bullock. The Democrats nominated John B. Gordon. Bullock was elected with the aid of military interference and intimidation. The negroes were, of course, all Republicans, and voted solidly against their former masters. The new Constitution was duly ratified by this election, and continued in force until 1877. In 1868 General Grant was elected President of the United States.
4. The convention of 1868 submitted to the people a pro- position made by the city of Atlanta to remove the state capital from Milledgeville to Atlanta.
5. The State Legislature met in July, 1868. The fourteenth amendment was ratified. Bullock was inaugurated governor and military rule under the Reconstruction Acts was declared at an end. The people rejoiced and believed that they would now go forward in their own way to build up the state and govern themselves as they saw fit.
6. But they were bitterly disappointed. Governor Bullock was not in sympathy with the people; in fact, there was con- stant and open war between them. Bullock was a Republican and a thorough partisan. His public acts were all calculated to inflame and embitter the people against him, and this con- dition of affairs did not improve. The crisis came soon. The
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twenty-five negro members of the Legislature were unseated and turned out, and the Democrats were in control of the Legislature.
7. This, of course, rendered Bullock comparatively power- less. His only remedy was to return to Reconstruction methods. He went to Washington city, and, by hard and persistent work. procured the passage of a bill requiring the governor to convene the Legislature, and all of its members to take the amnesty oath ; that the negro members should be reseated ; and that the fifteenth amendment should be accepted by the state before it could be represented in Congress. The fifteenth amendment conferred upon the negro the right to vote.
8. In pursuance of this act of Congress, General Alfred Terry was appointed commander of the Georgia District ; Bullock signed as provisional governor, and the state was once more under military rule, and Reconstruction again in force. The Legislature provided for by Congress met in January, 1870. After several days of confusion and wrangling, twenty- four Democrats were turned out of their seats and thirty-one negroes were declared members. The fifteenth amendment was ratified and the work of crippling and breaking down the state was carried on vigorously by this mongrel body, ably assisted by the governor.
9. But the manner of its organization, and its many acts committed in utter disregard of any kind of law, at length attracted the attention of Congress. A committee was ordered to inquire into the proceedings of this so-called Legislature. and reported that they were illegal, arbitrary and improper. Bullock was severely rebuked, a new election was ordered, and a bill passed restoring Georgia to the Union. This bill was signed by President Grant in July, 1870, and Georgia was again one of the United States. She was the last of the seced- ing states to be re-admitted. She had been kept out because her people had so long and so bitterly resented and fought Federal and military interference in her affairs.
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ADMINISTRATION OF BULLOCK.
10. In November, 1870, Bullock was again elected governor, in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Congress. He continued in office till October, 1871, when he secretly resigned and fled from the state, being in great alarm lest he should be impeached for his bad, extravagant, and, in many cases, illegal, management of the state's affairs. He remained away till 1876, when he was arrested, brought back, tried and acquitted for lack of sufficient proof to connect him criminally with the frauds upon the state during his administration.
II. At the time of Bullock's resignation and flight, Benjamin Conley was the President of the State Senate. He succeeded Bullock to fill out the unexpired term. Although there was a sharp controversy over his right to be governor, he was permitted to hold the office. He was a strong Republican, but his administration was a marked improvement upon that of Bullock.
QUESTIONS. - 1. Why was Governor Jenkins removed from office? Who was also removed? Who was made governor and treasurer? 2. What did Governor Jenkins do? What bill did he file, and what was its success? 3 Tell of the next election for governor. What of the new constitution ? 4. What of the convention of IS6S? Where did the legislature meet ? 5. When did the state legislature meet, and what was its work? What did the people believe? 6. Tell of Governor Bullock and the people. What was the crisis? 7. What was Bullock's next move? What was the Fifteenth Amendment? S. What effect did this act of Congress have on the state? What rule was again in force? What did legislature of IS70 do? 9. What finally attracted the attention of Congress? What did the committee report ? What was the effect of this report ? Why had Georgia been out of the Union ? 10. Who was next elected governor? What was the result of this election? 11. What is said of Conley?
