when fewer than 225 white men voted (women and free blacks did not have the franchise). Moses W. Formwalt of the Free and Rowdy Party won. The mayoral term was only one year, and two more Rowdy candidates were elected before Norcross ran again in 1850, representing the Moral Party against Leonard C. Simpson, an attorney and candidate for the Free and Rowdy Party. Norcross won as a "temperance man who hated civic disturbances"; he presented a choice between civilian law and order and the bellicose Rowdies. The 40 drinking establishments and thriving red light district of Slabtown offended the mores of evangelicals and they believed this contributed to problems for families in the railroad town. As mayor, Norcross served also as both de jure Chief of Police and Superintendent of Atlanta's Streets. He intended to use public shaming to persuade the Rowdies to move a mile south-west to "Snake Nation". Norcross's political platform suggested that the Moral Party could be viewed as "American statesmen defend[-ing] their principles of 'classical republicanism', with arguments drawn from Aristotle, Publius, and Cicero". Faltering prewar railroad industry As a businessman, Norcross supported railroad construction to link Atlanta to other cities and coastal ports. "[T]he key issue before inland cities like Atlanta was transportation, and the railroad was the key to commercial prosperity." On April 3, 1856, Norcross was among 16 founders of the Air Line Railway, for which he served as president. It was planned to run through the Carolinas and Virginia to carry freight between New York, Atlanta, and New Orleans. The Georgia General Assembly did not approve the project, largely because of intense lobbying from the competing Georgia Western Railroad and Central of Georgia Railway. After Norcross gained a bond commitment from the city of Atlanta, Lemuel Grant joined the list of adversaries supporting a different route (Georgia Western Railway). By 1860 both rail ventures were dead. New railroad construction did not take place until after the Civil War. Secession and Civil War Norcross opposed the state's vote for secession in 1861. In 1865, then aged in his late 50s, he was one of the Committee of Citizens (with William Markham) who surrendered the town to Union General Henry Slocum. Candidate for governor In 1876, near the end of the Reconstruction era, Norcross ran as the Republican nominee for Governor of Georgia. He was defeated by Democrat Alfred H. Colquitt, at a