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Overview
The life of John Archibald Campbell reflects nearly every major development of 19th-century American history. He participated either directly or indirectly in events ranging from the Indian removal process of the 1830s, to sectionalism and the Civil War, to Reconstruction and redemption. Although not a defender of slavery, he feared that abrupt abolition would produce severe economic and social dislocation. He urged southerners to reform their labor system and to prepare for the eventual abolition of slavery. In the early 1850s he proposed a series of reforms to strengthen slave families and to educate the slaves to prepare them for assimilation into society as productive citizens. These views distinguished him from many southerners who steadfastly maintained the sanctity of the peculiar institution.
Born and schooled in Georgia, Campbell moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in the early 1830s, where he joined a successful law practice. He served in the Alabama legislature for a brief period and then moved with his family to Mobile to establish a law practice. In 1853 Campbell was appointed an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. His concurring opinion in the Dred Scott case in 1857 derived not from the standpoint of protecting slavery but from an attempt to return political power to the states. As the sectional crisis gathered heat, Campbell counseled moderation. He became widely detested in the North because of his defense of states’ rights, and he was distrusted in the South because of his moderate views on slavery and secession. In May 1861 Campbell resigned from the Court and later became the Confederacy's assistant secretary of war. After the war, Campbell moved his law practice to New Orleans. Upon his death in 1889, memorial speakers in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans recognized him as one of the nation's most gifted lawyers and praised his vast learning and mastery of both the common law and the civil law.
In this first full biography of Campbell, Robert Saunders, Jr., reveals the prevalence of anti-secession views prior to the Civil War and covers both the judicial aspects and the political history of this crucial period in southern history.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780817391546 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Alabama Press |
| Publication date: | 05/16/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
John Archibald Campbell
Southern Moderate, 1811-1889
By Robert Saunders Jr.
The University of Alabama Press
Copyright © 1997 University of Alabama PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8173-9154-6
CHAPTER 1
Ancestry and Antecedents
Campbell was descended from small farmers of the Scottish Highlands. Both the paternal and maternal sides of his family tree included individuals of marked achievement, and brief composites of these people reveal much about the character and background of John Archibald Campbell. In addition, a concise but detailed analysis of his father's career reveals many of the strong character traits that were so manifest within John Archibald. And though neither the father nor the son was without considerable faults and weaknesses, a strong character, a determination to succeed, a love of learning, a penchant for absolute thoroughness, and a deep, unbridled devotion to family were the hallmarks of their lives. These characteristics were perhaps John Archibald's principal legacy from those family members who had preceded him.
The story of Campbell's paternal family history begins with a group of Campbells who emigrated from the Highlands of Scotland to the shores of North Carolina and settled along the Cape Fear River in 1739. The first Campbell of note was Duncan Campbell, who was commissioned justice of the peace for Bladen County in 1740. Duncan Campbell's grandson, Archibald, gained distinction during the American Revolutionary War. With the opening of hostilities in 1775, Campbell joined General Nathaniel Greene's forces and became one of the leading officers on the general's personal staff. He represented New Hanover County for nine terms from 1779 to 1794; as a delegate to the Hillsborough Convention of 1788 Campbell voted against ratification of the Constitution adopted at Philadelphia during the previous year. Like the majority of his fellow North Carolinians, he insisted on the inclusion of a Bill of Rights. When this was subsequently accepted, the Constitution was ratified by North Carolinians at the Fayetteville Convention of 1789.
John Archibald married Rebecca Kirk of Guilford County, North Carolina, on New Year's Day 1784. On 16 February 1787, Duncan Campbell, the second of John Archibald's and Rebecca's sixteen children, was born. His early education, though meager, was suitable enough to gain him entry into the state university at Chapel Hill. While attending college, Duncan and a classmate whose last name was Greene developed such a close friendship that Duncan adopted "Greene" as his middle name. For the remainder of his life Duncan went by the full name of Duncan Greene Campbell. In late spring 1807 he graduated from college and soon thereafter moved to Wilkes County, Georgia.
