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Oil on canvas, Esther Edmonds, 1911, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives |
ORR, James Lawrence, a Representative from South Carolina; born in Craytonville, Anderson
County, S.C., May 12, 1822; attended the public schools, and was graduated from
the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1842; studied law; was
admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Anderson, S.C., in 1843; engaged
in newspaper work; member of the State house of representatives 1844-1847;
elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-first and to the four succeeding Congresses
(March 4, 1849-March 3, 1859); chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs
(Thirty-third Congress); Speaker of the House of Representatives (Thirty-fifth
Congress); was not a candidate for renomination in 1858; resumed the practice
of law at Craytonville; member of the southern rights convention held in
Charleston, S.C., in 1851; delegate to the Democratic National Convention at
Charleston in 1860; member of the secession convention in 1860; one of three
commissioners sent to Washington, D.C., to treat with the Federal Government
for the surrender of the forts in Charleston Harbor; Member of the Confederate
Senate in 1861; served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War; special
commissioner sent to President Johnson to negotiate the establishment of
provisional government for the State of South Carolina in 1865; member of the
State constitutional convention in 1865; elected Governor of South Carolina as
a Republican in 1866; president of the State convention at Columbia in July
1866; delegate to the Union National Convention at Philadelphia in August 1866;
judge of the eighth judicial circuit 1868-1870; member of the Republican State
convention in August 1872; delegate to the Republican National Convention in
1872; appointed by President Grant as Minister to Russia in December 1872; died
in St. Petersburg, Russia, May 5, 1873; interment in the Presbyterian Cemetery,
Anderson, S.C.
BibliographyLeemhuis, Roger P.
James L. Orr and the Sectional Conflict. Washington, D.C.:
University Press of America, 1979.
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