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GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 407
likewise the most potential influence in remolding Georgia's Organic
Law. There was hardly an important feature of the instrument upon
which the impress of Governor Jackson's mind and character was not
distinctly stamped; and in a double sense therefore the Constitution of
1798 was the distinguishing glory of his administration.
Georgia's first state constitution adopted in Savannah, on February
5, 1777, was only a temporary makeshift. It was framed amid the con
vulsive throes of a revolution the issues of which no one could clearly
foreshadow. But it weathered the storm of war and rendered the state
good service until Georgia's entrance into the Federal Union, when it
was necessary to change the state constitution in conformity with the
Constitution of the United States. Accordingly in 1789, at Augusta,
a new state constitution was framed to the workmanship of which three
separate conventions contributed; but it did not give entire satisfaction.
Six years later, in 1793, the people once more assembled in convention
to recast the fundamental law, this time in Louisville; but due to the
general conditions of upheaval caused by the Yazoo Fraud only a few
alterations were proposed. Nothing radical was attempted. It was
deemed best to postpone for a season this important work to which an
undivided interest was essential; and accordingly a new convention was
called to which all unsettled issues were referred.
Pursuant to call, there assembled at Louisville on Tuesday, May 8,
1798, a body of lawmakers in which every important interest of the state
was represented and to which every learned profession contributed.
There were fifty-six delegates in attendance, representing twenty-one
counties. Jared Irwin, who had lately served the. state as governor, was
the presiding officer of this history-making convention. He shared with
Jackson the honor of extinguishing the Yazoo Fraud; and to the famous
Rescinding Act of which Jackson was the author his signature as gov
ernor was attached. High and radiant, therefore, on Georgia's roll of
honor shines the name of Jared Irwin.
One of the delegates to this convention was the great Jesse Mercer;
and it was due to his championship that a clause of the old constitution
excluding ministers of the gospel from membership in either branch of
the Legislature was abrogated. When it was proposed to put the same
inhibition into the Constitution of 1798 Mr. Mercer proposed to amend
by excluding also doctors and lawyers. This touch of humor was more
effective than argument to show the manifest injustice of such a bar
to ministers—the men of all others to whom we look when great moral
issues are at stake or vital principles are involved.
But the monumental character of this convention's work was such
that each member's name deserves to be preserved in connection with
this great instrument. The full list of delegates chosen to the State
Convention of 1798 was as follows: *
Bryan—Joseph Clay, J. B. Maxwell, John Pray.
Burke—Benj. Davis, John Morrison, John Milton.
Bulloch—James Bird, Andrew E. Wells, Charles McCall.
Camden—James Seagrove, Thomas Stafford.
Chatham—James Jackson, James Jones, George Jones.
* '' Georgia and the Georgia People,'' George G. Smith, p. 179.