A very queer, not to say mysterious case, was brought to trial in Jones County in 1837, at the April term of the Superior Court. It has had no parallel in Georgia before or since, and had none in any other country, so far as the present writer is aware, until the celebrated Tichborne case was brought to trial in England a few years ago. The Bunkley case created quite as much excitement, and caused quite as much division in public opinion in Georgia, as the Tichborne case did in England.
Jesse L. Bunkley belonged to a good family in Jones County, and when he came of age would have fallen heir to an estate worth forty thousand dollars. An effort was made to give him all the advantages of education, but these he refused to accept. He was a wild boy, and was fonder of wild company than of his books. He went to school for a while in Eatonton, but got into some sc.r.a.pe there and ran away. He was afterwards sent to Franklin College, now the State University, where he entered the grammar school. Such discipline as they had in those days was irksome to young Bunkley, and he soon grew tired of it. He left the college, and, after roving about for a while, returned to his home in Jones County. In his twentieth year, 1825, being well supplied with money, he left his home for the purpose of traveling. He went to the Southwest, and in that year wrote to his mother from New Orleans.
No other letter was received from him during that year or the next, and in 1827 word was brought to Jones County that Jesse Bunkley was dead. The rumor, for it seems to have been nothing more, was regarded by the family as true. At any rate, no attempt was made to investigate it. Jesse was the black sheep of the family; he had been away from home a good deal; his conduct when at home had not been such as to commend him to the affections of his people; and his mother had married a third husband, a man named Lowther: consequently the vague news of the young man"s death was probably received with a feeling of relief. There was always a probability that such a wild and dissipated youngster would come to some bad end; but with his death that probability ceased to be even a possibility, and so, no doubt with a sigh of relief, young Bunkley"s people put aside the memory of him. He was dead and buried. Those who survived him were more than willing to take the care and trouble of managing the estate which young Bunkley would have inherited had he returned and claimed it.
But in 1833, Major Smith of Jones County received a letter purporting to be from Jesse L. Bunkley, and it related to matters that both Smith and Bunkley were familiar with. In December, 1833, Mrs. Lowther, his mother, received a letter from a person claiming to be her son Jesse. The letter was dated at the New Orleans prison. It appears from this letter that the family of Bunkley had already taken steps to disown the person who had written to Major Smith, and who claimed to be Jesse Bunkley. The letter to Mrs. Lowther was very awkwardly written. It was misspelled, and bore no marks of punctuation; and yet it is just such a letter as might be written by a man who took no interest in his books when a schoolboy, and had had no occasion to look into them or to handle a pen. He said in this letter that he wrote to convince his mother that he was her own child, though it appeared that she wished to disown him. This, he declared in his awkward way, he knew no reason for, unless it was on account of his past folly. He then went on to relate some facts about the family and his own school days. The mother did not answer this letter, because, as she said afterwards on the witness stand, she did not consider that it was from her son. She was satisfied, she said, that the letter was not in her son"s handwriting.
The person claiming to be Jesse L. Bunkley reached Jones County some time afterwards. His case, in the nature of things, excited great public interest. Hundreds of people who had known Jesse recognized him in this claimant. On the other hand, hundreds who had also known Bunkley when a boy failed to recognize him in the claimant. Meanwhile those who had charge of the Bunkley property took prompt action. They went before the grand jury, and had the claimant indicted for cheating and swindling; and thus began the celebrated case of the State against Elijah Barber, alias Jesse L. Bunkley.
The claimant came to Jones County in 1836, was indicted in that year, and his case was brought to trial in the Superior Court in April, 1837. A great deal of time was taken up in the investigation. More than one hundred and thirty witnesses were examined. Ninety-eight, the majority of these being disinterested persons, declared that they believed the claimant to be an impostor. More than forty disinterested persons declared under oath that they believed the claimant to be Jesse L. Bunkley, and the majority of these last witnesses had known Bunkley long and intimately.
