William G. Brantley

For the Confederate general, see William F. Brantley.

William G. Brantley
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia's 11th district
In office March 4, 1897 – March 3, 1913
Preceded by	Henry G. Turner
Succeeded by	John Randall Walker
Member of the Georgia Senate
In office 1886-1887
Member of the Georgia House of Representatives
In office 1884-1885
Personal details
Born	(1860-09-18)September 18, 1860 Blackshear, Georgia
Died	September 11, 1934(1934-09-11) (aged 73) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	University of Georgia
Occupation	lawyer

William Gordon Brantley (September 18, 1860 – September 11, 1934) was a southern American state and federal politician and lawyer in the state of Georgia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Brantley was born in Blackshear, (the county seat of Pierce County), in Georgia.

He attended the University of Georgia (UGA) at Athens, after his graduation, he then passed the law examinations and gained admission to the state bar in 1881, and began practicing law in Blackshear.

Brantley served in both legislative chambers of the bicameral General Assembly of Georgia (state legislature) during the 1880s. He was first elected to the lower chamber of the Georgia House of Representatives in 1884 and 1885 and subsequently in later years to the upper house of the Georgia Senate in 1886 and 1887. Afterwards, in 1888, he became solicitor general of the state Circuit Court in nearby Brunswick, Georgia.

Eight years later, in 1896, Brantley successfully ran for federal office of the United States House of Representatives (the lower chamber of the Congress of the United States) as a southern Democrat in Georgia's 11th congressional district in the northwest region of the state. He was re-elected to the House for seven more 2-year terms, serving from 1897 to 1913, until deciding not to run for re-election and standing down 16 years later in the summer of 1912.

At the end of his federal congressional career, Brantley also served as a delegate to the famous 1912 Democratic National Convention then meeting in Baltimore, Maryland in its Fifth Regiment Armory in that summer of 1912. It was one of the most important political presidential nominating conventions in Democratic Party and American history. After a major battle through numerous ballots for the presidential nomination with James Beauchamp ("Champ") Clark (1850-1921), of Missouri, the then powerful Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), the then progressive / liberal Governor of New Jersey (and former president and professor at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey). Governor Wilson won the contest and was nominated for the office of the Presidency of the United States. After a three-way race during the brutal 1912 election campaign with contesting incumbent Republican 27th President William Howard Taft (1857-1930, served 1909-1913), and previous 26th President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919, served 1901-1909), (he was formerly also a Republican, but now running with the newly-organized third party of the Progressive Party, nicknamed the "Bullmoose Party"). The Democrat Wilson prevailed and was later elected the following national elections of November 1912 as the 28th President (serving two four-year terms until 1921).

After his congressional service of almost two decades on Capitol Hill at the United States Capitol in the national federal capital city of Washington, D.C., Brantley remained afterwards in Washington for another two decades to continue to practice law there. He died in that city in 1934 and was returned home to The South and Georgia to be buried in Blackshear Cemetery in the town of his birth.

Congressman Brantley and/or his father Benjamin Daniel Brantley are considered to be the namesakes to Brantley County, Georgia, one of the more recent counties which was set-up in the state. It was separated from three other surrounding counties in southeastern Georgia, and was erected / organized in 1920, following the First World War (1914/1917-1918).

References

• United States Congress. "William G. Brantley (id: B000770)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• GeorgiaInfo Brantley County Courthouse History
• GeorgiaInfo record of the Brantley County State Historical Marker
• History of the University of Georgia, Thomas Walter Reed, Imprint: Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia, ca. 1949, p.1161

External links

• Works by or about William G. Brantley at the Internet Archive