rt'/ *9 V" f f f ** V ^-w f ^* p ^*-""* 1 
 
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 DB A W 8) '> IL P
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 OF ROANOKE. 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGH A. GARLAND. 
 
 COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. 
 
 NEW- YORK : 
 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY, 
 1853.
 
 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1650, by 
 
 D. APPLETON <fc COMPANY, 
 m the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New- York.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE author of this book has had, perhaps, as good an oppor 
 tunity as any other man, who was not a contemporary and 
 intimate friend, to form a just estimate of Mr. Eandolph's 
 character, and also to collect valuable and copious materials 
 for his biography. He was educated in Mr. Eandolph's 
 district, was familiar with all the local associations of that 
 devoted son of^the Old Dominion, often saw him among 
 his beloved constituents, 1 and heard him under most favor- 
 able circumstances both on the hustings and in the Virginia 
 Convention. The writer was then but a youth, full of all 
 the eager interest and curiosity that would naturally be 
 excited by so extraordinary a man. Since Mr. Eandolph's 
 death, it has been his good fortune to have been thrown into 
 the circle of his most intimate and confidential friends, some 
 of whom the writer feels justified in saying he also may claim 
 as his friends. While the thought of writing a life of Mr. 
 Eandolph is of recent date, the character of the man and the 
 incidents of his life have been for many years the subject of 
 interest and of inquiry, which were abundantly gratified by 
 those who knew him and delighted to discourse on the 
 peculiarities and eccentricities of their departed friend. 
 
 Some ten or twelve years before his death, Mr. Eandolph
 
 yi PREPACK 
 
 made a will liberating his slaves; a short time before his de- 
 cease, while under the influence of utter debility and disease, 
 he made various and conflicting dispositions of his property. 
 Here, of course, was a fruitful theme for the Courts. Was Mr. 
 Randolph capable of making a will in the latter part of his 
 life? was the subject of inquiry. Nearly every body who 
 had known him, or who had had any dealings with him, from 
 the earliest period, were summoned to give testimony. Many 
 interesting and important facts, that would properly find a 
 place in his biography, were elicited on that occasion. The 
 whole testimony was taken down by an accurate stenographer, 
 and the most important parts afterwards were written out in 
 full. These valuable materials were placed in the hands of 
 the writer of this memoir. In 1845, the whole subject again 
 underwent a thorough investigation before the Circuit Court 
 of Petersburg, many additional witnesses were summoned, and 
 much new and important information elicited. The writer 
 was a personal attendant on that Court during the trial. 
 
 To Mrs. Elizabeth Bryan, who is the niece of Mr. Ean- 
 dolph, and to Mr. Bryan himself, who is the' son of his earli- 
 est friend, we are indebted for the interesting correspondence 
 to be found in the first volume of this work. To Mrs. Dudley, 
 Judge Beverly Tucker, the Hon. John Taliaferro, and Gover- 
 nor Tazewell, who were the youthful companions and school- 
 mates of Mr. Randolph, we are indebted for the incidents of 
 his early life. By far the most interesting and important part 
 of the work is the copious and unreserved correspondence of Mr. 
 Randolph with the late and much lamented Francis S. Key, 
 Esq., of Washington, and Dr. John Brockenbrough, of Vir- 
 ginia. This latter gentleman was, par excellence, the friend of 
 his bosom. Not a thought or a feeling was concealed from him, 

 
 PREFACE. yii 
 
 and from 1811 to May, 17, 1833 ,but a few days before his death, 
 Mr. Bandolph wrote constantly, many times daily, to this in- 
 valuable friend. The entire correspondence is now in the 
 hands of the writer. Without these materials and this unre- 
 served confidence on the part of one who most valued the re- 
 putation of his departed friend, the author would never have 
 undertaken the difficult task of writing the life of John Kan- 
 dolph. Yery many of the letters have been inserted in their 
 proper places and many of the facts and incidents interwoven 
 into the narrative, were obtained from others which have been 
 suppressed the author's chief study has been to use discreetly 
 the unbounded confidence that was reposed in his prudence 
 and judgment. It would be almost impossible to enumerate 
 all the persons < to whom we are indebted for many of the in- 
 cidents narrated in this biography ; every body knows some- 
 thing of the extraordinary man who is the subject of it; but 
 we have given each one, we trust, credit for his contribution 
 in its proper place. Many of the anecdotes and witticisms 
 commonly attributed to Mr. Eandolph are not found in this 
 work, because there is no authority for them. " All the bas- 
 tard wit of the country," said he to a friend, " has been fa- 
 thered on me." 
 
 As to the printed sources of information connected with Mr. 
 Eandolph's public career, besides a valuable collection of pam- 
 phlets obtained from the estate of the late John Clopton, the au- 
 thor has had free access to the library of Congress, which, hav- 
 ing been collected by Mr. Jeiferson, is very copious on all sub- 
 jects connected with the history and politics of the country. 
 Besides these, Mr. Eitchie was so kind as to lend the only full 
 file of the Enquirer in his possession. The reader needs not to 
 be informed that the Eichmond Enquirer contains a full chroni-
 
 yiii PREFACE. 
 
 cle of every thing that has been said and done in Virginia, 
 worthy of being recorded in history, from 1804 to the present 
 time. 
 
 Such were the materials in possession of the author. The 
 difficulty was not to obtain but to sift, digest, and arrange 
 the abundant treasures in his possession. The book was 
 commenced when the author had leisure to write to his 
 satisfaction ; it has been finished in the intervals of a labori- 
 ous profession, and he feels that there are many defects which 
 more time and leisure would have enabled him to correct. 
 Many of the chapters were written under feelings of depres- 
 sion and anxiety while that dread pestilence, the cholera, had 
 overshadowed with gloom and made desolate our devoted city. 
 Whatever may be the defects of the book, however, the reader 
 may be assured that nothing will be found in it that the au- 
 thor has not good reason to believe is true. 
 
 H. A. GARLAND. 
 
 SAINT Louis, August, 1860.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Birthplace . 
 
 Matoax Genealogy 
 Childhood 
 Family Circle 
 Flight from Matoax 
 
 At School 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Constitution in its Chrysalis State . . . . . 26 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 George Mason ......,,. 86' 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Early Political Associations ...... 40 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 logy .... 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 * * 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 :oax . . .'-'. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1 
 . 6 
 8 
 . 12 
 16 
 . 20
 
 x CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Thomas Jefferson . . . ^5 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 Small Beginnings Edmund Burke Thomas Paine ....': . 52 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 
 
 Youthful Companions . . . 59 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Richard Randolph . ... 61 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Visit to Charleston and Georgia . . . . . .64 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 At Home . -- t "... ... 69 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Candidate for Congress History of the Times . . . .73 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Fauchet Letter ....... 85 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Mr. Monroe France Mr. Adams elected President . . .95 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 The X. Y. Z. Business ....... 108 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Patrick Henry ....... 129 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 March Court The Rising and the Setting Sun . . . 128 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 France and the Administration 142
 
 CONTENTS. xi 
 
 PAQH 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Scene in the Play-HouseStanding Army . . . .157 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 Make to yourself an Idol, and, in spite of the Decalogue, Worship it 166 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 The course of True Love never did run Smooth . . . 177 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Presidental Election, 1800-1 Midnight Judges . . 186 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 The Seventh and Eighth Congresses Chairman of the Committee of 
 
 Ways and Means The Working Period The Yazoo Business i90 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 Friendship ........ 205 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Ninth Congress Foreign Relations Difficulties with France and Spain 213 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 Difficulties with Great Britain ..... 229 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 Closing Scene . . . . . . . 242 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 Aaron Burr . . . . . . . . 252 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 Embargo The Iliad of all our Woes ..... 262 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 Gunboats . . . . . . . 271 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 James Madison Presidental Election . 276
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 FAGB 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 284 
 War ^Yith England 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 303 
 
 Clav- ^
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BIRTHPLACE. 
 
 CAWSONS, situated on a commanding promontory, near the ruouth of 
 Appomatox river, was the family seat of Colonel Theodorick Bland, 
 Senior, of Prince G-eorge. After winding amidst its woody islands, 
 around the base of this hill, the river spreads out into a wide bay ; 
 and, together with the James, into which it empties, makes towards 
 the north and east a magnificent water prospect, embracing in one view 
 Shirley, the seat of the Carters, Bermuda Hundred, with its harbor 
 and ships, City Point, and other places of less note. In the midst 
 of this commanding scene, the old mansion-house reared its ample 
 proportions, and, with its offices and extended wings, was not an un^ 
 worthy representative of the baronial days in which it was built 
 when Virginia cavaliers, under the title of gentlemen, with their 
 broad domain of virgin soil, and long retinue of servants, lived in a 
 style of elegance and profusion, not inferior to the barons of Eng- 
 land, and dispensed a hospitality which more than half a century of 
 subdivision, exhaustion, and decay, has not entirely effaced from the 
 memory of their impoverished descendants. 
 
 At Cawsons, scarcely a vestige now remains of former magnifi- 
 cence. The old mansion was burnt down many years ago. Here 
 and there a solitary out-dwelling, which escaped the conflagration, 
 like the old servants of a decayed family, seem to speak in melan- 
 choly pride of those days, when it was their glory to stand in the 
 shadow of loftier walls, and reflect back their loud revelry, when 
 
 " The misletoe hung in the castle hall, 
 The holly branch shone on the old oak wall ; 
 And the baron's retainers were blithe and gay, 
 * And keeping their Christmas holiday." 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 2 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 The serpentine paths, the broad avenues, and smooth gravel, the 
 mounds, the green turf, and the shrubbery of extended pleasure- 
 grounds, are all mingled with the vulgar sod. The noble outlines of 
 nature are still there ; but the handiwork of man has disappeared. 
 
 In a letter to his friend, F. S. Key, dated March 20, 1814, John 
 Randolph says : " A few days ago I returned from a visit to my 
 birthplace, the seat of my ancestors on one side the spot where my 
 dear and honored mother was given in marriage, and where I was 
 ushered in this world of woe. The sight of the broad waters seemed 
 to renovate me. I was tossed in a boat, dm ing a row of three miles 
 across James river, and sprinkled with the spray that dashed over 
 her. The days of my boyhood seemed to. be renewed ; out at the 
 end of my journey I found desolation and stillness as of death the 
 fires of hospitality long since quenched ; the parish church, associa 
 ted with my earliest and tenderest recollections, tumbling to pieces : 
 not more from natural decay than sacrilegious violence ! What a 
 spectacle does our lower country present ! Deserted and dismantled 
 country-houses, once the seats of cheerfulness and plenty, and the tem- 
 ples of the Most High ruinous and desolate, ' frowning in portentous 
 silence upon the land/ The very mansions of the dead have not es- 
 caped violation. Shattered fragments of armorial bearings, and epi- 
 taphs on scattered stone, attest the piety and vanity of the past, and 
 the brutality of the present age." 
 
 Colonel Bland was an active promoter of the Revolution. When 
 Lord Dunmore, in the spring of 1775, under instructions from Eng- 
 land, undertook to disarm the people, by secretly withdrawing the 
 muskets and powder from the Magazine in Williamsburg, Colonel 
 Bland was among the first to rouse the country to resistance. As 
 munitions of war were scarce, he, his son Theodorick Bland, Jun.. 
 and his son-in-law, John Randolph, father of the late John of Roan- 
 oke, sold forty negroes, and with the money purchased powder for 
 the use of the colony. Endowed with an ample fortune and a manly 
 character, having been'for a series of years in succession lieutenant 
 of the county of Prince George, clerk of the court, and representa- 
 tive in the House of Burgesses, he possessed a commanding influ- 
 ence among the people. His house was the centre of a wide circle of 
 friends and relations, who had pledged their lives, fortunes, and sa- 
 cred honor, to the cause of independence. Though they did not rise
 
 BIRTHPLACE. 3 
 
 to be master-spirits in that eventful struggle, the Elands, the Banis- 
 ters, the Boilings, and the Batons, were inferior to none in zeal, de- 
 votion, and heroic sacrifice. 
 
 The political spirit of the times may be inferred from the follow- 
 ing incident : The old man growing weary of a solitary life of wi- 
 dowhood, was advised by his son to look for a matrimonial connec- 
 tion in a certain quarter. After spying out the land, he wrote to 
 his son : " Our politics differed so much that we parted by mutual 
 consent ;" and in allusion to his own choice, he says : " the person I 
 have thought of, is a lady of great goodness, sensible, and a true 
 whig." 
 
 Among those who frequented Cawsons at this time, and partook 
 of its welcome and generous hospitality, and shared with its inmates 
 a proud defiance of the encroachments of England, was a young 
 foreigner though he can scarcely be called a foreigner who spoaks 
 our own mother tongue, and was bred up almost in sight of the Amer- 
 ican shores. 
 
 St. George Tucker was born of respectable parents in the island 
 of Bermuda, where he commenced the study of law, but came to 
 Virginia, before the Revolution, in order to complete his academic 
 exercises in William and Mary College. His urbanity, social dis- 
 position, and literary attainments, introduced him into the best com- 
 pany and fashionable circles of the city. His general good conduct 
 and deportment procured him the favor of most of the distinguished 
 gentlemen of that place. When he had completed his college courses, 
 he resumed the study of law, and settled permanently in Williams- 
 burg ; but, on the breaking out of the disturbances with Great Bri- 
 tain, he took part with his adopted country, laid aside his legal pur- 
 suits, and engaged in other occupations. It doubtless was his inten- 
 tion to have served in the tented field ; but what he might have done 
 in the way of military achievement, is left only to conjecture. That 
 he might have rivalled Kosciusko, or Pulaski, or De Kalb. he after- 
 wards gave ample proof on the field of Guilford ; but the glittering 
 butterfly of military glory was destined to fade before the more sub- 
 stantial charmis of female beauty. 
 
 Though Cawsons was a pleasant place, its chief magic lay in the 
 Colonel's youngest daughter, Mrs. Frances Randolph, who, in her 
 " unhappy widowhood," (to use her own expressive language,) had for
 
 4. LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 the most part forsaken her own solitary home, and sought society and 
 consolation beneath her father's roof. Mrs. Randolph was possessed 
 of high mental qualities and extraordinary beauty. Though one 
 might suppose she was endowed with little personal attraction, from 
 an expression of her brother, Colonel Thcodorick Bland, Jun., who 
 was accustomed to call her, " my tawny sister." But tradition, con- 
 firmed by the portraits extant, speaks in admiration of her uncom- 
 mon charms. The high, expanded forehead; smooth, arched brow, 
 and brilliant dark eyes ; the well-defined nose, and full, round, laugh- 
 ing lips, pregnant with wit and mirthfulness ; the tall figure and ex- 
 panded chest j the dark hair, winding in massy folds around the neck 
 and bosom ; an open, cheerful countenance all suffused with that 
 deep, rich, oriental tint that never fades made her the most beauti- 
 ful, sprightly, and attractive woman of her age. 
 
 Though clad in widow's garments, and on her brow lay a pensive 
 stillness, as of one dreaming, she was yet young and beautiful. By 
 her side, or on her knee, as inseparable as her own shadow, was a 
 child her youngest child a little boy, her favorite John, the very 
 image of his mother. In his dark eyes were reflected the sadness of 
 her own soul ; on his orphan brow was imprinted a kiss, that ever and 
 anon a tear washed away. So much of subdued loveliness could 
 not fail to win the sympathy of old and young, and to call forth 
 sighs of pity and regret. 
 
 St. George Tucker, the first time he beheld the mother and her 
 child, was filled with that mingled sentiment which more agitates the 
 soul, and takes deeper hold on the affections, than any single pas- 
 sion. He soon found himself an ardent lover at the feet of the 
 charming widow. A wife at sixteen, she was not long to be per- 
 suaded at six-and-twenty to abandon her unhappy widowhood. In 
 an old family Prayer Book, in her own handwriting, is found the 
 following record : 
 
 The unhappy widowhood of Frances Randolph commenced on the 
 28th day of Oct., in the year 1775. 
 
 John Randolph and Frances Bland were married the 9th of 
 March, 1769. 
 
 Richard Randolph, their first son, was born the 9th of March, 1770. 
 
 Theodorick Bland Randolph, their second son, was born the 2;2d 
 if January, 1771. 
 
 John Randolph, their third son, was born the 2d of June, 1773.
 
 MATOAX GENEALOGY. 5 
 
 Jane Randolph, their first daughter, was born Nov. 10th, 1774, 
 and died on the 26th of Nov., 1774. 
 
 The following additions to the above record is found in the hand- 
 writing of the late John Randolph of Roanoke : 
 
 John Randolph, Junior, fourth son of Richard Randolph, of 
 Curies, in the County of Henrico, was born on the 29th of June, 
 1742, 0. S., answering to the 10th of July, N. S. 
 
 Frances Bland, fifth and youngest daughter of Theodorick 
 Bland, of Cawsons, in the county of Prince George, was born on the 
 24th of Sept., 1752, N. S. 
 
 John Randolph, Esq., died at Matoax, on the 28th of October 
 1775 ; and on the 23d of Sept., 1778, his widow married St. George 
 Tucker, of Bermuda. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 MATOAX GENEALOGY. 
 
 MATOAX, the residence of John and Frances Randolph during his 
 life, of Mrs. Randolph in her widowhood, and of herself and Mr. 
 Tucker, her second husband, till the time of her death, was situ- 
 ated on Appomatox, about two miles above Petersburg, on the 
 opposite side ; midway the falls, and on a high bluff, commanding a 
 wide prospect of the surrounding country. At the time Mr. Tucker 
 was introduced there by his elegant and accomplished bride, it was 
 the centre of a populous, wealthy, and fashionable neighborhood. 
 To say nothing of the town, there were Battersea, Mayfield, Burling- 
 ton, Mansfield, Olive Hill, Violet Hill, Roslin, all on the same 
 river ; many in sight, and none more than two miles distant. These 
 were the residences of gentlemen of ample fortunes, liberal educa- 
 tion, polished manners, refined hospitality, and devoted patriotism. 
 They have all since passed into other hands ; some have gone down 
 entirely ; and the wild pine and the broom sedge have made such 
 steady encroachments, that a wilderness has grown up in the place 
 of fruitful fields, and more wild deer can be caught within a circuit 
 of ten miles around the second most populous city in the State, than 
 in a similar space in the prairies of the West A statue of Niobe, 
 in her own capitol of Niobe weeping for her children would be no
 
 6 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 unfit emblem of Old Virginia ; her sons gone, her hearths cold, her 
 fields desolate. 
 
 The mansion house at Matoax, like that at Cawsons, was burnt 
 down many years ago. Nothing now remains but a heap of ruins. 
 When we visited the spot, the factory boys, with their hounds, were 
 chasing the hares over those solitary hills where once the proud sons 
 of a proud race pursued the same light-footed game. A high hill to 
 the eastward of that on which the mansion was, and separated from 
 it by a deep ravine, is crowned by a thick cluster of oaks and other 
 trees. At the foot, and under the shadow of those trees, are two 
 graves, covered with simple marble slabs, level with the earth, con- 
 taining the following inscriptions : 
 
 Johannes Randolph, Arm : 
 
 Ob. xxviii. Octo, 
 
 MDCCLXXV. 
 
 JEt. xxxiv. 
 
 Non opibus urna, nee mens 
 virtutibus absit. 
 
 ( Translated.') 
 
 John Randolph, Esq., died Oct. 28th, 1775, aged 34. Let not a 
 tomb be wanting to his ashes, nor memory to his virtues. 
 
 I. H. S. 
 Franceses Tucker Blandae. 
 
 Conjugio 
 
 Sti G-eorgii Tucker. 
 Quis desiderio sit modus? 
 Obiit xviii. Januarii, 
 
 MDCCLXXXVIII, 
 Mi. xxxvi. 
 
 (Translated.) 
 
 Jesus. Saviour of mankind. 
 
 WTien shall we cease to mourn for Frances Bland Tucker, wife of 
 St. George Tucker? She died 18th January, 1788, aged 36. 
 
 The father and the mother of the late John Randolph of Roa- 
 noke ! It was his wish to be buried by their side. In a letter 
 dated London, Dec. 19, 1830, he says : " I have personally but one 
 wish : it is to be buried by the side of my honored parents at old 
 Matoax. and I have taken measures to effectuate it. It is not long
 
 MATO AX -GENEALOGY. 7 
 
 since this desire sprung up in rny heart, where all else is withered, 
 hard and dry." 
 
 Matoax was a part of the vast inheritance which descended from 
 Richard Randolph of Curies, to his four sons, Richard, Brett. 
 Ryland, and John. 
 
 His will is still 'extant, and bears date about the time of the 
 birth of his youngest son, John, and a short time before his own 
 death, 1742. It makes disposition of not less than forty thousand 
 acres of the choicest lands on the James, Appomatox. and Roanoke 
 rivers. Most of this vast estate was accumulated by his owu in- 
 dustry and economy," as we learn from a monument erected tc his 
 memory at Turkey Island by his third son, Ryland. To his daugh- 
 ters Mary, who married Archibald Gary, of Ampthill ; Jane, who 
 married Anthony Walke, of Princess Anne ; and Elizabeth, who 
 married Richard Kidder Meade he left only personal property. 
 All the lands were divided among the four sons. Those on Appo- 
 matox fell to John ; those on Roanoke, jointly to John and Ryland. 
 Ryland died without heir, and his portion descended to his brother ; 
 so that John, at the time of his death in 1775, was possessed of 
 large and valuable estates on Appomatox and Roanoke. 
 
 Richard Randolph of Curies, was the fourth son of Col. Wm. 
 Randolph, of Warwickshire, England, who was the first of the name 
 that emigrated to Virginia, and settled at Turkey Island. He died 
 April llth, 1711. That he was of Warwickshire, we learn from a 
 monument at Turkey Island ; but the late John Randolph, who 
 took great pride in searching into the genealogy of his family, says 
 that he was of Yorkshire. Between the researches of the Hon. 
 John, and the monument at Turkey Island, we leave the reader rto 
 judge. William Randolph was the father of seven sons and two 
 daughters, who became the progenitors of a widespread and numer- 
 ous race, embracing the most wealthy families, and many of the most 
 distinguished names in Virginia history. 
 
 We will not cumber our pages with their complicated and unintel- 
 ligible genealogy. In the course of our narrative, we shall give such 
 portions as may become necessary for its elucidation. At present, 
 we are only concerned with Richard Randolph of Curies, the fourth 
 son. He married Jane Boiling, who was the daughter of John Boi- 
 ling, who was the sou of Robert Boiling and Jane Rolfe his wife.
 
 g LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 who was the granddaughter of Pocahontas, the beautiful Indian 
 princess, daughter of Powhatan, whose pathetic story is so well 
 known. 
 
 The portrait of Mrs. Kandolph (Jane Boiling) is still extant. 
 A more marked and commanding countenance is rarely to be met 
 with. A perfect contrast to tjie luxurious ease, graceful manners, 
 fluent and courtly conversation, betrayed by the full round face, ruddy 
 complexion, low projecting eyes, smooth brow, and the delicate per- 
 son and features of her husband. If the portrait be true to nature 
 none of the Indian complexion can be traced in her countenance. 
 Her erect and firm position, and square broad shoulders, are the only 
 indications of Indian descent. The face is decidedly handsome; 
 while the lofty, expanded, and well marked forehead, the great 
 breadth between the eyes, the firm distended nostril, compressed lips, 
 and steady eye, display an intellect, a firmness, and moral qualities, 
 truly heroic and commanding. Worthy descendant of the daughter 
 of Powhatan. 
 
 Placing the two portraits side by side, one cannot fail to trace in 
 the general contour of countenance, and cranial development, a 
 striking resemblance between this lady and her grandson, the late 
 John Randolph of Roanoke. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 A WISE poet and philosopher has said, " The child is father of the 
 man," and that our days are " Bound each to each in natural piety." 
 Who has not felt the force of this truth, so beautifully expressed ? 
 Who is not conscious that his personal identity cannot be measured 
 by time that he is the same to-day he was yesterday, and as far 
 back as memory can reach ? Though covered with years and busied 
 with graver trifles, who does not feel that he is the same being that 
 once gambolled on the plain with his school-fellows, and sought 
 childish sports with cheerful heart by flood and field ? Life is a con- 
 tinuous growth. The outspreading oak that shades the venerable 
 old man at its root, is but the gradual development of the little nut
 
 CHILDHOOD. 9 
 
 that lay concealed in the acorn, which in his childhood he carelessly 
 planted there. Had it been planted in a more genial soil, it might 
 have attained a prouder growth. In a Siberian clime it would have 
 been stunted and mean. Circumstances, therefore, do not make, but 
 they develope the man. To know one thoroughly as he is; why he is 
 thus and not otherwise ; the man he is and not another ; we must go 
 back to his childhood. We must go to the salient point, to take the 
 scope and direction of his character. We must see him surrounded 
 by the circumstances that gave the first impulse ; the influences that 
 first stamped their impress on the plastic clay ; we must know by what 
 scenes he was surrounded ; was he reared by the mountain-side, the 
 running stream, or on the ocean's shore ? was he in daily converse 
 with the tamer scenes of nature, or with the grand, or the beautiful ? 
 what sort of people were his father and mother, his brothers and 
 sisters, his playmates, and the men and women that went in and out 
 before him ? what books lay in his way ? what lessons were taught 
 him, not in the school-house, but the nursery, and by the domestic 
 fireside ? what were the traditions, opinions, passions, prejudices, 
 that constituted a part of his heritage far more important than lands 
 or merchandise ? 
 
 Could we but know these things about the heroes, the statesmen, 
 the orators and the poets, who excite our wonder and admiration, 
 and have stamped the impress of their character not only on 'their own 
 age, but on the world's history, how different would be our judgment 
 in regard to them ! We behold the outside alone ; we are only made 
 acquainted with the histrionic, the acted part of their life. What 
 we see is but a masquerade, a succession of magnified and illuminated 
 faces passing before the disk of a magic lantern. What we wish to 
 see and long to know is far otherwise. Each, like Mephistopheles, 
 has caught up some garment best suited to his nature or his purpose, 
 and strives to personate (persona originally meant an actor's mask), 
 to seem what he is not. Could we but draw aside the coverings by 
 which they strive to conceal their motives, how many a sigh should 
 we hear escape from heroic bosoms ; how many a wail from the proud 
 and silent spirit ! The wounded pride of authorship gave birth to 
 Manfred and Don Juan. The want of bread has caused many a 
 swanlike strain to pour from the lips of the famishing author. More 
 than one Helen or Cleopatra has set the heroes of the world in mo- 
 
 VOL. i. 1*
 
 10 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 tion. Pericles governed Athens, his wife Pericles ; the son the 
 mother the schoolmaster the son, and he in his turn but where 
 would this end ? Oh the subtlety and complexity of human motives ! 
 
 And yet without some tolerable insight into these, history is but 
 an empty cloud-castle, built of mist, and shadow, and sunbeams. 
 There are two kinds of history the outward acted history, which is 
 false, and the inner, secret history of causes and influences ; this 
 alone is true and worth knowing, and without it we know nothing : 
 it matters not how learned we may be in facts and dates. It is said 
 that Dr. Johnson would insult any man who began to talk to him 
 about the Punic wars. What does the wise man care to know about 
 battles or the marching and counter-marching of a multitude with 
 swords, and battle-axes in their hands. He wants to know the condi- 
 tion and circumstances of the people that made war necessary; the 
 train of secret causes that brought it on ; the master-spirits that con- 
 trolled it. and the motives that influenced them. He is not dazzled by 
 the helmet or the martial dress, but lends a willing ear to the mur- 
 murings of the mad Achilles in his tent, for it is there, in those breath- 
 ings of discontent, in those outpourings of a genuine living man. that 
 he hopes to find some glimmering of the truth. A little insight into 
 the private life of the humblest Koman would be worth all we know 
 of the Punic wars, its galleys, and battles of Cannae. A mere narra- 
 tive of events abstracted from the man who wrought them, is like the 
 human body when the life has gone out of it cold, stiff, and cum- 
 brous. All true history consists in biography. And there can be no 
 biography where the author does not forget the hero, and write of the 
 man. It is not a history of the Revolution that we want, but the 
 Life of Washington. U-nder the influence of these opinions, we have 
 commenced the task of writing the Life of John Randolph. 
 
 John Randolph was born at Cawsons, the second day of June. 
 1773. The fiery star was in the ascendant at his birth, and pursued 
 him through life ; both as a destroying element, and a subtle Pro- 
 methean flame consuming the soul. It is a remarkable coincidence, 
 that his birthplace, the cherished home of his childhood, and the 
 house in which he spent the first fifteen years of his manhood, Caw- 
 sons, Matoax. and Bizzarre, were all in succession destroyed by fire. 
 
 Shortly after the destruction of Bizzarre, which was complete in- 
 volving his books and papers he was asked by a friend why he did 

 
 CHILDHOOD. H 
 
 not write something to leave behind him. " Too late, sir, too late," 
 was the reply ; " all I ever wrote perished in the flames ; it is too late 
 to restore it now." He felt himself to be a child of destiny ; he had 
 a work given him to do, but some cross fate prevented ; he failed to 
 fulfil his destiny, and was wretched. " My whole name and race," he 
 has been known to say, " lie under a curse. I am sure I feel the 
 curse cleaving to me." He was not two years and a half old when 
 his father died. What could he know of death 1 He only grieved 
 in sympathy with his mother's tears. It was not till long after, that 
 he learned the value of the treasure that lay .mried beneath the mar- 
 ble slab on the hill under the old oak tree. 
 
 Much of the time of her " unhappy widowhood" was spent by 
 Mrs. Randolph at Cawsons. Here the little John was always a 
 welcome guest. He was a great favorite with the whole household, 
 especially with his grandfather and his cousin Anna Eaton, about 
 ten years older than himself, now the venerable Mrs. Anna Bland 
 Dudley, of Franklin, Tennessee. He was so delicate, reserved, and 
 beautiful, that he attracted the notice of all who frequented the 
 house. His skin was as soft and delicate as a female. " There is no 
 accounting for thinness of skins in different animals, human or 
 brute," says he in a letter dated January 31, 1826. "Mine I be- 
 lieve to be more tender than many infants of a month old. Indeed, 
 I have remarked in myself, from my earliest recollection, a delicacy 
 or effeminacy of complexion, that, but for a spice of the devil in my 
 temper, would have consigned me to the distaff or the needle." A 
 spice of the devil in his temper ! Well might he say that. Before 
 he was four years old, Mrs. Dudley has known him to swoon away in 
 a fit of passion, and with difficulty could be restored : an evidence 
 of the extreme delicacy of his constitution, and the uncontrollable ar- 
 dor of a temper that required a stronger frame to repress and re- 
 strain it. Notwithstanding his excitable nature, he was always de- 
 voted to his mother ; would hang fondly about her neck, and could 
 only be soothed by her caresses. Of her Mrs. Dudley thus speaks : 
 " She was a woman, not only of superior personal attractions, but 
 excelled all others of her day in strength of intellect, for which she 
 was so justly celebrated." This excellent and highly gifted lady 
 trained up her child in the way he should go. He was allowed to 
 come in contact with nothing low, vulgar or mean. Mrs. Dudley.
 
 12 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Governor Tazewell, and the Hon. John Talliaferro, who remember 
 him well in childhood, 'speak with admiration of his moral purity, 
 and entire exemption from all vicious habits. His mother early 
 taught him to read, and impressed on his mind the best lessons. She 
 was a member of the Church of England, a faith from which her son 
 never long departed. On her bended knees, with him by her side, 
 she repeated day after day the prayers and collects of that admirable 
 litany, which were never effaced from his tenacious memory. Often 
 through life has he been known, in mental agony, to ejaculate them 
 with an earnestness that called forth tears from all who heard him. 
 
 " When I could first remember," says he to a friend, " I slept in 
 the same bed with my widowed mother each nigh.., Wore putting 
 me to bed, I repeated on my knees before her the Lord's Prayer and 
 the Apostle's Creed each morning kneeling in the bed I put up my 
 little hands in prayer in the same form. Years have since passed 
 away ; I have been a skeptic, a professed scoffer, glorying in my infi- 
 delity, and vain of the ingenuity with which I could defend it. 
 Prayer never crossed my mind, but in scorn. I am now conscious 
 that the lessons above mentioned, taught me by my dear and revered 
 mother, are of more value to me than all that I have learned from my 
 preceptors and compeers. On Sunday I said my catechism, a great 
 part of which at the distance of thirty-five years I can yet repeat." 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 FAMILY CIRCLE. 
 
 IN the autumn of 1778, the family circle at Matoax consisted of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Tucker, and her three sons, Richard, Theodorick, and 
 John Randolph. Richard was in his ninth year, Theodorick was 
 nearly eight, and John was in the sixth year of his age. They were 
 all sprightly and interesting boys ; and cheerfulness was once more 
 restored to this happy family. A more amiable and exemplary step- 
 father than Mr. Tucker could not be found. This trait in his char 
 acter was proverbial among his acquaintance every where. ' I remem- 
 ber to have heard a brother of mine," says the late Daniel Call, ' ;
 
 FAMILY CIRCLE. 13 
 
 married a niece of Mrs. Randolph of Curies, arid was thus occasion- 
 ally thrown into circles, where he sometimes met the Matoax family, 
 once say, that ' Mr. Tucker must be the best father-in-law in the 
 world, or his step-children would not be so fond of him.' " Up to 
 this time the boys had never been to school. All of their instruction 
 had been received at the hands of their mother. Mr. Tucker now 
 undertook their education. But it cannot be supposed that he devo- 
 ted himself to school-keeping with the rigid discipline of a peda- 
 gogue. The life of ease and elegance which he is known to have 
 lived, amidst literary pursuits to which he was devoted, and in the 
 society of wealthy and fashionable neighbors, of which he and his 
 accomplished lady were the chief ornament, would not justify such a 
 conclusion. His leisure was given to tlieir instruction ; and he at all 
 times took a lively interest in their improvement. In his letters +o 
 Colonel Bland, Jr., who was stationed with a regiment at Charlottes- 
 ville to guard the captured troops of Burgoyne's army, he often men- 
 tions them, and always with great solicitude. In one dated Matoax, 
 July 20, 1779, not ten months after his connection with the family, 
 he writes : " What you wrote about Bob (Robert Banister, a cousin, 
 then with his uncle, Colonel Bland) has inspired the boys with the 
 spirit of emulation, which I hope will be productive of some benefit 
 to them. I find he serves as a very good spur to them when they are 
 growing a little negligent. Two of them appear to be blessed with 
 excellent capacities, but I confess I am afraid that the genius of your 
 namesake (Theodorick), though possessed of great quickness and 
 acuteness in many respects, does not lie in the literary line. * * 
 
 * * I shall continue to give them all the assistance that leisure 
 will permit." 
 
 John was too young and too delicate to be confined. We may 
 imagine also that, with so indulgent a teacher and so amiable a man. 
 having a spice of the devil withal in his own temper, he could not 
 have learnt much. He was not boisterous, nor inclined to the athletic 
 out-door sports of which boys are so fond. He sought amusements 
 within. When any of the boys and girls from the neighborhood 
 came to Matoax, he introduced the play of " Ladies and Gentlemen," 
 in which each one personated some known or imagined character, 
 male or female, and acted as they supposed such persons would under 
 similar circumstances have acted. He was decidedly of a dramatic
 
 14 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 turn. And his ardent temper and oriental imagination, precociously 
 developed, invested with an earnestness and a reality all the sports 
 and pastimes of his childhood. But he was not idle. 
 
 There was a certain closet to which he stole away and secreted 
 himself whenever he could. It was not redolent that closet of 
 cakes or the perfume of sweetmeats, but the odor of books, of old 
 musty tomes arranged along its shelves. With a mysterious awe. as 
 if about to commune with mighty spirits and beinga of another 
 world, as he really was would he close the door upon himself, and 
 devour, with ; ' more eagerness than gingerbread," the contents of 
 those old volumes. His mind, young as he was. craved after ethereal 
 food, and there he found the richest repast. 
 
 The first book that fell in his way was Voltaire's History of 
 Charles XII. of Sweden. An admirable writer on education has 
 said, that "whatever the young have to read ought to be objective, 
 clear, simple, and precise ; ought to be the thing itself, and not round- 
 about dialogues about the thing." No book could fill this description 
 more completely than the above-mentioned History full of stirring 
 incidents, with a style of simple narrative as rapid and perspicuous 
 as that master of style could make it. How his young heart must 
 have burned within him as he pursued the eventful career of the 
 bold, reckless and indomitable Charles ! Feeling the impulses of a 
 kindred spirit, his sympathy must have been intense for the wild, 
 stout-hearted Scandinavian. The next book he read was the Specta- 
 tor ; but only the narrative and dramatic parts as we might suppose. 
 The young mind can only be interested in things, objects, and not in 
 roundabout dialogues about things. He delighted in Humphrey 
 Clinker Reynard the Fox came next ; then Tales of the Genii and 
 Arabian Nights. What a field of delight was opened here what a 
 world of glory in those old tales of wonder, the genuine poetry for 
 children ! The Arabian Nights and Shakspeare were\jbis idols. He 
 had read Goldsmith's Roman History, and an old History of Brad- 
 dock's War. When not eight years old, he used to sing an old ballad 
 of his defeat : 
 
 " On the sixth day of July, in the year sixty-five, 
 At two in the morning did our forces arrive ; 
 When the French and the Indians in ambush did lay, 
 And there was great slaughter of our forces that day."
 
 FAMILY CIRCLE. 15 
 
 But the " Thousand and One Tales" and Shakspeare were his 
 idols ! All others were in a sense shallow and limited had bounds, 
 that could be measured but these were fathomless, boundless : 
 opening up to the rapt vision a world of enchantment, ever varying, 
 ever new. He was a poet, a born poet, nasdtur non Jit. He did 
 not write poetry ; but he spoke it, he felt it, he lived it. His whole 
 life was a poem, of the genuine epic sort; sad, mournful, true. 
 - For poetry," says he, "! have had a decided taste from my child- 
 hood ; this taste I have sedulously cultivated." Lee that eld closet 
 tell ! Only think of the boy who had read the books we have cited, 
 and Don Quixotte, Gil Bias, Quintus Curtius, Plutarch. Pope's Ho- 
 mer, Robinson Crusoe, Grulliver, Tom Jones, Orlando Furioso, and 
 Thomson's Seasons, before he was eleven years of age ! 
 
 For more than two years the old closet was to that young genius 
 the cave of Aladdin ; and those old tomes the magic lamp by whose 
 aid he could summon to his presence the giants and the genii, the 
 dwarfs and the fairies, the Calibans and the Miranda's, and* all the 
 wonderful creations of fancy and imagination. With the clear, open 
 sense and loving heart of childhood, he devoured those narrations 
 and tales, which as he grew up became the themes of reflection, the 
 objects of his aptest illustrations, and the sources whence he drew his 
 lessons of profoundest wisdom. What a force of illustration, and 
 even of argument, is found in his beautiful allusions to the marriage 
 of Sinbad the Sailor to the corpse of his wife ; the Old Man of the 
 Sea ; and the Vision of Alnascar ! As to Shakspeare, he was so tho- 
 roughly imbued with his spirit, his own genius so akin to the Avon 
 bard, that he thought and spoke as Shakspeare in his station would 
 have thought and spoken. 
 
 He lamented in after life his rambling way of reading. But it 
 could not have been otherwise. He belonged to the irritabile genus 
 was a born poet, and could not brook the restraint or the gin-horse 
 routine of a grammar school. " I have been all my life," says he. 
 " the creature of impure, the sport of chance, the victim of my own 
 uncontrolled and uncontrollable sensations ; of a poetic temperament 
 I admire and pity all who possess this temperament." Poor fellow ! 
 What could mother or step-father do with such a thin-skinned, sensi- 
 tive, impulsive, imaginative boy ? With his fits of passion and swoon- 
 ing, what could they do ? Nature is her own best guide. Develope
 
 IQ LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 nature according to her own instincts, and the best has been done that 
 the case will admit of. So thought the kind parents of this delicate 
 boy. They put no restraint upon him. Gentleness and tender care 
 followed all his footsteps. He was suffered to roam freely c^rer the 
 hills and by the waterfalls of Appomatox. The quiet sport of angling 
 was his chief source of amusement. When tired, he stole away into the 
 closet, and none took heed of him. In this happy, ever-remembered 
 dream of childhood, two years and a half passed away. Christmas, 
 in the year seventeen hundred and eighty, was destined to be the 
 last Christmas he would ever spend at Matoax as his home as his 
 home and dwelling-place, 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 
 
 FLIGHT FROM MATOAX. 
 
 THE new year seventeen hundred and eighty-one commenced with 
 the invasion of Virginia by the traitor Arnold. He had been 
 intrusted with an expedition to that province, not with the hope of 
 conquest, or with the expectation of achieving any important mili- 
 tary enterprise, but solely for the purpose of plunder and devasta- 
 tion. What the proud soldier scorned to do was fit work for the 
 betrayer of his country. The name of Arnold, before it became a 
 by-word of reproach, was a sound of terror, not to armed men. but to 
 defenceless women and children. The fame of his rapine and 
 murder in his native State had preceded his arrival in Virginia. 
 On the 3d of January, it was rumored at Matoax that the enemy 
 were coming up James river, and that they were destined for Peters- 
 burg or Richmond. Mrs. Tucker had then been but five days 
 mother to her last child, the present emineit jurist. Judge Henry 
 St. George Tucker, of the University. " The first time I ever saw 
 that gentleman," said John Randolph once in a speech, " we were 
 trying to get out of the way of the British." The enemy that night 
 landed at Hood's, of which being apprised early next morning, and 
 hearing that they had marched as far as Eland's Ordinary, in their
 
 FLIGHT FROM MATOAX. 17 
 
 way to Petersburg, Mr. Tucker came to the conclusion, whatever 
 might be the consequence, to remove his family out of the way of 
 danger, if possible. Hasty preparations were ordered for their 
 immediate departure. What bustle and confusion that frosty morn- 
 ing reigned through the halls at Matoax each hurrying into trunks 
 or boxes, or loaded wagons, such articles as to them seemed most 
 valuable, heaping imprecations at the same time on that new name 
 of dread, Benedict Arnold. Whether John stole into the old closet 
 for the last time, and took out such volumes as pleased him, we are 
 not informed. Early next morning, the 5th of January, Syphax 
 drove off with the mother and her child ; Essex and the boys 
 brought up the rear ; and in a few hours Matoax, solitary and alone, 
 with all its effects, was abandoned to its fate. Mrs. Tucker met 
 with a most kind and hospitable reception at the house of Mr. Ben. 
 Ward, Jun'r, at Wintopoke : an ominous name in conjunction with 
 that of John Randolph. It was the daughter of this gentleman 
 to whom in after years he became so much attached. The un- 
 smooth current of their loves (as all true love is) greatly affected his 
 sensitive nature, and had no little influence on the most important 
 events of his life. Those children, when they first met together 
 around the fireside at Wintopoke, and joined in the innocent plays 
 of childhood, how unconscious were they of the deep drama of life 
 in which they were destined to play so sad a part ! After recruiting 
 her health and strength a few days, which had been somewhat im- 
 paired by fatigue and hurry of spirits, Mrs. Tucker pursued her 
 journey to Bizarre, a large and valuable estate on both sides of the 
 Appomatox, where she and the boys were destined to spend alone 
 the remainder of this stirring and eventful year. So soon as his 
 family were in a place of safety, Mr. Tucker hastened back to the 
 scene of action to assist old Col. Bland in his escape, and to secure 
 such property, belonging to himself and friends, as had not been 
 destroyed by the enemy. This done, he threw himself at the head 
 of the Chesterfield regiment of militia and joined General Greene, 
 then manoeuvring before Cornwallis's army on the borders of North 
 Carolina and Virginia. He was at ihe battle of Guilford, which 
 took place the 8th of March, where he behaved very gallantly. 
 When Gen. Greene marched into South Carolina after this engage- 
 ment, he returned to Virginia, spent a few weeks with his family at
 
 1# LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Bizarre, then joined General La Fayette, with whom he continued 
 till the capture of Cornwallis, the 19th of October, at Yorktown. 
 
 Notwithstanding his active participation in the military opera- 
 tions of that period, his solicitude for the education of the boys 
 was unabated. From Bizarre, May the 23d, he wrote to Colonel 
 Bland: "Lose no opportunity of procuring a tutor for the boys, 
 for the exigency is greater than you can imagine." Again, from 
 Richmond, July 17th, he writes on the same subject; and then 
 from Williamsburg, amidst the active preparations for that great 
 event which was to end the war, and secure the independence of the 
 country. In a letter dated Williamsburg, Sept. 21st, he says: 
 " The boys are still without, and more than ever in want, of a tutor. 
 Walker Maury has written to me lately, and given me such a plan 
 of his school, that unless you procure a tutor before Christmas. I 
 would at all events advise sending them to him immediately after. 
 I know his worth ; I know that his abilities are equal to the task : 
 and I know that his assiduity will be equally directed to improve 
 their morals and their understandings, as their manners. With this 
 prospect, I would not advise the providing any but a man of superior 
 talents as a private tutor." The year '81 was full of stirring life to 
 the men, but of idleness to the boys ; yet we are not to suppose that 
 because the young Randolphs had not the benefit of a tutor to teach 
 them the Latin and Greek languages, they were entirely destitute of 
 instruction : with such a mother as they were blessed, they could 
 not grow up in vice or idleness. Her sprightly wit, sound judgment, 
 good temper, and pious example, impressed their character more 
 favorably than all the learning of the schools. Her precepts were law 
 to their plastic minds ; and they ever afterwards retained a lively recol- 
 lection of their wisdom and truth. When riding over the vast Roa- 
 noke estates one day, she took John up behind her, and, waving her 
 hand over the broad acres spread before them, she said : ' Johnny, 
 all this land belongs to you and your brother Theodorick ; it is your 
 father's inheritance. When you get to be a man you must not 
 sell your land ; it is the first step to ruin for a boy to part 
 with his father's home : be sure to keep it as long as you live. 
 Keep your land and your land will keep you." In relating this 
 anecdote, Mr. Randolph said it made such an impression on his 
 mind that it governed his future life. He was confident it saved
 
 FLIGHT FROM MATOAX. 19 
 
 him from many errors. He never did part from his father's home. 
 His attachment to the soil, the old English law of inheritance, and a 
 landed aristocracy (we have no other word to express our meaning), 
 constituted the most remarkable trait in his character. The Vir- 
 ginia law of descents, framed by Pendleton, Wythe, and Jefferson, 
 never found favor in his eyes. While descanting on its evils, he has 
 been heard to say, ' Well might old George Mason exclaim, that the 
 authors of that law never had a son !" In a letter addressed to a 
 friend at a very late period of life, he says : ' : The old families of 
 Virginia will form connections with low people, and sink into the mass 
 of overseers' sons and daughters ; and this is the legitimate, nay, 
 inevitable conclusion to which Mr. Jefferson and iiis levelling system 
 has brought us. They know better in New-York, and they feel the 
 good effects of not disturbing the rights of property. The patroon is 
 as secure in his rents as any man in the community. The great 
 manor of Philipsburg was scandalously confiscated, and the Living- 
 stons have lost their influence by subdivision. Every now and then 
 our old acquaintance, Burr, finds out some flaw in the titles of the 
 usurpers, and a fine estate is restored to its legitimate owners." In 
 this passage the reader will find " the key words," to use his own 
 expression, that decipher every thing in the character of John Ran- 
 dolph. 
 
 The subdivision or alienation of his father's inheritance was a 
 subject he could not contemplate. Like Logan, he was alone all 
 alone and no one of his father's house after him to inherit his 
 father's home ; hence the apparent inconsistency in the disposition of 
 his estates, the facility with which he made and unmade wills in 
 short, the monomania with which he was charged on the subject of 
 property.
 
 20 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 AT SCHOOL. 
 
 AFTER Christmas the boys were sent to Walker Maury's school 
 in Orange county. Before he was nine years of age, John was 
 separated from the brooding watchfulness of a devoted mother, and 
 exposed to the dangers, evil examples, and vices of a public school. 
 Tender and lelicate as a female, he was forced out on the society of 
 ruder boys, to endure or to resist as he might their kicks, cuffs, and 
 bruises. Early did he begin among his equals to learn that personal 
 merit is of more avail than birth or riches ; and that truth, fortitude, 
 and courage, are more to be valued than much learning. 
 
 At the school in Orange, the young Randolphs remained until 
 about the middle of October, 1782, when it was broken up, and Mr. 
 Maury removed to the city of "Williamsburg. 
 
 He had been invited to that place to establish a Grammar School 
 as an appendage to William and Mary College, in which there was 
 no professorship of Humanity existing at that time. The school was 
 regulated most judiciously ; and was* soon attended by more pupils 
 than any other Grammar School that had been before established or 
 has since existed in Virginia. More than one hundred, at one time, 
 were in attendance, including boys from every State in the Union, 
 from Georgia to Maryland, both inclusive. Such a number of pupils 
 made it necessary that they should be divided into classes. The 
 greater proportion of these classes were consigned to assistants, of 
 whom ihere were four. Soon after Mr. Maury was established in 
 Wjlliamsburg, the young Randolphs followed him there, and again 
 became members of his school. Richard, the eldest, was placed in 
 the second class, under the immediate direction of Mr. Maury himself. 
 Theodorick and John were placed in the fourth class, which was the 
 head class assigned to the superintendence of the chief usher, a Mr. 
 Elliot. When the class was so augmented, it was reading, and had 
 nearly finished, Eutropius. One of the books then used by a class- 
 mate, with a class-roll written on the fly-leaf, is still extant. In a 
 short time after the young Randolphs joined it, the class had made
 
 . AT SCHOOL. 21 
 
 such progress that it was transferred from the usher's department to 
 that of the principal. It then became the third class. "While John 
 Randolph continued a member of it, which was more than a year, it 
 was engaged in reading Sallust and Virgil, and had made some 
 progress in learning the Greek and French languages, and the ele- 
 ments of Geometry. Though he complained of having learned but 
 little at this school, his attainments for the short time he was con 
 nected with it must have been very considerable. While there he 
 learned to repeat the "Westminster Greek Grammar by heart, aj he 
 could the alphabet. 
 
 Tt was around the base of Lord Bottetourt's statue, in the old 
 Capitol, the great clock, now removed to the church in "Williamsburg, 
 vibrating overhead, that he committed his lessons to memory. His 
 attainment in Latin also must have been considerable. The boys 
 were in the habit of acting plays in the original language from Plau- 
 tus and Terrence. He was always selected to perform the female 
 parts. His feminine appearance, and the " spice of the devil in his 
 temper," rendered him peculiarly fitted for that purpose, and his 
 performance was admirable. One who remembers his personal 
 appearance at that time, in speaking of him, lifted up both hands, 
 and exclaimed, " he was the most beautiful boy I ever beheld !" He 
 was, indeed, the admiration of all who saw him, was a great favorite 
 with the ladies, but his proud temper and reserved manners prevented 
 him from forming any intimate associations with his school-fellows. 
 Though a promiscuous intercourse was repugnant to his feelings, no 
 one was capable of appreciating true merit, and of forming closer, 
 more unreserved, warmer, and lasting attachments than John Ran- 
 dolph. Shunning vulgar society and repelling familiarity, he was 
 the more open and devoted to those who were honored with his friend- 
 ship. He had a natural instinct for discovering character ; and was 
 remarkable in earliest youth for his discernment and scrutiny into 
 motives. 
 
 Among the hundreds of boys with whom he came in daily con- 
 tact, he associated with, and formed an attachment to, one class-mate 
 alone. That class-mate was Littleton "Waller Tazewell. With a 
 genius as brilliant as his own, a heart as warm, and a person as pre- 
 possessing, young Tazewell was worthy of the distinction. A mutual 
 respect and friendship grew up between them, which lasted to the end
 
 22 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 of Mr. Randolph's life ; and the recollection of which is still warmly 
 preserved by the noble survivor. In a manner peculiar to John 
 Randolph, this early attachment was often called to remembrance, 
 and cherished. Near forty years afterwards, when he had heard a 
 lady sing some Scotch airs, he wrote to a friend : " Among others she 
 sang ' There's nae luck aboot the house' very well, and ' Auld Lang 
 Syne.' When she came to the lines : 
 
 ' We twa ha'e paidlet in the burn, 
 Frae morning sun till dine/ 
 
 I cast my mind's eye around for such a " trusty feese>" and could light 
 only on Tazewell (whc, God be praised, is here), and you may judge 
 how we met." 
 
 In the spring of 1784, after he had been in Williamsburg a little 
 more than one year, John Randolph was taken away from school 
 His parents went on a visit to Mr. Tucker's friends in the island of 
 Bermuda, and as John's health was very delicate, they took him along 
 with them. When about to take his leave, he proposed to young 
 Tazewell that they should exchange class-books, that each might have 
 some testimonial of their mutual friendship and of its origin. 
 
 They accordingly exchanged Sallusts. Not many years since, 
 while he was in Norfolk, preparing to depart on his mission to Rus- 
 sia, he showed Mr. Tazewell the identical Sallust he (Tazewell) had 
 given him. On the fly-leaf of the book he had written, at the time 
 he received it, how, when, and from whom he had acquired it. To 
 this he had added this hexameter : " Ccelum non animuni mutant 
 qui transmare currunt." 
 
 He continued abroad more than eighteen months, and not having 
 the advantage of daily recitation, the Greek language, which he had 
 begun so successfully to acquire in his promenades around Lord 
 Bottetourt's statue, was entirely effaced from his memory ; and he 
 barely kept alive the more extensive knowledge he had acquired of 
 the Latin. Though these newly acquired elements of learning were 
 readily abandoned, and easily effaced, pursuits more genial to his 
 taste were followed with unabated vigor. Poetry continued to be the 
 charm of his life. While abroad, he read Chatterton and Rowley, and 
 Young and Gay. Percy's Reliques and Chaucer then became his 
 great favorites. On his return to Virginia, in the latter part of 1 785.
 
 AT SCHOOL. 23 
 
 we do not learn that he returned to Walker Mauray's school in 
 Williamsburg ; on the contrary, we presume he did not, for he then 
 would have formed an acquaintance in early youth with John 
 Brockenbrough, the most intimate friend of his after life. 
 
 The letter from which the above paragraph was taken continues 
 in this wise : " During the time that Dr. Brockenbrough was at 
 Walter Mauray's school (from the spring of 1784, to the end of 
 1785), I was in Bermuda; and (although he was well acquainted 
 with both my brothers) our 'acquaintance did not begin until nearly 
 twenty years afterwards. Do you know that I am childish enough 
 to regret this very sensibly ? for, although I cannot detract from the 
 esteem or regard in which I hold him, or lessen the value I set upon 
 his friendship, yet, had I known him then, I think I should enjoy 
 ' Auld Lang Syne ' more, when I hear it sung, or hum it to myself, 
 as I often do." 
 
 How he spent the next twelve or eighteen months after his re- 
 turn from Bermuda, we have not been able to learn. When we 
 see him again it is at Princeton College, in the autumn of 1787. The 
 manner in which he spent his time there and at Columbia College. 
 New-York, shall be given in his own words. 
 
 " My mother once expressed a wish to me, that I might one day 
 or other be as great a speaker as Jerman Baker or Edmund Ran- 
 dolph ! That gave the bent to my disposition. At Princeton Col- 
 lege, where I spent a few months (1787), the prize of elocution was 
 borne away by mouthers and ranters. I never would speak if I 
 could possibly avoid it, and when I could not, repeated, without ges- 
 ture, the shortest piece that I had committed to memory. I remem- 
 ber some verses from Pope, and the first anonymous letter from 
 Newberg, made up the sum and substance of my spoutings, and I 
 can yet repeat much of the first epistle (to Lord Chatham) of the 
 former, and a good deal of the latter. I was then as conscious of my 
 superiority over my competitors in delivery and elocution, as I aiu 
 now that they are sunk in oblivion ; and I despised the award and 
 the umpires in the bottom of my heart. I believe that there is no- 
 where such foul play as among professors and schoolmasters ; more 
 especially if they are priests. I have had a contempt for college 
 honors ever since. 
 
 My mother's death drew me from Princeton, (where I had been
 
 9JL LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 forced to be idle, being put into a noisy wretched grammar school 
 for Dr. Witherspoon's emolument : I was ten times a better scholar 
 than the master of it,) and in June, 1788, I was sent to Columbia 
 College, New-York ; just then having completed my fifteenth year. 
 Never did higher literary ambition burn in human bosom. Colum- 
 bia College, New-York, was just rising out of chaos ; but there was 
 an Irishman named Cochran, who was our humanity professor. 
 
 I now (July, 1788) mastered the Eaton grammar, and gave Coch- 
 ran, who was a scholar, ' and a ripe and 'good one," a half-joe, out of 
 my own pocket, for months, to give me private lessons. We read 
 Demosthenes together, and I used to cry for indignation at the suc- 
 cess of Philip's arts and arms over the liberties of Greece. But 
 some disgust induced my master to remove to Nova Scotia, where a 
 professor's chair was offered him, about three months after I joecame 
 his pupil. Next to the loss of my mother, and my being sent to 
 Walker Mauray's school (and one other that I shall not name), this 
 was the greatest misfortune of my life. 
 
 " Unhappily, my poor brother Theodorick, who was two years older 
 than myself, had a strong aversion to books and a decided taste for 
 pleasure. Often when I had retreated from him and his convivial 
 associates to my little study, has he forced the lock, taken away my 
 book, and rendered further prosecution of niy purpose impossible. 
 From that time forward I began to neglect study (Cochran left no 
 one but Dr. Johnson, the president, of any capacity behind him, and 
 he was in the Senate of the United States from March, 1789), read 
 only the trash of the circulating library, and never have read since, 
 except for amusement, unless for a few weeks at Williamsburg at 
 the close of 1793 ; and all my dear mother's fond anticipations and 
 all my own noble and generous aspirations have been quenched ; 
 and if not entirely if a single spark or languid flame yet burns it 
 is owing to my accidental election to Congress five and twenty yeart 
 ago." 
 
 He was recalled from Princeton by the death of his mother. 
 That sad event took place the 18th of January, 1788. She was but 
 thirty-six years old when she died. Cut off in the bloom of youth 
 and beauty, he ever retained a most vivid and impassioned remem- 
 brance of her person, her charms, and her virtues. He always kept 
 her portrait hanging before him in his chamber. Though he was
 
 AT SCHOOL. 25 
 
 not yet fifteen years old, the loss to him was irreparable. She knew 
 him ; she knew the delicacy of his frame, the tenderness of his heart, 
 the irritability of his temper ; and she alone could sympathize with 
 him. Many years after this event the day after his duel with Mr. 
 Clay while reflecting on the narrow escape he had made with his 
 life, and the professions of men who disappear in such an hour ot 
 trial, his mind naturally reverted to his dear mother, who understood 
 arid never forsook him ; he wrote thus to a friend : " I am a fatalist. 
 I am all but friendless. Only one human being ever knew me. Sfa 
 only knew me." That human being was his mother ! The lots to 
 him was irreparable ; nor did he ever cease to mourn over it. Rarely 
 did he come to Petersburg or its vicinity, that he did not visit old 
 Matoax, in its wasted solitude, and shed tears over the grave of those 
 honored parents, by whose side it was the last wish of his heart to 
 be buried. 
 
 The spring of the year 1788 was spent in Virginia. It does not 
 appear that he was engaged in any regular course of study. Much 
 of his time, as was his custom whenever he could, was devoted to 
 friendship. He spent several weeks of this vacation with young 
 Tazewell, at his father's house, in Williamsburg. While there, he 
 discoursed at large on the various incidents he had met with while 
 abroad in Bermuda, and at college in Princeton, thus early display- 
 ing that faculty of observation and fluent narrative that in after 
 years rendered his conversation so brilliant and captivating. After 
 his departure on the present occasion, he commenced a correspond- 
 ence, which, with short intervals, was kept up through life. Such 
 was Mr. Tazewell's reputation for profound learning on all subjects 
 touching the laws and the Constitution of the country, that Mr. 
 Randolph consulted him on every important occasion as it arose in 
 Congress. Often in one line would he propound an inquiry that cost 
 his friend weeks of investigation to answer. His own early letters 
 displayed an inquiring mind far beyond his years. In his first let- 
 ter, written on his arrival in New- York (June, 1788), he stated that 
 alien duties had been exacted by the custom-house there, not only 
 upon the vessel in which he had taken his passage, which was owned 
 in Virginia, but upon the passengers on board of her, all of whom 
 were natives of Virginia. This statement was accompanied by many 
 reflections, designed to show the impolicy of such exactions on the 
 
 VOL. i. 2
 
 26 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 part of New- York, and the ill effects that would result from persist 
 ing in such a course. This incident took place before the adoption 
 of the present Constitution of the United States, and when the sub- 
 ject of it was just fifteen years old. It is mentioned merely to show 
 " the precocious proclivity" of John Randolph to the investigation of 
 political subjects. 
 
 Another letter addressed to the same friend, was confined to an 
 account of the first inauguration of General Washington as President 
 of the United States, which took place the 30th of April, 1789, in 
 the city of New- York. John Randolph was an tye-witness of the 
 scene. His letter contained a narrative of many minute but very 
 interesting incidents that do not appear in any of our public records 
 or histories. This narrative, being written at the moment such inci- 
 dents occurred, by an ingenuous youth, an eye-witness of the events. 
 had an air of freshness and truthfulness about it that was most cap- 
 tivating. As the letter related to nothing but matters of general 
 interest, young Tazewell showed it to his father, who was so much 
 pleased with it, that shortly afterwards he requested his son to read 
 it to a party of friends who were dining with him. The late Colonel 
 James Innis, the attorney-general, was one of the party. He was 
 considered, at that time, the most eloquent speaker, and the best belles- 
 lettres scholar in Virginia. Colonel Innis was so much pleased with 
 the letter, that he took it from the hands of the owner, and read it 
 over and over again, pronouncing it to be a model of such writing, 
 and recommended to the young man to preserve it, and study its style. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION IN ITS CHRYSALIS STATE. 
 
 No man with a growing intellect was ever content with his early 
 education. The boy turns a contemptuous look on the swaddlings of 
 infancy. The wisest instruction is so inadequate to the wants of the 
 human mind, that when one grows up to manhood he looks back with 
 mortification on the dark gropings of youthful ignorance, and with
 
 THE CONSTITUTION IN ITS CHRYSALIS STATE. 27 
 
 disgust on the time and effort wasted in pursuing barren paths, 
 where experience taught him no truth could be found. John Ran- 
 dolph was not singular in lamenting that he had disappointed the 
 fond anticipations of his friends, and mourning that " all his noble 
 and generous aspirations had been quenched." Had Theodorick 
 and his noisy companions left the ambitious student alone to his 
 books and his closet, we should still have heard the same complaint. 
 No attainment can satisfy the aspirations of genius. But it is true 
 he was not without just cause of discontent. His frequent changes 
 of school, not less than five times in as many years ; the long inter- 
 ruptions thereby occasioned by his travels abroad, the death of his 
 mother, and the daily vexations of ill health and of noisy companions, 
 with whom he was compelled to associate rendered it impossible for 
 him to give that continuous and ardent devotion to study which is 
 indispensable to mental discipline, and the acquisition of learning. 
 In disgust he gave up the effort, and abandoned himself to the loose 
 habit of promiscuous reading. His classical studies, so often inter- 
 rupted, were finally closed before he was sixteen years of age. " I 
 am an ignorant man, sir !" though sounding like sarcasm from his 
 lips, was uttered with sincerity. Though the broad foundation of 
 solid learning was wanting to him, his active and inquiring mind 
 was scarcely conscious of the deficiency. Nature had designed him 
 for a statesman ; he was eminently a practical man, and drew his 
 lessons of wisdom from experience and observation. He was, while 
 yet a youth, in daily intercourse with statesmen and men of learning. 
 He enjoyed great and rare opportunities for acquiring information on 
 those subjects towards which his mind had " a precocious pro- 
 clivity." Practical politics, and the science of government, were the 
 daily themes of the statesmen with whom he associated. He was a 
 constant attendant on the sittings of the first Congress. He was in 
 Federal Hall, the 4th of March, 1789, when only thirteen members 
 of the new Congress under our present Constitution appeared and 
 took their seats. Two only presented themselves from the south 
 side of the Potomac ; Alexander White, from Virginia, and Thomas 
 Tudor Tucker, from South Carolina. Mr. Tucker was the brother 
 of St. George Tucker, the father-in-law of John Randolph. The 
 14th of March, Richard Bland Lee, a cousin of John Randolph. 
 Mr. Madison, and John Page, from Virginia, entered the hall, and
 
 28 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 cheered the hearts of those who had assembled from day to day foi 
 more than a week without a quorum, and were beginning to despond 
 and doubt lest this new government might prove a failure. The 30th 
 of March, Col. Theodorick Bland, the uncle of John Randolph, 
 made his appearance It was not till the 1st of April, nearly a 
 month after the time appointed by the Constitution, that a quorum 
 was obtained, and the House organized for business. Such was the 
 feeble and doubtful infancy of this great and growing Republic. " I was 
 at Federal Hall." said Randolph once in a speech to his constituents : 
 : I saw Washington, but could not hear him take the oath to support 
 the Federal Constitution. The Constitution was in its chrysalis 
 state. I saw what Washington did not see ; but two other men in 
 Virginia saw it George Mason and Patrick Henry the poison 
 under its wrings." That this was no vain boasting in a boy cf six- 
 teen, the reader will soon see. 
 
 The arduous and responsible task of organizing a new govern- 
 ment devolved on the first Congress. In that body were a number 
 of men who preferred the Old Confederation, with some modifica- 
 tions to give it energy ; and were strenuously opposed to a strong 
 centralizing system, such as they apprehended the new government 
 to be. They, therefore, looked with watchfulness and jealousy on 
 every step that was taken in its organization. The most prominent 
 among those who thus early opposed the assumptions of federal 
 power, were Theodorick Bland and Thomas Tudor Tucker, the two 
 uncles of John Randolph. Col. Bland was a great admirer and fol- 
 lower of Patrick Henry. He was a member of the Convention that 
 met. June. 1788, in Richmond, to ratify the new Constitution. It is 
 well known that Patrick Henry opposed the ratification with all 
 his eloquence. The very day in which he shook the capitol with a 
 power not inferior to that with which he set the ball of Revolution 
 in motion. Col. Bland, writing to a friend, says : " I see my country 
 on the point of embarking and launching into a troubled ocean, 
 without chart or compass, to direct her : one half of her crew hoist- 
 ing sail for the land of energy, and the other looking with a longing 
 aspect on the shore of liberty." After declaring that the Conven- 
 tion which framed the Constitution had transcended its powers. 
 Patrick Henry exclaimed : : It is most clearly a consolidated gov- 
 ernment. I need not take much pains to show that the principles of
 
 THE CONSTITUTION IN ITS CHRYSALIS STATE. 29 
 
 this system are extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous. We 
 have no detail of those great considerations which, in my opinion, 
 ought to have abounded before we should recur to a government of 
 this kind. Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated 
 us from Great Britain. It is as radical, if in this transition our 
 rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the 
 States be relinquished : and cannot we plainly see that this is actu- 
 ally the case ? Is this tame relinquishment of rights worthy of free- 
 men ? Is it worthy of that manly fortitude that ought to charac- 
 terize republicans? The Confederation this sane despised gov- 
 ernment merits, in my opinion, the highest encomium : it carried 
 us through a long and dangerous war ; it rendered us victorious in 
 that bloody conflict with a powerful nation ; it has secured us a 
 territory greater than any European monarch possesses : and shall a 
 government which has been thus strong and vigorous, be accused 
 of imbecility, and abandoned for want of energy 1 Consider what 
 you are about to do before you part with this government." " It is 
 now confessed that the new government is national. There is not a 
 single federal feature in it. It has been alleged within these walls, 
 during the debates, to be national and federal, as it suited the argu- 
 ments of gentlemen. But now when we have the definition of it, it 
 is purely national. The honorable member was pleased to say, that 
 the sword and purse included every thing of consequence. And 
 shall we trust them out of our hands without checks and barriers ? 
 The sword and purse are essentially necessary for the government. 
 Every essential requisite must be in Congress. Where are the 
 purse and sword of Virginia ? They must go to Congress. What is 
 become of your country? The Virginian government is but a 
 name. We should be thought unwise indeed to keep two hundred 
 legislators in Virginia, when the government is, in fact, gone to 
 Philadelphia, or New-York. We are as a State to form no part of 
 the government. Where are your checks ? The most essential 
 objects of government are to be administered by Congress. How 
 then can the State governments be any check upon them ? If we 
 are to be a republican government, it will be consolidated, not con- 
 federated. This is not imaginary ; it is a formidable reality. If 
 consolidation proves to be as mischievous to this country as it has 
 been to other countries, what will the poor inhabitants of this
 
 30 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 country do? This government will operate like aii ambuscade. It 
 will destroy the State governments, and swallow the liberties of the 
 people, without giving them previous notice. If gentlemen are 
 willing to run the hazard, let them run it ; but I shall exculpate 
 myself by my opposition, and monitory warnings, within these walls. 
 Another gentleman tells us that no inconvenience will result from 
 the exercise of the power of taxation by the general government. 
 A change of government will not pay money. If from the probable 
 amount of the import, you take the enormous and extravagant 
 expenses, which will certainly attend the support of this great con- 
 solidated government, I believe you will find no reduction of the 
 public burdens by this new system. The splendid maintenance cf 
 the President, and of the members of both Houses ; and the salaries 
 and fees for the swarm of officers and dependents on the Govern- 
 ment, will cost this continent immense sums. After satisfying their 
 uncontrolled demands, what can be left for the States ? Not a 
 sufficiency even to defray the expense of their internal administra- 
 tion. They must, therefore, glide imperceptibly and gradually out 
 of existence. This, Sir, must naturally terminate in a consolidation. 
 If this will do for other people, it will never do for me. I never 
 will give up that darling word requisition ; my country may give it 
 up ; a majority may wrest it from me ; but I never will give it up 
 till my grave. The power of direct taxation was called by the 
 honorable gentleman the soul of the government : another gentle- 
 man called it the lungs of the government. We all agree that it is 
 the most important part of the body politic. If the power of raising 
 money be necessary, for the general government, it is no less so for 
 the States. Must I give my soul my lungs to Congress ? Con- 
 gress must have our souls ; the S.tate must have our souls. These 
 two co-ordinate, interfering, unlimited powers of harassing the com- 
 munity are unexampled ; it is unprecedented in history ; they are 
 the visionary projects of modern politicians. Tell me not of imagi- 
 nary means, but of reality : this political solecism will never tend to 
 the benefit of the community. It will be as oppressive in practice 
 as it is absurd in theory. If you part from this, which the honor- 
 able gentleman tells you is the soul of Congress, you will be inevita- 
 bly ruined. I tell you they shall not have the soul of Virginia." 
 After speaking of the " awful squinting towards monarchy" in the
 
 THE CONSTITUTION IN ITS CHRYSALIS STATE. 31 
 
 executive ; and of the great powers conferred on the judiciary, Mr. 
 Henry concluded in one of those bursts of rapt eloquence, which 
 can only be compared to the eloquence of Demosthenes, when on a 
 similar occasion in a last appeal to his countrymen to defend them- 
 selves against the invasion of Philip he called on the spirits of the 
 mighty dead, those who fell at Thermopylae, at Salamis, and at Ma- 
 rathon, to rise and protect their country against the arts and arms 
 of the Macedonian Tyrant. 
 
 " The gentleman, tells you, .said Mr. Henry, " of important 
 blessings which he imagines will result to us, and to mankind in gene- 
 ral, from the adoption of this system. I see the awful immensity of 
 the dangers with which it is pregnant. I see it, I feel it. I see 
 beings of a far higher order anxious concerning our decision. When 
 [ see beyond the horizon that bounds human eyes, and look at the 
 final consummation of all human things, and see those intelligent 
 beings which inhabit the ethereal mansions, reviewing the political 
 divisions and revolutions which in the progress of time will happen in 
 America, and the consequent happiness or misery of mankind, I am led 
 to believe, that much of the account, on one side or the other, will de- 
 pend on what we now decide. Our own happiness alone is not affected 
 by the event. All nations are interested in the determination. We 
 have it in our power to secure the happiness of one half of the human 
 race. Its adoption may involve the misery of the other hemispheres." 
 
 When the vote was about to be taken on the ratification, Patrick 
 Henry, seconded by. Theodorick Bland, moved a resolution, " That 
 previous to the ratification of the new constitution of government 
 recommended by the late Federal Convention, a declaration of rights 
 asserting and securing from encroachment the great principles of 
 civil and religious liberty, and the inalienable rights of the people, 
 together with amendments to the most exceptionable parts of the 
 said constitution of government, ought to be referred by this con- 
 vention to the other States in the American confederacy for their 
 consideration." This resolution was lost by a majority of eight votes. 
 Many who voted for it were members of the first Congress ; and 
 some of them were among the most influential and distinguished 
 men in Virginia. William Cabell, Samuel Jordan Cabell, Benjamin 
 Harrison, John Tyler, father of the late President, Isaac Coles, 
 Stephen Thompson Mason, Abraham Twigg, Patrick Henry, Theo-
 
 32 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 dorick Bland, William Grayson, James Monroe, and George Mason. 
 These same persons voted against the adoption of the Constitution, 
 which was only carried by a majority of ten. So great was the im- 
 pression made on the public mind by the arguments in the Conven- 
 tion against the evil tendencies of the Constitution, that a majority 
 of the Virginia Legislature that met the ensuing October, to appoint 
 senators, and pass laws for electing members of Congress, was de- 
 cidedly anti-federal ; that is, opposed to the Constitution, as it came 
 from the hands of its framers, without important modifications. 
 Patrick Henry was the master spirit of that assembly. He wa,s 
 offered a seat in the Senate of the United States ; but he declined it. 
 as he had previously declined a seat in the Federal Convention. 
 Through his influence the appointment of senator was conferred on 
 "William Grayson, and on Richard Henry Lee. 
 
 Mr. Grayson distinguished himself in the Virginia Convention 
 by a very elaborate analysis of the new Constitution, pointing 
 out its defects, and illustrating by history its dangerous tendencies 
 He gave utterance to a prediction, which many believe has been 
 in the daily process of fulfilment from that time to the present 
 moment. " But my greatest objection is," says he, speaking of 
 the Constitution, "that it will, in its operation, be found un- 
 equal, grievous, and oppressive. If it have any efficacy at all, it 
 must be by a faction a faction of one part of the Union against 
 the other. There is a great difference of circumstances between the 
 States. The interest of the carrying States (since manufacturing 
 States) is strikingly different from that of the producing States. I 
 mean not to give offence to any part of America, but mankind are 
 governed by interest. The carrying States will assuredly unite, and 
 our situation will then be wretched indeed. Every measure will 
 have for its object their particular interest. Let ill-fated Ireland be 
 ever present to our view. I hope that my fears are groundless, but 
 I believe it as I do my creed, that this government will operate as 
 a faction of seven States to oppress the rest of the Union. But it 
 may be said, that we are represented, and cannot therefore be in- 
 jured a poor representation it will be ! The British would have 
 been glad to take America into the Union like the Scotch, by giving 
 us a small representation. The Irish might be indulged with the 
 same favor by asking for it. (As they have done, and with what
 
 THE CONSTITUTION IN ITS CHRYSALIS STATE. 33 
 
 result?) Will that lessen our misfortunes ? A small representation 
 gives a pretence to injure and destroy. But, sir, the Scotch Union 
 is introduced by an honorable gentleman as an argument in favor of 
 adoption. Would he wish his country to be on the same foundation 
 with Scotland ? They have but 45 members in the House of Com- 
 mons, and 16 in the House of Lords. They go up regularly in order 
 to be bribed. The smallness of their number puts it out of their 
 power to carry p,ny measure. And this unhappy nation exhibits the 
 only instance, perhaps, in the world, where corruption becomes i 
 virtue. I devoutly pray, that this description . of Scotland may not 
 be picturesque of the Southern States, in three years from this time." 
 
 The other senator from Virginia was Richard Henry Lee. He 
 stood by Patrick Henry from the commencement of our revolutionary 
 struggles to their end. He was one of the first delegates to the first 
 Congress. His name appears on almost all the important committees 
 of that body. He was selected by the Virginia delegation to move 
 the declaration of independence. For his patriotism, statesmanship, 
 and oratory, he was regarded as the Cicero of his age. His classical 
 and chaste elocution possessed a tone of depth and inspiration that 
 charmed his auditory. While his great compatriot poured down 
 upon agitated assemblies a cataract of mingled passion and logic, he 
 awakened the attention, captivated the heart, and convinced th,e un- 
 derstanding of his hearers by a regulated flow of harmonious lan- 
 guage, generous sentiment, and lucid argument. " In his personal 
 character, he was just, benevolent, and high-spirited, domestic in his 
 tastes, and too proud to be ambitious of popularity." This distin- 
 guished patriot and statesman was strenuously opposed to the Con- 
 stitution as it came from the hands of its framers. He was a member 
 of Congress to whom it was referred, and by whom it was expected 
 to be recommended to their respective States. " When the plan of a 
 Constitution," says Mr. Madison, " proposed by the Convention came 
 before Congress for their sanction, a very serious effort was made by 
 Richard Henry Lee to embarrass it. It was first contended that 
 Congress could not properly give any positive countenance to a measure 
 which had for its object the subversion of the Constitution under 
 which they acted. This ground of attack failing, he then urged the 
 expediency of sending out the plan with amendments, and proposed 
 a number of them corresponding with the objections of Col. Mason." 
 
 VOL. i. 2*
 
 34 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 He then addressed a letter to Governor Edmund Randolph, of Vir- 
 ginia, who as a member of the Convention had refused to sign the 
 Constitution. After giving his objections in detail, he says : " You are, 
 therefore, sir, well warranted in saying, either a monarchy or aristoc- 
 racy will be generated perhaps the most grievous system of govern- 
 ment will arise. It cannot be denied with truth, that this new Con- 
 stitution is, in its first principles, highly and dangerously oligarchic ; 
 and it is a point agreed, that a government of the few, is, of all 
 governments, the worst." 
 
 " The only check to be found in favor of the democratic principle, 
 in this system, is the House of Representatives ; which, I believe, may 
 justly be tailed a mere shred or rag of representation ; it being obvi- 
 ous to the least examination, that smallness of number, and great 
 comparative disparity of power, render that house of little effect to 
 promote good, or restrain bad government. But what is the power 
 given to this ill-constructed body ? To judge of what may be for the 
 general welfare, seems a power coextensive with every possible object 
 of human legislation." Such were the first senators from Virginia, 
 and of a like complexion were a majority of those returned to the 
 House of Representatives. For devoting himself so ardently to the 
 election of men known to be hostile to the Constitution as it stood. 
 Mr. Henry was charged with a design of subverting that which he 
 could not prevent. It is said that his avowed attachment to the con- 
 federation was mere hypocrisy ; that he secretly rejoiced in its imbe- 
 cility, and did not desire a union of the States under any form of 
 government. He was attacked in a most virulent and personal man- 
 ner by a writer who signed himself Decius. He charged Mr. Henry 
 with a design of forming Virginia and North Carolina into one 
 republic, and placing himself at the head as their dictator. " Were 
 I to draw the picture of a tyrant for this country," says Decius, " it 
 should be very different from that which some others have sketched 
 out. He should be a man in every instance calculated to soothe and 
 not to threaten the populace ; possessing a humiliating and not an 
 arrogant turn ; affecting an entire ignorance and poorness of capacity, 
 and not assuming the superiorities of the illumined ; a man whose 
 capacity should be calculated to insinuate itself into the good esteem 
 of others by degrees, and not to surprise them into a compliance on 
 a sudden whose plainness of manners and meanness of address first
 
 GEORGE MASON. 35 
 
 should move our compassion, steal upon our hearts, betray our judg- 
 ments, and finally run away with the whole of the human composi- 
 tion." 
 
 This description of the demagogue winning his waj by affected 
 humility and low cunning to the supreme command, was intended to 
 be applied to Mr. Henry. Many of his own expressions are used in 
 drawing the portrait, but no mat less deserved the epithet of ambi- 
 tious, There can be no doubt that he delighted to sway the passions 
 of the multitude, and to influence the decision of legislative bodies 
 by the powers of his eloquence ; but that his ambition extended to 
 the acquisition of supreme executive command, there is not the slight- 
 est ground of suspicion. 
 
 The virulence with which he was assailed must be attributed to 
 the high party excitement of the times, which indiscriminately 
 assaulted the most spotless characters, and paid no respect to exalted 
 services or venerable age. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 
 GEORGE MASON. 
 
 GEORGE MASON was a wise man. He was at once the Solon and the 
 Cato, the lawgiver and the stern patriot of the age in which he lived. 
 At a period when republics were to be founded, and constitutions 
 of government ordained for growing empires, he was the first to de- 
 fine and to guard with watchful care the rights of the people to 
 prescribe limitations to the different departments of government, and 
 to place restrictions on their exercise of power. The Bill of Rights, 
 and the Constitution of Virginia, are lasting monuments to his me- 
 mory. One sentence of the former contains more wisdom and con- 
 centration of thought, than all former writings on the subject of 
 government. The sentence is this ; " that no man or set of men is 
 entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments, or privileges from the 
 community, but in consideration of public services ; which, not being 
 descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or
 
 36 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 judge, to be hereditary." Here is a volume of truth and wisdom 
 says an eminent writer, a lesson for the study of nations, embodied 
 in a single sentence, and expressed in the plainest language. If a 
 deluge of despotism were to overspread the world, and destroy those 
 institutions under which freedom is yet protected, sweeping into ob- 
 livion every vestige of their remembrance among men, could this sin- 
 gle sentence of Mason be preserved, it would be sufficient to rekindle 
 the flame of liberty, and to revive the race of freemen. Though Mr. 
 Mason did not object to a union of the States for their mutual de- 
 fence and welfare, he yet regarded the commonwealth of Virginia as 
 his country, and her government as the only one that could guarantee 
 his rights or protect his interests. So far back as 1763, Mr. Madi- 
 son, speaking of him, says, " his heterodoxy lay chiefly in being too 
 little impressed with the necessity or the proper means of preserving 
 the confederacy." Virginia was a great empire within herself, and 
 had every thing to sacrifice in surrendering her sovereignty to a cen- 
 tral government. On the independence of the States also rested his 
 only Hope of preserving the liberties of the people. He entered the 
 Federal Convention, therefore, in 1787, with a stern resolution never 
 to surrender the sovereignty of the States. Others, on the contrary, 
 could conoeive of no other plan but a consolidated government, by 
 which the States should be reduced from political societies to mere 
 municipal corporations. The middle ground of compromise had not 
 yet been thought of. Mr. Madison had but a dim perception of its 
 possibility. Even he was for a strong government. In a letter ad- 
 dressed to Edmund Randolph, dated New- York, April 8th, 1787, he 
 says : " I hold it for a fundamental point, that an individual indepen- 
 dence of the States is utterly irreconcilable with the idea of an ag- 
 gregate sovereignty. I think, at the same time, that a consolidation 
 of the States into one simple republic, is not less unattainable than 
 it would be inexpedient. Let it be tried, then, whether any middle 
 ground can be taken." To the untiring exertions of Mr. Madison, 
 both in the Federal Convention and in the Convention of Virginia, 
 are we indebted for the existence of the Constitution. But to Colo- 
 nel Mason are we indebted for the only democratic and federal fea- 
 tures it contains. But for Madison we should have been without a 
 government ; but for Mason, that government would have crushed 
 the States, and swallowed up the liberties of the people. To Mason
 
 GEORGE MASON. 37 
 
 are we indebted for the popular election of members of the House of 
 Representatives, the election of senators by the State Legislatures, 
 and the equal representation of the States in the Senate. In the 
 first, there is some guarantee for the rights of the people ; in the se- 
 cond, some protection to the sovereignty and independence of the 
 States.. So important were Mr. Mason's services, that we must de- 
 tain the reader by a few quotations from his speeches to establish 
 his claim to the high distinction here awarded him. When the 
 question of electing members to the House of Representatives by 
 the State Legislatures instead of the people, was before the Conven- 
 tion, Mr Mason said : " Under the existing Confederacy Congress re- 
 present the States, and not the people of the States ; their acts ope- 
 rate on the States^ and not on the individuals. The case will be 
 changed in the new plan of government. The people will be repre- 
 sented ; they ought therefore to choose the representatives. Much," 
 he said, "had been alleged against democratic elections. He ad- 
 mitted that much might be said ; but it was to be considered that no 
 government was free from imperfections and evils, and that improper 
 elections, in many instances, were inseparable from republican gov- 
 ernments. But compare these with the advantage of this form, in 
 favor of the rights of the people, in favor of human nature !" Mr. 
 Mason urged the necessity of retaining the election by the people. 
 " Whatever inconvenience may attend the democratic principle, it- 
 must actuate one part of the government. It is the only security for 
 the rights of the people." 
 
 When the organization of the Senate was under consideration, 
 Mr. Mason said, " he never would agree to abolish the State Gov- 
 ernments, or render them absolutely insignificant. They were as 
 necessary as the General Government, and he would be equally care- 
 ful to preserve them. He was aware of the difficulty of drawing the 
 line between them, but "hoped it was not insurmountable. It has 
 been argued on all hands, that an efficient government is necessary : 
 that to render it such, it ought to have the faculty of self-defence ; 
 that to render its different branches effectual, each of them ought to 
 have the same power of self-defence. He did not wonder that such 
 an argument should have prevailed on these points. He only won- 
 dered that there should be any disagreement about the necessity of 
 allowing the State governments the same self-defence. If they are
 
 38 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 to be preserved, as he conceived to be essential, they certainly ought 
 to have this power ; and the only mode left of giving it to them, was 
 by allowing them to appoint the second branch of the National Le- 
 gislature." Dr. Johnson said : " The controversy must be endless 
 while gentlemen differ in the grounds of their arguments ; those on 
 one side considering the States as districts of people composing one 
 political society ; those on the other, considering them as so many 
 political societies. The fact is, that the States do exist as political 
 societies, and a government is to be formed for them in uheir politi- 
 cal capacity, as well as for the individuals composing them. Does it 
 not seem to follow, that if the States, as such, are to exist, they must 
 be armed with some power of self-defence ? This is the idea of Co- 
 lonel Mason, who appears to have looked to the bottom of this matter 
 Besides the aristocratic and other interests, which ought to have the 
 means of defending themselves, the States have their interests as 
 such, and are equally entitled to like means. On the whole he 
 thought, that, as in some respects the States are to be considered in 
 their political capacity, and in others as districts of individual citi- 
 zens, the two ideas embraced on different sides, instead of being op- 
 posed to each other, ought to be combined : that in one branch the 
 people ought to be represented, in the other the States. 1 ' 
 
 Notwithstanding Col. Mason labored to modify the Constitution 
 through its various stages, as much as he could in favor of liberty 
 and the independence of the States, he finally voted against it. His 
 objections were radical, extending to every department of govern- 
 ment. He objected to the unlimited powers of taxation, conferred 
 on a House of Representatives, which was but the shadow of repre- 
 sentation, and could never inspire confidence in the people. He ob- 
 jected to the marriage, as he called it. between the President and the 
 Senate, and the extraordinary powers conferred on the latter. He 
 insisted that they would destroy any balance* in the government, and 
 would enable the President and the Senate, by mutually supporting 
 and aiding each other, to accomplish what usurpations they please 
 upon the rights and liberties of the people. He objected to the ju- 
 diciary of the United States being so constructed and extended as to 
 absorb and destroy the judiciaries of the several States, thereby ren- 
 dering the administration of laws tedious, intricate, expensive^ and 
 unattainable by a great part of the community. He objected to the
 
 GEORGE MASON. 39 
 
 Executive because the President of the United States has no consti- 
 tutional counsel (a thing unknown in any safe and regular govern- 
 ment) ; he will therefore be unsupported by proper information and 
 advice ; and will generally be directed by minions and favorites or 
 he will become a tool to the Senate or a council of state will grow 
 out of the principal officers of the great departments the worst and 
 most dangerous of all ingredients for such a council in a free coun- 
 try ; for they may be induced to join in any dangerous and oppres- 
 sive measures to shelter themselves, and prevent an inquiry into their 
 own misconduct in office. 
 