The efforts of the prosecution were directed to showing that the man claiming to be Jesse Bunkley was in reality Elijah Barber, who in 1824-25 was a wagoner who hauled lumber from Grace"s Mill near Macon, who was also known in Upson County, and who had served in the Florida war. Some of the witnesses who had never known Bunkley recognized the claimant as a man who had called himself Barber. Some of the witnesses who had known Jesse from his boyhood testified that they recognized the claimant as Bunkley on sight. Bunkley had various scars on his face, neck, and body. The claimant exhibited all these to the jury. One of the witnesses remembered that Bunkley bore the marks of a snake bite on one of his legs. The claimant immediately showed these marks. Hundreds of questions had been put to the claimant to test his memory. A great many he answered correctly, a great many others he failed to answer; but his replies to all vital questions were wonderfully clear and satisfactory. The jury was out but a short time before it returned, bringing in a verdict of guilty; and the claimant was sentenced to the penitentiary, where he served out his term.
This verdict and sentence settled the case in law, but it remained as unsettled as ever in the public mind. The writer of this has heard it discussed on more than one occasion among old ladies and gentlemen who knew Bunkley, and who saw the claimant; and, without exception, they declared that the verdict of the jury was cruelly unjust.
And yet, if any wrong was done, Bunkley himself was to blame for it. Being a young man of fortune and of the fairest prospects, he owed it to himself, his family, his friends, and to society at large, to become a good citizen, so that his ample means might be properly employed. Instead of that, he became a rowdy and a rioter, spending his days and his nights in evil company and in dissipation. If the claimant in this mysterious case was really Jesse Bunkley, it may be said of him that his sins had found him out.
GEORGIA WIT AND HUMOR.
The wit and humor of Georgia stand by themselves. They have no counterpart in any other section of the country. Many attempts have been made to imitate them, but there is always something lacking. The flavor, the "bouquet," the aroma, is gone. The sun, the soil, the air, and even the spring water, seem to have something to do with it. Just what, n.o.body knows. Wit and humor are elusive,-they are unsubstantial. On the other hand, the Georgia watermelon is something solid. It may be handled and felt. It may be "thumped" and "plugged" and tested. Those who know what a watermelon is and should be, know that there is none to compare with the melons that are grown in Georgia, no matter what the variety. The same may be said of the wit and humor that belong to Georgia. An old man-Uncle Tom Norris he was called, on account of his gray hairs-was once heard to say (speaking professionally), "Let me clap a drop of the low-wines to my tongue, and I"ll tell you what branch the fire was kindled on." He was a distiller, and knew his business. One need not be an expert to say the same of Georgia humor. It is almost possible to tell the very militia district in which it originated. It carries not only the flavor, but the color.
For a hundred years Georgia has remained the most democratic part of the country. The sons of the richest men were put in the fields to work side by side with the negroes, and were thus taught to understand the importance of individual effort that leads to personal independence. It thus happened that there was a cordial, and even an affectionate, understanding between the slaves and their owners, that perhaps had no parallel elsewhere. The poorer whites had no reason to hold their heads down because they had to work for their living. The richest slave owners did not feel themselves above those who had few negroes or none. When a man called his neighbor "Colonel," or "Judge," it was to show his respect, nothing more. For the rest, the humblest held their heads as high as the richest, and were as quick, perhaps quicker, in a quarrel.
The Virginians and North Carolinians who settled in the Broad River region intermarried, and spread out over middle Georgia. Those who were not akin were bound to each other by ties of long acquaintanceship; but the h.o.m.ogeneousness of the people, complete and thorough as it was, was not marked by any monotony. On the contrary, character and individuality ran riot, appearing in such strange and attractive shapes as to puzzle and bewilder even those who were familiar with the queer manifestations. Every settlement had its peculiarities, and every neighborhood boasted of its humorist,-its clown, whose pranks and jests were limited by no license. Out of this has grown a literature which, in some of its characteristics, is not matched elsewhere on the globe; but that which has been preserved by printing is not comparable, either in volume or merit, with the great body of humor that has perished because of the lack of some one industrious enough to chronicle it.
