Matthew Locke (U.S. Congress)

Matthew Locke ( * 1730 in Ireland; † September 7, 1801 in Salisbury, North Carolina ) was an American politician. Between 1793 and 1799 he represented the State of North Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Matthew Locke was an uncle of U.S. Senator Francis Locke (1776-1823) and an ancestor of Kongressabgeordneteten Effiegene Locke Wingo (1883-1962) from Arkansas. He wandered out during the British colonial era to America and settled in what is now Rowan County in North Carolina down. There he worked in the transit business. In 1771 he was responsible for the finances of the then British colony of North Carolina. In August 1774 Locke member of the security committee in Rowan County. Later he joined another revolutionary committees. In 1775 he was a member of the Provincial Congress in Hillsboro. In the same year he was paymaster of the revolutionary forces in Rowan County. 1776, he was a delegate to the Colonial Congress in Halifax.

Also in 1776 belonged to Matthew Locke at the Constituent Assembly of North Carolina. Between 1777 and 1781 he sat as an MP in the House of Representatives from North Carolina. At the same time he was brigadier general of North Carolina troops during the Revolutionary War. In the years 1781 and 1782, he was a member of the Senate of North Carolina. Between 1783 and 1792, he was again a deputy in the State Parliament; In 1789 he participated in a commission for the revision of the State Constitution. In the same year he voted against the ratification of the Constitution of the United States.

In the congressional elections of 1792 Locke was elected in the second district of North Carolina at the time which meets even in Philadelphia U.S. House of Representatives, where he became the successor of John Steele on March 4, 1793. After two re- election he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1799 three legislative periods. He was an opponent of the federal government under Presidents George Washington and John Adams. End of the 1790s he became a member of the founded by President Thomas Jefferson later Democratic- Republican Party.

In 1798, Matthew Locke was not confirmed. After his retirement from the U.S. House of Representatives, he worked as a planter on his now extensive lands. He died on September 7, 1801 in Salisbury.