Silas Lillard Bryan (4 November 1822 – 30 March 1880) was a member of the Illinois State Senate from the US Democratic Party.
Biography[]
Silas Lillard Bryan was born in Culpeper County, Virginia on 4 November 1822 to a Scots-Irish and English family. Bryan won election to the Illinois State Senate in 1852 as a member of the US Democratic Party, and he supported the conservative policies of the late president Andrew Jackson. Bryan lost a reelection bid in 1860, but he was elected as a circuit judge. Bryan retired from this post in 1873, and he died in 1880 at the age of 57. His son William Jennings Bryan would serve as Secretary of State of the United States from 1913 to 1915 under President Woodrow Wilson, and would lead the transition of the Democrats from conservatism to liberalism.