BIGGS, Asa, lawyer, born in Williamstown, North Carolina, 4 February 1811; died in Norfolk, Virginia, 6 March 1878. He received a common-school education and studied law, beginning practice in 1831, was elected to the state constitutional convention in 1835, to the lower branch of the legislature in 1840 and 1842, and to the state senate in 1844. He was chosen a member of congress in 1845, and was one of the three commissioners appointed in 1850 who prepared the revised code of North Carolina, which went into operation in 1854. In the latter year he was again elected to the state senate, and in 1854 was chosen United States senator, which office he resigned in 1858 to accept the judgeship of the United States district court of North Carolina. He held this office until the war broke out, and in May 1861, he was elected to the state convention that passed the ordinance of secession. After the war he resumed the practice of law, and subsequently engaged in the commission business at Norfolk, Virginia