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THE HISTORY OF GEORGIA.
CHAPTER XXX.
ADMINISTRATION OF SMITH.
I. In December, 1871, the Democratic convention was held in Atlanta. Herbert Fielder, W. T. Wofford and James M. Smith were candidates for the gubernatorial nomination. Smith was nominated and duly elected, and on January 12, 1872, was inaugurated governor of the state, amid general rejoicing and congratulation.
2. So after four years of war, and seven years of recon- struction and military rule, the state was once more in the hands of her own people, with a Democratic governor and legislature. From that day her progress, and that of the whole South, has been wonderful, and has attracted the attention and admiration of the world.
3. The condition of the people at the beginning of 1872 was one of hope and energy, In spite of so many years of misrule and oppression, great advances had been made in every way. New railroads had been built, the towns and the cities were growing, the farmers had in great part adjusted themselves to the new order of affairs and were getting along in peace with the free negro laborers, while the negroes themselves were behaving in a manner highly creditable to them and very gratifying to those who had been their masters. It is true that numbers of them had flocked into the towns and cities, and had no visible means of support, and were a care and a burden to the white people, but in general they were orderly and disposed to act properly. There would never have been any trouble between the whites and the negroes if it had not been for the interference of vindictive northern people and radical politicians who incited the negroes to insolence and opposition to their former masters. But the general condition of affairs was one of peace and prosperity, and now that the
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state was once more in the hands of her own loyal and patriotic people, there was a feeling of great relief and hope for the future.
4. As might well be expected, Governor Smith found the affairs of the state in a very mixed condition. Under the Bullock administration the public indebtedness had grown to enormous proportions, but this Legislature declared null, void and illegal about eight millions of the bonds issued by the Bullock party.
5. The Western and Atlantic railroad, which is the property of the state, had so run down and its earnings had been so misappropriated that it was a burden instead of a help to the taxpayers. A Lease Company was formed in 1870, with Governor Brown at its head, and the road was leased thereto for the term of twenty years, at a monthly rental of $25,000. One half of this income was to be set apart for the Public School fund, and with some additional help was sufficient to establish public schools in nearly every county in the state.
6. The negroes were a care and burden, and it was deemed best the whites should educate them, so far as they were able, and try to make them good citizens. After nearly thirty years of freedom they seem not to have profited by the efforts made in their behalf. But the attempt to transform the race into educated and cultured citizens is still going on, and the appropriations for this purpose grow larger with each succeeding year.
7. In May, 1872, the Georgia State College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts was opened at Athens. In 1862, Congress had given Georgia 270,000 acres of land for educa- tional purposes. Governor Conley sold this land at ninety cents per acre, and the school was established.
8. During this year Governor Jenkins returned to the state the great seal, taken away by him when General Meade removed him from office. Its return was made an interesting event, and a fac-simile of the seal was presented to the
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ex-governor, as a testimonial of his loyalty and service. Governor Smith was re-elected in 1872. Judges McCay and Trippe were appointed to the Supreme bench, and Gustavus J. Orr as school commissioner.
9. In 1873 John B. Gordon was elected United States senator. A year later the Legislature ordered a geological survey of the state, and Doctor George Little was appointed state geologist. In the same year, the governor was directed to lease the state convicts from one to five years; but in 1876 the Legislature extended the lease to twenty years. Freedom had brought many idle negroes to larceny and other crimes, and thence to the penitentiary, which had become full to overflowing, and the state was compelled to make some other disposition of the convicts. The lease system is not popular. Many good men believe that the proper employment for convict labor is upon the public roads of the state. There they can accomplish more good and less harm than elsewhere, and the competition with free labor is reduced to its minimum. A few-very few -counties in the state have adopted this plan for the employment of their convicts, with most beneficial and satisfactory results.
