Nathaniel Macon

Nathaniel Macon (1758–1837) was an American statesman from North Carolina. He held office in a variety of roles, first in the North Carolina state legislature, then in the U.S. House of Representatives, and later in the U.S. Senate. He served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1801 to 1807 and as President pro tempore of the Senate from 1826 to 1827.

Macon was a marked advocate of states' rights and decentralized government, aligning with the Anti-Federalists during the passage of the Constitution, and later joining the Jeffersonian Republicans. His opposition to a strong protective tariff and to federal interference with slavery, and his support for the doctrines of nullification and secession, made him an important transitional figure between Thomas Jefferson and John C. Calhoun, who was greatly influenced by Macon's views.

Early Life

Nathaniel Macon was born on December 17, 1758, at Macon Manor, the family home in Warren (then Edgecombe) County, North Carolina. He was the sixth and youngest child of Gideon Macon and Priscilla Jones Macon. The Macons were descended from a French Huguenot who had immigrated to Virginia sometime before 1680 and married into the local gentry; Martha Washington was a distant cousin of Nathaniel Macon's, and another relation of his was a brother-in-law of James Madison. Macon's parents had moved to North Carolina in the 1730s and established a modest tobacco plantation along Shocco Creek in the Roanoke river valley.

Gideon Macon died in 1763, and his widow managed the plantation and the children thereafter. Nathaniel and his older brother John attended a local school from 1766 to 1773; otherwise, not much is known about his youth. Surviving accounts suggest that he was an intelligent, serious-minded adolescent of some ambition, and in 1775, he left home to attend the College of New Jersey (now Princeton).

Revolutionary War Career

Macon's college education was cut short by the escalation of the American Revolutionary War. For a short period in the summer of 1776, he and some of his classmates joined a company of New Jersey militia; not long thereafter, the school closed down, and Macon, after only a year of attendance, returned home to study law.

Though the Roanoke region from which he hailed was among the most pro-Patriot areas in the state, Macon did not again serve in the military until 1780, when he joined one of the militia units formed in response to the British invasion of South Carolina. He enlisted as a private, declining an officer's commission and an offered cash bounty for signing up. He fought at the Battle of Camden, and remained with the army until January 1781, when he was elected to represent Warren County in the state senate. Macon intended at first to decline the seat, saying he believed the need for military manpower was too great, but was eventually persuaded to take office.

Quotes

"The people suspect something is not right when free discussion is feared by government. They know that truth is not afraid of investigation." -Nathaniel Macon

"Some people think borrowing five or six millions a trifling thing. We may leave it for our children to pay. This is unjust. If we contract a debt we ought to pay it, and not leave it to your children. What should we think of a father who would run in debt and leave it for his children to pay?" -Macon

"His integrity, his indefatigable attention to business, and his long experience give him a weight of character and consideration which few men of superior minds ever acquire." -John Quincy Adams on Macon

"The attempt to govern too much has produced every civil war that ever has been, and will, probably, every one that ever may be." -Macon

External links

• Profile at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Nathaniel Macon, Encyclopædia Britannica
• Nathaniel Macon, Encyclopedia.com