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 2
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10
BILL ARP'S REMINISCENCE.
starting of his miraculous career. The papers rang with the name of Gaddistown. In the brilliant breakfast room of the Kimball House, where a large number of Senator Brown's friends gathered to dine in honor of his overwhelming election that day, the Gaddistown Club was organized in tribute to the henceforth immortal Gaddistown.
During these years of his youth up to the age of nineteen, young Brown learned nothing but the three R's,-reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic, and these very limitedly. He worked laboriously, plowing his now historic bull, hauling wood to Dahlonega, selling vegetables in a basket to the hotel and others that would buy, and aiding in the frugal support of his father's large family. "Bill Arp," in one of his inimitable letters to the Constitution, narrates the following interesting incident of the period of Brown's life, told him by Gen. Ira Foster:
" When he got to talking about Joe Brown he stretched forth his arm and said that man is a miracle. I knew his parents before he was born. They were exceedingly poor. His aunt Sidney did my washing when I was a young man living in Dahlonega some fifty years ago.
"Joe cultivated a little scrap of hillside land with a pair of bull calves, and every Saturday hauled to town some potatoes or cabbages or light wood or other truck in trade and took back something for the family. In 1839, I think it was, I was riding to Canton in a buggy, and I overtook a young man walking in a very muddy lane. He had a striped bag hung over his shoulder and looked very tired. I asked him if he would not take a seat, and he looked down at himself and said he was too muddy, and that he would dirty up the buggy. I insisted and he broke off a splinter from a rail and scraped his shoes and got in. I learned from him that his name was Joe Brown, and he was going to Canton to get something to do. I have kept an eye on him for forty years. He is a wonder to me."
But there was a something in the youth that impelled him irresistibly to a higher and broader life, and his strong intelligence realized the necessity of a better educational equipment. There is no doubt how- ever that in these years of youthful work were laid the foundation of those inestimable habits of patience, pains-taking industry, frugality, self-control, and a knowledge of and sympathy with the laboring masses that have so marked his career, and aided in his exceptional success.
In the fall of 1840 he obtained his father's consent to make a new departure and gratify his craving for education. All that his father could do for the boy who was to carve out for himself so wonderful a fortune, was to give him some home-made clothing and a yoke of steers. With this modest endowment of worldly goods the youth went back to Carolina and entered the Calhoun academy in Anderson district, prob- ably drawn there by his reverence for the name and doctrines of Calhoun. The steers paid for eight months' board. The tuition was
11
BROWN A LAW STUDENT.
obtained on credit. It can be well imagined that a spirit so determined upon an education improved this opportunity to the fullest measure of an uncommon intellect. Returning to Georgia in the fall of 1841, the earnest youngster taught school for three months to get the means to continue his schooling, and went back in January 1842 to Calhoun academy, pursuing his studies by incurring debt for his tuition and board. A very successful and eminent teacher, Mr. Wesley Leverett, was in charge of Calhoun academy, and the bond of sympathy between him and his remarkable pupil was such, that when Mr. Leverett left the academy and removed to another school that he established near Anderson Court House, the wise youth followed him and enjoyed his instruction during that year. The progress of young Brown in his studies was very rapid and marked. His strong practical mind, with its keen hunger for knowledge and its native superiority of application and mental labor, achieved astonishing results, delighting his preceptor, His money with which to pay board early gave out, but he readily obtained it on credit, there being no lack of friends to trust and encourage a spirit so bent upon an education. The extraordinary progress he made can be understood when it is known that in two years' study from the groundwork young Brown had fitted himself to enter an advanced class in college. He had to forego college education, however, because he had not the means.
In January 1844 Mr. Brown, at the age of twenty-two, returned to Georgia and opened an academy in Canton, Cherokee county. He had to repay the debts incurred in his education, and he fully realized the obligation that rested upon him. He opened his academy with six scholars, the number rapidly increasing to sixty as his admirable capacity for teaching was demonstrated. The school was popular. He taught the year through, devoting his days to his pupils and his even- ings and Saturdays to laborious study of the law.