QUESTIONS. - 1. Where was the Democratic convention held, and who were candidates? What was the result of the nomination and election ? 2. What is said of the South ? 3. What was the condition of the people at this time? What is said of the negroes? What was the general con (lition of affairs? 4. What is said of Bullock's administration? What did legislature do? 5. Tell of the Western & Atlantic railroad. What was done with the income? What of the negroes? 7. When and where was the College of Agriculture opened? S. What was returned to the state this year ? Who was made governor, and what appointments made ? S. Who was elected senator in 1873? What did legislature order? What is told of the convicts?
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ADMINISTRATION OF COLQUITT.
CHAPTER XXXI.
ADMINISTRATION OF COLQUITT.
I. Alfred H. Colquitt was unanimously nominated candidate for governor in August, 1876, and was elected in October following. He was duly inaugurated January 12, 1877, and served till 1883.
2. He was born in Walton County, Georgia, in 1824, and was a son of Walter T. Colquitt. He graduated at Princeton College, and then began to practice law, but abandoned it for farming. He served in the Mexican war as a major, was then a member of Congress, and afterwards a briga- dier-general in the Confederate army. After the war he was made president Alfred H. Colquitt. of the Georgia State Agricultural Society, where he was of great service to his people in stimulating and advancing the farming interests of the state. He is now (1893) United States senator, and well advanced in years.
3. A new constitution was adopted in 1877. The governor's term of office was reduced from four to two years. The judges and solicitors of the circuit courts were thereafter elected by the people. The Legislature was to meet every two years, instead of annually. The removal of the state capital from Milledgeville to Atlanta was formally voted upon and Atlanta duly selected.
4. In IS79 the Railroad Commission for regulating freight and passenger rates on the railroads in the state, was organized. The first commission was composed of James M. Smith. Campbell Wallace and Samuel Barnett.
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5. In 1880 Senator Gordon resigned and Governor Colquitt immediately appointed Ex-Governor Brown as Gordon's suc- cessor. In August the state convention assembled in Atlanta to nominate state officers. Governor Colquitt was again nominated, and was opposed by Thomas M. Norwood. But Colquitt was re-elected by a large majority. The Legislature met in November, 1880. It was shown by the governor's message that the state was in a very prosperous condition. Senator Joseph E. Brown was regularly elected to the United States Senate, and James Jackson chief justice of the Supreme Court.
6. Governor Colquitt was elected United States senator as soon as his term of office as governor expired. He was succeeded as governor by Alexander H. Stephens, who was inaugurated in November, 1882, though more than seventy years of age. He was an able and philanthropic man, but within a few months after his inauguration was attacked by illness that ended his life on March 4, 1883.
7. James S. Boynton, at that time president of the State Senate, became governor upon the death of Stephens. An election by the people was immediately ordered, to fill the unexpired term of Stephens, which resulted in the choice.of Henry D. McDaniel.
8. The Legislature, in 1883, passed a bill for the erection of a new capitol building at Atlanta, and appropriated one million dollars for this purpose, payable in six annual install- ments. The building, which is one of the handsomest of its kind, was completed in 1889.
QUESTIONS. - 1. Who was'next governor, and when elected? 2. What is said of Colquitt ? 3. When was a new constitution adopted, and what were its changes? What was voted upon ? 4. What was organized in I879? Who comprised this commission ? 5. Who was appointed Gordon's successor as senator ? What was the result of the next election ? What was shown by the governor's message? 6. To what office was Col- quitt next elected, and who succeeded him as governor? What is said of Stephens? S. Who took his place as governor? Who was elected for next governor ? 9. What did the Legislature of ISS3 do ?
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THE NEW CAPITOL.
III
ADMINISTRATION OF McDANIEL.
CHAPTER XXXII.
ADMINISTRATION OF McDANIEL.
