Benjamin Harvey Hill -- GA State Capitol, Ground Floor, Atlanta GA - Statues of Historic Figures on Waymarking.com

The waymark coordinates are for the public entry door on the west side of the capitol, since GPS units do not work inside the building.

This large and unintentionally ironic monument in honor of Benjamin Harvey Hill is located on the ground floor of the Georgia State Capitol in downtown Atlanta.

The statue of Hill towers over onlookers, being placed on a plinth about 8 feet tall, with Hill standing on top of that. He stares fiercely down at those who walk by, with his left hand on his hip and his right leg flared out as if he is about to cross-examine the passers-by at trial.

He looks like he is about 60 years old. He has short hair and a beard in the style of the late 1860s/70s. He is wearing formal clothes for court or perhaps for the floor of the US Senate: Heavy overcoat over a buttoned long coat over a shirt and tie, with square-toed boots.

He stands next to a small desk or piece of furniture with a leg carved into an eagle. His right hand is pressed flat on top of the desk, and he wears a look of impatience or readiness to argue his side of a contentious issue.

From this angle it's hard to tell how tall the statue is, but we think it's larger than life-size.

The statue and plinth together are around 14 feet tall. Both plinth and bust are made of white Georgia marble and inscribed as follows:

“[front]
BENJAMIN HARVEY HILL

Born September 14, 1823.
Died August 16, 1882.

This monument is erected by his fellow citizens in commemoration of the indomitable courage, unrivaled eloquence and devoted patriotism characterizing the illustrious dead.

[R side]

Member of the House of Representatives of Georgia during 1851 in 1852.

Senator of Georgia during 1859 and 1860.

Member of the [Secession] Convention of 1861.

Beloved in private life. Distinguished at the bar and eminent and public relations, he was at all times the champion of human liberty.

[back]

“We are in the house of our fathers. Our brothers are our companions, and we are at home to stay, thank God.”
--
“Who saves his country saves himself, saves all things and all things saved do bless him. Who lets his country die lets all things die, dies himself, ignobly, and all his things dying curse him.”
--
“The union under the Constitution knows no section but does know all the states.”

[L side]

Member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States.

Senator of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865.

Member of the House of Representatives of the United States from 1875 to 1878.

Senator of the United States from 1878 to the date of his death."

From the Encyclopedia of Georgia:

"A presence in Georgia state politics for more than three decades, Benjamin Hill was by turns a prosperous lawyer, opponent of secession, ardent supporter of the Confederacy, apologist for Reconstruction, and, at his death, Democratic U.S. senator from Georgia. Like his personal nemesis and fellow political survivor from the era, Joseph E. Brown, Hill manifested a remarkable political flexibility that was often taken for perfidy. Ben Hill County in south central Georgia was named for him upon its creation in 1906.

Born in Jasper County on September 14, 1823, Benjamin Harvey Hill matriculated at the University of Georgia and graduated in 1843. He then promptly gained entrance to the bar and nurtured a thriving law practice in LaGrange. Although he could be a political chameleon, Hill generally worked toward sectional comity. He thus entered public life as a supporter of the Union and the Compromise of 1850.

During a one-year term as a state representative from 1851 to 1852, Hill joined the short-lived Constitutional Union Party of Howell Cobb, Robert Toombs, and Alexander Stephens. Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act brought him back into politics as an independent in 1855, and he narrowly lost a seat in the state assembly to a Democratic stalwart in a heavily Democratic district. Two years later, the American Party nominated him as their gubernatorial candidate. He lost that race to the theretofore obscure Joseph E. Brown and retired from the political arena for another two-year interval.

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in 1859 and the election of 1860 drew Hill once more onto the political battlefield. The events at Harpers Ferry gave fire-eaters throughout the South an unprecedented opportunity for agitation, and Hill emerged in Georgia as one of the leading voices of moderation. Following Abraham Lincoln's election as president of the United States, Hill made an eloquent appeal to hold off on immediate secession to see what kind of leader Lincoln would prove to be. Such a policy, he argued, had the added benefit of allowing the South to prepare for a war, should one become inevitable. Nevertheless, when secession came, Hill reluctantly reconciled himself to it. Even in his new circumstances, he remained a committed nationalist. As a Confederate senator from 1861 to 1865, he aligned himself with the centralizing policies of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. His stance was made the more palatable because it antagonized Brown, who as a wartime governor clashed incessantly with Davis over the prerogatives of the states.

After a brief postwar imprisonment, Hill's career entered its most controversial and ultimately most successful phase. Initially his actions followed the white Democratic Party line. He backed U.S. president Andrew Johnson's lenient plan to bring the South back into the Union and later fought against the perceived excesses of congressional Reconstruction. Then in 1870 he took on the Bourbon Democrats, who were poised to "redeem" the state, in an extraordinarily brave plea that Southern whites recognize the Reconstruction amendments as a fait accompli and move on to other matters. This unpopular stance earned Hill a stint in the political wilderness. Having spent most of his lifetime backing losing causes, however, Hill ended his career on top, winning a seat in the U.S. Congress for Georgia's Ninth District in December 1875. There he earned a national reputation as a champion of the white South by taking on such strident Radicals as James G. Blaine. Two years later he resigned from the House of Representatives to take a Senate seat, which he occupied until his death on August 16, 1882."

URL of the statue: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/31/2017 Benchmark Blasterz visited it