Like the actor James Stewart playing Mr. Smith, Mr. Archibald Stuart “went to Washington” as a member of the Twenty-Fifth Congress of the United States from March 4, 1837, until March 3, 1839, representing the Democratic Party from the Seventh District of Virginia including Bedford, Franklin, Henry and Patrick Counties. The population of the district was 49,652 persons, including 18,420 slaves, and Patrick County held 7,395 persons, including 1,782 slaves.
The terms of Stuart’s one office held at the national level were as follows: September 4, 1837, to October 16, 1837; December 4, 1837, to July 9, 1838; and December 3, 1838, to March 3, 1839. There were 242 Members of the House of Representatives, and the future eleventh President of the United States, James K. Polk, was Speaker of the House. Archibald Stuart failed in his bid for reelection in 1838, losing to Whig Party candidate W. L. Goggin in 1838 (1,497 to 1,347) and again in 1840 (1,375 to 1,057).
Stuart first ran for Congress in 1834 as a Democrat against Whig Candidate Nathaniel H. Claiborne and lost a close election (1,681 to 1,595 votes). He defeated Claiborne in 1836 (1,542 to 1, 213 votes) in Virginia’s Seventh District.
Stuart, described as having “fine talents, amiable disposition, handsome in appearance,” did not serve during the secession crisis of 1832-33, as some writers have said, but was in Congress later during the Administration of Martin Van Buren of New York, with Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky as Vice President.
Tradition relating to the appointment of James E. B. Stuart states that Archibald Stuart lost the 1848 election to Thomas H. Averett, and the latter then appointed the son to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, but Stuart and Averett were both Democrats. While it is possible Stuart lost the caucus or primary to Averett and then J. E. B. Stuart received an appointment, it did not happen after the general election, as Averett defeated Whig candidate Thomas S. Flournoy in that election by less than one hundred votes.
Stuart wrote from “Washington City” to his oldest daughters Anne, Bethenia, and Mary on January 2, 1837, that he had “never passed a duller Christmas” and that he visited the “President’s Palace” with Mr. Lee and Mr. Custis to “assist him with the proper etiquette.” Stuart described President Martin Van Buren with familiarity, stating, “Poor Van about exhausted” and that the East Room was crowded, a “real squeeze.” He informed the girls that he had received a letter from Alex Moore declining to be overseer at Laurel Hill, and that their mother would “have to do the best she can.”
Archibald Stuart lived at Mrs. Ballard’s during his stay in Washington. Other Virginia members of the House stayed at the boarding house on Capitol Hill, including William S. Morgan, representing the counties of what are today West Virginia, and George W. Hopkins of Russell County. The most famous resident of Mrs. Ballard’s was the South Carolinian R. Barnwell Rhett. His family name is traditionally credited with giving Margaret Mitchell’s male protagonist in Gone With the Wind his first name, Rhett Butler.
Across the Capitol, the Senate was a place where giants of that time met. Men such as Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Henry Clay of Kentucky, and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts occupied seats in the United States Senate. Virginia’s Senators were William C. Rives and William H. Roane. Additionally, the Senate included James Buchanan of Pennsylvania and Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire. Most historians agree that the latter two became two of the worst Presidents of the United States consecutively just before the Civil War. At the same time, the former great men never attained the office.
Stuart served on the Committee on Invalid Pensions, but spent most of his time in Washington serving on the Committee on Claims. He wrote, “I find being a member of Congress is not the thing it is cracked up to be…I have scarcely had an hour to call my own. I have scarcely made an acquaintance among the citizens, and my acquaintance among the members is formed principally in the House…The Committee of Claims is a most laborious one, and the business being divided out among the members.” In January 1839, while meeting in Room 50 in the first story of the south wing of the Capitol of the United States, Stuart reported unfavorably on claims from people such as Benedict Heard, John Broome, Elizabeth McKay, William W. Scott, Gilbert Howell, and Elias Walton. The House tabled or allowed all of these claims to languish. Most of Stuart’s actions in Congress revolve around the claims assigned to him in the committee. There were exceptions, such as in May 1838, when he moved to print additional treasury notes not to exceed two million. The House rejected the motion. In December 1838, Stuart moved to table the petition from Nantucket, Rhode Island, to open relations with the Republic of Haiti. The House declined to table the petition 105 to 84, and the slave owner from Patrick County found himself on the losing side in recognizing the country of former slaves.
He did experience some excitement during his one term as he found himself facing the son of a “Founding Father” when he locked horns with John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts. Adams, the son of President John Adams, was the only former chief executive of the United States to return to the House of Representatives, serving the people of the “Bay State’s” 12th Congressional District. Not surprisingly, the icon from New England and the lawyer from Ararat voted against each other twenty-nine times and with each other nineteen times in the second session of the 25th Congress, 1837-38, with one or the other being “Not Present” another twenty-one times.
Adams repeatedly attempted to get the House to talk about slavery during Stuart’s one term. This “Gag Rule” kept any discussion of slavery out of Congress. Adams presented multiple petitions from citizens calling for the abolition of slavery and/or curtailing the slave trade in the District of Columbia that included Washington City.
Stuart and Adams locked horns on this issue on February 26, 1838, as a petition from Rocky Mount, Franklin County, Virginia, within Stuart’s district arrived on the floor of the House of Representatives. The petition, presented by J. Q. Adams, called for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. The petition stated, “in our opinions morally and politically wrong and calculated certainly to stir up the deadliest strife between North and South and finally to involve our beloved country in the horrors of a civil war and to lead to dissolution of the Union.” Stuart “said that the memorial appeared to have come from his own district, but he had never heard anything of it.” Stuart per the Congressional Digest asked the clerk to read the names on the petition aloud. After they were read, Stuart “said that he was satisfied the names were all fictitious and moved the resolution be laid on the table.” The petition was laid on the table where it died a quiet death, and the “Gag Rule” not to talk about slavery was maintained, and the United States drifted ever closer to the Civil War.
Archibald Stuart, who listed his address while representing Virginia in the House of Representatives as Mount Airy, North Carolina, had one major accomplishment in Congress involving this same subject. In December 1837, Stuart had a postal route (Star Route) approved between Mount Airy and Patrick Court House, which passed by his home in Ararat, Virginia, and continued in operation into this author’s lifetime. Stuart proposed alternative postal routes between Chambersburg in Bedford County and Big Lick in Botetourt County, as well as another between Elamsville and Taylorsville, the county seat in Patrick County.