1. Governor McDaniel was re-elected in 1884 for the full term of two years, and was succeeded in 1886 by John B. Gordon. Governor Gordon served two terms and was succeeded in 1890 by William J. Northen, who having served one term, was in 1892 chosen to succeed himself, and is now governor of the state.
2. Governor Northen was the candidate of an organization known as the Farmers' Alliance, which came into existence in 1890. It was not at first a political party, but was intended to advance the interests generally of the farming community. It was a secret organization with grips, pass-words, and other paraphernalia of such societies, and excluded from membership all who were not farmers or directly interested in agricultural pursuits. Ministers who preached in the country were admitted, others were excluded. The primary cause of its coming into being was dissatisfaction with the management of the state's affairs, discrimination by the Legislature against the farming interests, and a desire to bring about a general reform in political matters. Acting upon these principles they elected the governor and other officers in 1890, but from that time forward the Alliance gradually drifted into partisan politics, and in a great measure lost sight of its original purposes.
3. So great was the dissatisfaction among its members that a new party was formed called the Third party, or the People's party, which resulted in the election by the regular Democratic party, of most of its candidates in 1892. Governor Northen had no opposition for his second term, and was the choice of all parties.
4. Before closing this chapter it is proper to make special mention that Honorable Charles F. Crisp, representative in Congress from the third district, was elected Speaker of the
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House for the fifty-third Congress. His ability as a statesman. his urbanity and conservatism, rendered him peculiarly fit for this high office. He has not disappointed the expectations of those who chose him, and commands the respect of the members, and of the people at large.
Another signal honor done to the people of Georgia was the selection by Mr. Cleveland of the Honorable Hoke Smith as Secretary of the Interior. It is all the more complimentary to Mr. Smith because he had never been a member of Congress nor the governor of his state. (Portraits of these gentlemen will be found on succeeding pages.)
5. The general condition of the state is prosperous. Her population is increasing, her factories are multiplying, and her towns and cities are growing. Her farmers, in common with all citizens of the state, have recovered from the results of the war, and every kind of business diligently followed is rewarded with satisfactory returns. The whites and the negroes, as a rule, are living upon the same soil in peace and harmony, and were it not for the crippled old soldiers and the widows of those who lost their lives in the Confederate service, there would be nothing to detract from the full contentment and happiness of the people.
6. Let us not forget to be duly and constantly grateful to a kind Providence for all we have and enjoy.
QUESTIONS. -- 1. Who was elected governor in 1884 ? Who succeeded him ? Who was elected in IS92? 2. What is said of Northen? What of the Alliance? 3. What of the third party? 4. What is said of the state's condition ? The whites and negroes ?
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WILLIAM J NORTHEN.
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HISTORICAL READINGS.
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HISTORICAL READINGS.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE - ITS ORIGIN AND GROWTH.
I. The institution of African slavery is so intimately con- nected with the history of Georgia and has been so closely interwoven with her civilization, that a brief account of its origin, its growth and its sudden abolition should be recorded, not for crimination or exculpation, but that the truth of history may be vindicated. Facts, cold facts, are history, and they never blush to be narrated.
2. Until 18.43, only fifty years ago, African bondage prevailed not only in some of the less civilized countries of Europe and South America, but in the East Indies, which were under the rule of Great Britain, the foremost and most enlightened government in the world. Early in this century the slave trade became odious to all philanthropists, but slavery itself was not. The brutality with which the trade was conducted and the "horrors of the middle passage," as it was called, had awak- ened the pity of mankind, and by common consent the traffic in Africans and their transportation to other countries was prohibited under the severest penalties, both in Europe and the United States.
3. Notwithstanding this, the institution of slavery continued where it had been planted. It not only continued, but was encouraged as a moral agency of civilization, until Wilberforce began the agitation for its abolishment in England and her colonies. But the plant of this great reform was of slow growth, and emancipation was not entirely accomplished until
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long after Wilberforce died. In 1843, the last of the slaves of the English colonies were emancipated, and their owners were paid for them out of the national treasury.
