Edwin Maxwell (attorney general), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Edwin Maxwell (attorney general)

An American lawyer, judge, and politician in the U.S. state of West Virginia

Date of Birth: 16-Jul-1825

Place of Birth: Weston, West Virginia, United States

Date of Death: 05-Feb-1903

Profession: judge, politician

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Cancer


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About Edwin Maxwell (attorney general)

  • Edwin Maxwell (July 16, 1825 – February 5, 1903) was an American lawyer, judge, and politician in the U.S.
  • state of West Virginia.
  • Maxwell served as Attorney General of West Virginia in 1866 and was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia from 1867 until 1872.
  • He was elected to the West Virginia Senate (1863–1866; 1886–1893) and the West Virginia House of Delegates (1893–1895; 1903). Maxwell was born in 1825 in Weston, Virginia (present-day West Virginia) and raised on a farm until the age of 21.
  • Despite his father's plans for him to become a carpenter, Maxwell studied jurisprudence under his uncle Lewis Maxwell, a U.S.
  • Representative.
  • Maxwell was admitted to the bar in 1848, and relocated to West Union, where he served two terms as the Commonwealth's attorney for Doddridge County.
  • In 1857, Maxwell moved to Clarksburg and established a law partnership with Burton Despard, which was later joined by Nathan Goff, Jr. He was resolute in his support of the Union during the American Civil War and of the statehood movement for West Virginia.
  • Following the state's creation in 1863, Maxwell began his political career when he was elected to serve in the inaugural session of the West Virginia Senate.
  • He also served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
  • In 1865, Maxwell chaired a senate committee that proposed a state constitutional amendment known as the "Maxwell amendment" which aimed to remove citizenship rights from former Confederates returning to West Virginia.
  • Governor Arthur I.
  • Boreman appointed Maxwell as the Attorney General of West Virginia in 1866.
  • In the fall of 1866, Maxwell was elected as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, on which he served until 1872.
  • He ran unsuccessfully for re-election to the bench in 1880, and was an unsuccessful Greenback-Labor Party gubernatorial candidate in 1884.
  • During his gubernatorial campaign, he was known by the moniker "Old Honesty." In 1886, Maxwell was elected a member of the West Virginia Senate, representing the Third Senatorial District, serving until 1893.
  • He was subsequently twice elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates representing Harrison County in 1893 and 1903, and served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee during both terms.
  • Maxwell died in 1903 from pneumonia while serving in a session of the House of Delegates in Charleston.
  • At the time of his death at the age of 77, he was the oldest member of the West Virginia Legislature.

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