One of the most perfect types of the Georgia humorist was the late John M. Dooly. Judge Dooly was a remarkable man in other respects, but it is his wonderful fund of humor that has made his name famous in Georgia and throughout the country. It has been told in these pages how Colonel John Dooly was dragged from his bed by the Tories and murdered. This Colonel Dooly was the father of John M., who was hid under the bed when the Tories dragged his father out and murdered him. It might be supposed that such an event would have a tendency to give a boy a very serious view of life. Judge Dooly"s views were no doubt serious enough; but they were overwhelmed and overpowered by a temperament which found cause for laughter in almost every person and pa.s.sing event, and was the cause of innocent mirth in others.
Judge Dooly was born in what he called the "Dark Corner" of Lincoln County, which had not then been cut off from Wilkes. After the murder of his father, the family was left in poverty. When he went to Washington, the county seat of Wilkes County, to read law with Mr. Matthews, the clothes he wore were in such a condition that he was compelled to confine himself to the office in the daytime. He was very poor and very bright. Old people who knew him when a boy, described him to Judge Garnett Andrews as "a sallow, piney-woods-looking lad." "Piney-woods people" was the local name for the tackies, the clay eaters, the no-accounts, that had settled about on the poorer lands in that section of Georgia, and given themselves over to thriftlessness for good and all. But young Dooly had that within him which made him superior to the conditions and limitations of poverty. Apart from his remarkable gift of humor, he had a native brilliancy of mind that gave him an easy mastery over the principles of law that he found in the books. He was admitted to the bar in 1798, and was immediately successful as a lawyer. His education had been limited to that which he found in the "old field schools," and in that day they were not of the best; but such a mind as his needed only the rudiments, the rest came as by instinct.
Judge Dooly was not a student while practicing at the bar. He had thoroughly mastered the principles, the groundwork, of the law; and his mind, as logical as it was brilliant, fitted these principles to every case he had charge of. His love of humor, and his fondness for the society of those who preferred fun and frolic, placed many temptations in his way, and some of these he did not always resist; but the faults he had were the faults of the time in which he lived, the faults of the society in which he was brought up and by which he was surrounded. Judge Dooly has been described by a contemporary as having a large head, with a bold, high forehead, heavy eyebrows, prominent nose, a small compressed mouth, and large, vivid, sparkling eyes, which, when the spirit of humor had possession of him, illuminated his countenance as if an electric battery were in play.
On one occasion, Judge Dooly had been challenged by Judge Tait,-the same Judge Tait who had made himself so obnoxious to General John Clarke. Judge Tait had a wooden leg; and Judge Dooly, in replying to the challenge, referred to this fact, and said he did not think they could fight on equal terms. He hoped his refusal would not be interpreted as a reflection on the misfortunes of Judge Tait. This reply made Judge Tait more indignant than ever. He wrote a severe reply, suggesting to Judge Dooly that his refusal to fight was the result of cowardice rather than a desire not to shed the blood of an unfortunate cripple. In answer to this insinuation, Judge Dooly declared boldly that he was ready to fight his adversary on anything like equal terms. He announced that he would meet Judge Tait anywhere, on any day, and exchange a shot with him, provided he (Judge Dooly) was allowed to stand on the field of honor with one leg in a bee-gum! The bee-gums of that day were made of sections of hollow trees. Naturally this remarkable proposition made Judge Tait madder than ever, and he wrote to Judge Dooly that he intended to publish him as a coward. Judge Dooly calmly informed Judge Tait by letter that he had no sort of objection to the publication, provided it was at Tait"s expense. He declared, that, for his part, he would rather fill a dozen newspapers than one coffin. These unexpected strokes of humor disarmed the anger of Judge Tait, and set the whole State in a roar. They did more: they cleared the political atmosphere, and took the edge off of party rancor, which was at that time very fierce and keen.
