Background
William Lawrence, the son of Joseph and Temperance (Gilchrist) Lawrence, was born in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, United States.
William Lawrence, the son of Joseph and Temperance (Gilchrist) Lawrence, was born in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, United States.
Lawrence received his early educational training in the village schools and in Tidball's Academy, near Steubenville. In 1838 he graduated with high honors from Franklin College at New Athens and, that autumn, read the law in the office of James L. Gage of Morgan County. In 1839 he entered the Cincinnati law school and received his degree.
While pursuing his legal studies Lawrence taught school in Pennsville and at MacConnelsville, Ohio. In 1840 he began the practice of law, first in Zanesville, then in MacConnelsville and, the next year, settled at Bellefontaine. In 1842 he was appointed by the United States district court to be commissioner of bankruptcy for Logan County.
In 1845 he became prosecuting attorney of Logan County and, from 1845 to 1847, was the editor of the Logan Gazette. He was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1846 and 1847 and of the state Senate in 1849, 1850, and 1854. In the Ohio legislature he took an active part in obtaining the adoption of measures providing for reform schools for juvenile delinquents and for district school libraries. He also brought about the passage of a measure that gave greater security to real-estate interests in Ohio and was the author of the Ohio free banking law of 1851.
In 1851 he was reporter for the Ohio supreme court, and he published the twentieth volume of Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Ohio, which was favorably commented upon for its logical arrangement of decisions, interspersed with the author's comments on previous cases both in Ohio and elsewhere. In 1859 he became editor of the Western Law Monthly and served three years.
From February 1857 to September 1864 he was judge of the common-pleas court and district court. During the Civil War he was colonel, for three months, of the 84th Ohio Volunteers, serving in Maryland, and, in 1863, Lincoln appointed him district judge of Florida, but he declined to accept. From 1865 to 1877, excluding one term from 1871 to 1873, he was a member of Congress.
During his ten years' service he was an earnest advocate of all measures designed to secure civil and political equality. In 1869 he made a report on the New York election frauds, which resulted in important state and federal legislation. He was the virtual author of the law that created the Department of Justice. He also drafted the measure that gave each soldier one hundred and sixty acres of the alternate reserved sections in the railroad land grants. In the interest of the settlers, he became one of the early advocates of prohibiting the sale of public lands by authority of an Indian treaty rather than by act of Congress, and his efforts led to the passage of the act of March 3, 1871. In the face of strenuous opposition, he ably defended, against the railroad attorneys before the judiciary committee, a bill requiring the Pacific railroad companies to indemnify the government to the extent of one hundred and fifty million dollars and, on July 7, 1876, carried his measure through the House of Representatives. The next year the secretary of the interior, Carl Schurz, heartily indorsed the principles of the "Lawrence Bill" in his annual report.
From 1880 to 1885 Lawrence held the office of first comptroller of the United States Treasury Department and was the first of the comptrollers to print his decisions. His legal acumen won for him universal recognition. He often appeared before the United States Supreme Court in important land cases such as Morton vs. Nebraska, Holden vs. Joy, and Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad Company vs. United States.
His firm grasp of the fundamentals of the law, his keen analysis of the salient points at issue, his quick perception of the weakness in his opponents' arguments, and his frankness made him respected and feared. In the impeachment of Johnson he prepared a brief of authorities to support the legal argument of Benjamin F. Butler. He appeared before the Electoral Commission in 1877 to argue the case of Oregon and South Carolina. He was also a recognized authority on wool and became the president of the state association of wool growers in 1891 and of the national association in 1893. He died at Kenton, Ohio.
On December 20, 1843, Lawrence married Cornelia, the daughter of William Hawkins of MacConnelsville, who died three months after their marriage, and on March 20, 1845, he married Caroline, the daughter of Henry Miller of Bellefontaine.