USA > Tennessee > Notable men of Tennessee, from 1833 to 1875, their times and their contemporaries > Part 2
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Washington College was founded in 1780, in the wilderness of Washington county, by the justly celebrated Rev. Samuel Doak. Washington College was the first classical institution west of the Alleghanies, and for a great many years it was the leading one .* It was originally chartered by the legislature of North Carolina as Martin Academy in 1783. In 1795 the terri- torial legislature of Tennessee chartered it, on the motion of John Sevier, under the name of Washington College, "in honor of the illustrious President of the United States." It was the first institution to bear his name. The elder Doak was a re- markable man. He was celebrated for intellect, learning and
*"Winning of the West," by Theodore Roosevelt.
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wonderful will power. His grandson, Alexander A. Doak, was a worthy representative of his distinguished ancestor. In gen- eral culture the younger Doak, perhaps, has never had an equal in the State. Fresh from the halls of Princeton at the time of young Temple's college days, the youthful president brought all the spirit of his alma mater to Washington College. He threw around his pupils the atmosphere of intellectuality of the former, and breathed into them a love of culture in the broadest sense. He unconsciously transmitted to them his own elegance of manner and speech. The refined, high-strung nature of Tem- ple bore through life the impress of the subtle influence of the beloved president, between whom and himself there grew a close and intimate friendship. At Washington College in the '40's a splendid set of young men from the best families of Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Illinois and other States gathered. The father of Zebulon B. Vance met Temple while the latter was a student at this famous institution. Mr. Vance was so favorably impressed with the young man that he sent his son Zebulon to Washington College with the under- standing that Temple would take him in charge. Thus Wash- ington College claims as an alumnus Zebulon Vance, the late noted governor and senator from North Carolina.
In his college days Temple was the leader in organizing a lit- erary society at Washington College in 1841, which society con- tinues to the present time. In 1839, at Tusculum College, he also aided in starting a debating society. Thus early was showed the active mind that throughout life made him a sug- gester of useful innovations.
At Washington College young Temple pursued his studies with great assiduity, and he graduated in 1844. He was imme- diately tendered a professorship in the college, which he de- clined. On leaving college he at once entered the field of politics. He made speeches for Mr. Clay in Carter, Washington, Greene, Cocke, Jefferson and Sullivan counties, traveling and speaking with the late Hon. William G. Brownlow. A few months later he read law under the direction of the late Judge Robert J. Mckinney. In the same class were F. W. Compton, afterwards one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State of Arkan- sas ; Robert H. Armstrong of Knoxville; John K. Howard, afterwards a well-known politician, and John A. Mckinney, recently judge of the first judicial district. In 1846 these young
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men were admitted to the bar. Compton and Temple formed a partnership and located at Greeneville. Compton, Howard and Temple made their début as lawyers in the same case, before Judge Alexander, and were all publicly complimented by him from the bench for their efforts. In July, 1847, ten months after obtaining his law license, at the age of twenty-seven, Tem- ple became the Whig candidate for Congress against Andrew Johnson, then a candidate for re-election for his third term. After a heated canvass of three weeks, the usual majority of Mr. Johnson in the district was reduced from about 1500 to 313 votes. With dismay Johnson saw fresh laurels won daily by his aggressive young adversary. The result of the election was a surprise to nearly every man in the district except the candidates themselves. "Temple, defeated as he was, felt that he was half conqueror, and Johnson, though elected, was deeply mortified and humiliated. This was one of the remarkable polit- ical contests of that day. . . That a young man, without money or political experience, had entered that struggle in the face of a large Democratic majority, and had so reduced it after a joint canvass with Johnson, then in his prime, made it a won- derful and memorable campaign. Johnson was considered in- vincible on the stump, yet Temple made a reputation possessed by few men in the whole country .*
"It is useless to speculate on the effect the defeat of Johnson in that race might have had on his future political fortunes. He was a man of such ambition, such strong and recuperative pow- ers, and of such infinite resources, that ordinary rules of calcu- lation would fail to give a satisfactory conclusion. But it is almost certain that by a defeat he would have been thrown out of the line of success which he afterwards followed up to the very highest positions of honor. It is almost certain that Lan- don C. Haynes would have been the regular Democratic candi- date for Congress at the next election, with Johnson probably as an independent candidate. Whether defeated or elected, he would have been somewhat out of line with his party, and the governorship and the senatorship would have been postponed or never attained. That he would have again appeared in politics, and with some success, none will doubt who knew his great pow- ers and intense ambition. But the probabilities are that his sub-
"Prominent Tennesseeans," by Hon. William S. Speer.
