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Howell Cobb (1815–1868)


When the impassioned representatives of the seceding states gathered in convention at Montgomery in February 1861 to organize the new Confederate government, they chose, ironically, Howell Cobb, one of the most moderate of all Southern leaders, to serve as their presiding officer. This scion of a prominent Georgia family had enjoyed a distinguished career in the United States Congress, where he had earned a reputation as a consistent nationalist who stood aloof from prevailing sectional rancor. In 1860, however, his overriding loyalty to the South was amply demonstrated when he hastily resigned his post as secretary of the treasury following the election of Abraham Lincoln and almost singlehandedly led his native state out of the Union, protesting that the Republicans had “buried brotherhood in the same grave with the Constitution.”


Francis D’Avignon (born circa 1814)
Lithograph, circa 1851–1854
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

 

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