ADDRESS
SrOKEN BEFORE THE
jjiJbjp nitii ®cm0st(jfiriati^ffcicties
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA,
On Commencement Day, August Qd, 1869,
ON
THE DEAD OF GEORGIA,
By Col. R. M. JOHNSTON,
An Honorary Member of the Phi Kappa Society.
Phi Kappa Hall,
Athens, August 3d, 1869.
Col. R. M. Johnston,
Dear Sir: It becomes our pleasant duty, in obedience to the
wish of the Phi Kappa Society, to tender to you the most sincere
and hearty thanks for the eloquent and most appropriate address
delivered by you on yesterday before the Literary Societies of the
University; and in order that it may be known and appreciated
yet more, to request a copy of the same for publication.
Most respectfully,
Your obedient and humble servants,
G. W. VINES, )
N. E. HARRIS, > Committee.
A. S. CAMPBELL. \
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A preservation copy on microfilm
has been produced as part of the
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The film copy is housed in the
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reel accession number.
Pen Lucy, near Baltimore, Md.
August 16th, 1869.
Gentlemen:
Your favor of 3d inst. has been received. I thank the Society
for the compliment implied in the request for a copy of my address,
and I thank you for the terms in which that request has been con¬
veyed.
Herewith please find the copy desired.
With assurances of undiminished interest in the Society and the
noble University of which it is so important a constituent,
I am, most respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
R. M. JOHNSTON.
Messrs. G. W. Vines, >
N. E. Harris, > Committee.
A. S. Campbell, )
ADDRESS.
It was with pleasure, but not without some sadness, that
I accepted your invitation. The absence of two years from
my native State has served to make the friends among
whom, and the places in which I had lived, none the less
beloved. How often my heart, in the times of leisure,
either while I have been sitting in the twilight, or walking
at eventide and looking adown the quiet waters of the
Chesapeake, has gone upon its visitations to these dear
objects, and the emotions it has felt I could make known
only to God. I have thought of the homes that were
ruined and the hearts that were made desolate in these
last sorrowful years; I have known full well what were the
toilsome endeavors to repair the former, and what were the
silent but anguishing and often vain struggles of the latter
for endurance and resignation. Then, perhaps, because
away at my distant home, I could not take the living by
the hand, and console and be consoled in the respect of
our common sufferings, and encourage and be encouraged
in the respect of our common aims and hopes, my thoughts,
more than ever was their wont, have been among those of
my people who have departed to another life. Within
these two years many whom I had known and admired,
some that were illustrious and some that were humble,
have followed upon the inevitable way. In the midst of
reflections upon them, receiving the invitation to speak on
this time-honored Commencement Day, it seemed to be
fit to lead your thoughts along with mine to the contem¬
plation of all those Georgians who, whether recently or
6
remotely, have been exhausted by age or by toil and have
left to survivors their unfinished work.
It is always well that the young be reminded of their
ancestors, when they have been such that there is a pride
to remember or to be told what they were and what they
did. Generous minds, in listening to such recitals, cannot
fail to take upon themselves new resolves worthily to suc¬
ceed in the careers of honor. It is thus that an honorable
life becomes a blessing; good for him who leads it, but
more abundantly good for those who come after it has
passed, and who behold and enjoy the memorials it leaves
behind. The great Creator suffers no good thing to be
wholly lost. A heroic character, who has bravely done or
patiently endured whatever was to be done or endured,
becomes through His appointment a dispenser of blessings
which continue and multiply long after he has ceased to
live. Among the best things, therefore, that we can bestow
upon the world, are the examples of virtuous lives. If we
can walk humbly before God, and justly and kindly among
men; if we can have courage and strength to do the work
which we find to do in a world where virtue often seems
unprofitable, so many are its adversaries; then, if we can
cheerfully wait for reward, however late or uncertain it be in
its coming,—aye, if we can forego all reward and be satis¬
fied that it shall devolve upon those who are to come after
we shall have been broken down and buried out of the
sight of men, we can do what is equal to the most exalted
charities and superior to whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
In the lives of the Georgians who have departed are to
be found many great examples. Such a theme seems most
proper to consider now. These present times have many
things which tend to make us fond to recur to the older
and better. The Georgia of to-day, in some respects, is
not the Georgia she was. Her living men are the equals
of those of any former time; but having expended their
7
greatest endeavors in behalf of a cause that was as unfor¬
tunate as it was dear, overcome, impoverished, bereft of
many things without which life seems of little value, and
after four years of such bereavement, yet proscribed and
persecuted, they are away from public places, and, like
Achilles in his tent, view from afar the actions of those
who appear to be heroes only because the truly heroic are
without their armor and absent from the field. Not that
it is profitless to contemplate these living men in their
quiet lives. For an important lesson may be learned in
beholding what a brave mind may suffer, and yet, instead
of losing any of its virtue, become braver through afflic¬
tion. The lives that some of them are leading now will be
compared hereafter with the best of any period. The dig¬
nity with which they endure proscription, the serenity with
which they contemplate the loss of all but honor, the
fidelity with which they observe the pledges exacted by
those to whom they surrendered under promises of peace
and security; their deep grief, not for themselves, not
so much for their children and friends, whether living
or dead; but for their country—their whole country—
which they long to see reunited and at peace upon the
principles of right and justice, all these are a lesson
which we may study with ever increasing profit. Some of
them, like Fabricius and Cincinnatus, are following the
plow and eking a frugal living from their wasted fields.