This earnest young man wasted no hours. His mastery of the law was thorough and close. A methodical division of his time with the intensest attention while at study enabled him to accomplish large results. As a teacher he was unusually successful, and had he pur- sued that vocation he would have made an eminent instructor. His placid temper, great patience, determined will, admirable tact and practical clear methods, fitted him finely to teach and control scholars. At the end of the year he had made and saved enough money to pay off the entire debt incurred in Carolina for his education, and with that scrupulous regard for his obligations that has distinguished the man
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12
BROWN A YOUNG LAWYER.
always, he made a special trip to that State and repaid to the last dollar every liability due for board and tuition.
During the year 1845 he continued his law studies in Canton, teach- ing the children of his friend and patron, Dr. John W. Lewis, for his board. The relations between Dr. Lewis and young Brown were very close and tender. It illustrates a strong quality of Senator Brown's nature that in after years, when he became influential and had patronage at his disposal, he remembered his early benefactor and delighted to honor him. Fidelity to his friends is a crowning quality of the man, and has been a large factor in his success. He appointed Dr. Lewis Superintendent of the State Road, and afterwards Confederate State's Senator, when there was a vacancy in that high office. Gratitude is golden, and it belongs to Joseph E. Brown in a remarkable degree.
In August 1845, Mr. Brown was, after a searching examination of several hours, admitted to the bar. The presiding judge compli- mented him highly upon his proficiency. He is said to have answered incorrectly but one question put to him by the examining committee of lawyers, who seeing that they had an unusually well-informed applicant to test, made the ordeal as critical as they could. At this same term of the court the young lawyer made his first speech and won a host of encomiums alike from the bar and the audience. In that maiden effort he, according to the traditions of that day, gave specimen of the simple style of effective talk that made him afterwards so potential in speech while claiming no pretensions to oratory. He had a clear method of presenting his cause, a faculty of putting the irresistible common sense of the subject, and a homely, direct power of reaching the hearts of his hearers that proved wonderfully successful.
Talking in Spring Place, Murray county, in 1866, at a term of the Superior Court there, with an old citizen and admirer of Brown, who had often seen him in the trial of cases, the citizen said that in many respects Brown was the most remarkable young lawyer he had ever known. He said he had never seen a young lawyer, nor an old one either, that did not some time lose his equilibrium. In the ups and downs of a trial, the most experienced were thrown off their balance by some unexpected testimony or some sudden and crushing reverse. But nothing could disturb Brown. His composure and self-possession were immovable. The worst disaster in a trial found him as cool and placid as a summer morn, with every wit sharpened to nullify it. This game quality impressed others profoundly, and gave him a great advantage in forensic battles.
BROWN AT YALE COLLEGE. 13
Mr. Brown was now twenty-four years old, and had studied the law nearly two years and passed a rare examination in his admission to the bar. He was better equipped for practice than the majority of young lawyers. But he was not satisfied with his preparation. Having an exalted standard of professional success before him, and appreciating that to be a great lawyer a man must broaden and liberalize his mind, as well as be thoroughly initiated into the fundamental principles of law and government, Brown resolved to enlarge and perfect his legal education. His staunch friend, Dr. Lewis, loaned him the money to carry out his purpose, and in October 1845, he entered the law school at Yale College and remained there until June 1846.
His year of study at Yale was very valuable. His hard digging at the law in the mountains of Georgia stood him in good stead in round- ing off his legal education at venerable Yale. The mountain youth stood at no disadvantage with the youngsters of wealth at the old college. He took the lead casily in his classes. He found it a light matter with his strong native powers, fortified by two years of close legal application in his quiet rural home, to take all of the studies of the three classes, and keep up with them, and yet in addition, attend many of the lectures of the professors in other departments, as Professor Silliman on Chemistry and Geology ; Dr. Taylor on Mental Philosophy ; Dr. Knight on Anatomy, and others. He graduated at the commence- ment in 1846 in the law school, but did not remain to take his diploma in person. In that practical spirit that governed him in all matters, he requested permission to stand his examination and leave in June, in order that he might get the business benefit of attending the fall courts at home in Georgia. His diploma was sent to him. He located in Canton, and at the ripe age of twenty-five years he began the practice of his cherished profession of the law, and soon built into a lucrative business.
