Editing John Sharp Williams

{{Short description|American politician (1854–1932)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2020}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name         = John S. Williams
|image        = John Sharp Williams 1923.jpg
|office       = [[Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives|House Minority Leader]]
|deputy       = [[James Tilghman Lloyd]]
|term_start   = March 4, 1903
|term_end     = March 3, 1909
|predecessor  = [[James D. Richardson]]
|successor    = [[Champ Clark]]
|office1     = Leader of the [[House Democratic Caucus#Caucus Leader|House Democratic Caucus]]
|term_start1  =March 4, 1903  
|term_end1  = March 3, 1909 
|predecessor1 = [[James D. Richardson]]
|successor1   = [[Champ Clark]]
|jr/sr2       = United States Senator
|state2       = [[Mississippi]]
|term_start2  = March 4, 1911
|term_end2    = March 3, 1923
|predecessor2 = [[Hernando Money]]
|successor2   = [[Hubert D. Stephens]]
|office3       = Member of the<br>[[U.S. House of Representatives]]<br>from [[Mississippi]]
|constituency3 = {{ushr|MS|5|C}} (1893–1903)<br>{{ushr|MS|8|C}} (1903–1909)
|term_start3  = March 4, 1893
|term_end3    = March 3, 1909
|predecessor3 = [[Joseph H. Beeman]]
|successor3   = [[James Collier (politician)|James Collier]]
|birth_name = John Sharp Williams
|birth_date   = {{birth date|1854|7|30}}
|birth_place  = [[Memphis, Tennessee]], U.S.
|death_date   = {{death date and age|1932|9|27|1854|7|30}}
|death_place  = [[Yazoo City, Mississippi]], U.S.
|party        = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]
|education    = [[Sewanee: The University of the South|University of the South]]<br>[[University of Virginia|University of Virginia, Charlottesville]] ([[Bachelor of Laws|LLB]])
|spouse = Betty Webb
|children = 8<ref>[http://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/articles/303/john-sharp-williams The Political Career of John Sharp Williams (1854-1932)]</ref>
|signature    = Signature of John Sharp Williams.png
}}
'''John Sharp Williams''' (July 30, 1854{{spaced ndash}}September 27, 1932) was a prominent American politician in the [[United States Democratic Party|Democratic Party]] from the 1890s through the 1920s, and served as the [[Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives]] from 1903 to 1908.

==Early life==
Williams was born in [[Memphis, Tennessee]], but raised in [[Yazoo County, Mississippi]], after he was orphaned during the [[American Civil War]]. After graduating from the [[Kentucky Military Institute]] in 1870, he studied at the [[Sewanee: The University of the South|University of the South]] before transferring to the [[University of Virginia|University of Virginia, Charlottesville]], where he was [[Phi Beta Kappa]] but did not complete all his science courses for his [[bachelor's degree]].<ref name="MS History">[http://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/articles/303/john-sharp-williams Mississippi History Now – The Political Career of John Sharp Williams (1854–1932)]</ref> He spent two years in Europe at the [[University of Heidelberg]] and what is now the [[University of Burgundy]] before returning to the University of Virginia to receive his law degree in 1876.<ref name="MS History"/> After a brief return to Memphis (where he married Elizabeth Dial Webb in 1877), Williams returned to Yazoo County, where from 1878 to 1893 he ran the family plantation and kept a law practice.

==Political career==
Elected to the [[United States House of Representatives]] in 1893, Williams soon became a leader of the Democratic minority, renowned for his speaking skill and wit. Like most other Southern Democrats of the day, he was a proponent of coining silver and an opponent of high tariffs. In 1906, when Great Britain launched [[HMS Dreadnought (1906)|HMS ''Dreadnought'']], Williams flippantly proposed that the name of an American battleship being built in response at the urging of [[Theodore Roosevelt]] be changed from ''Michigan'' to ''Skeered o' Nothin''' and that the ship's first mission be to challenge ''Dreadnought'' to a duel off the coast of Long Island, Roosevelt's home, with Roosevelt and most of his cabinet on deck.<ref>''Congressional Record'', House of Representatives, [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1906-pt7-v40/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1906-pt7-v40-17-2.pdf May 16, 1906, p.6959] (retrieved July 21, 2024).</ref>

During his time as ranking Democrat in the Republican-controlled House, Williams was given the privilege of choosing the Democrats assigned to committees by the [[Speaker of the United States House of Representatives|House Speaker]] [[Joseph Gurney Cannon]] (by the rules of the House, Cannon was entitled to make all appointments himself), giving him tremendous power within the minority party. In gratitude, Williams was known to omit Democrats whom Cannon found particularly objectionable from committee assignments. Recognizing his status vis-à-vis Cannon, Williams jokingly described his relative political impotence in the Cannon-dominated [[United States House Committee on Rules|Committee on Rules]], "I am invited to the seances but I am never consulted about the spiritualistic appearances."<ref>Bolles, Blair. ''Tyrant from Illinois: Uncle Joe Cannon's Experiment with Personal Power'', W. W. Norton & Company, 1951, p. 54</ref>