Some, like Camillus and Cicero, are traveling in foreign coun¬
tries and anxiously waiting the time when they may return to
the service of their people. Some, like Sallust and Varro,
have betaken themselves to literary labors and are making
for posterity the records of their times. Some have re¬
turned from the Forum to the Bar, and men may sometimes
hear the old ring which was wont to move them to rapture
in happier days. Some are yet ministering to the sick,
now more numerous and necessitous because of the wast-
8
ings of a protracted war. Some are re-opening the long
obstructed channels of trade and commerce. Some are re¬
building and rehabilitating the nurseries of education.
And some yet stand on Sabbath mornings in holy temples,
and from having shared, like Daniel, in all the afflictions of
their people, have come to a better trust in God, and can
draw from His oracles truer and more consoling interpreta¬
tions. We may look upon such men in these, their less
exalted estates, and admire the more the virtue which grows
purer in those fires through which it is passing; but we
may not obtrude upon their privacy, nor disturb their
labors and meditations. To them even the voice of praise
would bring little pleasure while they are brooding over an
unhappy country which they have not the power to serve;
and, in the knowledge that the active days of their careers
are over, are solemnly waiting for the end. Their eulogy
will be best pronounced hereafter. They have appealed to
the next ages for their vindication, and they neither fear
their judgment nor doubt that the honors which are now
withheld will hereafter come and cluster around their graves.
Therefore, let us turn, for a brief time, from the contem¬
plation of those who are living and recall the memory of
the dead of Georgia. We may surely praise these without
offense, both because of the work which they did while yet
alive, and because in the silent chambers where they have
been laid they either hear not or reck not the mention of
their names and deeds. Then such recalling may serve to
lift up our hearts to brighter hopes and braver endeavors
to recover the precious things that have been lost to us,
and thus we may have a new joy in their examples and a
more effective stimulus to imitate them.
The dead of Georgia! What memories are awakened
in thinking of the dead of Georgia! Who of us remem¬
bers not among them one at least whose departure cast a
shadow upon the life that was left that will never disappear ?
9
How precious are these dead ! How lovely were their lives!
How we wept when we saw their strength exhausted and
their beauty grown pale ! What strange calmness and still¬
ness were upon their faces when we leaned over them, and
knelt by them, and cried to them to come back! How
hard it has been through the weary days, and months, and
years, to realize that they never will come back ! But what
new and higher views this realization has enabled us to take
of the significance of this life and of that to which they
have departed! What clearer thoughts we can have of
immortality! When we think of the dead of Georgia, it is
not alone of those who led in the noble works which raised
this State to its former position of prosperity, but we think
mostly of our own beloved who are among them, whether
they were illustrious or humble. The aged Cato grew
exstatic at the near approach of the day when he should
behold the great men whom he had known and read of,
who had ascended to Heaven. Yet it was not these whom
he most fondly mentioned and with whom he was most
eager to be joined in the eternal life. It was not the Decii,
and the Fabii, and the Claudii; it was not Plato, and So¬
crates, and his own Pythagoras; it was not the wise men of
Greece, and Egypt, and India. Oh, no. It was one who,
long years ago, had fallen almost in his boyhood, and who
now in his extreme age was yet the best beloved of his
heart. It was Marcus, his own Marcus, in whom was the
promise of perpetuating the glories of the Porcian and
zEmilian lines; dearer than all his colleagues in war and
statesmanship, than all the friends of every season, than all
the heroes of Roman story, than all the philosophers of
every age. In this regard the great Censor was but the type
of mankind of all degrees. The preciousness of our own dead
depends never upon the excellent greatness of their lives, but
upon those reciprocal bonds with which nature bound them
and us together, and which we will deny even to death the
2
IO
power to break. Therefore, when we mention the dead of
Georgia, every of us will first recur to our own beloved, to
whose graves of varying lengths affection leads us to repair
when we can, in order to meditate and to mourn, to pray
and to hope.
But it was my- purpose mainly to recall to your minds to¬
day those Georgians who had been most prominent in
developing the resources and exalting the honor of the
State. We may justly claim thus much: that considering
the number of its people, and the duration of its existence as
a civilized country, its aggregate of talent and successful
enterprise has been equal to that of any other State in the
history of mankind. The youngest of the Old Thirteen,
most distant from the centres of American civilization, with
the least frequent intercourse with European nations, it
needed men of talent to discover its resources and advance
their development. And they came. Some from across
the ocean, some from New England and the Middle
States, more from Maryland and the Carolinas, but most
from Virginia. They came and went to the conquest of the
forest and the savage; they made their laws and magistra¬
cies ; built churches and schools, and when the war of Inde¬
pendence was over, they began a career of prosperity whose
history I know you will hereafter be proud to study.
