Nominated for Supreme Court Chief Justice by President Grant, Williams failed to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate primarily due to Williams's opposition to U.S. Attorney A. C. Gibbs, his former law partner, who refused to stop investigating Republican fraud in the special congressional election that resulted in a victory for Democrat James Nesmith.

[1] In 1875, Williams resigned as U.S. Attorney General after his wife was accused of taking bribes from the custom house firm Pratt & Boyd, which attempted to persuade the U.S. Justice Department to drop litigation against the company.

After his resignation, Williams took part in the effort to count Florida ballots for Rutherford B. Hayes during the controversial presidential election of 1876.

Williams returned to Oregon, resumed private law practice, and was elected Portland's mayor, serving two terms from 1902 to 1905.

In 1871, President Grant appointed Williams one of six U.S. Joint High Commissioners to negotiate a settlement treaty between Britain and the U.S. in Washington, D.C., over the Alabama Claims and America's Northwest boundary between the U.S. and Canada.

In addition to settling the Alabama claims against Britain for allowing Confederate ships to be armed in British ports, at stake was the U.S. Northwest border running through the Rosario Strait.

[2] The Washington, D.C., treaty Commissioners finally decided that the Emperor of Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm I, would settle the boundary matter.

Williams was able to convince the Committee that the German Emperor needed to strictly interpret the Treaty of 1846 and that the boundary be determined by the most used channel, the Haro Strait.

Through Williams's efforts, the German Emperor finally chose the Haro Strait as the Northwest boundary between the U.S. and Canada; the U.S. received the San Juan Islands.

[2] Attorney General Williams continued to prosecute the Ku Klux Klan until December 1872 when he issued a clemency policy toward the South.

Prominent Southern cities that Williams visited and spoke at included Richmond, Virginia; Savannah, Georgia; and Charleston, South Carolina.

[2] No Republican presidential candidate would win any former Confederate state until Warren G. Harding carried Tennessee in 1920, and the Democratic Party would carry a majority of former Confederate states in every presidential election until the party's support for black civil rights caused the defection of almost all the region's white voters in the 1968 election.

On December 12, 1872, President Grant and George Henry Williams peacefully settled the disputed Alabama state elections between the Democrats and Republicans by issuing five resolutions to Governor David P.

[10] Democrat John D. McEnery and Republican William P. Kellogg both claimed to have won the governorship; both parties mired in charges of voting fraud.

[10] On December 3, Attorney General Williams, at the request of Kellogg, ruled that President Grant would enforce any decision by the United States District Courts.

Marshal Stephen B. Packard, who was affiliated with the New Orleans Custom House Gang led by President Grant's brother-in-law (James F. Casey), chose a legislature that impeached sitting Governor Henry Clay Warmoth and put in charge P. B. S. Pinchback, a Kellogg supporter, as the United States' first African American state governor.

[12][13] On December 14, Attorney General Williams informed Warmoth that President Grant recognized Kellogg as the rightful, elected governor of Louisiana.

[13] This action upset the McEnery faction, who believed that President Grant and Attorney General Williams had taken sides in a state election.

In November, a total of 53 crewmembers, including American and British seamen, were tried and executed by Spanish mercenary, Juan N. Burriel, in Santiago, Cuba.

[18][19] On January 31, 1874, prominent members of the New York Bar and Bench attend a reception given by Col. Eliott F. Shepard in honor of U.S. Attorney General Williams.

[21] Also under scrutiny was Williams’ wife's purchase using government money of an expensive carriage in Washington, which she had equipped with liveried coachman and footman.

[21] William's resigned office, and Grant appointed reformer and famous New York lawyer Edwards Pierrepont for his replacement.

Marshals in the Southern states, exposing fraud and corruption, and gave specific reform orders to that were vigorously enforced, cleaning up the Justice Department.

[25] In February 1876, Williams was part of a three-man defense team who defended Orville E. Babcock, President Grant's military secretary, at the Whiskey Ring trial held in St. Louis.

[2] In 1895, Williams published a compilation of Occasional Addresses gathered "from newspapers and stray places"[26] that he had delivered as early as 1869, with the majority dating from 1885 to 1893.

Sherman and several prominent judges, and speeches bearing upon the history and growth of Portland, the study and practice of medicine, the militia, and the United States Supreme Court.

[2] On January 4, 1905, Mayor Williams, at the age of 83 years, was indicted by a grand jury in Multnomah County for allegedly refusing to enforce laws that regulated gambling .

[29] President Theodore Roosevelt officially mechanically opened the ceremony by pressing a button in Washington, D.C.[29] Williams died April 4, 1910, in Portland and is buried at River View Cemetery in that city.