4. The sentiment of the people of the United States against slavery was more pronounced than it was in England, and the states began early to provide for immediate or gradual eman- cipation. Georgia was the first state to prohibit the slave trade with Africa, and she kept that prohibition inviolate, while some of the northern states carried it on long after their own slaves were freed. There was to them no profit in slavery, but there were fabulous gains in the traffic. Hence, they gradually disposed of their own slaves by sending them south, and in some instances the young of their slaves were given away. (Appleton's Encyclopedia is authority for this.)
5. But the feeling in the states was generally averse to slavery, and that feeling was for a time stronger at the South than at the North. The ordinance of 1787 that excluded the institution from the northwestern territories was supported by southern men. Pennsylvania provided for gradual emanci- pation, and as late as 1840 her slaves were not all free. In some cases they were sold for debt. (See Appleton's Encyclo- pædia.) Rhode Island and Connecticut had a few left in 1840, New Jersey had 236 in 1850, New York emancipated in 1827.
6. That the southern states did not emancipate their slaves was owing to a variety of circumstances. The climate of the South was suited to the negro, and he seemed to be contented and happy there. The southerners had invested more money in slaves than had their northern brethren. The invention of the cotton gin had suddenly stimulated the cultivation of cotton, for which the negro was peculiarly fitted, and the growth of rice, tobacco and sugar-cane was equally inviting to his labor. But more than all these reasons was the fear that the slaves were increasing so rapidly as to put the Commonwealth in peril if they were freed. They were still affected with the
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THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE.
same race traits that they inherited from barbarian ancestors and it was feared that they could not be controlled as freed- men or as citizens.
7. Still there was an intelligent number of our people who favored gradual emancipation. This sentiment was slowly but surely spreading. Joseph Henry Lumpkin, Chief Justice of our Supreme Court, was outspoken as a co-worker with the gradual emancipation policy, inaugurated and advocated by Henry Clay of Kentucky. This policy would doubtless have been adopted by Georgia, had her people not resented what seemed like attempts to coerce them. Our people said: "If you let us alone we may do it, but you cannot drive us. We are penned up with these negroes and know where our safety lies."
8. William Lloyd Garrison of Boston, founded the Anti- slavery party in 1831. Arthur Tappan became its president in 1833. Much money was expended in magnifying and exaggerating the abuses of slavery. This party declared that all the laws of the government that recognized slavery were utterly null and void. As they grew stronger and became more aggressive their influence steadily increased. In 1844 the Abolitionists openly avowed that their object was to effect a dissolution of the Union and form a northern republic. They declared that a union with slavery was a league with hell and a covenant with death. They were the first secessionists and they remained so until the late Civil War. The troops they furnished and the money they so freely contributed were not for the maintenance of the Union, but to effect the freedom of the slaves. In 1860 William H. Seward spoke from Faneuil Hall and said there was a higher law than the Constitution.
9. When Nathaniel Hawthorne was asked in 1861 if he was not in favor of the war, he replied: "Yes, I suppose so, but really I don't see what we have to fight about." It seemed to him that the South in seceding had done just what the Abolitionists desired her to do. This being the case, the
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intensified hostility of this party toward the South is difficult to explain. Only a few years had elapsed since New England had emancipated the slaves they had not sold. It was less than twenty years since England had emancipated hers, and neither Georgia nor any of her sister states was ready for the change. Was this cry for abolition an earnest sympathy for the slaves, or political hatred for their masters? Or was it both? --- for, as Judge Tourgee says in his "Fool's Errand": "The South had controlled the government for fifty years." Many politicians at the North were jealous, jealous to exasperation, and slavery was but the shibboleth that intensified their animosity. Even in New England there were men who made no war upon the slave trade, but rather winked at it and enjoyed its rich returns. This is not an idle assertion, but an established fact, if Northern historians are to be believed. In IS20 Justice Story, the great jurist, charged the grand juries of his New England circuit in the following words :-
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