George Nixon Briggs (April 12, 1796 – September 12, 1861) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts. A Whig, Briggs served for twelve years in the United States House of Representatives, and served seven one-year terms as the 19th Governor of Massachusetts, from 1844 to 1851.

Raised in rural Upstate New York, Briggs studied law in western Massachusetts, where his civic involvement and successful legal practice preceded statewide political activity. He was elected to Congress in 1830, where he supported the conservative Whig agenda, serving on the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads. He was also a regular advocate of temperance, abstaining from all alcohol consumption.

He was nominated by the Whigs in 1843 to run against Democratic governor Marcus Morton as part of a Whig bid for more rural votes, and easily won election until 1849. Although he sought to avoid the contentious issue of slavery, he protested South Carolina policy allowing the imprisonment of free African Americans. He supported capital punishment, notably refusing to commute the death sentence of John White Webster for the murder of George Parkman. Briggs died of an accidental gunshot wound at his home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

George Nixon Briggs was born in Adams, Massachusetts, on April 12, 1796. He was the eleventh of twelve children of Allen Briggs, a blacksmith originally from Cranston, Rhode Island, and Nancy (Brown) Briggs, of Huguenot descent. His parents moved the family to Manchester, Vermont, when he was seven, and, two years later, to White Creek, New York. The household was religious: his father was a Baptist and his mother was a Quaker, and they gave their children religious instruction from the Bible.

At the age of 14, during the Second Great Awakening, which was especially strong in Upstate New York, Briggs experienced a conversion experience and joined the Baptist faith. He spoke at revival meetings of his experience, drawing appreciative applause from the crowds, according to Hiland Hall, who came to know Briggs at that time and who became a lifelong friend and political associate. His faith informed his personal behavior: he remained committed to religious ideals, for instance objecting to Congressional sessions that stretched into Sunday and abstaining from alcohol consumption.

Briggs sporadically attended the public schools in White Creek, and was apprenticed for three years to a Quaker hatter. With support from his older brothers he embarked on the study of law in Pittsfield and Lanesboro in 1813, and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1818. He first opened a practice in Adams, moved it to Lanesboro in 1823, and Pittsfield in 1842. His trial work was characterized by a contemporary as clear, brief, and methodical, even though he was fond of telling stories in less formal settings.

In 1817 Briggs helped to establish a Baptist church in Lanesboro; in this congregation he met Harriet Hall, whom he married in 1818; their children were Harriet, George, and Henry. Briggs was also called upon to raise the four orphaned children of his brother Rufus, one of the brothers who supported him in his law studies. Rufus died in 1816, followed by his wife not long afterward.

Briggs' involvement in civic life began at the local level. From 1824 to 1831 Briggs was the register of deeds for the Northern district of Berkshire County, Massachusetts. He was elected town clerk in 1824, was appointed chairman of the board of commissioners of highways in 1826. His interest in politics was sparked by his acquaintance with Henry Shaw, who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1817 to 1821.