USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. I > Part 74
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A famous episode of his senatorial career is described in his Reminiscences (pages 74-82), in which he alludes to slavery as "a selfish and semi-barbarous policy, originating in the Old World, and darkening with its gloomy shadow the beautiful hills and val- leys of our own natal land for more than two sad centuries of shame and sorrow," and says of the vexed question of fugitives, "I had never seen the time when I would either have gone or sent an agent in quest of a runaway slave." Yet when John C. Cal- houn threw upon him suddenly in congress the role of accusing Northerners of encouraging fugitives, he made, "I must frankly confess, one of the most fumy, rabid and insulting speeches that has ever dishonored a grave and dignified parliamentary body. These frantic and indecent words had scarcely been enun- ciated ere I became painfully sensible of the stupid and unbecom-
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ing nature of my conduct, and I would have really given worlds to recall all the nonsense I had uttered." By this incident the sen- ator from Mississippi got the name of "Hangman Foote," as ex- pressive of his attitude toward Northern enemies of slavery. But he was afterward a warm friend of John P. Hale, at whom his tirade was personally directed.
During the exciting conflict regarding the extension of slavery into the Territories, which led to threats of Southern secession, he was a pronounced Unionist, though a defender of slavery. "Jefferson Davis and Henry S. Foote were our senators, and dur- ing that winter (1850-51) in Washington they quarrelled over this question [secession ], and a blow had passed between them. From that moment, party rancor flamed into personal hatred, which no after time or circumstance could mitigate." (Reuben Davis, Rec. 315.) Foote was opposed, also, by all the representatives of Mis- sissippi in Congress, as well as Gov. Quitman, other State officers and most of the newspapers, but the sentiment in favor of some sort of accommodation and preservation of the Union was so strong in Mississippi that Foote was able, after making some forty speeches, to convoke a convention of 1,500 members at Jackson that adopted resolutions in his favor, on the day of the opening of the legislature. This body called a convention to meet at Jack- son to determine this precise question, says Foote: "Will Mis- sissippi join South Carolina in the act of secession from the Fed- eral union, proposed by the latter State?"
At the Democratic convention in Jackson, June, 1851, the nom- ination for governor was offered to Jefferson Davis, but refused by him, whereupon it was necessary to re-nominate Quitman. The Whigs lost no time in putting up Henry S. Foote. "Mississippi was in a blaze from east to west and from north to south. The issue involved the exact relation of the States to the general gov- ernment and the right of secession. Public feeling was intensified by the danger of emancipation. Both parties were pervaded by a spirit of intolerance, and the presence of ten men at any one point involved the possibility of serious trouble." (Reuben Davis' Rec- ollections.) Quitman attempted a joint canvass with Foote, but he was unable to avoid personalities, a blow passed, and Foote went on alone, claiming that he had driven his opponent from the field. About three weeks later the vote of the counties in electing delegates to the convention indicated a majority against secession of about 7,000. Upon this result, Quitman withdrew, and Jeffer- son Davis resigned from the senate to take his place as a candi- date. After making a few speeches he was stricken with pneu- monia. Foote was elected by a majority of 999. In his message to the legislature, 1854, Governor Foote said: "In the contest for governor in 1851, there was but one issue, and that was the issue of Union or Disunion-acquiescence in the Compromise enact- ments of 1850, or resistance thereto. He who either states or sug- gests that there was any other issue than this, either states or
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suggests that of which he is grossly ignorant, or that which he knows to be false."
Before leaving the senate, of which he ceased to be a member on Jan. 8, 1852, two days before his inauguration, he brought up the resolutions of the Union convention in Mississippi, and offered a resolution, in conformity with what he believed was the wish of the convention, asserting the series of measures embraced in the plan of adjustment to be "a final settlement, in principle and substance, of the distracting questions growing out of the system of domestic slavery." When inaugurated governor, he declared his belief that the resolution would be adopted, and would give as- surance "that the fugitive slave bill will be permanently retained and faithfully enforced; that no territorial governments will be hereafter formed, except upon the principle of non-intervention ; that no new State will be hereafter refused admission into the Union on account of the existence of slavery within its limits; that the Constitution and laws of the Union are to be allowed to operate without restraint or obstruction in all our vacant terri- tories; that the principle of excluding slaveholders from certain portions of our territory, situated north of a particular geograph- ical line, is not hereafter to be insisted upon ; in fine, that the whole body of measures cannot be hereafter departed from, in any material respect, without a serious violation of the principles of good faith."
