Romulus Mitchell SAUNDERS, Congress, NC (1791-1867)

SAUNDERS, Romulus Mitchell, a Representative from North Carolina; born near Milton, Caswell (then Orange) County, N.C., March 3, 1791; attended the common schools and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1809-1811; studied law; was admitted to the bar in Nashville, Tenn., in 1812 and commenced practice in Milton, N.C.; member of the state house of commons in 1815, 1817, and 1819, and served two years as speaker; trustee of the University of North Carolina 1819-1864; moved to Raleigh, N.C., in 1823; elected as a Republican to the Seventeenth Congress, reelected as a Crawford Republican to the Eighteenth Congress, and elected as a Jacksonian to the Nineteenth Congress (March 4, 1821-March 3, 1827); declined to be a candidate for reelection; attorney general of the state 1828-1831; judge of the superior court 1835-1840; unsuccessful candidate for governor of North Carolina in 1840; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Congresses (March 4, 1841-March 3, 1845); chairman, Committee on the Judiciary (Twenty-eighth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for reelection; unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate in 1842 and 1852; Minister to Spain 1846-1849; again a member of the state house of commons 1850-1852; judge of the superior court of North Carolina 1852-1856; member of the board of commissioners to revise the laws of North Carolina; died in Raleigh, N.C., April 21, 1867; interment in Old City Cemetery.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present