William Branch Giles
Encyclopedia
William Branch Giles; the name is pronounced jyles) was an American
statesman, long-term Senator
from Virginia
, and the 24th Governor of Virginia
. He served in the House of Representatives
from 1790 to 1798, and again from 1801 to 1803; in between, he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates
, and was an Elector for Jefferson (and Aaron Burr) in 1800. He served as United States Senator from 1804 to 1815, and then served briefly in the House of Delegates again. After a time in private life, he joined the opposition to John Quincy Adams
and Henry Clay
, in 1824; he ran for Senate again in 1825, and was defeated, but appointed Governor for three one-year terms in 1827; he was succeeded by John Floyd
, in the year of his death.
, where he built his home, The Wigwam. Giles attended Prince Edward Academy, now Hampden-Sydney College
, and the College of New Jersey. now Princeton University
; he probably followed Samuel Stanhope Smith
, who was teaching at Prince Edward Academy when he was appointed President of the College in 1779. He then went on to study law with Chancellor George Wythe
and at the College of William and Mary
; he was admitted to the bar in 1786. Giles supported the new Constitution during the ratification debates of 1788, but was not a member of the ratifying convention.
Giles was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives
in a special election in 1790, taking the seat of Theodorick Bland
, who had died in office on 1 June; he is believed to be the first member of the United States Congress
elected in a special election. He was to be re-elected three times; he resigned October 2, 1798, on the grounds of ill health, and in disgust at the Alien and Sedition Acts
. During this first period in Congress, he fervently supported his fellow Virginian James Madison
against Alexander Hamilton
. He introduced three sets of resolutions in 1793, which criticized Hamilton's conduct as Secretary of the Treasury to the point of accusing him of misconduct in office; he opposed the first Bank of the United States
and Jay's Treaty; he resisted naval appropriations during the Quasi-War
of 1798. In the same year, he voted for the Virginia Resolutions in the House of Delegates.
After another term in the House, from 1801 to 1803, Giles was appointed as a Senator
from Virginia after the resignation of Wilson Cary Nicholas
in 1804. Giles served in the U.S. Senate, being reappointed in 1810, until he resigned on 3 March 1815. Senator Giles strongly advocated the removal of Justice Samuel Chase
after his impeachment
, urging the Senate to consider it as a political decision (whether the people of the United States should have confidence in Chase) rather than a trial.
Giles was deeply disappointed by the acquittal of Chase. He supported the election of Madison as President in 1808, in preference to the Old Republican insurgents' candidate, James Monroe
, and definitely to the Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
. In fact, Giles was Madison's chief advocate in Virginia.
After the election, however, he joined with Senator Samuel Smith
of Maryland
and his brother Robert Smith, the Secretary of State, in criticizing Madison; first as too weak on England, and then, in 1812, as too precipitate in going to war - he did, however, vote for the declaration of war. He particularly disliked Albert Gallatin
, the Secretary of the Treasury, and was largely responsible for preventing his nomination as Secretary of State and for defeating Gallatin's bill of 1811 for a new Bank of the United States.
Giles' refusal to accept the General Assembly's instructions led to his rejection at the next poll for a senator. (Senators in those days were elected by the state legislatures.) Giles served one relatively uneventful term in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1816-17, and then retired from political office for a time. He did, however, publish opinion pieces and columns, chiefly in the Richmond, Virginia
, Enquirer, in which he deplored the Era of Good Feeling as a false prosperity, given over to banks, tariffs, and fraudulent internal improvements; these would centralize and corrupt government, and ruin the farmers. He attacked John Quincy Adams
and Henry Clay
as he had attacked Hamilton, as corrupt Anglophiles.
Giles also published a perceptive criticism of the Jeffersonian program for public education. As Giles explained, it was unjust to tax one man to educate another man's children, and the teachers the government employed would constitute a special interest always at the ready to vote for higher taxes and higher government spending. Besides, he said, giving every boy in Virginia three years of school would have limited practical utility, would deprive farm families of much-needed labor power, and would leave the typical "scholar" unfitted for the return to hard labor that awaited him.
