A native of North Carolina, William Rufus King, removed to Alabama in 1818. Lured to a region destined soon to take its place in the galaxy of states, Mr. King was no novice in public affairs when he reached Alabama. Indeed, he came crowned with unusual distinction for one so young in years when he migrated to a territory which was just budding into statehood. Though at the time only thirty-two years old, he had served with honor to himself and to his native state as a legislator, solicitor and congressman. When only twenty-four years old he had been sent to Congress from North Carolina. His entrance into Congress in 1810 was simultaneous with the beginning of the congressional careers of Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and William Lowndes.
Mr. King served with distinction in Congress for six years when he was chosen secretary to the American Legation at St. Petersburg, under William Pinkney, who was at that time minister to the court of Russia. After spending two years in this honorable capacity, King returned to North Carolina and subsequently removed to Alabama.
Buying a plantation near Cahaba, in 1819, he had scarcely located when he was chosen a representative to the first constitutional convention of the state. Together with Honorables Henry Hitchcock of Washington County, and John M. Taylor of Madison, Mr. King drafted the first constitution of this state. His clearness of perception, soundnessof judgment and ability in adjustment of matters of great moment arrested the attention of the leaders of the coming state, during the session of the first constitutional convention, and he was marked as one of the men of the hour in laying the foundation stones of a great commonwealth. In recognition of his ability, Mr. King was chosen one of the first national senators from Alabama when the first legislature met in 1819. Of this prospective distinction he must have been unaware, for at the time of his election he was on a visit to North Carolina.
Mr. King lived in an atmosphere above that of ordinary men. He was a man of solid rather than of shining qualities, and his life was redolent of purity and of exalted conception of duty. There was a delicacy of sentiment which characterized his conduct, an affableness and quietness of demeanor, an utter absence of display or of harshness, a serenity and gentleness, with no unbecoming speech to soil his lips, no action to repel even the humblest civilian. On the floor of the Federal Senate the Honorable R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, said on the occasion of Mr. King’s death: “He was a man whose whole soul would have sickened under a sense of personal dishonor.” He was far more forward in his assertion of the claims of others than of those for himself.
No man in the public life of America ever more won by dint of intrinsic merit than William Rufus King. Such was his bearing on all occasions that men instinctively honored him. To him as a public man principle was the path of the highestexpediency. He wore his honor on his sleeve, and would not scramble on a low plane for place, and would never learn the art of petty politics. He engaged in political contests, but they were in the open field and in full view of the eyes of the world.
Mr. King came to be the first citizen of the state, becoming Vice President of the United States, but it was entirely due to his worth and not to any of the arts of the struggling politician. Utterly without assumption he was as spectacular on one occasion as another. His was a quiet knightliness without dash, the stamp of a nobleman of nature, without lordly port.
So unquestioned was his ability, so unerring his judgment, so profoundly substantial his qualities as an ideal public servant, that the people of Alabama honored him with official station for a period of almost thirty-five years. In 1837 Mr. King was offered the position of minister to the court of Austria, but declined because of the fact that the ardent advocacy by him of the election of Mr. Van Buren might be construed as a motive looking to future emolument—the payment of a political debt. Men of that type were not so rare at that time as they now are.
When complications with certain foreign powers became imminent in consequence of the proposed annexation of Texas as an American state, there was the demand for the most scrupulous diplomacy and tact and for the ripest statesmanship on the part of those who should be sent abroad to represent the United States at the Courts of England and of France. A single misstep at this juncture wouldmean limitless trouble. One especially qualified by social prestige as well as sage statesmanship was needed to be sent to the Court of France. It was just such an emergency like this that called for the exercise of powers such as Mr. King possessed, and he was accordingly appointed to this position and served in this capacity for a period of two years, when he resigned and returned to Alabama. The seat left vacant by Mr. King in the federal senate had meanwhile been filled by Dixon H. Lewis, who was a popular idol, but of a type entirely different from that of Mr. King. Both were models of honor, each equally worthy of public esteem; but Lewis, ponderous as he was in size, was a popular speaker and more of the bonhommie type than was King. At this time, these were recognized as the two most distinguished men in the state.
On his return home King’s friends wanted him to resume his place in the United States Senate, while the friends of Lewis were equally determined that he should remain in a position which he had adorned for full two years. Political maneuvering between the friends of the two distinguished statesmen began, but negotiations seemed of no avail. It was inevitable that each must test his strength before the people. King and Lewis were personal friends, they were from adjacent counties, and both were democrats. So conspicuous had Mr. King become now as a national figure that many predicted that Lewis would not dare oppose him, but he did. The contest was joined. It was a battle of giants. King, lithe, elegant, smooth, plain andsimple of diction, but clear as the shining of the sun, without the gifts of the orator, but a superb talker, went before the masses. Lewis, weighing five hundred pounds, his large full face beaming with sunshine, and though large, a most telling orator who could relate an anecdote with marvelous effect, while he possessed unquestioned ability to give frequent expression to passages of oratory, won his way rapidly to the public heart. As is well known, Lewis won, but the two friends were destined each to be gratified, for Governor Chapman was able soon to appoint Mr. King United States Senator in the stead of Senator Bagby. During the administration of President Fillmore Mr. King was chosen to act as the presiding officer of the senate, and in the summer of 1852 he was nominated for the vice presidency, elected on the national ticket with Franklin Pierce, but died the next year at his home at Cahaba, Ala.
In a number of respects the Honorable Dixon Hall Lewis was a very remarkable man. He was precocious, though, in his early years, not studious. Still, he held his own in his classes in South Carolina College, as the university of that state was then called, with decided merit. Possessed from the beginning with a popular turn, he was a great favorite in college circles, and was counted an all-round good fellow.
