Alexander Beaufort Meek: Pioneer Alabama Lawyer and Literary Figure by Robert H

Alexander Beaufort Meek: Pioneer Alabama Lawyer and Literary Figure By Robert H. McKenzie* Writing in his comprehensive study, A Literary History of Al- abama: The Nineteenth Century, Benjamin B. Williams observed: Taken as a whole, the authors of Alabama's antebellum period were writers by avocation only. The familiar pattern of lawyer- politician, and its variations of lawyer-editor, lawyer-historian, and editor-politician, is found in the biography of nearly every pre-Civil War writer in Alabama. It was not until the fifties that writing became, in any sense, the sole pursuit of the author.' Indeed, one of Alabama's most distinguished historians, Thomas McAdory Owen, explained the lack of writers of consequence during Alabama's early years as due to its people's preoccupation with "material affairs," the settlement of a frontier. Alabama had been a state only forty-three years when the Civil War began; obviously its maturest citizens had then enjoyed little "leisure for purely literary work."a However, a lawyer who merits a more vibrant place in our historical consciousness for his pioneering literary efforts in the midst of a public career was Alexander Beaufort Meek (1814- 65).8His career is instructive both as to the potential contributions and probably limitations of combining public aspirations in the law and related fields with literary and cultural pursuits. Meek was graduated from the University of Alabama in 1833, * Ph. D.; Research Fellow, Center for Public Law and Service; Associate Pro- fessor, New College, The University of Alabama. 1. B. WILLIAMS,A LITERARY HISTORY OF ALABAMA:THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 27 (1979). 2. T. OWEN,HISTORY OF ALABAMAAND DICTIONARYOF ALABAMA BIOGRAPHY 888 (1921). 3. Biographical sources for Meek are: H. NIXON,ALEXANDER BEAUPORT MEEK: POET,ORATOR, JOURNALIST, STATESMAN (1910); Ross, Alexander Beaufort Meek, 4 SEWANEEREV. 411-427 (1896); Figh, Alexander Beaufort Meek: Pioneer Man of Letters 2 ALA. HIST. Q. 127-151 (1940); and 12 A. MOORE,DICTIONARY OF AMERI- CAN BIOGRAPHY493 (1933). Unless otherwise noted, biographical information in this article is taken from these sources and from WILLIAMS,supra note 1. 162 The Journal of the Legal Profession and read law in the office of Peter Martin of Tuscaloosa. Admitted to the bar in 1835, he also in that year became editor of Tusca- loosa's Democratic newspaper, The Flag of the Union. The next year, he volunteered for service as a noncommissioned officer in the Seminole War in Florida. Returning to Tuscaloosa, Meek was appointed by Governor Clement Comer Clay to be (at the age of twenty-three) attorney general of Alabama. In 1841, he published A Supplement to Aiken's Digest of Laws of Alabama. In 1842, he was appointed to fill out a term as probate judge of Tuscaloosa, but failed to secure election to succeed himself. After supporting James K. Polk for the presidency in 1844, Meek was designated to convey Alabama's electoral vote to Washington. He secured an appointment in the Federal Treasury Department for one year and then an appointment as federal attorney for the southern district of Alabama. This latter appointment carried him to Mobile, where he lived until 1863. After his appointment as federal attorney ex- pired in 1848, he became editor of the Mobile Register until 1853, when he won a seat in the state legislature. While in the legislature, he prepared the law establishing the state's public school sys- tem, a signal service to the future of Alabama. In 1854, he was appointed probate judge of Mobile County, but failed to win election to succeed himself. He devoted the next several years to literary endeavor and to a late marriage. In 1859, he was again elected to the state legislature, where he served as speaker of the house in both the regular session and the special session of 1861. As a con- servative Democrat, he was pro-Union and anti-abolitionist. He approached the secession crisis with gloomy reluctance and was a delegate to the pivotal 1860 Democratic Convention in Charleston. His wartime activities were limited. In 1862-63, he was a trustee of the University of Alabama. After the death of his first wife in 1863, he moved to Columbus, Mississippi, where he remarried. He died prematurely of heart trouble. Meek first established his reputation as an orator and literary correspondent in Tuscaloosa. On July 4, 1838, he delivered a blank verse oration at Tuscaloosa entitled The Day of Freedom, which was well received. The next year, he followed with his own literary journal, The Southron. For a brief period, this publication became the centerpiece of cultural activity in the young state capital. At the time of its founding, The Southron was one of but three literary magazines in the entire