In his remarks on this resolution, in the Senate, he said: "Fac- tious politicians have been industriously at work in various States of the confederacy to inflame the popular mind, and to give per- petuity to that unfortunate misunderstanding which has so long continued between good men north and south of a certain geo- graphical line. Great and persevering efforts have been made in the free States of the North, by a particular class of political agi- tators, to array public feeling against the act for the restoration of fugitives from service, and scenes have occurred, under such de- plorable instigation, of too ferocious and bloody a character to be more than alluded to on such an occasion as the present. Move- ments equally to be lamented, in my judgment, have occurred in several of the southern States of the Union, the tendency of which has been, to a considerable extent, to establish relations of perma- nent hostility between the people of the North and those of the South." He had read the resolutions of the Mississippi State con- vention, and declared: "For my own part, Mr. President, I am resolved to hold no political fellowship with any association of men, by whatever name designated, whose opinions do not har- monize perfectly with the opinions of that noble body of lovers of the Union whom I have the honor, for the present, alone to represent on this floor." Senator Foote urged that acceptance and support of the fugitive slave law was the crux of the situation, and he accused Senator Rhett, of South Carolina, a leading secession- ist, of spreading the doctrine that the fugitive slave law was a practical nullity. As governor, Foote sent a special message to
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the legislature on this subject in February, 1852, complaining that Rhett and the Free Soil party had joined hands in bringing con- tempt on the law; but he believed the people generally, North and South, were for peace. He urged the adoption of resolutions simi- lar to those he transmitted from New Jersey.
The Union-Democrats returned to the fold in the presidential campaign of 1852, and many States-rights Whigs with them, and thereafter the Democratic party was led by Albert Gallatin Brown, Jefferson Davis, William S. Barry, and others, who "made a new era in the history of the State. and helped to cra- dle the revolution of 1861." (R. Davis, 324-5.)
In 1854, at the end of his term as governor of Mississippi, Foote moved to California, but he returned to Vicksburg in 1858. Mean- while, Jefferson Davis had been secretary of war and had again been elected to the senate. Foote was a member of the Southern convention at Knoxville in 1859, and opposed secession. After Tennessee withdrew from the Union, he was a representative from that State in the Confederate States congress.
Pollard said of his career in the Confederate congress: "Mr. Foote was not a man to be deterred from speaking the truth; his quickness to resentment and his chivalry, which, somewhat Quixo- tic, was founded in the most noble and delicate sense of honor, made those who would have bullied or silenced a weaker person stand in awe of him. A man of such temper was not likely to stint words in assailing an opponent, and his sharp declamation in Congress, his searching comments, and his great powers of sar- casm, used on such men as Mallory, Benjamin and Huger, were the only relief of the dullness of the Congress and the only his- torical features of its debates."
In January, 1865, he set out from Richmond for Washington to attempt to secure an offer of terms of peace. In this effort he was encouraged by a number of his colleagues. Surrendering himself to the Federal commander at Lovettsville, he conducted from there a correspondence with the Lincoln administration, propos- ing to act independently of the Davis administration, in submit- ting a peace proposition to the Southern people, and accusing Davis of "devotion to his own selfish schemes of individual ag- grandizement." The authorities at Washington would not treat with him unless he revealed his associates in the enterprise, and as he would not do this, he was imprisoned at New York until he could be put on a steamer and sent to Europe. Returning in seven weeks, he reached New York at the time of receipt of the news of the surrender of General Lee. He was again imprisoned after the assassination of President Lincoln, and sent to Canada, but his interference with the proposition of some refugees to tear down the flag on the United States consulate won him permission to return to the South. He was restored to civil rights by act of congress. Subsequently he was a citizen of Tennessee, and under General Grant's administration, and that of Hayes, was superin- tendent of the mint at New Orleans, until his death at Nashville,
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May 20, 1880. He was the author of a History of the Southern Struggle, Reminiscences, Bench and Bar of the South and South- west, and the Texas history mentioned above. The wife of his youth was of the Winter family, of Virginia. After her death he married Mrs. Smiley, of Nashville. Two sons and a daughter live in California. Another daughter, Mrs. Stewart, was not long ago killed in New York by an automobile accident.
