The term Bourbon Triumvirate refers to Georgia's three most powerful and prominent politicians of the post-Reconstruction era: Joseph E. Brown, Alfred H. Colquitt, and John B. Gordon. This trio practically held a lock on the state's U.S. Senate seats and governor's office from 1872 to 1890: Brown as senator from 1880 until 1890; Colquitt as governor from 1876 through 1882, and as senator from 1883 until 1894; and Gordon as senator from 1872 until 1880, governor from 1886 until 1890, and senator again from 1891 until 1897. The political careers of all three men benefited from their service during the Civil War (1861-65); Brown had served as the governor of Confederate Georgia, and Colquitt and Gordon had both risen to the rank of major general in the Confederate army by the war's end.
Political and Economic Interests
Joseph E. Brown
Joseph E. Brown
Colquitt, one of the state's leading planters, cast himself as a representative of the interests of the old planter class, while Brown, an industrialist who became one of Georgia's first millionaires, represented the New South businessmen. Gordon had a mixed record as a businessman and a worse record as a planter, but Gordon excelled at espousing the New South rhetoric of commercial and industrial development by shrewdly exploiting the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.
All three men had extensive interests in the railroad and coal-mining industries, among other commercial pursuits. All three championed white supremacy; a frugal state government that demanded little of taxpayers, and accordingly provided few services; and the maintenance of subservient labor forces on farms and in factories. Gordon and especially Brown both made use of convict labor in their industrial enterprises.