William Porcher Miles (July 4, 1822 – May 11, 1899) was an American politician who was among the ardent states' rights advocates, supporters of slavery, and Southern secessionists who came to be known as the "Fire-Eaters."

Miles was elected as mayor of Charleston in 1855 and served in the United States House of Representatives from 1857 until South Carolina seceded, in December 1860.

Miles enrolled at Charleston College in 1838 where he met future secession advocates James De Bow and William Henry Trescot.

He did not participate in the Bluffton Movement in 1844, although he did recognize that the 1846 Wilmot Proviso threatened his concepts of "southern rights, the equality of the states under the Constitution, and the honor of a slaveholding people."

Miles argued: They are not contending for an abstract principle – they are not influenced by a mere spirit of fanatical opposition to slavery ... they are deliberately, intentionally, and advisedly aiming a deadly blow at the South.

However while activists within the state in 1850 and 1851 mobilized, Miles remained on the sidelines as Southern Rights associations and rallies dominated South Carolina politics.

Addressing himself to the Declaration of Independence, Miles denied the concept of inalienable rights and maintained that liberty was an "Acquired Privilege."

From this point on in his career, Miles rejected the political legitimacy of abolitionists and free-soilers and responded to any attempts to restrict slavery with a call for secession.

[11] When he took office in 1857 he found that the Kansas issues dominated Congressional debate, threatened the unity of the Democratic Party and increased the growth of the Republicans.

Despite his acknowledgement that the Kansas climate was not conducive to slavery, he stated: But, sir, the issue has been made, the battle joined; and though it be on an abstract principle which does not at present promise to result in any practical advantage to us, I am willing to stand by the guns and fight it out.

In January 1859 he spoke in support of fellow fire-eater William Lowndes Yancey in advocating the repeal of federal laws banning the African slave trade.

Sherman was one of 68 Republicans who had endorsed Hinton Helper's book, The Impending Crisis and How to Meet It, which Southerners believed would ignite class warfare between slaveholders and non-slaveholders in the South.

Miles advised Memminger to "urge our Carolina view in such a manner as to imbue Virginia with it ... [and] we may soon hope to see the fruit of your addresses in the sturdy and healthy offspring of whose birth we would be so greatly proud — a Southern confederacy.

"[21] He believed that the South had "all the elements of wealth, prosperity and strength, to make her a first-class power among the nations of the world" and would "lose so little and gain so much" with secession.

Miles, returning to Washington for the upcoming session of Congress, was one of the South Carolina delegates who met with Buchanan to discuss this problem.

[24] Buchanan questioned the word "provided" since it appeared to bind him, but the delegates assured him that they were only communicating their understanding based on the status quo.

On December 17, fearing that even a few days of delay could be critical, he opposed the relocation of the convention from Columbia to Charleston due to a smallpox outbreak.

[27] In the months ahead, Miles, believing in the possibility of peaceful secession, opposed precipitate action over either Fort Sumter or the Star of the West incident.

He was chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee while also serving as an aide-de-camp for General P. G. T. Beauregard at both Charleston, in the buildup to the attack on Fort Sumter, and the First Battle of Bull Run.

Now, De Bow warned him that a sudden shift to free trade would alienate and antagonize the powerful sugar planters of the Gulf South, who had prospered under the tariff policies of the Union.

Miles complained that his colleagues on congressional committees made work impossible because their habitual absences prevented a quorum, and as events began to sour in the new nation he held no higher opinion of President Davis than other fire-eaters.

Late in the war, when some military officials began to discuss the efficacy of using black troops in the Confederate army, Miles was perplexed.

... [H]e understood the urgent demands of the army, but eventually ... [concluded] that "it is not merely a military, but a great social and political question, and the more I consider it the less is my judgment satisfied that it could really help our cause to put arms into the hands of our slaves.

Miles argued: There is no propriety in retaining the ensign of a government which, in the opinion of the States composing this Confederacy, had become so oppressive and injurious to their interests as to require their separation from it.

"When we see the most ardent Secessionists and 'Fire eaters' now eagerly denying that they ever did more than 'yield their convictions to the voice of their State,'" and call secession a heresy and slavery a curse, Miles concluded, "it is plain that Politics must be more a trade and less a pursuit for an honourable man than it ever was before."

For any secessionist to return to public office in a reconstructed Union, Miles believed, entailed a forfeiture of self-respect, consistency, and honor.

[33] He encountered serious financial problems as a tobacco and wheat farmer, and in 1874, he unsuccessfully applied for the position of president at the new Hopkins University of Baltimore.

Miles remained on the farm and helped friends like Beauregard and former Fire-Eater Robert Rhett gather materials for their own histories of the Confederacy.