George Brown (1818-1880) was a Canadian politician and newspaper editor who stood for the principle of majority rule, favored expansion into the West, and gave powerful support to the movement for the federation of British North America.

George Brown was born in Alloa near Edinburgh, Scotland, on Nov. 20, 1818. Educated in Edinburgh, he emigrated to the United States with his father at the age of 20 and settled in New York. There the Browns began a newspaper, the British Chronicle. Not finding life in New York to their liking, they moved in 1843 to Toronto, Canada, where they established a Presbyterian newspaper, the Banner.

A year later the younger Brown founded the Globe, a political journal designed to appeal to the residents of Toronto and the Protestant rural area in the western part of the province. In this newspaper Brown began to expound the views that made him a power in...