Lewis was a student at the South Carolina College during the time that nullification was a dominant issue, and readily imbibed the principles advocated by Mr. Calhoun, who was then the ideal of most young South Carolinians. The more mature and thoughtful among the students shared in the political issues of the time, especially when they were as exciting as nullification then was. In subsequent years the great South Carolina statesman never had a more ardent admirer and supporter than Dixon H. Lewis.
One of the most remarkable facts connected with Mr. Lewis was his unusual size. His remarkable corpulency and his enormous physique made him a spectacle among men of ordinary size. His weight was excessive even in boyhood, and it continued to increase so long as he lived. His death was doubtless due to his excessive adiposity, and he was cut down at an age when he should have been most useful.
Graduating from South Carolina College heremoved to Alabama in 1822. At that time Lewis was just twenty years old. Admitted to the bar, he began the practice of law in Montgomery. His ability in the court room was at once recognized, and had he continued, would doubtless have achieved distinction at the bar; but his pronounced fondness for politics led him early into that arena in which he spent the remainder of his life. His career as a public servant began in the Alabama legislature. During the years 1825-26-27, he represented Montgomery County in the general assembly of the state. At that time he weighed about three hundred and eighty pounds.
By dint of ability Mr. Lewis took a foremost position among the Alabama legislators. When scarcely eligible by reason of age, he was chosen for Congress from his district, and continued in the lower house of the National Congress from 1829 to 1844, when he was transferred to the Federal Senate.
Mr. Lewis belongs to the states’ rights school of politicians, and never had a cause a more fervid advocate. In Congress his influence was pronounced, and for years he was the acknowledged leader of the Alabama delegation in the lower branch of that body. He was unalterably opposed to a protective tariff, and never let an opportunity slip to oppose its fallacy and injustice. His principles were embodied in the platform resolutions adopted by the national democratic convention which met in Baltimore in 1840.
Ponderous as he was, Mr. Lewis was not impaired in his activity either as a state legislator or as a congressman. His interest in all matters publicenabled him to overcome the hindrance encountered in his enormous weight. It was one of his controlling principles never to be absent from an important committee meeting, where he was always pronounced and firm in the expression of his convictions. When in 1844 he resigned from the House of Representatives to take his seat in the Senate, he was chairman of the committee of ways and means, and the ability shown by him in the lower branch led to his appointment to the chairmanship of the committee on finance when he entered the upper chamber.
His life was a perpetual struggle against the difficulty encountered by his weight. He could walk but little, and he could enter but few vehicles. His private carriage had to be specially constructed with respect to strength, and its entrance was of unusual width. In his home a special chair or chairs had to be manufactured adapted to his size, and his bedstead was of far more than ordinary strength. He moved from place to place with exceeding difficulty, but in the constant warfare of the spirit against the flesh the former predominated, for impelled by a gigantic will, he declined to hesitate because of his immense weight and size.
In his trips to Washington and returning, in the days before railroads became so great a convenience, Mr. Lewis had to travel in an old fashioned stage coach, and always paid for two seats. A chair of unusual size was made for him to occupy in the House of Representatives, and when he entered the Senate it was transferred to that chamber. Yet, as has already been said, Lewis was anorator of unusual power. His freedom of utterance, pleasing manner, jovial disposition, and his ability to present with clearness and power the issues discussed, with a reliance on well arranged and thoroughly digested facts, made him formidable in debate, and quite popular before a promiscuous audience.
In this memorable contest against Mr. King for the National Senate in 1841, the labors of Lewis were herculean. Weighing at this time about five hundred pounds, he had to be helped to the platform, and on one occasion when the weather was excessively hot, two devoted country constituents, one on each side of the sweltering orator, relieved the situation by the swaying of two large palm fans, which they employed with vigor while he spoke with ardor. The contrast between Mr. Lewis and Mr. King was most striking—the one ponderous and bulky, while the other was tall, thin, lithe and sinewy.
Mr. Lewis declined to be jested about his size and was sensitive to the faintest allusion to it. But his genuine chivalry forbade his taking the slightest advantage of anyone, or of subjecting any to the least inconvenience because of his condition. On one occasion while returning from Washington, the steamer on which he was, was wrecked. The small boat was ordered out for the relief of the excited and distressed passengers, but he declined to enter it, for fear that his huge weight would imperil the safety of the others. Remaining alone in extreme peril till the others could be safely rescued, he was subsequently reached by the small boat and saved.
Elected to the Senate in 1844, Mr. Lewis died in 1848. In the interest of his health he went to New York during the latter part of 1848, was treated as was supposed successfully and, animated by the prospect of a speedy resumption of his public duties at Washington, he spent some time in visiting the objects of interest about and within the city of New York. But his special trouble returned with suddenness and he soon died. At the time of his death Mr. Lewis was forty-six years old.
So nation-wide had become the reputation of this remarkable man that his body lay in state for some time in the city hall of New York before its interment in Greenwood cemetery. The funeral procession was one that did honor to his career, for at its head, were the mayor of New York, the governor of the state, and every congressman who was able to reach the metropolis in time. He died just as he was emerging into the full exercise of his splendid powers.
The galaxy of the names of Alabama’s worthy sons would be incomplete with the omission of that of Governor Benjamin Fitzpatrick. An uneducated and orphaned boy, he came to Alabama from Greene County, Georgia, in 1816, to assist in the planting interests of his elder brothers, whose lands lay along the eastern bank of the Alabama River, about six miles outside of Montgomery. He never attended school more than six months of his life, and in his early days was inured to the rough encounters of the world. Colonel Brewer states in his history of Alabama that Mr. Fitzpatrick, in subsequent years, was accustomed to point out a field near Montgomery where he tended a herd of swine for his brothers as the hogs would feed on the mast of the oak woods.
