The Memories of Fifty Years Part 11

INFLUENCE OF CHILDHOOD.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS--FORTUNE--MIRABEAU B. LAMAR--DR. ALONZO CHURCH--JULIUS CaeSAR--L.Q.C. LAMAR--TEXAN INDEPENDENCE--COLQUITT--LUMPKIN--WHAT A GREAT MAN CAN DO IN ONE DAY--CHARLES J. JENKINS.

The memories of childhood cling, perhaps, more tenaciously than those of any after period of life. The attachments and antipathies then formed are more enduring. Our school-companions at our first school--the children of our immediate neighborhood, who first rolled with us upon the gra.s.s, and dabbled with us in the branch--we never forget. Time, absence, protracted separation, all fail to obliterate the features, the dispositions, or anything about them, which so unconsciously fastens upon the mind, and grows into the tender soul of childhood. These memories retain and bring back with them the feelings, the likes and dislikes, which grew with them. These feelings are the basis of lifetime loves, and eternal antipathies.

The boy is father to the man, as the girl is mother to the woman. Who that has lived seventy years will not attest this from his own life's experience? The generous, truthful boy will be the n.o.ble, honorable man; the modest, timid, truthful girl will be the gentle, kind, and upright woman. Nature plants the germ, and education but cultivates the tree. It never changes the fruit. The boy who, when dinner-time comes, happens to have a pie, when his fellows have none, and will open his basket before his companions, and divide with them, will carry the same trait to the grave. His hand will open to a.s.sist the needy, and he will seek no reward beyond the consciousness of having done right. And he who, with the same school-boy's treasure, will steal away, and devour it behind the school-house, and alone, will, through life, be equally mean in all his transactions. From motives of interest, he may a.s.sume a generosity of conduct, but the innate selfishness of his heart will, in the manner of his dispensing favors, betray itself. Education, and the influences of polished society, may refine the manners, but they never soften the heart to generous emotions, where nature has refused to sow its seed. But where her hand has been liberal in this divine dispensation, no misfortune, no want of education or a.s.sociation, will prevent their germination and fructification. Such hearts divide their joys and their sorrows, with the fortunate and afflicted, with the same emotional sincerity with which they lift their prayers to Heaven.

The school-room is an epitome of the world. There the same pa.s.sions influence the conduct of the child, which will prompt it in riper years, and the natural buddings of the heart spring forth, and grow on to maturity with the mind and the person. College life is but another phase of this great truth, when these natural proclivities are more manifest, because more matured. It is not the greatest mind which marks the greatest soul, and it is not the most successful who are the n.o.blest and best. The shrewd, the mean, and the selfish grow rich, and are prosperous, and are courted and preferred, because there are more who are mean and venal in the world than there are who are generous and good. But it is the generous and good who are the great benefactors of mankind; and yet, if there was no selfishness in human nature, there would be no means of doing good. Wealth is the result of labor and economy. These are not incompatible with generosity and enn.o.bling manliness. The proper discrimination in the application of duties and donations toward the promotion of useful inst.i.tutions, and the same discrimination in the dispensation of private charities, characterize the wise and good of the world. These attributes of mind and heart are apparent in the child; and in every heart, whatever its character, there is a natural respect and love for these, and all who possess them. Such grow with their growth in the world's estimation, and are prominent, however secluded in their way of life, or unpretending in their conduct, with all who know them, or with whom, in the march of life, they come in contact.

It is to but few that fortune throws her gifts, and these are rarely the most deserving, or the G.o.ddess had not been represented with a bandage over her eyes. She is blind, and though her worshippers are many, she kisses but few, and cannot see if they be fair and beautiful or crooked and ugly. Hence most of those who receive her favors conceal them in selfishness, and h.o.a.rd them to be despised; while hundreds, slighted of her gifts, cultivate the virtues, which adorn and enn.o.ble, and are useful and beloved.

