Brown, Joseph Emerson

Brown, Joseph Emerson, 1821–94, U.S. public official, b. Pickens District, S.C. As governor of Georgia during the Civil War, Brown quarreled with Jefferson Davis over conscription and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus despite their common secessionist stand. After the war Brown briefly became a Republican but returned to the Democratic fold, and in 1880 he was appointed to the U.S. Senate seat of John B. Gordon, which he retained until his retirement in 1891. Along with Gordon and Alfred H. Colquitt, Brown controlled Georgia politics for many years.

See studies by L. B. Hill (1939, repr. 1972) and D. C. Roberts (1973).

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