Joseph E. Brown

Joseph Emerson Brown

Joseph Emerson Brown (born April 15, 1821 in Pickens County , South Carolina , † November 30, 1894 in Atlanta , Georgia ) was an American politician and governor of Georgia from 1857 to 1865.

Early years and political advancement

Born in South Carolina, Brown grew up in the mountains of northern Georgia. He received a good education in various private schools. From 1845 to 1846 he also studied at Harvard Law School , where he was trained as a lawyer. He was very ambitious and soon became a successful lawyer and businessman in Georgia.

He joined the Democratic Party at an early age and rose to one of the party leaders in Georgia after his election to the Georgia Senate in 1849 . In 1855 he was appointed judge on the Supreme Court of Georgia .

Early gubernatorial period

In 1857 Brown had his party run for the gubernatorial election. He was then elected with a large majority. From now on he was practically unbeatable in elections. Although he was never very well received by the plantation owners, he had the support of the rest of the white population of the state, for whom he campaigned massively. He grappled with the Georgia state banking system and forced the Western and Atlantic Railroad to run more efficiently.

The secession

In the national conflict between the North and the South, Brown was a strong proponent of Georgia's separation from the Union. He supported all efforts in this direction. Brown had the National Guard military trained and drove other war preparations. After Abraham Lincoln was elected US President in November 1860, he referred to South Carolina, which had already announced its withdrawal from the Union in December, and urged his compatriots to follow suit. Even before an official decision was made, he ordered the occupation of the then vacant federal fortress Fort Pulaski . For Brown, the end of slavery was just as inconceivable as racial equality. Finally, an assembly was convened which, with a narrow majority, resolved Georgia to leave the Union and join the newly established confederation. Georgia was automatically drawn into the civil war that broke out in April 1861 .

Civil war

Even before the civil war, Governor Brown feared that the federal government in Washington would dominate the individual states, regardless of the emerging national conflict between the states. After Georgia became a confederate state , the governor became even more concerned about its relationship with the state government in Richmond , Virginia . The central government under President Jefferson Davis wanted to unite all military forces in the south under its command in order to improve the prospects of military success. For this purpose, Davis also issued general conscription . Brown was strongly against this law because he feared too many young white men would be pulled out of Georgia. He granted thousands of conscripts exemptions who then found new jobs in a rapidly growing bureaucratic state administration. This behavior sparked controversy between Davis and Brown. The president feared, and not entirely wrongly, that Brown's behavior could set a pattern in the south. This conflict escalated to the end of the war and spread to other areas. In general, Brown insisted on state independence, while Jefferson Davis called for a strong central government.

The longer the war went on, the greater the problems in Georgia became. At the beginning of the war, the government had set up a kind of mini-welfare program that provided families and soldiers in need with essential goods. The more Georgia soldiers drafted and killed in the war, the greater the number of those in need. As a result, financing the aid program became more and more difficult and was ultimately only feasible with the help of tax increases. Brown did everything to make this bearable for the population. However, he was unable to do anything against the inflation that began generally in the south. In Georgia, he did everything he could to help the suffering population. He worried about the families as well as the soldiers who fought and died daily for the cause of the Confederation. In this care, Brown surpassed most central government leaders in Richmond. As a result, his popularity in Georgia remained undiminished despite the war and he was sovereignly confirmed in his office in 1863.

His new term of office was naturally overshadowed by the war. His attitude towards President Davis became increasingly radical. The longer the war lasted, the more support he found among his counterparts in the other southern states . Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens also supported Brown. In the further course of the war, morale sank not only in Georgia, but in all southern states. In the spring of 1864 the military defeat of the south became apparent. Union general William T. Sherman advanced to northern Georgia with a large army. In September Atlanta fell and the Union Army marched through Georgia to the coast without encountering significant resistance. Governor Brown has now called on the Confederate government to end the war.

End of life and death

After the South's final surrender in April 1865, Brown was briefly arrested and imprisoned in Washington. After his release, he supported President Andrew Johnson's policy of reconstruction . In September 1865 he was pardoned across the board. After joining the Republican Party , he became Chief Justice of the Georgia Court of Justice for two years. After the end of the occupation, he returned to the Democrats and was successful both as a lawyer and as a businessman. Together with John Brown Gordon and Alfred H. Colquitt , he belonged to the so-called "Bourbon Triumvirate", which politically controlled the state of Georgia between 1872 and 1890 to a large extent. Brown also served in the United States Senate for Georgia between May 26, 1880 and March 3, 1891 . Due to his poor health, he resigned from this post in 1891. He died in November 1894.

Joseph Brown was married to Elizabeth Grisham. Their son Joseph later also became governor of Georgia.

literature

• FN Boney: Rebel Georgia. Mercer University Press, Macon GA 1997, ISBN 0-86554-545-6 .
• Thomas Conn Bryan: Confederate Georgia. University of Georgia Press, Athens GA 1953.
• Paul D. Escott: Georgia. In: Wilfred Buck Yearns (Ed.): The Confederate Governors. University of Georgia Press, Athens GA 1985, ISBN 0-8203-0719-X .
• Joseph Howard Parks: Joseph E. Brown of Georgia. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge LA 1977, ISBN 0-8071-0189-3 .

Web links

• The New Georgia Encyclopedia (English)
• Joseph E. Brown in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Joseph Brown at the National Governors Association (English)
• Joseph E. Brown in the database of Find a Grave (English)