Will you, who yet live, and were children when I was a child, turn back with me in memory to those days, and to those who were your school-fellows and playmates then? Do you remember who were the brave and generous, kind and truthful among them? and do you recall their after lives? Answer me; were not these the true men in that day? Do you remember William C. Dawson, Joseph H. Lumpkin, Lucius Q.C. Lamar, and his brother Mirabeau B. Lamar, Eugenius Nesbit, Walter T. Colquitt, and Eli S. Shorter? How varied in temperament, in character, in talent; and yet how like in the great leading features of the soul! Love for their country, love for their kind, love for the good was common to them all; unselfish beyond what was necessary to the wants of their families, generous in the outpourings of the soul, philanthropic, and full of charity. They h.o.a.rded no wealth, nor sought it as a means of power or promotion. Intent upon the general good, and content with an approving conscience and the general approbation, their lives were correct, and their services useful; and they live in the memory of a grateful people as public benefactors.

There are others who rise to memory, who were at school with these, who were men with these, but they shall be nameless, who struggled, and successfully, to fill their coffers to repletion, and for nothing else; who have been courted by the mercenary, and flattered by the fawning sycophant; who, with their h.o.a.rdings, have pa.s.sed away, and no grateful memory remains of their lives; their h.o.a.rds are dissipated, and they are only remembered to be despised. And yet others, who swam in the creek and sported on the play-ground with all of these, whose vicious propensities were apparent then--whose after lives were as their boyhood promised, a curse to society in evil deeds and evil example--have gone, too, unwept, unhonored, and luckily unhung.

Mirabeau B. Lamar was the son of John Lamar, of Putnam County, Georgia, and received his education princ.i.p.ally at Milledgeville and at Putnam.

From his earliest boyhood, he was remarkable for his genius and great moral purity. His ardent, poetical temperament was accompanied with exquisite modesty, and a gentle playfulness of disposition; with an open, unaffected kindness of heart, which as a boy rendered him popular with his fellows at school, and beloved by his teachers. There was in him a natural chivalry of character, which characterized him above all of his early compeers, and made him a model in conduct. Truthful and manly, retiring and diffident, until occasion called out the latent spirit of his nature; then the true greatness of his soul would burst forth in an impetuous eloquence, startlingly fierce and overwhelming.

Nor was this excitement always wasted in words--not a few, when yet a boy, have regretted the awakening of his wrath. It was upon occasions like this, that his eye a.s.sumed an expression which I have never seen in the eye of any other human being. His eyes were beautifully blue, large, and round, and were always changing and varying in their expression, as the mind would suggest thought after thought; and so remarkable were these variations, that, watching him in repose, one who knew him well could almost read the ideas gathering and pa.s.sing through his mind. There was a pleasant vein of satire in his nature, sometimes expressed, but always in words and in a manner which plucked away its sting:

An abstract wit of gentle flow, Which wounds no friend, and hurts no foe.

He was my school-fellow and companion in childhood, my friend and a.s.sociate in early manhood; our intimacy was close and cordial, and in after life this friendship became intense--and I knew him perhaps better than any man ever knew him.

All the peculiarities of the boy remained with the man, distinguishing him in all his a.s.sociations. The refined purity of his nature made him naturally to despise and scorn all meanness and vice, and so intensely as to render an a.s.sociation with any man distinguished by these, however exalted his intellect, or extensive his attainments, impossible. Falsehood, or the slightest dishonorable conduct in any man, put him at once beyond the pale of his favor or respect. In all my a.s.sociation with him, I never saw an indelicate act in his conduct, or heard an obscene word in his conversation. In youth, he was fond of the society of ladies--fond of this society not for a pastime, but because of his high appreciation of the virtues of those he selected for society. In his verse, "Memoriam," he has embalmed the memory of those of our early female friends he most esteemed. He rather courted this a.s.sociation in the individual than in the collective a.s.sembly--for he was not fond of crowds, either in society, or the ordinary a.s.semblages of men and women.

