CHAPTER XXIV. JUDGE PHELAN w THE NEW STATES OF THE SOUTH-WEST HON. W. R. KING WITHIN the memory of the present generation, seven states have been admitted into the confederacy, from what was at the south, Indian, or foreign territory. These states, from their tropical situation and their earliest origin, being cultivated chiefly by slave-labor, have not attracted a very numerous Irish emigration. The white race, however humbled by oppression at home, will not compete with the born slave, for work or wages, in the tobacco and cotton fields of that productive region. Hence, south of the Potomac, the history of the Irish settlers is rather a series of family anecdotes, than the various record of a widely diffused population. These families, however, are neither few nor undistinguished. For the most part, such families removed into the southern from the old midland states. This was the case with the Butlers, of both branches, and also with the Kings, of Alabama. The emigrant founder of this family first lived near Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he came from the North of Ireland. William Duffy, a lawyer of some celebrity, also a native of Ireland, was his neighbor and friend. In Fayetteville, April 7th, 1786, was born William R. King, who, after studying law with Duffy, removed to Alabama. For that state he sat as senator of the United Sates, from 1823 to 1844, without intermission. In the latter year he was sent as minister to France, from which he returned in 1846, and in 1848 was reëlected to the Senate. In 1850, upon the death of President Taylor, and the consequent advancement of Vice-President Fillmore to the chief magistracy, Mr. King was unanimously chosen President of the Senate, in which position he acts as Vice-President of the United States. During the stormy debates of 1850, known in congressional annals as "the Compromise Session," Mr. King's excellent qualities of mind and temperament were of most essential service to his country. The number of his years and honors will probably be even yet increased. Alabama has another distinguished family, at the head of which is John Dennis Phelan, one of the judges of its Supreme Court. John Phelan, father of the judge, was a native of Queen's County, in Ireland, who settled at New Brunswick, New Jersey, where the Costigans and other families of his old neighbors had preceded him. During the war of 1812-15, he was cashier of the Bank of New Brunswick. He afterwards removed, first to Richmond, Virginia, and, in 1817, to what was then the Alabama territory. His son graduated with honor, at Nashville, in 1828; became the editor of a Democratic newspaper, in Huntsville; was elected in 1833 and the six succeeding years to the State Legislature; in 1841 was appointed circuit judge, and in 1852, at the age of forty-two, a judge of the Supreme Court.* 66 * A characteristic anecdote of his entry into public life has been related to us, by one who had it from the Judge himself, and who tells it in his own words : "The first gathering I went to," he would say, when speaking of that canvass, was at Cloudtown, and I found that all the old candidates were for groundtalking, but did not care about making speeches. I knew a speech was my only chance, so I said, modestly, to one or two about the grocery, where they were all drinking and talking, that if I could get the attention of the people, I would like to speak. Nobody noticed me. Thinks I, this will never do. There was a tall fellow, named Bill Sartain, who had the end of his nose bit off, then in the grocery, half slewed,' making great fuss, and bantering any one to dance with him for a treat. I stepped in: says I, ‘Sartain, I am a candidate here, as little as you may think of it, and I want to make a talk to these people; now, if you'll engage that, should I beat you, by the judgment of this crowd, at a jig, you'll fix me a box at the door, and make them give me their attention while I speak to them, I'll go in with you, and treat to boot.' "Good,' says he; 'spread out, men, and make room for me and the little squire.' They made a good large circle, and several fell to patting‘Reuben Reed, the cedar breed,' and Bill Sartain and I went at it. I don't know whether I did outdo him or not, although, as most of my friends understand, I am not bad at double 'troulle." However, the crowd gave it in my favor, and, after a laugh and a treat, Bill Sartain was as good as his word. He got me a box, and I got an attentive hearing, and made a pretty good speech about the Union,' and Nullification,' and the Monster,' which were the themes of that day. In a word, I got a breeze in my sail by my jig with Bill Sartain, that finally carried me safe into harbor." Among the first settlers in Tennessee was Patrick Sharkey, a native of the West of Ireland, some of whose descendants still remain in Tennessee, while a more distinguished branch descend from Patrick Sharkey, junior, a soldier of the Revolution, who, about the beginning of this century, removed into the State of Mississippi, then belonging to Spain. William Louis Sharkey, one of the sons of this emigrant, was born August 12th, 1798, and, at the age of fifteen, lost both his parents. He spent the first years of his orphanage picking cotton in the fields in the busy season, and obtaining instruction with the proceeds in the intervals. In 1821, he