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Rep. John Kershaw

Former Representative for South Carolina’s 9th District

Kershaw was the representative for South Carolina’s 9th congressional district and was a Republican. He served from 1813 to 1815.

Legislators who enslaved Black people

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compiled the first database of slaveholding members of Congress by examining thousands of pages of census records and historical documents.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

Voting Record

Missed Votes

From May 1813 to Mar 1815, Kershaw missed 32 of 352 roll call votes, which is 9.1%. This is better than the median of 18.4% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Mar 1815. 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...

Primary Sources

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