Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

July 16

1787 Delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia reached a critical day in the proceedings, which threatened to break up over the question of representation of states in the proposed national government. Days earlier, Georgia delegate Abraham Baldwin had played a pivotal role in arriving at a compromise where one house would be based on population and the other on equality of the states. The crucial July 16 debate ended with the compromise passing by a 5-4 vote. Interestingly, Georgia joined Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina in opposing the compromise. Massachusetts' four delegates split evenly. But, North Carolina, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland voted in favor of what would become known as the "Great Compromise." A subsequent motion on July 17 to reconsider the vote failed to receive a second, so the July 16 vote stood.

1790 Congress designated a new permanent capital for the United States to be named Washington, which would be located in an area carved from Virginia and Maryland to be known as the District of Columbia. [Click here for more information.]

1828 Georgia politician William Few died in Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, New York. In 1973, his body was returned to Georgia, where he was reinterred on the grounds of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Augusta, with a marble monument marking his gravesite. 

1851 Mildred Lewis Rutherford was born in Athens, Georgia. Niece of T.R.R. Cobb, she attended the Lucy Cobb Institute, a school for girls founded by Cobb in 1859. Age age 29, she returned to the institute as president, principal, and teacher. Never marrying, "Miss Millie" devoted the next 40 years of her life to giving young ladies a proper and "genteel" education.

Rutherford developed a second passion--vindicating the cause for which the Confederacy fought and telling the "truths" of history. One of her cardinal truths was that the War Between the States (as she insisted it must be called) was fought not over slavery but interference with states rights. As she explained, "slavery happened to be one of the state rights most interfered with."

Rutherford became historian-general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and was active in forty-nine different historic, patriotic, and other women's organizations. A dynamic speaker, she went on a crusade across the nation giving speeches to women's groups in 45 of the 48 states in the nation with titles such as "The Wrongs of History Righted" and "The Civilization of the Old South" Often for her speeches, she dressed in an antebellum-type dress she bought in Paris and powdered her hair (see photo). Rutherford died on Aug. 15, 1925.

1905 Former Confederate Gen. Bryan Morel Thomas died in Dalton, Ga. [See May 8 entry for biographical information on Thomas.]

1914 Six months after retiring as president of the Coca-Cola Co., Asa Candler sent his brother, Methodist bishop Warren Candler, the so-called "Million-Dollar Letter" -- a formal offer of a gift of $1,000,000 to create a new Methodist university in the East. Bishop Candler revealed the offer at a meeting of the church's Educational Commission in Atlanta. Commission members immediately voted to accept the donation, chose Atlanta as the site, and named Bishop Candler as the first chancellor of what would become Emory University. The movement for a new Methodist university came after a March 1914 Tennessee court decision that Vanderbilt University was under the control of its board of Trustees -- not the Methodist Church.

1963 Georgia Congressman Carl Vinson broke Sam Rayburn's record of service in Congress of 48 years, 8 months, and 12 days. Elected Nov. 3, 1914, he would be reelected for 26 consecutive terms. At the time of his retirement in January 1965, Carl Vinson had served 50 years and one month in Congress, a record that would last 3 decades until surpassed by Rep. Jamie Whitten of Mississippi on Jan. 6, 1992. Whitten would serve until 1994, retiring with a record 53 years of service in Congress.

2004 Former Georgia governor George Busbee died in Savannah, GA.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1735 In this day's proceedings of the Georgia Trustees, the Earl of Egmont recorded their decision to send a variety of new colonists as well as servants to Georgia:

"Instructions and powers Seal'd to Capt. Hugh Mackay to procure 100 Highland men, 50 wives and children, & 10 male Servants to Settle on the Allatahama [sic], with an allowance to him of 20 Shillgs. p[er] man for engaging and marching them to the Ship that carry's them over. Agreed also that 40 English men with their wives and children be Sent. Agreed also that 100 Carinthians and Austrians including their wives & children be Sent, being persecuted Protestants. Agreed also that Mr. Wents be wrote to, not to bring over more than 80 Palatins, design'd for Servants. Agreed also that 28 Swiss and Grison Servants be Sent, with 11 wives and 4 children. Agreed also that 40 Moravians with 15 wives & children be Sent.

Source: Robert G. McPherson, The Journal of The Earl of Egmont: Abstract of the Trustees Proceedings for Establishing the Colony of Georgia, 1732-1738 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1962), pp. 98-99.

1865 From her home in Washington, Ga., Eliza Frances Andrews recorded a sad parting of friends on this day, and commented how it was analogous to the passing of another way of life:

"July 16. Sunday. The Elzey's last day in Washington, and our last pleasant evening together. They took tea with us, and we tried hard to be cheerful, but the thought that we shall probably never all sit together again around that cheery old table, where so many friends have met, came like a wet blanket between us and mirth. . . .The Elzeys return to Baltimore. When Touchy's turn came to say good-by, he didn't seem to know exactly how far to go, but Metta told him that if he grew up to be as nice as he is now, she would want to kiss him and couldn't, if we ever met again, so she would take the opportunity now -- and so we gave the handsome boy a smack all round, and sent him off laughing. The general [Gen. Elzey] took leave earlier than usual, and with sad hearts we saw his soldierly figure in the well-known white army jacket, moving, for the last time, down the front walk. 'General,' I said, as we parted at the head of the steps, 'I feel as if I am shaking hands with the Confederacy; you are the last relic of it that is left us.'"

Source: Eliza Frances Andrews, The War-Time Journal of a Georgia Girl, 1864-1865 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1908), pp. 334-335.