George M. Dallas was Vice President from 1845 to 1849, but most of us know his name because of the big city in Texas.
He was born in Philadelphia in 1792. He graduated from Princeton in 1810, earned a law degree, and passed the
Pennsylvania bar in 1813. That same year he was the secretary to Albert Galliton and went with him on a mission to Europe to negotiate a settlement for the War of 1812.
He returned to his private law practice until his election as mayor of Philidelphia in 1829, and later that year became the US district attorney and served until 1831. Elected to the US Senate in 1830, and serving from 1831 to 1833, Dallas opposed President Andrew Jackson's war on the National Bank, but he supported Jackson over John C. Calhoun in their dispute over South Carolina's right to nullify federal laws. In 1833 he became the attorney general for Pennsylvania and served until 1835. He was appointed the minister to Russia and served from 1837 to 1839.
As Vice President George Miffin Dallas presided over the Senate during the stormy days of the Mexican American War and the controversial Wilmot Proviso which prohibited slavery in any land acquired from Mexico.
As the Minister to Britain, from 1856 to 1861, he attended the Dallas Clareton convention and in 1856 and got an agreement from the British that they would not stop and search American ships. (the British claimed the searches were to stop the illegal slave trade).
George Miffin Dallas died in Philadelphia in 1864.
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