In 1807, when Duncan Greene first arrived in Georgia, the territory that encompassed Wilkes County had been part of Georgia only thirty-five years. Through a series of treaties with the Creek and Cherokee Indians in 1773, Georgians acquired nearly 2 million acres that Governor James Wright dubbed the "New Purchase." Almost immediately, surveyors, speculators, and settlers made their way into the new lands. In December 1773, a group of about sixty Westmoreland County, Virginia, families began the arduous task of carving out a settlement in the thickly forested countryside. This community eventually became the town of Washington, which was incorporated by the state legislature in 1805.
Two years later, freshly graduated from college and seeking to begin professional life in Georgia, Duncan Greene arrived in Washington. He accepted a position as principal of a female seminary in town, a job that provided sufficient income while he was engaged in reading for a legal career. Campbell had the good fortune to study under the tutelage of Judge John Griffin, one of the town's most respected citizens, who had built a well-established and lucrative legal practice. In 1808, Judge Griffin's wife, Sarah, introduced her youngest sister, Mary, to Duncan Greene. After one year's courtship, Duncan Green and Mary Williamson were married. Their union lasted twenty years and produced four children between 1811 and 1820: John Archibald, Sarah Greene, Lawrence Greene, and Mary Greene.
Mary Williamson was born into one of Georgia's most prominent families. Her father, Micajah Williamson, owned a popular tavern that provided considerable wealth and enabled him to build one of the stateliest plantations in Wilkes County. Micajah is described as a spectacularly gallant soldier during the Revolutionary War who fought with distinction at the Battle of Kettle Creek and other smaller engagements. While Micajah was fighting the British, his wife Sarah (Gilliam) Williamson courageously endured numerous depredations committed by Tories, who had temporarily gained control of the county. One source notes that "when her husband was at the front, she not only ran the plantation but also kept the looms and the ovens busy, furnishing supplies to the army as well as to her own household. Nor did she escape the perils incident to frontier life during the reign of terror in Upper Georgia. The Tories, incensed by the activities of her husband, took peculiar delight in annoying Mrs. Williamson. One day they made a raid upon her home, and, after gorging themselves with plunder, applied the torch. It is said that the Tories also hanged her eldest son [William] in her presence, compelling her by force to witness the murder of her own offspring." Sarah Williamson's perseverance in the face of such hardships brought her the admiration of many Georgians.
During their years of marriage, Micajah and Sarah raised twelve children, many of whom became prominent members of their communities. For instance, Micajah, Jr., the third-born child, fought in the Revolutionary War at the Battle of Kettle Creek and later became a lawyer in Jackson County, Georgia. Micajah, Jr., was believed to have been poisoned to death by a Dr. William Wright in 1807. Nancy and Sarah, the two eldest daughters, married into renowned families, the former marrying John Clark, governor of Georgia from 1819 to 1823. Sarah married Judge John Griffin of Washington and, after Griffin's death, Judge Charles Tait, who from 1809 to 1819 served as United States senator from Georgia.
Susan Williamson, Micajah's and Sarah's tenth child, married Dr. Thomas Bird in 1793. Their daughter Sarah married L. Q. C. Lamar of Georgia, whose son, L. Q. C., Jr., eventually became a leading Mississippi politician and was named to the United States Supreme Court by President Grover Cleveland. Finally, Micajah's and Sarah's last child was Mary. Evidently she was also known to many of her friends as "Polly," for several sources identify her by that name. Mary, in 1808, was introduced to Duncan Greene Campbell by her older sister Sarah, the wife of Judge Griffin. The Williamsons were unquestionably one of Georgia's most prominent families, and Duncan Greene's marriage to Mary substantially increased his prospects for success in a society where family connections were often more important than knowledge, skills, or abilities.
Soon after they married, Duncan Greene and Mary took up residence in Washington. Duncan Greene was admitted to the bar and had started to build a law practice when Judge Griffin decided to retire. Because of his fondness for and confidence in his former student, the judge passed his entire practice — one of the busiest and most lucrative in the county — to Duncan Greene. John Archibald Campbell's father was thus handed a well-established business, one that gave him considerable financial security.
