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James Johnson | |
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43rd Governor of Georgia | |
In office June 17, 1865 –December 14, 1865 | |
Preceded by | Joseph E. Brown |
Succeeded by | Charles J. Jenkins |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia's 2nd district | |
In office March 4, 1851 –March 3, 1853 | |
Preceded by | Marshall J. Wellborn |
Succeeded by | Alfred H. Colquitt |
Personal details | |
Born | February 12, 1811 Robeson County, North Carolina |
Died | November 20, 1891 (aged 80) Chattahoochee County, Georgia |
Resting place | Linwood Cemetery, Columbus, Georgia |
Political party | Democratic |
Alma mater | University of Georgia |
Profession | Law |
James Johnson (February 12, 1811 – November 20, 1891) was a U.S. Representative from Georgia and served as the 43rd Governor of Georgia between June and October 1865.
Georgia is a state in the Southeastern United States. It began as a British colony in 1733, the last and southernmost of the original Thirteen Colonies to be established. Named after King George II of Great Britain, the Province of Georgia covered the area from South Carolina south to Spanish Florida and west to French Louisiana at the Mississippi River. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788. In 1802–1804, western Georgia was split to the Mississippi Territory, which later split to form Alabama with part of former West Florida in 1819. Georgia declared its secession from the Union on January 19, 1861, and was one of the original seven Confederate states. It was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15, 1870. Georgia is the 24th largest and the 8th most populous of the 50 United States. From 2007 to 2008, 14 of Georgia's counties ranked among the nation's 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South. Atlanta, the state's capital and most populous city, has been named a global city. Atlanta's metropolitan area contains about 55% of the population of the entire state.
Johnson was born in 1811 in Robeson County, North Carolina to Peter and Nancy McNeill Johnson, whose parents had come from Scotland. The Johnsons moved from North Carolina to Henry County, Georgia, the newly created county by the Georgia General Assembly's Land Lottery Act of 1821 from previously Indian-held territory between the Ocmulgee and Flint rivers. He graduated from Franklin College (the predecessor of the University of Georgia) in 1832 with his classmates Alexander H. Stephens, Crawford W. Long, and William H. Crawford. He married Ann Harris of Jones County on June 12, 1834. They moved to Columbus, Georgia where he started his law practice after passing the bar in 1835. In 1845, Johnson and a fellow member of the Columbus bar, Henry L. Benning (namesake of Ft. Benning) memorialized General Andrew Jackson.
Robeson County is a county in the southern part of the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 134,168. Its county seat is Lumberton. The county was formed in 1787 from part of Bladen County. It was named in honor of Col. Thomas Robeson of Tar Heel, a hero of the Revolutionary War.
Henry County is a county located in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. Per the 2010 census, the population of Henry County is 203,922. The county seat is McDonough. The county was named for Patrick Henry.
The Georgia General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is bicameral, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
In 1851, Johnson was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Unionist. Some historians labeled him a Whig, but in the later 1850s he was a member of the American, or Know-Nothing, party. He was defeated in his re-election bid by Alfred H. Colquitt in 1853. [1] Johnson opposed secession, and historians agree that he kept a low profile during the Civil War.
The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they compose the legislature of the United States.
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Union, also known as the North, referred to the United States of America and specifically to the national government of President Abraham Lincoln and the 20 free states, as well as 4 border and slave states that supported it. The Union was opposed by 11 southern slave states that formed the Confederate States of America, also known as "the Confederacy" or "the South".
The Whig Party was a political party active in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. Four presidents belonged to the party while in office. It emerged in the 1830s as the leading opponent of Jacksonian democracy, pulling together former members of the National Republican and the Anti-Masonic Party. It had some links to the upscale traditions of the long-defunct Federalist Party. Along with the rival Democratic Party, it was central to the Second Party System from the early 1840s to the mid-1860s. It originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. It became a formal party within his second term, and slowly receded influence after 1854. In particular terms, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking and economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing. It appealed to entrepreneurs, planters, reformers and the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. It included many active Protestants and voiced a moralistic opposition to the Jacksonian Indian removal. Party founders chose the "Whig" name to echo the American Whigs of the 18th century who fought for independence. The political philosophy of the American Whig Party was not related to the British Whig party. Historian Frank Towers has specified a deep ideological divide:
Johnson was appointed as provisional Governor of Georgia on June 17, 1865 by U.S. President Andrew Johnson (unrelated), [2] and tasked primarily with reorganizing the state government, which had collapsed with the Confederacy. He served until a constitutional convention was held in Milledgeville in October 1865; at that convention, the Secession Ordinance was repealed, a new constitution was adopted, and the State's war debt was repudiated. He unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate, but on Jan. 30, 1866 the legislature preferred Alexander H. Stephens and Herschel V. Johnson.
