USA > Mississippi > A history of Mississippi : from the discovery of the great river > Part 28
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During his gubernatorial service, Governor Brown labored earnestly to get the legislature to adopt a sound, healthy system of public schools, but his efforts were in vain. He had, however, the satisfaction of seeing the State University put into successful operation, and he had the gratification of knowing, before he died, that hundreds of bright young Mississippians had been graduated at that institution, and thus prepared for lives of honorable usefulness.
Albert G. Brown was a genuine man of the people. He believed that the masses were honest and patriotic, and would always do right when properly informed as to their duty. He trusted the people with the simple faith of a child in its mother, and the people in turn repaid this trusting confidence in a ten-fold degree. In public life, from young manhood to old age, he was never compelled to drink the bitter waters of defeat. He was uniformly successful and never desired a position that was denied him by the people.
Among other interesting incidents occurring during the first term of the administration of Governor Brown may be mentioned the visit to the Capital of Mississippi of the Hon. Henry Clay, of Kentucky, in the spring of 1844. Learning that the great Whig leader would make a stop at Vicksburg for a few days on his voyage from New Or-
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leans to his beloved home, Ashland, Kentucky, the devoted friends and admirers of "Harry of the West" assembled in the hall of the House of Representatives and appointed a committee, one of which was the now venerable David Shel- ton, widely known as an able lawyer, and universally re- spected for his many manly qualities and the purity of his character, to visit the city of Vicksburg and escort the great statesman and the idolized leader of the Whig party to the capital.
The committee thus appointed went to Vicksburg, met the distinguished "Commoner," and escorted him to the Capital of the State. The Hon. Sargent S. Prentiss, then a citizen of Vicksburg, accompanied the party to Jackson. Arrived at the city, Mr. Clay was received by an immense concourse of people, placed in an open barouche and driven to the capitol, where he addressed a mighty throng of his admiring fellow-citizens, after which he was introduced to and took by the hand hundreds of ladies and gentlemen.
Mr. Clay, during his brief visit to the city of Jackson, was the recipient of many delicate attentions, evidences of the high estimation in which he was held by the people of Mississippi. Henry Clay, and his eloquent companion, Sargent S. Prentiss, crossed the dark river into that undis- covered country "from which no traveler returns" many years ago, and it is doubtful if a solitary member of the committee survives to-day, with the exception of Mr. David Shelton, already referred to.
Albert G. Brown died suddenly at his home near Terry, in Hinds county, on the 12th day of June, 1880.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR MATHEWS.
J OSEPH MATHEWS, born, it is believed in the State of Tennessee, came to Mississippi at an early period of his life, and settled in Marshall county. He represented that county in the State Senate, and was elected by the Demo- cratic party in the year 1847 as the successor of Governor Brown, and thus became the eleventh Governor of the com- monwealth, and the sixth chosen by the people under the Constitution of 1832.
Governor Mathews had a very limited education, but "possessed a vigorous mind, and in many respects was a very able man. He developed into a forcible speaker and was always listened to by the people with profound atten- tion. He was in early life a well digger by profession, and when he entered public life he was popularly known as the "well digger," and otherwise as "copperas breeches," from his habit of wearing copperas-colored trousers. Governor Mathews was regarded as an honest and patriotic man, of amiable disposition, but perfectly fearless in the expres- sion of his political sentiments. He was a devoted Demo- crat, believed in the people, and was the disciple of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson in their exposition of the true principles of republican government and the rights of men. No remarkable event rendered the administra- tion of Governor Mathews notably conspicuous, but he served the people of Mississippi with zeal and fidelity, and to the entire satisfaction of the people of both parties. Governor Mathews held no official position after his retire- ment from the executive office, and seemed to regard the "private station as the post of honor."
Governor Joseph Mathews died during the progress of the great war between the States.
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THE ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR QUITMAN.
JOHN A. QUITMAN, born in the village of Rhinebeck, on the Hudson river, in the empire State of New York, was the son of an able and scholarly minister of the Lutheran church, and became the twelfth Governor of the common- wealth, and the seventh chosen under the Constitution of 1832, which he largely aided in framing.
