George Troup

George Michael Troup (* 8. September 1780 in McIntosh Bluff , Baldwin County , Florida ; † 26. April 1856 in Montgomery County , Georgia ) was an American politician and Governor of the State of Georgia, he also in both houses of Congress represented .

Early years

George Troup studied law at the College of New Jersey , which later became Princeton University , until 1797 . In 1799 he opened a law firm in Savannah . His political rise began in 1803 when he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. He was a member of the Democratic Republican Party , which was unrivaled in the United States at the time.

Congressman and Senator

After three years he moved to the US House of Representatives in Washington , where he was a member until 1815. After a short political break, he got a seat in the US Senate in 1816 . There he was chairman of the military committee. In 1818 he gave up his seat in the Senate again. In 1819 he was persuaded by the influential William Harris Crawford to run for governor of Georgia. His opponent was John Clark . Both candidates belonged to different factions within the Democratic Republicans and had long been bitter political opponents. The opposition between the two groups existed before the turn of the century. Troup's supporters were the wealthy plantation owners, while Clark was supported by the small farmers and settlers in the border area. Both groups agreed in their efforts to drive the Cherokee Indians out of Georgia. Troup lost the 1819 election. Its rival was re-elected in 1821 and remained governor until 1823. According to the constitution, Clark was not allowed to run for office in 1823 and that cleared the way for Troup.

Governor and return to the Senate

As governor, he immediately began a racial policy against the Indians. He wanted to get the Cherokee out of Georgia as soon as possible. He referred to the former President Thomas Jefferson , who had already proposed at the beginning of the century to relocate the Indians from the eastern United States to the newly acquired Louisiana territory in 1803 . He concluded a corresponding contract with some Indian representatives, but this was not recognized by the majority of the Cherokee. The governor then used the militia against the Indians against the will of President John Quincy Adams . By 1827, many Indians had been expelled from Georgia. The great majority followed over the next decade under Governors George Gilmer , Wilson Lumpkin, and William Schley , especially after gold was found in Indian territory in 1828. Governor Troup was re-elected under the new general electoral system in 1825 by a narrow majority against his old rival Clark.

After the end of his term, Troup was again a Senator in Washington (1829-1833). There he became chairman of the Indian Committee. In 1833 he withdrew from politics and devoted himself to his plantations until his death.

According to him, Troup County named in Georgia.

literature

Porter L. Fortune: George M. Troup: Leading State Rights Advocate. (Ph.D. Diss., University of North Carolina, 1949.)
Edward J. Harden: The Life of George M. Troup. EJ Purse, Savannah, Georgia 1859.
James W. Rabun: Georgia and the Creek Indians. Master's thesis, University of North Carolina, 1937.

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personal data
SURNAME	Troup, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Troup, George Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American politician
DATE OF BIRTH	September 8, 1780
PLACE OF BIRTH	McIntosh Bluff , Alabama
DATE OF DEATH	April 26, 1856
Place of death	Montgomery County , Georgia