Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

The University of Georgia

March 18

1829 Confederate general William Robertson Boggs was born in Augusta, Georgia. He graduated from West Point in 1853, after which he performed engineering and ordnance duties in the U.S. Army.

After Georgia's secession, Boggs resigned his U.S. commission. In Feb.1861, he was designated Chief Engineer of Georgia. Soon afterwards, he was named captain of ordnance under Confed. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard at Charleston. Subsequently, Boggs performed engineering duties in Florida and Georgia. In Nov. 1862, he was promoted to brigadier general and served as Gen. Kirby Smith's chief of staff in the Confederate Army's Trans-Mississippi Department. After the war, Boggs returned to Georgia to practice civil engineering. From 1875-1881 he taught mechanics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Boggs died on Sept. 11, 1911 in Winston-Salem, N.C.

1831 In the case of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, filed by the Cherokees in the U.S. Supreme Court to protest efforts by Georgia to claim sovereignty over them, the high court ruled that the Cherokees were not a foreign nation as defined by the U.S. Constitution. Because of this, the U.S. Supreme Court – though sympathetic with their situation – could not exercise original jurisdiction over the Cherokees' lawsuit.

1865 At the Confederate Capitol in Richmond, the Congress of the Confederate States of American held its last session and then adjourned for the final time.

For more, see This Week in Georgia Civil War History.

1939 Georgia ratified the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution (commonly known as the Bill of Rights). The ten amendments had been proposed by the U.S. Congress in 1789. Nine states ratified the amendments shortly thereafter, but Georgia and Connecticut declined to ratify on the grounds that the amendments were unnecessary. Massachusetts had adopted most of the amendments but overlooked sending formal notice to the U.S. Secretary of State. The twelfth state, Virginia delayed a formal vote. In 1791, Vermont entered the Union and that November ratified the Bill of Rights. This gave ratification by ten states. In December 1791, Virginia became the eleventh state to ratify the ten amendments, meaning the Bill of Rights was now official.

In 1939, Georgia, Connecticut, and Massachusetts marked the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights by officially ratifying the first ten amendments. In Georgia, the second house of the General Assembly adoped a joint resolution ratifying the Bill of Rights on March 18, 1939. Under Georgia law, however, bills and joint resolutions intended to have the effect of law must be sent to the governor for final approval. The governor can sign, veto, or take no action (in which event the measure automatically becomes law after the passage of a designated length of time). Gov. E.D. Rivers signed the joint resolution on March 24, 1939 (see entry), which under Georgia law is considered the official date of Georgia's ratification of the Bill of Rights. However, federal courts have held that the U.S. Constitution requires that proposed amendments be ratified by the legislatures or by special conventions of the people in three-fourths of the states. According to court decisions, any additional stipulations under state law for approval by the governor or certification by the state's secretary of state are not controlling in determining ratification. Rather, the date that the second house of a bicameral state legislature ratifies the amendment is considered the date of that state's official ratification.

To read the text of each amendment in the Bill of Rights as well as an analysis that includes major U.S. Supreme Court decisions interpreting the amendment, click on the following:

• 1st Amendment
• 2nd Amendment
• 3rd Amendment
• 4th Amendment
• 5th Amendment
• 6th Amendment
• 7th Amendment
• 8th Amendment
• 9th Amendment
• 10th Amendment

1943 Gov. Ellis Arnall signed a joint resolution of the General Assembly establishing March 12th of each year as "Juliette Low-Girl Scout Day."

Bust of Juliette Low at Georgia's State Capitol

1947 After learning of the Georgia Supreme Court's ruling (which would be made public the next day), Herman Talmadge gave up the governor's office.

Herman Talmadge (right) Gives Up His Claim to the Governor's Office
to Melvin Thompson (center)

At this point, Lt. Governor Melvin Thompson (who also had claimed to be governor following Eugene Talmadge's death) became official Georgia's official governor.

Though the Supreme Court's official decision would not be released until the following day, Talmadge's action ended Georgia's "Three Governors Affair," a period where three different men – Ellis Arnall, Melvin Thompson, and Herman Talmadge – had each claimed to be rightful governor of Georgia.