After completing his education young Quitman studied law and removed to Ohio, but soon growing tired of life in the West he resolved to remove to Mississippi. He ar- rived at Natchez in 1821, and soon formed a partnership with a distinguished lawyer, and laid the foundation of a large fortune. He was elected to the Constitutional Con- vention of 1832, as a delegate from Adams county, and later he was elected to the State Senate from Adams county, and becoming president of that body, the duties of the executive were devolved upon him for a few weeks in 1835. Subsequently he became a candidate for chancellor, and although he had opposed the election of judges by the popular voice, he was soon · afterwards elected chancellor of the State, which position he filled for several years to the entire satisfaction of the members of the bar and the people.
In 1849, after returning from Mexico, where he had gained much distinction as a major-general in the army of the United States, he became the nominee of the Demo- cratic party for Governor. With the halo of fame which he had earned in Mexico, he was without difficulty elected, and was inducted into office in January, 1850.
The first Legislature during the administration of Gov- ernor Quitman took strong grounds in favor of "resist- ance" to the compromise measures, and called a Conven- tion of delegates to be chosen by the people in every county to meet in September, 1851, to take measures for the "redress of grievances." The admission of California with a Constitution excluding slavery from her territory pro- duced intense excitement in several Southern States, but in no quarter was the excitement greater than in the com- monwealth of Mississippi.
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Few people cared to take their slave property to Cali- fornia, perhaps, but they were irritated beyond measure by the denial of what they considered an irrefragible right. Meantime, a convention composed of delegates from sundry Southern States had been held in Nashville, Tennessee, where inflammatory resolutions were adopted in the years 1850 and 1851. Excitement continued to grow and spread in Mississippi. Parties were disrupted and new combina- tions were formed. Governor Quitman having, with many other gentlemen, been indicted by the grand jury of the Federal Court for the district of Louisiana, for his alleged complicity with the Lopez expedition against Cuba, laid down his official robes, and resigned the position of Gov- ernor, and appeared before the United States Court to answer to the indictment against him in his individual capacity, as John A. Quitman, a private citizen of Missis- sippi. He was tried, and of course, was acquitted.
By the resignation of Governor Quitman the duties of the Executive were devolved upon John Isaac Guion, then representing Hinds county in the State Senate, and the president of that body. Judge Guion was a native of Mississippi, a profound lawyer, a graceful speaker, and a genial, honorable gentleman. He continued to exercise the duties of the Executive until the expiration of his term as Senator, when he retired, and gave way for James Whitfield, who represented Lowndes county in the Sen- ate, and was made president of that body as the successor of Judge Guion. Mr. Whitfield continued in the perform- ance of all Executive duties until his legally elected suc- cessor was installed, early in January, 1852. Thus was the strange spectacle presented to the people of Missis- sippi, of four gentlemen discharging the duties of Gov- ernor in less than one year.
General Quitman had been re-nominated for election as Governor, and his opponents, composed in large part of the old Whig party, reinforced by a considerable con- tingent of Democrats, and calling themselves the "Union party," placed in nomination for the Chief Magistracy of the State, Henry S. Foote, then representing the State in the Senate of the United States. The canvass was bitter 21
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and exciting. Each party had its candidates for the Con- vention and the 'Legislature in the field in every county in the State. The election for delegates occurred in Au- gust, 1851, and resulted in an overwhelming triumph of the Union party. General Quitman promptly abandoned the contest, frankly declaring that the people had decided against the views held by him, and that having no per- sonal purpose to subserve in remaining any longer in the position of a candidate for Governor, he declined at once.
This left the resisters without a leader, and all eyes were turned to Col. Jefferson Davis, in the hope that he could repeat his tactics at Buena Vista. stem the tide of opposi- tion, turn defeat into triumph, and drive back their ex- ulting opponents, as he drove the Mexican lancers from the field in a more deadly encounter. It was not to be, however. Colonel Davis reluctantly accepted the leader- ship, and entered upon the canvass, and though the Union party had obtained a majority of nearly seven thousand at the August election for delegates to the Convention, at the general election in November, Senator Foote was elected Governor by the meagre majority of nine hundred and ninety-nine votes.