Once, when dining at a public table, Dooly said something or did something to irritate Major Freeman Walker. The latter, remarking that he had borne with the liberties taken by Judge Dooly quite long enough, said he proposed to resent them then and there. The attack on his feelings had been made in public, and he proposed to resent it in public. Seizing a chair, he advanced on Judge Dooly. The judge seized a carving knife, and braced himself for defense. Several gentlemen caught hold of the judge to prevent him from using the knife, while only one held Major Walker. Surveying the scene, Judge Dooly calmly remarked, "Gentlemen, one of you will be sufficient to prevent me from doing any mischief. The rest of you had better hold Walker." The explosion that this remark created put even Major Walker in good humor, and he and the judge settled their differences in the most amiable and rational manner.
When the Legislature pa.s.sed severe laws against gaming, Judge Dooly enforced them rigidly. Some of the gamblers were brought to trial and fined, and others were only saved from arrest by the fact that they kept out of the way when court was in session.
But one night in Washington, Wilkes County, after the judge had been holding court all the week and had closed the term, he went to his room in the hotel and made all preparations to retire. He had barely settled himself in bed, when he heard a noise in an adjoining room, and soon discovered that a game of faro was going on. The noise disturbed him so, that he dressed himself, went to the room, and told the players, that, having tried all legal methods to break them up, and failed, he was now determined to try another plan. He thereupon seated himself at the table, and before the night was spent broke the bank. He then told the gamblers to clear out, and be more careful in future how they interfered with the court.
Once when sitting up late at night, trying a very complicated case, the sheriff voluntarily placed on the bench beside the judge a small pitcher half filled with toddy. When he had finished the toddy, the judge called to the officer, "Mr. Sheriff, fetch in some more water out of the same spring." A murder case was once tried before him. The point in the case was whether the prisoner had shot in self-defense. There was a good deal said by the lawyers about the right to shoot. The jury, intending to justify the prisoner, brought in this verdict: "The prisoner has a right to shoot." When this verdict was read to the court, the judge held up his hands in pretended alarm, and cried out, "Mr. Sheriff, don"t let him shoot this way!"
A story is told of Judge Dooly and Tom Peter Carnes, another rare humorist, that fairly ill.u.s.trates the statement made in the beginning of this chapter in regard to the plain and democratic character of the people who settled Middle Georgia. Dooly and his friend Carnes were traveling to court, having gone without breakfast in order to be up and on their way at an early hour. At last they reached the place where they were to get breakfast, and called for it with some show of impatience. The lady of the house, however, was in no hurry. She said that they should have breakfast the moment Charles came. So she called for Charles, blew the horn for Charles, and finally sent for Charles. When Charles put in an appearance, the two travelers found that he was a big negro, so black and fat that he fairly glistened when the sun shone on him. Naturally Dooly and Carnes were surprised. They were still more surprised when the negro"s mistress said in a coaxing tone, "Now, Charles, I do wish you would sit down and let the gentlemen eat, as they are in a hurry to go to court." Charles didn"t like so much company; but he finally sat down to the table, on which there was a big bowl of clabber, three "hunks" of corn bread, and three pewter spoons. "Now, Charles," said the woman, "do eat, and then the gentlemen will begin." Making the best of the situation, and somewhat enjoying the humor of it, Dooly and Carnes sat down at the table and began to eat. Carnes shook his big spoon at the negro, and cried out, "Now, Charles, you must spoony on your own side;" and he kept on warning him, "Spoony on your own side, Charles, spoony on your own side." The two lawyers ate until Charles"s spoon began to make raids on their side of the bowl, and then they abandoned the feast to him and went on their way.
A landlord of a hotel, having heard some of the lawyers, among them Judge Dooly, bragging about the toothsomeness of a baked pig they had tasted, probably at Milledgeville during the session of the Legislature, concluded that he would surprise and please them by having something in that line himself.
