William Branch Giles

"Senator Giles" redirects here. For other uses, seeSenator Giles (disambiguation).

William Branch Giles
portrait by John Adams Elder
24thGovernor of Virginia
In office March 4, 1827 – March 4, 1830
Preceded by	John Tyler
Succeeded by	John Floyd
United States Senator fromVirginia
In office December 4, 1804 – March 3, 1815
Preceded by	Andrew Moore
Succeeded by	Armistead T. Mason
In office August 11, 1804 – December 4, 1804
Appointed by	John Page
Preceded by	Abraham B. Venable
Succeeded by	Andrew Moore
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromVirginia's9thdistrict
In office March 4, 1801 – March 3, 1803
Preceded by	Joseph Eggleston
Succeeded by	Philip R. Thompson
In office December 7, 1790 – October 2, 1798
Preceded by	Theodorick Bland
Succeeded by	Joseph Eggleston
Member of theVirginia House of DelegatesfromAmelia County
In office 1826–1827
In office 1816–1817
In office 1798–1800
Personal details
Born	(1762-08-12)August 12, 1762 Amelia Courthouse,Colony of Virginia,British America
Died	December 4, 1830(1830-12-04)(aged 68) Amelia Courthouse,Virginia,U.S.
Political party	Democratic-Republican
Alma mater	College of William & Mary Hampden–Sydney College

William Branch Giles(August 12, 1762 – December 4, 1830; thegis pronounced like aj) was an American statesman, long-termSenatorfromVirginia,and the24thGovernor of Virginia.He served in theHouse of Representativesfrom 1790 to 1798 and again from 1801 to 1803; in between, he was a member of theVirginia House of Delegatesand was anElectorfor Jefferson (and Aaron Burr) in 1800. He served as a 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 toJohn Quincy AdamsandHenry Clayin 1824; he ran for the Senate again in 1825 and was defeated but appointed Governor for three one-year terms in 1827; he was succeeded byJohn Floyd,in the year of his death.

Biography

He was born and died inAmelia County,where he built his home,The Wigwam.Giles attended Prince Edward Academy, nowHampden–Sydney College,and the College of New Jersey, nowPrinceton University;he probably followedSamuel 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 ChancellorGeorge Wytheand at theCollege 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 theU.S. House of Representativesin a special election in 1790, taking the seat ofTheodorick Bland,who had died in office on June 1; he is believed to be the first member of theUnited States Congressto be elected in aspecial election.He was to be re-elected three times; he resigned on October 2, 1798, on the grounds of ill health and in disgust at theAlien and Sedition Acts.

During this first period in Congress, he fervently supported his fellow VirginiansJames MadisonandThomas JeffersonagainstAlexander Hamiltonand his ideas for anational bankpreferring Jefferson's idea of anagrarian republic.Working with Jefferson and Madison, he introduced three sets of resolutions in 1793, which attempted tocensureHamilton's "administration of finances" asSecretary of the Treasuryto the point of accusing him of maladministration in office under theFunding Act of 1790to force the US to repay America's debts to France following theFrench Revolution.Per this goal, he opposed the pro-BritishJay's Treatyand resisted naval appropriation to be used against France during theQuasi-War.In the same year, he voted for theKentucky and Virginia Resolutionsin the House of Delegates to declare theAlien and Sedition Actsunconstitutional.

After another term in the House, from 1801 to 1803, Giles was appointed as aSenatorfrom Virginia after the resignation ofWilson Cary Nicholasin 1804. Giles served in the US Senate and was reappointed in 1810 until he resigned on March 3, 1815. Giles strongly advocated the removal of JusticeSamuel Chaseafter hisimpeachment,urging the Senate to consider it as a political decision (as to whether the people of the United States should have confidence in Chase) rather than as 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 Federalist candidateCharles Cotesworth Pinckney.Giles was Madison's chief advocate in Virginia.

After the election, however, he joined with SenatorSamuel SmithofMarylandand his brotherRobert Smith,the Secretary of State, in criticizing Madison; first as too weak on Britain and then, in 1812, as too precipitate in going to war; however, voted for thedeclaration of war.He dislikedAlbert Gallatin,the Secretary of the Treasury, who was primarily responsible for preventing his nomination as Secretary of State and defeating Gallatin's bill of 1811 for a new Bank of the United States.

Giles's refusal to accept the General Assembly's instructions led to his rejection at the next poll for a senator. (The state legislatures elected senators in those days.) Giles served one relatively uneventful term in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1816–1817 and then retired from political office for a time. He, however, published opinion pieces and columns, chiefly in theRichmond, Virginia,Enquirer,in which he deplored theEra of Good Feelingsas false prosperity, given over to banks, tariffs, and fraudulent internal improvements; these would centralize and corrupt government, and ruin the farmers. He attackedJohn Quincy AdamsandHenry Clayas he had attacked Hamilton, calling them corrupt Anglophiles.

Giles also published a criticism of the Jeffersonian program for public education. Giles argued that it was unjust to tax one man to educate another man's children, and the teachers that the government employed would constitute a special interest, always ready to vote for higher taxes and government spending. Besides, he said, giving every boy in Virginia three years of school would have limited practical utility, deprive farm families of much-needed labor power, and leave the typical "scholar" unfitted for the return to hard labor that awaited him.

WhenJames Barbourleft the Senate in 1825, Giles attempted to persuade the legislature to appoint him as a replacement; they appointedJohn Randolphinstead. In 1826, Giles was again elected to the House of Delegates, and in 1827 he was elected Governor; Giles served asGovernor of Virginiafor three terms, from March 4, 1827, to March 4, 1830. From the governorship, Giles encouraged Virginia's SenatorLittleton Waller Tazewellto organize a southern resistance to theAmerican SystemofHenry Claycentered on a boycott on northern manufactures. Tazewell found little support for it among southern senators.

In Giles's last term, he was a member of theVirginia Constitutional Convention of 1829–1830where he strongly supported the existing apportionment of the House of Delegates, giving 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 asNew York,were at the center of political machines kept together by patronage and corruption, he said, and the reason that Virginia had not suffered from those ills was that the governorship in his state was too weak to be worth fighting for. Rather than follow the example of New York, with its party machine, it was better for Virginia to retainGeorge Mason's executive model. Giles lost to some extent: while the governor's term remained short and was still accountable to the General Assembly, theConstitution of 1830abolished the privy council, thus making the governorship a bit more independent.

Legacy

Giles married twice; first,Martha Peyton Tabb,in 1797; he built his 18-room house, "TheWigwam,"for her. They had three children. After she died in 1808, he married Frances Ann Gwynn in 1810 and had three more children.

Counties in two states were named in his honor:Giles County, VirginiaandGiles County, Tennessee.His name also graces a residence hall at theCollege of William and Mary.

The Wigwamwas added to theNational Register of Historic Placesin 1969.

References

• F. Thornton Miller, "Giles, William Branch";American National Biography Online,Feb. 2000. Access Date: Wed November 26, 16:23:26 EST 2008 (link requires subscription
• W. Frank Craven, "William Branch Giles" inPrincetonians, 1776–1783; a Biographical Dictionary,Princeton University Press,1981.

Further reading

• Dice Anderson,William Branch Giles; A Study in the Politics of Virginia and the Nation from 1790 to 1830,George Banta, 1914 andWilliam 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.

External links

• United States Congress."William Branch Giles (id: G000183)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• A Guide to the Governor William B. Giles Executive Papers, 1827–1830atThe Library of Virginia