In 1857, when Bob Toombs was looking after his large landed possessions
in Texas, and bringing the squatters to terms, he received a letter
from one of his political friends, announcing that the Democratic State
Convention had adjourned after nominating Joseph E. Brown as a candidate
for governor. Toombs was traveling with a party of friends, and to one
of them he read the letter. Then in a dazed way he asked, "Who is Joe
Brown?" His friend knew no more about Joe Brown than Senator Toombs did,
and all the way home the travelers were puzzling themselves with the
question, "Who is Joe Brown?" They were destined to find out; for the
convention that nominated Joe Brown for governor brought to the front
in Georgia politics one of the most remarkable men the State has ever
known.
Shortly after his return to Georgia from Texas, Toombs was compelled to
meet Joe Brown to consult in regard to the details of the campaign in
which both were interested. It must have been an interesting meeting. It
was as if Prince Charlie and Cromwell had met to arrange a campaign.
It was a meeting between Puritan and Cavalier. Toombs was full-blooded,
hotheaded, impetuous, imperious. Joe Brown was pale, angular, awkward,
cold, and determined. It was as if in a new land the old issues had been
buried. Toombs was a man of the people, but in his own way, and it was
a princely and a dashing way. Brown was a man of the people, but in
the people's way; and it was a cold, calculating, determined, and
common-sense way. Howell Cobb had written to Toombs to go to the aid of
Brown, expressing a fear that the nominee, being a new and an untried
man, would not be able to hold his own against Ben Hill, who was the
candidate of the American or Know-nothing party for governor. So the
dashing and gallant senator sought out the new and unknown Democratic
candidate for governor, and had a conference with him. Toombs found the
young man strangely cold and placid, and yet full of the determination
that martyrs are made of. He found that Joe Brown had already mapped
out and arranged the plans for his campaign, and the more experienced
politicians saw nothing to change in them. They were marked by
shrewdness and sagacity, and covered every detail of party organization.
This was satisfactory; but how could the young man sustain himself on
the stump against such a speaker as Ben Hill, who, although a young
man, was a speaker of great force and power? Toombs thought it would be
better to meet Hill himself, and he started out with that purpose;
but when he heard Joe Brown make two or three speeches, and saw the
tremendous effect he produced on the minds of the audiences that
assembled to hear him, the older campaigner went home, satisfied that
young Brown needed no instruction and no coaching in the difficult art
of influencing the people and winning their votes.
The personal history and career of Joseph E. Brown should be studied by
every ambitious boy in the land, especially by those who imagine they
cannot succeed because they lack opportunities that money and friends
would obtain for them. From 1857 to the close of the war, and after,
the political history of Joe Brown is the history of the State; but that
history, attractive as it is, is not so interesting as his struggle
to make a name for himself in the world. Joseph E. Brown was born in
Pickens County, South Carolina, and was the eldest of eleven children.
His family was English. His grandfather fought manfully against the
British and Tories in the Revolutionary War. His father fought under
Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812, and was at the battle of New
Orleans on the 8th of January, 1815.
Joe Brown was born in 1821. His parents were not so well off as to be
able to send the lad continuously to school as he grew up. He had to
"take his chances." He was compelled to work in the fields in season,
and was permitted to go to school only when there was nothing for him
to do on the little farm. He did farm labor from the time he was eight
until he reached the age of nineteen, and the schooling he had received
was only of the most haphazard kind.
Before he was grown, his father moved from South Carolina into Georgia,
settling in Union County, near a little valley named Gaddistown. Up to
this time, though young Brown was nineteen years of age, he had learned
nothing but reading, writing, and arithmetic, and very little of
these. He was now compelled to work harder than ever. Settling in a new
country, and on new land that had to be cleared before it would yield a
crop, the Browns had as much as they could do to get the farm in order
in time for the planting season; and in this severe work, Joseph E.,
being the eldest son, was the chief reliance of the family. He had a
pair of small steers with which he plowed; and when he wasn't plowing
on the farm, he was hauling wood and butter and vegetables to the small
market at Dahlonega, and taking back in truck and trade some necessary
article for the family. In this way he learned the lessons of patience,
self-control, and tireless industry that all boys ought to learn,
because they are not only the basis of content and happiness, but of all
success.
