{{short description|Member of the U.S. Senate from Georgia}} {{Infobox officeholder |name = Augustus O. Bacon |image = File:BACON, A.O. SENATOR LOC hec.14963 (3x4a).jpg |office = President pro tempore of the United States Senate |alongside = Jacob Harold Gallinger, Charles Curtis, Frank B. Brandegee & Henry Cabot Lodge |term_start = August 14, 1911 |term_end = February 15, 1913 |predecessor = William P. Frye |successor = Jacob Harold Gallinger |jr/sr1 = United States Senator |state1 = Georgia |term_start1 = March 4, 1895 |term_end1 = February 14, 1914 |predecessor1 = Patrick Walsh |successor1 = William S. West |office2 = Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives |term2 = 1873-1874 1877-1881 |predecessor2 = Joseph B. Cumming (first term)<br>Thomas Hardeman Jr. (second term) |successor2 = Thomas Hardeman Jr. (first term) {{br}} Louis F. Garrard (second term) |office3 = Member of the Georgia House of Representatives |term3 = 1871–1886 |birth_date = {{birth date|1839|10|20}} |birth_place = Bryan County, Georgia, U.S. |death_date = {{death date and age|1914|2|14|1839|10|20}} |death_place = Washington, D.C., U.S. |education = University of Georgia<br>University of Georgia School of Law |party = Democratic |allegiance = {{flag|Confederate States}} |branch = {{army|CSA}} |battles = American Civil War |rank = 25px Captain |unit = 9th Georgia Infantry }} '''Augustus Octavius Bacon''' (October 20, 1839{{spaced ndash}}February 14, 1914) was a Confederate soldier, segregationist, and U.S. politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. senator from Georgia, becoming the first senator to be directly elected after the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, and rose to the position of president pro tempore of the United States Senate.<ref name=obit/> Controversy arose during the American Civil Rights Movement over a provision in his will that created a racially segregated park in his hometown of Macon, which led to two U.S. Supreme Court decisions. He was a slave owner.<ref>{{Citation|title=Congress slaveowners|date=2022-01-19|url=https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-congress-slaveowners|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=2022-01-23}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Bacon was born in Bryan County, Georgia, on October 20, 1839. He graduated in 1859 from the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia, and from the University of Georgia School of Law in its inaugural class of graduates in 1860. While at UGA, he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society.
==Career== ===American Civil War=== He was a soldier in the army of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.
===Georgia House of Representatives=== Following the end of the war, he served in the Georgia State House of Representatives from 1871 to 1886, for much of that time as House speaker.<ref name="Marquis Who's Who 1975. P. 22">Marquis Who's Who, Inc. ''Who Was Who in American History, the Military''. Chicago: Marquis Who's Who, 1975. P. 22 {{ISBN|0837932017}} {{OCLC|657162692}}</ref> He made his home in Macon.<ref name=":0" />
===U.S. Senate=== Bacon was elected as one of Georgia's United States senators in 1894 and was reelected to three subsequent terms.<ref name="Marquis Who's Who 1975. P. 22"/><ref name="cd">{{cite web |title=S. Doc. 58-1 - Fifty-eighth Congress. (Extraordinary session -- beginning November 9, 1903.) Official Congressional Directory for the use of the United States Congress. Compiled under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing by A.J. Halford. Special edition. Corrections made to November 5, 1903 |url=https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/SERIALSET-04562_00_00-001-0001-0000 |website=GovInfo.gov |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |access-date=2 July 2023 |page=15 |date=9 November 1903}}</ref> Bacon held several committee chairmanships (Committee on Engrossed Bills, Committee on Private Land Claims, Committee on Foreign Relations).<ref name="Marquis Who's Who 1975. P. 22"/> He considered himself an Anglophile, once remarking that "all the blood in me comes from English ancestors," but he did not want America to become an imperial power along the same lines as the United Kingdom; he opposed the Spanish–American War and the subsequent occupation of the Philippines on those grounds.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/~w3his490/A-Kramer-Race-and-Rule-British-and-US-Empires.pdf|title=Archived copy|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150419011750/http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/~w3his490/A-Kramer-Race-and-Rule-British-and-US-Empires.pdf|archive-date=2015-04-19|url-status=dead|access-date=2012-04-14}} page 1339</ref>
He served as one of several alternating presidents pro tempore of the United States Senate during the 62nd Congress (1911 to 1913), as part of a compromise under which Bacon and four senators from the Republican majority rotated in the office because no single candidate in either party was able to secure a majority vote.<ref name="SenPPT">{{cite web|url=https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/President_Pro_Tempore.htm#Frye|title=President Pro Tempore|website=United States Senate|at=See footnote 4.|access-date=October 11, 2018}}</ref>
While in the Senate, Bacon was one of a number of members of Congress who tried to get "better" streets in Washington, D.C., named after their home states. Although most of these efforts failed, in 1908 Bacon succeeded in having Brightwood Avenue (or Brookeville Pike) renamed Georgia Avenue.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Kelly|first1=John|title=The Mud Really Flew over the First Georgia Avenue|newspaper=Washington Post|date=26 October 2008|url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bwh&AN=WPT185620886808&site=eds-live&scope=site|access-date=31 October 2016}}</ref> The old Georgia Avenue became Potomac Avenue.<ref>John Kelly, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/25/AR2008102501917.html "The Mud Really Flew Over The First Georgia Avenue"], ''The Washington Post'', October 26, 2008.</ref>
==Death== Bacon died of a coronary occlusion on February 14, 1914, in Washington, D.C., at the age of 74.<ref name=obit>{{cite news |title=Senator Bacon Dies. His, Illness Brief. Blood Clot in Heart the Cause, Complicated with Kidney Trouble and Broken Rib. To Have A State Funeral. Services in Senate Chamber Tuesday. President Wilson Typewrites Tribute to Distinguished Georgian|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1914/02/15/archives/senator-bagon-dies-his-illness-brief-blood-clot-in-heart-the-cause.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=February 15, 1914 }}</ref><ref name="Marquis Who's Who 1975. P. 22"/> He was buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia.
