in all his actions by reason and judgment, and deeply imbued with
Bible images, this virtuous and patriotic man (whom Mr. Jefferson
called "the last of the Romans") had long fixed the term of his
political existence at the age which the Psalmist assigns for the
limit of manly life: "The days of our years are threescore years
and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet
is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and
we fly away." He touched that age in 1828; and, true to all his
purposes, he was true to his resolve in this, and executed it with
the quietude and indifference of an ordinary transaction. He was in
the middle of a third senatorial term, and in the full possession
of all his faculties of mind and body; but his time for retirement
had come--the time fixed by himself; but fixed upon conviction and
for well considered reasons, and as inexorable to him as if fixed by
fate. To the friends who urged him to remain to the end of his term,
and who insisted that his mind was as good as ever, he would answer
that it was good enough yet to let him know that he ought to quit
office before his mind quit him, and that he did not mean to risk
the fate of the Archbishop of Grenada. He resigned his senatorial
honors as he had worn them--meekly, unostentatiously, in a letter of
thanks and gratitude to the General Assembly of his State, and gave
to repose at home that interval of thought and quietude which every
wise man would wish to place between the turmoil of strife and the
stillness of eternity. He had nine years of this tranquil enjoyment,
and died without pain or suffering, June 29, 1837--characteristic
in death as in life. It was eight o'clock in the morning when he
felt that the supreme hour had come, had himself full-dressed with
his habitual neatness, walked in the room and lay upon the bed, by
turns conversing kindly with those who were about him, and showing
by his conduct that he was ready and waiting, but hurrying nothing.
It was the death of Socrates, all but the hemlock, and in that full
faith of which the Grecian sage had only a glimmering. He directed
his own grave on a point of sterile ridge (where nobody would wish
to plough), and covered with a pile of rough flint-stone (which
nobody would wish to build with), deeming this sterility and the
uselessness of this rock the best security for that undisturbed
repose of the bones which is still desirable to those who are
indifferent to monuments.
In almost all strongly marked characters there is usually some
incident or sign, in early life, which shows that character and
reveals to the close observer the type of the future man. So it
was with Mr. Macon. His firmness, his patriotism, his self-denial,
his devotion to duty, and disregard of office and emolument; his
modesty, integrity, self-control, and subjection of conduct to the
convictions of reason and the dictates of virtue, all so steadily
exemplified in a long life, were all shown from the early age of
eighteen, in the miniature representation of individual action,
and only confirmed in the subsequent public exhibitions of a long,
beautiful, and exalted career.
He was of that age, and a student at Princeton College, at the time
of the Declaration of American Independence. A small volunteer
corps was then on the Delaware. He quit his books, joined it,
served a term, returned to Princeton, and resumed his studies. In
the year 1778 the Southern States had become a battle-field, big
with their own fate, and possibly involving the issue of the war.
British fleets and armies appeared there, strongly supported by
the friends of the British cause; and the conquest of the South
was fully counted upon. Help was needed in these States; and Mr.
