Background
BELL, Hiram Parks was born on January 19, 1827 in Jackson County, Georgia, United States, United States.
BELL, Hiram Parks was born on January 19, 1827 in Jackson County, Georgia, United States, United States.
Private school.
Having received his education at the village academy of Cumming, Forsyth County, Georgia, in 1847, he taught at the Ellijay Academy, read law, and was admitted to the bar in 1849. He practiced law in Cumming. He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church and a trustee of Emory University.
Bell’s first marriage, to Virginia M. Lester on January 22,1850, produced six children. After his first wife died, he married Anna Adelaide Jordan on June 11, 1890. A Whig cooperationist (one who believed in a united Southern effort) who opposed secession, Bell was a candidate on the Georgia presidential electoral ticket of John Bell (no relation) in 1860.
While a delegate to the Georgia secession convention in 1861, he opposed secession, yet served on the committee to solicit the cooperation of the state of Tennessee. He was a member of the state Senate in 1861. In 1862, he joined the Confederate Army and served as a captain in the battle of Second Manassas and as a colonel at Chickasau Bayou, Mississippi, where he was wounded.
A second and more severe wound at Vicksburg in 1863 disabled him for further military service, and he spent the years 1864-1865 as a member of the second Confederate House, where he was on the Post Office and Post Roads and the Privileges and Elections Committees. Bell was an opponent of the Davis administration and supported the movement to suspend taxes in Georgia. After the war, he returned to his law practice at Cumming.
From 1868 to 1871, he was a member of the state Democratic Executive Committee. Later, he served on the Democratic National Committee. In 1872 and 1876, he was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives but lost his bid for reelection in 1878.
He then returned to the practice of law. Bell was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1898 and to the state Senate in 1900. He retired and on August 16 or 17, 1907, Bell died in Atlanta, Georgia.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Spouse Anna Adelaide Jordan.