Although he was only thirty-six years old when he became governor, the people began to call him "Old Judgment." This was due no less to his peculiar gift of hard common sense than to his peculiar pronunciation. His speech and his ways were "countrified," and they remained so all the days of his life. His voice was not musical, and he had a peculiar drawling intonation, which, if it had been a little more nasal, would have been an exact reproduction of the tone and manner of the Down-east Yankee. He shared these peculiarities with hundreds of the descendants of the Puritans who settled in the mountains of East Tennessee and North Georgia. He had no wish for the luxuries of life; and though he lived comfortably, he never, even when by close economy he had accumulated one of the largest fortunes in Georgia, cared to live finely. He was a plain man at first and a plain man at last, always temperate, industrious, and economical.
His term of office in the governor's chair was for two years, and at the end of that time he had almost entirely remolded and refashioned his party. He had stamped his own personality and character upon it, and it became in truth and in fact the party of the people,—the common people. In his management of State affairs he had introduced the plain business methods suggested by common sense; he dispensed with all unnecessary officials; he shook off all the hangers-on; he uprooted all personal schemes: so that when the time came to nominate a man to succeed him, it was found that the people had no other choice. His party thought of no other name.
The year of Joe Brown's second nomination, as we have seen, was the year that witnessed John Brown's ridiculous raid into Virginia. The people of the South, however, thought it was a very serious matter, and the people of Georgia were not different from those of the rest of the South. Some very wise men allowed themselves to be led away by their passions. Even Joe Brown, as Alexander Stephens once said, "tucked his judgment under the bed" for the time being. Back of the indignation created by the John Brown raid was the unconfessed and half-formed fear that the Northern abolitionists would send their agents to the South and organize a negro insurrection. Many of the Southern people remembered the horrors of San Domingo, and there was a vague and an undefined but constant dread that such a rising of the blacks would take place in the South. But there never was any such danger in Georgia. The relations between the slaves and their masters were too friendly and familiar to make such an uprising possible. The abolitionists did send agents to the South to stir the negroes to rebellion, and some of them came to Georgia, but in every instance their mission became known to the whites through the friendliness of the blacks. There was always some negro ready to tell his master's family when the abolition agents made their appearance. Still the people resented to the utmost the spirit that moved certain so-called philanthropists of the North to endeavor to secure the freedom of the negroes by means of the torch and midnight murder.
Consequently in 1859, when Joe Brown was nominated for governor the second time, the people were greatly stirred. Sectional feeling ran high. In that year began the active movement that led to secession and the civil war. If all our statesmen had been as wise as Mr. Stephens and Mr. Hill, war would have been averted. Slavery itself, in the very nature of things, was doomed. It had accomplished its providential mission. It had civilized and christianized millions of savages who had been redeemed from slavery in their own land. It had justified its own ends, and would have passed away in good time, no matter what compromise may have been made.
Mr. Stephens and Mr. Hill were opposed to secession. They were for fighting, if there must be a fight, in the Union, and this was the true policy. For a while the people of Georgia were earnestly in favor of this; but the efforts of the abolitionists to stir the negroes to insurrection, and the inflammatory appeals of some of the leading men, led them to oppose a policy which was at once just, wise, and considerate. Even Joseph E. Brown, cool, calculating, placid, and not easily-swayed by emotion, became a disunionist, demonstrating once again that beneath the somber and calm exterior of the Puritan is to be found a nature as combative and as unyielding as that which marks the Cavalier.
Joe Brown was reelected in 1859, and did everything in his power as governor to hasten the event of secession. The National Democratic Convention met in Charleston, and the meeting showed that the differences between the Democrats could not be settled; and it so happened, that, while the South was opposed by the solid and rapidly growing Republican party, the people of the South were divided among themselves. What is most remarkable, the people of the South, after making the election of the Republican candidate certain by dividing among themselves, seemed to be amazed at the result. In some instances county meetings were held in Georgia, and resolutions sent to the Legislature declaring the election of Lincoln and Hamlin "a violation of national comity." Nothing could show more clearly that the minds of the voters were upset.
On Dec. 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, and the event was made the occasion for great rejoicing by the secession element in Georgia. Bonfires were kindled, guns were fired, and people seemed to be wild with enthusiasm. Georgia did not secede until Jan. 19, 1861; but Governor Brown did not wait for that event. He committed the first overt act of the war. He seized Fort Pulaski, on the Savannah, Jan. 3, 1861.
On the 22d of January, ten cases of muskets belonging to a firm in Macon were seized by the New York police after they had been placed on board a vessel. Governor Brown sent a telegram to Governor Morgan, demanding the release of these arms. Governor Morgan hesitated some time before he made any response. Meanwhile, Governor Brown waited three days, and then ordered the seizure of every ship in the harbor of Savannah belonging to citizens of New York. Two brigs, two barks, and a schooner were seized and held by the State troops. When this seizure was made known, Governor Brown received official notification that the arms had been released. He therefore ordered the release of the vessels. But when the agents of the Macon firm made an effort to get the arms, they were refused. Promptly Governor Brown seized other vessels, and caused them to be advertised for sale.
This was merely the beginning of those greater events that cast a shadow over the whole country. The farmer boy of Gaddistown was reelected governor in 1861, and continued to hold the office until 1865.