Howell Cobb

Howell Cobb
Howell Cobb
22nd United States Secretary of the Treasury
	In office; March 7, 1857 – December 8, 1860
Preceded by	James Guthrie
Succeeded by	Philip Thomas
Personal details
Born	September 7, 1815; Jefferson County, Georgia, USA
Died	October 9, 1868; New York City, New York, USA
Political party	Democratic
Profession	Politician, Lawyer

Howell Cobb (September 7, 1815 – October 9, 1868) was an American political figure. He served as a four-term Congressman and in the Presidential Cabinet of James Buchanan and then in the civic and military service of Civil War-era Georgia and the Confederate States of America.

Early life and career

Born in Jefferson County, Georgia, Cobb was raised in Athens, Georgia, and attended the University of Georgia. He was admitted to the bar in 1836 and became solicitor general of the western judicial circuit of Georgia. He was elected as Democrat to the 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st Congresses. He was chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Mileage during the 28th Congress, and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives during the 31st Congress.

He sided with President Andrew Jackson on the question of nullification; was an efficient supporter of President James K. Polk's administration during the Mexican-American War; and was an ardent advocate of slavery extension into the territories, but when the Compromise of 1850 had been agreed upon, he became its staunch supporter as a Union Democrat and, on that issue, was elected governor of Georgia by a large majority.

In 1850, as Speaker he was next in line to the Presidency for two days due to Vice Presidential vacancy and a president pro tempore had not been appointed yet. When Zachary Taylor died on July 9th, Vice President Millard Fillmore became President. The president pro tempore of the Senate was not appointed until July 11th when William Rufus de Vane King took that position.

In 1851, he left the House to serve as the Governor of Georgia, holding that post until 1853. He published A Scriptural Examination of the Institution of Slavery (1856).^[1] He was elected to the 34th Congress and then took the position of Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan's Cabinet. He served for three years, resigning in December 1860.

During that year, he had ceased to be a Unionist, and became a leader of the secession movement. He was president of a convention of the seceded states that assembled in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 24, 1861. Under Cobb's guidance, the delegates drafted a constitution for the new Confederacy. He served as Speaker and as President Pro Tempore of several sessions of the Confederate Provisional Congress before resigning to join the military when war erupted.

Civil War

Cobb enlisted in the Confederate Army and was named as Colonel of the 16th Georgia Infantry. He was appointed a brigadier general on February 13, 1862, and assigned command of a brigade in what became the Army of Northern Virginia. He saw combat during the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days Battles. Cobb's brigade played a key role in the fighting at Crampton's Gap during the Battle of South Mountain, where it arrived at a critical time to delay a Union advance through the gap. His men also fought at the subsequent Battle of Antietam.

In October 1862, Cobb was detached from the Army of Northern Virginia and sent to the District of Middle Florida. He was promoted to major general on September 9, 1863, and placed in command of the District of Georgia and Florida. He suggested the construction of a prisoner-of-war camp in southern Georgia, a location thought to be safe from Union invaders. This idea led to the creation of Andersonville prison. When William T. Sherman's armies entered Georgia during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign and subsequent March to the Sea, General Cobb commanded the Georgia reserve corps. In the spring of 1865, with the Confederacy clearly waning, he and his troops were sent to neighboring Alabama to help oppose Wilson's Raid.

In the closing days of the war, Cobb fruitlessly opposed General Robert E. Lee's eleventh hour proposal of enlisting slaves into the army. Fearing this move would completely discredit the fundamental justification of slavery that blacks were inferior people, he said, "You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong."^[2]

He surrendered at Macon, Georgia, April 20, 1865.

Postbellum

Following the war, Cobb returned home and resumed his law practice, but despite pressure from his former constituents and soldiers, he refused to make any public remarks on Reconstruction policy until he received a presidential pardon, although he privately opposed it. Finally receiving that document in early 1868, he then vigorously opposed the Reconstruction Acts, making a series of speeches that summer that bitterly denounced the policies of the reigning Radical Republicans in Congress.

Taking a break from his schedule of political speeches, Cobb decided to vacation in New York City in the autumn. He died of a heart attack in that city. His body was returned to Athens, Georgia, for burial in Oconee Hill Cemetery.^[3]

Thomas Willis Cobb was a cousin and Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb a younger brother of Howell Cobb. His great uncle and namesake, Howell Cobb, had been a U.S. Congressman from 1807–1812, and then served as an officer in the War of 1812.

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
United States Congress. "Howell Cobb (id: C000548)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

Notes

^ NIE
^ Encyclopedia Britanica
^ New Georgia Encyclopedia

Preceded by Robert C. Winthrop	Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives December 22, 1849 – March 4, 1851	Succeeded by Linn Boyd
Preceded by George W. Towns	Governor of Georgia 1851 – 1853	Succeeded by Herschel V. Johnson
Preceded by James Guthrie	United States Secretary of the Treasury March 7, 1857 – December 8, 1860	Succeeded by Philip Thomas
Preceded by Robert Woodward Barnwell	Speaker of the Provisional Confederate Congress February 4, 1861 – February 17, 1862	Succeeded by (none)

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