He was either ignorant or ill-advised; for, instead of baking a suckling pig, he roasted a half-grown pig, stuffed him, put an apple in his mouth, and stood him upon his stumps in a dish. In those days the seat of honor at the head of the hotel table was reserved for the judge of the court At the head of the table Mr. Pig was placed, facing Judge Dooly"s seat. The judge and the lawyers came in, sat down, and ate dinner in comparative silence. They were overawed by Mr. Pig. Though the carving knife lay handy, and the landlord and his wife were watching with impatience and uneasiness to see what the lawyers would say when they had tasted this particular roast pig, no one dared to touch it. At supper Mr. Pig was still standing defiantly in his place. He presided at every meal during the day following. On the morning of the second day, when Judge Dooly came to the table, Mr. Pig was in his old position. Thereupon the judge bowed to him gravely. "Good-morning, sir!" he said. "I am afraid you have lost your appet.i.te, seeing you have not eaten that apple yet. I presume you are tired attending court.-Mr. Sheriff, you may discharge him on his own recognizance, until court in course, seeing we shall have no further use for him at this session, and return him the thanks of the court for his prompt and faithful attendance."
Judge Dooly was a member of the Clarke party; but on one occasion, when he was a candidate for reelection to the judgeship of the northern circuit, some of the Clarke men declared that Governor Troup"s warlike message was an evidence that he was mad. Judge Dooly made the comment, "If he is mad, I wish the same mad dog that bit him would bite me." This happy remark came to the ears of the Troup men in the Legislature, and it so pleased them that they put an end to all opposition to the judge in the election.
Judge Dooly was one of the most charitable of men. He once refused to give alms to an unfortunate woman in Savannah, and the refusal haunted him all his life He declared that it taught him never to let Satan cheat him out of another opportunity to help the unfortunate; that he had determined to err on the safe side ever after.
Just before he died, a friend called to ask after his condition. His reply was that he had a bad cold without any cough to suit it. And so, humor bubbling from his lips to the last, there pa.s.sed away, on the 26th of May, 1827, the rarest humorist that Georgia, the especial mother of humorists, has ever produced. Judge Dooly had a humor that was as illuminating as it was enlivening. It stirred to laughter or it moved to tears, according as this wonderful man chose to direct it.
A great deal of the humor that originated in Georgia has been printed in books. We find it in Judge Long-street"s "Georgia Scenes," in Major Jones"s "Travels," in Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnston"s "Stories of Georgia Life," and in other volumes that have attracted public attention. But the best of it has been lost. It originated when the lawyers were riding about on horseback or in buggies from court to court, and tradition has only preserved a small part of it.
SLAVERY AND SECESSION.
The dispute over slavery, which had been going on for many years, grew furious in 1850; and its fury increased until, in 1860-61, it culminated in the secession of the Southern States from the Union. Some of those who have written the history of the secession movement contend that slavery had little or nothing to do with the matter; that the South seceded because the North had refused to grant her people their rights guaranteed under the Const.i.tution. This is true as far as it goes; but the fact remains, that secession and the war grew out of the efforts of the abolitionists of the North, and those who sympathized with them, to keep slavery out of the Territories, and to prevent the new States then forming from becoming slave States. There is no doubt that these efforts were illegal and unconst.i.tutional; and yet, in the minds of those who made them, const.i.tutionality was not a sufficient excuse for slavery, which, whatever might be its political status, was morally wrong: that is to say, they believed that such a wrong as slavery could not be justified by paper const.i.tutions and the like. Some of the more extreme abolitionists of the North were just as ready to secede from the Union that recognized slavery as the Southerners were to break up a Union whose const.i.tutional guaranties meant nothing.