Service as a deputy sheriff in Elmore County, which position brought him into contact with the courts, aroused an ambition to become a lawyer, and he prepared himself for that profession under the tutelage of the Hon. N. E. Benson. Admitted to the practice of the law when he was barely 21, he rapidly won popularity as a lawyer by his devotion to the interests of his clients. After practicing for a period in Elmore County, he removed to Montgomery, where he entered into co-partnership with Henry Goldthwaite.
The legal development of Mr. Fitzpatrick was rapid, and he was elected to the solicitorship of the Montgomery circuit, and after serving one termwas again elected to the same position. By his marriage to a daughter of General John Elmore his political fortunes were greatly enhanced. The Elmores were one of the most distinguished families of the state, a son of the general being a national Senator from South Carolina, another a distinguished lawyer in Montgomery, still another was the attorney general of Louisiana, yet another was secretary of state of Alabama and later collector of the port of Mobile, while another was a federal judge in Kansas. By his marriage Mr. Fitzpatrick became a brother-in-law to the Hon. Dixon H. Lewis.
Driven by broken health from the seclusion of his law office, in 1827, he repaired to his plantation near Montgomery, where he maintained a princely country home in which was dispensed the hospitality for which the old-time southerner was proverbial. At no period in the history of any land was hospitality more sumptuous than in the princely homes of the South during the régimé of slavery, and the home of the Fitzpatricks was a typical one of the hospitality of those days now gone. For full twelve years he lived contented and happy on his fertile plantation, unsolicitous of public office, but in 1840 he was summoned from his retreat by the state democratic convention to serve as a Van Buren elector, and succeeded in swinging the state into the column of the democratic candidate from New York. His ability was so distinguished during his campaign that he was honored with the governorship of the state at the close of the same year.
During his period of retirement Mr. Fitzpatrickhad remained in vital touch with the existing issues of the time, and his powers were solidified in his rural retreat, so that on his return to public life he was far more amply equipped. This was at once manifest in his first message to the legislature, which message by the breadth of its statesmanship stamped him one of the foremost publicists of the state, and he easily succeeded himself in the governor’s chair without opposition. So exceptional had been his dual administration that a joint resolution of the general assembly approved his course as governor throughout, as well as himself personally. He retired from the office of governor crowned with the laudations of his countrymen.
Repairing to his plantation, he was summoned by Governor Chapman to the assumption of the United States senatorship to fill the unexpired term of Dixon H. Lewis. He was appointed again to fill the unexpired term of the Hon. William R. King, and in 1855 was elected by the Alabama legislature to the federal senate for a period of six years. It was during this period of his career that the highest honor of the senate was conferred on Mr. Fitzpatrick, as he was chosen by that body as president pro tempore.
In 1860, the second place on the national ticket with Stephen A. Douglas, was tendered Senator Fitzpatrick, but this he declined because of his disagreement with Mr. Douglas on his “squatter sovereignty” doctrine. This indicates that Senator Fitzpatrick was not a secessionist, for he shared in the views of other eminent southern leaders that secession was not the remedy to cure the grievancesof which he insisted the South justly complained. But, like those with whom he shared in sentiment respecting secession, this did not deter him from sympathy with the cause of the South. In every way he contributed to the cause of the South when once the clash came. Yielding his convictions, he continued a southern patriot, and when the others of the South withdrew from Congress, he sundered his relation from the federal government as a senator, and ardently espoused the cause of his section.
The last public function of Senator Fitzpatrick was that of the presidency of the constitutional convention of Alabama in 1865. While always preserving a cheerful demeanor, there is little doubt that the results of the war, in the complete wreckage of the industrial system of the South greatly preyed on his spirit. He died when he was about seventy years old.
Few public men in Alabama have left a purer record than Governor Fitzpatrick. His dominant characteristic was his integrity. He would never yield to compromise of principle, holding that principle is indivisible. If sternness was required to demonstrate this, then he could be stern. To him justice was a supreme principle. He would never waver the width of a hair even for the most cherished friend or kinsman. He was most exacting of the performance of public duty by public servants, and in order that he might rigidly comply with the conditions and terms of his oath of office, he familiarized himself with every detail of the duties of his subordinates. He made no pledge which he did not fulfill and committed himself to nocause which he did not execute to the letter. To him public office was a public trust, and to this he rigidly conformed. The aggregation of the qualities which entered into the character of Mr. Fitzpatrick made him an ideal public servant, whose course in life is well worthy of emulation.
The year 1845 was marked by a rent in the democratic party of Alabama. Governor Fitzpatrick’s term was soon to expire, and it was necessary to choose a successor. A lapse of interest had come to political affairs in the state, due largely to the defeat of the whig party the year before in failing of the election of the President. The result was that of demoralization to the whigs throughout the country, for they had been animated by the belief that they would succeed in capturing the presidency. They showed no disposition, at any rate, to enter the lists for the governorship in Alabama.
In May, 1845, a democratic convention was called to meet at Tuscaloosa, then the capital of the state, and it was sparsely attended, a fact due to the political indifference everywhere prevailing. However, the attendance on the convention on the first day would have been much larger but for the delay of the boat from Mobile, which was to bring all the delegates from the southern counties.
The friends of the Hon. Nathaniel Terry of Limestone were intent on his nomination for gubernatorial honors, and as those present were mostly from the counties north, they were anxious to proceed to the nomination of their candidate. There were others present, however, to whom Mr. Terry was not the choice, and they sought to have the convention adjourn till the next day, in order to await the arrival of the delayed steamer from Mobile. But Terry’s friends, who were evidentlyin the majority, with the slim attendance already present, insisted on the nomination being made that day. This evoked a stern protest on the part of the others, which protest was read before the body, and afterward printed and circulated to the injury of the candidacy of Mr. Terry, but, notwithstanding this vehement protest, the nomination was made.
