John Gayle was an American politician. He was the governor of Alabama.
Background
John Gayle was born on 11 September 1792, in the Sumter District, South Carolina. He was the son of Matthew and Mary (Reese) Gayle. He was of English-Scotch ancestry, his forebears having settled in Virginia in the early colonial days.
In 1815, he made a visit to his parents, who had several years previously settled near what is now Mount Vernon, Alabama, and subsequently became a permanent resident of that state.
His family, later, moved to Monroe County and founded a plantation near Claiborne.
Education
Gayle attended Newberry Academy and graduated from South Carolina College in 1815.
Soon after going to Alabama young Gayle entered upon the career that became fashionable for graduates of South Carolina College.
He resumed the study of law, which he had begun in South Carolina in the office of Abraham Giles Dozier, under the guidance of Judge Abner S. Lipscomb.
Career
When his course of study was finished, Gayle plunged into politics. He was appointed by President Monroe in 1818 to the first Council of the Alabama Territory. The following year, he was elected solicitor of his circuit.
During the next twelve years, he served four terms in the legislature, sat upon the bench as circuit judge and justice of the state supreme court, and found the time and opportunity to develop a lucrative law practice.
During his service in the legislature, 1829, he was elected speaker of the House over former Gov. Thomas Bibb of Lawrence County.
In 1831, he entered the gubernatorial race as a pro-Union, Jackson Democrat, and was elected decisively over Gov. Samuel B. Moore and Nicholas Davis, the latter a prominent planter and legislator.
Two years later, he was re-elected without opposition. Gayle’s administration was unusually colorful.
At the end of his term, he moved to Mobile and resumed the practice of law. Gradually, he drifted into the ranks of the rising Whig party. In 1836, he was made presidential elector on the Judge White ticket, and in 1840, he became a Harrison elector.
In 1841, some of his Whig friends, eager to retire Senator William R. King, nominated Gayle, without his knowledge, it is said, for the senatorship. They were unsuccessful, however, the vote standing, Gayle 55, King 72.
In 1847, Gayle was elected to Congress on the Whig ticket, and two years afterward President Taylor appointed him a federal district judge. He occupied this position until his death.
Achievements
Politics
Gayle boldly defended the rights of the state in the controversy; so boldly, indeed, that the Huntsville Democrat called him “the wildest and worst of nullifiers. ” This conflict weakened Union sentiment in Alabama and cooled Gayle’s ardor for President Jackson.
Personality
Gayle was a man of sterling character and is reputed to have been one of the ablest speakers and writers in the state.
He was calm, judicious, urbane, and affable. His warm heart led him, while governor, into a liberal use of the pardoning power, and his generosity induced him to assist others to the hurt of his own fortunes.
Connections
Gayle was married, November 14, 1819, to Sarah Ann Haynesworth, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Richard Haynesworth, a prominent Clarke County planter. To this union six children were born, one of whom, Amelia, became the mother of William Crawford Gorgas.
Mrs. Gayle died in 1835, and four years later, November 1, 1839, Gayle married Clarissa Stedman Peck of Greensboro, by whom he had four more children.