When Joe Brown was twenty years old, his father allowed him to seek an
education. All he could do for the industrious and ambitious boy was
to give him his blessing and the yoke of steers with which he had been
plowing. With these young Brown returned to South Carolina and entered
an academy in Anderson district He gave the steers for eight months'
board, and went into debt for the tuition fee. In the fall of 1841 he
returned to Georgia and taught school for three months, and with the
money he received for this he paid for the schooling he had gone in debt
for. He returned to the Carolina academy in 1842, and went into debt not
only for his schooling, but for his board. His patience and his untiring
industry enabled him to make such rapid progress that within two years
he had fitted himself to enter an advanced class in college. But the
lack of means prevented him from entering college. Instead he returned
to Georgia and opened a school at Canton, Cherokee County. He opened
this school with six pupils, and the number rapidly increased to sixty,
so that he was able in a short time to settle the debts he had made
in Carolina. He taught school all day, and at night and on Saturdays
devoted himself to the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1845,
and was at once successful. He made no pretense of oratory; but his
simple and unpretending style, his homely and direct way of putting
a case, and his faculty of applying the test of common sense to all
questions, were as successful with juries as they afterwards proved to
be with the people; and before the people he was irresistible.
[Illustration: Joe Brown and his Steers 270]
But he was not yet through with his studies. A friend advanced him
the money necessary to enter the Law School of Yale; and there, from
October, 1845, to June, 1846, when he graduated, he took the lead in all
his classes, and had time to attend lectures in other departments of
the college. He returned home, began active practice, and was soon
prosperous. He became a State senator, and was afterwards made a judge
of the superior courts.
When the Democratic Convention met in Milledgeville in 1857, for the
purpose of nominating a candidate for governor, it had so many popular
candidates to choose from, and these candidates had so many and such
strong friends, that the members found it impossible to agree on a
man. A great many ballots were taken, and there was a good deal of
"log-rolling" and "buttonholing," as the politicians call it, on behalf
of the various candidates by their special friends. But all this did no
good. There was a deadlock. No one of the candidates was able to obtain
a two-thirds majority, which, according to Democratic law, was the
number necessary to a nomination. Twenty-one ballots had been taken with
no result, and the convention had been in session three days. Finally
it was decided to appoint a special committee made up of three delegates
from each congressional district. It was the duty of this committee to
name a candidate on whom the convention could agree. When this committee
retired, it was proposed that a ballot be taken, each committeeman
writing the name of the candidate of his choice on a slip of paper, and
depositing the slip in a hat. This was done; but before the ballots were
counted, Judge Linton Stephens, a brother of Alexander H., stated that
such a formality was not necessary. He thereupon moved that Judge Joseph
E. Brown of Cherokee be selected as the compromise man, and that his
name be reported to the convention. This was agreed to unanimously, and
Joseph E. Brown was nominated; and yet, if the written ballots had
been counted, it would have been found that Alfred H. Colquitt, who
afterwards became so distinguished in Georgia, had been nominated by
the committee. He received a majority of one of the written ballots
when they were afterwards counted through curiosity. Twenty-three years
later, Colquitt, who was then governor, made Joseph E. Brown a United
States senator under circumstances that aroused strong opposition, and
immediately afterwards Brown aided Colquitt to a reelection in one of
the bitterest contests the State has ever witnessed.