When James Barbour
left the Senate in 1825, Giles attempted to persuade the Legislature to appoint him as replacement; they appointed John Randolph instead. In 1826, Giles was again elected to the House of Delegates, and in 1827 he was elected Governor; Giles served as Governor of Virginia
for three terms, from March 4, 1827 to March 4, 1830. From the governorship, Giles encouraged Virginia's Senator Littleton Waller Tazewell
to organize a southern resistance to the American System of Henry Clay centered on a boycott on northern manufactures. Tazewell found little support for it among southern senators.
In Giles' last term, he was a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-30; he strongly supported the existing apportionment of the House of Delegates, which gave the eastern counties of Virginia, with a minority of the voters, control of the legislature. He did favor reform of the suffrage requirements, however. Giles also opposed the movement in the Convention to strengthen his own office, the governorship. Strong governorships in other states, such as New York, were at the center of political machines kept together by patronage and corruption, he said, and the reason Virginians had not suffered from those ills was that there was no point in fighting for control of Virginia's weak governorship. Rather than follow the example of New York, with its Clintonian party machine, it was better for Virginia to retain George Mason's executive model. Giles lost on this point to some extent: while the governor's term remained short and he was still accountable to the General Assembly, the Constitution of 1830 abolished the Council—and thus made the governorship a bit more independent.
Counties in two states were named in his honor. One in the state of Virginia, Giles County, Virginia
, and one in the state of Tennessee, Giles County, Tennessee.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
statesman, long-term Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
from Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, and the 24th Governor of Virginia
Governor of Virginia
The governor of Virginia serves as the chief executive of the Commonwealth of Virginia for a four-year term. The position is currently held by Republican Bob McDonnell, who was inaugurated on January 16, 2010, as the 71st governor of Virginia....
. He served in the House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
from 1790 to 1798, and again from 1801 to 1803; in between, he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates
Virginia House of Delegates
The Virginia House of Delegates is the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbered years. The House is presided over by the Speaker of the House, who is elected from among the...
, and was an Elector for Jefferson (and Aaron Burr) in 1800. He served as United States Senator from 1804 to 1815, and then served briefly in the House of Delegates again. After a time in private life, he joined the opposition to John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
and Henry Clay
Henry Clay
Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...
, in 1824; he ran for Senate again in 1825, and was defeated, but appointed Governor for three one-year terms in 1827; he was succeeded by John Floyd
John Floyd (Virginia politician)
John Floyd was a Virginia politician and soldier. He represented Virginia in the United States House of Representatives and later served as the 25th Governor of Virginia....
, in the year of his death.
Life
He was born and died in Amelia County, VirginiaAmelia County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 11,400 people, 4,240 households, and 3,175 families residing in the county. The population density was 32 people per square mile . There were 4,609 housing units at an average density of 13 per square mile...
, where he built his home, The Wigwam. Giles attended Prince Edward Academy, now Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden–Sydney College is a liberal arts college for men located in Hampden Sydney, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1775, Hampden–Sydney is the oldest private charter college in the Southern U.S., the last college founded before the American Revolution, and one of only three four-year,...
, and the College of New Jersey. now Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
; he probably followed Samuel Stanhope Smith
Samuel Stanhope Smith
Samuel Stanhope Smith was a Presbyterian minister, founding president of Hampden-Sydney College and the seventh president of the College of New Jersey from 1795 to 1812. His stormy career ended in his enforced resignation...
, who was teaching at Prince Edward Academy when he was appointed President of the College in 1779. He then went on to study law with Chancellor George Wythe
George Wythe
George Wythe was an American lawyer, a judge, a prominent law professor and "Virginia's foremost classical scholar." He was a teacher and mentor of Thomas Jefferson. Wythe's signature is positioned at the head of the list of seven Virginia signatories on the United States Declaration of Independence...
and at the College of William and Mary
College of William and Mary
The College of William & Mary in Virginia is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States...
; he was admitted to the bar in 1786. Giles supported the new Constitution during the ratification debates of 1788, but was not a member of the ratifying convention.