 In a word, said Col. Mason, the Confederation is converted to one 
 general consolidated government, which, from my best judgment of 
 it, is one of the worst curses that can possibly befall a nation. 
 
 Such was George Mason the champion of the States, and the 
 author of the doctrine of State Rights. Many of the prophecies of 
 this profound statesman are recorded in the fulfilments of history 
 many of the ill forebodings 6f the inspired orator are daily shaping 
 themselves into sad realities. To the indomitable courage,. Roman 
 energy, and inspiring eloquence of Mason and of Henry, we are as 
 much indebted for our independence, as to the sword of the warrior. 
 To their wisdom and sagacity we owe the preservation and the future 
 safety of the ship of state, which, without their forewarning, would 
 have long since been dashed to pieces against the rocks and the 
 quicksands that lay concealed in its pathway. While the eyes of 
 many good and wise men were dazzled with the strength and bril- 
 liancy of the young eagle, now pluming himself for a bold and ardu- 
 ous flight, they with keener vision saw the poison under his wing, 
 and sought to extract it, lest, in his high career, he might shed pes- 
 tilence aud death on the country which it was his destiny to over- 
 shadow and protect.
 
 40 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 EARLY POLITICAL ASSOCIATES. 
 
 I.\ the foregoing chapters we may have gone more into detail, 
 and dwelt more on collateral subjects than might appear consistent 
 with a work of this kind. But it was necessary 10 give the reader a 
 clue to the political opinions of John Randolph. No one can fail to 
 ponder over those chapters, and study the character of those ruan 
 we have briefly attempted to portray, and do justice to the subject 
 of this memoir. He was bred up in the school of Mason and of 
 Henry. His father-in-law, his uncles, his brother, and all with whom 
 he associated, imbibed the sentiments of those great statesmen, 
 shared their devotion to the principles and the independence of the 
 Commonwealth of Virginia, and participated in all their objections 
 to the new government. Randolph, as we have seen, was a constant 
 attendant on the debates of the first Congress, which had devolved 
 on it the delicate task of organizing the government, and setting its 
 wheels in motion. A majority of the members in that body, from 
 Virginia, belonged to the political school of Mason and of Henry. 
 They owed their appointment to the influence of those men and the 
 alarms excited in the public mind by their predictions. Many of 
 them were the blood relations of John Randolph, and all of them 
 his intimate friends. With these he associated. For the sage de- 
 lights to take ingenuous youth by the hand, and address to his atten- 
 tive ear words of truth and of wisdom. When Richard Henry Lee, 
 and Grayson, and Bland, and Tucker, and Page, were seated around 
 the domestic fireside, holding free and familiar discourse on those 
 great questions involved in founding a Republic, we may well con- 
 ceive that their young friend and kinsman was a welcome and an at- 
 tentive listener to those high themes, teaching 
 
 :i What makes a nation happy and keeps it so, 
 What ruins kingdoms and lays cities flat." 
 
 We may well conceive how his bosom dilated, and his eye kin- 
 dled with unwonted fire, as they narrated the great battle of giants 
 in the Convention, told of the many-sided wisdom of George Mason,
 
 EARLY POLITICAL ASSOCIATES. 41 
 
 who in majestic unaffected style better taught the solid rules of civil 
 government than all the oratory of Greece and Rome, and spoke of 
 the deep-toned awful eloquence of Patrick Henry, which rivalled the 
 thunders that rolled over their heads, as he uttered his words of 
 warning. From these familiar communings he daily repaired to 
 Federal Hall, there to hang upon the bar of the House of Represen- 
 tatives, and with keen vision see enacted before him the fulfilment 
 of the statesman's prophecy. 
 
 The great subject of taxation was the first to attract his atten. 
 tion. No sooner had Congress been organized, than they com. 
 menced, as he conceived, the work of oppression. The unlimited 
 powers conferred on Congress to tax the people, excited the alarm 
 of those who looked to the independence of the States as the only 
 protection to liberty. They sought a modification of this power in 
 the Convention. Failing there, they asked an amendment of the 
 Constitution. But all their efforts to place restrictions on this all- 
 absorbing power of government, were unavailing. The first exercise 
 of it justified, in their opinion, the worst suspicions which had been 
 excited as to its dangerous and oppressive tendency. They declared 
 that no duty or tax had been imposed, that did not operate as a 
 bounty to one section and a burden on another. While the import 
 and tonnage bills were under discussion, Mr. Smith of South Carolina 
 said, " that the States which adopted the Constitution, expected its 
 administration would be conducted with a favorable hand. The 
 manufacturing States wished the encouragement of manufactures ; 
 the maritime States the encouragement of ship building, and the ag- 
 ricultural States the encouragement of agriculture. Let us view 
 the progress we have made in accommodating their interests : We 
 have laid heavy duties upon foreign goods to encourage domestic 
 manufactures ; we are now about to lay a tonnage duty, for the en- 
 couragement of commerce ; but has any one step been taken to en- 
 courage the agricultural States ? So far from it, that all that has been 
 done operates against their interest : every duty we have laid will 
 be heavily felt by South Carolina, while nothing has been done to 
 assist or even encourage her or her agriculture." Mr. Tucker said : 
 : ' I am opposed to high duties, because they tend to the oppression 
 of certain citizens and States, in order to promote the benefit of 
 other States and other classes of citizens." Mr. Bland laid it down
 
 42 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 as an incontrovertible truth, " that the agricultural interest is the 
 permanent interest of this country, and therefore ought not to be 
 sacrificed to any other." Mr. Jackson of Georgia, who had accus- 
 tomed himself, as he said, to a blunt integrity of speech, that attest- 
 ed his sincerity, exclaimed : 'i They call to my mind a passage of 
 Scripture, where a king, by the advice of inexperienced counsellors. 
 declared to his people, ' my father did laden you with a heavy yoke, 
 but I will add to your burdens.' " Follow those men through all 
 their legislative career and it will be found, though history has given 
 them little credit for it, that they steadily pursued one object as 
 their polar star resistance to the encroachments of power, and pro- 
 tection to the rights of the people. 
 
 The awful squinting towards monarchy which Henry saiv in the 
 Executive, made them particularly jealous of that department of 
 government, and caused them to oppose every measure that might 
 tei d to increase its power or patronage. On the much mooted ques- 
 tion, for example, of removal from office, they insisted that the Senate 
 should be associated with the President. Mr. Bland was the first 
 to give expression to opinions which have since been so often re- 
 peated, and the policy of which is still a question. He thought the 
 power given by the Constitution to the Senate, respecting the ap- 
 pointments to office, would be rendered almost nugatory if the Pre- 
 sident had the power of removal. He thought it consistent with the 
 nature of things, that the power which appointed, should remove ; and 
 would not object to a declaration in the resolution, that the Presi- 
 , dent shall remove from office by and with the advice and consent of 
 the Senate. 
 
 The bill to establish the Treasury Department contained a 
 clause making it the duty of the Secretary, "to digest and report 
 plans for the improvement and management of the revenue and for 
 the support of public credit." 
 
 Mr. Page moved to strike out these words, observing, that to 
 permit the Secretary to go farther than to prepare estimates, would 
 be a dangerous innovation on the constitutional privilege of that 
 house. It would create an undue influence within those walls, be- 
 cause members might be led by the deference commonly paid to 
 men of abilities, who gave an opinion in a case they have thoroughly 
 considered, to support the plan of the minister even against their
 
 EARLY POLITICAL ASSOCIATES. 4.3 
 
 own judgment. Nor would the mischief stop there. A precedent 
 would be established, which might be extended until ministers of 
 the government should be admitted on that floor, to explain and 
 support the plans they had digested and reported, thereby laying a 
 foundation for an aristocracy or a detestable monarchy. 
 
 Mr. Tucker seconded the motion of Mr. Page. He hoped the 
 house was not already weary of executing and sustaining the powers 
 vested in them by the Constitution ; and yet the adoption of this 
 clause would argue that they thought themselves less adequate than 
 an individual to determine what burdens their constituents were 
 able to bear. This was not answering the high expectations that 
 had been formed of their exertions for the general good, or of their 
 vigilance in guarding their own and the people's rights. 
 
 But nothing could equal the ferment and disquietude occasioned 
 throughout the country by the proposition which came from the 
 Senate, to confer titles on the President and other officers of govern- 
 ment. The committee of the Senate reported, that it was proper 
 to style the President his highness the President of the United States 
 of America, and Protector of their liberties. In some of the news- 
 papers the President was called his highness the President General. 
 Some even went farther, and declared that as he represented the 
 majesty of the people, he might even be styled " His Majesty]' 
 without reasonable offence to republican ears. The Senate was de- 
 nominated most honorable, and the same epithet was applied to the 
 members of that body. For instance, it was published that the most 
 honorable Rufus King and the most honorable Philip Schuyler were 
 appointed senators. And when Mrs. Washington came to New- 
 York, she was accompanied by the " lady of the most honorable 
 Robert Morris." The representatives, and even the secretaries of 
 the executive departments were favored with no higher title than 
 honorable. This habit of conferring titles and drawing distinctions 
 between the different departments of government, and extending 
 those titles and distinctions to persons no way connected with the 
 government, had become very common, and would unquestionably 
 have grown into something worse, but for the debates called forth in 
 the House of Representatives, and the indignation shown by thu 
 leading members of that body against such proceedings. ft What. 
 sir," said Mr. Tucker, " is the intention of this business ? Will it not
 
 44 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 alarm our fellow-citizens ? will it not give them just cause of alarm ? 
 Will they not say, that they have been deceived by the Convention 
 that framed the Constitution ? That it has been contrived with a 
 view to lead them on by degrees to that kind of government which 
 they have thrown off with abhorrence ? Shall we not justify the 
 fears of those who are opposed to the Constitution, because they con- 
 sidered it as insidious and hostile to the liberties of the people ?" 
 
 <; Titles, sir," said Mr. Page, " may do harm and have done harm. 
 If we contend now for a right to confer titles, I apprehend the time 
 will come when we shall form a reservoir for honor, and make our 
 President the fountain of it. In such case may not titles do an 
 injury to the Union ? They have been the occasion of an eternal 
 faction in the kingdom we were formerly connected with, and may 
 beget like inquietude in America ; for I contend, if you give the 
 title, you must follow it with the robe and the diadem, and then the 
 principles of your government are subverted." 
 
 Such were the men with whom John Randolph daily associated, 
 such were the high-toned principles of liberty he was daily accus- 
 tomed to hear. It was not from the reading of books in his closet, 
 nor from second-hand that he acquired his knowledge of politics, and 
 that extensive acquaintance with the leading characters of the country 
 for which he was so remarkable, but from familiar intercourse with 
 the statesmen and sages who laid the foundations of the government, 
 and commenced the first superstructure of laws and precedents to 
 serve as guides and examples to the statesmen who should come after 
 them. 
 
 It was the fortune of this young man to behold the Government 
 m its feeble beginnings, like the simple shepherds on the snowy Ve- 
 aolo, gazing in the overshadowed fountain of the Po with his scanty 
 waters. 
 
 Mirando al fonte ombroso 
 II Po con pochi umori. 
 
 It was his destiny also never to lose sight of it, but to follow it 
 through near half a century of various fortune, now enfeebled by 
 war and faction, now strengthened and enlarged by new States ami 
 new powers. How like the Po ! he receives as a sovereign the Adda 
 and the Tessino in his course, how ample he hastens on to the sea, 
 how he foams, how mighty his voice, and to him the crown is assigned
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 Che '1 Adda, che '1 Tessino 
 Soverchia in suo cammimo, 
 Che ampio al Mar' s'affretta 
 Che si spuma, e si suona, 
 Che gli si da corona ! 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 IN the winter of the year 179 0-1, Philadelphia had again become, 
 as in times of the old Continental Congress, the great centre of 
 attraction. By a recent Act it had been made the seat of the Federal 
 Government for ten years. The national legislature, adjourning the 
 12th of August in New- York, were to assemble the first Monday in 
 December in the new Capitol. The papers and officers of all the 
 Executive Departments were removed thither early in October, under 
 the conduct of Col. Hamilton, the Secretary of the Treasury. The 
 President returning from Mount Vernon about the 1 st of December, 
 took up his lodgings in a house belonging to Robert Morris, which 
 had been hired and fitted up for the purpose. And Tuesday, the 7th 
 of December, the 3d session of the 1st Congress was organized in 
 the new Court House of the city, which had been tendered to the 
 government by the town authorities. We find also our young friend, 
 in this general removal, transferred to the city of Philadelphia. He 
 took up his residence at No. 154 Arch-street, where he continued 
 with short intervals, till the spring of 1794, when he returned to Vir- 
 ginia. 
 
 He was attached to the family of Edmund Randolph, the Attor- 
 ney General of the United States the same person his mother 
 pointed him to as the model of an orator, worthy of his imitation. 
 Edmund Randolph was a kinsman in the collateral line. He was 
 the son of John Randolph, the King's Attorney General about the 
 time of the Revolution. 
 
 ' Mr. Randolph," says Wirt, " was, in person and manners, among 
 the most elegant gentlemen in the colony, and in his profession one
 
 46 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 of the most splendid ornaments of the bar." He was the son of Sii 
 John (Knight), who was the son of' William of Turkey Island, the 
 great American progenitor of the family. Edmund Randolph in- 
 herited many of the accomplishments of his father. But he was 
 more showy than solid. He was also of a vacillating character ; 
 voting against the Constitution, then violent in its favor ; striving at 
 first to steer above the influence of party, he was at length ingulfed 
 and swept away by its current. " Friend Edmund," said John 
 Randolph years afterwards, " was like the aspen, like the chameleon, 
 ever trembling, ever changing." We may, therefore, suppose that 
 his influence over the mind and character of his pupil was not so 
 great as that of another kinsman who was also a member of General 
 Washington's Cabinet. We allude to Thomas Jefferson, the first 
 cousin of John Randolph's father, and the intimate friend of his 
 youth. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson had been abroad some years as Minister to France. 
 Returning on a visit to America, he was invited by General Washing- 
 ton to take charge of the State Department. The invitation was 
 accepted, and he was no soonor installed in office in the spring of 
 1790, than he became the head and leader of the Republican State- 
 Rights Party, then struggling into existence. Is was not the exalted 
 station alone, but other circumstances that forced him into this unen- 
 viable and critical position. The author of the doctrine of State 
 Rights and its eloquent defender, George Mason, and Patrick Henry, 
 were both in retirement. The latter had been offered a seat in the 
 Senate at its organization, but declined. It was tendered to him the 
 second time, on the death of Col. Grayson ; he again declined on the 
 ground that he was too old to fall into those awkward imitations 
 which have now become fashionable, spoken in allusion to the levees 
 of Mrs. Washington, and the etiquette observed in presentations at 
 the Executive Mansion. 
 
 Richard Henry Lee was still in the Senate. He was the gentleman, 
 the scholar, and the orator, but his thoughts ran too much in the smooth 
 channel of established forms, his oratory too elaborate and polished, his 
 disposition too indolent and unambitious to make him the fit leader 
 of a party just coming into existence in a new era, with new thoughts, 
 new principles, and an untried experiment before them. Thomas 
 Jefferson was the man. The qualities of his mind, his education and
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 47 
 
 previous course of life, fitted him to be the bold and intrepid pioneer 
 of that untried course the people had entered upon. 
 
 His mind, not of the Platonic cast, was eminently perceptive. 
 The abstract had no charms .for him the spiritual no existence. 
 Devoted to the natural sciences, his metaphysics savored of material- 
 ism. Locke's Philosophy of the Senses bounded his conceptions of the 
 human understanding. And the French Disciples, who pursued the 
 doctrines of their master, to the legitimate consequence of sensualis 
 and infidelity, were his chief authorities on all questions of moralit; 
 and religion. 
 
 He was a bold, free thinker, bound to no school. " I never sub- 
 mitted the whole system of my opinions," says he, " to the creed of 
 any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or 
 in any thing else." 
 
 He was born in a country in the vigor of its youth, untrammelled 
 by habit, and new in all its social relations. He was a child of the 
 Revolution. His ardent temper was kindled by its stormy passions, 
 and his bold intellect grasped the master idea of that great popular 
 movement, which was unfettered freedom to mind, body, and estate. 
 By him the law of primogeniture was destroyed in Virginia, religious 
 freedom established, and universal liberty and equality proclaimed in 
 the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 His ruling desire to strike the padlock from the mind, and the 
 fetter from the limbs of mankind, was rather strengthened than 
 abated by his long residence abroad under a despotic government. 
 Being a man of letters and of taste, he was in intimate association 
 with the great writers and master spirits that set the ball of the French 
 Revolution in motion. In boldness and. freedom of discussion they 
 surpassed even himself. Speaking of them he says, " the writers of 
 this country (France) now taking the field freely, and unrestrained, 
 or rather revolted by prejudice, will rouse us all from the errors in 
 which we have been hitherto rocked." 
 
 A witness of the assembling of the States General, May. 1789, 
 he rejoiced in the downfall of the worn-out French monarchy, of 
 which that was the signal ; and was the friend and adviser of those 
 who sought to rebuild on its ruins a freer government, with broader 
 and deeper foundations. He heard the rights of man, the origin of 
 government, the abuses and limitations of power, more freely dis-
 
 48 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 cussed in the cafes and saloons of Paris than in the court-yards of 
 Virginia. 
 
 When the usages and precedents of past times, and of other 
 governments, were scornfully rejected, he saw our own proceedings 
 pointed to as a model, and regarded with an authority like that of 
 the Bible : open to explanation, but not to question. 
 
 Coming from those scenes of enthusiasm in which he so warmly 
 participated ; coming from a land where old prejudices and long 
 Established abuses were vanishing away ; where the titles of feudal- 
 ism and the privileges of despotism had been swept away in a 
 night, and a great nation was rejoicing in the dawn of a new era of 
 freedom ; he expressed himself astonished to find his own govern- 
 ment, which was regarded by "others as a model and an example, pos- 
 sessed with a spirit that seemed to him so anti-republican. 
 
 This false direction of the government he mainly attributed to 
 the financial schemes of Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the 
 Treasury. 
 
 It is well known that Hamilton advised a Constitution far differ- 
 ent from the one adopted. His was a plan of consolidation, with a 
 strong infusion of the aristocratic principle. Having experienced 
 the imbecility of the Confederation, he did not believe the new gov- 
 ernment practicable. Without a successful example in history, he 
 did not believe in the capacity of the people for self-government. 
 Judging of mankind by the oppressed and degraded specimens of 
 the army and of the Old Country, he did not duly appreciate the 
 intelligent and manly character of his own countrymen, nor did he 
 comprehend the nature of that government of specified powers and 
 divided sovereignty which was the embodiment of their spirit and 
 principles. Placed at the head of the Financial Department of a 
 new government, he was surrounded with many difficulties. The 
 war had left the Confederation and the States burdened with debt : 
 and, exhausted of resources, it became his duty to devise means to 
 resuscitate the one, and to pay off the other. With no experience 
 in his own country, it was natural he should look to the successful 
 example of others. He is considered a wise statesman, who is 
 guided by established precedents, does not strike into unknown 
 paths, but prudently follows the course that has been pursued before 
 him. Judging him by this rule, it would be hard to say how far he
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 49 
 
 ought to have acted otherwise than he did, without hazarding the 
 censure of rashness. " The chief outlines of these plans," says he, 
 in his report on public credit, " are not original, but it is no ill 
 recommendation that they have been tried with success." He 
 recommended that the debts which had been contracted by the 
 several States in the War of Independence, and for which they 
 were bound, as independent sovereignties, should be assumed by the 
 new government, that these assumed debts, and those contracted 
 by the Confederation, amounting in all to some eighty millions of 
 dollars, though greatly depreciated, and passed from the hands of 
 the original owner, should be funded at their par value ; the in- . 
 terest to be paid regularly by an excise and an impost duty, but the 
 capital to be viewed in the light of an annuity, at the rate of six per 
 centum per annum, redeemable at the pleasure of the government. 
 He also advised the incorporation of a National Bank, as " an insti- 
 tution of primary importance to the prosperous administration of the 
 finances, and of the greatest utility in the operations connected with 
 the support of the public credit." In his Reports, he labors, at 
 great length, to prove the utility of a well-funded National Debt. 
 " It is a well known fact," says he, " that in countries where the 
 national debt is properly funded, it answers most of the purposes- of 
 money. Transfers of stock, or public debt, are there equivalent to 
 payments in specie ; or, in other words, stock in the principal trans- 
 actions of business passes current as specie. Trade is extended by 
 it. because there is a larger capital to carry it on. Agriculture and 
 manufactures are promoted by it for a like reason. The interest of 
 money will be lowered by it, for this is always in ratio to the quan- 
 tity of money, and to the quickness of circulation. From the combi- 
 nation of these effects, additional aids will be furnished to labor, to 
 industry, and to arts of every kind. But these good effects of a 
 public debt are only to be looked for when, by being well funded, it 
 has acquired an adequate and stable value." These arguments, 
 viewed in connection with the obvious tendency of his policy, led 
 the enemies of Hamilton to declare that he regarded a national 
 debt as a national blessing. Though this inference might be drawn 
 from his doctrine and policy, he yet, in express terms, declared him- 
 self against it. " Persuaded as the Secretary is," says he, " that the 
 proper funding of the present debt will render it a national blessing, 
 VOL. i. 3
 
 50 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 yet he is so far from acceding to the proposition, in the latitude in 
 which it is sometimes laid down, that ' public debts are public 
 benefits' a position inviting to prodigality, and liable to dangerous 
 abuse that he ardently wishes to see it incorporated, as a funda- 
 mental maxim, in the system of public credit of the United States, 
 that the creation of debt should always be accompanied with the 
 means of extinguishment." Had those schemes of Hamilton been 
 laid before a British Parliament, they wou^d have been viewed as 
 clearly and ably expressed, and adopted as practicable and expe- 
 dient ; but with us, far other and higher considerations than *hose 
 of expediency or practicability had to be weighed before the adop- 
 tion of any measure. The British Parliament was omnipotent ; the 
 American Congress limited to a few, well defined, and specified 
 powers. Parliament was only guided by precedent and usage ; 
 Congress were controlled by the words of a written Constitution. 
 There was with us, therefore, a primary and fundamental inquiry to 
 be made on all subjects of legislation, unknown to the British 
 statesman. Whenever a measure is proposed, the first question 
 should be, Is it constitutional? Is it authorized by the specified 
 powers laid down in the Charter ? or does it encroach on the 
 reserved rights of the States ? How does it affect the balance of 
 power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary Depart- 
 ments, or how does it operate on the morals and integrity of the 
 people, upon whose purity depends the existence of a free govern- 
 ment? Unless these preliminary questions are always honestly and 
 fairly settled, it is obvious that a republican and a written Constitu- 
 tion cannot long be of any avail. But these considerations did not 
 occur to the mind of Hamilton, in projecting his schemes of finance ; 
 they are never started, nor is the slightest allusion made to them in 
 his Reports. He views every subject in its financial aspect, without 
 regard to its political bearing on the new. peculiar, and delicately 
 balanced institutions of his country. This was his great and fatal 
 error. Thomas Jefferson perceived it, and battled against all his 
 schemes as unconstitutional, destructive to the independence of the 
 States, and corrupting to the rulers and to the people. 
 
 Posterity, therefore, in pronouncing judgment on these great 
 rivals, would be constrained to say that Hamilton was the able 
 financier, but Jefferson the profound statesman. While the one.
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 5J 
 
 with averted countenance, looked back upon the lights the world 
 had already passed ; the other, with prophetic vision, caught the 
 rays of a new constellation, just dawning upon it. Gathering up in 
 his capacious mind the tendency and influences of those feelings 
 and opinions, recently developed in American history and institu- 
 tions, Jefferson conceived a theory of government that embodied the 
 growing sentiments of the people, and fulfilled their idea of what 
 free Republic should be. He stands in relation to the Constitution 
 as Aristotle to the Iliad ; Homer wrote the poem, the philosopher 
 deduced thence the rules of poetry. Mason and other sages made 
 the Constitution, the statesman abstracted from it the doctrines of a 
 federative, representative, republican government ; and demonstrated 
 that they alone are adapted to a wide-spread and diversified country, 
 aud suited to the genius of a free and enlightened people. Were 
 the question asked, What has America done for the amelioration of 
 mankind ? the answer would not be found in her discoveries in 
 science or improvements in art, but in her political philosophy, as 
 conceived by Jefferson, and developed by his disciples. Though he 
 was the acknowledged leader of what may be called the great 
 American movement, he never spoke in public, and never wrote an 
 essay for the newspapers. His great skill lay in infusing his senti- 
 ments into the minds of others by conversation, or correspondence, 
 and making them the instruments of their propagation. Gathering 
 about him the influential men of the new party, he imparted to them 
 more comprehensive views of their own doctrines, and made them 
 the enthusiastic defenders of those principles, the importance of 
 which they had but dimly perceived. Over no one did he exert a 
 greater influence than the young and ardent subject of this memoir. 
 His connection with the family of Edmund Randolph, and his near 
 relationship to Mr. Jefferson himself, brought him frequently within 
 the sphere of that fascinating conversation, which was never spared 
 in the propagation of his opinions. But John Randolph, although a 
 youth, was not the character to yield a blind allegiance to any 
 leader. The disciple differed widely in many doctrines from the 
 master. The grounds of that difference may be found in the writ- 
 ings of another great statesman that begun about that time to take 
 hold on his mind, and deeply impress his character. So great was 
 their influence in after life, that the writings of Edmund Burke
 
 52 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 became the key to the political opinions of John Randolph. With 
 him Edmund Burke was the great master of political philosophy. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SMALL BEGINNINGS EDMUND BUKKE THOMAS PAINE. 
 
 SOON after the adjournment of Congress, the 4th of March, 1791. 
 General Washington left the seat of government, and commenced 
 his tour through the Southern States. The secretaries at the head 
 of the different departments, were left as a kind of committee to 
 conduct affairs in his absence. 
 
 About this time the public mind began to be greatly agitated 
 not only by the wonderful events of the French Revolution, but the 
 various speculations on those extraordinary occurrences that daily 
 teemed from our own political press. The two leading productions, 
 that were held up on both sides as setting forth most clearly and 
 fully the views they respectively entertained, proceeded from men 
 who were well and favorably known in America as the friends of 
 liberty. 
 
 Edmund Burke had not only defended the colonies, in the Brit- 
 ish Parliament, against the unjust and oppressive taxation of the 
 ministry, but had nobly vindicated their character and their mo- 
 tives. Throughout America his name was venerated and beloved. 
 Well might he exclaim, " I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as 
 well as any man, be he who he will ; and perhaps I have given as good 
 proofs of my attachment to that cause in the whole course of my 
 public conduct." 
 
 Thomas Paine was in America during the struggle of the Colo- 
 nies for independence, and greatly aided the cause by his spirited 
 and patriotic essays. It was generally conceded that in the darkest 
 hour of the Revolution, when our armies were disbanded, and the 
 hearts of the people despondent, he helped to rally the one, and to 
 animate the other by his bold and patriotic appeals. The first men 
 of the nation forgot his many vices, and cherished his person and 
 his reputation in grateful remembrance of his valuable services 
 
 .
 
 EDMUND BURK7J THOMAS PAINE. 53 
 
 General Washington was his constant correspondent while abroad, 
 and while in America the house of Jefferson was his home. 
 
 In the great struggle for liberty which had now commenced on 
 the other side of the Atlantic, these two champions of the cause took 
 opposite sides. Burke expressed a hearty wish that France might 
 be animated by a spirit of rational liberty, and provide a permanent 
 body in which that spirit might reside, and an effectual organ by 
 which it might act ; but, he said, it was his misfortune to entertain 
 great doubts concerning several material points in their late transac- 
 tions. Paine, on the other hand, had no doubts ; inflamed by the 
 spirit of liberty, suddenly burst forth in the hearts of the French 
 people, and dazzled by its brilliant achievements, he threw himself 
 warmly into the popular cause without knowing or caring for jhe 
 consequences. 
 
 The habits, education, social position, and natural temperament 
 of the two men led to this wide difference. Burke had been long 
 trained in the school of experience, Paine was the mere speculative 
 theorist. The one judged of the future by the past, the other pro- 
 jected the future not from the solid ground of experience, but the 
 hopeful theories of his own sanguine imagination. Burke was the 
 cautious statesman, Paine the enthusiastic patriot. 
 
 The statesman cannot stand forward and give praise or blame to 
 any thing which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a 
 simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every relation, in 
 all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circum- 
 stances which with some pass for nothing, give in reality to every 
 political principle its distinguishing color, and discriminating effect. 
 The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme 
 beneficial or noxious to mankind. Burke was guided by this great 
 political maxim, the truth of which he had been taught by long 
 experience. " I must be tolerably sure," said he, " before I venture 
 publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really 
 received one. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver ; 
 and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. I 
 should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of 
 France, until I was informed how it had been combined with govern- 
 ment, with public force, with the discipline and obedience of armies, 
 with the collection of an effective and well distributed revenue, with
 
 54: LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 morality and religion, with solidity and property, with peace and 
 order, with civil and social manners. The effect of liberty to indi- 
 viduals is. that they may do what they please ; we ought to see what 
 it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations, which 
 may soon be turned into complaints. Prudence would dictate this in 
 the case of separate insulated private men ; but liberty, when men 
 act in bodies, is power. Considerate people, before they declare them- 
 selves, will observe the use which is made of power ; and particularly 
 of so trying a thing as new power in new persons, of whose principles, 
 tempers, and dispositions, they have little or no experience. Better 
 to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too con- 
 fident a security." 
 
 Paine, on the other hand, with all the inexperienced statesmen of 
 France, followed a transcendental idea. He saw a great and power- 
 ful nation burst the oppressive and galling fetters of feudal ages, and 
 proclaim themselves a free people. With all the lovers of man- 
 kind through the world, he lifted up his hands and clapped for joy. 
 He beheld the event and rejoiced. But how this new power might 
 be used by the new men. of whose principles, tempers, and dispositions 
 he had no experience, he did not stop to inquire ; he did not consult 
 the maxims of prudence, or the principles of reason, but obeyed the 
 impulses of a warm, enthusiastic and patriotic heart. Dictated by 
 such a spirit, his writings might serve to animate, but not to instruct, 
 to inspire a kindred enthusiasm, but to afford no nourishment to the 
 hungering mind. They have perished with the occasion that gave 
 them birth, while the immortal truths scattered as gems through 
 the writings of Edmund Burke, are set like stars in the firmament 
 for lights and guides to mankind. 
 
 Burke wrote his reflections on the Revolution in France in the 
 month of May, 1790; and some short time thereafter gave them to 
 the public. Paine's answer, entitled the Rights of Man, soon fol- 
 lowed. The first and only copy of this latter production made its 
 appearance in Philadelphia about the first of May, 1791 ; it was in 
 the hands of Beckley. He lent the pamphlet to Mr. Jefferson, with 
 a request, that when he should have read it, he would send it to 
 Smith the printer, who wished it for re-publication. As he was a 
 stranger to Smith, Mr. Jefferson, in sending the pamphlet, wrote him 
 a note, stating why he, a stranger, had sent it, namely, that Mr.
 
 THOMAS PAINE EDMUND BURKE. 55 
 
 Beckley had desired it ; and, to take off a little of the dryness of a 
 note, he added, that he was glad to find it was ta be reprinted, that 
 something would at length be publicly said against the political here- 
 sies which had lately sprung up amongst us, and that he did not doubt 
 our citizens would rally again around the standard of Common Sense 
 In these allusions, Mr. Jefferson had reference to the Discourses mi 
 Davtia, which had filled Fenno's paper for a twelvemonth without 
 contradiction. Mr. Adams, the Vice-President, was the reputed 
 author of those Discourses. When the reprint of Paine's pamphlet 
 appeared, it had prefixe.d to it the note of Mr. Jefferson, which the 
 printer had appended without giving him the slightest intimation of 
 such an intention. In this unexpected way was the . eader of the 
 new and rising Democratic Party identified with the political doc- 
 trines of Paine, the principles of the French Revolution, and made 
 publicly to avow his hostility to the political heresies which had lately 
 sprung up in our own country. In addition to this, Paine's pam- 
 phlet, though without authority, had been dedicated to General 
 Washington. The pamphlet, accompanied with these circumstances, 
 produced a considerable excitement in the political circles of Phila- 
 delphia. Major Beckwith, an unofficial British agent, made it a 
 subject of formal complaint to the private secretary of the President. 
 He expressed surprise that the pamphlet should be dedicated to the 
 President of the United States, and averred that it had received the 
 unequivocal official sanction of the Secretary of State, not as Mr. 
 Jefferson, but as the Secretary of State. 
 
 On the other hand, Mr. Adams was not slow in declaring his 
 opposition to the sentiments expressed in Paine's pamphlet. In the 
 most pointed manner, he expressed his detestation of the book and 
 its tendency. " I was at the Vice-President's house," says the pri- 
 vate secretary, writing to General Washington, " and while there, 
 the Doctor and Mrs. Rush came in. The conversation turned on this 
 book, and Dr. Rush ajked the Vice-President what he thought of it. 
 After a little hesitation, he laid his hand upon his breast, and said 
 in a very solemn manner, ' I detest that book and its tendency, from 
 the bottom of my heart.' " 
 
 Mr. Jefferson, in writing to the President about the same time, 
 says : " Paine's answer to Burke's pamphlet begins to produce some 
 squibs in our public papers. In Fenno's paper they are Burkites ; 
 
 '
 
 56 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 in the others, they are Painites. One of Fenno's was evidently from 
 the author of the Discourses on Davila. I am afraid the indiscre- 
 tion of a printer has committed me with my friend Mr. Adams, for 
 whom, as one of the most honest and disinterested men alive, I have a 
 cordial esteem, increased by long habits of concurrence in opinion in 
 the days of his republicanism ; and ever since his apostasy to heredi- 
 tary monarchy and nobility, though we differ, we differ as friends 
 should do. 
 
 " Mr. Adams will unquestionably take to himself the charge of poli- 
 tical heresy, as conscious of his own views of drawing the present gov- 
 ernment to the form of the English constitution, and, I fear, will cc n- 
 sider me as meaning to injure him in the public eye. I certainly 
 never made a secret of my being anti-monarchical, and anti-aristo- 
 cratical ; but I am sincerely mortified to be thus brought foward on 
 the public stage, where to remain, to advance, or to retire, will be 
 equally against my love of silence and quiet, and my abhorrence of 
 dispute." 
 
 We have given the minute history of this transaction, not only 
 because of its important bearing on the subject of this memoir, but 
 because it traces up to the fountain head one of the many streams 
 which, flowing together in after times, have conspired to swell the 
 mighty tide of party spirit that now sweeps through the land. 
 
 John Randolph was in Philadelphia during this time ; partici- 
 pated in the interest and excitement of the occasion; heard the dis- 
 cussions in the various circles into which he was freely admitted ; saw 
 people become inflamed with the Anglomania or the Gallomania, and 
 arrange themselves under the banners of their respective champions 
 as Burkites or Painites, according as they were inclined to admire 
 the British Constitution, or the more free and levelling doctrines of 
 the French Revolution, and plainly perceived that that great event 
 was destined to swallow up every minor consideration, and to give 
 character and complexion to the politics of his own country. But 
 while he was a democratic republican, a follower of Jefferson in all 
 that pertained to his political doctrines and interpretation of the 
 Constitution, pre-eminently a disciple of the Mason and Henry 
 school of States' rights, yet he did not become a Painite in the 
 sense that term was used by Mr. Jefferson. In the expressive Ian 
 guage of Governor Tazewell, he could not bear Tom Paine ; he ad 
 
 \
 
 THOMAS PAINE EDMUND BURKE. 57 
 
 mired Burke, though himself a jacobin ! While he rejoiced in the over- 
 throw of despotism by the French people, he could not fail to perceive 
 that they were better fitted to destroy tyrants than obey the laws ; and 
 hastened to learn those lessons of wisdom that fell from the lips of 
 the great master of political philosophy, who, from the few events al- 
 ready transpired, foretold with the clearness of a Hebrew prophet, 
 the wretched end to which they were hastening. We regard this as 
 a most remarkable fact in the history of that young man. The de- 
 sign of Burke was eminently conservative. He saw the conse- 
 quences of a dissemination of French revolutionary doctrines among 
 the English people; his purpose was to shut out from England 
 what the kings of Europe called the French evil. 
 
 With this design, he gives a most beautiful and masterly expo- 
 sition of the British Constitution, from Magna Charta to the 
 declaration of rights. He calls it an entailed inheritance, derived to 
 us (the people of England) from our forefathers, and to be transmitted 
 to our posterity ; as an estate specially belonging to the people of 
 this kingdom an inheritable crown an inheritable peerage ; and a 
 House of Commons, and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, 
 and liberties from a long line of ancestors. 
 
 With the same masterly hand he makes bare the composition of 
 the French National Assembly the characters that compose it the 
 few acts they had already performed during a single year ; and then 
 predicts, from these elements of calculation, that France will be 
 wholly governed by the agitators in corporations, by societies in the 
 towns formed of directors in assignats, and trustees for the sale of 
 church lands, attorneys, agents, money-jobbers, speculators, and ad- 
 venturers, composing an ignoble oligarchy, founded on the destruc- 
 tion of the crown, the church, the nobility, and the people. Here 
 end all the deceitful dreams and visions of this equality, and the 
 rights of man. In the Serbonian bog of this base oligarchy, they are 
 all absorbed, sunk, and lost for ever. The present form of the 
 French commonwealth, he says, cannot remain ; but before its final 
 settlement it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says. 
 " through great varieties of untried being ;" and in all its transmi- 
 grations to be purified by fire and blood ! 
 
 It is not surprising that such a book as this should be seized 
 upon by the partisans of England, and held up as a justification of 
 3*
 
 58 ulFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 their doctrine that the British Constitution, with all its corruptions, 
 was the best model of a government the world ever saw ; and as a 
 vindication of the abhorrence they had expressed for the doctrines 
 of the French Revolution, and their tendency. 
 
 But it is a matter of no little surprise that a mere stripling, a 
 youth of some eighteen or twenty years of age, himself a republican 
 and a jacobin, with an ardent temperament and a lively imagination, 
 should have the independence to ponder over the pages of a book 
 condemned by his associates ; the judgment to perceive its value. 
 and the discrimination to leave out that which peculiarly belonged 
 to England or to France, without being inflamed by its arguments, and 
 to appropriate to himself those rich treasures of wisdom to be found 
 in its pages : the massive ingots of gold that coastitute the greater 
 part of that magnificent monument of human intellect. As we have 
 said, the writings of Edmund Burke are the key to the political 
 opinions of John Randolph. 
 
 In after life, as he grew in experience, those opinions became 
 more and more assimilated to the doctrines of his great master. 
 
 His position in society, his large hereditary possessions, his pride 
 of ancestry, his veneration for the commonwealth of Virginia, her 
 ancient laws and institutions ; his high estimation of the rights of 
 property in the business of legislation, all conspired to shape his 
 thoughts, and mould them in matters pertaining to domestic polity 
 after the fashion of those who have faith in the old, the long- 
 established, and the venerable. No one can trace his course in the 
 Virginia Convention, or read his speeches, which had a remarkable 
 influence on the deliberations of that body, without perceiving that 
 his deep and practical wisdom is of the same stamp, and but little 
 inferior to the great Gamaliel at whose feet he was taught.
 
 YOUTHFUL COMPANIONS. 59 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 YOUTHFUL COMPANIONS. 
 
 WE are not to suppose that a youth, in the joyous hours of his 
 dawning faculties, devoted his time, or any great portion of it, to the 
 society of sx>ber statesmen, or to the- grave study of political science. 
 Far other were the associates and companions of John Randolph 
 during his residence in the Quaker city, even at that day renowned 
 for its intelligent, polished, gay, and fashionable society. 
 
 With occasional visits to Virginia, and a short residence of a 
 few weeks in Williamsburg during the autumn of 1793, Phila- 
 delphia, till the spring of 1794, continued to be his place of abode. 
 His companions were Batte, Carter, Epps, Marshall, and Rose of 
 Virginia ; Bryan of Georgia, and Rutledge of South Carolina. 
 Most of these were young men of wealth, education, refined man- 
 ners, high sense of honor, and of noble bearing. John W. Epps 
 afterwards became a leading member of Congress, married the 
 daughter of Mr. Jefferson, and in 1813 was the successful rival of 
 Randolph on the hustings before the people. Joseph Bryan like- 
 wise in a short time became a leading character in Georgia, was a 
 member of Congress from that State, and to the day of his untimely 
 death continued to be the bosom friend of the associate of his youth. 
 Most of the others, though unknown to fame, adorned the social 
 sphere in which they moved, and were noble specimens of the unam- 
 bitious scholar and the gentleman. Thomas Marshall, the brother 
 of the Chief Justice, and father of Thomas Marshall, the late mem 
 ber of Congress, is still living. He is a man of extraordinary 
 powers, and great learning : his wit and genial humor are not to be 
 surpassed. Those who knew them well agree that his natural talents 
 surpass those of his late illustrious brother, the Chief Justice. 
 Robert Rose was a man of genius ; he married the sister of Mr. 
 Madison, and might have risen to any station in his profession 
 (which he merely studied as an ornament), in letters, or in politics, 
 that he aspired to ; but, like too many in his sphere and station iu
 
 gO LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 society, he lived a life of inglorious ease, and wasted his gifts, like 
 the rose its sweets, on the desert air. With such companions, we 
 may readily suppose there was fun and frolic enough ; but nothing 
 low or mean, or vulgar or sordid, in all their intercourse. The cor- 
 respondence of some of those young men at that period is now before 
 the writer. It is very clear that Randolph was the centre of 
 attraction in that joyous circle of boon companions. And while 
 there can be no doubt that they indulged in all the license allowed 
 at that time to young men of their rank and fortune, yet he passed 
 through that critical period of life without the contamination of a 
 single vice. Though many years afterwards, he said, " I know by 
 fatal experience the fascinations of a town life, how they estrange the 
 mind from its old habits and attachments." Bryan, in February, 
 1794, wishes him all the happiness that is attendant on virtue and 
 regularity. Again, in speaking of one of their companions, to whom 
 Randolph had become strongly attached, he expresses a hope that 
 he may prove worthy of the friendship, " possessing as you do," 
 says he, " a considerable knowledge of mankind, your soul would not 
 have knit so firmly to an unworthy object." 
 
 Most of those young men were students of medicine. Randolph 
 also attended with them several courses of lectures in anatomy and 
 physiology sciences that are indispensable not only to a profession- 
 al, but to a liberal and gentlemanly education. We do not learn, as 
 many have supposed, that he studied law at that time in the office 
 of his relation, Edmund Randolph, the Attorney General. Two 
 years after leaving Philadelphia. Bryan writes that he is rejoiced to 
 hear his friend has serious thoughts of attacking t/ie law. He tells 
 us himself that he never, after Theodorick broke up his regular 
 habits at New- York, devoted himself to any systematic study, ex- 
 cept for the few weeks he was in Williamsburg, in the autumn of 
 1793. So we conclude that he never made the law a matter of se- 
 rious study, certainly never with the view of making it a profession. 
 
 In April, 1794, he returned to Virginia. In June he was twenty- 
 one years of age, and then took upon himself the management of 
 his patrimonial estates, which were heavily encumbered with a Brit- 
 ish debt. Matoax was still in the family, but was sold about this 
 time for three thousand pounds sterling, to pay off a part of the 
 above debt. The mansion house has since been burnt, but the same
 
 RICHARD RANDOLPH. 61 
 
 estate now would not bring three hundred dollars, although it is 
 within three miles of Petersburg. 
 
 Richard Randolph, the elder brother, lived at Bizarre, an estate 
 on the Appomatox, about ninety miles above Petersburg. It is near 
 Farmville, but on the opposite side of the river, in Cumberland coun- 
 ty John made his brother's house his home, while his own estate, 
 jailed Roanoke, lay about thirty miles south on the Roanoke river. 
 in the county of Charlotte. 
 
 CHAPTEK XIII 
 
 RICHARD RANDOLPH. 
 
 WITH Richard the reader has already formed some slight acquaint- 
 ance. In 1789 he married Judith Randolph, the daughter of Thom- 
 as Mann Randolph, of Tuckahoe. Judith was a relation in both 
 the direct and collateral lines. Her father, Thomas Mann, was the 
 son of William, who was the son of Thomas of Tuckahoe, the son 
 of William, the first founder of the family in Virginia. Her mother 
 was Anne Gary, the daughter of Mary Gary, who was the daughter 
 of the first Richard of Curies, and the sister of the second Richard 
 of Curies, the grandfather of Richard her husband. This lady was 
 remarkable for her great strength of mind, for her many virtues, and 
 high accomplishments. Richard was regarded as the most promis- 
 ing yorung man in Virginia. His talents were only surpassed by his 
 extraordinary goodness of character. 
 
 Let his OWL grateful acknowledgments to his father-in-law, Judge 
 Tucker, speak for him. " Accept," says he, "-once more, my beloved 
 father, the warmest effusions of a heart that knows but one tie su- 
 perior to that which binds him to the .best of parental friends. 
 When I look back to those times wherein I was occupied in forming 
 my mind for the reception of professional knowledge, and indeed to 
 whatever period of my life I cast my eyes, something presents itself 
 to remind me of the source whence sprung all my present advanta- 
 ges and happiness. Something continually shows my father to me
 
 62 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 in the double light of parent and friend. While I recognize all the 
 attention I have received from him, all the precepts inculcated by 
 him ; while I feel that if I have any virtuous emotions or pleasures, 
 they are all derived from him, that to him I owe whatever capacity 
 I possess of being useful in the world I am in while all these re- 
 flections are crowding into my mind, I feel a sensation that all are 
 strangers to, who have not known such a friend. The feelings which 
 arise from a sense of gratitude for the kindness and friendship of 
 my father the tender affection inspired by his virtues and his love, 
 are as delightful to my soul, as the knowledge of being obliged by 
 those we despise is painful and oppressive." A grateful heart 
 obliged by a worthy and beloved object, as Milton finely says, " by 
 owing owes riot, but finds itself at once indebted and discharged." 
 And again : " The time is now at hand, when I hope you will be 
 relieved from all further anxiety, and the embarrassments you have 
 too long endured in the management of our patrimony ; when my 
 brother and myself will take on ourselves our own troubles, and 
 when the end of your administration of our little affairs will furnish 
 the world with one complete and perhaps solitary example, shall I 
 only say, of an unerring guardian of infant education and property ? 
 An example, I glory in boasting it, of an adopted father surpassing 
 in parental affection, and unremitted attention to his adopted chil- 
 dren, all the real fathers who are known to any one. I can most 
 sincerely- and truly declare, that in no one moment of my whole life, 
 have I ever felt the loss in the least trifle." 
 
 One of the debts owing by the father to creditors in England 
 was a simple open account, that might have been easily avoided, as 
 it was not binding on the estate devised to the sons. But Richard 
 wrote to Judge Tucker, " I urge the propriety, indeed necessity, of 
 paying the open account which my mother always said was recog- 
 nized by my father as a true one, and ought therefore honestly to be 
 discharged. For myself I can never bear the idea of a just debt 
 due from my father to any one, remaining unsatisfied while I have 
 property of his, firmly convinced as I am that he had no equitable 
 right, whatever power the law may have given him, of devising me 
 land or any thing else, to the loss of any of his just creditors, and 
 that under this conviction, it will be equally iniquitous in me to re- 
 tain such property, suffering these just claims to pass unnoticed."
 
 RICHARD RANDOLPH. gg 
 
 Nor did this noble-minded man stop here in his high sense of 
 right and justice. He again writes to his late guardian : " With 
 regard to the division of the estate, I have only to say, that I want 
 not a single negro for any other purpose than his immediate libera- 
 tion. I consider every individual thus unshackled as the source of 
 future generations, not to say nations of freemen ; and I shudder 
 when I think that so insignificant an animal as I am, is invested 
 with this monstrous, this horrid power. For the land I care not a 
 jot. I am ready to yield all my claim to it. I am ready to yield 
 Matoax or its profits, and all of my Prince Edward and Cumberland 
 land, except a bare support, rather than see those wretches sacrificed 
 at the shrine of unjust and lawless power." 
 
 Richard was bred to the profession of law, but never could oe 
 induced to engage in the practice. Nothing but necessity, he de- 
 clared, could overcome his disinclination. It was not the fatigue and 
 disgust that repelled him so much as the chicane and low cunning, 
 which his observation led him to conclude were the essential qualifi- 
 cations of a county court lawyer. " What inducement," exclaimed 
 he, " have I to leave a happy and comfortable home to search for 
 bustle, fatigue and disappointment ? I have a comfortable subsist- 
 ence, which is enough to make me happy." 
 
 The family circle was composed of Richard, his wife, Nancy the 
 sister of Mrs. Randolph, John (Theodorick had died in February, 
 1791), and Mrs. Anna Bland Dudley and her children. Mrs. Dudley 
 was the daughter of Mrs. Eaton, the sister of John Randolph's 
 mother. They lived in North Carolina. Her husband was unfortu- 
 nate, had died and left his family poor and dependent on their friends. 
 Richard went himself to North Carolina, brought Mrs. Dudley and 
 her children to Virginia, and gave them an asylum under the hos- 
 pitable roof of Bizarre. 
 
 John did not confine himself much to home or business. He 
 kept up a regular correspondence with many of his old companions ; 
 amused himself with his dog and gun, and visited from place to place 
 among his friends. As a specimen of his wanderings, we give the 
 following memorandum made by himself: 
 
 November, 1795. 
 Monday, 30. Bizarre to D. Meade's.
 
 (J4 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 December. 
 Tuesday, 1. Capt, Murray's. 
 
 3. Richmond. 
 Wednesday, 9. Petersburg. 
 Thursday, 17. Left Petersburg to Jenito. 
 Friday, 18. To F. Archer's and D. Meade's. 
 
 Saturday, 19. D. Meade's to Bizarre ; received letter from Rutledge. 
 Sunday, 20. Roanoke. 
 Sunday, 27. From Roanoke to Bizaire. 
 Tuesday, 29. To Roanoke. 
 Thursday. 31. To Bizarre. 
 January, '96, New- Year's day at Bizarre. 
 Saturday, 2. To Major Eggleston's. 
 Sunday, 3. Colonel Botts. 
 Monday, 4. Petersburg. 
 Friday, 15. At Jenito Bridge. 
 Saturday, 16. At D. Meade's. > rain 
 Sunday, 17. At D. Meade's. ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 VISIT TO CHARLESTON AND GEORGIA. 
 
 His old friends, Bryan and Rutledge, had for some time been urging 
 him to pay them a visit. Bryan directed his letters to " Citizen 
 John Randolph, of Charlotte county, Virginia," and says, " I am 
 happy to hear you are settled in a healthy part of Virginia, but I 
 am almost inclined to think my friend premature in settling so early, 
 as you will in a great measure be deprived of that freedom you know 
 so well how to eiijoy." He then urges him to visit Georgia. " You 
 will find me on the sea-coast," says he, " and as you bribe me with a 
 pipe, I can promise in return best Spanish segars and the best of li- 
 quors good horses, deer-hunting in perfection good companions, 
 that is to say, not merelv bottle crackers, Jack, but good, sound, well- 
 informed Democrats." 
 
 This long-expected visit was made in the spring of 1796. On 
 the back of a letter received from Rutledge, he lays out the pro- 
 gramme of his journey, with the various distances and stages, from 
 Bizarre to Charleston ; then concludes the memorandum with these
 
 VISIT TO CHARLESTON AND GEORGIA. 65 
 
 words : " Where I hope to embrace the friend of my youth : the 
 sight of whom will ten thousand times repay this tedious journey." 
 
 E. S. Thomas, in his Reminiscences of the last Sixty-five Years, 
 printed at Hartford, in 1840, thus speaks of him: ' : On a bright sun- 
 ny morning, early in February, 1 796, might have been seen entering 
 my bookstore in Charleston, S. C., a fine-looking, florid complexioned 
 old gentleman, with hair white as snow, which, contrasted with his 
 own complexion, showed him to have been a free liver, or bon-vivanl 
 of the first order. Along with him was a tall, gawky-looking flaxen- 
 haired stripling, apparently of the age from sixteen to eighteen, with 
 a complexion of a good parchment color, beardless chin, and as much 
 assumed self-consequence as any two-footed animal I ever saw. This 
 was John Randolph. I handed him from the shelves volume after 
 volume, which he tumbled carelessly over, and handed back again. 
 At length he hit upon something that struck his fancy. My eye 
 happened to be fixed upon his face at the moment, and never did I 
 witness so sudden, so perfect a change of the human countenance. That 
 which before was dull and heavy, in a moment became animated and 
 flushed with the brightest beams of intellect. He stepped up to the 
 old gray-headed gentleman, and, giving him a thundering slap on 
 the shoulder, said, " Jack, look at this ! !" I was young, then, but 
 I never can forget the thought that rushed upon my mind at the 
 moment, which was that he was the most impudent youth I ever saw. 
 He had come to Charleston to attend the races. There was then 
 living in Charleston a Scotch Baronet, by the name of Sir John 
 Nesbit. with his younger brother Alexander, of the ancient house of 
 Nesbits, of Dean Hall, some fifteen miles from Edinburgh. Sir John 
 was a very handsome man, and as ' gallant gay Lothario' as could 
 be found in the city. He and Randolph became intimate, which led 
 to a banter between them for a race, in which each was to ride his 
 own horse. The race came off during the same week, and Randolph 
 won ; some of the ladies exclaiming at the time, ' though Mr. Ran- 
 dolph had won the race, Sir John had won their hearts.' This was 
 not so much to be wondered at, when you contrasted the elegant 
 form and graceful style of riding of the Baronet, with the uncouth 
 and awkward manner of his competitor." 
 
 From Charleston, Randolph pursued his journey into Georgia, 
 and spent several months with his friend Bryan.
 
 66 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 We cannot doubt that these young men enjoyed themselves in 
 the manner that young men usually enjoy themselves on such occa- 
 sions. Bryan, in his subsequent letters, frequently alludes to some 
 amusing incident that occurred during the sojourn of his friend in 
 Georgia. " My eldest brother," says he, " still bears a friendly re- 
 membrance of the rum ducking you gave him." 
 
 But the all-absorbing subject in Georgia, at the time of Randolph's 
 visit, was the Yazoo question. 
 
 On tl*e 7th day of February, 1795, the Legislature of Georgia 
 passed an act authorizing the sale of four tracts of land, therein 
 described, and comprehending the greater part of the country west of 
 the Alabama river, to four companies, called the Georgia, the Georgia 
 Mississippi, the Upper Mississippi, and the Tennessean Companies, 
 for which they were to pay five hundred thousand dollars. The land 
 contained within the boundaries of the several companies was esti- 
 mated by the claimants at forty millions of acres. The sale of a 
 country so extensive, for a sum so far below its value, excited imme- 
 diate and universal indignation in the State of Georgia. The mo- 
 tives of the Legislature were questioned and examined. Their cor- 
 ruption was established on the most indisputable evidence. Up- 
 wards of sixty-four depositions were taken, that developed a scene of 
 villany and swindling unparalleled in the history of any country. 
 On comparing a list of the names of the companies with the names 
 of the persons who voted for the land, it appeared that all the mem- 
 bers in the Senate and House of Representatives of Georgia, who 
 voted in favor of the law, were, with one single exception, interested 
 in and parties to the purchase. Every member who voted for the 
 law received either money or land for his vote. The guardians of 
 the rights of the people united with swindlers, defrauded their con- 
 stituents, sold their votes, betrayed the delegated trust reposed in 
 them, and basely divided among themselves the lands of the people 
 of Georgia. This flagrant abuse of power, this enormous act of cor- 
 ruption, was viewed with abhorrence by every honest man. The press 
 through the country burst out in a blaze of indignation. All the 
 grand juries of the State (except in two counties, where there were 
 corrupt majorities of Yazoo men,) presented this law as a public 
 robbery, and a deliberate fraud. The Convention which met in the 
 month * May, 1795, at Louisville, was crowded with petitions from
 
 VISIT TO CHARLESTON AND GEORGIA. (ft 
 
 every part of the State, which, by an order of the Convention, was 
 referred to the succeeding Legislature. This Legislature was 
 elected solely with reference to that question. Repeal or no repeal, 
 Yazoo and anti-Yazoo, was the only subject canvassed before the 
 people. On the 30th of January, 1796, an act was passed, with only 
 three dissenting voices, declaring the usurped act of February, 1795, 
 void, and expunging the same from the public records. At a sub- 
 sequent period, this expunging act was engrafted on the Constitu- 
 tion, and made a fundamental law of the land. 
 
 Randolph arrived in Georgia in the midst of this excitement, and 
 shared with his friends their indignation at that flagrant act of cor- 
 ruption on the part of the agents of the people. The famous Yazoo 
 claim, which afterwards made such a noise in Congress, was preferred 
 by the New England Mississippi Land Company, to recover from 
 Congress the value of the lands thus fraudulently obtained. It was 
 in opposition to this application, that Randolph immortalized himself 
 in speeches that will stand the test of time, and of criticism the 
 severest scrutiny. It was among those who had been betrayed, in 
 the midst of the people who were burning with shame at the insult 
 and indignity offered them, that he caught the fire of inspiration that 
 winged his words with such a withering power as to drive from the 
 halls of Congress for more than ten years, so long as he had a seat 
 there, all those who were interested in the nefarious scheme. 
 
 John Randolph returned from this visit of friendship, and arrived 
 in Virginia about the first of July. He was destined to experience 
 a shock such as he had never felt before. His brother Richard died 
 the 14th of June, on Tuesday, about 4 o'clock in the morning; such 
 was the minute record made of it himself. This sudden and unex- 
 pected calamity crushed him down. 
 
 Next to the death of his mother this was the severest blow he had 
 ever received. His mother died when he was a child. Though 
 mournful, yet sweet was the memory of her image, associated with 
 those days of innocence and brightness. But the strong bonds of 
 fraternal affection in grown up men, were now torn asunder ; the 
 much prized treasure of a brother's love is suddenly taken from him. 
 leaving no pleasant memories to soothe the pain of so deep a wound. 
 His best friend and counsellor, the first born of his father's house, 
 its pride, and cherished representative, hurried away in his absence
 
 68 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 to an untimely grave he not present to receive his last breath, and 
 to close his lifeless eyes. He never recovered from this stroke. The 
 
 / 
 
 anguish of his heart was as fresh on the fiftieth anniversary of the 
 birthday of that brother) as when first he experienced the desola- 
 tion made in the domestic circle at Bizarre by the hand of death. 
 How touching is the following simple note addressed to his brother, 
 Henry St. George Tucker, many, many years after this sad event ! 
 'Dear Henry: Our poor brother Richard was born 1770. He 
 would have been fifty-six years old on the 9th of this month I can 
 no more. J. R. of R." In the deep solitude of his heart, the only 
 green spot was the memory of the days of his youth. 
 
 Few events exerted a greater influence over the mind and charac- 
 ter of John Randolph than the death, the untimely and sudden 
 death, of his brother. Richard, as we have said, was the most pro- 
 mising man in Virginia. John Thompson, himself a man of brilliant 
 genius, nipped also in the blooming, thus writes : " Grief like yours, 
 my dear friend, is not to be alleviated by letters of condolence. The 
 anguish of hearts like yours cannot be mitigated by the maxims of 
 an unfeeling and unnatural philosophy. Let such consolation be 
 administered to the insensible being, who mourns without sorrow, 
 whose tears fall from a. sense of decorum, and whose melancholy 
 ceases the instant fashion permits. Let some obdurate moralist in- 
 struct this selfish being, that the death of a friend is not a misfortune, 
 and that sensibility is weakness. Nothing but sympathy ought to 
 be offered to you. Accept that offering from one of your sincerest 
 friends. My heart was long divided between you and your brother. 
 His death has left a void which you will occupy. I will fondly chev 
 ish his memory. Painful as the retrospect is, I will often contem- 
 plate Ids virtues and his talents. Never shall I perform that holy 
 exercise without feeling new virtue infused into my soul. To you I 
 will give that friendship, of which he can no longer be sensible. 
 Take it, and return it if you can. I cannot write your brother's eulo- 
 gium. Although his fame was only in the dawn, although like a me- 
 teor he perished as soon as he began to dazzle, I cannot sound his 
 praise. His life would be a pathetic tale of persecuted genius and 
 oppressed innocence. The fictions of romance cannot present so af- 
 fecting a story. When his country was preparing to do him ample 
 justice, and to recompense his sufferings by her warmest admiration,
 
 AT HOME. 69 
 
 Death marked him for his victim. Modern degeneracy had not 
 reached him. 
 
 " Nervous eloquence and dauntless courage fitted him to save his 
 sinking country. He has left no memorial of his talents behind. 
 He was born to enlighten posterity, but posterity will not hear of 
 him. 
 
 " Providence, thy dispensations are dark ! We cannot compre- 
 hend them ! His amiable wife, his children but here my heart be- 
 gins to bleed I cannot go on." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AT HOME. 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH, now became the head of a large household, was 
 suddenly thrown into a position of great responsibility. His own 
 estate was very large ; so was his brother's and both were heavily 
 encumbered with a British debt, contracted by the father many years 
 before. 
 
 Richard liberated his slaves. This was a mark of his great be- 
 nevolence of feeling and nobleness of character. But it proved ir 
 the end to be a mistaken philanthropy. Left in the country where 
 they had been slaves, those negroes soon became idle and profligate 
 vagabonds and thieves ; a burthen to themselves, and a pest to the 
 neighborhood. The family at Bizarre consisted of Mrs. Randolph, 
 her two infant children, St. Greorge and Tudor. Mrs. Dudley and her 
 children, Nancy and John Randolph. For nearly fifteen years, till 
 Bizarre was destroyed by fire, he continued at the head of the house- 
 hold. Though twenty-three years of age at the death of his brother, 
 he had the appearance of a youth of sixteen, and was not grown. He 
 grew a full head taller after this period. 
 
 His extreme sensibility had been deeply touched the quick 
 irritability of his temper exasperated by the tragic events of his 
 family. A father's face he had never seen, save what his lively ima- 
 gination would picture to itself from the lines of a miniature likeness 
 which he always wore in his bosom. The fond caresses of a tender
 
 70 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 mother, who alone knew him, were torn from him in his childhood. 
 The second brother had died in his youth ; and now the oldest, the 
 best, the pride and hope of the family, after years of suffering and 
 persecution, just as he had triumphed over calumny and oppression, 
 was suddenly called away. We may well imagine how deep, how 
 poignant was his grief, when thirty years thereafter, in the solitude 
 of his hermitage at Roanoke, his lively fancy brought back those 
 early scenes with all the freshness of recent events, and caused him 
 to exclaim with the Indian Chief, who had been deprived of all his 
 children by the white man's hand " Not a drop of Logan's blood 
 father's blood except St. George, the most bereaved and pitiable of 
 the step-sons of nature !" 
 
 His room at Bizarre was immediately under the chamber of 
 Mrs. Dudley. She never waked in the night that she did not hear 
 him moving about, sometimes striding across the floor, and exclaim- 
 ing, " Macbeth hath murdered ' sleep ! Macbeth hath murdered 
 sleep !" She has known him to have his horse saddled in the dead 
 of night, and ride over the plantation with loaded pistols. 
 
 His natural temper became more repulsive ; he had no confiden- 
 tial friend, nor would any tie, however sacred, excuse inquiry. Why 
 should it ? for who can minister to a mind diseased, or pluck from 
 the heart its rooted sorrow ? Why then expose, even to friendship's 
 eye, the lacerated wounds that no balm can cure 1 
 
 He grew more restless than ever, though his home had every 
 external arrangement to make it agreeable. Hear him describe it : 
 " Mrs. Randolph, of Bizarre, my brother's widow, was, beyond all 
 comparison, the nicest and best housewife that I ever saw. Not one 
 drop of water was ever suffered to stand on her sideboard, except 
 what was in the pitcher ; the house, from cellar to garret, and iu 
 every part, as clean as hands could make it ; and every thing as it 
 should be to suit even my fastidious taste. Never did I see or 
 smell any thing to offend my senses, or my imagination." Those 
 who lived there had been taught in the school of affliction. Chas- 
 tened and subdued by their own sorrows, they had learned <f> feel 
 for the misfortunes of others. That home, which could not fill the 
 aching void of its youthful master's heart, or soothe the earnest 
 longings of his wounded soul, was made the delightful retreat and 

 
 AT HOME. 71 
 
 asylum of the distressed and the unfortunate. There could they 
 find sympathy and encouragement. 
 
 To escape from the burden and pain of his own thoughts, John 
 Randolph often fled to his friends in distant parts of the country. 
 For the next three years he was frequently found at the residence 
 of his father-in-law, in Williamsburg. He often visited Mr. Wick- 
 ham, who lived in the same city. That gentleman had taken a great 
 liking to him. He was the agent of the British creditors, who held 
 a mortgage on the Randolph estates. His forbearance and indulgence 
 were highly appreciated by him on whom the whole burthen of pay- 
 ment had now fallen. He returned this act of kindness by an ardent 
 affection for the man, and a high admiration of his character. He 
 has said, " John Wickham was my best of friends without making 
 any professions of friendship for me ; and the best and wisest iriitfn I 
 ever knew except Mr. Macon." 
 
 When interrogated by Mr. Wickham as to what he had been do- 
 ing, Governor Tazewell, who was his youthful companion on those 
 visits, says his answer was Nothing, sir, nothing ! Yet ho showed 
 that ne had been reading, and that he had digested well what he had 
 read. The conversation was generally on the politics of the day 
 the French Revolution, and Burke, which was his political Bible. 
 
 That he pursued no systematic course of reading at this time is 
 certain. Mrs. Dudley says his habits of study one could not ascer- 
 tain, as he was never long enough in one place to study much. She 
 has frequently heard him lament that he was fond of light reading 
 has known him to seat himself by the candle, where she and Mrs. 
 Randolph were knitting, turn over the leaves of a book carelessly, like 
 a child, without seeming to read, and then lay it down and tell more 
 about it than those who had studied it. He had a fine taste for mu- 
 sic, but it was uncultivated. " I inherited from your grandmother," 
 says he, writing to his niece, Mrs. Bryan, " an exquisite ear, which 
 has never received the slightest cultivation. This is owing in a great * 
 measure to the low estimate that I saw the fiddling, piping gentry 
 held in when I was young ; but partly to the torture that my poor 
 brother used to inflict upon me, when essaying to learn to play upon 
 the violin, now about forty years ago. I have a taste for painting, 
 but never attempted drawing. I had read a great deal upon it and 
 had seen a few good pictures before I went to England : there I as-
 
 72 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 tonished some of their connoisseurs as much by the facility with 
 which I pointed out the hand of a particular master, without refer- 
 ence to the catalogue (I never mistook the hand of Van Dyke I 
 had seen specimens of his and Reuben's pencil, and some other great 
 masters, at Mr. Geo. Calvert's, near Bladensburg they were since 
 sold in Europe), as by my exact knowledge of the geography, topo- 
 graphy and statistics of the country. 
 
 u For poetry I have had a decided taste from my childhood, yet 
 never attempted to write one line of it. This taste I have sedulously 
 cultivated. I believe that I was deterred from attempting poetry by 
 the verses of Billy Mumford, and some other taggers of rhyme, 
 which I heard praised (I allude to epistles in verse, written at 12 or 
 13 years old), but secretly in my heart despised. I also remember 
 to have heard some poetry of Lord Chatham and of Mr. Fox, which 
 I thought then, and still think, to be unworthy of their illustrious 
 names and before Horace had taught me that ' neither gods, nor 
 men, nor booksellers' stalls could endure middling poetry.' I thought 
 none but an inspired pen should attempt the task." 
 
 Among the youthful companions that he most valued and cher- 
 ished about this time, were John Thompson, the author of the letter 
 in a preceding chapter, and his brother William Thompson. The 
 following is a memorandum in his own handwriting, and found among 
 his papers : " John Thompson, Jr.. son of John and Anne Thomp- 
 son, of Sussex, born 3d Nov. 1776, died 25th January, 1799. He 
 was the author of Graccus, Cassius, Curtius. written on the subject 
 of American politics speak tJiey for him." And surely for one of 
 his age they were remarkable productions, especially the latter ad- 
 dressed to General Marshall, afterwards Chief Justice, then a can- 
 didate for Congress on the Federal side of politics. William Thomp- 
 son was born the 20th of August, 1778. In the year 1798 he and 
 his friend John Randolph undertook a pedestrian tour to the Moun- 
 tains, to visit Richard Kidder Meade, a relation of the latter. They 
 started from Bizarre, each with a small bundle on a cane. Mrs. 
 Dudley was an eye-witness of their departure and of their return 
 She was informed that they performed the whole journey on foot 
 They both returned in fine health and spirits. Soon after this 
 Thompson went to Europe, wandered over Germany, studied medi- 
 cine, then abandoned it for the law, returned to Virginia, went on
 
 CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS. 73 
 
 foot to Canada in the fall of 1801. Having squandered his patri- 
 mony, falling into dissipated habits, with a genius equally as brilliant, 
 though far more eccentric than his deceased brother, he was rapidly 
 throwing away the great gifts of nature, and sinking into a hopeless 
 vagabond and outcast, when his friend Randolph took him by the hand, 
 brought him to Bizarre, made it his home, encouraged him, and cher- 
 ished him with the affection of a brother so long as he could be per- 
 suaded to remain in Virginia. With him hereafter the reader will be- 
 come more intimately acquainted. Writing from Bizarre to Randolph, 
 in his absence, he says . ' My dear brother Since you left us I have 
 been deeply engaged in what you advised. I have reviewed the Ro- 
 man and the Grecian History. I have done more: I have reviewed 
 my own. Believe me, Jack, that I am less calculated for society than 
 almost any man in existence. I am not. perhaps, a tain fool, but I 
 have too much vanity, and I am too susceptible of flattery. I have 
 that fluency which will attract attention and receive applause from an 
 unthinking multitude. Content with my superiority, I should be 
 too indolent to acquire real, useful knowledge. I am stimulated by 
 gratitude, by friendship, and by love, to make exertions now. I feel 
 confident that you will view my foibles with a lenient eye that you 
 vdll see me prosper, and in my progress be delighted." 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS HISTORY OF THE TIMES. 
 
 WE have now approached an important period in the life of John 
 Randolph. In the winter of 1799, in the twenty-sixth year of his 
 age, he was announced as a candidate for Congress in the district 
 which afterwards became so celebrated as the Charlotte district. 
 
 John Thompson, writing to his brother, then in Europe, says, 
 u Our friend John Randolph offers for Congress, and will probably 
 be elected. He is a brilliant and noble young man. He will be an 
 object of admiration and terror to the enemies of liberty." In 1831, 
 in the last political speech he ever made, he is reported to have said 
 
 VOL. i. 4
 
 74 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 that when he commenced his political career he had waged a warfare, 
 remarkable for its fierceness he had almost said for its ferocity 
 against certain principles, and those who advocated them. When he 
 drew his sword to carry on that warfare, he had thrown away the 
 scabbard, and as he never asked for quarter, so he did not always 
 give it. It becomes necessary, therefore, in order to understand his 
 position, to give a brief and general outline of the most important 
 events which had occurred up to the time that he made his appear- 
 ance on the political stage. We have already seen that the source ot 
 party division is to be traced to the Federal Convention ; that those 
 elements of discord which have continued to agitate the country 
 up to this day, had their birth in the cradle of the Constitution. 
 Patrick Henry and George Mason were the fathers of the doctrine 
 of States-rights. At a subsequent period, under the auspices of 
 Thomas Jefferson, those doctrines were digested into the canon of a 
 regularly organized party that exerted a powerful influence on the 
 administration of government. The difference between the two par- 
 ties, Federalist and Republican, as they respectively called them- 
 selves at that time, was not confined to the interpretation of the 
 Constitution. 
 
 While the one desired and the other deprecated a strong govern- 
 ment, the spirit that inclined them to bend that instrument to their 
 wishes, is to be found in the mental and moral organization of the men 
 themselves. Those who doubted the capacity of the people for self- 
 government (and there were many at that time when our experiment 
 was untried), and believed that the only efficient control was to be 
 found in a strong government in the hands of the rich and well born. 
 naturally inclined to an interpretation that would authorize such 
 measures as might bring about such a state of things. Those, on the 
 other hand, who had full faith in the capacity of the people, corn- 
 batted every doctrine which in their judgment tended to steal power 
 from the many and place it in the hands of the few. This radical 
 difference of sentiment, which originated in natural temperament, 
 and was modified by education and position in society, influenced the 
 judgment in its interpretation of every measure of government, and 
 men inclined to the one or the other side, according as they believed 
 the measure originated in the one or the other doctrine above men- 
 tioned. The Republicans accused the other party of being mon-
 
 HISTORY OF THE TIMES. 75 
 
 archists in principle, and of a design so to shape the administration 
 of affairs, that in time the government might assume that form. 
 
 The Republicans again were charged by their opponents with 
 being disorganizing levellers, and the enemies of ^11 government. 
 The first great questions on which they divided were the financial 
 schemes of Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury. 
 With these the reader has already been made acquainted. The 
 legislative measures enacted from time to time to carry them into 
 effect, finally brought on a crisis in the whisky insurrection, as it was 
 called, when the people in the western counties of Pennsylvania, by 
 armed force, resisted the execution of the excise law. The Federal- 
 ists were accused of goading on this rebellion, that they might have 
 a pretext to raise a standing army, to be used as an instrument for 
 forcing their schemes on the country. The Republicans were charged 
 with promoting discontent and insurrection, that they might destroy 
 all government. Unhappily, neither party gave the other credit for 
 honesty or patriotism ; and the people, in the heat of the contest, 
 were well nigh driven, in blindness and in rage, on the bayonets of 
 each other. The occasion, however, passed away without serious dif- 
 ficulty ; but the bitter and hostile feelings engendered by so violent a 
 contest still remained, and were ready to expand themselves with 
 increased fury on any other occasion that might arise. 
 
 In the mean time the French Revolution had made rapid pro 
 gress. When the news of that event was first wafted across th; 
 Atlantic, it was hailed with acclamation as the effort of a great nation 
 to shake off the yoke of despotism, and to assume their position 
 among people with a free and enlightened government. The events 
 of a single year led many to doubt the success of the experiment, 
 and to predict that the whole would end in anarchy. Among the 
 prophets of evil omen was Edmund Burke, the great master of 
 political philosophy. We have already seen how his great work was 
 seized upon by the Federalists as the ablest expounder of their 
 general doctrines, and of their views in particular in regard to the 
 tendency of the principles of the French Revolution. This wfis 
 to throw the other party to the other extreme : for true it is that the 
 great masses are more influenced by impulses of the heart, than the 
 judgments of the understanding. Paine's " Rights of Man " was set 
 forth as the exponent of the doctrines of the Republicans. Burke.
 
 7(J LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 in his spirit of conservatism, pronounced a glowing eulogy on the 
 British Constitution. Paine denounced it as the instrument of op- 
 pression and tyranny. It is easy to perceive the bias in the minds 
 of those who took Burke and those who took Paine as their standard 
 of orthodoxy. When these great masters wrote, the monarchy in 
 France was still in existence. It was soon overturned, and a repub- 
 lic, one and indivisible, proclaimed in its stead. This event, more 
 than any thing that had transpired before, stirred up the elements of 
 party-strife in the United States. Free and republican themselves. 
 the American people did not pause on the horrors that were perpe- 
 trated, did not consider the consequences of the doctrines that were 
 brought into practice by the rash theorists of France ; they only saw 
 a great people, taking themselves as a model, struggling for their 
 independence. Their sympathies were awakened, and all their feel- 
 ings enlisted in behalf of the republican cause in France. Those 
 who paused those who suggested a doubt were denounced as ene- 
 mies of the people. The deep enthusiasm of a free people in favor 
 of those who, however erroneous, were, like themselves, seeking free- 
 dom, did more than any other cause to build up the Republican party 
 in America. The cautions of a cold judgment, however true, cannot 
 weigh against the generous impulses of a warm heart. What is true 
 of individuals in this particular, is ten thousand times more true of 
 the multitude. 
 
 But the elastic spirit of freedom could not be restrained within 
 the limits of France. It began to spread to other kingdoms, and to 
 alarm, by its rapid diffusion, the monarchs of Europe. They com- 
 bined to suppress what they called the French evU. England was at 
 the head of the coalition. A furious war commenced a desperate 
 death-struggle for existence. One or the other must be crushed and 
 destroyed. Republicanism and monarchy could not exist together 
 on the same continent. All the deep passions of the human heart 
 were aroused all the elements of destruction brought into active 
 operation. It was a war of Titans, and nature groaned under the 
 mighty toils of her warring sons. There could be no neutrality in 
 such a contest. Their wide-sweeping arms drew in, as instruments 
 or agents of strife, the remotest nations. America, though remote. 
 could not hope to escape. 
 
 Her position was too conspicuous her example in producing the
 
 HISTORY OF THE TIMES. 77 
 
 present state of things in France too well known for her to escape. 
 England sought to drag her into the contest on the side of the allies. 
 France stretched forth her arms to embrace her ancient ally, and to 
 stand by her side on the hills of Ardenne in the same cause that had 
 seen them side by side on the plains of Yorktown. 
 
 The true policy of the United States was to pursue a line of 
 .strict neutrality. In accordance with the unanimous vote of his 
 cabinet, Thomas Jefferson at the head as Secretary of State, General 
 Washington issued his proclamation, April 22d. 1793. declaring that 
 a state of war exists between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain, 
 and the United Netherlands, on the one part, and France on the other; 
 and that the duty and interest of the United States require that they 
 should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct 
 friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers. The citizens 
 of the United States at the same time were warned carefully to avoid 
 alJ acts and proceedings whatsoever, which might in any manner tend 
 to contravene such disposition. It was impossible, however, to repress 
 the enthusiasm of the people in favor of the French cause. When 
 their minister landed at Charleston, about the time of the above 
 proclamation, he was marched in triumph through the Southern 
 States and principal towns to the capitol at Philadelphia. Pre- 
 suming on certain privileges which he assumed to have been granted 
 to France in her treaty of alliance with the United States, 1778, 
 emboldened by the ardent devotion of the people to the cause of 
 liberty, so eagerly manifested towards himself as the representative 
 of a sister republic, he soon threw off all restraint, treated the gov- 
 ernment with contempt, and assumed acts of sovereignty not only 
 inconsistent with our rights of neutrality, but our existence as an 
 independent and respectable nation. This conduct led to corres- 
 pondence, remonstrance, and irritation on both sides. 
 
 Great Britain at all times doubted the sincerity of our declaration 
 of impartiality, and treated with the utmost contempt our rights of 
 neutrality. Her naval officers insulted and menaced us in our own 
 ports violated our national rights, by searching vessels and impress- . 
 ing seamen within our acknowledged jurisdiction, and in an outrage- 
 ous manner seizing entire crews in the West Indies, and other parts 
 of the world. Her licensed privateers committed the most atrocious 
 depredations and violences on our commerce, both in the capture and
 
 78 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 in the after-adjudication, such as were never tolerated in any well 
 organized and efficient government. The Governor of Upper Canada, 
 in an official and formal manner, ordered settlers within our own 
 territory, and far removed from the posts they had unjustly withheld 
 from us, to withdraw, and forbade others to settle on the same. The 
 persons to whom their Indian affairs were intrusted took unusual 
 pains and practised every deception to keep those people in a temper 
 of hostility towards us. 
 
 The agents sent amongst us, as with a design to insult the coun- 
 try, were ungracious and obnoxious characters, rancorous refugees, 
 who retaining all their former enmity, could see nothing through a 
 proper medium, and were the source of constant misrepresentation 
 and falsehood. The government were encouraged to permit all vhese 
 outrages, because they were told there was a British party in Amer- 
 ica that would not suffer the country to be involved in a war with 
 England. 
 
 France, seeing with what boldness and impunity England com- 
 mitted her depredations, was not slow in doing the same. She 
 avowed her purpose, and fulfilled it to the letter, of treating us in the 
 same manner we permitted her enemies to treat us. Such was the 
 deplorable condition of things within one year from the proclamation 
 of neutrality. As the last resort, willing to exhaust all the means of 
 conciliation before a declaration of war, the administration, on the 
 19th of April, 1794, commissioned John Jay as minister extraordi- 
 nary to the court of London, with instructions to demand redress for 
 our grievances, and if occasion suited, to negotiate a treaty of amity 
 and commerce. A few weeks thereafter, the 28th of May, James 
 Monroe was sent as minister plenipotentiary to the French govern- 
 ment, with similar instructions. The occasion was most favorable for 
 a negotiation with England. The campaign of 1793-4 proved disas- 
 trous to the allied powers. The coalition was dissolved. The hot 
 lava fires France poured forth from her volcanic bosom consumed her 
 enemies. The star of the republic was in the ascendant. At such a 
 moment it seemed plain to the ministry that it would not do to break 
 with the United States. If they should drive the two republics into 
 a close alliance, events had already proved that the two united would 
 be invincible. A different line of policy, therefore, must be pursued. 
 Hence, when Mr. Jay arrived at the Court of St. James, he was most
 
 HISTORY OF THE TIMES. 79 
 
 graciously received. Lord Granville was all conciliation and com- 
 promise. He had not been engaged in the business of negotiation 
 many days, when the King tough old George, who was the last to 
 surrender in the Revolution said to him. " Well, sir, I imagine you 
 begin to see that your mission will probably be successful." " I am 
 happy, may it please your majesty, to find that you entertain that 
 idea." " Well, but don't you perceive that it is likely to be so ?" 
 - There are some recent circumstances (the answer to Jay's repre- 
 sentations) which induce me to flatter myself that it will be so." 
 The king nodded with a smile, signifying that it was to those circum- 
 stances that he alluded. It was a foregone conclusion. Peace with 
 the United States had now become essential to England : and that 
 wise nation never stands on trifles when an important object is to be 
 attained. 
 
 Never did negotiator, beginning with sucn. anxious forebodings, 
 find himself proceeding so smoothly, so satisfactorily. The treaty 
 was concluded and signed in London, on the 19th of November, 1794 ; 
 was received by the President the 7th of March following, and on the 
 8th of June was submitted to the Senate for their consideration. On 
 the 24th, by precisely a constitutional majority, they advised and con- 
 sented to its ratification. Although in the mind of the President 
 several objections had occurred, they were overbalanced by what he 
 conceived to be its advantages ; and before transmitting it to the 
 Senate he had resolved to ratify it, if approved by that body. But 
 before he had given his signature to the treaty, it was well ascer- 
 tained that the British order in council of the 8th of June, 1 793, for 
 the seizure of provisions going to French ports, had been renewed. 
 Apprehensive that this might be regarded as a practical interpreta- 
 tion of an article in the treaty in regard to provisions not being con- 
 traband of war unless in particular cases, the President wisely 
 determined to reconsider his decision. Marshall, in his Life of 
 Washington, says : " Of the result of this reconsideration there is 
 no conclusive testimony." It has become a matter of importance in 
 history to determine this fact. 
 
 It was charged that a war with France, and a consequent alliance 
 with England, had been the object of the executive council, from the 
 commencement of hostilities between those two great European pow- 
 ers. The treaty, it was alleged, originated in that spirit. And the
 
 SO UFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 circumstances and manner of its consummation were confidently al- 
 luded to as evidence of that fact. It was well known that the Presi- 
 dent made up his judgment with great deliberation ; and that when 
 once fixed he was unalterable ; he had an invincible repugnance to 
 retract an opinion, or retrace a step once taken. 
 
 "While he was deliberating on the treaty when in fact, as it 
 was alleged, he had determined not to sign for the present, an inter- 
 cepted letter addressed by the French minister to his government, 
 was placed in the President's hands. This letter contained many 
 facts bearing on the character of the President, the influences that 
 were working on him, and deeply implicating the reputation of the 
 Secretary of State. It was alleged that the other Secretaries, into 
 whose hands the letter had fallen, made an unwarrantable use of it 
 to prejudice the mind of the President against their obnoxious col- 
 league and the French cause, and thereby to induce him hastily to 
 ratify the treaty contrary to his better judgment to drive from his 
 cabinet the only republican remaining in office, and to lend his aid. 
 though unconsciously and indirectly, to the destruction of the repub- 
 lican cause in the United States. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson retired from the State Department in 1794, early 
 in January. He says that he suffered martyrdom all the time he 
 was in office alluding to his single-handed and unaided efforts to 
 combat the heresies of Hamilton, and to resist the tendencies of the 
 government to yield to British influence. He was succeeded by the 
 Attorney General, Edmund Randolph, whose relationship to the 
 subject of this memoir has already been made known to the reader. 
 That gentleman professed to be of no party, but was understood to 
 be a Republican in principle, and favorably inclined to the French 
 cause. ' The fact is," says Jefferson, " he has generally given his 
 principles to the one party, and his practice to the other the oyster 
 to one, the shell to the other. Unfortunately, the shell was generally 
 the lot of his friends, the French and Republicans, and the oyster, of 
 their antagonists. Had he been firm to the principles he professed, 
 in the year 1 793. the President would have been kept from an habit- 
 ual concert with the British and anti-republican party." 
 
 Randolph declared that long before the Fauchet letter made its 
 appearance, the British partizans had been industrious in dissemi- 
 nating the most poisonous falsehoods concerning him. and in his
 
 HISTORY OF THE TIMES. gl 
 
 aosence seized the advantage of uttering uncontradicted slanders : 
 boasting and insisting that in a controversy between them, he (Ran- 
 dolph) must be sacrificed. Hamilton had retired, but was in con- 
 stant communication with the President on all subjects of importance. 
 The British partisans alluded to, were Pickering and Wolcott, the 
 Secretary of War and of the Treasury. 
 
 With these facts before us we can now proceed with the subject in 
 hand. We have said that the President had determined to ratify the 
 treaty, if so advised by the Senate. But soon after their adjourn- 
 ment he became satisfied that the provision order, as it was called, 
 had been renewed by the British government. He then began to 
 balance whether to ratify or not. In this state of mind, le required 
 the Secretary of State to hold a conversation with the British Minis- 
 ter on the 29th June, 1795, and to tell him that by the constitution 
 the treaty now rested with the President, and that he had entered 
 into the Consideration of the subject. A letter was written to the 
 American Minister at Paris, on the 2d of July, under the President's 
 eye and special correction, in which it was stated that the " President 
 has not yet decided upon the final measure to be adopted by himself.' 1 
 He consulted with all the officers of government on several collateral 
 points in the treaty consulted, as it was believed, with Hamilton on 
 the treaty at large and required the Secretary of State to give his 
 written opinion. This opinion of the Secretary was handed in the 
 12th of July, 1795. Among other things, he says: "I take the 
 liberty of suggesting that a personal interview be immediately had 
 between the Secretary of State and Mr. Hammond, and that the sub- 
 stance of the address to him be this " (after some preliminary re- 
 marks) : " But we are informed by the public gazettes, and by letters 
 tolerably authentic, that vessels, even American vessels, laden with 
 provisions for France, may be captured and dealt with as carrying a 
 kind of contraband. Upon the supposition of its truth, the President 
 cannot persuade himself that he ought to ratify during the existence 
 of the order. His reasons will be detailed in a proper representation 
 through you (Mr. Hammond) to his Britannic Majesty. At the 
 same time, that order being removed, he will ratify without delay or 
 further scruple." In the morning of the 13th of July, the President 
 instructed the Secretary to have the proposed interview immediately 
 with Mr. Hammond, and to address him as had been suggested. 
 
