Part 202 (2/2)
Willey, says, in one of his letters, ”Being a magistrate, under a solemn oath to do all in my power to keep the peace,” &c., and yet this personification of Georgia justice superscribes his letter as follows: ”To the Liar, Puppy, Fool, and Poltroon, Mr. John A. Willey”
The magistrate closes his letter thus:
”Here I am; call upon me for personal satisfaction (in _propria forma_); and in the Farm Field, on St. Simon's Island, (_Deo juvante_,) I will give you a full front of my body, and do all in my power to satisfy your thirst for blood! And more, I will wager you $100, to be planked on the scratch! that J.A. Willey will neither kill or defeat T.F. Hazzard.”
The following extract from the correspondence is a sufficient index of slaveholding civilization.
”ARTICLES OF BATTLE BETWEEN JOHN A. WILLEY AND W. WHIG HAZZARD.
”Condition 1. The parties to fight on the same day, and at the same place, (St. Simon's beach, near the lighthouse,) where the meeting between T.F. Hazzard and J.A. Willey will take place.
”Condition 2. The parties to fight with broad-swords in the right hand, and a dirk in the left.
”Condition 3. On the word ”Charge,” the parties to advance, and attack with the broadsword, or close with the dirk.
”Condition 4. THE HEAD OF THE VANQUISHED TO BE CUT OFF BY THE VICTOR, AND STUCK UPON A POLE ON THE FARM FIELD DAM, the original cause of dispute.
”Condition 5. Neither party to object to each other's weapons; and if a sword breaks, the contest to continue with the dirk.
”This Col. W. Whig Hazzard is one of the most prominent citizens in the southern part of Georgia, and previously signalized himself, as we learn from one of the letters in the correspondence, by ”three deliberate rounds in a duel.”
The Macon (Georgia) Telegraph of October 9, 1838, contains the following notice of two affrays in that place, in each of which an individual was killed, one on Tuesday and the other on Sat.u.r.day of the same week. In publis.h.i.+ng the case, the Macon editor remarks:
”We are compelled to remark on the inefficiency of our laws in bringing to the bar of public justice, persons committing capital offences. Under the present mode, a man has nothing more to do than to leave the state, or step over to Texas, or some other place not farther off, and he need entertain no fear of being apprehended. So long as such a state of things is permitted to exist, just so long will every man who has an enemy (and there are but few who have not) _be in constant danger of being shot down in the streets_.”
To these remarks of the Macon editor, who is in the centre of the state, near the capital, the editor of the Darien Telegraph, two hundred miles distant, responds as follows, in his paper of October 30. 1838.
”The remarks of our contemporary are not without cause. They apply, with peculiar force, to this community. _Murderers and rioters will never stand in need of a sanctuary as long as Darien is what it is_.”
It is a coincidence which carries a comment with it, that in less than a week after this Darien editor made these remarks, he was attacked in the street by ”_fourteen_ gentlemen” armed with bludgeons, knives, dirks, pistols, &c., and would doubtless have been butchered on the spot if he had not been rescued.
We give the following statement at length as the chief perpetrator of the outrages, Col. W.N. Bishop, was at the time a high functionary of the State of Georgia, and, as we learn from the Macon Messenger, still holds two public offices in the State, one of them from the direct appointment of the governor.
From the ”Georgia Messenger” of August 25, 1837.
”During the administration of WILSON LUMPKIN, WILLIAM N. BISHOP received from his Excellency the appointment of Indian Agent, in the place of William Springer. During that year (1834,) the said governor gave the command of a company of men, 40 in number, to the said W.N.
Bishop, to be selected by him, and armed with the muskets of the State. This band was organized for the special purpose of keeping the Cherokees in subjection, and although it is a notorious fact that the Cherokees in the neighborhood of Spring Place were peaceable and by no means refractory, the said band were kept there, and seldom made any excursion whatever out of the county of Murray. It is also _a notorious fact_, that the said band, from the day of their organization, never permitted a citizen of Murray county opposed to the dominant party of Georgia, to exercise the right of suffrage at any election whatever. From that period to the last of January election, the said band appeared at the polls with the arms of the State, rejecting every vote that ”was not of the true stripe,” as they called it. That they frequently seized and dragged to the polls honest citizens, and compelled them to vote contrary to their will.
”Such acts of arbitrary despotism were tolerated by the administration. Appeals from the citizens of Murray county brought them no relief--and incensed at such outrages, they determined on the first Monday in January last, to turn out and elect such Judges of the Inferior Court and county officers, as would be above the control of Bishop, that he might thereby be prevented from packing such a jury as he chose to try him for his brutal and unconst.i.tutional outrages on their rights. Accordingly on Sunday evening previous to the election, about twenty citizens who lived a distance from the county site, came in unarmed and unprepared for battle, intending to remain in town, vote in the morning and return home. They were met by Bishop and his State band, and asked by the former 'whether they were for peace or war.' They unanimously responded, ”we are for peace:' At that moment Bishop ordered a fire, and instantly _every musket of his band was discharged on those citizens_, 5 of whom were wounded, and others escaped with bullet holes in their clothes. Not satisfied with the outrage, _they dragged an aged man from his wagon and beat him nearly to death_.
”In this way the voters were driven from Spring Place, and before day light the next morning, the polls were opened by order of Bishop, and soon after sun rise they were closed; Bishop having ascertained that the band and Schley men had all voted. A runner was then dispatched to Milledgeville, and received from Governor Schley commissions for those self-made officers of Bishop's, two of whom have since runaway, and the rest have been called on by the citizens of the county to resign, being each members of Bishop's band, and doubtless runaways from other States.
”After these outrages, Bishop apprehending an appeal to the judiciary on the part of the injured citizens of Murray county, had a jury drawn to suit him and appointed one of his band Clerk of the Superior Court.
For these acts, the Governor and officers of the Central Bank rewarded him with an office in the Bank of the State, since which his own jury found _eleven true bills_ against him.”
In the Milledgeville Federal Union of May 2, 1837, we find the following presentment of the Grand Jury of Union County, Georgia, which as it shows some relics of a moral sense, still lingering in the state we insert.
Presentment of the Grand Jury of Union Co., March term, 1837.
<script>