Looking at Senator Brown's course preliminary to his beginning the practice of the law, there is a fine example for poor young men and a marked exhibition of that native sagacity that has governed his life. Commencing at nineteen years of age with but a light country school- ing, he, of his own wise impulses, devoted six years to his education. His rare natural abilities were in the vigor of a youthful healthy man- hood. He was ripe for the very best acquisition of learning and the most profitable training of his faculties. His powerful young mind was just in that age of maturity of the learning capacity, that made his studies doubly useful. This poor country youth was a tardy beginner
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14
BROWN MARRIED.
of life's practical business at twenty-five years of age, but he in reality possessed a perfection of equipment that few beginners have. Purity of habit and principle that secluded country life gives, habituation to severe ordeals of physical and mental labor, a long course of legal education finished at the finest law school in the country, and a social and mental intelligence of unusual grasp capped and widened and polished by the collisions, the culture and worldly knowledge of a year at a cosmopolitan college, all were young Brown's, when he started life in the country village of Canton, in the sunny summer of 1846. And it is not by any means a surprising matter that he succeeded. Such powers, such knowledge and such methods as he had were bound to succeed. There was nothing brilliant about him. But he made the progress ever achieved by hard and continuous work. He never lost a client.' He lived as he had been raised, moderately and helpfully, and his habits continued simple. He made 81,200 the first year, and then pushed up slowly but steadily to $2,000 and $3,000. He never went backward. He made no blunders. His investments were all safe and judicious. He very early paid 8450 for a piece of land which after- wards turned out handsomely for him, a half interest in a copper mine thereon bringing him $25,000, which he invested in farms, and which was the basis of his afterwards immense fortune.
The next wise and fortunate step that this rising young man took was to marry a good wife. In 1847 he was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Gresham, the daughter of the Rev. Joseph Gresham, a Baptist minister of South Carolina. He made a happy marriage, his wife shar- ing congenially the eventful fortunes of his remarkable life, presiding well over his happy home, and raising admirably the large family of intelligent and worthy children that she has brought to him.
As a lawyer, as can be conceived, Mr. Brown immediately took a foremost rank. Instantaneously prompt and punetual, giving immedi- ate attention to all matters entrusted to his care, untiringly industrious, working up his cases thoroughly, examining legal questions to the bottom, exhausting authorities, carefully correct in judgment, full of the resources of pleading and practice, and an earnest and convincing speaker, he had every quality needed to give him both reputation and practice.
A gentleman had a claim against a farmer residing in ten or twelve miles of Canton. Hearrived there in the afternoon and was referred to Mr. Brown. He put the matter in Brown's hands, who told him to call the next morning. Brown rode out to the house of the citizen that
15
BROWN AS AN ADVOCATE.
very evening, managed to get the money, returned to his office, and when the gentleman called by appointment early the next morning, paid him his money. He stopped at no trouble or labor in his business, and his swift promptness and tenacious attention to his cases wrought their inevitable results. Every lawyer in large practice ean point to his hard forensic battles and romantic victories, won by clever strokes of legal strategy and skillful operations of professional acumen. Mr. Brown had an unusual number of such struggles and triumphs. A plain man and severely practical, lacking the flash of oratory and mak -. ing no glittering personal display, yet there was a romance and dramatic effect in his management of some of his legal skirmishes, that surpassed the achievement of more showy solicitors. Some of his legal contests were surprises of skill and boldness. A very earnest man, of indomit- able will and unswerving purpose, he was a hard hitting forensic fighter. Secretive as to his plans, he sprung damaging traps upon his opponents and he pursued a defeated antagonist unrelentingly. Hon. L. N. Tram- mell, speaking of his power as a lawyer, said his influence over a jury was extraordinary. While not an orator, his speeches were irresistible. Says Mr. Traminell, "Gov. Brown's speeches to juries were marvels of effect. They were as clear as a sunbeam. They exhausted practical sense, and reason, and put his side of a case so strongly and logically, that he always carried conviction."
CHAPTER III. GOV. BROWN'S MARKED CAREER AS A STATE SENATOR IN 1849.
