During Ronald Reagan's presidency, Edwards became the vice chairman of the Republican leadership and was a member of the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

His father, William Jackson Edwards Jr., had grown up in Decatur, Alabama and worked for the Rural Electrification Administration at various jobs and receiving promotions until he headed the engineering department.

Young Jack also knew and shared his formal name with his long-lived grandfather, William Jackson Edwards.

His great-grandfather was Perry Jackson Edwards (1847–1919) of Decatur, Alabama (nicknamed "Captain Jack"), who rose to become chief inspector of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.

[3] After becoming a member of the Alabama Bar, Edwards eventually moved to Point Clear, a suburb of Mobile and opened a law practice there.

Edwards also served as president of the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo as well as chairman of America's Junior Miss Pageant.

[4] Alabama had lost one of its nine seats after the 1960 federal census, and after a statewide vote, the first district's Democratic incumbent, Frank Boykin, a 28-year congressional veteran recently again implicated in a corruption scandal, had been the lowest vote-getter and thus redistricted out of his office.

Edwards became one of five Republicans elected to the House from Alabama (the others being James D. Martin, John Hall Buchanan, Glenn Andrews, and William Louis Dickinson) amid Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater's sweep of the state in that year's presidential election.

[5] The Mobile area's voters, like most of their counterparts in Alabama, turned against the Democrats after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Although most of the 1st's living residents had never been represented by a Republican before, Edwards became very popular in his district, to the point that he would never face a close contest for reelection.

During his time in Congress, Edwards worked for development of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway and served on the House Appropriations Committee as well as became the ranking Republican on the Defense subcommittee.