election until the record of the third choice of Jones had been expunged from the minutes, and the result was that he dissolved the Assembly.

In the year 1775, when South Carolina resolved to hold no intercourse with Georgia because the latter declined to become a member of the American Association and to take part in the proceedings of the Continental Congress, Mr. Habersham thus expressed his views to a friend in London:

"Savannah, Ga., April 17, 1775.

"The fiery patriots in Charleston have stopped all dealings with us, and will not suffer any goods to be landed there from Great Britain, and I suppose the Northern Provinces will follow the example.

"The people on this continent are generally almost in a state of madness and desperation; and should not conciliatory measures take place on your side, I know not what may be the consequence. I fear an open rebellion against the Parent State, and consequently among ourselves.

"Some of the inflammatory resolutions and measures taken and published in the Northern colonies, I think, too plainly portend this.

"However, I do most sincerely upon every occasion declare that I would not choose to live here longer than we are in a state of proper subordination to, and under Great Britain; although I cannot altogether approve of the step she has lately taken, and do most cordially wish that a permanent line of government was drawn and pursued by the mother country and her children, and may God give your Senators wisdom to do it, and heal the breach, otherwise I cannot think of the event but with horror and grief-father against son, and son against father, and the nearest relatives and friends combating with each other! I may, perhaps, say with truth, cutting each other's throats. Dreadful to think of, much more to experience."

At the time the foregoing was written it is probable that the writer of those words was aware of the weakness of his physical system. It would seem, from all the references to his

health in the documents available, that he was not a robust or strongly built man. He went North for the benefit of his health in the summer of that year, 1775, and Sir James Wright wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth, July 10, "Mr. Habersham is gone to Philadelphia for the recovery of his health," and on the 1st of November he announced his death to the same person in these words: "Ten days ago I had an account of the death of Mr. Habersham, one of his Majesty's Council and Secretary of this Province." Mr. Habersham's death occurred August 28, 1775, at New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Two Georgia Patriots: Abraham Baldwin

and James Jackson

ABRAHAM BALDWIN

From the National Intelligencer

Mr. Baldwin

Our last number announced the death of Abraham Baldwin, Senator from Georgia. The annals of our country have rarely been adorned with a character more venerable or a life more useful than his. War brings its animation, and creates its own heroes; it often rears them up to fame with as little assistance from native genius as from study, or from moral and political virtue.

It is in times of peace that an illutrioous name is hardest earned, and most difficult to be secured, especially among enlightened republicans, when an equality of rank and right leaves nothing to the caprice of chance; where every action is weighed in its proper balance, and every man compared not only with his neighbor but with himself; his motives being tested by the uniformity of his measures.

Mr. Baldwin was born in Connecticut in November, 1754, and received his education very early at the University at New Haven. He was one of the best classical and mathematical scholars of the age in which he has lived. He was employed as one of the professors in this college during the greater part of the American war, at the close of which he began the practice of law, and went to establish himself in the State of Georgia. He arrived at Savannah in the beginning of 1784; he was immediately admitted a counsellor at the Georgia bar, and in three months afterwards he was elected as member of the State Legislature. During the first session of that body after his election he performed a service for the people of the State, for which their posterity will bless his memory. Indeed, if he had done nothing

for them since, this action alone would have immortalized him there. He originated the plan of the University of Georgia, drew up the charter and with infinite labor and patience, in vanquishing all sorts of prejudices and removing every obstruction, he persuaded the Assembly to adopt it. This instrument endowed the University with forty thousand acres of excellent land, required it to establish one central seat for the higher branches of education, and a secondary college in every county in the State; all dependent on the principal seminary.

These lands were the uncultivated; the State itself was new. It is only within the last six years that the rents of the University lands have enabled the trustees to erect the buildings and organize the institution; and it is already in a flourishing condition. Its principal seat is at Athens, on the Oconee river. It is now under the direction of Josiah Meigs, its first President; a man equally eminent for mathematical and chemical science, and legal and classical erudition.

John Milledge, late Governor of the State, and now Senator in Congress, early associated his labors with those of his friend. Baldwin in bringing forward this establishment, and we understand that the present trustees have erected, within the walls of the first college, a marble monument to Baldwin, as founder of the institution, and to Milledge, his associate.

This is not the only instance in which we find their names connected by monumental acts of public authority. Milledgeville is the shire town of Baldwin county, and is now declared the seat of State government.

Mr. Baldwin had not been two years in Georgia when he was elected member of Congress. This was in 1785, to take his seat in 1786. From that time till the day of his death he was, without a moment's intermission, a member of Congress from that State, either as delegate under the old Constitution, until the year 1789, representative under the new until the year 1799, and Senator from that time till his death. And the term for which he was last elected had still four years to run from the 4th of March, 1807, the day of his decease.

There has probably been no other instance of such a long and uninterrupted series of confidence and service among the members of the American Congress. And, what is more remarkable, on the first day that he was confined to his house, in his last illness, he told his friends that during his twenty-two years of public service, that day, according to his best recollection, was the first that he had been absent from his public duties.

Mr. Baldwin was a member of the Convention that framed the present Constitution of the United States. This he always considered as the greatest service that he ever performed for his country, and his estimate is doubtless just. He was an active member of that most illustrious and meritorious body. Their deliberations were in secret; but we have good authority for saying that some of the essential clauses of the invaluable, and we hope everlasting compact, which they presented to their country, owe their origin and insertion to Abraham Baldwin.

His manner of conducting business is too well known to his fellow laborers, and to the great mass of his contemporaries, to require any illustration in this hasty biographical sketch. He may have wanted ambition to make himself brilliant, but he never wanted industry to render himself useful. His oratory was simple, forcible, convincing. His maxim of never asserting anything but what he believed to be true could not fail to be useful in carrying conviction to others. Patient of contradiction, and intolerant to the wildest opinions, he could be as indulgent to the errors of judgment in other men as if he had stood the most in need of such indulgence for himself.

During the violent agitation of parties which have disturbed the repose of public men in this country for the last ten years, he has always been moderate, but firm; relaxing nothing in his republican principles, but retaining all possible charity for his former friends who may have abandoned theirs. He has lived without reproach, and has probably died without an enemy.

The state of society would be rendered much better than it is if the private lives of virtuous men could be as well known as their public lives, that they might be kept clearly in view as