Virginia Federalist in dissent: A life of Charles Fenton Merce

This biography examines the public life of Charles Fenton Mercer (1778-1858), a Virginia congressman who led the Federalist opposition in the Virginia Assembly during the War of 1812 and found his career in Washington in the period of National Republican ascendancy.;The first two chapters trace Mercer's political philosophy, awakening Christian faith and political agenda to the legacy of Mercer's family history, the influences of plantation and town life during Mercer's boyhood years in Fredericksburg, and his experiences as an undergraduate and graduate student at Princeton during the French Revolution.;The third chapter follows Mercer's career as a young Federalist lawyer and miller in Loudoun County to his entrance on the public stage in 1810.;Chapters four and five examine Mercer's service as a legislator and military officer during his seven-year apprenticeship in House of Delegates. As the Assembly's leading financier and planner, Mercer introduced new subjects to Virginia legislation in the fields of banking, internal improvements, African colonization and public education.;Chapters six and seven emphasize the nationalist thrust of Mercer's congressional career from 1817 to 1828. Mercer advocated a national system and fund for internal improvements, launched the colonization of Liberia, labored indefatiguably to suppress the African slave trade, and successfully promoted the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal as a great national project worthy of federal patronage.;The final chapter treats Mercer's activity as the first president of the C & O Canal company, his leading role at the Virginia Convention of 1829-1830, and his part in advancing the cause of African colonization and internal improvements against the background of the gathering nullification crisis. By 1833, Jacksonian policy had frustrated Mercer's chief ambitions as a statesman and brought the era of great national projects to an abortive end.;The interpretation is based primarily on Mercer's autobiographical writings, speeches and correspondence. The guiding purpose has been to convey a sense of the man in his work by examining critical turns in Mercer's successive projects from his personal angle of vision. Such an approach reveals an abiding theme and motive in Mercer's life: his identification with George Washington and the legacy of Washington's statesmanship.