Early Life and Politics
Hamilton was born in Boonsboro, Maryland, and received early schooling from a local tutor named John Brown. He went on to attend Hagerstown Academy, and later Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, from 1836–1840. After college, Hamilton studied law with former Maryland Congressman John Thomson Mason, Jr., and was admitted to the bar in 1845. He then commenced law practice in Hagerstown, Maryland.
In 1846, Hamilton was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates, but failed to win re-election in 1847. He was, however, elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-first, Thirty-second, and Thirty-third Congresses, serving from March 4, 1849 – March 3, 1855. While Hamilton was in Congress, even though his district was largely manufacturers and miners, he supported tariffs but only as a source of revenue for the government. Other actions while in Congress included his tenure as chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia during the Thirty-third Congress.
From 1855 until 1868, Hamilton avoided politics and resumed the practice of law and farming in Hagerstown. During that time, he became widely-known throughout Western Maryland as an excellent trial lawyer.
Read more about this topic: William Thomas Hamilton
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or politics:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Writing is the continuation of politics by other means.”
—Philippe Sollers (b. 1936)