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Samuel B. Moore, March–November 1831 MAry JAne McdAniel When Gabriel moore resigned as governor of Alabama in 1831 to take a seat in the United states senate, samuel moore, not a relative, replaced him. samuel moore was born in Franklin County,Tennessee,in 1789.his family settled near Woodville in Jackson County, Alabama, when it was still part of the mississippi Territory. After reading law at home, he received a law license and opened a practice in 1819. in 1823 he entered the Alabama house of representatives from Jackson County.in these early years he was a minor member of the state legislature, but gradually he added important committee assignments.The lifelong bachelor was neither brilliant nor a great orator, and he seems to have made few friends or enemies. in 1828 samuel moore moved from the state house to the state senate representing Jackson County,and in 1830 he became president of that body,defeating levin Powell of Tuscaloosa by a vote of ten to eight. by such twovote margins, history is made. Governor Gabriel moore began his duties as a U.s. senator from Alabama in march 1831, and samuel moore, as president of the state senate, succeeded to the governorship. early in moore’s brief tenure as governor, the University of Alabama opened to students. As chairman of the board of trustees, samuel moore made a brief address and presented keys to university president henry A. Woods. From April 18 to november 21, a total of ninety-four students enrolled . Tuition for the full year was set at $20, but students who arrived that first fall paid only $10.The list of students kept by henry Tutwiler,secretary of the faculty, read like a list of the prominent families in early Alabama and included Alexander beaufort meek, John G. Davenport, and George shortridge , among others. like his predecessor, samuel moore was hostile to the national bank and opposed its rechartering.As a Jacksonian,he also believed that private or corporate banking was undemocratic and violated the principles of equal rights samuel b. moore 1831 / 35 and republican government. state banking, on the other hand, was acceptable to moore if the revenue it earned was put to public use. moore’s strong states’ rights mentality emerged again in his views on protective tariffs,which he opposed because they benefited northern states at the expense of southern states.Furthermore,he argued that such tariffs were unconstitutional because they were not uniform in their application. For such discriminatory and partial legislation to be legal, moore asserted, the Constitution would have to be amended. if that did not occur and protective tariffs continued to do harm to southern farmers, southern states should reevaluate their membership in the Union and consider the possibility of secession . Despite such radical musings, there is no indication of any serious advocacy of secession by moore in the 1830s. samuel moore, as Gabriel moore before him, took an interest in internal improvements, especially the idea of connecting the Tennessee and Warrior rivers. This linkage, similar to those suggested by earlier governors, would serve to connect the northern and southern regions of the state,stimulate agriculture and industry, benefit commercial trade, and make mobile a leading port. improving navigation on the Coosa river was also on moore’s agenda, and at one point he advocated the improvement of most of the navigable rivers in Alabama. moore also repeated his predecessor’s recommendation to the legislature for the construction of a state penitentiary. Cost concerns prevented passage of the penitentiary bill under the administrations of both Gabriel moore and samuel moore. in a related issue, samuel moore endorsed legislative action to extend jurisdiction of Alabama’s courts over the state’s remaining indian populations as a means of exercising control over them, similar to Georgia’s actions with regard to its Cherokee population. even before he assumed office, samuel moore announced his candidacy for governor in the 1831 election. The other candidates were fellow Democrats John Gayle of Greene County and nicholas Davis of limestone County. moore came in a distant third with a plurality in only three counties, and John Gayle emerged the victor. immediately after Gayle took office in november 1831, moore retired to Carrollton in Pickens County to resume the practice of law. missing the special appeal of politics, he soon came out of retirement. in 1834 he was elected to represent Pickens and Fayette Counties in the state senate, and he spent the next...

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