This was a signal for a storm. Many present were dissatisfied, and those who arrived later swelled the roar of the tempest which sprang up at once. Murmurings of dissatisfaction were heard on all hands, much to the gratification of the whigs who had so often sustained sore defeat at the hands of the much-boasted united democracy. The whigs not only chuckled at the domestic quarrel of the democrats, but did what they could to widen the breach between the two factions. The dissatisfaction at last found vent in the naming of another democratic candidate for the governorship, in the person of Chancellor Joshua Lanier Martin of Tuscaloosa. He was an ardent democrat, was widely and favorably known, had served with great acceptance in a number of positions, such as legislator, solicitor, circuit judge and congressman, and as a voice had been denied many in the convention, they proposed to resent it by seeking to elect another democrat rather than the one nominated by the precipitate few. Judge Martin did not seek the nomination, but when chosen under the conditions, he accepted the popular nomination.
The issue between the two formidable candidates was now squarely joined, the friends of Mr. Terry urging the platitudinous plea of party nomination,and party loyalty, but this only served to augment the popular flame. This was met by the counter plea of advantage having been taken, and therefore the plea of support on account of the improper nomination was without force. Never before had a rupture come to the party in the state, and this was used as a reinforcement of the plea already named, but without much avail.
Thus the battle raged and from its apathy the state was aroused from confine to limit, and the land rang with the oratory of contending party factions. Divisions and dissensions became rampant. Neighbor strove with neighbor, and community struggled against community. Households were divided, churches were sundered by divergent sentiment, and men wrangled in anger as though the fate of the continent were seriously involved. Reasons and counter reasons flew like bullets in battle, and the stock arguments of the campaign became those of everyone, and he would use them with all the fervor and friction of sudden originality. In view of the unquestioned democracy of Judge Martin, his reputation, official and private, his personal popularity, and the precipitate action taken in the nomination of his opponent, it was clear that Mr. Terry was breasting odds from the outset of the campaign.
Besides all this, the whigs, anxious to give as great a stagger as possible to “the regular nominee” of the democratic party, lent support to Judge Martin. Thus the campaign became suddenly stormy. Excitement ran high, passion superseded reason, and clamor filled the air. Up to the closing of the polls on election day, the question was socomplicated by the interlacing vote of the state, that no one could venture a prediction of the result. But Judge Martin led his opponent by at least five hundred votes. This was the first defeat ever sustained by a nominated democrat in the state, for a state office, and, as usual under similar conditions, there were dire predictions of the utter demolition of the democratic party in the state of Alabama!
Be it said to the perpetual credit of Judge Martin that he bore himself with singular equanimity throughout the prevalence of the strenuous campaign. His was an atmosphere high above the clatter of the demagogue, and it was understood that the place was undesired by him unless it should come purely in recognition of his merit and fitness. In observing this principle in politics, Governor Martin was never defeated for a public office.
Governor Martin was by birth a Tennessean. Denied an advanced education, he turned to the best account that which he had in the common schools, which limited training he solidified by teaching during his younger years. He reached Alabama in 1819, the same year of its admission into the Union, finished his law studies, which had been begun in Tennessee, and settled at Athens to practice. The political stations held by Governor Martin have already been indicated, and by reason of these he took with him into the gubernatorial office a thorough knowledge of public affairs. It was during his administration that the Mexican war occurred, the demands growing out of which he met with official fidelity. His term of office having closed, he resumed the practice of the law, and, savewhen elected to the legislature in 1853, he never filled another official station. For thirty years, almost, he was in the public service, and a more faithful officer the state never had. He died at Tuscaloosa on November 2, 1866, being sixty-seven years old.
No man in the early annals of the state had a more varied or romantic career than the Rev. Isaac Smith, a courageous missionary of the Methodist Church. His life and labors do not find recognition on the page of secular history, but the contribution which he made to the state in its early formation wins for him a meritorious place in the state’s chronicles. It is doubtful that his name and labors are familiar to the present generation of the great body of Christians of which he was an early ornament, but they are none the less worthy of becoming record.
Mr. Smith enlisted from Virginia in the army of Washington while yet a youth. Bright and alert, he was chosen an orderly by Washington, and served in that capacity under both Washington and LaFayette. When the new nation started on its independent career and when the region toward the west began to be opened, Mr. Smith migrated toward the south, became a minister of the Methodist Church, and offered his services as a missionary to the Indian tribes. Hated because of their ferocity, the prevailing idea in the initial years of the nineteenth century was that of the destruction of the red man, but Mr. Smith felt impelled to take to him the gospel of salvation.
His labors were not confined to any particular region and he trudged the country over, imperiling his life among the wild tribes, who came to love him because he was one pale face who sought todo them good. He founded an Indian school near the Chattahoochee and taught the Indians the elements of the English language. When Bishop Asbury, the most indomitable of all the Methodist bishops, came to the South, Mr. Smith was his close friend and adviser, and most valuable were his services to the bishop in planting Methodism in the lower South.
All real teachers are greater learners than instructors, for in their zeal to impart they must first come to acquire. Mr. Smith was an assiduous student and with the growth of his years was an accumulated stock of both wisdom and learning. As he passed the meridian of life he became a power in his denomination and his counsel was freely sought in the high circles of his church. When, in 1825, General LaFayette visited Alabama in his tour of the South, he passed through the Creek Nation, in Georgia, and was escorted by a body of Georgians to the Chattahoochee River and consigned to the care of fifty painted Indian warriors, who vied with the pale faces in doing honor to the distinguished visitor. Rowing LaFayette across the river to the Alabama side, he was met by Rev. Isaac Smith. The great Frenchman instantly recognized Mr. Smith as one of his boy orderlies during the campaigns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. There was a cordial demonstration of mutual affection between the old French veteran and the younger man, now a Methodist preacher. The painted Indian warriors looked on the exchange of greeting with evident pleasure. It so happened that LaFayette reached the Alabama side just at the point wherestood the humble school building of the intrepid missionary.
