Eugenius Nisbet

Male

December 7, 1803

March 18, 1871

Union Point, GA

Madison, GA
Macon, GA

Amanda Battle Nisbet (April 12, 1825)

Eugenius Nisbet was the son of Dr. James and Penelope (Cooper) Nisbet. While at the University of Georgia, he was a member of the Demosthenian Society. Nisbet graduated from the University of Georgia with "highest honors" and as his class valedictorian, before he was even nineteen years old. He then studied with Judge Augustin Smith Clayton of Athens, GA before traveling to Litchfield.

After his admission to the bar at age 20, he worked as a lawyer in Madison, Georgia until 1827, at which time he was elected to the state house of representatives. During that time, Nisbet married and he and his wife had twelve children. Nisbet was very politically active and successively became a member of three political parties, the State-Rights, the Whigs, and the Know-Nothings.

In ...1830, Nisbet became a trustee of the University of Georgia. Two years later he acted as a member of a convention which had been appointed to consider the reduction of representatives in both branches of the Legislature. He was also offered the chair of Belles letters at both the University of Georgia and Oglethorpe College. Nisbet was one of the founders of Oglethorpe College, and when he was elected to the chair of Belles letters there in 1835 he declined the offer.

In 1836, Nisbet lost an election for the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1837, he moved his family to Macon, GA and established a law firm there. He also served as the Director of the Ocmulgee Bank. At the end of his second term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Nisbet resigned because his law firm was in debt.

As an Associate Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, he wrote several important opinions. In William Culbreath vs. James M. Culbreath & Daniel C. Culbreath, he maintained that there was a distinction between ignorance of the law and a mistake in understanding it and he said that the courts had to recognize this difference. In another case Wiley Mitchum vs. The State of Georgia, Nisbet ruled that a new trial should be granted because a lawyer had commented on unproven facts before a jury and these comments later influenced a decision by another court.

When he resigned from the bench in 1853, Nisbet resumed his law practice in Macon, GA, briefly becoming a partner of Benjamin Harvey Hill.

Nisbet was an important member of the Georgia Know-Nothing Party and was chosen delegate for the 1861 secession convention at Milledgeville, GA. He proposed a resolution which argued for the right of Georgia to secede from the Union and to form the Southern Confederacy. Nisbet was the Chairman of the Committee which drafted the ordinance of secession. In 1861, he ran for Governor against Joseph H. Brown and lost, and also declined an election to the Confederate Congress.

Nisbet was the author of the first fourteen volumes of the Georgia Reports. He received two honorary degrees in 1868, one from his alma mater the University of Georgia and the second from Mercer University. He was a life long member of the Presbyterian Church. Nisbet continued to practice law in Macon until his death from a cold which he had contracted while laying the cornerstone of the Macon Courthouse. He was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery.
[more][less]

"In the division between Whigs and Democrats, Judge Nisbet was thoroughly identified with the former party, until it became merged in native Americanism. After the election of Mr. Lincoln, and the complete triumph of sectionalism, the Judge reluctantly abandoned all hope of maintaining the equality of the States in the Federal Union. He was put forward as a candidate for the State Convention in 1861, and in that body, as Chairman of the Committee, reported the Secession Ordinance."
"Editorial Notes," Columbian Register, April 1, 1871, New Haven, CT.

"We are deeply pained to announce the death of that Christian gentleman, erudite scholar, and profound jurist, the Hon. EUGENIUS ARISTIDES NISBET- a man of wide reputation, State and national. He sank calmly to rest yesterday ...at 2 p.m., at his residence, in Macon, after a protracted decline of health and strength, beginning perhaps with the loss of his devoted wife some years ago, but very marked within the past six months...
His religious history was almost commensurate with his life. For over forty years he held the office of Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church, and at different times, occupied almost every position to which laymen are eligible in that Church, including that of delegate to the General Assembly in 1837..
Nature had endowed him with a comprehensive, clear and discriminating mind- a fine person- a genial temper and an affectionate heart; and religion, educational training, study, reading, social and professional intercourse and travel and observation, all combined to make him one of the most interesting, attractive, valuable and exemplary men that have ever blessed the world."
"Death of Hon. E. A. Nisbet," Georgia Weekly Telegraph, March 21, 1871, Macon, GA.

"Shortly after leaving college he commenced the study of law in the office of the lamented A.S. Clayton, where he applied himself diligently for eighteen months. He then went to Litchfield, Conn., and took a regular course of lectures in the then celebrated law school of Judge Gould...
Of his worth as a judicial officer his decisions, reported in volumes 1 to 14 of the Georgia Reports, must speak for themselves. They are monuments which cannot soon perish. Impartial, sound and wise they go down to posterity jewels in legal lore- the priceless gifts of this good and illustrious man. Many other prominent positions were held by Judge Nisbet, of which this limited space will not allow us to speak. He drew the original resolutions dissolving the connection of Georgia with the American Union. These Resolutions are still in existence."
"Sketch of the Life of E.A. Nisbet," Georgia Weekly Telegraph, April 4, 1871. Macon, GA.
[more][less]

1823

Attended Powelton Academy in Hancock County, GA before attending South Carolina College from 1817 - 1819. He later graduated from the University of Georgia in 1821.

Lawyer; Business; Political Office

Georgia in 1823

He studied briefly with Judge Augustin S. Clayton.

Whig; Democrat

U.S. Representative (GA) 1839-1841

State Representative (GA) 1827-1830
State Senator (GA) 1830-1837
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (GA) 1845-1853

Litchfield Eagle, October 6, 1823

Catalogue of the Litchfield Law School (Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1849), 19.

Lewis, William Draper. Great American Lawyers. Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Co., 1907.

Northen, William J., Men of Mark in Georgia. Atlanta: A.B. Caldwell, 1912.

Hartman, B.T., A Genealogy of Nesbit, Ross, Porter, Taggart Families of Pennsylvania. Private Printing: 1929.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia accessed at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org on July 27, 2012.

"Editorial Notes," Columbian Register, April 1, 1871, New Haven, CT.

"Death of Hon. E. A. Nisbet," Georgia Weekly Telegraph, March 21, 1871, Macon, GA.

"Sketch of the Life of E.A. Nisbet," Georgia Weekly Telegraph, April 4, 1871. Macon, GA.