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American National Biography Online Brawley, William Hiram (13 May 1841-15 Nov. 1916), South Carolina politician and federal judge, was born in Chester, South Carolina, the son of Hiram Brawley, a planter, and Harriet Foote. He graduated from the South Carolina College in 1860. When South Carolina seceded, he volunteered for military service as a private in the Sixth South Carolina Volunteers. His unit saw action in the reduction of Fort Sumter and was then transferred to the Virginia front. As a result of wounds he received in the battle of Seven Pines (May 1862), his left arm had to be amputated. Discharged from military duty, he went back home to manage his father's plantation. In 1864, still in poor health, he ran the Union naval blockade and spent the remainder of the war in England and France studying law and literature. Returning to Chester in November 1865, Brawley read law with an uncle and was admitted to the bar in 1866. In 1868 he married Marion Emma Porter of Charleston. In the same year he was elected solicitor of the sixth circuit; reelected in 1872, he resigned in 1874 and moved to Charleston to practice law with his father-in-law. There he established a lucrative corporate law practice. He became the leading railroad lawyer in South Carolina, serving as a director of the South Carolina Railroad and the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. As general counsel for the latter railroad, he possessed the authority to distribute free railroad passes and to appoint the railroad's attorneys in small low-country towns. As a result, Brawley gained considerable influence in political and legal circles. When the Southern Railway leased the South Carolina Railroad in 1890, he became its general counsel. By 1882 Brawley had become one of the leading members of the South Carolina bar, and he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in that year. Between 1882 and 1890 Charleston attorneys dominated the county's legislative delegation and the general assembly. For most of this period, Brawley preferred to work behind the scenes, but at the end of the decade he chaired the House Judiciary Committee. The issues he tackled reflected both his interests and his background. An alumnus of the University of South Carolina, he led the fight to reject the legacy of Thomas G. Clemson to create a state agricultural college, seeing it as a threat to his alma mater. The leading railroad lawyer in the state, he also opposed giving the state railway commission the authority to set rates without giving the railroads the right to appeal, loath, as he was, to let popular discontent with the railroads lead to meaningful state regulation. During Benjamin Ryan Tillman's gubernatorial campaign of 1890, Tillman constantly damned the "Charleston Ring" of lawyers, which he believed ran the state. Although Brawley did not succeed in defeating Tillman, he did win election from the First District of South Carolina to the Fifty-second (1891-1893) and Fifty-third (1893-1895) Congresses of the United States. During his two terms in Washington, Brawley was one of the few southern Democrats who supported President Grover Cleveland's hard-money policies. He spoke against the free coinage of silver and became the only southerner to vote against the Bland Silver Bill. He also favored repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. When the federal district judgeship for South Carolina became vacant in 1894, Cleveland appointed Brawley to the position. While there is little question that his support of the president's policies figured into his appointment, so too, in all probability, did his railroad connections. Judge Brawley remained on the bench until he retired on 14 June 1911. After the death of his first wife, with whom he had three children, Brawley in 1907 married Mildred Frost of Charleston; they did not have children. Nine years later, he died in the city he had made his home for over thirty years. Contemporaries considered Brawley one of the best public speakers in South Carolina. His 1905 address on the dedication of the Confederate monument in Chester drew nationwide attention. In it he took the line that through misunderstandings the nation had blundered into the tragedy of civil war. Those who fell in the conflict, whether they wore blue or gray, all "died for their country" (Charleston News and Courier). Harper's Weekly agreed completely with Brawley's remarks, described the speech as "an oration admirable in thought, word, and spirit," and commended it to its readers. William Hiram Brawley--leader of the state bar, railroad counsel, legislator, congressman, and federal judge--was one of the most powerful men in late nineteenth-century South Carolina. Yet, only a few years after his death, he had been forgotten. Even David Duncan Wallace's detailed, four-volume History of South Carolina (1934) has only one minor reference to him. Brawley generally operated behind the scenes, and his reputation has been eclipsed by the more visible and vocal political figures of the day. Bibliography There are two small Brawley manuscript collections: the William H. Brawley Papers in the South Caroliniana Library (Columbia) and the Brawley miscellaneous papers in the William H. Perkins Library at Duke University. An interesting collection of correspondence (1886) between Brawley and Tillman is in the Joseph W. Barnwell Papers in the South Carolina Historical Society (Charleston). The complete text of Brawley's 10 May 1905 oration can be found in the Charleston News and Courier, 11 May 1905, p. 5, and the national reaction to it in Harper's Weekly, 27 May 1905, p. 747. Sketches of Brawley can be found in Cyclopedia of Eminent and Representative Men of the Carolinas, Volume I: South Carolina (1892; repr. 1972); U. R. Brooks, South Carolina Bench and Bar (1908); and J. C. Hemphill, Men of Mark in South Carolina (1906). See also his obituary and related stories in the Charleston News and Courier, 15 Nov. 1916, p. 10; 16 Nov. 1916, pp. 4, 10; 17 Nov. 1916, p. 10. William J. Cooper, Jr., The Conservative Regime: South Carolina, 1877-1890 (1968), mentions Brawley briefly in discussing the Conservative opposition to Tillman. The best and most recent assessment of Brawley and his role in post-Civil War South Carolina society is in George C. Rogers, Jr., Generations of Lawyers: A History of The South Carolina Bar (1992). Walter B. Edgar Citation: Walter B. Edgar. "Brawley, William Hiram"; http://www.anb.org/articles/05/05-00089.html; American National Biography Online Feb. 2000. Access Date: Copyright (c) 2000 American Council of Learned Societies. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Copyright Notice Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the American National Biography of the Day and Sample Biographies provided that the following statement is preserved on all copies: From American National Biography, published by Oxford University Press, Inc., copyright 2000 American Council of Learned Societies. Further information is available at http://www.anb.org. American National Biography articles may not be published commercially (in print or electronic form), edited, reproduced or otherwise altered without the written permission of Oxford University Press which acts as an agent in these matters for the copyright holder, the American Council of Learned Societies. 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