 VOL. i. 4*
 
 82 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Mr. Hammond asked, in the course of the interview, if it would 
 not be sufficient to remove the order out of the way ; and after the 
 ratification to rescind it? 
 
 The Secretary replied with some warmth, that this would be a 
 mere shift, as the principle was the important thing. He then asked, 
 if the President was irrevocably determined, not to ratify, if the pro- 
 vision order was not removed ? The Secretary answered, that he 
 was not instructed upon that point. This conversation was imme- 
 diately related to the President, He told the Secretary that Jie might 
 have informed Mr. Hammond tliat he never would ratify, if tfo pro- 
 vision order was not removed out of live way. 
 
 The President left Philadelphia for Mount Vernon, the loth day 
 of July, 1795 ; and soon afterwards, the Secretary commenced draft- 
 ing the memorial that was to be addressed to his Britannic Majesty. 
 After discussing the article of the treaty in reference to provisions, 
 and showing the inconsistency of the order of the 8th of Ju,ne. 1793. 
 with that article, the memorial concludes : " The chief obstacle, which 
 is dependent for its removal on his Britannic Majesty, is the order 
 above stated. The President is too much deprived of its particulars, 
 to declare what shall be his irrevocable determination : but the sen- 
 sibility which it has excited in his mind, cannot be allayed without 
 the most unequivocal stipulation, to reduce to the only construction 
 in which he can acquiesce, the article of the treaty." 
 
 Before the President had received the memorial which he had 
 ordered to be drafted, he wrote ,to the Secretary on the 22d. July, 
 from Mount Vernon, thus : " In my hurry I did not signify the pro- 
 priety of letting those gentlemen (the Secretaries of War and the 
 Treasury, and the Attorney General) know fully my determination 
 with respect to the ratification of the treaty, and the train it was in ; 
 but as this was necessary, in order to enable them to form their opin- 
 ions on the subject submitted, I take it for granted, that both were 
 communicated to them by you. as a matter of course. The first, that 
 is the conditional ratification, (if the late order, which we have heard 
 of respecting provision-vessels, is not in operation.) may on all fit oc- 
 casions be spoken of as my determination, unless from any thing 
 you have heard, or met with since I left the city, it should be thought 
 more advisable to communicate with me on the subject. My opinion 
 respecting the treaty is the same now that it was ; that is. not favor-
 
 HISTORY OF THE TIMES. 83 
 
 able to it : but that it is better to ratify it in the manner the Senate 
 have advised, (and with the reservation already mentioned,) than to 
 suffer matters to remain as they are unsettled." 
 
 In answer to this the Secretary writes : ' ; I had communicated 
 Fully your determination with respect to the ratification. I have no 
 loubt that the order for seizing provision-vessels exists. Nothing 
 uas occurred to prevent the speaking of that determination/' 
 
 On the 29th July the President writes : " I also return, under 
 cover of this letter, the draft of the memorial^ and the rough draft 
 of a ratification. These are very important papers, and, with the 
 instructions which follow, will require great attention and considera- 
 tion, and are the primary cause of my returning to Philadelphia." 
 
 On the 31st he writes : ' ; The memorial seems well designed to 
 answer the end proposed." 
 
 While the memorial was in the hands of the President at Mount 
 Vernon, it became the subject of conversation with the Heads of 
 Departments. Wolcott and Pickering were both opposed to any de- 
 lay in concluding the business. Wolcott observed that it would give 
 the French Government, an opportunity of professing to make very 
 extensive overtures to the United States, and thus embarrass the 
 treaty with Great Britain. 
 
 Pickering, on hearing the memorial, exclaimed, " This, as the 
 sailors say, is throwing the whole up in the wind." 
 
 The President returned to Philadelphia on the llth of August. 
 The same evening, in presence of Pickering and Bradford, the Se- 
 cretary of State observed, " that the sooner the memorial was re- 
 vised by the gentlemen jointly, who were prepared with their opin- 
 ions, the better." The President replied, " that he supposed every 
 thing of this sort had been settled. The Secretary said that it was 
 not so, as Colonel Pickering was for an immediate ratification. To 
 this Pickering responded : " I told Mr. Randolph that I thought the 
 postponement of ratification was a ruinous step." 
 
 On the morning of the 13th of August, the letters which had 
 been written to foreign ministers in his absence, were laid before the 
 President. The one addressed to Mr. Monroe was in these words : 
 " The treaty is not yet ratified by the President ; nor will it be 
 ratified, I believe, until it returns from England if then. The late 
 British order for seizing provisions, is a weighty obstacle to a ratifi-
 
 84 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 cation. I do not suppose that such an attempt to starve France will 
 be countenanced." Other letters were written of the same tenor, and 
 laid before the President. He made no objection to the strong ex- 
 pressions contained in them. 
 
 There can be no question from the evidence, that up to the 13th 
 of August, 1795, and for a month previous, the President had deli- 
 berately made up his mind not to sign the treaty so long as the pro- 
 vision order was in existence. What caused the great change be- 
 tween that time and the 18th ; for on that day he gave to the treaty 
 an unconditional ratification ? Marshall, in his Life of Washington, 
 intimates, that the great clamor raised against the treaty in the com- 
 mercial towns, was the cause of this change in the mind of the Presi- 
 dent. He thought that by signing the treaty at once he would put 
 an end to all hope of influencing the executive will by agitation. 
 This solution is not consistent with the character of the man. No 
 one despised mere popular clamor more than he did ; no one valued 
 more the opinion of his fellow-citizens. With a mind not suggestive 
 but eminently judicious, he sought for counsel in all quarters, and 
 profited more by advice than any other man that ever held a public 
 station. 
 
 He considered that the occasion called for wise and temperate 
 measures. In his letter of the 31st of July, to the Secretary of 
 State, he says : " In time, when passion shall have yielded to sober 
 reason, the current may possibly turn ; but in the mean while, this 
 Grovernnient, in relation to France and England, may be compared to 
 a ship between the rocks Scylla and Charybdis. If the treaty is ra- 
 tified, the partisans of the French (or rather of war and confusion) 
 will excite them to hostile measures, or at least to unfriendly senti- 
 ments : if it is not, there is no foreseeing all the consequences which 
 may follow, as it respects Great Britain. It is not to be inferred 
 from hence, that I am, or shall be disposed to quit the ground I 
 have taken, unless circumstances more imperious than have yet come to 
 my knowledge, should compel it ; for there is but one straight course 
 in these things, and that is, to seek truth and pursue it steadily." 
 He then instructs the Secretary to be attentive to all the resolutions 
 that might come in, and to all the newspaper publications, that ho 
 might have all the objections against the treaty which had any 
 weight in them, embodied in the memorial addressed to the British
 
 THE FAUCHET LETTER. 
 
 king, or in the instructions to the American Minister at London. It 
 cannot be presumed, therefore, that the excitement in the country 
 against the treaty, was the cause, or at least the principal cause of 
 the sudden change in the determination of the President. We must 
 look to some other source for a solution of this difficulty. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 THE FAUCHET LETTER. 
 
 ON the 31st day of October, 1794, about the time of the whisky in- 
 surrection, and Jay's negotiation in London, the French Minister 
 forwarded a dispatch to his government, entitled " Private Corres- 
 pondence of the Minister on Politics, No. 10." 
 
 This letter on its way was captured by a British cruiser, placed in 
 the hands of Lord Grenville, and by him forwarded to the Minister 
 here (Mr. Hammond), with instructions to use it for the benefit of 
 his Majesty's service. When the letter came to Hammond, he made 
 known the contents to Mr. Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, but 
 did not intimate a desire that it might be communicated to the Pre- 
 sident. Wolcott himself suggested it, and asked that it might be 
 placed in his hands for that purpose. Hammond at first declined, 
 but finally consented, on condition that a certified copy should be 
 left in his hands. Wolcott received the letter the 28th day of July, 
 1795, while the President was at Mount Vernon. He immediately 
 showed it to Mr. Pickering. It was their opinion that its contents 
 were of so delicate and important a nature that they ought to be im- 
 parted to the President without delay, and with tJie utmost secrecy. 
 Any open attempt to effect this end, they thought might excite the 
 suspicion of Mr. Randolph. The first hint of the matter was com- 
 municated to the President in a letter from Mr. Pickering in the 
 following words : " July 31st On the subject of the treaty, I confess 
 I feel extreme solicitude, and, /or a special reason, which can be com- 
 municated to you only in person. I entreat, therefore, that you will 
 return with all convenient speed to the seat of government. In the
 
 86 I-IFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 mean time, for the reason above referred to, I pray you to decide on 
 no important political measure in whatever form it may be presented 
 to you. Mr. Wolcott and I (Mr. Bradford concurring) waited on 
 Mr. Randolph, and urged his writing to request your return. He 
 ivrote in our presence." Just the day before, Randolph had written 
 to the President " As soon as I had the honor of receiving your 
 letter of the 24th instant, I conferred with the Secretaries of the 
 Treasury and of War upon the necessity or expediency of your re- 
 turn hither at this time. We all concurred that neither the one nor 
 the other existed, and that the circumstance would confer upon the 
 things which had been and are still carried on, an importance which 
 it would not be convenient to give them." After receiving the above 
 mysterious letter from Pickering, which perhaps arrived the sanu 
 day with Randolph's, the President hastened to the seat of govern- 
 ment. He arrived on the 1 1th of August, and the contents of 
 Fauchet's intercepted letter were made known to him the same day. 
 In this private correspondence, after stating that the dispatches of 
 himself and colleagues had been confined to a naked recital of facts. 
 the Minister thus proceeds : " I have reserved myself to give you. 
 as far as I am able, a key to the facts detailed in our reports. * * * 
 The previous confessions of Mr. Randolph alone throw a satisfactory 
 light upon every thing that comes to pass. * * * I shall, then, en- 
 deavor to give you a clue to all the measures, of which the common 
 dispatches give you an account ; and to discover the true causes of 
 the explosion, which it is obstinately resolved to repress with great 
 means (the whisky insurrection), although the state of things has 
 no longer any thing alarming." * * * He then undertakes to give a 
 history of the primitive division of parties Federalists and Anti- 
 Federalists. Speaks of the whimsical contrast between the name 
 and the real opinion of the parties the former aiming with all their 
 power to annihilate Federalism, while the latter were striving to 
 preserve it. These divisions, he proceeds to say, originated in the 
 system of finances, which had its birth in the cradle of the consti- 
 tution. It created a financiering class, who threaten to become the 
 aristocratical order of the State. He then continues, in the fifth 
 paragraph, in these words : " It is useless to stop longer to prove 
 'hat the monarchical system was interwoven with those novelties of 
 linance. and that the friends of the latter favored the attempts wliie!
 
 THE FAUCHET LETTER. 37 
 
 were made, in order to bring the constitution to the former by in- 
 sensible gradations. The writings of influential men of this party 
 prove it (alluding to Mr. Adams's Discourses on Davila) ; their real 
 opinions, too, avow it, and the journals of the Senate are the deposi- 
 tory of the first attempts." 
 
 He speaks of the sympathy of this party with the regenerating 
 movements of France, while running ir* monarchical paths ; and 
 after an account of the rapid increase and consolidation of the Anti- 
 Federal party, under the name of patriots and republicans, he thuf 
 proceeds : " In every quarter are arraigned the imbecility of the 
 Government towards Great Britain, the defencele&c state of the 
 country against possible invasions, the coldness towards the French 
 Republic the system of finance is attacked, which threatens eternizing 
 the debt, under pretext of making it the guarantee of public happi- 
 ness ; the complication of that system which withholds from general 
 inspection all its operations the alarming power of the influence it 
 procures to a man whose principles are regarded as dangerous the 
 preponderance which that man acquires from day to day in public 
 measures, and, in a word, the immoral and impolitic modes of taxa- 
 tion which he at first presents as expedients, and afterwards raises 
 to permanency." 
 
 He then speaks of the excise law the navigation of the Missis- 
 sippi, and the system for the sale of public lands, as being tin- 
 principal sources of discontent to the Western people, and the cause 
 of their rebellion. " At last," says he, " the local explosion i 
 effected. * * * The Government which had foreseen it, reproduced, 
 under various forms, the demand of a disposable force which might 
 put it in a state of respectable defence. Defeated in this measure, 
 who can aver that it may not have hastened the local eruption, in 
 order to make an advantageous diversion, and to lay the more gene- 
 ral storm which it saw gathering? Am I not authorized in forming 
 this conjecture from the conversation which the Secretary of Statt 
 had with me and Le Blanc, above, an account of which you havt 
 in my dispatch, No. 3? But how may we expect that this new pl;ni 
 will be executed ? By exasperating and severe measures, authorized 
 by a law which was not solicited till the close of the session. Thi> 
 law gave to the one already existing for collecting the excise, a coercive 
 force which hitherto it had not possessed, and a demand of which
 
 88 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 was not before ventured to be made. * * * * This was undoubtedly 
 what Mr. Randolph meant in telling me that under pretext of giving 
 energy to the Government, it was intended to introduce absolute 
 power, and to mislead the President in paths which would conduct 
 him to unpopularity}' 1 
 
 He then proceeds to describe the successful efforts to raise an 
 army, and to gain over certain influential characters, and continues 
 thus : " The Secretary of this State possessed great influence in the 
 popular societies of Philadelphia, which in its turn influenced those 
 of other States of course he merited attention. It appears, therefore, 
 that those men, with others unknown to me, all having, without doubt. 
 Randolph at their head, were balancing to decide on this party. Two 
 or three days before the proclamation was published (in reference to 
 the whisky insurrection 25th September, 1794), and of couise before 
 the cabinet had resolved on its measures, Mr. Randolph came to see me 
 with an air of great eagerness, and made to me the overtures of which 
 I have given you an account in my No. 6. Thus, with some thou- 
 sands of dollars, the republic would have decided on civil war. or on 
 peace. Thus the consciences of the pretended patriots of America 
 have already their prices. * * * What will be the old age of this 
 Government if it is thus early decrepit. Such, citizen, is the evident 
 consequence of the system*of finances conceived by Mr. Hamilton 
 He has made of a whole nation, a stock-jobbing, speculating, selfish 
 people. * * * * Still, there are patriots of whom I delight to enter- 
 tain an idea worthy of that imposing title. Consult Monroe he is 
 of this number: he had apprised me of the men whom the current of 
 events had dragged along as bodies devoid of weight. His friend 
 Madison is also an honest man. Jefferson, on whom the patriots 
 cast their eyes to succeed the President, had foreseen these crises. 
 He prudently retired, in order to avoid making a figure against his 
 inclination in scenes, the secret of which will soon or late be brought 
 to light." 
 
 These are the leading and essential facts in the intercepted letter. 
 And they certainly contain very grave charges. The men in power 
 are accused f a design of changing the government into a monarchy : 
 clothing the President with absolute power, and fomenting a rebel- 
 lion, that they might have a pretext to raise a standing army to 
 enforce their designs. The pretended patriots of the country are
 
 THE FAUCHET LETTER. 39 
 
 accused of venality and corruption the highest officer under Govern- 
 ment charged with making overtures to the minister of a foreign 
 power for money ; and it is alleged that none but those who are op- 
 posed to the Administration are trustworthy and honest. 
 
 It is not surprising that a communication of this sort, addressed 
 by a foreign minister to his Government, whose feeling of friendship 
 to our own was extremely questionable, falling into the hands of one 
 of the parties implicated, should excite his indignation and create in 
 him a desire to have the truth of the charges investigated. But the 
 use made of that letter by the triumvirate, Wolcott, Pickering, and 
 Bradford, to destroy an obnoxious rival and to crush the rising ener- 
 gies of a hateful party, cannot be justified. The wicked and Jesuiti- 
 cal doctrine, that all is fair in politics^ may sanction the means in 
 the end ; but the pen of the historian must condemn, under all cir- 
 cumstances, both the principle and its application. Randolph was a 
 colleague of those men held the highest station in the executive de- 
 partment of Government was in the most intimate relations with 
 them, holding daily and hourly communications on the gravest sub- 
 jects of state. He was reputed to be among the first gentlemen of 
 his age possessed a high reputation, and an unblemished character 
 for integrity and honor. A paper falls into the hands of his intimate 
 and daily associates, written by an ignorant and prejudiced foreigner, 
 in which this man is charged with being accessible to a bribe. What 
 line of conduct do they pursue ? It seems that in a formal dispatch 
 of the foreign minister, No. 6, the facts are stated from which he 
 draws his injurious inference. Did the triumvirate call for that doc- 
 ument so obviously necessary as a means of explaining the injurious 
 charges ? It was in the hands of the same individual from whom 
 they had obtained the first communication. But they made no in- 
 quiry for it ; did not seem to wish to know that the means of expla- 
 nation were in their reach, or in existence. Did they communicate 
 the contents of the letter to their implicated colleague, that he might 
 exculpate himself from its charges ? They kept it a profound secret 
 from him held frequent conclaves over it considered it extremely 
 important, and concluded that the President must be informed of it, 
 but in the most secret manner, lest the implicated person might take 
 the alarm. They even go to him, and induce him in their presence 
 to write to the President, requesting his immediate return to the seat
 
 90 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 of government Not content with this, one of the party writes him- 
 self, stating that he is very solicitous about the treaty, and for a spe- 
 cial reason, thus connecting- the fate of the treaty with the contents 
 of the intercepted letter. Was this acting fairly towards their col- 
 league? It was not treating him even as a gentleman. Their con- 
 duct can only be compared to that of a bailiff or town beadle, who 
 has gotten some clue on a suspected character, towards whom he 
 must act with the utmost caution and secrecy, lest he might snuff 
 suspicion in the wind and take to flight. 
 
 Nor was their conduct at all mitigated by the return of the 
 President. They beset him the moment of his arrival : the inter- 
 cepted letter was placed in his hands the same evening ; a cabinet 
 council was called the next morning to deliberate on the treaty. Not 
 a breath was uttered to Randolph by the President, that he was sus- 
 pected of treachery to himself, and of having made overtures for a 
 bribe to betray his country. On the contrary, an unusually cordial 
 manner is observed towards him. He is called on to give his opinion 
 on the subject of ratification. He repeats the same arguments he 
 had used before ; he contended that the treaty did not warrant the 
 provision order, and that the President could not sign the treaty so 
 long as the order existed ; because we had already acknowledged, on 
 the 7th of September, 1793, that a permission to Great Britain to ex- 
 ercise such a power, would be a just cause of Avar to France : that we 
 should be inconsistent in our discussions with the French minister : 
 because when he remonstrated upon the extension of contraband by 
 the treaty, it was answered that we did not alter the law of nations : 
 but now we should desert what was contended to be the law of na- 
 tions, in two letters to Mr. Hammond ; that we should run the haz- 
 ard of a war with France, by combining to starve her : and that her 
 discontents were the only possible chance remaining to the British 
 partisans for thi-owing us into the arms of Great Britain, by creating 
 a seeming necessity of an alliance with the latter power. These co- 
 gent arguments had already been urged on the President ; he felt 
 their force, and had determined, as the reader cannot doubt, not to 
 sign so long as the provision order existed, and had taken his mea- 
 sures accordingly. How are these arguments met now 1 Let it be 
 remembered that on the morning of this very day. it was circulated 
 in the coffee-houses by Hammond, the British minister, and his par-
 
 THE FAUCHET LETTER. 91 
 
 -tisans, that Randolph was at the bottom of the town meetings which 
 had been gotten up to denounce the treaty (and which actually burnt 
 a copy of the treaty in front of Hammond's house, by the hands of 
 the common hangman), and that there was a conspiracy, of which 
 Randolph was a member, to destroy the popularity of the President, 
 and to thrust Mr. Jefferson into his chair. No one can doubt that 
 these rumors designedly put afloat, were carefully related to the 
 President by his faithful and disinterested ministers, so that when 
 Randolph concluded his speech, the very arguments that had weighed 
 with the President before, were now evidences of his guilt con- 
 firmations strong as proofs of Holy Writ. Pickering and Wolcott 
 answered in the most excited and intemperate manner ; urged the 
 immediate ratification of the treaty, and charged that the struggle to 
 defeat it was the act of a detestable and nefarious conspiracy. There- 
 was a unanimous vote for immediate unconditional ratification, so 
 far as the provision order was concerned ; but to be accompanied 
 with a remonstrance on that subject. The President receded from 
 his determination, and consented to ratify. The necessary papers- 
 were prepared, and on the 18th of August, 1795, the President affixed 
 his signature to the treaty. All this struck the Secretary of State 
 with astonishment. He did not know how to account for it. All 
 the while he was treated with unusual courtesy. Two days after the 
 President had determined to sign the treaty, on the 14th of the 
 month, he paid a private and friendly visit to Mr. Randolph's house : 
 invited him next day in the most cordial manner to dine with a xnirty 
 of chosen friends, and placed him at the foot of the tuble as a mark 
 of respect and confidence. On the 18th. the day of the ratification, 
 the same air of cordiality was assumed. But good, easy man, while 
 his honors were thus ripening, next day there came a nipping frost. 
 On Wednesday, the 19th of August. 1795, while going to the 
 President's at the usual hour, nine o'clock in the morning, he was 
 met by the steward, who informed him that the President desired 
 him to postpone his visit till half past ten. On reaching the door at 
 the appointed hour, he was surprised to learn that the President had 
 been closeted with his colleagues for more than an hour. On enter- 
 ing the room, the President rose from his chair, and received him 
 with marked formality. After a few words, the President drew u 
 letter from his pocket, and said : " Mr. Randolph, here is a letter
 
 92 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 which I desire you to read, and make such explanations as you 
 choose." 
 
 After he had read the letter, and some little conversation had en- 
 sued, the President requested Messrs. Wolcott and Pickering to in- 
 terrogate him ! In .a short time he was requested to leave the room, 
 that they might consult on what had been said ! Can the reader come 
 to any other conclusion, than that the mind of the President had 
 been worked up to prejudge the case 1 Can any one believe that the 
 great and good Washington would have acted in a manner so precipi- 
 tate in itself, so injurious and humiliating to a long tried friend, and 
 a faithful, confidential officer, unless his passions had been excited 
 by some undue influence, exerted over his peculiar temper and cha- 
 racter 1 
 
 Who can doubt, after a review of all the facts connected with 
 this transaction, that Randolph, as he declared himself, was the me- 
 ditated victim of party spirit ? Who can doubt that Wolcott and 
 Pickering, by their artful insinuations, and earnest commentaries on 
 the intercepted letter, had induced the President to believe that 
 there was in truth a detestable and nefarious conspiracy to defeat 
 the treaty? that there was a dark design of replacing him by an- 
 other President ; and that his Secretary of State, in whom he had 
 placed the most unbounded confidence, had been convicted of a cor 
 rupt attachment to France, and of perfidy to himself. The more wo 
 read and learn of Washington and his acts, the more exalted our 
 judgment becomes of his virtue and purity. The more the days of 
 his mortality recede from us, the more sublime and godlike his cha- 
 racter appears. But when we go back to the times when he wrought 
 on earth with other men, and performed his part on the public stage. 
 we perceive that he had like passions with ourselves, and like us. 
 was liable to err. 
 
 The ratification of such a treaty would at any time have created 
 a strong hostility to the administration that advised it. It was cer- 
 tainly very defective. We say nothing about the objections raised 
 against it, under the influence of the party excitement of the times. 
 Much allowance must be made for them: but the negotiator hiinsvlf 
 admitted that the subjects of difficulty were merged in the treaty, 
 but not settled. Time has proved the truth of his admission. The 
 late war with Great Britain the more recent difficulties on the
 
 THE FAUCHET LETTER 93 
 
 boundary question, all grew out of the unsettled questions of dispute 
 merged in the treaty. It was evidently made for a temporary pur- 
 pose to serve the nonce and perhaps that was all that could have 
 been expected. The President did not approve it. The more he 
 thought of it, the less he liked it. But that there might be some set- 
 tlement of the perplexing and threatening difficulties between the 
 ;\vo nations, he consented to ratify, if the Senate advised. The rati- 
 fication of such a treaty, under any circumstances, would have en- 
 countered formidable opposition. But when it was made known that 
 the President, under the influence of a party intrigue, had been hur- 
 ried into a premature ratification, contrary to his better judgment, 
 with the British order in council staring him in the face, which 
 s jemed to have been issued in contempt of the treaty, as a license to 
 plunder our defenceless commerce, the storm that was raised cannot 
 well be imagined. The great Washington rose into the pure empy- 
 rean of a clear conscience ; but the guilty beings below were swept 
 away by the tempest. All who had any thing to do with this busi- 
 ness were treaty -foundered, and ingulfed in the torrent that soon 
 swept over the land. 
 
 It was predicted, as a sequel to these transactions, that Monroe 
 would be recalled from Paris. In December, 1795, only threv 
 months after the ratification, Mr. Jefferson writes : " I should not 
 wonder if Monroe were to be recalled, under the idea of his being of 
 the partisans of France, whom the President considers as the parti- 
 sans of war and confusion, in his letter of July 31st, and as disposed 
 to excite them to hostile measures, or at least to unfriendly senti- 
 ments ; a most infatuated blindness to the true character of the 
 sentiments entertained in favor of France." Sure enough, the sub- 
 ject was soon made the theme of cabinet consultation ; and on the 2d 
 day of July, 1796, it was resolved to recall him. " We think," said 
 die Heads of Department, in their communication to the President. 
 " the great interests of the United States require that they have near 
 the French government some faithful organ to explain their real 
 views, and to ascertain those of the French. Our duty obliges us to be 
 explicit. Although the present Minister Plenipotentiary of the United 
 States at Paris has been amply furnished with documents to explain 
 the views and conduct of the United States, yet his own letters au- 
 thorize us to say, that he has omitted to use them, and thereby ex-
 
 94 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 posed the United States to all the mischiefs which would flow from 
 jealousies and erroneous conceptions of their views and conduct. 
 Whether this dangerous omission arose from such an attachment to 
 the cause of France as rendered him too little mindful of the inter- 
 ests of his own country, or from mistaken views of the latter, or from 
 any other cause, the evil is the same." After speaking of his confi- 
 dential correspondence with the notorious enemies of tlie whole sys- 
 tem of government, and of certain anonymous letters, which they en- 
 tertained no doubt were written with the privity of Mr. Monroe, they 
 proceed : " The anonymous communications from officers of the 
 United States in a foreign country, on matters of a public nature, 
 and which deeply concern the interests of the United States in rela- 
 tion to that foreign country, are proofs of sinister designs, and show 
 that the public interests are no longer safe in the hands of such men/' 
 On the 8th of July, from Mount Vernon, the President invited 
 Charles Cotesworth Pinkney. of Charleston, to succeed Mr. Monroe. 
 In his private and confidential letter to that gentleman, he says : 
 The situation of affairs, and the interests of this country, as they 
 relate to France, render it indispensably necessary, that a faithful 
 organ near that Government, able and willing to explain its views and 
 to ascertain these of France, should immediately fill the place of our 
 present Minister Plenipotentiary at Paris." 
 
 From this period not a friend of the French cause remained in 
 the administration of affairs. Jefferson, foreseeing the tendency of 
 events, had prudently retired, after having suffered a three years' 
 martyrdom. Randolph had been ignominiously driven from the 
 cabinet : and Monroe recalled, not only with the charge of infidelity 
 to his Government, but under the accusation of sinister designs against 
 his country. 
 
 It was proclaimed in the newspapers, in political meetings, on the 
 hustings, every where, that tlie friends of liberty are for an intimate 
 union with Prance. TJie partisans of slavery prefer an alliance 
 icith England. On the other hand, the President had declared and 
 acted on the belief, that the friends of France were the partisans of 
 war and confusion. " A most infatuated blindness" said Jefferson, 
 - to the true character of the sentiments entertained in favor of 
 France /" 
 
 The reader cannot mistake, at this rate, how things were tending.
 
 VLR. MONROE. 95 
 
 The person and character of the President were no longer respected. 
 The Republicans were resolved that their opponents should not shel- 
 ter themselves behind the cegis of his fame. They considered that 
 he had descended into the arena of strife, and were determined that 
 he should share the fate of other combatants. 
 
 Happily for him, he soon sought repose in voluntary retirement. 
 The reins of government fell into other hands. On the 4th of March. 
 1797, this pure patriot entered the shades of Mount Vernon with in- 
 finitely more pleasure than he had ever passed the threshold into the 
 cabinet of power. However much some of the measures of his admin- 
 istration may be condemned, his own motives are above suspicion. 
 If ever a man had in view the exaltation of the character of his own 
 country, impressing on it a pure American stamp, free from all 
 foreign alloy, he had. Whether all the measures advocated by him 
 tended to that end is another question. . The historian must not be 
 deterred from a critical examination into them from the fear of tar- 
 nishing his great name. That is impossible ! From the clouds of 
 party it has come out all the brighter for the mists by which it was 
 temporarily enveloped. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 MR. MONROE FRANCE MR. ADAMS ELECTED PRESIDENT. 
 
 THE charges against Mr. Monroe were unjust, and his recall an im- 
 politic measure, unless the Government had determined not to send 
 a successor, for which there was sufficient reason. Nothing but the 
 intemperate zeal of such partisans as Pickering and "Wolcott could 
 have advised the course pursued. The strangest part of the business 
 is that General Washington should have yielded so completely to 
 their views. He speaks more harshly, if possible, than they do, not 
 only of Mr. Monroe's conduct, but of his motives. He charges him 
 with misrepresenting his own Government, an undue condescension 
 to that of France, and alleges that he was promoting the views of a 
 party in his own country, that were obstructing every measure of the
 
 96 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Administration, and, by their attachment to France, were hurrying 
 it (if not with design, at least in its consequences), into a war with 
 Great Britain, in order to favor France. He further charges that 
 this French party had brought the country to a most degraded and 
 humiliating condition : and that our Minister at Paris had been the 
 principal actor in its accomplishment. That he was timid in his de- 
 mands of justice, and over zealous in his efforts to conciliate the 
 French people, cannot be doubted. But he had a most difficult part 
 to perform. His open reception by the National Convention the 
 fraternal embrace in the midst of shouts and acclamation, and his un- 
 reserved declarations of attachment to the French cause, were not at 
 all diplomatic. The people of Paris, who were the Government in 
 fact, would have consented to ao other kind of reception. Fond of 
 exhibition and excitement at all times, they could not let an occasion 
 of that sort pass quietly by without considering that they had cast a 
 slight on the representative of a sister Republic. At the same time, 
 the whole nation were thoroughly impressed with the belief that we 
 owed our existence to them ; that their timely alliance had sustained 
 our cause against the arms of England, and their powerful influence 
 in negotiation had secured our Independence. They were taught 
 this lesson not only by their own Government, and the thousands of 
 Frenchmen who fought in our armies, but they were taught it by the 
 statesmen of America, her orators, her poets, her historians, and all 
 her diplomatic agents abroad. All France was penetrated with a 
 belief that we owed them a debt of gratitude that no service could 
 repay. Whether right or wrong, such was the national faith. They 
 were now engaged in a war with the very nation from whose tyran- 
 nous oppression they had plucked us their own hereditary enemy 
 of a thousand years a war destructive, vindictive, exterminating 
 So soon, therefore, as it was known that the United States had sent' 
 an envoy to negotiate a treaty with England, their suspicions were 
 awakened. They doubted the sincerity of our declarations of friend- 
 ship, and insisted that Mr. Monroe was merely sent to blind and lull 
 them into repose, while the real design was a close alliance with their 
 mortal foe. In vain did the Minister declare that no treaty would 
 be made with England that would affect the rights of France. There 
 is no reasoning in detail with the multitude ; special facts make but a 
 slight impression, they are governed by broad and universal -.truths.
 
 FRANCE. 97 
 
 It was impossible to persuade the French mind that the United 
 States meant well in seeking to form a treaty with their enemies, 
 while they were impressed with the belief that they owed their exist- 
 ence, independence, and an immense debt of gratitude to France. 
 Whenever* Mr. Monroe made a demand for the redress of our many 
 grievances, he was at once met with the charge of 'ngratitude, and 
 was threatened with the displeasure and hostility of France, if the 
 treaty then in progress at London should be consummated. So soon 
 as it was known that a treaty had been made, and that it had been 
 advised by the Senate and ratified by the President, the hostility of 
 the French Government and the indignation of the people knew no 
 bounds. The harassing decrees of Government, the depredations 
 on American commerce, the atrocious cruelties committed on her 
 seamen and citizens were worse than if there had been an open decla- 
 ration of war ; for then all merchant vessels would have been kept at 
 home. It was declared by the Government that these things were 
 done in consequence of the British treaty. They now began to draw 
 a distinction between the Administration and the people of the United 
 States. They imagined that a large majority were friendly to an 
 alliance with France. The first appeal was made by the minister 
 Adet, in the autumn of 1796, with a view of influencing the presiden- 
 tial election. Mr. Adams was considered as the representative of 
 the Administration, or English party, and Mr. Jefferson the repre- 
 sentative of the French party. The next occasion on which this 
 spirit was manifested in the most remarkable degree, was in the 
 month of December, 1796, by the Directory. When Mr. Monroe 
 presented his letters of recall, and the letters of credence of General 
 Pinckney, who the reader knows had been appointed to succeed him, 
 he was told that the Directory would not acknowledge nor receive 
 another Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States, until after 
 the redress of grievances demanded of the American Government, 
 and which the French Government had $o iright to expect rom it. 
 He was, at the same time, toM that tfe determination, allowed to 
 subsist between the French Republic nd the American people, the 
 affection founded upon former benefit and reciprocal interests, and: 
 that he himself had cultivated thia affection 1$ every means in fcis 
 power. And to his valedictory address, the president of the Ex^cu- 
 tive Directory tl\\i& replied : " Mr. M,i&istsr Plenipotentiary of tlu> 
 VOL. i. 5
 
 98 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 United States of America, by presenting to-day your letters of recall 
 to the Executive Directory, you give to Europe a very strange spec 
 tacle. France, rich in her liberty, surrounded by a train of victories, 
 strong in the esteem of her allies, will not abase herself by calcula- 
 ting the consequences of the condescension of the American Govern- 
 ment to the suggestions of her former tyrants. Moreover, the French 
 Republic hopes that the successors of Columbus, Raleigh, and Penn 
 always proud of their liberty will never forget tfiat tfiey oive it to 
 France. They will weigh in their wisdom the magnanimous benevo- 
 lence of the French people, with the crafty caresses of certain perfidi- 
 ous persons who meditate bringing them back to their former slavery. 
 Assure the good American people, sir, that, like them, we adore 
 liberty ; that they will always have our esteem, and that they will 
 find in the French people republican generosity, which knows how 
 to grant peace, as it does to cause its sovereignty to be respected." 
 
 While Mr. Monroe was assured that he had combated for prin- 
 ciples, had known the true interests of his country, and that they 
 parted from him with regret. General Pinckney was treated in the 
 most disrespectful manner. In no manner was he recognized in his 
 official capacity, was refused the usual cards of hospitality on which 
 his personal safety depended, and like an ordinary stranger, was left 
 wholly to the regulations of the Paris police. And about the first of 
 February, 1797, the very day that Bonaparte's brilliant termination 
 of the Italiar campaigns was announced, he was ordered to quit 
 Paris, and to pass beyond the confines of France. 
 
 The news of the election of Mr. Adams to the presidency, arrived 
 in Paris about the first of March. This filled the measure of hos- 
 tile feelings on the part of the Directory : they were now ready for 
 any extremity. The unfriendly sentiments of Mr. Adams were well 
 known in Fran?e; and they were cordially reciprocated. Those 
 feelings began to develope themselves at an early period. And it is 
 important at this point of our history, that the reader should know 
 their origin. 
 
 In the summer of 1780 Mr. Aaains was in Paris, charged with 
 three distinct commissions from the Congress of the Confederation : 
 first, to take a share in' any future negotiations for peace ; second, 
 to conclude a treaty of commerce with Great Britain ; third, to re- 
 present the United States at the Court of London. At that time
 
 FRANCE. t . 99 
 
 there was not the slightest prospect of peace. Cornwallis was 
 marching triumphantly through the southern provinces, and Eng- 
 land was in high hopes of subjugating her revolted colonies. At this 
 conjuncture, Mr. Adams proposed to make known to the Court of 
 London that he held a commission to conclude a treaty of commerce 
 with Great Britain, and to represent the United States at the Court 
 of London. As he was required to do, -he consulted the Count de 
 Vergennes on the subject. That nobleman, the Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs, ridiculed it as an ill-timed and visionary proposition. To 
 be solicitous about a treaty of commerce, before independence was 
 established, he thought was like being busy about furnishing a house 
 before the foundation was laid. He told Mr. Adams that the Bri- 
 tish ministry would consider the communication as ridiculous, and 
 would either return no answer, or an insolent one. 
 
 Mr. Adams still insisted on the propriety of his course, entered 
 into an elaborate argument to prove it, and was very intemperate in 
 his language and insinuations as to the motives of France, and 
 showed an overweening desire either "to figure himself in the Court 
 of London, or to form a close commercial alliance with 'England as 
 .the best means of securing independence to his country. He evi- 
 dently showed no disposition to rely on the good intentions of France 
 in the business. 
 
 The Count de Vergennes at length inclosed a copy of his corre- 
 spondence with Mr. Adams, to Dr. Franklin, accompanied with these 
 remarks : " You will find, I think, in the letters of that plenipoten- 
 tiary, opinions and a tone which do not correspond either with the 
 . manner I explained myself to him, or with the intimate connection 
 which subsists between the king and the United States. You will 
 make that use of these pieces which your prudence shall suggest. 
 As to myself, I desire that you will transmit them to Congress, that 
 they may know the line of conduct which Mr. Adams pursues with 
 regard to us, and that they may judge whether he is endowed, as 
 Congress no doubt desires, with that conciliating spirit which is ne- 
 cessary for the important and delicate business with which he is in 
 trusted." 
 
 The communication was made to Congress ; and that body re- 
 sponded to Mr. Adams, that they did not doubt his correspondence 
 with the Count de Vergennes flowed from his zeal and assiduity in
 
 ' LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 the service of his country, but that the opinions of that minister were 
 well-founded, and that he must be more cautious in future. Mr. 
 Adams never forgot or forgave this insult to his vanity and self-es- 
 teem, which were ruling traits in his character. He soon left for 
 Holland, where he remained till negotiations for peace had com- 
 menced in Paris, in November, 1782. When he arrived on the 
 scene of action, Mr. Jay and Dr. Franklin, two of the associate C9m- 
 missioners, had made considerable progress in the negotiation. The 
 whole matter was talked over to him, and he very soon displayed his 
 suspicions of the sincerity and motives of France. In his correspond- 
 ence he thus writes : '-Paris, Nov. 1782. When I. speak of this 
 (French) Court, I know not that any other minister (Count de Vor- 
 gennes) is included than that of Foreign Affairs. A whole system of 
 policy is now as glaring as the day, which perhaps Congress and the 
 people of America have little suspicion of. The evidence now results 
 from a large view of all our European negotiations. The same prin- 
 ciple and the same system have been uniformly pursued from the 
 beginning of my knowledge in Europe, in April,, 1778, to this hour. 
 In substance it has been this : In assistance afforded us in naval 
 force and in money, to keep us from succumbing, and nothing more : 
 To prevent us from ridding ourselves wholly of our enemies, and 
 from growing rich and powerful : To prevent us from obtaining ac- 
 knowledgments of our independence by other foreign powers, and 
 from acquiring consideration in Europe, or any advantage in the 
 peace, but what is expressly stipulated in the treaties : To deprive 
 us of the Grand Fishery, the Mississippi river, the Western lands, 
 and to saddle us with the tories." The friends of Mr. Adams even 
 went so far as to say. that Dr. Franklin favored, or did not oppose 
 the designs of France against the United States ; and that it was 
 entirely owing to the firmness, sagacity, and disinterestedness of Mr. 
 Adams, with whom Mr. Jay united, that we had obtained those im- 
 portant advantages. Dr. Franklin, in allusion to this subject, says : 
 ' : He (Mr. Adams) thinks the French minister one of the greatest 
 enemies of our country ; that he would have straitened our bounda- 
 ries, to prevent the growth of our people ; contracted our fishery to 
 obstruct the increase of our seamen ; and retained the royalists 
 amongst us, to keep us divided ; that he privately opposed all our ne- 
 gotiations with foreign courts, and afforded us, during the war, the as
 
 MR. ADAMS ELECTED PRESIDENT. 101 
 
 sistance we received, only to keep it alive, that we might be so much 
 the more weakened by it ; that to think of gratitude to France is the 
 greatest of follies, and that to be influenced by it would ruin us. He 
 makes no secret of his having these opinions expresses them pub- 
 licly, sometimes in presence of the English ministers, and speaks of 
 hundreds of instances, which he could produce in proof of them. If 
 I were not convinced of he real inability of this Court to furnish the 
 further supplies we asked, I should suspect these discourses of a per- 
 son in his station might have influenced the refusal (at that very 
 moment, the king of France had postponed his own creditors, that he 
 might furnish means to sustain the credit of the United States ;) 
 but I think they have gone no further than to occasion a suspicion, 
 that ive have a considerable party of anti- Galileans -in America, 
 who are not tories, and consequently, to produce some doubts of the 
 continuance of our friendship. As such doubts may hereafter have 
 a bad effect, I think we cannot take too much care to remove them : 
 and it is, therefore, I write this to put you on your guard (believ- 
 ing it my duty, though I know I hazard by it a mortal enmity), and 
 to caution you respecting the insinuations of this gentleman against 
 this Court, and the instances he supposes of their ill will to us, which 
 I take to be as imaginary as I know his fancies to be, that Count de 
 Vergennes and myself are continually plotting against him, and em- 
 ploying the news-writers of Europe to depreciate his character. But 
 as Shakspeare says, " Trifles light as air," &c. I am persuaded, 
 however, that he means well for his country, is always an honest 
 man, often a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely 
 out of his senses." 
 
 This was the man elected President of the United States. Such 
 were the opinions and sentiments entertained by him in regard to 
 France, which time and the revolution in that country had only de- 
 veloped and strengthened. 
 
 So soon as this election was known, and avowedly in consequence 
 of it, the Executive Directory, on the 2d of March, 1797, decreed 
 that the treaty concluded on the sixth of February, 1778, between 
 France and the United States, was modified of full right by that 
 which had been concluded at London on the nineteenth of November, 
 1794, between the United. States of America and England; and in 
 consequence thereof, decreed further, that all merchandise of the
 
 102 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 enemy's, all merchandise not sufficiently ascertained to be neutral, 
 conveyed under American flags, shall be confiscated ; that every 
 thing which serves directly or indirectly to the arming and equipping 
 of vessels, shall be contraband that every American who shall hold 
 a commission from the enemies of France, as well as every seaman of 
 that nation, composing the crew of the shifts and vessels, shall, by 
 this fact alone, be declared piratical, and treated as such, without 
 suffering the party to establish that the act was the consequence of 
 threats or violence : that every American ship shall be deemed a 
 lawful prize, which shall not have on board a bill of lading (role 
 cFequipage) in due form, according to the plan annexed to the treaty 
 of the sixth of February, 1778. This was in fact a declaration of 
 war in disguise. It was so intended. The Government avowed their 
 determination to fleece the American citizens of their property, to a 
 sufficient degree to bring them to their feeling in the only nerve in 
 which it was presumed their sensibility lay; which was their pecuniary 
 interest. 
 
 When Mr. Adams was inaugurated on the fourth of March, 1797. 
 he was ignorant of this decree ; he only knew that General Pinckney 
 had been refused credence as Minister Plenipotentiary, and had been 
 ordered to leave France. 
 
 Notwithstanding this, he expressed a desire for reconciliation. 
 Meeting with Mr. Jefferson, who had come to Philadelphia to take 
 upor himself the duties of Vice-President, to which office he had 
 just been elected, Mr. Adams entered immediately on an explanation 
 of the situation of our affairs with France, and the danger of rupture 
 with that nation, a rupture which would convulse the attachments of 
 this country ; that he was impressed with the necessity of an imme- 
 diate mission to the Directory, and had concluded to send one, which. 
 by its dignity, should satisfy France, and by its selection from the 
 three great divisions of the continent, should satisfy all parts of the* 
 United States ; in short, that he had determined to join Gerry and 
 Madison to Pinckney, and he requested Mr. Jefferson to consult Mr 
 Madison for him. On the sixth of March, when Mr. Jefferson re- 
 ported the result of his negotiation with Mr. Madison, the President 
 replied, that, on consultation, some objections to that nomination had 
 been raised, which he had not contemplated : the subject was then 
 dropped, and never afterwards resumed. The consultation alluded
 
 MR. ADAMS ELECTED PRESIDENT. 
 
 to was with Pickering, Wolcott, McHenry and Lee, the late Cabi- 
 net of General Washington, which he had transmitted entire to his 
 successor. The feelings and opinions of those gentlemen are well 
 known to the reader. So that the kind intentions of Mr. Adams, in 
 the first enthusiasm of office, towards the Republican party, and his 
 spirit of conciliation towards France, were soon dissipated by the 
 advice of his counsellors. In less than three weeks from this date, 
 the President's proclamation was issued, requiring an extraordinary 
 session of Congress to be convened on the fifteenth day of May. 
 
 It is obvious that the President was advised to this measure, and 
 that the design of his advisers was to procure, if not a declaration of 
 war, at least the enactment of such strong retaliatory measures as 
 would lead to that result. There could have been no other motive 
 in convening the legislative department at that unusual season ; and 
 when the decree of the 2d of March was made known, there was no 
 other alternative left to the Administration. The President might 
 have dismissed his ministers, and taken into his Cabinet such men as 
 Madison, Gallatin and Gerry. With their advice he could have sent 
 to France, as he proposed at first, such envoys as would at once have 
 satisfied that nation, smothered every asperity, caused the repeal of 
 every obnoxious decree, and the institution of a tribunal to try all 
 questions of dispute between the two nations. But not choosing to 
 follow this course, there was no alternative in the line of policy to 
 be pursued but war or disgrace. 
 
 The President's opening speech on the 17th of May, was consid- 
 ered by his friends sufficiently spirited. After giving a history of 
 the rejection of the American Minister by the Executive Directory, 
 and the indignities offered to the nation through him, he thus pro- 
 ceeds : " With this conduct of the French Government, it will be- 
 proper to take into view the public audience given to the late Minis- 
 ter of the United States on his taking leave of the Executive Direc- 
 tory the speech of the President discloses sentiments more alarm- 
 ing than the refusal of a Minister, because more dangerous to our 
 independence and union ; and at the same time studiously marked 
 with indignities towards the Government of the United States : it 
 evinces a disposition to separate the people of the United States from 
 the Government, to persuade them that they have different affections, 
 principles, and interests, from those of their fellow-citizens whom thcv
 
 104 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 themselves have chosen to manage their common concerns : and thus 
 to produce divisions fatal to our peace. Such attempts ought to be 
 repelled with a decision which shall convince France and the world, 
 that we arc not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit 
 of fear and sense of inferiority, fitted to be the miserable instruments 
 of foreign influence, and regardless of national honor, character, and 
 interest." 
 
 While he intended to make another effort to adjust all our differ- 
 ences with France by amicable negotiation, the threatening aspect of 
 affairs rendered it his indispensable duty to recommend to the con- 
 sideration of Congress effectual measures cf defence. " The present 
 situation of our country," says he. in conclusion, " imposes an obliga- 
 tion on all the departments of Government to adopt an explicit and 
 
 decided conduct It is impossible to conceal from ourselves, or 
 
 the world, what has been before observed, that endeavors have been 
 employed to foster and establish a division between the Government 
 and the people of the United States. To investigate the causes 
 which have encouraged this attempt is not necessary ; but to repel, 
 by decided and united councils, insinuations so derogatory to the 
 honor, and aggressions so dangerous to the constitution, union, and 
 even independence of the nation, is an indispensable duty Con- 
 vinced that the conduct of this Government has been just and impar- 
 tial to foreign nations ; that those internal regulations which have 
 been established by land for the preservation of peace, are in their 
 nature proper, and that they have been fairly executed ; nothing will 
 ever be done by me to impair the national engagements, to innovate 
 upon principles which have been so deliberately and uprightly estab- 
 lished, or to surrender in any manner the rights of the Government''' 
 
 This energetic speech of the President was not responded to by 
 the Representatives in the same spirit. The original draft of the 
 address intending to be fully responsive to the speech, contained the 
 following clause : " Knowing as we do the confidence reposed by the 
 people of the United States in their Government, we cannot hesitate 
 in expressing our indignation at the sentiments disclosed by the 
 President of the Executive Directory of France in his speech to the 
 Minister of the United States. Such sentiments serve to discover 
 the imperfect knowledge which France possesses of the real opinions 
 of our constituents." This very pointed and spirited paragraph w" c
 
 MR. ADAMS ELECTED PRESIDENT. 105 
 
 stricken out by a vote of forty-eight to forty-six, and the following 
 substituted in its place : " Any sentiments tending to derogate from 
 the confidence ; such sentiments, wherever entertained, serve to evince 
 an imperfect knowledge of the real opinion of our constituents." 
 
 The address contained the following paragraph : " We there- 
 fore receive, with the utmost satisfaction, your information that a 
 fresh attempt at negotiation will be instituted ; and we cherish the 
 hope that a mutual spirit of conciliation, and a disposition on the 
 part of the United States to place France on grounds similar to those 
 of other countries, in their relation and connection with us, if any 
 irregularities shall be found to exist, will produce an accommodation 
 compatible with the engagements, rights, duties, and honor of the 
 United States." A motion was made to strike out the latter part of 
 this clause, in regard to France. It was negatived by a vote of 
 forty-nine to fifty. Thus it seems that there were forty-nine mem- 
 bers opposed to placing France on similar grounds to those of other 
 countries, in their relation and connection with us. 
 
 A motion was then made to strike out the whole paragraph. 
 Only forty-one voted for this proposition ; so that there were at least 
 that many opposed to any farther negotiation, or conciliation with 
 France. 
 
 A motion was made to strike from the address the following pa- 
 ragraph : " Believing, with you, that the conduct of the Government 
 has been just and impartial to foreign nations ; that the laws for 
 the preservation of peace have been proper, and that they have been 
 fairly executed, the representatives of the people do not hesitate to 
 declare, that they will giv: their most cordial support to the execu- 
 tion of principles so deliberately and uprightly established." This 
 motion was made by Mr. Gallatin, who was a native of Geneva, and 
 spoke English with a very broken accent. It was opposed by Mr. 
 Allen, who said he was sure such a motion could never pass while 
 there was a drop of American blood in the House, and an American 
 accent to say no. Forty-five voted to strike out, -thereby expressing 
 their belief that the Government had not been just and impartial to 
 foreign nations that laws proper for the preservation of peace had 
 not been enacted, nor fairly executed. 
 
 The House of Representatives was composed of one hundred 
 members, leaving out the Speaker ; ninety-nine remained to vote on 
 1 VOL. i. 5*
 
 106 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 all questions. Fifty made the majority. Thus the reader will per- 
 ceive that a very large and powerful minority were opposed to all 
 the measures of the administration. Much the larger portion of its 
 friends were desirous of no further attempts at negotiation with 
 France, and were prepared to push matters to the extremity of war : 
 but the two or three timid, vacillating. -and as it was asserted, venal men. 
 necessary to make the majority, could not be relied on. All the la- 
 bors of Congress, after a two months' session, resulted in a perfect 
 abortion. A few insignificant acts of a defensive character were 
 passed, but nothing energetic or decisive was done. 
 
 The republican party, or French partisans as they were called, 
 were reproached for this failure. General Washington had long be- 
 fore said they were the friends of war and confusion : it was now 
 asserted that they were prepared to sacrifice the independence of 
 their own country to the ambition of France. Had it been merely 
 a subject of foreign policy that divided them from the administra- 
 tion, it might be a question how far they were justified in giving the 
 least countenance to the indignities and the atrocities of the French 
 Government. But it must be remembered that great principles, 
 deep and radical, not only in regard to the interpretation of the 
 Constitution, but the basis and design of all government, divided 
 them from the party of the administration. They were firmly im- 
 pressed with the belief that the latter desired to absorb all the pow- 
 ers distributed among the States, and left to the people, into the 
 federal head ; to concentrate them in the Executive, and then to con- 
 solidate and confirm these usurpations by a close alliance with Great 
 Britain, whose government and policy were to be taken as a model 
 for our own ; and that all their measures, the British treaty, disgrace 
 of Randolph, recall of Monroe, and unconciliating temper towards 
 France, were taken with a view to the consummation of these great 
 designs. Thus impressed, it could not be expected that those men 
 would yield to the policy of the administration. The lasting welfare 
 of the country was of more importance than the removal of a mere 
 temporary shadow that overhung the shield of its fame. They saw 
 the administration in a dilemma ; they did not consider it their duty 
 to extricate them from it, that they might pursue measures detri- 
 mental to the interests of the country. 
 
 Mr. Adams never pursued any well-digested plan of any sort.
 
 MR. ADAMS ELECTED PRESIDENT. 107 
 
 He was the creature of impulse. His first impulse, as we have seen, 
 was to send Madison and Gerry to France. This feeling he yielded 
 to the wishes of his counsellors, who were evidently for war! The 
 representatives of the people were called together to second these 
 designs. But falling far short of the expectations of those who had 
 advised the call, the President was compelled to fall back on his ori- 
 ginal plan, and resort once more to negotiation. But it was now too 
 late. He found himself in this awkward position. He had said to 
 France, I was indignant at your insults and malicious attempts to 
 divide the people from their government, and intended to repel them 
 with -becoming spirit ; but when I called on the popular branch of 
 government, those who more immediately represented the feelings 
 and wishes of the people, to furnish me the means, I found that a 
 very formidable minority were of your way of thinking ; very few 
 prepared to retaliate your insults with war, and a large majority dis- 
 posed to conciliate you by further negotiations. I am compelled to 
 yield to their wishes, as they are the war-making power ; and as a 
 token of. my sincerity, I send you three envoys Messrs. Pinckney, 
 Marshall, and Dana gentlemen, one of whom you know, of high- 
 toned character, great devotion to my administration and the policy 
 of my predecessor indignant at the insults you have offered their 
 government, hostile to your principles, shocked at your merciless 
 barbarities at home and abroad, and prepared with unyielding energy 
 and spirit to demand redress for the depredations you have com- 
 mitted on our commerce, and the injuries you have done to our 
 seamen. 
 
 What could have been expected from such a mission but disap- 
 pointment and'additional insult? It is true Mr. Dana resigned, and 
 Gerry was put in his place ; but the majority of the commission were 
 precisely such men as were the least agreeable to the Directory. It 
 was just as well known to Barras, Merlin, and Talleyrand, as it was 
 to Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson, that the administration were in 
 a difficulty from which they could not easily escape. They saw 
 plainly from the proceedings and the debates of Congress, that Mr. 
 Adams would be compelled to yield to the republican party, or make 
 war on France, and ally himself with England, or retire in disgrace. 
 A war with France, and a consequent alliance with England, they 
 knew would not be attempted with so formidable an opposition as
 
 108 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 the late Congress had displayed. They had every reason to expect, 
 that by a steady resistance to the overtures of the administration, 
 they would finally secure a triumph to their friends in America. 
 Governments are conducted by men : men are influenced by human 
 motives, too often by the basest passions and prejudices (Quam 
 parva sapientia regitur rnundus.) Judging from these premises, it 
 was preposterous in Mr. Adams to suppose that his embassy would 
 be received by the Directory in any other than the haughtiest 
 spirit. The defeat of such a mission must have been foreseen from 
 the beginning. Pickering, Wolcott and Company had too much 
 political sagacity not to have anticipated it.'. And perhaps it is not 
 uncharitable to suppose, that it was projected with the view of creat- 
 ing additional causes of irritation on the part of France. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 THE X. Y. Z. BUSINESS. 
 
 THE envoys arrived in Paris about the first of October, 1797. On 
 the eighth they were introduced to the minister, M. Talleyrand, and 
 produced their letters of credence. The minister informed them 
 that he was engaged in preparing for the Executive Directory, a 
 report relative to the situation of the United States with regard to 
 France ; and that when it was finished he would let them know what 
 steps were to follow. They then retired with the promise that cards 
 of hospitality, in a style suitable to their official character, should be 
 furnished them. No further notice was taken of them for ten days. 
 They complained- to unofficial persons that they had been treated 
 with great slight and disrespect since their arrival. Talleyrand, on 
 the other hand, complained that they had not been to see him. He 
 sent his private secretary. Mr. Z.. to wait on them. They had not 
 yet been received by the Directory ; and, of course, their Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs could not recognize them publicly as ambassadors 
 But he did all in his power to do: he sent his secretary, who in- 
 formed them that M. Talleyrand, Minister of Foreign Relations.
 
 THE X. Y. Z. BUSINESS. 
 
 professed to be well disposed towards the United States ; had ex- 
 pected to have seen the American Ministers frequently in their pri- 
 vate capacities ; and to have conferred with them individually on the 
 objects of their mission ; and had authorized him to make the com- 
 munication. This, from the circumstances in which the parties were 
 placed, seems not to have been an unreasonable expectation on the 
 part of M. Talleyrand. But two of the envoys excused themselves 
 on the ground of etiquette. General Pinckney and General Marshall 
 expressed their opinion, that, not being acquainted with M. Talley- 
 rand, they could not, with propriety, call on him ; but that, accord- 
 ing to the custom of France, he might expect this of Mr. Gerry, from 
 a previous acquaintance in America. This Mr. Gerry reluctantly 
 complied with, and appointed a day for an interview. While thus 
 standing oft in this ceremonious manner, and unrecognized by the 
 Government, our envoys had some strange adventures. In the 
 morning of October the eighteenth, Mr. W * * * *, of the house 
 of********, called on General Pinckney, and informed him that 
 a Mr. X. who was in Paris, and whom the General had seen, * * * * 
 
 * * * *, was a gentleman of considerable credit and reputation. * * * 
 *****, and that we might place great reliance on him. In the 
 evening of the same day, Mr. X , the gentleman so mysteriously an- 
 nounced, called on General Pinckney, and after having sat some 
 time, whispered him, that he had a message from M. Talleyrand to 
 communicate when he was at leisure. General Pinckney immediately 
 withdrew with him into another room ; and when they were alone 
 Mr. X. said, that he was charged with a business in which he was a 
 novice ; that he had been acquainted with M. Talleyrand, ****** 
 
 * * * *, and that he was sure he had a great regard for America 
 ' and its citizens ; and was very desirous that a reconciliation should 
 
 be brought about with France ; that to effectuate that end, he was 
 ready, if it was thought proper, to suggest a plan, confidentially, that 
 M. Talleyrand expected would answer the purpose. General Pinck- 
 ney said he would be glad to hear it. Mr. X. replied, that the Di- 
 rectory, and particularly two of the members of it, were exceedingly 
 irritated at some passages of the President's speech at the opening 
 of Congress in May, and desired that they should be softened ; and 
 that this step would be necessary previous to our reception ; that, 
 besides this, a sum of money was required for the pocket of the Di
 
 HO LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 rectory and ministers (about fifty thousand pounds sterling), which 
 would be at the disposal of M. Talleyrand ; and that a loan would 
 also be insisted on. Mr. X. said, if we acceded to these measures, 
 M. Talleyrand had no doubt that all our difficulties with France 
 might be accommodated. At the same time, he said his communi- 
 cation was not immediately with M. Talleyrand, but through another 
 gentleman, in whom M. Talleyrand had great confidence. 
 
 Next day Mr. X., and Mr. Y., the confidential friend alluded 
 to, called on the envoys. Mr. Y., having been introduced as the con 
 fidential friend of M. Talleyrand, commenced the conversation, and 
 proceeded pretty much in the same strain as Mr. X. on the day pre- 
 ceding. He said the minister could not see them himself, as they 
 had not been received by the Directory, but had authorized his frie?id 
 Mr. Y. to communicate certain propositions, and to promise on his 
 part, that if they could be considered as the basis of the proposed 
 negotiation, he would intercede with the Directory to acknowledge 
 them, and to give them a public audience. Mr. Y. stated explicitly 
 and repeatedly that he was clothed with no authority ; that he was 
 not a diplomatic character'; that he was not ********; ne was 
 only the friend of M. Talleyrand, and trusted by him. He then 
 read the parts of the President's speech that were objectionable, and 
 dilated very much upon the keenness of the resentment it had pro- 
 duced, and expatiated largely on the satisfaction he said w,as indis- 
 pensably necessary as a preliminary to negotiation. " But," said he, 
 " gentlemen, I will not disguise from you that this satisfaction being 
 made, the essential part of the treaty remains to be adjusted : II faut 
 da 1'argent il faut beaucoup d'argent;" you must pay motley you 
 must pay a great deal of money. He said that the reception of the 
 money might be so disguised as to prevent its being considered -a 
 breach of neutrality by England ; and thus save us from being em- 
 broiled with that power. Concerning the twelve hundred thousand 
 livres (50,000), little was said. 
 
 Next day (October 21st) Mr. X. and Mr. Y. again called on the 
 envoys, and commenced their private and unofficial negotiation. It was 
 explained more fully, how the loan might be accomplished by the 
 purchase of certain Dutch inscriptions held by the French govern- 
 ment ; and it was delicately intimated, that if the envoys would search 
 a little, they might find means to soothe the angry feelings of Mer-
 
 THE X. Y. Z. BUSINESS. HI 
 
 lin and Company, and avert the demand concerning the President's 
 speech. 
 
 The envoys replied, that the proposition of a loan in the form of 
 Dutch inscriptions, or in any other form, was not within the limits 
 of their instructions, and that upon this point the Government must 
 be consulted ; and one of the American ministers would, for the pur- 
 pose, forthwith embark for America. 
 
 Mr. Y. seemed disappointed at this conclusion. He said the en- 
 voys treated the money part of the proposition as if'it had proceeded 
 from the Directory ; whereas, in fact, it did not even proceed from 
 the minister, but was only a suggestion from himself, as a substitute 
 to be proposed by them, in order to avoid the painful acknowledg- 
 ment that the Directory had determined to demand. 
 
 These unofficial gentlemen, X. and Y., who, the envoys admitted, 
 had brought no testimonials of their speaking any thing from autho- 
 rity, continued their visits from day to day, and urged their propo- 
 sitions with all the earnestness and eloquence they possessed. They 
 told the envoys that France had just concluded a treaty with the 
 Emperor of Austria ; and that the Directory, since this peace, had 
 taken a higher and more decided tone with respect to the United 
 States, and all other neutral nations, than had been before taken ; 
 that it had been determined that all nations should aid them, or be 
 considered and treated as their enemies. They expatiated on the 
 power and violence of France, iirged the danger of our situation, and 
 pressed the policy of softening them, and of thereby obtaining time. 
 
 While these strange conferences were held with men unconnected 
 with the Government, and one a foreigner, Mr. Gerry, on the 28th of 
 October, according to appointment, paid his first visit to the minis- 
 ter since the day of their presentation. The others, standing on 
 etiquette, refused to go. After the first introduction, M. Talleyrand 
 began the conference. He said the Directory had passed an arr6te, 
 which he offered for perusal, in which they had demanded of the 
 envoys an explanation of some parts, and a reparation for others, of 
 the President's speech to Congress, of the 16th of May last. He 
 was sensible,. he said, that difficulties would exist on the part of the 
 envoys relative to this demand ; but that by their offering money, he 
 thought he could prevent the effect of the arrete. It having been 
 stated that the envoys had no such power, M. Talleyrand replied, they
 
 112 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 can in such case take a power on themselves, -and proposed that they 
 should make a loan. Mr. Gerry then stated that the uneasiness of 
 the Directory resulting from the President's speech, was a subject 
 unconnected with the objects of their mission ; that the powers of 
 the envoys, as they conceived, were adequate to the discussion and 
 adjustment of all points of real difference between the two nations : 
 that they could alter and amend the treaty, or, if necessary, form a 
 new one ; that as to a loan, they had no powers whatever to make 
 one ; but that they could send one of their number for instructions 
 on this proposition, if deemed expedient. M. Talleyrand, in answer, 
 said he should be glad to confer with the other envoys individually : 
 but that this matter about the money must be settled directly, with- 
 out sending to America ; that he would not communicate the arrfite 
 for a week ; and that if they could adjust the matter about the 
 speech, an application would, nevertheless, go to the United States for 
 a loan. In this private interview between M. Talleyrand and one of 
 the envoys, that minister intimates that a loan will be asked, and will 
 be expected to be granted on the part of the United States ; but not 
 the slightest allusion is made to a douceur for the use of the members 
 of the Directory. 
 
 On the llth of November the envoys transmitted an official letter 
 for the first time to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in which they 
 state that his declaration at the time of their arrival, that a report 
 on American affairs was then preparing, and would, in a few days 
 bo laid before the Directory, whose decision thereon should, without 
 deiay. be made known, had hitherto imposed silence on the^p. For 
 this communication they had waited with that anxious solicitude which 
 so interesting an event could not fail to excite, and with that respect 
 which was due to the government of France. They disclosed their 
 full powers to treat on all differences between the two nations ; and 
 expressed their anxiety to commence the task of restoring that friend- 
 ship, that mutual interchange of good offices, which it was alike their 
 wish and their duty to effect between the citizens of the two repub- 
 lics. Having received no answer, on the 21st they sent their secre- 
 tary to wait on the minister, and inquire of him whether he had 
 communicated the letter to the Directory, and whether an answer 
 might be expected. He replied that he had submitted the letter, 
 and that when he was directed what steps to pursue, they should be 
 informed.
 
 THE X. Y. Z. BUSINESS. H3 
 
 On the 24th of December the envoys wrote to the Secretary of 
 State, that they had received no answer to their official letter to 
 the Minister of Foreign Affairs, dated the llth of November; but 
 that reiterated attempts had been made to engage them in negotia- 
 tion with persons not officially authorized. They further stated it 
 as their opinion, that if they were to remain six months longer, un- 
 less they were to stipulate the payment of money, and a great deal 
 of it, in some shape or other, they would not be able to effectuate the 
 object of their mission, nor would they even be officially received. 
 
 The President of the United States, in a message to Congress, 
 March 19th, 1798, stated that the dispatches from the envoys ex- 
 traordinary to the French Republic had been received, examined, 
 maturely considered, and that he perceived no ground of expectation 
 that the objects of their mission could be accomplished, on terms 
 compatible with the safety, honor, or the essential interests of the 
 nation. 
 
 On the 27th of January, 1798, the envoys addressed a letter to 
 the Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the subject of a late law, author- 
 izing the capture of neutral vessels, on board of which any produc- 
 tions of Great Britain or its possessions should be laden showing 
 how incompatible such law was with the rights of neutral nations 
 and the treaty between France and America, its direct tendency to 
 destroy the remaining commerce of this country, and the particular 
 hardships to which it would subject the agricultural as well as 
 commercial interests of their countrymen, from the peculiar situa- 
 tion of the United States. They added, that under existing circum- 
 stances, they could no longer resist the conviction, that the demands 
 of France rendered it entirely impracticable to effect the objects of 
 their mission. On the 19th of February, having received no answer 
 to this communication, they sent their secretary to know of the min- 
 ister whether he had any response to make. He replied that he had 
 none, as the Directory had taken no order on the subject. At length, 
 on the 27th of February, for the first time since their arrival in 
 Paris, the envoys solicited a personal interview on the subject of 
 their mission. The minister promptly acceded to the request, and 
 fixed on the 2d day of March for the interview. On that occasion, 
 the minister said, that, without doubt, the Directory wished very 
 sincerely, on the arrival of the envoys, to see a solid friendship es-
 
 114 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 tablished between France and the United States, and had manifested 
 this disposition, by the readiness with which orders for their pass- 
 ports were given. That the Directory had been extremely wounded 
 by the last speech of General Washington, made to Congress when 
 about to quit the office of President of the United States ; and by 
 the first and last speech of Mr. Adams. That explanations of these 
 speeches were expected and required of us. He said, that the ori- 
 ginal favorable disposition of the Directory had been a good deal al- 
 tered by the coldness and distance which the envoys had observed. 
 That instead of seeing him often, and endeavoring to remove the 
 obstacles to a mutual approach, they had iwt once ivaited on him. 
 In this state of things some proof, he said, would be required on the 
 part of the United States, of a friendly disposition, previous to a 
 treaty with them. The envoys ought to search for, and propose 
 some means which might furnish this proof. In this he alluded very 
 intelligibly to a loan. He said he must exact from them, on the 
 part of his Government, some proposition of this sort ; that to prove 
 their friendship, there must be some immediate aid, or something 
 which might avail them ; that the principles of reciprocity would re- 
 quire it. This once done, he said, the adjustment of complaints 
 would be easy ; that would be matter of inquiry ; and if France had 
 done wrong, it would be repaired ; but that if this was refused, it 
 would increase the distance and coldness between the two republics. 
 It was replied that the envoys had no power to make a loan. One 
 of them, Mr. Gerry, then observed, that the Government of France 
 must judge for itself; but that it appeared to him, that a treaty on 
 liberal principles, such as those on which the treaty of commerce be- 
 tween the two nations was first established, would be infinitely more 
 advantageous to France than the trifling advantages she could de- 
 rive from a loan. Such a treaty would produce a friendship and at- 
 tachment on the part of the United States to France, which would 
 be solid and permanent, and produce benefits far superior to those of 
 a loan, even if they had powers to make it. To this observation, M. 
 Talleyrand made no reply. Nor did he express any sentiment as to 
 the propriety of one of the envoys going home to consult the Gov- 
 ernment on the expediency of giving powers to negotiate a loan. 
 He had already expressed his opinion that they had the power, or 
 might assume it, without violating their instructions.
 
 THE X. Y. Z. BUSINESS. 115 
 
 On the 18th of March, M. Talleyrand addressed a letter to the 
 envoys in answer to theirs of the 17th January. In this he elabo- 
 rately reviews the whole course of the two Governments, and justifies 
 France in every particular. It might appear incredible, ho said, 
 that the Republic, and her alliance, were sacrificed at the moment 
 when she had redoubled her regards for her ally ; and that the cor- 
 responding demonstrations of the Federal Government had no other 
 object but to keep her, as well as her Government in a false security. 
 And yet it is now known, that, at this very period, Mr. Jay, 
 who had been sent to London solely, as it was then said, to nego- 
 tiate arrangements relative to the depreciations committed upen the 
 American commerce by the cruisers of Great Britain, signed a treaty 
 of amity, navigation and commerce, the negotiation and signing of 
 which had been kept a profound secret at Paris and at Philadelphia. 
 Observing that, in this treaty every thing having been calculated to 
 turn the neutrality of the United States to the disadvantage of the 
 French Republic, and to the advantage of England ; that the Federal 
 Government having in this act made to Great Britain concessions 
 the most unheard of, the most incompatible with the interests of the 
 United States, the most derogatory to the alliance which subsisted 
 between the said States and the French Republic ; the latter was 
 perfectly free, in order to avoid, the inconveniences of the treaty of 
 London, to avail itself of the preservative means with which the laws 
 of nature, the law of nations, and prior treaties furnished it. Such 
 were the reasons which had produced the decrees of the Directory, of 
 which the United States complained. 
 
 He then proceeded to declare that newspapers, known to be under 
 the immediate control of the Cabinet, had, since the treaty, redoubled 
 their invectives and calumnies against the Republic and against her 
 principles, her magistrates and her envoys. Pamphlets, openly paid 
 for by the minister of Great Britain, had reproduced in every form 
 those insults and calumnies. The Government itself was intent on 
 encouraging this scandal in its public acts. The Executive Directory 
 had been denounced in a speech delivered by the President as en- 
 deavoring to propagate anarchy and division within the United States 
 In fine, he said, one could not help discovering in the tone of the 
 speech and of the publications which had just been pointed to, a 
 latent enmity that only wanted an opportunity to break out. Facts
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 being thus established, it was disagreeable, he said, to be obliged to 
 think that the instructions under which the commissioners acted, 
 had not been drawn up with the sincere intention of attaining pacific 
 ends. The intentions which he had attributed to the Government of 
 the United States, were so little disguised, that nothing seemed to 
 have been neglected at Philadelphia to manifest them to every eye. 
 And it was probably with this view that it was thought proper to send 
 to the French Republic, persons whose opinions and connections were 
 too well known to hope from them dispositions sincerely conciliatory. 
 Penetrated with the justice of these reflections, and th^ir conse- 
 quences, the Executive Directory had authorized him to express him- 
 self with all the frankness which became the French nation. It was 
 only to smooth the way of discussions that he had entered into the 
 preceding explanations. It was with the same view that he declared 
 to the commissioners and envoys extraordinary, that, notwithstand- 
 ing the kind of prejudice which had been entertained with respect to 
 them, the Executive Directory was disposed to treat with that one of 
 the three whose opinions, presumed to be more impartial, promised, 
 in the course of the explanations, more of that reciprocal confidence 
 which was indispensable. 
 
 To the communication of Talleyrand, the envoys returned a very 
 elaborate reply, in which they reviewed all the points of difficulty 
 raised by him, endeavored to disabuse his mind as to the motives of 
 the Government of the United States, and the prejudices which he 
 imagined to exist in the minds of the envoys themselves, and con- 
 cluded by declaring that no one of them was authorized to take upon 
 himself a negotiation indirectly intrusted by the tenor of their powers 
 and instructions to the whole ; nor were there any two of them who 
 could propose to withdraw themselves from the task committed to 
 them by their Government, while there remained a possibility of per- 
 forming it. 
 
 The very day the answer of the envoys was sent to the minister 
 (3d April) Mr. Gerry received a note from him in which he said : 
 " I suppose that Messrs. Pinckney and Marshall have thought it use- 
 ful and proper, in consequence of the intimations given in the end of 
 my note of the 28th Ventose last (18th March), and the obstacle 
 which their known opinions have interposed to the desired reconcilia- 
 tion, to quit the territory of the Republic. On this supposition. I
 
 THE X. Y. Z. BUSINESS. 117 
 
 have the honor to point out to you the 5th or 7th of this decade, to 
 resume our reciprocal communications upon the interests of the 
 French Republic and the tJnited States of America." 
 
 Mr. Gerry replied (April 4th). that as his colleagues were expected 
 to quit the territory of France, he had no authority to act intheir ab- 
 sence. He could only confer informally, he said, and unaccredited, on 
 any subject respecting their mission, and communicate to the Govern- 
 ment of the United States the result of such conferences, being in his 
 individual capacity unauthorized to give them an official stamp. 
 Nevertheless, every measure in his power, he said, and in conformity 
 with the duty he owed his country, should be zealously pursued, to 
 restore harmony and a cordial friendship between the two republics. 
 
 In consequence of the above intimation from the minister, Messis. 
 Marshall and Pinckney soon left Paris. In a letter to the President, 
 dated the 16th of April, Mr. Gerry said he had expected his passports 
 with his colleagues, but was informed that the Directory would not 
 consent to his leaving France ; and, to bring on an immediate rupture 
 by adopting this measure, contrary to their wishes, would be in his 
 mind unwarrantable, and therefore he concluded to remain. 
 
 Thus ended this extraordinary mission ; a conclusion which must 
 have been foreseen must have been anticipated by those who pro- 
 jected it. So soon as the dispatches containing those transactions, of 
 which the above is intended to be a faithful though succinct nar- 
 rative, were made known to the public, the political baronietei at 
 once rose to the storm point. At the time of their reception, Con- 
 gress was debating the proposition, that it is inexpedient to resort to 
 war against the French Repiiblic. It was expected to be carried by 
 a majority of two or three ; but it was now laid aside, and the most 
 vigorous war measures introduced. " The most artful misrepresen- 
 tations of the contents of those papers," says Mr. Jefferson, April 
 6th, ' ; were published yesterday, and produced such a shock in the 
 republican mind as had never been since our independence. We 
 are to dread the effects of this dismay till their fuller information 
 The spirit kindled up in the towns is wonderful. These and New 
 Jersey are pouring in their addresses, offering life and fortune. The 
 answers of the President are more thrasonic than the addresses. 
 Nor is it France alone, but his own fellow-citizens, against whom 
 his threats are extended. The delusions, says he, and misrepresen-
 
 118 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 lotions which have misled so many citizens must be discountenanced 
 by authority) as icell as by the citizens at large. .... At 
 present the warhawks talk of Septembrizing, deportation, and the 
 examples of quelling sedition set by the French Executive. Early 
 in April the war party, with passionate exclamation, declared that 
 they would soon pass a citizens' bill, an alien bill, and a sedition bill, 
 with the view of disfranchising such men as Gallatin, banishing Vol- 
 ney, Collot, and other unfortunate Frenchmen who had taken refuge 
 in the country, and of silencing Bache, Carey, and other republican 
 presses." 
 
 The excitement spread far and wide among the people. The jry 
 was, millions for defence, not a cent for tribitte. This broad, compre- 
 hensive, self-evident proposition to a brave and independent people, 
 soon became the watchword of the multitude : millions for defence. 
 not a cent for tribute. This happy and pithy appeal to the pride of 
 a nation was level to the capacity of all : every body could under- 
 stand it ; and, what was more important, every body could fec4 it. 
 'Twas vain to attempt to reason down this excited feeling of national 
 pride. 'Twas vain to tell the people that France had demanded no tri- 
 bute that our envoys had never held but one interview with the minis- 
 ter of foreign affairs, and that the only proposition on that occasion was 
 the bare suggestion that the United States, as proof of her friend- 
 ship, might make a loan to France in her present necessities, by way 
 of reciprocity for a similar loan made to us in the war of revolution, 
 when our credit and very existence were dependent on the timeh 
 aid then extended to us ; that the demand of tribute was made by a 
 couple of swindlers, unconnected with the Government, who had im- 
 posed on the credulity of our envoys, and who, in fact, encouraged 
 the intrigue, that they might make political capital, in order to cre- 
 ate the very excitement it had occasioned ; that the only obstacle in 
 the way of an amicable settlement of all our differences with France 
 was the intemperate speeches of the President, the haughty, reserved 
 and unconciliatory temper of the envoys themselves : that France had 
 only done what she had a right to do according to the laws of nations, 
 to show her displeasure to ministers plenipotentiary who were disa- 
 greeable to her. who were hostile to her principles, unfriendly to her 
 Government, and of such a temper as not to be able to secure her 
 confidence : that she had only signified her desire that those envoys
 
 THE X. Y. Z. BUSINESS. 
 
 should depart, and the one in whom she had confidence might remain, 
 with whom she was ready to negotiate on terms of the utmost fair- 
 ness and equality. 'Twas vain to state the plain facts to an excited 
 multitude. Millions for defence, not a cent for tribute, was the ready 
 and comprehensive answer. The fever was up, and must run its 
 course. The multitude are not only fond of broad and comprehen- 
 sive phrases that will serve them on all occasions, and save the neces- 
 sity of thought, hut they must always have some sign, or outward 
 symbol of their feelings. On this occasion the black cockade of Eng- 
 land was mounted as a badge of hostility to the tri-color of France. 
 The handwriting, it was said, at the bottom of an address is seen 
 but by few persons ; whereas a cockade will be seen by the whole 
 city, by the friends and the foes of the wearer ; it v; ill be the visible 
 sign of the sentiments of his heart, and will prove that he is not 
 ashamed to avow those sentiments. Persons who marched to the 
 President's house to present their warlike addresses were encouraged 
 to wear the American cockade. Those who dare not designate them- 
 selves, they were told, by this lasting mark of resolution, may, indeed, 
 walk up Market-street, but their part of the procession will only 
 serve to recall to our minds the old battered French gasconade 
 
 " The King of France, with forty thousand men, 
 Marched up the hill, and then marched down again." 
 
 Congress, under the war-excitement, passed in rapid succession, a 
 stamp-act, an excise law, an act. entering into minute and vexatious 
 details, laying a direct tax on lands, slaves, houses, and other pro- 
 perty ; two acts authorizing the President to borrow large sums of 
 money at usurious interest ; several acts authorizing the purchasing 
 of vessels, creating a naval armament, and a navy department in the 
 Government ; acts prohibiting the exportation of arms, and author- 
 izing the purchase of cannon, and the fortification of ports and har- 
 bors ; acts creating additional regiments in the army, augmenting 
 those in existence, and authorizing the President to call out and or- 
 ganize a provisional army of ten thmisand men, if in his opinion 
 there existed an imminent danger of invasion ; acts prohibiting all 
 intercourse with France or her dependencies, and authorizing the 
 capture of all French armed vessels ; an act making it lawful for the 
 President of the United States to cause all such aliens as he shall
 
 120 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 judge dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States, or 
 shall have reasonable grounds to suspect are concerned in any trea- 
 sonable or secret machinations against the Government thereof, to 
 depart out of the territory of the United States : and an act declar- 
 ing, that if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or aid in 
 the same, any false, scandalous, and malicious writings against the 
 Government of the United States, Congress, or the President, with 
 intent to defame, or bring them into contempt or disrepute, being 
 thereof convicted before any court of the United States, shall be 
 punished by fine and imprisonment. To crown all these vast mili- 
 tary preparations, General Washington was appointed Commander- 
 in-chief of the Army. " We must have your name," said the Presi- 
 dent, in a letter to him, " if you will in any way permit us to use it 
 There will be more efficiency in it than in many an army." With- 
 out waiting for an answer, on the 2d of July he nominated to the 
 Senate. " George Washington, of Mount Vernon, to be Lieutenant- 
 General and Commander-in-chief of all the armies, raised and to be 
 raised in the United States." 
 
 Washington accepted the appointment ; and in his reply to the 
 President, said : " It was not possible for me to remain ignorant of. 
 or indifferent to, recent transactions. The conduct of the Directory 
 of France towards our country, their insidious hostilities to its Gov- 
 ernment, their various practices to withdraw the affections of the 
 people from it, the evident tendency of their arts, and those of their 
 agents, to countenance and invigorate opposition, their disregard of 
 solemn treaties and the laws of nations, their war upon our defence- 
 less commerce, their treatment of our minister of peace, and their 
 demands, amounting to tribute, could not fail to excite in me corre- 
 sponding sentiments with those which my countrymen had so gene- 
 rally expressed in their affectionate addresses to you. Believe me, 
 sir. no one can more cordially approve of the wise and prudent mea- 
 sures of your administration. They ought to inspire universal confi- 
 fidence, and will no doubt, combined with the state of things, call 
 from Congress such laws and means as will enable you to meet the 
 full force and extent of the crisis. Satisfied, therefore, that you liavt 
 sincerely wished and endeavored to avert war. and exhausted to the 
 last drop the cup of reconciliation, we can with pure hearts appeal to 
 Heaven for the justice of our cause, and may confidently trust the
 
 THE X. Y. Z. BUSINESS. 121 
 
 final result to that kind Providence, which has heretofore, and so 
 often, signally favored the people of these United States." 
 
 The war excitement was kept up through the summer and au- 
 tumn. The republican party found it difficult to separate in the 
 public mind the principles for which they contended, from the acts 
 of the French Directory. Having been regarded through the coun- 
 try as the French party, they had now to bear much of the odium 
 that was attached to the French cause. The war fever began to 
 abate as winter approached. Mr. Grerry, our envoy, who remained 
 in France after the departure of his colleagues, and other eminent 
 Citizens of the United States, had now returned from Europe, and 
 reported that the French Directory were in a most friendly temper 
 towards the United States, and were prepared to treat with any min- 
 ister they might send, on terms of perfect reciprocity. The Virginia 
 legislature, early in the session of l|K)8-9, passed a series of resolu- 
 tions denouncing the Alien and Sedition Laws as unconstitutional. 
 The heavy taxes also began to work their usual effect on the public 
 mind. It was soon perceived that some effort must be made to pre- 
 vent the popular current from turning against the administration. 
 The great object was to keep up the majority in Congress, so as to 
 continue their war measures. The spring elections of 1799 were 
 coming on, and every effort was made by both sides to influence 
 them. It was perceived that the future destiny of the country de- 
 pended on the result. Virginia was the great battle-ground : all 
 eyes were turned in that direction. 
 
 There was the stronghold of republicanism there were its re 
 u:. \vned chiefs to be found Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Giles. 
 Taylor, besides a host of others of less fame, but equal zeal in 
 the cause. There, also, was Washington, who had thrown himself 
 into the opposite scale, and, with energy, exerted all his influence 
 to give preponderance to the side he espoused. No man did 
 more to bring out influential characters to represent the State, both 
 in Congress and the legislature. " At such a crisis as this," said he. 
 ; when every thing dear and valuable to us is assailed ; when this 
 party hangs upon the wheels of government as a dead weight, op- 
 posing every measure that is calculated for defence and self-preserva- 
 iiou : abetting the'nefarious views of another nation upon our rights; 
 preferring, as long as they dare contend openly against the spirit and 
 
 VOL. i. 6
 
 122 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 resentment of the people, the interest of France to the welfare of 
 their own country ; justifying the former, at the expense of the lat- 
 ter ; when every act of their own government is tortured, by con- 
 structions they will not bear, into attempts to infringe and trample 
 upqn the constitution, with a view to introduce monarchy ; when the 
 most unceasing and the purest exertions, which were making to 
 maintain a neutrality, proclaimed by the executive, approved un- 
 equivocally by Congress, by the State legislatures, nay, by the 
 people themselves, in various meetings, and to preserve the country 
 in peace, are charged with being measures calculated to favor Great 
 Britain at the expense of France ; and all those who had any agency 
 in it, are accused of being under the influence of the former, and her 
 pensioners ; when measures are systematically and pertinaciously 
 pursued, which must, eventually, dissolve the Union, or produce co- 
 ercion ; I say, when these thi^s have become so obvious, ought 
 characters who are best able to rescue their country from the pend- 
 ing evil, to remain at home ? Rather ought they not to com'e for- 
 ward, and, by their talents and influence, stand in the breach, 
 which such- conduct has made on the peace and happiness of this 
 country ?" 
 
 By such persuasions as this, General Lee was induced to offer 
 himself as a candidate for Congress in the Westmoreland district 
 Westmoreland, the birth-place of Washington ! On the other hand, 
 by the persuasions of Mr. Jefferson, Dr. Walter Jones came out in 
 opposition to him. The canvass between these two champions of 
 adverse wishes and sentiments, was very animated. In colloquial 
 eloquence and irony, no man could surpass Dr. Jones ; but he wns 
 overmatched by his antagonist, in popular address and public elo- 
 quence. In the Richmond district. John Clopton, the sitting mem- 
 ber, and a republican, was opposed by General Marshall, the late- 
 envoy to France, and, by all odds, the ablest champion of the 
 federal cause in Virginia But the great field of contest the cita- 
 del that must be carried was the State legislature. That body had 
 recently pronounced the Alien and Sedition Laws unconstitutional. 
 The great object was now to obtain a majority to reverse that de- 
 cision. It was well known that Mr. Madison would be in the next 
 legislature, with his matchless logic, to develope, explain and enforce 
 the doctrines of the resolutions recently passed. Some one must be
 
 THE X. Y. Z. BUSINESS. 123 
 
 found to oppose him. General Washington found the man that 
 man was Patrick Henry. And by him the trembling old warrior 
 was induced to buckle on the harness for his last battle. In a con- 
 fidential letter, dated 15th January, 1799, Washington says: "It 
 would be a waste of time to attempt to bring to the view of a person 
 of your observation and discernment, the endeavors of a certain 
 party among us to disquiet the public mind with unfounded alarms : 
 to arraign every act of the administration ; to set the people at vari- 
 ance with their government ; and to embarrass all its measures. 
 Equally useless would it be to predict what must be the inevitable 
 consequences of such a policy, if it cannot be arrested. Unfortu- 
 nately, and extremely do I regret it, the State of Virginia has taken 
 the lead in this opposition. I have said the State, because the con- 
 duct of its legislature in the eyes of the world will authorize the ex- 
 pression. I come now, my good sir, to the object of my letter, which 
 is to express the hope, and an earnest wish, that you will come for- 
 ward at the ensuing elections (if not for Congress, which you may 
 think would take you too long from home) as a candidate for repre- 
 sentative in the General Assembly of this Commonwealth. Your 
 weight of character and influence in the House of Representatives 
 would be a bulwark against such dangerous sentiments as are de- 
 livered there at present. It would be a rallying-point for the timid, 
 and an attraction for the wavering. In a word, I conceive it to be of 
 immense importance, at this crisis, that you should be there ; and I 
 would fain hope that all minor considerations will be made to yield 
 to the measure." All minor considerations were made to yield : and 
 the old veteran, bowed with age and disease, was announced as a can- 
 didate to represent the county of Charlotte in the General Assembly 
 of Virginia. Powhatan Boiling was the candidate for Congress, on 
 the federal side ; he was opposed by John Randolph. On March 
 court day, Patrick Henry and John Randolph met, for the first time, 
 on the hustings at Charlotte Court House the one the champion 
 of the Federal the other the champion of the Republican cause.
 
