Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

February 6

1745 Georgia's Trustees voted to separate civilian and military authority in the colony of Georgia.

1778 Georgia's House of Assembly -- the legislative body created by the Constitution of 1777 -- convened in Savannah. This marked the legislature's second meeting since statehood. Because the constitution limited the governor to a one-year term with no succession in office, one of the first jobs of the 1778 legislature was to elect a successor to Gov. John Treutlen.

1832 Confederate general and Georgia politician John B. Gordon was born in Upson County, Georgia. [For more bibliographical information, see Jan. 9 entry.]

1865 The Confederate Adjutant and Inspector General's Office issued General Order No. 3 announcing the appointment of Robert E. Lee as General-in-Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States.

1901 Veteran movie actor Ben Lyon was born in Atlanta. He appeared in movies from 1919-1955. He died March 22, 1979.

1926 Comic actor Oliver Hardy signed a long-term movie contract with Hal Roach. [See Aug. 7 entry for more biographical information.]

1952 Gov. Herman Talmadge signed several joint resolutions of the General Assembly, including:

• A resolution calling on Congress to call a convention to propose a constitutional amendment to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment and instead allow a maximum rate of 25 percent on any federal income, transfer, gift, or inheritance tax. [Click here to read resolution]
• A resolution calling on Georgia's congressional delegation to do all in its power to encourage the U.S. Navy to relocate the Naval Supply School (which then was in Bayonne, New Jersey but was scheduled for removal) to the campus of the University of Georgia's old Normal School in Athens, Ga. [Click here to read resolution]
• A resolution urging U.S. Senator Richard B. Russell to run for the presidency. [Click here to read resolution]

1956 In a message to a special joint session of the Georgia House and Senate, Gov. Marvin Griffin urged the General Assembly to interpose its authority and declare the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decisions "null and void" in Georgia. As soon as the joint session adjourned, H.R. 185 was introduced invoking the doctrine of interposition.

1956 Gov. Marvin Griffin signed the following acts that were part of his "massive resistance" legislative agenda in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decisions in 1954 and 1955:

• an act authorizing the governor to close any public school in the state ordered to integrate and to instead provide state educational grants to students to attend private schools.
• an act making it a misdemeanor for any person to enter any state property that has been closed to the public.
• an act allowing boards of education to lease public school buildings and property to persons or organizations for use as private schools.
• an act allowing the State School Building Authority to lease its buildings and facilities for use as private schools
• an act allowing teachers of public schools that close to continue participating in the state teachers' retirement system if they began teaching in nonsectarian private schools.

1981 Eleven year old Patrick Baltazar disappeared in Atlanta. A week later his strangled body was discovered near an office park. He was the latest victim in the Atlanta Child Murders case.

1996 The Georgia House of Representatives declared Feb. 6 as "Engineer's Day" in Georgia. 

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1731 John Percival, who would later become the Earl of Egmont, served in the House of Commons with James Oglethorpe. In his diary entry for today, Percival recorded that the movement for a new English colony in America initiated by Oglethorpe was progressing:

". . .[I]n the evening Mr. Oglethorp came again to talk over the Carolina settlement, which is in a good way. The Board of Trade have reported in favour of it, and we the undertakers or managers have the government of the people we send thither for twenty-one years, with a large track of land granted, that lies between two rivers. . . ."

Source: U.K. Historical Manuscripts Commission, Diary of the First Earl of Egmont (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1923), Vol. I, p. 127.

1744 Georgia president William Stephens had to deal with a variety of disputes among the Georgia colonists. One of these was proving ownership of free-roaming cattle and horses, as Stephens noted in his journal:

"The President and Assistants met again, and the whole day was taken up in deliberating principally on two Affairs that would need a thorough Examination. The first of them was relating to Joseph Barker, formerly Cowpen Keeper, who had the Confidence to lay Claim to a large number of Cattle, as well as Mares and Colts, that he alleged were his property, nor running in the same Range with the horses and Cattle belonging to the Trustees. But in this as well as in all former Enquiries, we soon discovered his Knavish Design, and after the Stricktest Enquiry we could possibly make into this dark Affair . . . we allowed him a few heads of such only as he had an unquestionable Right to; but they were indeed few, in Comparison of what he pretended to, under false tokens, as we had good Reason to Suspect. . . ."

Source: E. Merton Coulter (ed.), The Journal of William Stephens, 1743-1745 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1959), p.68.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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