Charles F. Mercer
Charles Fenton Mercer ( born June 16, 1778 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, † May 4, 1858 in Alexandria, Virginia ) was an American politician. Between 1817 and 1839 he represented the state of Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Career
Charles Mercer was a nephew of John Francis Mercer (1759-1821), governor and congressman for the state of Maryland was. He was also a cousin of Congressman Robert S. Garnett (1789-1840) and James M. Garnett ( 1770-1843 ). He attended Princeton College. After a subsequent law degree in 1802 and its recent approval as a lawyer, he began to work in this profession.
Mercer settled down there in 1803, where later the village of Aldie was formed. In 1804 he obtained the right to build a dam and a water mill on the Little River and settled in the years 1807 to 1809 built a mill. During the British - American War of 1812 he served in various units of the state troops of Virginia and rose to up to brigadier general. Politically, he joined the Federalist Party. Between 1810 and 1817 he sat in the House of Representatives from Virginia. From 1828 to 1833 he was president of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company.
In the congressional elections of 1816 Mercer was in the eighth constituency of Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of Joseph Lewis on March 4, 1819. After eleven re- election, he could remain until his resignation on December 26, 1839 in Congress. In the 1820s he was an opponent of the later U.S. President Andrew Jackson. He supported President John Quincy Adams and was first a member of the short-lived National Republican Party, and then in 1835 founded the Whig Party. In 1829 he was a delegate at a meeting on the revision of the Constitution of Virginia. From 1831 to 1839 Mercer was chairman of the Committee on roads and canals. He also was one of the initiators of the establishment of the state of Liberia, where former slaves were to be released into the wild. In 1836, he was Vice President of the Virginia Colonization Society. Since the inauguration of President Jackson in 1829, was discussed inside and outside of Congress vehemently about its policy. It was about the controversial enforcement of the Indian Removal Act, the conflict with the State of South Carolina, which culminated in the Nullifikationskrise, and banking policy of the President. Since 1823 Charles Mercer represented the 14th district of his state.
In 1842, Mercer was vice president of the National Society of Agriculture. He died on 4 May 1858 in the vicinity of Alexandria.