Giles was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
in a special election in 1790, taking the seat of Theodorick Bland
Theodorick Bland (congressman)
Theodorick Bland , also known as Theodorick Bland, Jr., was a physician, soldier, and statesman from Prince George County, Virginia...
, who had died in office on 1 June; he is believed to be the first member of the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
elected in a special election. He was to be re-elected three times; he resigned October 2, 1798, on the grounds of ill health, and in disgust at the Alien and Sedition Acts
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists in the 5th United States Congress in the aftermath of the French Revolution's reign of terror and during an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. They were signed into law by President John Adams...
. During this first period in Congress, he fervently supported his fellow Virginian James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
against Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury...
. He introduced three sets of resolutions in 1793, which criticized Hamilton's conduct as Secretary of the Treasury to the point of accusing him of misconduct in office; he opposed the first Bank of the United States
First Bank of the United States
The First Bank of the United States is a National Historic Landmark located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania within Independence National Historical Park.-Banking History:...
and Jay's Treaty; he resisted naval appropriations during the Quasi-War
Quasi-War
The Quasi-War was an undeclared war fought mostly at sea between the United States and French Republic from 1798 to 1800. In the United States, the conflict was sometimes also referred to as the Franco-American War, the Pirate Wars, or the Half-War.-Background:The Kingdom of France had been a...
of 1798. In the same year, he voted for the Virginia Resolutions in the House of Delegates.
After another term in the House, from 1801 to 1803, Giles was appointed as a Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
from Virginia after the resignation of Wilson Cary Nicholas
Wilson Cary Nicholas
Wilson Cary Nicholas was an American politician who served in the U.S. Senate from 1799 to 1804 and was the 19th Governor of Virginia from 1814 to 1816....
in 1804. Giles served in the U.S. Senate, being reappointed in 1810, until he resigned on 3 March 1815. Senator Giles strongly advocated the removal of Justice Samuel Chase
Samuel Chase
Samuel Chase was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and earlier was a signatory to the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of Maryland. Early in life, Chase was a "firebrand" states-righter and revolutionary...
after his impeachment
Impeachment
Impeachment is a formal process in which an official is accused of unlawful activity, the outcome of which, depending on the country, may include the removal of that official from office as well as other punishment....
, urging the Senate to consider it as a political decision (whether the people of the United States should have confidence in Chase) rather than a trial.
Giles was deeply disappointed by the acquittal of Chase. He supported the election of Madison as President in 1808, in preference to the Old Republican insurgents' candidate, James Monroe
James Monroe
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...
, and definitely to the Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
Charles Cotesworth “C. C.” Pinckney , was an early American statesman of South Carolina, Revolutionary War veteran, and delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He was twice nominated by the Federalist Party as their presidential candidate, but he did not win either election.-Early life and...
. In fact, Giles was Madison's chief advocate in Virginia.
After the election, however, he joined with Senator Samuel Smith
Samuel Smith (Maryland)
Samuel Smith was a United States Senator and Representative from Maryland, a mayor of Baltimore, Maryland, and a general in the Maryland militia. He was the brother of cabinet secretary Robert Smith.-Biography:...
of Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
and his brother Robert Smith, the Secretary of State, in criticizing Madison; first as too weak on England, and then, in 1812, as too precipitate in going to war - he did, however, vote for the declaration of war. He particularly disliked Albert Gallatin
Albert Gallatin
Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin was a Swiss-American ethnologist, linguist, politician, diplomat, congressman, and the longest-serving United States Secretary of the Treasury. In 1831, he founded the University of the City of New York...
, the Secretary of the Treasury, and was largely responsible for preventing his nomination as Secretary of State and for defeating Gallatin's bill of 1811 for a new Bank of the United States.
Giles' refusal to accept the General Assembly's instructions led to his rejection at the next poll for a senator. (Senators in those days were elected by the state legislatures.) Giles served one relatively uneventful term in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1816-17, and then retired from political office for a time. He did, however, publish opinion pieces and columns, chiefly in the Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, Enquirer, in which he deplored the Era of Good Feeling as a false prosperity, given over to banks, tariffs, and fraudulent internal improvements; these would centralize and corrupt government, and ruin the farmers. He attacked John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
and Henry Clay
Henry Clay
Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...
as he had attacked Hamilton, as corrupt Anglophiles.
