Joseph Emerson Brown (April 15, 1821 – November 30, 1894), often referred to as Joe Brown, is an attorney and politician, serving as the 42nd Governor of Georgia from 1857 to 1865, the only governor to serve four terms.
After the American Civil War, he is elected by the state legislature as a two-term U.S. Senator, serving from 1880 to 1891.
Brown is a leading secessionist in 1861, and leads his state into the Confederacy.
A former Whig, and a firm believer in slavery and Southern states' rights, he defies the Confederate government's wartime policies.
He resists the military draft, believing that local troops should be used only for the defense of Georgia.
He denounces Confederate President Jefferson Davis as an incipient tyrant, and challenges Confederate impressment of animals and goods to supply the troops, and slaves to work in military encampments and on the lines.
Several other governors follow his lead.
After the war, Brown joins the Republican Party for a time, and is appointed as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia from 1865 to 1870.
Later he rejoins the Democrats, becomes president of the Western and Atlantic Railroad and begins to amass great wealth; he is estimated to be a millionaire by 1880.
He earns high profits from two decades of using mostly black convicts leased from state, county and local governments in his coal mining operations in Dade County.
His Dade Coal Company buys other coal and iron companies, all based on the use of convict labor.
By 1889 it is known as the Georgia Mining, Manufacturing and Investment Company.
Brown and his wife, Elizabeth Grisham Brown, are honored in 1928 by a statue installed on the state capitol grounds.
He saves The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary financially in the 1870s.
There is now an endowed chair, the Joseph Emerson Brown Chair of Christian Theology at the institution.
