Jonathan Norcross - Political & Civic Life

Political & Civic Life

Jonathan Norcross ran as Atlanta's first mayoral candidate in 1848, failing to capture the 215 voters at the time, cast at Thomas Kil's grocery, at present day Five Points (Atlanta), to Moses W. Formwalt, Atlanta's first mayor. Ever persistent however, Norcross was a successful candidate three years later for the Moral Party in the 1850 Mayoral election (r. 1851 - 1852) against adversarial candidate, Leonard C. Simpson, an attorney for the Free and Rowdy Party. He presided over a town's divisive moral choice; a "temperance man who hated civic disturbances," between civilian law & order and the bellicose Rowdies or ruffians; whose 40 drinking establishments and thriving red light district contradicted strict evangelical mores at the time, and contributed to town problems. With this post, Norcross served doubly as both de jure Chief of Police and Superintendent of Atlanta's Streets. One of his solutions was to make life so uncomfortable from shameful scorn of public rebuke, that it would encourage most of the Rowdies' move, a mile south-west to Snake Nation. With this however, Norcross was scornfully told, "if elected, that he might find town 'too hot to hold him', if he executed his proposed reforms." These threats were found to be without merit.

The early nineteenth century in America was marked by a period of religious revival; a Second Great Awakening, whereby principle ideals of antiquity were emphasized specifically in the field of education at all levels, spreading the nation over, whereby, 'lassical study inculcated intellectual discipline and provide those who pursued it, the world over, with a common frame of reference." This reference transferred into the domain of politics, and in the case of Norcross with his political platform, the Moral Party could similarly be viewed as "American statesmen defend their principles of 'classical republicanism' with arguments drawn from Aristotle, Publius, and Cicero" ; those in antiquity whose doctrine framed a moral philosophy.

Norcross was in his 50s during the American Civil War and notable for being on the Committee of Citizens (with William Markham) that surrendered the city to Union General Henry Slocum. Norcross was in opposition to succession.