The first demonstration of greeting being over, Mr. Smith eschewing all conventionality, and, in keeping alike with his Methodist zeal and the joy which he experienced in meeting his old commander, proposed that all bow in prayer. When LaFayette and Smith dropped on their knees the Indian warriors did the same, and there on the banks of the deep rolling Chattahoochee, beneath ancient oaks, in fervid and loud demonstrations of prayer, the voice of Mr. Smith rang out through the deep forests. The picture thus presented was worthy the pencil of the master—the ardent but devout preacher, the great French patriot and the half hundred warriors, each with his hands over his face, praying in the wild woods of Alabama. The prayer was an unrestrained outburst of joy at the meeting of the old commander and a devout invocation for the preservation of the life of the friend of American liberty.
Yielding to the hospitable pressure of the boy soldier of other and stormier days, LaFayette was taken to the humble cottage of the missionary in the woods, and in order partly to entertain the distinguished guest and partly to afford him an insight into aboriginal life, Mr. Smith arranged for a game of ball to be played by the Indians. The day over and LaFayette was taken into the cabin, served with the scanty fare of the pioneer missionary, and beside the primitive fireplace the two, the missionary and the great Frenchman, sat that night and fought over the battles in which both were participantsduring the Revolution. They parted on the following morning, LaFayette continuing his course toward Cahaba, the state capital, and Mr. Smith resuming his treadmill round of duty as a secluded missionary to the Indians. They parted with the same demonstrations of affection with which they had met, and never again met each other in the flesh.
With cheerful alacrity Mr. Smith continued his work among the Indians, to which work he gave expansion in later years as the white population continued to multiply. He was of immense service to the government in adjusting the claims of the Indians and in pacifying them in the acceptance of the inevitable lot finally meted out to them. As a mediatorial agent Mr. Smith prevented much butchery in those early days when the extinction of the Indian was so seriously desired.
With fame unsought and undesired, the Rev. Isaac Smith continued his missionary and evangelistic labors in Alabama till forced by the weight of years and the results of the privations of pioneer life to retire from the scene of activity. He lived, however, to see the state of his adoption pass from an infantile stage to one of great population and prosperity and to witness the consummation of much of that of which he was one of the original prospectors. Retiring in his last years to Monroe County, Georgia, he died at the age of seventy-six. On the moral and spiritual side he was one of the foundation builders of the state of Alabama. His labor and sacrifice deserve recognition alongside that given of men whose stations in life gave themgreat conspicuousness in the public eye. He was of the class of men who labored in comparative obscurity, passed away, and in due time are forgotten, but their works do follow them in their everlasting results.
Hon. Clement Claiborne Clay inherited all the strong traits of his distinguished father. His birthplace was Huntsville, where he was born in 1817. In his boyhood years he would learn much of the struggles through which the people of the state were passing in a transition from pioneer conditions to those of real life, and thus manhood unfolded contemporaneously with the development of his native state. His first knowledge of Alabama was derived at a time when conditions were rude and crude and during his career of more than three-score years he saw it expand through successive periods, his sentiments keeping pace with its development.
In most respects highly favored by fortune and condition, Mr. Clay knew how to prize these and use them as stepping-stones to success. His father was his most intimate companion, and the stations held by him were as largely shared in by the son as was possible. So soon as young Clay was prepared to do so he was sent to the state university, from which he graduated at the early age of seventeen. While his father was governor, the youth served as his private secretary and while his father was serving as senator at Washington, the son was at the same time pursuing his law course at the University of Virginia, which course he completed in 1840.
At the early age of twenty-five the junior Clay was elected to a seat in the lower house of the legislature. He attracted attention at first by theintroduction of a resolution instructing the Alabama delegation in Congress to support a bill favorable to refunding to General Andrew Jackson the fine of one thousand dollars imposed on him by Judge Hall of New Orleans in 1815 for declaring martial law in that city, under which the judge was imprisoned by Jackson for discharging on habeas corpus a member of the Louisiana legislature who had been caught in the act of secretly communicating with the enemy and had been imprisoned by General Jackson. The fine was for contempt and Jackson paid it, and now, after the lapse of more than a quarter century, the sum was returned with interest, the total being at the time of the refunding about $3,000.
The speech made by the young man in advocacy of his resolution won him his first spurs. It flashed with fervid eloquence and was pervaded throughout with the choicest diction. Many were the predictions of his future greatness because of that speech.
His service in the legislature led to his retention in that body for three successive terms, during the last of which he was elected by the legislature to the judgeship of the county court of Madison. After serving thus for two years, he resigned and resumed the practice of the law. Five years later still, he offered for congressional representative, but was defeated by the Hon. W. R. W. Cobb of Jackson County. The sting of defeat was abundantly alleviated, however, when he was chosen by the legislature a United States senator at the close of the same year. The distinction was the greater because of the handsome majority given him over hisdistinguished opponent, the Hon. R. W. Walker, Clay having received eighty-five votes, while Walker received thirty-seven.
The gifts, training, and acquirements of Mr. Clay eminently fitted him for this exalted forum. It was at the time when state rights doctrine was well at the front and into the thick of the fray he entered as an ardent disciple of Mr. Calhoun. His speeches on the floor of the senate chamber won for him wide attention, and gained for him national renown. Throughout the country his speeches were a subject of comment, while in Alabama his name was on every thoughtful lip.
