After his expulsion, Saunders moved to Tennessee and read law under future Senator Hugh Lawson White.

Saunders was such a staunch supporter of William H. Crawford's presidential campaign in the 1824 election that the eventual winner John Quincy Adams referred to the congressman as the most "cankered or venomous reptile in the country".

[1] As an admirer of Nathaniel Macon, Saunders was a fiscal conservative, believing that "men in power are apt to think the peoples' money is intended to be expended in such way as their distempered fancy may support".

The more moderate wing was led by Bedford Brown, a fellow Caswell native and political enemy to Saunders.

Neither man received a majority of votes, and the seat went to William Henry Haywood Jr. Saunders returned to Congress following his election in 1840, where he became an outspoken opponent of Martin Van Buren and his allies who opposed the annexation of Texas.

At the 1844 Democratic National Convention, Saunders sponsored a resolution requiring a two-thirds vote for the selection of a presidential candidate.

Perhaps as an act of appreciation for helping him win the Democratic presidential nomination, President Polk appointed Saunders as minister plenipotentiary to Spain in 1846.

This coincided with the nation's increasing desire to procure Cuba, not only in the context of manifest destiny but also in the interest of Southern power.

In the late 1840s, President James K. Polk dispatched Saunders with a mission to offer $100 million to buy Cuba.

[3] Saunders moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, and in 1850 was elected to represent Wake County in the House of Commons.

He was a member of a commission to codify North Carolina laws in 1851 along with Bartholomew F. Moore and Asa Biggs.