Macon, quitting college, returned to his native county in North
Carolina, joined a militia company as a private, and marched to
South Carolina--then the theatre of the enemy's operations. He
had his share in all the hardships and disasters of that trying
time; was at the fall of Fort Moultrie, surrender of Charleston,
defeat at Camden, and in the rapid winter retreat across the upper
part of North Carolina. He was in the camp on the left bank of
the Yadkin when the sudden flooding of that river, in the brief
interval between the crossing of the Americans and the coming up of
the British, arrested the pursuit of Cornwallis and enabled Greene
to allow some rest to his wearied and exhausted men. In this camp,
destitute of everything and with gloomy prospects ahead, a summons
came to Mr. Macon from the Governor of North Carolina, requiring
him to attend a meeting of the General Assembly, of which he had
been elected a member, without his knowledge, by the people of his
county. He refused to go, and the incident being talked of through
the camp, came to the knowledge of the general. Greene was a _man_
himself and able to know a _man_. He felt at once that, if this
report was true, this young soldier was no common character, and
determined to verify the fact. He sent for the young man, inquired
of him, heard the truth, and then asked for the reason of this
unexpected conduct--this preference for a suffering camp over a
comfortable seat in the General Assembly. Mr. Macon answered him,
in his quaint and sententious way, that he had seen the _faces_ of
the British many times, but had never seen their _backs_, and meant
to stay in the army till he did. Greene instantly saw the material
the young man was made of and the handle by which he was to be
worked. That material was patriotism, that handle a sense of duty;
and laying hold of this handle, he quickly worked the young soldier
into a different conclusion from the one that he had arrived at. He
told him he could do more good as a member of the General Assembly
than as a soldier; that in the army he was but one man, and in
the General Assembly he might obtain many, with the supplies they
needed, by showing the destitution and suffering which he had seen
in the camp; and that it was his duty to go. This view of duty and
usefulness was decisive. Mr. Macon obeyed the Governor's summons,
and by his representations contributed to obtain the supplier which
enabled Greene to turn back and face Cornwallis--fight him, cripple
him, drive him further back than he had advanced (for Wilmington is
south of Camden), disable him from remaining in the South (of which,
up to the battle of Guilford, he believed himself to be master),
and sending him to Yorktown, where he was captured and the war ended.
The philosophy of history has not yet laid hold of the battle of
Guilford, its consequences and effects. That battle made the capture
of Yorktown. The events are told in every history: their connection
and dependence in none. It broke up the plan of Cornwallis in the
South, and changed the plan of Washington in the North. Cornwallis
was to subdue the Southern States, and was doing it until Greene
turned upon him at Guilford. Washington was occupied with Sir Henry
Clinton, then in New York with twelve thousand British troops.
He had formed the heroic design to capture Clinton and his army
(the French fleet cooperating) in that city, and thereby putting
an end to the war. All his preparations were going on for that
grand consummation when he got news of the battle of Guilford, the
retreat of Cornwallis to Wilmington, his inability to keep the
field in the South, and his return northward through the lower
part of Virginia. He saw his advantage--an easier prey--and the
same result, if successful. Cornwallis or Clinton, either of them
captured, would put an end to the war. Washington changed his plan,
deceived Clinton, moved rapidly upon the weaker general, captured
him and his seven thousand men, and ended the Revolutionary war. The
battle of Guilford put that capture into Washington's hands; and
thus Guilford and Yorktown became connected; and the philosophy of
history shows their dependence, and that the lesser event was father
to the greater. The State of North Carolina gave General Greene
twenty-five thousand acres of western land for that day's work, now
worth a million of dollars; but the day itself has not yet obtained
its proper place in American history.
The military life of Mr. Macon finished with his departure from
the camp on the Yadkin, and his civil public life commenced on his
arrival at the General Assembly, to which he had been summoned--that
civil public life in which he was continued above forty years
by free elections--Representative in Congress under Washington,
Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, and long the Speaker of the House;
Senator in Congress under Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams;
and often elected President of the Senate, and until voluntarily
declining; twice refusing to be Postmaster-General under Jefferson;
never taking any office but that to which he was elected; and
resigning his last senatorial term when it was only half run. But a
characteristic trait remains to be told of his military life--one
that has neither precedent nor imitation (the example of Washington
being out of the line of comparison): he refused to receive pay or
to accept promotion, and served three years as a private through
mere devotion to his country. And all the long length of his life
was conformable to this patriotic and disinterested beginning:
and thus the patriotic principles of the future Senator were all
revealed in early life and in the obscurity of an unknown situation.
Conformably to this beginning, he refused to take anything under
the modern acts of Congress for the benefit of the surviving
officers and soldiers of the Revolution, and voted against them
all, saying they had suffered alike (citizens and military), and
all been rewarded together in the establishment of independence;
that the debt to the army had been settled by pay, by pensions to
the wounded, by half-pay and land to the officers: that no military
claim could be founded on depreciated continental paper money, from
which the civil functionaries who performed service, and farmers
who furnished supplies, suffered as much as any. On this principle
he voted against the bill for Lafayette, against all the modern
Revolutionary pensions and land bounty acts, and refused to take
anything under them (for many were applicable to himself).