: His Early Drift to Politics .- Runs for Senator .- The Temperance Issue -His Election. -The Legislature of 1849 noted for its Fierce Political Controversies .- Andrew J. Miller and Joe Brown the Leaders .- The Veteran and the Neophyte .- Brown Leaps to the Front .- Brown and Alfred H. Colquitt .- A Curious Coincidence .- The Per- sonelle of that Body .- The Judges of that Day .- Hiram Warner .- II. V. Johnson .- Mrs. Johnson .-- Henry R. Jackson .- Aug. Hansell .- James Jackson .- Gartrell's Resolutions .- The Heat upon Slavery .- Dissolution of the Union Intimated .- Chas. J. Jenkins .- Chas. J. MeDonald .- Miller's Hobby .- The " Woman's Bill."-Gov. Brown against all the New Fangled Ideas .- Richard H Clarke .- Thos. Butler King .- O. A. Lochrane.
BUT while Gov. Brown was and is a great lawyer, the dominant ten- - dency of his nature was political. A profound and able jurist, his forte was politics. His greatest capacities drove him to public life. He took to it as a fish does to water. His popular tact was unerring, his fitness for political contest perfect. Admitted to the bar in 1846, he drifted into politics in 1849. At that time there were forty-seven Senatorial Districts in the state, each furnishing a Senator. Forty-six of the Dis- tricts were composed of two counties each, and Mr. Brown lived in the forty-first, which was composed of Cherokee and Cobb counties. He received the Democratic nomination. Opposed by Col. John M. Edge, the canvass was an active one and resulted in his triumphant election. The temperance issue was raised against Mr. Brown, he being a member of the order of the Sons of Temperance. With his usual posttiveness he took square temperance ground when assailed. The objection was made to him that he was against the liquor traffic. He accepted it boldly, refused to treat to liquor in his canvass, and in his speeches broadly announced that he would treat no one, though the refusal might cause his defeat by thousands of votes. In a rural mountain section where the distillation of spirits is largely carried on, it might well be supposed that such a declaration would be perilous. The custom of candidates using liquor freely in their campaigns was general. He had the courage to break the custom, and after a warm contest he was decisively elected.
17
THE LEGISLATURE OF 1849-1850.
The legislature of 1849 and 1850 was a right memorable one. Georgia then had the system of biennial sessions, which she discarded soon, and then re-adopted in 1877, after she had forgotten the experi- ence of a quarter of a century previous. The session. was eighty-five days in length. The same policy was carried out that has prevailed in the biennial sessions of 1878 and 1SS1, of having an adjourned term. And Senator Brown voted against it in 1849, as he did against every daily adjournment, nearly, his disposition being to get through his leg- islative work in the quickest possible time.
Among the more notable men of this Legislature were Andrew J. Miller and David J. Baily of the Senate, and Augustus H. Kenan, Wm. T. Wofford, Thomas C. Howard, Gen. Harrison W. Riley, Parmedus Reynolds, Charles J. Jenkins, Linton Stephens and Lucius J. Gartrell, of the House. Joseph E. Brown was a new member and a new man in Georgia politics. This Legislature was noted for its fierce controversies upon political questions. Andrew J. Miller was the leader of the Whigs. Representing the powerful constituency of Richmond county, a lawyer of acknowledged ability, a ready debater, of cool imperturbable temper, high integrity and unflinching firmness, he stood very high. Joseph E. Brown leaped to the leadership of the Democrats in spite of his youth and inexperience, and the two names that figure most frequently in the journals of the Senate during that racy session are Miller and Brown. The young mountain novice tackled the old city veteran gamely and successfully. And the Democratic measures went through steadily under the firm leadership of this raw but powerful young neophyte. Brown was put on the Judiciary committee in recognition of his legal ability, that in three years' practice had established itself, and he was made chairman of the penitentiary committee. In addition he was put upon nearly every important special committee to consider special mat- ters of moment. Among these were, committee to enquire into repeal of laws in regard to introduction of slaves into this state : committee on bill to protect public worship : committee on bill to abolish costs in Supreme court: committee to re-organize the Judicial circuits: and other committees, in most of which Brown was chairman.
It is matter of curious note that the assistant secretary of the Senate was Alfred H. Colquitt, who thirty years later made Joseph E. Brown United States Senator, and was united with him in the political cam- paign of 1880, the most savage publie contest ever witnessed in Georgia, which resulted in the re-election of Colquitt as Governor of Georgia, and the election of Brown as United States Senator. And it is also
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18
THE JUDICIARY OF 1849.
another curious fact that of the two speeches reported during the session of 1849-1850 one was a speech made by Brown, and it was reported by Mr. Colquitt for that strong journal, the Macon Telegraph, which at that time was only a weekly paper.
