Abraham Watkins Venable

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Abraham Watkins Venable

Abraham Watkins Venable (born October 17, 1799 in Springfield , Fairfax County , Virginia , †  February 24, 1876 in Oxford , North Carolina ) was an American politician ( Democratic Party ) who represented the state of North Carolina in the US House of Representatives and in the Confederate Congress . His uncle Abraham Bedford Venable sat for Virginia in the US Senate from 1803 to 1804 .

Abraham Venable graduated from college in Hampden Sydney in 1816 and then studied medicine for two years before turning to law . In 1819 he graduated from Princeton ; two years later he was inducted into the bar, whereupon he practiced as a lawyer in Prince Edward County and Mecklenburg Counties before moving to North Carolina in 1829.

There he began to be politically active. In 1846 Venable was elected to the House of Representatives in Washington, DC , where he remained after several re-elections until 1853; in 1852 he was not nominated again by his party. In 1860 he was a member of the Electoral College , where he voted for the candidate of the Southern Democrats, John C. Breckinridge , and his running mate Joseph Lane ; however, the Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected as the new US President .

When North Carolina split off from the Union and joined the Confederate States , Venable was appointed as a delegate in their Provisional Congress ; then he sat from 1862 to 1864 in the House of Representatives of the first Confederate Congress . After the Civil War , Venable was no longer politically active.

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personal data
SURNAME Venable, Abraham Watkins
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1799
PLACE OF BIRTH Springfield , Virginia
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 1876
Place of death Oxford , North Carolina