 124 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 PATRICK HENRY. 
 
 PATRICK HENRY, the advocate of the Alien and Sedition Laws, the 
 defender of federal measures leading to consolidation ! Let the 
 reader look back and contemplate his course in the Virginia Con- 
 vention, called to ratify the Constitution let him hear the eloquent 
 defence of the Articles of Confederation, which had borne us safely 
 through so many perils, and which needed only amendment, not 
 annihilation let him witness the ardent devotion to the State gov- 
 ernment as the bulwark of liberty the uncompromising opposition 
 to the new Government, its consolidation, its destruction of State 
 independence, its awful squinting towards monarchy let him behold 
 the vivid picture drawn by the orator of the patriot of seventy-six. 
 and the citizen of eighty-eigld ; then it was liberty, give me liberty ! 
 now the cry was energy, energy, give me a strong and energetic 
 government then let him turn and see the same man, in little more 
 than ten years, stand forth, his prophecies all tending to rapid fulfil- 
 ment, the advocate of the principles, the defender of the measures 
 that had so agitated his mind and awakened his fears let the reader 
 meditate on these things, and have charity for the mutations of 
 political opinion in his own day, which he so often unfeelingly 
 denounces. 
 
 It is true that Patrick Henry had been in retirement since the 
 adoption of the new Constitution, and had no part in the organization 
 of those parties which had arisen under it, but it is certain that they 
 took their origin in those principles which on the one side he so elo- 
 quently defended, and on the other so warmly deprecated. Federal- 
 ist and Republican were names unknown in his day ; but from his 
 past history no one could mistake the inclination of his feelings, or 
 the conclusions of his judgment on the great events transpiring 
 around him. Up to 1795 he was known to be on the republican side. 
 In a letter, dated the 27th of June in that year, he says: " Since the 
 adoption of the present Constitution I have generally moved in a 
 narrow circle. But in that I have never omitted to inculeate a strict
 
 PATRICK HENRY. 125 
 
 adherence to the principles of it Although a democrat 
 
 myself. I like not the late democratic societies. As little do I like 
 their suppression by law." On another occasion he writes : - The 
 treaty (Jay's treaty) is, in my opinion, a very bad one indeed .... 
 Sure I am, my first principle is, that from the British we have every 
 thing to dread, when opportunities of oppressing us shall offer.' 
 lie then proceeds to express his concern at the abusive manner hi 
 which his old coinmander-in-chief was treated; and that his long and 
 great services were -not remembered as an apology for his mistakes 
 in an office to which he was totally unaccustomed. 
 
 A man of his talents, his eloquence, h.s weight of character and 
 influence in the State, was well worth gaining over to the side of the 
 administration. Some of the first characters in Virginia undertook 
 to accomplish that end. Early in the summer of 1794, General Lee. 
 then governor of Virginia, and commander-in-chief of the forces 
 ordered out against the whisky insurrection, had frequent and 
 earnest conferences with him on public affairs. He was at first very 
 impracticable. It seems that the old man had been informed* that 
 General Washington, in passing through the State on his return from 
 the South in the summer of 1791, while speaking of Mr. Henry on 
 several occasions, considered him a factious and seditious character. 
 General Lee undertook to remove these impressions, and combated 
 his opinions as groundless ; but his endeavors were unavailing. He 
 seemed to be deeply and sorely affected. General Washington de- 
 nied the charge. All he had said on the occasion alluded to was, 
 that he had heard Mr. Henry was acquiescent in his conduct, and 
 that, though he could not give up his opinion respecting the Consti- 
 tution, yet, unless he should be called upon by official duty, he would 
 express no sentiment unfriendly to the exercise of the powers of a 
 government, which had been chosen by a majority of the people. 
 
 It was a long time before General Lee had an opportunity of 
 communicating to Mr. Henry the kind feelings of Washington to- 
 wards him. In June, 1795, about a year after the subject had been 
 broached to him, Mr. Henry writes : " Every insinuation that taught 
 me to believe I had forfeited the good will of that personage, to 
 whom the world had agreed to ascribe the appellation of good and 
 great, must needs give me pain ; particularly as he had opportunities 
 of knowing my character both in public and in private life. The inti-
 
 126 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 mation now given me, that there was no ground to believe I had 
 incurred his censure, gives very great pleasure. 3 ' In inclosing Mr. 
 Henry's letter to General Washington for perusal, Lee thus writes 
 (17th July. 1795): "I am very confident that Mr. Henry possesses 
 the highest and truest regard for you. and that he continues friendly 
 to the General Government, notwithstanding the unwearied efforts 
 applied for the end of uniting him to the opposition ; and I must 
 think he would be an important official acquisition to the Govern- 
 ment." 
 
 One month and two days from this date (19th August) as the 
 reader remembers, Edmund Randolph resigned the office of Secre- 
 tary of State. On the 9th of October it was tendered to Patrick 
 Henry. In his letter of invitation General Washington stated that 
 the office had been offered to others ; but it was from a conviction 
 that he would not accept it. But in a conversation with General 
 Lee, that gentleman dropped sentiments that made it less doubtful. 
 ' I persuade myself, sir," said the President, ' ; it has not escaped 
 your* observation that a crisis is approaching that must, if it cannot 
 be arrested, soon decide whether order and good government shall 
 be preserved, or anarchy and confusion ensue." 
 
 This letter of invitation was inclosed to Mr. Carrington, a confi- 
 dential friend of Washington, with instructions to hold it back till 
 he could hear from Colonel Innis, to whom the attorney-generalship 
 had been offered. But on consultation with General Marshall, ano- 
 ther confidential friend, they were so anxious to make an impression 
 on Patrick Henry, and gain him over, if possible, by those marks ot 
 confidence, that they disobeyed orders, reversed the order in which 
 the letters were to be sent, and dispatched Mr. Henry's first, by ex- 
 press. 
 
 " In this determination we were governed," say they, " by the fol- 
 lowing reasons." (We give the reasons entire, that the reader may 
 see that great men and statesmen in those days were influenced by the 
 same motives they are now. and that men are the same in every age.) 
 " First, his non-acceptance, from domestic considerations may be cal- 
 culated on. In this event, be his sentiments on either point what 
 they may, he will properly estimate your letter, and if he has anj 
 asperities, it must tend to soften them, and render him, instead of a 
 silent observer of the present tendency of things, in some degree 

 
 PATRICK HENRY. 127 
 
 active on the side of government and order. Secondly, should he 
 feel an inclination to go into the office proposed, we are confident 
 very confident he has too high a sense of honor to do so with senti- 
 ments hostile to either of the points in view. This we should rely 
 on, upon general grounds ; but under your letter a different conduct 
 is, we conceive from our knowledge of Mr. Henry, impossible 
 Thirdly, we are fully persuaded that a more deadly blow could not 
 be given to the faction in Virginia, and perhaps elsewhere, than that 
 gentleman's acceptance of the office in question, convinced as we are 
 of the sentiments he must carry with him. So much have the op- 
 posers of government held him up as their oracle, even since he has 
 ceased to respond to them, that any event demonstrating his active 
 support to government could not but give the party a severe shock." 
 
 A very good reason for disobeying instructions, and making the 
 first demonstration on so important a personage. Mr. Henry did not 
 accept the appointment, but the impression intended to be made was 
 nearly as complete as the parties intended. 
 
 " It gives us pleasure to find," says Mr. Carrington. " that 
 although Mr. Henry is rather to be understood as probably not an 
 approver of the treaty, his conduct and sentiments generally, both as 
 to the government and yourself, are such as we calculated on, and that 
 he received your letter with impresssions which assure us of his dis- 
 countenancing calumny and disorder of every description." 
 
 These great movements somehow got wind, and came to the 
 ears of the leader of the faction they were designed to crush. In a 
 letter addressed to Monroe, dated July 10th, 1796, Jefferson says : 
 " Most assiduous court is paid to Patrick Henry. He has been 
 offered every thing, which they knew he would not accept. Some 
 impression is thought to be made : but we do not believe it is radi- 
 cal. If they thought they could count upon him, they would run 
 him for their Vice-President, their first object being to produce a 
 schism in this State." A move was now made to prevent the old 
 man from going over altogether. In November following, the 
 democratic legislature of Virginia elected him, for the third time, 
 governor of the State. In his letter declining an acceptance of 
 the office, he merely expresses his acknowledgments and grati- 
 tude for the signal honor conferred on him, excuses himself on the 
 ground that he could not persuade himself that his abilities were
 
 128 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 commensurate to the duties of the office, but let fall no expression 
 that could indicate his present political inclinations. 
 
 Early in January, 1799, soon after the passage of the resolutions 
 declaring the alien and sedition laws unconstitutional, and before he 
 had received the letter from Washington urging him to become a can- 
 didate for the Virginia legislature, Patrick Henry, in writing to a 
 friend, thus expresses himself: " There is much cause for lamenta- 
 tion over the present state of things in Virginia. It is possible that 
 most of the individuals who compose the contending factions are sin- 
 cere, and act from honest motives. But it Is ipore than probable 
 that certain leaders meditate a change in government. To effect this. 
 I see no way so practicable as dissolving the confederacy ; and I am 
 free to own that, in my judgment, most of the measures lately pur- 
 sued by the opposition party directly and certainly .ead to that end. 
 If this is not the system of the party, they have none, and act ex- 
 tempore." 
 
 In February following, the President nominated Mr. Henry as 
 one of the Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary to 
 the French Republic. Perhaps the very day he appeared before the 
 people at Charlotte Court, he held the commission in his pocket. In 
 his letter declining the appointment, he says : " That nothing short 
 of absolute necessity could induce me to withhold my little aid from 
 an administration whose abilities, patriotism, and virtue, deserve the 
 gratitude and reverence of all their fellow-citizens." 
 
 In March, eighty-nine, Decius said, J want to crush that anti- 
 federal champion the cunning and deceitful Cromwell, who, under 
 the guise of amendment, seeks to destroy the Constitution, break up 
 the confederacy, and reign the tyrant of popularity over his own de- 
 voted Virginia. In ninety-nine, we find this anti-federal champion 
 veered round to the support of doctrines he once condemned, and 
 given in his allegiance to an administration, which a majority of his 
 countrymen had declared, and all those who had followed him as 
 their oracle declared, was rapidly hastening the Government into 
 consolidation and monarchy. 
 
 Let no man boast of his consistency. Such is the subtlety of 
 human motives, that, like a deep, unseen under-current, they uncon- 
 sciously glide us into a position to-day different from that we occu- 
 pied yesterday, while we perceive it not, and stoutly deny it. 

 
 MARCH COJRT. 129 
 
 Patrick Henry for years was sorely afflicted with the belief that 
 the greatest and best of mankind considered him a factious and sedi- 
 tious character : to disabuse the mind of Washington, whose good 
 opinion all men desired to justify the flattering attentions of those 
 distinguished men who had assiduously cultivated his society and 
 correspondence, and showered bright honors on his head, he uncon- 
 sciously receded from his old opinions, and embraced doctrines 
 which he had, with the clearness a^d power of a Hebrew prophet, 
 portrayed and made bare in all their naked deformity. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 MARCH COURT THE RISING AND THE SETTING SUN. 
 
 IT was soon noised abroad that Patrick Henry was to address the 
 people at March Court. Great was the political excitement still 
 greater the anxiety to hear the first orator of the age for the last time. 
 They came from far and near, with eager hope depicted on every 
 countenance. It was a treat that many had not enjoyed for 
 years. Much the largest portion of those who flocked together that 
 day, had only heard from the glowing lips of their fathers the won- 
 derful powers of the man they were about to see and hear for the first 
 time. The college in Prince Edward was emptied not only of its 
 students, but of its professors. Dr. Moses Hogue, John H. Rice, 
 Drur^ Lacy, eloquent men and learned divines, came up to enjoy the 
 expected feast. The young man who was to answer Mr. Henry, if 
 indeed the multitude suspected that any one would dare venture on 
 a reply, was unknown to fame. A tall, slender, effeminate looking 
 youth was he ; light hair, combed back into a well-adjusted cue pale 
 countenance, a beardless chin, bright quick hazel eye, blue frock, buff 
 small clothes, and fair-top boots. He was doubtless known to many 
 on the court green as the little Jack Randolph they had frequently 
 seen dashing by on wild horses, riding a la mode Anglais, from 
 Roanoke to Bizarre, and back from Bizarre to Roanoke. A few 
 knew him more intimately, but none had ever heard him speak in 
 6*
 
 130 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 public, or even suspected that he could make a speech. " My first 
 attempt at public speaking," says he, in a letter to Mrs. Bryan, his 
 niece, " was in opposition to Patrick Henry at Charlotte March Court. 
 1799 ; for neither of us was present at the election in April, as Mr 
 Wirt avers of Mr. Henry." The very thought of his attempting to 
 answer Mr. Henry, seemed to strike the grave and reflecting men of 
 the place as preposterous. " Mr. Taylor," said Col. Reid, the clerk 
 of the county, to Mr. Creed Tailor, a friend and neighbor of Ran- 
 dolph, and a good lawyer, " Mr. Taylor, don't you or Peter Johnson 
 mean to appear for that young man to-day?" "Never mind," re- 
 plied Taylor, " he can take care of himself." His friends knew his 
 powers, his fluency in conversation, his ready wit, his polished satire, 
 his extraordinary knowledge of men and affairs ; but still he was 
 about to enter on an untried field, and all those brilliant faculties 
 might fail him, as they had go often failed men of genius before 
 They might well have felt some anxiety on his first appearance upon 
 the hustings in presence of a popular assembly, and in reply to a man 
 of Mr.^ Henry's reputation. But it seems they had no fear for the 
 result lie can take care of himself. The reader can well imagine 
 the remarks that might have been made by the crowd as he passed 
 carelessly among them, shaking hands with this one and that one of 
 his acquaintance. " And is that the man who is a candidate for Con- 
 gress?" "Is he going to speak against Old Pat?" "Why, he is 
 nothing but a boy he's got no beard !" " He looks wormy !" " Old 
 Pat will eat him up bodily !" There, also, was Powhatan Boiling, 
 the other candidate for Congress, dressed in his scarlet coat tall, 
 proud in his bearing, and a fair representative of the old aristocracy 
 fast melting away under the subdivisions of the law that had abolished 
 the system of primogeniture 
 
 Creed Taylor and others undertook to banter him about his 
 scarlet coat. " Very well, gentlemen," replied he coolly, bristling 
 up with a quick temper, " if my coat does not suit you, I can meet 
 you in any other color that may suit your fancy." Seeing the gen- 
 tleman not in a bantering mood, he was soon left to his own reflec- 
 tions. But the candidates for Congress were overlooked and forgot- 
 ten by the crowd in their eagerness to behold and admire the great 
 orator, whose fame had filled their imagination for so many years 
 " As soon as he appeared on the ground," says Wirt, " he was sur
 
 MARCH COURT. 131 
 
 rounded by the admiring and adoring crowd, and whithersoever he 
 moved, the concourse followed him. A preacher of the Baptist 
 church, whose piety was wounded by this homage paid to a mortal, 
 asked the people aloud, why they thus followed Mr. Henry about ? 
 " Mr. Henry," said he, k is not a god !" " No," said Mr. Henry, deeply 
 affected by the scene and the remark, " no, indeed, my friend ; I am 
 but a poor worm of the dust as fleeting and unsubstantial as the 
 shadow of the cloud that flies over your fields, and is remembered 
 no more." The tone with which this was uttered, and the look which 
 accompanied it, affected every heart, and silenced every voice. 
 
 Presently James Adams rose upon a platform that had been 
 erected by the side of the tavern porch where Mr. Henry was seated, 
 and proclaimed " yes ! yes ! Colonel Henry will address the 
 people from this stand, for the last time and at the risk of his life !" 
 The grand-jury were in session at the moment, they burst through 
 the doors, some leaped the windows, and came running up with the 
 crowd, that they might not lose a word that fell from the old man's 
 lips. t 
 
 While Adams was lifting him on the stand, " Why Jimmy," says 
 he, " you have made a better speech for me than I can make for my- 
 self." " Speak out, father," said Jimmy, " and let us hear how it is." 
 
 Old and feeble, more with disease than age, Mr. Henry rose and 
 addressed the people to the following effect : (Wirt's Life of Patrick 
 Henry, page 393.) He told them that the late proceedings of the 
 Virginia Assembly had filled him with apprehensions and alarm ; 
 that they had planted thorns upon his pillow ; that they had drawn 
 him from that happy retirement which it had pleased a bountiful 
 Providence to bestow, and in which he had hoped to pass, in quiet, 
 the remainder of his days ; that the State had quitted the sphere in 
 which she had been placed by the Constitution ; and in daring to 
 pronounce upon the validity of federal laws, had gone out of her 
 jurisdiction in a manner not warranted by any authority, and in the 
 highest degree alarming to every considerate mind ; that such oppo- 
 sition, on the part of Virginia, to the acts of the General Govern- 
 ment, must beget their enforcement by military power ; that this 
 would probably produce civil war ; civil war, foreign alliances ; and 
 that foreign alliances must necessarily end in subjugation to the 
 powers called in. He - conjured the people to pause and consider
 
 132 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 well, before they rushed into such a desperate condition, from which 
 there could be no retreat. He painted to their imaginations, Wash- 
 ington, at the head of a numerous and well appointed army, inflict- 
 ing upon them military execution. " And where (he asked) are our 
 resources to meet such a conflict ? Where is the citizen of America 
 who will dare to lift his hand against the father of his country?" A 
 drunken man in the crowd threw up his arm and exclaimed that he 
 dared to do it. " No," answered Mr. Henry, rising aloft in all his 
 majesty, ' : you dare not do it ; in such a parricidal attempt, the steel 
 would drop from your nerveless arm." 
 
 Proceeding, he asked " Whether the county of Charlotte would 
 have any authority to dispute an obedience to the laws of Virginia ;" 
 and he pronounced Virginia to be to the Union what the county of 
 Charlotte was to Jier. Having denied the right of a State to decide 
 upon the constitutionality of federal laws, he added, that perhaps it 
 might be necessary to say something of the laws in questic *. His 
 private opinion was, that they were good and proper. . But whatever 
 might be their merits, it belonged to the people, who held the reins 
 over the head of Congress, and to them alone, to say whether they 
 were acceptable or otherwise to Virginians ; and that this must be 
 done by way of petition. That Congress were as much our represen- 
 tatives as the Assembly, and had as good a right to our confidence. 
 He had seen, with regret, the unlimited power over the purse and 
 sword consigned to the General Government ; but that he had been 
 overruled, and it was now necessary to submit to the constitutional 
 exercise of that power. " If," said he, " I am asked what is to be 
 done when a people feel themselves intolerably oppressed, my answer 
 is ready overturn tlie Government. But do not, I beseech you. 
 carry matters to this length without provocation. Wait, at least, 
 until some infringement is made up m your rights, and which cannot 
 otherwise be redressed ; for if ever you recur to another change, you 
 may bid adieu forever to representative government. You can nev tt r 
 exchange the present government but for a monarchy. If the admin- 
 istration have done wrong, let us all go wrong together rather than 
 split into factions, which must destroy that Union upon which our 
 existence hangs. Let us preserve our strength for the French, the 
 English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare to invade our terri- 
 tory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and intestine wars."
 
 MARCH COURT. 133 
 
 When he concluded, his audience were deeply affected ; it is said that 
 they wept like children, so powerfully were they moved by the em- 
 phasis of his language, the tone of his voice, the commanding expres- 
 sion of his eye, the earnestness with which he declared his design to 
 exert himself to allay the heart-burnings and jealousies which had 
 been fomented in the State legislature, and the fervent manner in 
 which he prayed that if he were deemed unworthy to effect it, that it 
 might be reserved to some other and abler hand to extend this bless- 
 ing over the community. As he concluded, he literally sunk into 
 the arms of the tumultuous throng : .it that moment John H. Rice 
 exclaimed, " the sun has set in all his glory !" 
 
 Randolph rose to reply. For some moments he stood in silence, 
 his lips quivering, his eye swimming in tears ; at length he began a 
 modest though beautiful apology for rising to address the people in 
 opposition to the venerable father who had just taken his seat ; it 
 was an honest difference of opinion, and he hoped to be pardoned 
 while he boldly and freely, as it became the occasion, expressed his 
 sentiments on the great questions that so much divided and agitated 
 the minds of the people. 
 
 " The gentleman tells you," said he, " that the late proceedings 
 of the Virginia Assembly have filled him with apprehension and 
 alarm. He seems to be impressed with the conviction, that the State 
 has quitted the sphere in which she was placed by the Constitution ; 
 and in daring to pronounce on the validity of federal laws, has gone 
 out of her jurisdiction in a manner not warranted by any authority. 
 I am sorry the gentleman has been disturbed in his repose ; still 
 more grieved am I, that the particular occasion to which he alludes 
 should have been the cause of his anxiety. I once cherished the. 
 hope that his alarms would have been awakened, had Virginia failed 
 to exert herself in warding off the evils he so prophetically warned 
 us of on another memorable occasion. Her supineness and inactivity, 
 now that those awful squintings towards monarchy, so eloquently 
 described by the gentleman, are fast growing into realities, I had 
 hoped would have planted thorns in his pillow, and awakened him to 
 a sense of the danger now threatening us, and the necessity of exert- 
 ing once more his powerful faculties in warning the people, and 
 rousing them from their fatal lethargy. 
 
 " Has the gentleman forgotten that we owe to him those obnox-
 
 134 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ious principles, as he now would have them, that guided the Legisla- 
 ture in its recent course ? He is alarmed at the rapid growth oi 
 the seed he himself hath sowed he seems to be disappointed 
 that they fell, not by the wayside, but into vigorous and fruitful 
 soil. He has conjured up spirits from the vasty deep, and growing 
 alarmed at the potency of his own magic wand, he would say to them, 
 ' Down, wantons ! down !' but, like Banquo's ghost, I trust they will 
 not down. But to drop metaphor In the Virginia Convention, 
 that was called to ratify the Constitution, this gentleman declared 
 that the government delineated in that instrument was peculiar in 
 its nature partly national, partly federal. In this description he hit 
 upon the true definition there are certain powers of a national cha- 
 racter that extend to the people and operate on them without regard 
 to their division into States these powers, acting alone, tend to 
 consolidate the government into one head, and to obliterate State 
 divisions and to destroy State authority ; but there are other powers, 
 many and important ones, that are purely federal in their nature 
 that look to the States, and recognize their existence as bodies poli- 
 tic, endowed with many of the most important attributes of sove- 
 reignty. These two opposing forces act as checks on each other, and 
 keep the complicated system in equilibrium. They are like the cen- 
 trifugal and centripetal forces in theJaw of gravitation, that serve to 
 keep the spheres in their harmonious courses through the universe. 
 
 " Should the Federal Government, therefore, attempt to exercise 
 powers that do not belong to it and those that do belong to it are 
 few, specified, well-defined all others being reserved to the people 
 and to the States should it step beyond its province, and encroach 
 . on rights that have not been delegated, it is the duty of the States to 
 interpose. There is no other power that can interpose. The counter- 
 weight, the opposing force of the State, is the only check to over- 
 action known to the system. 
 
 - In questions of meum et luum, where rights of property are con- 
 '.nu'd, and some other cases specified in the Constitution, I grant you 
 that the Federal Judiciary may pronounce on the validity of the law. 
 But in questions involving the right to power, whether this or that 
 ] uwer has been delegated or reserved, they cannot and ought not to 
 be the arbiter ; that question has been left, as it always was, and 
 always must be lift, to be determined among sovereignties in the best
 
 MARCH COURT. 135 
 
 way they can. Political wisdom has not yet discovered any infallible 
 mathematical rule, by which to determine the assumptions of power 
 between those who know no other law or limitation save that imposed 
 on them by their own consent, and which they can abrogate at 
 pleasure. Pray let me ask the gentleman and no one knows bet- 
 ter than himself who ordained this Constitution ? Who defined its 
 powers, and said, thus far shalt thou go, but no farther ? Was it not 
 the people of the States in their sovereign capacity ? Did they com- 
 mit an act of suicide by so doing ? an act of self-annihilation ? No. 
 thank God, they did not ; but are still alive, and, I trust, are bt- 
 coming sensible of the importance of those rights reserved to them, 
 and prohibited to that government which they ordained for their 
 common defence. Shall the creature of the States be the sole judge 
 of the legality or constitutionality of its own acts, in a question of 
 power between them and he States ? Shall they who assert a right, 
 be the sole judges of their authority to claim and to exercise it? 
 Does not all power seek to enlarge itself? grow on that it feeds 
 upon ? Has not that been the history of all encroachment, all usurpa- 
 tion ? If this Federal Government, in all its departments, then, is to 
 be the sole judge of its own usurpations, neither the people nor the 
 States, in a short time, will have any thing to contend for; this 
 creature of their making will become their sovereign, and the only 
 result of the labors of our revolutionary heroes, in which patriotic 
 band this venerable gentleman was most conspicuous, will have been 
 a change of our masters New England for Old England for which 
 change I cannot find it in my heart to thank them. 
 
 " But the gentleman has taught me a very different lesson from 
 that he is now disposed to enjoin on us. I fear that time has wrought 
 its influence on him, as on all other men ; and that age makes 
 him willing to endure what in former years he would have spurned 
 with indignation. I have learned my first lessons in his school. He 
 is the high-priest from whom I received the little wisdom my poor 
 abilities were able to carry away from the droppings of the political 
 sanctuary. He was the inspired statesman that taught me to be 
 jealous of power, to watch its encroachments, and to sound the alarm 
 on the first movement of usurpation. 
 
 " Inspired by his eloquent appeals encouraged by his example 
 alarmed by the rapid strides of Federal usurpation, of which he had
 
 136 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 warned them the legislature of Virginia has nobly stepped forth in 
 defence of the rights of the States, and interposed to arrest that en- 
 croachment and usurpation of power that threaten the destruction of 
 the Kepublic. 
 
 " And what is the subject of alarm ? What are the laws they have 
 dared to pronounce upon as unconstitutional and tyrannical t The 
 first, is a law authorizing the President of the United States to order 
 any alien he may judge dangerous, any unfortunate refugee that may 
 happen to fall under his royal suspicion, forthwith to quit the coun- 
 try. It is true that the law says he must have reasonable grounds to 
 suspect. Who is to judge of that reason but himself? Who can 
 look into his breast and say what motives have dominion there ? 
 'Tis a mockery to give one man absolute power over the liberty of an- 
 other, and then ask him, when the power is gone, and cannot ie re- 
 called, to exercise it reasonably ! Power knows no other check but 
 power. Let the poor patriot who may have fallen under the frowns 
 of government, because he dared assert the rights of his countrymen, 
 seek refuge on our shores of boasted liberty ; the moment he touches 
 the soil of freedom, hoping here to find a period to all his persecu- 
 tions, he is greeted, not with the smiles of welcome, or the cheerful 
 voice of freemen, but the stern demands of an officer of the law the 
 executor of a tyrant's will who summons him to depart. What 
 crime has he perpetrated ? Vain inquiry ! He is a suspected per- 
 son. He is judged dangerous to the peace of the country rebel- 
 lious at home, he may be alike factious and seditious here. What 
 remedy ? What hope? He who condemns is judge the sole judge 
 in the first and the last resort. There is no appeal from his arbi- 
 trary will. Who can escape tin suspicion of a jealous and vindictive 
 mind? 
 
 " The very men who fought your battles, who spent their fortunes, 
 and shed their blood to win for you that independence that was once 
 your boast, may be the first victims of this tyrannical law. Kosci- 
 ko is now on your shores ; though poor in purse and emaciated in 
 
 y. from the many sacrifices he has made in your cause, he has 
 yet a proud spirit that loves freedom, and will speak boldly of op- 
 pression. ' Is not this enough to bring him under the frowns of 
 power, and to cause the mandate to be issued, ordering him to de- 
 part from the country ? What may be true of one to whom we owe
 
 MARCH COURT. 137 
 
 so much, has already been fulfilled in the person of many a patriot, 
 scholar, and philosopher, whose only crime was, that of seeking re- 
 fuge from oppression and wrong, on these shores of boasted freedom. 
 " And what is that other law that so fully meets the approbation of 
 my venerable friend 1 It is a law that makes it an act of sedition, 
 punishable by fine and imprisonment, to utter or write a sentiment 
 that any prejudiced judge or juror may think prope'r to construe into 
 disrespect to the President of the United States. Do you understand 
 me ? I dare proclaim to the people of Charlotte my opinion to be. 
 that John Adams, so-called President, is a weak-minded man, vain, 
 jealous, and vindictive ; that influenced by evil passions and preju- 
 dices, and goaded on by wicked counsel, he has been Driving to force 
 the country into a war with our best friend and ally. I say that I 
 dare repeat this before the people of Charlotte, and avow it as my 
 opinion. But let me write it down, and print it as a warning to 
 my countrymen. What then ? I subject myself to an indictment for 
 sedition ! I make myself liable to be dragged away from my home 
 and friends, and to be put on my trial in some distant Federal Court, 
 before a judge who receives his appointment from the man that seeks 
 my condemnation ; and to be tried by a prejudiced jury, who have 
 been gathered from remote parts of the country, strangers to me, and 
 any thing but my peers ; and have been packed by the minions of 
 power for my destruction. Is the man dreaming ! do you exclaim ? 
 Is .this a fancy picture, he has drawn for our amusement ? I am no 
 fancy man, people of Charlotte ! I speak the truth I deal only in 
 stern realities ! There is such a law on your Statute Book in spite 
 of your Constitution in open contempt of those solemn guarantees 
 that insure the freedom of speech and of the press to every Ame- 
 rican citizen. Not only is there such a statute, but, with shame 
 be it spoken, even England blushes at your sedition law. Would 
 that I could stop here, and say that, though it may be found 
 enrolled among the the public archives, it is a dead letter. Alas ! 
 alas ! not only does it exist, but at this hour is most rigidly enforced, 
 not against the ordinary citizen only, but agrinst men in official sta- 
 tions, even those who are clothed by the people with the sacred du- 
 ties of their representatives men, the sanctity of whose persons can- 
 not be reached by any law known to a representative government, 
 are hunted down, condemned, and incarcerated by this odious, tyran-
 
 138 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 nical, and unconstitutional enactment. At this moment, while I am 
 addressing you, men of Charlotte ! with the free air of heaven fan- 
 ning my locks and God knows how long I shall be permitted to en- 
 joy that blessing a representative of the people of Vermont Mat- 
 thew Lyon his name lies immured in a dungeon, not six feet square, 
 where he has dragged out the miserable hours of a protracted winter, 
 for daring to violate the royal maxim that the king can do no 
 wrong. This was his only crime he told his people, and caused it 
 to be printed for their information, that the President, ' rejecting 
 men of age, experience, wisdom, and independency of sentiment.' 
 appointed those who had no other merit but devotion to their mas- 
 ter : and he intimated that the ' President was fond of ridiculous 
 pomp, idle parade, and selfish avarice.' I speak the language of the 
 indictment. I give in technical and official words the high crime 
 with which he was charged. He pleaded justification I think the 
 lawyers call it and offered to prove the truth of his allegations. 
 But the court would allow no time to procure witnesses or counsel ; 
 he was hurried into trial all unprepared ; and this representative of 
 the people, for speaking the truth of those in authority, was ar- 
 raigned like a felon, condemned, fined, and imprisoned. These are 
 the laws, the venerable gentlemen would have you believe, are not 
 only sanctioned by the Constitution, but demanded by the necessity 
 of the times laws at which even monarchs blush banishing from 
 your shores the hapless victim that only sought refuge from oppres- 
 sion, and making craven, fawning spaniels, aye ! dumb dogs, of your 
 own people ! He tells you, moreover, that if you do not agree with 
 him in opinion cannot consent that these. vile enactments are either 
 constitutional or necessary your only remedy, your only hope of re- 
 dress, is in petition. 
 
 " Petition ! Whom are we to petition ? But one solitary member 
 from Virginia, whose name is doomed to everlasting infamy, dared 
 to record his vote dared to record, did I say ? I beg pardon but 
 one who did not spurn from them this hideous offspring of a tyrant's 
 lust. Whom, then, I repeat, are we to petition ? those who are the 
 projectors of these measures, who voted for them, and forced them 
 upon you in spite of your will 1 Would not these men laugh at your 
 petition, and, in the pride and insolence of new-born power, trample 
 it under their feet with disdain ? Shall we petition his majesty, who,
 
 MARCH COURT. 139 
 
 by virtue of these very laws, holds your liberties in his sacred hands ? 
 I tell you he would spurn your petition from the foot of the throne, 
 as those of your fathers, on a like occasion, were spurned from the 
 throne of George the Third of England. From whose lips do we 
 hear that word petition an abject term, fit only for the use of sub- 
 jects and of slaves ? Can it be that fie is now willing to petition and 
 to supplicate his co-equals in a common confederacy, who proudly 
 disdained entreaty and supplication to the greatest monarch on 
 earth whose fleets covered our seas, whose armies darkened our 
 shores sent over to bind and to rivet those chains that had been so 
 long forging for our unfettered limbs ! Has age so tamed his proud 
 spirit that he will gently yield to a domestic usurper what he scorned 
 to grant, to a foreign master ? I fear he has deceived himself, and 
 would deceive you ; let not his siren song of peace lull you into a 
 fatal repose. For what is this large standing army quartered on the 
 country? why those recruiting officers insulting every hamlet and 
 village with their pride and insolence, and decoying the honest 
 farmer from his labor, to become the idle, corrupt, and profligate 
 drone of a military camp ? Why this large naval establishment ? 
 Why such burthensome and odious taxes imposed on the industry of 
 the country? Why those enormous loans at usurious interest in 
 times of peace ; and, above all, why those unconstitutional laws to 
 banish innocence to silence inquiry stifle investigation, and to 
 make dumb the complaining mouths of the people ? Are these vast 
 preparations in consequence of some imminent peril overhanging the 
 country ? Are we threatened with war? With whom ? with France ? 
 France has showed that this wicked administration cannot drive 
 her into a war with her ancient friend and ally. She has almost 
 compelled them to keep a minister of peace within her borders, and 
 offered them almost any terms of conciliation consistent with justice 
 and dignity. Yet do you see any abatement in the warlike energies 
 of the Government ? 
 
 " For what, I ask, are these vast and hostile preparations ? Let the 
 late pretended whisky insurrection in the western counties of Penn- 
 sylvania answer the question. I am no alarmist ; but I cannot close 
 my eyes to the truth when I see it glaring before me. These 
 " provisional " armies, as they have chosen to call them, are meant for 
 you ; they are intended, not to meet the troops of France, which they
 
 140 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 know will never insult the soil of this republic, but to awe you, the 
 people, into submission, and to force, upon you, by a display of mili- 
 tary power, the destructive measures of this vaulting and ambitious 
 administration. And yet the gentleman tells you we must wait until 
 some infringement is made on our rights ! Your Constitution broken, 
 your citizens dragged to prison for daring to exercise the freedom 
 of speech, armies levied, and you threatened with immediate inva- 
 sion for your audacious interference with the business of the Federal 
 Government ; and still you are told to wait for some infringement of 
 your rights ! How long are we to wait ? Till the chains are fastened 
 upon us. and we can no longer help ourselves ? But the gentleman 
 says your course may lead to civil war, and where are your resources ? 
 I answer him in his own words, handed down by the tradition of the 
 past generation, and engraven on the hearts of his grateful country- 
 men. I answer, in his own words : ' Shall we gather strength by 
 irresolution and inaction ? Shall we acquire the means of effectual 
 resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive 
 phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and 
 foot ? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means 
 which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The battle, sir, 
 is not to the strong alone ; it is to the vigilant, the active, the 
 brave.' 
 
 " But we are not only to have an invading army marching into our 
 borders, but the gentleman's vivid imagination has pictured Wash- 
 ington at the head of it, coming to inflict military chastisement on 
 his native State ; and who, exclaims he, would dare lift his hand 
 against the father of his country? Sternly has he 'rebuked one of 
 you for venturing, in the outburst of patriotic feeling, to declare that 
 he would do it. I bow with as much respect as any man at the name 
 of Washington. I have been taught to look upon it with a venera- 
 tion little short of that of my Creator. But while I love Caesar, I 
 love Rome more. Should he, forgetful of the past, grown ambitious of 
 power, and, seduced by the artful machinations of those who seek to 
 use his great name in the subjugation of his country, lift a parricidal 
 hand against the bosom of the State that gave him birth and crowned 
 him with his glory, because she has dared to assert those rights that 
 belong to her, not by the laws of nature, but those rights that have 
 been reserved to her by this very Constitution that she partly ordained,
 
 MARCH COURT. 
 
 141 
 
 and without which she must drag out an existence of helpless and 
 hopeless imbecility, I trust there will be found many a Brutus to 
 avenge her wrongs. I promise, for one, so help me God ! and it is 
 in no boastful spirit I speak that I will not be an idle spectator of 
 the tyrannical and murderous tragedy, so long as I have an arm to 
 wield a weapon, or a voice to cry shame ! Shame on you for inflict- 
 ing this deadly blow in the bosom of the mother that gave you exist- 
 ''iioe, and cherished your fame as her own brightest jewel." 
 
 We do not pretend, reader, to give you the language of John 
 Randolph on this occasion ; nor are we certain even that the thoughts 
 are his. We have nothing but the faint tradition of near fifty years to 
 go upon ; and happy are we if all our researches have enabled us to 
 make even a tolerable approximation to what was said. He spoke for 
 three hours ; all that time the people, standing on their feet, hung with 
 breathless silence on his lips. His youthful appearance, boyish tones, 
 clear, distinct, thrilling utterance ; his graceful action, bold expres- 
 sions, fiery energy, and manly thoughts, struck them with astonish- 
 ment. A bold genius and an orator of the first order suddenly burst 
 upon them, and dazzled them with his power and brilliancy. A 
 prophet was among them, and they knew it not. When he concluded, 
 an old planter, turning to his neighbor, exclaimed ; " He's no bug- 
 eater now, I tell you." Dr. Hogue turned from the stand, and went 
 away, repeating to himself these lines from the " Deserted Village :" 
 
 " Amazed, the gazing rustics ranged around, 
 And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
 That one small head could carry all he knew." 
 
 Mr. Henry, turning to some by-stander, said : " I haven't seen 
 the little dog before, since he was at school ; he was a great atheist 
 then." He made no reply to the speech ; but, approaching Mr. Ran- 
 dolph, he took him by the hand, and said : " Young man, you call me 
 father ; then, my son, I have somewhat to say unto thee (holding both 
 his hands) keep justice, keep truth, and you will live to think dif- 
 ferently." 
 
 They dined together, and Randolph, ever after venerated the 
 memory of his friend, who died in a few weeks from that day. 
 
 They were both elected in April ; the one to Congress, the other 
 to the State Legislature; and, doubtless, many of the good free-
 
 142 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 holders of Charlotte voted for both. Who can blame them ? Happy 
 people of Charlotte ! it was your lot to behold the bright golden sun- 
 set of the great luminary whose meridian power melted away the 
 chains of British despotism and withered up the cankered heart of 
 disaffected Toryism ; then, turning with tearful eyes from the last 
 rays of the sinking orb, to hail, dawning on the same horizon, another 
 sun, just springing, as it were, from the night of chaos,* mounting 
 majestically into his destined sphere, and driving clouds and darkness 
 before his youthful beams. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 FRANCE AND THE ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 MR. ADAMS saved the country from a war with France, and a con- 
 se.quent alliance with Great Britain, and all the unimaginable events 
 that must have followed that connection ; but in so doing he destroyed 
 his party, and defeated his own re-election. No one, to our know- 
 ledge, has ever attributed these results to a foreseen and predeter- 
 mined self-sacrifice on his part for the good of the country. Those 
 who were associated with him and knew him best attribute his course 
 to far other causes. Before we proceed with our narrative, we will 
 give the reader a further insight into the character of this man, so 
 necessary to understand the complicated history of those times. A 
 mere detail of facts, without a knowledge of the causes that produced 
 them, or the character and motives of the men that acted them, can 
 afford no -nstruction to the student of history. Without some such 
 insight, the battle of the frogs or the wars of the giants would be 
 equally as instructive as the Punic Wars or the conflicts in the forum. 
 
 What we say of Mr. Adams is drawn from cotemporary history, 
 and in the language of those who were most intimately associated 
 him. The reader is already aware of his course before and during 
 the negotiations for the treaty of Paris, in 1782, and Dr. Franklin's 
 opinion of his character. 
 
 General Hamilton, a very good judge, said of him while President, 
 nd during the great events we are now discoursing of, and in explana-
 
 FRANCE AND THE ADMINISTRATION. 143 
 
 tion of their causes, that he possessed patriotism and integrity, and 
 even talents, of a certain kind ; but that he did not possess the talents 
 adapted to the administration of government, and that there were 
 great and intrinsic defects in his character, which unfitted him for 
 the office of Chief Magistrate. With all his virtues, he was tainted 
 with a disgusting egotism, a distempered jealousy, and an ungovern- 
 able indiscretion of temper. When he and General Washington 
 were run together as candidates for the presidential and vice- 
 presidential office, it was thought all-important to secure the first 
 office to General Washington (a majority at that time determining 
 the question), by dropping a few votes from Mr. Adams. He com- 
 plained of this as unfair treatment said he ought to have been per- 
 mitted to take an equal chance with General Washington. When, at 
 a subsequent period, he and Mr. Pinckney were on the same ticket, 
 it was* thought, by the federal party, that the success of their cause 
 ought not to be hazarded by dropping any of the votes ; it was not a 
 matter of such importance that Mr. Adams or Mr. Pinckney should 
 be elected President, as that Mr. Jefferson should be defeated. He 
 was enraged with all those who thought that Mr. Pinckney ought to 
 have an equal chance with himself. To this circumstance, in a great 
 measure, may be attributed the serious schism which, at a subsequent 
 period, grew up in the federal party. Mr. Adams never could for- 
 give the men who were engaged in the plan, though it embraced some 
 of his most partial admirers. He discovered bitter animosity against 
 several of them. His rage against General Hamilton was so ve- 
 hement, that he could not restrain himself within the forms of civility 
 or decorum, in the presence of that gentleman. His jealousy of the 
 Pinckneys was notorious, and it dated as far back as the appointment 
 of Mr. Thomas Pinckney, by Washington, as envoy to the Court of 
 London. Mr. Adams desired the appointment for himself, notwith- 
 standing the impropriety he being the Vice-President and next 
 he desired it for his son-in-law. In the bitterness of disappointment, 
 he played into the hands of the opposition party, and charged upon 
 General Washington that the appointing had been made under 
 British influence. 
 
 Soon after his own appointment of General Washington, in July, 
 1798, as Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of the United States, 
 he became jealous of the overshadowing influence of that, great
 
 144 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 character, and did all he could, consistently with his station, to thwart 
 the plans, to delay and derange the measures, that Washington 
 thought most essential to the service. 
 
 His conduct in the appointment of general officers, proved that 
 he was fickle, inconsistent, and under the baneful influence of a dis- 
 tempered jealousy. 
 
 With the country in imminent danger of a war ; with Washing- 
 ton and Hamilton and C. C. Pinckney at the head of her armies, it 
 was natural that those who felt themselves responsible for the mea- 
 sures that had brought the nation into that predicament, should look 
 to those great men as their guides, instead of the impulsive, aimless, 
 and unsteady character, nominally at the head of affairs. Even his 
 own cabinet had more frequent, intimate, and confidential communi- 
 cations, on all public affairs, with the head of the army than with 
 himself. He did not fail to perceive this ; and soon became enraged 
 with his own counsellors. Not long afterwards, some of them were 
 dismissed. A prominent charge against McHenry was. that the 
 Secretary, in a report to the House of Representatives, had eulogized 
 General Washington, and had attempted to eulogize General Hamil- 
 ton, which was adduced as one proof of a combination, in which the 
 Secretary was engaged, to depreciate and injure him, the President. 
 Here, then, was the secret. His jealous and- distempered fancy, 
 stimulated by evil counsel, had conjured up a formidable conspiracy, 
 in which his cabinet were implicated, the object of which was to de- 
 preciate and injure him, and to exalt Hamilton or Pinckney above 
 him. To this cause may be attributed his extraordinary course in 
 regard to French affairs ; and those fatal aberrations, as they were 
 called by his friends, that resulted in peace with the French nation, 
 but in the destruction of himself and of his party. 
 
 We now proceed with the current of events, down to the meeting 
 of Congress, in 1798. 
 
 As our object is not a history of the country, but only of those 
 leading causes of history,^knowledge of which is essential to under- 
 stand the position of poli^il characters who figured at the time, we 
 shall confine ourselves to a development of French affairs, because 
 they absorbed all others, gave weight to the political atmosphere, and 
 indicated, by the elevation or depression of the barometer, the advance
 
 FRANCE AND THE ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 or retrograde position of the two great parties that divided men and 
 controlled the politics of the country. 
 
 The reader is already aware, that on the departure of Messrs. 
 Pinckney and Marshall from Paris, in the spring of 1798, Mr. Gerry 
 was induced to remain ; but he obstinately persisted in refusing to 
 enter into any negotiation. About the last of May, 1798, the 
 X. Y. Z. dispatches, which had been published in America, found 
 their way to the hands of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
 M. Talleyrand. He immediately inclosed the very strange, 'publica- 
 tion, as he called it, to Mr, Gerry, and added : " I cannot observe 
 without surprise that intriguers have profited of the insulated con- 
 dition in which the envoys of the United States have kept Jiemseives 
 to make proposals and hold conversations, the object of which was, 
 evidently, to deceive you." He demanded the names of the parties 
 implicated, and to be informed whether any of the citizens attached 
 to his service, and authorized by him to see the envoys, told them a 
 word which had the least relation to the disgusting proposition which 
 was made by X. and Y., to give any sum whatever for corrupt distri- 
 bution. 
 
 Mr. Gerry disclosed the names of the parties. Two of them, the 
 most conspicuous characters, X. and Y.,were foreigners, and unknown 
 to the French Government ; the third, Mr. Z., made himself known, 
 and proved that the part he had acted was wholly honorable. Mr. 
 Gerry added, further, that in regard to the citizens attached to the 
 employments of M. Talleyrand, and authorized by him to see the en- 
 voys on official communications, not a word had fallen from any of 
 them which had the least relation to the proposition made by X. and 
 Y. in their informal negotiations, to pay money for corrupt purposes. 
 
 It is not at all improbable that members of the Directory, whose 
 term of office was exceedingly precarious, and even Talleyrand him- 
 self, were not too virtuous to receive a douceur, or a bribe, to secure 
 their influence in the negotiation of a treaty ; but that they were, in 
 a roundabout way, actually fishing for one on this occasion, depends 
 solely on the statement of the two principal actors in the business, 
 who, in a most remarkable degree, gained the confidence of the envoys, 
 but who were, in fact, foreigners, unknown to the Government, and 
 corrupt persons, who fled the country on the discovery of the plot 
 There is not one corroborating circumstance to strengthen their story 
 
 VOL. i. 7
 
 146 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Mr. Gerry admits that every member of the Government with whom 
 they communicated acted with the utmost propriety ; and that no 
 corrupt proposition came either from them or M. Talleyrand. 
 
 Napoleon, in his Revelations from St. Helena, in giving a history 
 of these transactions, says : " Certain intriguing agents, with which 
 sort of instruments the office of foreign relations was at that period 
 abundantly supplied, insinuated that the demand of a loan would be 
 desisted from, upon the advance of twelve hundred thousand francs, 
 to be divided between the Director Barras and the Minister Talley- 
 rand." This whole narrative of Bonaparte, when caiefully examined, 
 is obviously drawn from public documents ; just such materials as we 
 have before us at this time. There is not the slightest evidence that 
 he had any personal knowledge of the transactions, and that he knew 
 from any other source than common report growing out of the publi- 
 cations of the day, that Barras, or Talleyrand, had, through intriguing 
 agents, made an overture for a bribe. 
 
 Notwithstanding the publication of those X. Y. Z. dispatches, so 
 questionable in their character and design, so well calculated to irri- 
 tate, yet the French Government would not be excited into a feeling 
 of hostility. " As to the French Government," says Talleyrand, on 
 the 10th of June, "superior to all personalities, to all the manoeuvres 
 of its enemies, it perseveres in the intention of conciliating with sin- 
 cerity all the differences which have happened between the two coun- 
 tries. I confirm it to you anew." He then proposes to proceed with 
 Mr. Gerry on the business of negotiation, discards any further demand 
 for a loan, and rests the whole negotiation on three simple proposi- 
 tions, which might have been speedily and satisfactorily adjusted : 
 and he urged on Mr. Gerry to send home for authority to conclude 
 the treaty, if he did not feel that he was already clothed with suffi- 
 cient power for the purpose. But he strangely persisted in doing 
 neither one thing nor another : he would not send home and ask for 
 instruments necessary to the negotiation, nor for a successor to be 
 put in his stead for that purpose, nor would he enter into a full de- 
 scription of all the points necessarily involved in a treaty, that he 
 might lay before his Government the terms of one he had informally 
 entered into, for their ratification or rejection. He had it in his 
 power, by a firm and manly course of statesmanship, to throw upon 
 the administration the responsibility of closing at once all subjects
 
 FRANCE AND THE ADMINISTRATION. 147 
 
 :f difference with the French Republic, or by rejecting a favorable 
 treaty, to involve the country in war with that formidable power. 
 His only thought seems to have been to avoid doing any thing that 
 might hurt the feelings of his late colleagues, and to devise means to 
 get home. He never ceased begging Talleyrand to let him go home. 
 Talleyrand never ceased begging him to stay, and to attend to the 
 important and pressing affairs of his country. At length, finding 
 Mr. Gerry wholly impracticable, he sent him his passports about the 
 last of July, and added, " As long as I could flatter myself, sir, with 
 fulfilling the wish of the Executive Directory, by endeavoring with 
 you to establish the good understanding between the French Repub- 
 lic and the United States, I used my efforts, both in our conferences 
 and in rny correspondence with you, to smooth the paths, to establish 
 the basis, to enter on the business, and to convince you of the utility 
 of your presence in Paris.% It is in your character of Envoy of the 
 American Government I received you and wrote to you; it depended 
 on yourself to be publicly received by the Executive Directory. . . . 
 You cannot dissemble, that if nothing prevented you from pursuing 
 with me the examining and reconciling of the grievances which divide 
 the two countries, we should not long stand in need of any thing but 
 
 the respective ratifications When scarcely informed of the 
 
 departure of Messrs. Pinckney and Marshall, I endeavored in every 
 conference I afterwards had with you to demonstrate to you the 
 urgency, the propriety, and the possibility of an active negotiation. 
 I collected your ideas ; they differed from my own I endeavored to 
 reconcile them. On the 18th June I transmitted to you a complete 
 plan of the negotiations. On the 27th I sent you my first note for 
 discussion upon one of the points of the treaty; you declined answer- 
 ing it. On the 6th of July I sent you two others. In vain I accom- 
 panied these documents with the most cordial invitation rapidly to 
 run over with me this series of indispensable discussions upon all our 
 grievances. You have not even given me an opportunity of proving 
 what liberality the Executive Directory would use on the occasion. 
 You never wrote, in fact, but for your departure}' 1 In a postscript, 
 dated three days later, and after receiving advices from AHH-I-KM 
 giving an account of the warlike acts of Congress, passed in May and 
 June, M. Talleyrand adds : " It seems that, hurried beyond every 
 limit, your Government no longer preserves appearances."
 
 148 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 (He then cites the various acts that have been passed.) " The long- 
 suffering of the Executive Directory," continues he, " is about to 
 manifest itself in the most unquestionable manner. Perfidy will no 
 longer be able to throw a veil over the pacific dispositions, which it 
 has never ceased to manifest. It is at the very moment of this fresh 
 provocation, which would appear to leave no honorable choice but 
 war, that it confirms the assurances I have given you on its behalf. 
 It is yet ready, it is as much disposed as ever, to terminate by a can- 
 did negotiation the differences which subsist between the two coun- 
 tries. Such is its repugnance to consider the United States as 
 enemies, that notwithstanding their hostile demonstrations, it means 
 to wait until it be irresistibly forced to it by real hostilities. Since 
 you will depart, sir, hasten, at least, to transmit to your Government 
 this solemn declaration." 
 
 Mr. Gerry did hasten to lay these declarations before his Govern 
 ment on the first day of October, and added, that from the best in- 
 formation he could obtain relative to the disposition of the Executive 
 Directory, they were very desirous for a reconciliation between the 
 Republics. 
 
 No sooner had Mr. Gerry left the shores of France, than M. 
 Talleyrand opened a correspondence on American affairs with M. 
 Pichon, Secretary of Legation of the French Republic, near the 
 Batavian Republic, and requested that gentleman to give copies of 
 the same to the American minister, Mr. Murray, doubtless with an 
 expectation that they would be forwarded to the President of the 
 United States. In his letter of August the 28th, just twenty 
 days from the departure of Mr. Gerry, he says : " I see between 
 France and the United States no clashing of interests, no motives of 
 jealousy. Where is, therefore, the cause of the misunderstanding, 
 which, if France did not show herself the wisest, would bring from 
 this moment a great rupture between the two Republics ? There are 
 neither incompatible interests, nor projects of aggrandizement, which 
 divide them. Lately, distrust has done all the mischief. The Gov 
 eminent of the United States has believed that France wished to have 
 revolutionized America ; France has believed that the Government 
 of the United States wished to throw itself into the arms of England. 
 It is because acrimony, having mingled itself with distrust, neither 
 side has taken true conciliatory means. It has been supposed, in the
 
 FRANCE AND THE ADMINISTRATION. 149 
 
 United States, that the French Government temporized, ill order to 
 strike with greater safety. Hence followed a crowd of measures, 
 each one more aggravating than the other. In France, it has been 
 supposed that the Government of the United States wished only to 
 support the appearances of negotiation. T/tence there was a certain 
 insisting on pledges of good faith. Let us substitute calmness to 
 passions, confidence to suspicions, and we shall soon agree. I have 
 made my efforts to wind up a negotiation, in this manner, with Mr. 
 Gerry. My correspondence with him, until the day of his departure, 
 is a curious monument of advances from me, and of evasions from 
 him. I wished to encourage Mr. Gerry, by the marks of regard 
 which his good intention deserved, though I cannot dissemble to 
 myself that he had been wanting decision, at the moment whe.n he 
 might easily have settled every thing properly." In a word, he 
 winds up with giving Mr. Murray, through M. Pichon, the most 
 solemn assurances that a new plenipotentiary would be received with- 
 out hesitation, and that an act of confidence towards them would en- 
 courage confidence on their part. This letter, so unequivocal in its 
 nature, and another, of a like tenor, making more direct overtures, if 
 possible, towards re-opening negotiations, must have reached the 
 President before the meeting of Congress in December. The Presi. 
 dent had other unequivocal, though less direct, evidences of the 
 pacific disposition of the French Directory. Dr. George Logan, a 
 native of Pennsylvania, while in France, was introduced to the 
 Director Merlin, and afterwards visited him on the footing of a pri- 
 vate friend. On one of these occasions, Merlin informed him that 
 France had not the least intention to interfere in the public affairs of 
 the United States ; that his country had acquired great reputation in 
 having assisted America to become a free republic, and that they 
 never would disgrace their own revolution by attempting the destruc- 
 tion of the United States. Dr. Logan returned home early in No- 
 vember, and hastened to communicate what he thought good news, to 
 the Secretary of State. He was coldly received by Mr. Pickering, 
 and informed that his news was of no importance. General Wash- 
 ington was at the seat of government about the time (Nov., 1798). 
 arranging his military operations with Generals Hamilton, Pinckney, 
 and the Secretary of War. Dr. Logan called on him. His m-q. 
 tion was even more cold and repulsive than that of the Secretary.
 
 150 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 When Logan repeated to him the conversation with Merlin, he re- 
 plied, that it was very singular ; that he, who could only be viewed 
 as a private character, unarmed with proper powers, and presump- 
 tively unknown in France, could effect what three gentlemen of the 
 first respectability in our country, specially charged under the 
 authority of the Government, were unable to do. " You, sir," with 
 some emphasis on the word. " were more fortunate than our envoys, 
 for they would neither be received nor heard by M. Merlin, nor the 
 Directory." 
 
 It is very evident that General Washington, at that time, was 
 highly exasperated with France ; that all his feelings were enlisted 
 against her ; and that, had he been at the head >f affairs, it would 
 have taken much more than Talleyrand's overtures to have induced 
 him to recommence negotiations. Had Washington been President 
 in 1798, or Hamilton, or Pinckney, or had Mr. Adams yielded more 
 readily to the counsel of his cabinet, who were wholly under the influ- 
 ence of the Triumvirate, the United States would unquestionably have 
 been involved in a war with the French Republic. But Mr. Adams, 
 whether from the motives assigned," or from higher patriotic consider- 
 ations, refused the dictation, and saved the country from so calami- 
 tous a war as that would have been with the French Republic. Just 
 before the meeting of Congress, he arrived in Philadelphia, from his 
 seat at Quincy. The tone of his mind seemed to have been raised. 
 rather than depressed. It was suggested to him (by the military 
 conclave says Mr. Jefferson) that it might be expedient to insert in 
 the speech to Congress, a sentiment of this import that after the re- 
 peatedly rejected advances of this country, its dignity required that 
 it should be left with France, in future, to make the first overture ; 
 that if. desirous of reconciliation, she should evince the disposition 
 by sending a minister to this Government, he would be received with 
 the respect due to his character, and treated with in the frankness of 
 a sincere desire of accommodation. 
 
 The suggestion was received in a manner both indignant and in- 
 temperate. Mr. Adams declared as a sentiment, which he had adopt- 
 ed on mature reflection, That if France stwuld send a minister to 
 mnrroio, he. would order him back the next day. 
 
 So imprudent an idea was easily refuted. But yet, in less than 
 forty-eight hours from this extraordinary sally, the mind of Mr
 
 FRANCE AND THE ADMINISTRATION. 151 
 
 Adams underwent a total revolution. He resolved not only to insert 
 in his speech the sentiment which had been proposed to him, but to 
 go farther, and to declare, that if France would give explicit assur- 
 ances of receiving a minister from this country, with due respect, 
 he would send one. 
 
 In vain was this extension of the sentiment opposed by all his 
 ministers, as being equally incompatible with good policy and with 
 the dignity of the nation. He obstinately persisted, and the decla- 
 ration was introduced. The reader may account for this change in 
 the mind of the President in two ways. In *he first place, we may 
 presume that he knew nothing of the dispatches containing the cor- 
 respondence of Mr. Gerry with M. Talleyrand, which might have 
 been received in his absence ; but that on perusing the correspon- 
 dence, he was forcibly struck with the fact that a reconciliation with 
 France depended solely on him. That correspondence presented the 
 business in this light : France says Two of the ministers you sent 
 to treat with me are personally offensive, on account of their hostile 
 opinions and haughty demeanor, a sentiment, according to the laws 
 of nations, we have a right to express, without giving offence to you. 
 I early expressed a desire that those gentlemen would depart, and a 
 readiness to open negotiation with the third, who evinced better dis- 
 positions towards conciliation. I told him to send home for addi- 
 tional powers, if he doubted his authority to act alone, or to inform 
 his Government that another minister would be received to treat in 
 his stead, or to agree informally on the terms of a treaty, which he 
 might submit for consideration on his return to the United States. 
 But declining to act on the one or the other of these propositions, 
 and still insisting on his return home, I then told him distinctly to 
 say to his Government, France has no cause of quarrel with America, 
 does not desire war, and is ready to receive in good faith a minister 
 of peace, whenever one may be sent. Such was the attitude of the 
 subject exhibited by the dispatches of Mr. Gerry. 
 
 It was impossible for a President of the United States to under 
 stand them, and then to take upon himself the responsibility of in- 
 jecting those overtures of peace. In this way we may account for tlu 
 sudden change in the mind of Mr. Adams, and do credit to his finis 
 ness and patriotism. But is it reasonable to suppose that I 
 ignorant of those dispatches, or their contents, till so late a
 
 152 I' 1 1'' 1 '' O1 '' JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Mr. Gerry had arrived, and communicated them to the State Depart- 
 ment on the first day of October. He himself was an intimate per- 
 sonal friend of the President, and lived in the same State and neigh- 
 borhood. The most reasonable conclusion, therefore, is, that Mr. 
 Adams was well informed on the whole subject when he arrived iu 
 Philadelpha, and that the change in his course was produced by the 
 motives assigned at the time that is, a jealousy of Hamilton and 
 Pinckney, and a belief that a plot was on foot in which his cabinet 
 were implicated, to degrade and injure him, and to exalt the one or 
 the other of those military characters in his place. 
 
 But, notwithstanding this apparent change in his mind towards 
 the most pacific measures, he kept back from Congress those impor- 
 tant dispatches of Mr. Gerry, and other information of a pacific kind, 
 till the 18th of January, 1799. They were then accompanied by an 
 elaborate report of the Secretary of State, in which he says the 
 points chiefly meriting attention are the attempts of the French Go- 
 vernment ; 1. To exculpate itself from the charge of corruption; 2. 
 To detach Mr. Gerry from his colleagues, and to inveigle him into a 
 separate negotiation ; and 3. Its design, if the negotiation failed, and 
 a war should take place between the United States and France, to 
 throw the blame of the rupture on the United States. The Secre- 
 tary labors to keep up the spirit of distrust towards France, and to prove 
 that all the overtures of her minister are insincere, merely intended 
 to deceive the United States, and to gain time. " Warmly profes- 
 sing its desire of reconciliation," says he in conclusion, " it gives no 
 evidence of its sincerity ; but proofs, in abundance, demonstrate that 
 it is not sincere. From standing erect, and in that commanding atti- 
 tude requiring implicit obedience, cowering, it renounces some of its 
 unfounded demands. But I hope we shall remember that tJie tiger 
 crouches before fa Imps upon his prey. ." A very different temper this 
 from that of the President in his opening speech to Congress in De- 
 cember ; nor does it show a very harmonious co-operation between 
 the Chief Magistrate and his ministers. 
 
 Just one month from the communication of the Secretary's report 
 to Congress that is, on the 18th of February, the President nomi- 
 nated William Vans Murray as envoy to the French Republic. This 
 measure was taken without any previous consultation with his minis- 
 The nomination was. to each of them, even to the Secretary
 
 FRANCE AND THE ADMINISTRATION. 153 
 
 of State, his constitutional counsellor in such affairs, the first notice 
 of the project. The nomination was accompanied with a letter of 
 Talleyrand to M. Pichon, dated 28th September, 1798; and the 
 second, of like tenor, giving assurances that a minister from the 
 United States would be received and accredited. 
 
 The precipitate nomination of Mr. Murray brought Mr. Adams 
 into an awkward predicament. He found it necessary to change his 
 plan in its progress, and, instead of one, to nominate three envoys, 
 and to superadd a promise, that, though appointed, they should not 
 leave the United States till further and more perfect assurances were 
 given by the French Government. This remodification of the mea- 
 sure was a virtual acknowledgment that it had been premature. It 
 argued either instability of views, or want of sufficient consideration 
 beforehand. 
 
 General Washington disapproved very highly of the measure. 
 He was immediately informed of it by the Secretary of State : and 
 in reply, said "The unexpectedness of the event communicated 
 in your letter of the 21st ultimo did, as you may suppose, sur- 
 prise me not a little. But far, very far indeed was this surprise 
 short of what I experienced the next day, when, by a very intelligent 
 gentleman, immediately from Philadelphia, I was informed that there 
 had been no direct overture from the Government of France to that 
 of the United States for a negotiation ; on the contrary, that al. Tal- 
 leyrand was playing the same loose and round-about game he had 
 attempted the year before with our wrongs ; and which, as ?n that 
 case, might mean any thing or nothing, as would subserve his purpose 
 best." 
 
 The speculations of the Republicans on the other hand were to 
 the following effect. " I inform you," says Mr. Jefferson in a letter 
 to Madison, "of the nomination of Murray. There is evidence that 
 the letter of Talleyrand was known to one of the Secretaries, and 
 therefore probably to all ; the nomination, however, is declared by 
 one of thorn to have been kept secret from them all. He added that 
 he was glad of it. as, had they been consulted, the advice would have 
 been against making the nomination. To the rest of the party, how- 
 ever, the whole was a secret till the nomination was announced 
 Never did a party show a stronger mortification, and consequently, 
 that war had been their object. Dana declared in debate (as I have 
 
 VOL. i. 7*
 
 154 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 from those who were present), that we had done every thing which 
 might provoke France to a war ; that we had given her insults which 
 no nation ought to have borne ; and yet she would not declare war. 
 The conjecture as to the Executive is, that they received Talleyrand V 
 letter before or about the meeting of Congress : that not meaning to 
 meet the overture effectually, they kept it secret, and let all the \v;u 
 measures go on; but that just before the separation of the Senate. 
 the President, not thinking he could justify the concealing such an 
 overture, nor indeed that it could be concealed, made a nomination, 
 hoping that his friends in the Senate would take on their own shoul- 
 ders the odium of rejecting it ; but they did not choose it. The 
 Hamiltonians would not. and the others could not, alone The whole 
 artillery of the phalanx, therefore, was played secretly on the Presi- 
 dent, and he was obliged himself to take a step which should parry 
 the overture while it wears the face of acceding to it. (Mark that I 
 state this as conjecture : but founded on workings and indications 
 which have been under our eyes.) Yesterday, therefore (25th Feb.). 
 he sent in a nomination of Oliver Ellsworth, Patrick Henry, and 
 William Vans Murray, Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Pleni- 
 potentiary to the French Republic, but declaring the two former 
 should not leave this country, till they should receive from France 
 assurances that they should be received with the respect due by the 
 laws of nations to their character. This, if not impossible, must 
 keep off at least the day so hateful and no fatal to them, of reconcilia- 
 tion, and leave more time for new projects of provocation." 
 
 The truth is, the friends of the Government were not agreed as 
 to ulterior measures. Some wert for immediate and unqualified war 
 of this class were Hamilton and most of the military gentry others 
 were for a more mitigated course : the dissolution of treaties, pre- 
 paration of force by land and sea, partial hostilities of a defensive 
 tendency ; leaving to France the option of seeking accommodation, 
 or proceeding to open war. As most of the responsibility rested 
 on members of Congress, this latter course was preferredfby them, 
 and prevailed. Either course was consistent with itself and admit- 
 f a steady line of policy. But the President, having no fixed 
 object, and governed by the impulse of the moment, came athwart all 
 their plans and destroyed them. Notwithstanding the modifications 
 of his embassy, it was very evident that most of the federal members
 
 FRANCE AND THE ADMINISTRATION. 155 
 
 of both branches of Congress carried home with them a settled dis- 
 like to the measure. They regarded it as ill-timed, built upon too 
 slight grounds, and, therefore, humiliating to the United States : as 
 calculated to revive French principles, strengthen the party against 
 Government, and produce changes in the sentiments and conduct of 
 some of the European powers, that might materially affect the in- 
 terests and growing commercial prospects of the United States. 
 
 Before the envoys departed, intelligence was received of a new 
 revolution in the French Government, and the expulsion of two of the 
 Directory. -This was thought to be a valid motive for delay at 
 least till it could be known whether the new Directory would ratify 
 the assurances of the old one. When the news of the revolution in 
 the Directory arrived, Mr. Adams was at his seat in Massachusetts. 
 His ministers addressed to him a joint letter, communicating the in- 
 telligence, and submitting to his consideration, whether that event 
 ought to suspend the projected mission. In a letter which he after- 
 wards wrote from the same place, he directed the preparation of a 
 draft of instructions for the envoys, and intimated that their depar- 
 ture would be suspended for some time. 
 
 Shortly after, about the middle of October 1799. he came to the 
 seat of government, when he adjusted with his ministers the tenor 
 of the instructions to be given ; but observed a profound silence on 
 the question whether it was expedient that the mission should pro- 
 ceed. The ministers expected a consultation on the great question, 
 whether the mission to France would be suspended until the fate of 
 its Government could be known. But they were disappointed. The 
 President alone considered and decided. The morning after the in- 
 structions were settled, he signified to the Secretary of State that 
 the envoys were immediately to depart. 
 
 Though uncommunicative to his constitutional advisers, he was 
 very free in his conversations with the envoys as to his expectations 
 in regard to their embassy. He told theni that the French Govern- 
 ment would not accept the terms, which they were instructed to pro- 
 pose ; that they would speedily return ; and that he should have to 
 recommend to Congress a declaration of war. "But as to the 
 French negotiation producing a war with England," said he, " if it <li.l. 
 England could not hurt us." " When," Mr. Ellsworth says, ' ; .Pick- 
 ering recited this last idea to me and Mr. Wolcott, I had not pa-
 
 156 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 tience to hear more. And yet the President has several times, iu his 
 letters to me. from Quincy, mentioned the vast importance of keep- 
 ing on good terms with England." 
 
 The reader cannot be surprised that such a man should work the 
 destruction of any party that regarded him as its head ; indeed that. 
 with him, there was no such thing as party : either he was elevated 
 above ordinary mortals, and studied the good of the country alone, 
 without regard to his own interests, or sunk below the level of com- 
 mon-trading politicians who care for neither measures nor men. only 
 so far as they may conspire to their own personal elevation. 
 
 When the new Congress, of which John Randolph was a mem- 
 ber, assembled at the Capitol in December, 1799. the federal party 
 apparently compact, and with a majority of at least twenty in the 
 House of Representatives, carried within it all the elements of dis- 
 solution. The death blow had been given by its own friends, and it 
 required time only to discover the causes of its rapid decay. When 
 the extraordinary events of which we have spoken were made known 
 to Washington, on the 17th of November, 1799. but a few weeks be- 
 fore his death, he would answer nothing to them, but exclaimed. (: 1 
 have been stricken dumb! I have, some time past." says he. " viewed 
 the political concerns of the United States with an anxious and 
 painful eye. They appear to me to be moving by hasty strides to a 
 crisis ; but in what it will result, that Being who sees, foresees, and 
 directs all things, alone can tell. The vessel is afloat, or very nearly 
 so, and considering myself as a passenger only. I shall trust to the 
 mariners, whole duty it is to watch, to steer it into a safe port." 
 Thou great and good man ! the ship is afloat ! When first launched 
 upon the deep, thine own seamanship guided the untried vessel o'er 
 many a stormy billow, with Scylla and Charybdis on either hand : 
 thy wakeful eye didst steer right onward ; but never was it permit- 
 ted thee. thou good Palinurus, to see the ship steered into a safe port ! 
 From amidst thy fellow-passengers, all weeping and gazing in the 
 heavens, thou wert borne aloft in a chariot of fire, and. by bands of 
 celestial spirits heralded into realms of immortal glory. And now, 
 thef old Iron-sides having buffeted many a stormy sea. and riding 
 gallantly with all her banners streaming, hails thee her first, her best, 
 her greatest Captain !
 
 SCENE IN THE PLAYHOUSE. 157 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 SCENE IN THE PLAYHOUSE STANDING ARMY. 
 
 ON the first day of January, eighteen hundred, Washington was 
 dead : Bonaparte First Consul of France. Our envoys had been 
 favorably received. Every prospect of a satisfactory adjustment of 
 the differences between the two republics, and no further need for 
 the large army which had been established, and th < other vast and 
 expensive military preparations that had been projected with so 
 much vigor under the X. Y. Z. excitement. Accordingly, on the 7th 
 of January, Mr. Nicholas, a leading member of the republican party, 
 moved in the House a resolution to repeal the act passed the 16th of 
 July, 1798, entitled "An act to augment the army of the United 
 States." The debate lasted for several days, and was warm and ani- 
 mated. On the 10th the motion was lost by a vote of sixty to thirty- 
 nine. It was a strict party vote, and showed a majority of twenty- 
 one for the federalists. John Randolph, for the first time, partici- 
 pated in the debate this day. The part he performed will be given 
 in his own words. " In the course of the debates upon the resolution 
 of Mr. Nicholas, I took occasion to say that the people of the United 
 States ought not to depend for their safety on the soldiers enlisted 
 under the laws, the repeal of which was the object of the resolution, 
 and casually, but justly, applied to them the epithet of ragamuffins. 
 I also declared that standing, or mercenary armies, -were inconsistent 
 with the spirit of our Constitution, or the genius of a free people. 
 General Lee, and others, dilated upon these terms. He affirmed the 
 last to be misapplied, and defined the word mercenary so as to give 
 it an application only to troops hired for the defence of a country 
 other than tlieir own. In reply, I contended that there was no ety- 
 mology which would warrant his construction ; that the term was de- 
 rived from a Latin word which signified wages, and did not embnu-c. 
 as he had declared my meaning would justify, the militia, which like^Bg 
 receives pay when in actual service, but was exclusively appropr" 
 ated to such men (whether foreigners, or otherwise) as made the ;irt 
 military a profession, or trade, and was properly expressive of a st<nul-
 
 158 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ing army who served for wages and by contract, in contradistinction 
 to a militia, or patriotic army, which was composed of all ranks of 
 citizens, equally bound to fight the battles of their country, and in 
 which each contributed his share to the public safety, and who re- 
 ceived pay only when in actual service, to enable the poorer citizen 
 to perform his military duty. 
 
 " In consequence of my application of these terms to the existing 
 establishment the first of which I confined to such recruits as had 
 been picked up in my own country a party ot officers, the principal 
 agents among whom were a Captain M ; Knight and a Lieutenant Mi- 
 chael Reynolds, both belonging to the marine coips, being apprised 
 that I was in the playhouse on Friday evening last (on which day 
 the resolution was lost, about six o'clock), came into the box where 
 I was, and commenced their operations by frequent allusions, aimed 
 at me, to what was going on in the house. The play was The Stran- 
 ger, and the after-piece Bluebeard. They asked one another if the 
 soldiers on the stage did not act very well for mercenaries ; said they 
 supposed from their color (Turks) they were Virginians ; squeezed 
 into the seat with evident intention to incommode us, particularly 
 myself; and when we were leaving the box, gave me a twitch by the 
 coat; but upon the author being demanded, they had disappeared. 
 On going down stairs, some of the gentlemen said they tried to push 
 us all down in mass, and in the street they passed with a rude quick- 
 ness, jostling one of the gentlemen, and striking another's foot. In 
 their aim upon me they were disappointed. I regarded all they said 
 with the most perfect nonchalance ; was unmoved by their attempts 
 to insult me, except when they offered personal violence ; and in con- 
 formity to what I thought my duty, laid a written complaint before 
 the President. To-day (Tuesday, the 14th) he sent it to the House 
 with a letter, in which he lays it before us ' without any comment 
 upon its style.' I must not omit telling you that my feelings were 
 strongly excited. A motion was made to provide a committee of 
 privileges, to whom it was to be referred. This I opposed, express- 
 my surprise that the letter had been laid before us, a measure 
 h I had not contemplated when I wrote it ; that I had addressed 
 t to the authority whose particular duty it was to suppress such 
 conduct in the military, and disclaimed all wish to throw myself upon 
 the protection of himself or of that House ; that the privileges of
 
 SCENE IN THE PLAYHOUSE. 
 
 159 
 
 Congress being expressly defined by the Constitution, I was unwill- 
 ing to give my assent to any measure which might lead to enlarge 
 them, and which, even if we had a right to adopt it, would hereafter 
 be prostituted to nefarious designs. My objection was overruled, 
 and a committee appointed of seven, on which the speaker, had the 
 uncommon goodness to nominate three republicans. 
 
 " Perhaps some misguided persons may be induced to depreciate 
 the motives by which I have been actuated. I cannot help it. My 
 business is to do what I conceive ."ight, careless of the opinion of all. 
 I was delighted to find my sentiments upon this subject coincided 
 with those of Dr. Tucker ; it is no bad criterion of the truth of any 
 opinion that it meets his assent. I sometimes look back upoi the 
 principles which once governed my moral conduct with astonishment 
 how much to be regretted it is, that the painted phantom of honor 
 should be dressed in such captivating colors as to suffer few of the 
 nobler minds to escape her contagious embrace." 
 
 The letter addressed to the President, after stating the affair in 
 the theatre, proceeds thus " Having stated the fact, it would be de- 
 rogatory to your character for me to point out the remedy. So far 
 as they relate to this application addressed to you in a public capaci- 
 ty, they can only be supposed by you to be of a public nature. It is 
 enough for me to state, that the independence of the legislature has 
 been attacked, and the majesty of the people, of which you are the 
 principal representative, insulted, and your authority contemned. 
 In their name, I demand that a provision commensurate with the evil 
 be made, and which will be calculated to deter others from any future 
 attempt to introduce the reign of terror into our country. In ad- 
 dressing you in this plain language of man, I give you, sir, the best 
 proof I can afford of the estimation in which I hold your office and 
 your understanding ; and I assure you with truth, that I am with re- 
 spect, your fellow-citizen, 
 
 " JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 "Chamber H. Representatives Jan. 11, 24th Independence. 
 : < To the President of the U. States." 
 
 The reader perceives here none of those courtly and unmeaniiu 
 (if not worse) phrases that usually begin and end the epistles address- 
 ed to high functionaries by those who seek to gain their favor by ob-
 
 160 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 sequiousness and flattery To his Excellency, the President of tfte 
 United States Your most obedient and humble servant none of 
 that, but an unvarnished, straight-forward statement of facts ; he tells 
 the President that the independence of the legislature has been at- 
 tacked, the majesty of the people insulted, and demands that he. 
 their chief representative, shall make some provision adequate to pre- 
 vent the reign of terror from being introduced into the country. The 
 whole letter was conceive^ in a stern, independent, republican spirit. 
 and ought not, we would suppose, to have given offence to any one 
 who understood and duly appreciated the term fellow-citizen. 
 
 This letter the President thought proper on jhe 14th of the 
 month to communicate to the House " As the inclosed letter," say? 
 he, " from a member of your body, received by me on the night of 
 Saturday the llth inst., relates to the privileges of the House, which 
 in my opinion ought to be inquired into by the House itself, if any 
 where. I have thought proper to submit the whole letter and its 
 tendencies to your consideration, without any other comments on its 
 matter and style." It is very plain what he and Pickering thought 
 about both. 
 
 The committee appointed to take this matter of privilege into con- 
 sideration, consisted of Messrs. Chauncey, Goodrich, Macon, Kittera, 
 Jones, Sewell, Robert Williams, and Bayard Mr. Macon was ex- 
 cused and Mr. Hanna appointed in his stead. 
 
 Messrs. Goodrich, Kittera, Sewell, and Bayard, constituting the 
 majority of the committee, were the most distinguished and influen- 
 tial members of the federal party in the House. 
 
 On the 18th, Mr. Randolph addressed the following commu- 
 nication to the Chairman of the Committee : (; A mature considera- 
 tion of the subject induces me to suspect, that a refusal on my part 
 to communicate the information requested by you a few days ago, 
 could only have originated in a false delicacy, under whose impulse 
 I am determined never to act ; I shall therefore proceed to state 
 some instances of the misconduct of Capt. M'Knight and Lieut. Rey- 
 nolds, on the night of Friday, the 10th instant. 
 
 |f : Exclusive of repeated assertions to what passed in the House 
 f Representatives during the debate of the preceding day, and a fre- 
 quent repetition of some words which fell from me during that dis- 
 cussion, in a manner so marked as to leave no doubt on my mind, or
 
 SCENE IN THE PLAYHOUSE. 
 
 that of Messrs. Van Rensselaer, Christie, or Macon, of their intention 
 to insult me personally ; finding me determined to take no notice 
 of their words, they adopted a conduct which placed their designs be- 
 yond every possibility of doubt, and which they probably conceived 
 to be calculated to force me into their measures. Mr. Christie had 
 left his seat between me and the partition of the box ; after which, 
 Mr. Van Rensselaer, who sat on the other side of me, laid down, so 
 as to occupy a more than ordinary portion of room, and occasioned 
 my removal to a part of Mr. Christie's former seat, leaving a very 
 small vacancy between myself and the partition. Into this Lieut. 
 Reynolds suddenly, and without requesting or giving time for room 
 to be made for him, dropped with such violence as to bring our hips 
 into contact. The shock was sufficient to occasion a slight degree of 
 pain on my part, and for which it is probable he would in some de- 
 gree have apologized, had not the act been intentional. Just before 
 I left the box, one of them, I believe M'Knight, gave me a sudden 
 and violent pull by the cape of my coat. Upon my demanding who 
 it was, (this was the first instance in which I noticed their proceed- 
 ings.) no answer was given. I then added, that I had long perceived 
 an intention to insult me, and that the person offering it was a pup- 
 py. No reply that I heard was made. 
 
 " It will be impossible for me, sir, to specify the various minute 
 actions of these persons and their associates, which tended to the 
 same point. Suffice it to say, that their whole deportment exhibited 
 an insolence, and their every act betokened a bold defiance, which 
 can nether be defined nor mistaken, and which, according to the gene- 
 rally received opinions of the world, not only would have justified, 
 but demanded chastisement. 
 
 " Referring the committee to the numerous and authentic ac- 
 counts of this transaction, which the gentlemen present are so well 
 calculated to give, I remain with respect, sir, 
 
 " Your fellow-citizen, 
 
 "JOHN RANDOLPH." 
 
 Those gentlemen, Mr. Christie, Mr. Macon, Mr. Nicholson, Mid 
 others, men of great respectability, and members of Congress, did 
 confirm in every particular the above statement. There rested not 
 the shadow of -a doubt on their mind, that Reynolds and M'Kr.ight 

 
 162 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 intended to insult Mr. Randolph, and to inflict personal injury on 
 him, for woids spoken in debate. 
 
 The only testimony iji opposition to those gentlemen of such 
 high respectability, and Mr. Randolph's own statement, so detailed 
 and explicit, was the declaration of those persons themselves. Their 
 testimony is evidently an equivocation : they say they did not so to 
 the theatre with the intention of insulting Mr. Randolph. '-I 
 did not know." says M'Knight, " Mr. Randolph was to be at the 
 theatre, nor do I ever recollect seeing him previous to Friday even- 
 ing ; and, from his youthful appearance and dress, I had no idea of 
 his being a member of the House of Representatives." All this may 
 be very true, and yet after reaching there, it is very evident they 
 conceited the idea of insulting and injuring him. 
 
 The committee, after collecting all the evidence they could find 
 material in the case, report the following resolutions : 
 
 Resolved, That this House entertains a respectful sense of the re- 
 gtrd which the President of the United States has shown to its 
 rights and privileges, in his message of the 14th instant, accompanied 
 by a letter addressed to him by John Randolph, Jun., a member of 
 this House. 
 
 Resolved^ That in respect to the charge alleged by John Ran- 
 dolph, Jun., a member of this House, in his letter addressed to the 
 President of the United States, on the eleventh instant, and by him 
 submitted to the consideration of this House, that sufficient cause 
 does not appear for the interposition of this House, on the ground of 
 a breach of its privileges. 
 
 The first resolution was passed without a division. To the se- 
 cond, several amendments were offered, going to censure M'Knight 
 and Reynolds, but were rejected. Then the resolution itself was re- 
 jected, by a majority of twelve, showing that even that House were 
 not prepared to sacrifice their privileges, which had been so evidently 
 and wantonly insulted and trampled on. The Speaker then ruled 
 all further action on the subject out of order, and so shoved \t aside. 
 
 We leave Mr. Randolph's friend and contemporary, William 
 Tlwmpson, to make his commentaries on these transactions, the more 
 valuable as the spontaneous effusions of an ingenuous and noble 
 mind : " The committee," says he, " who sat to examine the charge 
 gainst several minions of executive power, which, of all that can be
 
 SCENE IN THE PLAY-HOUSE. 163 
 
 brought against men, was most serious, as being most destructive tc 
 the liberties of America the committee who were called on to say 
 whether the privileges of the House should be prostrated, as the privi- 
 leges of the people have been the committee* who were called on to 
 decide whether a set of armed ruffians should surround the capitol, 
 and dictate our laws this committee have determined, that although 
 there were some circumstances (language of the report) which deserved 
 censure, yet they were not of such a nature as to be considered a 
 breach of the privileges of the House. Admit the meaning which 
 they wish to give to some circumstances, I say, if there were any cir- 
 cumstance, no matter how trivial in its nature it may be, if on the 
 most rigid inquiry it can be found that a legislator is insulted for his 
 official conduct, that the man who insults . ffers an insult to the peo- 
 ple ; and that the men who do not, when called on, inflict all the 
 punishment their power licenses, is an enemy, are enemies to the 
 liberty of America. What, sir, will result from the decision of that 
 committee ? The republicans are liable to daily and hourly insults 
 the soldiers of Philadelphia are to be raised to a Pretoriau band 
 our measures are to. be dictated by the willing foes of our liberty 
 and virtuous opposition is to be silenced by the bayonet. Let me 
 not be told that these apprehensions are ridiculous ; I say they are 
 grounded in the full conviction, that the military mob is supported by 
 the administration, and that administration will make great sacrifices 
 to their love of power. I say it is grounded on a conviction that this 
 army is not now kept up to secure us from invasion ; but that it con- 
 templates something, and I fear that something is injurious to my 
 country. That the insults you received were not offered to you as 
 an individual, is certain ; for as an individual, separate from your 
 principles, I perceive they knew you not ; it is certain, because your 
 words were quoted. Not content with debasing us in fact, they wish 
 to debase us even in appearance they cavil at your words. Had 
 you addressed the President in courtly style, they would forgive the 
 contents of your letter; addressing him as you have done, we applaud 
 the conduct, and we rejoice there is one man left us whose principles 
 and whose manners stand uncorrupted in these corrupted times. 
 I say we, for I speak the language of many ; I say we, for I 
 speak the language of your State. The persecutions of a factiou 
 have made you more dear to us. Not that your merits art' ui-
 
 IQ4: LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 creased by circumstances, but because this is a glaring instance 
 amongst many, that men are persecuted as the organs of principles. 
 This committee have done more, anxious that no opportunity should 
 be lost to liquidate part of the great debt of adulation, they have inter- 
 woven a motion of thanks to the President for the respectful sense he 
 has shown of their privileges. Whither does this lead ? Is it not tc 
 be apprehended, that by this conduct your rights are to be changed 
 irto courtesy, that your rights are to hang on the nod of your Presi- 
 dent? Does this man deserve thanks for the compliance with his 
 official duties ? Does he deserve thanks for doing that for which he 
 is paid by his country ? The friends of America look at this affair 
 with wonder and with horror. The timid part of the community say 
 we will not send a man whose principles are obnoxious, for fear of 
 consequences ; the patriots of your State say we will send men who 
 dare to speak the truth, no matter in whose ears it is grating. But 
 it was disrespectful to call him fellow-citizen ! Yes, he is not a fel- 
 low-citizen, because he is chief officer, he is alienated by promotion. 
 There is more truth in his having been aliened than they would 
 admit. I will forget for a moment that I am personally acquainted 
 with you, and state, that you evinced in this affair an intrepid cool- 
 ness, a firmness, and calmness, which must convince every man, not 
 sworn to partiality, that every word of your evidence is most rigid 
 truth. But your remark of mercenary and ragamuffin was gall- 
 ing to certain men in that House ; your arguments throughout the 
 whole were unanswerable ; and your naked truths (for I will adopt 
 your very appropriate expression) were dangerous to men who, un- 
 veiled, are damned." 
 
