 Though
he represented North Carolina at the Constitutional Convention,
Alexander Martin was born in Hunterdon County, NJ, in 1740. His
parents, Hugh and Jane Martin, moved first to Virginia, then to
Guilford County, NC, when Alexander was very young. Martin attended
the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), received his degree in
1756, and moved to Salisbury. There he started his career as a
merchant but turned to public service as he became justice of the
peace, deputy king's attorney, and, in 1774 and 1775, judge of
Salisbury district.At the September
1770 session of the superior court at Hillsboro, 150 Regulators
armed with sticks, switches, and cudgels crowded into the courtroom.
They had come to present a petition to the judge demanding
unprejudiced juries and a public accounting of taxes by sheriffs.
Violence erupted, and several, including Alexander Martin, were
beaten. In 1771 Martin signed an agreement with the Regulators to
refund all fees taken illegally and to arbitrate all differences.
From 1773 to 1774 Martin served in the North
Carolina House of Commons and in the second and third provincial
congresses in 1775. In September 1775 he was appointed a lieutenant
colonel in the 2d North Carolina Continental Regiment. Martin saw
military action in South Carolina and won promotion to a colonelcy.
He joined Washington's army in 1777, but after the Battle of
Germantown he was arrested for cowardice. A court-martial tried and
acquitted Martin, but he resigned his commission on November 22,
1777.
Martin's misfortune in the army did not impede
his political career. The year after his court-martial he entered
the North Carolina Senate, where he served for 8 years (1778-82,
1785, and 1787-88). For every session except those of 1778-79,
Martin served as speaker. From 1780 to 1781 he also sat on the Board
of War and its successor, the Council Extraordinary. In 1781 Martin
became acting governor of the state, and in 1782 through 1785 he was
elected in his own right.
After his 1785 term in the North Carolina
Senate, Martin represented his state in the Continental Congress,
but he resigned in 1787. Of the five North Carolina delegates to the
Constitutional Convention, Martin was the least strongly Federalist.
He did not take an active part in the proceedings, and he left
Philadelphia in late August 1787, before the Constitution was
signed. Martin was considered a good politician but not suited to
public debate. A colleague, Hugh Williamson, remarked that Martin
needed time to recuperate after his great exertions as governor "to
enable him again to exert his abilities to the advantage of the
nation."
Under the new national government, Martin again
served as Governor of North Carolina, from 1789 until 1792. After
1790 he moved away from the Federalists to the Republicans. In 1792
Martin, elected by the Republican legislature, entered the U.S.
Senate. His vote in favor of the Alien and Sedition Acts cost him
reelection. Back in North Carolina, Martin returned to the state
senate in 1804 and 1805 to represent Rockingham County. In 1805 he
once again served as speaker. From 1790 until 1807 he was a trustee
of the University of North Carolina. Martin never married, and he
died on November 2, 1807 at the age of 67 at his plantation,
"Danbury," in Rockingham County and was buried on the estate. |
