Gilmer was born near Lexington, Georgia, in what is present dayOglethorpe County. He attended a variety of backwood schools, including Moses Waddell's famous Willington Academy. He served as first lieutenant in the Forty-third Infantry Regiment from 1813 to 1815 in the campaign against the Creek during the War of 1812. He practiced law as a profession.
Political career
Gilmer's career consisted of multiple, alternating, elected positions at the state and federal level. Of the two great Georgia political factions known as the Crawford men and the Clarke men, he favored Crawford. He was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1818, 1819, and 1824. Gilmer was also elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1820, 1826, 1828 and 1832. Due to an oversight, he did not serve after the election in 1828, because he failed to accept the position within the legal time frame and the governor ordered a new election. As governor of Georgia, Gilmer aggressively pursued Indian removal, laying claim to Federal assistance promised by the Compact of 1802. He initiated the prosecution of Cherokee missionary Samuel Austin Worcester for violation of a law requiring all white persons residing within the Cherokee nation to obtain a license from the governor and to swear to uphold the laws of Georgia. Worcester was arrested in 1831 and sentenced to four years' hard labor. The Cherokee Nation hired a lawyer, William Wirt, and sued the state of Georgia in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia. This led to the United States Supreme Court decisionWorcester v. Georgia, which struck down the Georgia statute imposing its laws on the Cherokees as violating the Treaty of Hopewell. Backed by the Georgia militia and Governor Gilmer, the General Assembly dissolved the Cherokee government, annulled its laws, and passed an act authorizing Gilmer to take possession of the Cherokee lands in north Georgia. The Cherokee issue was hotly debated in the gubernatorial campaign of 1831. Gilmer lost the election to Wilson Lumpkin. The state seized Cherokee gold mines and set up a land lottery system in 1832 to distribute Cherokee lands. During his second term as Governor of Georgia, beginning in 1837, Gilmer supported and expedited the Federal government in the final removal of Indians from Georgia. This process came to be termed the Trail of Tears.
