William Higby

William Higby ( born August 18, 1813 in Willsboro, Essex County, New York, † November 27, 1887 in Santa Rosa, California ) was an American politician. Between 1863 and 1869 he represented the state of California in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

William Higby attended the public schools in Westport and then studied until 1840 at the University of Vermont in Burlington. After a subsequent law degree in 1847 and its recent approval as a lawyer, he started in Elizabethtown to work in this profession. In 1850 Higby moved into the Calaveras County, California, where he also practiced law. From 1853 to 1859 he was district attorney there. At the same time he proposed as a member of the Republican Party launched a political career. In the years 1862 and 1863 he sat in the Senate from California.

In the congressional elections of 1862 Higby was in the second electoral district of California in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of Aaron Augustus Sargent on March 4, 1863. After two re- election he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1869 three legislative periods. These were minted until 1865 by the events of the Civil War. Since 1865 the work of the Congress was overshadowed by the tensions between the Republican Party and President Andrew Johnson, which culminated in a narrowly failed impeachment. In the years 1865 and 1868 the 13th and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution were ratified. Since 1865, William Higby was Chairman of the Mining Committee. In 1868, he was not nominated by his party for re-election.

After the end of his time in the U.S. House of Representatives Higby worked for several years as a newspaper publisher. Between 1877 and 1881 he was head of the local tax authority in his California home. In addition, he devoted himself to horticulture. He died on November 27, 1887 in Santa Rosa and was buried in Oakland.