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'''John Anthony Winston''' (born [[September 4]], [[1812]] in Madison County; died [[December 21]], [[1871]] in Mobile) was the 15th [[Governor of Alabama]], from [[1853]] to [[1857]], and the first to have been born in the state.
'''John Anthony Winston''' (born [[September 4]], [[1812]] in Madison County; died [[December 21]], [[1871]] in Mobile) was the 15th [[Governor of Alabama]], from [[1853]] to [[1857]], and the first to have been born in the state. He championed the preservation of an agrarian society with strict limits on government and prevented state investments in railroad infrastructure.


He was a son of William and Mary Cooper Winston of [[Tuscumbia]]. He was educated in private schools and attended Cumberland College in Nashville, Tennessee. He married his first cousin, Mary Agnes Walker on [[August 7]], [[1832]] and settled on a plantation in Sumter County in [[1835]]. They had one daughter, Mary Agnes, before she died in [[1842]].
He was born to William and Mary Cooper Winston of [[Tuscumbia]] and educated in private schools. He attended Cumberland College in Nashville, Tennessee and married his first cousin, Mary Agnes Walker on [[August 7]], [[1832]]. They settled on a plantation in Sumter County in [[1835]] and had one daughter, Mary Agnes, before Mrs Winston died in [[1842]].


Winston was elected to the [[Alabama House of Representatives]] in [[1840]] and [[1842]], and to the [[Alabama State Senate]] in [[1843]] and became a vocal leader of the States' Rights faction of the [[Alabama Democratic Party]]. By [[1844]] he was operating a successful cotton commission firm in Mobile and reinvested the profits in additional cotton plantations in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas.
Winston was elected to the [[Alabama House of Representatives]] in [[1840]] and [[1842]], and to the [[Alabama State Senate]] in [[1843]] and became a leader of the more moderate States' Rights supporters in the [[Alabama Democratic Party]]. By [[1844]] he was operating a successful cotton commission firm in Mobile and reinvested the profits in additional cotton plantations in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas.


Winston remarried, to Mary W. Longwood. He discovered in [[1847]] that she had been unfaithful to him with their family doctor, Sidney Perry. Winston shot Perry to death, but county magistrates ruled the shooting a "justifiable homicide". The couple were divorced in [[1850]].
Winston remarried, to Mary W. Longwood. He discovered in [[1847]] that she had been unfaithful to him with their family doctor, Sidney Perry. Winston shot Perry to death, but county magistrates ruled the shooting a "justifiable homicide". The couple were divorced in [[1850]].


He was elected Governor in [[1852]].
Winston urged members of the Alabama delegation to the [[1848]] Democratic Convention in Baltimore not to walk out after [[William Yancey|William Lowndes Yancey]]'s "Alabama Platform" was rejected. He led the state's Southern Democrats through a crisis in [[1850]] when Northern party members formed an alliance with Whigs to oppose Secession. His efforts made him the party's nominee for the [[1853 general election|1853 gubernatorial election]], which he won without opposition after the Whig candidate dropped out.


Winston was sent to Washington D.C. in January [[1867]], having been elected to represent Alabama in the U.S. Senate, but was prevented from taking his seat due to [[Reconstruction]].
In his inaugural address, Winston railed against the use of taxpayer money to assist private banking, railroad and shipping concerns. The development of transportation infrastructure was increasingly important to nascent industries in the [[Birmingham District]] and Tennessee Valley. Unlike previous governors, he backed his words with vetoes when railroad aid bills came out of the legislature. He did sign the landmark [[Alabama Education Act of 1854]] which opened the door to state funding for free public schools. Little progress in that area, however, was made until after the [[Civil War]].


Winston died in December 1871 in Mobile and is buried in a family cemetery near Gainesville in Sumter County.
Winston was re-elected in [[1855]] and he pledged to further reduce public outlays. He vetoed another wave of railroad bills, and even used his executive powers to limit payments authorized by bills passed over his veto. Pro-railroad elements in the Democratic party prevented him from earning the nomination for an open seat on the U.S. Senate when his term ended in [[1857]]. General railroad legislation was passed two years later. In the [[1860]] National Democratic Convention in Charleston, South Carolina Winston led the walk-out over defeats for pro-slavery platform planks. He supported Stephen Douglas as the best hope for Southerners and continued to blame Yancey for the break with the national party which had opened the way for Abraham Lincoln's election.