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NOTABLE MEN OF TENNESSEE
sequent career would have been greatly modified and changed by a defeat."*
Another writer says of this race: "Suppose Temple had de- feated Johnson in 1847? Could Johnson have recovered his lost ground afterwards and been governor in 1853 and 1855 and United States senator in 1857? And without the prestige of his unbroken series of brilliant victories and the great influence coming to him by virtue of the high positions he held, could he have been such a tower of strength to the union cause in 1861? And had he not been able to line up his Democratic followers in East Tennessee on the side of the union in 1861, what would have been the effect on the Bell and Everett men? Left standing alone by their Democratic neighbors, would they have still stood by the union? And had East Tennessee not been for the union and not sent thousands of her sons into the federal army, what effect would that have had on the final result? These questions, so easily asked, are difficult to answer. But a careful study of the history of those stirring times will show that there was more involved in that race between Johnson and Temple away back in 1847 than merely a seat in congress and the privilege of sitting in that historic old hall of representatives, redolent with the memories of John Sevier, of Clay, of Bell and of Sam Houston ; by the side of the venerable ex-President John Quincy Adams, and of Abraham Lincoln, the one lone Whig from Illinois."
As to the outcome of the civil war, had not the people of East Tennessee and nearby States sent thousands into the federal army, Mr. Thomas Nelson Page says: "These sterling people from the Appalachian region . a half century ago ren- dered to this country an invaluable service. Without them this union would have been divided. They es- poused by a great majority the cause of the union. But, more than this, they furnished to the union cause a great friendly territory staunch for the union through its breadth and length, extending for hundreds of miles down through the south and cutting the Confederate south in two. But for them Maryland and Kentucky would have gone out of the union with a rush, and Tennessee and Virginia would have been solid from east to west. But for them the cause of secession would have inevitably succeeded."
*"Prominent Tennesseeans," by Hon. William S. Speer.
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The Johnson-Temple campaign for congress became the turn- ing point in the life of Mr. Temple. A few months after this, in 1848, he removed to Knoxville, where he became the partner of the Hon. William H. Sneed, one of the ablest lawyers of his day. His principal reason for making this change was to get out of the first district and out of politics. Ever after, though active in nearly every political contest, except while on the bench, he constantly resisted the repeated efforts made to induce him to run for congress. Several times a nomination and an election were within easy reach. Before the civil war he was also prominently spoken of by leading Whig papers for gov- ernor.
In 1850, on the recommendation of his friend, the Hon. John Bell, then senator from Tennessee, Mr. Temple was appointed by President Fillmore a commissioner, jointly with Col. Charles S. Todd of Kentucky, late minister to Russia, and Gen. Robert B. Campbell, for years a prominent member of congress from South Carolina, to negotiate with the Indian tribes in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, the territories then recently acquired from Mexico. This was done under a special act of congress. The appointment of Mr. Temple as the associate of two such widely experienced and noted men as Colonel Todd and General Campbell, and on so responsible a mission, was at the time justly considered a marked compliment. The appointment proved to be full of valuable and delightful experiences. The meeting with such men as Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, General Rush and others, who later became famous, and a taste of the social life at the military post at San Antonio, all gave interest to the trip. In Washington Mr. Temple had the privilege of seeing and knowing many of the striking men of that dazzling day- Clay, Webster, Benton and others.
