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Three Governors from Greensboro, Alabama: Israel Pickens
by Jabe Fincher
The first of the three men from Greensboro who became governor was Israel Pickens, who was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on January 30,1780. Israel was the second son of Captain Samuel Pickens, a gentleman of French descent, who assisted his country in the Revolutionary War against the British and the Tories in the two Carolinas. Israel Pickens received his scholastic education partially in South Carolina but principally in Iredell County, North Carolina, and completed his courses at Washington College, Pennsylvania. He also achieved his jurisprudence education in Pennsylvania. Pickens returned to North Carolina and initiated his law practice at Morgantown. He resided there numerous years and occasionally represented Burke County in the legislature. He was elected to Congress from that district in 1811 and continued to represent it until 1817. Pickens vindicated the War of 1812 and was a strong supporter of all the prominent measures of the Madison administration.
Israel Pickens' arrival at St. Stephens on June 28, 1817, initiated the beginning of definite political alliances and vigorous political battles in Alabama. On March 6, 1817, Israel Pickens was appointed register of the land office east of Pearl River located at St. Stephens, which is located 60 miles north of Mobile, Alabama, on a limestone bluff of the Tombigbee River. Pickens applied for the job of Register of the Land Office to be opened in the Creek cession and received approbatory considerations. While serving in Congress, Pickens had been directed by Alexander J. Dallas, Secretary of the Treasury, to make a tour of the lands ceded by the Creeks and report to him on the attributes and appraisal of this territory. Dallas promised to recommend Pickens for the appointment as register of the land office to be opened in the Creek cessation. Soon after Pickens reported on his trip, Dallas relinquished his position as Secretary of the Treasury, and William H. Crawford of Georgia was designated as his successor. When Crawford preferred a Georgia man over Pickens for the register's position in the Creek cession, this caused a political division between Crawford and Pickens.
Pickens was a man of fair complexion and blue eyes. He was six feet tall and slender. His manners were amiable and kind, his temper mild. Benevolence was a strong trait in his character. As a public man, he was very popular and, although mild and gentle in his demeanor, no one was firmer in the discharge of his public duties. He possessed great mechanical ingenuity and a great affection for mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy.
Israel Pickens was a careful and calculating businessman. While he was in North Carolina, he continued to increase his personal wealth by the development of his plantation near Morgantown. In 1814 at the age of thirty-four, Pickens had started courting Martha Lenoir. Martha was the daughter of wealthy William Lenoir of Ft. Defiance. The two were married on June 4, 1814 and, three years later, he moved to St. Stephens, Washington County, Alabama, to take his position in the land office. Martha, pregnant with another child, remained with her family in North Carolina until the fall of 1817, when Pickens returned for her and the children.
While attending to his public duties, Pickens did not neglect his personal affairs. On July 31, 1817, he purchased 2,424 acres of land from the government and supplemented this with the purchase of 475.30 acres on September 24, and 159.6 acres on October 3, 1817. On February 18, 1818, he requisitioned an additional 404 acres. Thus, he acquired over 3000 acres while at St. Stephens. As a man of affluence and as a government official, he won the confidence of the business section of the St. Stephens area and, in September 1818, he became the first president of the Tombeckbe Bank of St. Stephens, chartered by the first session of the Alabama Territorial Legislature.
In his position as president of the bank, Pickens demonstrated a keen business mind in managing the bank's affairs during the depression of 1819. He obtained specie for the bank and maintained its solvency by organizing a gigantic cotton pool in which an agent of the bank marketed three-fourths of the cotton produced in its trade area. Had this scheme failed, the bank would not have been able to meet its obligations to the United States Treasury, for which it was a depository, and thus might well have suffered the same fate as The Planters and Merchants Bank of Huntsville, in North Alabama.
While president of the Tombeckbe Bank, Pickens became increasingly encompassed in Alabama politics. He was appointed as a delegate to the 1819 convention and functioned as a member of the elite Committee of Fifteen that designed the state's first constitution. Pickens, along with Henry Hitchcock, another delegate, was in alignment with the "Georgia Machine" that was directed in Alabama by such gifted politicians as Governor William W. Bibb and Judge John W. Walker.
However, by 1820 Pickens recognized that the "Georgia Machine" was generally perceived as the party of special privilege and was forfeiting the confidence of many of the state's voters. Party leaders in North Alabama were intimately associated with the Planters and Merchants Bank of Huntsville, an institution that, through unsound management, had to suspend specie payments. Many Alabamians came to mistrust LeRoy Pope, the bank's president, and to consider the actions of most "Georgia" politicians as motivated by concern for the bank.
Pickens had been a participant in the drafting of the 1819 Alabama Constitution. The 1819 Constitution did not allow for Blacks, free or slave, to vote. It restricted governors to two-year terms and governors could not be elected for more than two terms. Constitutions are usually the products of their time and Alabamians were sharply aware of the land speculation and bank failures that marked the panic of 1819. The Alabama Constitution of 1819 was a liberal document for its time. It established universal white male suffrage without any property, tax paying or militia requirements for voting or for holding office. The Alabama governor was elected by the people, not by the legislature, and the basis of apportionment was white. The bill of rights section on freedom of religion did not dictate any belief in God, as those in many of the older states did, and the provisions protecting slaves were unusual when compared to other Southern constitutions. Although slavery was sanctioned, the slaves were to be treated "with humanity" and provided with "necessary food and clothing" and owners were "to abstain from all injuries to them extending to life and limb." One who killed a slave would suffer the same punishment as if the offense had been "committed on a free white person," a clause limited only by deaths occurring during an insurrection. Toward the close of the convention, Thomas Bibb and Israel Pickens tried but failed in an effort to give the legislature power to enfranchise (citizenship) free blacks. The most conservative feature of the constitution was one of the most fundamental: the document adopted at Huntsville on August 2, 1819, was never submitted to the people for ratification.