In the September previous, the Convention called by the Legislature had assembled. Mr. Carmack, of Tishomingo, was elected president, and that body, after being in ses- sion a week or ten days, adjourned sine die, after declar- claring its unalterable fealty to the Union.
In November, 1855, General Quitman was elected a Representative in Congress, and in 1857, he was re-elected, and died at his home near Natchez, July 7th, 1858.
General Quitman was universally esteemed and honored by the people of Mississippi, for his courage, his high and honorable character, the great purity of his life, and for the kind and genial heart he possessed. His death was widely lamented, and the people of nearly every county in the State paid fitting tributes to his worth.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR FOOTE.
HENRY S. FOOTE, a native of Fauquier county, Virginia, born September 20, 1800, was elected in November, 1851,
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and thus became the thirteenth governor of the common - wealth, and the eighth chosen under the constitution of 1832. Mr. Foote came to Mississippi about 1830. He pos- sessed a thorough classical education, and through his long and somewhat stormy life, was a close student, eager- ly reading everything which came within ·his reach. He was an able lawyer and a fluent and forcible debater. In politics he was in his natural element, and no Irishman at Donny brook fair ever enjoyed a scrimmage with more de- light than did Henry S. Foote enjoy a political shindy.
He was nominated and elected to the Senate of the United States, and took his seat in that body in December, 1847, and remained in the Senate to within a brief period of his inauguration as Governor, to which position he had been elected in November, 1851, after a fierce and bitter contest.
The first year of the administration of Governor Foote was marked by the death of one of the greatest statesmen of his age, Henry Clay, the "great commoner" of Ken- tucky. At the next session of the Legislature, which assembled in January, 1853, Col. Alexander Keith McClung, who had won distinction as the second officer of the First Mississippi regiment in Mexico, was invited to deliver an address upon the life, character and public services of one of the truly great men who had left the impress of his genius upon the times in which he lived.
Colonel McClung was born in Virginia while his mother was visiting a sick sister, though the home of both parents was in Mason county, Kentucky, where the boy was raised.
The father of Col. McClung was an eminent jurist and his mother was a sister of the great Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, John Marshall. Hence intellect and genius were the birthright of Alexander K. McClung.
Young McClung served several years of his early life as a midshipman in the American navy, but finally resigned and studied law. In 1833, having been admitted to the bar, he migrated to Jackson, then, as now, the capital of the State. Here he won early recognition, not only for his superior
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intellectual qualities, but for his scholastic attainments, and the rare analytical'and reasoning powers he possessed. When the Legislature invited Col. McClung to deliver an address upon the life, character and public services of Mr. Clay, he promptly accepted and prepared a splendid liter- ary effort, which we here embody in these pages, as a speci- men of criticism upon the great dead, at once eloquent and just, which deserves to be perpetuated as a gem of rare English, allied with great power of analysis :
Ladies and Gentlemen :
We have met to commemorate the life and services of Henry Clay. After a long life, after a long, useful and illustrious career, he has passed away. The fiery and aspiring spirit, whose earthly life was one long storm, has at length sunk to rest. Neither praise nor censure can now reach him. When his haughty soul passed away from the earth, and the grave closed over his dust, it also entombed in its dark and narrow chamber the bitterness of detraction, and the tiger ferocity of party spirit, with which he had so long wrestled. Death has hallowed his name and burnished his services bright in the memory of his countrymen.
We have met to express, in the manner which the custom of our country has established, our appreciation of those services and our sense of his glory. We have met, not as partisans or friends-political, or personal-of the illustrious dead, but as Americans desirous to do honor to a great American.
In attempting to discharge the duty which has been imposed upon me, I shall avoid the indiscriminate eulogy which is the proverbial blemish of obituaries and funeral discourses, and shall essay, however feebly, to represent Mr. Clay as he was, or at least, as he seemed to me.