1953 The Boston Braves announced that the franchise would be moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1955 Meeting in Atlanta, the Georgia Educators Association announced its support of "equal but separate schools."

1963 In the case of Gray v. Sanders involving use of the county unit system to determine election results in the Georgia Democratic Primary, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that in Georgia the Democratic Primary was essentially a state election. It further struck use of the county unit system and established the famous "one person, one vote" standard for election districts – which meant that no person's vote in one district can count more than any other person's vote in any similar other district.

1976 Gov. George Busbee signed a joint resolution of the General Assembly [click here to read text] designating the following new official state symbols:

Staurolite – Official Mineral of Georgia

Shark's Tooth – Official Fossil of Georgia

Clear Quartz -– Official Gem of Georgia

Purple Quartz (Amethyst) -– Official Gem of Georgia

[To view Georgia's other state symbols, click here.]

2012 Former Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports editor and columnist Furman Bisher died from a heart attack.

2012 Writer Harry Crews, born in Bacon County, Georgia, died in Gainesville, FL.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1861 After having attended the Provisional Confederate Congress in Montgomery, Ala. with her husband, Mary Boykin Chesnut wrote in her diary from Augusta while returning to South Carolina:

"Yesterday on the [train] cars we had a mad woman raving at being separated from her daughter. It excited me so, I quickly took opium, that I kept up. It enables me to retain every particle of mind or sense or brains I ever have, so quiets my nerves that I can calmly reason take rational views of things otherwise maddening. Then a drunken preacher began to console a "bereaved widow." He quoted more fluently the scripture than I ever have heard it – the beast! . . . Here I am [in Augusta, Georgia] for Sunday have refused to accept overtures for peace forgiveness. After my stormy youth, I did so hope for peace tranquil domestic happiness. There is none for me in this world. . . .

"This long dreary Sunday in Augusta. If I can, I will try to forget it forever. . . .

"I am afraid Mr. C[hesnut] will not please the democracy. He said aloud in the [train] cars he wished we could have separate coaches like the English get away from those whiskey drinking, tobacca chewing rascals rabble. I was scared somebody might have taken it up, now every body is armed. The night before we left Montgomery, a man was shot in the street for a trifle, Mr. [William Montague] Browne expressed his English horror, but was answered – it was only a cropping out of the right temper! The Lord have mercy on our devoted land. . . . I wonder if it be a sin to think slavery a curse to any land. [Senator Charles] Sumner [of Massachusetts] said not one word of this hated institution which is not true. Men women are punished when their masters mistresses are brutes not when they do wrong – then we live surrounded by prostitutes. An abandoned woman is sent out of any decent house elsewhere. Who thinks any worse of a Negro or Mulatto woman for being a thing we can't name. God forgive us, but our is a monstrous system wrong iniquity. Perhaps the rest of the world is as bad. This only I see: like the patriarchs of old our men live all in one house with their wives their concubines, the Mulattoes one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children – every lady tells you who is the father of all the Mulatto children in every body's household, but those in her own, she seems to think drop from the clouds or pretends so to think – Good women we have, but they talk of all nastiness – tho they never do wrong, they talk day night of [six unrecoverable words, apparently a quote]. My disgust sometimes is boiling over – but they are, I believe, in conduct the purest women God ever made. Thank God for my country women – alas for the men! No worse than men every where, but the lower their mistresses, the more degraded they must be.

"My mother in law told me when I was first married not to send my female servants in the street on errands. They were there tempted, led astray – then she said placidly, "So they told me when I came here – I was very particular, but you see with what result." Mr. Harris said it was so patriarchal. So it is – flocks herds slaves – wife Leah does not suffice. Rachel must be added, if not married [a reference to Genesis, chapters 29 and 30]. all the time they seem to think themselves patterns – models of husbands fathers. . . . Again I say, my countrywomen are as pure as angels – tho surrounded by another race who are – the social evil!"

Source: C. Vann Woodward and Elisabeth Muhlenfeld, eds., The Private Mary Chesnut: The Unpublished Civil War Diaries [New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984], pp. 30-33.

For more, see This Week in Georgia Civil War History.