Robert M. Patton, Governor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Patton

Robert Miller Patton (July 10, 1809 – February 28, 1885) was the 20th Governor of the U.S. state of Alabama from 1865 to 1867.

Patton was born July 10, 1809, in Russell County, Virginia. His family moved to Huntsville, Alabama, in 1818 where Patton attended Green Academy. Patton apprenticed in the family cotton mill founded by his father William. In 1829 he moved to Florence, Alabama, and began a mercantile business that his sons took over in the late 1850s. He married Jane Locke Braham of Huntsville on January 31, 1832. They had nine children. Seven of his children lived to adulthood but he lost two sons, both Confederate soldiers, during the Civil War.

Patton's political career began in 1832 when he was elected to the state legislature. He was elected to the special legislature that convened in 1837 in response to the financial panic and depression of that year. Although he was a Whig, Patton continued to serve in one branch or the other of the state legislature until the outbreak of war. He represented the state at the national convention in Charleston, SC, in 1860 and was present at the secession convention in Montgomery. Patton opposed secession but supported the state's efforts through time and money and as a commissioner for the Confederacy. By the war's end, he suffered not only the loss of his sons but the destruction of his estate in Lauderdale County.

Patton represented his county at the constitutional convention in September 1865. He was elected governor in November and inaugurated on December 13. Patton worked closely with the assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, General Wager Swayne. He helped Swayne procure rations for the thousands of indigent families in the state. His greatest contribution was his success in reducing the state debt. He issued "Patton certificates" in 1867 to offset state expenses in anticipation of the collection in taxes.

Despite Patton's efforts, he was largely stripped of his authority in March 1867 when presidential reconstruction ended with the passage of the Reconstruction Acts by Congress. Major General John Pope was placed in charge of the Third Military District which included Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Swayne continued as the commanding officer of Alabama. Patton was allowed to remain in office and draw his salary but he was mainly a figurehead who could do no more than make recommendations to Swayne. Patton was officially the head of the state until William H. Smith became governor in July, 1868.

After his political career ended, Patton became involved in several commercial ventures to establish and build railroads in the state, notably the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad. He also served as a trustee of several schools and colleges, including the University of Alabama. He was instrumental in rebuilding the university after it was burned by Federal troops during the war.

Patton died on February 28, 1885, at his plantation, Sweetwater, near Florence. He was buried in Huntsville.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7418802&ref=wvr

He was a merchant and a planter and was many times in the legislature previous to the war. He was a member of the Charleston convention of 1860, and was not at first in favor of secession. Three sons were in the Confederate army. He was governor of Alabama, 1865 – 69. Governor Patton was a Christian gentleman and of charitable nature. He was interested in railroads and other industrial enterprises. As the first governor during reconstruction his position was a difficult one.

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Robert Miller Patton (1809-1885) was inaugurated as governor of Alabama on December 13, 1865, only eight months after the Civil War ended. The popularly elected Patton succeeded Lewis E. Parsons, a Republican who had been appointed provisional governor. During Patton's tenure, the U.S. Congress refused to seat congressmen from former Confederate states, leaving Alabama with no representation in the federal government. When Patton left office two years later, Alabama was poised to resume its place in the Union and was on a more solid financial footing.

Robert Patton was born on July 10, 1809, in Virginia, but spent almost his entire childhood in Alabama's Tennessee Valley at Sweetwater, near Florence, Lauderdale County. He was educated at Green Academy in Huntsville. In 1829, Patton moved to Florence, where he became a merchant and a plantation owner, soon accumulating more than 4,000 acres of land and 300 enslaved people. In 1832, he married Jane Locke Braham, with whom he would have nine children. That same year, Patton ran successfully as a Whig candidate for a seat in the Alabama state legislature. He would serve in both the House and the Senate and was twice elected president of the Senate.

