USA > Georgia > The history of the State of Georgia from 1850 to 1881, embracing the three important epochs: the decade before the war of 1861-5; the war; the period of Reconstruction, v. 1 > Part 12
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108
THE LEGISLATIVE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION.
claimed that the Executive Committee could only attend to guberna- torial contests.
The convention of the Sth was held, but was not a full body, only 25 counties out of 132 being represented, while it was a large one. Isaiah T. Irwin was made president, and F. H. West and George Hillyer sec- retaries. The committee on business consisted of Messrs. Seward, Deloney, Smith of Talbot, Printup, Briscoe, Smythe, Oliver, Smith of Towns, Hill, Lawton, Broyles, King, Tracy, Cone, Rice, Fulton, Jones, Ragsdale, Hutchins and Morris. The resolutions of the convention recommended Howell Cobb for the Presidency, endorsed Buchanan for his course in the Harper's Ferry affair, and
" Pledged support of the nominee of the Charleston convention upon the condition that it determines to maintain the equality of the states and the rights of the South- that we will yield nothing of those rights for the sake of harmony, but will demand a firm, strict and unqualified adherence to the doctrines and principles on the subject of slavery, and the rights of the South in the common territories of the Union, which have been recently declared by the Supreme Court of the United States."
The following delegates were elected to the national convention: From the state at large: Isaiah T. Irwin, John H. Lumpkin, H. L. Benning, Henry R. Jackson; alternates, Charles J. McDonald, Thomas Butler King, William H. Stiles, O. A. Lochrane.
The district delegates were: James L. Seward, Julian Hartridge, Arthur Hood, J. W. Evans, L. B. Smith, E. Strohecker, James J. Dia- mond, L. H. Featherston, G. J. Eain, W. T. Wofford, William H. Hull, S. J. Smith, J. M. Lamar, L. H. Briscoe, D. C. Barrow, L. A. Nelms.
Fifty-two Democratic members of the legislature published their dis- approval of the action of the convention in appointing delegates to the Charleston convention and protested against the authority of what they contemptuously called the "meeting" to bind the Democratic party. Among these were William A. Harris, A. S. Atkinson, A. B. Mathews, C. J. Williams, R. N. Ely, and James S. Reed. The two members of the executive committee in Milledgeville, Col. Campbell and Dr. Mc- Geechee, issued a temperate card stating their reasons for calling the March convention and leaving the matter to the party to ratify or dis- approve. Judge Benning, Gov. McDonald, Col. Featherston and Col. Lochrane of the delegates selected, declined to recognize the validity of their appointment and refused to serve. The papers rushed into a hot controversy over the matter. A good deal of temper was shown, and considerable recrimination indulged in. Mr. Howell Cobb was charged with inspiring the late convention and molding its action in the interest
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109
HOWELL COBB FOR PRESIDENT.
of his presidential ambition. The name of Alexander H. Stephens was sprung by his friends for the Presidency, and a decided antagonism was created between the adherents of these distinguished Georgians in con- nection with the glittering prize of the national chief magistracy.
Hon. William H. Stiles, one of the alternate delegates chosen, wrote a letter to the Savannah Express maintaining that the March convention was the only regular and legitimate one, but suggesting a compromise for harmony. His plan was for the delegates chosen to resign and the March convention to re-appoint them, and show the spectacle of a united Democracy and a united South. Hon. Howell Cobb wrote a most patri- otic and characteristic letter, in which he used this conciliatory language:
"I can but repeat that my name shall not divide and distract the party. If there are a sufficient number in the Democratic party of Georgia opposed to my nomination, to justify the idea of serious divisions in the party, then I will unconditionally withdraw my name. This is no time for divisions in the south, and especially with southern Dem- ocrats, and any personal sacrifice, which I may be called upon to make, to ensure union and harmony, shall be cheerfully made."
And he gave this positive assurance:
" So far as I am personally concerned, a demonstration of serious opposition to my nomination from the democracy of Georgia, in any shape or form, or from any conven- tion, would end all connection of my name with the nomination at Charleston."
The position of Mr. Cobb was a peculiar one. He had, as secretary of the treasury under President Buchanan, made a national reputation for ability and statesmanship. The objection to him in Georgia was formulated in the following words of the Columbus Times: "Mr. Cobb is far from being the choice of the Georgia democracy for the presidency, as his extreme Union views are in antagonism with the prevailing senti- ment in the Democratic ranks." And this criticism shows the tendency of public opinion to the final dissolution, and that conservative views were becoming powerless in the seething agitation.
