Israel Pickens was an American governor of Alabama state.
Background
He was born on January 30, 1780 near Concord, Mecklenburg County, now in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, United States, the son of Samuel and Jane (Carrigan) Pickens. His father was a Revolutionary soldier and was a cousin of Andrew Pickens.
Education
He enjoyed unusual educational advantages, at a private school in Iredell County, North Carolina, and at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, from which he was graduated in 1802. He studied law.
Career
He removed to Morganton in Burke County, North Carolina, and was admitted to the practice of his profession. In 1808 and 1809 he sat in the upper house of the legislature of his state.
He was sent to Congress, where he served in the House of Representatives from 1811 until 1817. He voted for the war with Great Britain and throughout that struggle favored the measures of the administration.
At his retirement from Congress he became register of the land office at St. Stephens in the new Territory of Alabama. In 1818 he was made president of the Tombeckbee Bank of St. Stephens and the next year represented Washington County in the convention that framed the first constitution of Alabama. Shortly thereafter he removed to Greene County, where he resided for the remainder of his life.
In 1821 the anti-Crawford forces elected him governor of the state. At this time Alabama, with the West in general, was in the throes of the financial depression that followed the panic of 1819. He was a candidate for reelection in the campaign of 1823, in which the bank question was the leading issue. He won his race, and during the same year a state-owned, state-directed bank was chartered. In 1824 it went into operation for the relief of impoverished landowners. This was one of the devices of the rising Democracy of the West, but one that its chief, Andrew Jackson, opposed.
Retiring from the gubernatorial chair in 1825, he was appointed to the United States Senate in 1826, but an infection of the lungs forced his withdrawal from office after a brief issue. Declining an appointment as federal district judge for Alabama, he went to Cuba in search of health but died near Matanzas.
Achievements
Politics
Pickens was not originally a Jackson supporter, but he was too good a politician to continue to oppose a movement that was irresistible in his Alabama state.
Connections
On June 9, 1814, he had been married to Martha Orilla, the daughter of William Lenoir of North Carolina, and with her he removed West.