He became
district attorney at age 21 and was described as "one of the foremost lawyers in the State". He participated in the convention for the writing of the
Mississippi Constitution in 1890 and was described as a
free-coinage man. A Democrat, as were most whites in the South through the mid-twentieth century, McLaurin was elected by the state legislature to the
U.S. Senate, serving from 1894 to 1895. He was the first
Governor of Mississippi to be elected under the
Mississippi Constitution of 1890, which
disenfranchised most black people by raising barriers to voter registration. These changes essentially ended the competitiveness of the Republican Party in the state and severely weakened the Populist Party. The last Confederate veteran elected as governor, McLaurin won
the 1895 election, defeating
Populist Frank Burkitt. He served from 1896 to 1900. At Hazlehurst in 1898, McLaurin explained in a speech that one of the causes of the depleted state treasury was inadequate taxation of the railroad corporations. In October 1898, McLaurin traveled by train to
Forest, Mississippi, after white rioting in nearby
Harperville. Black citizens had resisted the arrest of one of their community, killing one white man. A mob of whites quickly gathered, killing nine black people by the next day. The county sheriff and a posse arrested some black people, while the white lynch mob continued to kill their black neighbors on sight. The
New Orleans Picayune said that 11 black men were killed and one white. McLaurin returned to the U.S. Senate in 1901 after being elected by the state legislature to that seat in
1900; he was re-elected on January 19,
1904. == Death and legacy ==