Effingham Lawrence
From Volume II of 1875's "The American Government"
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromLouisiana's1st district
In office March 3, 1875 – March 4, 1875
Preceded by	J. Hale Sypher
Succeeded by	Randall L. Gibson
Member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from the 1st district
In office 1871–1875
Personal details
Born	(1820-03-02)March 2, 1820 Bayside, Queens, New York, U.S.
Died	December 9, 1878(1878-12-09) (aged 58) Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, U.S.
Party	Democratic
Spouse	Mary Ann George
Children	10
Profession	Sugar planter

Effingham Lawrence (March 2, 1820 – December 9, 1878) was an American politician known for serving for the shortest term in congressional history, serving—along withGeorge A. Sheridan—for just one day in theU.S. House of Representatives.^[1]

Lawrence was born in Bayside,Queens, New York, in 1820. He was a descendant ofJohn Lawrence andJohn Bowne, bothQuakers and pioneer English settlers of Queens, NY.

Lawrence moved to Louisiana in 1843 and engaged in the planting and refining of sugar. He served in theLouisiana State House of Representatives for some time and then successfully contested the re-election ofJacob Hale Sypher. Lawrence then served for one day in Congress but was not reelected. He died at Magnolia Plantation,Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana in 1878.

The voting in the 1872 election was characterized by a number of irregularities, with Sypher initially being declared the winner and returned to Congress while Lawrence appealed the election results. Lawrence's belated replacement of Sypher, after courts intervened to nullify the original results and instead deliver the seat to Lawrence, marked the first time since the Civil War that a Democrat had defeated aRepublican for a seat in Congress from Louisiana.

The 1874 voting in which Lawrence failed "re-election" to the seat had already been held before he was seated for the term to which he had, by the later court order, been elected in 1872. Thus, under the congressional calendar in effect at the time, Lawrence was able to serve for one day of the 1873–1875 term to which he had, in the end, been elected. On the following day—March 4, 1875—he was succeeded byRandall Lee Gibson, a Democrat who had defeated him during the preceding autumn.

• Cornelius Lawrence, his cousin
• Thomas Johnson, shortest-servingU.S. Supreme Court justice
• William Henry Harrison, shortest-servingpresident of the United States.

• Congressional Biography
• Political Graveyard

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