JOSEPH GLOVER BALDWIN [JOSEPH GLOVER BALDWIN was born of good English stock at Friendly Grove Factory, near Winchester, Virginia, in January, 1815, and died at San Francisco, California, September 30, 1864. After a somewhat limited education and a little study of Blackstone, he resolved to try his fortunes as a lawyer in the Southwest, then a promising field for the profession. Accordingly in 1836 he set out on his pony, with a pair of saddle bags, and after a long journey he settled in De Kalb, Kemper County, Mississippi. He made a successful start in his first case and was soon rewarded with a good practice. In two years, however, it seemed best for him to remove to Gainesville, Alabama, a prosperous town in a state which had been chiefly settled from Virginia. In "The Flush Times" much litigation was indulged in by large and small slaveholders and land speculators, and as a result very able lawyers were attracted to the Southwest. Among these men Baldwin held his own, and, although his party was not popular, he was elected to the legislature as a Whig in 1843. Six years later he was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress, and in 1850 he removed to Livingston. Meanwhile he had made full use of his opportunities to play the observer in a new country filled with settlers from all parts of the world. The result was the best book of humorous sketches written in the ante-bellum South, the well-known "Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi," which appeared in 1853. In broad humor Baldwin was probably inferior to Longstreet (q.v.) and to William Tappan Thompson (q.v.), but in sympathetic description and in delicate literary qualities he was superior to both. In 1855 he published "Party Leaders," in which he sketched in a readable fashion and with not a little acumen the careers of Jefferson, Hamilton, Jackson, Clay, and John Randolph of Roanoke. Meanwhile he had removed to Mobile and thence in 1854 to California, where he seemed to have more chance of political preferment and where another era of excitement and speculation on a larger scale doubtless made him feel young once more. In 1858 he was elected to the Supreme Court of California. He resigned the position in a little over three years and resumed his practice. Shortly before his death from lockjaw he went to Washington and tried to secure permission to visit his parents in Virginia, but the authorities, in view of the war then raging, denied his request. The best account of his interesting career is that by Professor George Frederick Mellen, published in The Sewanee Review for April, 1901. From the opinions of contemporaries such as General Reuben Davis,1 it 1 "Recollections of Mississippi and Mississippians" (1891), pp. 60-64. THE VIRGINIAN IN THE SOUTHWEST 267 would appear that the author of "The Flush Times" exhibited in his conversation and manners much of the sympathy and humor that make his chief book engaging.] THE VIRGINIAN IN THE SOUTHWEST1 [FROM "THE FLUSH TIMES OF ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI: A SERIES OF SKETCHES," 1853.] SUPERIOR to many of the settlers in elegance of manners and general intelligence, it was the weakness of the Virginian to imagine he was superior too in the essential art of being able to hold his hand and make his way in a new country, and especially such a country, and at such a time. What a mistake that was! The times were out of joint. It was hard to say whether it were more dangerous to stand still or to move. If the emigrant stood still, he was consumed, by no slow degrees, by expenses; if he moved, ten to one he went off in a galloping consumption, by a ruinous investment. Expenses then- necessary articles about three times as high, and extra articles still more extra-priced were a different thing in the new country from what they were in the old. In the old country, a jolly Virginian, starting the business of free living on a capital of a plantation and fifty or sixty negroes, might reasonably calculate, if no ill-luck befell him, by the aid of a usurer and the occasional sale of a negro, or two, to hold out without declared insolvency until a green old age. His estate melted like an estate in chancery, under the gradual thaw of expenses; but in this fast country it went by the sheer cost of living, some poker losses included, —like the fortune of the confectioner in California, who failed for one hundred thousand dollars in the six months' keeping of a candy-shop. But all the habits of his life, his taste, his associations, his education, -everything; the trustingness of his disposition, his want of business qualifications, his sanguine temper, all that was Virginian in him, made him the prey, if not of