Mr. Cobb's friends were advised by him to unite in sending delegates to the March convention, in order that the will of the party might be tested. At the various county meetings the matter was fully discussed, and the opinion was conflicting and varied. In many counties the del- egates of the December convention were reappointed. A large number of counties endorsed Mr. Cobb for the presidency. A number expressly repudiated the action of the December convention. It was a warm issue and it stirred the State violently.
The March Democratic Convention assembled on the 14th, 1860, in Mil- ledgeville. Ninety counties of the 132 in the State were represented by
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110
THE CONVENTION OF MARCH, 1860.
203 delegates. Among these were L. H. Briscoe, L. N. Whittle, O. A. Lochrane, P. Tracy, A. R. Lawton, Julian Hartridge, A. S. Atkinson, L. N. Trammell, D. S. Printup, Solomon Cohen, Geo. A. Gordon, Jno. M. Guerard, Gen. G. P. Harrison, W. Phillips, R. N. Ely, J. W. Duncan, C. W. Styles, J. M. Mobley, J. G. Cain, Samuel Hall, T. P. Saffold, Porter Ingram, John A. Jones, P. H. Colquitt, L. J. Alred, Henry Cleve- land, Claiborne Sneed, J. D. Ashton, J. L. Seward, D. N. Speer, C. J. Wellborn, George Hillyer, E. P. Howell and E. R. Harden. Of these Henry Cleveland was the editor of the Augusta Constitutionalist, a bright writer, and who since the war has written a life of Alexander H. Stephens. Claiborne Sneed is now judge of the Augusta circuit, and has been a state representative, a gentleman of talent and force. E. P. Howell is now the editor of the Atlanta Constitution. He was state senator for two terms, and has evinced an extraordinary aptitude for public life, and is a gentleman of great shrewdness and practicality, and is destined to wield a strong public influence. D. N. Speer is the present State treasurer.
Hon. Alexander R. Lawton was made president of the convention. The proceedings continued for two days, were stormy and inharmonious, and finally adjourned, leaving the party in the State angry, rent, and at sea. Of the ninety counties forty-seven repudiated the December con- vention and forty-three sustained it. Of the forty-two counties not represented in the convention, twenty-four were represented in the December convention. There were eighteen counties not represented in either convention. The forty-three counties in the March convention that supported the action of the December, convention, added to the twenty-four counties represented in the December convention that were not represented in the March Convention, made sixty-seven counties, or two over half of the counties in the State that favored the December action. These figures will show how the party was split. The resolu- tions of the December convention were voted down, thus throwing over Mr. Cobb and leaving the party without any enunciation of principle. The same delegates at large were appointed, but the alternates were different save ex-Gov. McDonald alone; Hiram Warner, Solomon Cohen and J. A. Wingfield being the three others in place of King, Stiles and Lochrane. Four delegates from each district were chosen by the dele- gates of the respective districts. These were:
1st. J. L. Seward, J. Hartridge, H. M. Moore, Win. B. Gaulden. 2nd. W. Johnson, John A. Jones, Wm. M. Slaughter, Jas. M. Clark. 3rd. E. L. Strohecker, L. B. Smith, O. C. Gibson, E. J. McGeehee.
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Respectfully Howell Cobb
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HOWELL COBB'S WITHDRAWAL.
4th. J. J. Diamond, L. H. Featherston, W. Phillips, S. C. Candler. 5th. G: J. Fain, W. T. Wofford, James Hoge, Lawson Fields. 6th. Wm. H. Hull, S. J. Smith, H. P. Thomas, A. Franklin Hill. 7th. L. H. Briscoe, Jefferson Lamar, J. W. Burney, James Thoming. 8th. L. A. Nelms, D. C. Barrow, J. D. Ashton, H. R. Casey.
Alternates from the districts were also appointed. The district dele- gates of the December convention were all re-appointed save Arthur Hood and J. W. Evans. The alternates were nearly all different. An important resolution offered by Julian Hartridge, and unanimously adopted, provided for the appointment of an Executive Committee by the President of the convention with power to call all conventions of the Democratic party of Georgia, and to exercise all the other powers belonging to such committee until another convention meets. This established the practice that has been uninterruptedly followed since of the appointment of an Executive Committee empowered fully to repre- sent the party until another convention and the creation of a new com- mittee. And Mr. Hartridge's resolution was intended to remedy the disastrous party difficulty, whose effects were being experienced in the existing widespread dissension. The committee appointed consisted of Porter Ingram, A. S. Atkinson, P. Tracy, C. Murphy, D. S. Printup, S. J. Smith, L. H. Briscoe, and Henry Cleveland.
