On the 24th of February, 1806, Mr. Josiah Glass, having come all the way from North Carolina in search of a Mr. Robert Clary, went to the town of Sparta with a warrant which he requested Judge Charles Tait to indorse. This Judge Tait did in due form. The warrant was for negro stealing, and was directed against Mr. Robert Clary. Mr. Clary was arrested by Mr. Josiah Glass in Washington County, and was carried to Greene County Superior Court. On the first day of the court, Mr. Josiah Glass wrote a letter to Judge Tait, and requested him to attend, and take the examination of a man then in his custody, who would make confessions highly interesting to the State and the United States. Judge Tait, accompanied by Squire Oliver Skinner, attended that night, and took a part of the confessions of Mr. Robert Clary, and completed them the following night. Then he gave Mr. Josiah Glass a certified copy of the same to take with him to North Carolina, to which State he was taking Mr. Robert Clary, on a warrant charging him with negro stealing.
Now, it seems that the warrant against Clary was merely intended as a scheme to get him to North Carolina to testify against a man named Collins. History has suppressed the confessions made by Mr. Robert Clary; but it is certain that they contained a most offensive charge against General John Clarke, whose patriotic services in behalf of the people during the Revolution gave him great fame and popularity. No sooner did John Clarke hear of this affair than he proceeded to act with his usual promptness. When he learned the particulars about the taking of the affidavit at night, he at once jumped to the conclusion that he had been made the victim of a conspiracy. There had been some disagreement between him and Hon. William H. Crawford; and as Judge Tait had been the partner of Mr. Crawford, and was his firm friend,—for Crawford was a man great enough to command and deserve friends,—General Clarke suspected that Clary and Glass had been made tools of to damage his reputation. General Clarke acted at once. He presented a memorial to the Legislature, making certain charges against Judge Tait with respect to the taking of the "dark-lantern affidavits," as they were called by his friends. The Legislature found, as it ought to have done, that the charges made in the memorial of General Clarke were unsupported by fact or evidence. In the very nature of things, it could not be shown that an honorable judge of the Superior Court of Georgia, in certifying to an affidavit containing the confession of a mere adventurer, was engaged in a conspiracy; but the question with which General Clarke had to deal was, how did the offensive and malicious matter, contained in an affidavit taken by a judge and one witness at night, become public property? If General Clarke had been a more thoroughgoing politician, he would have found a better way to confound his enemies than that which he adopted; but he was deeply wounded by a foul charge made at night, and put in circulation by means of nods and winks and whispers. His first recourse was to the Legislature, consequently it had the effect of strengthening both his friends and his enemies. His friends were indignant at the action of the Legislature. His enemies professed to be astonished that arrogance should fly so high as to bring before the Legislature unfounded charges against a judge of the superior courts.
The legislative record is not as full as it might be. There was something behind the Clary business that does not appear on the records of the House and Senate. General Clarke wrote a pamphlet entitled "A Legacy for My Children," in which, according to Judge Garnett Andrews (see "Reminiscences of an Old Georgia Lawyer"), the matter of his memorial to the Legislature is differently stated. According to Judge Andrews, who bases his authority on General Clarke's pamphlet and on the testimony of those who were familiar with the facts, Clary was arrested and carried before Judge Tait on a charge of stealing horses. Clary charged General Clarke with complicity. Mr. Crawford was the prosecuting attorney. General Clarke accused Judge Tait and Mr. Crawford with instigating Clary to make the charge.
The truth seems to be, that Clary, knowing the differences that existed between these distinguished men, sought to help his own case by making the charge against General Clarke, and that the latter was quite ready to believe that his two opponents had originated the charges for the purpose of doing him a mortal injury. Feeling assured of the justice of his cause, he appealed to the Legislature. This failing, he took the matter into his own hands. He challenged Mr. Crawford, shot him through the wrist, and then challenged him again. A little later, cantering along a street in Milledgeville on his fine sorrel horse, General Clarke saw Judge Tait before him in a sulky. He spurred his horse forward, and laid his whip across the judge's shoulders two or three times.
General Clarke Whips Judge Tait 237
These events created great excitement throughout the State. There had already been controversy and division caused by the duel between Mr. Crawford and Van Allen, a cousin of President Van Buren, and at that time attorney-general of the State. Van Allen was killed; and there was a great controversy in Georgia, in consequence, as to who was right and who was wrong. This excitement became furious in the course of the contest between Clarke and Crawford. Crawford was fortunately lifted out of it by being made a United States senator in 1807. His distinguished career afterwards is well known. He was minister to France, secretary of the treasury, Vice-President of the United States, and would have been elected President but for reports circulated throughout the country that he had been stricken down with a fatal illness. But the contest between the Clarke and Crawford parties continued to rage. Whatever issue the Clarke men were favorable to, the Crawford men opposed. Whatever scheme the Clarke men suggested, the Crawford men fought. There was nothing polite about the contest. People who wore gloves pulled them off. In cold weather the voters were warm, and in hot weather they were steaming. The contest went on before elections, and was kept up with just as much energy after elections. No vote could settle it, and no success could quiet it. It was in the nature of a political squabble, covering the whole State, dividing districts, counties, cities, towns, villages, settlements, beats, crossroads groceries, and families. It was a knock-down-and-drag-out fight, in which hair pulling, gouging, and biting were allowed.
While Crawford was advancing step by step in national politics, his party in Georgia took up George M. Troup, one of the most brilliant and aggressive men in the State. The contest had been going on for twenty years when Troup came upon the scene, in 1830, as a candidate for governor. He had been a member of the State Legislature, a representative in Congress, and a United States senator: therefore in 1820, when he was nominated for governor by the Crawford party, he was ripe in experience. He was forty years old, and full of the fire and energy that marked his whole career. The Crawford party now became the Troup party, and the contests that followed were the most exciting that ever took place in the State before, or that have ever taken place since.
At that time the General Assembly elected the governor, the people selecting members favorable to the candidates they preferred. As the result of the first campaign between the Clarke and Troup parties, General John Clarke was elected by a majority of thirteen legislative votes. When Governor Clarke's term expired, he was again opposed by Troup, and was again elected, but this time by a majority of only two legislative votes. In 1823, Matthew Talbot represented the Clarke party, but was defeated by Troup. In 1825, General Clarke again entered the contest. The election was no longer in the hands of the Legislature, but was by popular vote. Governor Troup's treatment of the Indian question, and the firm stand he had taken in favor of the rights of the State, had materially increased his influence, and he was elected over Clarke by a majority of 683 votes.
Curious to relate, the old Clarke party became the union party, and in 1840 was the Democratic party. The Crawford party became the States Rights party, and in 1840 was the Whig party. Such was the evolution of parties in Georgia.