was enabled to enter a law-office at Natchez, and in 1825, we find him established as a lawyer at Vicksburg. In 1827, he was elected to the State Legislature, and in the two following years was its speaker. In 1831, Gerard C. Brandon, born in Ireland, was governor of the state. He was a man of fine attainments and most upright character. By him the foundations of Mr. Sharkey's legal fortune were laid, in appointing him to fill the place of a circuit judge who had resigned. A well-informed periodical gives the following account of his honorable career as a judge, during twenty years of office : "Judge Sharkey presided as Circuit Court judge only one term in each county of his district. His appointment only qualified him till the Legislature should elect a successor, and, greatly to the disappointment of the people of the district and the bar, the Legislature, which soon afterwards assembled, elected over him Alexander Montgomery, Esq., then comparatively obscure, but who, during his judicial term, acquired the respect of the bar and community, and, after his retirement, reaped a plentiful harvest in the practice of law. "The evidences which Judge Sharkey had given of his capacity and learning induced the people of the First Judicial District to elect him, under the constitution of 1833, one of the judges of the High Court of Errors and . Appeals. In 1833, he took his seat with Daniel W. Wright (since deceased) and Cotesworth Pinckney Smith, the two judges elect from the other judicial districts. Judge Sharkey was appointed chief justice by his associates. He drew the short term of two years, it being required by the constitution that a new judge shall be elected every two years. "In 1835, Judge Sharkey was reëlected without opposition, and again appointed by his colleagues chief justice. Six years afterwards, his term having expired, he was reëlected over E. C. Wilkinson, Esq., by an overwhelming majority, after an arduous canvass, during which he visited and addressed the people of every county in his district, embracing an area of two hundred miles in length by one hundred in width. It will, doubtless, appear strange to those not accustomed to a constitution which makes the judiciary elective by the people, and not acquainted with the circumstances existing in 1841, which rendered it necessary for Judge Sharkey to take the stump,' that such means should have been resorted to by candidates for a high judicial station, one of whom wore the ermine at the time. But the exigency demanded it; and it is only an additional evidence of his intrinsic worth and dignity, that, by so doing, Judge Sharkey lost none of the veneration and regard which he had previously acquired. The people found the man as worthy of their homage as the chief justice had been. "A question vitally affecting the fortunes of numerous families, growing out of their indebtedness, either as principals or sureties, to the banks, agitated the public mind, and, it was supposed, would materially bias popular suffrage. It was known that Judge Sharkey was in favor of enforcing payment by the debtors, notwithstanding the disfranchisement of the banks; it was, on the other hand, supposed that Judge Wilkinson entertained different views, and to the election of the latter, the debtors of the banks, their friends and relatives, looked forward with intense solicitude. Men acting under such an influence would not be overscrupulous in their choice of the means of accomplishing their end. Combinations were secretly formed, money was liberally subscribed, pamphlets and newspapers teeming with misrepresentation were profusely disseminated where their poisonous influence could not be counteracted, and to that end runners were dispatched into quarters inaccessible by the usual avenues of communication. All this was done without the consent of Judge Wilkinson, who would have spurned any other than the most honorable warfare; but, nevertheless, it became necessary for Judge Sharkey to take the field in person, and disabuse the minds of the people of the false and injurious impressions which his enemies had produced. Everywhere he drew vast assemblies, and, in all his addresses, exhibited a style of lofty and persuasive eloquence, which, united with his venerable appearance and benignant manners, rendered him irresistible. He well merited the compliment paid him by his generous opponent, who said that he considered it a high honor to have been pitted against such an adversary.' "This victory virtually extinguished the hopes of the debtors of the banks, to whose want of punctuality the failure of those institutions was mainly attributable, and who, as was wittily observed by S. S. Prentiss, Esq., 'not content with having sucked all the eggs, were now anxious to break up the nests.' Judge Sharkey was again elected chief justice, and resumed the arduous duties of his station with the same fidelity that had always characterized him, and with a moral influence greatly augmented by his recent triumph. "On another and more trying occasion, in the exercise of his judicial functions, Judge Sharkey had violated the wishes of a majority of the people of the state, by deciding that the supplemental charter of the Union Bank, under which the bonds of the state had been issued by A. G. McNutt, and known as the Union Bank Bonds,' was constitutional. The effect of this |