Education
He attended the common schools and Princeton College and studied law, gaining admission to the bar in 1820 and commencing practice in Sparta, Georgia.
lawyer politician representative senator
He attended the common schools and Princeton College and studied law, gaining admission to the bar in 1820 and commencing practice in Sparta, Georgia.
Late in 1820, he was chosen brigadier general of the state militia, despite being only 21 years old. Colquitt moved to the village of Cowpens in Walton County and was elected judge of the Chattahoochee circuit in 1826, being re-elected three years later. He was licensed as a Methodist preacher in 1827, becoming extremely popular in Central and South Georgia, mostly for his strong support of states" rights.
Colquitt was elected as a Whig to the Twenty-sixth Congress and served from March 4, 1839, to July 21, 1840, when he resigned.
He was elected as a Van Buren Democrat to the Twenty-seventh Congress to fill in part vacancies caused by the resignations of Julius C. Alford, William Crosby Dawson, and Eugenius A. Nisbet. He was then elected as a Democrat to the United States. Senate and served from March 4, 1843, until his resignation in February 1848.
While in the Twenty-ninth Congress, Colquitt was chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia and the Committee on Patents and Patent Office. Colquitt retired from national politics in 1848 and resumed his law practice and preaching.
Colquitt died on a trip from Columbus to Macon, Georgia, in 1855.
He was buried in Linwood Cemetery in Columbus, Georgia. Colquitt County, Georgia is named in memory of Walter T. Colquitt.
He was a member of the Georgia Senate in 1834 and 1837. He was a member of the Nashville Convention in 1850, arguing for secession if slavery was restricted in any of the new territories then being added to the country.