It must be borne in mind that the antislavery movement began in the South. While slavery was in full blast both North and South, Thomas Jefferson, the greatest political leader the South has ever produced, was at the head of an emanc.i.p.ation movement, and in all parts of the South there were men whose minds revolted at the possibilities that swarmed about human slavery. Georgia was the only one of the Original Thirteen Colonies in which slavery was prohibited, and we have seen how this prohibition was repealed at the demand of the planters. Seven Northern States, finding slavery unprofitable, abolished the system, and a majority of the slaves were sold to the Southern States. But the emanc.i.p.ation movement went on in the South. There were more than fifty thousand free negroes in Virginia in 1856, and there were a great many in Georgia. A number of planters in Georgia, the most prominent among them being Alfred Cuthbert, emanc.i.p.ated their slaves, and arranged to send them to Liberia.
Nevertheless the invention of the cotton gin did more to strengthen the cause of slavery than all other events combined. It became more profitable than ever to own slaves; and in this way, and on this account, all the cotton-growing States became interested in the system. They had the excuse not only that slavery was profitable, but that self-interest combined with feelings of humanity to make it a patriarchal inst.i.tution. And such, in fact, it was. It is to the glory of the American character and name, that never before in the history of the world was human slavery marked by such mildness, such humanity, as that which characterized it in the United States.
But all such considerations as these, as well as the moral objections to slavery of any sort, humane or cruel, were lost sight of in the great controversy that grew so furious in 1850. In that controversy some of Georgia"s ablest men took part,-men who were famous as statesmen all over the country. There were Alexander H. Stephens, who afterwards became the Vice-President of the Confederacy; Robert Toombs, whose fiery and impetuous character and wonderful eloquence made him a man of mark; Howell Cobb, who was speaker of the House of Representatives; Herschel V. Johnson, who was a candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with Stephen A. Douglas in 1860; Benjamin H. Hill, who was just then coming into prominence; and Joseph E. Brown, whose influence on the political history of the State has been more marked than that of any other individual.
The controversy growing out of the slavery question became so warm that it led to the breaking-up of parties in 1850. Stephens and Toombs, who had been Whigs, united with Howell Cobb, who was a Democrat. Other Southern Whigs united under the name of the American party. At the North the Whigs either joined the Republican party or united with the American party. The spirit of disunion was rampant in all parts of the South. In Georgia the Legislature had called a State convention, and a great effort was made by some of the politicians to commit the State to secession. Both Toombs and Stephens were strong Union men, and they opposed the spirit and purpose of the call for the convention. The speeches that Toombs had made in Congress were garbled by the newspapers, and he was made to appear as favoring immediate secession. He made short work of that scheme, however. He returned to Georgia in the fall of 1850, and immediately began one of the most extraordinary campaigns that has ever taken place in the State. He was in the prime of life. His fiery energy, his boldness, his independence, and his dauntless courage, were in full flower. He took issue with what seemed to be the unanimous sentiment of the State. He declared that the call for the convention had dishonored the State. He sent out a ringing address to the people, urging the South to stand by the Const.i.tution and the laws in good faith.
By the time the convention was held, the efforts of Toombs, supplemented by those of Stephens and other conservative men, had turned the tide of disunion. Whigs united with Democrats. When the returns of the election were made known, it was found that a large majority of the members were for the Union. "With no memory of past differences," said Toombs, "careless of the future, I am ready to unite with any portion or all of my countrymen in defense of the integrity of the Republic." So it was that the convention met, and adopted what is known in our political history as "The Georgia Platform." This platform said that Georgia held the American Union secondary in importance to the rights and principles it was bound to perpetuate; that, as the Thirteen Colonies found union impossible without compromise, the thirty-one of that day would yield somewhat in the conflict of opinion and policy, to preserve the Union; that Georgia had maturely considered the action of Congress in adopting the compromise measures, and, while she did not wholly approve that action, would abide by it as a permanent adjustment of this sectional controversy; that the State would in future resist, even to the disruption of the Union, any act prohibiting slavery in the Territories, or a refusal to admit a slave State into the Union.
