The personal history and career of Joseph E. Brown should be studied by every ambitious boy in the land, especially by those who imagine they cannot succeed because they lack opportunities that money and friends would obtain for them. From 1857 to the close of the war, and after, the political history of Joe Brown is the history of the State; but that history, attractive as it is, is not so interesting as his struggle to make a name for himself in the world. Joseph E. Brown was born in Pickens County, South Carolina, and was the eldest of eleven children. His family was English. His grandfather fought manfully against the British and Tories in the Revolutionary War. His father fought under Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812, and was at the battle of New Orleans on the 8th of January, 1815.
Joe Brown was born in 1821. His parents were not so well off as to be able to send the lad continuously to school as he grew up. He had to "take his chances." He was compelled to work in the fields in season, and was permitted to go to school only when there was nothing for him to do on the little farm. He did farm labor from the time he was eight until he reached the age of nineteen, and the schooling he had received was only of the most haphazard kind.
Before he was grown, his father moved from South Carolina into Georgia, settling in Union County, near a little valley named Gaddistown. Up to this time, though young Brown was nineteen years of age, he had learned nothing but reading, writing, and arithmetic, and very little of these. He was now compelled to work harder than ever. Settling in a new country, and on new land that had to be cleared before it would yield a crop, the Browns had as much as they could do to get the farm in order in time for the planting season; and in this severe work, Joseph E., being the eldest son, was the chief reliance of the family. He had a pair of small steers with which he plowed; and when he wasn't plowing on the farm, he was hauling wood and butter and vegetables to the small market at Dahlonega, and taking back in truck and trade some necessary article for the family. In this way he learned the lessons of patience, self-control, and tireless industry that all boys ought to learn, because they are not only the basis of content and happiness, but of all success.
When Joe Brown was twenty years old, his father allowed him to seek an education. All he could do for the industrious and ambitious boy was to give him his blessing and the yoke of steers with which he had been plowing. With these young Brown returned to South Carolina and entered an academy in Anderson district He gave the steers for eight months' board, and went into debt for the tuition fee. In the fall of 1841 he returned to Georgia and taught school for three months, and with the money he received for this he paid for the schooling he had gone in debt for. He returned to the Carolina academy in 1842, and went into debt not only for his schooling, but for his board. His patience and his untiring industry enabled him to make such rapid progress that within two years he had fitted himself to enter an advanced class in college. But the lack of means prevented him from entering college. Instead he returned to Georgia and opened a school at Canton, Cherokee County. He opened this school with six pupils, and the number rapidly increased to sixty, so that he was able in a short time to settle the debts he had made in Carolina. He taught school all day, and at night and on Saturdays devoted himself to the study of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1845, and was at once successful. He made no pretense of oratory; but his simple and unpretending style, his homely and direct way of putting a case, and his faculty of applying the test of common sense to all questions, were as successful with juries as they afterwards proved to be with the people; and before the people he was irresistible.
But he was not yet through with his studies. A friend advanced him the money necessary to enter the Law School of Yale; and there, from October, 1845, to June, 1846, when he graduated, he took the lead in all his classes, and had time to attend lectures in other departments of the college. He returned home, began active practice, and was soon prosperous. He became a State senator, and was afterwards made a judge of the superior courts.
When the Democratic Convention met in Milledgeville in 1857, for the purpose of nominating a candidate for governor, it had so many popular candidates to choose from, and these candidates had so many and such strong friends, that the members found it impossible to agree on a man. A great many ballots were taken, and there was a good deal of "log-rolling" and "buttonholing," as the politicians call it, on behalf of the various candidates by their special friends. But all this did no good. There was a deadlock. No one of the candidates was able to obtain a two-thirds majority, which, according to Democratic law, was the number necessary to a nomination. Twenty-one ballots had been taken with no result, and the convention had been in session three days. Finally it was decided to appoint a special committee made up of three delegates from each congressional district. It was the duty of this committee to name a candidate on whom the convention could agree. When this committee retired, it was proposed that a ballot be taken, each committeeman writing the name of the candidate of his choice on a slip of paper, and depositing the slip in a hat. This was done; but before the ballots were counted, Judge Linton Stephens, a brother of Alexander H., stated that such a formality was not necessary. He thereupon moved that Judge Joseph E. Brown of Cherokee be selected as the compromise man, and that his name be reported to the convention. This was agreed to unanimously, and Joseph E. Brown was nominated; and yet, if the written ballots had been counted, it would have been found that Alfred H. Colquitt, who afterwards became so distinguished in Georgia, had been nominated by the committee. He received a majority of one of the written ballots when they were afterwards counted through curiosity. Twenty-three years later, Colquitt, who was then governor, made Joseph E. Brown a United States senator under circumstances that aroused strong opposition, and immediately afterwards Brown aided Colquitt to a reelection in one of the bitterest contests the State has ever witnessed.
The unexpected nomination of Brown by the convention of 1857 introduced into State politics the most potent element that it had ever known. The nomination, surprising as it was, was not half so surprising as some of the results that have followed it. At the moment the convention nominated him, Joe Brown was tying wheat in one of his fields near Canton, in Cherokee County. He was then judge of the Blue Ridge Circuit; and on the day that his name was placed before the Democratic Convention at Milledgeville, he had returned home. After dinner he went out into his farm to see how his men were getting on. He had four men cutting wheat with cradles, and he found the binders very much behind. About half-past two o'clock he pulled off his coat and ordered the binders to keep up with him. It was on the 15th of June, 1857. The weather was very warm, but he kept at work all the afternoon. About sundown he went home, and was preparing to bathe, when a neighbor, who had been to Marietta and heard the news, rode to his house and told him about the nomination, which had been made at three o'clock that afternoon. Telling about the incident afterwards, Joe Brown, with a twinkle in his eye, said that he had heard that a good many men were anxious to buy that wheat field, so as to have an opportunity to tie wheat in it while a nominating convention was in session.
The great majority of the people of the State were as much puzzled about Joe Brown as Toombs was. Either they had not heard of him before, or they had forgotten him. In those days a man who made a reputation in the Cherokee country was not known to the rest of the State for a long time. The means of communication were slow and uncertain. But the whole State found him out just as Toombs did. He was prompt to begin the campaign. Toombs had already left the Whig party, and was acting with the Democrats. Stephens had left the Whigs, but had not become a Democrat. He was an Independent. He was, as he expressed it, "toting his own skillet." Ben Hill was Joe Brown's opponent, and these two met in debate before the people on two or three occasions. It was thought at first that Mr. Hill had the advantage of the tall and ungainly candidate from Cherokee, but the end of the contest showed that the advantage was all the other way. Mr. Hill was a man of very marked ability. He was one of the few good speakers who could write well, and one of the few fine writers who could speak well. He had courage, he had wit, he had learning, he had eloquence; he had everything, in fact, to attract popular approval and entice a popular following; but somehow, and until the very latest years of his life, he fell far short of being a popular idol. He was showy and effective before a mixed crowd, he never failed to attract applause, and it was supposed that Brown was making a losing campaign; but the campaign was going just the other way. Hill, in the course of his discussion, said hundreds of things that the people applauded; while Brown said hundreds of things that the people remembered, and carried home with them, and thought over. Joe Brown was not only a man of the people, but a man of the country people; and he pleased the city people who had formerly lived in the country. The result of the campaign was that Know-nothingism was buried out of sight in Georgia. Joe Brown was elected by more than ten thousand majority, and the Democratic majority in the Legislature was overwhelming.