The memory of this election will never fade from the minds of any who witnessed it. At the meeting of the Legislature it was doubtful which party had the majority. Two members chosen as favorable to the election of Troup, were unable from sickness to reach the seat of Government, and it was supposed this gave the majority to Talbot. There was no political principle involved in the contest. Both professedly belonged to the Republican party. Both seemed anxious to sustain the principles and the ascendency of that party. There were no spoils. The patronage of the executive was literally nothing; and yet there was an intensity of feeling involved for which there was no accounting, unless it was the anxiety of one party to sustain Mr. Crawford at home for the Presidency, and on the other hand to gratify the hatred of Clarke, and sustain Mr. Calhoun.
During the period intervening between the meeting of the Legislature and the day appointed for the election, every means was resorted to, practicable in that day. There was no money used directly. There was not a man in that Legislature who would not have repelled with scorn a proposition to give his vote for a pecuniary consideration; but all were open to reason, State pride, and a sincere desire to do what they deemed best for the honor and interest of the State. The friends of either candidate would have deserved their favorite instantly upon the fact being known that they had even winked at so base a means of success. Every one was tenaciously jealous of his fame, and equally so of that of the State. The machinery of party was incomplete, and individual independence universal. There were a few members, whose characters forbade violence of prejudice, and who were mild, considerate, and unimpassioned. These men were sought to be operated upon by convincing them that the great interests of the State would be advanced by electing their favorite. The public services of Troup, and his stern, lofty, and eminently pure character, were urged by his friends as reasons why he should be chosen. The people of the State were becoming clamorous for the fulfilment of the contract between the State and General Government for the removal of the Indians from the territory of the State, and Troup was urged upon the voters as being favorable in the extreme to this policy, and also as possessing the talents, will, and determination to effect this end. Finally the day of election arrived. The representative men of the State were assembled. It was scarcely possible to find hotel accommodations for the multitude. The judges of the different judicial districts, the leading members of the Bar, men of fortune and leisure, the prominent members of the different sects of the Christian Church, and especially the ministers of the gospel who were most prominent and influential, were all there. The celebrated Jesse Mercer was a moving spirit amidst the excited multitude, and Daniel Duffie, who, as a most intolerant Methodist, and an especial hater of the Baptist Church and all Baptists, was there also, willing to lay down all ecclesiastical prejudice, and go to heaven even with Jesse Mercer, because he was a Troup man.
The Senate came into the Representative chamber at noon, to effect, on joint ballot, the election of Governor. The President of the Senate took his seat with the Speaker of the House, and in obedience to law assumed the presidency of the assembled body. The members were ordered to prepare their ballots to vote for the Governor of the State. The Secretary of the Senate called the roll of the Senate, each man, as his name was called, moving up to the clerk's desk, and depositing his ballot. The same routine was then gone through with on the part of the House, when the hat (for a hat was used) containing the ballots was handed to the President of the Senate, Thomas Stocks, of Greene County, who proceeded to count the ballots, and finding only the proper number, commenced to call the name from each ballot. Pending this calling the silence was painfully intense. Every place within the spacious hall, the gallery, the lobby, the committee-rooms, and the embrasures of the windows were all filled to crushing repletion. And yet not a word or sound, save the excited breathing of ardent men, disturbed the anxious silence of the hall. One by one the ballots were called. There were 166 ballots, requiring 84 to elect. When 160 ballots were counted, each candidate had 80, and at this point the excitement was so painfully intense that the President suspended the count, and, though it was chilly November, took from his pocket his handkerchief, and wiped from his flushed face the streaming perspiration. While this was progressing, a wag in the gallery sang out, "The darkest time of night is just before day." This interruption was not noticed by the President, who called out "Troup!" then "Talbot!" and again there was a momentary suspension. Then he called again, "Troup—Talbot!" "82—82," was whispered audibly through the entire hall. Then the call was resumed. "Troup!" "A tie," said more than a hundred voices. There remained but one ballot. The President turned the hat up-side down, and the ballot fell upon the table. Looking down upon it, he called, at the top of his voice, "Troup!" The scene that followed was indescribable. The two parties occupied separate sides of the chamber. Those voting for Troup rose simultaneously from their seats, and one wild shout seemed to lift the ceiling overhead. Again, with increased vim, was it given. The lobby and the galleries joined in the wild shout. Members and spectators rushed into each others' arms, kissed each other, wept, shouted, kicked over the desks, tumbled on the floor, and for ten minutes this maddening excitement suspended the proceedings of the day. It was useless for the presiding officer to command order, if, indeed, his feelings were sufficiently under control to do so. When exhaustion had produced comparative silence, Duffie, with the full brogue of the County Carlow upon his tongue, ejaculated: "O Lord, we thank Thee! The State is redeemed from the rule of the Devil and John Clarke." Mercer waddled from the chamber, waving his hat above his great bald head, and shouting "Glory, glory!" which he continued until out of sight. General Blackshear, a most staid and grave old gentleman and a most sterling man, rose from his seat, where he, through all this excitement, had sat silent, folded his arms upon his breast, and, looking up, with tears streaming from his eyes, exclaimed: "Now, Lord, I am ready to die!" Order was finally restored, and the state of the ballot stated, (Troup, 84; Talbot, 82,) when President Stocks proclaimed George M. Troup duly elected Governor of the State of Georgia for the next three years.
