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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—VirginiaMERCER, Charles Fenton
(1778—1858)
MERCER, Charles Fenton, (cousin of Robert Selden Garnett), a Representative from Virginia; born in Fredericksburg, Va., June 16, 1778; was graduated from Princeton College in 1797; took a postgraduate course in the same college and received his degree in 1800; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1802 and commenced practice in Aldie, Loudoun County, Va.; member of the State house of delegates 1810-1817; during the War of 1812 was appointed lieutenant colonel of a Virginia regiment and then major in command at Norfolk, Va.; inspector general in 1814; aide-de-camp to Governor Barbour and brigadier general in command of the Second Virginia Brigade; projector and first president of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Co. 1828-1833; delegate to the State constitutional convention in 1829; elected as a Federalist to the Fifteenth through the Seventeenth Congresses; reelected to the Eighteenth Congress as a Crawford Republican; reelected to the Nineteenth and Twentieth Congresses as an Adams; reelected as an Anti-Jacksonian to the Twenty-First through the Twenty-fourth Congresses; reelected as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth through Twenty-sixth Congresses and served from March 4, 1817, to December 26, 1839, when he resigned; chairman, Committee on Roads and Canals (Twenty-second through Twenty-fifth Congresses); was one of the originators of the plan for establishing the Free State of Liberia; vice president of the Virginia Colonization Society in 1836; vice president of the National Society of Agriculture in 1842; died in Howard, near Alexandria, Va., May 4, 1858; interment in Union Cemetery, Leesburg, Loudoun County, Va.
Bibliography
Carter, Robert Allen. “Virginia Federalist in Dissent: A Life of Charles Fenton Mercer.” Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1988; Egerton, Douglas R. Charles Fenton Mercer and the Trial of National Conservatism.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1989.
Carey, Mathew. Letters on the colonization society; and on its probable results; under the following heads: the origin of the society; increase of the coloured population; manumission of slaves in this country; declarations of legislatures, and other assembled bodies, in favour of the society; situation of the colonists at Monrovia, and other towns ... Addressed to the Hon. C. F. Mercer
. New York: Arno Press, 1968. Reprint, Philadelphia: Stereotyped by L. Johnson, 1832.
Carter, Robert Allen. “Virginia Federalist in Dissent: A Life of Charles Fenton Mercer.” Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1988.
Egerton, Douglas Rogers. “Charles Fenton Mercer and the Foundations of Modern American Conservatism.” Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1985.
Garnett, James Mercer. Biographical Sketch of Hon. Charles Fenton Mercer.
Richmond, Va.: Privately printed by Whittet and Shepperson, 1911.
Mason, Armistead Thomson. Controversy between Armistead Thompson Mason and Charles Fenton Mercer
. [Washington: N.p., 1818].
Mercer, Charles Fenton. A discourse on popular education; delivered in the church at Princeton, the evening before the annual commencement of the College of New Jersey, September 26, 1826
. Princeton: Princeton Press, Printed for the societies, by D. A. Borrenstein, 1826.
———. The farewell address of the Hon. C.F. Mercer to his constituents
. [N.p., 1839].
———. Speech of Mr. C. F. Mercer, on the subject of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, delivered in the convention of delegates, held at the city of Washington, November 7, 1823
. Washington: Printed by Gales & Seaton. 1823.
———. The weakness and inefficiency of the government of the United States of North America; by a late American statesman
. Edited by a member of the Middle Temple. London: Houlston & Wright, 1863.
Scott, John. Judge Scott’s reply to Mr. Mercer
. [Richmond: N.p., 1839].
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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