favorable to the production, growth, development and display of men of talents and of genius, though not often on a large scale. She has been fruitful of men of virtue and of vice. She has been also, in a marked degree, self-reliant; cultivated the spirit of national, political and social independence; been proud and exultant, as well as conscious of envy, on account of all she has achieved; and by no means illiberal in adulation and praise of her men of merit.

Georgia, one of the old thirteen colonies that became States, shared the spirit of liberty and of revolution; with her sparse population and limited resources, contributed to the extent of her capacities in all the labors and trials and dangers of the war that ended in American political and civil independence. She was in sympathy and accord with all the republican ideas that gave shape and form and limitation to the united government of revolted and independent sovereign States. She felt the common danger, had a common treasure in the national freedom achieved, in the principles of political equality and of selfgovernment, in all that is established and secured in the Federal Constitution, to the Government, to the respective States, and to the people at large. Hence her public men were intensely interested and active in the movements of the General Government, as the action of Congress and the executive affected or tended to affect this State; and in all the issues which grew out of national legislation and administration, and developed the antagonistic parties in the Union.

The public men of the period following that of the Revolution and the early administrations have passed off the stage of action; and with them have been buried the issues upon measures of policy and of administration of that

period; and place has been given to other issues and other men to divide and contend about them. Success and defeat have chased each other in the ebbs and flows of the tides of passion and prejudice; of intelligence and ignorance; the popularity and odium of leaders and parties have changed often in leadership, and sometimes in

names.

The feelings, opinions and principles of men are modified much in and by changes of place and position; and by the use of power on the one hand, and being the subjects of it on the other. Men in power and with legal authority over men love its use; and incline to construe the grants of power in organic and statute law or from custom liberally toward its use and enlargement. Men out of power and its subjects, to be ruled by others, are jealous of it, and of the men who wield it over them; and, as a sequence, they favor a strict construction of the grants of power, and are generally found to be active and often clamorous for the vindication of all legal and constitutional maxims that look to the securing of popular rights.

The public men of Georgia, whose lives I have had the opportunity to study and comprehend, have partaken of the common passions and frailties of men of other States and sections, have been patriotic and unselfish enough to vindicate the true principles of Republican Government; and selfish enough to use all the advantages resulting from such patriotic public service to gain and hold positions of power, honor and profit. Vice, selfishness and perfidy, nor patriotism, philanthropy and virtue, constitute the crown of either of the political parties of this or any past period of the State, but are largely distributed to both; and it is this general truth that renders individual history of

men, as connected with transpiring events, the most attractive and valuable dress for the records of a country.

The results of personal ambition and individual antagonisms in the development and career of parties in the Union have been reproduced on a smaller scale by the quest for places of honor and profit, and consequent quarrels of the early political leaders of this State. The issues passed away with them; but the seeds sown still yield fruit in the divisions and strife of men of ability, integrity, and patriotism. The dead men are not here to answer for their motives, nor will the living be to reply to what may here be said of them; still, the truth of history is of more value to mankind than the fame of any individual leader of the people, especially if based on fiction or misunderstood pretensions to greatness.

We are at a period, already, when unbiased intelligence can discern the purity of purpose and devotion to the public good of the leaders of our local parties, and of the good people who espoused their respective causes. But time will be slow in the process, if indeed there shall ever be satisfactory development of faultless reasons for the extremes to which they allowed themselves to go.

While the ambition of priests and clergymen, in extreme zeal for the cause of religion as understood by them and for the prerogatives of official power, has deluged the world with religious sects, that of political leaders has brought upon the country heartless divisions among good people, aiming at the same general objects-good government and the protection of life, liberty, and property.

It is, therefore, no violation of the facts and truths of our State history to say that the parties who have had their day upon the stage in great part were the harvest of seed sown by party leaders, and were watered and

matured by their personal aspirations, conflicts, and quarrels. Our descendants will never be able to discern why a quarrel and duel between two public men should for years divide and support a feud between the people of a State.

There never has been a time in this State when her people generally, and with rare exceptions, were not thoroughly devoted to the cause of liberty and independence; never a time since the leaders of the United States government sprang divisions on strict and latitudinous construction; and upon the question, on one side, of a strong central government; on the other, strong checks on Federal power and assumptions of power, and a strict guard over the reserved rights of the State and the people-in a word, since there was a Republican party making popular rights the leading idea, and a Federal party making a strong central government the paramount aim-that the people of this state were not thoroughly republican, independent of all local divisions and parties. The Nullification, the State rights, the Troup, the Whig parties, have ever been sound union parties on a proper and secure basis and well defined security to constitutional rights. The Republican, the Union, the Clark, and Democratic have always been devoted to State rights, as both parties understood their elementary principles. Their divisions on men have generally been the results of passion; and those upon issues of policy often resulted from the bent of parties already organized to follow chosen men as leaders.

While this is true, we cannot be indifferent to the masterly powers, the moral courage, and personal greatness of the men our fathers followed and honored. The hearts swells with admiration as their characters are

brought to us in authenticated tradition and in sparsely written history. It is cause of regret that neither is full nor infallible. The contests between the adherents of Gov. John Clark and Gov. George M. Troup, growing out of temporary differences between people of the same aim and common destiny, are still in the memory of the old men of the State; and the complexion of their politics and the status of their political alignments have often been produced by the prejudices engendered in those heated contests. They have been repeated and reproduced with changes of leaders and issues, and the efflux of time to the present. It has never been accepted as a mark of a bad man that his party suffered defeat under his lead. Racers have always been fruitful of excuses for the failure of a favorite steed, in the condition of the track, the mistakes of the rider, the health and keeping of the horse, and have been ready and anxious to risk the purse upon him in a second trial. So it has ever been with the people and the candidates of the Whig and Democratic parties of this State, I well remember the exultations of the Democrats, and mortification of the Whigs, when Charles J. McDonald was elected over their idol and model leader, Charles Dougherty, for governor, and later over William C. Dawson. And when the rejoicing was at the highest tide in the Whig camp, when George W. Crawford defeated the noble old Roman, Mark A. Cooper, in 1843, and the sterling and solid Mathew Hall McAlister in 1845. And again, 1847, the tide of victory was turned to the Democrats in the triumph of their graceful and gifted leader, George W. Towns, over Gen. Duncan L. Clinch; and in 1849 over the gifted, able, and accomplished Edward Young Hill. But these, like the contests of Gilmer and Joel Crawford, Lumpkin,