By beating one of Mississippi's leading racebaiters, [[James K. Vardaman]], Williams moved to the [[United States Senate]] in 1911 after an [[1910 and 1911 United States Senate elections|early election on 21 January 1908]]. He became one of [[Woodrow Wilson]]'s strongest supporters, from Wilson's nomination for the Presidency in 1912 to the losing battle to ratify American participation in the [[League of Nations]] in 1920. During his time as a senator, he also served as a chairman of the [[U.S. Senate Committee to Establish a University of the United States|Committee to Establish a University of the United States]].

He made a notorious denunciation of the black race when he declared on December 20, 1898: "You could ship-wreck 10,000 illiterate white Americans on a desert island, and in three weeks they would have a fairly good government, conceived and administered upon fairly democratic lines. You could ship-wreck 10,000 negroes, every one of whom was a graduate of [[Harvard University]], and in less than three years, they would have retrograded governmentally; half of the men would have been killed, and the other half would have two wives apiece."<ref>Logan, Rayford W. ''The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson'', Da Capo Press, 1965, p. 90. {{ISBN|9780306807589}}</ref>

After retiring from the Senate in 1923, Williams returned to his family plantation, where he spent the last decade of his life, dying in late 1932.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* {{Cite book |last=Osborn |first=George Coleman |title=Career of John Sharp Williams in the House of Representatives, 1893-1909 |publisher=University of Indiana |year=1932 |author-link=George C. Osborn}}
* {{Cite book |last=Osborn |first=George C. |title=John Sharp Williams: Planter-Statesman of the Deep South |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |year=1943 |author-link=George C. Osborn}}

==External links==
{{Congbio|W000521}}
{{Portal|Biography}}
{{Commons category}}
{{wikisource author}}
* [http://purl.oclc.org/umarchives/MUM00480/ The John Sharp Williams Collection (MUM00480)] at University of Mississippi, Archive and Special Collections
*{{Find a Grave|8004468|John Sharp Williams}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-par|us-hs}}
{{US House succession box
| state    = Mississippi
| district = 5
| before   = [[Joseph H. Beeman]]
| after    = [[Adam M. Byrd]]
| years    = March 4, 1893 – March 3, 1903}}
{{US House succession box
| state    = Mississippi
| district = 8
| before   = New district 
| after    = [[James Collier (politician)|James Collier]]
| years    = March 4, 1903 – March 3, 1909}}

{{s-bef|before=[[James D. Richardson]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives|House Minority Leader]]|years=1903–1908}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Champ Clark]]}}

{{s-bef|before=[[James D. Richardson]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives|House Democratic Leader]]|years=1903–1909}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Champ Clark]]}}

{{s-ppo}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Charles S. Thomas]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=Keynote Speaker of the [[Democratic National Convention]]|years=[[1904 Democratic National Convention|1904]]}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Theodore Bell]]}}

{{s-par|us-sen}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Hernando Money]]}}<!--Even when elected by the legislature, parties still nominated candidates-->
{{s-ttl|title=[[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] nominee for [[United States Senator|U.S. Senator]] from [[Mississippi]]<br>([[Classes of United States Senators|Class 1]])|years=[[1908 United States Senate election in Mississippi|1908 (early)]], [[1916 United States Senate election in Mississippi|1916]]}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Hubert D. Stephens]]}}

{{US Senator succession box
| state=     Mississippi
| class=     1
| before=    [[Hernando Money]]
| after=     [[Hubert D. Stephens]]
| alongside= [[LeRoy Percy]], [[James K. Vardaman]], [[Pat Harrison]] 
| years=     March 4, 1911 – March 3, 1923
}}

{{s-end}}

{{Democratic Party (United States)}}
{{United States senators from Mississippi}}
{{US House minority leaders}}
{{US House Democratic leaders}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, John Sharp}}
[[Category:1854 births]]
[[Category:1932 deaths]]
[[Category:Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Mississippi]]
[[Category:Democratic Party United States senators from Mississippi]]
[[Category:Minority leaders of the United States House of Representatives]]
[[Category:People from Yazoo County, Mississippi]]
[[Category:Politicians from Memphis, Tennessee]]
[[Category:Candidates in the 1904 United States presidential election]]
[[Category:University of Virginia alumni]]
[[Category:20th-century American lawyers]]
[[Category:19th-century American lawyers]]
[[Category:Mississippi lawyers]]
[[Category:Heidelberg University alumni]]
[[Category:Sewanee: The University of the South alumni]]
[[Category:American white supremacists]]
[[Category:20th-century United States senators]]
[[Category:19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives]]