In September, 1851, soon after returning home, Mr. Temple was married to Miss Scotia Caledonia Humes. Her father, David Humes, a remarkable man, both mentally and physically, was of the celebrated Scotch family of that name. His wife, Eliza Saunderson, also of Scotch birth, and related to many of the best Scotch families, was a woman of conspicuous worth, intelligence and strength of character. The wife of Mr. Temple was the youngest of four sisters. Mrs. Temple had rare per- sonal charms: her striking presence, her winning manner, her ever-present sunshine of disposition, her kindliness of spirit,
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united in making her a favorite. While a leader socially, she was eminently a home-maker and devoted to her family and to her domestic duties. She was justly celebrated for the splendor of her hospitality.
Mr. Temple and Mrs. Temple had but one child, a daughter, Mary Boyce Temple, to whom they were devotedly attached, and who in affectionate remembrance of her father publishes this book.
After the return of Mr. Temple from Texas he again became the law partner of William H. Sneed. This partnership lasted until the latter was elected to congress in August, 1855. Mr. Temple then formed a partnership with the Hon. Connally F. Trigg, late United States district judge of Tennessee, and this partnership continued until 1859.
In 1856 the Southern Commercial Convention met in Knox- ville. It was composed of notable men from all the Southern States, such as Benjamin Yancey of Georgia, a brother of William L. Yancey ; L. W. Spratt ; the Hon. William W. Boyce, member of congress from South Carolina ; Gen. Roger A. Pryor of Virginia, now judge of the supreme court of New York, and others. Mr. Temple took an active part in the often heated dis- cussions of this convention, and, with his usual sense of modera- tion, introduced resolutions against the reintroduction of the African slave trade, which had been boldly advocated.
In 1860 Mr. Temple was a delegate to the National Union Convention at Baltimore, and helped to nominate Bell and Everett for President and Vice-President. On his return to Tennessee, despite his remonstrance, he was chosen as the Bell elector for the second district. The joint canvass with the Breckinridge elector, James D. Thomas, lasted thirty days. It was heated from start to finish. After it was ended, Mr. Temple canvassed several of the adjoining counties, speaking until the day of the election. "More unequivocally and positively than any public speaker in the State, in that canvass Mr. Temple laid before the people and emphasized the question of union or dis- union. He felt deeply and sorrowfully the danger of civil war. He foretold, almost with the spirit of prophecy, that disunion or secession, and then a conflict of arms, would follow the elec- tion of Mr. Lincoln. He charged distinctly that in that event there was a deliberate purpose on the part of the southern lead- ers to break up the union. He denounced the contemplated pur-
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pose in the most vigorous words, and appealed to the people to rebuke the scheme. He discussed this question, and this only.
In that campaign and in the discussions that followed he did as much as any one man to mould the union sentiment which was so conspicuously displayed by East Tennesseeans dur- ing the whole war, and which has guided their political action since. This union sentiment existed in the minds of the people by intuition and education, but it required such courageous men as Mr. Temple to cause it to crystallize and lead it to the accom- plishment of results."*
In November, 1860, Mr. Temple made the first union speech delivered in Tennessee after the election of Mr. Lincoln. Among his papers is found this note: "I do not hesitate to affirm as a part of the truth of history, unknown to others, that the course taken by the union men in the two meetings of November and December, 1860, in Knoxville, was planned and arranged solely by Mr. Fleming and myself at my suggestion." In February, 1861, he was unanimously nominated by the union men to repre- sent Knox and Sevier counties in the proposed State convention. The union candidates were overwhelmingly elected against strong opposition, while the convention was voted down. Mr. Temple received in Sevier county thirteen hundred votes out of a total of thirteen hundred and one.
Again, in the spring, when the question of secession was a second time brought before the people, he took the stump to oppose it, and spoke until the day of the election on June 8.1 His last speech was at Concord, in a slaveholding community, where he told the slaveholders that by his course he was a truer friend of slavery than they; "that they were probably destroy- ing this species of property ; that if they went out of the union
*Speer.
