138 ■ BALDWIN COUNTY. 



to the presiding officer's chair, he decHned a re-election in the 

 winter of 1803. 



During the violent agitation of parties, he was always 

 moderate but firm — decided in his republican principles, but 

 not denunciatory of those who differed from him. His gentle 

 manners, his pure morals, his well-balanced mind, his argu- 

 mentative powers, his persuasive eloquence, his classical 

 education, brought him nearer perhaps to the standard of his 

 compatriot, James Madison, with whom he served in the old 

 Congress, in the Convention, and in the new Congress, than 

 was any other statesman of the age in which they acted. He 

 was most faithful in his attendance on his duties, having for 

 twenty-two years of public service, up to the first moment of 

 his last illness, been absent from his seat but one day. 



In his private life, we are told that he was distinguished 

 for beneficent and charitable deeds. " Having never been 

 married, he had no family of his own. His constant habits of 

 economy and temperance left him the means of assisting 

 many young men in their education and their establishment 

 in business ; besides which, his father's family presented an 

 ample field for his benevolence. Six orphans, his half-brothers 

 and sisters, were left to his care by his father's death, in the 

 year 1787. The estate that was to support them proved in- 

 solvent. He paid the debts of the estate, quit-claimed his 

 proportion to these children, and educated them all, in a great 

 measure, at his own expense." 



He died very suddenly at Washington City, in March, 

 1807, in the service of his adopted State. And it may be 

 truly declared, that Georgia lost in him one of her greatest 

 statesmen, and the Federal Union a public man whose capacity 

 and past service indicated great future prominence in the an- 

 nals of the republic. 



