Joshua Martin, a descendent of French Huguenots, was born in Blount County, Tennessee, in 1799, and educated by local ministers there. At age twenty he moved with his family to Alabama’s Tennessee Valley area. After studying law with his brother, a Russellville attorney, he was admitted to the bar and opened his own practice in Athens, Alabama.
In 1822 Martin was elected to the state House of Representatives from Limestone County and, except for one year, served there until 1828. In 1829 he was elected solicitor of the Fourth Judicial Circuit, and in 1834 he won a seat as circuit court judge. A year later he was elected to Congress and won re-election in 1837. After his second term in Washington, Martin returned to private law practice in Alabama, but in 1841 he was chosen chancellor of the state’s Chancery Court divisions. By the time he entered the Alabama gubernatorial race of 1845, Martin had served in public office for more than twenty years.
Former governor Benjamin Fitzpatrick (1841–1845) thought he had dissolved the Bank of Alabama by successfully leading a fight against renewing its charter, but Martin found out in 1845 that powerful forces wanted to revive the bank. When anti-bank delegates to the Democratic Convention at Tuscaloosa had trouble getting to the 1845 meeting, pro-bank forces formed a majority and hurriedly nominated Nathaniel Terry, a legislator and large debtor to the bank, as their candidate for governor. Martin, infuriated by the convention’s deceitful actions and staunchly opposed to reviving the bank, ran as an independent against Terry. The Whig Party was deeply divided about the bank and did not field a candidate. After an intense campaign, Martin won by 55 percent, but many loyal Democrats never forgave him for bolting from the party and opposed his administration.
Despite this opposition the new governor vigorously pursued the dismantling of the bank, appointing Marengo County’s Francis S. Lyons to collect as much of the bank’s debt as possible and then to liquidate its assets and obligations. Lyons succeeded, and many believed that governors Fitzpatrick and Martin saved the state’s credit and averted economic disaster. During Martin’s administration the legislature, with the governor’s support, passed a constitutional amendment removing the capital from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery, and voters ratified it by a narrow margin. In 1846 the state government moved to Montgomery. Martin was also instrumental in privatizing the state’s new penitentiary, which opened in 1841. The prison was poorly managed, and in 1846 Martin joined legislators in granting a six-year lease to a new prison superintendent who had the right to earn all the profits from the labor of the inmates.
Martin wanted a second two-year term as governor, but so many Democrats were angry about his independent candidacy in 1845 that he was essentially forced out of the 1847 race. He moved to Tuscaloosa, resumed the practice of law, and was elected to the legislature in 1853. This revival of his political career, however, was cut short by his death in 1856.
Photo Caption: This portrait, painted from an image identified as Joshua Lanier Martin, was done by Richard E. Coe in the twentieth century. [Alabama Department of Archives and History]
This article was first featured in Alabama Heritage magazine Issue 126.
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.
