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John Gill Shorter, 1861–1863 Henry M. McKiven John Gill shorter inherited the governor’s chair just as Civil War hardships began to be felt by the people of Alabama.A Jackson Democrat, shorter had entered state politics in 1845 and was deeply affected by the debate that arose in the nation later that decade over the right of southerners to carry their slaves into new territories acquired by the United states.he and other “young Democrats” put aside Jacksonian policies for what they considered to be a more modern and forward-looking ideology based on the sectional considerations espoused by Alabama’s impassioned oratorWilliam lowndesyancey. shorter was born in monticello, Georgia,onApril 3,1818,and remained there when his father moved in 1833 to eastAlabama,where the elder shorter began to acquire property in and around irvinton, later eufaula, in barbour County. After his graduation from the University of Georgia,young John followed his family to Alabama in 1837. by the mid-1840s,shorter’s family had acquired enough land to rank them among the wealthiest families in barbour County. in addition, John and his brother eli created one of the most successful law practices in that part of the state. John Gill, a baptist, married mary Jane battle, also of eufaula, in 1843, and they had one daughter who lived to maturity. John and eli, who later served as an Alabama congressman, parlayed their local influence into successful political careers. As the son of a man devoted to the tenets of Jacksonian democracy, John Gill joined the barbour County 84 / John Gill shorter 1861–1863 Democratic Party. in 1845 he won election to the state senate, where he served one term, but chose not to run for a second. he returned to active politics in 1851 when he won a seat in the state house. shorter, however, left the legislature when Governor henry Collier appointed him circuit judge of the eufaula district. he won election to that judgeship in 1852 and remained in that position until his election as governor in 1861. moving from Jacksonian nationalism toyancey’s states’ rights sectionalism, shorter and his fellow Alabama delegates to the 1850 nashville Convention sought to push the issue of slavery in the territories to the forefront of southern political discourse. Although in 1850 he did not yet believe that secession was the way to deal with threats to southern rights, shorter and others among the elitist eufaula regency (a group of lawyer-planters both Whig and Democrat) clearly believed that the region should prepare for that possibility should other means of redressing southern grievances fail.Throughout the 1850s, shorter attempted to persuade his constituents that their personal independence rested on a determined resistance to those in the nation who would reduce the south to a state of inequality within the Union. shorter’s political goals were not limited to agitation of the southern rights issue. influenced by the laissez-faire doctrines coming out of britain during the 1850s and concerned about the economic future of the south, he joined other young Alabama Democrats in linking southern sectionalism to a vision of economic development quite different from their Jacksonian forebears. These young Democrats endorsed free trade, state investment in education, and internal improvements as ways to move the state’s economy forward and to free the south from northern dependence. secession appeared to offer shorter an opportunity to build a government and society more consistent with southern ideals as he understood them. his initial service to the Confederacy was to act as commissioner to his native Georgia on behalf of Governor Andrew b.moore.in this capacity,he urged the people of that state to cooperate in secession. he was one of only two yanceyites from Alabama to be elected to the provisional Confederate Congress , where he assisted in writing the Confederate constitution and urged the congress to pass a provision that states own all the public land within their borders. in may 1861 shorter and other members of the Confederate Congress left montgomery to convene in richmond, virginia, the permanent capital of the Confederacy. in August 1861 at age forty-three,shorter defeated formerWhig Thomas hill Watts of montgomery and three other candidates to become the first governor elected under the flag of the Confederate states.The candidates ran limited formal campaigns, and shorter’s reputation as an all-out secessionist along with his name recognition as a Confederate congressman led to his [18.118.145.114] Project MUSE...

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