Grove was also a delegate to the 1789 state convention where North Carolina finally ratified the federal constitution.
A trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the president of the Fayetteville Branch of the Bank of the United States, Grove was elected to the Second United States Congress in 1790; he was re-elected to the 3rd through 7th Congresses as a Federalist, serving consecutively from March 4, 1791 to March 3, 1803.
Despite being a Federalist, Grove was close to Democratic-Republicans in his political views: he opposed Alexander Hamilton and his policies toward the public debt, preferring Jefferson, and he supported the French Revolution while criticizing Britain.
[1] As a southern Federalist, Grove argued in favour of seizing Louisiana, at a time when (before the Louisiana Purchase) the Spanish intendant at New Orleans withdrew the right of free deposit for American goods.
According to JH Broussard, Federalists believed "Jefferson should use the intendant's closure of deposit as an excuse to occupy the territory before France took formal control" from the Spanish.