The Constitution as it is: speech of Honorary A.H. Garland at Russellville, Arkansas, July 12, 1880 on the proposed amendment to Constitution prohibiting appropriations for the payment of certain bonds.
A Treatise on the Constitution and Jurisdiction of the United States Courts, on Pleading, Practice and Procedure Therein and on the Powers and Duties ... with Rules of Court and Forms; Volume 1
Augustus Hill Garland was an Arkansas lawyer and politician. He was a senator in both the United States and the Confederate States. He served as 11th Governor of Arkansas, and as Attorney General of the United States in the first administration of Grover Cleveland.
Background
Garland was born on June 11, 1832, in Covington, Tennessee, United States. He was the son of Rufus and Barbara Hill Garland. Along with his parents, his older brother, Rufus, and older sister, Elizabeth, the family moved to Lost Prairie in Arkansas in 1833 where his father owned a store. His father died when Garland was still a baby and his mother then remarried Thomas Hubbard in 1836. Hubbard relocated the family to Washington, Arkansas, near the Hempstead County seat of Hope.
Education
Garland studied at Spring Hill Male Academy from 1838 to 1843. He attended Mary's College in Lebanon, Kentucky, but graduated from St. Joseph's College at Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1849. On returning to Arkansas he taught school for a time in Sevier County. He studied law with his stepfather.
Augustus Hill Garland was admitted to the bar in 1850. In 1856, he moved to Little Rock and formed a partnership with Ebenezer Cummins. In 1860, he was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court. He was elected to the convention of 1861 as a representative of Pulaski County.
He was a candidate for presidential elector on the Bell-Everett ticket. He opposed secession but in the second session of the convention, after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, he voted with the majority.
He was one of the five delegates elected by the convention to the Provisional Congress. In November 1861, he was chosen representative of the third (southern) district in the first Confederate Congress and continued to serve until 1864, when he was sent to the Senate to succeed Charles B. Mitchell, deceased.
On leaving the Senate in March 1865, Garland hurried back to Arkansas, where he was asked by Gov. Flanagin to open negotiations with General J. J. Reynolds for recognition of the Confederate state government.
On July 15, 1865, Garland secured a pardon from President Johnson and at once applied for reinstatement of his license to practice before the Supreme Court, which he had secured in 1860.
An Act of Congress, January 24, 1865, had debarred all who could not take the iron-clad oath - that he had never borne arms against the United States or accepted office in a government hostile to it.
In 1867, after the Democrats had captured the legislature of the state, Garland was elected to the United States Senate but was not allowed to take his seat.
Garland continued to practice law in Little Rock until the overthrow of the Carpet Bag régime and the adoption of the new constitution when he was elected governor. He was inaugurated on November 12, 1874.
Soon after he entered Congress he introduced a bill for a commission to investigate the effects of the tariff and lost no opportunity to work for tariff reform. He also supported civil service reform.
Following the overflow of 1882, he introduced a bill giving the Mississippi River Commission authority to construct and repair levees on the Mississippi, holding that it was a matter of national concern and should not be left to the states.
On March 9, 1885, Augustus Garland resigned to become attorney-general in President Cleveland's cabinet. While holding this office he and several other public officials and prominent men became the subject of a congressional investigation for their connection with the Pan-Electric Telephone Company.
The investigation threatened to expose a scandal of the first magnitude, but Garland's explanation of his connection with the affair was accepted by President Cleveland and a majority of the congressional committee.
When Augustus retired from the cabinet he resumed the practice of law and spent most of his time in Washington. He was stricken while arguing a case before the Supreme Court and died in a few minutes.
Garland wrote a number of books, including "The Constitution As It Is" (1880), "Experience in the Supreme Court of the United States, with Some Reflections and Suggestions as to that Tribunal" (1883), "Third-Term Presidential" (1896), "Experience in the Supreme Court of the United States" (1898) and "Treatise on the Constitution and Jurisdiction of the United States Courts" (1898).
Garland was a unionist, and as the sectional crises unfolded, he consistently advocated Arkansas's continued allegiance to the United States. In 1861, Garland was elected to represent Pulaski County at the Secession Convention in Little Rock, where he opposed secession at the convention’s first session. It was only after President Abraham Lincoln issued his call to arms that Garland reluctantly chose to support secession.
Views
Garland faced a number of problems, including a congressional investigation into the election of 1872 and constant rumors that the state was in turmoil because of "White Leagues" and secret societies that threatened violence and personal harm. The greatest problem, however, was a state debt of approximately $17 million. Garland was able to reduce that debt significantly over the next two years with help from a board of finance; this board worked to get loans that would help with expenses. Garland worked to improve the image of Arkansas through a publicity campaign that included participation in the "Cotton States" Congress in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1875, and the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. He was a strong supporter of education - urging the legislature to establish schools for the blind and deaf, actively participating in the search for a new president for Arkansas Industrial University (now the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville), and helping to establish the Branch Normal College (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff) to make education more accessible to the African-American population of eastern Arkansas.
Connections
On June 14, 1853, Garland married Sarah Virginia Sanders. She was from Columbus, Hempstead County, but grew up in Washington. They eventually became the parents of nine children, four of whom survived to adulthood.