George W. McCrary
| George McCrary | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Judge of the United States Circuit Court for the Eighth Circuit | |
|
In office December 9, 1879 – March 18, 1884 |
|
| Appointed by | Rutherford B. Hayes |
| Preceded by | John Forrest Dillon |
| Succeeded by | David Josiah Brewer |
| 33rd United States Secretary of War | |
|
In office March 12, 1877 – December 9, 1879 |
|
| President | Rutherford B. Hayes |
| Preceded by | J. Donald Cameron |
| Succeeded by | Alexander Ramsey |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa's 1st district |
|
|
In office March 4, 1869 – March 4, 1877 |
|
| Preceded by | James F. Wilson |
| Succeeded by | Joseph Champlin Stone |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
August 29, 1835 near Evansville, Indiana, U.S. |
| Died | June 23, 1890 (aged 54) St. Joseph, Missouri, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Helen McCrary |
George Washington McCrary (August 29, 1835 – June 23, 1890) was a four-term Republican Congressman from Iowa's 1st congressional district, a United States Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Rutherford B. Hayes, and a federal circuit judge.
George Washington McCrary was born near Evansville, Indiana in 1835. Two years later, he moved with his parents to Wisconsin Territory, to what is now Van Buren County, Iowa. He attended the public schools (then, at age eighteen, taught in a country school). He studied law in Keokuk, Iowa at the law firm of future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel F. Miller, then was admitted to the bar in 1856, and, at the age of twenty, commenced practice in Keokuk.
He was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 1857, serving until 1860. Then he was a member of Iowa Senate between 1861 and 1865.
In 1868 he was elected as a Republican to the first of four consecutive terms representing Iowa's 1st congressional district in the U.S. House. In his first month in Congress he received national attention for refusing to support an appropriation for a federal courthouse in Keokuk because the nation was in debt and he could not support such a courthouse in every district. In the House, he chaired the Committee on Elections (in the Forty-second Congress), and the Committee on Railways and Canals (in the Forty-third Congress). He published A Treatise on the American Law of Elections, in 1875. In the Forty-fourth Congress, as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, he was the author of a farsighted (but unsuccessful) bill to reorganize the federal courts to enable reasonable and prompt judicial review. He helped create the Electoral Commission to resolve the outcome of the 1876 Presidential Election, and served on the committee that investigated the Credit Mobilier scandal.
...
Wikipedia