Andrew Moore was the son of Mary (Evans) and David Moore, who emigrated from the north of Ireland and settled in the Valley of Virginia. He was born at "Cannicello, " about twenty miles south of Staunton, in that part of Augusta County which is now Rockbridge County.
After attaining some education at the local log college, Augusta Academy, Moore went to Williamsburg, where he studied law under George Wythe. He qualified as an attorney about 1774.
When the Revolution began, Moore asserted his leadership by persuading the neighborhood youths to enlist under him and, as head of a company of the 9th Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line, he had one or more important tours of service. He never advanced beyond a captaincy in the Revolution but, later, as a militia officer reached the rank of major-general.
In his early thirties, he had become a political leader of the very important Valley section of Virginia. This leadership was recognized in the state legislature, to which he was consistently elected during the decade before the organization of the federal government in 1789. He became one of Madison's chief lieutenants in the contests against such measures as the emission of paper money, an assessment for religion, and the confiscation of British debts. Likewise, he joined with Madison and did service in the movements for religious liberty, the reform in the state court system, and the reorganization of the federal government.
On June 28, 1788, he was elected a member of the privy council, for which he qualified on November 4. Though one of the younger Valley leaders he was chosen as the representative from his section to the First Congress in 1789 and was re-elected for four successive terms. In the House, he continued as a Madison lieutenant, opposing drastic amendments to the new Constitution, fighting against the Bank of the United States and, later, the Alien and Sedition Acts. He also joined heartily with Madison and White in the various maneuvers that finally succeeded in bringing the new capital to the banks of the Potomac.
His independence, as well as his loyalty to his section, is indicated in his refusal to vote with Madison for the first tariff measures because they contained provisions unfavorable to his frontier section, such as the salt duties and the distillery excise. In 1799, after an absence of ten years, he returned with Madison to the Virginia legislature for the 1799-1800 session and helped to defeat the set of resolutions that proposed to repudiate those of 1798. In the next session, 1800-01, he served in the upper house of the legislature.
In 1800, he was a presidential elector on the Republican ticket. The next year, he was appointed as one of the commissioners to adjust the boundary line between Tennessee and Virginia, but he was prevented from serving because he accepted the federal appointment to be marshal of the western district of Virginia. He was reelected to Congress but, only after successfully contesting the election with Thomas Lewis, was he able to serve from March 5 to August 11, 1804, when he resigned in order to accept appointment to the United States Senate. He served in the Senate as an administration supporter until March 1809. In the following year, he was appointed the United States marshal for the state of Virginia and continued in that position until his resignation just before his death.
Moore's most important non-political service was in behalf of the academy he had himself attended. He was active in obtaining a charter from the legislature in 1782, served as a trustee from 1782 to 1821, and was largely instrumental in enlisting the sympathy and material aid of Washington for the permanent establishment of the institution which later became Washington and Lee University.
While Moore played a minor part on the floor of the Virginia ratification convention of 1788, he proved his worth to Madison and his colleagues by refusing to be influenced by a nearly successful attempt of the anti-federalists to change the sentiment of his constituents after he had been elected as a federalist.
Soon after the Revolution, Moore married Sarah, the daughter of Andrew Reid of Rockbridge County.