Since I have been reflecting and reading, especially for
the purposes of this occasion, about the distinguished men
of Georgia, I have been surprised to find so long a list of
names in every department of endeavor. In the short time
beyond which I should not feel at liberty to pass in this
address, I can mention and that but cursorily, only those
who were most prominent. Even in this limited mention I
must be confined almost entirely within one of these depart¬
ments. Would that we could linger upon the names of
Gwinnett and Hall, and Tattnall and Telfair, and Walton.
Brave men and hardy were they. None could know better
11
what amount and what sorts of the old civilizations might
be introduced among the first rude settlers on the west of
the Savannah. None could be more familiar with times
and seasons. Comprehending all the wants of their people,
they began the task of providing for them with most judi¬
cious preference for such objects as were most necessary and
most susceptible of provision. Far from despising refine¬
ments, they could not but hold them subordinate to the
necessities of their being. For these they provided in
abundance, leaving those to be obtained by the men who
were to follow in the road whither they were leading.
These men and their compeers labored faithfully in those
iron years, and then they died, full of years and scars, but
fuller of honor and glorious hopes.
Meanwhile, Georgia, once a colony and subject to the
crown of Great Britain, had become a State, free, indepen¬
dent, and sovereign. Another array of men arose for higher
and more difficult undertakings. Foremost among these, a
man eminently fitted to be the central figure of spirits that
were qualified for all the purposes of a new and free com¬
monwealth, was James Jackson. His lofty courage, his proud
scorn both of public and private wrong, his rigid regard for
the enforcement of honorable obligations, whether of indi¬
viduals or corporate bodies, made him an illustrious example
which the State of Georgia has faithfully followed in her
foreign and domestic policy. His compeers were Baldwin,
and Watkins, and Stith, and Osborne, and Houstoun and their
likes. In order to fully appreciate these eminent statesmen,
it will be necessary for you to study intimately those two
magnificent systems, the one of your University and the
other of your Judiciary. Of the former Baldwin was the
acknowledged founder, and it is wonderful to consider how
a single intellect could devise, in such an age, a plan so
various in its details yet so easy of execution. Whenever
the State shall be in the condition to fully execute these
12
several details, not only will education receive greater
impulses than ever before, but the name of Abraham Bald¬
win will gain the estimation which it deserves and which by
reason of this neglect it has thus far failed to attain. As to
whether he alone, or Watkins alone, or Stith alone, or all these
conjointly with Osborne and the other great lawyers whose
genius adorned the administration of Jackson were the authors
of the judiciary system of Georgia, it is not easy from the
imperfect annals of our early history to determine. In
regard to the merits of that system, none but a profound
lawyer can fully understand what for sixty years elicited
the admiration of the best jurists in America and Great
Britain. Receiving the Common Law of the latter with
the statutes which had been enacted prior to our Indepen¬
dence that were applicable to our condition, our ancestors
took them with all their irregularities and anomalies, their
vexatious technicalities, their circuitous and involved suits,
and their constant conflicts with Chancery injunctions. It
was lamentable even with English lawyers how tedious civil
actions had become through the multiplication of forms and
cross litigations. Yet these hindrances in judiciary practice
were removed sooner in America than in England, and in
no other State was this salutary reform accomplished earlier
and more effectively than in Georgia. That Act of 1799 is
at once as simple, as complete, and as just for the trial of
causes in Nisi Prius courts as has ever been devised by
man. Thirty years after its adoption, Lord Tenterden
copied many of its leading provisions into his Reform Bill,
and twenty years yet later Lord Brougham was heard by a
distinguished Georgian, yet living, to speak of it as one of
the best achievements of legislative wisdom. This system,
like others of our institutions, has been greatly modified
and indeed almost swept away. Yet, I commend it, as it
was of old, to the careful study of those who expect to
adopt the legal profession or become engaged in public
13
affairs. The methods of bringing and defending suits, of
selecting juries in appeal trials, of the conduct of claim-
cases, and then that beautiful blending of Law with Equity
in the superior courts constitute a system which shows that its
authors were among the greatest lawgivers of any time. It
has been much mutilated by violent hands; but the frag¬
ments that are left make us wonder that in so young a
State, there should have been a wisdom so consummate in
the most difficult of human endeavors.
Next upon this roll in point of time comes a galaxy of
great names. At its head William H. Crawford, than
whom it is probable that America never gave birth to one
more accomplished in all the genius of statesmanship. The
adviser in the last year of Jefferson's administration, the single
leader in those of Madison and Monroe, the embassador to
France, coping with the giant intellects whom the Revolu¬
tion had produced, the succession to that great line of Re¬
publican Presidencies was his by almost universal acclaim.,
when disease smote him in the zenith of his manhood and
he must decline from his high career. But those who saw
him even after he was shorn of his greatest strength used
to tell us with what awe they contemplated the ruins of
that genius which once had been mighty enough for the
rule of a continent
If his inferior in genius, his superior in eloquence and
general cultivation was John Forsyth. Happy were the
men who used to hear this accomplished orator in the
brave old days when he was the leader of Jackson's admin¬
istration. With a form and face the most beautiful of man¬
kind, with a voice ringing and clear like the clarion's, when
he was wont to rise and grow hot in the combats of political
debate, he was almost irresistible. In no man of his gen¬
eration was there a more harmonious combination of those
excellencies which in Greek and Roman times had raised
eloquence to be the grandest of all arts. And then there
14
was Berrien, his equal in all except eloquence, yet an orator
of high degree, his full rival in political ability, and his
superior, as he was the superior of all his cotemporaries, in
the profound knowledge of the law. Then there was
Troup, that old Roman, the man of action instead of the
man of words, whose courageous defense of State sover¬
eignty made him the most popular and powerful of all the
great leaders in the politics of the State, and qualified him
alone to be the conqueror of his great rival, John Clark.
