JENKINS, Charles Jones, jurist, born in Beaufort district, South Carolina, 6 January, 1805; died in Summerville, Georgia, 13 June, 1883. He removed with his parents to Jefferson county, Georgia, in 1816, and was educated at the State university and at Union college, where he was graduated in 1824. He became a member of the Georgia legislature in 1830, was attorney-general of the state in 1831, but resigning before the expiration of his term, and was again chosen to the legislature, where he remained from 1836 till 1850, serving as speaker of the house whenever his party was in a majority. He was brought up in the state-rights, Jeffersonian, school of politics, but supported Harrison for president in 1840, and Clay in 1844. He was a Union member of the Georgia convention in 1850, and as its chairman was the author of the resolutions known as "The Platform of 1850," in which it was "resolved that the state of Georgia, even to the disruption of every he which binds her to the Union, resist any act of congress abolishing slavery." He declined the secretaryship of the interior which was offered him by President Fillmore in this year, was state senator in 1856, and in 1860 was appointed to the supreme bench of Georgia to supply the vacancy caused by the resignation of Linton Stephens. He held this office till the close of the war. In 1865 he was a member of the State constitutional convention that was called on the proclamation of President Johnson, and, being elected governor the same year under the constitution so formed, held office till he was superseded by General Thomas S. Ruger, of the United States army, who was appointed provisional governor under the reconstruction act of congress in 1868. He then retired to private life, but was president of the Georgia constitutional convention in 1877. For many years he was president of the board of trustees of the University of Georgia. See his "Life," by Charles Colcock Jones (Augusta, Georgia, 1884).