Civil War Articles by Julian Williams"Fire From Heaven" Preceded General Willcox's Supreme Court
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
The General (Mark Willcox) not only had Indians to fight. He also was found to be very active in the politics and government of his day. One thing that bugged him a lot was the failure of the judiciary to evolve in as timely a manner as had other functions of the government. He took it upon himself to correct this deficiency. He thought a supreme court would be good for Georgia. At the time, it was the only state without one.
Probably no one could say exactly when the "idea" for a state supreme court started in Georgia. It probably didn't start with General Mark Willcox, or rather Representative Mark Willcox, but he, probably more than anyone, was responsible for its establishment. It might be safe to say the idea came to fruition because some folks were acting contrary to the principles of good behavior and other folks wanted methods to ensure the best conduct possible for the state's leadership in the courts.
If we go back to the late 1700's (just prior to The General's birth), we see something that caused a lot of concern about the state's leaders - including some dishonest judges. At the urging of some of these errant jurists (and others), the legislature was talked into selling a bunch of Georgia land all the way to the Mississippi River. At one time, the state reached all the way to the Mississippi! The spectacular debacle came to be known as The Yazoo Land Fraud. Now, this wasn't the first time land was transmitted in Georgia by way of fraud, scheming and bribery, and it wouldn't be the last time. Land ownership or a question concerning it can cause a heap of trouble.
But this scandal brought more to Georgia than "fire from heaven" on the capitol grounds at old Louisville. It caused many people to zero in on the conduct of their governmental officials.
We find that the land fraud scheme brought decent men to their feet in a howl of protest. Witness this passage :
"1796 - Perhaps the most infamous episode in early Georgia history was the Yazoo land fraud case. Georgia Senator James Jackson became embroiled in the case, though he stedfastly maintained his innocence. The passions involved in the case are evident in a letter written by Jackson in Savannah to John Milledge, future governor of Georgia:
'Dear Milledge, . . . I am still fired at in the papers -- abused in the Coffee houses & furnish Table talk for all Yazoo Scrip holders but I have the People yet with me. Mr. Watkins & myself have had another encounter -- he insulted me during the Federal Court & I at him -- the people interfered - -would have tarred & feathered Watkins if they could have found him. . . . I was too much in a passion this last time & did not manage so well as I did at Louisville -- It occasioned however no injury to either -- a small scratch on the Face was all I got. . . .'"
Indeed, Jackson was so incensed over the conduct of his fellowmen that he resigned his seat as U.S. Senator, came home and was placed as a legislator to straighten out the scandal. It was no easy task getting along with folks because many of them were "scrip holders" who had been hoodwinked into thinking they held valid deeds to land way out where Mississippi now sits.
Jackson was present at Louisville and helped conduct the service on the lawn where the men took off their hats and reverently held a magnifying glass over the pile of Yazoo Fraud papers so that "fire from heaven" would consume them. There was also a practical reason. Matches were scarce. Many a schoolboy, including myself, has gotten into trouble focusing the rays of the sun on someone's arm through a magnifying glass.
Now, Mark Willcox did not see the "fire from heaven" consume the evil evidence for he was three years shy of being born at the time. But what he did see, still existent in his own time, was a need to continue to clean up the judicial act. In fact, he probably felt he had been the victim of the court's capriciousness, at least once, in the county seat courthouse at Jacksonville, Georgia, in 1834.
He realized superior court judges had immense power and yet some did not always handle their courts in a fair and uniform fashion. And he was in a position to get some things changed:
"On three different occasions (1825-28, 1832-34, and 1842-43), Willcox represented Telfair County in the Georgia House of Representatives, where he worked for creation of the Georgia Supreme Court."
"Before 1845, the decisions rendered in the state's courts were characterized by a lack of uniformity. In 1828, Governor John Forsyth, later Secretary of State under both Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, lamented:
'Under the present arrangement of eight Judges of the Superior Court, each confined to the circuit for which he was elected, supreme in his authority, not bound by the decisions of his predecessors or contemporaries, and not always by his own, while these will be in their turn disregarded by his successor, there can neither be uniformity nor certainty in the laws for the security of the rights of persons or property. . . The confusion produced by contemporary contradictory decisions, everyday increases - property is held and recovered in one part, and lost in another part of the state under like circumstances - rights are asserted and maintained in one circuit, and denied in another, in analogous cases.' Georgia House Journal, 1828, p. 15."
Mark Willcox's colleagues in the the General Assembly had some reservations about whether the Court would be a viable and helpful function for the state. By 1858, these reservations had vanished when an act was passed providing that the decisions of the Court have the force of law:
"[F]rom and after the passage of this act the decisions of the Supreme Court of this State . . . shall not be reversed, overruled or changed; but the same is hereby declared to be, and shall be considered, regarded and observed by all the Courts of this State, as the law of this State, when it has not been changed by legislative enactment, as fully, and to have the same effect, as if the same had been enacted in terms by the General Assembly. . Acts of 1858, pp. 74-75"
"The Supreme Court's first session was held at Talbotton, Georgia, on January 26,1846. The first three judges chosen by the General Assembly to serve on the Court were Joseph Henry Lumpkin of Athens, Eugenius A. Nisbet of Macon, and Hiram Warner of Greenville. Their salaries were set at $2500.00 per year."
At first the three justices had to ride their horses to various locations in the state to hold Supreme Court sessions. This was later remedied in 1865 when the new constitution stated that the Court would sit at the seat of government.
The General lived to see his Supreme Court provided for his beloved Georgia in 1835 and actually activated in 1846. He died in 1852.
Credits:
Ann Carswell for letters of and notes on Gen. Mark Willcox;
Willcox Family History by Martha Albertson;
Pioneer Days Along the Ocmulgee by Fussell Chalker;
History of Telfair County (1807-1987);
info furnished by Chris Trowell; Harriet Milledge Salley;
History of the Supreme Court of Georgia;
The Yazoo Land Fraud;
info furnished by Gertrude Wilcox Williams and Diane Williams Rogers and others.
