Charles J. Jenkins

Who was Charles J. Jenkins?

Charles Jones Jenkins was a politician from Georgia, U.S..

He was born in South Carolina. His family moved to Jefferson County, Georgia, and Jenkins attended the University of Georgia in Athens at a young age; his exact dates of attendance are not known. Jenkins left the university before graduating and finished his education in 1824 at Union College in Schenectady, New York. In 1831 Jenkins succeeded George W. Crawford as attorney general for the State of Georgia, himself succeeded in 1834 by Ebenezer Starnes.

He first gained widespread attention as the author of the Georgia Platform, a proclamation by a special state convention that endorsed the Compromise of 1850. In the 1852 Presidential election, he ran for Vice President under presidential candidate Daniel Webster for the "Union Party". During the American Civil War, he was appointed by Governor Joseph E. Brown as a justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.

After a state constitutional convention in 1865 re-established Georgia's state government, he ran as the only candidate for governor. He served as the Governor of Georgia from 1865 to 1868, during Reconstruction. In 1868, he refused to allow state funds to be used for a racially integrated state constitutional convention that was supervised by the U.S. military occupation. In response, General George Meade installed Brig. General Thomas H. Ruger as military governor and Jenkins fled the state, though he later returned.