Research topic: James Zachariah George

James Zachariah George 1826-97, American jurist and legislator, b. Monroe co., Ga. He moved to Mississippi in 1834 and, after serving in the Mexican War, became a prominent lawyer. He was long a reporter and later (1879-81) chief justice of the state supreme court. A signer of Mississippi's secession ordinance and a Confederate brigadier general in the Civil War, he was a leader in the struggle for white supremacy in Mississippi during the Reconstruction period. George wrote the "grandfather clause," which effectively ended black suffrage, in the Mississippi constitution of 1890. He later... Read more