The unexpected nomination of Brown by the convention of 1857 introduced
into State politics the most potent element that it had ever known. The
nomination, surprising as it was, was not half so surprising as some
of the results that have followed it. At the moment the convention
nominated him, Joe Brown was tying wheat in one of his fields near
Canton, in Cherokee County. He was then judge of the Blue Ridge Circuit;
and on the day that his name was placed before the Democratic Convention
at Milledgeville, he had returned home. After dinner he went out into
his farm to see how his men were getting on. He had four men cutting
wheat with cradles, and he found the binders very much behind. About
half-past two o'clock he pulled off his coat and ordered the binders to
keep up with him. It was on the 15th of June, 1857. The weather was very
warm, but he kept at work all the afternoon. About sundown he went home,
and was preparing to bathe, when a neighbor, who had been to Marietta
and heard the news, rode to his house and told him about the nomination,
which had been made at three o'clock that afternoon. Telling about the
incident afterwards, Joe Brown, with a twinkle in his eye, said that he
had heard that a good many men were anxious to buy that wheat field,
so as to have an opportunity to tie wheat in it while a nominating
convention was in session.
The great majority of the people of the State were as much puzzled about
Joe Brown as Toombs was. Either they had not heard of him before, or
they had forgotten him. In those days a man who made a reputation in the
Cherokee country was not known to the rest of the State for a long time.
The means of communication were slow and uncertain. But the whole State
found him out just as Toombs did. He was prompt to begin the campaign.
Toombs had already left the Whig party, and was acting with the
Democrats. Stephens had left the Whigs, but had not become a Democrat.
He was an Independent. He was, as he expressed it, "toting his own
skillet." Ben Hill was Joe Brown's opponent, and these two met in debate
before the people on two or three occasions. It was thought at first
that Mr. Hill had the advantage of the tall and ungainly candidate from
Cherokee, but the end of the contest showed that the advantage was all
the other way. Mr. Hill was a man of very marked ability. He was one
of the few good speakers who could write well, and one of the few
fine writers who could speak well. He had courage, he had wit, he had
learning, he had eloquence; he had everything, in fact, to attract
popular approval and entice a popular following; but somehow, and until
the very latest years of his life, he fell far short of being a popular
idol. He was showy and effective before a mixed crowd, he never failed
to attract applause, and it was supposed that Brown was making a losing
campaign; but the campaign was going just the other way. Hill, in
the course of his discussion, said hundreds of things that the
people applauded; while Brown said hundreds of things that the people
remembered, and carried home with them, and thought over. Joe Brown was
not only a man of the people, but a man of the country people; and
he pleased the city people who had formerly lived in the country. The
result of the campaign was that Know-nothingism was buried out of sight
in Georgia. Joe Brown was elected by more than ten thousand majority,
and the Democratic majority in the Legislature was overwhelming.
Although he was only thirty-six years old when he became governor, the
people began to call him "Old Judg_ment_." This was due no less to his
peculiar gift of hard common sense than to his peculiar pronunciation.
His speech and his ways were "countrified," and they remained so all
the days of his life. His voice was not musical, and he had a peculiar
drawling intonation, which, if it had been a little more nasal, would
have been an exact reproduction of the tone and manner of the Down-east
Yankee. He shared these peculiarities with hundreds of the descendants
of the Puritans who settled in the mountains of East Tennessee and North
Georgia. He had no wish for the luxuries of life; and though he lived
comfortably, he never, even when by close economy he had accumulated one
of the largest fortunes in Georgia, cared to live finely. He was a plain
man at first and a plain man at last, always temperate, industrious, and
economical.
His term of office in the governor's chair was for two years, and at
the end of that time he had almost entirely remolded and refashioned his
party. He had stamped his own personality and character upon it, and it
became in truth and in fact the party of the people,--the common people.
In his management of State affairs he had introduced the plain business
methods suggested by common sense; he dispensed with all unnecessary
officials; he shook off all the hangers-on; he uprooted all personal
schemes: so that when the time came to nominate a man to succeed him, it
was found that the people had no other choice. His party thought of no
other name.