This was the last election of a Governor by the Legislature. The party of Clarke demanded that the election should be given to the people. This was done, and in 1825, Troup was re-elected over Clarke by a majority of some seven hundred votes. It was during this last contest that the violence and virulence of party reached its acme, and pervaded every family, creating animosities which neither time nor reflection ever healed.
INDIAN TREATIES AND DIFFICULTIES.
The Creeks—John Quincy Adams—Hopothlayohola—Indian Oratory—Sulphur Spring—Treaties Made and Broken—An Independent Governor—Colonels John S. McIntosh, David Emanuel Twiggs, and Duncan Clinch—General Gaines—Christianizing the Indians—Cotton Mather—Expedient and Principle—The Puritanical Snake.
During the administration of Troup, a contest arose as to the true western boundary of the State, and the right of the State to the territory occupied by a portion of the Creek tribe of Indians. In the difficulty arising out of the sale by the Legislature of the lands belonging to the State bordering upon the Mississippi River, a compromise was effected by Congress with the company purchasing, and Georgia had sold to the United States her claim to all the lands in the original grant to General Oglethorpe and others by the English Government, west of the Chattahoochee River. A part of the consideration was that the United States should, at a convenient time, and for the benefit of Georgia, extinguish the title of the Indians, and remove them from the territory occupied by them, east of the Chattahoochee River, to a certain point upon that stream; and from this point, east of a line to run from it, directly to a point called Neckey Jack, on the Tennessee River. The war of 1812 with Great Britain found the Creek or Alabama portion of this tribe of Indians allies of England. They were by that war conquered, and their territory wrested from them. Those of the tribe under the influence of the celebrated chief William McIntosh remained friendly to the United States, and were active in assisting in the conquest of their hostile brethren. The conquered Indians were removed from their territory and homes, into the territory east of Line Creek, which was made the western boundary of the Creek Nation's territory. Many of them came into the territory claimed by Georgia as her domain.
This war was a war of the Republican party of the United States, and the State of Georgia being almost unanimously Republican, her people felt it would be unpatriotic, at this juncture, to demand of the Government the fulfilment of her obligations in removing the Indians from her soil. The expenses of the war were onerous, and felt as a heavy burden by the people, and one which was incurred by Republican policy. That party felt that it was its duty to liquidate this war debt as speedily as possible. To this end the sale of those conquered lands would greatly contribute; relieving, at the same time, the people to some extent, from the heavy taxation they had borne during the progress of the war. Consequently, they had not pressed the fulfilment of this contract upon the Government. But now the war debt had been liquidated—the United States treasury was overflowing with surplus treasure—Indian tribes were being removed by the purchase of their lands in the northwest, and a tide of population pouring in upon these lands, and threatening a powerful political preponderance in opposition to Southern policy and Southern interests. Under these circumstances, and the recommendation of Governor Troup, the Legislature of the State, by joint resolution and memorial to Congress, demanded the fulfilment of the contract on the part of the United States, and the immediate removal of the Indians.
John Quincy Adams was at that time President of the United States, and, as he had ever been, was keenly alive to Northern interests and to Federal views. Though professing to be Republican in political faith, he arrayed all his influence in opposition to the rights of the States. In this matter he gave the cold shoulder to Georgia. He did not recommend a repudiation of the contract, but interposed every delay possible to its consummation. After some time, commissioners were appointed to negotiate a treaty with the Indians for the purchase of their claim to the lands within the boundaries established by the sale to the United States—or so much thereof as was in possession of the Creek tribe. To this there was very serious opposition, not only from that portion of the tribe which formerly allied themselves to Great Britain, but from missionaries found in the Cherokee country, and from Colonel John Crowell, who was United States agent for the Creek Indians. These Indians were controlled by their chief, Hopothlayohola, a man of rare abilities and great daring. He was a powerful speaker, fluent as a fountain, and extremely vigorous in his expressions: his imagery was original and beautiful, apposite and illustrative; and his words and manner passionate to wildness. To all this he added the ferocity of his savage nature.