網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

Honorable Charles J. Jenkins is the leader of the Convention. He would have been made its President had he allowed his friends to have their way. The whole business is in the hands of one committee of sixteen, of which he is the head. He has been one of the members of the Supreme Court of the State, is everywhere respected and venerated, and is mentioned in connection with the Governorship and the United States Senate. He is a lame man, who must be considerably over sixty years of age, yet who has still great force and vigor. In figure he is under medium height, and of square and compact build. He has a full, strongly lined, fatherly face, and snow-white hair and whiskers. He ran for the Convention of 1860-61 as a Union man and was defeated, but was sent to this without a show of opposition. His home is in Augusta.

Honorable Joshua Hill is only second in influence to Judge Jenkins. He was a member of Congress in 1860-61, and his course in the stormy days of that session is matter of honorable record. "Had there been three other men as brave as Josh Hill we could have saved the State from secession," said a very intelligent gentleman to me yesterday. Mr. Hill is a fine type of physical manhood, over six feet in height, with deep chest, broad shoulders, erect figure, and a bearing that commands respect everywhere. He has a large mouth, large nose, high cheek-bones, forehead very prominent in the eyebrows, in a word, his face is as rugged a one as could be found in a long day's travel. His intellectual ability is considerable; but his distinguishing characteristic, his friends say, is "plain horse sense." He lives at Madison, the county seat of Morgan County, and is a man of about fifty years of age.

The leader of the lobby, and therefore entitled to mention with the members of the Convention, is ex-Governor Joseph E. Brown. He has three points that the most unobservant observer catches at the first glance, a large mouth, a long

neck, and a narrow and hollow chest. Besides this, he is tall and very slim, has a pleasant face, a courteous smile for everybody, a large and strong nose, dark gray eyes, and a good forehead. His hair is just beginning to turn; he wears it rather long, and its end is rolled under in his neck. He is clean shaven, except his throat, on which he wears a short gray whisker. His manner is easy, and his talk is plausible and apparently sincere. He declares himself a firm supporter of the President's reconstruction policy, and has more personal popularity than any other man in Georgia. Everybody seems to concur in the assertion that he managed her finances better than any other Governor they ever had. He still occupies the Executive Mansion, Governor Johnson simply having rooms there.

The Convention attracts more public notice than did those at Columbia and Raleigh, the lobby representation in the war-debt interest being larger than in either of the Carolina Conventions, and the excitement of the debates furnishing a grateful relief to the monotony of the city's dull life. The daily attendance thus far averages about one hundred and fifty persons, one fourth of them, perhaps, being ladies.

XXVII.

SECESSION AND SLAVERY.

MILLEDGEVILLE, October 28, 1865.

THH

HE question of undoing the work of the Secession Convention, which occupied two wrathful days at Raleigh, here scarcely occupied two minutes. The committee of sixteen was named at the opening of the second day's session, and before night Judge Jenkins reported the following ordi

[merged small][ocr errors]

1

"We, the people of the State of Georgia, in Convention at our seat of Government, do declare and ordain, That an ordinance adopted by the same people, in Convention, on the nineteenth day of January, A. D. eighteen hundred and sixty-one, entitled 'An ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of Georgia and other States united with her under a compact of government entitled the Constitution of the United States of America'; also an ordinance, adopted by the same on the sixteenth day of March, in the year last aforesaid, entitled 'An ordinance to adopt and ratify the Constitution of the Confederate States of America'; and also all ordinances and resolutions of the same, adopted between the sixteenth day of January and the twenty-fourth day of March, in the year aforesaid, subversive of, or antagonistic to, the civil and military authority of the government of the United States of America, under the Constitution thereof, be, and the same are, hereby repealed."

As soon as it was read, the chairman of the committee asked its adoption, and it was at once unanimously passed. by a viva voce vote without debate, and with as little apparent interest as though it had been a mere resolution of inquiry.

There was no approving concourse of dignitaries, no ratifying roar of cannon, no packed gallery of beauty and applause, no parchment ordinance for all men to sign, and — Heaven give pity—not even a poor “yea yea and nay” record

on the journal!

Joshua Hill rose as soon as its passage was announced, and gave notice that he should move to reconsider, in order to substitute for the phrase "be, and the same are, hereby repealed," the words "are now, and always have been, null and void." The former is the language in Mississippi and South Carolina, the latter that of North Carolina, while that of Alabama is "be, and the same is, hereby declared to be null and void." Mr. Hill's motion to substitute the strong language of the old North State gave promise of an interesting debate, and the gallery was crowded next morning when

he called up his motion. But he bowed down and took upon his neck the yoke of the Secessionists for the sake of "harmony," and everybody went away disappointed, and to disappointment a few added disgust.

Mr. Hill said: "I gave notice on yesterday, that I would this morning move the reconsideration of the ordinance repealing the ordinance of the 19th of January, 1861, and subsequent ordinances and resolutions. I made this motion in no captious spirit, and with no desire to make a procrustean bed for any man to be laid upon. It was made with no purpose of producing schism between those who approved the secession ordinance and those who condemned it. My object was to give expression to my individual sentiment upon the subject. It is my habit to take little account of considerations of policy, and this is a habit which I think I shall adhere to; but on this occasion, at the solicitation of many friends who four years ago agreed cordially with me. in opinion upon the subject of secession, and for a variety of reasons, the best of which is the harmony of this body, and the danger of distracting its counsels, I have been induced to reconsider my motion. The appeals of my friends, and the inducements they suggest, do not fall unheeded upon me. I declare upon this floor, that even after the sorrows and disasters which have come upon this land, I have no personal bitterness towards any man in heaven or on earth who contributed to bring about the secession of this State. There are to-day higher, nobler considerations than the mere discussion of this subject which weigh upon my mind; and it is not my purpose, nor is it my feeling, to limit my associations with men politically by the test of catholicity in regard to opinions upon this subject. I would not wound the feelings of any man. I am frank to say that my association with men who have disagreed with me upon this subject, both in my own county and elsewhere, is and has been of the most cordial character. My labors in this body shall be

bent to one single purpose, and that is the earliest admittance of Georgia into the Union, and the restoration of her ancient rights, so far as may be permitted. That is my earnest desire. I have no friends to reward or enemies to punish. I have not yet combined with any political organization. I do not say what I shall do in the future. I am unwilling to be the first to produce dissension in this body, and I therefore withdraw my motion to reconsider."

Once more the people must lift the requiem for the Lost Leader. Possibly Mr. Hill could not have carried his point, but he could at least have made a gallant fight for the sound doctrine. I recall what brave old Nat Boyden said in the Raleigh Convention, when the trimmers appealed to him to accept the repealing phrase for the sake of "harmony": "Gentlemen, unanimity in a good deed is a thing for praise; but in any other, it is a public misfortune, for severest censure.” Georgia went out of the Union by a mere repeal, and she comes back by another mere repeal. Who shall sit in the high place and keep the tally of repeals? Is there any abandonment, in her action, of the old heresy of State sovereignty? Did the war settle nothing but the nation's physical supremacy? And there was not vigor enough in this former leader to even insist upon a simple vote to reconsider!

The question of the language to use in acknowledging the abolition of slavery, and declaring its prohibition forever, which occupied one long and exciting day at Columbia, here scarcely occupied one minute. In the new Bill of Rights, as it came from the committee of sixteen, is this clause:

“20. The government of the United States having, as a war measure, proclaimed all slaves held or owned in this State emancipated from slavery, and having carried that proclamation into full practical effect, there shall henceforth be within the State of Georgia neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, save as a punishment for crime after legal conviction thereof; provided, that

« 上一頁繼續 »