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George M. Dallas

Also Known As George Mifflin Dallas

Former Vice President of the United States

Education

  • Graduated - College of New Jersey

Overview

George Mifflin Dallas was an American politician and diplomat who served as mayor of Philadelphia from 1828 to 1829, the 11th vice president of the United States from 1845 to 1849, and U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom from 1856 to 1861.

The son of U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander J. Dallas, Dallas attended elite preparatory schools before embarking on a legal career. He served as the private secretary to Albert Gallatin and worked for the Treasury Department and the Second Bank of the United States. He emerged as a leader of the Family Party faction of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. Dallas developed a rivalry with James Buchanan, the leader of the Amalgamator faction. Between 1828 and 1835, he served as the mayor of Philadelphia, U.S. attorney for the U.S. District Court of Pennsylvania and as Pennsylvania's attorney general. He also represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1831 to 1833 but declined to seek re-election. President Martin Van Buren appointed Dallas to the post of Minister to Russia, and Dallas held that position from 1837 to 1839.

In 1840, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Dallas supported Van Buren's bid for another term in the 1844 presidential election, but James K. Polk won the party's presidential nomination. The 1844 Democratic National Convention nominated Dallas as Polk's running mate, and Polk and Dallas defeated the Whig ticket in the general election. A supporter of expansion and popular sovereignty, Dallas called for the annexation of all of Mexico during the Mexican–American War. He sought to position himself for contention in the 1848 presidential election, but his vote to lower the tariff destroyed his base of support in his home state. Dallas served as the Minister to the United Kingdom from 1856 to 1861 before retiring from public office.

Political career :

After the War of 1812, Pennsylvania's political climate was chaotic, with two factions in that state's Democratic party vying for control. One, the Philadelphia-based "Family party", was led by Dallas, and it espoused the beliefs that the Constitution of the United States was supreme, that an energetic national government should exist that would implement protective tariffs, a powerful central banking system, and undertake internal improvements to the country in order to facilitate national commerce. The other faction was called the "Amalgamators", headed by the future President James Buchanan. 

Voters elected Dallas mayor of Philadelphia as the candidate of the Family party, after the party had gained control of the city councils. However, he quickly grew bored of that post, and became the United States attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania in 1829, a position his father had held from 1801 to 1814, and continued in that role until 1831. In December of that year, he won a five-man, eleven-ballot contest in the state legislature, that enabled him to become the Senator from Pennsylvania in order to complete the unexpired term of the previous senator who had resigned. 

Dallas served less than fifteen months—from 13 December 1831 to 3 March 1833. He was chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. Dallas declined to seek re-election, in part due to a fight over the Second Bank of the United States, and in part because his wife did not want to leave Philadelphia for Washington.

Dallas resumed the practice of law, was attorney general of Pennsylvania from 1833 to 1835, was initiated to the Scottish Rite Freemasonry at the Franklin Lodge #134, Pennsylvania, and served as the Grand Master of Freemasons in Pennsylvania in 1835. He was appointed by President Martin Van Buren as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia from 1837 to 1839, when he was recalled at his own request. Dallas was offered the role of Attorney General, but declined, and resumed his legal practice. In the lead-up to the 1844 presidential election, Dallas worked to help Van Buren win the Democratic nomination over Dallas's fellow Pennsylvanian, James Buchanan.

Early Life

Dallas was born in Philadelphia on July 10, 1792, to Alexander James Dallas and Arabella Maria Smith Dallas. His father, born in Kingston, Jamaica, to Dr. Robert Dallas and educated in Edinburgh, was the Secretary of the Treasury under United States President James Madison, and was also briefly the Secretary of War. Dr Dallas left Jamaica in 1764, having mortgaged his estate, Dallas Castle, and put it in a trust. This property included 900 acres and 91 slaves. George Dallas was given his middle name after Thomas Mifflin, another politician who was good friends with his father. 

Dallas was the second of six children, another of whom, Alexander, would become the commander of Pensacola Navy Yard. During Dallas's childhood, the family lived in a mansion on Fourth Street, with a second home in the countryside, situated on the Schuylkill River. He was educated privately at Quaker-run preparatory schools, before studying at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), from which he graduated with highest honors in 1810. While at College, he participated in several activities, including the American Whig–Cliosophic Society. Afterwards, he studied law in his father's office, and he was admitted to the bar in 1813.

Career

  • United States - Former Vice President

Reference

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