The 1821 gubernatorial election was largely a battle between the "Georgia Faction" (or Royal Party) and the "North Carolina Faction," with state banking and reapportionments as the main issues. Despite Pickens' ties to private banks, the effects of the depression of 1819 had convinced him of the need for a state bank. Pickens' opponent, Dr. Henry Chambers, supported private banking and was backed by the "Georgia Faction" of William H. Crawford, Charles Tait and John Williams Walker. Many new settlers to the state viewed the Georgia men as too aristocratic and elitist, while Pickens was seen as the "spokesman for the have-nots." Pickens won the election by a vote of 9,114 to 7,129.
Israel Pickens was inaugurated as Alabama's third governor on November 9, 1821. In his first message to the state's General Assembly, he urged the passage of a reapportionment law and state-banking act. During the third session of the Assembly, held November-December 1821, the legislators quickly passed a reapportionment bill with none of the controversy experienced during earlier attempts. Pickens' attempts to establish a state-supported bank were thwarted by the legislators who preferred a state bank controlled by private interests. Pickens was successful in gaining approval of the sale of university lands to fund a state bank.
The 1822 General Assembly was unable to provide an acceptable bank bill, but Pickens' power was increased when the Assembly elected two "North Carolina Faction" men to the U.S. Senate. William R. King was re-elected and William Kelly replaced retiring John William Walker.
The 1823 election confirmed the demise of the "Georgia Faction." Dr. Henry Chambers once again lost to Pickens by a vote of 6,942 to 4,602. Pickens' victory was overshadowed by the death of his wife, Martha, followed in November by the death of a baby, William James. Evidence exists that Julia, Pickens' daughter, moved to North Carolina to live with Martha Lenoir (Pickens') family. In all Pickens had three sons and one daughter by Martha.
This time banking was the only issue, and Pickens' victory was seen as a mandate to proceed with a state-banking bill. On December 20, 1823, the General Assembly passed a satisfactory banking bill and by July 1824, the state bank had begun operation in the state capital of Cahaba.
Once the banking issue was settled and the "North Carolina Faction" was firmly established in power, Alabama politics settled down for the remainder of Pickens' term. The state was a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson during the 1824 presidential election and 1825 was marked by a visit from Marie Joseph Paul, the Marquis de Lafayette. General Lafayette traveled through the Creek Indian country of eastern Alabama and reached Montgomery on April 3, 1825. Here he was honored with a banquet by the town and welcomed by Governor Pickens. Lafayette traveled down the Alabama River stopping in Cahaba and Mobile before continuing to New Orleans. Lafayette's visit was the event of the year and cost the state $15,715.18, $4000 more than the amount in the state's contingency fund.
Pickens had his sight firmly focused on the junior Senate seat, which became open upon Chamber's death, January 25, 1825. Alabama Governor John Murphy facilitated his advancement to this office when he removed a cause for misunderstanding with Senator William Rufus King. King had helped the commissioners who had obtained bank fund loans in New York and, in Pickens' words, had given "his active and assiduous attention as their agent, in effecting the negotiations." After the misunderstanding was cleared up, Pickens, having been given an interim appointment, set out for Washington in March 1826.
In 1826, Pickens stopped at Ft. Defiance, en route to Washington, to see his daughter Julia and members of his wife's family. Pickens became ill and was confined to his bed for thirteen days. Prior to this event, Pickens had not been strong but this was the first time he had totally succumbed to the symptoms of tuberculosis and he was never to see another well day. Upon his arrival, Pickens learned for the first time that he had been appointed Federal district judge for Alabama. Quickly he sought to have the appointment filled by his friend. Almost immediately after taking his Senate seat, Pickens became severely ill and, for the remaining weeks of the session (until May 22), was scarcely in the Senate chamber. He traveled north, seeking better climate and health, but found none. He then traveled back to Fort Defiance and bid a fond farewell to Julia. He departed Fort Defiance in mid-October, accompanied by his two sons, and arrived home in early November.
Pickens was considered a successful and able governor. "He was a man of exceptional capability, vision and compassion." After handpicking his successor for governor, Pickens was appointed to the U.S. Senate to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Dr. Henry Crawford. Pickens served a short time and retired to Cuba due to ill health where he died on April 24, 1827. His body was returned to Greensboro and was buried at "Greenwood" (built around 1821), the old Pickens' place two miles south of Greensboro.
Israel Pickens was a strong leader who arrived early in Alabama and for that reason perhaps had a greater influence than he would have later. He was a superb politician, one who fought for his convictions, but also one who knew the value of patience and compromise. Probably his greatest fame flows from the deathblow he and his friends gave to the "Georgia Machine." Pickens' shrewd calculations in establishing and nourishing the state bank were major political achievements, which had a long-range influence on the state of Alabama.
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