 This affair created, at the time, great excitement through the 
 country. It was considered as but one of a series of events that had 
 for their end the subjugation of the people to the will of the federal 
 oligarchy. The enormous public debt, which was daily increasing by 
 heavy loans at usurious interest, the funding system, the National 
 Bank, the recently-created navy establishment, and large standing 
 army without an enemy or the prospect of an enemy, the alien and 
 the sedition laws in active operation, sparing neither station nor age. 
 had given an alarming and a powerful centralizing action to the 
 Government. And it was thought that the evil tendencies of all those 
 measures were now consummated in the humiliation of the legisla-
 
 SCENE IN THE PLAY-HOUSE. 165 
 
 ture to executive authority, and its tame submission to the arrogance 
 of military pride. The trivial occurrence in the theatre, giving an 
 opportunity to the President to display his petulant temper and his 
 high sense of official consequence, and to the House of Representa- 
 tives to manifest their subservient spirit, proved to be a very serious 
 business. The people, more sagacious than they have credit for 
 among some politicians, saw at once the tendency of these proceedings ; 
 and Randolph was hailed throughout the Union as the champion of 
 the rights of the people. The very morning (15th January) his cor- 
 respondence with the President appeared in the Philadelphia papers, 
 and before any action thereon by the House, he received a communi- 
 cation professing to convey the sentiments of a number of respectable 
 citizens. " It is our decided opinion," say they, " that the person of 
 a delegate in Congress ought to be as sacred from public or private 
 insult as the person of an ambassador to a foreign power. Should this 
 flagrant violation of the privilege of a member of your House which 
 has been offered to your person be vnnked at, may not enterprising 
 men introduce parties into the House, which, by putting its members 
 in bodily fear, will completely shackle the freedom of debate, and 
 thereby injure the public good ?" They then proceed to thank him for 
 having the boldness candidly to avow tlie real sentiments, of his heart, 
 with a huge capital R and a tremendous underscoring of the word real 
 in the original document, which is now before us. We might infer from 
 this that such boldness was very unusual at that time. And indeed it 
 was true. Madison had retired before the storm ; so had Giles and the 
 plain blunt-spoken Finlay, of Pennsylvania. Gallatin was still there ; 
 but he was not the man for the crisis ; he was a foreigner, modest, 
 plain in his elocution, and dealt more in facts and figures of arith- 
 . inetic than those bold metaphors and figures of speech so essential to 
 arouse and interest the people. The whole House might slumber 
 under Gallatin's demonstrations, while one schrill echo of Randolph's 
 voice would wake the seven sleepers. Matthew Lyon is seen among 
 the silent voters ; but three months' imprisonment last winter in a 
 dungeon, not six feet square, under the sedition law, for daring to 
 publish words in disparagement of the President, has cooled his Irish 
 temper, and awed him into silence. This Harry Hotspur, therefore, 
 or young cornet of horse, burst suddenly among them like a sky- 
 rocket. His boldness, his eloquence, his youthful appearance, struck
 
 166 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 them with astonishment. But who can tell the effect of those naked 
 truths, which fell like hot shot among the enemy, all intrenched and 
 secure, as they supposed themselves, behind their formidable walls ! 
 John Thompson's prediction was fulfilled in the very outset of his 
 career : He will become an object of admiration ami terror to the ene- 
 miS of liberty ! 
 
 CHAPTEK XXIV. 
 
 MAKE TO YOUESELF AN IDOL, AND, IN SPITE OF THE DECA- 
 LOGUE, WOESHIP IT. 
 
 DURING the winter and spring of 1800 he kept up a regular cor- 
 respondence with his friend, William Thompson, who, the reader 
 knows, had found a home and an asylum in his misfortunes under the 
 hospitable roof of Bizarre. The soothing temper he manifests towards 
 that unfortunate youth, the sound advice he gave him, so fraught with 
 wisdom and a knowledge of human nature, and his judicious and 
 well-timed encouragement, to arouse from his lethargy and become 
 the man he was capable of being, present the character of John Ran- 
 dolph in a pleasing point of view, and explain in a measure those 
 traits of mind and disposition, known only to a few, that made him 
 such an object of devoted friendship on the part of those who were 
 honored by his intimate regard. 
 
 John Randolph, jun to his friend and brother, William Tlwmpson. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 31, 24th year. 
 
 " Your letter was peculiarly acceptable to me. It relieved me 
 from considerable anxiety on account of your health, to the ill state 
 of which I attributed that suspension of our correspondence, which 
 has originated in the derangement of the post office department ; it 
 contained assurances of that regard of which I never entertained a 
 doubt, but which, nevertheless, were extremely gratifying to me ; but 
 above all it put my mind at ease upon a subject which has been pro- 
 ductive of considerable concern. I mean your change of residence, 
 which, as you will find by my last. I understood you had removed
 
 IDOL-WORSHIP. 
 
 167 
 
 to Chinquepin Church not knowing your reasons for leaving Bi- 
 zarre, I could not combat. Great, however, was my surprise and 
 pleasure to receive a letter from Judy (Mrs. Richard Randolph) and 
 yourself; both of which relieved my anxiety upon this head. I am, 
 moreover, charmed, my friend, that you are resolutely bent upon 
 study, and have made some progress therein. Let me conjure you 
 to adhere inflexibly to this rational pursuit. Your destiny is in your 
 own hands. Regular employment is of all medicines the most effect- 
 ual for a wounded mind. If the sympathy of a friend who loves you 
 because yon are amiable and unfortunate : because you are the rep- 
 resentative of that person (John Thompson died January, 1799) who 
 held the first place in his heart, and the first rank in the intellectual 
 order ; if my uniform friendship, my dear Thompson, could heal the 
 wounds of your heart, never should it know a pang. Your situation 
 is of all others the one most eminently calculated to repair, so far as 
 it is possible, the ills which you have sustained. An amiable woman, 
 who regards you as a brother, who shares your griefs, and will admin- 
 ister as far as she can to your consolation, who unites to talents of 
 the first order a degree of cultivation uncommon in any country, but 
 especially in ours such a woman is under the same roof with you. 
 Cultivate a familiarity with her ; each day will give you new and uu 
 expected proof of the strength of her mind, and the extent of her 
 information. Books you have at command; your retirement is 
 unbroken. Such a situation is, in my opinion, the best calculated for 
 a young man (under any circumstances) who will study ; or even for 
 one who is determined to be indolent. Female society, in my eye, is 
 an indispensable requisite in forming the manly character. That 
 which is offered to you is not to be paralleled, perhaps, in the world. 
 You call on me, my friend, for advice. You bid me regard your 
 foibles with a lenient eye; you anticipate the joy which I shall 
 derive from your success. I will not permit yself to doubt of 
 it. You shall succeed you must. You have it in your power. 
 Exertion only is necessary. You owe it to the memory of our 
 departed brother, to yourself, to me, to your country, to human- 
 ity ! Apprised that you have foibles to eradicate, the work is 
 more than half accomplished. I will point them out with ;i friendly 
 yet lenient hand. You will not shrink from the probe, know- 
 ing that in communicating present pain your ultimate cure and
 
 163 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 safety is the object of the friendly operator. If I supposed myself 
 capable of inflicting intentional and wanton pain upon your feelings, 
 I should shrink with abhorrence from myself. In the course of my 
 strictures I may, perhaps, appear abrupt. I am now pressed for 
 time. 
 
 " Self-examination, when cool and impartial, is the best of all cor- 
 rectives. It is a general and trite observation that man knows his 
 fellows better than himself. This is too true ; but it depends upon 
 every individual to exhibit, in himself, a refutation of this received 
 maxim. Retirement and virtuous society fit the mind for this task. 
 
 " Among your foibles I have principally observed unsteadiness ; a 
 precipitate decision, and the want of mature reflection, generally. . It 
 would be uncandid to determine your character by these traits, which 
 originate, perhaps, or are at least heightened, by the uneasiness which 
 preys upon your mind, which renders you more than usually restless. 
 Endeavor, my friend, to act less upon momentary impulse ; pause, 
 reflect ; think much and speak little ; form a steadiness of dempanor. 
 and having once resolved, persevere. Read, but do not devour, books. 
 Compare your information; digest it. In short, according to the 
 old proverb, " Make haste slowly." There is one point upon which 
 I must enjoin you to beware. You appeared restless, when I saw 
 you, to change your property. Let things stand as they are a little. 
 Facilis discensus, sed revocare gradum, hoc opus. (Excuse, I beseech 
 you, this pitiful display of learning.) 
 
 " The Due de la Rochefoucault who, by the by, is a bad moral 
 preceptor has, among others, this very excellent maxim : ' We are 
 never made so ridiculous by the qualities we possess, as by those 
 which we affect to have.' I never knew a man who would not profit 
 of this observation. To preserve your own esteem, merit it. I have 
 no fear that you will ever render yourself unworthy of its greatest 
 good. Yet, a man who is so unfortunate as to lose his own good 
 opinion, is wrong to despair. It may be retrieved. He ought to set 
 about it immediately, as the only reparation which he can make to 
 himself or society. The ill opinion of mankind is often misplaced ; 
 but our own of ourselves never. 
 
 " Pardon, my dear brother, this pedantic and didactic letter. Its 
 scntentiousness is intolerable, yet it was almost unavoidable. I had 
 written till my fingers were cramped. The hour of closing the mail
 
 IDOL-WORSHIP. 
 
 169 
 
 approached, and I was obliged to throw my sentiments into the offen- 
 sive form of dogmas. That I, who abound in foibles, and, to speak 
 truth, vices that I should pretend to dogmatize, may appear to many 
 arrogant indeed. Yet, let them recollect that we are all frail, and 
 should sustain each other ; and that the truth of a precept is not de 
 termined by the practice of him who promulges it. Go on, my dear 
 Thompson, and prosper. I regret that I am debarred the pleasure of 
 sharing your literary labors, and of that interchange of sentiment 
 which constitutes one of the chief sources of my enjoyment. To our 
 amiable sister for such she considers herself with respect to you I 
 commit you, confident that your own exertion, aided by her society, 
 will form you such as your friend will rejoice to behold you. "Write 
 to him frequently I beseech you ; cheer his solitary and miserab ,e ex- 
 istence with the well known characters of friendship. Adieu, my 
 dear brother." 
 
 William TJiompson to John Randolph. 
 
 " DEAR JACK, I am not ceremonious. I feel a conviction that 
 your silence does not proceed from a want of regard, but from a 
 cause more important to the world, to yourself, and, if possible, more 
 distressing to me than the loss of that place in your heart, on which 
 depends my future prosperity. I had fondly hoped that the change 
 of scene, and the novelty of business, would have dissipated that me- 
 lancholy which overhung you. To see my friend return happy and 
 well, was the only wish of my heart. 
 
 " To the man who is not devoted to unnatural dissipations, a 
 great city has no charms : it awakens the most painful sensations in 
 the breast of the philanthropist and patriot. It is disgusting to be- 
 hold such a mass of vice, and all its attendant deformities, cherished 
 in the bosom of an enlightened country. Prostitutions of body, and 
 still greater prostitution of mind, excite our pity and hatred. The 
 political life has not those attractions to the virtuous which it once 
 had, and which it ought still to have in this country. The spirit of 
 party lias extinguished the spirit of liberty. The enlightened orator 
 must be shocked at the willing stupidity of his auditors. Our exer- 
 tions are vain and impotent Every man is the avowed friend of a 
 party. Converts to reason are not to be found ; whilst converts to 
 interest are innumerable. 
 
 VOL. i. 8
 
 170 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 " You know I promised not to visit Richmond. I have rigidlj 
 adhered to that. I felt a necessity of cooling down. I foreboded 
 the acquirement of dissipated habits, which would haunt me unceas- 
 ingly. I saw that the patronage of the virtuous would awaken an 
 emulation in me to attain their perfection. I feel confident that if 
 my friends bear a little longer with my foibles, they will be corrected. 
 I look forward with honest pride to the day when I shall merit the 
 regard when, by my conduct and by my principles, I shall make 
 some retribution for the exalted generosity which I have met with 
 from your family. I am not made of such stern stuff as to resist 
 singly ; but the idea of friendship will steel my heart against temp- 
 tation. Since you left me, I hav"e been generally at home, conscious 
 how little I merit regard. That which I feel for your amiable 
 family may perhaps appear presumption, yet the thought of losing it 
 is stinging. * * * To your sister, your most amiable sister, I try to 
 render myself agreeable. There is a gentleness of manners, an uni- 
 formity of conduct, and a majesty of virtue, which seem to render 
 admiration presumptuous." 
 
 John Randolph to his brother, William TJiompson. 
 
 " Your letter, my dear Thompson, has communicated to my heart 
 a satisfaction to which it has not been at all familiar. It has proved 
 beyond dispute that the energies of your mind, however neglected by 
 yourself, or relaxed by misfortune, have been suspended, but not im- 
 paired ; and that the strength of your understanding has not been 
 unequal to the ordeal of misfortune, of which few are calculated to 
 bear the test. Proceed, my friend, in the path in which you now 
 move ; justify those lively hopes which I have never ceased to enter- 
 tain, or to express, of your future attainments : in the words, al- 
 though not in the sense of the poet, let me exhort you, 'carpe diem.' 
 The past is not in our power to recall. The future we can neither 
 foresee nor control. The present alone is at our disposal : on the use 
 to which it is applied, depends the whole of what is estimable or 
 amiable in human character." 
 
 Poor Thompson went to Petersburg about this time (February, 
 or March, 1800), and got entangled in a way that most young men 
 of his temper are apt to be. He shall tell the story in his own way. 
 After getting back to Bizarre, in April, he thus writes :
 
 IDOL-WORSHIP. if} 
 
 '' You will be surprised, dear brother, when you are informed, 
 that my stay in Petersburg was protracted by a circumstance against 
 which you warned me in a letter some time past. 1 allude to Mrs. 
 
 B . Nature has compensated for mental imperfection, by bodily 
 
 perfection in that woman. And my attachment to her corroborates 
 a heresy in love, that desire is a powerful ingredient. Her mind is 
 not cultivated, her disposition is not calculated to make a man of 
 my enthusiasm in regard happy. Fully aware of these circum- 
 stances, I cherished her name as dear. Thus situated, let me ask 
 you a question. Had you been told nay, had you known that this 
 woman was the victim of infamous oppression that these charms 
 had been wrested from your possession by unfeeling relations (they 
 were engaged when he went to Europe in 1798), that your name was 
 dear, her husband's name odious that on you she looked with ten- 
 derness, and on him with hatred, what line of conduct would you 
 adopt ? * * * I had resolved to shun her, and in truth did ; but that 
 fate, which shows refinement in its policy, forced me to an interview. 
 ****** After several resolutions, some ridiculous (as is usual 
 in such cases), and one which had near proved fatal, I fled to the 
 asylum of the distressed (wisely thought of), to the spot where ten- 
 der friendship forms a character exalted to a height, which makes 
 the feebler of her sex look low indeed, would make me blush at my 
 folly, and banish the idea of a baneful passion. I will not recapitu- 
 late the wrongs of .fortune, but I fondly hope that they will plead in 
 apology for the failings of your friend." 
 
 Now for the answer ; and let every young man, and young 
 woman too, ponder well upon it. 
 
 "April 19, 24 year. To-day I received your letter of the 12th. 
 It has unravelled a mystery, for whose solution I have before searched 
 in vain. That you should have been in Petersburg, sighing at the 
 feet of the fair Mrs. B.fis what I did not expect to learn, since I 
 supposed you all the while in Sussex. I am now not at all surprised 
 at your silence, during this period of amorous intoxication ; since 
 nothing so completely unfits a man for intercourse with any othei 
 than the object of his infatuation. 
 
 " The answer to your questions is altogether easy. In the first 
 place, it is not true, because it cannot be true, that this lady was 
 compelled to the step which she has taken. What force could be
 
 172 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 brought to act upon her, which materials as hard as wax would not 
 resist? The truth is, if ever she felt an attachment to you, she 
 sacrificed it to avarice ; not because money was the end, but the 
 means, of gratification ; her vanity, the ruling passion of every mind 
 as imbecile as her own, delighted in the splendor which wealth alone 
 could procure. At this time the same passion, which is one of the 
 vilest modifications of self-love, would gratify itself with a little co- 
 quetry ; and if your prudence has not exceeded that of the lady, it has 
 gone, I fear, greater lengths than she at first apprehended. Nor 
 have you, my friend, done this woman a good office, in rendering her 
 discontented with her lot, by suffering her to persuade herself that 
 she is in love with you, and that oppression alone has driven her to 
 a detested union with a detestable brute, for such (on all hands, I be- 
 lieve, it is agreed) is Mr. 13. Never did I see a woman apparently 
 better pleased with her situation. She did not lose one penny- 
 weight of her very comfortable quantity of flesh ; and, however she 
 might have hesitated between my friend and the cash, minus the 
 possessor, had you been on the spot to contest your right to her 
 very fair hand, yet W. T., on the other side of the Atlantic, or 
 perhaps at the bottom of it, was no rival to the solid worth of her 
 now cara sposa. Perhaps, in the first instance, she might have dis- 
 liked the man, for good reasons ; and in the second, for no reason 
 at all, but because her relations were very anxious for the match ; 
 but be assured her imagination was not sufficiently lively to induce 
 her to shed one tear on your account. 
 
 " You ask me, my friend, what conduct you ought to pursue ; 
 and you talk of revenge B. has never injured you ; he has acted 
 like a fool, I grant, in marrying a woman whose only inducement 
 to the match, he must be conscious, was his wealth ; but he has com- 
 mitted no crime ; at least he was unconscious of any. That the fel- 
 low should wear antlers, is no great matte* of regret, because the os 
 frontis is certainly substantial enough to bear their weight. Yet I 
 do not wish them to be planted by you, for your sake. I will allow 
 that this lady is as fair as she is fat that she is a very inviting ob- 
 ject ; yet why should you prevent her leading a life of as much hap- 
 piness as she is susceptible of fruges consumere, &o. Has not her 
 conduct in relation to you and to her husband been such as renders 
 her unworthy of any man of worth ? Has he not conferred on you a
 
 IDOL-WORSHIP. 
 
 173 
 
 benefit, by preventing the possibility of an alliance with a woman ca- 
 pable of carrying on a correspondence with any other than her hus- 
 band : and can you. who enjoy the society of that pattern of female 
 virtue, feel for this woman any sentiment but contempt? . . . 
 So far from injuring you, B. is the injured person, if at all. His im- 
 penetrable stupidity has alone shielded him from sensations not the 
 most enviable, I imagine. Do not suppose from my style that I am 
 unfeeling, or have too low an estimate of the sex ; on the contrary, I 
 am the warmest of their admirers. But silly and depraved women, 
 and stupid, unprincipled men, are both objects of my pity and con- 
 tempt. I wish you to form a just estimate of what is valuable in 
 female character then seek out a proper object and marry. Intrigue 
 will blast your reputation, and, what is more to the purpose, your 
 peace of mind ; it will be a stumbling-block to you through life. An 
 acquaintance with loose women has incapacitated you from forming a 
 
 proper estimate of female worth 
 
 I must congratulate you on your escape, and on your resolution to 
 behold no more the fascinating object which has caused you so 
 much uneasiness. I shall shortly have the pleasure of embracing 
 you. 
 
 " P. S. My servant (Johnny ?) has been packing up some effects, 
 which I am about sending to Petersburg by water, and at every 
 three words I have had a query to solve. This will account for my 
 incoherence. 
 
 " P. S. (Characteristic, two postscript) I have been so hurried, 
 as perhaps to betray myself into an inaccuracy of expression. But 
 let me suggest two ideas to you. Has not your conduct been such 
 as to injure a woman for whom you have felt and professed a re- 
 gard ? is it a liberal or disinterested passion (passion is never liberal 
 or disinterested), which risks the reputation of the beloved object? 
 Has not her conduct in admitting your attentions rendered her un- 
 worthy of any man but her present possessor ? View this matter in 
 its proper light and you will never think more of her Suc- 
 cess attend your study of law." 
 
 About the middle of May, Essex was dispatched with Jacobin 
 and other horses, to meet his young master at the Boiling-green. He 
 took along with him the following letter from William Thompson : 
 
 " What are my emotions, dearest brother, at seeing your horse
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 thus far on his way to return you among us ! How eagerly do 1 
 await the appointed day ! Ryland (Randolph) has returned (some 
 unsuccessful adventure), and another of the children of misfortune 
 will seek refuge and consolation under this hospitable roof. He 
 has promised me by letter to be with us in a day or two, what plea- 
 sure do I anticipate in the society of our incomparable sister, in 
 yours, in Ryland's ! I wish I had the vanity to suppose I was 
 worthy of it. 
 
 " We have been visited by the young ladies of Liberty Neck, and 
 by its mentor, Major Scott. I had rather have his wisdom than New- 
 ton's or Locke's ; for depend on it, he has dipped deep in the science 
 of mind. According to the laws of gallantry, I should have escorted 
 them to Amelia ; but I am not fitted for society, and the continued 
 round of company in the Neck is painful instead of pleasing. 
 
 ; - Our sister is now asleep ; she would have written but for her 
 being busy in finishing the children's clothes, and being obliged to 
 write to Mrs. Harrison. When I came in last evening, I found her 
 in the passage, a candle on the chair, sewing. I could hardly help 
 exclaiming, what a pattern for her sex. The boys are well ; they 
 have both grown the Saint particularly, whose activity will astonish 
 you. Every body is cheerful your arrival in anticipation is the 
 cause. Farewell, dearest brother hasten to join us. 
 
 " W. THOMPSON. 
 
 " Take care how you ride Jacobin, and if not for your own, at 
 least for our sakes, run no fisks by putting him in a carriage we 
 all dread the attempt." 
 
 He returned safely, to the joy of more people (ladies too ?) than 
 those at Bizarre. This delightful society was now complete ; books, 
 high discourse on philosophy, morals, government, the destiny of 
 man intermingled with the charming conversation and the music 
 of elegant and accomplished women exercise on the high-mettled 
 steed, and frequent visits and dining parties at neighbors' houses, 
 whose warm reception, bountiful hospitality, and unostentatious re- 
 finement of manner (universal with the gentlemen of the olden time), 
 made the guest perfectly at home, and at ease in heart and in be- 
 havior. Such was the Old Dominion, half-a-century ago, such is she 
 now in some degree ; but, alas ! the difference !
 
 IDOL-WORSHIP. 
 
 175 
 
 But poor Thompson, the hapless child of misfortune, was not 
 long permitted to enjoy the sweets of this paradise. Some wicked 
 and envious Mephistophiles looked in with his jealous eyes on the 
 happy beings that composed it ; and sought to blast it with his ma- 
 licious tongue. It was rumored that Thompson staid at Bizarre 
 for a selfish purpose ; that, besides the convenience of the thing in 
 his condition, his object was to win the affection of its fair mistress 
 What if it were true ? But this base world will allow nothing but 
 a base motive for the most generous action. The insinuation was 
 enough for the high-minded Thompson. He immediately left Bi- 
 zarre, and wrote the following letter : " The letter which I have 
 transmitted by the same opportunity to that most amiable of women 
 our sister, communicates intelligence of a report, the effects of which 
 on my mind you will be fully aware of, from a former conversation 
 on the subject. Would you suppose, my dearest brother, that the 
 world would have dared to insinuate, that my object in remaining at 
 Bizarre is to solicit the affections of our friend ! Time, and the ap- 
 prehension that I shall be intruded on, compel me to conciseness. 
 My abode will be Ryland's until I receive letters from you both. 
 View the subject with impartiality enter into my feelings, for you 
 know my heart tell me with candor whether I am not bound to 
 leave the abode of innocence and friendship ? Tell me whether re- 
 fined friendship does not demand on my part a sacrifice of every 
 prospect of happiness, to the amiable, to the benevolent and virtuous 
 woman who is wronged from her generous sympathy to the hapless." 
 
 A most delicate task this imposed on a friend particularly one 
 holding the relation of Mr. Randolph to the lady in question. But 
 see how nobly, how manfully he discharged the duty : ' For the first 
 time I perceive myself embarrassed how to comply with the requisition 
 of friendship. But yesterday, and I should have been unable to com- 
 prehend the speculative possibility of that which to-day is reduced to 
 practice. If I decline the task which you have allotted me, it is 
 not because I am disposed to shrink from the sacred obligations 
 which I owe to you. My silence is not the effect of unfeeling indif- 
 ference, of timid indecision, or cautious reserve. It is the result of 
 the firmest conviction that it is not for me to advise you in the present 
 crisis. It is a task to which I am indeed unequal. Consult your 
 own heart, it is alone capable of advising you. The truly fraternal
 
 176 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 regard which you feel for our most amiable sister, does not require 
 to be admonished of the respect which is due to her feelings. You 
 alone are a competent judge of that conduct which is best calculated not 
 to wound her delicacy ; and it is that alone which you are capable of 
 pursuing. Whatever may be your determination, you will not be 
 the less dear to me. That spirit of impertinent malice, which man- 
 kind seem determined to cherish at the expense of all that should 
 constitute their enjoyment, may, indeed, intrude upon our arrange- 
 ments and deprive me of your society ; but it can never rob me of the 
 pure attachment which I have conceived for you, and which can 
 never cease to animate me. I hold this portion of good, at least, in 
 contempt of an unfeeling and calumnious world invulnerable to 
 every shaft, it derides their impotent malice. 
 
 " Let me suggest to you to pursue that line of conduct wLich yju 
 shall be disposed to adopt, as if it were the result of your previous 
 determination. Prosecute, therefore, your intended journey, and do 
 not permit malicious curiosity to enjoy the wretched satisfaction of 
 supposing that IT has the power of influencing your actions. 
 
 " I have perceived, with extreme pleasure, that your mind has for 
 some time been rapidly regaining its pristine energy. Keep it, 
 therefore, I beseech you, my friend, in constant exercise. G-et up 
 some object of pursuit. Make to yourself an image, and, in defiance 
 of the decalogue, worship it. Whether it be excellence in medicine or 
 law, or political eminence, determine not to relax your endeavors 
 until you have attained it. You must not suffer your mind, whose 
 activity must be employed, to prey upon itself. The greatest bless- 
 ing which falls to the lot of man is thus converted into the deadliest 
 curse. I need not admonish you to keep up the intercourse which 
 subsists between us, and which nothing shall compel me to relin- 
 quish. 
 
 ' I trust that I shall hear from you in the space of a week at 
 farthest. Meanwhile rest assured of the undiminished affection of 
 the firmest of your friends." 
 
 Poor Thompson ! why could he not follow the advice so delicately 
 given pursue the line of conduct he had previously determined on 
 which was, doubtless, to stay at Bizarre prosecute his journey, and 
 then come back, without regard to the malicious surmises of a wicked 
 world ? He did not sacrifice his happiness to that amiably benevo-
 
 LOVE MATTERS. 177 
 
 lent and virtuous woman, as he supposed ; she did not need it or 
 require it but to malicious curiosity. He had not strength of 
 mind to resist the vague impression of the world's censure; and 
 suffered the spirit of impertinent malice to enjoy the wretched satis- 
 faction of supposing that it had the power of influencing his actions. 
 He never came back to Bizarre as a home again soon fell into 
 his old habits wandered over Canada a-foot. seeking rest but 
 finding none a wandering spirit that rapidly glided into irregular 
 courses ; the world, erewhile so bright and smooth, had suddenly 
 become dark and slippery to him ; ne'er again could he find rest for 
 the sole of his foot; turned out from that paradise, a world of 
 turbid waters was all his wearied eye could light upon. What fur- 
 ther befell him shall be made known to the reader in the sequel. 
 
 CHAPTEK XXY. 
 
 THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID AtiJ* SMOOTH. 
 
 THE reader is already aware that John Randolph war, the centre 
 of a very extensive correspondence with some of the first young men 
 of the country among others. Joseph Bryan, of Georgia. In the 
 month of January, last winter (1800), Bryan informed him that he- 
 was about to embark soon for England, and wished his friend to pro- 
 cure certificates of citizenship for himself and companion from Mr. 
 Jefferson ; and promised in his next to give the reason for quitting 
 his native country which accordingly he did in the following words : 
 " I have in that time, my friend (since this time twelve months), been 
 on the verge of becoming a member of the fraternity of Benedicts, as 
 you humorously style married men. In short, I paid my addresses to 
 an accomplished young woman, of both family and fortune, in Caro- 
 lina quarrelled with my father and mother because I would not re- 
 linquish the pursuit followed her with every prospect of the de- 
 sired success for eighteen months went to her abode last Christ- 
 mas, with the comfortable idea of marrying her on the commence- 
 ment of the new year and was discarded by her parents because 
 VOL. i. 8*
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 mine would not consent to the match. There were one or two other 
 
 trifling objections, such as I was a , a man of no religion 
 
 a Georgian ; and would take their child where they might never see 
 her face again, &c. All this you may think apocryphal 'tis true, 
 upon my word. Yet l my heart does not bleed at every pore from 
 the bitterest of recollections ;' to be sure I was in a hell of a taking 
 for two or three days. But I found that keeping myself employed, 
 made it wear off to a miracle. So much for my love affairs. You 
 may perhaps be a little surprised at my going to England ; 'twas a 
 sudden resolution, I must confess ; I'll tell you how it happened. 
 While I was laboring under the horrors of my dismission, I swore 
 to my little grisette, in order to melt her, that if she would not quit 
 father and mother and run away with me, I would go off immedi- 
 ately and fight the Russians ! She would not do that, so I am 
 obliged by a point of honor to make the attempt, at least. 
 
 " If, after my arrival in England, I can conveniently get to 
 France, I shall go there ; if not, I shall spend the money I carry 
 with me, and come home again. 
 
 " I don't know whether 'twill be proper to apply to Mr. Jeffer- 
 son for the certificate I wrote to you for my reasons were these : 
 I knew that he was better known and better liked in France than 
 any distinguished person in our country, therefore, a certificate 
 from him would do me more service than from any (fther ; besides, I 
 don't like any of the Adamites well enough to receive a favor of 
 that kind from their hands. 
 
 " I expect to sail from Savannah about the 20th instant (Febru- 
 ary, 1800) ; as soon as I arrive you will hear from me. One of my 
 principal reasons for going to Europe, is to improve my health, 
 which is very indifferent at this time." 
 
 So then it was your own pleasure and convenience at last, and 
 not the sting of disappointed love, that drove you away to France ! 
 The girls are very much deceived when they flatter themselves that 
 men generally will do rash things for their sweet sakes ; they may 
 be in a hell of a taking for a time, but the fever soon wears off. 
 Men are no better treated. This girl, in his absence, while he was 
 fighting for liberty under the banners of France, did the very thing 
 she refused to do with him ran away and got married against the 
 will of her parents.
 
 LOVE MATTERS. 
 
 But the answer to the first letter, and in anticipation of the one 
 above : " Your letter of the 7th of last month was this moment put 
 into my hands. Need I say that it distresses me beyond measure ? 
 Ah, my friend, it is then too true ! My suspicions were but too well 
 grounded ! The eagle-eye of friendship finds no difficulty in pierc- 
 ing the veil which shrouds you ; which, until now, I did not dare to 
 lift. You have related nothing, yet I know every thing. This omis 
 sion, for which you promise to atone in another letter, is but too well 
 supplied by conjectures which cannot, I fear, deceive me. 
 
 " Bryan, my friend, you are about to render yourself, me, all 
 who are interested in your happiness, wretched, perhaps, for ever. 
 These are more numerous than you are at present willing to allow. 
 At one stroke you are about to sever all those ties which bind you 
 to the soil which gave you birth, to the tender connections of your 
 childhood, to the most constant of friends relations which give to 
 existence its only value. Your sickly taste loathes that domestic 
 happiness which is yet in store for you perhaps you deny that it 
 can have, for yourself, any existence ; you prefer to it, trash of for- 
 eign growth. You seek in vain, my friend, to fly from misery. It 
 will accompany you it will rankle in that heart in whose cruel 
 wounds it rejoices to dwell. It is of no country, but yourself, and 
 time alone can soothe its rage. 
 
 " Among the dangers you are about to encounter, I will not enu- 
 merate those of a personal nature ; not because they are in them- 
 selves contemptible, however they may be despised by yourself, but 
 because in comparison to the gigantic mischiefs which you are about 
 to court, they are indeed insignificant. I mean in respect to your- 
 self to your friends they are but too formidable. Recall then, I 
 beseech you, your rash determination pause, at least, upon the rash 
 step which you meditate ! It is, however, the privilege of friend- 
 ship only to advise. The certificates which you require, I will en- 
 djeavor to procure time enough to accompany this letter. This is 
 Saturday, and after the hour of doing business at the offices ; and to 
 be valid they must issue from that of the Secretary of State. Be 
 not impatient, they shall be forwarded by Tuesday's mail, in <inij 
 event ; letters from Jefferson to some of his European friends shall 
 follow them." 
 
 Thus we find this young man, not yet twenty-seven years of age,
 
 180 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 the grave Mentor to his young friends. They confide to his friend- 
 ship, constant and pure, all their cares and troubles, and confidently 
 expect in return his sympathy, his advice, and the practical les- 
 sons of a sage wisdom. But was he without care? Had he no 
 troubles of his own to perplex his bosom ? Had this young Men- 
 tor so soon fought the battle of life, and gained the victory? Was 
 his heart serene and lifted above the storm of passion that raged 
 around him ? I, too, am wretched ! " To *he procuring and trans- 
 mitting," continues he, " of these certificates of birth and citizenship, 
 1 annex a condition of which I will not brook the refusal a compli- 
 ance is due to that attachment which has so long tubsisted between 
 us ; it is an exertion certainly not too great to je yielded to a friend- 
 ship, whose constancy has been rarely equalled, but never surpassed. 
 Listen, therefore : 
 
 " I, too, am wretched ; misery is not your exclusive charter. I 
 have for some months meditated a temporary relinquishment of my 
 country. The execution of this scheme has no connection with 
 yours. The motives which produced it originated in events which 
 happened before I took my seat in Congress, although I was then 
 ignorant of their existence ; they were, indeed, prior to my election to 
 an office, of which nothing but a high sense of the obligations of pub- 
 lic duty has prevented the resignation. A second election could not. 
 in that event, have been practicable, until the present session was 
 somewhat advanced. I determined, therefore, not to relinquish my 
 seat until its expiration; then to resign it, and bid adieu to my 
 native shores for a few years, at least. In this determination I still 
 remain. If, therefore, you refuse to rescind your hasty resolution, 
 I desire permission to be the companion of your voyage to partake 
 your sorrows and to share with you my own to be the friend of him 
 who is to accompany you, because he is yours. Yet, believe me, Joe, 
 and it is unnecessary to declare by what motives I am influenced to 
 the assertion, that I shall be glad to hear that I am to prosecute mj 
 voyage alone to be informed that you have receded from a project 
 which has not, like my own, been the fruit of deliberate resolve. I 
 had, indeed, hoped that the relation of your own domestic enjoyment 
 would have beguiled many a sad hour of my life. But, pardon me. 
 my dear fellow, I see my indiscretion. It shall not be repeated. 
 
 If, then, you persist in carrying into execution your plan, take a
 
 LOVE MATTERS. 
 
 181 
 
 passage with your friend for New-York, or the Delaware, it is open ; 
 meet me here about the middle of March we rise in April there in 
 a resolution laid upon our table to adjourn on the first of the month 
 it will certainly be carried ; they even talk of substituting ' March.' 
 We will then embark together for any part of the other continent 
 that you may prefer ; I am indifferent about places. But if I go alone, 
 I shall take shipping for some English port, London or Liverpool. I 
 wish I could join you in Savannah ; but it would be extremely incon- 
 venient. I fear the climate ; a passage would be more un certain *oo 
 from thence, and the accommodations perhaps not so good. Yet I will 
 even meet you there, or in Charleston, in case you are resolved to 
 leave America, if I can have your company on no other terms. 
 Write immediately and solve this business. I repeat, that it will be 
 very inconvenient to take my passage from a southern port ; it will 
 likewise occasion delay. I shall have a voyage to make thither, and 
 then to wait the sailing of a vessel ; whereas, if you meet me here, I 
 can fix myself for any ship bound to Europe about the time of the 
 rising of Congress ; and in the great ports of New-York, Philadel- 
 phia, or Baltimore, we cannot fail to procure a speedy embarkation, 
 and agreeable berths. Again I entreat you to write to me immediately 
 upon the receipt of this : in expectation of the answer, I shall remain 
 under no common anxiety until its arrival. Meantime, remember, 
 my friend, that there is one person, at least, and he an unshaken 
 friend, who is not insensible to your worth. Farewell, dear Joseph. 
 
 " P. S. I had like to have omitted enjoining you to preserve invio- 
 lable secrecy with respect to my designs. The reason I will detail 
 to you at meeting. It is unnecessary to say that they are not such 
 as I should be ashamed to avow ; yet I do not wish it to be known 
 that I am about to leave the country until a week or ten days before 
 my departure. Adieu !" 
 
 Bryan did not receive this letter before his embarkation. Had 
 it come to hand in time, there can be no question that he would have 
 gladly accepted the offer of his friend, and gone to Philadelphia and 
 awaited the adjournment of Congress, that they might have the plea- 
 sure of a voyage together. 
 
 But it is certain Randolph did not go abroad at that time. Had 
 his friend arrived in Philadelphia, in obedience to his wishes, he 
 would unquestionably have strained a point, and, at all hazards, ful-
 
 182 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 filled an engagement he had so solemnly made In that case, tho 
 events of history would have been changed. But he did not go ; the 
 reason why is unknown to us. It may have been pecuniary embarrass- 
 ment. He was paying large instalments of the British debt about that 
 time to Mr. Wickham. In 1824, writing to a friend from Paris, he says : 
 " Here, then, am I, where I ought to have been thirty years ago, and 
 where I would have been, had I not been plundered and oppressed." 
 
 But he did not escape from his sorrows at that time by flying 
 across the sea. He staid at home to brood over them. /, too, am 
 iwetched. 
 
 " My character" (says he in a letter to a friend about this time 
 August, 1800), "like many other sublunary things, hath lately un- 
 dergone an almost total revolution." It seems that he had some spe- 
 cial sorrow that weighed upon his heart, the cause of which originated 
 before his election in April, 1799. but was unknown to him for some 
 months afterwards. That it was of the same nature with that which 
 drove one friend across the Atlantic and the other to Canada that 
 it was the malady of love which brought him into trouble, and that 
 oppressed his soul, cannot be questioned. 
 
 Soon after he took his seat in Congress Thompson wrote to him, 
 detailing the circumstances of a report which had been fabricated 
 and secretly circulated to his injury, tracing it to its source, and 
 proving it to be an idle tale without foundation, and confined to the 
 knowledge of a few only. He then continues: "Repose on thy 
 pillow and heed not the shafts that are thrown against you. The 
 world has not injured me, and it has not despised you. Mrs. 
 M. assured me that in your honor she placed the most implicit 
 
 confidence. When you communicate with M a, as probably 
 
 you have already done, she will declare herself unaffected by this 
 tale, which has disturbed your peace. I have spoken with candor. 
 but I have spoken with truth. Demand the author, and if he be 
 given up, you will find it a child. The time of telling it, the month 
 of August. 
 
 " Alas, my brother, what are not you destined to suffer ! What 
 tremendous trials of fortitude have you not undergone ! In the 
 enthusiasm of friendship I look forward to your happiness, and 
 each day brings to life some new pang which is unfeelingly in- 
 fticted. Let not this affair make too deep an impression on your
 
 LOVE MATTERS. 
 
 183 
 
 mind command my services if they be required ; for be assured 
 that the mind which personifies irregularity and want of system 
 in the affairs of the world, is nerved to act with dauntless energy 
 in the cause of my brother. Prudence, caution, all the requisites 
 of successful friendship, are at the command of him, who in the 
 walk of life is eccentric and unsteady." 
 
 About the time of the correspondence with Bryan, and his 
 determination to go abroad, Thompson again writes : " I have 
 mingled with society ; I have purposely spoken of you and Miss 
 
 W d to ascertain precisely the public opinion ; and I can 
 
 repeat with joy, that my brother has not been wronged by the 
 world. As to the idle suggestions of babMing men and women, 
 shall they be heaped together and transformed into most serious 
 charges, that even your confidence of yourself may be shaken if 
 possible, and thus your peace of mind be for ever blasted 1 Enough 
 on this subject. I have violated my common rule of conduct by 
 being aggressor on the topic." 
 
 On another occasion he says : " In our lives, my brother, we 
 
 have seen two fine women (Mrs. Judith Randolph and Miss M a 
 
 W d) ; never extend your list ; never trust your eyes, or your ears, 
 for they stand alone." And in his voluntary banishment from the 
 asylum of the wretched and unfortunate, when he deeply felt his 
 bereavement and forlorn condition, he thus writes : " M a, the ami- 
 able, the good M a, has honored me with a short letter ; such 
 
 tokens of esteem, such evidences of generous pity, for a man cast on 
 the wide world unfriended and unprotected, create a gratitude not 
 to be expressed. It is not until we are humiliated by misfortune that 
 we feel these things, for in the height of worldly prosperity the wish 
 and the pursuit go hand in hand, and successive gratifications blunt 
 the sensibilities of our nature. Whilst we rejoice in a mortality as 
 the termination of lives mutually painful, in which we have been 
 called on to exercise a fortitude sufficient to overwhelm minds less 
 noble and less firm, in which every fair prospect has been blighti-d. 
 every brilliant expectation thwarted, and every tender emotion hate- 
 fully disappointed, let us linger out a remnant which cannot be long, 
 mutually cherishing and supporting each other on the tedious road. 
 My dear friend, let us not leave each other behind; for, alas! how 
 sterile and how barren would creation then be ! United, we are
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 strong, but unsupported we could not stand against the increasing 
 pressure of misfortune. Often do I exclaim, Would that you and I 
 were cast on some desert island, there to live out the remainder of 
 our days unpolluted by the communication with man. Separated 
 from each other, our lips are sealed, for the expression of sentiments 
 which exult and ennoble humanity. Even in the support of virtue. 
 the cautious language of vice must be adopted : even in the defence 
 of truth we must descend to the artifice of error." 
 
 Here, reader, we let drop the curtain. Its thick folds of haif a 
 century are impervious to the light of mortal syes ; ask not a look 
 beyond the mysterious veil. There are secrets we trust not to a 
 friend, that we betray not to ourselves, and which none but the im- 
 pious curiosity of a heartless world would ever dare to penetrate. 
 Let the gross impulses, the base considerations of worldly gain, that 
 constitute the ground and the motive of most human associations, 
 suffice AS fit subjects for your cold observation, your ridicule and con- 
 tempt ; but hold sacred, or look with awe, on that deep self-sacrificing 
 passion, which, springing from the soul of man, is all-embracing in 
 its love, fathomless, infinite, and divine. Enough to know, that in 
 the bosom of this man there glowed the fires of such a love, that con- 
 tinued to burn through life, and were only extinguished amid the 
 crumbling ruins of the altar by the damp dews that gathered over 
 them in the dark valley and the shadow of death. He hath said : 
 " One I loved better than my own soul, or him that created it." 
 " My apathy is not natural, but superinduced. There was a volcano 
 under my ice, but it is burnt out, and a face of desolation has come 
 on, not to be rectified in ages, could my life be prolonged to a patri- 
 archal longevity. The necessity of loving and being beloved was 
 never felt by the imaginary beings of Rousseau and Byron's cre- 
 ation more imperiously than by myself. My heart was offered up 
 with a devotion that knew no reserve. Long an object of proscrip- 
 tion and treachery, I have at last (more mortifying to the pride of 
 man) become one of utter indifference." 
 
 To you, reader, he is far from being an object of indifference, and 
 we trust that before the end of these volumes he will be drawn to 
 your heart by the cords of affection, and .that his memory will ever 
 hereafter awaken in yrar bosom those noblest emotions of sympathy 
 and veneration.
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 1800-1 MIDNIGHT JUDGES. 
 
 THE reader is already aware of the intense political excitement 
 raging through the country at this ti*ne. The civil wars, and violent 
 upturning of the whole social system in Europe, spread the contagion 
 of their influence across the Atlantic. The efforts of the belligerent 
 powers to draw the United States into the war, and the anxiety of 
 leading politicians here at home to cast on their political adversaries 
 the odium of their foreign associations Anglo-mania and Grallo-ma- 
 nia threw into the contest a bitterness and violence little short of 
 actual civil commotion. The excited political campaign in the spring 
 of 1799, was but a prelude to the more violent presidential election 
 that was to take place in the autumn of 1800. The fate of the Re- 
 public depended on that election. Had the federalists succeeded, 
 there can be no doubt that a degradation of the States and a concen- 
 tration of all power in a splendid central empire, would have been 
 the final result. Happily for the cause of human freedom, the elec- 
 tion terminated in the triumph of the republican cause. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr being the candidates of the 
 republicans, got seventy-three votes, John Adams sixty-five votes, 
 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney sixty-four votes, and John Jay one 
 vote. But a difficulty grew out of this result that could not have 
 been anticipated. The Constitution, by an amendment made in con- 
 sequence of this difficulty, now requires the electors to designate the 
 person they vote for as president, and the person they vote for as 
 vice-president ; but at that time there was no means of discrimina- 
 tion ; they voted for two persons, and the one getting the highest 
 number of votes was declared to be elected president, and the person 
 getting the next highest number of votes was declared to be elected 
 vice-president. Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr had an equal number 
 of votes ; neither of them could be declared as being elected presi- 
 dent ; and the question had to be decided by the House of Repre- 
 sentatives voting by States. So soon as this state of things was 
 known, a high degree of uneasiness and alarm was excited in the
 
 186 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 minds of the republicans, lest the will of the people might be frus- 
 trated by intrigue and corruption. Mr. Jefferson charged the fed- 
 eralists with a design of preventing an election altogether. In a 
 letter to Mr. Madison he says : " The federalists appear determined 
 to prevent an election, and to pass a bill giving the government to 
 Mr. Jay, reappointed chief justice, or to Marshall, as secretary of 
 :4ate." This would have been an act of revolution ; and some of the 
 more violent and unprincipled may have carried their designs thus 
 far ; but there can be no question that the aim of the party was to 
 defeat Mr. Jefferson and to elect Burr. This was carrying their op- 
 position to the will of the people very far. Aaron Burr never was 
 thought of for president ; not a single vote was cast for him .vith 
 that view, and the mere accident of his having the same number of 
 votes with the favorite of the people, brought his name into the 
 House of Representatives ; and yet the federalists determined to 
 take advantage of this circumstance, and to elevate him to the pres- 
 idency, in spite of the popular will. They justified themselves on 
 the ground that the public will could only be expressed to them 
 through the constitutional organs. There were two candidates, they 
 said, for the office of president, who were presented to the House of 
 Representatives with equal suffrages. The Constitution gave them 
 the right, and made it their duty, to elect that one of the two whom 
 they thought preferable. Neither of them was the man of their 
 choice, but the Constitution confined their election to one of the two. 
 and they gave their vote to the one they thought the greater and 
 the better man. That vote they repeated, and in that vote they de- 
 clared their determination to persist, had they not been driven from 
 it by imperious necessity. The prospect ceased of the vote being 
 effectual, and the alternative only remained of taking one man for 
 president, or having no president at all. They chose, as they thought^ 
 the lesser evil. The republicans, on the other hand, condemned 
 their course as factious and revolutionary ; and, had they succeeded 
 in electing Burr to the presidency, in all probability he would have 
 been driven from his seat at the point of the bayonet. From all 
 quarters the sound came up, "We will obey no other president but 
 Mr Jefferson." There are many interesting facts and important 
 lessons connected with this election that come within the province of 
 the general historian, but which we must pass over as inappropriate
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 187 
 
 to this Biography. The part that John Randolph took in these af- 
 fairs was that of a silent voter and watchful observer. He dispatched 
 daily bulletins to his father-in-law, giving the result of each balloting 
 as it took place. After the nineteenth ballot he writes : " No elec- 
 tion will, in my opinion, take place." But on the 17th of February 
 he writes : " On the thirty-sixth ballot there appeared, this day. ten 
 States for Thomas Jefferson ; four (New England) for A. Burr, and 
 two blank ballots (Delaware and South Carolina). This was the 
 second time that we balloted to-day. The four Burrites of Mary- 
 land put blanks into the box of that State ; the vote was, therefore 
 unanimous. Mr. Morris, of Vermont, left his seat, and the result 
 was, therefore, Jeffersonian. I need not add that Mr. J. tfas de- 
 clared duly elected." 
 
 Mr. Randolph attributed this result to the patriotism of Alexan- 
 der Hamilton. That gentleman was the influential and popular 
 leader of the federal party, and when he saw the extremity to which 
 things were likely to be driven by a longer persistence in their course, 
 he advised his friends, rather than to produce a revolution in the 
 government, or excite popular commotion, to give way and suffer Mr. 
 Jefferson to be elected. Mr. Randolph often expressed the opinion, 
 in after life, that we owed the safety of the Republic to Hamilton, 
 and that his course on that trying occasion had elevated him very 
 much in his estimation. 
 
 The federalists perpetrated another act during the session that 
 excited a great deal of indignation. They so altered and enlarged 
 the judiciary system as to require the appointment of a great iinuiy 
 new judges. It was urged as an objection to the bill, that it 
 was made by a party at the moment when they were sensible that 
 their power was expiring and passing into other hands. They re- 
 plied it was enough for them that the full and legitimate power ex- 
 isted. The remnant left them (the bill passed 15th February, 1801) 
 was plenary and efficient and it was their duty to employ it accord- 
 ing to their judgments and consciences for the good of the country 
 They thought the bill a salutary measure, and there was no obligation 
 upon them to leave it as a work for their successors. They had no hesi- 
 tation in avowing that they had no confidence in the persons who were 
 to follow them, and were, therefore, the more anxious to accomplish 
 a work which they believed would contribute to the safety and sta
 
 [>>, LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 bility of the government. It was further urged as an objection to 
 the bill, that it was merely designed to create sinecures and retreats 
 for broken-down political hacks and to erect battlements and for- 
 tresses in which the discomfited leaders of federalism might rally 
 their scattered forces for another contest. Mr. Jefferson said of this 
 measure, " I dread this above all the measures meditated, because 
 appointments in the nature of freehold render it difficult to undo 
 what is done." Yet the next Congress did not hesitate to undo what 
 was done. The first regular speech made by Mr. Randolph was on 
 the proposition to repeal this law. It was in answer to Mr. Bayard, 
 the leader and the a-blest champion on the opposite side. This speech 
 was published, many years ago, in a collection intended to be speci- 
 mens of American eloquence ; and notwithstanding he was so 
 young a man, it will bear a comparison, in point of style and argu- 
 ment, with the very best that were delivered at that day. In justi- 
 fying a repeal of the law, and thereby displacing judges, who by the 
 Constitution hold their appointments during good behavior, Mr. Ran- 
 dolph argued " I agree that the Constitution is a limited grant of 
 power, and that none of its general phrases are to be construed into 
 an extension of that grant. I am free to declare, that if the extent 
 of this bill is to get rid of the judges, it is a perversion of your power 
 to a base purpose ; it is an unconstitutional act. If, on the contrary, 
 it aims not at the displacing one set of men from whom you differ in 
 political opinion, with a view to introduce others, but for the general 
 good, by abolishing useless offices, it is a constitutional act. The 
 quo animo determines the nature of this act, as it determines the in- 
 nocence or guilt of other acts. But we are told that this is to de- 
 clare the judiciary, which the Constitution has attempted to fortify 
 against the other branches of government, dependent on the will of 
 the legislature, whose discretion alone is to limit their encroachments. 
 Whilst I "contend that the legislature possesses this discretion. I am 
 sensible of the delicacy with which it is to be used. It is like the 
 power of impeachment, or the declaring of war, to be exercised un- 
 der a high responsibility. But the power is denied for, say they, 
 its exercise will enable flagitious men to overturn the judiciary, in 
 order to put their creatures into office, and to wreak their vengeance 
 on those who have become obnoxious by their merit ; and yet the 
 gentleman expressly says, that arguments drawn from a supposition
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 189 
 
 of extreme political depravity prove nothing ; that every government 
 presupposes a certain degree of honesty in its rulers, and that to 
 argue from extreme cases is totally inadmissible. Nevertheless, the 
 whole of his argument is founded on the supposition of a total want 
 of principle in the legislature and executive." 
 
 While speaking on the subject of the judiciary in the Virginia 
 0/nnvention, nearly thirty years after this transaction, Mr. Randolph 
 thus alludes to it : " At the very commencement of my public life, 
 or nearly so, I was called to give a decision on the construction of 
 that clause in the Federal Constitution which relates ,o the tenure 
 of the judicial office ; and I am happy to find that, after the lapse of 
 thirty years, I remain precisely of the same opinion that I then held." 
 
 If a law should be passed bonafide, for the abolition of a court 
 which was a nuisance, and ought to be abolished, he considered such 
 a law as no infringement of judicial independence ; but, if the law 
 was enacted mala fide, and abolished a useful court, for the purpose 
 of getting rid of the judge who presided in it, such a law was undoubt- 
 edly a violation of that independence ; just as the killing of a man 
 might be murder or not, according to the intention, the quo animo 
 with which it was done. He said that it could not be necessary to 
 recount to the gentleman who occupied the chair (Mr. Barbour) the 
 history of the decision which was given in Congress, as to the true 
 intent and meaning of this part of the Federal Constitution. Par- 
 ties had never run higher than at the close of the administration of 
 the elder Adams, and the commencement of that of Mr. Jefferson. 
 After efforts the most unparalleled, Mr. Adams was ejected from 
 power, and the downfall of the party attached to him was near at 
 hand. After this decision by the American people, when they were 
 compelled to perceive that the kingdom was passing from them, in 
 the last agonies and throes of dissolution, they cast about them to 
 make some provision for the broken-down hacks of the party ; and at 
 midnight, and after midnight, on the last day of Mr. Adams's ad- 
 ministration, a batch of judges was created, and bequeathed as a 
 legacy to those who followed. 
 
 The succeeding party on coming into power, found that they must 
 consult the construction of the Constitution, to prevent the recur- 
 rence of such a practice ; because, if the construction should be al- 
 lowed under which this had been done, it would enable every politi-
 
 190 LIF E OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 cal party, having three months notice of their departure from the 
 helm of affairs, to provide for themselves and their adherents, by get- 
 ting up a judiciary system, which would be irrevocable ; a city of re- 
 fuge where they would be safe from all approach of danger. To 
 avoid such a result it became necessary to abolish the system, which 
 was then believed to be injurious, and which experience has proved 
 to be unnecessary. Mr. Randolph said, that he was one of those 
 who voted for the decision which declared that the court might be 
 abolished bona Jide, and that the office of the judge should cease 
 with it. 
 
 Shortly after these midnight appointments, Mr. Adams left >,he 
 city, under the cover of darkness, that he might not witness, the next 
 day, the inauguration of his successful rival. Many of his friends 
 were deeply mortified at this undignified and unmanly retreat. 
 
 On reaching an inn beyond Baltimore, 'tis said (we speak on the 
 authority of Mr. Randolph) that Mr. Adams, walking up to a por- 
 trait of Washington, and placing his finger on his lips, exclaimed, " If 
 I had kept my lips as close as that man, I should now be the Presi- 
 dent of the United States." 
 
 It is very true, Mr. Adams had no judgment, no discretion. He 
 possessed a brilliant imagination, a bold and an ardent temper, 
 that made him the impassioned and powerful orator of the Revolu- 
 tion ; but he could lay claim to few of those faculties that fit a man 
 to conduct wisely and prudently the affairs of a great republic. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 
 
 THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CONGEESSES. CHAIRMAN OF THE 
 COMMITTEE OF WAYS AND MEANS. THE WORKING PE- 
 RIOD. THE YAZOO BUSINESS. 
 
 AT the opening of the first Congress under the new administration, 
 in December, 1801, Mr. Randolph had the satisfaction of seeing his 
 friend. Nathaniel Macon, elected Speaker of the House of Represen- 
 tatives. Mr. Randolph was placed at the head of the Committee of
 
 SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CONGRESSES. 
 
 Ways and Means. Some notion may be formed of the duties of this 
 committee from the resolution calling for its appointment. 
 
 " Resolved, That a Standing Committee of Ways and Means be ap- 
 pointed, whose duty it shall be to take into consideration all such reports 
 of the Treasury Department, and all such propositions relative to the 
 revenue, as may be referred to them by the House ; to inquire into 
 the state of the public debt, of the revenue, and of the expenditures; 
 and to report, from time to time, their opinion thereon." 
 
 The duties of this committee, as we may perceive, embraced a 
 wide field of inquiry. The new administration had pledged itself to 
 the people to place the " ship of state on its republican tack," and to 
 furnish a model of a simple and economical government. All unne- 
 cessary offices and useless expenditures were to be abolished, the 
 army and navy reduced, and the national debt was to be redeemed. All 
 the necessary inquiries, investigations, reports, and bills, touching 
 these important subjects, had to emanate from the Committee of 
 Ways and Means. The chairman of that committee had to be 
 brought in daily official communication with the executive depart- 
 ments ; his relation towards them was of a most confidential charac- 
 ter ; and he was regarded as the leader of the friends of the admin- 
 istration in the representative department. 
 
 Mr. Randolph and the President were intimate friends; they 
 were on terms of unreserved intercourse personally and politically 
 they cordially agreed, and heartily co-operated in accomplishing the 
 great ends of the administration. In accordance with the recommen- 
 dation of the President, Mr. Randolph introduced a proposition, 
 u that a committee be appointed to inquire whether any, and what 
 alterations can be made in the judiciary department of the United 
 States, and to provide for securing the impartial selection of juries 
 in the courts of the United States ;" and also another resolution, to 
 inquire what reductions could be made in the civil government of the 
 United States. They were referred to a select committee, of which 
 he was chairman. On the 4th of February, he reported a bill to re- 
 peal the laws of the last session with respect to the judiciary, and 
 after undergoing considerable discussion in committee of the whole, 
 it was finally passed by the House on the 3d March, 1802, by a large 
 majority. Mr. Randolph's speech on this subject we have already 
 alluded to in the preceding chapter. On the 20th January he in-
 
 192 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 troduoed a resolution, directing the Secretary of the Treasury to lay 
 before the House a list of the exports to the Mediterranean, distin- 
 guishing those of the growth of the United States. He also took 
 part in the debate on the apportionment under the census of 1800. 
 Mr. Randolph took a lively interest in this subject, and long foresaw 
 the effect each succeeding census would have on the political power 
 of his native State. He introduced on the 9th of June, a resolution 
 to reduce the military establishment. Having been appointed chair- 
 man of the select committee to see what could be done to expedite 
 the public printing, he reported a resolution to appoint a public 
 printer ; and to his exertions may be justly attributed an economical 
 improvement in the printing of the House. 
 
 But one of the most important subjects to which Mr. Randolph 
 turned his attention was the public debt. On the 9th of April, 1802, 
 he reported a bill making provision for the redemption of the public 
 debt of the United States. It provided that so much of the duties 
 on merchandise and tonnage, &c., as will amount to an annual sum 
 of seven millions three hundred thousand dollars, be yearly appro- 
 priated as a sinking fund ; and said sums were declared to be vested 
 in Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, to be applied by them to the 
 payment of interest and charges, and to the redemption of the prin- 
 cipal of the public debt. After this appropriation he kept a watch- 
 ful eye on its faithful disbursement. The subject was frequently 
 before the Committee of Ways and Means, and the conduct and 
 management of the commissioners minutely criticised. 
 
 The chief subject that attracted the attention of Congress during 
 the next session, which began in December, 1802, was the navigation 
 of the Mississippi and the cession of Louisiana to France. In the 
 preceding October, the Governor of New Orleans, Don Morales, had 
 issued a proclamation, excluding that port as a depdt for our com- 
 merce, a privilege we had a right to enjoy under our treaty with 
 Spain. This conduct on the part of the Spanish authorities had 
 created great excitement in the western country. In addition to this, 
 it was rumored abroad that Louisiana had been transferred to the 
 dominion of the all-powerful and all-grasping French Republic, now 
 under the sway of the ambitious Bonaparte. These important facts, 
 together with the private information he had obtained on the subject, 
 were deemed by the President as being worthy of a secret and confi
 
 SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CONGRESSES. 
 
 dential communication to Congress, which was made the 22d of Decem- 
 ber. Additional information wag communicated on the 31st, and on 
 the 5th of January Mr. Griswold moved that the President be re- 
 quested to lay before the House copies of such official documents as 
 have been received by the Government, announcing the cession of 
 Louisiana to France, together with a report explaining the stipula- 
 tions, circumstances, and conditions, under which that province is to 
 be delivered up. Those private messages, which called forth this 
 resolution, had, on motion of .Mr. Randolph, been referred to a 
 committee, and had been under consideration in the House with 
 closed doors. He now moved to refer Mr. G-riswold's resolution to a 
 Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union. The motion, 
 after some discussion, was carried, and the House went into commit- 
 tee. Mr. Randolph observed that he had in his hand certain reso- 
 lutions connected with the message, relative to the late proceedings 
 at New Orleans, the discussion of which had been ordered to be con- 
 ducted with closed doors. He asked the decision of the question, 
 whether, previously to offering his resolutions, the doors ought not to 
 be closed. Much opposition was made to this motion. Mr. Gris- 
 wold's resolution, it was said, was one for information, and ought to 
 be discussed with open doors. Mr. Randolph observed, that he had 
 already more than once stated his objections to discuss this subject 
 in public. He had observations, which, he had said, must be 
 made in secret. ' The gentleman from Connecticut says he is willing 
 the resolution should be fully discussed, and therefore concludes that 
 it must not be referred to a select committee, as he is pleased to term 
 it, where alone, as we contend, and have informed him, the discussion 
 can take place. Sir, this may be logic, but it is new to me. A mes- 
 sage from the President relative to New Orleans has been referred 
 to a certain committee, and we propose to refer the resolution to the 
 same committee. Gentlemen exclaim that this is denying them in- 
 formation. Does it follow of necessity that we deny the information 
 because we choose to consider the subject with closed doors ? Cannot 
 the resolution be as fully discussed in private as in public ? Do all 
 the reasoning faculties of the House cease to exist the moment the 
 doors are closed ? Cannot the eloquence of the gentleman be exerted 
 unless when addressed to the ladies who do us the honor of attend- 
 ing in this hall?" Mr. Randolph's motion prevailed. The House 
 VOL. i. Q
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 was cleared, and he offered, with closed doors, the following resolu- 
 tion, to which he had alluded in debate ; " Resolved That this House 
 receive, with great sensibility, the information of a disposition in cer- 
 tain officers of the Spanish Government at New Orleans to obstruct 
 the navigation of the river Mississippi, as secured to the United States 
 by the most solemn stipulations. That, adhering to the humane and 
 wise policy which ought ever to characterize a free people, and by 
 which the United States have always professed to be governed, wil- 
 ling, at the same time, to ascribe this breach of compact to the unau- 
 thorized misconduct of certain individuals, rather than to a wa^.t of 
 good faith oft the part of his Catholic Majesty, and relying with per- 
 fect confidence on the vigilance and wisdom of the Executive, they 
 will wait the issue of such measures as that department of the Govern- 
 ment shall have pursued for asserting the rights and vindicating the 
 injuries of the United States ; holding it to be their duty, at the same 
 time, to express their unalterable determination to maintain the boun- 
 daries and the rights of navigation and commerce through the river 
 Mississippi, as established by existing treaties." 
 
 One of the measures of the Executive to which Mr. Randolph 
 alludes, was a pending negotiation for the purchase of Louisiana. 
 Mr. Livingston, our minister at Paris, had received ample instruc- 
 tions on this subject, and, about this time, Mr. Monroe had been 
 dispatched as envoy extraordinary, to aid him in the negotiation. 
 The proposition happened to have been made at a most fortunate 
 juncture of affairs, when Bonaparte was preparing for a war with 
 England. He wished to keep on good terms with the United States 
 feared that the British navy might wrest his newly acquired province 
 from him during the coming war, and was much in need of money- 
 These considerations induced him to listen favorably to the proposi- 
 tion of the United States to purchase Louisiana for a large sum of 
 money. 
 
 Mr. Livingston conducted the business with great ability, and 
 when Mr. Monroe arrived, he had but little more to do than sign the 
 articles of the treaty. Bonaparte, in a very short time, repented of 
 this measure. He saw the great blunder he had committed in part- 
 ing with a country so large, so rich, and so important, in a political 
 and commercial point of view ; and would have availed himself of 
 any pretext to break the treaty, and take back the province. The
 
 SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CONGRESSES. 
 
 Piesident was apprised of all these facts, and warned by our min- 
 isters, that if there should be the slightest delay in the ratification) 
 and in the provisions to be made by Congress to pay the instal- 
 ments of the purchase, we should lose it altogether. The treaty was 
 signed at Paris, the 30th of April. 1803. So soon as it reached the 
 United States, the President, by proclamation, called Congress 
 on the first Monday in October, to take measures to carry it into 
 effect, 
 
 In all his efforts to bring this business to a successful issue," the 
 President received the hearty co-operation of \he leader of the House 
 of Representatives. Mr. Randolph's quick and comprehensive mind 
 saw. at a glance, the importance of the crisis, and, as chairman of the 
 Committee of Ways and "Means, his aid was most prompt and efficient 
 in getting over the difficulty. By the 10th of November, a bill had 
 been passed, and approved by the President, creating certificates of 
 stock in favor of the French Republic, for the sum of eleven mil- 
 lions two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, bearing an interest of 
 six per centum per annum, from the time when possession of Louisiana 
 shall have been obtained, in conformity with the treaty of the thir- 
 tieth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and three, between 
 the United States of America and the French Republic. Possession 
 was given the 20th of December following ; and all the measures 
 adopted by Congress in regard to the newly acquired territory, were 
 either matured by the Committee of Ways and Means, of which Mr. 
 Randolph was chairman, or by some select committee, appointed at 
 his instance. Few men did more than he to secure the purchase of 
 Louisiana, when once made, and then to provide for it a good and 
 efficient government. Next to the Declaration of Independence, and 
 the adoption of the present Constitution, the acquisition of Louisiana 
 has had more influence than any other thing on the destiny of the 
 United States. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson was a strict constructionist, and held that no pow- 
 ers should be exercised but those specifically granted. The Consti- 
 tution contemplates no territory beyond that in possession of the Con- 
 federacy or of the States at the time of its adoption. The purch;is< 
 of foreign territory was a thing not dreamed of by its frarners. nor is 
 there any clause authorizing such a measure. Mr. Jefferson WM* 
 fully aware of this ; but he considered that there was such an impcri-
 
 196 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ous necessity in this case, requiring such immediate action now or 
 never that he would be justified in making the acquisition, and pro- 
 curing a sanction of it afterwards, by an amendment of the Constitu 
 tion. u The Constitution has made no provision for our holding 
 foreign territory," says he, " still less for incorporating foreign nations 
 into our Union. The Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence, 
 which so much advances the good of their country > have done an act be- 
 yond the Constitution. The legislature, in casting behind them meta- 
 physical subtleties, and risking themselves like faithful servants, must 
 ratify and pay for it. and throw themselves on their country, for do- 
 ing for them, unauthorized, what we know they would have done for 
 themselves, had they been in a situation to do it. But we shall not 
 be disavowed by the nation, and their act of indemnity will con- 
 firm and not weaken the Constitution, by more strongly marking out 
 its lines." 
 
 But unfortunately this act of indemnity was never performed 
 the amendment of the Constitution was never made. What was an 
 exception, justified only by necessity, has now become a precedent ; 
 and nearly all the difficulties that threaten a dissolution of the 
 Union, growing out of the slavery question, and the acquisition of 
 new territory, have been occasioned by that fatal omission. Had the 
 Constitution been amended, as contemplated, by first sanctioning 
 that which had been admitted as a violation of it, and then by 
 defining minutely the powers to be exercised in future by Congress. 
 the present embarrassments of the country could never have hap- 
 pened. We see also in this transaction the insufficiency of a paper 
 constitution to resist the current of the popular will unless there be 
 power to restrain power, nothing else can withstand it the plea of 
 necessity has been urged by Congress for nearly every unconstitutional 
 act they have perpetrated. 
 
 The next subject of importance to which Mr. Randolph's atten- 
 tion was turned, was the impeachment and trial of Judge Chase. 
 On Thursday the 5th of January, 1804, he moved that a committee 
 be appointed to inquire into the official conduct of Samuel Chase, 
 one of the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, and report their opinion whether the said Samuel Chase had 
 so acted in his judicial capacity as to require the interposition of the 
 constitutional power of the House. The committee reported seven
 
 SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CONGRESSES. j/jy 
 
 articles of impeachment drafted by their chairman, and detailing 
 charges of misconduct on the part of the judge in the trial of John 
 Fries, for high treason, in levying war against the United States 
 during the Whisky Insurrection in Pennsylvania; and also in the 
 trial of Thomas Cooper and James Callender, for sedition or libel 
 against the President. 
 
 This trial was a very important one, as Judge Chase had been 
 one of those high-handed federalists, who not only approved the 
 Alien and Sedition Laws, but had transcended all bounds in his 
 eagerness to enforce them. 
 
 For want of time the subject was postponed to the next session. 
 On the 30th November, 1804, the articles of impeachment were 
 again reported, and Mr. Randolph was appointed chief manager to 
 conduct the trial before the Senate. The proceedings were very 
 tedious many witnesses were examined and many arguments 
 during the progress of the examination were delivered on both sides. 
 Mr. Randolph conducted the cause on the part of the prosecution 
 with the skill of a practised attorney. He opened the case on the 
 part of the House, the 14th February, 1805, in a speech of one hour 
 and a half. Though it is out of the line of his usual forensic efforts, 
 it will well repay a perusal. As two-thirds of the senators present 
 were required to concur in sustaining an impeachment, and as only 
 a majority concurred in sustaining some of the articles, Judge Chase 
 was acquitted. 
 
 There was scarcely any subject of importance before Congress at 
 this period that did not attract the personal attention of Mr. Ran- 
 dolph. Not content with the laborious duties of the Finance Commit- 
 tee, furnishing work enough for any ordinary mind, we find him on 
 innumerable select committees, embracing the widest range of investi- 
 gation on all subjects of legislation. Nothing escaped his vigilant 
 eye nothing too laborious for him to undertake. These four 
 years, from the opening of Mr. Jefferson's administration to the 4th 
 of March, 1805, the close of the eighth Congress, were indeed his 
 working days. He was abstemious in his habits, unceasing in his 
 labors, unremitting in his attention to public duties. 
 
 No man had ever risen so rapidly, or attained a higher degree of 
 eminence and influence ; his career was brilliant and successful. 
 The President in the executive department, and he as the* leader of
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 the legislative, had done all that was expected of them in the great 
 work of reforming the government, and bringing it back to its original 
 simplicity. Many years afterwards he recurred to this period with 
 just pride. "Sir, (said he in a speech on retrenchment, in 1828,) I 
 have never seen but one administration, which seriously, and in good 
 faith, was disposed to give up its patronage, and was willing to go 
 farther than Congress, or even the people themselves, so far as Con- 
 gress represents their feelings, desired and that was the first 
 administration of Thomas Jefferson. He, sir. was the only man I 
 ever knew or heard of, who really, truly, and honestly, not only said 
 " nolo episcopari" but actually refused the mitre. It was a part of 
 my duty, and one of the most pleasant parts of public duty that I 
 ever performed, under his recommendation not because he recom- 
 mended it, thank God ! to move, in this House, to relieve the public 
 at once. from the whole burden of that system of internal taxation, 
 the practical effect of which was, whatever might have been its 
 object, to produce patronage rather than revenue. He, too. had 
 really at heart, and showed it by his conduct, the reduction of the 
 national debt ; and that in the only mode by which it can ever be 
 reduced, by lessening the expenses of the Government till they are 
 
 below its receipts." " Never was there an administration," says 
 
 he, " more brilliant than that of Mr. Jefferson, up to this period. 
 We were indeed in the full tide of successful experiment ! Taxes 
 repealed ; the public debt amply provided for, both principal and 
 interest ; sinecures abolished ; Louisiana acquired ; public confidence 
 unbounded." 
 
 None deserved more than himself a large portion of that un- 
 bounded public confidence, which attached to the administration 
 and he was, indeed, looked to from all quarters as the fearless cham- 
 pion of truth and justice. But no man ever drank of the cup of 
 life unmingled with bitter waters. The mean and the envious had 
 grown jealous of his greatness, and were seeking by low and cunning 
 arts to destroy his influence, and to withdraw from him the confi- 
 dence of the people. It was a trait of his character never to aban- 
 don principle for policy ; never to relinquish a favorite measure how- 
 ever hopeless of success ; never to quit his books and his study for 
 idle conversation ; never to permit a vulgar familiarity for the sake 
 of gaining- popularity with those who were to vote on his measures.
 
 SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CONGRESSES. ^99 
 
 Hence, they began to speak of him as a person possessing proud and 
 haughty manners ; and as a leader, having failed to harmonize the 
 republican members of Congress. " Great God !" exclaims Thomp- 
 son, " to think that measures of the highest import to our country 
 are opposed, because their advocate does not make a bow in the right 
 way ! This is the fact : I have taken the liberty of asking, what 
 your manner has to do with your public Character whether there 
 are laws penal against study, reading, and devotion to the welfare of 
 vour country." But the cause .of offence lay not in his reserved and 
 retiring deportment his proud and haughty manners it was found 
 in that keen sense of injustice and wrong that made him detect base- 
 ness and corruption in their most secret hiding-places, and iii *hai 
 manly independent spirit that made him fearless in dragging out 
 the perpetrators into the light of day, and drawing on them tlu 
 scorn and indignation of the world. Mr. Randolph was one that 
 never could tolerate corruption in public men. There were many 
 of that class or many that he suspected to be of that class con- 
 nected with the administration, He was unsparing in his denuncia- 
 tions of them. This was the cause of the growing discontent, and 
 the desire to throw him off as a leader. 
 
 His patriotic endeavors to overturn that colossus of turpitude, the 
 Yazoo speculation, was the cause of the hostility which soon mani- 
 fested itself against him in the ranks of the administration. Un- 
 fortunately, too many were interested in upholding this gigantic 
 robbery. The reader has already been made acquainted with its 
 character ; by a reference to chapter thirteen of this volume, he will 
 see something of its history. Randolph was in Georgia at the time 
 of the perpetration of this villany, and participated in the shame 
 and mortification of his friends at seeing persons, reputed religious 
 and respectable, effecting a public robbery, by bribing the legisla- 
 tors of the State, and reducing them to the horrors of treachery 
 and perjury. A more detestable, impudent, and dangerous villain- 
 is not to be found on record. Notwithstanding the notoriety of these 
 transactions in the State of Georgia the law was not only pronounc- 
 ed unconstitutional, fraudulent and void, was not only repealed, 
 but it was burnt by the common hangman, and the record of it 
 expunged from the statute book notwithstanding these facts, known 
 to all men, a company of individuals in other States purchased up
 
 200 ^ IFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 this fraudulent title and presented their petition to Congress, asking 
 remuneration for the land, which in the mean time had been trans- 
 ferred by Georgia to the United States. 
 
 In the " Articles of Agreement and Cession" between Georgia 
 and the United States, is a proviso that the United States may dis 
 pose of, or appropriate a portion of the said lands, not exceeding 
 five millions of acres, or the proceeds of the five millions of acres, or 
 any part thereof, for the purpose of satisfying, quieting, or compen- 
 sating for any claims, other than those recognized in the articles of 
 agreement, which may be made to the said lands. It was under this 
 provision, that the New England and Mississippi Land Company, 
 who in the mean time had purchased the spurious title of the origi- 
 nal grantees of a corrupt legislature, petitioned Congress to satisfy 
 their claim by a fair purchase or commutation. In the session of 
 1802-3. this subject was first brought to the attention of the legis- 
 lature. Mr. Madison and Mr. Gallatin, members of the President's 
 cabinet, and Mr. Levi Lincoln, were appointed commissioners to 
 investigate this subject. They made an elaborate report, and con- 
 cluded with a proposition, that so much of the five millions of acres 
 as shall remain after having satisfied the claims of settlers and 
 others, not recognized by the agreement with Georgia, which shall 
 be confirmed by the United States, be appropriated for the purpose 
 of satisfying and quieting the claims of the persons who derive their 
 titles from an Act of the State of Georgia, passed on the 7th day of 
 January. 1795. Thus we see that the leading members of the ad- 
 ministration were pledged to the justice of this claim, and the pro- 
 priety of some compensation on the part of the United States. 
 
 Gideon Granger, the Postmaster General, was at the head of 
 the New England and Mississippi Land Company, and was its agent 
 to prosecute the claim before Congress. He wrote an extended and 
 elaborate argument to prove that the Company were innocent pur- 
 chasers without notice ; and indeed he undertook to cast censure on 
 the people of Georgia for repudiating and repealing the act of a 
 bribed legislature, and to charge that State and the United States 
 with injustice in appropriating to themselves lands which had 
 been legally sold by the State and purchased by his Company. Not 
 only, therefore, was the cabinet of the President committed as to 
 fhr justice of this claim ; but one of its most active and influential 
 members was deeply interested personally in its success.
 
 SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CONGRESSES. 201 
 
 Mr. Kan Jolph opposed it, however, from the beginning : he knew 
 its origin, its history ; and no consideration of prudence or policy 
 could induce him for a moment to tolerate the monstrous iniquity. 
 
 On the 25th of January, 1805, a resolution was introduced into 
 the House, that three commisssioners be appointed to receive pro- 
 positions of compromise and settlement from the several compa- 
 nies or persons holding claims to lands within the present limits of 
 the Mississippi Territory, in such jnanner as in their opinion shall 
 conduce to the interests of the United States, provided such settle- 
 ment shall not exceed the limit prescribed by the convention with 
 the State of Georgia. This resolution was introduced by a few 
 remarks from Mr. Dana, chairman of the Committee of Claims. 
 
 Mr. Randolph then rose : " Perhaps," said he, " it may be sup- 
 posed from the course which this business has taken, that the adver- 
 saries of the present measure indulge the expectation of being able 
 to come forward at a future day not to this House, for that hope 
 was desperate, but to the public with a more matured opposition 
 than it is in their power now to make. But past experience has 
 shown to them that this is one of those subjects which pollution has 
 sanctified, that the hallowed mysteries of corruption are not to be 
 profaned by the eye of public curiosity. No, sir, the orgies of Yazoo 
 speculation are not to be laid open to the public gaze. None but the 
 initiated are permitted to behold the monstrous sacrifice of the best 
 interest of the nation on the altar of corruption. When this abomi- 
 nation is to be practised, we go into conclave. Do we apply to the 
 press, that potent engine, the dread of tyrants and of villains, but the 
 shield of freedom and of worth ? No, sir, the press is gagged. On 
 this subject we have a virtual sedition law; not with a specious title, 
 but irresistible in its operations, which goes directly to its object. 
 This demon of speculation has wrested from the nation at one sweep, 
 their best, their only defence, and has closed the avenue of informa- 
 tion. But a day of retribution may yet come. If their rights are 
 to be bartered away, and their property squandered, the people must 
 not, they shall not be kept in ignorance by whom it is done. We 
 have often heard of party spirit, of caucuses, as they are termed, to 
 settle legislative questions, but never have I seen that spirit so visible 
 as at present. The out-door intrigue is too palpable to be disguised. 
 When it was proposed to abolish the judiciary system, reared in the 
 
 VOL. i. 9*
 
 OQ2 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 last moments of an expiring administration, the detested offspring 
 of a midnight hour; when the question of repeal was before the 
 House ; it could not be taken until midnight in the third or fourth 
 week of the discussion. When the great and good man who now fills, 
 and who (whatever may be the wishes of our opponents) I hope and 
 trust will long fill the executive chair, not less to his own honor than 
 to the happiness of his fellow-citizens when he recommended the 
 repeal of the internal taxes, delay succeeded delay, till patience itself 
 was worn threadbare. But now, when public plunder is the order 
 of the day, how are we treated? Driven into a committee of the 
 whole, and out again in a breath by an inflexible majority, exulting 
 in their strength, a decision must be had immediately. The advo- 
 cates for the proposed measure feel that it will not bear scrutiny. 
 Hence this precipitancy. They wince from the touch of examination, 
 and are willing to hurry through a painful and disgraceful discussion. 
 As if animated by one spirit, they perform all their evolutions with 
 the most exact discipline, and march in firm phalanx directly up to 
 their object. Is it that men combined together to effect some evil 
 purpose, acting on previous pledge to each other, are even more in 
 unison than those who, seeking only to discover truth, obey the im- 
 pulse of that conscience which God has placed in their bosom ? Such 
 men will not stand compromited. They will not stifle the sugges- 
 tions of their own minds, and sacrifice their private opinions to the 
 attainment of some nefarious object. 
 
 " The memorialists plead ignorance of that fraud by which the 
 act from which their present title was derived, was passed. As it 
 has been a pretext for exciting the compassion of the legislature, I 
 wish to examine the ground upon which this allegation rests. When 
 the act of stupendous villany was passed, in 1795, attempting under 
 the form and semblance of law to rob unborn millions of their birth- 
 right and inheritance, and to convey to a band of unprincipled and 
 flagitious men, a territory more extensive, more fertile than any 
 State in the Union, it caused a sensation scarcely less violent 
 than that caused by the passage of the Stamp Act, or the shutting up 
 of the port of Boston : with this difference, that when the Port Bill 
 of Boston passed, her Southern brethren did not take advantage of 
 the forms of law, by which a corrupt legislature attempted to de- 
 fraud her of the bounties of nature : they did not speculate on the
 
 SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CONGRESSES. 203 
 
 wrongs of their insulted countrymen. ***** Sanction this claim, 
 derived from the act of 1795, and what, in effect, do you declare? 
 You record a solemn acknowledgment that Congress has unfairly and 
 dishonestly obtained from Georgia a grant of land to which that State 
 had no title, having previously sold it to others for a valuable consid- 
 eration, of which transaction Congress was at the time fully apprised. 
 The agents of this Mississippi Land Company sdt out with an attempt 
 to prove that they are entitled to the whole fifty millions of acres of 
 latd, under the act of 1795; and thus they make their plea to be 
 admitted to a proportional share of five. If they really believed 
 what they say, would they be willing to commute a good legal or 
 equitable claim for one-tenth of its value I * * * * "We are told that 
 we stand pledged, and that an appropriation for British gratis, not 
 granted by Spain especially, was made for the especial benefit of a 
 particular class of claimants, branded too by the deepest odium, who 
 dare talk to us of the public faith, and appeal to the national honor ! 
 * * * * The right of the State of Georgia to sell is denied by your 
 own statute book. So far from being able to transfer o others the 
 right to extinguish the Indian title to land, she has not been able to 
 exercise it for her own benefit. It is only through the agency of the 
 United States that she can obtain the extinguishment of the Indian 
 title to the sale of land within her limits ; much less could she dele- 
 gate it to a few Yazoo men. ***** The present case presents a 
 monstrous anomaly, to which the ordinary and narrow maxims of 
 municipal jurisprudence cannot be applied. It is from great first 
 principles, to which the patriots of Georgia so gloriously appealed, 
 that we must look for aid in such extremity. Extreme cases, like 
 this, call for extreme remedies. They bid defiance to palliatives, and 
 it is only by the knife, or the actual cautery, that you can expect re- 
 lief. There is no cure short of extirpation. Attorneys and judges 
 do not decide the fate of empires. ***** The Government of the 
 United States, on a former occasion, did not, indeed, act in this firm 
 and decided manner. But those were hard, unconstitutional times, 
 that never ought to be drawn into precedent. The first year I had 
 the honor of a seat in this House, an act was passed somewhat of a 
 similar nature to the one now proposed. I allude to the case of the 
 Connecticut Reserve, by which the nation was swindled out of thren 
 or four millions of acres, which, like other bad titles, had fallen into
 
 204 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 the hands of innocent purchasers. When I advert to the applicants 
 by whom we were then beset, I find among them one of the persons 
 who styled themselves the Agents of the New England Mississippi 
 Land Company, who seems to have an unfortunate knack of buying 
 bad titles. His gigantic grasp embraces with one hand the shores of 
 Lake Erie, and with the other stretches to the Bay of Mobile. Mil- 
 lions of acres are easily digested by such stomachs. Goaded by ava- 
 rice, they buy only to sell, and sell only to buy. The retail trade of 
 fraud and imposture yields too small and slow a profit to gratify their 
 cupidity. They buy and sell corruption ii the gross, and a few mil- 
 lions of acres, more or less, is hardly feit in the account. The 
 deeper the play, the greater their zest in the game ; and the stake 
 which is set upon the throw is nothing less than the patrimony of the 
 people. Mr. Speaker, when I see the agency which is employed on 
 this occasion, I must own that it fills me with apprehension and 
 alarm. The same agent is at the head of an executive department of 
 our Government, and inferior to none in the influence attached to it. 
 * * * * rp^ O jg cer p resen ts himself at your bar, at once a party and 
 an advocate. Sir, when I see such a tremendous influence brought 
 to bear upon us, I do confess it strikes me with consternation and 
 despair. Are the heads of executive departments, with the influ- 
 ence and patronage attached to them, to extort from us now, what we 
 refused at the last session of Congress ? ***** j w ju pj[ n mv . 
 self upon this text, and preach upon it as long as I have life. If no 
 other reason could be adduced, but for a regard for our own fame if 
 it were only to rescue ourselves from this foul imputation this weak 
 and dishonorable compromise ought to receive a prompt and decisive 
 rejection. Is the voice of patriotism lulled to rest, that we no longer 
 hear the cry against an overbearing majority, determined to put 
 down the Constitution, and deaf to every proposition of compromise ? 
 Such were the dire forebodings to which we have been compelled 
 heretofore to listen. But if the enmity of such men be formidable, 
 their friendship is deadly destruction, their touch deadly pollution ! 
 What is the spirit against which we now struggle which we have 
 vainly endeavored to stifle? A monster generated by fraud, nursed 
 in corruption, that in grim silence awaits its prey. It is the spirit 
 of Federalism." 
 