The love of fame, more than any other pa.s.sion, fired his ambition; but it was not the love of notoriety--the fame he courted was not that which should only render his name conspicuous among men, that he might receive the incense of hypocritical flattery, or be pointed at by the fickle mult.i.tude--for such, his contempt was supreme; but it was the desire of his heart, and the struggle of his life, to be embalmed in men's memories as the benefactor of his race, to be remembered for his deeds as the great and the good. This was the spontaneous prompting of his heart, and for this he labored with the zeal of a martyr.

Much of his early life was devoted exclusively to literature. His reading, though without order, was select and extensive. He was well versed in ancient history. The heroic characters of Greece and Rome were his especial admiration, and that of Brutus above all others. Of the nations of modern Europe, and their history, he knew everything history could teach. His imagination was fired with the heroic in the character of those of modern times, as well as those of antiquity, and seemed the model from which was formed his own. The inflexible integrity, the devoted patriotism, the unselfish heroism of these were constantly his theme when a schoolboy, and the example for his imitation in manhood.

When a school-boy, and at a public examination and exhibition, (then common at the academies throughout the State,) our teacher, that paragon of good men, Dr. Alonzo Church, selected the tragedy of Julius Caesar for representation by the larger boys, and, by common consent, the character of Brutus was a.s.signed to Lamar. Every one felt that the lofty patriotism and heroic virtues of the old Roman would find a fit representative in Lamar. I remember, in our rehearsals, how completely his ident.i.ty would be lost in that of Brutus. He seemed to enter into all the feelings and the motives which prompted the great soul of the Roman to slay his friend for his country's good. Time has left but one or two who partic.i.p.ated in the play. The grave has closed over Lamar, as over the others. Those who remain will remember the bearing of their companion, on that occasion, as extraordinary--the struggle between inclination and duty--the pathos with which he delivered his speech to the people after the a.s.sa.s.sination, but especially his bearing and manner in the reply to Ca.s.sius' proposition to swear the conspirators--the expansion of his person to all its proportions, as if his soul was about to burst from his body, as he uttered:

"No, not an oath."

And again, when the burning indignation burst from him at the supposition of the necessity of an oath to bind honorable men:

"Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous, Old, feeble, carious, and such suffering souls That welcome wrongs, unto bad causes. Swear Such creatures as men doubt, but do not stain The even virtue of our enterprise, Nor the unsuppressive mettle of our spirits, To think that our cause, or our performance, Did need an oath; when every drop of blood That every Roman bears, and n.o.bly bears, Is guilty of a several b.a.s.t.a.r.dy If he do break the smallest particle Of any promise that hath pa.s.sed from him."

Though a boy, the effect upon the audience was electrical. The nature of his boy representative was the same as that which animated Rome's n.o.blest son. From his soul he felt every word, and they burned from his lips, with a truth to his soul and sentiments, that went home to every heart in that a.s.sembly of plain farmers, and their wives and daughters.

There were not ten, perhaps, who had ever witnessed a theatrical entertainment, but their hearts were mortal and honest, and they saw in the mimic youth the impersonation of the n.o.bility of soul, and mighty truth, and the spontaneous burst of applause was but the sincerity of truth. The exclamation of one I shall never forget: "He is cut out for a great man." There was no stage-trick; he had never seen a theatre.

There was no a.s.sumption of fict.i.tious feeling; but nature bubbled up in his heart, and the words of Shakspeare, put into the mouth of Brutus, were but the echo of the deep, true feelings of his soul. Through all his life this great nature adorned his conversation, and exemplified his conduct.

The soul of Brutus was born in Lamar. All the truth and chivalry ill.u.s.trative of the conduct of the one, was palpable in the other. Let those who saw him, at San Jacinto, at the head of his sixty hors.e.m.e.n, ride upon the ranks of Santa Anna's hosts, tell of his bearing in that memorable charge, when he rose in his stirrups, and, waving his sword over his head, exclaimed: "Remember, men, the Alamo! Remember Goliad, Fannin, Bowie, and Travis! Charge! and strike in vengeance for the murdered of our companions." Resistless as the tempest, they followed his lead, and swept down upon the foe, charging through, and disordering their ranks, and, following in their flight for miles, made many a Mexican bite the dust, or yield himself a prisoner to their intrepidity. To this charge was solely attributable the capture of Santa Anna, Almonte, and the princ.i.p.al portion of the Mexican army, and the establishment of Texan independence.

