Sen. Augustus Merrimon

Former Senator for North Carolina

Merrimon was a senator from North Carolina and was a Democrat. He served from 1873 to 1879.

Bioguide

Photo of Sen. Augustus Merrimon [D-NC, 1873-1879]

Legislators who enslaved Black people

Merrimon was among more than 1,800 legislators who enslaved Black people. The Washington Post compiled the first database of slaveholding members of Congress by examining thousands of pages of census records and historical documents. Merrimon was one of them.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Mar 1873 to Mar 1879, Merrimon missed 309 of 1,438 roll call votes, which is 21.5%. This is better than the median of 30.7% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Mar 1879. The chart below reports missed votes over time.

We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.

Show the numbers...

Time Period	Votes Eligible	Missed Votes	Percent	Percentile
Dec 1873-Feb 1874	57	1	1.8%	0^th
1874 Mar-May	116	15	12.9%	9^th
1874 Jun-Jun	82	3	3.7%	0^th
Dec 1874-Mar 1875	149	7	4.7%	0^th
1873 Mar-Mar	16	1	6.2%	6^th
Dec 1875-Mar 1876	89	10	11.2%	14^th
1876 Apr-Jul	186	60	32.3%	35^th
1876 Aug-Aug	51	27	52.9%	70^th
Dec 1876-Mar 1877	84	27	32.1%	55^th
1875 Mar-Mar	24	20	83.3%	92^nd
1877 Oct-Dec	71	31	43.7%	71^st
Dec 1877-Feb 1878	69	14	20.3%	41^st
1878 Mar-May	110	23	20.9%	22^nd
1878 Jun-Jun	83	7	8.4%	5^th
Dec 1878-Mar 1879	236	54	22.9%	27^th
1877 Mar-Mar	15	9	60.0%	90^th

Primary Sources

The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:

unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990 by Howard L. Rosenthal and Keith T. Poole.
Martis’s “The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress”, via Keith Poole’s roll call votes data set, for political party affiliation for Members of Congress from 1789 through about year 2000
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress for the photo

Sen. Augustus Merrimon

Legislators who enslaved Black people

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Voting Record

Missed Votes

Primary Sources