Between 1811 and 1821, Duncan Greene's law practice thrived, and he acquired considerable distinction as a talented attorney. As most of his clientele consisted of the county's wealthiest planters, his most active legal pursuits involved the disposition of land sales and the collection of debts owed to various clients. In 1816, as clear evidence that he had achieved distinction in Wilkes County, Duncan Greene was elected solicitor general of the western circuit. This position carried considerable respect, although much of Campbell's caseload dealt with mundane issues of little consequence. In 1817, for instance, William Gartrell and Nancy Harris, two residents of Wilkes County, were prosecuted by Campbell for "living together in an unlawful intimacy at Gartrell's house." During the 1818 term of the grand jury, Gibson Hopkins was charged with adultery, Betsy Ross with "fornication," and Abner Henley with maintaining a billiard table. Such cases offer insight into the early nineteenth century Georgia society into which John Archibald was born.
Early in 1818, the year John Archibald turned seven, Duncan Greene purchased a "country place" about two miles west of Washington on the Lexington Road. Under Mary's watchful eye, the Campbell estate underwent extensive renovations; when completed, the main house resembled an Italian villa and was regarded as one of the finest homes in the county. Susan Campbell Rowland, Duncan Greene's niece, explains that in the early 1820s when there was tremendous "love and gratitude to France for assistance in the war, ... memories of Rochechambeau, Lafayette, and de Grasse were in every heart," Duncan Greene christened his plantation "Fontainbleau" in honor of the French soldiers who had fought in the American Revolutionary War.
Having spent much of her youth at the Campbell estate, Rowland remembers that Fontainbleau was a plantation of singular beauty. She states that Mary Campbell worked diligently to make the estate "greatly adorned and cultured." "Near the front of the beautiful grounds, made lovely by flowing streams, lawns of Kentucky grass, and every variety of foliage and shrub," Rowland writes, "arose the capricious dwelling built in the style of an Italian villa with surrounding verandas." The fields and pastures were "well stocked with flocks and herds," and there were also "broad acres of grain and cotton." For the next decade, the Campbells hosted scores of travelers and visitors, who included "members of the bar from other circuits, delegates to conventions, [and] ministers of all denominations." The hospitality shown at Fontainbleau was exceptional, even in the "hospitable Southland." Mary Campbell single-handedly managed the estate whenever Duncan Greene's business and political activities kept him away from home, which occurred more often as his reputation spread and his business affairs improved.
By late 1818, Duncan Greene was recognized as one of Wilkes County's foremost citizens, and he had gained the trust and friendship of many leading politicians in the state who supported his bid for political office. In that year he was elected to represent Wilkes County in the state legislature. Harboring a deep appreciation for the value of education, Campbell attempted to inaugurate a statewide system of free elementary schools to ensure that all Georgians, regardless of financial condition, could receive at least a basic education and an ability to read and write.
In 1822, Campbell and other members of the legislature offered a bill to establish a "Regular Free School System." The measure failed, however, largely because of opposition from Georgia's governor. In its place Campbell presented a second bill to create a state-sponsored "poor fund" that would provide tuition money for parents who could not afford to send their children to academies. His efforts in this regard were likewise rejected. A third proposal Campbell offered that year would have provided state money for the construction of a college reserved exclusively for women. As the proposed college was to be funded on the same level as the main university in Athens, Campbell's bill provided that the state would clearly recognize the importance of women's higher education. The legislature's rejection of Campbell's third education bill made clear that most Georgia representatives were not as concerned with female education as with male education. In Georgia society education was intended for males only; females were to be taught the "higher" lessons of life such as child rearing and social graces. In contrast, Campbell strongly believed that women should receive the same education as men so that all society could benefit.