His duels with Prentiss and others were famous. He had an affair in the senate with Thomas H. Benton, arising from the Mis- sissippian's defence of Calhoun after the latter's death. Foote, being physically menaced, drew a revolver in self-defense, in the senate chamber, and afterwards, though in feeble health, struck John C. Fremont, Benton's son-in-law. In his reminiscences he wrote that he willingly signed a statement, when Fremont was a candidate for president, that the latter had never assaulted him and added: "Vive la bagatelle. Vive la humbug." "Foote was, in my judgment, one of the first men of his time," wrote Reuben Davis (Recollections, 101). "I have never met any other man who was so acquainted with the structure and theory of different governments, and his knowledge of his own was both extensive and accurate. He had unusual command of knowledge, and was especially gifted with a power of arranging historical facts and deducing from them political principles. In conversation he was always charming. As a speaker he was effective, and had great powers of satire and ridicule. He was a thoroughly sound-hearted man, and even when severe was never malicious. I was always fond of Foote."
Foote's Administration. Governor Henry S. Foote was inaugu- rated in the presence of the two houses, Jan. 10, 1852. His in- augural address was almost entirely devoted to a review of the great national battle which had resulted in his election as governor of Mississippi. "The scene which is now in progress," he said, "is but the quiet termination of a fiercely contested political strug- gle, in which questions of the utmost magnitude and importance to the present and future generations, have been subjected to elaborate scrutiny and to animated discussion in many of the States of the confederacy, and in which principles vitally essen- tial to the maintenance of Republican institutions have been so enforced upon the hearts and understandings of the enlightened millions who inhabit this fair continent, as to render it almost im- possible that the time should ever arrive when those principles shall be shamefully forgotten or criminally disregarded."
He rehearsed the events which led to the Convention of 1849. (q. v.) That convention, he said, proposed no change in the con- stitution or remedies subversive of it; but the Nashville conven- tion transcended its powers and was abused by factionists, while, at the same time the deliberations of congress were impeded by designing politicians. Finally the compromise was made which had met the hearty approval of nineteen-twentieths of the whole people. "In our own beloved State not a single voice is now heard
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in opposition to a series of measures, which, six months ago, were spoken of by thousands only in the language of bitter denuncia- tion and caustic ridicule. Even in the State of South Carolina, Secession has been at last completely prostrated, and that time- honored commonwealth has been gloriously redeemed from the dominion of faction." In conclusion he pleaded for social concord and brotherly kindness and a devotion of energy to the develop- ment of domestic resources.
Governor Foote regarded the proceedings in regard to swamp lands, as premature, under the laws of congress, until the registers of the land offices had submitted lists of swamp lands; declined to appoint any locating agents, and declared his opinion that the official acts of Messrs. Rayburn and Bryant had no validity what- ever.
The State officers elected in the previous November were James A. Horne, secretary of state; Gen. William Clark, treasurer ; Dan- iel R. Russell, auditor. John D. Freeman was succeeded as attor- ney-general in 1853 by D. C. Glenn.
The legislature of 1852, the Union triumph having been insuffi- cient to overcome the Democratic holdover majority in the senate, was put in turmoil by the refusal of the Democrats to permit the election of a senator for the full term approaching. (See Senators, U. S.) The senate stood, State Rights Democrats 21, Unionists 11; in the house the Unionists were in a majority, 63 to 35.
A company was incorporated to build a railroad from Memphis to Grenada, to connect there with the proposed New Orleans and Nashville line, during this period of Mississippi's history.
The survival of strong opposition to the Compromise was evi- denced by the State Rights convention at Jackson. Jan. 8, 1852, at which a resolution proposing acquiescence in the congressional laws was indignantly rejected.
