Alexander Martin (1740-2 November 1807) was Governor of North Carolina from 22 April 1782 to 13 May 1785 (succeeding Thomas Burke and preceding Richard Caswell) and from 17 December 1789 to 14 December 1792 (succeeding Samuel Johnston and preceding Richard Dobbs Spaight). He also served in the US Senate from 4 March 1793 to 4 March 1799, succeeding Johnston and preceding Jesse Franklin. He was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party.
Biography[]
Alexander Martin was born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey in 1740, and he moved to Salisbury, North Carolina after graduating from Princeton. While serving as a justice of the peace in North Carolina, he was beaten and whipped by rebels during the War of the Regulation. In 1774, he became judge of the Salisbury district, and he served as a colonel in Richard Caswell's militia during the American Revolutionary War. In 1778, he was elected to the North Carolina Senate, and he served as Governor from 1782 to 1785 and from 1789 to 1792. From 1793 to 1799, Martin served in the US Senate as a member of the Federalist Party; however, he always voted in favor of the Democratic-Republican Party and against the Federalists, although he voted for all of the Alien and Sedition Acts. In 1799, having lost the support of the Federalists, he was voted out of the Senate, and he died in 1807.