Having served for six years in the National Senate, Mr. Clay was again chosen in 1859, and was in the senate when Alabama seceded in 1861, and with all the other southern senators resigned, which furnished occasion in harmony with the temper of that time to provoke a vote of expulsion of the southern senators. On his return to Alabama, Mr. Clay was at once chosen a senator from the state to the Confederate Congress. In Richmond he was in vital touch with the Confederate government, the confidence of which he enjoyed to an unusual degree. After a senatorial service of two years at Richmond, Mr. Clay stood for re-election before the legislature of Alabama, and was opposed by Colonel Seibels of Montgomery and the Hon. J. L. M. Curry of Talladega. After a number of unsuccessful ballots Mr. Clay withdrew in favor of R. W. Walker, whom he had previously defeated for the United States senate, and Mr. Walker was elected.
In 1864 Mr. Clay was sent on a confidentialerrand from the Confederate states government to the provinces of Canada. His mission was one of diplomatic secrecy, but under prevailing conditions resulted in nothing practical. While the nature of his mission was not known, it was supposed to be that of exciting Canadian interest in the affairs of the Confederacy, and to arouse such interest as would eventuate in procuring an army of invasion of sufficient force to raid with success the northern frontier of the Union. The northern press charged at the time that Mr. Clay was abetting the adventurers who attempted the destruction of New York City by fire.
During his stay in Canada, Mr. Clay was instrumental in inducing the members of the peace party in the North to prevail on President Lincoln to open negotiations with him looking to the settlement of hostilities between the North and the South. An unofficial mission was entered on, but without avail. When he learned of the capitulation of the Confederate armies, Mr. Clay started from Canada on horseback for Texas, but, seeing in the northern press that he was openly charged with complicity in the assassination of President Lincoln, he changed his course and made his way to Macon, Ga., where he might surrender with a view to a thorough investigation. In reward for this expression of honor on the part of Mr. Clay, he was seized, sent to Fortress Monroe, put in irons, where he lay a fellow prisoner of Jefferson Davis for twelve months, without being brought to trial on the false charges of treason and assassination. His health was sadly broken under these cruel and disgracefulconditions, and his release was finally procured by his devoted and gifted wife, whose pleadings with the governmental authorities at last prevailed, and it was believed, not without reason, that the government, as it then was, was glad to appear to display magnanimity in view of the atrocious course pursued concerning one who was thus being served purely on an unfounded presumption, and one, too, who had gone beyond his way seeking a trial, in face of the public charges. Mr. Clay died at Huntsville on January 3, 1882.
Altogether worthy of a place in the historic archives of Alabama are the spiritual heroes who added so much to the moral life of the community, converting disorder into order, and bringing calmness from confusion and chaos. Among these may be named Rev. Hosea Holcombe, a native of North Carolina, and for a period a pastor in upper South Carolina. Mr. Holcombe came to Alabama in the early stages of its statehood and settled at Jonesboro, in Jefferson County, from which point he pursued his early missionary labors, undergoing all the privations and difficulties incident to those days.
Without scholastic advantages, Mr. Holcombe turned to practical advantage the slim resources which came within his reach, and by studious application became possessed of more than an ordinary education for one living at that period. He was Alabama’s first church historian, and rendered a lasting service to the state by his preserved record of the early churches of Alabama.
While statesmen and publicists were laying the foundation stones of a great political commonwealth, the pioneer missionary, especially of the Baptist and Methodist denominations, was abroad with his wholesome influence, checking vice, inculcating virtue, and seeking to bring the lives of men into practical conformity to those principles which make alike for the present, and the life which is to come.
Those old heroes, often trudging weary and footsore over mountain paths or threading their way along the Indian trails winding through the forests, visiting the primitive settlements of Alabama, and dispensing the truths which make men better, are too often neglected in recounting the elements which entered into the formation of a great state. Limitedly known while living, and soon forgotten when dead, the substantial and fundamental service rendered is not embalmed in the public records, and yet without such agents, in a rude and crude condition of society, a state could never become great. Far more valuable than is commonly supposed was the service rendered by those pioneer preachers. In the absence of courts in those pioneer days, matters in dispute were often held in abeyance for adjudication till “the preacher” should come, and his unbiased decision was usually accepted as final.
Mr. Holcombe was a leader among those humble but heroic men who braved the terrors of the wilderness while Alabama was yet the hunting ground of the savage, and though most of them were untaught in the schools, they grappled with the gravest problems encountered on the frontier of civilization, in bringing the chaotic elements of society into subjection to the gospel, and in cool disregard of the dangers which threatened from every side, by reason of the presence of the hostile Indian, they evangelized the widely scattered settlements, preached, visited, cheered, inspired, and built houses of worship for the future promotion of Christianity.
Living and laboring with a zeal unquenched by difficulty or danger, they passed from the scene ofaction, but their influence abode still, and as a silent force has been transmitted through succeeding generations. Most of those old spiritual heroes lie in unmarked graves. Soon leveled to the surface, these primitive mounds left unindicated the resting places of the genuine heroes, and the tangled vine and riotous weed came to usurp the sacred though narrow places where sleep their ashes, but they, being dead, yet speak in the characters and lives of those who have come after.
To this type of spiritual frontiersmen belonged the Rev. Hosea Holcombe. His life was one of serious devotion to the cause of humanity and of God. Without reward of purse, he labored unceasingly, eking out a bare subsistence by the labor of his own hands, that he might have the privilege of laboring for the welfare of his fellows. He founded all the early Baptist churches in Jefferson County and frequent were his tours into different parts of the state. His sage counsel was sought, and such was the force of his character, that his decisions on all disputed questions were taken as well-nigh oracular.
In those early days, and for generations, disputatious contention, especially between the Baptists and Methodists, was frequent. If this had its unpleasing side, as it always does, it was not wholly without compensation, for it stimulated sacred study and grounded the masses in the truths and principles of the gospel.
Like all others of the ministry of that remote period, Mr. Holcombe shared in the prevailing controversial spirit of the times. In the maintenanceof his views he wrote a number of pamphlets, but his chief literary production was a history of the Baptists of Alabama. While the work lacks unity of arrangement, and is devoid of literary finish, it reflects the spirit of the times, and is a monument to the privations and fortitude, as well as the energy and struggles, of that period now grown dim.