As a poet, he was above mediocrity, and his "Sully Riley," and many of his fugitive pieces, will long survive, to perpetuate the refined delicacy of his nature, when, perhaps, his deeds as a soldier and as President of Texas shall have pa.s.sed away. In stature he was below the medium height, but was stout and muscular. His face was oval, and his eyes blue, and exceedingly soft and tender in their expression, save when aroused by excitement, when they were blazing and luminous with the fire of his soul, which enkindled them. He was free from every vice, temperate in living, and remarkable for his indifference to money--with a lofty contempt for the friends and respectability which it alone conferred. If there ever lived four men insensible to fear, or superior to corruption, they were the four brothers Lamar. They are all in eternity, and their descendants are few, but they wear unstained the mantle of their ancestry.

L.Q.C. Lamar, the elder brother of the four, was educated at Franklin College, and studied law in Milledgeville. Very soon after, he was admitted to the Bar. He became distinguished for attention to business, and for talent, as well as legal attainments. Like his brother, M.B.

Lamar, he was remarkable for his acute sense of honor and open frankness, a peerless independence, and warm and n.o.ble sympathies. He married, while young, the daughter of D. Bird. The mother of his lady was one of the Williamson sisters, so remarkable for their superiority, intellectually, and whose descendants have been, and are, so distinguished for talent.

The character of L.Q.C. Lamar as a man, and as a lawyer, prompted the Legislature of the State to elevate him to the Bench of the Superior Court when very young; and at thirty-two years of age, he was known throughout the State as the great Judge Lamar. This family had contributed perhaps a greater number of men of distinguished character than any other family of the State. Zachariah Lamar, the uncle of Judge Lamar, was a man of high order of mind, distinguished for his love of truth, stern honesty, and great energy. He was the father of Colonel John B. Lamar, who fell in the service of the South, in the recent conflict. He was one of Georgia's n.o.blest sons, and his memory is cherished by all who knew him. Henry G. Lamar, a former member of Congress, and Judge of the Superior Court of the State, was a cousin of both John B. and M.B. Lamar; and the eminent and eloquent Lucius Lamar, of Mississippi, who was considered, when young, the best orator of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress, is the son of Judge L.Q.C. Lamar.

The name of Lamar has long been a synonym for talent and chivalrous honor in Georgia. They have been distinguished in every pursuit, and no stain has ever rested upon the name--in whatever avocation employed, conspicuous for capacity, honesty, and energy. They are of French extraction, and to their latest posterity they continue to exhibit those traits peculiar to the French--chivalry, intense sensibility, love of truth, refinement of manner, lofty bearing, and a devotion to honor which courts death rather than dishonor.

The name of M.B. Lamar is identified with the history of Texas, as a leader among that band of remarkable men who achieved her independence of Mexican rule--Houston, Sidney Johnson, Bowie, Travis, Crockett, and Fannin. He was twice married; his first wife, Miss Jordan, died young, leaving him a daughter. This was a bitter blow, and it was long ere he recovered it. His second wife was the daughter of the distinguished Methodist preacher John Newland Moffitt, and sister of Captain Moffitt, late of the service of the Confederacy. He died at Richmond, Fort Bend County, Texas, beloved and regretted as few have been.

Perhaps among the most remarkable men of the State, contemporaneous with the Lamars, was Walter T. Colquitt, Joseph H. Lumpkin, Charles J.

Jenkins, William C. Dawson, and Charles J. McDonald: all of these were natives of the State--Colquitt, Eugenius A. Nesbit, and McDonald, of Hanc.o.c.k County; Lumpkins, Oglethorpe, Dawson, Green, and Jenkins, of Richmond; Nesbit, of Greene. At the period of time when these men were young, education was deemed essential, at least to professional men.

