Speech of Hon. Alfred Iverson, of Georgia, on Our Territorial Policy: Delivered in the Senate of the United States, January 9, 1860
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Iverson Alfred Sr. was an American judge of the State superior court, congressman, and senator from Georgia. In the Senate he was chairman of the Committee on Claims.
Background
Alfred was born on December 3, 1798 probably in Liberty County, Georgia, United States, the son of Robert and Rebecca (Jones) Iverson. He came of Danish stock, his first American ancestor being a Danish sea captain who settled at Wilmington, North Carolina. The family subsequently moved into east Georgia.
Education
Alfred graduated at Princeton in 1820.
Career
After studies Iverson began the practice of law in Clinton, Jones County, Georgia, and represented that county in the lower house of the Georgia Assembly in three sessions, 1827-29. In 1830 he moved to Columbus, Muscogee County, in the section recently vacated by the Creeks. An early settler of the town, he took a leading position at the bar, and participated in the development of the section. From November 10, 1835, to December 14, 1837, he served as judge of the state superior court, Chattahoochee circuit; in 1843 he was elected to the state Senate from Muscogee County, serving one term.
In 1844 he was named a Polk elector. He was elected to Congress, and served one term, 1847-49. On November 13, 1850, he became, for the second time, judge of the Chattahoochee circuit, which office he held until January 1854, when he resigned to accept election to the United States Senate, taking his seat, December 3, 1855, as a colleague of Robert Toombs.
On January 6, 1859, while debating the Pacific Railroad bill, he took occasion to prophesy early secession and dissolution of the Union. This speech brought a remonstrance from his colleague Toombs, who thought it premature. In Georgia, too, displeasure was expressed at his radical views, and on July 14, 1859, he undertook to defend his position in a speech at Griffin, Georgia. His views injured him politically, and he was not reëlected to the Senate, but when Georgia seceded in January 1861, before the expiration of his first senatorial term, he along with Toombs resigned his seat on January 28.
In the balloting for Confederate States senator in November 1861 Iverson led on several ballots for the second seat, but on the fifth ballot he withdrew, and Toombs was elected. When Toombs refused the seat, Iverson wrote a public letter declining, under the circumstances, to be considered for appointment by the governor. Aged sixty-three, he resumed the practice of law in Columbus, taking no active part, military or political, in the affairs of the Confederacy, though his son and namesake was a brigadier-general in the Confederate army.
After the war he moved to Macon, Georgia, where he lived a retired life until his death.
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Politics
Iverson's political affiliations were Democratic. He favored Texan annexation.
In the Senate, Iverson took an advanced position on "Southern rights, " asserting that the only province of the federal government as regarded slavery in the territories was to assure its protection.
In his a speech at Griffin, Georgia, he maintained that the time for compromise of Southern rights as regards slavery had passed, and that defiance to the abolitionists was the only course remaining; and if slavery was not assured full protection in all the territories, he advocated immediate formation of a separate Southern confederacy.
Connections
Iverson was twice married; first, to Caroline Goode Holt, who bore him two children; and after her death to Julia Frances Forsyth, daughter of the statesman John Forsyth, who also bore him two children.