John Sharp Williams

John Sharp Williams ( born July 30, 1854 in Memphis, Tennessee; † September 27, 1932 ) was an American politician of the Democratic Party, who represented the state of Mississippi in both chambers of the U.S. Congress.

Life

John Sharp Williams was born in Tennessee, but spent much of his youth in Yazoo County, Mississippi, after he had lost his parents during the American Civil War. After he had studied at five different universities, including the University of Heidelberg, he received his law degree in 1876 from the University of Virginia. After a brief return to Memphis, where he married in 1877 Elizabeth Dial Webb, he returned to the Yazoo County, where he managed the plantation his family 1878-1893 and worked as a lawyer.

Policy

After he was elected in 1893 to the U.S. House of Representatives, Williams rose quickly, not least thanks to its speaker talent to one of the leaders of the democratic minority faction. In 1903 he took over the position of Minority Leader, a position he held until 1908. Like most Southern Democrats this time he distinguished himself as a supporter of silver currency and opponents of high tariffs; he differed from them, however, in that it did not make any racist statements that had its popularity among voters to increase.

With one of the leading racists in Mississippi, James K. Vardaman, it got Williams to do then in 1910 when he ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate. He won against the incumbent and was a senator one of the most outspoken supporters of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson of the nomination by the 1912 party to the lost battle for the U.S. membership in the League of Nations, 1920. Moreover, he served during this time as Chairman of the Committee to Establish a University of the United States. This committee did not reach his goal to create a university in the United States, however; Williams' was his last chairman before the dissolution in 1921.

1923 John left Sharp Williams, who always proudly pointed to the contribution of his " compatriots " to build up the U.S. due to his Welsh origin, the Senate. He returned to the plantation his family, where he spent the last decade of his life. John Williams was a cousin of Congressman Sydenham Benoni Alexander.

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