South. Like so many other publications that soon came into existence in the late 1830s and early 1840s as a Alexander Beaufort Meek 163 reflection of rising sectional consciousness, The Southron survived but a brief while-less than a year. The rapid failure of such literary endeavors was due to several causes-lack of contributors, general interest, and subscribers who paid in advance being most important. During the.period 1838 to 1844, Meek not only launched The Southron, but delivered five major orations (four of which were published), compiled a legal digest (previously mentioned), carried on a wide-ranging correspondence with literary figures elsewhere (especially William Gilmore Simms of South Carolina, the antebellum South's most renowned literary personage), kept his own ex- tensive journals, and probably wrote his major poetic work, which was not published until 1855. The 1844 election of James K. Polk carried Meek, a Democrat, to Washington. Meek's literary efforts, apart from his correspondence, slowed. He did publish poems in the Washington, D.C., United States Journal and appeared as a banquet speaker on occasion. With the election of the military hero, Zachary Taylor, a Whig, Meek retired from public office to edit the Mobile Register and to polish a number of literary projects which had stagnated under the press of public life and his own self-admitted affinity for polite social amusements in Mobile society. In 1851, Meek delivered an oration at a reception for the Hun- garian revolutionist, Louis Kossuth, in Mobile. Earlier, Meek had welcomed American soldiers returning from the Mexican War to Mobile. He was oft in demand as an occasional speaker for such public events, his reputation as an orator often outshining his rank as an author among his contemporaries. The early years of the 1850s prompted Meek's most produc- tive literary period, resulting in the publication of his major works in the middle of the decade. In 1855, he published in New York and Mobile a long poem entitled Red Eagle, a romance of William Weatherford, the half-breed leader of the Creeks in the Indian War of 1813-14. Meek had long labored on this ambitious composi- tion of three cantos, mostly in tetrameter. He mentioned it fre- quently in his correspondence with William Gilmore Simms, the noted South Carolinian. The poem ran through six editions, and excerpts of it were published in various anthologies of southern literature into the early twentieth century. In 1857, Meek published Romantic Passages in Southwestern History and Songs and 164 The Journal of the Legal Profession Poems of the South. Both were collections of previous orations and compositions, some of which would have no doubt been lost from public view had not Meek collected them in convenient one-vol- ume offerings. Romantic Passages also included a number of historical sketches. These resulted from Meek's intention to publish a history of Alabama. Meek worked on the project intermittently for many years, but was preempted in 1851 by Albert J. Pickett's His- tory of Alabama. By the time of the Civil War, Meek's literary career was ended, save for its reputation. Meek's literary efforts are well regarded but are not deemed of more than regional and historical significance. The noted literary scholar, Jay B. Hubbell, believed Red Eagle was "one of the best long narrative poems written in the South in the period" (but qualified even this judgment as "not high praise"). The poem con- tains noteworthy descriptions of nature (Meek's forte) and con- tains lyrics later set to music. One such segment is the song of the heroine to her warrior-lover prior to the historic attack on Fort Mims that began the Creek uprising: The Blue-bird is whistling in Hillibee grove,- Terra-re! Terra-re! His mate is repeating the tale of his love,- Terra-re! But never that song, As its notes fleet along, So sweet and so soft in its raptures can be, As thy low whispered words, young chieftain to me. Another of Meek's nature poems that has received favorable comment is "To a Mocking Bird," which begins: From the vale, what music ringing, Fills the bosom of the night; On the sense, entrances, flinging Spells of witchery and delight! O'er magnolia, lime and cedar, From yon locust-top, it swells, Like the chant of serenader, Or the rhymes of silver bells! Listen! dearest, listen to it! Sweeter sounds were never heard! 'Tis the song of that wild poet- Alexander Beaufort Meek Mime and minstrel-Mocking-Bird4 The largest number of Meek's verses are addressed to women, with whom he was quite popular. The characteristics that made him an engaging orator-six feet four inches in height, a well-pro- portioned 240 pounds, pleasant disposition, and absolutely no lack of words and phrases for any occasion-also endeared him to the ladies.

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