His political principles were deep-rooted, innate, subject to no
change and to no machinery of party. He was democratic in the
broad sense of the word, as signifying a capacity in the people
for self-government; and in its party sense, as in favor of a
plain and economical administration of the Federal Government, and
against latitudinarian constructions of the Constitution. He was a
party man, not in the hackneyed sense of the word, but only where
principle was concerned; and was independent of party in all his
social relations, and in all the proceedings which he disapproved.
Of this he gave a strong instance in the case of General Hamilton,
whom he deemed honorable and patriotic; and utterly refused to be
concerned in a movement proposed to affect him personally, though
politically opposed to him. He venerated Washington, admired the
varied abilities and high qualities of Hamilton, and esteemed
and respected the eminent Federal gentlemen of his time. He had
affectionate regard for Madison and Monroe; but Mr. Jefferson was
to him the full and perfect exemplification of the republican
statesman. His almost fifty years of personal and political
friendship and association with Mr. Randolph is historical, and
indissolubly connects their names and memories in the recollection
of their friends, and in history, if it does them justice. He was
the early friend of General Jackson, and intimate with him when he
was a Senator in Congress under the administration of the elder Mr.
Adams; and was able to tell Congress and the world who he was when
he began to astonish Europe and America by his victories. He was
the kind observer of the conduct of young men, encouraging them by
judicious commendation when he saw them making efforts to become
useful and respectable, and never noting their faults. He was just
in all things, and in that most difficult of all things, judging
political opponents, to whom he would do no wrong, not merely in
word or act, but in thought. He spoke frequently in Congress, always
to the point, and briefly and wisely; and was one of those speakers
whom Mr. Jefferson described Dr. Franklin to have been--a speaker of
no pretension and great performance, who spoke more good sense while
he was getting up out of his chair, and getting back into it, than
many others did in long discourses; and he suffered no reporter to
dress up a speech for him.
He was above the pursuit of wealth, but also above dependence and
idleness; and, like an old Roman of the elder Cato's time, worked
in the fields at the head of his slaves in the intervals of public
duty, and did not cease this labor until advancing age rendered
him unable to stand the hot sun of summer--the only season of the
year when senatorial duties left him at liberty to follow the
plough or handle the hoe. I think it was the summer of 1817--that
was the last time (he told me) he tried it, and found the sun too
hot for him--then sixty years of age, a Senator, and the refuser
of all office. How often I think of him when I see at Washington
robustious men going through a scene of supplication, tribulation,
and degradation, to obtain office, which the salvation of the soul
does not impose upon the vilest sinner. His fields, his flocks and
his herds yielded an ample supply of domestic productions. A small
crop of tobacco--three hogsheads when the season was good, two when
bad--purchased the exotics which comfort and necessity required and
which the farm did not produce. He was not rich, but rich enough
to dispense hospitality and charity, to receive all guests in his
house, from the President to the day-laborer--no other title being
necessary to enter his house but that of an honest man; rich enough
to bring up his family (two daughters) as accomplished ladies,
and marry them to accomplished gentlemen--one to William Martin,
Esq., and the other to William Eaton, Esq., of Roanoke, my early
schoolfellow and friend for more than half a century; and, above
all, he was rich enough to pay as he went and never to owe a dollar
to any man.
He was steadfast in his friendships and would stake himself for
a friend, but would violate no point of public duty to please
or oblige him. Of this his relations with Mr. Randolph gave a
signal instance. He drew a knife to defend him in the theatre at
Philadelphia, when menaced by some naval and military officers for
words spoken in debate and deemed offensive to their professions;
yet, when Speaker of the House of Representatives, he displaced Mr.
