Makers and Romance of Alabama History. B. F. Riley
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His life was a perpetual struggle against the difficulty encountered by his weight. He could walk but little, and he could enter but few vehicles. His private carriage had to be specially constructed with respect to strength, and its entrance was of unusual width. In his home a special chair or chairs had to be manufactured adapted to his size, and his bedstead was of far more than ordinary strength. He moved from place to place with exceeding difficulty, but in the constant warfare of the spirit against the flesh the former predominated, for impelled by a gigantic will, he declined to hesitate because of his immense weight and size.
In his trips to Washington and returning, in the days before railroads became so great a convenience, Mr. Lewis had to travel in an old fashioned stage coach, and always paid for two seats. A chair of unusual size was made for him to occupy in the House of Representatives, and when he entered the Senate it was transferred to that chamber. Yet, as has already been said, Lewis was an orator of unusual power. His freedom of utterance, pleasing manner, jovial disposition, and his ability to present with clearness and power the issues discussed, with a reliance on well arranged and thoroughly digested facts, made him formidable in debate, and quite popular before a promiscuous audience.
In this memorable contest against Mr. King for the National Senate in 1841, the labors of Lewis were herculean. Weighing at this time about five hundred pounds, he had to be helped to the platform, and on one occasion when the weather was excessively hot, two devoted country constituents, one on each side of the sweltering orator, relieved the situation by the swaying of two large palm fans, which they employed with vigor while he spoke with ardor. The contrast between Mr. Lewis and Mr. King was most striking—the one ponderous and bulky, while the other was tall, thin, lithe and sinewy.
Mr. Lewis declined to be jested about his size and was sensitive to the faintest allusion to it. But his genuine chivalry forbade his taking the slightest advantage of anyone, or of subjecting any to the least inconvenience because of his condition. On one occasion while returning from Washington, the steamer on which he was, was wrecked. The small boat was ordered out for the relief of the excited and distressed passengers, but he declined to enter it, for fear that his huge weight would imperil the safety of the others. Remaining alone in extreme peril till the others could be safely rescued, he was subsequently reached by the small boat and saved.
Elected to the Senate in 1844, Mr. Lewis died in 1848. In the interest of his health he went to New York during the latter part of 1848, was treated as was supposed successfully and, animated by the prospect of a speedy resumption of his public duties at Washington, he spent some time in visiting the objects of interest about and within the city of New York. But his special trouble returned with suddenness and he soon died. At the time of his death Mr. Lewis was forty-six years old.
So nation-wide had become the reputation of this remarkable man that his body lay in state for some time in the city hall of New York before its interment in Greenwood cemetery. The funeral procession was one that did honor to his career, for at its head, were the mayor of New York, the governor of the state, and every congressman who was able to reach the metropolis in time. He died just as he was emerging into the full exercise of his splendid powers.
BENJAMIN FITZPATRICK
The galaxy of the names of Alabama’s worthy sons would be incomplete with the omission of that of Governor Benjamin Fitzpatrick. An uneducated and orphaned boy, he came to Alabama from Greene County, Georgia, in 1816, to assist in the planting interests of his elder brothers, whose lands lay along the eastern bank of the Alabama River, about six miles outside of Montgomery. He never attended school more than six months of his life, and in his early days was inured to the rough encounters of the world. Colonel Brewer states in his history of Alabama that Mr. Fitzpatrick, in subsequent years, was accustomed to point out a field near Montgomery where he tended a herd of swine for his brothers as the hogs would feed on the mast of the oak woods.
Service as a deputy sheriff in Elmore County, which position brought him into contact with the courts, aroused an ambition to become a lawyer, and he prepared himself for that profession under the tutelage of the Hon. N. E. Benson. Admitted to the practice of the law when he was barely 21, he rapidly won popularity as a lawyer by his devotion to the interests of his clients. After practicing for a period in Elmore County, he removed to Montgomery, where he entered into co-partnership with Henry Goldthwaite.
The legal development of Mr. Fitzpatrick was rapid, and he was elected to the solicitorship of the Montgomery circuit, and after serving one term was again elected to the same position. By his marriage to a daughter of General John Elmore his political fortunes were greatly enhanced. The Elmores were one of the most distinguished families of the state, a son of the general being a national Senator from South Carolina, another a distinguished lawyer in Montgomery, still another was the attorney general of Louisiana, yet another was secretary of state of Alabama and later collector of the port of Mobile, while another was a federal judge in Kansas. By his marriage Mr. Fitzpatrick became a brother-in-law to the Hon. Dixon H. Lewis.
Driven by broken health from the seclusion of his law office, in 1827, he repaired to his plantation near Montgomery, where he maintained a princely country home in which was dispensed the hospitality for which the old-time southerner was proverbial. At no period in the history of any land was hospitality more sumptuous than in the princely homes of the South during the régimé of slavery, and the home of the Fitzpatricks was a typical one of the hospitality of those days now gone. For full twelve years he lived contented and happy on his fertile plantation, unsolicitous of public office, but in 1840 he was summoned from his retreat by the state democratic convention to serve as a Van Buren elector, and succeeded in swinging the state into the column of the democratic candidate from New York. His ability was so distinguished during his campaign that he was honored with the governorship of the state at the close of the same year.
During his period of retirement Mr. Fitzpatrick had remained in vital touch with the existing issues of the time, and his powers were solidified in his rural retreat, so that on his return to public life he was far more amply equipped. This was at once manifest in his first message to the legislature, which message by the breadth of its statesmanship stamped him one of the foremost publicists of the state, and he easily succeeded himself in the governor’s chair without opposition. So exceptional had been his dual administration that a joint resolution of the general assembly approved his course as governor throughout, as well as himself personally. He retired from the office of governor crowned with the laudations of his countrymen.
Repairing to his plantation, he was summoned by Governor Chapman to the assumption of the United States senatorship to fill the unexpired term of Dixon H. Lewis. He was appointed again to fill the unexpired term of the Hon. William R. King, and in 1855 was elected by the Alabama legislature to the federal senate for a period of six years. It was during this period of his career that the highest honor of the senate was conferred on Mr. Fitzpatrick, as he was chosen by that body as president pro tempore.
In 1860, the second place on the national ticket with Stephen A. Douglas, was tendered Senator Fitzpatrick, but this he declined because of his disagreement with Mr. Douglas on his “squatter sovereignty” doctrine. This indicates that Senator Fitzpatrick was not a secessionist, for he shared in the views of other eminent southern leaders that secession was not the remedy to cure the grievances of which he insisted the South justly complained. But, like those with whom he shared in sentiment respecting secession, this did not deter him from sympathy with the cause of the South. In every way he contributed to the cause of the South when once the clash came. Yielding his convictions, he continued a southern patriot, and when the others of the South withdrew from Congress, he sundered his relation from the federal government as a senator, and ardently espoused the cause of his section.
The last public function of Senator Fitzpatrick was that of the presidency of the constitutional convention of Alabama in 1865. While always preserving a cheerful demeanor, there is little doubt that the results of the war, in the complete wreckage of the industrial system of the South greatly preyed on his spirit. He died when he was about