An opponent of secession, Patton voted for Democrat Stephen A. Douglas in the presidential election of 1860. Yet, as with many other reluctant Confederates, he supported Alabama's course after the conflict began. Three of Patton's sons served with Confederate military forces, and two of them were killed. At war's end, Patton resumed his public career and helped draft the new state Constitution. In November 1865, Patton easily defeated two opponents in the federally mandated governor's election and became the state's 20th governor. His most pressing task involved restoring order and a measure of prosperity in a state that had little of either. In Alabama, as in every southern state, despair and adversity prevailed. Farms lay in ruins and livestock had disappeared. Freedmen were reluctant to enter into labor contracts with landowners, who generally offered inadequate compensation. The severe economic realities offered few industrial alternatives to an overwhelmingly agricultural state like Alabama. In his inaugural address, Patton acknowledged that the state's economic circumstances were "peculiarly embarrassing," although fertile land remained, and he reminded them of cotton's continued value to the world.

Although most white Alabamians accepted the Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery, they opposed extending the privileges of citizenship to blacks, as demanded by congressional Republicans. Patton resisted black enfranchisement and frequently expressed white supremacist views, thus maintaining support among white voters. While in office, Patton received countless plaintive appeals from desperate Alabamians. Foreclosures were rampant and families were losing their homes and land at sheriff sales in alarming numbers. He supported relief legislation and urged the legislature to find a compromise between creditors and debtors that protected the rights of both. Patton also cooperated with Brig. Gen. Wager T. Swayne, commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (better known as the Freedmen's Bureau) for Alabama, in its work to feed, clothe, and provide subsistence for freed blacks and destitute whites during this critical period. Patton urged repeal of the federal cotton tax—$0.03 on every pound of processed cotton—on the grounds that it was crippling one of the state's few sources of income and cited the lack of representation in Congress as an additional burden. Patton's outcries brought little response, but the tax was discontinued in 1868 in response to protests from poor black cotton farmers.

One of Patton's highest priorities was putting Alabama's finances in order. He succeeded in lowering the state's debt and steered a responsible financial course. In the years preceding the war, railroad construction increased. Patton also strongly supported using state credit to subsidize and underwrite land grants and generous tax and incorporation laws to encourage renewed railroad construction in the state. Corrupt implementation of that policy, however, caused enormous economic problems for the state.

A statewide system of public education was just beginning at the war's onset, and Patton urged state financial assistance in counties where funds were not available. He also promoted increased support for the Alabama Insane Hospital in Tuscaloosa. Patton earned the dubious distinction of ushering in the state's convict-lease system, spurred by the idea of saving the state money by leasing prisoners in the state penitentiary to private interests. In these and other ways, Patton created the political landscape that would come to characterize Alabama well into the future. He assumed a classic paternalistic attitude toward the more than 437,000 emancipated slaves. Significantly, he vetoed Black Code legislation that would have limited the ability of African Americans to move residences and in other ways discriminated against freed people. He also advocated opening the hospital for the insane to black patients, as well as white, and he promoted the education and welfare of blacks. But, like most white Alabamians, he viewed them as incapable of participating equally in the state's political and economic life.

In 1866, Congress began to require southern states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition for readmission to the Union. The amendment created a common national citizenship regardless of a person's race and extended to all Americans the guarantees of "due process" and "equal protection" of the law in the state of their residence and the nation as a whole. At first, Patton advised against ratification. Soon, however, he changed his mind, realizing that Alabama's readmission to Congress would depend on compliance. With the anti-Reconstruction Pres. Andrew Johnson urging non-ratification, however, Alabama's legislature ignored Patton's logic and declined to ratify the amendment.

In March 1867, Congress, over President Johnson's protests, passed the Military Reconstruction Act and took over the reconstruction process. Thus Patton remained governor in name only, and real power was effectively transferred to Swayne, with whom Patton enjoyed a cordial and workable relationship. The measure divided the South into military districts, with Alabama, Georgia, and Florida composing the Third District. Additionally, Congress officially made ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment a requirement for the end of military rule and readmission to the Union.

Patton served as governor of Alabama during one of its most critical and uncertain periods, and he worked to improve its financial outlook and infrastructure as much as possible, given the circumstances. Upon leaving the governor's office, Patton was free to pursue various business ventures, and he promoted and invested in railroad development and served as trustee of several state colleges. Patton never approved of the subsequent Republican administration and lived to see it replaced by the conservative Democrats who would dominate state politics for the next century. Patton's administration was a bridge between a turbulent social, political, and economic period to restoration within the Union. He died on February 29, 1885, at age 75 at his Sweetwater home and was buried at Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville.