Painted portrait of Florida Supreme Court Justice George W

George W. MacRae (June 24, 1802 – March 6, 1858)"'Mystery Solved: Justice George W. Macrae' receives Florida Historical Society's 2022 Golden Quill Award", ''The Florida Bar News'', Vol. 49, No. 9 (September 2022), p. 1, 8. was a

Florida Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Florida is the state supreme court, highest court in the U.S. state of Florida. It consists of seven justices—one of whom serves as Chief Justice. Six members are chosen from six districts around the state to foster geog ...

Justice from January 1, 1847, to January 7, 1848. On August 24, 1842, MacRae was appointed

United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida (in case citations, S.D. Fla. or S.D. Fl.) is the federal United States district court with territorial jurisdiction over the southern part of the state of Florida. Appeals ...

by President

John Tyler John Tyler (March 29, 1790 – January 18, 1862) was the tenth president of the United States, serving from 1841 to 1845, after briefly holding office as the tenth vice president of the United States, vice president in 1841. He was elected ...

. He was elected to the Territorial Senate two years later, representing South Florida. He was chosen as Senate President as he had no strong party affiliations and was thought to be able to act fairly. In 1846, he was again appointed to the Florida Supreme Court, as an impartial compromise appointee. In 1847, the Whigs gained sufficient control of the legislature to replace the non partisan MacRae with Joseph B. Lancaster. Macrae then moved to California in 1849, and the following year was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...

. He remained in the state, practicing law in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, but died in Kentucky while visiting family in that state.

References

Manley, Walter W., Brown, E. Canter and Rise, Eric W. ''The Supreme Court of Florida and Its Predecessor Courts, 1821-1917.'' 127 - 128. University Press of Florida. Gainesville, Florida. 1997.
eBook . . 1802 births 1858 deaths Members of the Florida Territorial Legislature Justices of the Supreme Court of Florida 19th-century Florida politicians {{Florida-state-judge-stub