Virginia in the Union: 20 U.S. Senators from Virginia in six parts
Part 4. 1881-1921: Populism, Jim Crow, Progressivism, World War I (VUS SOL the Emergence of Modern America)
William Mahone, Congresses 47-49. Presidents Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland
John W. Daniel, Congresses 50-60. Presidents Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, T. Roosevelt, Taft.
Thomas S. Martin, Congresses 54-66. Presidents Cleveland, McKinley, T. Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson
See List of United States Senators from Virginia for a comprehensive overview of them all with their portraits, and how their terms overlapped in Congress. See Lists of Presidents of the United States for a comprehensive list with portraits of each president.
With the twenty longest-serving U.S. Senators, every U.S. Congress and Presidential term is represented. This gives the history-as-biography approach to history a comprehensive survey of U.S. and Virginia.
Senate years of service and political party are listed along with their corresponding Presidents in the second paragraph of each article. All initial entries come from the Biographical Directory of the Congress of the United States at bioguide.congress.gov.
MAHONE, William, a Senator from Virginia.
Senate Years of Service: 1881-1887. Party: Readjuster. Republican. Presidents: James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland.
Born in Southampton County, Va., December 1, 1826. graduated from the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington in 1847. taught two years at the Rappahannock Military Academy.
Became a civil engineer with the Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad and rose to president, chief engineer, and superintendent.
Joined the Confederate Army and took part in the capture of Norfolk Navy Yard. He participated in most of the battles of the Peninsula Campaign, on the Rappahannock and at Petersburg, where he was known as “the hero of the crater”. He was commissioned brigadier general and major general in 1864.
At the close of the Civil War returned to railroad engineering, and became president of the Norfolk and Tennessee Railroad Company, later the Norfolk and Western.
Mahone was defeated in 1878 for the governor’s nomination, but he became the leader of the Readjuster Party.
Elected to the United States Senate as a Readjuster and subsequently joined the Republican Party. served from March 4, 1881, until March 3, 1887. unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1887. chairman, Committee on Agriculture (Forty-seventh Congress), Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses). He was defeated when he ran for re-election.
William Mahone died in Washington, D.C., October 8, 1895. His interment was in Blandford Cemetery, Petersburg, Va.
Bibliography
Congressional Biographical Directory online, American National Biography. Dictionary of American Biography. Blake, Nelson. William Mahone of Virginia: Soldier and Political Insurgent. Richmond: Garrett and Massie, 1935. . Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, vol. III, William Mahone, p. 73
DANIEL, John Warwick, a Representative and a Senator from Virginia.
Senate Years of Service: 1887-1910. Party: Democrat. Presidents: Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft.
Born in Lynchburg, Va., September 5, 1842. attended private schools, Lynchburg College, and Dr. Gessner Harrison’s University School.
During the Civil War served in the Confederate Army 1861-1864, attaining the rank of major on the staff of Gen. Jubal A. Early. He was permanently disabled in the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864.
Studied law at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. admitted to the bar in 1866 and commenced practice at Lynchburg, Va with his father, William Daniel.
John W. Daniel was a member of the House of Delegates 1869-1872, then of the State senate for two terms, 1875-1881. Daniel advocated for the establishment of a free school system, and he sponsored an act to aid school restoration when school funding was cut in the funding act of 1870. During that time he was twice an unsuccessful nominee for Congress on the Democratic ticket.
Unsuccessful nominee for Governor in 1877 when a deadlock between himself and his main competitor resulted in a compromise candidate. On getting the Democratic nomination for governor in 1881, he lost to the Readjuster candidate on the issue of funding the state debt.
Elected as a Democrat to the Forty-ninth Congress (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1887). did not seek renomination in 1886, having been elected Senator to succeed William Mahone.
Elected in 1885 as a Democrat to the United States Senate. reelected in 1891, 1897, 1904, and 1910, and served from March 4, 1887, until his death on June 29, 1910. died before his credentials for the last election could be presented. At the time, he had served longer than any other U.S. Senator from Virginia. chairman, Committee on Revision of the Laws of the United States (Fifty-third Congress), Committee on Corporations Organized in the District of Columbia (Fifty-fifth Congress), Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine (Sixtieth Congress), Committee on Private Land Claims (Sixty-first Congress).
In Congress, Daniel initiated southern representation in the South American Congress at Rio de Janeiro. He sponsored a national powder factory to break the power of the Powder Trust, and advocated for a railroad rate bill.
In Virginia’s Constitutional Convention of 1801-1902, he made a minority report on suffrage which was eventually adopted, disenfranchising over half the white voters and virtually all of the blacks.
Daniel’s two scholarly law works, “Daniel on Negotiable Instruments” and “Daniel on Attachments” won him recognition by LLD degrees from both Washington and Lee University and the University of Michigan.
John Warwick Daniel died in Lynchburg, Va.. He was interred there in Spring Hill Cemetery.
Bibliography
Congressional Biographical Directory online, American National Biography. Dictionary of American Biography. Daniel, Edward M., comp. Speeches and Orations of John Warwick Daniel. Lynchburg, VA: J.P. Bell Co., 1911. Doss, Richard. “John Warwick Daniel: A Study in the Virginia Democracy.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1955.
Lyon Gardiner. Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, vol. III, John Warwick Daniel, p. 104.
MARTIN, Thomas Staples, a Senator from Virginia.
Senate Years of Service: 1895-1919. Party: Democrat. Presidents: Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson.
Born in Scottsville, Albemarle County, Va., July 29, 1847. attended the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington 1864-1865, and the University of Virginia at Charlottesville 1865-1867.
Served in the Confederate army in the VMI cadet batallion.
Martin studied law on his own. admitted to the bar in 1869 and practiced in Albemarle County. member of the board of visitors of the Miller Manual Labor School of Albemarle County. member of the board of visitors of the University of Virginia.
A member of the Democratic General Committee, and a protégé of its chairman John S. Barbour, he was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1893 over former Governor and Confederate General Fitzhugh Lee. Martin was reelected in 1899, 1905, 1911, and 1918, and served from March 4, 1895, until his death in Charlottesville, Va., November 12, 1919.
In 1904 the Democrats adopted the primary system of nominating their candidate for U.S. Senator outside of their caucus in the General Assembly. Martin successfully won his nomination that year against the popular former Governor A. J. Montague.
Martin was Democratic caucus chairman 1911-1913, 1917-1919. chairman, Committee on Corporations Organized in the District of Columbia (Fifty-seventh through Fifty-ninth Congresses), Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine (Sixty-first Congress), Committee on Appropriations (Sixty-third through Sixty-fifth Congresses).
During his tenure as a U.S. Senator, Martin secured a final settlement of the Federal debt owed to Virginia from the War of 1812. He secured appropriations for expansion of the custom houses at Newport News and Petersburg.
Thomas Staples Martin is interred in the University of Virginia Cemetery.
Bibliography
Congressional Biographical Directory online, Dictionary of American Biography. Holt, Wythe W., Jr. “The Senator from Virginia and the Democratic Floor Leadership: Thomas S. Martin and Conservatism in the Progressive Era.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 83 (January 1975): 3-21. Reeves, Pascal. ”Thomas S. Martin: Committee Statesman.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 68 (July 1960): 344-64.
Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, vol. III, Thomas Staples Martin, p. 105.