As the population of the state grew, and the necessity of schools became more urgent, this unlettered man became one of the earliest exponents of education, and of all institutions which were conducive to the promotion of the good of society.
The services rendered by men like Hosea Holcombe escape the pen of the historian, because they lie apart from the spectacular and the din of political and commercial struggle, remote from the universal flow; but they are chief among the unseen forces the results of which assume shape in the transmuted lives and characters of men and women and in the visible institutions of which they were the chief founders. Their records are usually assigned to the department of unwritten history, but their lives and labors are the fundamental sources of the institutions, the beneficent influences of which are ours of today.
One who leaves his impress on a generation lives for all time, for in some form his influence works its way, though silently, and contributes to the symmetry of character in the generations that follow. Deeds of benefaction are noble, but a good man, in virtue of his life, is a benefaction, and his daily walk is a constant asset of the good of the future. This admits of application to the life ofthis pioneer preacher, which life extended to near the middle of the nineteenth century.
The Rev. Hosea Holcombe died in 1841, and his humble grave is on his original farm near Jonesboro, Jefferson County. A shaft now marks the last resting place of the old hero. Till this was recently erected, a large bowlder alone indicated where sleeps the pioneer preacher. Its native roughness and solidity represented the times as well as the character of the Rev. Hosea Holcombe.
There was not in the life and career of Governor Henry Watkins Collier that which was apt to catch the popular eye and invite popular applause, for he was not gifted with the flash of oratory, nor did he seek the clamorous applause which passes with the day. Governor Collier was of the practical mold of men who merely did things, who patiently wrought in painstaking silence far away from the madding crowd and the host of empty babble. He won distinction, but he did it by dint of granite merit, while disdaining the acclaim which comes as the vapid breath of the hour.
A Virginian by birth, Governor Collier had the prestige which comes of distinguished lineage. In the genealogical line were the names of such men as Sir Francis Wyatt, one of the original English governors of Virginia, and Admiral Sir George Collier of the British navy. But distinction like this he relied not on, and his career throughout showed that he regarded the life of each one a distinct entity dependent entirely on individual worth.
Governor Collier came to Alabama in the flower of his youth well qualified to respond to the demands arising from the colonial conditions of a new state. He had been grounded in the solid soil of academic drill at a time when the test of pupilage lay in the thought created by the student rather than in the mere mastery of that already kneaded by others, and served to the taste. For to be a student of those early times of even tolerable toleranceone had to dig rather than to reap, as others had sown. By the few really skillful preceptors of those primitive times, the student was encouraged to create and originate his own material from the bare principles furnished. This molded men of stalwart proportions, promoted self-assertion, augmented confidence, stiffened reliance, and toughened the fiber of character by effort.
Instruction of this character was given in the famous pioneer school of Moses Waddell at Willington, S. C., where were trained for the stern life of grappling with grim, original conditions such men as George McDuffie, James L. Pettigru and Augustus B. Longstreet, and many others whose fame, and, no less, whose example, remain as a perennial inspiration to aspiring youth, for after all every man who is made is self-made. Be one’s advantages never so much or so meager, self and self-worth are at last the determinative factor.
Girt with equipments like these borne from the Waddell school, young Collier reached Alabama just as it was emerging into statehood. His first residence was at Huntsville, where as a youthful pleader he opened his little office, but soon removed to Tuscaloosa as the partner of Hon. Simon L. Perry.
The demand for competent legislators and men for the occupancy of other spheres, at a time when the population of the state was sparse, opened the door of opportunity to aspiring young men to which class Collier belonged. When only twenty-six he went as a representative from Tuscaloosa County, and so profound was the impression made by thissolid young man that the legislature, at the next session, elected him to a place on the supreme bench, a distinction the more pronounced because his competitor for the place was Judge Eli Shortridge.
Four years later, on the occasion of the reorganization of the state courts, Judge Collier was displaced from the supreme bench, but was retained as a circuit judge for four years, at which time Judge Saffold retired from his seat on the supreme bench, and Governor Clay appointed Judge Collier in his stead, till the legislature should meet and elect his successor. On the convening of the general assembly, Judge Collier was met by a contestant for the honor in the person of Hon. A. Crenshaw of Butler, but the election resulted in favor of Judge Collier, who received more than twice the number of votes given his opponent.
For twelve years he continued to dispense justice in that high tribunal, and the value of the service rendered the state by him is attested by the luminous and voluminous decisions which run through thirty-five volumes of the Alabama reports, a perpetual monument of valuable labor.
By this time no man so completely filled the eyes of the people of the state as Judge Henry Watkins Collier. His high sense of justice, his impartial incision, and his solid and unvarying calmness made him, without self-effort to attain it, the dominant public figure in Alabama. Practically without effort, he was chosen, almost by a unanimous vote of the people, to the office of governor.
This was in 1849. Judge Samuel F. Rice, one ofthe brightest and ablest of Alabamians, appeared against him, and the final vote stood 36,350 for Collier and 364 for Rice, with a few scattering votes. At the close of his first term for governor three competitors appeared in the field for the same distinction—B. G. Shields, Nathaniel Terry and William L. Yancey, and of a total popular vote of 43,679, Governor Collier was indorsed by 37,460 of these.
Nor was this due to an active canvass on the part of Governor Collier. While he was by no means indifferent to his retention of the gubernatorial chair, he preferred to base his claim on genuine merit illustrated in official function, rather than by clamor for recognition before the assembled multitude. He had scrupulously sought to make his work worthy as a judge and as a governor, and was entirely willing that it should shine by its own light. He could not plausibly plead for support or indorsement, had none of the arts and tricks of the vote-getter, and therefore relied on actual service and worth to give exploit to his value as an official servant. His ideal of the office was lofty, and he felt that he could not climb down into the arena of personal scramble when the people were as fully informed of his competency as they would have been had he made a heated canvass.