The year of Joe Brown's second nomination, as we have seen, was the year
that witnessed John Brown's ridiculous raid into Virginia. The people of
the South, however, thought it was a very serious matter, and the people
of Georgia were not different from those of the rest of the South. Some
very wise men allowed themselves to be led away by their passions. Even
Joe Brown, as Alexander Stephens once said, "tucked his judgment under
the bed" for the time being. Back of the indignation created by the John
Brown raid was the unconfessed and half-formed fear that the Northern
abolitionists would send their agents to the South and organize a negro
insurrection. Many of the Southern people remembered the horrors of San
Domingo, and there was a vague and an undefined but constant dread that
such a rising of the blacks would take place in the South. But there
never was any such danger in Georgia. The relations between the slaves
and their masters were too friendly and familiar to make such an
uprising possible. The abolitionists did send agents to the South to
stir the negroes to rebellion, and some of them came to Georgia, but
in every instance their mission became known to the whites through the
friendliness of the blacks. There was always some negro ready to tell
his master's family when the abolition agents made their appearance.
Still the people resented to the utmost the spirit that moved certain
so-called philanthropists of the North to endeavor to secure the freedom
of the negroes by means of the torch and midnight murder.
Consequently in 1859, when Joe Brown was nominated for governor the
second time, the people were greatly stirred. Sectional feeling ran
high. In that year began the active movement that led to secession and
the civil war. If all our statesmen had been as wise as Mr. Stephens
and Mr. Hill, war would have been averted. Slavery itself, in the very
nature of things, was doomed. It had accomplished its providential
mission. It had civilized and christianized millions of savages who had
been redeemed from slavery in their own land. It had justified its own
ends, and would have passed away in good time, no matter what compromise
may have been made.
Mr. Stephens and Mr. Hill were opposed to secession. They were for
fighting, if there must be a fight, in the Union, and this was the true
policy. For a while the people of Georgia were earnestly in favor
of this; but the efforts of the abolitionists to stir the negroes to
insurrection, and the inflammatory appeals of some of the leading
men, led them to oppose a policy which was at once just, wise, and
considerate. Even Joseph E. Brown, cool, calculating, placid, and not
easily-swayed by emotion, became a disunionist, demonstrating once again
that beneath the somber and calm exterior of the Puritan is to be
found a nature as combative and as unyielding as that which marks the
Cavalier.
Joe Brown was reelected in 1859, and did everything in his power as
governor to hasten the event of secession. The National Democratic
Convention met in Charleston, and the meeting showed that the
differences between the Democrats could not be settled; and it so
happened, that, while the South was opposed by the solid and rapidly
growing Republican party, the people of the South were divided among
themselves. What is most remarkable, the people of the South, after
making the election of the Republican candidate certain by dividing
among themselves, seemed to be amazed at the result. In some instances
county meetings were held in Georgia, and resolutions sent to the
Legislature declaring the election of Lincoln and Hamlin "a violation of
national comity." Nothing could show more clearly that the minds of the
voters were upset.
On Dec. 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, and the event
was made the occasion for great rejoicing by the secession element in
Georgia. Bonfires were kindled, guns were fired, and people seemed to
be wild with enthusiasm. Georgia did not secede until Jan. 19, 1861; but
Governor Brown did not wait for that event. He committed the first overt
act of the war. He seized Fort Pulaski, on the Savannah, Jan. 3, 1861.
On the 22d of January, ten cases of muskets belonging to a firm in Macon
were seized by the New York police after they had been placed on board a
vessel. Governor Brown sent a telegram to Governor Morgan, demanding
the release of these arms. Governor Morgan hesitated some time before he
made any response. Meanwhile, Governor Brown waited three days, and then
ordered the seizure of every ship in the harbor of Savannah belonging to
citizens of New York. Two brigs, two barks, and a schooner were seized
and held by the State troops. When this seizure was made known, Governor
Brown received official notification that the arms had been released. He
therefore ordered the release of the vessels. But when the agents of the
Macon firm made an effort to get the arms, they were refused. Promptly
Governor Brown seized other vessels, and caused them to be advertised
for sale.
This was merely the beginning of those greater events that cast a shadow
over the whole country. The farmer boy of Gaddistown was reelected
governor in 1861, and continued to hold the office until 1865.