And how handsomely did his mantle fall upon the shoulders
of George R. Gilmer, in whom were united every public and
private virtue. Then there were Early, and Charlton, and
Spalding, and Glasscock, and Habersham, and Flournoy, and
Irvin, and Cuthbert. What shall we say of Dooly, and
Prince, and Clayton, that trio of wits among the statesmen
of the last generation? Advocates and judges of renown,
yet with eyes to see and hearts to laugh at all the objects
from which in the old ridings fun and frolic might be made.
O the merry days and the merrier nights when these three
would meet with others of their like in the lawyers' rooms
of village taverns! "No man than John M. Dooly had
more of the broad humor which could expose the
absurd follies of the vulgar. Prince was like him, only
with a touch of delicate satire which seemed to attain its
perfection in Clayton. The elegant accomplishments of the
last made him the centre of a social circle as elevated in
every element of gentle breeding as could be found through¬
out the South. In the midst of professional labors he found
abundant leisure for literary recreations. Like Crawford,
he too was suddenly stricken while rapidly ascending, and
when there seemed to be a full prospect of reaching a far
higher fame. Then there were Noel, and Davis, and Camp¬
bell. Then there were Jones, and Tracy, and Underwood;
the first the greatest case lawyer of his day, and the last
two another brace of wits, who never made a mistake, and
15
whose sarcasm, but mostly for merriment, was wont to
spare those of no degree who provoked its resistless shafts.
The careers of the men named in the last class exerted
an immense influence upon the State, both independently
and as a member of the Federal Union. Far in advance
of what must be the condition of the citizens of a State of
so recent settlement, with humane and patriotic zeal they
led upon the highways of personal and social progress.
The abundant development of the intellect of Georgia, co¬
operating with and conducting her natural advantages, placed
her on a full level with any of her sisters, and henceforth
not one, according to its representation, was more prom¬
inent in the Congress. In the number of cabinet and for¬
eign ministers, in all the important offices of public ser¬
vice, this good State has contributed more than her full
share to the welfare of the American Union at home and its
honor and glory among the nations of the earth. As for
what was the degree of that development of its own re¬
sources, I repeat what I said in the beginning, that it may
fairly compete with any State, either in the New World or
in the Old. At the commencement of the War, the number
of colleges and schools of high grade were fully equal to
those in any State according to population, and the taxable
property to the same ratio reached a figure higher than
ever has been attained in the history of States. Wealth
was more equally distributed, taxation was lower than in
any nation, and the income from public property would
soon have produced what this world never had seen, the
case of a great, populous, and wealthy people without a tax-
gatherer in their midst, growing daily with continually
increasing rapidity in every element of power and felicity.
And now, young gentlemen, when I consider the prom¬
inent men who followed in the tracks of those last mentioned,
and who rushed this State on that great career thus happily
begun, I feel a really painful embarrassment. The array of
16
such men in the last generation, some of them partly cotem-
porary with the preceding, is so numerous and so gifted
that one is at a loss how to contract the mention of their
names within reasonable limits. With whom shall I begin,
and with whom shall I end, and whom can I justly omit in
looking upon the long list ? The one who seems to me
most worthy to lead in this commemoration is Gordon.
Perhaps of all the illustrious men who have lived and died
in Georgia, she owes, for her material prosperity, the
greatest debt of gratitude to him. Besides the renown
which his abilities as a lawyer had contributed to increase,
he was the first, as he surely was the ablest in projecting
and establishing that system of internal improvements
which afterwards made her an Empire among her Southern
sisters. His constant devotion to this cause, his persistent
combats with prejudices and hostilities of every form, his
clear foresight and eager seeking for great results, his heroic
personal risks and sacrifices, ending in a premature death,
justly entitle the name of William W. Gordon to a place
among those of the noblest benefactors of mankind.
But I must pass to other names. What shall I say
of Wilde ? To the poetic ardor which he brought from the
Green Isle in which he was born was superadded the prac¬
tical fullness of the man of business. All the world is
familiar with that song of the Summer Rose; but it may
not know that the poet who sang so sweetly and sadly was
a brilliant orator also, a statesman and a laborious and pro¬
found lawyer. And another Charlton. He too was
a poet, and he ought to have been. If ever man answered
to Milton's ideal of what sort of person a poet should be,
that man was Robert M. Charlton. For his life was "a
poem filled with the greatest and honorablest things."