From the beginning to the close of his life, Governor Collier was under strain. He did not fret nor chafe under the burdens imposed, but his powers wore under the dogged strain of perpetual labor. Nothing could deflect him from public duty. To him its claim was supreme. He died in the ripeness of his manhood at Bailey Springs in 1865, being only fifty-four years old, his early death being largely due, no doubt, to the overstrain of his vigor.
No more genuine compliment can be paid a book than to have the name of the author so associated with it that at the mention of the work the name of the writer is at once suggested. This is true of that once noted work, “Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi.” So widely was the book for years read, and so popular was it because of its reflection of a period of southwestern history that to mention the work is to call in immediate connection with it the name of the author—J. G. Baldwin.
On its appearance the work was greeted with popular applause and was highly prized for its genuine merit. While the production of such a work with its unique and sparkling wit, is worthy of the pen of anyone, the fame of Judge Baldwin does not repose on it alone, for he was both a statesman and jurist, and rendered valuable service to Alabama.
Beginning life under disadvantages because of meager education, Judge Baldwin fitted himself for life by individual effort and private study and became one of the most eminent citizens of the state, and later a distinguished justice on the supreme bench of California. His qualities of character were sterling, his relations to others uniformly courteous, and his disposition one of perpetual sunshine.
In politics a whig, he was ever ready to champion the cause of that party. He was a skillful tactician, and as one of the whig leaders in Alabama he often occasioned concern in the ranks of his opponents. On the floor of the legislative hall he was a formidabledisputant, and while he often dealt herculean blows, he held himself in courteous readiness to receive them in return. Familiar with parliamentary principles, he held himself scrupulously within limit, but stoutly demanded that this be returned by his opponent. He was greatly admired for his manliness and uniform courtesy, but was dreaded as an opponent. He could rise to heights of greatness, but could never sink to levels of littleness. This reputation Judge Baldwin established and maintained alike in legislative hall, the court room, and in the social circle.
His was a fertile brain and his command of a chaste and varied diction was unusual. Possessing an acute discrimination and a relish for the ludicrous, he was one of the most jovial of companions. Living at an exceptional period, and amidst conditions which often occasioned merriment to himself, he was induced to embody his impressions of the scenes about him in his famous work—“Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi.” It was a time when credit was practically without limit and when speculation proceeded on a slender financial basis, and not infrequently on no basis at all.
It was a time of wild financial experiment, and ventures of divers kinds were numerous. To withhold credit for any amount was a mortal offense, and to present a bill was an act of discourtesy, as such act carried with it the question of the honesty of the debtor. Loans were freely made by the state banks to debtors. Private banking institutions sprang up like mushrooms and with about as much solidity, the stock of such institutions consistingof real estate on mortgage, upon the faith of which notes were issued for circulation, payable in gold or silver within twelve months. The prospective realization of the latter seems not to have been thought of, nor was it cared for by the masses, so long as money was plentiful. The reaction from a condition like this, entailing endless litigation and crash on crash, is easily seen.
With a business and legal acumen, for Judge Baldwin had both, he watched with sharp interest the trend of the period, and his work, “Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi,” is a clever hit, describing the scenes attendant on the time when money was flush. With an evident relish for fun he presents the hubbub in the courts, in the places of business and elsewhere when the notes fell due. The different characters portrayed with masterly skill, the questions and answers, the indignation and consternation, the rulings of country justices, the pleas of lawyers and many other elements are vividly presented, and invariably with such a smack of real humor by Judge Baldwin that the interest is unsuspended from the outset to the close.
While there is much of the creative in the work to lend freshness and humor to the many scenes, still the book is a practical history of a most remarkable period which extended from 1833 to 1840. The work is unique in the originality of its grasp of conditions, the raciness of portraiture and in the description of the various transactions. Though at bottom veritable history, the work is throughout garbed in incomparable humor that may be read at any period with merriment.
In the same semi-serious vein in which Irving wrote his Knickerbocker History of New York, but with a much richer tang of humor, Baldwin records the doings of those rosy days which were anon merged into gloom, and it is difficult to decide in which phase of the situation one finds more real fun. He enters into no discussion, renders no opinion of his own, never moralizes, but is content to hold himself steadfastly to a description of scene and character in a manner most diverting to the reader. A work like this was not devoid of a mission, and thousands laughed while they read the record of their own stupidity and folly.
A more dignified work from the pen of Judge Baldwin was his “Party Leaders,” which embraces the records, policies and conduct of such men as Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Randolph, Clay and others. The stamp of originality is as clear in this work as in the one already commented on, while the latter reveals the possession of a vast fund of information relative to the private lives of the distinguished characters named. More than that, it displays a power of nice discrimination of character. Sharpness of analysis and felicity of parallelism of character are wrought with the finishing touch of the verbal artist, in clean, elegant English and with a dignity free from stilt or stiffness. This, too, proved to be a popular work and was eagerly sought and read throughout the country. It bears the label of the self-made scholar, the finish of the author who works first hand, and is an embodiment of finished diction and of wide research.
There was that in the presence, bearing, andintercourse of Judge Baldwin that impressed one with his superiority, yet he was free, often even to abandon, affable, and always companionable. He made ready friends of strangers, and compelled by his bearing the highest respect of his opponents.
Living for many years in Sumter County, he yielded to the alluring reports which spread over the country in 1849 concerning the newly discovered Eldorado on the Pacific slope, and removed to California. Without trouble he fell into the rough and tumble conditions prevailing at that time in San Francisco, entered on a lucrative practice, and later was chosen by popular vote to a judgeship on the supreme bench of that state. He died in California in 1866.