Richard Hines

Richard Hines (June 25, 1792 – November 20, 1851) was a Congressional Representative from North Carolina who served one term in the United States House of Representatives during the Nineteenth Congress. He was born in Tarboro, North Carolina, on June 25, 1792, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, a period in which the new American republic was consolidating its political institutions. Little is recorded about his family background or early youth, but his subsequent professional path indicates that he pursued a course of study appropriate to a legal and political career in the early nineteenth-century South.

Hines studied law as a young man, following the traditional route of legal apprenticeship and reading law rather than attending a formal law school, which was common in his era. After completing his legal studies, he was admitted to the bar in 1816. He then established his law practice in Raleigh, North Carolina, the state capital, where the courts and political institutions of North Carolina were concentrated. His decision to practice in Raleigh placed him at the center of the state’s legal and political life and provided a foundation for his later entry into public office.

By the mid-1820s, Hines had become active in state politics. In 1824 he served as a member of the North Carolina House of Commons, the lower house of the state legislature. His service in the State house of commons marked his first known elective office and offered him experience in legislative procedure and public affairs at the state level. This period coincided with a time of expanding political participation and the rise of new party alignments in North Carolina and across the nation, developments that would shape his subsequent congressional career.

Hines was elected as a member of the Jackson Party from North Carolina to the Nineteenth Congress, serving in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1825, to March 3, 1827. His affiliation with the Jackson Party placed him among the early supporters of Andrew Jackson and aligned him with the emerging Democratic movement that challenged the established political order of the era. During his single term in Congress, he participated in the legislative process at a time of significant national debate over economic policy, internal improvements, and the evolving character of American democracy. Representing his North Carolina constituents, he took part in the deliberations of a Congress that stood at the threshold of the Jacksonian era.

In 1826 Hines was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Twentieth Congress, bringing his federal legislative service to a close after one term. Following his defeat, he returned to Raleigh and resumed the practice of law, continuing the profession that had first brought him into public life. His post-congressional years were spent in legal work in the state capital, where he remained part of the professional community that served North Carolina’s courts and institutions.

Richard Hines died in Raleigh, North Carolina, on November 20, 1851. He was interred in the Old City Cemetery in Raleigh, a burial ground that holds many of the city’s early leaders and public figures. His career, though limited to a single term in the U.S. House of Representatives, reflected the broader political transformations of the early nineteenth century, as North Carolina and the nation moved into the age of Jacksonian democracy.