The Indianapolis Journal

ALFRED HOLT COLQUITT

Re-elected United States Senator From Georgia

Additional interest is given the re-election to the Senate at Washington of Alfred Holt Colquitt, in the fact that he is an ardent temperance reformer. The Prohibition vote in the recent election fell far short of expectation. Instead of three-quarters of a million votes, which sanguine members of the party said would be cast, there were only about three hundred thousand. It has been suggested that if Senator Colquitt's name had been on the ticket the vote would certainly have been a larger one. This eminent Georgian, who is widely known as a speaker at gatherings of temperance folk, will complete his present term on March 3 next, and immediately begin a new term of six years. He is popular in Washington and throughout the country with people in agreement with his views. In person he is large and handsome, and makes an impressive and noble appearance in public address. The Senator "speaks in meeting" a good deal; he is an earnestly religious man and a leading member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Blair from the North and Colquitt from the South are Senators who have a good deal in common.

Alfred Holt Colquitt was born in Walton county, Georgia, April 20, 1824, of a good family, his father having served in both the House of Representatives and the Senate at Washington. He was educated at Princeton College, where he was graduated in 1844. A year afterwards he began the practice of the law at Macon, Ga. He fought in the Mexican war with the rank of major, and was an aid to General Taylor at Buena Vista. In 1848 he resumed the practice of the law at Macon. He was elected a member of the Thirty-third Congress as a Democrat, in the year 1852, but declined a renomination at the expiration of his term, on account of the death of his wife. In 1856 and 1860 he served as delegate to the national Democratic conventions, and was an elector on the Breckinridge and Lane ticket. He fought with distinction in the Confederate army, and rose to the rank of brigadier-general. At the close of the war he entered the insurance business. His appointments in 1868 and 1870 as delegate to the national Democratic convention and as president of the Democratic State convention, respectively, and his being delegate to the Baltimore convention of 1872, were his leading political honors from the period of the war until his election as Governor of his native State, in 1876. He was re-elected for a second term, and retired at the beginning of November, 1882, when Governor Stephens succeeded him. Senator Colquitt gives great encouragement to agriculture. He was made president of the State Agricultural Society in 1870.