Probably no man in this State had ever been so much
loved. At the head of its most numerous Bar he lived
without an enemy, and when he died, the poor and the rich
l7
wept together. And William Camming, the compeer of
McDuffie, more full of promise in his youth than any man
whom the State had ever produced; who so strangely, and
as if wearied with the superabundance of the power to lead
mankind, went into private life even before his young man¬
hood had passed. In speaking of Sir James Mackintosh,
Fenimore Cooper said, that of all men whom he had
met, this distinguished Briton possessed the greatest con¬
versational powers except Colonel William Cumming.
Then there were McAllister and Gamble, and Cobb, and
Colquitt, and Charles Dougherty, the head of a whole
family of lawyers, and Andrew Miller, and Henry Cum¬
ming, and Lucius Lamar, and Dawson, and Cone, and
Sayre, and Edward Hill, the Holts, and Black, and
Meriwether, and Jo. Henry Lumpkin'. I wish I had time to
discourse upon the several excellencies of these men; the
profound juridical knowledge of some, the thrilling eloquence
of others, the sparkling humor of others, and the high
professional honor and public spirit of all. What times
were they in the ridings of the Northern and Ocmulgee
Circuits, when, the day's work being over, we listened to
the merry jests of Dawson and Sayre and the roaring
laughter of Cone! The great orator of that array was
Lumpkin. How vivid and sad is the recollection of
that man upon this rostrum where we have seen him so
often at these anniversaries, and near to yonder solemn
grove upon the Oconee where his mortal- part is resting.
He too must retire through physical infirmity in the noon
of his fame; but fortunately for his State he could live for
many years longer and sit as Chief Justice of that Supreme
Court whose Reports, owing for the most part to the ability
with which he presided, have taken so high rank in all the
courts of the Union. As an orator, no Georgian, not even
Forsyth, excelled him. With less, yet scarcely less of per¬
sonal beauty, but with a face which betokened more serious
3
18
and exalted thoughts, he was wont, in his younger and
stronger time, to speak in such strains that men who heard
him felt that whenever he should cease they might never
hear their like again. He had never been in the Federal
counsels, and his orations, therefore, were mostly confined
to arguments before judges and juries. In these, his com¬
passionate nature led him usually to espouse the cause of
the weak and the friendless. Whenever he appeared in
defense of these and felt that they needed the utmost exer¬
tion of his powers, then you might have seen how his form
would rise, and quiver, and dilate, his long clustering hair
would sway, and his voice would grow only the sweeter
from the trembling which passion and diffidence had con¬
spired to impart. Forsyth and Lumpkin were the two
great orators of Georgia's foretime. It would be interesting
to compare them. If Forsyth was the readier in debate,
Lumpkin was able to exhibit more earnest and solemn con¬
victions. If the one was more fiercely vehement in attack,
the other was more gifted in every faculty to conciliate and
persuade. If the voice of the one was sonorous like the
trumpet which summons to arms and battle, that of the
other was sweet and musical like the divine pipe with which
the son of Maia subdued the relentless cruelty of Earth-born
Argus. Well may you, young men of Georgia, be proud of
the memory of this noble pair. Whoever among you
aspires to the highest excellencies of oratory need seek no
other models than John Forsyth and Joseph Henry Lump¬
kin.
But the eminent men of the Bar are to be counted by
scores. I have not time even to mention all their names.
Many of brilliant gifts I have been compelled to overlook.
I invite you who desire to know what your State has done
in the production of lawyers and statesmen, to inquire from
your old men of the other Lamars, of Torrance, and Robert
Augustus Beall, the two Reids, Shorter, the Schleys, Skrine,
19
Polhill, Baxter, the Kings, Thomas, McDonald, Harris,Towns*
Upson and Starnes. The elevation to which professional
deportment was raised by these men was as high as human
nature seems capable to reach. It was pleasant to see how
meek the charlatans and pettifoggers of inferior courts
would grow and what profitable lessons they would learn
when such men would meet at the Grand Assizes, and
though wrestling from day to day in all their might, admire
and esteem one another more and more for the gentle
courtesies and the high honor which these intellectual com¬
bats continued to enhance. Never was there a braver set
of gentlemen than the old Bar of Georgia.
Now I must pass to those of our own day who have
crossed before us over the dark river. Of those who were
eminent leaders not many have yet departed. These are
sadder deaths than any aforementioned. Always inscruta¬
ble as are the ways of Providence, they are never more so
than when we are contemplating the untimely deaths of
such as these. Owens, Tucker Irvin, the Tracies, Thomas,
Cumming, Nelms, Lofton, Deloney. How bright! Among
these were some who were competent to rise to any height
in statesmanship. Yet how soon they ended their young
careers ! how sadly ! Alas ! what joy Death often seems
to take when he bids
"The feeble wrap th' athletic in his shroud,
And weeping fathers build their children's tomb."