 * * * *
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 205 
 
 It may readily be conceived what effect this and similar speeches 
 which had been delivered, whenever the subject was presented, would 
 have on the members of the republican party who were interested, 
 for themselves or their friends, in the Yazoo speculation. An in- 
 trigue was set on foot to supplant Mr. Randolph. It was determined 
 that he should be put down. The Postmaster General openly de- 
 clared that he or Randolph one must fall. This expression was un- 
 derstood as intimating an intention to call him out. Some one 
 observed that Randolph would not be backward in answering to a 
 call of that kind. He replied, not in that way >; I mean, as a public 
 man as a political character}' 1 After the adjournment of Congress, 
 March, 1805, he made a tour of the New England States, for the pur- 
 pose of organizing a party to putt dmvn Randolph. Some of the re- 
 publican members from that quarter gave countenance to the plan, 
 and Mr. Barnabas Bidwell was put forward as their file-leader. 
 These men insinuated themselves into favor, and assumed to be the 
 exclusive friends of the President ; but they were charged, many of 
 them, with being in league with Burr, and having no other design but 
 to embarrass the Executive, and to force the President into a sanction 
 of their views. " If some members of Congress," says a leading jour- 
 nal of that day, " are to be bribed with post-office contracts to obtain 
 their votes for a nefarious speculation, on one hand ; and if a member 
 of Congress, superior to all corruption, and all pollution or dishonor, 
 is to be pulled down ; and the offices of Government are to be em- 
 ployed to such ends ; it is vain to pretend that republican govern- 
 ment can stand, if such corruption and such corrupt men are suffered 
 to retain all the power, which they prostitute ; and if men of virtue, 
 honor, talents and integrity, are to be made victims of intrigue, bot- 
 tomed on such corruption." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 FKIENDSHIP. 
 
 WE have seen what an immense task, and what a weight of responsi- 
 bility, devolved on Mr. Randolph for the last four years. He found 
 time, nevertheless, to keep up an extensive correspondence with his
 
 206 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 friends. He had now added to the list his two half-brothers and 
 their sister, who were just growing up. His sentiments in regard to 
 the conduct of a family towards those " worthy lads," who just begin 
 to feel the pride and self-importance of budding manhood, are so true 
 and so worthy of imitation, that we give them to the reader. 
 " Give to dear Beverly," says he, " my warmest love. Let me, my 
 dear sister, caution you (and be not offended at it) respecting that 
 worthy lad. Treat him with a marked attention. I know you love 
 him tenderly he is deserving of it. Display that affection by a man- 
 ner the most considerate and kind. Cherish him ; for he is a jewel above 
 price. Beverly is now of an age to receive from ?very body the treat- 
 ment due to a man a young one, I grant and to a gentleman. No 
 consideration should dispense with this conduct on any part. It does 
 not imply formality, but respect not coldness, but kind attention. 
 These, I pronounce, are essentially requisite, and in a greater degree 
 than usual, to the development of his amiable character." 
 
 But poor Thompson continued, by his erratic ways, to keep alive 
 the anxious solicitude of his friend. That brilliant, though wayward 
 genius, had fallen into desperate courses. Calumny, acting on a 
 morbid sensibility, had banished him from that home where alone he 
 could find sympathy and encouragement. Misfortune had so per- 
 verted his feelings, as to make him, in the spirit of misanthropy, 
 shun the observation of those that once knew and respected him, and 
 to seek oblivion and forgetfulness in the haunts of low dissipation. 
 Now was the time to test true friendship. The cold world would 
 pass him by with averted look, and protest they never knew him ; 
 the friend would take him by the hand, and gently and affectionately 
 draw him back to the paths of virtue. Randolph professed to be his 
 friend how nobly did he redeem that pledge ! In the following let- 
 ter, he speaks to him in plainness and in truth. But whilst he 
 does not spare his erring friend, his censure is accompanied with 
 such a tone of delicacy and affection, as to melt the most obdurate 
 heart, and kindle emotions of reformation in the most desperate 
 outcast. 
 
 " Whatever may be the motives," says he, " which have determined 
 you to renounce all intercourse with me, it becomes me, perhaps, to 
 respect them ; yet to be deterred from my present purpose by punc- 
 tilio would evince a coldness of temper which I trust does not belong
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 to ine, and would, at the same time, convict me to myself of the most 
 pitiful insincerity, in professing for you a regard which has never 
 been inferior to my professions, and which is not in any circumstance 
 entirely to destroy. To tell you that during the last three months 
 I have observed your progress through life with uninterrupted and 
 increasing anxiety, would be to give you a faint idea of what has 
 passed in my mind. The mortification which I have experienced on 
 hearing you spoken of in terms of frigid and scanty approbation, can 
 only be exceeded by that which I have felt on the silent embarrass- 
 ment which my inquiries have occasioned those who were unwilling 
 to wound your character or my feelings. You know me too well, 
 William, to suppose that my inquiries have been directed by the 
 miserable spirit which seeks to exalt itself on fhe depression of others. 
 They have, on the contrary, been very few, and made with the most 
 guarded circumspection. To say the truth. I have never felt myself 
 equal to the task of hearing the recital of details which were too 
 often within my reach, and which not unfrequently courted my atten- 
 tion. They have always received from me the most decisive repulse. 
 My own pride would never bear the humiliation of permitting any 
 one to witness the mortification which I felt. After all this pream- 
 ble, let me endeavor to effect the purpose of this address. Let me 
 beg of you to ask yourself what are your present pursuits, and how 
 far congenial to your feelings or character. I have not, I cannot, 
 so far have mistaken you ; you cannot so successfully have deceived 
 yourself. Yours is not the mind which can derive any real or last- 
 ing gratification from the pursuits or the attainments of a grovelling 
 ambition. These may afford a temporary and imperfect relief from 
 that voice which tells you who you are, and what is expected from 
 you. The world is well disposed to forgive the aberrations of youth- 
 ful indiscretion -from the straight road of prudence ; but there is a 
 point beyond which its temper can no longer be played upon. After 
 a certain degree of resistance, it becomes more prone to asperity 
 than it had ever been to indulgence. But grant that its good nature 
 were unlimited, you are not the character who can be content to hold 
 by so humiliating a tenure that which you can and ought to demand 
 of right. Can you be content to repose on the courtesy of mankind 
 for that respect which you may challenge as your due, and winch 
 may be enforced when withheld ? Can you quit the high ground and 
 imposing attitude of self-esteem to solicit the precarious bouHty of a
 
 208 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 contemptuous and contemptible world ? I can scarcely forgive my- 
 self for dwelling so long on so invidious a theme. I have long medi- 
 tated to address you on this subject. One of the dissuasives from 
 the plan is now removed. Let me again conjure you to ask yourself 
 seriously, What are your present objects of pursuit? How far any 
 laudable acquirement can be attained by a town residence, particu- 
 larly in a tavern? Whether such a life be compatible with the 
 maintenance of that respectability of character which is necessary to 
 give us value in the eyes of others or of ourselves ? And let me con- 
 jure you to dissolve by a single exertion the spell which now enchains 
 you. The only tie which could have bound you is no more. 'Town 
 fetters are but those of habit, and that of but short standing. Were 
 it confirmed, there would indeed be but little hope, and this letter 
 would never have been penned. As it would be improper to urge 
 the dissolution of your present plan of life without pointing out some 
 alternative. I recommend a residence of twelve or eighteen months 
 with Taylor, and a serious application, before it be too late, to that 
 profession which will be a friend to you when the sunshine insects 
 who have laughed with you in your prosperity shall have passed away 
 with the genial season which gave them birth. The hour is fast 
 approaching, be assured, when it will be in vain to attempt the ac- 
 quirement of professional knowledge. Too well I know that readi- 
 ness of apprehension and sprightliness of imagination will not make 
 amends for application. The latter serves but to light up our igno- 
 rance. 
 
 " There is one topic on which I cannot trust even my pen. Did I 
 not believe that this letter would occasion you pain, it certainly never 
 had been written. Yet to write it with that view would be a 
 purpose truly diabolical. You are a physician ; you probe not the 
 wounds of the dead. Yet 'tis to heal, and not to agonize, that you 
 insert your instrument into the living body. Whatever may be the 
 effect of this attempt whatever may be the disposition which it cre- 
 ates in you, I shall never, while you live, cease to feel an interest in 
 your fate. Every one here remembers you with undiminished affec- 
 tion. . If I judge from myself, you are more than ever interesting to 
 them, and whenever, if ever, you revisit Bizarre, you will recognize 
 in every member of the family your unchanged friends. 
 
 " Adieu, 
 
 J. R., JR."
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 209 
 
 This last and noble effort to redeem a fallen friend was not in 
 vain. The advice was followed. Thompson spent a few months with 
 Creed Taylor, in the neighborhood of Bizarre; he then went to 
 Richmond and read law, in the office of George Hay, Esq., a distin- 
 guished lawyer and politician of that day. From this time, with 
 few exceptions, his letters are more cheerful, and replete with sallies 
 of his fine genius ; he communicates much instructive and amusing 
 information about the proceedings of the legislature, and the leading 
 characters of Richmond ; and never failed to give vent to those 
 deep feelings of gratitude that swelled in his bosom, towards one who 
 had been, to him a brother indeed, in his hour of degradation and 
 misfortune. 
 
 Having obtained a competent knowledge of his profession, Mr. 
 Randolph procured for him an office in the newly acquired territory 
 of Louisiana encouraged him to break off from his old associations, 
 and to seek his fortune anew, in a land of strangers. In the spring 
 of 1804, he married a virtuous and accomplished wife, and set out on 
 his journey to the far west, with all those bright prospects that his 
 ardent imagination knew so well how to picture before him. This is 
 the last letter ever addressed to him by his friend : 
 
 BIZARRE, 13 May. 1804. 
 
 " When I requested you to inquire at the post-office at Abing- 
 ton for a letter from me, it did not occur to me by how circuitous a 
 route my communication must travel before it could reach that place. 
 To guard against accidents, therefore, I have directed it to be for- 
 warded to Nashville, in case you should have left Abingtou before 
 its arrival there. We have been every day suggesting to ourselves 
 the inconvenience to which you must have been exposed by the bad 
 weather which we have invariably experienced ever since your 
 departure, and regretting that the situation of your affairs would not 
 permit you to continue with us until a change took place. You, how- 
 ever, my good friend, have embarked upon too serious a voyage to 
 take into consideration a little rough weather upon the passage. The 
 wish which I feel to add my mite to the counsels through which alone 
 it can prove prosperous, is repressed by the reflection, that your suc- 
 cess depends upon the discovery of no new principle of human 
 affairs, but upon the application of such as are familiar to all, and 
 which none know better how to estimate than yourself. Decision,
 
 210 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 firmness, independence, which equally scorns to yield our own 
 rights as to detract from those of others, are the only guides to the 
 esteem of the world, or of ourselves. A reliance upon our resources 
 for all things, but especially for relief against that arch fiend the 
 taedium vitae, can alone guard us against a state of dependence and 
 contempt. But I am growing sententious, and, of course, pedantic. 
 Judy joins me in every good wish to yourself and Mrs. Thompson. 
 Permit me to add that there is one being in the world who will ever 
 be ready to receive you with open arms, whatsoever may be the fate 
 of the laudable endeavors which you are now making. 
 " Yours, truly, 
 
 " JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 THOMPSON." 
 
 Poor Thompson did not live to test the strength of his redeemed 
 virtue, and to make a new application of those principles that he had 
 learned in the school of adversity so well how to estimate. He died 
 by the way-side, and all the renewed hopes of himself and of his 
 friend, were swallowed up in the oblivious night of death. On the 
 back of the copy of the foregoing letter, which is written in Mr. 
 Randolph's own handwriting, is found the following endorsement : 
 ; 'W. T., May 13, 1804. Alas!" What more could he write as an 
 epitaph on the lonely tomb of this wandering, ill-starred young man? 
 Alas ! alas ! was all that could be said of the misfortunes and the 
 untimely end of poor William Thompson. 
 
 Joseph Bryan, in the meantime, had returned from his travels ; 
 the joyous, free-hearted Bryan had ceased " fighting the Russians," 
 recrossed the broad Atlantic main, and from his sea-girt isle was in- 
 diting letters to his friend, describing the cities he had seen, the men 
 and their manners if not with the depth of observation of the wise 
 Ulysses, at least with as much pleasure and freedom of narration. 
 He urged his old companion to visit once more his friends in Geor- 
 gia: " You are the popular man here," says he, " the federalists to the 
 contrary notwithstanding." But Randolph, ever seeking to make his 
 friends useful to themselves and to their country, turned the thoughts 
 of this volatile young man to a higher aim. 
 
 On his solicitation, Bryan became a candidate for Congress ; was 
 defeated ; renewed the attempt, and was successful. He stood by
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 211 
 
 the side of his gallant friend and fought manfully that Medusa head 
 of fraud, the Yazoo speculation, whenever it reared its horrid front 
 upon the floor of Congress. He had been to Bizarre, and formed an 
 acquaintance with the charming society there, of which he ever after- 
 wards spoke in terms of the highest admiration ; he had hunted, 
 fished, flown kites, and played marbles with "the boys ;" but above 
 all, his wild fancy had been caught at last, and, like the fly in the 
 spider's web, he was entangled in the inextricable meshes of all- 
 conquering love. Miss Delia Foreman, daughter of General Fore- 
 man, of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, intimate friends of Mr. 
 Randolph, was the charming object of attraction. The summer 
 recess of 1804 was spent in Georgia, but the island in the sea, with 
 all its means of pleasure, had lost its charm, and he was about to 
 desert it, and to go in search of the fair nymph whose dwelling looked 
 imt on the broad waters of the Chesapeake. 
 
 On the 8th of September. 1804, from Bizarre his friend writes to 
 him : " Should this find you at Wilmington, which I heartily wish it 
 may not, I trust, my dear Bryan, that you will derive the most satis- 
 factory information from the inclosed respecting your fair tyrant. 
 To me the Major says not a word on the subject of his daughter, but 
 I infer from a variety of circumstances that she is about this time on 
 a visit to her aunt, Mrs. Van Bibber, in Gloucester, about eighty 
 miles from Richmond ; I hope, therefore, very soon to see you in 
 Virginia. 
 
 " I have nothing worth relating, except that Mrs. Randolph was 
 almost as much disappointed as myself when our messenger arrived 
 last night from the post-office without a letter from you. How easy 
 would it be, once a week, to say ' I am at such a place, in such health, 
 
 and to-morrow shall go to .' These little bulletins of your 
 
 well-being and motions would be a thousand times more interesting 
 to me than those of his Britannic Majesty's health, or his Corsican 
 Highness's expeditions. Let me beg of you to make dispatch. 
 " Yours as ever, 
 
 " JOHN RANDOLPH." 
 
 After the adjournment of Congress, March, 1805, Bryan hastened 
 on to Chestertown to be married. On the 8th of March ho writes 
 from tii \ place : " You will hardly believe me when I tell you,
 
 212 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 that uiy tyrants have had the unparalleled barbarity to postpone 
 my marriage until the 25th of this month. Sumptuousness, pomp, 
 parade, &c., must be observed in giving away a jewel worth more than 
 the kingdoms of this world. I rather suspect I shall be myself the 
 most awkward and ungraceful movable used on the occasion : curse 
 it, I hate to be exhibited ; and nothing but the possession of the 
 jewel itself would induce me to run the gauntlet of felicitation I 
 
 shall receive from the whole file of collaterals. Lovely as her 
 
 person is, I prize her heart more. Jack ! what have I done to in- 
 duce the good God to favor me so highly ? Sinner that I am, I 
 deserve not the smallest of his gifts, and behold I am treated more 
 kindly than even Abraham, who saw God face to face, and was called 
 his friend ; he, poor fellow, had to put up with his sister Sarah, who. 
 beside other exceptionable qualities, was cursed with a bad temper ; 
 while I, having sought among the beauties of the earth, have found and 
 obtained the loveliest and best, which I am willing to prove against 
 all comers on foot or on horseback, in the tented field with sword 
 and spear, or on the roaring ocean at the cannon's mouth. If you 
 will come and see us (on their island in the sea), my Delia will 
 make one of her best puddings for your entertainment. In the course 
 of a year or two you may expect to see your friend Brain metamor- 
 phosed into a gentleman of high polish, able to make as spruce a 
 bow, and to hand a lady to her carriage with all the graces of an 
 Adonis. Adieu ! may heaven prosper and bless you." 
 
 In the course of a year or two, alas ! he was metamorphosed ; the 
 beautiful Delia also faded away ; and their two little boys were left 
 orphans ! John Randolph showed his attachment to the father by 
 his devotion to the sons ; they were raised partly in his own house, 
 and educated at his expense. The oldest and the namesake, John 
 Randolph Bryan, many years after this period, when he grew up to 
 manhood, married Miss Elizabeth Coulter, the niece of Mr. Ran- 
 dolph ; " my charming niece," as he used to call her, and the daughter 
 of his beloved and only sister. Mr. Bryan and his accomplished 
 wife now live in Gloucester county, Virginia, on the Bay Shore. 
 A bountiful soil blesses them with its abundant fruits ; and the tide, 
 that daily flows at their feet, wafts to their door the rich treasures of 
 the sea. May they long live to enjoy in their " happy nook" the 
 blessings of a peaceful home ; and to dispense that elegant hospi-
 
 NINTH CONGRESS. 
 
 213 
 
 tality, so rare now, but, at the time their father first visited Bizarre, 
 so common in the Old Dominion. 
 
 The causes of this great change, or at least some of them, we are 
 now about to investigate. John Kandolph has said that " The 
 embargo, like Achilles' wrath, was the source of our Iliad of woes !" 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIX. 
 
 NINTH CONGRESS. FOREIGN RELATIONS. DIFFICULTIES WITH 
 FRANCE AND SPAIN. 
 
 NEVER had an administration a more <^fficult task to perform than that 
 of Mr. Jefferson at this time. Ever since the French revolution there 
 had been a constant warfare, with short breathing intervals, between 
 France and England. The hostility of their political principles, add- 
 ed to old national antipathies, now made it a war of extermination. 
 These great belligerent powers strove to involve the United States in 
 the controversy. But our policy was neutrality : General Washing- 
 ton early announced this course, and his firm hand steadily pursued 
 it so long as he grasped the helm of affairs. Mr. Adams was not so 
 successful his English predilections swerved him from the straight 
 path of neutrality, and involved his administration in a " quasi war" 
 with France. Mr. Jefferson had hitherto been eminently successful 
 in all his domestic and foreign policy. But now, in 1 805, he seemed 
 to be involved in almost inextricable difficulties. Our embarrass- 
 ments with Spain, France, and England, had grown so complicated 
 and critical, that it seemed impossible to escape without war, or na- 
 tional disgrace. The purchase of Louisiana removed a present peril, 
 but brought with it a train of difficulties. Bonaparte made the sale 
 just before his meditated rupture of the treaty of Amiens, and at a 
 time when he feared the province would be wrested from him by the 
 superior maritime power of England. But he soon repented of his 
 bargain, and sought every opportunity to regain his lost empire be- 
 yond the Atlantic. Spain, but three years before,, had made an ex- 
 change of it with France, and had not surrendered possession. She
 
 214 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 was much displeased at the transfer made by the First Consul, and 
 between them they embarrassed the United States as much as they 
 could, and threw every obstacle in the way of a full and peaceable 
 possession of the new territory. England still retained much of her old 
 grudge towards the United States as revolted provinces looked with 
 a jealous eye on their growing commerce, their rising greatness and 
 sought every opportunity to clip the wing of the aspiring eagle. En- 
 tertaining these feelings towards the peaceful and neutral govern 
 ment beyond the Atlantic, these two great powers were involved in a 
 war of life and death between themselves ; all Europe was in battal- 
 ion , every engine of destruction was brought to play ; like the Ti- 
 tans of old, they tore up mountains, islands, whole continents, and 
 hurled them at each other ; the globe itself seemed as though it 
 might tumble into ruins beneath *heir giant warfare. What chance 
 had the commerce or the neuljal rights of the United States to be 
 respected in such a strife ? The President, in his opening message. 
 the 3d of December, 1805, describes in glowing torms the destructive 
 course of the great belligerents towards his own country. Again, 
 on the 6th of December, three days after the opening of Congress. 
 he sent a special message on the subject of Spanish aggressions ; 
 they seemed to be first and most urgent. The depredations, he said, 
 which had been committed on the commerce of the United States 
 during a preceding war, by persons under the authority of Spain. 
 had been adjusted by a convention ; so also the spoliations commit- 
 ted by Spanish subjects and carried into ports of Spain ; it had been 
 likewise agreed that those committed by French subjects and carried 
 into Spanish ports should remain for further discussion. Before this 
 convention was returned to Spain with our ratification, the transfer 
 of Louisiana by France to the United States took place, an event as 
 unexpected as disagreeable to Spain. From that moment she seemed 
 to change her conduct and dispositions towards us ; it was first man- 
 ifested by her protest against the right of France to alienate Louisi- 
 ana to us, which, however, was soon retracted, and the right con- 
 firmed. Her high offence was manifested at the act of Congress es- 
 tablishing a collection district on the Mobile, although by an authen- 
 tic declaration, immediately made, it was expressly confirmed to our 
 acknowledged limits ; and she now refused to ratify the convention 
 signed by her own minister under the eye of his sovereign, unless we
 
 NINTH CONGRESS. 215 
 
 would consent to alterations of its terms, which would have affected 
 our claims against her for spoliations by French subjects carried into 
 Spanish ports. 
 
 To obtain justice, as well as to restore friendship, the President 
 thought proper to send Mr. Monroe on a special mission to Spain. 
 " After nearly five months of fruitless endeavors," says the message, 
 " to bring them to some definite and satisfactory result, our ministers 
 ended the conferences without having been able to obtain indemnity 
 for spoliations of any description, or any satisfaction as to the boun- 
 daries of Louisiana, other than a declaration that we had no right 
 eastward of the Iberville ; and that our line to the west was one, 
 which would have left us but a string of land on that bank of the 
 Mississippi. Our injured citizens were thus left without any pros- 
 pect of retribution from the wrong-doer, and as to boundary, each 
 party was to take its own course. That which they have chosen to 
 pursue will appear from the documents now communicated. They 
 authorize the inference, that it is their intention to advance on our 
 possessions until they shall be repressed by an opposing farce" 
 
 The message then speaks of the conduct of France in regard to 
 the misunderstanding between the United States and Spain. " She 
 was prompt and decided in her declarations, that her demands on 
 Spain for French spoliations carried into Spanish ports, were included 
 in the settlement between the United States and France. She took 
 at once the ground, that she had acquired no right from Spain, and 
 had meant to deliver us none, eastward of the Iberville." 
 
 In conclusion, the President says : " The present crisis in Eu- 
 rope is favorable for pressing a settlement, and not a moment should 
 be lost in availing ourselves of it. Should it pass unimproved, our 
 situation would become much more diflicult. Formal war is not ne- 
 cessary ; it is not probable it will follow ; but the protection of our 
 citizens, the spirit and honor of our country require, that force should. 
 be interposed to a certain degree ; it will probably contribute to ad- 
 vance the object of peace. But the course to be pursued will n-.|iiin 
 the command of means, which it belongs to Congress exclusively. t<. 
 deny or to yield. To them I communicate every fact material for 
 their information, and the documents necessary to enable them t. 
 judge for themselves. To their wisdom, then, I look for th<> omrs. 
 I am to pursue, and will pursue with sincere zeal that which they 
 shall approve."
 
 216 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 The President recommends no definite plan of action leaves 
 every thing to the discretion of Congress ; but it is obvious that he 
 expected them to appropriate means to raise an army of some sort, 
 to repel the invasions of Spain, and to protect the persons and the 
 property of our citizens in the disputed territory. 
 
 This message was secret and confidential : all propositions in re- 
 gard to it were discussed in conclave. The debate is said to have 
 taken a very wide range, and was very animated. On that occasion, 
 John Randolph is said to have delivered the ablest and most elo- 
 quent speech, ever heard on the floor of Congress. When this mes- 
 sage was read in the House of Representatives, it was referred to a 
 select committee, of which Mr. Randolph was chairman. He imme- 
 diately waited on the President, and informed him of the direction 
 which had been given to the message. We have his authority for 
 saying, that he then learned, not without surprise, that an appropri- 
 ation of two millions was wanted to purchase Florida ! He told the 
 President that he would never agree to such a measure, because the 
 money had not been asked for in the message ; that he would not 
 consent to shift to his own shoulders, or those of the House, the pro- 
 per responsibility of the Executive. If the money had been explicit- 
 ly demanded, he should have been averse to granting it, because. 
 after a total failure of every attempt at negotiation, such a step 
 would disgrace us for ever ; because France would never withhold 
 her ill offices, when, by their interposition, she could extort money 
 from us ; that it was equally to the interest of the United States, to 
 accommodate the matter by an exchange of territory ; (to this mode 
 of settlement the President seemed much opposed) that the nations 
 of Europe, like the Barbary powers, would hereafter refuse to look 
 on the credentials of our ministers, without a previous douceur. 
 
 The committee met on the 7th of December. One of its mem- 
 bers (Bidwell of Massachusetts) construed the message into a requi- 
 sition of money for foreign intercourse. To draw such a conclusion, 
 it is plain he must have had some other key of interpretation than 
 that of the words in which the message was expressed. He proposed 
 a grant to that effect, which was overruled. On the 14th of Decem- 
 ber, the chairman was obliged to go to Baltimore, and did not return 
 till the 21st of the month. During this interval, the dispatches from 
 Mr Monroe, of the 18th and 25th of October, bearing on the subject
 
 NINTH CONGRESS. 
 
 217 
 
 of Spanish aggressions, were received by Government, but never 
 submitted to the committee. Previous to the chairman's departure 
 for Baltimore, he had occasion to call on the Secretary of State 
 (Madison) to obtain a passport for his nephew, Saint George Ran- 
 dolph, whom he was about sending to Braidwood's and Sicard's 
 schools, near London and Paris. Mr. Madison took this opportu- 
 nity to enter into an explanation of the policy about to be pursued in 
 regard to Spanish aggression. He concluded his remarks with the 
 declaration, tJiat France would not permit Spain to adjust her dif- 
 ferences with us ; tliat France wat, \ed money, and that we must give 
 it to her, or have a Spanish and French war ! 
 
 It will be remembered that this declaration was made to on.? who 
 was reputed to be the leader of the House of Representatives, and 
 who was chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. The ap- 
 propriation here intimated would have to be recommended by that 
 committee, and explained and defended before the House by its 
 chairman. It is not surprising that a man of Mr. Randolph's high 
 sense of honor and of personal dignity ; and, above all. that one who 
 had so nice a perception of the rights of the representative, and of 
 the delicate relation existing between him and the Executive, which 
 admitted not of the slightest approach towards influence or dictation, 
 should have fired with indignation at a proposition which seemed to 
 make him and the House of Representatives a mere tool of the Exe- 
 cutive, to do that for them which they dare not avow before the 
 world. 
 
 When this declaration was made, so different from the sentiments 
 expressed by the President's public and secret messages, and so 
 humiliating to the pride and honor of the country, Mr. Randolph 
 abruptly left the presence of the Secretary with this remarkable ex- 
 clamation, " Good morning, sir ! I see I am not calculated for a 
 politician !" 
 
 Mr. Randolph returned from Baltimore, the 21st of December, 
 and convened the committee. As they were assembling, the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury (Gallatin) called him aside, and put into his 
 hands a paper headed. " Provision for the purchase of Florida." 
 
 Mr. Randolph declared he would not vote a shilling : and ex- 
 pressed himself disgusted with the whole of this proceed in<r. wlii<-li 
 he could not but consider as highly disingenuous the most scrupu- 
 
 VOL. i. 10
 
 218 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 lous care, he said, had been taken to cover the reputation of the ad- 
 ministration, while Congress were expected to act as though they 
 had no character to lose ; whilst the official language of the Executive 
 was consistent and dignified, Congress was privately required to take 
 upon itself the odium of shrinking from the national honor and 
 national defence, and of delivering the public purse to the first cut- 
 throat that demanded it. From the official communication, from the 
 face of the record, it would appear that the Executive had discharged 
 his duty in recommending manly and vigorous measures, which he had 
 been obliged to abandon, and had been compelled, by Congicss, to pur- 
 sue an opposite course ; when, in fact, Congress had been acting all the 
 while at Executive instigation. Mr. Randolph further observed, that 
 he did not understand this double set of opinions and principles ; the 
 one ostensible, to go upon the journals and before Republic; the other, 
 the efficient and real motives to action ; that he held true wisdom and 
 cunning to be utterly incompatible in the conduct of great affairs ; that 
 he had strong objections to the measure itself; but in the shape in which 
 it was presented, his repugnance to it was insuperable. In a subse- 
 quent conversation with the President himself, in which those objec- 
 tions were recapitulated, he declared that he too had a character to 
 support and principles to maintain, and avowed his determined oppo- 
 sition to the whole scheme. 
 
 On the 3d of January, 1 806, Mr. Randolph made a report, under the 
 instructions of the committee, which seems to be fully responsive to 
 the views of the President, as expressed in both his messages. " The 
 committee have beheld," says the report, "with just indignation, the 
 hostile spirit manifested by the court of Madrid towards the govern- 
 ment of the United States, in withholding the ratification of its con- 
 vention with us, although signed by its own minister, under the eye 
 of his sovereign unless with alteration of its terms, affecting claims 
 of the United States which, by the express conditions of the instru- 
 ment itself, were reserved for future discussion ; in piratical depre- 
 dations upon our fair commerce; in obstructing the navigation of 
 the Mobile ; in refusing to come to any fair and amicable adjustment 
 of the boundaries of Louisiana ; and in a daring violation, by per- 
 sons acting under the authority of Spain, and, no doubt, apprised of 
 uer sentiments and views, of our undisputed limits, which she had so- 
 lemnly recognized by treaty.
 
 NINTH CONGRESS. 
 
 219 
 
 " To a government having interests distinct from those of its peo- 
 ple, and disregarding its welfare, here is ample cause for a declaration 
 of war, on the part of the United States, and such did they obey 
 the impulse of their feelings alone is the course which the commit- 
 tee would not hesitate to recommend. But, to a government identi- 
 fied with its citizens, too far removed from the powerful nations of 
 the earth for its safety to be endangered by their hostility, peace 
 must always be desirable, so long as it is compatible with the honor 
 and interest of the community. .Whilst the United States continue 
 burdened with a debt which annually absorbs two-thirds of their rev- 
 enue, and duties upon imports constitute the only resource from 
 which that revenue can be raised, without resorting to systems cf tax- 
 ation not more ruinous and oppressive than they are uncertain and 
 precarious the best interests of the United States cry aloud for 
 peace. When that debt shall have been discharged, and the resour- 
 ces of the nation thereby liberated, then may we rationally expect to 
 raise, even in time of war, the supplies which our frugal institutions 
 require, without recurring to the hateful and destructive expedient of 
 loans ; then, and not till then, may we bid defiance to the world. The 
 present moment is peculiarly auspicious for the great and desirable 
 work. Now, if ever, the national debt is to be paid, by such financial 
 arrangements as will accelerate its extinguishment, by reaping the 
 rich harvest of neutrality, and thus providing for that diminution of 
 revenue which experience teaches to expect on the general pacifica- 
 tion of Europe. And the committee indulge a hope, that in the 
 changed aspect of affairs in that quarter, Spain will find motives for 
 a just fulfilment of her stipulations with us. and an amicable settle- 
 ment of limits, upon terms not more beneficial to the United States 
 than advantageous to herself; securing to her an ample barrier on the 
 side of Mexico, and to us the countries watered by the Mississippi, 
 and to the eastward of it. But whilst the committee perceive, in the 
 general uproar of Europe, a state of things peculiarly favorable to 
 the peaceable pursuit of our best interests, they are neither inM-n>i- 
 ble to the indignity which has been offered on the part of Spain, nor 
 unwilling to repel similar outrages. On the subject of self-defence, 
 when the territory of the United States is insulted, there can be but 
 one opinion, whatever differences may exist on the question whether 
 that protection, which a vessel finds in our harbors, shall be exteinlol
 
 220 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 to her by the nation in the Indian or Chinese seas. Under this im- 
 pression the committee submit the following resolution : That such 
 number of troops (not exceeding ) as the President of the Uni- 
 ted States shall deem sufficient to protect the southern frontier of the 
 United States from Spanish inroad and insult, and to chastise the 
 same, be immediately raised." 
 
 Mr. Randolph explained, that the peculiar situation of the frontier 
 at that time insulted, had alone induced the committee to recommend 
 the raising of regular troops. It was too remote from the population 
 of the country for the militia to act, in repelling and chastising Span- 
 ish incursion. New Orleans and its dependencies were separated by 
 a vast extent of wilderness from the settlements of the United States ; 
 filled with disloyal and turbulent people, alien to our institutions, 
 language, and manners, and disaffected toward our government. Lit- 
 tle reliance could be placed upon them ; and it was plain that if " it 
 was the intention of Spain to advance on our possessions until she 
 should be repulsed by an opposing force," that force must be a regu- 
 lar army, unless we were disposed to abandon all the country south 
 of Tennessee ; that if the " protection of our citizens and the spirit 
 and the honor of our country required that force should be inter- 
 posed," nothing remained but for the legislature to grant the only 
 practicable means, or to shrink from the most sacred of all its duties, 
 to abandon the soil and its inhabitants to the tender mercy of hostile 
 invaders. 
 
 Such were the proposition and the views of the committee, in ex- 
 act correspondence, as they conceived, with the wishes of the Presi- 
 dent as expressed in his public and secret message. 
 
 Yet the report of the committee, moderate as it might seem, was 
 deemed of too strong a character by the House. It was rejected. A 
 proposition, the avowed object of which was, to enable the President 
 to open a negotiation for Florida, was moved as a substitute, by Mr. 
 Bidwell of Massachusetts. Mr. Randolph moved that the sum to 
 be appropriated should be confined to that object ; which was agreed 
 to. But afterwards, when the bill was formally brought in, this spe- 
 cific appropriation was rescinded by the House, and the money left 
 at the entire discretion of the Executive, to be used " toward any ex- 
 traordinary expense which might be incurred in the intercourse be- 
 tween the United States and foreign nations."
 
 NINTH CONGRESS. 221 
 
 Mr. Randolph also moved to limit the amount which the Govern- 
 ment might stipulate to pay for the territory in question ; upon the 
 ground that if Congress were disposed to acquire Florida by pur- 
 chase, they should fix the extent to which they were willing to go. 
 and thereby furnish our ministers with a safeguard against the rapa- 
 city of France ; that there was no probability of our obtaining the 
 country for less, but every reason to believe that without such a pre- 
 caution on our part, she would extort more. This motion was over- 
 ruled. 
 
 When the bill came under discussion, various objections were 
 urged against it by the same gentleman ; among others, that it was 
 in direct opposition to the views of the Executive, as expressed in the 
 President's official communication (it was on this occasion that Gene- 
 r al Varnum declared the measure to be consonant tc the secret 
 .vishes of the Executive) ; that it was a prostration _of the national 
 honor at the feet of our adversary ; that a concession so humiliating 
 would paralyze our efforts against Great Britain, in case the nego- 
 tion then pending between that government and ours, should 
 prove abortive ; that a partial appropriation towards the purchase of 
 Florida, without limiting the President to some specific amount, 
 would give a previous sanction to any expense which he might incur 
 for that object, and which Congress would stand pledged to make 
 good ; that if the Executive, acting entirely upon its own responsi- 
 bility, and exercising its acknowledged constitutional powers, should 
 negotiate for the purchase of Florida, the House of Representatives 
 would, in that case, be left free to ratify or annul the contract ; but 
 that the course which was proposed to be pursued (and which eventu- 
 ally was pursued) would reduce the discretion of the legislature to a 
 mere shadow ; that at the ensuing session Congress would find itself, 
 in relation to this subject, a deliberative body but in name; that it 
 could not, without a manifest dereliction of its own principles, and, 
 perhaps, without a violation of public faith, refuse to sanction any 
 treaty entered into by the Executive, under the auspices of the legis- 
 lature, and with powers so unlimited ; that, however great his confi- 
 dence in the Chief Magistrate, he would never consent to give any 
 President so dangerous a proof of it ; and that he never would pre- 
 clude himself, by any previous sanction, from the unbiassed ereroa 
 of his judgment on measures which were thereafter to come before
 
 222 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 him ; that the House had no official recommendation for the step 
 which they proposed to take ; on the contrary, it was in direct op- 
 position to the sentiments as expressed in the confidential message ; 
 and that the responsibility would be -exclusively their own ; that if 
 he thought proper to ask for an appropriation for the object (the pur- 
 chase of Florida), the responsibility of the measure would rest on 
 him ; but when the legislature undertook to prescribe the course 
 which he should pursue, and which he had pledged himself to pur- 
 sue, the case was entirely changed ; that the House could have no 
 channel through which it could be made acquainted with the opinions 
 of the Executive, but such as was official, responsible, and known to 
 the Constitution ; and that it was a prostitution of its high and 
 solemn functions, to act upon an unconstitutional suggestion of the 
 private wishes of the Executive, irresponsibly announced by an 
 irresponsible individual, and in direct hostility to his avowed 
 opinions. 
 
 It will be remembered that these proce dings and discussions 
 took place in conclave, on the President's confidential message. Mr. 
 Randolph's course was so grossly misrepresented, and his motives so 
 basely calumniated, that, at a subsequent period of the session, he 
 moved the House to take off the injunction of secrecy from the Presi- 
 dent's communication, that the world might see what the Executive 
 had really required at the hands of the legislature, and how far they 
 had complied with his publicly expressed wishes, in the report and 
 resolution of the committee. 
 
 The secret journal of the House had been published ; but, for 
 some reason unaccountable to us, the message, which was the founda- 
 tion of the whole proceeding, and without which the journal was 
 wholly unintelligible, had been withheld from the public. Mr. Ran- 
 dolph's motion was, to publish the message and the documents he 
 was willing to abide the decision of an impartial judgment on the 
 perusal. This motion gave rise to much debate and angry recrimi- 
 nation. Mr. Randolph said : 
 
 " It is not my wish, Mr. Speaker, to trespass on the patience of the 
 House. But I think it necessary to explain what I am sure the 
 House has not well understood ; for my positions have been grossly 
 perverted, whether intentionally or not I will not undertake to say. 
 Gentlemen opposed to us act a very strange and inconsistent part.
 
 NINTH CONGRESS 
 
 223 
 
 They will not give credit to a private individual as to a conversation 
 had with him. I only stated that conversation as a reason for say- 
 ing I had withdrawn my confidence. And will gentlemen say I am 
 bound, when evidence has come to my private knowledge which is 
 sufficient to damn any man, to legislate on a principle of confidence 1 
 When I find misrepresentations made to the public, and insinuations 
 of the most despicable kind on this floor, I come out, and call on 
 any man to deny what I have stated. They cannot they dare not. 
 For I take it for granted no man will declare in the face of the nation 
 a wilful falsehood. But while gentlemen will not give credit to what 
 has fallen from one individual, they have no hesitation in giving 
 credit to an individual member for the whole course of the Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 " In my opinion it is of the first importance that the message should 
 be published, from a material fact which took place in this House. 
 A member in his place told you, that the course recommended by a 
 particular individual was consonant with the secret wishes of the 
 Executive. I did then reprehend that language as the most unconsti- 
 tutional and reprehensible ever uttered on this floor. I did believe 
 that the people of the United States possessed as free a Constitution 
 as the British people, and I had hoped freer ; and I knew that such 
 language had in the British Parliament been considered as repre- 
 hensible, and had brought forward a vote of indignation in that body. 
 I allude to the case, where the King's name was used for the pur- 
 pose of throwing out Mr. Fox's India bill. I then reprobated this 
 back-stair influence, this double dealing, the sending one message 
 for the journals and newspapers, and another in whispers to this 
 House. I shall always reprobate such language, and consider it 
 unworthy of any man holding a seat in this House. I had before 
 always flattered myself, that it would be a thousand years hence 
 before our institutions would have given birth to these Charles Jen- 
 kinson's in politics. I did not expect them at this time of day, aud 
 I now declare it important, in my opinion, that the message should 
 be published, that the public may be enabled to compare the official 
 with the unofficial message which decided the vote. 
 
 " There is another reason for its publication. The gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania has said there is no mention of France on tlie 
 journals ; and that we have no cause of complaint against France
 
 224 L1FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 I wish the publication of the message to prore what causes of com 
 plaint we have against France. Let men of sense take a view of all 
 the papers, and I am willing to abide the issue. It is said France 
 has done us no injury that the bubble is burst. We are told that 
 this is a plain answer to all the speeches made on this floor. Permit 
 me to say, the gentleman (Mr. Epps) has given a plain answer to all 
 the speeches delivered on this floor ; it was impossible to have given 
 a plainer answer to them. He says, I will vote with you, but I will 
 make a speech against you. Permit me to say, this is the first time I 
 would not rather have had his vote than his speech. After this 
 speech there can be no doubt as to the issue of the question. I will 
 go further, after the adjournment on Saturday there could be no 
 doubt. Saturday, it seems, is an unfortunate day, on which no expe- 
 dition is to be undertaken, no forlorn hope conducted. 
 
 " The same gentleman has said that we pursued precisely the 
 same course in 18D3 as in 1806, and for obtaining the same object. 
 He says the same course is now pursued, and yet he says he will not 
 undertake to say the cases are not dissimilar ; put this and that 
 together, and what do you make of it ? The cases are decidedly dis- 
 similar. In 1803 there was no existing misunderstanding between 
 the American and French governments with regard to our differences 
 with Spain. Those differences have started up like a mushroom in 
 the night. We made an appropriation to purchase the Floridas 
 to buy them from whom ? From their rightful owner. The circum- 
 stances would have been similar, if the United States had given 
 money to France to compel Spain to form a treaty with us ; then the 
 national honor would have received a deadly wound. But there was 
 nothing of this sort in the formation of the treaty then made. Spain, 
 under the operation of causes in which we had no agency, transferred 
 Louifiana to France, and France transferred it to us. But this is 
 not now the case. We are told that Spain is no longer an indepen- 
 dent power, but is under the control of France. What follows? That 
 France is an aggressor on us, which proves every thing I have 
 alleged. 
 
 " There is another thing to be observed. The public have been 
 given to understand, that two millions have been appropriated for 
 the purchase of the Floridas. This is not so. The appropriation is 
 only towards doing something ; but what that is, is not defined by law
 
 NINTH CONGRESS. 
 
 225 
 
 Now if in 1803 we appropriated two millions for the purchase of the 
 Floridas, and did not get them, what security is there now that by 
 making an appropriation in the same language, we shall obtain them? 
 Although the persons making the appropriation are not the same 
 identical beings, those applying the sum appropriated are. I do not 
 believe that we shall get the Floridas. In this I may be mistaken : 
 I hope I shall be ; for after having descended to prostitute the 
 national character, let us at least receive the wages of iniquity. 
 
 " But gentlemen inquire, will you become the guardians of Spain 1 
 This is a mistake which has run through every attempt at argument 
 I have heard. We never professed to be the guardians of Spain. 
 "We profess to be the guardians of our own honor. We care not for 
 France trampling on Spain. Let her pick her pockets, for what we 
 care ; but if we instigate her to it, it is no longer a mere question 
 between France and Spain, but a question in which our own honor is 
 engaged, which is at once mortgaged and gone. 
 
 " Until the gentleman from Virginia got up. I confess that, what 
 with my exhausted state, the badness of the air, and the tenuity of 
 the arguments of gentlemen, so excessively light that they at once 
 vanished into thin air, that I had not a word to say ; for it is not to 
 be supposed that I intended to reply to any thing offered by the 
 gentleman behind me. If I am to fall, let me fall in the face of day. 
 and not be betrayed by a kiss, I mean no profane allusion. I shall 
 do my duty as an honest man. I came here prepared to co-operate 
 with the government in all its measures. I told them so. But I 
 soon found there was no choice left, and that to co-operate in them 
 would be to destroy the national character. I found I might co-ope- 
 rate, or be an honest man ; I have therefore opposed, and will oppose 
 them. Is there an honest man disposed to be the go-between, to 
 carry down secret messages to this House? No. It is because men 
 of character cannot be found to do this business, that agents must be 
 got to carry things into effect, which men of uncompromitcd character 
 will not soil their fingers, or sully their characters with. 
 
 " One word on the subject of voting on unofficial notice, on the re- 
 presentations of individuals, in the place of communications officially 
 received from the officers of the executive department. I have al- 
 ways considered the Executive, in this country, as atanding in the 
 same relation to the two Houses, that the minister or administration 
 
 VOL. i. 10*
 
 226 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 { 
 
 bore to the legislature under governments similar to our own. 1 
 have always considered that the responsibility for public measures, 
 rested more particularly on them. For those measures they are an- 
 swerable to the people and to me it has been a subject of peculiar 
 regret (I do not speak of the general character of the Constitution) 
 that they have not a seat on this floor. For whatever may be sup- 
 posed to be my feelings, as to the members of the administration, I 
 am ashamed when I see their fame and character committed to such 
 hands as we are in the daily habit of witnessing. If their measures 
 are susceptible of justification. I should like to have a justification at 
 their own hands, instead of hearing Yazoo men defend them. Much 
 less did I expect, on such an occasion, to hear a Yazoo man, assign- 
 ing his motives for a vote, on a totally different subject, and this in 
 justification of a man with whom he is connected by ties of con- 
 sanguinity. This reminds ine of the intention imputed to me, to 
 bring forward an impeachment against a great officer of state. This, 
 however, is so far from being the truth, that I appeal to those who 
 heard me, whether I did not declare that I washed my hands of im- 
 peachments that I was done with them. No, I will neither di- 
 rectly, nor indirectly, have any thing to do with them. But I will 
 in all questions that shall come before this House, discuss the public 
 character and conduct of any public agents from a secretary to a 
 constable : and I will continue to do it, until it shall be admitted by 
 the Constitution that the king can do no wrong. I say I wish the 
 heads of departments had seats on this floor. Were this the case, 
 to one of them I would immediately propound this question: Did 
 you, or did you not, in your capacity of a public functionary, tell 
 me, in my capacity of a public functionary, that France would not 
 suffer Spain to settle her differences with us, that she wanted money, 
 that we must give her money, or take a Spanish or French war ? 
 And did not I answer, that I was neither for a war with Spain or 
 France, but in favor of defending my country? I would put that 
 question to him. I would put this question to another head of de- 
 partment : Was. or was not, an application made to you for money, 
 to be conveyed to Europe to carry on any species of diplomatic ne- 
 gotiation there? I would listen to his answer, and if he put his 
 hand on his heart, and like a man of honor said no, I would believe 
 him, though it would require a great stretch of credulity. I would
 
 NINTH CONGRESS. 227 
 
 call into my aid faith, not reason, and believe when I was not con 
 vinced. I would then turn to the first magistrate of the nation and 
 say : Did you not buy Louisiana of France ? Has France acted in 
 that transaction in a bona fide manner ? Has she delivered into your 
 possession the country you believed you had bought from her ? Has 
 she not equivocated, prevaricated, and played off Spain against you. 
 with a view of extorting money 1 I will answer for the reply. There 
 cannot be the smallest doubt about it. I will put the whole business 
 on this issue. All the difficulty has arisen from that quarter. 
 
 " Yes, the bubble has burst ! It is immaterial to us, whether you 
 publish the President's message or not. But it is material to others 
 that you should ; and let me add. the public will not rest satisfied 
 with the conduct of those, who profess to wish it published, while 
 they vote against the publication. The public will not confide in 
 such professions. Gentlemen may show their bunch of rods, may 
 treat them as children, and offer them sugar-plums ; but all will not 
 avail them, so long as they refuse to call for the dispatches of our 
 ministers, and other documents, which if published would fix a stain 
 upon some men in the government, and high in office, which all the 
 waters in the ocean would not wash out. Gentlemen may talk about 
 our changing and chopping about, and all that. What is the fact ? 
 We are what we profess to be not courtiers, but republicans, acting 
 on the broad principles we have heretofore professed applying the 
 same scale with which we measured John Adams to the present ad- 
 ministration. Do gentlemen flinch from this and pretend to be re- 
 publicans ? They cannot be republicans, unless they agree that it 
 shall be measured to them as they measured to others. But we are 
 perhaps to be told, that we all have become federalists or that the 
 federalists have become good republicans. This, however, is a charge 
 which, I am convinced, the federalists will not be more anxious to 
 repel than we to be exonerated from. No, they will never become 
 good republicans. They never did, they never will act with us. 
 What has happened ? they are in opposition from system, and we 
 quo ad hoc, as to this particular measure. Like men who have 
 roughed it together, there is a kind of fellow-feeling between i& 
 There is no doubt of it. But as to political principle, we :uv M 
 much as ever opposed. There is a most excellent alkali by which 
 to test our principles. The Yazoo business is the beginning and the
 
 228 L1FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 end, the alpha and omega of our alphabet. With that our differ- 
 ences began, and with that they will end ; and I pray to God that 
 the liberties of the people may not also end with them. 
 
 " When the veracity of a man is called in question it is a serious 
 business. The gentleman from Massachusetts has appealed to the 
 House for the correctness of his statement. I, too, appeal to the 
 House whether this was not his expression, when he undertook to 
 explain away what he had said, for he did not deny it : " That he 
 would vouch that such were the secret wishes of the President ;" and 
 whether I did not observe that his attempt to explain was like Judge 
 Chase attempting to draw back a prejudicated opinion in the case of 
 Fries ; that he might take back the words, but not the effect they 
 had made on the Assembly : that the Constitution knows only of two 
 ways by which the Executive could influence the Legislature : the 
 one by a recommendation of such measures as he deemed expedient ; 
 the other, by a negative on our bills ; and that the moment it was 
 attempted to influence the House by whispers and private messages 
 its independence was gone. I stated the proneness of legislative 
 bodies to be governed by Executive influence, and. in illustration, 
 referred to the Senate, who, from its association with the Executive 
 and the length of time for which its members hold their seats, was 
 necessarily made up of gaping expectants of office, and there can be 
 no doubt of the fact. It must be so from the nature of things. Now, 
 if it be necessary, let the House appoint a Committee of Inquiry to 
 ascertain what the gentleman from Massachusetts did say, and let 
 us see who can adduce the most witnesses and swear the hardest. 
 No, th? gentleman from Massachusetts had on that occasion so dif- 
 ferent a countenance, dress and address, that I could not now recog- 
 nize him for the same man. He seemed thunderstruck and to be in 
 a state of stupefaction at his indiscretion. He appeared humbled 
 in the presence of those who heard what he had said, and beheld his 
 countenance. His words were these, my life on it : 'I will vouch 
 that such are the secret wishes of the President, or the Executive. 1 
 I do not know which."
 
 DIFFICULTIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 29 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 DIFFICULTIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 aggressions of Great Britain on the persons, the property, and 
 the rights of American citizens began at an early period, and were 
 still continued with increased aggravation. It was high time for some 
 firm stand to be taken in regard to them. The peace, prosperity, 
 and honor of the country demanded an effectual system of measures 
 to arrest them. Officers of the British navy had long been in the 
 habit of boarding American vessels, dragging seamen thence, and 
 forcing them into their own service under the pretext that they were 
 British subjects. The law of England did not recognize the right of 
 expatriation. The sovereign claimed the services of all his subjects 
 in time of war, and impressed them wherever they could be found. 
 The similarity of language, of person, and of habits, made it difficult 
 to distinguish an American from an English sailor. Many of the 
 latter had taken refuge from their own hard naval service in the pro- 
 fitable commercial marine of the United States. In re-capturing 
 their own subjects, they not unfrequently dragged American citizens 
 from their homes. They were charged with not being very scrupu- 
 lous in this regard. Not less than three thousand American sailors, 
 it was said, had been forced to serve in the British navy. The go- 
 vernment of the United States denied the right of Great Britain to 
 impress seamen on board any of their vessels on the high seas, or 
 within their own jurisdiction. They contended that a neutral flag 
 on the high seas was a safeguard to those sailing under it. They were 
 sustained in this doctrine by the law of nations. 
 
 Although Great Britain had not adopted in the same latitude with 
 most other nations the immunities of a neutral flag, yet she did not 
 deny the general freedom of the high seas, and of neutral vessels 
 navigating them, with such exceptions only as are annexed to it by 
 the law of nations. The exceptions are objects commonly denomi- 
 nated contraband of war ; that is, enemies serving in the war, arti- 
 cles going into a blockaded port, and enemy's property of every kind. 
 But nowhere, it was contended, could an exception to the freedom 
 of the seas and of neutral flags be found that justified the taking
 
 230 L IFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 away of any person, not an enemy in military service, found on board 
 a neutral vessel. 
 
 The right of impressment, growing out of their different interpre- 
 tation of the law of nations, was one, and the gravest, of the subjects 
 of dispute between the two nations. The other was in regard to the 
 carrying trade. The question commonly presented itself in flfe 
 form : Was that commerce allowable in time of war which was pro- 
 hibited in time of peace ? Great Britain, by her powerful marine, 
 had swept the ocean nearly of the whole of the vessels of her ene- 
 mies. In consequence of this, the produce of the colonies of France. 
 Spain, and Holland, was imported into the mother countries by neu 
 tral ships; in fact, it was almost wholly transported in American 
 bottoms. The restrictive colonial system of these powers did not 
 suffer this transportation by foreigners in times of peace ; but the 
 necessities arising from a calamitous naval war induced them to "ay 
 their ports open by a forced liberality to this general commerce. 
 French, Spanish, and Dutch property in American bottoms now 
 became neutralized, an'd was protected, as some contended, by the 
 American flag. But the property was still enemy's property, and 
 fell within the exception of the law of nations. The French navy 
 had been totally annihilated ; in consequence, the products of her 
 colonies had to lie rotting on their wharfs, for want of transportation, 
 while the mother country was suffering both from the want of the 
 products and of the revenue arising from the sale and consumption 
 of them. These were the evils intended to be inflicted by a naval 
 victory, in order to force her to an honorable peace. But the United 
 States came in with their ships, and relieved France of these evils, 
 by becoming carriers between her and her colonies. 
 
 Can that be a neutral commerce which robs one of the belligerent 
 parties of all the advantages of a victory, and relieves the other from 
 nearly all the evils of a defeat ? It can hardly seem possible at this 
 day that any one could have contended for such a doctrine ; yet Mr. 
 Madison maintained that the contrary principle, denying the neutral 
 character of such a commerce, was of modern date that it was 
 avowed by no other nation than Great Britain, and that it was 
 assumed by her, under the auspices of a maritime ascendency, which 
 rendered such a principle subservient to her particular interests. 
 
 This doctrine, however, contended for by a nation that had the
 
 DIFFICULTIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 231 
 
 power to maintain it, was gotten over by subterfuge and evasion. 
 We will illustrate the manner by an example. A French subject 
 purchases a cargo of coffee at Guadaloupe, intending it for the market 
 of Nantes : to ship it in a vessel belonging to any one of the nations 
 belligerent with England, was absolutely throwing it away ; but the 
 ordinary device of sending it under the cover of an American flag is 
 resorted to ; the American refuses to carry it directly for the harbor 
 of Nantes, alleging, that if he is captured by an English cruiser, a 
 condemnation must follow such an attempt at an immediate com 
 merce between the mother country and her colony. False owners 
 are created for the ship's cargo, in the character of Americans. The 
 vessel instead of sailing for Nantes, makes for New York, and in due 
 time arrives there ; bonds for the payment of duties are given, and 
 the cargo is landed. The vessel loads again with the same coffee : 
 the debentures of the custom-house are produced ; the bonds for du- 
 ties are cancelled, and she now makes her way boldly for Nantes, as 
 a neutral ship, not to be molested. The entire trade of tjie French. 
 Spanish and Dutch colonies was conducted in American vessels, in 
 this indirect way. A most profitable business it was surely, but it is 
 shocking to contemplate the influence on the moral character of those 
 engaged in it. All this chicanery and duplicity were often forced 
 through by absolute perjury always by a prostration of honorable 
 delicacy. 
 
 The British Courts of Admiralty allowed this indirect trade 
 through a neutral port, where there was proof of an actual change of 
 ownership. Whenever the neutral party could show that he had pur- 
 chased the property, he was suffered to pass unmolested ; but such a 
 bonafide purchase rarel}' took place ; and enemy's property was cov- 
 ered up and protected by neutral names, under false pretences. 
 Such ivas thejcarrying trade. 
 
 These two the impressment of seamen and the carrying tnulo 
 constituted the main difficulties existing between the United Stnt.- 
 and Great Britain ; all others grew out of them, and would n< 
 rily cease on a satisfactory adjustment of those leading subjects of 
 complaint. 
 
 These questions were involved in much obscurity. Mndi nnjrlit 
 be said on both sides. Each nation had just cause of rmnpl.mit 
 against the other. Here was a fair field for negotiation and '-"in-
 
 932 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 promise But we can now perceive the secret motives that would in- 
 cessantly throw obstacles in the way of a satisfactory arrangement of 
 these difficulties. There was the old grudge against England, cher- 
 ished in the prejudices of the people ; the jealousy of her superior 
 naval power on that element where we were as much at home as she 
 was ; the spirit of rivalry that stimulated our merchants to share 
 with her the commerce of the world ; the barren results of any set- 
 tlement of difficulties with her during the wars in Europe it might 
 secure peace, but could bring no profit. On the other hand, there 
 were the old partialities for our ancient ally ; the fraternizing spirit 
 between the two Republics; the enthusiasm enkindled in a mar rial 
 people, by the daring exploits and brilliant successes of Napoleon ; 
 the secret consciousness that his irresistible power would always be 
 interposed between them and any hostile movements of England ; 
 the lucrative commerce, and the absolute monopoly of the carrying 
 trade between France, Spain, Holland, and their dependencies, and 
 which must cease on a compromise with England ; add to these 
 causes, that went home to the prejudices and the interests of the people, 
 the all-controlling influence of party spirit which had long since at- 
 tached to the friends of England the epithet of monarchists and 
 tories, and to the friends of France that of republicans and friends 
 of the people and we cannot fail to perceive that every agency 
 which was calculated to give direction to public opinion would bend 
 it against any adjustment of British difficulties during the continu- 
 ance of the wars in Europe. 
 
 The subjects of difference were ably discussed by the Secretary 
 of State in his instructions to our minister at the Court of St. James; 
 but when the President thought proper to bring the matter before 
 Congress, and to call on them for action, he had no plan to propose. 
 He did not recommend, as the Constitution required, any specific 
 mode of adjustment. He left the Legislature to grope their way in 
 the dark, and to adopt such measures as they might think proper, 
 without any previous participation on his part in the responsibility. 
 
 Various crude and illy-digested schemes were offered in the House 
 iind in the Senate. They all seemed to contemplate coercing Eng- 
 land into measures by operating on her commerce. Gregg's resolu- 
 tion the one principally discussed in the House went so far as to 
 prohibit all intercourse between the two nations, until England
 
 DIFFICULTIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 233 
 
 would consent to settle the subjects of dispute between them on fail 
 terms. This professed to be a peace measure, but it was actual war 
 in disguise. Many of its friends discussed it as a war measure. 
 Mr. Randolph so regarded it. " I am not surprised." said he, ; - to 
 hear this resolution discussed by its friends as a war measure. They 
 say,. it is true, that it is not a war measure : but they defend it on 
 principles that would justify none but war measures, and seemed 
 pleased with the idea that it may prove the forerunner of war. If 
 war is necessary, if we have reached this point, let us have war. But 
 while I have life, I will never consent to these incipient war meas- 
 ures, which in their commencement breathe nothing but peace, though 
 they plunge us at last into war. ***** "What is the question in 
 dispute? The carrying trade. What part of it? The fair, the 
 honest, and the useful trade, that is engaged in carrying our own 
 productions to foreign markets and bringing back their productions 
 in exchange ? No, sir ; it is that carrying trade which covers ene- 
 my's property, and carries the coffee, the sugar, and other West In- 
 dia products to the mother country. No, sir ; if this great agricul- 
 tural nation is to be governed by Salem and Boston, New York and 
 Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and Norfolk, and Charleston, let gen- 
 tlemen come out and say so ; and let a committee of public safety be 
 appointed from these towns to carry on the government. I, for one. 
 will not mortgage my property and my liberty to carry on this trade. 
 The nation said so seven years ago ; I said so then, I say so now ; it 
 is not for the honest carrying trade of America, but for this mush- 
 room, this fungus of war, for a trade, which as soon as the nations of 
 Europe are at peace will no longer exist it is for this that the spirit 
 of avaricious traffic would plunge us into war. I am forcibly struck 
 on this occasion by the recollection of a remark, made by one of the 
 ablest, if not the honestest. ministers England ever produced ; I 
 mean Sir Robert Walpole ; who said that the country gentlemen 
 (poor, meek souls !) came up every year to be sheared, that they 
 laid mute and patient whilst their fleeces were taking off, but if he 
 touched a single bristle of the commercial interest the whole stye \v;i.- 
 in an uproar. It was, indeed, shearing the hog great cry and little 
 wool. 
 
 " What is the fact ? Whilst we boast of our honor on this floor, 
 3ur name has become a by-word among the nations. Europe, and
 
 234: LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Paris especially, swarms with pseudo-Americans, with Anglo and 
 Gallo Americans, and American French and English, who have 
 amassed immense fortunes by trading in the neutral character by 
 setting it up to auction, and selling it to the best bidder. Men of 
 this description striplings, without connections or character have 
 been known to buy rich vessels and their cargoes, in Amsterdam and 
 Antwerp, and trade with them under the American name to the In- 
 dies. Neutral character has constituted one of the best remittances 
 for colonial produce, or the goods which purchase it ; and the trade 
 in this commodity of neutrality has produced a most lucrative branch 
 of traffic. This it is that has sunk and degraded the American name 
 abroad, and subjected the fair trader to vexatious seizure and de- 
 tention. 
 
 " But yet, sir, I have a more cogent reason against going to war, 
 for the honor of the flag in the narrow seas, or any other maritime 
 punctilio. It springs from my attachment to the principles of the 
 Government under which I live. I declare, in the face of day, that 
 this Government was not instituted for the purposes of offensive war. 
 No ; it was framed (to use its own language) for the common defence 
 and general welfare, which are inconsistent with offensive war. I 
 call that offensive war. which goes out of our jurisdiction and limits, 
 for the attainment or protection of objects not within those limits and 
 that jurisdiction. As in 1798, I was opposed to this species of war- 
 fare, because I believed it would raze the Constitution to its very 
 foundation so in 1806, am I opposed to it, and on the same grounds. 
 No sooner do you put the Constitution to this use to a test which 
 it is by no means calculated to endure, than its incompetency to such 
 purposes becomes manifest and apparent to all. I fear, if you go 
 into a foreign war, for a circuitous, unfair foreign trade, you will 
 come out without your Constitution. Have you not contractors 
 enough in this House? or do you want to be overrun and devoured 
 by commissaries, and all the vermin of contract? I fear, sir, that 
 what are called the energy men, will rise up again men who will 
 burn the parchment. We shall be told that our Government is too 
 free, or, as they would say, weak and inefficient much virtue, sir. 
 in terms ; that we must give the President power to call forth the 
 resources of the nation that is, to filch the last shilling from our 
 pockets, or to drain the last drop of blood from our veins. I am
 
 DIFFICULTIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 235 
 
 against giving this power to any man, be he who he may. The 
 American people must either withhold this power, or resign their 
 liberties. There is no other alternative. Nothing but the most im- 
 perious necessity will justify such a grant ; and is there a powerful 
 enemy at our door ? You may begin with a First Consul. From that 
 chrysalis state he soon becomes an emperor. You have your choice. 
 It depends upon your election whether you will be a free, happy, and 
 united people at home, or the light of your executive majesty shall 
 beam across the Atlantic, in one general blaze of the public liberty. 
 
 " But, sir, it seems that we, who are opposed to this resolution, are 
 men of no nerve who trembled in the days of the British treaty 
 cowards. I suppose, in the reign of terror. Is this true ? Hunt up 
 the journals let our actions tell. We pursue our old, unshaken 
 course. We care *not for the nations of Europe, but make foreign 
 relations bend to our political principles, and serve our country's 
 interests. We have no wish to see another Actium, or Pharsalia, or 
 the lieutenants of a modern Alexander playing at piquet, or all-fours, 
 for the empire of the world. 'Tis poor comfort to us to be told that 
 France has too decided a taste for luxurious things to meddle with 
 us ; that Egypt is her object, or the coast of Barbary, and, at the 
 worst, we shall be the last devoured. We are enamored with 
 neither nation. We would play their own game upon them use 
 them for our interest and convenience. But, with all my abhorrence 
 of the British Government, I should not hesitate between Westmin- 
 i-^er Hall and a Middlesex jury, on the one hand, and the wood of 
 Vincennes and a file of grenadiers, on the other. That jury trial 
 which walked with Home Tooke, and Hardy through the flames of 
 ministerial persecution, is, I confess, more to my taste than the trial 
 of the Duke d : Enghein." 
 
 But we must forbear any further quotations from Mr. Randolph's 
 speeches against Gregg's resolutions. There were two of them, de- 
 livered on the 5th and *th of March. They were not merely elo- 
 quent and forcible in their expression, but display a comprehensive 
 knowledge of our foreign relations, and a deep insight into tho 
 motives of men who foment discord between nations that should 
 be at peace with each other. They are patriotic in their ton.-. 
 and show a warm devotion to the Constitution and the Union, and a 
 profound comprehension of those principles which alone can pr.
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 them in their integrity. While we forbear further quotation, we 
 feel constrained to give the substance of Mr. Randolph's views on the 
 questions therein discussed. 
 
 This was an important crisis, not only in his own history, but in 
 that of the country. This was the beginning of a series of measures 
 that separated Mr. Randolph from his old political associations, 
 and that finally involved the country in a disastrous war. The 
 party heats and animosities that rankled in the bosoms of men at 
 that day have all died away. Let impartial history speak the truth, 
 and do justice to one whose name has long been calumniated. We 
 shall give facts as they are condensed from his own speeches, and 
 leave the world to judge how far he acted as a zealous patriot, an 
 honest man, and an enlightened statesman. 
 
 It was notorious, says Mr. Randolph, that in regard to the coarse 
 to be pursued towards Great Britain, no opinion was expressed by 
 the members of the Cabinet, in their collective or individual capaci- 
 ties. On the contrary, the President frequently declared, without 
 reserve, that he had no opinion on the subject. Similar declarations 
 were made by other influential and leading persons presiding over the 
 executive departments and it is a fact, that no consultation was held 
 between them, from the meeting of Congress, on the 3d of Decem- 
 ber, till some time in the month of March. This want of concert 
 and decision in the administration, might easily have been inferred 
 (even if there were no other proof of it) from the various, discordant, 
 and undigested projects which were brought forward in the legisla- 
 ture, and to this want of system must be referred much of the mis- 
 chief which then resulted from this subject, as well as the embarrass- 
 ment which afterwards ensued. 
 
 Mr. Randolph was of opinion that the impressment of our sea- 
 men furnished just cause for indignant resentment on our part ; but 
 he saw n,o reason for pushing that matter to extremity at that time, 
 which had not existed in as full force, for ftie last five years, or even 
 twelve years. Our government, in consideration of the great num- 
 ber of British seamen in our employment, and of the identity of lan- 
 guage and manners between that class of their subjects, and the 
 same description of our citizens, but above all, from motives of sound 
 policy (too obvious to need recapitulation), had hitherto deemed it 
 expedient to temporize on this interesting and delicate topic he
 
 DIFFICULTIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 237 
 
 could see no just ground, at present, for departing from this sys- 
 tem more especially pending an actual negotiation between the two 
 governments, on the point in dispute. He was of opinion that no 
 thing should be left undone to accommodate our differences amica- 
 bly, and that no step should be taken which might interrupt or de- 
 feat such a settlement that even if we should resort to war. it must 
 eventuate in a treaty of peace, by which the points in controversy 
 would be adjusted, or left in statu quo ante bdlum and tha after 
 incurring the incalculable mischiefs of war, the derangement of our 
 finances and the augmentation of the public debt, to an extent which 
 could not now be foreseen ; to say nothing of its baneful effects up- 
 on our political institutions, and of the danger which must accrue 
 from throwing our weight, at this juncture, into the preponderating 
 scale of Europe ; there was no prospect that we should obtain better 
 terms at any future pacification, than were attainable at present at 
 any rate, he was disposed to give fair play to a fair experiment at ne- 
 gotiation. But if any active measures were to be taken against 
 Great Britain, they should be of the most efficient and decisive na- 
 ture. He deprecated half measures, as the most injurious to our- 
 selves which could be adopted. 
 
 Whilst the Bill was yet under discussion, the news of the death 
 of Mr. Pitt, and of the consequent change of ministry, reached the 
 United States. No circumstance could have afforded a fairer or more 
 honorable pretext, or a more powerful motive, for suspending our 
 measures against Great Britain, than this. The late Premier was 
 known to be decidedly hostile to the institutions, the interests, and 
 the very people, of America. 
 
 No administration, not even that of Lord North himself, had 
 been or could be more inimical to the United States, than that of Mr. 
 Pitt. His power, moreover, was connected with, and depended upon, 
 the continuation and duration of the war. He was succeeded by Mr. 
 Fox, unquestionably the most liberal and enlightened statesman of 
 Europe ; the man above all others, beyond the Atlantic, the best af- 
 fected towards the principles of our government, and the illustrious 
 character by whom it was administered. 
 
 Never did a fairer occasion present itself to any nation for chang- 
 ing, without any imputation of versatility, or any loss of honor, tl 
 which they had chosen to prescribe to themselves. The ex
 
 238 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 citement of public sentiment, and the measures consequent upon that 
 excitement, might, fairly and honorably, have been referred to the 
 known character of the late Premier, the pupil of Dundas, and the 
 disciple of Charles Jenkinson : and the United States might have 
 awaited, in a dignified and imposing inactivity, the manifestation of 
 a different sentiment by the new ministry. But the new leaders of 
 the House of Representatives were men who soared above, or skim- 
 med below, all considerations of time, place, and circumstance they 
 gloried in their ignorance of men and things in Europe, and boasted 
 that their policy should not be modified by anj change in the aspect 
 of affairs at home, or abroad and in the pursuit of an abstract me- 
 taphysical ignis fatuus, they did not hesitate to embark the best in- 
 terests of the Union. 
 
 Against these measures, Mr. Randolph further objected, that dur- 
 ing the ''-Jive months which our ministers had spent in fruitless dis- 
 cussion at Madrid" it had entered into the head of nobody to sug- 
 gest any proposition of a coercive nature in relation to Spain, and 
 that, even after the total failure of that negotiation, no such measure 
 had been proposed that Great Britain had indeed impressed our 
 seamen, and advanced certain injurious principles of national law, 
 which, if carried into their full extent, would materially affect our 
 commerce ; but that Spain, after having refused to make good her 
 soletnn stipulations to compensate us for former spoliations commit- 
 ted on our commerce, had " renewed the same practices during the 
 present war." She had not, it was true, impressed our seamen, but 
 her cruisers had "plundered and sunk our vessels, and maltreated 
 and abandoned their crews in open boats, or on desert shores, without 
 food or covering." Her Courts of Admiralty had, indeed, advanced 
 no " new principles of the law of nations," but they had confiscated 
 our ships and cargoes, without the pretext of principles of any sort. 
 new or old. She had, moreover, insulted our territory, violated the 
 property and the persons of our citizens, within our acknowledged 
 limits, and insolently rejected every overture to accommodation. 
 With Spain, all our attempts to negotiate had failed with Great 
 Britain, we had a negotiation actually pending, and which the dis- 
 patches of our minister at the Court of London gave us every rea- 
 son to suppose would have a prosperous issue and even admitting, 
 for the sake of argument, that our vote of money to purchase Flori-
 
 DIFFICULTIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 39 
 
 da was, in itself, no derogation from the national honor, inasmuch as 
 we proposed to receive a fair equivalent for it, yet, having refused to 
 take any coercive measures for the unparalleled indignities of Spain, 
 who had peremptorily rejected all our propositions for pacific accom- 
 modation, how could we, with any face of impartiality towards the 
 belligerent powers, assume this elevated tone towards Great Britain ? 
 Mr. Randolph further declared, that the proposed measure was, in it- 
 self, inefficient to every valuable, purpose that its sole operation 
 would be to pique the pride and rouse the resentment of our adver- 
 sary, and whilst it indicated a strong spirit of hostility on our part, 
 would afford her a fair opening to strike the first effectual How that 
 it was indeed showing our teeth, without, at the same time, daring to 
 bite that Great Britain would have, until the next session of Oon- 
 gress, ample time to devise means for annoying us in the most effective 
 manner, and that, meanwhile, she might withdraw her property from 
 our grasp, and guard every valuable point from our attack. He con- 
 jured the House not to suffer themselves, from the honest prejudices 
 of the revolution, from their ancient partiality to France, and their 
 well-grounded antipathy to England, to be legislated into a war, 
 which would involve the best interests of their country. 
 
 Another strong objection to the non-importation bill arose from 
 its bearing the aspect (especially when taken in conjunction with 
 our recent conduct towards Spain and France) of a disposition on 
 our part to aid the views of the French governement in cramping 
 the navigation and destroying the manufactures of Great Britain. 
 This constituted one principal source of animosity between those 
 rival nations, and the American government could perhaps take no 
 step which would so strongly excite the resentment of the British 
 ministry. The prompt and decisive conduct of that government 
 towards Prussia, so soon as she manifested a disposition to come 
 into the views of France on this subject, forms the best commentary 
 upon this opinion, and the sudden change in the tone of Mr. Fox 
 towards the United States is no bad criterion of its truth. 
 
 When Mr. Randolph declared, that if any coercive measures 
 were to be pursued towards Great Britain they should be of the 
 most energetic stamp, and mentioned an embargo as that which !>< 
 deemed the most efficient in the outset, he was asked by smut- 
 " why he did not move such a proposition ?" and they declared at
 
 240 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 the same time, that if he would bring forward the measure, they 
 would support it. To this he answered : That he wished to try the 
 fair experiment of negotiation in the first instance that he deemed 
 it impolitic, pending that negotiation, to take any step that might 
 defeat it and that it was astonishing to him, that gentlemen who 
 had remained entirely passive under the aggressions of Spain, who 
 had refused even to concur in measures of self-defence against her 
 inroads made too after a peremptory rejection of every overture 
 to accommodation, should advocate an opposite course towards 
 another power, with whom we were at that moment actually treating. 
 
 Mr. Randolph's powerful opposition was so far successful as to 
 defeat Gregg's resolution, which contemplated a total suspension of 
 commercial intercourse between the two countries. Another was 
 introduced, prohibiting only certain enumerated articles of British 
 manufacture, and passed by a large majority. Eighty-seven re- 
 publicans voted for these restrictive measures, while only eleven 
 republicans and the whole body of federalists, being but four and 
 twenty in all voted against them. 
 
 The Act passed by Congress, it was said by the friends of it, 
 was the first leading step -in a system of measures well calculated to 
 awaken England from her delusive dreams ; and that it was 
 expressly adopted as a measure equally fitted for producing a 
 change in her conduct, or for standing as a part of our permanent 
 commercial regulations. Here the reader will observe was the be- 
 ginning of those measures, which if not designedly, indirectly fos- 
 tered the manufactures of the country (by prohibiting importation) 
 at the expense of its agriculture and commerce. 
 
 How far this non-importation scheme of the Legislature was 
 likely to influence the minds of the British Cabinet, may be seen 
 from the following extract taken from an essay styled " Observations 
 on Randolph's Speech," and written by the most eminent British 
 writer of the day, in immediate connection too with the ministry. 
 and well possessed of their views no less a personage than the au- 
 thor of "War in Disguise," a book that took all Mr. Madison's 
 learning and ability to give a plausible answer to. The author is 
 expressly recommending to the British minister, to send an envoy to 
 the American Government to treat for an adjustment of differences. 
 He concludes thus : " The only objection I can possibly imagine to
 
 DIFFICULTIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 241 
 
 arise against this expedient is, from the passing of the limited non 
 importation bill, the fate of which is yet unknown, and which is 
 represented as containing a clause, making its operation depend 
 either on the fiat of the executive government, or on that of its 
 minister in this country ; or, as other accounts intimate, on the bare 
 event of our refusing immediate compliance with the demands of 
 the American government. 
 
 ' : Now such a bill either has,, or has not been passed by the Con- 
 gress. In the latter case, the difficulty will not arise ; but in the 
 former, I hesitate not to say, that it makes your compliance, consist- 
 ently with any regard to the dignity and honor of this great nation, 
 absolutely impossible. 
 
 " What ! Is a rod to be put into the hands of a foreign minister, 
 ti whip us into submission ; and are we broadly and coarsely to 
 sell our maritime rights, for the sake of passing off a little haber- 
 dashery along with them ! 
 
 " Are we to make a lumping pennyworth to the buyers of our 
 leather wares, our felt and tin wares, and the othor commodities 
 enumerated in this insolent bill, by tossing our honor, our justice, 
 and our courage also into the parcel ! ! I would not consent to 
 disparage even the quality of our manufactures, much less of our 
 public morals, by so shameful a bargain. 
 
 " No, sir ! if Mr. Monroe is indeed instructed and empowered to 
 treat with us in this humiliating style of huckstering diplomacy, a 
 new reason arises for delay, and for treating beyond the Atlantic. 
 
 " Let the threatened prohibition take place. Our hats, our shoes, 
 and our tea-kettles, must find some other market for a few months ; 
 unless the American merchants should be impatient enough to im- 
 port them by smuggling, into that country, in the mean time ; which, 
 I doubt not, they will, in a more than usual abundance. Perhaps 
 when our minister arrives, the advanced price of British goods, and 
 the loss of the duties upon them, may form an argument of some 
 weight in our favor." 
 
 VOL. i.
 
 242 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXI 
 
 CLOSING SCENE. 
 
 IN looking over the House of Representatives of the ninth Congress, 
 who had devolved on them the important duty of giving the first im- 
 pulse and direction to the policy of the country in regard to foreign 
 nations, at this critical period, when the powers of Europe, not 
 content with destroying one another, seemed to be aiming at 
 the commercial and political annihilation of this transatlantic re- 
 public also, we are struck with the very common and unimportant 
 characters of which it was composed. There were, doubtless, some 
 modest and retiring men, of sound judgment, who were content to 
 give their vote in silence, and to pass their opinions on men and things 
 around them without giving the world the benefit of their wisdom 
 But all those who were most prominent in the lead of affairs, were 
 without reputation, without political experience or information, the 
 mere hacks of a party, possessing none of the qualities of head or 
 heart that constitute the statesman, filled at the same time with all 
 the narrow conceptions and the intolerance of political bigotry. The 
 reputation of not one has survived the age in which he lived. The 
 world is none the wiser for what they have said or done. Their 
 names, with all their acts, have gone down to oblivion. Such men 
 require a head to think for them ; without knowledge, or indepen- 
 dence of character, they needed a leader to guide and to instruct them 
 in their duty. Coming into office under the auspices of Mr. Jeffer- 
 son, his opinion was law to their understanding, his will the harmo- 
 nizing agent to all their actions. The true character of the repre- 
 sentative office, and the delicate relationship existing between that 
 and the Executive, was beyond their conception ; and they made a 
 boast and a virtue of their unbounded confidence in the source of ail 
 power and patronage. In the hands of a virtuous President, these 
 men were the confiding representatives without question to approve 
 his measures ; in the hands of a corrupt and ambitious aspirant, they 
 would have been the subtle tools to enregister his edicts of usur- 
 pation or oppression. Fortunately for the country, Mr. Jefferson
 
 CLOSING SCENE. 
 
 243 
 
 was a pure patriot and an honest man ; he seemed to have no other 
 wish but the good of his country. And, perhaps, it was a conscious- 
 ness of this fact that made his followers place such implicit reliance 
 on the propriety and the wisdom of whatever he did. What is blind 
 fidelity to the leader of an opposition, will soon be converted into 
 corrupt adulation to the bountiful dispenser of all honors and re- 
 wards. An honest coincidence of opinion will be the source of alle 
 giance in the one case ; but a base affinity for the loaves and fishes 
 will be the means of cohesion in the other. Corruption follows pow- 
 er ; and the rapacious and the profligate, like sharks in the sea, are 
 sure to swim in the wake of the rich freighted argosy of state. 
 
 The proceedings of Congress, in regard to our foreign relations, 
 furnish a fruitful commentary on the facility with which men will sur- 
 render their opinions and their consciences into the keeping of a 
 popular leader ; and the readiness with which bodies of men, in a 
 corporate capacity, will do an act that would disgrace an individual 
 of common respectability. As to these foreign affairs, so complica- 
 ted and so critical, the President had no plan to propose. On this 
 subject, above all others, he had a right to give a direction to the acts 
 of the legislature ; the treaty-making power belonged to him and to 
 the Senate. He did not comply with the Constitution ; he in- 
 formed them of the facts in his possession, but did not recommend 
 what should be done. He had no well-digested plan, on which he 
 was willing to stake his reputation as a statesman ; but he stimula- 
 ted the legislature, by an expression of his secret wishes, to do those 
 things which he was not willing to assume the responsibility of re- 
 commending. This was certainly degrading the representative body 
 to a menial purpose. But they were wholly unconscious of the part 
 they were made to act ; and when the proud and independent spirit 
 of their leader rose in rebellion, they sought to hunt him down like 
 some wild beast that had broken into the quiet close of a browsing 
 herd. But in justice to these men, it must be conceded, that it was 
 not so much the acts of Mr. Randolph on the Spanish question that 
 offended them, as the bitter and sarcastic words used by him on all 
 occasions towards some of those who professed to belong to the same 
 party, and claimed to be his political friends. It is true, he did net 
 mince his words, and in the heat of debate, he spoke the plain truth 
 in strongest terms. There was no diplomatic ambiguity about him :
 
 244: LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 and often his blunt directness of expression gave offence where it was 
 not intended. But possessing, as he did, a keen insight into the mo- 
 tives of men ; having a high sense of the dignity and purity of the 
 representative character, and a strong disgust for selfishness and 
 grovelling meanness in those who should be patterns of truth and 
 nobleness, he was unsparing in his denunciations of men who, under 
 the guise of republicanism, had crept into official places for no other 
 purpose but to rob the treasury. And it must be confessed that 
 there were not a few of this class to be found in all the departments 
 of government. The Yazoo speculation, Proteus-like, had assumed 
 every shape by which it could glide into the councils of the nation, 
 and find favor in the eyes of the people ; it was the dry-rot of the 
 body politic, that secretly consumed the very joints of its massrve 
 timbers. A member of the President's cabinet, as we already know, 
 was the Hercules on whose shoulders was upreared this vast fabric 
 of speculation ; the boundless patronage of his office was prostituted 
 to his purposes ; and he insolently boasted of the means that he 
 used and the triumph he anticipated over the public virtue. There 
 were many post-office contractors in the Hou^e of Representatives ; 
 the evil had grown to such an extent that Randolph moved an amend- 
 ment to the Constitution, prohibiting all contractors from holding a 
 seat on the floor of Congress. " I have said, and I repeat it," said 
 Mr. Randolph, " that the aspect in which this thing presents itself, 
 would alone determine me to resist it. (The Yazoo petitioners.) In 
 one of the petitioners I behold an executive officer, who receives and 
 distributes a yearly revenue of three hundred thousand dollars, 
 yielding scarcely any net profit to the government a patronage 
 limited only by the extent of our country. Is this right ? Is it 
 even decent? Shall political power be made the engine of private 
 interest? Shall such a suspicion tarnish your proceedings ? How 
 would you receive a petition from a President of the United States. 
 if such a case can be supposed possible ? Sir, I wish to see the same 
 purity pervading every subordinate branch of administration, which 
 I am persuaded exists in its great departments. Shall persons hold- 
 ing appointments under the great and good man who presides over 
 our counsels, draw on the rich fund of his well-earned reputation, to 
 eke out their flimsy and scanty pretensions? Is the relation in 
 which they stand to him to be made the cloak and cover of their dark
 
 CLOSING SCENE. 
 
 designs ? To the gentleman from New- York, who takes fire at every 
 insinuation against his friend, I have only to observe on this subject, 
 that what I dare say, I dare to justify. To the House I will relate 
 an incident how far I have lightly conceived or expressed an opinion 
 to the prejudice of any man. I owe an apology to my informant for 
 making public what he certainly did not authorize me to reveal. 
 There is no reparation which can be offered by one gentleman and 
 accepted by another that I shall not be ready to make him, but I feel 
 myself already justified to him; since he sees the circumstances under 
 which I act. A few evenings since a profitable contract for carrying 
 the mail was offered to a friend of mine, who is a member of this 
 House. You must know, sir, the person so often alluded to, main- 
 tains a jackal; fed not, as you would suppose, upon the offal of 
 contract, but with the fairest pieces in the sham-hies ; and at night, 
 when honest men are abed, does this obscene animal prowl through 
 the streets of this vast and desolate city, seeking whom he may tam- 
 per with. Well, sir, when this worthy plenipotentiary had made his 
 proposal in due form, the independent man to whom it was addressed, 
 saw at once its drift. ' Tell your principal,' said he, ' that I will 
 take his contract, but I shall vote against the Yazoo claim, notwith- 
 standing.' Next day he was told that there had been some misun- 
 derstanding of the business, that he could not have the contract, as 
 it was previously bespoken by another. 
 
 " Sir, I well recollect, when first I had the honor of a seat in this 
 House, we were then members of a small minority a poor forlorn 
 hope that this very petitioner appeared at Philadelphia on behalf 
 of another great land company on Lake Erie. He then told us, as 
 an inducement to vote for the Connecticut reserve (as it was called), 
 that if that measure failed, it would ruin the republicans and the 
 cause in that State. You, sir, cannot have forgotten the reply he re- 
 ceived : ' That we did not understand the republicanism that was to 
 be paid for ; that we feared it was not of the right sort, but spuri- 
 ous.' And having maintained our principles through the ordeal of 
 that day, shall we now abandon them to act with the men and upon the 
 measures which we then abjured ? Shall we now condescend to means 
 which we disdained to use in the most desperate crisis of our polit- 
 ical fortunes ? This is indeed the age of monstrous coalitions ; and 
 this corruption has the qualities of connecting the most inveterate
 
 246 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 enemies, personal as well as political. It has united in close concert 
 those, of whom it has been said, not in the figurative language of pro- 
 phecy, but in the sober narrative of history, ' I have bruised thy 
 head and thou hast bruised my heel.' Such is the description of per- 
 sons who would present to the President of the United States an 
 act, to which, when he puts his hand, he signs a libel on his whole 
 political life. But he will never tarnish the unsullied lustre of his 
 famej he will never sanction the monstrous position (for such it is, 
 dress it up as you will), that a legislator may sell his vote, and a 
 right which cannot be divested will pass under such sale. Establish 
 this doctrine, and there is an end of representative government ; from 
 that moment republicanism receives its death-blow. 
 
 " The feeble cry of Virginian influence and ambitious leaders, is 
 attempted to be raised. If such insinuations were worthy of a reply. 
 I might appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, for the fact, that no man in this 
 House (yourself perhaps excepted) is oftener in a minority than I 
 am. If by a leader be meant one who speaks his opinion frankly and 
 boldly who claims something of that independence, of which the 
 gentleman from New- York so loudly vaunts who will not connive at 
 public robbery, be the robbers who they may, then the imputation 
 may be just ; such is the nature of my ambition : but in the common 
 acceptation of words, nothing can be more false. In the coarse but 
 strong language of the proverb, "tis the still sow that sucks the 
 draff. 1 
 
 " No, sir, we are not the leaders. There they sit ! and well they 
 know it, forcing down our throats the most obnoxious measures. 
 Gentlemen may be silent, but they shall be dragged into public view. 
 If they direct our public counsels, at least let them answer for the 
 result. We will not be responsible for their measures. If we do 
 not hold the reins, we will not be accountable for the accidents which 
 may befall the carriage. 
 
 " But, sir, I am a denunciator ! Of whom ? Of the gentlemen on 
 my left ? Not at all ; but of those men and their principles whom 
 the people themselves have denounced ; on whom they have burnt 
 their indelible curse, deep and lasting as the lightning from heaven. 
 " Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that we should not be content to live 
 upon the principal of our popularity, that we should go on to deserve 
 the public confidence, and the disapprobation of the gentleman over
 
 CLOSING SCENE, . 247 
 
 the way ; but if every thing is to be reversed if official influence is 
 to become the handmaid of private interest if the old system is to 
 be revived with the old men, or any that can be picked up, I may 
 deplore the defection, but never will cease to stigmatize it. Never 
 shall I hesitate between any minority, far less that in which I find 
 myself, and such a majority as is opposed to us. I took my degrees, 
 sir, in this House in a minority, much smaller, indeed, but of the 
 same stamp : a minority, whose very act bore the test of rigorous 
 principle, and with them to the last I will exclaim, Fiatjustitia ruat 
 cesium." 
 