imposture, at least of unfortunate speculations. Where the keenest jockey often was bit, what chance had 1 From the fourth sketch, "How the Times Served the Virginians, etc." Some of the sketches were first published in The Southern Literary Messenger. he? About the same that the verdant Moses had with the venerable old gentleman, his father's friend, at the fair, when he traded the Vicar's pony for the green spectacles. But how could he believe it? How could he believe that that stuttering, grammarless Georgian, who had never heard of the Resolutions of '98, could beat him in a land trade? "Have no money dealings with my father," said the friendly Martha to Lord Nigel; "for, idiot though he seems, he will make an ass of thee." What a pity some monitor, equally wise and equally successful with old Trapbois's daughter, had not been at the elbow of every Virginian! "Twad frae monie a blunder free'd him, an' foolish notion." 3 2 If he made a bad bargain, how could he expect to get rid of it? He knew nothing of the elaborate machinery of ingenious chicane, such as feigning bankruptcy, fraudulent conveyances, making over to his wife, running property; and had never heard of such tricks of trade as sending out coffins to the graveyard, with negroes inside, carried off by sudden spells of imaginary disease, to be "resurrected" in due time, grinning, on the banks of the Brazos. The new philosophy, too, had commended itself to his speculative temper. He readily caught at the idea of a new spirit of the age having set in, which rejected the saws of Poor Richard as being as much out of date as his almanacs. He was already, by the great rise of property, compared to his condition under the old-time prices, rich; and what were a few thousands of debt, which two or three crops would pay off, compared to the value of his estate? (He never thought that the value of property might come down, while the debt was a fixed fact.) He lived freely, for it was a liberal time, and liberal fashions were in vogue, and it was not for a Virginian to be behind others in hospitality and liberality. He required credit and security, and of course had to stand security in return. When the crash came, and no accommodations" could be had, except in a few instances, and in those 1 See "The Vicar of Wakefield," Chap. XII. 2 See Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel," Vol. II, Chap. V (Andrew Lang Edition), but Baldwin apparently quoted from memory. 3 Adapted from the last stanza of Burns's "To a Louse." 4 I.e., the proverbs given in the almanacs issued by Benjamin Franklin. They purported to be compiled by Richard Saunders, A TRIBUTE TO HENRY CLAY 269 on the most ruinous terms, he fell an easy victim. They broke by neighborhoods. They usually indorsed for each other, and when one fell—like the child's play of putting bricks on end at equal distances, and dropping the first in the line against the second, which fell against the third, and so on to the last all fell; each got broke as security, and yet few or none were able to pay their own debts! So powerless of protection were they in those times that the witty H. G. used to say they reminded him of an oyster, both shells torn off, lying on the beach, with the sea-gulls screaming over them; the only question being which should "gobble them up." A TRIBUTE TO HENRY CLAY [FROM "PARTY LEADERS," 1855.] AND thou art gone from our midst, gallant Henry Clay! and the world seems drearier than before ! Who thinks of thee as of an old man gradually going out of life by wasting and decay; as one, who, in the eclipse or helplessness, of physical and mental energies, sinks to his last sleep and rest? No! thou seemest ever young; ever buoyant with a vigorous and impulsive manhood; vital with irrepressible energies, and glowing with Life and Hope and Love; as if all noble feelings and all lofty thoughts were busy in thy heart and brain, claiming from lips and eyes eloquent utterance. We could bear to hear of thy dying thus, though with many a sharp pang of sorrow, and many a thought of sadness mingled with pride and love. But what friend of thine could bear to contemplate thee living - yet receding from life; the noble form bowed down; the lofty crest palsied and lowered; the glorious intellect passing into thick-coming darkness, and bursting only in fitful blaze, if ever, into the life and light of thy old eloquence; the buoyant step now halting on the crutches of senility; words, peevish and garrulous, profaning the tongue that once held senates in transported audience; and rayless and vacant now, the bold and glittering eye, that awed and commanded strong men like a king? Who could have borne to see thee the wreck of thy former self, nothing |