Jackson, heading the Legislature and
the indignant public, proceeded in procession to the public square in
Louisville, Jefferson County, where the law and the fagots were piled;
when, addressing the assembled multitude, he denounced the men who had
voted for the law as bribed villains--those who had bribed them, and
the Governor who had signed it; and declared that fire from heaven
only could sanctify the indignation of God and man in consuming the
condemned record of accursed crime. Then, with a Promethean or convex
glass condensing the sun's rays, he kindled the flame which consumed
the records containing the hated Yazoo Act.
Jackson was a man of ordinary height, slender, very erect in his
carriage, with red hair and intensely blue eyes. His manners were
courteous, affable, and remarkable for a natural dignity which added
greatly to his influence with the people. He was the model from which
was grown that chivalry and nobility of soul and high bearing so
characteristic of the people of Southern Georgia. In truth, the
essence of his character seemed subtilly to pervade the entire circle
in which he moved, inspiring a purity of character, a loftiness of
honor, which rebuked with its presence alone everything that was low,
little, or dishonest.
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