George W. Campbell was born in Scotland in 1769, emigrated to America as a child, and graduated from the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1794. He settled in Tennessee and entered politics, serving in the United States House of Representatives and later the Senate.
A close ally of the Jeffersonian and Madisonian Republicans, Campbell briefly served as Secretary of the Treasury under President James Madison during the difficult finances of the War of 1812, then returned to the Senate. He later served as United States minister to Russia. He died in Nashville in 1848.