- Great beings-grand human creatures-scattered sparsely throughout time, should be painted with truth. An indiscrimi- nate deluge of praise drowns mediocrity and greatness in the same grave, where none can distinguish between them.
When the greatest of all Englishmen, Oliver Cromwell, sat to the painter Lely for his portrait, whose pencil was addicted to flattery, he said : "Paint me as I am; leave not out one wrinkle, scar or blemish, at your peril." He wished to go to the world as he was, and greatness is wise in wishing it. No man the world ever saw was equally great in every quality of intellect and in every walk of action. All men are unequal; and it is tasteful as well as just, to plant the praise where it is true, rather than to drown all individuality and all character in one foaming chaos of eulogy.
Henry Clay was most emphatically a peculiar and strongly marked character ; incomparably more peculiar than any of those
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who were popularly considered his mental equals. Impetuous as a torrent, yet patient to gain his ends; overbearing and trampling, yet winning and soothing ; haughty and fierce, yet kind and gentle ; dauntlessly brave in all kinds of courage, yet eminently prudent and conservative in all his policy-all these moral attributes, antithetical as they seem, would shine under different phases of his conduct.
I need not detain this audience with a lengthened biographical sketch of Mr. Clay. The leading historical incidents of his life are universally known. He was born in Virginia, certainly not later than 1775, most probably a year or two earlier. His par- entage was exceedingly humble. At the age of twenty, twenty- one or twenty-two, he emigrated to Lexington, Kentucky, where he undertook to pursue the great American road to eminence- the har. For this career, it would have seemed, at that time, that his advantages were small indeed. Young, poor and uncon- nected, with scarcely ordinary attainments of education, he en- tered the lists with numerous and able competitors.
Yet, Henry Clay, destitute as he was, of adventitious advan- tages, was not destined to struggle upward along the weary and laborious path through which mediocrisy toils to rank. The cedar imbedded in the barren rocks, upon the mountain side, with scarcely soil to feed its roots, will tower above the tallest of the forest; for it is its nature to do so. So this great genius at once shot up like a shaft. He rose to high rank at the bar. In 1799, he was elected to the Kentucky Legislature; in 1806, to the United States Senate; in 1811, to the House of Representa- tives, and there began his national career. Since that time, Mr. Clay has filled a large space in the public eye. His career has been checkered, stormy and tempestuous. Now the object of uni- versal praise ; now attacked with very general censure; now cul- minating upon the crest of fortune's wave; then dashed upon the rocks and overwhelmed with roar and clamor. It was his fate at periods of his career to drain to the bottom that measure of relentless hate with which mean souls resent the imperial pride of haughty genius. It was his fate to feel that constant success is the only shield which greatness and glory can rear against the poison of envy and slander's venomous sting.
"He who ascends to mountains' tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below;
Though high above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath are earth and ocean spread,
Around him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, Thus to reward the toils which to these summits led."
That strong mind was tried by every extremity of fortune, and if sometimes inflated by success, yet borne up by the all- deathless thirst for renown, the grand incentive to all great toils or glorious deeds, he was never depressed by defeat. He faced
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his enemies, he faced fortune and he faced defeat with the same dauntless heart and the same unquailing brow, in youth and in age, regardless when or how they came, or what the peril might be. Yet when most overborne with calumny, when hatred raged fiercest against his person, and he was most stained with slander -even at that time, to enemies as to friends he was an object of admiring respect. When lashed into fury by disappointment, defeat and opposition, and the stormy passions of his tempes- tuous soul raged like a whirlwind, his bitterest opponent would .gaze curiously upon him with a strange mixture of hatred, fear and admiration.