Andrew Johnson was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson assumed the presidency as he was vice president of the United States at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, Johnson came to office as the Civil War concluded. He favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the former slaves; he came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote. Johnson's main accomplishment as president is the Alaska purchase.
The Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865. The Confederacy was originally formed by seven secessionist slave-holding states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—in the Lower South region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves.
Milledgeville is a city in and the county seat of Baldwin County in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is northeast of Macon and bordered on the east by the Oconee River. The rapid current of the river here made this an attractive location to build a city. It was the capital of Georgia from 1804 to 1868, notably during the American Civil War. Milledgeville was preceded as the capital city by Louisville and was succeeded by Atlanta, the current capital. Today U.S. Highway 441 connects Milledgeville to Madison, Athens, and Dublin.
For his service, President Johnson gave James Johnson the position as collector of customs for the Port of Savannah. He served in this capacity Oct. 1, 1866 to May 31, 1869. Johnson moved back to Columbus, where he served as judge of the Superior Court from July 1, 1869 to Oct. 1, 1875, when he resigned.
The Port of Savannah is a major U. S. seaport located at Savannah, Georgia. Its facilities for oceangoing vessels line both sides of the Savannah River approximately 18 miles (29 km) from the Atlantic Ocean. Operated by the Georgia Ports Authority (GPA), the Port of Savannah competes primarily with the Port of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina to the northeast, and the Port of Jacksonville in Jacksonville, Florida to the south. The GPA operates one other Atlantic seaport in Georgia, the Port of Brunswick, located at Brunswick, Georgia. There are three interior ports linked to the Gulf of Mexico, Port Bainbridge and Port Columbus, and one linked to the Port of Savannah by rail in Cordele, Georgia.
He died in 1891 in Chattahoochee County, Georgia. He is buried in Linwood Cemetery (Columbus, Georgia).
Chattahoochee County, also known as Cusseta-Chattahoochee County, is a county located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 11,267. The county seat is Cusseta, with which the county shares a consolidated city-county government. Despite the city-county government Cusseta is not coterminous with the county; it remains a geographically distinct municipality within the county. The county was created on February 13, 1854.
Linwood Cemetery is an historic cemetery in the city of Columbus, Georgia, that is the resting place of many famous people as well as six hundred Confederate soldiers from the American Civil War. It was from this cemetery that the annual Memorial Day commemoration emerged.
William Harris Crawford was an American politician and judge during the early 19th century. He served as United States Secretary of War and United States Secretary of the Treasury before running for president in the 1824 election.
In the context of the American Civil War (1861–65), the border states were slave states that did not declare a secession from the Union and did not join the Confederacy. To their north they bordered free states of the Union and to their south they bordered Confederate slave states. Of the 34 U.S. states in 1861, nineteen were free states and fifteen were slave states. Two slave states never declared a secession or adopted an ordinance: Delaware and Maryland. Four others did not declare secession until after the Battle of Fort Sumter and were briefly considered to be border states: Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia—after this, they were less frequently called "border states". Also included as a border state during the war is West Virginia, which was formed from 50 counties of Virginia and became a new state in the Union in 1863.
Jonathan Worth was the 39th governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1865 to 1868, during the early years of Reconstruction.
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U.S. House of Representatives | ||
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Preceded by Marshall J. Wellborn | U.S. Representative from the 2nd District of Georgia 1851–1853 | Succeeded by Alfred H. Colquitt |
Political offices | ||
Preceded by Joseph E. Brown | Governor of Georgia 1865 | Succeeded by Charles J. Jenkins |