.

Under these circumstances, Chancellor Joshua Lanier Martin resigned his judicial office and declared his candidature for Governor on the issue of bank reform. A campaign of unequalled activity followed - Terry and Martin being the only candidates and both Democrats, both extraordinary in their personal qualifications to instruct and please the people. In 1843 Fitzpatrick was elected by something in excess of six thousand majority; in 1847 Reuben Chapman, Democrat, was elected Governor by a majority over three thousand. Martin carried the intervening election, in 1845, by a majority exceeding five thousand. Whigs and Democrats desirous of prolonging the practical career of the State banks voted for Terry; Whigs and Democrats desirous of winding up the State banks, as speedily as sound discretion would permit, cast their ballots for Martin. The joy of the Whigs over a disrupted Democracy was more to their credit than the display of ill temper on the part of Democrats, compelled to witness the courage and capacity of one of their leaders occupying a position far in advance of the majority of their leaders upon the true test of the statesmanship of the day, gave them honor.

The Governor elect was not an accident. He was one only of his blood and name who have adorned the political and judicial history of Alabama. The question which he came out from the trammels of party to adjust to the operation of society is seldom adjusted within a party. It is a question destined to occur again and again and its somewhat elaborate discussion in this narrative, it is hoped, is not out of place. Governor Martin was one of the first lawyers who received a license from Alabama. He had hardly reached manhood when he began to practice in the northern counties of the State. He had been Solicitor of a circuit; four years Judge of the Circuit Court; four years Representative in Congress, and four years Chancellor, when elected Governor. He had never been defeated for any office to which he aspired, had ever been a firm adherent of Democratic principles, was forty-six years old, in the enjoyment of a singularly happy private life, to which he had voluntarily retired, when he came forth to redeem the State from financial degredation.

Governor Martin promptly offered to the Legislature a matured plan for winding up the State banks. It was original

in some respects, practical in all, simple, and so commended itself to that body that, with enthusiasm, they adopted it in its essential details. Five thousand copies of his brief message explaining the plan were ordered printed and were freely distributed among the people. The substance of the plan was, the immediate vacating, by law, of the offices of President and Directors of the banks; the appointment of three Commissioners with power to collect and secure the debts and wind up the affairs of the banks.

The Legislature proceeded to elect the Commissioners. F. S. Lyon, of Demopolis, Benjamin Fitzpatrick, of Autauga, and William Cooper, of Florence, were chosen. Mr. Fitzpatrick declined to serve and ex-Senator C. C. Clay took his place.

The candidature of Martin for Governor was not the only evidence of the public discontent with the Democratic party organization, in 1845, and the resolution of the people of Alabama to transcend party bounds in applying a remedy to bank mismanagement. Samuel F. Rice had been formally nominated in the Talladega District as the Democratic candidate for Representative in Congress. His course on the question of bank reform was not satisfactory. Felix Grundy McConnell, a Democrat, opposed him, and the people chose McConnell. Probably no two rival candidates ever appeared in Alabama of equal resources in wit and humor with Rice and McConnell. Both, too, were excellent stump speakers and of far above the average intellect of political leaders.

Francis Strother Lyon was soon made sole Commissioner with John W. Whiting, cashier of the branch bank at Montgomery, his assistant. Mr. Lyon was one of the natives of North Carolina who came to St. Stephens, the centre of the Tom Bigbee settlement, when Alabama was in a territorial condition. He was born of highly respectable parentage, in January, 1800. He came, when seventeen years old, to live with his uncle, the noted factor of the government in charge of Indian affairs at St. Stephens, George Strother Gaines. He was clerk in the bank at that place, read law, moved to Demopolis, the French settlement, higher up the river, and married there a daughter of a planter. He served in the State Senate and took a high stand at the bar. In 1835 he was elected from a Whig district as a sub-treasury Whig,

having been ere then known as a Whig. In 1837 he did not canvass for re-election but was chosen by a very small majority. In 1839 he declined to stand. He was noted for the industry of his habits, for the suavity of his manners and the correctness of his judgment. He was without vices and was free from foibles. In seven years from the date of Governor Martin's message recommending the retirement of bank Presidents and Directors, and six years from the appointment of Mr. Lyon as sole Commissioner, the banks were wound up, their bills were at par and the credit of the State was fully re-established. A single example of the remarkable success of the Commissioner will suffice. The State owned six hundred thousand dollars of the stock of the branch bank at Mobile. This was one of the most disastrously conducted of all the State banks. Two members of the Legislature from that city were indebted to it on their individual accounts, or as endorsers, to an amount exceeding half million dollars. The transactions of the Commissioner not only restored the bills to par, but returned an actual profit on the stock, held by the State, of fifty-two thousand five hundred dollars. Νο executive duties in Alabama ever required more methodical labor, more unvarying patience, and higher personal integrity than the duties of the Bank Commissioner. Thousands of individual bank debtors, farmers, planters, merchants, were dependent on him, not only for justice, but for the indulgence which would save them. To protect good citizens, each presenting a case to be treated on its own merits, and to protect the fair fame of the State in its financial obligations, was the Herculean task before him. Dr. Charles Lucas, a planter of Montgomery county, owed the branch bank there a sum he was unable to pay on maturity. Taking a steamer, he proceeded by the most expeditious from Montgomery, and up the confer with the Commissioner. his plantation, twelve miles out. his return, he hastened to the hotel and took him to his house for the night. In five minutes a memorandum was prepared of instructions to John A. Elmore, bank attorney, at Montgomery. The debt was delayed in collection and finally settled in full. Both men passed beyond four score years, and

route, down the Alabama Tom Bigbee to Demopolis, to Mr. Lyon was on a visit to Finding his visitor's card on

from the day of the arrangement of the debt became earnest friends. So with hundreds of like examples. Other States sent messages of warning and encourragement to Alabama. The progress of her Bank Commissioner's work was watched, at the first, with anxiety and distrust in Europe, where her bonds were held, but soon apprehension of peril gave way to confidence, the fruits of which are at this day apparent.

CHAPTER 5.

Two Elections to Congress.

1844-1847.

The two classifications of public sentiment, the Abolition and Whig parties, moving, pari passu, toward enforced emancipation of slaves, protective tariff, national bank, national internal improvement, nevertheless drove Mr. Clay into retirement. In August, 1842, the Congress which had come in with the election of General Harrison passed a bill revoking the "compromise," of 1833, on the ground that it was an act of Congress entitled only to the respect due to ordinary legislation, and re-established a protective tariff. This conduct transpired a few months after Mr. Clay reached his farm. Abolitionists and Whigs joined forces in consummating it. In January, 1841, too, before Mr. Clay left the Senate, Mr. Adams presented in the House the petition of Benjamin Emerson and forty-five other citizens, of Haverhill, Massachusetts, praying Congress to take the necessary steps to dissolve the Union. Mr. Adams disclaimed sympathy with the plan of the petitioners to absolve themselves of responsibility for slavery, but justified the petition, on the principle laid down in the Declaration of Independence, asserting the right of the people to alter or abolish their form of government at will. Mr. Calhoun, also, retired to his farm. The indecision of men, and the vicissitudes of events were so startling, that the honest masses turned, instinctively, to the farm "Ashland," in Kentucky, and the farm "Fort Hill," in South Carolina, as