Representative Archibald Hunter Arrington

Archibald Hunter Arrington (November 13, 1809 – July 20, 1872) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a U.S. Representative from North Carolina from 1841 to 1845 and later as a member of the Confederate Congress during the American Civil War. A Democrat, he participated in national and Confederate legislative bodies during a period of intense sectional conflict and transformation in the United States, representing the interests of his North Carolina constituents in both forums.

Arrington was born on November 13, 1809, in Nash County, North Carolina, into a region dominated by agriculture and plantation life in the early nineteenth century. He came of age in a slaveholding society in the antebellum South, an environment that shaped the political and economic outlook of many of his contemporaries. Details of his early family life are sparse in the historical record, but his subsequent career in law and politics suggests that he benefited from the educational and social opportunities available to members of the local elite in eastern North Carolina.

Arrington studied law and was admitted to the bar, beginning a legal career in North Carolina prior to his entry into national politics. As a lawyer, he would have been engaged in the kinds of civil and property disputes common in a predominantly rural, agrarian state, and his legal training provided the foundation for his later legislative work. His professional standing and connections in the legal and business communities facilitated his emergence as a public figure and helped propel him into elective office.

Arrington was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Congresses, serving as a U.S. Representative from North Carolina from March 4, 1841, to March 3, 1845. His two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives coincided with the presidencies of William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and the beginning of James K. Polk’s administration, a time marked by debates over banking policy, tariffs, westward expansion, and the balance of power between free and slave states. As a member of the Democratic Party representing North Carolina, Arrington contributed to the legislative process during his two terms in office, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents in Congress during this significant period in American history.

After leaving the U.S. House of Representatives in 1845, Arrington returned to North Carolina and resumed his legal and business activities. Like many Southern Democratic politicians of his generation, he remained engaged in public affairs as sectional tensions deepened in the 1850s. His experience in the national legislature and his alignment with Southern Democratic positions on states’ rights and slavery positioned him to play a role in the political realignments that followed the secession of the Southern states.

During the American Civil War, Arrington served as a member of the Confederate Congress, taking part in the legislative work of the Confederate States of America. In that capacity, he was involved in shaping policies for the Confederate government during a time of war, economic strain, and social upheaval. His service in the Confederate Congress reflected the commitment of many North Carolina Democrats to the Confederate cause and to the defense of the Southern social and economic order, including the institution of slavery.

Following the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865, Arrington, like other former Confederate officials, returned to private life in a South undergoing Reconstruction and federal oversight. The historical record provides limited detail on his specific activities in these years, but his postwar life unfolded against the backdrop of political disenfranchisement of former Confederate leaders, economic dislocation, and the contested redefinition of civil and political rights in North Carolina and the broader South. Archibald Hunter Arrington died on July 20, 1872, closing a public career that had spanned the antebellum, Civil War, and early Reconstruction eras and had placed him at the center of some of the most consequential political struggles in nineteenth-century American history.