==Legacy== After his death, Senator Bacon's 1911 will established a "whites only" park in Macon which was to be held in trust by the city. During the Civil Rights Movement, the use of the park, known as Baconsfield Park, was the subject of two related Supreme Court cases.
The first, ''Evans v. Newton'', was decided in 1966.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/382/296/|title=Evans v. Newton, 382 U.S. 296 (1966)|work=Justia Law|access-date=2018-10-11|language=en}}</ref> The Court held that the use of the park for "whites only" was invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause. Because the park was held in trust by a public entity, the Court held that it could not exclude non-white persons. Although the city tried to maintain the segregationist intentions of Senator Bacon by transferring the trust to private trustees, Justice Douglas’ majority opinion explained that a park is public in nature and may not exclude non-white persons from using the park for recreation.
A subsequent Supreme Court case, ''Evans v. Abney'', was decided in 1970.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/396/435/|title=Evans v. Abney, 396 U.S. 435 (1970)|work=Justia Law|access-date=2018-10-11|language=en}}</ref> After the Court held that Baconsfield Park was unable to perform a segregationist function, the state court held that "Senator Bacon's intention to provide a park for whites only had become impossible to fulfill and that accordingly the trust had failed and the parkland and other trust property had reverted by operation of Georgia law to the heirs of the Senator." The decision involved the doctrine of cy pres, and it was necessary for the court to determine Senator Bacon's probable intention in the matter. The Court concluded that, if Senator Bacon had been able to know that his objective was impossible or illegal, he would have preferred that the land revert to his heirs. The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia, holding that refusing to apply the doctrine of cy pres did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Bacon's heirs then sold the property to private developers, who converted the land near North Avenue and Nottingham Drive to commercial use.<ref>Stephanie Barron, Jessica Carrier, Chad Moore, William Sanders, and Andrew Smith, "The Case over Baconsfield Park," [http://faculty.mercer.edu/davis_da/fys102/baconsfield.html ''Remembering the Civil Rights Movement''], c. 2012.</ref>
Bacon County, Georgia, established shortly after his death in 1914, is named in his honor.<ref name=":0">{{cite book | url=http://www.kenkrakow.com/gpn/b.pdf | title=Georgia Place-Names: Their History and Origins | publisher=Winship Press | author=Krakow, Kenneth K. | year=1975 | location=Macon, GA | pages=1 | isbn=978-0-915430-00-0}}</ref>
==See also== {{Portal|Biography}} *List of members of the United States Congress who died in office (1900–1949) *List of speakers of the Georgia House of Representatives
==References== {{reflist}}
==Further reading== {{CongBio|B000014}} Retrieved on 2008-09-28 * {{cite BDA1906 |wstitle= Bacon, Augustus Octavius |volume= 1 |page=176 |short=}} *[http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/cgi-bin/ebind2html.pl/reed_c06?seq=14 ''History of the University of Georgia'', Thomas Walter Reed, Imprint: Athens, Georgia : University of Georgia, ca. 1949, p.677]
==External links== {{Commons category|Augustus Octavius Bacon}} * {{Find a Grave|7116389|access-date=2008-09-28}} * [http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/topics/historical_markers/county/bacon/bacon-county Bacon County] historical marker * [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015069814203;view=1up;seq=9 Augustus O. Bacon, late a senator from Georgia, Memorial addresses delivered in the House of Representatives and Senate frontispiece 1915]
{{s-start}} {{s-ppo}} {{s-new|first}} {{s-ttl|title=Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator from Georgia<br />(Class 2)|years=1913}} {{s-aft|after=Thomas W. Hardwick}} {{s-par|us-sen}} {{U.S. Senator box | state=Georgia | class=2 | before=Patrick Walsh | after=William S. West | years=March 4, 1895 – February 14, 1914 }} {{s-off}} {{succession box | title=President pro tempore of the United States Senate | before=William P. Frye | years=1911–1913 | after=James P. Clarke }} {{s-end}}
{{USSenGA}} {{SenForeignRelationsCommitteeChairmen}} {{USSenPresProTemp}} {{Speakers of the Georgia House of Representatives}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bacon, Augustus O.}} Category:1839 births Category:1914 deaths Category:Franklin College of Arts and Sciences alumni Category:University of Georgia School of Law alumni Category:Bacon County, Georgia Category:Confederate States Army soldiers Category:Georgia (U.S. state) Democrats Category:Democratic Party United States senators from Georgia (U.S. state) Category:Presidents pro tempore of the United States Senate Category:Speakers of the Georgia House of Representatives Category:Democratic Party members of the Georgia House of Representatives Category:Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Category:United States senators who owned slaves Category:20th-century United States senators Category:19th-century United States senators Category:19th-century members of the Georgia General Assembly Category:People from Bryan County, Georgia