And Frank Bartow ! Well I remember his answer to the
invitation which was extended to him in 1861, to perform
the task which now devolves upon me to deliver the prize-
medals. "I accept upon condition I can be there; but
none can now say where I shall be then." He was organ¬
izing his regiment. Full of ardor and high expectation, he
hastened to what was destined to be the ground for the
20
greatest battles of the world. " I go," he exclaimed, "to
illustrate Georgia.!" What noble words, and what pro¬
phetic ! How that gallant man did illustrate the honor and
the misfortune of his beloved State ! How many Geor¬
gians followed upon that path of honor and misfortune !
But not these now, except one other, that young tribune
whose death at Fredericksburgh filled the land with mourn¬
ing. Thomas Cobb had a combination of as many shining
gifts as any man whom this country has produced. Cer¬
tainly no man in this State had ever surpassed him in the
rapidity of professional success. Graduated at eighteen
years of age, at twenty-two he was able not only to
conduct the immense business of his illustrious father-in-law,
who then went upon the Supreme Bench, but to extend it
to a yet wider circuit. It was marvelous to see with what
courage and ability a beardless boy could grapple with the
oldest and greatest intellects at the Bar. More marvelous
yet was the union of an enthusiasm ardent as that of a
Crusader or Paladin with a talent for business so prodigious
that it seemed amply sufficient for any half-dozen ordinary
men, and allowed him to carry his practice over a larger
circuit than that of any other lawyer in the State. Yet
he had abundant leisure for extra professional studies, for
enterprises of education, and for the holy church whose
lay offices he faithfully discharged. Young as he was in
1861, he had already done the work of a long life. But
who then had seen in him the evidences of decay, or even
of fatigue ? His eye had yet the lustre and his cheek the
sheen of maiden beauty. In the company of his little
children he could find joy equal to that of the youngest
in their flowers and toys. In this happy circle he had the
light step, the careering youth,
"The sunshine of the breast,"
which made those who saw him there feel often like ex-
21
claiming, " Now is the May of life!" When for the first
time he took part in political affairs, how rapidly he did
rise! A new and intenser ardor came to him in this new
field. What burning words fell from his mouth upon the
ears of a people who were enquiring with an anxiety never
felt before what they must do to save their country! And
he too must illustrate Georgia in both her heroism and
misfortune. Ah! we may not know all the thoughts that
were in that ardent, generous, patriotic, pious heart upon that
day when, after giving his last command and shouting his
last huzza, he fell in sight of the abodes and hard by the
tombs of his ancestors.
Howell Cobb! that other tribune, who, after having
passed through the dangers of battle, we hoped might live
long to devote, as we trusted he would devote, his great
abilities to the service of his afflicted people. Howell
Cobb! Many memories rise at the mention of that name.
Memories of a leading lawyer of this Western Circuit and a
Representative in Congress at twenty-seven ; of a Speaker
of the House and of a Governor of Georgia midway beyond
thirty; of a leader of his party in one administration, of a
leader of another administration itself until the War, of a
brave general to its close, and then of a retired statesman
with full twenty years more of vigor for every purpose in
which it might be employed. What an influence that
gifted man did exert from his very boyhood! What devo¬
tion did he enjoy! How bold, how generous, and then
how g3y'• Ho companionship was better than his had
been in all seasons. In the days of our prosperity his was
the merriest laugh of all; and when defeat came upon our
cause, he was yet the most cheerful of all and the most
hopeful that in good time prosperity would return. Death
is powerful. Little a respecter of persons is Death. He
smote a brave, great heart, on that day in New York, when
without ruth or warning he laid his hand on Howell Cobb.
22
The sudden deaths of these two brothers are among the
mournfulest events in the history of Georgia. Alike in
the rapidity of their rise .and the love with which they
inspired mankind, as with Tiberius and Caius Gracchust
there was only such dissimilarity in talents and dispositions
as to add to their family renown, and to raise the question
among those who knew them both, which was the more to
be loved for his virtues and admired for his genius. Howell
Cobb was the last of the eminent Georgians to depart.
Who will be the next ? Let us hope and let us pray that
such another affliction may be late in its coming.
I have thus briefly alluded to some of those Georgians
whose leadership in politics and the legal profession made
them most prominent in their times. I can only repeat
my regrets that this limited time prevented me from en¬
larging more upon their respective merits. As little satis¬
factory as these allusions have been, if they can contribute
anything to make you more desirous to study the history
of your State and the lives of her eminent men, I shall be
sufficiently gratified by my endeavors.
But it must not be supposed that I consider that the only
memorable men of Georgia have been lawyers and states¬
men, or that all her statesmen have been lawyers. Either
of these is far from the truth. The medical profession has
furnished many whose careers have added to the honor of
this State in degrees that are not more generally considered,
especially by the young, because the influence of that class
is so silent in its operations. He whose labors are done
amid the whisperings and subdued lights of the chambers
of the sick can never expect to compete for fame with him
who stands and cries aloud before listening multitudes.
His reward is yet one that satisfies, in that it comes from
gratitude, the loveliest of all virtues, and from realizing
the truth of the divine maxim, it is better to give than to
receive. We cannot easily overestimate the value of a
23
good physician. Georgia has had many such in her day.