Giles also published a perceptive criticism of the Jeffersonian program for public education. As Giles explained, it was unjust to tax one man to educate another man's children, and the teachers the government employed would constitute a special interest always at the ready to vote for higher taxes and higher government spending. Besides, he said, giving every boy in Virginia three years of school would have limited practical utility, would deprive farm families of much-needed labor power, and would leave the typical "scholar" unfitted for the return to hard labor that awaited him.
When James Barbour
James Barbour
James Barbour was an American lawyer, amember and speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, the 18th Governor of Virginia, the first Governor to reside in the current Virginia Governor's Mansion, a U.S. Senator from 1814–1825, and the United States Secretary of War from 1825-1828.Barbour was a...
left the Senate in 1825, Giles attempted to persuade the Legislature to appoint him as replacement; they appointed John Randolph instead. In 1826, Giles was again elected to the House of Delegates, and in 1827 he was elected Governor; Giles served as Governor of Virginia
Governor of Virginia
The governor of Virginia serves as the chief executive of the Commonwealth of Virginia for a four-year term. The position is currently held by Republican Bob McDonnell, who was inaugurated on January 16, 2010, as the 71st governor of Virginia....
for three terms, from March 4, 1827 to March 4, 1830. From the governorship, Giles encouraged Virginia's Senator Littleton Waller Tazewell
Littleton Waller Tazewell
Littleton Waller Tazewell was a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator from and the 26th Governor of Virginia.Tazewell, son of Henry Tazewell, was born in Williamsburg, Virginia, where his grandfather Benjamin Waller was a lawyer who taught him Latin...
to organize a southern resistance to the American System of Henry Clay centered on a boycott on northern manufactures. Tazewell found little support for it among southern senators.
In Giles' last term, he was a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-30; he strongly supported the existing apportionment of the House of Delegates, which gave the eastern counties of Virginia, with a minority of the voters, control of the legislature. He did favor reform of the suffrage requirements, however. Giles also opposed the movement in the Convention to strengthen his own office, the governorship. Strong governorships in other states, such as New York, were at the center of political machines kept together by patronage and corruption, he said, and the reason Virginians had not suffered from those ills was that there was no point in fighting for control of Virginia's weak governorship. Rather than follow the example of New York, with its Clintonian party machine, it was better for Virginia to retain George Mason's executive model. Giles lost on this point to some extent: while the governor's term remained short and he was still accountable to the General Assembly, the Constitution of 1830 abolished the Council—and thus made the governorship a bit more independent.
Legacy
Giles married twice; first, Martha Peyton Tabb in 1797; he built his 28-room house, "The Wigwam", for her. After she died, in 1808, he married Frances Ann Gwynn in 1810. His surviving children, one son and two daughters, appear to have been from the second marriage.Counties in two states were named in his honor. One in the state of Virginia, Giles County, Virginia
Giles County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 16,657 people, 6,994 households, and 4,888 families residing in the county. The population density was 47 people per square mile . There were 7,732 housing units at an average density of 22 per square mile...
, and one in the state of Tennessee, Giles County, Tennessee.
Further reading
- Dice Anderson, William Branch Giles; A Study in the Politics of Virginia and the Nation from 1790 to 1830, George Banta, 1914 and William Branch Giles, a Life, George Banta, 1915.
- Mary A. Giunta, The Public Life of William Branch Giles, Republican, 1790-1815, Ph.D. dissertation, Catholic University, 1980. For some reason, this study leaves off before Giles' editorial and gubernatorial career.
- Kevin R. C. Gutzman, Virginia's American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840, Lexington Books, 2007.
- Kevin R. C. Gutzman, "Preserving the Patrimony: William Branch Giles and Virginia vs. The Federal Tariff," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography" 104 (Summer 1996), 341-72.