 It is too plainly to be perceived, that a man of this be Id, fearless. 
 and independent character, was not to be tolerated by those who, in 
 their connection with the government, had far other objects in view 
 than pure principle or patriotism ; or even by those honest plodding 
 men, whose blundering mediocrity was awed and overshadowed by his 
 superior genius. He must be put down ; the fiat, we know, had 
 already gone forth. Whole States had been traversed last summer 
 to organize an opposition to him ; he must be silenced, or driven into 
 the ranks of the federalists, and then nobody will believe what he 
 says. The plot was now ripe for execution : like Caesar, he was to 
 fall on the floor of the Senate by the hands of his treacherous friends. 
 The evening of the 21st of April, on the final adjournment of the 
 House, was selected as the time that parting hour, usually given uj. 
 to hilarity, to friendship, and an oblivious forgetfulness of all past 
 animosities, was chosen as the fit occasion to stab to the heart one 
 who should have been their pride and their ornament one, whos 
 only crime was, not that of having conspired against the liberties of 
 his country, but that of having spoken the truth, and maintained 
 right. Alas ! for the virtue and the liberties of mankind. This 
 has most usually been the crime they have ignorantly pursued and 
 punished. Corruption opens a path where truth finds an impassable 
 barrier. 
 
 As the shades of night were gathering over the legislative hall, 
 while the dim light of the taper served only to make darkness visible, 
 the conspirators, each with his part well conned and prepared, com- 
 menced the assault on their unsuspecting victim, who sat as a confiding 
 friend in their midst. 
 
 Mr. William Findley, a member from Pennsylvania, rose and ad-
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 dressed the House, without provocation, in a strain of gross and inde 
 cent personal abuse of Mr. Randolph, charging him with having 
 designs to pull down the present administration. It was plainly to 
 be perceived, from the language and manner of Pindley, that he was 
 at this time very much intoxicated with strong drink ; and many of 
 the members then present declared the same opinion. Mr. Findley 
 was so outrageously indecent in his language, that he was repeatedly 
 called to order : but, without regarding the call, he continued to 
 speak in the same strain, until the House was thrown into a state of 
 confusion, perhaps never before witnessed. 
 
 As soon as Findley sat down, John Randolph rose, and without 
 taking particular notice of the conduct of the unfortunate old man, 
 observed, in a manner the most mild, dignified and conciliatory, that 
 " he had hoped, however we might have differed in opinion on the va- 
 rious subjects discussed this session, we should, on the eve of separa- 
 tion, have forgiven and forgotten any asperities and political animos- 
 ities that had occurred during the session ; and that we should have 
 parted like men and friends. He had hoped the harmony of that 
 House would not have been disturbed in the last moments of the ses- 
 sion, either by those who had been habitual declaimers. or by those 
 who had kept the noiseless tenor of their way ; that contumely and 
 personal hatred would have been banished from these walls, and that 
 we should at least have separated in good humor." These remarks 
 produced a gleam of pleasure on the countenance of almost every per- 
 son present. The language he used and the sentiments he expressed 
 were so mild and conciliatory, that Mr. Randolph's friends were par- 
 ticularly delighted. Although there was nothing in his language or 
 manner that would justify in the smallest degree an idea that he in- 
 tended to make any particular or personal allusion, yet the attention 
 of every member then present was immediately directed to Mr. 
 Thomas Mann Randolph, the President's son-in-law, who, under the 
 impression that John Randolph had made some allusion to him 
 (which no person present but himself could have supposed), rose, and 
 in a manner indicative of rage and defiance, vociferated : 
 
 " Mr. Speaker, I rise to reply to the gentleman from Virginia. I 
 will not pretend to vie with him in point of talent or of eloquence ; 
 in these he is far. very far, my superior. This is not the first time 
 flint gentleman has availed hknself of the sanction and the presence
 
 CLOSING SCENE. 
 
 249 
 
 of this assembly, to apply his personal allusions to me, and to make 
 use of language and conduct here, which he would not do out of this 
 House. 
 
 " But, sir, I will tell that gentleman, that however he may be my 
 superior in talents and eloquence, in patriotism I am his superior : 
 yes, sir, his superior. Last year, sir, that gentleman commenced flor- 
 ist, and dealt in flowers and gardening ; I saw him with his spade 
 and pitchfork, and rake and aianure, cultivating his flower-garden. 
 This, sir, was on the Yazoo question ; and then I perceived the gen- 
 tleman launch forth to sea, without compass or rudder, his masts 
 broken, his sails tattered and torn, and his vessel i:i a leaky condi- 
 tion ; and, when I saw that, sir, I thought it Lgh time to quit him. 
 and look out for the land. The gentleman can talk and boast of the 
 arguments of lead, and powder, and steel ; with these arguments, sir.- 
 I am as expert as himself, and as willing as he may be to use them." 
 
 Mr. Thomas Mann Randolph possessed as quick and as fiery a 
 temper as his kinsman ; but it is impossible to conceive any motive 
 for the anger, rage, and threatening denunciation exhibited on thii 
 occasion, unless it was premeditated, and the deliberate part of a con- 
 certed scheme to immolate John Randolph on the altar of party in- 
 tolerance, for having dared to differ from them as to what they chose 
 to assume and hold forth as the wishes of the Executive. This gen- 
 tleman had taken no part in the previous debate, and it is impossible 
 that arv allusion could have been made to him. As he progressed, 
 towering in rage, astonishment and regret were exhibited in the looks 
 and expressions of the members. This speech had the most strange 
 and alarming effect. The atmosphere seemed to be surcharged with 
 electric fire, and another spark would blow it into a flame. 
 
 Coming from the quarter it did, and under existing circumstances, 
 this denunciation excited in the minds of a gre&t part of those pres- 
 ent, sentiments of the most serious nature. Where this thing might 
 end, they could not conjecture, but felt the most anxious apprehen- 
 sion. That Randolph was to be denounced on this occasion by all 
 the self-anointed priests of the true faith, and to be cast out of the 
 synagogue, cannot be questioned. The moment Thomas Mann took 
 his seat, he was followed by James Sloan, of New Jersey, who rtwl 
 a speech of about two sheets, closely written, and then delivered it 
 over into the hands of the printer, who was present to receive it, :ml 
 11*
 
 250 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 to publish it. Randolph had not been sparing in his ridicule of the 
 crude conceptions of this man, put forth in a series of resolutions on 
 the great and grave questions about which the administration itself 
 had no settled opinion. He called the nostrums of this man 
 " Sloan's mint-drops." Now was the time for revenge when the 
 whole pack was in full cry, and the noble stag at bay. he could 
 slyly thrust his fangs into his side with impunity. But Randolph 
 did not wait to hear this well-studied lecture, which for false asser- 
 tions, low scurrility, and personal abuse, cannot be surpassed. If he 
 heard it at all, it fell senseless on his ears. He was after other 
 game. A few minutes after T. M. Randolph closed his remarks. 
 John Randolph left his seat, and desired Mr. Garnett to make a for- 
 mal application to know whether the remarks that had fallen from 
 that gentleman were addressed to him, and unless he disavowed any 
 such intention, to demand a meeting. Mr. Garnett seemed deeply 
 concerned at this request, and endeavored to dissuade his friend from 
 the step. Randolph replied, that his resolution was irrevocably 
 taken ; that, perhaps, on the whole, he had cause to be obliged to Mr. 
 Thomas Mann Randolph ; that he had long been a target for every 
 worthless scoundrel in that House to aim his shafts at ; and that Mr. 
 T. M. Randolph, by this unprovoked and studied outrage, had given 
 him an opportunity to answer them all, in the person of an adversary 
 who would not disgrace his contest, and under circumstances in 
 which no possible blame could attach to him. Mr. T. M. Randolph 
 replied to Mr. Garnett, that unless he had supposed some of Mr. 
 John Randolph's expressions pointed particularly at him, he should 
 have thought himself highly culpable in saying what he had : but 
 believing that they were intended for him, he felt himself called upon 
 to say something. 
 
 Having acknowledged that his observations were levelled at Mr 
 Johm Randolph, he was told that that gentleman expected to meet 
 him. He replied that he was ready to do so ; but that if Mr. John 
 Randolph would only say that he meant no allusion to him, there was 
 no apology which a man of honor could or ought to make, which he 
 would not be ready to offer. When Mr. Garnett delivered this mes- 
 sage, Mr. John Randolph observed that the course which Mr. T. M. 
 Randolph had chosen to pursue precluded any sort of declaration 
 or acknowledgment on his part ; that Mr. T. M. R. must make repa-
 
 CLOSING SCENE 
 
 251 
 
 ration commensurate with the injury aimed at his feelings, or meet 
 him, and give him satisfaction. Mr. Garnett immediately apprised 
 the gentleman of these conditions, and requested that he would choose 
 some friend with whom he might have farther conversation on the 
 subject. Mi*. Coles was called in ; after a short consultation aside with 
 his friend, he rejoined Mr. Garnett, and said : All that Mr. T. M. R. 
 desired was an assurance that none of Mr. J. R.'s remarks were in- 
 tended for him, and that he would be willing (in that case) to make 
 any apology a man of honor could offer. Mr. Garnett replied, that 
 there was no doubt on his mind, or, he believed, of any other specta- 
 tor, that Mr. T. M. R. had entirely misconceived Mr. J. R.'s expres- 
 sions; but that, after what had passed, Mr. J. R. would make no 
 statement whatever ; and if Mr. T. M. R. could not reconcile it to him- 
 s<Jf to make a suitable apology, Mr. J. R. would expect Mr. T. M. 
 R. to meet him either that night (which he preferred) or in the morn- 
 ing. Mr. Coles said he was too much engaged in the public busi- 
 ness at that time to see his friend, but would do it as soon as he could, 
 and let Mr. Garnett know the result. Mr. Grarnett returned with 
 this statement to Mr. John Randolph, who was in a remote room of 
 the Capitol, and then took his seat in the House. In a few minutes 
 afterwards, Mr. Thomas Mann Randolph rose in his place, and said 
 that he had been assured, by several of those who sat near him, that 
 he had acted in what he had before said under a misapprehension of 
 Mr. John Randolph's remarks, which none of them understood as 
 liaving been intended for him ; that under this misapprehension he 
 had acted ; it was the sole cause of his saying what he had said ; 
 and that he was then persuaded by the assurance of his friends of 
 his mistake. He regretted very much what he had said, for he had 
 no disposition to wound any gentleman's feelings who did not intend 
 to wound his. 
 
 Mr. Garnett immediately went to Mr. John Randolph, and stated 
 that Mr. T. M. R. had made such an apology in the House as Mr. 
 Garnett conceived, and as every member said who mentioned the sub- 
 ject in his hearing (which several did) was proper for Mr. T. M. R. 
 to make and for Mr. J. R. to receive. 
 
 Mr. Randolph then requested his friend to say to Mr. Coles that 
 he received the apology of Mr. T. M. Randolph, and had no further 
 commands for that gentleman, which Mr. Garnett did just as the 
 House was breaking up : and thus the business terminated.
 
 252 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXII. 
 i 
 
 AAEON BURR. 
 
 MISFORTUNES, 'tis said, come not alone; it proved so with Mr. 
 Randolph on this occasion In his retirement at Bizarre, after the 
 stormy session just passed, and other occurrences of a domestic na- 
 ture, his reflections could not have been of the most pleasant kind. 
 However conscious of rectitude, the prospect before him must have 
 been cheerless indeed. For four years he had been the popular lead- 
 er of a triumphant party, who were successfully carrying into opera- 
 tion those great measures of reform that would bring back the Federal 
 Government to the few simple and general subjects of legislation for 
 which alone it was designed. Never had a young man risen so ra- 
 pidly or so high in the public estimation. He was the idol of his 
 party ; his eloquence and his practical wisdom were extolled on 
 every hand ; and it seemed that there was no station or honor in the 
 gift of the people that he was not destined to attain. But now the 
 scene was changed. For having ventured to suggest a plan of action 
 different from that which seemed to be favored by the Executive, he 
 was denounced by his old friends, his motives calumniated, and he 
 was charged with a design of pulling down the present administra- 
 tion. How bitter must have been his feelings, at the reflection thatf 
 the highest stretch of patriotism, which could cause a sacrifice of all 
 the bright prospects before him for the sake of doing his duty, should 
 meet with such a reward. But it has always been so. In popular 
 governments, the intolerant spirit of a triumphant majority will al- 
 low no deviation from that standard of orthodoxy which it has set up 
 for itself. Freedom of opinion is professed, but you exercise it at 
 the peril of being banished from the society of those who hold the 
 reins and prescribe the course that ought to be pursued. There are 
 so many interested in degrading a popular and leading man in a po- 
 litical party, that it is almost impossible for him ever to retrieve the 
 first false step. It matters not how pure his motives, or how far it 
 may be from his intention to separate from his party friends, yet 
 there are always enough, from interested motives, to take advantage
 
 AARON BURR. 
 
 25,, 
 
 of the slightest deviation from the standard of the majority, to de- 
 nounce him as a deserter, and to drive him into the opposition. Politi- 
 cians, generally, are a heartless and selfish race of men. There are 
 many honorable exceptions ; but for the most part, their own aggran- 
 dizement is the end of their patriotism ; and they always look with 
 secret satisfaction on the disappointment or the fall of one whose su- 
 perior talents overshadowed their own self-importance, or whose stern 
 virtues and integrity stood in the. way of the accomplishment tf their 
 selfish ends. 
 
 Mr. Randolph never deviated from those principles he professed, 
 while in a minority ; his party, in many instances, had departed from 
 them ; he undertook the ungracious task of holding up to view thfeir 
 own dereliction. Sovereign majorities, as well as sovereign princes, 
 do not like to hear their own infallibility brought in question espe- 
 cially will they not tolerate it in one who is a subject of their power. 
 Mr. Randolph had no faith in the Cabinet, while he retained the ut- 
 most confidence in the Chief Magistrate. He knew that corruption 
 had crept into the legislature, through the Post Office department 
 and the Ya/oo speculation, and that, as a body, they had surrenderc-d 
 their independence into the hands of the Executive. His great 
 crime was that of maintaining the independence of the legislature, as 
 a co-ordinate department of government. Let posterity judge how 
 far he should be condemned for such an offence. 
 
 During the excited and sleepless hours of the past session, Mr. 
 Randolph was assailed by his old hereditary disease, in its most ag- 
 gravated form he was prostrate on his bed for many weeks, racked 
 with the most excruciating torture. With repeated accumulation of 
 mental distress, and even of mental agony, caused by domestic occurren- 
 ces, the diseases of the > ody seemed to keep pace with them, and to pro- 
 duce a degree of suffering such as no mortal man ever endured before. 
 With heroic fortitude, he suppressed his feelings, and the world, 
 while they condemned his outbursts of passion, never knew the real 
 cause of his eccentricities. With a pride and a haughty reserve 
 rarely equalled, he shut himself up from common observation, and was 
 content to be the subject of misrepresentation and of malipious cal- 
 umny, without condescending to explanation or reply. To a few 
 only did he unbosom himself, and expose the wounds of body and 
 of soul, which he carried, with increased aggravation, to the grave.
 
 254 LI FE F JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Hereafter, the reader will have an opportunity of reading his con- 
 fessions, poured into the bosom of his most intimate friend, and to 
 weep over the many sufferings he endured, in what he chose to call 
 his " most unprosperous life." 
 
 But there was one occurrence, which took place in the month of 
 March, that affected Mr. Randolph more than all things else. The 
 reader is already aware of the great attachment he had formed, 
 many years ago, to a young lady of remarkable beauty, virtues, 
 and accomplishments one I loved mare than my own soul, or the 
 God thai made it. Many untoward events had prevented their 
 union, and made it impossible yet he vainly cherished jhe hope that 
 their love, sublimated into a pure, Platonic affection, might last to the 
 end of life idle expectation, that no other human being could have 
 indulged. There was no reason in the indulgence of such a wish ; 
 but love is blind, tyrannical, and has no reason. The lady thought 
 proper to unite her fortunes with one in whose society she might hope 
 to live a more happy life, than in that of her present most devoted 
 but unfortunate lover. This event, which took place in the midst of 
 the excited debates of Congress, and at a moment when his friends 
 were deserting him on every hand, struck deep into the heart of Mr. 
 Randolph he never recovered from it it had a visible influence on 
 the whole of his after life. His love, now purified of all earthly 
 desire, became a genuine worship the image of the beloved object, 
 mirrored in the distance, hovered over his path, like some angelic be- 
 ing, whose celestial smiles shed benignest influence on his heart, 
 where all else had grown cold and desolate. Long years afterwards, 
 when the body was locked in the fitful embraces of a feverish sleep, 
 and the soul wandering in dreams, that once loved name has been 
 heard to escape from his lips, in a tone that evinced how deeply the 
 love of the being who bore it had been engraven on the inmost 
 sanctuary of his heart. But why do we call up these things ? Read- 
 er ! there was a tragedy in the life of this man, more thrilling than 
 romance. But this is a subject not for us to deal with ; we promised 
 not to touch it more ; let it go down to the oblivion of the grave, 
 and there sleep with those who, in life, endured its agonies. We ask 
 pardon for having glanced at it here, and for the last time, because it 
 is impossible to form a correct estimate of the man, without some 
 knowledge of this occurrence, which constituted one of the most im-
 
 AARON BURR. 
 
 255 
 
 portant events of his life. Let the skeptical look into his own heart, 
 and see whether he is capable of -elevating his affections above a mere 
 sensual appetite. If not, then he is no fit judge of that man, whose ex- 
 alted passion, rising above all earthly desire, knows no other bounds but 
 the infinite longing of an immortal soul. 
 
 Let us now proceed with our narrative. 
 
 Notwithstanding the harsh and unfriendly manner in which he 
 had been treated, Mr. Randolph returned to Washington in Decem- 
 ber, with every disposition to harmonize and co-operate with the re- 
 publican party. His difference from them last session, was on a 
 question of mere expediency the propriety of which time alone could 
 prove. Unless they intended to abandon, in the conduct of affairs, 
 all the principles they professed while in a minority, it was impossi- 
 ble for him to co-operate with any other body of men. However 
 much he might be irritated in his feelings towards certain individuals, 
 he did not allow that circumstance so far to influence his judgment as 
 to cause him to vote for or against a measure merely to be in op- 
 position to them. Accordingly we find him, on most occasions, work- 
 ing in harmony with the friends of the administration ; and there 
 seems to have been a good feeling restored between him and some of 
 the leading members. It is true, there was no important question 
 on which there was likely to be a diversity of sentiment. The non- 
 importation law, by the terms of its enactment, was not to go into 
 operation till the last of November; and now that the time had 
 .arrived, it was proposed, on the part of its friends, to postpone it to 
 a still later period. It was alleged that the British commissioners 
 desired not a repeal, but a postponement merely, while negotiations 
 were pending between the two countries. Of course Mr. Randolph 
 readily united with thlm in this measure ; and it is not surprising 
 that he took occasion to intimate that, in his judgment, time had 
 proved the impolicy and inefficiency of the original enactment. But 
 the only question of any importance to which their attention was 
 called, during the last session of the ninth Congress, was the con- 
 spiracy of Aaron Burr. After his bitter disappointments, both on 
 the national theatre and in New-York, his adopted State after the 
 sudden and irretrievable fall of this ambitious man, and when tin- 
 cold eye of neglect had chilled, like a frost, the last spark of patriot- 
 ism in the breast of this legalized murderer, he bad gone into the
 
 256 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 great Mississippi Valley, in search of some adventure adequate to his 
 genius and his ambition. Here, indeed, was a vast field for enter- 
 prise abundant material for any undertaking that might require 
 perseverance, privation, and heroic daring there was also a little 
 discontent in the popular mind, in some parts of the West, which 
 might have inspired a less sanguine man than Aaron Burr with hopes 
 of tampering with their patriotism. 
 
 Soon rumors came that this man was planning and organizing 
 some vast expedition, the precise object of which was the subject only 
 of conjecture. Whether it was his design to make war on the 
 Spanish province of Mexico, or whether, in co-operation with Spain^ 
 he was aiding her in the long cherished scheme of separating the 
 western country from the United States, none could tell; but all 
 agreed that the genius and the resources of the chief director of the 
 enterprise were adequate to any desperate adventure, whether of 
 foreign aggression or domestic treason. 
 
 The Executive was soon apprised of the state of things, and were 
 endeavoring to get all the information they could in regard to the 
 matter. But the newspapers were so full of rumors and statements, 
 implicating the Spanish Government as the prime mover of this con- 
 spiracy, that Mr. Randolph, after having waited five or six weeks for 
 official intelligence, at length moved a resolution to call on the Presi- 
 dent for information. We give his speech entire on this occasion, as 
 it shows his views of the Spanish question twelve months after his 
 separation from the administration on that subject. 
 
 " In the President's Message," said Mr. Randolph, " at the com- 
 mencement of the session, he announced to us as follows : 
 
 ' ; Having received information, that in another part of the United 
 States a great number of private individual^.were combining toge- 
 ther, arming and organizing themselves, contrary to law, to carry on 
 a military expedition against the territories of Spain, I thought it 
 necessary, by proclamation as well as by special orders, to take mea- 
 sures for preventing and suppressing this enterprise, for seizing the 
 vessels, arms, and other means provided for it, and for arresting and 
 bringing to justice its authors and abettors.' 
 
 " So long," said Mr. Randolph, "as the illegal movements of these 
 persons were supposed to be directed against a foreign nation, 
 ilthough the interest of the United States, and their honor too.
 
 AARON BURR. 
 
 257 
 
 required that prompt and decisive measures should be taken for sup- 
 pressing their designs, yet I believe there is no gentleman in this 
 House but will agree with me in the opinion that the United States, 
 and this House in particular, could not feel so deep and lively an in- 
 terest against a conspiracy of that kind as against one for the subver- 
 sion of the Union, and perhaps of the liberties of those who compose 
 it. I have waited with anxious solicitude for some information in 
 relation to this subject, that might be depended upon for some 
 official information. I contented myself for a long time with the 
 belief, inasmuch as no information had been given to the House, 
 that there were imperious reasons connected with the public welfare 
 which forbade a disclosure ; but the aspect which affairs have taken 
 on the Mississippi is such, that I can no longer reconcile it to my 
 sense of duty, as the independent representative of an independent 
 people, to rest satisfied in that state of supineness and apathy in 
 which the House has been satisfied to remain for the six or seven 
 weeks past. Sir, from the information I have been able to collect 
 and it is such that I am obliged to place great if not implicit reliance 
 on it it does appear to me, that if the government of Spain is in 
 any wise connected in these measures, it is concerned not as the de- 
 fendant, but as the plaintiff as the aggressing party, and not as the 
 party on whom the aggression is made. So long as I was induced to 
 believe, that by withholding correct information from the Legislature 
 the substantial interests of the nation would be more essentially sub- 
 served than by laying it before them, so long, though not without 
 reluctance, I acquiesced in its being withheld. But from the hostile 
 appearances on the Mississippi, it seems to me that the state of things 
 is such as requires the most prompt and efficacious measures for 
 securing the Union. The bubble is said to have burst, and there no 
 longer remains any reason why the information in the possession of 
 the Executive ought to be withheld. But to guard against all pos- 
 sible objection, I have endeavored so to frame the motion as to do 
 away with any objection arising from this consideration. It does 
 appear from the newspapers it is true, but under a much higher sanc- 
 tion than is generally attached to information received through such a 
 channel it does appear in evidence, under the sanction of an exami- 
 nation before the legislature of Kentucky, that ever since the peace 
 of 1783, Spain has incessantly labored to detach the western people
 
 258 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 from the Union ; that subsequently to the peace of San Lorenzo she 
 has carried on intrigues, and in the most faithless manner withheld 
 acceding to its stipulations, in order to excite a spirit in the western 
 country subversive of the Union ; that she subsequently made a pro- 
 position of the most flagitious kind to several leading characters in 
 Kentucky, and as I believe elsewhere. It seems, indeed, that she has 
 never lost sight of this object; and I believe she never will lose 
 sight of it so long as she shall find materials to work upon, or a sha- 
 dow of hope that she will succeed. It appears to me that she has 
 found those materials ; that they are of the most dangerous nature ; 
 that they are now in operation ; and that, perhaps, at this moment, 
 while I am addressing you, at least for a time, the fate of the West- 
 ern country may have been decided. 
 
 " Sir, this subject offers strong arguments, in addition to the nume- 
 rous reasons offered at the present session of Congress, to justify the 
 policy avowed by certain gentlemen during the last session, so highly 
 condemned ; and if I am correctly informed, the other branch of 
 the Legislature are now acting on that policy so condemned and 
 despised. 
 
 " "We have had a bill before us authorizing the President to accept 
 volunteers. A member of the committee with whom this bill origi- 
 nated, and with whom I have the pleasure of concurring, intimately 
 connected and domesticated with the Secretary of War, did make a 
 proposition before that committee, substantially the same with that 
 rejected the last session to augment the military forces to meet the 
 pressing exigencies of the times ; and which I presume must have 
 had the sanction of that officer. Is there a man in this House who 
 at this day doubts, that if the Government I mean the Executive 
 and Legislature had taken a manly and decisive attitude towards 
 Spain, and instead of pen, ink, and paper, had given men and arms 
 is there a man who disbelieves that not only Spain would have been 
 overawed, but that those domestic traitors also would have been in- 
 timidated and overawed, whose plans threaten to be so dangerous ? 
 Would any man have dreamed of descending the Mississippi at the 
 head of an unprincipled banditti, if New Orleans had been fortified, 
 and strong fortifications erected in its neighborhood ? What did we 
 then hear ? Money ! dollars and cents ! Is there not now every 
 reason to believe, especially when we consider the superintendence
 
 AARON BURR. 
 
 259 
 
 under which the expenses are incurred, that the saving of the cam- 
 paign on the Sabine, and the saving of the costly measures taken by 
 the commander-in-chief on his own responsibility, would have been 
 equal to the expense of raising and maintaining for one year the 
 additional forces proposed at the last session to be raised. There 
 can be no doubt, but that on the piinciple of economy, without 
 taking into view the effect on the Union, the United States would 
 have been gainers. A spectator, not in the habit of reading our pub- 
 lic prints, or of conversing with individuals out of doors, but who 
 should draw his ideas of the situation of the country from the pro- 
 ceedings of this House during the present session, would be led to 
 infer that there never existed in any nation a greater degree of peace, 
 tranquillity, or union, at home or abroad, than in the United States 
 at this time ; and yet, what is the fact ? That the United States are 
 not only threatened with external war, but with conspiracies and 
 treasons, the more alarming from their not being defined. And yet 
 we sit, and adjourn ; adjourn, and sit ; take things as schoolboys, 
 do as we are bid, and ask no questions. I cannot reconcile this line 
 of conduct to my ideas of the duty of a member on this floor. Yes, 
 the youngest member of the federal family has been found to be the 
 first to ward off the impending danger, while the eldest members are 
 sleeping, snoring, and dozing over their liberties at home. 
 
 Under this view of the subject, I beg leave to offer the following 
 resolution : 
 
 " Resolved That the President of the United States be and he 
 is hereby requested to lay before this House any information in pos- 
 session of the Executive, except such as he may deem the public wel- 
 fare to require not to be disclosed, touching any illegal combination 
 of private individuals against the peace and safety of the Union, or 
 any military expedition planned by such individuals against the ter- 
 ritories of any power in amity with the United States ; together with 
 the measures which the Executive has pursued and proposes to takr, 
 for suppressing or defeating the same." 
 
 The resolution was carried by a large majority. As more authen- 
 tic news came of the designs and actual movements of the conspira- 
 tors, the country became still more alarmed ; every one of discern- 
 ment saw the danger of this enterprise ; they knew the combustible 
 materials that artful intriguer had to work upon, and could readily
 
 260 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 perceive how he might take advantage of the unfriendly relations 
 existing between the United States and Spain, and by the secret aid. 
 if not the open co-operation of that discontented power, effect a dis- 
 memberment of the Union. 
 
 The Senate, in their alarm, went so far as to suspend the " Ha- 
 beas Corpus Act," which is never resorted to except in extreme cases 
 of danger to the peace and integrity of the country. This act of sus- 
 pension was arrested in the House. Mr. Randolph was most active 
 and efficient in his opposition : he denounced it as unnecessary, oppres- 
 sive, and tyrannical. Most fortunately it was rejected by the House, 
 and can never be set up as a precedent. 
 
 Aaron Burr, it is well known, was arrested in Alabama, and 
 brought to trial in Virginia, on the ground that he had levied his 
 forces and commenced his treasonable acts within the borders of that 
 State. The trial took place in the city of Richmond, in the month 
 of May, 1807 ; it excited a great deal of interest, and brought toge- 
 ther many of the most distinguished men of the Union. John Ran- 
 dolph was foreman of the grand jury that brought in a true bill 
 against Aaron Burr of high treason against his country. It is not 
 our purpose to go into the details of this trial, or the incidents of the 
 conspiracy : they belong to the general historian, and must form an 
 interesting and important chapter in the history of those critical and 
 eventful times. 
 
 During his sojourn in Richmond on this occasion, Mr. Randolph 
 formed many new and valuable acquaintances. Mr. Wirt was at this 
 time collecting materials for his Life of Patrick Henry. He was 
 conversing one day on that subject in a company of gentlemen, when 
 Mr. Tazewell, who was present, said to him : " Mr. Wirt, you should, 
 by all means, see John Randolph on that subject ; he knows more 
 of Patrick Henry than any other man now living." Mr. Wirt con- 
 fessed that he was not personally acquainted with that gentleman. 
 The difficulty was, how to bring them together ; for Tazewell said it 
 would not do to make a formal introduction, and say, ' This is Mr. 
 Wirt, sir, who is desirous of obtaining from you some materials for 
 his Life of Henry. In that case Randolph would not open his lips. 
 However," said he, " I will contrive a meeting." In a few days Mr. 
 Wirt was invited to Tazewell's room, where he found Randolph and 
 other genllemen assembled. Very soon, in the course of conversa
 
 AARON BURR. 
 
 261 
 
 tion, as if by accident, the name of Patrick Henry was mentioned. 
 Randolph immediately caught up the theme, and delighted the 
 company with a graphic account of his personal appearance, his 
 habits, and his eloquence. He frequently rose from his seat, and 
 repeated passages from the speeches, and imitated the peculiar style 
 and fervid manner of the renowned orator. Wirt was so much 
 pleased, that when he retired he wrote a note to Mr. "Randolph, 
 thanking him for the rich treat he had given him, and begging that 
 he would put down in writing the substance of what he had 
 said. Randolph now saw the trick that was played upon him. He 
 immediately went to his friend Tazewell, and chided him soundly for 
 having made an exhibition of him in that way. Tazewell turned it 
 off as a pleasant joke ; nevertheless, the biographer of Patrick Henry 
 never got from that quarter any additional materials for the subject 
 of his memoir. It was on this occasion also that Mr. Randolph first 
 made the acquaintance of Dr. John Brockenbrough, who from that 
 time to the day of his death was the most intimate friend of his bo- 
 som the friend to whom he daily unfolded without reserve or fear 
 of exposure the inmost thoughts and feelings of his heart. The doc- 
 tor was a member of the grand jury, and the acquaintance commenced 
 in a way peculiar to John Randolph. " I did not seek his acquaint- 
 ance," says the doctor, " because it had been impressed on my mind 
 that he was a man of a wayward and irritable temper ; but as he knew 
 that I had been a school-fellow of his brothers, Richard and The- 
 odoric (while he was in Bermuda for the benefit of his health) b., 
 very courteously made advances to me to converse about his brothers, 
 to whom he had been much devoted, and ever afterwards I found him 
 a steady and confiding friend. He frequently passed much of his 
 time at my house, and was the most agreeable and interesting inmate 
 you can imagine. No little personal attention was ever lost on him, 
 and he rendered himself peculiarly a favorite with my wife by his 
 conversation on belles-lettres, in which he was so well versed ; and he 
 read (in which he excelled) to her very many of the choice passages of 
 Milton and Shakspeare. Mr. Randolph also had another remarkable 
 quality, irritable and sensitive as he was ; wticn alone with a friend 
 he would not only bear with patience, but would invite a full exprcs 
 sion of his friend's opinion on his conduct, or acts and sentiments,, 
 on any subject, either private or public."
 
 2(J2 LI FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 EMBARGO THE ILIAD OF ALL OUR WOES. 
 
 BY Jay's treaty of 1794, our difficulties with Great Brhain, 
 though not settled, were quieted for the time being ; while in conse- 
 quence of the same cause we were nearly involved in an open rup- 
 ture with France. 
 
 The change of administration and the convention with France 
 in 1800 restored a more friendly feeling between the two repub- 
 lics and the purchase of Louisiana in 1803 was accomplished with 
 more ease than Mr. Jefferson himself could have expected. Our 
 commerce for the first four years of the new administration was 
 exceedingly prosperous and the management of our domestic 
 affairs was conducted on strictly republican principles. Had peace 
 continued in Europe during the remainder of his term, Mr. Jeffer- 
 son's would have been a most brilliant and successful career. But 
 after the rupture of the treaty of Amiens and the renewal of hos- 
 tilities between the great belligerent powers, an unfavoratle change 
 took place in our foreign relations. 
 
 By a series of extraordinary victories, Great Britain had annihi- 
 lated the combined fleets of France, Spain and Holland, and made 
 herself undisputed mistress of the sea. The trade between these 
 countries and their colonies, their navies being destroyed, was now 
 for the first time opened to foreign bottoms. The United States 
 were the only people that could avail themselves of this advantage. 
 Their commercial marine in consequence was greatly enlarged, and 
 commerce itself was more than ever expanded and prosperous. 
 
 But England soon perceived that so long as this kind of traffic 
 was permitted she would derive no advantage from her naval victo- 
 ries. She commenced a series of measures to put an end to it. 
 
 Bonaparte, in the mean time, having elevated himself to the 
 
 imperial throne of France, had conquered nearly all Europe. 
 
 driven the Russian bear back into his polar regions, and was now 
 
 . seriously contemplating the destruction of England as the only 
 
 barrier in the way of universal conquest. But sad experience had
 
 EMBARGO. 
 
 263 
 
 taught him that the only way in which he could reach that sea-girt 
 empire was through her manufactures and commerce. His restric- 
 tive system on the continent was designed to sap and undermine 
 these two sources of English wealth and power. In their gigantic 
 efforts to destroy each other, these great belligerents paid no respect 
 to neutral rights or to the laws of nations might became right, and 
 Robin Hood's law of the strongest was the only available rule. 
 Whatever could affect the other injuriously was unhesitatingly 
 adopted without regard to the effect it might have on the rights of 
 neutral parties. They even resolved there should be no neutrals in 
 the contest ; and as the United States were the only independent, 
 power left, this warfare on their commerce was intended v> force 
 them into the controversy on the one side or the other. 
 
 The first act of hostility was commenced by Great Britain on the 
 16th May, 1806 : the British government, by an order of the King in 
 council, decreed that all the rivers and ports from Brest to the Elbe 
 (being about a thousand miles of sea-coast) should be considered in 
 a state of blockade. Where a port is actually blockaded by an 
 adequate force, any vessel attempting to enter is liable to be captur- 
 ed by the besieging squadron, and to be condemned as lawful prize. 
 But where no fleet was stationed on the prohibited coast, and the 
 blockade merely consisted in a decree of the government, all vessels 
 laden or sailing for the ports decreed to be in a state of siege, were 
 liable to be captured and condemned wherever found. This was re- 
 garded as a gross violation of neutral rights; and on the 21st 
 November, Bonaparte commenced his acts of retaliation. After charg- 
 ing England with disregarding the law of nations and the rights of 
 neutrality, and with declaring places in a state of blockade before 
 which she hau not a ship, he declared all the British Isles in a 
 state of blockade, and prohibited all trade and commerce with 
 them. He provided also in the decree (Berlin decree) for the cap- 
 ture and condemnation of English produce and manufactures, and 
 prohibited all neutral ships coming direct from England or the 
 English colonies, or having been there, from entering the ports of 
 France. 
 
 By this decree all commerce between England and the conti- 
 nent and between the United States and England was intruded to 
 be cut off. Any neutral vessel (and there were none but those be
 
 264 LI FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 longing to citizens of the United States) sailing for England, or 
 from an English port to the continent, was subject to capture and 
 condemnation. The French minister, in consequence of a remon- 
 strance on the part of the United States, gave it as his opinion, that 
 the decree of blockade would be so qualified by the existing treaty 
 as not to operate on American commerce. Not much respect, how- 
 ever, was paid to this opinion by French cruisers ; and in September 
 1807 the decree was ordered to be fully enforced against all neutrals 
 
 In the mean time a negotiation was going on between the com 
 missioners of England and the United States. On the 30th oi 
 December, 1806. a treaty was signed settling amicably, if not satis- 
 factorily, all the difficulties between the two nations. But Bona 
 parte's Berlin decree having come to their knowledge, the British 
 commissioners, in a note delivered by order of the King, declared to 
 the American commissioners, that if France should execute that 
 decree, and the United States acquiesce in it, the British govern- 
 ment would hold themselves discharged from the treaty and issue 
 retaliatory orders against neutral commerce with France. Had the 
 treaty been ratified on that condition, it would have pledged the 
 United States to such a co-operation with Great Britain against 
 France, as must have ended in hostilities with the one and alliance 
 with the other. This was the object of England but Mr. Jefferson 
 was determined if possible to continue in his position of neutrality. 
 The treaty was received before the adjournment of Congress, the 4th 
 March, 1807 ; but he boldly suppressed it, and would not even sub- 
 mit it to the Senate for their consideration. He remembered too 
 well the effect of Jay's treaty on the public mind to venture one 
 himself. A total surrender of all her claims by Great Britain at that 
 . time would not have been acceptable, because it would have forced 
 the United States into an alliance with England, contrary to the 
 popular sentiment, which was decidedly in favor of the French cause. 
 In times of peace that treaty would have been favorably received 
 but under existing circumstances, the President had no intention of 
 suffering himself to be treaty-foundered as his predecessors had been. 
 Mr. Monroe, the principal negotiator, was much offended at the 
 rejection or rather unceremonious suppression of his treaty ; he had 
 hoped to gain much credit by this act of pacification. 
 
 In the mean time the affair of the Chesapeake took place, which
 
 EMBARGO. 
 
 265 
 
 greatly inflamed the public mind. A British squadron it seems was 
 lying near the mouth of Hampton Koads, in Lynnhaven Bay ; sev- 
 eral sailors deserted and took refuge on board the American frigate 
 Chesapeake, then in the port of Norfolk, fitting out for sea, the sail- 
 ors were demanded, but were refused to be given up on the ground 
 that they were American citizens. As the Chesapeake, on her des- 
 tined voyage, passed out of the Capes, she was followed by a Brit- 
 ish vessel detached from the squadron for that purpose ; so soon as 
 the Chesapeake got out of neutral waters into the ocean, she was 
 fired upon, her hull and rigging were much injured and several per- 
 sons were killed ; she was boarded, the sailors recaptured, and some 
 of them were put to death. This gross outrage, though unauthor- 
 ized and disavowed by the government, had an unhappy effect on the 
 public mind in the United States. A spirit of revenge seized Jhe 
 people ; and although England sent over a special minister to settle 
 the difficulty, a slight punctilio in the forms and etiquette of diplomacy 
 was seized upon as a pretext to prevent any advancements or ex- 
 planations on the part of the British envoy. 
 
 Such was the situation of affairs, when, on the llth of November, 
 1807, before the Berlin decree had been enforced against American 
 vessels, and while the government had reason to hope it would not be 
 enforced, Great Britain executed her threat intimated at the signing 
 of the treaty. By an order in council (with a preamble, charging 
 France with a want of respect to the laws of- nations and rights of 
 neutrality), it was decreed that all the ports and places of France 
 and her allies, or any other country at war with his majesty, and all 
 other ports and places in Europe from which, although not at war 
 with his majesty, the British flag is excluded, and all ports and 
 places in the colonies belonging to his majesty's enemies, shall from 
 henceforth be subject to the same restrictions, in point of trade and 
 navigation, (with certain exceptions,) as if the same were actually 
 blockaded by his majesty's naval forces, in the most strict and vigor- 
 ous, manner. 
 
 By these acts of England and France, professing to be acts of re- 
 taliation, and not at all in a spirit of hostility to the United States, 
 the neutral commerce of America was entirely destroyed. Not a ves- 
 sef could sail to Europe or to England, to the vast colonial regions of 
 North and South America, and the East and West Indies, without 
 
 VOL. i. 12
 
 266 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 being subject to capture and condemnation. The trade of the whole 
 world, in fact, was interdicted, and could not be carried on without 
 the risk of forfeiture. Both belligerents, however, had distinctly in- 
 timated that if the Ignited States would side with them, every advan- 
 tage should be given to their commerce. But this is what they did 
 not intend to do ; they did not mean to surrender all the advantages 
 they had hitherto enjoyed from their neutral position, if it could be 
 avoided. To side with England was war with France with France 
 was war with England. Mr. Jefferson was not prepared for either 
 alteraative. What was to be done 1 Commerce, left thus exposed, 
 must be ground into powder between the upper and nether millstone, 
 and be scattered as chaff before the winds of heaven. The Presi- 
 dent advised a dignified retirement from the ocean, until the storm 
 should have passed over. For the first time since our difficulties 
 with foreign nations, he took the responsibility of advising a definite 
 course of action. In a secret message to Congress, about the 19th of 
 December, 1807, he recommended that an embargo should be laid on 
 all American vessels. In a few days a bill to that effect was passed 
 into a law : all American vessels were prohibited, under high penal- 
 ties, from sailing to foreign ports, or from port to port within the 
 United States, without license. 
 
 The measure of an embargo was at first advocated by Mr. Ran- 
 dolph. He introduced the resolution, in accordance with the Presi- 
 dent's message ; but the bill which was finally adopted, originated in 
 the Senate ; it contained provisions that he could not approve, and he 
 opposed it on its passage. This is given as an instance of Mr. 
 Randolph's fickleness and want of object in his parliamentary course. 
 The debates were conducted in secret in fact, the bill was hurried 
 through the forms of legislation, with scarcely any debate. We do 
 not know, therefore, what was said on the occasion, and are left to 
 infer the grounds of Mr. Randolph's opposition to the bill, from his 
 general vhws on the subject of an embargo. He approved of such a 
 step in the beginning, as a war measure. An embargo of sixty or 
 ninety days, collecting and protecting all our resources, followed by a 
 declaration of war, at the end of that period, against that one of the 
 belligerents whose restrictive course manifested the strongest spirit of 
 hostility, would have fulfilled Mr. Randolph's idea of such a meas- 
 ure. But such was not the intention of the friends of the adminis-
 
 EMBARGO. 267 
 
 tration, in. passing the act now under consideration. It was designed 
 as a measure to be permanent for an indefinite period. France and 
 England were told that it was not conceived in a spirit of hostility 
 to them, but was merely intended as a municipal regulation. The 
 truth was, however, and they did not fail to perceive it. that the whole 
 object of withdrawing our commerce from the- ocean, was to operate 
 on those two nations. It was intended to starve France and her de- 
 pendencies, and to break England, unless they would abandon their 
 absurd pretensions over the rights of neutral nations. But when this 
 happy result would take place, it was impossible to tell. For a meas- 
 ure of this kind to come home to the bosom and the business of a 
 great nation, must necessarily take a very long time. Indeed, it was 
 reasonable to suppose that the desired object never could be accom- 
 plished in that way. The resources of England and of France were 
 too great and too varied, to be seriously affected by a suspension of 
 even the whole of American commerce. The event proved what, it 
 would seem, a little forethought ought to have anticipated After the 
 embargo had been in operation for twelve months, those two nations 
 were no nearer being forced into terms than they were at first ; while 
 their spirit of hostility was greatly exasperated. 
 
 But what effect did the measure have on affairs at home on the 
 character of our own people ? Here, it was disastrous in the extreme. 
 An embargo is the most heroic remedy that can be applied to state 
 diseases. It must soon run its course, and kill or cure in a short 
 time. It is like one holding his breath to rush through flame or me- 
 phitic gas : the suspension may be endured for a short time, but the 
 lungs at length must be inflated, even at the hazard of suffocation 
 Commerce is the breath that fills the lungs of a nation, and a total 
 suspension of it is like taking away vital air from the human system ; 
 convulsions or death must soon follow. By the embargo, the farmer, 
 the merchant, the mechanic, the capitalist, the ship-owner, the sailor, 
 and the day-laborer, found themselves suddenly arrested iu their daily 
 business. Crops were left to rot in the warehouses; ships in the 
 docks ; capital was compelled to seek new channels for investment, 
 while labor was driven to every shift to keep from starvation. 
 
 Sailors, seeing the uncertain continuation of this state of things, 
 flocked in great numbers to the British navy. That service which, in 
 former years, they most dreaded, necessity now compelled them to
 
 268 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 seek with avidity. Smuggling was extensively carried on through 
 the whole extent of our wide-spread borders ; the revenue was 
 greatly reduced ; and the morals of the people were corrupted by 
 the vast temptations held out to evade the laws. It is difficult to tell 
 on what classes of the community this disastrous measure did not 
 operate. On the planting and shipping interest, perhaps, it was most 
 serious. On the one, it was more immediate . on the other, more 
 permanent, in its evil consequences. 
 
 In cities and commercial regions, capital and labor are easily di- 
 verted from one employment to another. That which to-day is profit- 
 ably engaged in commerce, may to-morrow, if an inducement offers, 
 be as readily turned into successful manufactures. Not so with the 
 labor and capital employed in agriculture ; here the change jiust be 
 slow. But with the capital and the kind of labor employed in the 
 tobacco and cotton planting of the South, no change, to any percepti- 
 ble degree, was possible. The Southern people, being wholly agri- 
 cultural, could live a few years without the sale of their crops ; but 
 the Northern people, being mainly dependent on their labor and com- 
 merce, could not exist with an embargo of long duration. Hence we 
 find a patient endurance of its evils on the part of the South, while a 
 spirit of insurrection pervaded the people of the North. In this rest- 
 less condition, much of their capital and labor were permanently di- 
 rected to manufactures. The bounties offered by a total prohibition 
 of foreign articles, stimulated this branch of business in a remarkable 
 degree ; and when the embargo, non-intercourse, and war ceased to 
 operate as a bounty, they have had to be sustained by heavy duties 
 imposed on foreign commerce, at the expense of the planting interest 
 of the South, which is mainly dependent on a foreign market for the 
 sale of its commodities. Every dollar taken from commerce, and in- 
 vested in manufactures, was turning the current from a friendly into 
 a hostile channel, to that kind of agriculture which was dependent on 
 foreign trade for its prosperity. The immediate effect of the embargo 
 was, to starve New England. Its more permanent consequence has 
 been, to build it up at the expense of the planting interest of the 
 South. New England has now two sources of wealth, in her manu- 
 factures and commerce ; while the South have still the only one of 
 planting tobacco and cotton on exhausted lands, and with a reduced 
 market for the sale of her commodities.
 
 EMBARGO. 
 
 269 
 
 It was impossible for Mr. Randolph to advocate such a measure. 
 He could not foresee all the evils it might entail on his country ; but 
 his practical wisdom, aided by his deep interest in the welfare of his 
 constituents, taught him that no good could come out of an embargo 
 reduced to a system, and made a part of the municipal regulations of 
 the Government. As the first step towards an immediate prepara- 
 tion for war, he could approve the act : out as a scheme destined to 
 act on foreign countries, while it was wasting ihe resources of Govern- 
 ment, and consuming the substance of the people at home, it met his 
 decided disapprobation. 
 
 Twelve months had now rolled around, and all parties had become 
 of his opinion. No impression abroad. Nothing but disaster at 
 home. The legislature of Massachusetts pronounced it an unconsti- 
 tutional act. They were not far from the truth. For a short period, 
 and as a war measure, an embargo would be constitutional ; but the 
 embargo acts adopted from time to time by Congress, and persisted 
 in for more than a year, were very far from being clearly constitutional. 
 Massachusetts pronounced them not only unconstitutional, but unjust 
 and oppressive. 
 
 In 1799, when Virginia interposed her State authority, and de- 
 clared the alien and sedition laws unconstitutional, Massachusetts 
 then said, that the Supreme Court was alone competent to pronounce 
 on the constitutionality of a federal law. But she now saw the error 
 and the evil consequences- of such a doctrine. The Supreme Court 
 had declared the embargo acts to be constitutional ; while a sovereign 
 State, crushed and ruined by the burdens they imposed, saw those 
 enactments in a very different light. Was- she to be silent, and 
 bear the evils inflicted by those laws, merely because the courts had 
 pronounced in their favor? By no means. She was one of the 
 sovereign parties who had ordained the Constitution as a common 
 government, endowing it with certain general powers for that pur- 
 pose ; and surely, from the very nature of things, she had a right to 
 say whether this or that law transcended those delegated powers 
 or not. 
 
 Whether Massachusetts strictly followed the doctrine of State 
 rights, as laid down by Mason, Jefferson, and Madison, we pretend 
 not to say ; but we do say, that she had a right to interpose her au 
 thority, to pronounce the embargo laws unconstitutional, to show
 
 270 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 their injustice and oppression, and to demand their repeal by instruc- 
 tions to her own senators and representatives. Massachusetts did 
 interpose ; pronounced her repugnance to the law ; and her will was 
 respected. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson might have taken a very different course from the 
 one pursued by him. He might have said, This disaffection is only 
 found among the federalists ; they despise State rights, and have 
 only resorted to them on this occasion to abuse them ; the people of 
 Massachusetts are favorable to my administration, and to the ob- 
 noxious law ; my popularity and influence are unbounded in other 
 sections of the Union ; by persevering a little longer, we shall accom- 
 plish all that was designed by the embargo ; I will therefore disre- 
 gard the clamors of these people, and persist in enforcing the law, 
 even should it drive them to extremity. But Mr. Jefferson did not 
 reason in this way. He saw that a sovereign State, through her 
 regular legislative forms, had pronounced against the law ; it was not 
 for him to scrutinize the character and composition of that legisla- 
 ture ; it was enough for him to know, that a State had solemnly de- 
 clared the law unconstitutional, unjust, and oppressive. When, in 
 addition, he was told by a distinguished statesman from Massachu- 
 setts, that a longer persistence might endanger the integrity of the 
 Union, he unhesitatingly acquiesced in a repeal of the most important 
 and favored measure of his administration. 
 
 "What might have been the consequences if Massachusetts had 
 been driven to extremities, we will not conjecture we do not reason 
 from extreme cases. All we have to say is, that so long as the States 
 have the independence to maintain those rights guaranteed to them 
 by the Constitution, and that so long as there is patriotism and 
 virtue in the administration of the Federal Government, there will 
 never be the necessity of driving the States into those extreme 
 measures of secession or nullification.
 
 .GUNBOATS 271 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIV 
 
 GUNBOATS. 
 
 THE question may be asked here, Why did Mr. Jefferson make so 
 little preparation for a war which, sooner or later, seemed to be inevi- 
 table ? To understand his policy, we must first know the political 
 principles that governed his conduct. He came into power as the 
 leader of the republican State-Rights party. During the first four 
 years of his administration, he applied the few simple and abste- 
 mious doctrines of that party most successfully in the management 
 of our domestic affairs. But now a new and untried scene way opened 
 before him. Never were the embarrassments of any government in 
 regard to foreign powers more intricate and perplexing ; and, to 
 increase his difficulties, he had to deal with the most powerful nations 
 on earth, who, in their hostility to each other, paid no respect to the 
 laws of nations or the rights of neutrality. The Constitution was 
 ordained mainly for the purpose of regulating commerce, foreign and 
 domestic, and establishing a common rule of action in our intercourse 
 with other countries. While the States at home preserved their poli- 
 tical existence, retained much of their original sovereignty, were dis- 
 tinct, variant, and even hostile in some of their domestic interests, to 
 the world abroad they presented but one front. At home each pur- 
 sued its own policy, developed its own internal resources, and was 
 unconscious of the existence of a common government, save in the 
 negative blessing that it bestowed upon them of peace with each other 
 and with the world. They literally fulfilled the spirit of their national 
 motto, E plurihus unum at home many, abroad one. It is obvious 
 that peace must be an essential element in the successful operation 
 of such a complicated system of government. War of whatever kind, 
 especially an aggressive war, whether by land or sea, must destroy 
 its equilibrium, and precipitate all its movements on the common cen- 
 tre, which, by an intense over-action, must finally absorb all counter- 
 vailing influences. Mr. Jefferson was thoroughly penetrated with 
 the true spirit of our Constitution ; so was John Randolph. These 
 profound statesmen thought alike on that subject : they differed as t-
 
 272 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 certain measures of policy, but not at all in their principles. They 
 both sought the peace of the country, not only as the best condition 
 for developing its resources, but as an essential means for preserving 
 the purity of its institutions. Neither could look with complacency 
 on a standing army or a large naval establishment. They did not even 
 consider them as essential in the present emergency, more imminent, 
 perhaps, than any that could possibly occur at a future period. 
 
 Negotiation having failed, and both belligerents still continuing 
 to plunder our commerce, Mr. Jefferson recommended, as the only 
 remedy, a total abandonment of the ocean. Mr. Randolph's advice 
 was to arm the merchant marine, and let them go forth and defend 
 themselves in the highways of a lawful commerce. As the means of 
 home defence, Jefferson recommended the construction and equip- 
 ment of gunboats, in numbers sufficient to protect the harbors and 
 seaports from sudden invasion. Randolph advised to arm the mili- 
 tia, put a weapon in the hands of every yeoman of the land, and fur- 
 nish the towns and seaports with a heavy train of artillery for their 
 defence. 
 
 In all this we perceive but one object a defence of the natal soil 
 (natcde solurri) by the people themselves, and a total abstinence from 
 all aggression. " Pour out your blood," said these wise statesmen to 
 the people ; " pour out your blood in defence of your borders ; but 
 shed not a drop beyond." Happy for the country could this advice 
 have always been followed ! As Randolph foresaw and predicted, 
 we came out of the war with Great Britain without a constitution : 
 mainly to his exertions in after years are we indebted for its restora- 
 tion. The late war with Mexico has engendered a spirit of aggres- 
 sion and of conquest among the people, and has taught the ambitious, 
 aspiring men of the country, that military fame achieved in an hour 
 is worth more than the solid reputation of a statesman acquired by 
 long years of labor and self-sacrifice. Where these things are to end 
 it does not require much sagacity to foresee. Let the people take 
 warning in time, and give heed to the counsel of their wisest states- 
 men ; let them dismiss their army and their navy, relieve the coun- 
 try of those burthensome and dangerous accompaniments of a mili- 
 tary government, and trust to negotiation, justice, and their own ener- 
 gies and resources for defence. What was visionary and impracti- 
 cable in the warlike days of Jefferson, is now wholly reasonable and
 
 GUNBOATS. 273 
 
 proper. What gunboats could not do, steam vessels can fully accom- 
 plish. For defence there is no need of a navy ; for aggressive war, 
 we trust the day may never come when it shall be called into requi 
 sition. 
 
 There was one subject on which Kandolph and Jefferson differed 
 so essentially that it would seem to indicate a more radical diver- 
 gency of principles than we are willing to admit existed between 
 them. They both sincerely labored to preserve a strict neutrality 
 between the great belligerents of Europe ; but when driven to ex- 
 tremity, and forced to choose between the one and the other, Jeffer- 
 son would have selected France as a friend, whilst Randolph would 
 have chosen England. In the days of John Adams these predilec- 
 tions would have marked their political characters as being essentially 
 different on all the great principles of government. But Randolph 
 contended that since that day circumstances had greatly altered. 
 France was then a free republic, fighting for the liberties of Europe, 
 while England was in coalition with the old monarchies to destroy 
 them. France was now a military despotism, grasping at the empire 
 of the world, while England was the only barrier in the way of uni- 
 versal conquest. To suffer old partialities and prejudices to influence 
 their conduct in such a state of affairs, he thought, was the height of 
 folly and madness. He had no greater friendship for England and 
 her institutions than before ; but she had become essential for his 
 own protection, and he was willing to use her for that purpose. These 
 views seem not only to be plausible, but just. A practical states- 
 man, at that time, looking at events as they transpired around him. 
 ar.d gazing on the rapid strides of Napoleon towards universal con- 
 quest, would have coincided with Mr. Randolph have exclaimed 
 with him that it was poor consolation to reflect that we were to be 
 the last to be devoured, and have taken refuge behind the floating 
 batteries of England as the last retreat to the expiring liberties of the 
 world. But Thomas Jefferson did not view the subject in this prac- 
 tical way : he was the profound philosopher that looked at political 
 causes and consequences in their radical and essential relations to 
 each other, and the bold pioneer that dared to sacrifice what seemed 
 to be the present interest to the future and more permanent welfare 
 of his country. 
 
 In his judgment the great causes that produced the marvellous 
 
 VOL. i. 12*
 
 274 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 events then daily transpiring on the theatre of Europe, had not 
 changed ; it was still the spirit of democracy contending against the 
 old feudal aristocracy, which had so long oppressed and enslaved the 
 nations. The crusade of Bonaparte, aside from his own personal 
 ambition, had no other end but the overthrow of those rotten dynas- 
 ties that sat like a leaden weight on the hearts of the people ; and A 
 revival of those old memories of privileges and franchises that lay 
 buried and forgotten beneath the rubbish and worthless trivialities of 
 a profligate court and a heartless monarchy. 
 
 To repress the numerous factions that were tearing her vitals 
 within, and to beat back the myrmidons of power that assailed her 
 from without, it was necessary that France should concentrate all 
 her energies in the hands of a military despot. The times called for 
 a dictator. But Napoleon himself was a phenomenon that must 
 soon pass away ; his long existence was incompatible with the just 
 order of things; his downfall must be followed by a restoration of the 
 Bourbons, or by a revival of the Republic, chastened and purified by 
 the ordeal through which she had passed. Bonaparte saw to the root 
 of the matter when he said, that in a few years Europe must be Re- 
 publican or Cossack. Jefferson perceived and acted on this profound 
 principle long before Bonaparte gave utterance to it. He knew well 
 that England was the same now that she was in the days of the coa- 
 lition ; her allies were gone, because the arms of France and the 
 insurrection of their own subjects had overturned their power ; the 
 French evil had spread over Europe, and her battle was still against 
 that ; the right of the people to pull down and to build up dynasties 
 the doctrine that governments belong to the people and not the 
 people to governments, and that they can alter or abolish them at 
 pleasure, were principles that she fought against and labored to re- 
 press and to destroy. Had she succeeded in overturning the power 
 of Napoleon, she would have forced on the nations of Europe, by vir- 
 tue of her cherished doctrine of legitimacy, the worst of all govern- 
 ments a restoration of the old monarchies claiming to rule, not by 
 the will of the people, but by the divine right of kings. It was not 
 in the nature of Thomas Jefferson to aid in the remotest degree in 
 the accomplishment of such an end. besides all this, he knew there 
 was no sympathy between the democracy of America and the aris- 
 tocracy of England ; the one was progressive, the other conservative ;
 
 GUNBOATS. 
 
 275 
 
 the one readily embraced every measure that tended to elevate and 
 to improve the masses of mankind, the other repressed every propo- 
 sition that contemplated a change in the present order of things ; the 
 one held that government must spring from the will of the people, 
 and is but an agent in the hands of their representatives for the good 
 of the whole; the other that all wealth and power belong to the 
 few, and government but an instrument to preserve and perpetuate 
 their authority. Any coalition or union between elements so repug- 
 nant would have produced evil rather than good ; it would have shed 
 a malign influence ou the one hand, while on the other the contact 
 would have been regarded as a vile contamination. Jefferson was 
 the embodiment of American democracy ; the masses of the people 
 felt that he gave form and expression to the great sentiments that 
 lay confused and voiceless in their own bosoms, and they knew that 
 he would be faithful in following the impulses of that mighty concen- 
 tration of a people's will in his own person : hence his influence over 
 the public mind his almost despotic sway over the legislation of the 
 country. In 1806, a subservient legislature, in obedience to his 
 secret wishes, voted him money without restriction to negotiate with 
 Spain and France, when his public messages declared that negotiation 
 was at an end, and breathed the strongest spirit of resistance. In 
 1807 his commissioners, his favorite negotiator, Monroe, being one 
 of them, had made a treaty with England, as favorable as could be 
 expected at that time, but he put it in his pocket and refused to sub- 
 mit it to the consideration of that branch of the government which 
 had a right and might have advised its ratification. When Great 
 Britain sent a special envoy to make reparation for the unauthorized 
 attack on the Chesapeake, he stood on an untenable point of etiquette, 
 refused to receive or even to hear any propositions on that subject, 
 and suffered the public mind to be inflamed by an unnecessary delay 
 of adjustment. Before he had any official information of the orders 
 in council, issued in retaliation to the Berlin decree, on the mere 
 authority of newspaper reports, he sent a secret message to Congress 
 advising an embargo : in silence and in haste his will was obeyed 
 a sudden pause was given to business at his command the people 
 stood still, and let fall from their hands the implements of track' and 
 the means of their subsistence. This measure, whether so ittteaded 
 or not, coincided with the view? of Napoleon : while it could affect
 
 276 LI FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 France but slightly, it formed an essential part of that great conti- 
 nental system that had for its object the subjugation of England by 
 a destruction of her commerce and manufactures. 
 
 Bonaparte approved, and the indomitable Saxon spirit of England 
 refused to yield : the dire recoil was most severely felt at home, but the 
 patriotism of the people increased with the disasters inflicted upon 
 them ; and they continued to follow their bold leader with a fortitude 
 and intrepidity that would have persevered to the bitter end, had he 
 not said, enough ! and acquiesced in the repeal of his favorite mea- 
 sure. Jefferson stood to the people of America as Napoleon to the 
 people of France he embodied the will of a free and enlightened 
 republic, devoted to the arts of peace, and governed by laws and a 
 written constitution ; Napoleon was the dread symbol of a wild 
 democracy, sprung from the bosom of a volcano, chaotic in all its 
 fiery elements, and armed with firebrands to burn up the dross and 
 stubble of the worn-out and rotten monarchies that surrounded it ; both 
 were invincible, so long as they continued to stand in the focus, and to 
 reflect the mighty energies that were concentrated in their own person. 
 
 We say, then, that the policy of Jefferson, viewed by a practical 
 statesman, would seem to be unwise. It inflicted many evils on the 
 country at the time, and entailed a lasting injury on the planting 
 interests of the South : but it saved the principles of democracy ; and 
 it saved the country, if not from an actual participation in the Con- 
 gress of Vienna, it saved them from a humiliating acquiescence in 
 the holy alliance of despots, confederated under a solemn oath to 
 smother and extinguish every sentiment of liberty that might dare 
 to breathe its existence in the bosoms of their oppressed and de- 
 graded subjects. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 JAMES MADISON PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 MR. RANDOLPH was opposed to the elevation of James Madison to 
 the presidency. His objections extended back to an early period in 
 the political history of that gentleman. As we have said, the coun-
 
 JAMES MADISON. 277 
 
 try is indebted to the efforts of Mr. Madison for their present Con- 
 stitution. His great labors and untiring zeal, both in the Federal 
 convention that framed it, and the Virginia convention that ratified 
 it. overcame every obstacle, and finally presented to the people a form 
 of government to strengthen and consolidate their union. But the 
 happy blending of national and federal features in the constitution, 
 whereby the States have preserved their independence, and much of 
 their sovereignty, was not the conception of Mr. Madison. He 
 thought the States ought not to be entirely obliterated ; but until the 
 plan of George Mason was developed, he did not understand how their 
 existence could be made compatible with a common central govern- 
 ment, operating alike on all the people. He did not cordially acqui- 
 esce in the States-rights doctrine ingrafted on the Constitution. In 
 all the debates in both conventions, he is generally found opposed to 
 the views of Mr. Mason. And it was charged against him, that in 
 the essays which he wrote, in conjunction with Jay and Hamilton, 
 with the view of recommending the Constitution to the people, he ad- 
 vocated, with as much earnestness as those avowed centralists, a 
 strong consolidated government. When party excitement grew very 
 violent, in the times of the whisky insurrection, and of Jay's treaty, 
 when Randolph was driven, in disgrace, from the Cabinet, and Mon- 
 roe recalled, under sentiments of strong displeasure, Mr. Madison 
 was charged with having abandoned his post on the floor of Con- 
 gress, and seeking ease and personal safety in retirement. In the 
 Virginia legislature it was said he opposed the general ticket system, 
 which was adopted with the view of casting the whole vote of the 
 State in favor of Mr. Jefferson, at the approaching election, and with- 
 out which he would have been defeated. But the weightiest charge 
 of all was that preferred by John Randolph, on the floor of Congress. 
 The reader is already familiar with that subject. Randolph declared 
 that the Secretary of State, in a conversation with him, expressed his 
 willingness to buy peace with Spain, by paying tribute to France ; 
 and he averred that, on the expression of such pusillanimous senti- 
 ments, his confidence, which at no time was very great, had entirely 
 vanished. Mr. Madison, it was also said, was a mere closet philoso- 
 pher an able logician, but a weak and timid statesman. The times 
 required a man of nerve and energy. James Monroe was held up by 
 his friends, as combining, more than any other man, all the qualities
 
 278 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 needed for the present exigency. A number of the republican men 
 bers of Congress met together in caucus, and nominated Mr. Madisoi 
 for the presidency. John Eandolph and some sixteen or seventeen 
 others, denounced this nomination, and protested against the right of 
 members of Congress to make it. They said that such a plan had 
 been resorted to on a former occasion, in order to concentrate the 
 votes of the republican party on one candidate, to prevent their de- 
 feat by the federalists ; but there was no necessity for that concert 
 of action now ; the federalists, as a party, had been annihilated, had 
 no intention of bringing out a candidate ; and that whoever was elected 
 must be a republican. They contended therefore, that each should 
 have a fair field, and that no advantage should be given to either by 
 a resort to party machinery. Shortly after this, Mr. Monroe was no- 
 minated by a convention in Virginia, called together from the differ- 
 ent counties of the State. Thus we see two candidates from the same 
 state, for the highest office within the gift of the people ; both pro- 
 fessed the same political principles, each had high claims to the con- 
 fidence and support of their country, and each was put forward and 
 sustained by a fraction of the same pafty. We may well imagine the 
 heart-burnings and the angry feelings excited by such a contest. 
 The ablest men in the State eniploved their talents in writing for the 
 newspapers. Their essays, for the most part, were elaborate, well 
 written, and not unfrequently filled with wit, ridicule, irony, and the 
 bitterest sarcasm, and too frequently did they descend to the most 
 direct and pointed personalities. Mr. Madison was the candidate of 
 'the administration Monroe of the Tirtium Quids^ as they were 
 called. John Randolph was the master-spirit of this third party. 
 He of course came in for his full share of abuse. Even ridicule and 
 doggerel rhyme were resorted to as the means of bringing his name 
 into disrepute. 
 
 " Thou art a pretty little speaker, John 
 Though some there are who think you've spoke too long ; 
 And even call, sweet sir, your tongue a bell, 
 That ding-dong, dong-ding, tolls away ! 
 Yet mind not what such ' ragamuffins' say, 
 Roar still 'gainst ' back-stairs influence,' I pray, 
 Aad lash ' the pages of the water-closet' well ; 
 To ' dust and ashes 1 pray thee grind 'era, 
 Though I'm told 'twould puzzle you to find 'em.
 
 JAMES MADISON. 279 
 
 "But John, like water, thou must find thy ' level,' 
 Those horn-book politicians are the devil, 
 Some how or other they've so pleased the nation ; 
 For spite of ' cobweb theories' and 'sharks,' 
 Russels, Garnetts, Clays and Clarks, 
 ' Strait-jackets,' ' water gruel,' and ' depletion,' 
 Yes, yes, in spite of all those curious things, 
 The name of each with glory around us rings. 
 Whilst tkou of even patriotism doubted, 
 Art on all hands detested laughed at ' scouted,' 
 Nay, many think (though this perhaps is scandal,) 
 That soon you'll nothing be but plain Jack R dal." 
 
 Many a volley was aimed at his head, and many a valiant pen 
 was wielded in his defence. He sometimes descended into the lists 
 himself, and under a borrowed name hurled his polished and effective 
 shafts against the exposed and vulnerable points of his adversaries. 
 Many of the most distingushed men of the State were on his side of 
 the question ; indeed, it may be said that most of the young men of 
 talents and independence of character were his admirers and follow- 
 ers. But it soon became manifest that Mr. Monroe would get no 
 support out of the State of Virginia, and that the contest would be 
 between Mr. Madison and DeWitt Clinton, of New-York. Many of 
 the best friends of Mr. Monroe were unwilling to contribute to the 
 election of Clinton, by a loss of the State of Virginia to his opponent: 
 they therefore determined, however reluctantly, to cast their votes for 
 Mr. Madison ; so that when the election came on, the vote for Mon- 
 roe was very thin. It would seem that the Tirtium Quids, with all 
 their genius, eloquence, and fine writing, had made no impression on 
 the people. We can well conceive how this exposure of their weak- 
 ness operated on the nerves of those politicians who love always to 
 be found on the side of the majority. One by one they began to re- 
 cant their heresies, and to fall into the ranks of the administration 
 Mr. Monroe became a candidate for the legislature in the county of 
 Albemarle: he was interrogated on the subject, and profiled him- 
 self friendly to the new dynasty ; was elected ; appointed GOVITI:.T 
 of the State; and in due time was placed by Mr. Madisuii in hi.* 
 Cabinet. 
 
 Very soon Kandolph wa3 left with only a few personal and devo- 
 ted friends to stand by him Those who valued consistency more
 
 280 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 than office, and who regarded it as an act of dishonor to abandon a 
 friend in his hour of need, still adhered to him ; but the majority of 
 politicians, who look only to the loaves and fishes, had no hesitation in 
 making their escape from what they conceived to be a falling house. 
 This " ratting," as he called it, Mr. Kandolph never forgot nor for- 
 gave. His pride was cut to the quick ; his disgust was unbounded ; 
 and to the events of this period may be traced much of that bitter- 
 ness of feeling which he manifested towards certain individuals in 
 afterlife. Never did he suffer an occasion to pass that he did not 
 make them feel, by some cutting allusion, his deep indignation. This 
 seemed to the world a wanton indulgence of a vile, cruel, and sarcas- 
 tic temper : but the parties themselves understood and keenly felt 
 the meaning of his allusions ; and well did they repay his disgust and 
 contempt, by a most cordial hatred. 
 
 "Why have you not gone to Philadelphia?" says me of his flat- 
 terers, writing to him about this time " every one there whose atten- 
 tion could confer either pleasure or honor was prepared for your 
 reception. The learning, the genius, and the eloquence of the city, 
 with all its train of social manners, wit, beauty, gayety and inno- 
 cence, were prepared to spread for you a rich and varied feast of 
 enjoyment. You have ceased to be the head of a great triumphant 
 party, but. rely upon it, you are at the head of the taste, feeling and 
 honor of the nation." 
 
 Yet this man in a few years glided into the ranks of the admin- 
 istration became the secret reviler of one on whom he had bestow- 
 ed the grossest adulation : and finally supported all the Federal 
 measures of Monroe and John Quincy Adams ; bank, tariff, inter- 
 nal improvements, and whatever else that tended to produce a 
 strong, magnificent, corrupt, and consolidated government. It is 
 not surprising that a man of Mr. Randolph's temper, exasperated as 
 it had been by so many instances of the same kind, could not look 
 with complacency on such characters ; but he visited as a crime on 
 the head of the offender that which he should have forgiven as a 
 weakness of our common nature. He understood mankind too well 
 not to have known the certain consequences of defeat ; the abdica- 
 ting Emperor at Fontainebleau, when abandoned by all those whom 
 he had made marshals and princes, might have told him that mis- 
 fortune is like a nipping frost, that scatters the leaves and the
 
 JAMES MADISON. 
 
 281 
 
 blossoms, and leaves bare the naked limbs to battle alone with the 
 rude blasts of winter. 
 
 The following extract taken from an unpublished essay, dated 
 August 31, 1808, will throw much light on the excited and angry 
 nature of the controversy carried on at that time between the fol- 
 lowers of John Randolph and the adherents of Mr. Madison : 
 
 " I addressed you formerly with a view to the approaching presi- 
 dential election ; but before I could recover from the repulse which 
 I met in my first attempt to approach the people, it was already too 
 late. Every man had already chosen his part in that drama many 
 were already in imagination tricked out in the robes of office in 
 which they were to assist at the installation of Mr. Madison ; and, 
 so far as it could depend upon the votes of Virginia, that election 
 was already decided. The partisans of government have ceased 
 to bestow their attention upon this subject, and have already turned 
 it to another. I mean the election of a representative from the 
 counties of Cumberland, &c. The stormy rage of the presidential 
 contest has been no sooner hushed, than both the Argus and the 
 Enquirer have, at once, turned their batteries against the gentleman 
 who at present represents that district. Writers, scarcely worthy to be 
 noticed, and whom it would be a disgrace to answer, have hastened 
 to engage in the meritorious service of removing the only eye that 
 watches over the administration. Looking forward to the election 
 of Mr. Madison, they no doubt anticipate much from this at- 
 tempting to destroy the man, before whom, in spite of all the pomp 
 of office, he would be compelled to feel the intrinsic littleness of his 
 character. Unworthy as their childish arguments and groundless 
 assertions are of the poor respect of refutation and contradiction, 
 they at least remind us of the proverbial truth, ' that straws show 
 the course of the wind ;' and if I mistake them not, it is not the 
 only occasion on which they have displayed the properties of the 
 weathercock. Though their arguments prove nothing, their attempts 
 at argument prove much. They show the real offence of Mr. R., 
 they show the real causes of the clamor which is raised against" him. 
 It is the usual fate of fools and knaves that the weapons which they 
 pretend to wield, recoil upon their own heads. Th<'s<> mm liav. 
 endeavored to detract from the merit of Mr. R., but they !KI\. 
 exposed their own weakness ; they have evinced the irreconcileable
 
 282 LI FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 malignity of themselves and their party towards him, at the same 
 time that they have stated objections, which, if true and well found- 
 ed, as they are false and groundless, would be utterly inadequate to 
 the production of such an effect ; and they compel us to believe 
 that there is some other secret cause or motive for their antipathy 
 to that gentleman, which is not revealed, only because it will not 
 bear the light. Mr. R's constituents have been much at a loss to 
 know wherefore the whole force of the government has been exerted 
 to provide them a representative, some worthy associate of John 
 Love and John Dawson. They feel indeed the importance of his 
 past services, and they see in them some evidence of abilities not to 
 be despised. They perceive also that he differs from the adminis- 
 tration on some points. They are even told by the newspapers that 
 he is opposed to them on all, but at the same time they are assur- 
 ed, that he stands alone in this opposition, without a party, even 
 without personal friends, and that there is more to pity in his infat- 
 uation than to dread from this hostility. Why then all this strug- 
 gle, this ceaseless anxiety ? and (to use a quotation of your own Mr. 
 Ritchie,) this ' ocean into tempest wrought to drown a fly ?' Is 
 the spirit of federalism then extinct ; is that monster no more, 
 that nothing remains but to turn the whole force of the administra- 
 tion to the destruction of such an, insect, as they would represent 
 Mr. Randolph ? This surely is not the case. The federal represen- 
 tation of Connecticut yet remains entire. Its banners are yet dis- 
 played, and those who yesterday deserted, are, to-day, returning to 
 them. The mighty State of Massachusetts, which of late the admin- 
 istration so proudly numbered among their supporters, has already 
 repented of her conversion ; while the Vermontese are newly bap- 
 tized to the federal faith in the blood of their countrymen. Perhaps 
 indeed they balance all this with the conversion of Mr. J. Q. Adams. 
 and by the same political arithmetic, which teaches them that the 
 downfall of Mr. Randolph is of more importance than the defeat of 
 the federalists, they think the acquisition of this gentleman an 
 amplo compensation for the loss of two entire States. No doubt 
 indeed they augur well from it, no doubt they regard it as an all- 
 sufficient evidence of Mr. Adams's conviction of the stability of 
 their power. Ten years ago they would have told you that this 
 gentleman knew, as well as any one, who kept the key of the ex-
 
 JAMES MADISON. 283 
 
 chequer, and it would be strange indeed, if, when his father held 
 it so long, he had not found out the value of the coin. They per- 
 haps remember too, that about that time he was talked of as the 
 contemplated successor to the crown of these realms, and they pos- 
 sibly regard his accession to their party as an implied relinquishment 
 of his title, in favor of the hopeful progeny of our modern Livia. 
 I would warn them, however, not to build too much upon that. 
 They should rather infer from the example of Spain, that the mino- 
 rity of the imperial nephew of his majesty, the emperor and king, 
 may be terminated by an invitation to Bayonne. 
 
 " But it cannot be that the administration, and the friends of the 
 .^ministration, think that there is less to be feared from the federal 
 party than there was three years ago. How then does it happen that 
 the necessity of putting down this great and growing evil is forgotten 
 in the struggle to remove that gentleman from the confidence of his 
 constituents? They tell us indeed, themselves, that the republican 
 cause has nothing to fear from Mr. R.. and they say true, sir. They 
 know that the republican cause has nothing to fear from him ; but 
 they feel at the same time, that the pretended supporters of that 
 cause have every thing to fear from him. They see in him the only 
 man on the floor of Congress who has the sagacity to detect and the 
 spirit to expose their unconstitutional practices and their nefarious 
 designs, and they wish his ruin, for the same reason that rogues wish 
 the absence of the sun. How else can their conduct be explained ? 
 At a time when the shattered forces of the federalists are again 
 assembling, when they are even enjoying a partial triumph, the Go- 
 vernment are seen endeavoring to drive from their ranks the most 
 distinguished and formidable adversary to that cause. No, sir ; they 
 love not the light, because their deeds are evil. And do those who 
 urge this clamor against Mr. R. suppose that the people are blind 
 to the real cause of it, that they form no judgment of the motives 
 and characters of the men who seek his ruin, by the means they use 
 for that purpose ? No ; they know that dirty tools are used for dirty 
 work, and that he who employs them in that way cannot have clean 
 hands. What can they think when they see his private letters be- 
 trayed, and his unguarded moments of gayety and conviviality watclu-d 
 and exposed? Shall they be told that these arc private occurn 
 No. sir. Mr. Gr. will not do even an act of treachery for nothing
 
 284 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Indeed, some of the partisans of Mr. Madison have not scrupled to 
 declare, that they consider his election as of little more importance 
 than the defeat of Mr. R. Can the people be at a loss to understand 
 wherefore ? As long as the views of Mr. Madison are constitutional, 
 and his conduct honorable, he can have nothing to fear from Mr. R. 
 In questions of mere policy, the weight of Executive patronage will 
 always preponderate, and, in questions of right, always powerful, 
 becomes invincible when supported by the name and authority of a 
 President. It is not until he transcends the limits of the Constitu- 
 tion that any opposition can be formidable. If such be their projected 
 course if the system of standing armies and navies, of treason bills 
 and habeas corpus acts, of unauthorized expenditures, and splendid 
 impunity to favored traitors and felons, with the practice of buying 
 peace, and giving to the President the powers of Congress are still 
 to be persisted in, let them beware of Mr. R. Already has he de- 
 claimed against these practices, and he has not been heard ; but they 
 know that the slumbers of the people are not to last for ever, and 
 they look forward with the apprehensions of a sinner, trembling in the 
 midst of his guilt, to the day when the vengeance of a deluded nation 
 shall be roused ; and at the sound of his voice, as at that of the last 
 trump, they shall call upon the mountains to cover them. I have no 
 doubt that those who made this avowal have somewhat transcended their 
 orders. Their instinctive sagacity leads them to the game which 
 their master is in pursuit of; but in the eagerness of their zeal, they 
 have flushed it too soon. They are at this moment trembling in the 
 expectation of being corrected for the blunder ; but they are not so 
 true spaniels as I take them to be, if they will not consent to have 
 their ears pulled for the mistake, provided they be fed for their 
 activity." 
 
 CHAPTEK XXXYI. 
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 THE great event of Mr. Madison's administration was the war with 
 England. For a long time, the grounds of complaint against that 
 Government were, the carrying trade and the impressment of sea-
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 285 
 
 men. Since 1 806, another and more serious difficulty, if possible, had 
 been thrown in the way of an amicable arrangement between the two 
 countries. By the Berlin decree and its supplements, France inter- 
 dicted all trade between the United States and Great Britain and her 
 dependencies. By her orders in council, professing to be in retalia- 
 tion of the Berlin decree, Great Britain interdicted all trade between 
 the United States and France, and her allies and their dependencies, 
 which embraced nearly all Europe and the civilized world. These 
 edicts did not affect the carrying trade merely, which was of very 
 doubtful justice, but they destroyed all commerce whatever. 
 
 By the British orders in council, American citizens were not al- 
 lowed to carry the products of their own country, in their own ships, 
 to a country hostile to England, and to bring back, in exchange, the 
 commodities of that country, without first paying tribute in a British 
 port, and obtaining license for that purpose. This extraordinary 
 assumption of power was acknowledged to be contrary to the law of 
 nations and the rights of neutrality; but it was justified on the 
 ground of necessity. Lex talianis was the only plea. To bring 
 about a sense of justice in the great belligerents, and a repeal of their 
 unwarrantable edicts, the embargo law was enacted ; but that proved 
 to be a two-edged sword, more deeply wounding our own sides than 
 those of the parties it was designed to effect. It was repealed, and a 
 non-importation act, as to England and France, substituted in its 
 place. This proving ineffectual, also, the olive branch was at length 
 held out, with these words : " That if Great Britain or France (Act of 
 May 1 1810,) should cease to violate the neutral commerce of the 
 Uniied States, which fact the President should declare by proclama- 
 tion, and the other should not, within three months thereafter, revoke 
 or modify its edicts in like manner, that then certain sections in a 
 former act, interdicting the commercial intercourse between the 
 United States and Great Britain and France, and their depend- 
 encies, should, from and after the expiration of three months 
 from the date of the proclamation, be revived, and have full force 
 against the former, its colonies, and dependencies, and against all arti- 
 cles the growth, produce, or manufacture of the same." France ac- 
 ceded to this proposition. On the 5th of August, 1810. the minister 
 of foreign affairs addressed a note to the minister plenipotentiary of 
 the United States at Paris, informing him that the decrees oj Berlin
 
 286 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 and Milan were revoked the revocation to take effect on the first of 
 November following ; that the measure had been taken by his Gov- 
 ernment, in confidence that the British Government would revoke 
 its orders, and renounce its new principles of blockade, or that the 
 United States would cause their rights to be respected. The means 
 by which the United States should cause their right to be respected. 
 in case Great Britain should not revoke her edicts, it was understood, 
 consisted merely in the enforcement of the non-importation act against 
 that nation. 
 
 Great Britain declined to revoke her edicts ; insisted that those 
 of France had not been revoked, and complained ;hat the United 
 States had done injustice, by earring into effect the non-importation 
 act against her. 
 
 Great Britain contended that, in the French decrees, it was ex- 
 pressly avowed, that the principles on which they were founded, and 
 the provisions contained in them, were wholly new, unprecedented, 
 and in direct contradiction to all ideas of justice, and the principles 
 and usages of civilized nations. The French Government did not 
 pretend to say that any one of the regulations contained in those de- 
 crees was a regulation which France had ever been in the previous 
 practice of. They were, consequently, to be considered, and were in- 
 deed allowed by France herself to be, all of them, parts of a new 
 system of warfare, unauthorized by the established law of nations. It 
 was in this light in which France herself had placed her decrees, that 
 Great Britain was obliged to consider them. 
 
 The submission of neutrals to any regulation made by France, au- 
 thorized by the law of nations, and practised in former wars, would 
 never be complained of by Great Britain ; but the regulations of the 
 Berlin and Milan decrees did, and were declared to violate the laws 
 of nations and the rights of neutrals, for the purpose of attacking, 
 through them, the resources of Great Britain. The ruler of France 
 had drawn no distinction between any of them, nor had he declared 
 the cessation of any one of them. 
 
 Not until the French decrees, therefore, it was contended by the 
 British minister, shall be effectually repealed, and thereby neutral 
 commerce be restored to the situation in which it stood previously to 
 their promulgation, can his royal highness conceive himself justified, 
 consistently with what he owes to the safety and honor of Great
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 287 
 
 Britain, in foregoing the just measures of retaliation which his majesty, 
 in his defence, was necessitated to adopt against them. 
 
 The Berlin and Milan decrees prohibited every thing that was 
 the manufacture or product of G-reat Britain from being imported to 
 the Continent, under any pretence whatever, whether owned by 
 British subjects, or owned and transported by neutrals. This latter 
 part of the decrees was in violation of the rights of neutrality. They 
 also, at the same time, prohibited all trade, on the part of neutrals, 
 with the British dominions. This portion was now repealed, so far 
 as it affected the United States. They were allowed to trade with 
 Great Britain and her dependencies, but were not permitted to carry 
 to the Continent any goods that were the manufacture or produce of 
 Great Britain, though they might have been purchased, and were 
 actually owned by American citizens. Great Britain insisted that 
 she could not repeal her orders in council, so long as the United 
 States suffered this infraction of their rights of neutrality. On the 
 other hand, it was contended that Great Britain had pledged herself 
 to repeal the orders in council whenever the decrees were revoked. 
 The decrees, it was said, were now revoked as it regarded the United 
 States ; but Britain, in violation of her pledge, persisted in refusing 
 to repeal her orders. The whole question, then, was narrowed down 
 to this : Had the Berlin and Milan decrees been revoked, in the 
 sense it was understood by the parties, at the time of the pledge ? 
 Great Britain said they had not. The United States said they had 
 been revoked, according to the understanding. 
 
 In this attitude matters stood, when Congress, on the 4th of No- 
 vember, 1811. was called together by proclamation of the President. 
 At the close of the last session of Congress." says the message, 
 ' it was hoped that the successive confirmations of the extinction of 
 the French decrees, so far as they violated our neutral commerce, 
 would have induced the government of Great Britain to repeal its 
 orders in council, and thereby authorize the removal of the existing 
 obstructions to her commerce with the United States. Instead of 
 this reasonable step towards satisfaction and friendship between tin- 
 two nations, the orders were, at a moment when least to havo IMMMI 
 expected, put into more rigorous execution; and it was roiniimni- 
 cated, through the British envoy just arrived, that whilst tin- iw.xMti.m 
 of the edicts of France, as officially made known to the British Gov-
 
 288 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 crnment, was denied to have taken place, it was an indispensable con 
 dition of the repeal of the British orders that commerce should be 
 restored to a footing that would admit the manufactures and pro- 
 ductions of Great Britain, when owned by neutrals, into markets 
 shut against them by her enemy the United States being given to 
 understand that, in the mean time, a continuation of the non-importa- 
 tion act would lead to measures of retaliation. ****** 
 
 " With the evidence of hostile inflexibility, in trampling on our 
 rights, which no independent nation can reliquish, Congress will 
 feel the duty of putting the United States into an armor and an 
 attitude demanded by the crisis, and corresponding with the national 
 spirit and expectations." 
 
