Alabama Governors: A Political History of the State

Gabriel Moore / Harriet E. A. Doss

Gabriel Moore, 1829–March 1831 HArriet e. A. doss Gabriel moore won election without opposition as Alabama’s fifth governor in 1829. his early public service in numerous offices and skillful championing of the common man earned moore the popular support of the state’s developing frontier constituency. The son of matthew and letitia Dalton moore,Gabriel moore was born in surry (presently stokes) County,north Carolina, circa 1785. he received his education in Greensboro at David Caldwell’s Academy,popularly known as the “log College,” a forerunner of the University of north Carolina.he read law in north Carolina before migrating in 1810 to huntsville in madison County,Alabama,the most populous county in the eastern part of the mississippi Territory. he immediately entered public service with his appointment in 1810 as tax assessor and collector for madison County.his duties included supervising the census for madison County that helped to determine the apportionment of representatives for the mississippi Territorial Assembly. moore built his political career with appeals to the small farmers who populated madison County and with attacks on that area’s broad river faction , whose members often resided in the county seat of huntsville. This champion of the people owned almost five hundred acres of land and four slaves in 1815,property holdings that placed him closer to the typical pioneer settler of the county than the business elite in the town. An affluent attor- 30 / Gabriel moore 1829–1831 ney as well as small planter, moore, observed a contemporary, was “a skillful electioneer [who] courted the lower stratum of society.” he appealed to the common man by delivering stump speeches in which he declared that he came not from the “royal Party” but from the poor. Known for his “insinuating address and ardent temperament,” moore was, as Willis brewer noted, “a man of the people, public-spirited, hospitable, and firm in friendship as he was bitter in enmity.” moore represented madison County in the mississippi Territorial Assembly from 1811 to 1817, and he served as its speaker from 1815 to 1817. When Alabama became a separate territory in 1817,moore continued to represent the county in the assembly and served as speaker during its first session in January and February 1818.he did not seek election as speaker for the second session in november 1818, fearing the political consequences from the legislature’s grant of a divorce to his wife and approval of her petition to resume using her maiden name of mary Parham Caller.To compound the political fallout, moore subsequently fought a duel with her brother, although neither suffered serious injury. moore survived his personal difficulties and in 1819 was one of eight madison County representatives to the state constitutional convention that met in huntsville. moore then handily won election as the first state senator from madison County,receiving almost four times as many votes as his opponent and predictably drawing most of his votes from residents of the county rather than from huntsville proper. he served as president of the Alabama senate in 1820. For four terms from 1821 to 1829 moore represented Alabama voters in the U.s. Congress. in his first term as Alabama’s solitary congressman, he served as the state’s representative at large. For the next three terms he represented the northern district,one of the state’s three districts.in the Congress, moore sought surveys of possible routes to connect the Alabama river and Tennessee river systems and ways to facilitate navigation on the Tennessee river. moore ultimately proved successful in obtaining extensive federal aid for navigation improvements around muscle shoals. Along the political way,moore made powerful enemies,including Clement Comer Clay, a leader of the broad river faction of madison County and a future governor. in 1825 moore won reelection to his seat in the U.s. Congress over a challenge from Clay. The following year, he refused to support Clay’s quest for a senate seat,ensuring Clay’s defeat.From that time forward, Clay despised moore, and, years later, when the two men accidentally rode the same stagecoach for 170 miles,neither acknowledged the other’s presence. in 1829 moore gave up his congressional seat to become governor of Ala- Gabriel moore 1829–1831 / 31 bama. As governor he gained widespread voter support for his longtime priorities for the state: internal improvements and land debt relief for citizens who were financially...