Sen. Bedford Brown

Former Senator for North Carolina

Brown was a senator from North Carolina and was a Democrat. He served from 1835 to 1841.

He was previously a senator from North Carolina as a Jackson from 1829 to 1835.

Bioguide

Photo of Sen. Bedford Brown [D-NC, 1835-1841]

Legislators who enslaved Black people

Brown 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compiled the first database of slaveholding members of Congress by examining thousands of pages of census records and historical documents. Brown was one of them.

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From Dec 1829 to Jul 1840, Brown missed 477 of 2,017 roll call votes, which is 23.6%. This is on par with the median of 22.0% among the lifetime records of senators serving in Jul 1840. 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 1829-May 1830	178	9	5.1%	43^rd
Dec 1830-Mar 1831	83	16	19.3%	50^th
Dec 1831-Feb 1832	13	6	46.2%	86^th
1832 Mar-May	81	25	30.9%	91^st
1832 Jun-Jul	191	14	7.3%	45^th
Dec 1832-Mar 1833	137	83	60.6%	93^rd
Dec 1833-Feb 1834	14	1	7.1%	65^th
1834 Mar-May	67	15	22.4%	35^th
1834 Jun-Jun	69	21	30.4%	88^th
1835 Jan-Mar	79	9	11.4%	45^th
Dec 1835-Feb 1836	21	0	0.0%	0^th
1836 Mar-May	142	34	23.9%	63^rd
1836 Jun-Jul	86	41	47.7%	96^th
Dec 1836-Mar 1837	190	29	15.3%	35^th
1837 Sep-Oct	36	13	36.1%	79^th
Dec 1837-Feb 1838	63	2	3.2%	11^th
1838 Mar-May	92	41	44.6%	84^th
1838 Jun-Jul	78	31	39.7%	77^th
Dec 1838-Mar 1839	134	35	26.1%	60^th
1840 Jan-Feb	36	3	8.3%	36^th
1840 Mar-May	79	11	13.9%	30^th
1840 Jun-Jul	148	38	25.7%	53^rd

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. Bedford Brown

Legislators who enslaved Black people

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Voting Record

Missed Votes

Primary Sources