Arthur Pendleton Bagby, born in 1794 in Louisa County, Virginia, migrated with his family to Monroe County in the Alabama territory. It was here that Bagby read law and opened a legal practice in 1819. Twice elected state representative from Monroe County, Bagby was also elected Speaker of the House at
the age of twenty-eight in 1822. During the next fifteen years, he served several terms in both houses of the legislature and became president of the senate.
In 1837 Bagby defeated the former Speaker of the House, Samuel W. Oliver, for governor. Like so many of Alabama’s early governors, Bagby worried about banking and finance, and he was particularly concerned about the Alabama state bank. He became governor just as a financial depression hit the country. Some accused state banks of contributing to the financial downturn. Alabama’s bank had suspended specie payment during Governor Clay’s administration, and charges of mismanagement and corruption were leveled against its managers. Pro-bank forces kept information about the state bank from Bagby, but he still called for reform of the bank’s practices. Little was done about the situation during his time in office, and in 1838 Bagby allowed the resumption of specie payment by the bank.
Bagby won re-election as a Democrat in 1839, defeating a candidate of the new Whig Party, but the state’s financial problems grew worse in his second term. A New York bank issued a financial report stating that Alabama owed $11.5 million dollars on state bonds, and the state struggled to pay massive amounts of interest. The poor financial situation led to the election of many Whigs to the state legislature, alarming Bagby and fellow Democrats.
To limit Whig influence, Bagby proposed that all Alabama members of Congress run statewide rather than from individual districts. This “General Ticket Bill” so angered Whigs that they forced Democratic leaders to attach a rider to the bill calling for a popular referendum on the matter. Voters from both parties joined to reject the proposed system, handing Bagby an embarrassing defeat. Legislators duly repealed the law, and the state returned to the district system.
After completing his second term as governor, Bagby was elected to fill the unexpired term of Senator Clay, and in 1842 he was elected to a six-year term in the US Senate. In 1848 President Polk appointed Bagby minister to Russia, but the election of a Whig president that year limited his service to only a few months. Bagby moved to Wilcox County for several years and later to Mobile, where he died from yellow fever in 1858.
Photo Caption: Arthur P. Bagby by Edna K. Smith. [Alabama Department of Archives and History]
This article was first featured in Alabama Heritage magazine Issue 123.
About the Author
Samuel L. Webb, a native of York, Alabama, holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Alabama School of Law and a PhD in history from the University of Arkansas. He taught history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from 1988 to 2009 and is now an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama.
