page_title: Nathaniel Macon
section_title: Political life
hierarchical_section_title: Nathaniel Macon / Political life
caption_attribution_description: English: Official Presidential portrait of Thomas Jefferson
context_page_description: Nathaniel Macon was an American politician who represented North Carolina in both houses of Congress. He was the fifth Speaker of the House, serving from 1801 to 1807. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1791 to 1815 and a member of the United States Senate from 1815 to 1828. He opposed ratification of the United States Constitution and the Federalist economic policies of Alexander Hamilton. Thomas Jefferson dubbed him "Ultimas Romanorum"—“the last of the Romans”.
  During his political career he was spokesman for the Old Republican faction of the Democratic-Republican Party that wanted to strictly limit the United States federal government. Along with fellow Old Republicans John Randolph and John Taylor, Macon frequently opposed various domestic policy proposals, and generally opposed the internal improvements promoted by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.
  An earnest defender of slavery, Macon voted against the Missouri Compromise in 1820. In the 1824 presidential election, he received several electoral votes for vice president, despite declining to run, as the stand-in running-mate for William Harris Crawford.
context_section_description: He served in the North Carolina Senate for Warren County in 1781, 1782, and 1784.
  Macon opposed the Constitution and spent his four decades in Congress making sure the national government would remain weak. He was for 37 years the most prominent nay-sayer in Congress—a "negative radical". It was said of him that during the entire term of his service no other members cast so many negative votes. "Negation was his word and arm." 
  He was rural and local-minded, and economy was the passion of his public career. "His economy of the public money was the severest, sharpest, most stringent and constant refusal of almost any grant that could be proposed." With him, "not only was ... parsimony the best subsidy—but ... the only one".
  He supported all of the foreign policies of Jefferson and Madison from 1801 to 1817. Macon detested Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist program.
caption: Thomas Jefferson (pictured) called Macon "the last of the Romans".
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