There were Bartow, and Dent, and Antony, the Wing-
fields, Waring, Richardson, Wildman, Janes, Linton, White,
the Fosters, Baber, Foot, Mackie, and Andrews. And there
were Terrell, and Abbott, and Screven, and Branham, and
Mercer and Daniel. These last were not less prominent in
politics than in medicine. Not seeking, and in a profession
inconsistent with political promotion, their eminent abilities
were exacted by leading statesmen in the counsels of both
State and Federal politics, and they were obliged to give what
it would have been unpatriotic to withhold. But their
highest meed came from their devotion to professional duties.
Let us neither undervalue their work nor the courage that
was often necessary for its execution. Men are apt too
often to associate courage with guns and swords, and hand
to hand combats of man with man. But there is a loftier
courage, and it leads good men, in the midst of pestilences
which walk unseen, while others are fleeing to places of
security, to the houses of the poor and the dying, in order
to trim their couches, minister to their last wants, soothe
their wailings, and share—if it must be—their lot of sick¬
ness and death. Such was the courage of Wildman, and
such was that of Mackie. It was born of a noble origin,
of a due sense of professional obligation and a pity for
mankind, which, next to the fear and love of God, it is our
highest and solemnest duty to feel.
Nor should we forget those who led in the commercial,
agricultural, and educational interests ot Georgia. They
never expected that their names would be mentioned in
history or even in public speeches. Yet, such men as
Dearing, and Camak, and Cuyler, and Wiley, and Hull,
and Baxter, and Sibley, and Moore, and Carmichael, and
Phinizy, and Stovall, and Barrett, and Hargraves, and
Habersham, and Hartridge, and Hunter, and Anderson
among commercial men, and the Hamiltons, and Lamars,
24
and Eves, and Whiteheads, and Jordans, and Bonds, and
Battles, and Screvens, and Janeses and Reads, and Waltons
among planters; of Taylor, and Monegan, and Webster,
and Read, and Alden, the Waddells, and Findlay, and
Church, and Jackson, and Tallmage, and Sanders among
teachers, should be commemorated to all who desire to see
and who hope to assist in restoring the rich inheritance
we possessed until it was lost through the cruelest and
most disastrous of wars.
What shall I say now of those holy men who, after their
toilings in this militant church, have rested and are now
among the triumphant with their great Captain. What a
list of preachers from Bolzius ! What fervent zeal was in
Marshall, and Russell, and Hull! What giant strength in
Mercer, and Few, and Olin! What eloquence in Jones,
and Thornton, and Dawson! What mellow pathos in
Mallory, and Sanders, and Golding! What solemn warn¬
ing in Hoyt and Ford, and Tallmage! What apostolic
completeness in Elliott and Barry! The full value of such
men to their generations cannot be understood, because its
greater part, like their closet prayers, is known only to Him
who called them to His work and gave them His inspiration.
But we have seen and our Fathers have told us some of the
blessed results of their labors, as they were exhibited in the
virtue and felicity of the thousands of family circles through¬
out the State. It is my most sincere belief, that in all
these Southern States, under the old regime, there was as
high a standard of purity in domestic and social life
as had ever been attained elsewhere. It was always
strange that the people of the South were never under¬
stood by the outside world, who seemed to take its strong¬
est impressions from those incidents and characteristics
that were the least general and therefore the least rep¬
resentative. Yet even the relation of master and servant
in the old days was upon a basis which, in its general
25
operations, was the most humane that had ever been
devised by man. It is all gone now. Such seemed to
be the will of God. Be it so. I rejoice that my people
are being led so to regard this revolution, and are striving
to accommodate these new relations to all the rights and
interests of themselves and their former dependents.
The purity in these family circles was due in the main to
the lives and exhortations of these men of God, and espe¬
cially to the ready response which their exhortations found
in the hearts of Georgia women. What I say of the de¬
parted women of Georgia, I say of those of all the South
to whom they were akin in blood and characteristics: that
this lower world has never produced their superiors in the
abounding gifts which were needed to exalt scciety to its
highest state. When I consider their humble piety, their
delicate sensibilities, their hearty hospitality, their fidelity in
all the relations of womanhood, their decorum in the conduct
of the affairs of their households, their humane rule over their
servants, their gentle leading of their children in becoming
ways, and their deference to their husbands in those con¬
cerns in which man was created to be the leader and
the judge, I feel that in spite of poverty, and sickness,
in spite of wars and defeats, in spite of proscriptions,
and persecutions, and exiles, this is a glorious world,
both for what it has in such as these and in the promise
which it imparts through them of what that coming world
must be whither they have ascended and where they have
become immortal.
I am now led to the contemplation of the general dead
of Georgia; the undistinguished, the thousands, and
thousands, and tens of thousands. Some lived down to
old age, and, like the ripened fruit, fell when they were
ready to be gathered. Some, like the unripened, were
4
26
torn with violence from the tree, leaving it wounded and
shivering. These were
"The doubly dead, in that they died so young."
