He presented credentials as a member-elect to the 9th United States Congress (March 4, 1805 – December 24, 1805) but was replaced by Thomas Spalding who contested the initial election outcome.

An article published in 1849 described his involvement in the arrest of Aaron Burr and the writer's impression of Mead's character:[2] Connected with the early history of Jefferson county was the important and memorable arrest of Aaron Burr, for high treason, which happened while Gen. Mead was the acting Governor of the Territory of Mississippi, and gave much eclat to the brief administration of that worthy functionary, who, in after life, never failed, on all proper occasions, to refer with complacency to the time when he was Governor of Mississippi, and the valuable services rendered by him to the General Government, in arresting one, who, at that day, was looked upon as a disorganist, if not a traitor.

Time may have changed the popular sentiment, touching the guilt of the highly gifted, ambitious, but disappointed aspirant for the highest honors of the nation.

Mead, (for he preferred the more pompous civil title,) merited great praise for the energy displayed on the occasion of Burr's arrest.

Mead was vain, pompous and superficial, and seldom looked beyond the narrow circle of which he was the self-constituted centre, unless it were to draw within his influence, those upon whom his high-sounding titles made a deeper impression, than this vapid grandiloquence.