Speech of Albert G. Brown, of Mississippi, on the President's Veto Message, and in Defence of the Bill Making a Grant of Land to the Several States ... the Senate of the United States, May 17, 1854
Protection to Slave Property: Speech of Hon. A. G. Brown, of Mississippi in Defence of His Proposition for Immediate Congressional Protection to Slave... Delivered in the Senate of the United States
Albert Gallatin Brown was a congressman and governor of Mississippi. He served as a Governor of Mississippi from 1844 to 1848.
Background
Albert Gallatin Brown was born on May 31, 1813, in Chester District, South Carolina. In 1823 his father, Joseph Brown, a poor but ambitious farmer, braved the dangers and hardships of a long, overland journey through a savage-infested wilderness to establish a new home for his wife, Elizabeth Rice Brown, and two sons in southern Mississippi. They settled a few miles south of Jackson, the new capital of the state, in what is now Copiah County.
Education
Albert Gallatin Brown was given such meager school advantages as a frontier settlement afforded, though much of his early life was devoted to farm work. These experiences gave him a life-long sympathy for the farming class and a genuine interest in the welfare of all other laborers.
At the age of sixteen, he entered Mississippi College, at Clinton, which was a few miles from his home. His college career was limited to three years in that institution and six months in Jefferson College, at Washington, the old territorial capital of Mississippi. Because of financial limitations, he was unable to complete his education at Yale or Princeton, as he desired.
Meantime, he was studying law in the office of E. G. Peyton, at Gallatin, the county seat of Copiah County. Within a year he passed a creditable examination before the supreme court of the state and was admitted to the bar before he reached his majority, the court had failed to ask his age.
Albert's six months of military training at Jefferson College resulted in his election to the office of colonel of the militia of Copiah County, at the age of nineteen, and in his promotion a year later to the rank of brigadier general.
In the autumn of 1833, Brown entered the practice of law in partnership with his law preceptor. Two years later he gave up a lucrative practice to enter politics and was elected to the state legislature.
As chairman of a committee to consider the recommendation of Governor Lynch in favor of the National Bank, Brown made an adverse report, which with his speeches on the subject put him at the forefront of his party in the state. In his absence, 750 of the 900 voters of his county in 1838 signed a paper demanding that he should either support a candidate for the United States Senate who was favorable to the Bank or resign.
He promptly resigned and announced his candidacy for reëlection to fill the vacancy. After a spirited campaign, he was triumphantly returned to his vacant seat. Shortly thereafter he was unanimously nominated for Congress on the Democratic ticket. At that time the Bank issue absorbed the attention of the voters of Mississippi, the Whigs having swept the state in the preceding election.
Young Brown took his seat in Congress in December 1839, and entered into active participation in the debates, as a champion of the Independent Treasury and other Democratic measures. The most important of his early speeches in Congress was delivered on April 17, 1840, in defense of Van Buren's administration.
After the adjournment of Congress in 1840, he made a vigorous but unsuccessful canvass of Mississippi on behalf of Van Buren, who had been renominated for president on the Democratic ticket.
At the end of his term in Congress (1841), he declined a renomination; but he was induced to run for circuit judge, and defeated the former incumbent by a vote of almost three to one. Two years later he resigned this office to accept the Democratic nomination for governor.
After a heated campaign, Brown was elected by a large majority over the combined votes of his two opponents. This election settled the fate of the Union Bank Bonds.
At the end of his second term as governor, he returned to the lower house of Congress, taking his seat in the latter part of January 1848, two months after the beginning of the session.
February 10, 1848, he made a bold defense in Congress of the policies of President Polk, and especially of the Mexican War. From this time until 1854, Brown was an active participant in the sectional debates in the House of Representatives, and from 1854 until the secession of his state he was in the forefront of the more serious controversies in the Senate.
In 1860 many Democratic papers advocated Brown's nomination for the presidency. In a conference of senators and congressmen from Mississippi, held at Jackson November 22, 1860, at the request of Governor Pettus to advise with him in reference to secession, Jefferson Davis, Brown, and L. Q. C. Lamar voted against a resolution to call a convention for the purpose of seceding "by separate State action"; the other three congressmen and the Governor voted in favor of the resolution, and the vote was then made unanimous.
After secession Brown organized the "Brown Rebels" of which he became captain. He served with this company in the 18th Mississippi Regiment in Virginia, until his election to the Confederate Senate from Mississippi. He served in that body from February 18, 1862, to March 18, 1865.
As this policy was very unpopular, he never ran for public office after the war, but spent his last days quietly at his home near Terry, Hinds County, Mississippi, in his old age declaring his disgust with politics.
Although his father had been a Federalist of the old school, Albert Brown was a most ardent Jacksonian Democrat. His platform declared that the "Union Bank Bonds" had been issued in violation of the state constitution and should be repudiated. The opposing candidates were the nominee of the Whig party and a distinguished ex-senator, who had been nominated by "the independent bond-paying Democrats" of the state.
Views
In his inaugural address, Albert Brown made a strong plea for the establishment of a free school system and for liberal support of higher education in the state. His plan for the common schools was not followed by the legislature, and the system which was created proved ineffective, but better results followed his efforts to establish a state university. He opposed the Wilmot Proviso, the compromise measures of 1850, Know-Nothingism, and the Topeka constitution.
Personality
Brown's early speeches, though somewhat ornate, were convincing and persuasive; later his speeches were more direct and bold, even to the point of audacity.
Physical Characteristics:
Albert Brown was a man of striking personality, with a handsome and animated face, an open and pleasing countenance, dark curly hair and beard, an expressive mouth, kindly eyes, and a well-proportioned forehead.
Quotes from others about the person
"He was the best-balanced man I ever knew. In politics, he had a strategy without corruption and handled all his opponents with skill, but never descended to intrigue." - Reuben Davis
Connections
Albert Brown was married twice. His first wife, Elizabeth Frances Taliaferro, died in October 1835, about five months after their marriage, he was married a second time, January 12, 1841, to Roberta Eugenia Young of Alexandria, Virginia. His son, Robert Young Brown, died at the age of 25.