Randolph from the head of the Committee of Ways and Means because
the chairman of that committee should be on terms of political
friendship with the administration--which Mr. Randolph had then
ceased to be with Mr. Jefferson's. He was above executive office,
even the highest the President could give; but not above the lowest
the people could give, taking that of justice of the peace in his
county, and refusing that of Postmaster-General at Washington. He
was opposed to nepotism, and to all quartering of his connections
on the government; and in the course of his forty-years' service,
with the absolute friendship of many administrations and the
perfect respect of all, he never had office or contract for any of
his blood. He refused to be a candidate for the Vice-Presidency,
but took the place of Elector on the Van Buren ticket in 1836. He
was against paper money and the paper system, and was accustomed
to present the strong argument against both, in the simple phrase
that this was a hard-money government, made by hard-money men, who
had seen the evil of paper money and meant to save their posterity
from it. He was opposed to security-ships, and held that no man
ought to be entangled in the affairs of another, and that the
interested parties alone--those who expected to find their profit
in the transaction--should bear the bad consequences, as well as
enjoy the good ones, of their own dealings. He never called any one
"friend" without being so, and never expressed faith in the honor
and integrity of a man without acting up to the declaration when
the occasion required it. Thus, in constituting his friend, Weldon
N. Edwards, Esq., his testamentary and sole executor, with large
discretionary powers, he left all to his honor, and forbade him to
account to any court or power for the manner in which he should
execute that trust. This prohibition was so characteristic, and so
honorable to both parties, and has been so well justified by the
event, that I give it in his own words, as copied from his will,
to-wit:
"I subjoin the following, in my own handwriting, as a codicil to
this my last will and testament, and direct that it be a part
thereof--that is to say, having full faith in the honor and
integrity of my executor above named, he shall not be held to
account to any court or power whatever for the discharge of the
trust confided by me to him in and by the foregoing will."
And the event has proved that his judgment, as always, committed
no mistake when it bestowed that confidence. He had his
peculiarities--idiosyncrasies, if any one pleases--but they were
born with him, suited to him, constituting a part of his character,
and necessary to its completeness. He never subscribed to charities,
but gave, and freely, according to his means--the left hand not
knowing what the right hand did. He never subscribed for new books,
giving as a reason to the soliciting agent that nobody purchased
his tobacco until it was inspected, and he could buy no book until
he had examined it. He would not attend the Congress Presidential
Caucus of 1824, although it was sure to nominate his own choice (Mr.
Crawford); and, when a reason was wanted, he gave it in the brief
answer that he attended one once and they cheated him, and he had
said that he would never attend another. He always wore the same
dress--that is to say, a suit of the same material, cut, and color
superfine navy blue--the whole suit from the same piece, and in the
fashion of the time of the Revolution; and always replaced by a new
one before it showed age. He was neat in his person, always wore
fine linen, a fine cambric stock, a fine fur hat with a brim to it,
fair top-boots--the boot outside the pantaloons, on the principle
that leather was stronger than cloth. He would wear no man's honors,
and when complimented on the report on the Panama mission, which,
as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he had presented
to the Senate, he would answer, "Yes, it is a good report; Tazewell
wrote it." Left to himself, he was ready to take the last place
and the lowest seat anywhere; but, in his representative capacity
he would suffer no derogation of a constitutional or of a popular
right. Thus, when Speaker of the House, and a place behind the
President's Secretaries had been assigned him in some ceremony, he
disregarded the programme, and, as the elect of the elect of all the
people, took his place next after those whom the national vote had
elected. And in 1803, on the question to change the form of voting
for President and Vice-President, and the vote wanting one of the
constitutional number of two-thirds, he resisted the rule of the
House which restricted the Speaker's vote to a tie, or to a vote
which would make a tie--claimed his constitutional right to vote
as a member, obtained it, gave the vote, made the two-thirds, and
carried the amendment.
