Representative George Emrick Harris

George Emrick Harris (January 6, 1827 – March 19, 1911) was an American lawyer, Civil War veteran, and politician who served two terms as a U.S. Representative from Mississippi from 1870 to 1873. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Mississippi during the Reconstruction era, participating in the legislative process at a time of profound political and social transformation in the United States and working to represent the interests of his constituents in a state emerging from the Civil War.

Born on January 6, 1827, Harris came of age in the antebellum South, a region defined by an agricultural economy and intensifying sectional conflict. Details of his early life and family background are sparse in the historical record, but his subsequent professional and political career indicates that he received sufficient early training to pursue the study of law and to enter public life in a period when formal legal education was often obtained through apprenticeship and self-directed study rather than through institutional schooling.

Harris studied law and was admitted to the bar, beginning a career as an attorney that would form the foundation of his later public service. As a practicing lawyer, he developed the legal expertise and familiarity with public affairs that were essential for political leadership in the mid-nineteenth century. His work at the bar placed him in close contact with the legal and economic issues facing Mississippians in the years before and after the Civil War, and it provided him with the professional standing that facilitated his entry into elective office.

During the American Civil War, Harris served as a Civil War veteran, aligning his personal experience with the defining national conflict of his generation. His wartime service, occurring amid the upheaval that reshaped Mississippi and the broader South, informed his perspective on the challenges of Reconstruction, including questions of loyalty, civil rights, and the reintegration of the former Confederate states into the Union. This background gave him a direct understanding of the human and material costs of the conflict and the complexities of postwar governance.

Harris’s political career reached its peak during the Reconstruction era, when he was elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi. He served two terms in Congress from 1870 to 1873, a period that encompassed the Forty-first and Forty-second Congresses. As a member of the Republican Party representing Mississippi, he contributed to the legislative process at a time when Congress was grappling with the implementation of the Reconstruction Amendments, the protection of civil and political rights for formerly enslaved people, and the reorganization of Southern state governments. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history, and he participated in the democratic process as part of the national effort to redefine citizenship and representation in the postwar United States.

During his tenure in the House of Representatives, Harris represented a state undergoing federal oversight and political realignment, and he worked within the Republican majority that sought to secure the gains of Union victory. While specific committee assignments and sponsored measures are not extensively documented, his role as a Mississippi Republican in Congress placed him among the cadre of Southern Unionists and Reconstruction-era officeholders who navigated intense local opposition and shifting national priorities. His presence in Congress symbolized the temporary but important foothold that the Republican Party held in Mississippi during Reconstruction.

After leaving Congress in 1873, Harris returned to private life and his legal profession, resuming the practice of law and remaining identified with the public affairs of his state. As Reconstruction gave way to the resurgence of Democratic control in Mississippi and across the South, his earlier congressional service stood as part of the brief period in which Republicans held federal and state offices in the region. Harris lived into the early twentieth century, witnessing the long-term consequences of the policies and conflicts of his political prime. He died on March 19, 1911, closing a life that spanned from the antebellum era through the Civil War and Reconstruction into the modernizing United States.