They all enjoyed the benefits of a cla.s.sical education. Lumpkin and Colquitt received theirs at Princeton, New Jersey, and I believe were cla.s.smates, at least they were college-mates. Colquitt returned home before graduating; Lumpkin received the second honor in his cla.s.s.

Returning to Georgia, Lumpkin read law in the town of Lexington, the court-house town of his native county; and commenced, as soon as admitted, its practice in the northern circuit of the State. At the time he came to the Bar, it was ornamented with such men as Thomas W.

Cobb, Stephen Upson, George R. Gilmer, John A. Herd, and Duncan G.

Campbell. He rose rapidly to eminence in the midst of this galaxy of talent and learning. The great John M. Dooly was upon the bench of this circuit, and was the intimate friend of Wilson Lumpkin, an elder brother of Joseph H. Lumpkin.

Wilson Lumpkin and Joseph H. Lumpkin were politically opposed. The former was an especial friend of Dooly; the latter, of William H.

Crawford. Mr. Crawford, soon after Lumpkin's admission to the Bar, returned to his home, near Lexington, and gave his countenance and support to him, and at the same time his bitterest opposition to the political aspirations of his brother. The forensic abilities of young Lumpkin were winning for him in the State a proud eminence. His exalted moral character, studious habits, and devotion to business attracted universal observation and general comment. He had been from his birth the favorite of all his acquaintances, for the high qualities of his head and heart--the model held up by mothers for the example of their sons. Scarcely any boy in the county was ever reprimanded for a wild frolic or piece of amusing mischief, who was not asked, "Why can't you be like Joe Lumpkin?"

All this favoritism, however flattering, did not spoil him, as is too frequently the case with precocious youth. His ambition had fixed a lofty mark, and he availed himself of this universal popularity to reach it; at the same time, he left no effort neglected to deserve it, and maintain it, once acquired.

The State was teeming with young men of talent, scarcely a county without at least one of great promise. Lumpkin saw and knew the rivalry would be fierce, and success only to be obtained by superior abilities and eminent attainments. The Legislature was the first step to fame, and political fame then the most desired and the most sought. Party was rancorous in its spirit, producing intense excitement, pervading every bosom, male and female, to the extremes of the State--an excitement which so stamped itself upon the hearts of the entire people as to endure, and to mark their character and opinions even until to-day.

Lumpkin was very decided in his opinions, and open in their expression, yet there was none of that empoisoned bitterness in these expressions so characteristic of political aspirants in that day. Such was alien to his kindly nature; and if it had not been, there were other causes to estop him from any such indulgence. His family was large. There were eight brothers; only one of these was younger than himself; these were about equally divided in political sentiment, and they, at least some of them, less amiable or less considerate than himself. He was the favorite of all, and was continually in communication with all of them, and was really the moderator of the family, and the healer of its feuds. At this time, too, the deep morality of his nature was growing into piety, and this sentiment was mellowing from his heart even the little of unkindness that had ever found a place there.

At twenty-five years of age he was sent, by an almost unanimous vote, to the Legislature from his county. He came with an exaggerated reputation for talent, especially for oratorical talent, and many of his friends feared he would not be able to sustain it in that body, where there were many of age and experience, with characters already long established for learning and eloquence, and also many young men from different parts of the State, who, like himself, had already won fame for high talent. Among these was Robert Augustus Bell, in sight of whose grave I write these lines. He pa.s.sed away in early life, but Georgia never produced a brighter or a n.o.bler spirit. There were also Charles Dougherty, (who died young, but not without making his mark,) William Law, Hopkins Holsey, and others, who have honored themselves and the State by eminent services on the Bench and at the Bar, and in the councils of their native and other States to which many of them emigrated.

At the very opening of the session, Lumpkin took position with the first on the floor of the House of Representatives. His first speech was one of thrilling eloquence, and, before its conclusion, had emptied the Senate chamber; many of its oldest and most talented members crowding about him, and listening with delight.

