Thomas M. Norwood

American politician

Thomas Manson Norwood (April 26, 1830June 19, 1913) was a United States senator and Representative from Georgia.

Born in Talbot County, Georgia, he pursued an academic course, and graduated from Emory College in 1850. He studied law under Georgia governor James Milton Smith, and was admitted to the bar in 1852, commencing practice in Savannah.

He was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from 1861 to 1862 and was a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1868. He was elected as a Democrat to the U. S. Senate and served from November 14, 1871, to March 3, 1877. Norwood was the first Democrat from the South seated in the Senate after the Civil War. He was a staunch critic of the Civil Rights Act of 1875. He resumed the practice of law in Savannah, and was elected as a Representative to the Forty ninth and Fiftieth U. S. Congresses, serving from March 4, 1885, to March 3, 1889.

In 1889 he again resumed the practice of law, and was appointed judge of the city court of Savannah in 1896, serving twelve years. In his last address before his retirement on December 31, 1907, Norwood called for the execution of Black men who had consensual sexual relationships with White women, accusing them of being violent and abusive. He also called for life imprisonment for White women who were involved, and subjecting Black people to chattel slavery.

He returned to his country home, Harrock Hall, near Savannah, and died there in June 1913. Interment was in Laurel Grove Cemetery, Savannah. His posthumously published book A True Vindication of the South argued that the South had been justified in its fight against the North.

A true vindication of the South, in a review of American political history Savannah, Ga., Braid and Hutton 1917. Norwood, Thomas M. Mother Goose carved by a commentator. Savannah: Morning News, 1900.