(Excerpt from Autobiography of Asa Biggs: Including a Jour...)
Excerpt from Autobiography of Asa Biggs: Including a Journal of a Trip From North Carolina to New York in 1832 8represented Beaufort County in the House of Commons in 1844, 1846, and 1848; Speaker in 1844 and 1846; member of Congress, 1837 1849. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Asa Biggs was born on February 4, 1811, at Williamston, North Carolina, United States, the son of Joseph Biggs, merchant and elder of the Primitive Baptist Church, and Chloe Daniel, his third wife. His parents were poor and uncultured but strong in moral and religious qualities.
Growing rapidly in mind and body, Asa at fifteen quit the Williamston Academy.
Biggs clerked in neighboring stores, and, having read law privately, began its practise in 1831. Next year he attended a party convention and traveled to New York. Until 1845, and intermittently thereafter until 1858, he was primarily a lawyer, painstaking, honest, and financially successful. It was politics, however, that brought him into public notice. He had espoused the cause of Andrew Jackson early, and was sent to the state constitutional convention of 1835. Here he said nothing, learned much, and voted as planter interests and sectional jealousies required. Then he went to the House of Commons for two terms and to the Senate for one (1840 - 1845). A single term in Congress immediately followed. These honors, far from being thrust upon him, were won by hard-fought campaigns in which he made a reputation by refusing either to "treat" or to trim on public issues.
In the Democratic state convention of 1850 Biggs attracted state-wide attention by attempting to commit the party against state internal improvements. Desisting, however, in the interest of party harmony, he was the next year appointed joint codifier of the state's laws by Gov. Ellis, whom the convention of 1850 had nominated. There followed four years of quiet, dignified, and congenial labor, only slightly seasoned with politics, after which he returned to the Senate, saw Moore and Biggs's Code safely adopted, and was elected, along with Gov. Ellis, to the federal Senate. Here, because of his stand for economy in government, place was made for him on the Finance Committee.
But Biggs was not happy in Congress: his political reading was inadequate; his health became impaired by severe labor without exercise; the Government was corrupt and growing worse; his domestic affairs and religious life were upset. Accordingly he resigned to become district judge of North Carolina (1858 - 1861). Decidedly pro-Southern in his views, he was active in the Secession Convention until called to the duties of Confederate district judge (December 1861 - April 1865); and he supported the Confederacy whole-heartedly and prayerfully to the end. His fortune swept away by war and his law practise handicapped by the hostility of the state supreme court (to which, characteristically, he refused to apologize for signing a certain famous "Solemn Protest"), he began life anew in 1868 in Norfolk, Virginia; and there he died ten years later.
(Excerpt from Autobiography of Asa Biggs: Including a Jour...)
Asa Biggs was a member of the Democratic Party and of the U. S. House of Representatives from North Carolina's 9th district from 1845 to 1847.
Biggs was a tall, black-haired, and somber-faced North Carolinian.
Asa Biggs was married to Martha Elizabeth Andrews. They had ten children.