The memory of that day revives with the freshness of yesterday. Two or three only remain with me now, to recall the delight with which all hearts were filled who acted, politically, with Lumpkins, as the beautiful and cogent sentences thrilled from his lips, with a trembling fervor, which came from an excitement born of the heart, and which went to the heart. Bell, Brailsford, Dougherty, Rumbert, and Baxter, who, with myself, grouped near him, all are in the grave, save only I, and, standing a few weeks since by the fresh mould that covers Joseph H.

Lumpkin, and yesterday by the grave of Bell, my mind wandered back to the old State House, and to those who were with me there. Separated for more than forty years from the home of my birth, being with, and becoming a part of another people--a n.o.ble, generous, and gallant people--and almost forgetting my mother tongue, these had faded away almost into forgetfulness; but, tottering with years, and full of sorrows, I am here amid the scenes made lovely and memorable by their presence, when we were all young and hopeful. They come back to me, and now, while I write, it seems their spirits float in the air of my chamber, and smile at me. Why is my summons delayed so long? All that made life lovely is gone--youth, fortune, and household G.o.ds. My children are in b.l.o.o.d.y graves--she who bore them preceded them to eternity; yet I live on, and sigh, and remember, while imagination peoples with the past the scenes about me. The faces, the jest, and merry laugh come again; I see and hear them again. Oblivion veils away the interval of forty-five years, and all is as it was. Oh, could the illusion last till death shall make it truth! It is, I feel, but a foretaste of the reality soon to be, when hearts with hearts shall group again, and the reunion of sundered ties be eternal.

Lumpkin served a few sessions in the Legislature, and retired from public life to devote his entire attention to his profession. He had married, almost as soon as he was admitted to the Bar, one to whom he had been attached from boyhood, and the cares of a family were increasing and demanding his attention and efforts. No man ever more faithfully discharged these duties.

The judiciary of Georgia had consisted of two courts only--the superior, and inferior or county court--from the organization of the State. The country had long felt the want of a supreme court, for the correction of errors, and to render uniform the decisions upon the law throughout the State, which, under the prevailing system, had become very diverse, and which was becoming grievously oppressive. Finally it was determined by the Legislature to establish a supreme court. After the pa.s.sage of the law, however, its organization was incomplete for the want of judges. Party was distracting the councils of the State, and was carried into everything, and each party desired a controlling influence in this court, and their united co-operation in selecting judges could only be effected by the dominant party consenting to Joseph H. Lumpkin's accepting the chief-justiceship. He consented to do so, and the organization of the court was completed. This position, under repeated elections, he continued to hold until the day of his death, which occurred in the spring of 1867.

No man, perhaps, ever had the confidence of a people in the discharge of a high judicial duty more than had Joseph H. Lumpkin. His public duties were discharged with the most scrupulous conscientiousness, as were all of those pertaining to his private life and relations. He died in the neighborhood of his birth, and where he had continued to live through his whole life, pa.s.sing through time with the companions of his childhood, and preserving their confidence and affection to the last.

His death was sudden, and deeply mourned throughout the State, which had delighted so long to honor him. His name is identified with her history, as one of her brightest and best men.

The talents of Judge Lumpkin were of a high order, and though he distinguished himself as a jurist, they were certainly more fitted for the forum than the bench. Those who knew him best, and who were best fitted to judge, unite in the opinion that his eminence in political life would have been greater than that which distinguished him as a judge. He was a natural orator, and his oratory was of the highest order. His ideas flowed too fast for the pen, and he thought more vividly when on his feet, and in the midst of a mult.i.tude, than when in the privacy of his chamber. His language was naturally ornate and eloquent, and the stream of thought which flowed on in declamation, brightened and grew, in its progress, to a mighty volume. This, with the fervor of intense feeling which distinguished his efforts, made them powerfully effective. In toning down these feelings, and repressing the ornate and beautiful to the cold, concise legal opinion, his delivery lost not only its beauty, but much of its strength and power. He might have been less useful, but certainly he would have been more distinguished, had he pursued the bent of his genius. Abilities like Lumpkin's must succeed respectably, if directed to any pursuit; and even should they be prost.i.tuted to base and dishonorable purposes, they will distinguish the possessor above the herd.

