Amelia County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Biographies.....Giles, William Branch 
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Alice Warner http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00015.html#0003503 April 10, 2008, 8:13 am

Author: Henry Howe

The residence of the late distinguished William Branch Giles, was near the
margin of the Appomattox, in this county. He sprang from humble, but respectable
parentage, and was educated at Princeton. He was for many years a member of
Congress from Virginia, both in the Senate and House of Representatives, where
he arrived, as a debater, to a very high rank. 

"He resigned his seat in the Senate, in 1815. He was governor of Virginia from
1826 to 1829, and died in 1830, at an advanced age. He published a speech on the
embargo laws in 1808; political letters to the people of Virginia in 1813; a
series of letters, signed "a Consituent" in the Richmond Enquirer of Jan 1818,
against the plan for a general education; in April, 1824, a letter of invective
against President Monroe and Henry Clay, for their 'hobbies,' the South American
cause, the Greek cause, Internal Improvements, and the Tariff in Nov. 1825; he
addressed a letter to Jusge Marshall, disclaiming the expressions, not the
general sentiments in regard to Washington, ascribed to him in the Life of
Washington. He has also appeared before the public as the correspondent of John
Quincy Adams." Mr. Giles was also one of the most distinguished members of the
convention that revised the constitution of Virginia, in 1830.



Additional Comments:
From Henry Howe's 1845 Historical Collections of Virginia, the Amelia County
section, p. 173-175.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/amelia/bios/giles105gbs.txt

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