Weldon Nathaniel Edwards


Weldon Nathaniel Edwards was a United States [House of Representatives|Congressional Representative] from North Carolina.

Early life

Edwards was born in 1788 in Gaston, North Carolina. He has attended Warrenton Academy where he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1810 commencing practice in Warrenton, North Carolina.

Political career

State house of representatives

Edwards was member of the State house of representatives in 1814 and 1815.

Congressional career

Edwards served from February 7, 1816, to March 3, 1827 in the United States House of Representatives.
He was elected as a Republican to the Fourteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Nathaniel Macon, was reelected as a Republican to the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Congresses, elected as a Crawford Republican to the 18th [United States Congress|Eighteenth Congress], and as a Jacksonian to the Nineteenth Congress.
Edwards was chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury, Committee on Public Expenditures. He declined to be a candidate for reelection in 1826 and chose to return to his plantation instead.

North Carolina Senate

He was a member of the State senate between 1833–1844. In 1835 he was a member of the State constitutional convention. Edwards was reelected to the State senate in 1850 and chosen its speaker.
He was president of the State secession convention in 1861.

Death

Edwards died in Warren County, North Carolina on December 18, 1873 and was interred in a private cemetery at his home, "Poplar Mount," about twelve miles from Warrenton in Warren County.