*When Judge Temple spoke at Blaine's Cross Roads, among his audience was Robert Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina, and the ladies of his family, who were spending the summer nearby. So indignant did they become at the bold tenor of the speech that they soon left. Interesting, is it not, to note that this conspicuous and extreme advocate of slavery was the first cousin of John Quincy Adams? A brother of Abigail Smith Adams, the wife of John Adams, removed to South Carolina and married a girl that objected to the name Smith; consequently she induced him to take her family name, Rhett. The strong intellect of John Quincy Adams came from his mother, and this same intellect appears in Robert Barnwell Rhett, who was the successor to Calhoun in the United States Senate, presided over the Charleston Convention which voted to take the State out of the Union, and was a candidate for the presidency of the Southern Confederacy.
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they would be whipped back into it again; that the government was powerful enough to accomplish this, and would do it."* He often declared during this canvass that if forced to make a choice between slavery and the union, he would say: "Live the union ; perish slavery." In the celebrated Greeneville Convention of June, 1861, he was the author of the pacific substitute resolu- tion, which saved East Tennessee from the most awful conse- quences.
In 1864 Mr. Temple resumed the practice of his profession, and took into partnership Samuel A. Rodgers, later a circuit judge. In January, 1866, George Andrews, afterwards a judge of the supreme court of the State, was admitted to the firm. The business of the firm was enormous, and later James W. Dead- erick, afterwards a chief justice of the supreme court, was asso- ciated with them. Each of Mr. Temple's seven partners after- wards became a judge, excepting William H. Sneed, and he became a member of congress. In July, 1866, Mr. Temple was appointed chancellor. The appointment was unsolicited and was unknown to him until he received his commission. He kept the question of the acceptance under advisement for three weeks, and finally, through the influence of lawyers rather than by the approval of his own judgment, he accepted. He felt that he was perhaps committing an error, and later he looked back upon the acceptance of this appointment as the great mistake of his career. He was in the prime of life. After once going on the bench, though he constantly thought of resigning, like nearly all judges he could never quite bring himself to do so. He continued on the bench until September, 1878, a little over twelve years. By this time the harvest of business caused by the war had been gathered and new lawyers had come to the fore.
At the first judicial election after the war Judge Temple was re-elected chancellor without opposition. At the next election, after the amended constitution went into effect, he was a second time victorious. Although he was opposed by a very superior lawyer and a former judge his majority was about three thou- sand six hundred. He retired from the bench voluntarily, hav- ing the assurance of a re-election. He returned to the practice of law with all the vim of his younger days, and remained at the bar until November, 1881. During this time he was the attor-
*Speer.
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ney of the Rugby Colony Company, Rugby, Tennessee, and was closely associated with Russell Sturgis of Boston and Thomas Hughes, author of "Tom Brown at Rugby," and other promi- nent Englishmen.
In 1867, on the resignation of Judge Milligan as one of the judges of the supreme court of the State, Governor Brownlow immediately tendered the vacant position to Chancellor Temple, who declined it, as he preferred the chancellorship.t
In 1874 Judge Temple was appointed by President Grant one of the board of visitors to the Military Academy at West Point, where he was associated with Senators Hoar, Howe and Don Cameron, Prof. Francis B. Wayland of Yale, and others. At this time he met and formed a strong friendship for the widow of Admiral Farragut. He also met and knew James G. Blaine.
Judge Temple always took a deep interest in the agricultural development of Tennessee. Some years before the war he was a member of the State Board of Agriculture. In 1885 he pur- chased a small farm in the suburbs of Knoxville, where, while on the bench, he found recreation. He delighted in everything that grew. Everything flourished under his cultivation. His flowers were the most luxuriant, his trees the most perfect, his fruits the most luscious, his grass the most velvety. He intro- duced every new and improved variety of fruit, and every new rose was soon lending its fragrance to his rose garden. From all over the world he gathered the rarest trees and shrubs, and "Melrose," as his home was named, in memory of the home in Scotland of Mrs. Temple's mother, was as beautiful as any place in the State, with its artistic winding driveways and gently slop- ing lawns. In this park to-day are the handsomest homes of Knoxville. Judge Temple here introduced the first Jersey cattle into East Tennessee.
