When the Democratic Convention met in Milledgeville in 1857, for the purpose of nominating a candidate for governor, it had so many popular candidates to choose from, and these candidates had so many and such strong friends, that the members found it impossible to agree on a man. A great many ballots were taken, and there was a good deal of "log-rolling" and "buttonholing," as the politicians call it, on behalf of the various candidates by their special friends. But all this did no good. There was a deadlock. No one of the candidates was able to obtain a two-thirds majority, which, according to Democratic law, was the number necessary to a nomination. Twenty-one ballots had been taken with no result, and the convention had been in session three days. Finally it was decided to appoint a special committee made up of three delegates from each congressional district. It was the duty of this committee to name a candidate on whom the convention could agree. When this committee retired, it was proposed that a ballot be taken, each committeeman writing the name of the candidate of his choice on a slip of paper, and depositing the slip in a hat. This was done; but before the ballots were counted, Judge Linton Stephens, a brother of Alexander H., stated that such a formality was not necessary. He thereupon moved that Judge Joseph E. Brown of Cherokee be selected as the compromise man, and that his name be reported to the convention. This was agreed to unanimously, and Joseph E. Brown was nominated; and yet, if the written ballots had been counted, it would have been found that Alfred H. Colquitt, who afterwards became so distinguished in Georgia, had been nominated by the committee. He received a majority of one of the written ballots when they were afterwards counted through curiosity. Twenty-three years later, Colquitt, who was then governor, made Joseph E. Brown a United States senator under circumstances that aroused strong opposition, and immediately afterwards Brown aided Colquitt to a reelection in one of the bitterest contests the State has ever witnessed.