Robert W. Hemphill

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Robert W. Hemphill

Robert Witherspoon Hemphill (born May 10, 1915 in Chester , Chester County , South Carolina , †  December 25, 1983 ibid) was an American politician . Between 1957 and 1964 he represented the state of South Carolina in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Robert Hemphill came from a well-known family of politicians. He was a great-nephew of William H. Brawley (1841-1916), who also sat for South Carolina in Congress between 1891 and 1891 . He was also a great-great-nephew of John Hemphill (1803-1862), who represented the state of Texas in the US Senate from 1859 to 1861 . Robert Hemphill's great-uncle John J. Hemphill (1849-1912) was also a congressman between 1883 and 1893 and his great-great-grandfather Robert Witherspoon (1767-1837) was also a member of Congress for South Carolina between 1809 and 1811.

Hemphill attended the public schools of his home country and then the University of South Carolina until 1936 . After a subsequent law degree at the same university and his admission as a lawyer in 1938, he began to work in his new profession in Chester. During the Second World War , Hemphill was a bomber pilot in the US Army Air Corps between 1941 and 1945 , which became the US Air Force after the war . Politically, he was a member of the Democratic Party . He chaired Chester County in 1946 and 1947. From 1947 to 1948 Hemphill was a member of the House of Representatives from South Carolina ; between 1951 and 1956 he served as a prosecutor in the sixth judicial district of South Carolina.

In 1956 he was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the fifth constituency of South Carolina , where he succeeded James P. Richards on January 3, 1957 . After three re-elections, he could remain in Congress until his resignation on May 1, 1964. This time was determined by the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was also when the civil rights movement was at its height and the Vietnam War began. In 1961, the 23rd amendment to the Constitution was passed in Congress , which allowed residents of the federal capital Washington to participate in the presidential elections .

In 1959 Hemphill was a delegate to a NATO conference in London . After serving as a judge in the federal district court for the District of South Carolina, he resigned his seat on May 1, 1964. He held this office until 1980. He died on December 25, 1983 in his hometown of Chester.

Web links

  • Robert W. Hemphill in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)