Edward Ward Carmack - Nashville, Tennessee
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 36° 09.914 W 086° 47.030
16S E 519441 N 4002297
Statue of newspaper editor, U.S. Senator, and temperance leader on the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville.
Waymark Code: WMGH1G
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 03/05/2013
Views: 7
Statue is a bronze larger than life-sized standing portrait of Edward Ward Carmack. He is dressed in formal business attire with a long coat, vest and tie. It stands on a multi-tiered granite base. The statue was placed on the Capitol grounds by the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
STATUE OF EDWARD WARD CARMACK, by Nancy Cox McCormack. Carmack was a United States Senator from 1901 to 1907. In 1908, as editor of the Nashville Tennessean, he vigorously attacked the administration of Governor Malcolm R. Patterson. Championing prohibition, Carmack exposed a number of the "wet" administration's shady deals. The politicians warned him to "lay off". Carmack's scorching editorials and exposes continued. One of his main targets was the influential Duncan Cooper, of Nashville. On the evening of Nov. 9, 1908, as Carmack was walking along Seventh Avenue between Church and Union Streets, Cooper and his son shot Carmack and left him dead on the sidewalk. Duncan Cooper was conviced of murder, and the Tennessee Supreme Court confirmed the sentence. At the gates of the penitentiary the warden presented Cooper with a full pardon from Governor Patterson.- Tennessee: A Guide to the State, Nashville section , pgs. 189-190.
On the back of the base is a plaque inscribed:
CARMACK'S
PLEDGE TO THE SOUTH
THE SOUTH IS A LAND THAT HAS KNOWN
SORROWS; IT IS A LAND THAT HAS
BROKEN THE ASHEN CRUST AND
MOISTENED IT WITH TEARS; A LAND
SCARRED AND RIVEN BY THE PLOWSHARE
OF WAR AND BELLOWED WITH THE GRAVES
OF HER DEAD; BUT A LAND OF LEGEND.
A LAND OF SONG, A LAND OF HALLOWED
AND HEROIC MEMORIES
TO THAT LAND EVERY DROP OF MY BLOOD,
EVERY FIBRE OF MY BEING, EVERY PULS-
ATION OF MY HEART, IS CONSECRATED
FOREVER.
I WAS BORN OF HER WOMB; I WAS
NURTURED AT HER BREAST; AND WHEN
MY LAST HOUR SHALL COME, I PRAY
GOD THAT I MAY BE PILLOWED UPON
HER BOSOM AND ROCKED TO SLEEP
WITHIN HER TENDER AND ENCIRCLING ARMS.
THIS TABLET PLACED HERE BY THE W.C.T.U.