Augustus O. Bacon
politician (1839-1914)
Augustus Octavius Bacon (October 20, 1839 – February 14, 1914) was a Confederate soldier, segregationist, and U.S. politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. senator from Georgia, becoming the first senator to be directly elected after the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, and rose to the position of president pro tempore of the United States Senate. Controversy arose during the American Civil Rights Movement over a provision in his will that created a racially segregated park in his hometown of Macon, which led to two U.S. Supreme Court decisions. He was a slave owner.
Early life and education
Bacon was born in Bryan County, Georgia, on October 20, 1839. He graduated in 1859 from the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia, and from the University of Georgia School of Law in its inaugural class of graduates in 1860. While at UGA, he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society.
Career
American Civil War
He was a soldier in the army of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.
Georgia House of Representatives
Following the end of the war, he served in the Georgia State House of Representatives from 1871 to 1886, for much of that time as House speaker. He made his home in Macon.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4821512. VIAF identifies the subject as 48251515. The Library of Congress control number is n86114578. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1839, 1914, 1859 and 1860.
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This entry incorporates text from “Augustus O. Bacon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.