[1] Hardwick practiced law in Savannah[1] and then entered politics with the support of Thomas E.

[4] In 1914 he ran for a seat in the United States Senate in a special election for the unexpired term of Augustus O. Bacon who had died in office.

On April 29, 1919, as a direct result of his sponsorship of the Immigration Act, Senator Hardwick was targeted for assassination by adherents of the radical anarchist Luigi Galleani, who mailed a booby trap bomb to his residence in Georgia.

[5][6] Hardwick then served as Governor of Georgia from 1921 to 1923, and due to his opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, lost to Clifford Walker in the subsequent election.

One of Hardwick's most notable actions as governor of Georgia was his appointment of Rebecca Latimer Felton to the United States Senate as a temporary replacement for Tom Watson, who had died.