Phanor Breazeale

Born in Natchitoches Parish in north central Louisiana, Breazeale attended private schools. In 1877, at the close of Reconstruction, he moved to Natchitoches, the parish seat.

He worked in a mercantile establishment for two years and studied law. He relocated to New Orleans, where he was a clerk in the Louisiana Supreme Court. He graduated in 1881 from the d Tulane University Law School in New Orleans and was admitted to the bar that same year.

He began his law practice in Natchitoches, the oldest established city in the state. From 1882 to 1884, Breazeale was also engaged in newspaper work.

From 1888 to 1891, he was the president of the Natchitoches Parish School Board. He was elected district attorney for the 10th Judicial District, having served from 1892 to 1899. He was a member of the Louisiana state constitutional convention in 1898, which drew up a document in existence for twenty-three years. Thereafter, he was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1921.

Breazeale was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-sixth, Fifty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth Congresses (March 4, 1899 – March 3, 1905). He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1904, having been defeated by the attorney John T. Watkins of Minden in Webster Parish.

After leaving the House, he resumed the practice of law in Natchitoches. He was appointed in October 1908 as a member of a commission to codify Louisiana's criminal laws and to prepare a code of criminal procedure.

Breazeale was a member of the Democratic State central committee from 1908 until his death. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1908 and again in 1916.

In a commencement address delivered in May 1918 at the former Ashland High School in Ashland in northern Natchitoches Parish, Breazeale focused on the American Red Cross during World War I and its record of service to which he urged the graduates to aspire.[1]

Breazeale died in Natchitoches and is interred at the Catholic Cemetery there.

• United States Congress. "Phanor Breazeale (id: B000781)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.