Introduction
Augustus Emmett Maxwell (September 21, 1820 – May 5, 1903) was a United States Representative from Florida as well as a senator in the Confederate Congress representing Florida.
Early life
Maxwell was born in Elberton, Georgia. He graduated from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1841 and was admitted to the Alabama bar association in 1843. After practicing law in Eutaw, Alabama, he moved to Tallahassee, Florida, in 1845, the year Florida became a U.S. state.
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.