Some in the cradle or upon the laps of their mothers, saw
nothing of the world but the smiles and love. Some,
grown tired of toys and play, and flowers and birds, went
to sleep upon couches surrounded by parents and brethren,
and were laid away decently in graves around which were
planted the emblems of sorrow and holy hope. And oh, how
many, how many were slain on battle-fields or perished
in camps and hospitals, from diseases of body and
soul, and had neither coffin nor winding sheet, over whose
shallow graves neither prayer was spoke nor hymn was lifted,
and where the few tears that were shed from comrades'
eyes were soon wiped away, because there was no time for
lamentation even for the dead.! How these Georgians bore
themselves throughout that bloody war all the world knows
full well. This whole country, from the Susquehanna to
the Mississippi, is dotted with their graves. In every one
of these is the dust of him who once was " somebody's
darling " in the State of Georgia. Somebody here wept anew
when it was known that he was never to return. Even the
shouts of triumph over a thousand victories came from
those whose hearts, while they rejoiced in the hope of their
country's deliverance, were bleeding in secret because it
was costing the blood of their best-beloved. And when
all this costly sacrifice was found to have been in vain,
when husbands, brothers, sons, lovers, and liberty all were
lost, oh! then the voice of lamentation went up higher
than in Rama, for a bloodier work had been done than
when all the mothers of Galilee were weeping for their
children.
The undistinguished dead! These are they whom at
last we remember the fondliest and the longest bewail. The
2 7
strength of Georgia, as of all other States, lay at last in her
multitudes. The schools, and colleges, and churches, and
storehouses it was for the multitudes that these were
erected. Justly as we may be proud of our most illustrious
men, yet the springs of that unprecedented felicity of the
old times were in the homes of the multitudes. The affec¬
tions of husbands and wives, of parents and children, of
brothers and sisters, the pious duties which these affections
made it so sweet to perform, these are what rendered the
people of Georgia, in common with their brethren of the
South, so happy. The griefs that were the heaviest were
when death would come into one of these circles, and subtract¬
ing one of the links, break the golden chain. Human loves
and sympathies belong to all conditions. To the poor
mother the prattle of her infant, though she can clothe it
but in homely garments, is sweeter than all music; and
when it dies, the anguish of heir heart is neither less nor
more than that of the queen, when her offspring, the heir
apparent to a throne, languishes amid ermine and laces, and
is laid away in the sepulchres of a hundred ancestors.
Mournful to all as are the wailings of the dying and the
paleness of the dead, they are immeasurably the mourn-
fulest to those who were bound to them by the ties of
domestic love. We grow sad when a great man dies, and
feel our sense of the common loss; but the grief which
wrings the heart is at the death of those who were of our
own blood, after whose departure this life is never the same
as before. So God hath formed us all, and: thus forming,
he leads us to a surer trust in immortality and a more con¬
stant striving for it In vain they tell the little cottage
maid, while she counts her family list,
"Ye then are only five.
You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea."
Hut out of the mouth childhood, wiser than age, because
28
fuller of faith, come forth the words which assure of the
yet unbroken chain of all the loving, lovely, and beloved.
" Nay, we are seven;
O master, we are seven :
Two of us in the churchyard lie,
Beneath the churchyard tree."
O little heart, type of the great heart of humanity ! .We
can give up the great and the renowned, but we cannot,
cannot wholly resign our own to the darkness. These are
they whose relics we are fondest to save, if they be but
little toys, and faded garments, and shreds of hair; and
these are they whose angels, ever ascending and descending,
acquaint us more and more with the way to everlasting life.
The Dead of Georgia! All the Dead of Georgia! The
illustrious and the humble, the few and the multitudes!
How solemn their graves ! How living their memories !
How ineffably sweet the hopes of ultimate reunion in¬
dissoluble evermore !
Now, would you know, young men, whiy I have thus
spoken to-day ? Because, I would lead your thoughts for
a while from the present crippled condition of your State
to the contemplation of her former renown. I hoped I
might contribute something to the pride you must already
feel in your ancestors. Great as was the Georgia of 1861,
learn well to what her greatness was due. Not to her soil
and climate; for these were always here. Not alone to her
having been the place for human habitation, for here
the Red man through the untold ages had made his home.
The character of the men from whom you sprang, their
genius, their enterprise, these were the agencies that raised
her to the noble height on which she stood, and to which
the shades of the departed call upon you to restore her.
These gifts have descended to you. The violence that
wrenched away your other inheritance could not impair
these, because, like the memories of our beloved, they are
29
unconquerable and immortal. In a better day, to come soon
I trust when you may go unmolested to all the appropriate
work of free citizens, no nobler task was ever set for genius
and enterprise than you will find in raising again the ancient
standards and joining in the generous strife to make your
own first among her equals in a grand galaxy of free States.
I pray you make yourselves ready for such a work. To
this end, I pray you further, learn more and more of your
fathers. Among the examples which they have set, you
will find what is the value of a brave life, and what the
greater glory of a brave death. Choose from among
them the best and honorablest, and then, whether your
careers be exalted or lowly, whether you are to be con¬
ducted to the grave in high funereal pomp or followed
only by the few whom you have known, and loved, and
blessed, go without regret, grateful for the gift of life, and
joying that it was not bestowed in vain.