George W. Summers

George William Summers ( * March 4, 1804 in Alexandria, Virginia; † September 19, 1868 in Charleston, West Virginia ) was an American politician. Between 1841 and 1845 he represented the state of Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

George Summers first attended a school in Charleston and afterwards studied at Washington College in Lexington, emerged from the later the Washington and Lee University. Subsequently, he studied until 1826 at Ohio University in Athens. After studying law and his 1827 was admitted to the bar he began in Charleston to work in this profession. At the same time he embarked on a political career. From 1830-1832 and again 1834-1836 he sat in the House of Representatives from Virginia. He was a member of the Whig Party, founded in 1835.

In the congressional elections of 1840 Summers was in the 19th electoral district of Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he took up his new mandate on March 4, 1841. After a re-election he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1845 two legislative sessions. Since 1843 he represented as a successor to Cuthbert Powell the 14th district of his state. His time in Congress was marked by tensions between President John Tyler and the Whigs. It was also at that time already been discussed about a possible annexation of the independent Republic of Texas since 1836 by Mexico. 1844 Summers was not re-elected.

In 1850, Summers was a delegate at a convention in part on the revision of the Constitution of Virginia. A year later, he ran unsuccessfully for the governorship of his state. Between 1852 and 1858 he served as a judge in the 18th Judicial District of Virginia. In the spring of 1861 he was a member of a negotiating committee that sought to prevent the outbreak of the Civil War unsuccessfully in the federal capital, Washington. Shortly afterwards, he was a delegate to the meeting at which the state of Virginia seceded from the Union. Summers was a staunch opponent of this step. In the following years he practiced in his home, which remained loyal to the Union and was raised in 1863 to the new state of West Virginia, again as a lawyer. George Summers died on September 19, 1868 in Charleston. In 1871, the then newly created Summers County was named after him.