Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

February 10

1763 The Treaty of Paris was signed officially ending the French and Indian War. Among the treaty's provisions was a stipulation that the middle of the Mississippi River would be the dividing line between British and French claims. Britain restored Cuba to Spain, which in turn gave up all claims to Florida and other claims to the east of the Mississippi River. Although Georgia was not mentioned in the treaty, the impact on the colony was that its new western boundary was the Mississippi River. Before, Georgia's western boundary claim had been the Pacific Ocean.

1787 Georgia's House of Assembly named William Few, Abraham Baldwin, William Pierce, George Walton, William Houston, and Nathaniel Pendleton as Georgia's commissioners to the Philadelphia constitutional convention.

1787 Gov. George Mathews signed an act of the House of Assembly making it illegal for any person to "wilfully or maliciously cut out or disable the tongue, put out an eye, slit the nose, bite or cut off the ear, nose or lipp, or cut off or disable any limb or member of any person or persons within this State, in so doing, to maim or disfigure in any of the manners before mentioned." The penalty for the first offense was a fine of £100 (half of which went to the injured person) and having to stand in the pillory for up to two hours.

1907 Civil rights activist and politician Grace Towns Hamilton was born in Atlanta, Georgia. She received her undergraduate degree from hometown Atlanta University, before completing her master's degree at Ohio State University. She held teaching positions at the Atlanta School of Social Work, Clark College, and LeMoyne College in Memphis, while maintaining an active interest in the civil rights movement. Hamilton served as executive director of the Atlanta Urban League from 1943-1960, and also sat on the board of the Southern Regional Council and the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women, as well as many other voluntary positions. But she made her most lasting mark by becoming the first African-American woman elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1965. She served in Georgia House of Representatives until 1984. Today, a chair in the Emory University political science department is named in her honor.

1939 Gov. E.D. Rivers signed a joint resolution calling on Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt to expedite construction of a flood control/hydroelectric dam at Clark's Hill on the Savannah River. [Click here to read text of resolution.] Despite Roosevelt's Georgia connections, construction of what would become known as the Clarks Hill Reservoir did not begin until 1946, with the dam and lake completed in 1954. In the 1980s, the name of the reservoir was changed to J. Strom Thurmond Lake and Dam.

1946 Georgia-born Jackie Robinson -- major league baseball's first black player -- married Rachel Isum.

1964 After 12 days of debate and voting on 125 amendments, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by a vote of 290-130. The bill prohibited any state or local government or public facility from denying access to anyone because of race or ethnic origin. It further gave the U.S. Attorney General the power to bring school desegregation law suits. The bill allowed the federal government the power to bring school desegregation law suits and to cut off federal funds to companies or states who discriminated. It forbade labor organizations or interstate commercial companies from discriminating against workers due to race or ethnic origins. Lastly, the federal government could compile records of denial of voting rights. After passage in the House, the bill went to the Senate, which after 83 days of debate passed a similar package on June 19 by a vote of 73 to 27. President Lyndon Johnson signed the legislation on July 2. Later, future Georgia governor Lester Maddox would become the first person prosecuted under the Civil Rights Act.

1967 The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. That amendment provided that in the case of a vice president's become president, the new president would name a new vice president, subject to confirmation by a majority vote of both houses of Congress.

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1733 From the new settlement at Yamacraw Bluff now known as Savannah, James Oglethorpe wrote the Trustees back in London:

"I gave you an account in my last of our arrival at Charles Town. The Governour and Assembly have given us all possible encouragement. Our people arrived at Beaufort on the 20th of January, where I lodged them in some new barracks built for the soldiers whilst I went myself to view the Savannah River. I fixed upon a healthy situation about ten miles from the sea. The river there forms a half moon, along the South side of which the banks are about 40 foot high and upon a top a flat which they call a bluff. The plain high ground extends into the country five or six miles and along the riverside about a mile. Ships that draw twelve foot water can ride within ten yards of the bank. Upon the riverside in the center of this plain, I have laid out the town. Over against it is an island [Hutchinson Island] of very rich land fit for pasturage, which I think should be kept for the Trustees' cattle. The river is pretty wide, the water fresh. And from the quay of the town you see its whole course to the sea with the Island of Tybee, which forms the mouth of the river; and the other way you may see the river for about six miles up into the country. The landscape is very agreeable, the stream being wide and bordered with high woods on both sides. The whole people arrived on the first of February. At night their tents were got up. 'Till the 7th we were taken up in unloading and making a crane, which I even then could not get finished so took off the hands and set some of the fortification and begun to fell the woods. I marked out the town and common. Half of the former is already cleared, and the first house was begun yesterday in the afternoon. Not being able to get Negroes, I have taken ten of the Independent Company to work for us, for which I make them an allowance. . . .Mr. Whitaker has given us one hundred of cattle. Colonel Bull, Mr. Barlow, Mr. Julian and Mr. Woodward are come up to assist us with some of their own servants. Our people are all alive, but ten are ill with the bloody flux, which I take to proceed from the cold and their not being accustomed to lie in tents. I am so taken up in looking after a hundred necessary things that I write now short but shall give you a more particular account hereafter. A little Indian Nation, the only one within fifty miles, is not only at amity but desire to be subject of the Trustees, to have land given them and to breed their children at our schools. Their chief and his beloved man, who is the second man in the Nation, desire to be instructed in the Christian religion."

Source: Mills Lane (ed.), General Oglethorpe's Georgia: Colonial Letters, 1733-1743 (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1990), Vol. I, pp. 4-5.

1766 Compounding royal governor James Wright's inability to enforce the Stamp Act in Georgia was the failure of South Carolina's governor to enforce the law there, as noted in Wright's letter to the British Board of Trade:

"Since mine to your Lordships of the 7th instant I received the Inclosed News Paper from Charles Town South Carolina. With Respect to the Falsity of that Paragraph relative to what Passed here. I refer your Lordships to the above letter by this Opportunity. This Step of Lieut. Governor Bulls opening the Port in Carolina Contrary to the late [Stamp] Act of Parliament under Pretence that no Stampt Papers are to be had, when in Fact they are Lodged by his Order at Fort Johnson, & under his own Immediate Authority & direction, occasions great Murmuring in this Province, and Im [sic] afraid will raise the People in arms again. And thus your Lordships will See how I am Continually Perplexed & kept in hot water, not only by the Seditious Spirit & Base attempts of the People there in a Private Way, but by the Conduct of those in Authority, from whom I Conceive I ought rather to Expect Assistance. . . ."

Source: Kenneth Coleman and Milton Ready (eds.), Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, Vol. 28, Part II (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979), p. 137.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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