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Senate Years of Service: 1816-1823; 1826-1831 Party: Democratic Republican
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SMITH, William, a Senator from South Carolina; born around 1762, probably in North Carolina;
attended several private academies; studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1784; settled in
Pinckneyville, S.C., and later in Yorkville (now York), S.C., and practiced law; also was engaged as
a planter; member, State senate 1802-1808, and served as president of that body 1806-1808; judge
of the South Carolina Circuit Court 1808-1816; elected December 4, 1816, as a Democratic
Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Taylor;
on the same day was elected for the term commencing March 4, 1817, and served from December 4,
1816, to March 3, 1823; unsuccessful candidate for reelection; chairman, Committee on the
Judiciary (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Congresses); member, State house of representatives
1824-1825; again elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John
Gaillard and served from November 29, 1826, to March 3, 1831; unsuccessful candidate for
reelection in 1830; chairman, Committee on Private Land Claims (Twentieth Congress); member,
State senate 1831-1832; moved to Louisiana in 1832, and to a farm near Huntsville, Madison
County, Ala., in 1833; member, Alabama house of representatives 1836-1840; declined the
appointment of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States tendered by President
Andrew Jackson in 1829 and 1836; presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1836; died at his
estate Calhoun Place, on the Maysville Pike, near Huntsville, Ala., June 26, 1840; interment in the
family burial ground on the estate; reinterment in Maple Hill Cemetery, Huntsville, Ala.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Smith, Caroline. Jacksonian Conservative: The Later
Years of William Smith, 1826-1840. Ph.D. dissertation, Auburn University, 1977.
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