In the United States senate, after the Union convention in Mis- sissippi, Gov. Foote had declared that he would no longer give his allegiance to any party but such a one as would stand on the resolutions of the Mississippi convention of 1851. He had prac- tically, therefore, left the Democratic party. The majority of the State senate, being of that party, in preventing the election of a United States senator, blocked his return to the U. S. senate, un- less he could hold together for another campaign the elements he had combined so successfully in 1851. But the brilliant ag- gressiveness that served so well then, failed as a permanent bond of association. "The only hope for Foote and his Union-Demo- crat friends was to have made a close alliance with the Whig party," wrote Reuben Davis. "If they had done so, they might possibly have effected great good to the nation; might even have averted the Civil war. The possession of the State was, at that time, everything. Mississippi was to a great extent the revolu- tionary center. Her statesmen did more to bring about a crisis than those of any other State in the Union. If they could have been kept out of place and control, the impulse might have ex-
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hausted itself by its own impatience. The issue of the canvass of 1851 was allowed to slumber in the year 1852. This oversight on the part of Foote and the Whigs enabled the Democrats to gather once more into the fold all the stray sheep of 1851." The campaign of 1852, the Whigs for General Scott and the Demo- crats for Franklin Pierce, was one of great exertion and brilliant oratory. The Democrats, led by Albert G. Brown, carried the State, and when Pierce was inaugurated, he called Jefferson Davis to his cabinet as secretary of war.
For governor in 1853 the Whigs and Union Democrats nominated Judge Francis M. Rogers, and the Democrats named John J. McRae, who had lately served a short time as United States senator. The campaign was an exciting one, and with it was mingled the question submitted to the people of paying the State bonds sold to obtain capital for the Planters' bank. Nearly 60,000 votes were cast for governor. McRae received 32,116; Rogers 27,279. The popular verdict was against paying the Planters' bank bonds. This was notwithstanding (perhaps it was encouraged by) the opinion of the High court of Mississippi, in the same year, that the immense bond issue for the Union bank was also a lawful debt. This bond question undoubtedly aided in the election of McRae. The Whigs were, as a rule, in favor of some sort of adjustment of the bonded debt.
The State had not been redistricted under the congressional ap- portionment based on the census of 1850, and the one congressman gained was elected by the State at large. The Democrats nom- inated Capt. William Barksdale. The Whigs refused to nominate. Reuben Davis, who had come within half a vote of receiving the Democratic nomination, was nominated by a convention of Choc- taw and Chickasaw counties as the choice of Northern Mississippi. Gen. Alexander Bradford, Whig, of the same section, ran as an independent. Davis withdrew in September, and Barksdale was elected. The opposition was known in political history as "the Chickasaw rebellion."
Governor Foote, in his final message to the legislature which convened in January, 1854, said that as soon as "the unexpected result of the late general election in the State of Mississippi had been duly ascertained, I felt disposed to at once resign the office of governor, and with a cheerful submission to what seemed to be the judgment of my fellow citizens touching my merits as a pub- lic agent, to retire quietly and without parade of any kind to the walks of private life." But on reflection he had decided to remain in office to prevent the inconvenience of an interregnum. He had irrevocably made up his mind, he said, to become a'citizen, at an early day, "of the newest and most distant State of the Confed- eracy." In the briefest possible manner he urged legislation as follows: Prompt and efficient arrangements for the restoration of public credit and for its future maintenance. The establish- ment of a liberal and. extended system of public education. The granting of all proper facilities for the laying of railroads. The
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thorough reformation of our system of criminal jurisprudence, now so crude and imperfect that the conviction of the most atrocious culprits is found to be well nigh impossible. The suppression, through wholesome and constitutional legislation, of the great and growing evil of intemperance. Some provision for definitive set- tlement by the people, apart from the ordinary political elections, of the question of State indebtedness, in such a manner as to save the honor of the State from lasting degradation. The increase of certain official salaries, now inadequate.