In 1871 he was elected president of the Eastern Division Fair at Knoxville. By his efforts, with the aid of his efficient secre- tary, Mr. C. W. Charlton, the fair was made a magnificent suc- cess. Out of this success grew the idea in Judge Temple's mind of having the farmers come together for their own mutual
¡One of the ablest, if not the ablest, jurist who ever sat on the supreme bench of Tennessee, William B. Turley of Memphis, uncle of the late United States Senator Thomas B. Turley, resigned from the supreme bench to accept the chancellorship at Memphis. Thus Judge Temple had a distinguished precedent for preferring the chancellorship to the supreme bench.
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benefit. In 1872 Judge Temple and Mr. Charlton originated and organized the East Tennessee Farmers' Convention. As president of the East Tennessee Agricultural Society Judge Temple called the convention of farmers to meet on the 16th of May. In response to this call, about two hundred farmers as- sembled. Judge Temple welcomed them to the "first convention of farmers in our history," saying: "I have seen conventions of all other callings and classes. For the first time in our history have the farmers-the most numerous, the most important of all our classes-assembled in convention as a body to deliberate on their own great interests. This fact is astonishing. Let us indulge the pleasing hope, let us resolve, that this meeting shall not be the last, but merely the beginning of a long series of annual meetings, full of instruction, continuing indefinitely through the future." And so they have continued growing each year larger, stronger, more helpful. From 2000 to 2500 farm- ers come together each year in May. Judge Temple was made the first president, then vice-president, and later honorary vice- president for life. He never ceased to take profound interest in the advancement of the farmers. Every honor, both during his life and since his death, that could be shown their founder has been extended by the Farmers' Convention. In the four meet- ings held since he passed away the convention has never failed to pay some tribute to his beloved memory. In 1910 his daugh- ter, Mary Boyce Temple, founded a "Short Course in Agricul- ture" to be held for one week, beginning December 26 of each year, in the respective counties of Eastern Tennessee, to be known as the "Oliver Perry Temple Short Course in Agricul- ture." By means of this course many farmers and their sons, who are not able to obtain the advantages of a college course in agriculture in the State University, are greatly helped.
On May 18, 1911, the largest Farmers' Convention that ever assembled in Tennessee met in Knoxville. This convention re- solved to build an assembly hall on the State agricultural farm at Knoxville and to name it "The Oliver Perry Temple Hall."
The East Tennessee Farmers' Convention, called thirty-nine years ago, May 16 and 17, 1872, has become justly celebrated, and is probably the oldest body of its kind in the United States. Its power for good has been tremendous and inestimable. At the organization the leading paper was delivered by Judge Temple. Its subject was "Stock Raising," a subject in which
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he took the liveliest interest. Judge Temple was interested not only in the farmers, but in everything that helped his fellow- man, in everything that led to the advancement of the people of his State. He was patriotic in the highest sense, and constantly aimed to develop both the people and the industries about him. For fifty-three years he was an active trustee of the East Ten- nessee University, later the State University of Tennessee. He worked earnestly for its progress. He wrote personal letters to enlist support for its advancement, he published communica- tions in its behalf through the press to reach a larger public, and he was unceasing in his efforts to secure for it appropria- tions from the legislature. He worked also for years to obtain aid from the national government, and succeeded in getting an experiment station, a military department, an agricultural bureau and certain funds or land grants that went with them. In his outlook for the university's future he was progressive and ahead of his time. At a critical period in the university's career, 1886-1887, he was himself, as chairman of the board of trustees, its acting president, and was offered the presidency. In the face of strong opposition he effected a radical change in the univer- sity's organization, and influenced Dr. Charles W. Dabney to accept the presidency, with an entire change of faculty. He was Dr. Dabney's chief counsellor in all the improvements that fol- lowed. Later, in 1901, strongly advocating its prospective benefits when it was opposed by others, he took a vital interest in the founding of the Summer School of the South in connec- tion with the university. Dr. P. P. Claxton was then at its head. On June 28, 1911, Dr. Claxton was appointed commis- sioner of education by President Taft. In no public work dur- ing his entire life of varied and great public service did Judge Temple labor so persistently, so zealously and so faithfully as in his untiring efforts for the upbuilding of the University of Tennessee.
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