Thus the Union was saved in 1850 by the very man who had been charged with trying to break it up. The eyes of the whole South were turned to Georgia during that campaign; and when the people, under the leadership of Toombs, Stephens, and Howell Cobb, voted to save the Union, the tide of disunion was turned everywhere. The Georgia platform was made the platform of the const.i.tutional Union party in the Southern States. In Mississippi, Henry S. Foote, the Union candidate, defeated Jefferson Davis for governor. The action of Georgia strengthened the Union sentiment in all parts of the country.
For a while the situation was secure and satisfactory; but, in the nature of things, this could not last. The politicians were busy while the people were asleep. The Know-nothing party sprang up in a night, and divided the people again; and in Congress the slavery discussion was renewed with extreme bitterness over the bills to admit the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska as States. This controversy was even more exciting than that which resulted in the Compromise Laws of 1850. Following close upon this agitation came John Brown"s raid into Virginia, and his attack on Harpers Ferry. In ordinary times this raid would have been regarded with contempt by the Southern people. It was a ridiculous affair,-the act of a man who had worked himself up into a frenzy of folly. If the people themselves had not been influenced by pa.s.sion cunningly played on by the smaller politicians in both sections, poor old John Brown would not have been regarded as a murderer by the South nor as a martyr by the North. He would have been an object of pity to the sensible men of both sections.
But the state of public opinion was such at that time, that this ridiculous venture of a crazy old man was a tremendous shock to the South. It contributed more largely than any other event to alarm the people of this section, and to turn their minds to secession as a relief from, and a remedy for, such attacks upon the peace and good order of society. It was a great stimulant to those who had long been in favor of disunion, as well as to those at the North who were ready to get rid of slavery by violence. Following this raid, public opinion both North and South became so violently agitated, that the voices of conservative men could not be heard above the storm. It was the hour of the agitator and the extremist, and they made the most of it. The Democratic Convention, to nominate a candidate for President and Vice-President, met in Charleston on the 23d of April, 1860, and remained in session until the second day of May. The confused state of public opinion was shown by the turbulent division in that convention.
At a moment when the wise men of the Democratic party, or of any party, ought to have taken hold of affairs and made their influence felt, they seemed to be unequal to the occasion. The members of the convention could not agree, and the body adjourned to meet in Baltimore. But the division continued and grew wider. The differences could not be settled. One faction nominated Douglas and Johnson, and the other nominated Breckinridge and Lane. The result was the election of Lincoln and Hamlin as the candidates of the Republican party.
In Georgia three of the ablest men still stood for the Union,-Alexander H. Stephens, Herschel V. Johnson, and Benjamin H. Hill. But they were unable to stem the tide. The vote of the State for members of the convention that pa.s.sed the ordinance of secession showed a majority of only thirteen thousand for disunion; but Toombs, Thomas R. R. Cobb, Howell Cobb, and others seized the advantage that events gave them, and, in a whirlwind of pa.s.sion, swept aside all the arguments and appeals of the more conservative men. But, of all those who were in favor of secession, Toombs was at that time the most powerful and influential. He so managed matters in Congress as to make the secession of Georgia follow the inevitable failure of measures that he proposed in that body.
With the people of the South, and indeed with the people of the whole country, divided between three parties, the election of a Republican candidate was a foregone conclusion. Following this came secession, with all the terrible disasters of a war in which the South could not have hoped to succeed if reason and common sense had ruled. If the South had fought for her const.i.tutional rights in the Union and under the old flag, the result might have been different. She would have had the active sympathy and support of that large and influential body of Northern men who were sincerely anxious to see the terms of the Const.i.tution faithfully carried out. But disunion was more than these const.i.tutional Democrats could stand. Daniel Webster had solidified their love for the Union, and no consideration of party could affect it.
The course of the South, considering all that was involved, should have been conservative; but it was not. It is perfectly well known now that Abraham Lincoln was willing to sacrifice the abolition party on the altar of the Union. He was prompt to announce his policy in this respect. But secession came, and with it came the doom of slavery. That all was ordered by Providence, it would be foolish to deny; and yet it is impossible not to regret the great sacrifice of blood and treasure that was demanded by the unhappy war that followed secession.