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 he removed 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
public enabled 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 an orator 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.
BENJAMIN FITZPATRICK
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 term
was 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. Fitzpatrick had 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 grievances of 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 no cause 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.
JOSHUA L. MARTIN
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 evidently in 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 so complicated 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, save when 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.
ISAAC SMITH
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 to do 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 where stood 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.