Cobb, Thomas Reade Rootes

COBB, THOMAS READE ROOTES

Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb achieved prominence as a legislator and was known for his staunch secessionist views.

He was born April 10, 1823, in Jefferson County, Georgia. An 1841 graduate of the University of Georgia, Cobb was admitted to the Georgia bar the following year. As a jurist he achieved prominence for his authorship of legal publications, including A Digest of the Statute Laws of the State of Georgia, which was published in 1851, and for his editorial efforts on twenty volumes of books containing the reports of the Georgia Supreme Court. From 1858 to 1861 he participated in the organization of the Georgia criminal code.

"Negro slavery, as it exists in the u.s., is not contrary to the law of nature."
—Thomas Cobb

Cobb advocated the secession of Georgia from the Union. He was instrumental in the drafting of the new state constitution of Georgia in 1861 at the Georgia secession convention and participated in the creation of the Constitution of the Confederacy. He was serving as a brigadier general in the Civil War when he was fatally wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg. He died on December 13, 1862.