 Baldwin
was born at Guilford, Conn., in 1754, the second son of a blacksmith
who fathered 12 children by 2 wives. Besides Abraham, several of the
family attained distinction. His sister Ruth married the poet and
diplomat Joel Barlow, and his half-brother Henry attained the
position of justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Their ambitious
father went heavily into debt to educate his children.
After attending a local village school, Abraham
matriculated at Yale, in nearby New Haven. He graduated in 1772.
Three years later, he became a minister and tutor at the college. He
held that position until 1779, when he served as a chaplain in the
Continental Army. Two years later, he declined an offer from his
alma mater of a professorship of divinity. Instead of resuming his
ministerial or educational duties after the war, he turned to the
study of law and in 1783 gained admittance to the bar at Fairfield,
CT.
Within a year, Baldwin moved to Georgia, won
legislative approval to practice his profession, and obtained a
grant of land in Wilkes County. In 1785 he sat in the assembly and
the Continental Congress. Two years later, his father died and
Baldwin undertook to pay off his debts and educate, out of his own
pocket, his half-brothers and half-sisters.
That same year, Baldwin attended the
Constitutional Convention, from which he was absent for a few weeks.
Although usually inconspicuous, he sat on the Committee on Postponed
Matters and helped resolve the large-small state representation
crisis. At first, he favored representation in the Senate based upon
property holdings, but possibly because of his close relationship
with the Connecticut delegation he later came to fear alienation of
the small states and changed his mind to representation by state.
After the convention, Baldwin returned to the
Continental Congress (1787-89). He was then elected to the U.S.
Congress, where he served for 18 years (House of Representatives,
1789-99; Senate, 1799-1807). During these years, he became a bitter
opponent of Hamiltonian policies and, unlike most other native New
Englanders, an ally of Madison and Jefferson and the
Democratic-Republicans. In the Senate, he presided for a while as
president pro tem.
By 1790 Baldwin had taken up residence in
Augusta. Beginning in the preceding decade, he had begun efforts to
advance the educational system in Georgia. Appointed with six others
in 1784 to oversee the founding of a state college, he saw his dream
come true in 1798 when Franklin College was founded. Modeled after
Yale, it became the nucleus of the University of Georgia.
Baldwin, who never married, died after a short
illness during his 53d year in 1807. Still serving in the Senate at
the time, he was buried in Washington's Rock Creek Cemetery. |
