Political Career
Maxwell was the Florida Attorney General in 1846 and 1847, a member of the Florida House of Representatives in 1847, Secretary of State of Florida in 1848, and a member of the Florida Senate in 1849 and 1850. As a Democrat, Maxwell represented Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1853 to 1857.
After Florida seceded from the United States and during the American Civil War, he served in the senate of both the First and Second Confederate Congress (but not in the predecessor Provisional Confederate Congress). Maxwell and Jackson Morton were the only two people to represent Florida in both the United States Congress and the Confederate Congress in their lifetimes.
After the war, Maxwell was named to the Florida Supreme Court in 1865, but resigned the next year. He later returned to the court, serving from 1887 to 1891. Maxwell died in Chipley and was buried in Pensacola.
Maxwell's grandson, Emmett Wilson, also represented Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives. His father-in-law, Walker Anderson, and his son, Evelyn C. Maxwell, both also served on the Florida Supreme Court.
Read more about this topic: Augustus Maxwell
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or career:
“The best political economy is the care and culture of men; for, in these crises, all are ruined except such as are proper individuals, capable of thought, and of new choice and the application of their talent to new labor.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)