The action of the convention in refusing to adopt the action of the December body urging Mr. Cobb for the Presidency, and failing to make a declaration of sentiment and policy, was a most unfortunate mat- ter, and left a deep breach in the party. Mr. Cobb, in accordance with his published declarations previously made, addressed a letter to the President of the December convention, Mr. Irwin, unconditionally with- drawing his name from the canvass for the presidency. His letter was a very graceful and appropriate one, in admirable temper and full of patriotic feeling. While he claimed for the convention that endorsed him absolute party legality, yet he waived all question of regularity. He only regarded the party will. He frankly owned that while a major- ity of the state Democracy supported him, there was a decided opposi- tion to him. The connection of his name with the nomination was calculated to produce discord where there should be harmony, and he therefore withdrew it. The letter was a model of its kind, and its noble spirit and lofty utterances, so free from the slightest tinge of irritation or disappointment, placed him higher than ever in popular esteem. He wound up with a reference to the approaching contest, in which a fanatical enemy was striving to seize the Federal government
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112
ROBERT TOOMBS' GREAT DISUNION SPEECHI.
to bring dishonor upon the South. To overthrow this enemy, and save the government and the South from dishonor and ruin, which would fol- low the successful inauguration of a Black Republican administration, was our duty. Union and harmony were necessary to do this, and to them he should contribute all he could with the confident hope of being fully and cordially sustained by the people of Georgia.
At this time the tendency to peace between the sections was not at all helped by a brilliant, daring and masterly speech of Robert Toombs in the United States Senate, on a resolution offered by Stephen A. Douglas directing the judiciary committee to report a bill for the pro- tection of each State and Territory against invasion by the authorities of every other state and territory. Mr. Toombs made a terrible arraignment of the Black Republican party. He said that the country was virtually in civil war; that a large body of the Senators before him were enemies of his country, and were using their official power to assail and destroy the institutions of the states. We demand peace or war. Reviewing the action of the Republican party in regard to slavery, he asserted that the Republican hands were soiled with the blood of our constitutional compact. They mocked at constitutional obligations and jeered at oaths. They had lost their shame with their virtue. The speech was a scorching, splendid piece of invective, but it was more, it was a pro- found, exhaustive and unanswerable argument, welded like an iron bar. Gathering vehemence as he concluded, this audacious Mirabeau thun- dered these unforgivable words at his colleagues of the opposite party representing millions of Northern people.
" I denounce the Republican party as enemies of the Constitution and enemies of my country, and I shall treat them as such. I submit it to the judgment of the Senate, the country and the civilized world, if according to the public law of all civilized na- tions, we have not just cause of war against our confederates."
The impassioned orator then declared that with the success of the " traitorou's " Republican party "peace and safety are incompatible in the Union," and concluded with these burning words:
" Listen to no ' vain babblings,' to no treacherons jargon about ' overt acts ; ' they have already been committed. Defend yourselves, the enemy is at your door ; wait not to meet him at the hearth stone-meet him at the door-sill-and drive him from the temple of liberty, or pull down its pillars and involve him in a common ruin."
The effect of these fiery and war-like utterances was simply indescrib- able. They rendered peace impossible. They frrenzied the Republi- cans, they enthused our own hot-heads beyond restraint. They drove on the revolution by a million-spirit power. Coming from a Senator,
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113
THE REVOLUTION AT HAND.
spoken in the great and august forum of the national Senate Chamber representing the solemn sentiment and grand majesty of a sovereign state, they were tremendous expressions. They made a peaceful solu- tion of the impending strife an impossibility. They made the State of Georgia the dominant factor of the strife, and the foremost and control- ling agency of the Revolution. It booted little that such conservative and Union instruments as Stephens and Johnson were stemming the deadly drift. The spirit of discord was regnant. It had sundered the Georgia Democracy, and in that unhappy division had shorn the rising Cobb of his power and promise. It was not an undramatic coincidence that while Georgia was foremost in her influence in the national coun- cils through her imperious Toombs, and was potentially stimulating the threatening disunion, she had two prominent candidates for the Presi- dency of the Union, the most prominent of whom she herself slaugh- tered. But a higher power was ruling the destinies of nations. The great revolution was at hand, and our Georgia Toombs was its genius.
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CHAPTER XIV. THE FATAL SPLIT OF THE NATIONAL AND GEORGIA DEMOCRACY, IN 1860.
