Alfred Holt Colquitt, senator, governor of Georgia. member United States House of Representatives from Georgia, 33d Congress, 1853-1855; member Georgia Legislature, 1859; member United States Senate from Georgia, 1883-1894.
Background
COLQUITT, Alfred Holt was born on April 20, 1824 in Monroe, Walton County, Georgia, United States, United States. Son of Walter Terry and Nancy H. (Lane) Colquitt. His father was a Democratic U.S. senator from Georgia and an ardent secessionist in 1850.
Education
Private school, northern university.
Career
The younger Colquitt attended the schools of Monroe, Georgia, and graduated with honors from Princeton College in 1844. In 1846, he was admitted to the Monroe bar. Like his father, Colquitt was a Democrat, a Methodist minister, and a temperance advocate.
He married Dorothy Tarver in 1848, and her sister Sarah Tarver in the 1850s. He served as a staff major during the Mexican War. Before the Civil War, he also farmed a plantation in Baker County in southwest Georgia.
He became assistant secretary of the state Senate in 1849. Colquitt served a term as a Democrat in the U.S. House from 1853 to 1855, but did not stand for reelection. He entered the state legislature in 1859, supported John C. Breckinridge for president in 1860, and was a pro-secessionist delegate to the state secession convention.
When the war began, he enlisted in the army and was made captain and later a colonel in the 6th Georgia Infantry, participating in the Peninsular campaign, and the battles of Seven Days, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. On September I, 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general. In 1864, he won the battle of Olustee, Florida, and was thus credited for stopping the invasion of that state.
He surrendered during the siege of Petersburg and was paroled in North Carolina in May 1865. Colquitt returned to his farm and his law practice. Restrictions prevented him from holding office, but he became a political opponent of Joseph E. Brown.
He was president of the Georgia Argricultural Society from 1870 to 1876, and from 1876 to 1882, he was governor of Georgia. From 1882 until his death on March 26, 1894, in Washington, D.C., he served in the U.S. Senate.
Religion
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Politics
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Membership
Member United States House of Representatives from Georgia, 33d Congress, 1853-1855. Member Georgia Legislature, 1859. Member United States Senate from Georgia, 1883-1894.
Connections
Married Dorothy Tarver, May 1848. Married second, Sarah Tarver.