There are many phases in which it is necessary to regard Mr. Clay, to reach a correct estimate of his character; and to accom- plish their delineation without a degree of jumbling confusion, is a work of some difficulty. As an orator he was brilliant and grand. None of his contemporaries could so stir men's blood. None approached him in his mastery over the heart and the imagination of his hearers. Of all the gifts with which nature decks her favorites, not the greatest or grandest certainly, but the most brilliant, the most fascinating, and for a moment the most powerful, is exalted eloquence. Before its fleeting and brief glare, the steady light of wisdom, logic or philosophy pales, as the stars fade before the meteor. With this choice and glori- ous gift nature had endowed Mr. Clay beyond all men of the age. Like all natural orators, he was very unequal, sometimes sink- ing to commonplace mediocrity, then again when the occasion roused his genius, he would soar aloft in towering majesty. He had little or none of the tinsel of rhetoric or the wordy finery which always lies within the reach of the rhetorician's art.
Strong passions, quick sensibility, lofty sentiment, powerful reason, were the foundation of his oratory, as they are of all true eloquence. Passion, feeling, reason, wit, poured forth from his lips in a torrent so strong and inexhaustible, as to whirl away his hearers for a time in despite of their opinions. Nor should it be forgotten, slight and unimportant as physical qualities may appear in our estimate of the mighty dead, that his were emi- nently fitted for the orator. A tall, slender, erect person, chang- ing under the excitement of speech its loose flaccidity of muscle into the most vigorous and nerved energy ; an eye small, indeed, but deep and bonnily set, and flaming with expression; and last and most important of all, a voice deep, powerful, mellow and rich, beyond expression-rich is a feeble phrase to express its round, articulate fullness, rolling up with the sublime swell of the organ-all these together formed wonderful aids to eloquence, and his great and numerous triumphs attest their power. He had the true mesmeric stroke of the orator-the power to infuse his feelings into his hearers; to make them think as he thought, and feel as he felt. No one can form any adequate conception of his eloquence, who has not heard Mr. Clay when his blood was up, and the tide of inspiration rolling full upon him.
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His words might indeed be written down; but the flame of mind which sent them forth red-hot and blazing from its mint, could not be conveyed by letters. As well attempt to paint the lightning. The crooked, angular line may be traced, but the glare and the flame and the roar and the terror and the electric flash are gone. Stormy, vehement and tempestuous as were his passions and his oratory, there was still underneath them all a cool stream of reason, running through the bottom of his brain, which always pointed him to his object, and held him to his course. No passions so stormy ever left their possessor so watchful of his objects. Reason held the helm while passiou J blew the gale.)
As a debater, it would not be just to say that Mr. Clay held the same rank; at least it may be said with justice, that in all the walks of debate he was not equally eminent. He was able everywhere; and it is but gentle criticism to say, that in some trains of thought he did not shine forth with the power and lus- tre which marked his eloquence. It appears to me, after a criti- cal study of his speeches, that he discussed facts with as much power as any of his greatest rivals. It appears to me, also, that he fell beneath some of them in the discussion of principles. One of the greatest of his compeers taunted him once in the Sen- ate with an inability to analyze abstruse subjects. The taunt was made stronger, probably, by anger, than truth or candor could warrant ; yet it seems to me to have been partially just. No one who studies Mr. Clay's arguments upon points of political econ- omy, can avoid perceiving how rarely he analyzes the principle involved. We see a vast array of facts, many keen and thought- ful remarks about the results of the measure, but an analysis of its principle is scarcely ever attempted. He doubtless under- stood the protective tariff system better than he did any other subject in the range of political economy ; and no one can read his speeches upon that question without being struck with this feature. It is still more marked whenever he discusses the subject of finance. A philosophic discussion of a principle, in- dependent of the practical condition of things, is never to be found in his speeches ; and in this he presented a most pointed contrast to his great rival, who so short a time preceded him to the grave. It may be said that this was the result of imperfect education, and the barely hasty study which a busy, stirring life enabled him to bestow upon abstruse subjects ; but the better opinion seems to be that he was eminently a practical mau, and the bent of his genius called him away from the metaphysics of politics.
Mr. Clay was undoubtedly a far greater man than the Scotch economist, Adam Smith ; yet it is not probable that any extent of education, or any amount of labor, or any length of study, would have enabled him to write Adam Smith's book. Yet was he a very great debater, also.
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