Edwards was originally a Federalist and was chairman of the 1812 meeting in Chester, Pennsylvania that denounced Congress for declaring war on Great Britain. However once the war was on he supported the U.S. effort. In April 1813, he and Thomas D. Anderson applied to the state and provided their personal funds as bond for military provisions and ammunition to arm a company of Soldiers from Chester during the War of 1812. The military provisions were sent to the Battle of Frenchtown to help fight the attack by British Admiral George Cockburn.[2] The Chester troops marched to Elkton, Maryland to resist the British Forces.[3]
In the summer of 1814, when Dr. Samuel Anderson raised the Mifflin Guards, Edwards joined as a private and served as company clerk.[1]
In 1819, Edwards was elected as a Federalist to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Congresses and served until 1823.[4] Edwards gradually fell away from the Federalist party. He trained under the leadership of Henry Clay but did not follow him into the Whig Party.[1]
After leaving Congress in 1827, Edwards resumed the practice of law in Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1832, he was elected Chief Burgess of Chester and served as Inspector of Customs in Chester from 1838 to 1842.[1]
Edwards daughter married the General and frontiersman Edward Fitzgerald Beale and his granddaughter married the last Czarist Russian Ambassador to the United States, George Bakhmeteff.[1]