The Charleston Convention .- The Georgia Delegation Sundered .- A Majority led by H. L. Benning, secede .- A Minority Remain .- Solomon Cohen .- William B. Gaul- den the " Lion of Liberty."-Georgia Democracy Riven like the Delegates .- A vivid Batch of Letters on the Split from Hiram Warner, Howell Cobb, Josephi E. Brown, A. II. Stephens, Peter E. Love, Robert Toombs, H. V. Johnson and E. A. Nisbet .- Brown's cool Practical View .- The strange Reversals of Howell Cobb, and H. V. Johnson .- The Constitutional Union Convention .- Its personelle. -The Democratic Convention .- Its Personelle .- A Volcanic Session and a Burst up .- A National State Democratic State Convention organized .- Two sets of Delegates to Baltimore .-- Discord Rife .- The Disunion Drift Irresistible .- The Baltimore Convention .- Georgia Refused to go in .- Douglas and HI. V. Johnson Nominated .- The National State Right's Convention organized .- Breckenridge and Lane Nominated .- The Deadly Work Done .- The Democracy in Fragments and the Revolution Sure.
STARTLING events sped swiftly in Georgia, as in the Union, in this cru- cial year of 1860. The Charleston Convention met on the 23d of April and continued in turbulent session until the 2nd day of May, when it adjourned without making a nomination, to reassemble in Baltimore on the 18th of June. Some 57 ballots were taken, Mr. Douglas leading with 152} out of 319, but unable to get more. The platform was hotly contested. Three reports were made by the committee on platform. One was the majority report made by the members of fifteen Southern states and the two states of Oregon and California, being seventeen of the thirty-three members of the committee. This report presented the Cincinnati platform with some additional resolutions declaring the equal right of slave property in the territories and the duty of Congress to protect it. The Cincinnati platform declared for non-interference by Congress with slavery in the territories. The majority report went be- yond the Cincinnati platform in declaring it the duty of Congress to protect slave property in the territories. Two minority reports were presented, one offering the Cincinnati platform with some resolutions simply condemning interference with the fugitive slave law, but leaving out the protection of slave property in the territories. The last minor- ity report was adopted, which was the squatter sovereignty programme
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115
THE CHARLESTON CONVENTION.
of Mr. Douglas. On the defeat of the majority report and the adop- tion of the minority report, the delegates of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and a part of those from Dela- ware, seceded from the convention under lead of William L. Yancey of Alabama. The Georgia delegation obtained leave to retire, to consult as to their course, and split into fragments. A majority, consisting of Junius Wingfield, Henry L. Benning, Henry R. Jackson, J. M. Clark, William M. Slaughter, John A. Jones, D. C. Barrow, J. J. Diamond, A. Franklin Hill, E. L. Strohecker, O. C. Gibson, H. P. Thomas, P. Tracy, J. M. Lamar, E. J. McGeehee, George Hillyer, Mark Johnson, E. R. Harden, J. H. Lumpkin, J. G. Fain, James Hoge and W. J. Johnson, withdrew from the convention as a duty, as they declared. I. T. Irwin, W. H. Hull, L. H. Briscoe and Julian Hartridge withdrew in obedience to the vote of the majority. The balance of the delegation remained to share in the proceedings, consisting of Solomon Cohen, Hiram Warner, J. W. Burney, William B. Gaulden, James L. Seward, James Thomas, S. C. Candler, J. A. Render, L. A. Nelms, and Henry Cleveland.
Mr. Solomon Cohen made a speech explaining his position. Mr. Cohen was a leading citizen of Savannah, who was at one time Post- master, a gentleman of high social standing and considerable speaking ability. He and his colleagues, while in sympathy with the seceders in principle, remained behind hoping that a better spirit might prevail and justice be done to the South by the Northern Democrats. Mr. Mont- gomery of Pennsylvania, replied that he was willing for the Southern members to retire, if they wished, and that the majority of the conven- tion had made up their minds and would not change. Upon this Col. Wm. B. Gaulden, who enjoyed the soubriquet of the " Roaring Lion of Liberty County, " arose and made a speech that convulsed the conven- tion with laughter. He denounced protection to slavery as a humbug, and said he intended to stand by his Northern brethren until the last day, late in the evening. He then branched into an unqualified sup- port of the African slave trade. But the fragment of the delegation were not permitted to vote, on the ground that the state delegation was instructed to vote as a unit. Mr. Seward had previously attempted to cast his individual vote, and the resolution of the Georgia Conven- tion upon the matter had been discussed, and the unit rule had been de- clared to apply to the Georgia delegation. Mr. Cohen vainly protested against the disfranchisement and denounced it as a usurpation.