<!--Despite Winston's turbulent private life, his initial public image was one of political moderation. He was instrumental in preventing the Alabama delegation at the 1848 Baltimore convention of the Democratic Party from walking out, at the urging of strident states' rights supporter William Lowndes Yancey, when the convention refused to accept Yancey's Alabama Platform, which demanded congressional protection of slavery in the federal territories. Two years later, during the sectional crisis provoked by debates leading to the Compromise of 1850, Winston again rejected the extreme pro-secession, southern rights stand of Yancey and his supporters. Soon after north Alabama Democrats joined south Alabama Whigs in a coalition Unionist Party to stave off threats of secession, Winston took the lead in reorganizing the Democrats along traditional partisan lines. As a reward for his party loyalty, he secured the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1853. He gained the governorship with no opposition when his Whig opponent dropped out of the race.
After Alabama seceded, Winston raised troops and was commissioned a colonel in the [[8th Alabama Infantry]]. He served on the field during the Virginia peninsula campaign in [[1862]], but resigned before the end of the war due to poor health. After the South's surrender, he was a delegate to the [[1865 Alabama Constitutional Convention]]. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in [[1867]], but refused to make an oath of allegiance to the United States and was prevented from taking his seat. He railed against the federal [[Reconstruction]] policies until his death.


In his inaugural address in December 1853, Winston outlined his states' rights philosophy. Like a good Jacksonian Democrat, he deplored the use of state funds—what he would call the people's money—to assist private corporations in banking and transportation. Whatever economic benefits might result from state-supported development were more than offset, in Winston's mind, by the corrupting influence of corporate power and the dangers that it posed to the individual liberties of the people. Nonetheless, proponents of state aid, a loosely organized group centered in Tennessee Valley and eastern hill counties that stood to benefit most from projected routes for railroads, were confident that the governor would not defy the expressed will of the legislature if aid bills were passed. Previous Alabama governors had been reluctant to veto legislation and generally had done so only on technical, constitutional grounds. When differences emerged over policy issues, governors had usually deferred to the legislature. Thus, the state-aid men were genuinely surprised when Winston vetoed nearly all of the railroad bills they pushed through the legislature.
Winston died in December 1871 in Mobile and is buried in a family cemetery near Gainesville in Sumter County.
 
Alexander Beaufort Meek (1814-1865) was a journalist, poet, Alexander Beaufort MeekThe most significant legislation to pass during Winston's first term was the Education Act of 1854, which began state aid for free public schools. Sponsored by Mobile representative Alexander B. Meek and fashioned after Mobile County's school system, the act provided for the state to divide $100,000 a year among the counties and allowed counties to collect real estate and personal property taxes for educational purposes. The act also created a state superintendent of education and was later amended to establish county superintendents. The state's timing was unfortunate, and little progress was made before the Civil War began.
 
Winston's stand against using public monies to subsidize private corporations was popular with the voters, most of whom were small farmers who wanted to keep taxes and state expenditures as low as possible. He easily won reelection in 1855. Indeed, more ballots were cast for him than for any antebellum governor of Alabama. A triumphant Winston told the legislature in November that he looked forward to restricting state government to the limited activities espoused by his supporters. The pro-railroad forces, however, redoubled their efforts in the legislature and passed a host of bills dealing with grants of corporate privilege and the lending of state funds. Winston vetoed most of these bills. Even when the legislature overturned some of his vetoes, he found ways to block the use of state funds for internal improvements.
 
Winston's anti-corporate stand on behalf of the people's money made him an undeniable popular hero, but it cost him the party support he needed to gain a U.S. Senate seat in 1857. By derailing the promotional agenda so obviously favored by the railroad and commercial interests in the Democratic Party, he had alienated key party supporters. These Democrats succeeded in keeping Winston out of the Senate, and in 1859 they pushed a railroad bill through the legislature that provided the general aid Winston had so staunchly opposed. Passage of this bill established a precedent for state aid to railroads that would be important during the Reconstruction Era.
 
Winston's hope for a Senate seat was also damaged by the perception that he was not committed enough to southern rights to represent Alabama in the national legislature. He needed to strengthen his credentials as an advocate of southern rights if he hoped to win a seat in the Senate. Although he wanted his old enemy Yancey to look like the responsible person, it was Winston who actually caused the Alabama delegation to walk out of the 1860 Democratic Party convention in Charleston over the issue of slavery. He returned to Montgomery, where he made speeches accusing Yancey of having pursued a reckless course that split the party and insured the election of Lincoln. Yancey's reputation suffered little. In fact, he became the man of the hour in Alabama when he led the state out of the Union. In the meantime, Winston had supported the candidacy of the northern Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, whose election he believed would save the Union. Winston miscalculated terribly, and his stand on behalf of cooperative action by the southern states was rejected at Alabama's secession convention in favor of immediate and separate state secession.
 