Gov. Geo. W. Towns was the executive of the state. . The state road was in running order to Dalton, was graded to Chattanooga and the track laid to within seven miles of that place. The benefit of that road is shown by the fact that the business had increased for 1849 over forty-seven per cent. more than in 1847. At this time the judges were elected by the General Assembly, though an act was passed submitting to the peo- ple whether judges should be elected by the Legislature or the people. The people decided in their own favor, and after this the judges were elected by the people of their respective circuits. This Legislature elected Hiram Warner Judge of the Supreme Court, and Judges of the Superior Court as follows :- Eli H. Baxter, Northern circuit; Henry R. Jackson, Eastern circuit; Augustin H. Stansell, Southern circuit; James Jackson, Western circuit; Ebenezer Starnes, Middle circuit; Herschel V. Johnson, Ocmulgee circuit; Jas. H. Stark, Flint circuit; Alfred Iverson, Chattahoochee circuit; John H. Lumpkin, Cherokee circuit. Of these gentlemen a number became distinguished. H. V. Johnson and Alfred Iverson were made United States Senators; H. V. Johnson, Governor; Hiram Warner and James Jackson, Congressmen and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; E. Starnes, Judge of the Supreme Court; H. R. Jackson, United States Minister to Austria. There has perhaps never been a more brilliant array of judges in the history of the state. Judge Warner has been almost continuously on the bench since, resigning the Chief Justiceship of the Supreme Court in 1880. Judge Warner is in many respects a remarkable man. He came from New England. A tall, erect, muscular person of great decision of char- acter, high order of ability, and extensive legal erudition, he has main- tained a striking hold upon the people of Georgia in spite of a decided lack of social feeling and generous sentiment. A fearless utterance of his views, an iron resolution and a rigid integrity, have upheld him in popular confidence, notwithstanding the severity of demeanor and a sort of determined rancor of prejudice. Cold and stern, he was able and believed to be honest. Alfred Iverson was a man of much power, a small person in stature, but of considerable speaking ability.
Governor Johnson was the ablest of these men. There has been no public man in Georgia in the last quarter of a century the superior in brain power of H. V. Johnson. A powerful thinker, a strong speaker,
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19
MRS. H. V. JOHNSON.
possessor of an exquisite style of writing, the chastest and most vigor- ous master of language we have ever had in the state, he is one of our few public men that could be called great. He was a timid and a gloomny man, however, and in his manners a brusque person. The contrast between the bluntness of his ways and speech, and the classic elegance of his writings, was something inexplicable. His state papers were models of statesmanship and polish. Judge, afterwards Governor Johnson, married a niece of President Polk, the most exquisitely beauti- ful and intellectually gifted woman of her day when young. After he became executive she made the state house famous by her entertain- ments. Of exquisite figure, with features of faultless beauty, clear-cut, intellectual and of the most classic Grecian type, with a complexion as clear and rose-tinted as a healthy infant's, she added conversational powers of surpassing brilliancy, and an attractive sweetness of manner irresistible. She was a notable housewife and devoted mother, yet she was profoundly read in the political, scientific and religious literature of the day, and could talk upon these matters with wonderful power and genuine eloquence.
Henry R. Jackson was one of the most gifted of these men, a magical orator, a true poet and an able lawyer. And added to this was a chiv- alric, personal courage and. a fiery scorn of anything small. Judge Hansell is still Judge of the Superior Court, and preserves those high characteristics of manhood that marked him then. James Jackson was a most promising young man, belonging to and constituting a typical member of the famous family of Jacksons that have filled so large a rôle in Georgia annals, whose founder was one of the early Governors and a United States Senator; a man of iron force of character, who burned the records of the great Yazoo fraud with a sun glass. It has been something for Joseph E. Brown to have outstripped these gifted aristo- crats of Georgia civilization. In the election of these judges the Southern Rights question entered. Lumpkin, James Jackson and H. R. Jackson were Union Democrats, and came near defeat on that account. James Jackson wrote to Alex. Stephens asking his influence, appealing to his well-known proclivity to help young men. Through Mr. Stephens his brother Linton voted for Jackson, though Linton was a Whig.
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