Edwin Belcher
{{short description|U.S politician during the Reconstruction Era}}
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| state_house = Georgia
| district = Wilkes County, Georgia
| term_start = 1868
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| birth_date = c. 1845
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|party=Republican
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Edwin Belcher (born c. 1845) was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War, a Freedmen Bureau official in Monroe County, Georgia after the war, and then a state senator in the Georgia Legislature representing Wilkes County, Georgia during the Reconstruction Era.
Military service
Political office
Belcher was also appointed an assessor of revenue for Georgia's third district by U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant and was later appointed by Grant as postmaster in Macon, Georgia.{{cite book|title=Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944|author1=Smith, J.C.|author2=Marshall, T.|date=1999|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated|isbn=9780812216851|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1lOIjQUG4aoC&pg=PA249|page=249|access-date=2018-03-18}} After the 1868 election the legislature refused to seat African Americans. More than two dozen were turned away but Belcher and a few others were allowed to remain because they had light complexions and it could not be proved they were 1/8 or more "Negro".{{cite web|url=http://accheritage.blogspot.com/2010/09/27-september-1833-legislator-madison.html|website=accheritage.blogspot.com|title=This Day in Athens: 27 September 1833: Legislator Madison Davis Is Born|date=27 September 2010|access-date=2018-03-18}} The others allowed to remain in their elected offices were Madison Davis of Clarke County, F. H. Fyall of Macon County and Thomas P. Beard of Richmond County.{{cite book|title=From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880|author=Reidy, J.P.|date=2000|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=9780807864067|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fbOpBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA304|page=304|access-date=2018-03-18}}
Law career
In 1872 he graduated from Howard University's law school (founded in 1869) and was admitted to the bar in Washington D.C. His brother Eugene R. Belcher was also part of one of the earliest Howard University Law School classes.{{cite book|title=All for Civil Rights: African American Lawyers in South Carolina, 1868–1968|author1=Burke, W.L.|author2=Finkelman, P.|author3=Huebner, T.S.|date=2017|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=9780820350998|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t1InDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA47|page=47|access-date=2018-03-18}}{{cite book|title=Emancipation: The Making of the Black Lawyer, 1844-1944|author1=Smith, J.C.|author2=Marshall, T.|date=1999|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated|isbn=9780812216851|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1lOIjQUG4aoC&pg=PA218|page=218|access-date=2018-03-18}}
In 1878, Belcher wrote a letter introducing himself to William Lloyd Garrison.{{cite web|url=https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:dv142m499|title=Letter from Edwin Belcher, Augusta, Ga, to William Lloyd Garrison, April 16th, 1878|website=Digital Commonwealth|access-date=2018-03-18}} In the letter he says he was "born the slave of my father".
Legacy
Drew S. Days III, former Solicitor General of the United States, is a descendant of the Belcher family.{{Cite web|url=https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1158&context=jcs_speeches|title=Howard University School of Law: One Hundred and Twenty Five Years|last=Smith|first=J. Clay Jr.|date=January 6, 1994|access-date=2020-02-23}}
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Belcher, Edwin}}
Category:African-American state legislators in Georgia (U.S. state)
Category:Georgia (U.S. state) postmasters
Category:African-American politicians during the Reconstruction Era
Category:Year of death missing
Category:Republican Party Georgia (U.S. state) state senators
Category:Howard University alumni
Category:19th-century members of the Georgia General Assembly