Andrew Barry Moore (1807-1873) was Alabama's governor from Andrew B. MooreAfter serving as Governor Andrew Moore's appointee as Alabama's commissioner to Louisiana to consult on the secession crisis, Winston raised troops and fought in the Civil War as colonel of the Eighth Alabama Infantry. He saw action during the Virginia peninsula campaign in 1862, but poor health forced him to resign. After the war, he was a delegate to the state constitutional convention of 1865. Although he was elected finally to the U.S. Senate for the 1867-73 term, the Republican Congress refused to seat him when he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. Committed to white supremacy, he remained a bitter enemy of Congressional Reconstruction until his death.
 
Complications from rheumatoid arthritis contributed to his death in Mobile on December 21, 1871. By then, Alabama was in the midst of an ambitious and expensive program of state aid for railroads, a far cry from the limited role of state government championed by Winston during his tenure as governor. No other antebellum governor so forcefully voiced the fears of the people's interests being corrupted by an alliance of public and corporate power. But John A. Winston's vision of an agrarian Alabama bound by the strict states' rights doctrines of Jacksonian democracy was now as much a relic of the past as the slave society he had so ardently defended. -->


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[[Category:1812 births]]
[[Category:1812 births]]
[[Category:1871 deaths]]
[[Category:1871 deaths]]
[[Category:Governors of Alabama]]
[[Category:State legislators]]
[[Category:State senators]]
[[Category:Alabama governors]]
[[Category:Confederate veterans]]

Latest revision as of 17:18, 28 January 2014

John Anthony Winston (born September 4, 1812 in Madison County; died December 21, 1871 in Mobile) was the 15th Governor of Alabama, from 1853 to 1857, and the first to have been born in the state. He championed the preservation of an agrarian society with strict limits on government and prevented state investments in railroad infrastructure.

He was born to William and Mary Cooper Winston of Tuscumbia and educated in private schools. He attended Cumberland College in Nashville, Tennessee and married his first cousin, Mary Agnes Walker on August 7, 1832. They settled on a plantation in Sumter County in 1835 and had one daughter, Mary Agnes, before Mrs Winston died in 1842.

Winston was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1840 and 1842, and to the Alabama State Senate in 1843 and became a leader of the more moderate States' Rights supporters in the Alabama Democratic Party. By 1844 he was operating a successful cotton commission firm in Mobile and reinvested the profits in additional cotton plantations in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas.

Winston remarried, to Mary W. Longwood. He discovered in 1847 that she had been unfaithful to him with their family doctor, Sidney Perry. Winston shot Perry to death, but county magistrates ruled the shooting a "justifiable homicide". The couple were divorced in 1850.

Winston urged members of the Alabama delegation to the 1848 Democratic Convention in Baltimore not to walk out after William Lowndes Yancey's "Alabama Platform" was rejected. He led the state's Southern Democrats through a crisis in 1850 when Northern party members formed an alliance with Whigs to oppose Secession. His efforts made him the party's nominee for the 1853 gubernatorial election, which he won without opposition after the Whig candidate dropped out.

In his inaugural address, Winston railed against the use of taxpayer money to assist private banking, railroad and shipping concerns. The development of transportation infrastructure was increasingly important to nascent industries in the Birmingham District and Tennessee Valley. Unlike previous governors, he backed his words with vetoes when railroad aid bills came out of the legislature. He did sign the landmark Alabama Education Act of 1854 which opened the door to state funding for free public schools. Little progress in that area, however, was made until after the Civil War.

Winston was re-elected in 1855 and he pledged to further reduce public outlays. He vetoed another wave of railroad bills, and even used his executive powers to limit payments authorized by bills passed over his veto. Pro-railroad elements in the Democratic party prevented him from earning the nomination for an open seat on the U.S. Senate when his term ended in 1857. General railroad legislation was passed two years later. In the 1860 National Democratic Convention in Charleston, South Carolina Winston led the walk-out over defeats for pro-slavery platform planks. He supported Stephen Douglas as the best hope for Southerners and continued to blame Yancey for the break with the national party which had opened the way for Abraham Lincoln's election.

After Alabama seceded, Winston raised troops and was commissioned a colonel in the 8th Alabama Infantry. He served on the field during the Virginia peninsula campaign in 1862, but resigned before the end of the war due to poor health. After the South's surrender, he was a delegate to the 1865 Alabama Constitutional Convention. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1867, but refused to make an oath of allegiance to the United States and was prevented from taking his seat. He railed against the federal Reconstruction policies until his death.

Winston died in December 1871 in Mobile and is buried in a family cemetery near Gainesville in Sumter County.

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