Howell Cobb
Howell Cobb | |
|---|---|
Robert Winthrop | |
| Succeeded by | Linn Boyd |
| Leader of the House Democratic Caucus | |
| In office December 4, 1843 – March 4, 1845 | |
| Preceded by | John Winston Jones |
| Succeeded by | Linn Boyd |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia's 6th district | |
| In office March 4, 1855 – March 3, 1857 | |
| Preceded by | Junius Hillyer |
| Succeeded by | James Jackson |
| In office March 4, 1845 – March 3, 1851 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Succeeded by | Junius Hillyer |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia's at-large district | |
| In office March 4, 1843 – March 3, 1845 Seat 5 | |
| Preceded by | James Meriwether |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | September 7, 1815 Thomas Cobb (brother) |
| Education | University of Georgia (BA) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Confederate States |
| Branch/service |  Confederate States Army |
| Years of service | 1861–1865 |
| Rank |  Major General |
| Unit | Army of Northern Virginia |
| Commands | Cobb's Brigade District of Georgia and Florida |
| Battles/wars | American Civil War |
Howell Cobb (September 7, 1815 – October 9, 1868) was an American and later Confederate political figure. A southern Democrat, Cobb was a five-term member of the United States House of Representatives and the speaker of the House from 1849 to 1851. He also served as the 40th governor of Georgia (1851–1853) and as a secretary of the treasury under President James Buchanan (1857–1860).
Cobb is, however, best known as one of the founders of the Confederacy, having served as the President of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States where delegates of the Southern slave states declared that they had seceded from the United States and created the Confederate States of America.
Early life and education
Born in Jefferson County, Georgia in 1815, son of Sarah (née Rootes) and John A. Cobb.[2] Cobb was of Welsh American ancestry.[3] He was raised in Athens and attended the University of Georgia, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society. He was admitted to the bar in 1836 and became solicitor general of the western judicial circuit of Georgia.[4]
Cobb was a presidential elector in the 1836 presidential election.[5]
He married Mary Ann Lamar on May 26, 1835. She was a daughter of Colonel Zachariah Lamar, of Milledgeville, from a prominent family with broad connections in the South.
Career
Congressman
Cobb was elected as
He sided with President
Speaker of the House
After 63 ballots,[8] he became Speaker of the House on December 22, 1849, at the age of 34.[9] In 1850—following the July 9 death of Zachary Taylor and the accession of Millard Fillmore to the presidency—Cobb, as Speaker, would have been next in line to the presidency for two days due to the resultant vice presidential vacancy and a president pro tempore of the Senate vacancy, except he did not meet the minimum eligibility for the presidency of being 35 years old. The Senate elected William R. King as president pro tempore on July 11.
Governor of Georgia
In 1851, Cobb left the House to serve as the Governor of Georgia, holding that post until 1853. He published A Scriptural Examination of the Institution of Slavery in the United States: With its Objects and Purposes in 1856.[10]
Return to Congress and Secretary of the Treasury
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He was elected to the
A Founder of the Confederacy
In 1860, Cobb ceased to be a
American Civil War
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Cobb joined the
Cobb saw combat during the
In October 1862, Cobb was detached from the
When
During Sherman's March to the Sea, the army camped one night near Cobb's plantation.[14] When Sherman discovered that the house he planned to stay in for the night belonged to Cobb, whom Sherman described in his Memoirs as "one of the leading rebels of the South, then a general in the Southern army," he dined in Cobb's slave quarters,[15] confiscated Cobb's property and burned the plantation,[16] instructing his subordinates to "spare nothing."[17]
In the closing days of the war, Cobb fruitlessly opposed General Robert E. Lee's eleventh hour proposal to enlist slaves into the Confederate Army. Fearing that such a move would completely discredit the Confederacy's fundamental justification of slavery, that black people were inferior, he said, "You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong."[18]
Cobb surrendered to the U.S. at Macon, Georgia on April 20, 1865.
Later life and death
Following the end of the Civil War, Cobb returned home and resumed his law practice. Despite pressure from his former constituents and soldiers, he refused to make any public remarks on
That autumn, Cobb vacationed in New York City, and died of a heart attack there. His body was returned to Athens, Georgia, for burial in Oconee Hill Cemetery.[19]
Legacy
As a former Speaker of the House, his portrait had been on display in the US Capitol. The portrait was removed from public display in the Speaker's Lobby outside the House Chamber after an order issued by the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi on June 18, 2020, during the George Floyd protests.[20][21]
Cobb family
The Cobb family included many prominent Georgians from both before and after the Civil War era. Cobb's uncle and namesake, also
Cobb's younger brother,
See also
- List of signers of the Georgia Ordinance of Secession
- List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)
Notelist
- ^ multi-ballot election; voting lasted 19 days (The total vacancy was over eight months; Congress simply didn't vote or do any work until December.)