The seceding members of the Charleston Convention, including most of the majority part of the Georgia delegation, formed a separate con-
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VIEWS OF DISTINGUISHED GEORGIANS.
vention, and called a Convention for the 2nd Monday in June, in Rich- mond.
The course of the Georgia delegation created a profound feeling at home. The minority of the delegation issued a brief card explaining their course, and stating that they did not feel at liberty to bolt the convention and disrupt the party. The majority published a more lengthy address, signed by Henry L. Benning, the chairman of the delegation, elaborately arguing the whole question. They wound up this very able paper with the statement that some of the Northerir dele- gates had shown a disposition to modify the platform, and there was some hope of this. They advised that a State Convention be called, and that such convention appoint delegates to both the Richmond and Baltimore conventions. The Executive Committee of the party issued a call for a state convention to assemble in Milledgeville, the 4th day of June. A number of gentlemen of Macon, Robert Collins, John J. Gresham, James W. Armstrong and others, addressed a letter to the leading public men of the State, expressing alarm at the rupture of the Charleston Convention and asking their views of the situation. Re- plies were received from Hiram Warner, Howell Cobb, Joseph E. Brown, A. H. Stephens, Peter E. Love, Robert Toombs, H. V. Johnson and Eugenius A. Nesbit.
Judge Warner had been one of the staying delegates in the Charleston convention. Ilis letter was an incisive one. Believing the democratic organization of the Union to afford the best guarantee for the preser- vation of our rights, he resisted Mr. Yancey's bold attempt to destroy it. Believing also in the doctrine of congressional non-intervention, and having thought the Cincinnati platform a good one in 1856, he deemed it a good one in 1860, and declared the bolt from the Charleston con- vention to have been based upon a flimsy pretext. Howell Cobb fully endorsed the action of the seceding delegates, and said that the deinoc- racy of the state should sustain them. Every state whose delegates were for the majority platform was a democratic state, and the other sixteen states were republican. The nomination of Mr. Douglas he condemned. He suggested a state convention that should reappoint the same delegates to go to both Baltimore and Richmond, and advised a postponement of the Richmond convention until after attempt was exhausted at Baltimore to unite the party. The letter of Mr. Stephens was such an one as might be expected from him, calin, dispassionate, firm, statesmanlike. He argued that non-intervention had been the estab- lished policy of the party. He had not favored it originally, but had
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117
ROBERT TOOMBS' LETTER.
acquiesced in it, and now thought we should abide it. A convention should be called and delegates sent to Baltimore. The demand of the seceders should be withdrawn and nomination of a good man made. If we were determined to quarrel with the North on general account, base it on the aggressive acts of our enemies and not. the supposed short- comings of our friends. He repeated his previously expressed views of the impregnability of the slave institution. Mr. Toombs wrote a char- acteristic letter, short, pithy, snapping like a pistol shot, with consider- able moderation ostensibly, but holding the sword in a gloved hand. The seceding delegates should meet at Baltimore with the adjourned convention and endeavor to affect an adjustment. If this adjustment could not be made the Richmond convention could be held with clearer light for its guidance. If such a policy as he urged met with any considerable opposition in Georgia, let a party convention be called to take action. The reserve hostility of this sententious letter was seen, however, in the significant acknowledgment that he was purposely yielding nothing, with the ultimate idea of demanding everything, and the unqualified declaration that, he never could give his assent that there was any rightful power anywhere to exclude slave property from the territorial domain. He wound up with the suggestive and pregnant sentences:
" Our greatest danger, to day, is that the Union will survive the Constitution. Look at the preservation of your rights. The Union has more friends than you have, and will last as long, at least, as its continuance will be compatible with your safety."
Mr. Love would not have advised secession, but did not condemn the seceders. The seceders should go back to Baltimore and try to harmo- nize. Ex-Gov. Johnson's letter was a long and able one, a model of rhetoric and argument. He took the same view that Mr. Stephens did. Non-intervention was the accepted policy of the party. A demand for intervention was unnecessary, while intervention was valueless and of questionable right, and doubtful policy. Ile had opposed the compro- mise of 1850, but he was now for sticking to it. It was a matter of honor to stand to the compact. He advised calling a convention to determine our policy, and send delegates to Baltimore. Let us save the national democracy to destroy Seward and his myrmidons. Judge E. A. Nesbit wrote a most positive, out-spoken letter and a strong one. He condemned the action of the seceders, and repudiated the Richmond convention. He asserted that some of the bolters of the other states had purposely seceded to split the party and disrupt the Union. He was against intervention as inconsistent, in bad faith, dishonorable, crip-
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