And, what may well be deemed idiosyncratic in these days, he was
punctual in the performance of all his minor duties to the Senate,
attending its sittings to the moment, attending all the committees
to which he was appointed, attending all the funerals of the members
and officers of the Houses, always in time at every place where duty
required him; and refusing double mileage for one traveling when
elected from the House of Representatives to the Senate or summoned
to an extra session. He was an habitual reader and student of the
Bible, a pious and religious man, and of the "_Baptist persuasion_,"
as he was accustomed to express it.
I have a pleasure in recalling the recollections of this wise, just
and good man, and in writing them down, not without profit, I hope,
to rising generations, and at least as extending the knowledge of
the kind of men to whom we are indebted for our independence and for
the form of government which they established for us. Mr. Macon was
the real Cincinnatus of America, the pride and ornament of my native
State, my hereditary friend through four generations, my mentor in
the first seven years of my senatorial, and the last seven of his
senatorial life; and a feeling of gratitude and of filial affection
mingles itself with this discharge of historical duty to his memory.
* * * * *
Mr. Benton called his sketch, which appears in his _Thirty-years'
View_, "Retiring of Mr. Macon." It is well done, and interesting
also because it is what one great man said of another. Yet I confess
with some mortification that I have never seen it in print in North
Carolina except in Benton's book.
To the foregoing admirable sketch by Benton I subjoin the following
copious extracts from the _Memoir of Nathaniel Macon_ by Weldon N.
Edwards, published in July, 1862:
Nathaniel Macon was born on the 17th of December, 1758, in the
county of Bute, of the then province of North Carolina, in
the part of it now Warren, within a few miles of the present
village of Warrenton, of poor and respectable parents. His
great-grandfather was a Huguenot and came over from France to
escape the persecutions consequent upon the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, in 1685. His father, Gideon H. Macon, was born
in Virginia, whence he came to North Carolina. His mother was
a native of North Carolina and a daughter of Edward Jones, of
Shocco. He lost his father in early boyhood, and was left, with
many brothers and sisters, in the care of his widowed mother,
with such moderate means of support as to require the utmost
care and industry to get on even tolerably in the world. He
assisted in all the domestic offices and labors common with
boys at that day. He acquired the rudiments of education in the
neighborhood, at what was called an "old-field school." The
application, progress, and good habits of the boy gave such
promise of the future man that it was resolved to make every
effort to give him a thorough education, and he was accordingly
sent to Princeton College, New Jersey. His own inclinations
eagerly seconded the hopeful purpose of his friends. While
there, he prosecuted his studies with fond diligence, and sought
all the avenues to useful knowledge with unflagging zeal. Nor
did he relax his efforts in this respect after his return home,
devoting to such books as were within his reach all the time he
could spare from the ordinary duties of life; but he met with
great difficulties, owing to the scarcity of books and his own
poverty. In the latter part of his life he was often heard to
say that his eyesight failed him sooner than it otherwise would
have done, in consequence of his reading so much by firelight in
his youth and early manhood, being then too poor to buy candles,
his small patrimony having been exhausted during his minority in
his support and education.
His love for North Carolina was sincere and thorough. In all
that concerned her character, her institutions, her welfare,
he felt an ever-wakeful solicitude. Although he received his
collegiate education in a distant State, he ever after gave a
decided preference to the seminaries of his own loved North
Carolina. When his son-in-law, William Eaton, Sr., in the
year 1823 was about to send two of his sons to Cambridge, he
dissuaded him from it and advised him to send them to the
University of North Carolina, because, among other reasons, they
would there make acquaintances of many of the future men of the
State, and contract friendships that would be of service to them
in the part they were destined to act in the great drama of life.
He studied law, but never applied for a license to practice.
There is now in possession of his grandson, William Eaton,
Jr. (who shared his confidences and affections, and is a
worthy representative of his principles and virtues), an old
London-bound edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, which was
used by him, and which is highly valued as a family relic. Like
all persons of taste, he admired the classic elegance of this
celebrated work, but regarded its author as too subservient to
power, and wanting in manliness and independence. He considered
Sir Edward Coke a much better friend to English liberty. * * * *
* * * * *