Nathaniel Macon and The Way Things Should Be : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

Yet another great American never spoken of:


Nathaniel Macon and The Way Things Should Be : Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

Nathaniel Macon summed up his philosophy in advice to a young Tar Heel: “Remember, you belong to a meek state and a just people, who want nothing but to enjoy the fruits of their labour honestly and lay out the profits in their own way.”

By the end of his life Macon had realised that the cause of republicanism was lost at the federal level, and also that the North was determined to exploit and rule the South. South Carolina tried in 1832 to use “nullification,” state interposition, to force the federal government back within the limits of the Constitution. After he read Andrew Jackson’s proclamation against South Carolina, Macon told friends that it was too late for nullification. The Constitution was dead. The only recourse was secession—there was nothing left but for the South to get out from under the “Union” and govern itself.

Thirty years later, in the spring of 1861, the North Carolina convention met to ratify secession unanimously. Nathaniel Macon’s son-in-law, Weldon N. Edwards, was in the president’s chair.

Nathaniel Macon left us a invaluable legacy from which we can learn much about the way things should be.