Winthrop Sargent with his sister Judith
Great shock spread through the new state of
Mississippi when it was announced that
Moderate Federalist Winthrop Sargent had been elected
Governor after running unopposed. This in a new state that was so deeply blue as to be near-midnight, so literally any single Democrat-Republican with a pulse, and perhaps not even that, would have won resoundingly.
Later historians noted that at the time of the state's creation in 1804, only four notable politicians were based in the territory, and one of them was
Attorney General Levi Lincoln, Sr, who doubtless had little interest in abandoning the position of the country's highest lawyer to become the governor of a new, sparsely populated state. Indeed, only
Walter Leake of the
Moderate Patriots would have been eligible to run in opposition, and the 42 year old preferred to continue biding his time before making the decision to enter the public political arena.
So it came to pass that the new Governor was able to use his newfound leverage to recruit a complete unknown - passive, conservative 49 year-old businessman
Joseph Hayward, who found himself in the position of being Sargent's lackey in gratitude for the elevation to the Class I seat, which would require reappointment in 1808. Hayward, milquetoast that he was, quietly joined the
Moderate Federalists, who were the lowest of the low factions, and offered opportunity for even greater influence in that tiny pond.
One who did leave the private sector and hurry to Mississippi was 26 year old soldier
Charles F Mercer of the
Clay Federalists, loyalist faction of
Henry Clay. Governor Sargent would gladly have appointed him to the Class II Senatorship, but young Mercer was four years too young to occupy the post.
And so they waited to see if the Attorney General would give up his lofty perch to stay in Washington as the other Senator - job security for him until 1810. If not, it seemed likely that the new governor would again have carte blanche to continue building an outpost in hostile territory.
From the politician-heavy states of the Mid-Atlantic and New England, other Moderate Federalists watched the situation and pondered if they should likewise make the move south and transform Mississippi from a blue-loving region to a red one. Certainly outside of Connecticut and states and territories as remote as Sargent's domain, there seemed to be few other options to start building new footholds to climb the massive mountain of Jeffersonian dominance...