Representative Archibald Van Horne

Archibald Van Horne (1758–1817) was an American politician from Maryland who served in both the United States House of Representatives and the Maryland General Assembly during the early national period. Born in 1758, likely in Maryland, he came of age in the aftermath of the American Revolution and emerged as a local leader in both military and civil affairs. Although details of his early life and family background are sparse in surviving records, his subsequent public service indicates that he was well established in his community and connected to the political currents of the new republic.

Van Horne’s formal public career began in the militia of Maryland, reflecting the continued importance of local military organization in the early United States. On April 18, 1798, he was appointed adjutant of the Fourteenth Regiment of the Maryland Militia, a staff position that involved administrative and organizational responsibilities. He advanced within the regiment and was commissioned captain on May 26, 1802, a role that placed him in direct command of troops and underscored his standing as a figure of authority in his county.

In addition to his militia service, Van Horne entered state politics as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. He represented his constituency in the House from 1801 to 1803 and again in 1805. During his final year in that initial period of legislative service, he was chosen as speaker of the House of Delegates, presiding over the chamber and guiding its proceedings. He resigned his seat on November 11, 1805, as his political trajectory shifted toward national office.

Van Horne was elected as a Republican (often referred to as a Democratic-Republican in modern usage) to the Tenth and Eleventh Congresses, representing Maryland in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1807, to March 3, 1811. Serving during the administration of President Thomas Jefferson and the early years of President James Madison, he participated in debates over trade restrictions, foreign policy, and the growing tensions that would culminate in the War of 1812. During the Eleventh Congress, he held the influential position of chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, overseeing legislative matters relating to the governance and development of the federal capital.

After leaving Congress, Van Horne returned to state politics. He was again elected to the Maryland House of Delegates and served from 1814 to 1816, a period that encompassed the latter stages of the War of 1812 and the immediate postwar years. In 1816, he advanced to the upper chamber of the state legislature as a member of the Maryland State Senate. He served in the Senate until his death in 1817 in Prince George’s County, Maryland, remaining active in public life until the end of his career.

Van Horne was a slaveholder, a fact that placed him within the dominant economic and social order of early nineteenth-century Maryland, where slavery was deeply embedded in agricultural and domestic life. Notably, after his death, the house associated with him, located at 4706 Mann Street just outside Washington, D.C., came to be believed to have served as a station on the Underground Railroad. This later association suggests that, over time, the property transitioned from being linked to slaveholding to being remembered as a site of resistance to slavery, reflecting the broader evolution of attitudes and activism surrounding slavery in the region in the decades after Van Horne’s lifetime.