Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

CHAPTER III.
Georgia's Modern Prometheus.
CALLING down the fire of heaven has often been
the invocation of impassioned rhetoric. But not
since the miraculous flames were kindled upon
Mount Carmel has it been more completely the accom
plishment of literal fact than when Governor James Jack
son, in front of the old capitol building at Louisville, drew
down the solar heat to consume the iniquitous records of
the Yazoo fraud. The story of Prometheus is only Gre
cian fable, but the story of Governor Jackson is actual
reality: an illuminated fact which closed the blackest
chapter in the history of Georgia with perhaps the bright
est incident to be found in the entire annals of the com
monwealth.
The portrait of the old Governor which now hangs
upon the walls of the present Capitol building in Atlanta,
has doubtless been honored with more salutes of oratory
than have all the assembled heirlooms put together; and
few have been the dramatic occasions when feeling has
been strong or excitement high when the gesture of some
intense speaker has not pointed in eloquent apostrophe
toward the canvas which holds the stern features of this
beloved Georgian.
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