In 1825 Duncan Greene was named chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Education and Free Schools and thus wielded considerable influence in the legislature. In 1827, Governor Troup recommended that Campbell issue a report on the most practical means of establishing a free elementary school system. Because of a protracted illness, however, he never sent this report to the governor, and the effort to improve education in Georgia languished for the next several years.
The one blemish on Duncan Greene's public record was his connection with the fraudulent Treaty of Indian Springs signed in 1825. During the previous year, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun appointed Campbell and James Meriwether commissioners to negotiate land cession treaties with the Cherokee and Creek Indians, who retained thousands of acres in both Georgia and Alabama. Many such treaties had been arranged between the Georgians and the Indians since the end of the Revolutionary War, but as more and more settlers from Virginia and the Carolinas swelled Georgia's population, pressure to acquire the remaining lands relegated to the Creeks and the Cherokees mounted steadily.
Throughout 1824, Duncan Greene failed to persuade either the Cherokees or the Creeks to cede their territory to the United States. The Cherokees were unusually adamant in their refusal to consider the matter. The Creeks were largely unyielding as well; but there was a group of secondary Creek leaders under the influence of William McIntosh of Coweta — a principal chief in one of the Lower Towns within the Creek Nation — who seemed nominally receptive to relinquishing their lands and removing west to Arkansas. This schism within the Creek Nation forced two chiefs of the Upper Towns, Big Warrior and Little Prince, to call a private meeting at Polecat Springs to enact measures designed to discourage further dissension within the Nation. The resulting "Polecat Law" decreed that any Creek chief who pledged to relinquish Creek lands to the United States faced immediate execution.
Despite this law, McIntosh remained eager to cede Creek lands in exchange for money and a predominant position in the Creek Nation once it relocated west of the Mississippi River. Duncan Greene was likewise anxious to negotiate a treaty, and though the Monroe administration had explicitly forbidden the signing of treaties with the Creeks unless the entire Nation was represented, Campbell chose to ignore these orders and to deal almost exclusively with McIntosh.
On 10 February 1825, the commissioners, the agents, and about 400 Creeks opened negotiations at Indian Springs. Significantly, none of the Tuckabatchee chiefs, those of the Upper Creek towns in Alabama, participated in these proceedings because, as they explained, "they were not ready, and were not disposed to meet in the room prepared for the council, but were disposed to hold meetings at their own camp." Had Campbell been concerned with following Monroe's orders to the letter, he would have postponed the negotiations until he could have convinced the Upper Town Creeks to participate. Duncan Greene, however, impatient to acquire land and apparently willing to ignore what he perceived as the insignificant details of his orders, decided to proceed with the negotiations even though only the Coweta chiefs were present.
The resulting Treaty of Indian Springs ceded all of the Creek lands in Georgia that lay between the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. In return for this land, the United States agreed to provide the Creeks with an equal number of acres along the Arkansas River, to compensate them for improvements on their ceded lands, and to pay a total of $400,000 to those Creeks agreeing to emigrate. The Creeks assented to vacate all of their lands in Georgia by September 1826. Article 5, interestingly, stipulated that all monies paid to the Creeks had to be distributed by the commissioners, an entirely new precedent and one meant as the commissioners' parting shot at Creek agent John Crowell and subagent Henry Walker. Campbell in particular believed that these Indian agents sympathized with the Creeks and had diligently sought to obstruct treaty negotiations. Moreover, Campbell accused Crowell and Walker of goading the Upper Creeks into adopting the Polecat Law, the text of which had been transcribed by Walker in his own home.
Though the Treaty of Indian Springs was ratified by the Senate and signed by President John Quincy Adams, complaints about the cession from the Tuckabatchee chiefs and from the Indian agents prompted a formal investigation into the negotiations. Secretary of War James Barbour dispatched Major T. P. Andrews and General Edmund P. Gaines to investigate the treaty and to determine whether it had been negotiated in good faith and with the entire Creek Nation.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from John Archibald Campbell by Robert Saunders Jr.. Copyright © 1997 University of Alabama Press. Excerpted by permission of The University of Alabama Press.
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