Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics: A Gallery of Amazing Arkansans

Augustus H. Garland

Augustus H. Garland Garland County was named in honor of Augustus H. Garland, one of the great figures of nineteenth-century Arkansas history—in politics, the law, and the Confederacy. His appointment to the cabinet of President Grover Cleveland was a first for an Arkansan. Born in Tipton County, Tennessee, in June , Garland was only a few months old when his parents moved to Lost Prairie on the Red River in modern Miller County, where his father operated a store. His father died within a year, and the family relocated to nearby Spring Hill and later to Washington in Hempstead County. Young Augustus was educated in a local academy and attended college in Kentucky, where many members of the early Arkansas elite educated their children . After a brief stint as a teacher, Garland began studying law and was admitted to practice in . He relocated to Little Rock in , where he practiced law. As was typical on the frontier,Garland found politics an appealing adjunct to the practice of law. He was a Whig, as was his law partner in Little Rock, Ebenezer Cummins, who had formerly practiced with Albert Pike.In the presidential election of ,Garland was an elector for John Bell, the nominee of the Constitutional Union Party. Like many of his fellow Whigs,he opposed the secession of Arkansas during the Civil War. He was elected to represent Pulaski County in the  convention called to consider secession, and he fought joining the Confederacy until hostilities were imminent. As war drew near, Garland threw his support to the new Confederate States of America and later served in both the Confederate House and Senate.He helped surrender the state archives to Unionist governor Isaac Murphy after the war. With the return of peace, the thirty-three-year-old Garland was anxious to resume his law practice. In July  he received a presidential pardon for his Confederate service but was unable to practice before federal courts due to his inability to take the “Ironclad Oath,”  a promise that he never bore arms against the United States nor served in a hostile government.Garland argued that the oath was ex post facto law and unconstitutional and that it abridged the pardoning powers of the president. In a – decision known as Ex parte Garland, the Supreme Court agreed and thereby freed many former Confederates across the South to regain their political rights. Garland was elected to the U.S. Senate, but he was not seated because Arkansas had not been readmitted to the Union. During the Reconstruction period Garland put most of his energies into building his law practice. But, when the Reconstruction leaders fell into the internecine conflict known as the Brooks-Baxter War, Garland gave his support to the more conservative Baxter. The Brooks-Baxter War ended Reconstruction in Arkansas, and the Democrats nominated Garland for governor, a post he won easily. He was a progressive governor who worked hard to bring reconciliation to a state left divided by the Civil War. He was a racial moderate, and he implemented legislation to build a black college in Pine Bluff. He succeeded in reducing considerably the state debt of $ million. Garland emphasized the importance of immigration to Arkansas, and he was the first governor to try to deal with the state’s image problem .At his urging, the state participated in the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in , building an impressive exhibit hall to tout Arkansas’s natural resources and agricultural products. The fountain from that building now stands in front of the Old State House in Little Rock. Garland did not run for reelection in  but was elected the following year to the U.S. Senate. As a senator, Garland promoted civil service reform, federal aid to education, and preservation of the gold standard. As a “sound money” man, Senator Garland opposed the “Greenback” movement—though his brother Rufus was a leader of the Greenback Party. In  Garland resigned his Senate seat to become President Grover Cleveland’s attorney general,the firstArkansan to serve in a presidential cabinet.His cabinet service was marred by charges of a scandal over telephone patents. His tenure as attorney general ended when Cleveland was defeated for a second term. Garland stayed in Washington, where he resumed the practice of law. He died on January , , after Augustus H. Garland  collapsing while arguing a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was buried in Little...