The remainder of his message is unique, being devoted to an elaborate discussion of the issue between himself and Jefferson Davis, in which he took the ground that Quitman, a gallant and high-spirited citizen, had been put forward by those who had "at- tempted since, to shuffle off the whole responsibility of what they were then so warmly counselling and abetting." The Governor proposed that they should not "thus escape," and he sought to write the history, as he saw it, into his official message. He quoted what he regarded as evidence that Mr. Davis was fully in accord with Quitman, in resistance to the Compromise, and pointed out that since Mr. Davis had become secretary of war, in an adminis- tration pledged to enforce the Compromise, he had expressed to Northern audiences, ardent love of the Union. He took no pains to conceal his great chagrin at the elevation of Davis to national office. He urged his friends, in consideration of all that was past, and of all that was so certain to come, to be of good cheer, im- pervious to despair, and confident of the realization of their hopes. "Let others enjoy, for the present, the dignity and emoluments of station, and bask in the sunshine of executive favor, under a gov- ernment which they have plotted to destroy. Be it ours to rejoice in the proud and ennobling consciousness that we have been faithful, where others have been faithless that we have labored in the good cause of the Constitution and the Union, under difficulties and dangers which could scarcely have been sur- passed, and under peculiar and astounding discouragements of late, which no human being could, twelve months ago, have an- ticipated, but which discouragements, galling and agonizing as we cannot but feel them to be, we have made up our minds, as lovers of our country, and respecters of our own dignity, for the short period of humiliation and of suffering which may yet be before us, with something of a proud patience and a stern humility, un- complainingly to endure."
In conclusion he expressed the fear that the worst was to be ex- pected if those persons were to be honored with office "whose chief distinction has arisen from their having perpetrated acts; which prove them to be dangerous citizens to the dis- couragement of a high-toned patriotism struggling against strong local prejudice and the exhaustless energies of a blind and un- reasoning fanaticism."
This message was not agreeable to the legislature, which again had a Democratic majority, and what to do with it was debated
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from day to day. Finally it was ordered printed, but the House added a note that it repudiated the accuracy of its "conclusions and averments" as defining "the motives and positions of parties and of distinguished and patriotic citizens."
Before this conclusion was reached, Gov. Foote sent in his res- ignation, Jan. 5, and thereupon the president of the senate, John J. Pettus, became acting governor until the inauguration of Gover- nor McRae, Jan. 10.
The financial statement of the administration showed receipts in 1852 of $217,897 : expenditures, $802,579. The expenditures in- cluded $282,989 common school fund, $34,000 internal improve- ment fund, $16.644 for the penitentiary, $40,000 for the lunatic asylum, $20,000 for the university, $102,000 for the levee fund. The receipts in 1853 were $280,891; expenditures $229,288.
J. Willis, architect of the lunatic asylum, reported in January, 1854, that he had been much delayed by the extraordinary high price of labor and the fearful epidemic of fever in 1853, and by a fire that destroyed much of the frame material, but the brick work was completed, and the buildings mostly under roof. The legis- lature had appropriated $135,000 for the building and $30,000 more was needed for furnishing. The building would accommodate 160 patients, and when completed would equal any institution of the kind in the United States in beauty and durability. It was opened for the reception of patients Jan. 8, 1855.
It is to be noted, of Governor Foote's administration, that within it, and encouraged by the governor, were the effective beginnings of the great railroad and levee, industrial and educational develop- ment, before the war. As a sequal, a few years later, the State had railroad communication with New Orleans, Mobile and Chi- cago, and the Yazoo Delta was redeemed from the dominion of the alligator.
Ford, a postoffice of Smith county, about 12 miles southeast of Raleigh, the county seat.
Fordyke, a post-hamlet of Yazoo county, about 18 miles north- east of Yazoo City, the nearest railroad and banking town. Pop- ulation in 1900, 20.
Forest, the capital of Scott county, is an incorporated post-village, located at the geographical center of the county, and on the line of the Alabama & Vicksburg R. R., 45 miles east of Jackson. The original county seat was located at the extinct town of Berryville, four miles southwest of Forest; it was removed to Hillsboro in 1836, and thirty years later located at Forest. The town lies in a pine forest district. It has express. telegraph, telephone and banking facilities, and a cotton warehouse. The Bank of Forest was established in 1901, with a capital of $12,500 ; the Merchants & Farmers Bank was established in 1905, with a capital of $20,000. It has three churches, a good school, and the Scott County Register, a Democratic weekly established in 1867, is now published here by E. E. and Mrs. L. Butler. Its population in 1900 was 761 ; the pop- ulation in 1906 was estimated at 1,000. The town has about 25
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