- ^ Not to be confused with Constitutional Union Party of 1860, the Constitutional Union Party in Georgia was a brief merger of the Democratic and Whig state parties.[1]
Notes
- JSTOR 40576991– via JSTOR.
- ^ [John Cobb's brother Henry Cobb was the father of Susan Amanda Cobb first wife of Florida Civil War Governor John Milton (Florida politician).]
- ^ A memorial volume of the Hon. Howell Cobb, of Georgia, edited by Samuel Boykin, p. 14
- ^ a b c Chisholm 1911.
- James T. White & Co. 1898. p. 226 – via Google Books.
- ^ A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians, Volume 3, L. L. Knight, Lewis Publishing Co., 1917, p. 1339
- JSTOR 1888593.
- ISBN 9781400845460.
- ISBN 978-0813191362.
- NIE
- ^ Klein (1962), pp. 11.
- JSTOR 40578354.
- ^ Official Records, Series II, Vol. 3, pp. 338-340, 812-13, Vol. 4, pp. 31-32, 48.
- ^ Seibert, David. "Howell Cobb Plantation". GeorgiaInfo: an Online Georgia Almanac. Digital Library of Georgia. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
- ISBN 9780684845029. Retrieved March 8, 2016.
- ^ Mitchell, Robert B. (November 2014). "Terrible beyond endurance". America's Civil War. 27 (5): 37. Retrieved June 14, 2016.
- ^ "Memoirs, ch.21". William Tecumseh Sherman. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ "Howell Cobb", New Georgia Encyclopedia
- ^ "Portraits of Confederate House Speakers Removed From Capitol". slate.com. June 19, 2020. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
- ^ Snell, Kelsey (June 18, 2020). "Confederate Speaker Portraits To Be Removed From The U.S. Capitol On Juneteenth". www.npr.org. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
- ^ Alexander, David T. (November 30, 2012). "Southern Cross of Honor: Whitehead & Hoag wins contract". Coin World. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
- ^ "Judge Cobb Dies Of Heart Attack Following Stroke", The Atlanta Constitution (March 28, 1925), p. 1.
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cobb, Howell". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 606.
This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- United States Congress. "Howell Cobb (id: C000548)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved on 2009-04-17
- Brooks, R. P. “Howell Cobb and the Crisis of 1850.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 4, no. 3 (1917): 279–98. online.
- Davis, Ruby Sellers. “Howell Cobb, President of the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 46, no. 1 (1962): 20–33. online.
- Eicher, John H., and ISBN 978-0-8047-3641-1.
- Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988. ISBN 978-0-8160-1055-4.
- Simpson, John Eddins. “Howell Cobb’s Bid for the Presidency in 1860.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 55, no. 1 (1971): 102–13. online.
- Simpson, John E. “Prelude to Compromise: Howell Cobb and the House Speakership Battle of 1849.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 58, no. 4 (1974): 389–99. [1].
- US Department of War (1880–1901). The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington: Government Printing Office.
- ISBN 978-0-8071-0823-9.
Further reading
- Montgomery, Horace, Howell Cobb's Confederate Career. (Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Confederate Publishing, 1959).
- Simpson, John E., Howell Cobb: the Politics of Ambition. (Chicago, Illinois: Adams Press, 1973).
External links
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Data from Wikidata
- Howell Cobb entry at the National Governors Association
- Howell Cobb (1815–1868) entry at The Political Graveyard
- Howell Cobb at Find a Grave
- Joseph Emerson Brown letters, W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, The University of Alabama.
- New Georgia Encyclopedia: Howell Cobb (1815-1868)
- "The Late Howell Cobb" Archived March 6, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, Southern Recorder, November 10, 1868. Atlanta Historic Newspaper Archive. Digital Library of Georgia
- U.S. Treasury - Biography of Secretary Howell Cobb
- Cobb, Howell. "[Letter] 1858 Jan. 20, Treasury Department [to] J[ames] W[harey] Terrell, Qualla Town [i.e., Quallatown], North Carolina". Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842. Digital Library of Georgia. Retrieved February 21, 2018.[permanent dead link]