His temperament was nervous, his sensibility acute, and his sentiments exalted. Fluent, with great command of language, he was peculiarly gifted for display in debate, and it was supposed, when he first came into the Legislature, that he would soon rise to the first position in the national councils. But he determined for himself a different field; and, in view of his eminent services as an able and conscientious judge, who shall say he did not choose wisely?

In an almost adjoining county to that of the residence of Judge Lumpkin, was coming forward, in the profession of law, another gifted son of Georgia--Walter T. Colquitt. He was a compeer, at the Bar, of Chief-Justice Lumpkin. They were admitted to practice about the same time. He was a native of the county of Hanc.o.c.k. His mother was the only sister of the eight brothers Holt, every one of whom was distinguished for probity and worth. They all lived and died in the State, and every one of them was a representative man. They have all left descendants but one, and none yet have stained the name. As their ancestors, they are energetic, honest, and most worthy citizens.

Colquitt gave evidence, when very young, of his future career. As a boy, he was wild and full of mirth, but little inclined to study. He was fond of sport of every kind, and in everything to which his mind and inclinations turned, he would be first. Compelled, by parental authority, to apply himself, he at once mastered his task, and was ready, then, for fun or frolic. Remarkable for physical powers, he fondly embarked in all athletic sports, and in all excelled. Bold and fearless, he was the leader in all adventures of mischief, and always met the consequences in the same spirit. It was remarked of him, when a boy, by one who knew him well, that in all he did he played "high, game," never "low, Jack."

In the wildness of his mischief there was always discoverable boldness and mind. At school and at college, though rarely winning an honor, he was always admitted by his fellows to possess superior abilities. These abilities were manifest more in the originality of his ideas, and their peculiar exemplification in his conduct, than in the sober, every-day manner of thought and action. His mind was versatile, and seemed capable of grasping and a.n.a.lyzing any subject. Quick to perceive and prompt to execute, yielding obedience to no dogma, legal or political, he followed the convictions of his mind, without regard to precedent or example. His knowledge of human nature seemed intuitive, and his capacity of adaptation was without limit. At the period when he commenced the practice of law, the successful abilities in the profession were forensic. Every case was tried by a jury, and the law made juries judges of law and fact. The power to control and direct these was the prime qualification of a lawyer, and nature had bestowed this, in an eminent degree, upon Colquitt. There were few more eminent as advocates, or more successful as pract.i.tioners, though his legal attainments were never of a very high order. He was elevated to the bench, where he remained but a short time, feeling that this was no situation for the display of his peculiar powers, nor the proper or successful course for the gratification of his ambition. He had, at a previous time, united himself with the Methodist Church, and was licensed to preach. It was his habit to open his court, each morning, with prayer, and not unfrequently, during the week of his court, in each county of his circuit, to preach two or three sermons. He was a general of the militia, and would come down from the bench to review a regiment or brigade. It was this discharge of his multifarious duties which prompted an aged sister of his church, when the great men of the State were being discussed by the venerable ladies of a certain neighborhood, to claim the palm for Colquitt.

"Ah! you may talk of your great men, but none on 'em is equal to brother Colquitt; for he, in our county, tried a man for his life, and sentenced him to be hung, preached a sermon, mustered all the men in the county, married two people, and held a prayer-meeting, all in one day. Now, wa'n't that great?"

Before a jury he was unequalled. His knowledge of men enabled him to determine the character of every juror, and his versatility to adapt his argument or address to their feelings and prejudices so effectually as to secure a verdict in mere compliment to the advocate. He left the bench to enter the political arena. It was here he found the field nature designed him for. Before the people, he was omnipotent. At this period Dawson, Cooper, Colquitt, Cobb, Stephens, and Toombs were before the people--all men of talent, and all favorites in the State. This was especially true of Dawson, Cobb, and Stephens, and no men better deserved the public favor.