 The subject was referred to a committee, who. in a report, reviewed 
 the grounds of complaint, and concluded with offering a series of reso- 
 lutions, the object of which was, to put the United States imme- 
 diately " into an armor and attitude demanded by the crisis." The 
 friends of the administration admitted that they urged the resolu- 
 tions as an immediate preparation for war. That war was inevitable, 
 and would be declared so soon as the nation was put into a posture 
 of defence. It was also said in debate that one of the objects, and 
 a necessary result of the war, would be the conquest of Canada. 
 
 On the 10th day of December, Mr. Randolph made one of his 
 most powerful and eloquent speeches in opposition to these war mea- 
 sures. As the speech is to be found in most of the collections of 
 American eloquence that have been published from time to time, we 
 must content ourselves with an extract here and there, barely suffi- 
 cient to explain in his own words the grounds of opposition. 
 
 " It is a question," said Mr. Randolph, " as it has been presented 
 to the House, of peace or war. In that light it has been regarded ; 
 in no other light can I consider it, after declarations made by mem- 
 bers of the Committee of Foreign Relations. Without intending any 
 disrespect to the chair, I must be permitted to say, that if the deci- 
 sion yesterday was correct, ' that it was not in order to advance any 
 arguments against the resolution, drawn from topics before other 
 committees of the House,' the whole debate nay, the report itself 
 on which we are acting is disorderly, since the increase of the mili- 
 tary force is a subject at this time in agitation by the select com- 
 mittee raised on that branch of the President's message. But it is
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 289 
 
 impossible that the discussion of a question, broad as the wide ocean 
 of our foreign concerns, involving every consideration of interest, of 
 right, of happiness, and of safety at home ; touching in every point 
 all that is dear to freemen 'their lives, their fortunes, and their 
 sacred honor ; ' can be tied down by the narrow rules of technical 
 routine. The Committee of Foreign Relations has indeed decided 
 that the subject of arming the militia (which I pressed upon them as 
 indispensable to the public safety) does not come within the scope of 
 their authority. On what ground, I have been, and still am, unable 
 to see. They have felt themselves authorized (when the subject was 
 before another committee) to recommend the raising of standing 
 armies, with a view (as has been declared) of immediate war a war 
 not of defence, but of conquest, of aggrandizement, of ambition a 
 war foreign to the interests of this country, to the interests of huma- 
 nity itself. 
 
 " I know not how gentlemen calling themselves republicans can 
 advocate such a war. What was their doctrine in 1798-9, when the 
 command of the army, that highest of all possible trusts in any 
 government, be the form what it may, was reposed in the bosom 
 of the Father of his country ! the sanctuary of a nation's love ! 
 the only hope that never came in vain? When other worthies 
 of the revolution, Hamilton, Pinckney, and the younger Wash- 
 ington, men of tried patriotism, of approved conduct and valor, 
 of untarnished honor, held subordinate command under him ? 
 Republicans were then unwilling to trust a standing army even 
 to his hands, who had gwen proof that he was above all human 
 temptation. Where now is the revolutionary hero to whom you are 
 about to confide this sacred trust ? To whom will you confide the 
 charge of leading the flower of your youth to the heights of Abra- 
 ham ? Will you find him in the person of an acquitted felon ? 
 What ! Tlien you were unwilling to vote an army, when such men as 
 have been named held high command ! When Washington himself 
 was at the head, did you tJten show such reluctance, feel such scru- 
 ple ? And are you now nothing loth, fearless of every consequence ? 
 Will you say that your provocations were less then than now, when 
 your direct commerce was interdicted, your ambassadors hooted with 
 derision from the French court, tribute demanded, actual war waged 
 upon you ? Those who opposed the army then were indeed denounced 
 VOL. i. 13
 
 290 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 as the partisans of France, as the same men some of them at least 
 are now held up as the advocates of England ; those firm and unde- 
 viating republicans, who then dared, and now dare, to cling to the 
 ark of the Constitution, to defend it even at the expense of their fame, 
 rather than surrender themselves to the wild projects of mad ambi- 
 tion. There is a fatality, sir, attending plenitude of power. Soon or 
 late some mania seizes upon its possessors ; they fall from the dizzy 
 height, through the giddiness of their own heads. Like a vast estate. 
 heaped up by the labor and industry of one man, which seldom sur- 
 vives the third generation. Power gained by patient assiduity, by a 
 faithful and regular discharge of its attendant duties, soon gets above 
 its own origin. Intoxicated with their own greatness, the federal 
 party fell. Will not the same causes produce the same effects now 
 as then ? Sir, you may raise this army, you may build up this vast 
 structure of patronage, this mighty apparatus of favoritism ; but 
 ' lay not the flattering unction to your souls,' you will never live to 
 enjoy the succession : you sign your political death warrant. * * * * 
 
 - This war of conquest, a war for the acquisition of territory and 
 subjects, is to be a new commentary on the doctrine that republics 
 are destitute of ambition ; they are addicted to peace, wedded to the 
 happiness and safety of the great body of their people. But it seems 
 this is to be a holiday campaign ; there is to be no expense of blood 
 or treasure on our part ; Canada is to conquer herself ; she is to be 
 subdued by the principles of fraternity. The people of that country 
 are first to be seduced from their allegiance, and converted into trai- 
 tors, as preparatory to the making them good citizens. Although I 
 must acknowledge that some of our flaming patriots were thus man- 
 ufactured. I do not think the process would hold good with a whole 
 community. It is a dangerous experiment. We are to succeed in 
 the French mode by the system of fraternization. All is French ! 
 But how dreadfully it might be retorted on the southern and western 
 slaveholding States. I detest this subornation of treason. No : if 
 we must have them, let them fall by the valor of our arms ; by fair, 
 legitimate conquest ; not become the victims of treacherous seduction. 
 
 ; ' I am not surprised at the war-spirit which is manifesting itself 
 in gentlemen from the South. In the year 1805-6, in a struggle for 
 the carrying trade of belligerent colonial produce, this country was 
 most unwisely brought into collision with the graat powers of Europe.
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 291 
 
 By a series of most impolitic and ruinous measures, utterly incom- 
 prehensible to every rational,' sober-minded man, the Southern plant- 
 ers, by their own votes, succeeded in knocking down the price of cot- 
 ton to seven cents, and of tobacco (a few choice crops excepted) to 
 nothing, and in raising the price of blankets (of which a few would 
 not be amiss in a Canadian campaign), coarse woollens, and every ar- 
 ticle of first necessity, three or four hundred per cent. And now 
 that by our own acts we have brought ourselves into this unprece- 
 dented condition, we must get out of it in any way but by an ac- 
 knowledgment of our own want of wisdom and forecast. But is war 
 the true remedy ? Who will profit by it 1 Speculators ; a few lucky 
 merchants, who draw prizes in the lottery ; commissaries and con- 
 tractors. Who must suffer by it ? The people. It is their blood, 
 their taxes, that must flow to support it. 
 
 " But gentlemen avowed that they would not go to war for the 
 carrying trade ; that is, for any other but the direct export and im- 
 port trade that which carries our native products abroad, and brings 
 back the return cargo ; and yet they stickle for our commercial 
 rights, and will go to war for them ! I wish to know, in point of 
 principle, what difference gentlemen can point out between the aban- 
 donment of this or of that maritime right ? Do gentlemen assume 
 the lofty port and tone of chivalrous redressers of maritime wrongs, 
 and declare their readiness to surrender every other maritime right, 
 provided they may remain unmolested in the exercise of the humble 
 privilege of carrying their own produce abroad, and bringing back a 
 return cargo ? Do you make this declaration to the enemy at the 
 outsot ? Do you state the minimum with which you will be contented, 
 and put it in her power to close with your proposals at her option ? 
 give her the basis of a treaty ruinous and disgraceful beyond exam- 
 ple and expression ? and this too after having turned up your noses 
 in disdain at the treaties of Mr. Jay and Mr. Monroe ? Will you 
 say to England, ' End the loar wlien you please; give us the direct 
 trade in our own produce, we are content ?' But what will the mer- 
 chants of Salem, and Boston, and New York, and Philadelphia, ami 
 Baltimore the men of Marblehead and Cape Cod, say to tin- 
 Will they join in a war professing to have for its object what tliey 
 would consider, and justly too, as the sacrifice of their maritime 
 rights, yet affecting to be a war for ike protection of com //icnr .'
 
 292 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 " I am gratified to find gentlemen acknowledging the demoral- 
 izing and destructive consequences of the non-importation law ; con- 
 fessing the truth of all that its opponents foretold when enacted ; and 
 will you plunge yourselves in war, because you have passed a foolish 1 
 and ruinous law, and are ashamed to repeal it? 'But our good 
 friend, the French Emperor, stands in the way of its repeal,' and, as 
 we cannot go too far in making sacrifices to him, who has given such 
 demonstration of his love for the Americans, we must, in point of fact, 
 become parties to this war. ' Who can be so cruel as to refuse him 
 this favor?' My imagination shrinks from the miseries of such con- 
 nection. I call upon the House to reflect whether they are not about 
 to abandon all reclamation for the unparalleled outrages, ' insults and 
 injuries' of the French Government ; to give up our claim for plun- 
 dered millions, and ask what reparation or atonement we can expect 
 to obtain in hours of future dalliance, after we shall have made a ten- 
 der of our persons to this great deflowerer of the virginity of repub- 
 lics. We have, by our own wise (I will not say wise-acre) measures, 
 so increased the trade of Montreal and Quebec, that at last we be- 
 gin to cast a wistful eye at Canada. Having done so much towards 
 its improvement, by the exercise of our ' restrictive energies,' we be- 
 gin to think the laborer is worthy of his hire, and to put in claim for 
 our portion. Suppose it ours, are we any nearer our point ? As his 
 minister said to the King of Epirus, ' May we not as well take our 
 bottle of wine before as after this exploit?' Go ! march to Canada ! 
 Leave the broad bosom of the Chesapeake, and her hundred tributary 
 rivers, the whole line of sea-coast, from Machias to St. Mary's, unpro- 
 tected : you have taken Quebec have you conquered England ? 
 Will you seek for the deep foundations of her power in the frozen 
 deserts of Labrador ? 
 
 ' Her march is on the mountain wave, 
 Her home is on the deep !' 
 
 Will you call upon her to leave your ports and harbors untouched, 
 only just till you can return from Canada to defend them ? The coast 
 is to be left defenceless, whilst men of the interior are revelling in 
 conquest and spoil. But grant for a moment, for mere argument's 
 sake, that in Canada you touched the sinews of her strength, instead 
 of removing a clog upon her resources an incumbrance, but one,
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 293 
 
 which, from a spirit of honor, she will vigorously defend. In what 
 situation would you then place some of the best men of the nation ? 
 As Chatham and Burke, and the whole band of her patriots prayed 
 for her defeat in 1776, so must some of the truest friends of the 
 country deprecate the success of our arms against the only power that 
 holds in check the arch enemy of mankind. 
 
 " Our people will not submit to be taxed for this war of conquest 
 and dominion. The government of the United States was not calcu- 
 lated to wage offensive foreign war ; it was instituted for the common 
 defence and general welfare ; and whosoever will embark it in a war 
 of offence, will put it to a test which it is by no means calculated to 
 endure. Make it out that Great Britain did instigate the Indians 
 on a late occasion, and I am ready for battle, but not for dominion. 
 I am unwilling, however, under present circumstances, to take Can- 
 ada at the risk of the Constitution ; to embark in a common cause 
 with France, and be dragged at the wheels of the car of some Burr 
 or Bonaparte. For a gentleman from Tennessee, or Genesee, or lake 
 Champlain, there may be some prospect of advantage. Their hemp 
 would bear a great price by the exclusion of foreign supply. In that, 
 too, the great importers were deeply interested. The upper country 
 on the Hudson and the lakes, would be enriched by the supplies for 
 the troops, which they alone could furnish. They would have the 
 exclusive market; to say nothing of the increased preponderance 
 from the acquisition of Canada, and that section of tEf? Union, which 
 the southern and western States had already felt so severely in the 
 apportionment bill." 
 
 Mr. Randolph dwelt on the danger arising from the black popula- 
 tion. He said he would touch this subject as tenderly as possible ; 
 it was with reluctance that he touched it at all ; but in cases of great 
 emergency the state physician must not be deterred by a sickly, hys- 
 terical humanity, from probing the wound of his patient ; he must not 
 be withheld by a fastidious and mistaken humanity from representing 
 his true situation to his friends, or even to the sick man himself, where 
 the occasion called for it. " What, sir, is the situation of the slavehold- 
 ing States? During the war of the Revolution, so fixed were thoir 
 habits of subordination, that while the whole country was overrun by 
 the enemy, who invited them to desert, no fear was ever entertained 
 of an insurrection of the slaves. During a war of seven years, with
 
 294 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 our country in possession of the enemy, no such danger was ever ap- 
 prehended. But should we therefore be unobservant spectators of 
 the progress of society within the last twenty years ? of the silent 
 but powerful change wrought by time and chance upon its composi- 
 tion and temper ? When the fountains of the great deep of abomi- 
 nation were broken up, even the poor slaves escaped not the general 
 deluge. The French revolution polluted even them. Nay, there 
 were not wanting men in that House witness their legislative Le- 
 gcndre, the butcher who once held a seat there to preach upon that 
 floor, these imprescriptable rights to a crowded audience of blacks in 
 the galleries : teaching them that they are equal to their masters ; in 
 other words, advising them to cut their throats. Similar doctrines 
 are disseminated by pedlars from New England, and elsewhere, 
 throughout the Southern country ; and masters have been found so 
 infatuated, as by their lives and conversation, by a general contempt 
 of order, morality and religion, unthinkingly to cherish those seeds 
 of self-destruction to them and their families. What is the conse- 
 quence 1 Within the last ten years, repeated alarms of insurrection 
 among the slaves ; some of them awful indeed. From the spread- 
 ing of this infernal doctrine, the whole Southern country has been 
 thrown into a state of insecurity. Men dead to the operation of 
 moral causes, have taken away from the poor slave his habits of loy- 
 alty and obedience to his master, which lightened his servitude by a 
 double operation beguiling his own cares, and disarming his mas- 
 ter's suspicions and severity ; and now, like true empirics in politics, 
 you are called upon to trust to the mere physical strength of the fet- 
 ter which holds him in bondage. You have deprived him of all 
 moral restraint ; you have tempted him to eat of the tree of knowl- 
 e dge, J ust enough to perfect him in wickedness ; you have opened his 
 eyes to his nakedness ; you have armed his nature against the hand 
 that has fed, that has clothed him, that has cherished him in sick- 
 ness ; that hand which, before he became a pupil of your school, he 
 had been accustomed to press with respectful affection. You have 
 done all this, and then, show him the gibbet and the wheel, as incen- 
 tives to a sullen, repugnant obedience. God forbid, sir. that the 
 southern States should ever see an enemy on their shores, with these 
 infernal principles of French fraternity in the van. While talking 
 tf taking Canada, some of us are shuddering for our own safety at
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 295 
 
 home. I speak from facts when I say, that the night-bell never tolls 
 for fire in: Richmond, that the mother does not hug the infant more 
 closely to her bosom. I have been a witness of some of the alarms 
 in the capital of Virginia." 
 
 Mr. Randolph then proceeded to notice the unjust and illiberal 
 imputation of British attachments, against certain characters in this 
 country ; sometimes insinuated in the House, but openly avowed 
 out of it. " Against whom are these charges brought ? Against men 
 who in the war of the Revolution were in the councils of the nation, or 
 fighting the battles of your country. And by whom are they made ? 
 By runaways, chiefly from the British dominions, since the breaking 
 out of the French troubles. It is insufferable ! It cannot be borne ! 
 It must, and ought, with severity, to be put down in this House, and 
 out of it, to meet the lie direct. We have no fellow-feeling for the 
 suffering and oppressed Spaniards ! Yet even them we do not rep- 
 robate. Strange ! that we should have no objection to any other 
 people or government, civilized or savage, in the whole worM. The 
 great autocrat of all the Russias receives the homage of our high 
 consideration ; the Dey of Algiers, and his divan of pirates, are very 
 civil, good sort of people, with whom we find no difficulty in main- 
 taining the relations of peace and amity ; ' Turks, Jews, and Infi- 
 dels ;' Melimelli, or the Little Turtle ; barbarians and savages, of 
 every clime and color, are welcome to our arms ; with chiefs of ban- 
 ditti, negro or mulatto, we can treat and can trade name, however, 
 but England, and all our antipathies are up in arms against her. 
 Against whom ? Against those whose blood runs in our own veins ; 
 in common with whom we can claim Shakspeare, and Newton, and 
 Chatham for our countrymen ; whose form of government is the freest 
 on earth, our own only excepted ; from whom every valuable princi- 
 ple of our own institutions has been borrowed representation, jury 
 trial, voting the supplies, writs of habeas corpus our whole civil and 
 criminal jurisprudence ; against our fcllow-protestants, identified in 
 blood, in language, in religion with ourselves. In what school did 
 the worthies of our land, the Washingtons, Henrys, Hancocks. Frank- 
 lins, Rutleges, of America, learn those principles of civiLliberty which 
 were so nobly asserted by their wisdom and valor ? And American 
 resistance to British usurpation had not been more warmly pheriafced 
 by these great men and their compatriots ; not more by Washington.
 
 296 L1FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Hancock, and Henry, than by Chatham, and his illustrious associates 
 in the British Parliament. It ought to be remembered, too, that the 
 Jieart of the English people was with us. It was a selfish and cor- 
 rupt ministry, and their servile tools, to whom we were not more op- 
 posed than they were. I trust that none such may ever exist among 
 us : for tools will never be wanted to subserve the purposes, however 
 ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of state. 
 
 " But the outrages and injuries of England. Bred up in the 
 principles of the Revolution, I can never palliate, much less defend 
 them. I well remember flying with my mother, and her new-born 
 child, from Arnold and Philips ; and they had been driven by Tarle- 
 ton. and other British pandours, from pillar to post, while her hus- 
 band was fighting the battles of his country. The impression is in- 
 delible on my memory ; and yet (like my worthy old neighbor, who 
 added seven buckshot to every cartridge at the battle of Guilford. 
 and drew a fine sight at his man) I must be content to be called a 
 tory by a patriot of the last importation. Let us not get rid of one 
 evil, supposing it possible, at the expense of a greater. Suppose 
 France in possession of the British naval power and to her the tri- 
 dent must pass should England be unable to wield it what would 
 be your condition ? What would be the situation of your seaports 
 and their seafaring inhabitants ? Ask Hamburg, Lubec ask Savan- 
 nah ? What ! sir, when their privateers are pent up in our harbors 
 by the British bull-dogs ; when they receive at our hands every rite 
 of hospitality, from which their enemy is excluded ; when they cap- 
 ture within our waters, interdicted to British armed ships, American 
 vessels ; when such is their deportment toward you, under such cir- 
 cumstances, what could you expect if they were the uncontrolled lords 
 of the ocean ? Had those privateers at Savannah borne British com- 
 missions, or had your shipments of cotton, tobacco, ashes, and what 
 not, to London and Liverpool been confiscated, and the proceeds 
 poured into the English exchequer, my life upon it ! you would 
 never have listened to any miserable wire-drawn distinctions between 
 ; orders and decrees affecting our neutral rights,' and ' municipal de- 
 crees/ confiscating in mass your whole property. You would have 
 had instant war ! The whole land would have blazed out in war. 
 
 " And shall republicans become the instruments of him who has 
 effaced the title of Attila to the 'SCOURGE OF GOD!' Yet., even
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 297 
 
 Attila, in the falling fortunes of civilization, had, no doubt, his advo- 
 cates, his tools, his minions, his parasites, in the very countries that 
 he overran sons of that soil whereon his horse had trod, where grass 
 could never after grow. If perfectly fresh," Mr. Randolph said, "in- 
 stead of being as I am my memory clouded, my intellect stupefied, 
 my strength and spirits exhausted I could not give utterance to that 
 strong detestation which I feel toward (above all other works of the 
 creation) such characters as Zingis, Tamerlane, Kouli Khan, or Bo- 
 naparte. My instincts involuntarily revolt at their bare idea male- 
 factors of the human race, who ground down man to a mere machine 
 of their impious and bloody ambition. Yet, under all the accumu- 
 lated wrongs, and insults, and robberies of the last of these chief- 
 tains, are we not, in point of fact, about to become a party to his 
 views, a partner in his wars ? 
 
 " I beseech the House, before they run their heads against this 
 post, Quebec, to count the cost. My word for it, Virginia planters 
 will not be taxed to support such a war ; a war which must aggravate 
 their present distresses ; in which they have not the remotest inter- 
 est. Where is the Montgomery, or even the Arnold, or the Burr, 
 who is to march to the Point Levi? 
 
 - I call upon those professing to be republicans, to make good the 
 promises held out by their republican predecessors when they came 
 into power; promises, which for years afterwards, they honestly, 
 faithfully fulfilled. We vaunted of paying off the national debt, of 
 retrenching useless establishments ; and yet have now become as in- 
 fatuated with standing armies, loans, taxes, navies and war, as ever 
 were the Essex junto. What republicanism is this?" 
 
 Mr. Randolph resolutely and earnestly combated every measure 
 that had a tendency to wideri the breach between the United States 
 and Great Britain, and to precipitate them into a war. 
 
 On the 1st of April, 1812, the President sent in a secret mcssa^ 
 recommending an immediate embargo. The Committee of Foreign 
 Relations, in anticipation of the message, had a bill already prepared: 
 it was read the first and second time, reported to the Committee of 
 the Whole, referred back to the House, and immediately put on it? 
 passage. Some member wished to know whether it was to be con- 
 sidered as a peace measure, or a precursor to war. 
 
 Mr. Grundy, a member of the committee, replied that he under- 
 
 VOL. i. 13*
 
 298 LIF E OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 stood it as a war measure ; and it is meant, said he, that it shall lead 
 directly to it. 
 
 Mr. Clay (the Speaker) warmly expressed his satisfaction and full 
 approbation of the message, and the proposition before the House. 
 
 Mr. Randolph then rose : " I am so impressed," said he, " with 
 the importance of the subject and the solemnity of the occasion, that 
 I cannot be silent. Sir, we are now in conclave ; the eyes of the sur- 
 rounding world are not upon us : we are shut up here from the light of 
 heaven, but the eyes of God are upon us. He knows the spirit of our 
 minds. Shall we deliberate upon this subject with the spirit of 
 sobriety and candor, or with that spirit which has too often charac- 
 terized our discussions upon occasions like the present ? We ought 
 to realize that we are in the presence of that God who knows our 
 thoughts and motives, and to whom we must hereafter render an ac- 
 count for the deeds done in the body. I hope, sir, the spirit of party, 
 and every improper passion, will be exorcised, that our hearts may 
 be as pure and clean as fall to the lot of human nature. 
 
 " I am confident in the declaration, Mr. Chairman, that this is 
 not a measure of the Executive ; but that it is engendered by an 
 extensive excitement upon the Executive * * * * 
 
 " I will appeal to the sobriety and reflection of the House, and 
 ask, what iiew cause of war for the last twelve months ? What new 
 cause of embargo within that period ? The affair of the Chesapeake 
 is settled. No new principles of blockade interpolated into the laws 
 of nations. I suppose every man of candor and sober reflection will 
 ask why we did not go to war twelve months ago? Or will it be said 
 we ought to make up, by our promptness now, for our slowness then ? 
 Or will it be said, that if the wheat for which we have received two 
 dollars a bushel had been rotting in our barns, we should have been 
 happier and richer. What would the planter say, if you were to ask 
 hiui which he would prefer, the honorable, chivalrous course advo- 
 cated by the Speaker, with the consequences which must attend it. 
 the sheriff at his back, and the excise collector pressing him ? He 
 would laugh in your face. It is not generally wise to dive into 
 futurity ; but it is wise to profit by experience, although it may be 
 unpleasant. I feel much concerned to have the bill on the table for 
 one hour." 
 
 But he was not allowed that privilege. The bill was immediately
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 299 
 
 hurried through the forms of legislation, and became a law in a short 
 time after the President's message that recommended it had been 
 read. 
 
 On the 29th of May, 1812, having learned that a proposition 
 would certainly be made in a few days to declare war, he rose and 
 stated that he had a motion to make. He then commenced a speech, 
 involving generally the present* state of our relations with France 
 and Great Britain. After he had spoken for some time, a qiestiou 
 of or*der was raised, and it was decided by the Speaker that the gen- 
 tleman ought, previous to debating so much at large, to submit his 
 motion to the House. 
 
 "After some desultory debate, and decisions on points of order, Mr. 
 Randolph submitted the following proposition : " That under present 
 circumstances, it is inexpedient to resort to a war with Great 
 Britain." 
 
 The question being taken, that the House do now proceed to the 
 consideration of the said resolution, it was by a large majority de- 
 cided in the negative. By this most unparliamentary proceeding, as 
 he thought, the subject was taken from before the House, and Mr. 
 Randolph was deprived of an opportunity, if not denied the right, of 
 addressing them on the momentous questions involved in his resolu- 
 tion. Next day he addressed the following letter to his constituents: 
 
 To the Freeholders of Charlotte, Prince Edward, Buckingham, and 
 
 Cumberland. 
 
 FELLOW-CITIZENS, I dedicate to you the following fragment. 
 That it appears in its present mutilated shape, is to be ascribed to 
 the successful usurpation which lias reduced the freedom of speech 
 in one branch of the American Congress to an empty name. It is 
 now established, for the first time, and in the person of your repre- 
 sentative, that the House may and will refuse to hear a member in \\\* 
 place, or even to receive a motion from him, upon the most moment- 
 ous subject that can be presented for legislative decision. A simi- 
 lar motion was brought forward by the republican minority in the 
 year 1798, before these modern inventions for stifling the freedom of 
 debate were discovered. It was discussed as a matter of right, until 
 it was abandoned by the mover, in consequence of additional infor- 
 mation (the correspondence of our envoy at Paris) laid before Con-
 
 300 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 gress by the President. In " the reign of terror," the father of the 
 sedition law had not the hardihood to proscribe liberty of speech, 
 much less the right of free debate on the floor of Congress. This 
 invasion of the public liberties was reserved for self-styled republi- 
 cans, who hold your understandings in such contempt, as to flatter 
 themselves that you will overlook their every outrage upon the great 
 first principles of free government, in consideration of their profes- 
 sions of tender regard for the privileges of the people. It is for you 
 to decide whether they have undervalued your intelligence and s*pirit. 
 or whether they have formed a just estimate of your character. You 
 do not require to be told that the violation of the rights of him whom 
 you have deputed to represent you is an invasion of the rights of 
 every man of you, of every individual in society. If this abuse be 
 suffered to pass unredressed and the people alone are competent to 
 apply the remedy we must bid adieu to a free form of government 
 for ever. 
 
 Having learned from various sources that a declaration of war 
 would be attempted on Monday next, ivith closed doors, I deemed it 
 my duty to endeavor, by an exercise of my constitutional functions, 
 to arrest this heaviest of all calamities, and avert it from our happy 
 country. I accordingly made the effort of which I now give you the 
 result, and of the success of which you will have already been informed 
 before these pages can reach you. I pretend only to give you the 
 substance of my unfinished argument. The glowing words, the lan- 
 guage of the heart, have passed away with the occasion that called 
 them forth. They are no longer under my control. My design is 
 simply to submit to you the views which have induced me to consi- 
 der a war with England, under existing circumstances, as comporting 
 neither with the interest nor the honor of the American people ; but 
 as an idolatrous sacrifice of both, on the altar of French rapacity. 
 perfidy and ambition. 
 
 France has for years past offered us terms of undefined commer- 
 cial arrangement, as the price of a war with England, which hitherto 
 we have not wanted firmness and virtue to reject. That price is now 
 to be paid. We are tired of holding out ; and, following the exam- 
 ple of continental Europe, entangled in the artifices, or awed by the 
 power of the destroyer of mankind, we are prepared to become 
 instrumental to his projects of universal dominion. Before these
 
 WAR WITH ENGLAND. 30} 
 
 pages meet your eye, tJie last republic of the earth will have enlisted 
 under the banners of the tyrant and become a party to his cause. 
 The blood of the American freemen must flow to cement his power, to 
 aid in stifling the last struggles of afflicted and persecuted man, to 
 deliver up into his hands the patriots of Spain and Portugal, to estab- 
 lish his empire over the ocean and over the land that gave our fathers 
 birth to forge our own chains ! And yet, my friends, we are told, 
 as we were told in the days of Mr. Adams, " the finger of Jicaven 
 points to war." Yes, the finger of heaven does point to war ! It points 
 to war, as it points to the mansions of eternal misery and torture 
 as a flaming beacon warning us of that vortex which we may not 
 approach but with certain destruction. It points to desolated Europe, 
 and warns us of the chastisement of those nations who have offended 
 against the justice, and almost beyond the mercy, of heaven. It 
 announces the wrath to come upon those who, ungrateful for the 
 bounty of Providence, not satisfied with the peace, liberty, security 
 and plenty at home, fly, as it were, into the face of the Most High, 
 and tempt his forbearance. * 
 
 To you, in this place, I can speak with freedom ; and it becomes 
 me to do so ; nor shall I be deterred by the cavils and the sneers of 
 those who hold as " foolishness " all that savors not of worldly wis- 
 dom, from expressing fully and freely those sentiments which it has 
 pleased Godwin his mercy, to engrave on my heart. 
 
 These are no ordinary times ; the state of the world is unexam- 
 pled ; the war of the present day is not like that of our revolution, 
 or any which preceded it, at least in modern times. It is a war against 
 the liberties and the happiness of mankind ; it is a war in which the 
 whole human race are the victims, to gratify the pride and lust of 
 power of a single individual. I beseech you, put it to your own 
 bosoms, how far it becomes you as freemen, as Christians, to give 
 your aid and sanction to this impious and bloody war against your 
 brethren of the human family. To such among you, if any such 
 there be, who are insensible to motives not more dignified and manly 
 than they are intrinsically wise, I would make a different appeal. I 
 adjure you by the regard you have for your own safety and property, 
 for the liberty and inheritance of your children by all that you hold 
 dear and sacred to interpose your constitutional powers to
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 your country and yourselves from the calamity, the issue of which 
 it is not given to human foresight to divine. 
 
 Ask yourselves if you are willing to become the virtual allies of 
 Bonaparte ? Are you wilfcng, for the sake of annexing Canada to 
 the Northern States, to submit to that overgrowing system of tax- 
 ation which sends the European laborer supperless to bed, to main- 
 tain, by the sweat of your brow, armies at whose hands you are to 
 receive a future master ? Suppose Canada ours ; is there any one 
 among you who would ever be, in any respect, the better for it ? the 
 richer, the freer, the happier, the more secure ? And is it for a boon 
 like this that you would join in the warfare against the liberties of 
 man in the other hemisphere, and put your own in jeopardy? Or is 
 it for the nominal privilege of a licensed trade with France that you 
 would abandon your lucrative commerce with Great Britain, Spain 
 and Portugal, and their Asiatic, African, and American dependencies ; 
 in a word, with every region of those vast continents ? that com- 
 merce which gives vent to your tobacco, grain, flour, cotton ; in short, 
 to all your native products, which are denied a market in France ? 
 There are not wanting men so weak as to suppose that their appro- 
 bation of warlike measures is a proof of personal gallantry, and that 
 opposition to them indicates a want of that spirit which becomes a 
 friend of his country ; as if it required more courage and patriotism 
 to join in the acclamation of the day, than steadily to oppose one's 
 self to the mad infatuation to which every people and all governments 
 have, at some time or other, given way. Let the history of Phocion, 
 of Agis, and of the De Witts, answer this question. 
 
 My friends, do you expect to find those who are now loudest in 
 the clamor for war, foremost in the ranks of battle ? Or, is the honor 
 of this nation indissolubly connected with the political reputation of 
 a few individuals, who tell you t/iey have gone too far to recede, and 
 that you must pay. with your ruin, the price of their consistency ? 
 
 My friends, I have discharged my duty towards you, lamely and 
 inadequately, I know, but to the best of my poor ability. The des- 
 tiny of the American people is in their own hands. The net is spread 
 for their destruction. You are enveloped in the toils of French 
 duplicity, and if which may Heaven in its mercy forbid you and 
 your posterity are to become hewers of wood and drawers of water 
 to the modern Pharoah, it shall not be for the want of my best exer-
 
 CLAY CALHOUN. 3Q3 
 
 tions to rescue you from the cruel and abject bondage. This sin, at 
 least, shall not rest upon my soul. 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 May 30th, 1812. 
 
 CHAPTBE XXXVII. 
 
 CLAY CALHOUN. 
 
 ON the 18th of June, 1812, an act was approved by the President de- 
 claring that a state of war existed between the United States and 
 Great Britain. It forms no part of the plan of this biography to 
 enter into the details of the war. From them the student of history- 
 can derive but little information as to the causes of the growth, 
 development and decay of nations. But there is an inquiry that 
 might properly be made here, immediately bearing on this great 
 subject, and deeply affecting the public conduct of John Randolph 
 at the same time : might not this war have been avoided ? might 
 not the nation have saved the blood and treasure wasted in its pros- 
 ecution, and escaped the evil consequences, both moral and political, 
 that followed in its train ? John Randolph declared that it might 
 have been done : his whole opposition was based on the conviction 
 that there was no need for such an extreme measure. " We can 
 escape this conflict, said he, with honor it is our duty to wait. " No 
 new cause of war had arisen there would have been as much rea- 
 son for the step in the June preceding as there was at the time of 
 the declaration. The reader is already aware of the grounds of 
 complaint against Great Britain ; h'e must be satisfied also that then! 
 was at least some color of reason for the course which she declared 
 she was compelled to pursue towards neutrals, in order to save her 
 own existence in the general wreck of European nations. 
 
 As to the impressment of seamen, she only claimed the right 
 to search for British subjects on board of American merchant ves- 
 sels ; yet it was one, arising from the common origin of the two 
 nations, most difficult to be enforced, liable to be abused, and was 
 greatly abused by proud and insolent naval officers. But because
 
 304 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 there was right and reason on both sides, this was not between 
 rational people a subject of war, but of adjustment and compromise, 
 and in truth it was adjusted to the satisfaction of Mr. Monroe 
 and Mr. Pinckney in the treaty of December, 1806 ; but the Presi- 
 dent, as we know, put that treaty in his pocket, and refused to sub- 
 mit it to the consideration of the Senate. 
 
 As to the denial of our right to the carrying trade, and the 
 question of constructive blockade, which had been so much discussed, 
 and were charged as interpolations by Grreat Britain into the law 
 of nations, they were now swallowed up by the orders in council. 
 The reader is informed of the exact posture of that question on the 
 4th of November, '1811, when Congress was first assembled. It 
 was narrowed down to this : Britain declared, that, notwithstanding 
 the revocation of the French decrees so far as they affected the United 
 States, she could not repeal her orders until the United States 
 should procure a further modification so as to allow goods of British 
 origin owned by American citizens to be carried to France and 
 other parts of the continent. As the matter stood they were only 
 restored to half their rights as a neutral power. By the law of na- 
 tions, enemy's goods not contraband of war, purchased and owned 
 by neutrals, are lawful subjects of trade ; but there lay the rub ; in 
 the exercise or non-exercise of this right was involved the commer- 
 cial jealousy and rivalry of the two nations. The United States did 
 not want a restoration of their rights, because if British goods un- 
 der cover of the American flag could be carried to the continent, it 
 would at once open a vast and profitable outlet to the manufactures 
 and other products of England, now locked up in their warehouses, 
 and would cut off that monopoly enjoyed by the citizens of the 
 United States in consequence of the prohibition laid on all articles 
 of English origin. It was not then a question of principle, but one 
 of pure commercial rivalry. 
 
 England urged on the United States that she should demand a 
 restoration of all her rights as a neutral nation ; the United States 
 replied that they had been restored as far as they required, and 
 insisted that England should comply with her pledges, and proceed 
 pari passu with France in the repeal of her orders in council. The 
 true motives for the persistence of both in their demands, were very 
 perceptible, but by neither were avowed. Here then was the whole 

 
 CLAY CALHOUN. 305 
 
 question, and on this issue the Congress of the United States resolv- 
 ed to go to war. 
 
 But in the position assumed by the British ministry, which was 
 certainly plausible, if not just, they were not sustained by the 
 nation. The clamors of the commercial and manufacturing inter- 
 ests were heard in Parliament and by the Koyal cabinet. There 
 was a powerful and influential party, with Canning at their head 
 that demanded a repeal of the orders in council ; the ministry were 
 dissolved, and a commission given by the prince regent to one of 
 the opposition party to form a cabinet friendly to American inter- 
 ests. Owing to the discordant elements of the opposition itself, and 
 not to any difficulty on this question, the new organization did not 
 take place at that time, but these circumstances manifested the tem- 
 per of the nation, and showed plainly that the obnoxious measures 
 of government must soon be condemned and repealed. These facts 
 were known to the Congress of the United States before the declara- 
 tion of war, and they must have convinced any reasonable and 
 candid mind that a favorable change in the posture of affairs was to 
 be expected at no distant period. And in fact on the 23d day of 
 June, just five days after the declaration of war, it was ordered and 
 declared by the prince regent, in council, " that the order in coun- 
 cil, bearing date the 7th of January, 1807, and the order in council 
 bearing date the 26th of April, 1809, be revoked, so far as may re- 
 gard American vessels and their cargoes, being American property, 
 from the first day of August next." 
 
 The embargo that was laid preparatory to war, commenced the 
 4th of April, and was to last ninety days until the 4th of July. 
 No one expected war to be declared before that period. Mr. Madi- 
 son, it was well known, wished the embargo to be extended to four 
 months ; that is, to the 4th of August. A motion was actually made 
 in the House to this effect, but was rejected. He said, that if at the 
 end of four months no favorable news came from abroad, he would 
 then be ready to recommend a declaration of war. By the 4th of 
 August, news came of the repeal of the orders in council ! Had 
 his inclinations then been followed, the nation might have been saved 
 from all the disastrous consequences of the precipitate action of Con- 
 gress. 
 
 Mr. Madison, indeed, was not favorable to the embargo it was
 
 306 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 i'<>rced upon him. "I am confident in the declaration," said Mr. 
 Randolph, in conclave, " that this is not a measure of the executive, 
 but that it is engendered by an extensive excitement upon the exec- 
 utive." The relation of the two great departments of government 
 had entirely changed from what it was in the days of Mr. Jefferson ; 
 then the commanding power of a great mind and a determined will 
 gave direction to all the measures of the legislature, but now the 
 master-spirits that controlled affairs were to be found on the floor of 
 Congress. The Speaker of the House of. Representatives, and the 
 leading member of the Committee of Foreign A-ffairs, from their 
 position, if they had talents, were most likely to exert a large influ- 
 ence over the proceedings of the House. The persons occupying 
 those stations were Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. They were 
 both possessed of great minds, endowed with extraordinary powers of 
 eloquence, were young ; ardent, ambitious, and for the first time mem- 
 bers of the popular branch of the national legislature. In the excit- 
 ed state of the country, a better field could not have been found for 
 the display of their talents. The deep enthusiasm of their souls, 
 the chief element of their greatness, enlivened by a brilliant imagi- 
 nation in the one, and tempered by large faculties of reason in the 
 other, gave such a strength and boldness to their thoughts, that they 
 imparted confidence to the timid, clearness to the obscure, and infused 
 a portion of their own zeal into more phlegmatic natures, none could 
 escape the contagion of their influence. 
 
 A few months after the opening of Congress, Mr. Randolph, 
 while speaking of these new lights of the administration, said to a 
 friend, " They have entered this House with their eye on the Presi- 
 dency, and mark my words, sir, we shall have war before the end of 
 the session !" Aside from the aspiration of a noble mind to tread 
 some brilliant and high career, we do not believe they had any selfish 
 end in view. Cold and calculating natures only influence others by 
 motives akin to their own. Neither calculation nor logic, but the 
 sympathizing impulses of a great soul, can deeply move the masses 
 of mankind. A magnanimous spirit, animated with the inspiring 
 breath of a whole people, may go forth with the confidence of a 
 Moses, feeling that the voice of the people is the voice of God. But 
 not always are the acts even of a great nation the result of divine 
 inspiration. Sometimes they are influenced from the opposite quar-
 
 CLAY CALHOUN. 
 
 307 
 
 ter of the spiritual world, and partake more of the demoniac than 
 the godlike. 
 
 The mere abstract question of international law involved between 
 Great Britain and the United States, if left to a court of admiralty 
 and a jury composed of citizens of the world, might have been decid- 
 ed against them. But neither courts nor attorneys can decide the 
 fate of empires. 
 
 The democracy of America, which constituted the great mass of 
 the people of America, were thoroughly anti-British ; a common ori- 
 gin and a common tongue served only as points of contrast. There 
 was a deep-rooted antipathy between them and the proud, pampered 
 aristocracy of England. Their sympathies were all on the side of 
 Prance and her struggles for liberty ; even Bonaparte came in for a 
 share of their regard. His boldness, his humble origin, his brilliant 
 success, shed such a halo of glory around his brow as to obscure the 
 darker features of his tyrannical nature. Then there were the old 
 memories of Bunker's Hill, Monmouth, La Fayette, Rochambeau, 
 and Yorktown these household themes were familiar to every do- 
 mestic fireside. Add the long catalogue of modern grievances the 
 plunder of our commerce, the capture of our seamen, the insults to 
 our national flag, the insolence, and proud, contemptuous bearing of 
 British officers even in our own ports this is too much ! we will not 
 endure it ! We will fight rather than suffer their aristocratic inso- 
 lence any longer " Free trade and sailors' rights ! God and Liberty !' 
 We will fight for these, come what will of it ! We will teach these 
 insulting English better manners, or blow them to the devil ! 
 
 Such was the universal sentiment throughout the vast regions of 
 the south and west. Their newspapers and their popular orators 
 (who was not an orator in those excited times?) proclaimed Free trade 
 and sailors' rights ! Without a sailor or a ship on the sea, the fiery 
 multitude echoed back, Free trade and sailors' rights ! This compre- 
 hensive phrase served the same turn now, that millions for defence, 
 not a cent for tribute, had served on a former occasion. A deep sense 
 of indignation and wrong, vaguely shadowed forth in that expression 
 ''free trade and sailor^ rights" pervaded the whole country. It was 
 vain to argue with people in such a temper ; he who had the folly to 
 attempt it would imagine that he could arrest the bellowing thunder 
 storm on the point of a bodkin. Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun
 
 308 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 were the representatives of these excited elements on the floor of 
 Congress ; it was in their power to temper these impetuous energies, 
 and to have served as conductors to the surcharged electric fires that 
 threatened momentary explosion ; but they were too full themselves 
 of the same fiery impulses to repress them in others ; they boldly 
 marched forward ; and knowing and feeling that the people were 
 pressing close behind them, plunged the nation headlong into a ruin- 
 ous war we do not mean ruinous in a military sense no one ever 
 doubted that our people, sooner or later, would be triumphant in 
 every conflict, by land and by sea. The energies and the courage of a 
 free people are irrepressible and unconquerable we mean disastrous 
 in the sense predicted by John Randolph ; disastrous to the Consti- 
 tution and to the principles of the people. 
 
 Two of the avowed objects of this war were, the conquest of Ca- 
 nada, and the plunder of the high seas ; ends that fostered a spirit of 
 aggression and of retaliation unbecoming the character of our coun- 
 try or of its peaceful institutions. We say nothing of the disturbance 
 of that balance of power between the States and the Federal Govern- 
 ment so necessary for their just and harmonious action, which was 
 the necessary consequence of the enormous patronage and excessive 
 energy of the executive in the time of a foreign war. Exhausted of 
 its resources by a long series of restrictive measures, the nation com- 
 menced hostilities with borrowed money ; a large national debt was 
 accumulated ; a depreciated, ruinous, demoralizing paper currency 
 deluged the whole land, and a hot-bed system of domestic manufac- 
 tures were stimulated into existence, at the expense of agriculture 
 and commerce, which were the natural sources of wealth and pros- 
 perity to a new, wide-spread, and sparsely populated country. 
 
 The proclamation of peace found the people burdened with a na- 
 tional debt, ruined by a depreciated currency, corrupted, as far as 
 they could be corrupted, by all the demoralizing influences which for 
 years had been working on their integrity ; and incumbered with in- 
 numerable domestic manufactures, which, like Jonah's gourd, had 
 sprung up in a night, and could not bear the rude shocks of foreign 
 competition produced by returning commerce. 
 
 Those who brought on and sustained the war were necessarily 
 expected to find a remedy for the evils that followed in its train. 
 The same master-spirits who conducted the war, controlled the course
 
 CLAY CALHOUN. 
 
 Hi' legislation for years after the restoration of peace. They recom- 
 mended a National Bank as the agent for managing and liquidating 
 the national debt, and as the means of restoring and regulating the 
 currency ; they advocated the imposition of heavy duties on the im- 
 portation of foreign goods, as the means of producing a revenue to 
 pay the national debt, and also as a protection to those infant manu- 
 factures, which, since the death of their nurses and foster-mother, 
 non-intercourse, embargo, and war, would be left entirely exposed to 
 the crushing weight of maturer rivals ; and as these enormous duties 
 were likely soon to furnish means to pay off the national debt and to 
 take away the pretext for imposing them, a convenient sinking fund 
 was found in a system of internal improvements by tb< Federal 
 Government. These were the remedies furnished by the advocates 
 of the war to cure the evils it had produced. And how do we find 
 them ? just such as the federalists would have recommended gross 
 violations of the Constitution, that nothing but the most imperious 
 necessity could tolerate, are established into precedents and made 
 part of a regular system of legislation vile excrescences, that like a 
 cancer had eaten into the heart of the body politic, and defaced the 
 fair features of the Constitution, are hailed as the beautiful outgrowth 
 of her vital functions. 
 
 By some righteous retribution of Providence both these great men 
 for truly great they were have been punished for their sins in 
 precipitating a war that might have been retarded, and perhaps honor- 
 ably avoided, and for violating the Constitution to find a remedy for 
 its evils. If Randolph's supposition be true, they both failed of their 
 end. The reason is very plain they ceased to embody the senti- 
 ment and to reflect the will of the great body of the democracy, when 
 they began to undermine the Constitution to find a remedy for evils 
 they had inflicted on the country, and became the advocates of special 
 interests, monopolies, and a moneyed aristocracy. Mr. Clay, with a 
 zeal and perseverance worthy of a better cause, labored all his days 
 to force his miscalled American System as a permanent institution 
 on the country : but the people were against him, and not one of his 
 measures can now be found on the statute book. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun, when too late, saw and acknowledged the error of 
 his ways, and in a desperate effort to retrieve his own section of the
 
 310 L1FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 country from the evil consequences of his own measures, well nigh 
 involved the whole in civil war and ruin. 
 
 But, for the time being, they rode triumphantly on the full tide 
 of popularity, while Randolph, who foresaw and warned them of the 
 consequences of their rash measures, was driven into retirement. 
 All the powers of two administrations and the political presses in 
 their employment, the government at Washington, and the govern- 
 ment at home in his native State, were employed to crush and destroy 
 him. John W. Eppes, the most distinguished and experienced 
 leader of the administration party, was induced to make his residence 
 in the county of Buckingham, that Randolph might have the most 
 able and formidable opposition the country could afford. These two 
 men, who had been friends and companions in their youth, and rival 
 leaders on the floor of Congress, met for the first time, in 1811, as 
 candidates for the suffrages of the same people. But the long ser- 
 vices of their old servant were triumphant on this occasion. Again 
 they met, in the spring of 1813; times had changed; the country 
 was involved in war, and all its resources were pledged to a suc- 
 cessful issue ; redoubled efforts must now be made to drive him from 
 the councils of the nation, who had opposed its measures, and fore- 
 boded nothing but evil as their consequence. Never was a political 
 canvass conducted with more animation. In Buckingham, Mr. Ran- 
 dolph was threatened with personal violence if he attempted to ad- 
 dress the people. Some of the older and more prudent persons 
 advised him to retire, and not appear in public. " You know very 
 little of me," said he, " or you would not give such advice." He was 
 a man incapable of fear. Soon proclamation was made that Mr. Ran- 
 dolph would address the people. A dense throng gathered around : 
 he mounted the hustings; on the outskirts there hung a lowering and 
 sullen crowd that evidently meditated insult or violence on the first 
 opportunity ; he commenced : " I understand that I am to be insulted 
 to-day if I attempt to address the people that a mob is prepared to 
 lay their rude hands upon me and drag me from these hustings, for 
 daring to exercise the 'rights of a freeman." Then fixing his keen 
 eye on the malcontents, and stretching out and slowly waving his 
 long fore-finger towards them, he continued : " My Bible teaches me 
 that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, but that the fear of 
 man is the consummation of folly." He then turned to the people.
 
 CLAY CALHOUN. 31 1 
 
 and went on with his discourse. No one dared to disturb him 
 his spell was upon them like the Ancient Mariner, " he held them 
 with his glittering eye," and made them listen against their will to 
 the story of their country's wrongs, and to feel that deep wounds had 
 been inflicted in the sides of her constitution by those that now 
 sought his political destruction, if not his life. 
 
 Mr. Randolph made extraordinary exertions during this canvass ; 
 he felt that something more than his own success or his own repu- 
 tation were staked on the issue, and never was he more powerful, 
 more commanding, more overwhelming in his eloquence. 
 
 In his favorite county of Prince Edward, where the people loved 
 him like a brother, he surpassed even himself. A young man, who 
 was a student in a neighboring college, declares that he stood on his 
 feet for three hours unconscious of the flight of time that he never 
 heard such burning words fall from the lips of man, and was borne 
 along on the tide of his impassioned eloquence like a feather on the 
 bosom of a cataract. When he had ceased when his voice was no 
 longer heard, and his form had disappeared in the throng, no one 
 moved the people stood still as though they had been shocked by a 
 stroke of lightning their fixed eyes and pallid cheeks resembled 
 marble statues, or petrified Roman citizens in the forum of Pompeii 
 or Herculaneuin. 
 
 But it was all in vain ; the overwhelming pressure from without 
 was more than even Charlotte District could withstand ; and their 
 favorite son was compelled to retire for a short time, while the storm 
 of war was passing over the land, and to seek repose in the shades of 
 Roanoke. How magnanimously he bore this defeat shall be made 
 known in the following chapters. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 YOL. II.

 
 Tter..
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN KANDOLPH 
 
 OF ROANOKE. 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGH A. GARLAND. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 NEW- YORK : 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. 
 
 1853.
 
 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by 
 
 D. APPLETON <fe COMPANY, 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Roanoake Retirement ..... .9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Ancestral pride St. George Madness ... 36 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Military Campaign ....... 44 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 New England ........ 49 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Religion 1815 ........ 62 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Political Reflections Congress Bank Charter ... 70 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Religion Home Solitude ...... 85 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 ' Dying, Sir Dying" ...... 89 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Conversion . 94
 
 Q CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Idiosyncracies ........ 104 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Congress Political Parties ...... 112 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Missouri Question 'itf';- . * ^^ 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Compromise Bill smuggled through the "House . . . 127 
 
 .'.'.. ; < CHAPTER XIV. 
 I: I now go for blood" Madness ...... 136 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 
 Missouri Question Act the Second ..... 139 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 'Be not solitary ; be not idle" His Will Slaves . . . 145 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Log-book and Letters ...... 152 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 The Apportionment Bill . . . . . . 161 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 Pinckney, Marshall, Tazewell Departure for Europe . . 1C9 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 The Voyage ...... . 172 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Incidents in England . .... 185 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Eighteenth Congress Consolidation is the order of the day" Speak a 
 cheering word to the Greeks " 193
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 7 
 
 PAOB 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Internal Improvements . . . ... 201 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Supreme Court Dull dinner Huddlesford's Oak . . . 209 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Tariff" Prophecy Lewis McLean . . 214 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 Second Voyage to Europe .... . 219 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 Presidential Election ..... 227 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 " Such constituents as man never had before, and never will have again " 233 
 
 | 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 The Adams Administration ...... 241 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 The Panama Mission Blifil and Black George . . . 249 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 Duel with Henry Clay ....... 254 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 Negro Slavery ....... 261 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 Letters from Abroad ....... 269 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 
 
 Ejection from the Senate ...... 275 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 Election to the House of Representatives .... 289
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 Leader of the Opposition A wise and masterly inactivity . . 298 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 Letters from Roanoke ....... 307 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 Presidential Election Retirement from Congress . . . 311 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 Elected to the Convention ... .321 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 The Virginia Convention Every change is not reform . . 324 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 Mission to Russia ....... 332 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 Opium Eater . ..... 343 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 The Consummation . . . . . . . 350 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 " I have been sick all my life "Death ... 864
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 RO ANOKE KETIKEMEN T. 
 
 WE have now to view Mr. Randolph in a new aspect. After an ac- 
 tive, uninterrupted, and eventful career of fourteen years in the pub- 
 lic service, in one of the most remarkable epochs of human history, 
 we have now to follow him into retirement. The triumph of his en- 
 emies at the recent election had no power to shake the firmness of 
 his purpose, or to disturb the serenity of his mind. " It relieves me 
 from an odious thraldom," says he, " and, I assure you, my dear sir, 
 I have thought and yet think, much more of the charming Mrs. G. 
 than of the election. The low and base arts to which my adversa- 
 ries have resorted, have not raised them or sunk me in my own esti- 
 mation." 
 
 At home he lived in the utmost seclusion and solitude. Up to 
 1810 he made Bizarre his principal place of residence. Here he 
 enjoyed the best of female society, for which no man had a higher 
 relish found employment in the education of his young nephews, 
 the future heirs of his name and fortune, and on whom he doted 
 with the fondness of a father ; and solace for his leisure hours in a 
 large miscellaneous library, and the society and conversation of old 
 neighbors and well-tried friends. In 1810 he removed to Roanoke, 
 his estate in Charlotte county, on the Roanoke river, some thirty- 
 five or forty miles south of Bizarre ; " a savage solitude? says he, 
 ''-into which I have been driven to seek shelter." Shortly before the 
 recent election, on Sunday, March 21, 1813, the house at Bizarre 
 took fire the family were at church very little saved. " I lost," says 
 he, "a valuable collection of books. In it was a whole body of infi- 
 delity, the Encyclopedia of Diderot and D'Alembert, Voltaire's works, 
 
 VOT,. u. 1*
 
 10 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 seventy volumes, Rousseau, thirteen quartos, Hume, &c., &c." By 
 this calamity, if calamity it may be called (some of his friends con- 
 gratulated him on the event), he was deprived of the chief source of 
 pleasure and amusement in his comfortless liome. The only com- 
 panion of his solitude was Theodore Bland Dudley, a young relation 
 he had taken to live with him in 1800. He educated this young 
 man with much care and at great expense. He manifested towards 
 him the solicitude and affection of a fond father his letters are 
 models of parental instruction. Dudley had recently graduated in 
 medicine at Philadelphia, and returned to console the solitary 
 hours of his best and most constant friend. " Consider yourself," 
 said Randolph to him, " as not less entitled to command here, than 
 if you were the child of my loins, as you are the son of my affec- 
 tions." Apart from the society of this young man, which he valued 
 above all price, his only real enjoyment was in the correspondence of 
 some two or three of his most intimate friends, to whom he un- 
 bosomed himself with a fulness and a freedom that showed in a 
 remarkable degree the strength and constancy of his attachment, 
 and the unbounded confidence he had in the fidelity and" integrity of 
 those men. To none did he speak or write more unreservedly than 
 to Dr. John Brockenbrough. the President of the Bank of Virginia. 
 No wonder, for his superior is not to be found a man of rare tal- 
 ents, varied learning, large experience in the business of life, refined 
 manners, delicate sensibility, a perfect gentleman and a faithful 
 friend. " Cherish the acquaintance of that man," he exhorts Dudley : 
 ' he is not as other men are." In writing to this gentleman he says : 
 Your two letters, the last of which I received this evening by my 
 servant, have given me a degree of satisfaction that I find it dim- 
 cult to express. Let me beg a continuance of these marks of your 
 remembrance and friendship. At all times they would be highly ac- 
 ceptable ; but in my present isolated state a state of almost total 
 dereliction they are beyond price. I should have thanked you for 
 your letter by the post, through the same channel, but I was induced 
 from its contents to suppose that you would have left Richmond be- 
 fore my answer could reach it ; and I wish that you had, because I 
 may\>c debarred the pleasure of seeing you and Mrs. B. at my lonely 
 and (as it will probably appear to you both) savage habitation. It is 
 therefore that this letter is written. You will not wonder, when you
 
 RETIREMENT. H 
 
 sec how I live, at my reluctance to leave you, and I was going to say 
 ray other friends in Richmond. It is indeed a life of seclusion that 
 I live here, unchequered by a single ray of enjoyment. I try to for- 
 get myself in books ; but that ' pliability of man's spirit' which 
 yields him up to the illusions of the ideal world, is gone from me for 
 ever. The mind stiffened by age and habit refuses to change its ca- 
 reer. It spurns the speculative notions which hard experience has 
 exploded ; it looks with contempt or pity, in sorrow or in anger, 
 upon the visionary plans of the youthful and sanguine. My dear 
 sir, ' there is another and a better world,' and to it alone can we 
 look without a certainty of disappointment, for consolation, for mer- 
 cy, for justice." On another occasion he says : " I passed but an in- 
 different night, occasioned, in a great measure, by the regret 1 ."eel at 
 leaving such friends as yourself and Mrs. Brockenbrough, and at the 
 prospect of passing my time in that utter solitude of my comfortless 
 habitation, where I have prepared for myself, by my own folly, many 
 causes of uneasiness. If I had followed old Polonius's advice, and 
 been ' to mine own self true,' I might have escaped the lot which 
 seems to be in reserve for me." 
 
 To another friend, Francis S. Key, of Washington City, he writes 
 more cheerfully. His letters to that gentleman about this time were 
 very frequent and copious ; they show more fully the workings of 
 his mind. We shall draw largely on the correspondence for the in- 
 struction of the reader. 
 
 In one of his letters he gives a description of his habitation, the 
 log cabins, and the boundless primeval forest by which they were 
 surrounded. In reply, Key says, " I could not help smiling at the 
 painting you have given me of Roanoke laudat diver sa sequentes. 
 To me it seemed just such a shelter as I should wish to creep under, 
 
 " A boundless contiguity of shade, 
 Where rumor of oppression and deceit 
 Might never reach me more." 
 
 In reference to the recent election he thus writes 
 
 ROANOKE, May 10, 1813. 
 
 DEAR FRANK : For so, without ceremony, permit me to call you. 
 Among the few causes that I find for regret at my dismissal from 
 public life, there is none in comparison with the reflection that it has
 
 12 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ' 
 
 separated me perhaps for ever from some who have a strong hold 
 on my esteem and on my affections. It would indeed have been 
 gratifying to me to see once more yourself, Mr. Meade, Ridgely, and 
 some few others ; and the thought that this may never be, is the only 
 one that infuses any thing of bitterness into what may be termed 
 my disappointment, if a man can be said to be disappointed when 
 things happen according to bis expectations ; on every other account, 
 I have cause of self-congratulation at being disenthralled from a 
 servitude at once irksome and degrading. The grapes are not sour 
 you know the manner in which you always combated my wish to 
 retire. Although I have not, like you, the spirit of a martyr, yet I 
 could not but allow great force to your representations. To say the 
 truth, a mere sense of duty alone might have been insufficient to 
 restrain me from indulging the very strong inclination which I have 
 felt for many years to return to private life. It is now gratified in 
 a way that takes from me every shadow of blame. No man can 
 reproach me with the desertion of my friends, or the abandonment 
 of my post in a time of danger and of trial. " I have fought the 
 good fight, I have kept the faith." I owe the public nothing ; my 
 friends, indeed, are entitled to every thing at my hands ; but I have 
 received my discharge, not indeed honestam dimissionem, but passa- 
 ble enough, as times go, when delicacy is not over fastidious. I am 
 again free, as it respects the public at least, and have but one more 
 victory to achieve, to be so in the true sense of the word. Like yourself 
 and Mr. Meade, I cannot be contented with endeavoring to do good for 
 goodness' sake, or rather for the sake of the Author of all goodness. 
 In spite of me, I cannot help feeling something very like contempt 
 for my poor foolish fellow-mortals, and would often consign them to 
 Bonaparte in this world, and the devil, his master, in the next ; but 
 these are but temporary fits of misanthropy, which soon give way to 
 better and juster feelings. 
 
 When I came away I left at Crawford's a number of books, let- 
 ters, papers, &c.. in (and out of) an open trunk ; also a gun, flask, 
 shot-belt, &c. Pray take them in charge for me, for although one- 
 half of them are of no consequence, the rest are ; and you may justly 
 ask why I have been so careless respecting them? because I am 
 the most lazy and careless man on earth (LaBruyereVabsent man is 
 nothing to me), and because I am in love. Pray give the letters 
 special protection. 
 
 To t)ie same. 
 
 ROANOKE, May 22, 1813. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND Your letter being addressed to Farmville 
 did not reach me until yesterday, \vhen my nephew brought it up. 
 Charlotte Court House is my post-office. By my last you will per-
 
 RETIREMENT. jg 
 
 coive that I have anticipated your kind office in regard to my books 
 and papers at Crawford's : pray give them protection " until the 
 Chesapeake shall be fit for service." It is, I think, nearly eight years 
 since I ventured to play upon those words in a report of the Secre- 
 tary of the Navy. I have read your letter again and again, and 
 cannot express to you how much pleasure the perusal has given me. 
 
 I had taken so strong a disgust against public business, con- 
 ducted as it has been for years past, that I doubt my fitness for the 
 situation from which I have been dismissed. The House of R. was 
 as odious to me as ever school-room was to a truant boy. To be 
 / under the dominion of such wretches as (with a few exceptions) 
 composed the majority, was intolerably irksome to my feelings ; and 
 although my present situation is far from enviable. I feel the value 
 of the exchange. To-day, for the first time, we ha^e warm weather: 
 and as I enjoy the breeze in my cool cabin, where there is scarce a 
 fly to be seen, I think with loathing of that " compound of villanous 
 smells" which at all times inhale through the H. of R., but which in 
 a summer session are absolutely pestilential. Many of those, too. 
 whose society lessened the labors of our vocation are gone ; Bleecker. 
 Elliott, Quincy, Baker, and (since) Bayard ; so that I should find 
 myself in Congress among enemies or strangers. Breckenridge. 
 Stanford, and Ridgely, and Lloyd in the Senate, are left ; and I am 
 glad that they are not in a minority so forlorn as the last. They 
 have my best wishes all the aid that I shall ever give to the public 
 cause. The great master of political philosophy has said that 
 '' mankind has no title to demand that we should serve them in spite 
 of themselves." It is not upon this plea, however, that I shall stand 
 aloof from the bedside of my delirious country. My course is run. 
 I acquiesce in the decision that has been passed against me, and seek 
 neither for appeal nor new trial. 
 
 I shall not go northward until towards the autumn, when I must 
 visit Philadelphia. My late friend Clay's youngest son will return 
 with me ; and that journey over, I shall probably never cross James 
 River again. 
 
 You are mistaken in supposing that " we Virginians like the war 
 better the nearer it approaches us ;" so far from it, there is a great 
 change in the temper of this State, and even in this district, para- 
 doxical as it may seem, against the war. More than half of those 
 who voted against me, were persuaded that I was the cause of the 
 war ; that the Government wished for peace (e. g. the Russian Em- 
 bassy), but that I thwarted them in every thing, and that without 
 unanimity amongst ourselves, peace could not be obtained. If you 
 are acquainted with Daschoff, tell him that the Russian mediation 
 was (strange as it may appear) made the instrument of my ejection. 
 It gave a temporary popularity to the ministry the people believing
 
 14 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 that peace was their object. Its effect on the elections generally 
 has been very great. Some were made to believe that the British 
 fleet in the Chesapoake was to aid my election. 
 
 My kinsman. Dudley now M. D. is with me, and his society 
 serves to cheer the solitude in which I am plunged. He desires to 
 be remembered to you. Present my best love to Mrs. Key and the 
 little folks. When you see the family at Blenheim, present me to 
 them also to Mr. Stone and believe me, always, dear sir, and most 
 affectionately, 
 
 Yours 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 May 23d, 1C 13. 
 
 Your letter of the 14th was received to-day many thanks for it. 
 By the same mail, Mr. Quincy sent me a coj y of his speech of the 
 30th of last month. It is a composition of much ability and depth 
 of thought ; but it indicates a spirit and a temper to the North which 
 is more a subject of regret than of surprise. The* grievances of Lord 
 North's administration were but as a feather in the scale, when com- 
 pared with those inflicted by Jefferson and Madison. 
 
 I fervently hope that we may meet again. I do not wish you so 
 ill as to see you banished to this Sinope ; and yet to see you here 
 would give me exceeding great pleasure. Every blessing attend 
 you. 
 
 Francis Scott Key, Esq. 
 
 John Randolph to I>r. John Brockenb)-ough. 
 
 4 
 
 ROANOKE, June 2d, 1813. 
 
 I did not receive your letter of the 26th until last evening, and 
 then I was obliged for it to my good old neighbor, Colonel Morton, 
 who never omits an occasion of doing a favor, however small. The 
 gentleman by whom you wrote is very shy of me ; nor can I blanie 
 him for it. No man likes to feel the embarrassment which a con- 
 sciousness of having done wrong to another is sure to inspire, and 
 which the sight of the object towards whom the wrong has been done 
 never fails to excite, in the most lively and painful degree. 
 
 My neighbor, Colonel C k, who goes down to Petersburg and 
 
 Richmond to-morrow, enables me (after a fashion) to answer your 
 question. " How and where I shall pass the summer months ?" To 
 which I can only reply as it pleases God ! If I go to any watering- 
 place, it will be to our hot springs, for the purpose of stewing tho 
 rheumatism out of my carcase, if it b'e practicable.
 
 RETIREMENT. 15 
 
 It would have been peculiarly gratifying to me to have heen with 
 
 you when Leigh, Grarnett, W. Meade, and, I must add, M , were 
 
 in Richmond. If we exclude every " party-man, and man of am- 
 bition," from our church, I fear we shall have as thin a congregation 
 as Dean Swift had, when he addressed his clerk, " Dearly beloved 
 Roger !" What I like M for, is neither his courtesy, nor his in- 
 telligence, but a certain warm-heartedness, which is now-a-days the 
 rarest of human qualities. His manner I think peculiarly un- 
 fortunate. There is an ostentation of ornament (which school-boys lay 
 aside when they reach the senior class), and a labored infelicity of 
 expression, that is hateful to one's feelings. We are in terror for the 
 speaker. But this fault he has already in some degree corrected : 
 and by the time he is as old as you or I, it will have worn off. I was 
 greatly revolted by it on our first acquaintance, and even now, am 
 occasionally offended ; but the zeal with which he devotes himself to 
 the service of his friends and of his country, makes amends for all. 
 It is sometimes a bustling activity, of little import to its object, but 
 which is to be valued in reference to its motive. 
 
 I am not surprised at what you tell me of our friend. We live 
 in fearful times, an4 it is a. perilous adventure that he is about to un- 
 dertake. In a few years more, those of us who are alive will have to 
 move off to Kaintuck, or the Massissippi, where corn can be had for 
 sixpence a bushel, and pork for a penny a pound. I do not wonder 
 at the rage for emigration. What do the bulk of the people get 
 here, that they cannot have for one-fifth of the labor in the western 
 country-? Surely that must be the Yahoo's paradise, where he can 
 get dead drunk for the hundredth part of a dollar. 
 
 What you tell me of Milnor is quite unexpected. He was one of 
 the last men whom I should have expected to take orders ; not so 
 much n account of his quitting a lucrative profession, as from his 
 fondness for gay life. I am not sure that it is the safest path. The 
 responsibility is awful it is tremendous. 
 
 Thanks for your intelligence respecting my poor sister. If hu 
 man skill could save her, Dr ; Robinson would do it ; but there is 
 nothing left, except to smooth her path to that dwelling whither we 
 must all soon follow her. I can give Mrs. B. no comfort on the sub- 
 ject of her son. For my part, it requires an effort to take an inte- 
 rest in any thing ; and it seems to me strange that there should bo 
 found inducements strong enough to carry on the business of the 
 world. I believe you have given the true solution of this problem. l>y 
 way of corollary from another, when you pronounce that free-will and 
 necessity are much the same. I used formerly to pu/./.le myself. ;i> 
 abler men have puzzled others, by speculations on this opprobrium 
 of philosophy. If you have not untied the Gordian knot, you have, 
 cut it, which is the approved metlwdus medcndi of this disease.
 
 IQ LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Write to me when you can do no better. Worse you cannot do 
 for yourself, nor better for me. You can't imagine what an epoch 
 in my present life a letter from you constitutes. If I did not know 
 that you could find nothing here beyond the satisfaction of mere 
 animal necessity / I should entreat Mrs. B. and yourself to visit my 
 solitary habitation. May every blessing attend you both. 
 Yours, unchangeably, 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE! 
 
 John Randolph to Francis S. Key. 
 
 ROANOKE, July 17th, 1813 
 
 DEAR FRANK, I rode twenty miles this morning, in the hope of 
 receiving letters from some of those few persons who honor me with 
 their regard. Nor have I been disappointed. Your letter, and one 
 from Dr. B., had arrived a few moments before me. I received the 
 pamphlets through friend Stanford, who has too much on ;.is hands 
 to think of me every post ; and I am not at all obliged to the gentle- 
 man who detained them on their passage, a,nd who annotated one of 
 them, I suppose for my edification. It is certainly not all emenda- 
 tion, for this critical labor. 
 
 I heartily wish that I were qualified in any shape to advise you 
 on the subject of a new calling in life. Were I Premier. I should 
 certainly translate you to the see of Canterbury ; and if I were not 
 too conscious of my utter incompetency, I should like to take a pro- 
 fessorship in some college where you were principal ; for, like you, 
 " my occupation (tobacco-making) is also gone." Some sort of em- 
 ployment is absolutely necessary to keep me from expiring with 
 ennui. I " see no reviews," nor any thing else of that description. 
 My time passes in uniform monotony. For weeks together I never 
 see a new face ; and, to tell you the truth, I am so much of Captain 
 Gulliver's way of thinking respecting my fellow- Yahoos, (a few ex- 
 cepted, whose souls must have transmigrated from the generous 
 Houyhnhnms.) that I have as much of their company as is agreeable 
 to me. and I suspect that they are pretty much of my opinion ; that I 
 am not only ennuye myself, but the cause of ennui in others. In 
 fact, this business of living is, like Mr. Barlow's reclamations on the 
 French Government, dull work ; and I possess so little of pagan 
 philosophy, or of Christian patience, as frequently to be driven to 
 the brink of despair. " The uses of this world have long seemed to 
 me stale, flat, and unprofitable ;" but I have worried along, like a 
 worn-out horse in a mail coach, by dint of habit and whipcord, and 
 shall at last die in the traces, running the same dull stage, day 
 after day.
 
 RETIREMENT. 
 
 17 
 
 When you see Ridgely, commend me to him and his amiable 
 wife. I am really glad to hear that he is quietly at home, instead of 
 scampering along the bay shore, or inditing dispatches. Our upper 
 country has slid down upon the lower. Nearly half our people are 
 below the falls. Both my brothers are gone ; but I must refer you 
 to a late letter to Stanford, for the state of affairs hereabouts. 
 Henry Tucker is in Richmond ; Beverly at Norfolk ; whence, if he 
 return, he will win his life with the odds against him. 
 
 I am much pleased with Mr. Gaston's speech on Webster's mo- 
 tion. Chief Justice Marshall had taught me to think highly of his 
 abilities ; and my expectations, although raised, have not been dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 I have seen the scotched tail of Mr. Secretary M 's report to 
 
 his master, which drags its wounded length along most awkwardly. 
 I should like to hear what Mons. Serrurier would say. Mr. Rus- 
 sell and the Duke of Bassano are, it seems, confronted across the 
 Atlantic. I should be glad to have his Imperial and Royal Majes- 
 ty's Envoy called into court, and examined touching Mr. M 's 
 
 declaration. * * * 
 
 Nicholson has luckily shifted his quarters, from an exposed to a 
 very safe position, where he may reflect undisturbed on the train of 
 measures which have issued in the present unparalleled state of 
 things. With me, he condemned them at the beginning, but gradu- 
 ally coincided with the views of the administration. He may live to 
 see the time when he will wish that he had steadily opposed himself to 
 them. I would not give the reflection that, under every circumstance 
 of discouragement, I never faltered or wavered in my opposition to 
 them, to be president for life. Nearly eight years ago the real views 
 and trite character of the Executive were disclosed to me, and I made 
 up my mind as to the course which my duty called upon me to fol- 
 low. I predicted the result which has ensued. The length of time 
 and vast efforts which were required to hunt me down, convince me 
 that the cordial co-operation of a few friends would have saved the 
 Republic. Sallust, I think, says, speaking of the exploits of Rome. 
 ' Egregiam virtutem paucorum civium cuncta patiavisse ;' and if those 
 who ought to have put their shoulders to the work, had not made a 
 vain parade of disinterestedness in returning to private life, all might 
 have been saved. But the delicacy and timidity of some, and the 
 versatility of others, insured the triumph of the court and the ruin 
 of the country. I know not how I got upon this subject. It is a 
 most unprofitable one. 
 
 Farewell, my good friend, and believe me, in truth 
 Yours, 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.
 
 18 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Have you met with a queer book,* by a Mr. James Fishback. 
 of Lexington. Kentucky ? He very politely sent me a copy, and ac- 
 companied it with a letter, in which, like the rest of his brethren, he 
 natters himself that his book will be generally read, and (of course) 
 productive of great benefit. It is a most curious work for a lawyer 
 (a Kentucky lawyer I mean), for such it seems he is. and brother-in- 
 law to Mr. Pope, late of the Senate. I have dipped into it here and 
 there, and whatever may be the skill displayed in its execution, the 
 object I think is a good one. The man has thought much but I 
 doubt if clearly. Like many other writers in the same walk of com- 
 position, he appears not always to affix a precise meaning to his 
 terms. 
 
 Sunday. Post in not a line or newspaper from Washington. 
 
 Francis S. Key to J. Randolph. 
 
 GEORGETOWN, August 30, 1813. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND * * * As you appeared to be tired of ti c 
 country. I thought it likely you would have begun before now your 
 journey to Cambridge, and hoped to have seen you as you passed. I 
 have less regard for those Eastern people now than I used to have. 
 and should care less about seeing them or their country. I cannot 
 help suspecting them of selfish views, and that, if they can collect 
 strength enough, they will separate. Their policy has certainly been 
 a crooked one. The Quarterly Reviewers say well that the expedi- 
 ent of driving the administration into the war for the purpose of 
 making them unpopular was " dangerous and doubtful." They might 
 have added that it was dishonest. Certainly, the sort of opposition 
 they are making now is one from which nothing good can be expected. 
 
 There was old , the other day, while I was at Fredericks- 
 town, travelling out of his road, and giving up his passage in the 
 stage, and then travelling post to overtake it, and all to eat a dinner 
 
 given by some of Mr. 's tools, apparently to him, but in fact to 
 
 give eclat to his " distinguished young friend," and help on his 
 intrigues. I believe this old man is honest, but can he be so vain as 
 to run panting after praise in this way ? or is he told and does he 
 believe that people are to be driven from their opinions and made to 
 
 fall into the ranks behind him and Mr. and his Boston party. 
 
 whenever he chooses to show himself? 
 
 I suppose Stanford told you that I was half inclined to turn poli- 
 tician. I did feel something like it but the fit is over. I shall. I 
 hope, stay quietly here, and mind my business as long as it lasts 1 
 
 * The title of the work is '' The Philosophy of the Human Mind in respect to 
 Religion."
 
 RETIRE:* i- 
 
 19 
 
 have troubled myself enough with thinking what I should do so I 
 shall try to prepare myself for whatever may appear plainly to be my 
 duty. That I must make some change, if the war lasts much longer 
 (as I think it will), is very probable ; but whether it shall be for a 
 station civil, military, or clerical, I will not yet determine. To be 
 serious, I believe that a man who does not follow his own inclina 
 tions. and choose his own ways, but is willing to do whatever may be 
 appointed for him, will have his path of life chosen for him and 
 shown to him, and I trust this is not enthusiasm. 
 
 Our friend Ridgely has really turned politician. He is a candi- 
 date for the Maryland Legislature, and it is thought will be elected. 
 I hardly know whether to wish he may succeed or not. He has some 
 good, and, indeed, most excellent qualities for such a place, but he 
 wants others, and will have few, if any. worthy of his confidence, te 
 join him in a stand against the folly and wickedness of both parties. 
 His situation will be peculiarly difficult and disagreeable, requiring 
 great prudence and self-coimnaud. I know some of the men he will 
 have to deal with, who are as cunning as he is unsuspicious. 
 
 Lloyd was here the other day. I was sorry I was out of town, as 
 I should have liked to have seen him. He told Mrs. Key he believed 
 you had given him up. and complained that you never wrote to him. 
 She told him you almost always inquired of him in your letters to 
 me, and mentioned what you said in your last about your observation 
 in Congress, at which he laughed. I make great allowances for 
 Lloyd's wrongheadedness. The federalists flattered and supported 
 him he was moderating in his opinions, but did not abandon his 
 party he still called himself a democrat- this affronted them, and 
 at the next session they all voted against him. This conduct was 
 calculated to convince him that their former support was an artifice, 
 that they wished to dupe him. and expected their favors had bought 
 him off from his party. At the same time the federal newspapers 
 opened their abuse upon him, which was gross, false, and abominable. 
 
 Now. when all this is considered, I think he cannot yet be thought 
 incorrigible. He has had no chance of judging coolly and dispassion- 
 ately. I am convinced, though (N.'s) influence with him is grout, it 
 would never (but for these things) have been sufficient to keep him 
 among the supporters of such a party. A man could not long be so 
 blind to his own interest, and that of the country, but by his passions 
 and prejudices being continually excited. 
 
 Randolph to Key. 
 
 ROANOKE, Sept. 12, 
 
 DEAR FRANK I had almost begun to fear that you had forgqgteu 
 
 me, but this morning's mail brought me yours of the 30th of August
 
 20 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Our post-office establishment is under shameful mismanagement 
 To-day I received a letter from Boston, post-marked Aug. 22d, and 
 last week I got one from the same place marked Aug. 23d. I still 
 keep up an intercourse, you see, with the head-quarters of good prin- 
 ciples for although I do not dabble in -politics, " I have more regard 
 for these Eastern people now than I used to have " Of the policy 
 of driving the administration into war. I have the same opinion that 
 you quote from the Quarterly Review. It was a crooked scheme, 
 and has met its merited fate. But, my dear friend, great allowance 
 is to be made for men under the regime of Clay, Grundy & Co. ; and 
 besides a few individuals only are answerable for the consequences of 
 this tortuous policy. The great bulk of the Eastern States are guilt- 
 less of the sin. When I consider how much more these people have 
 borne from the pettifoggers of the West, than they would submit to 
 from Lord North : and reflect that there is no common tie of inter- 
 est or of feeling between them and their upstart oppressors, I cannot 
 pronounce them (in this instance at least) to be selfish. Indeed, I 
 should not like them less if they were so I am becoming selfish my- 
 self (when too late), and bitterly regret that I did not practise upon 
 this principle many years ago. On this scheme I have abandoned 
 politics for ever and for the same reason should be sorry to see you. 
 or our noble, spirited friend, Sterritt Ridgely, engaged in their pur- 
 suit. I have more faith in free will than you seem to express for I 
 believe we have it all in our power to choose wisely if we would. As 
 to Ridgely, he is utterly unfit for public life. Do you ask why ? 
 You have partly answered the question. He is too honest, too un- 
 suspicious, too deficient in cunning. I would as soon recommend 
 such a man to a hazard-table and a gang of sharpers, as to a seat in 
 any deliberative assembly in America. 
 
 Our quondam friend Lloyd for " quondam friends are no rarity 
 with me" I made this answer at the ordinary at our court, to a gen- 
 tleman who had returned from Rappahannock, and told me that he 
 had seen some of my quondam friends. It was casually uttered, but 
 I soon saw how deep it was felt by a person at table, whom I had not 
 before observed. To return to Lloyd. He cannot, with any show 
 of justice, complain of "my giving him up." The saddle is on the 
 other horse. He is a spoiled child of fortune, and testy old bachelors 
 make a poor hand of humoring spoiled children. Lloyd required to 
 be flattered, and I would not perform the service. I would hold no 
 man's regard by a base tenure. I see that Ridgely stands commit- 
 ted to abide the issue of an election. I am sorry for it for his own 
 sake, and yet more on account of Mrs. R. Electioneering is upon 
 no very pleasant footing any where ; but with you, when the " base 
 proletarian rout" are admitted to vote, it must be peculiarly irksome 
 anJfcepugnant to the feelings of a gentleman.
 
 RETIREMENT. 
 
 21 
 
 I am highly pleased with the XlVth number of the Quarterly 
 Review, particularly the article on the subject of the poor laws : and 
 that on the literature of France during the past century. Alas ! for 
 Walter Sco|| ! These learned reviewers cannot prevail upon me to 
 " revive the opinion" which the first reading (or attempt at reading) 
 Rokeby produced. It is beneath criticism. 
 
 My will, but not my poverty, consents to my eastern tour. Our 
 blessed rulers have nearly ruined me, and should the war be protracted 
 much longer, I must go into some business, if there be any for which 
 I am fit. My body is wholly worn out, and the intellectual part 
 much shattered. Were I to follow the dictates of prudence, I should 
 convert my estate into money, and move northwardly. Whether I 
 shall have firmness and vigor enough to execute such a scheme, re- 
 mains to be seen. My bodily infirmities are great and rapidly in- 
 creasing, so that it will be impossible for me to sustain existence here 
 when deprived of field exercises. I write now under the pressure of 
 severe headache. You are not my physician, yet I cannot omit telling 
 you that I am afflicted with a strange anomalous disease. It is of 
 the heart ; the most violent palpitations, succeeded oy a total suspen- 
 sion of its functions for some seconds : and then, after several sud- 
 den spasmodic actions, the pulse becomes very slow, languid, and 
 weak. When the fit is on, it may be seen through my dress across 
 the room. It was this demon that put it out of my head to suggest 
 to you the practical wisdom of damping the opposition to the govern- 
 ment at this time. Of the print in question, I think nearly as you 
 do ; but it has done a deal of.good with some mischief, and perhaps in 
 the attempt to do more. How was the last administration over- 
 thrown, do you suppose ? By rejecting proffered service from any 
 quarter ? Had the Aurora no agency, think you, in the work ? " Ho- 
 mo sum :" man must work with mortal means. Not choosing to use 
 such, I am idle. When administration call to their aid the refuse 
 
 of New England in the persons of the 
 
 and opposition reject the aid, or stand aloof from such high-minded, 
 
 honorable men as S , K , Gr , Q , L , 
 
 , L , P , what can be expected but defeat ? It 
 
 is as if in the Southern States the assistance of the whites should be 
 rejected against an adversary that embodied the negroes on his side. 
 Be assured that nothing can be done with, effect, without union among 
 the parts, however heterogeneous, that compose the opposition. They 
 have time enough to differ among themselves after they shall have put 
 down the common foe ; and if they must quarrel, I would advise them 
 to adjourn the debate to that distant day. 
 
 I wish I could say something of my future movements. I look 
 forward without hope. Clouds and darkness hang upon my pros- 
 pects ; and should my feeble frame hang together a few years longer,
 
 22 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 the time may arrive when my best friends, as well as myself, may 
 pray that a close be put to the same. 
 
 My best respects and regards to Mrs. Key, and love to the young 
 folks. I fear I shall live to see you a grandfather. Famwell. 
 
 J. R. OF lloANOKE. 
 
 To the same. 
 
 ROANOKE, Sept. 26, 1813. 
 
 DEAR FRANK. You owe the trouble of this letter to another 
 which I threw upon your shoulders some time ago. As the shooting 
 season approaches. I am reminded of my favorite gun, &c., in George- 
 town. 'Tis true I have a couple of very capital pieces here, but 
 neither of them as light and handy as that I left at Cranford's, and I 
 fear it may be injured or destroyed by rust verbum sat. 
 
 We have to-day the account of Perry's success on Lake Erie, 
 which will add another year to the life of the war. Have you seen 
 Woodfall's Junius ? The private correspondence has rsised the cha- 
 racter of this mysterious being very much in my estimation. If you 
 will pardon the apparent vanity of the declaration, it has reminded 
 me frequently of myself. I hope he will never be discovered. I 
 feel persuaded that he was an honest man and a sincere patriot, which 
 heretofore I was inclined to doubt. We have been flooded. This 
 river has not been so high since August, 1795. A vast deal of corn 
 is destroyed. I fear I have lost 500 barrels, and eighty odd stacks 
 of oats. 
 
 In tenderness to you, I have said nothing of Rokeby. Alas ! 
 good Earl Walter dead and gone /" God bless you ! 
 
 J. R. 
 
 Best love to Mrs. Key, and Ridgley, when you see him. 
 
 John Randolph to Dr. John Brockenbrough 
 
 ROANOKE, Oct. 4, 1813 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND : By this time I trust you have returned to 
 Richmond for the winter. It has been a grievous separation from 
 you that I have endured for the last two months. In this period I 
 have experienced some heavy afflictions, of which no doubt common 
 fame has apprised you. and others that she knows not of. Let us 
 not talk, and. if possible, not think of them. I hope that Mrs. B. 
 has derived every possible advantage from her late excursion. As- 
 sure her from me, that she has no friend who is more sincerely inter- 
 -T, -,1 in her temporal and eternal happiness than myself. Absorbed 
 :is I may be supposed to be with my own misfortunes. I live only for
 
 RETIREMENT. 23 
 
 my friends. They are few, but they are precious beyond all human 
 estimation. Write to me I beg of you ; the very sight of your hand- 
 writing gives a new impulse to my jaded spirits. I would write f but 
 I cannot. I sometimes selfishly wish that you could conceive of my 
 feelings. It is not the least painful of my thoughts that I am per- 
 petually destined to be away from the sympathy of my friends, whilst 
 T am deprived of every thing but affection towards them. 
 Yours truly ; 
 
 JOHN RANIDLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 
 Mr. Randolph filed away his letters with great care. He in- 
 dorsed on them the name of the author, the- date, the tin\ it was 
 received and answered ; and if the letter contained any subject of 
 special interest, it was in like manner noted. On the following let 
 ter was indorsed " Party Spirit ;" the words were underscored, and 
 in addition was the figure of a hand, with the index finger pointing 
 to them. 
 
 F. S. Key to John Randolph. 
 
 GEORGETOWN,' Oct. 5. 1813. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR : I was thinking of your gun a few days before I 
 received your letter, and determined to rub off some of your rust, 
 and try if I could kill Mrs. Key a bird or two. She has just given 
 me another son, and of course deserves this piece of courtesy. As 
 to amusement in shooting, I have lost it all, though once as ardent a 
 sportsman as yourself. I am pleased to find that you are anticipat 
 ing such pleasures, as I therefore hope that the complaint you men- 
 tioned in your former letter has left you. Exercise will no doubt 
 tend to relieve you. * 
 
 I have never read the private correspondence of Junius. I ha\v 
 a late edition, and will see if it contains it. I was always against 
 Junius, having sided with Dr. Johnson and his opponents. Then 
 was, I know, great prejudice, and perhaps nothing else in this, lur 
 since the prejudice has worn away I have had no time to rend - 
 long a book. The article you speak of in the Quarterly Review (<M 
 the Poor Laws) I admire, and assent to more cordially Mian an\ 
 thing on the subject I ever saw. It excited my interest greatly 
 What sound and able men are engaged in that work ! I know none 
 who are offering so much good to their country and the world, and 1 
 will not suffer myself to believe that it is thrown away. As to their 
 rivals, the Edinburgh Reviews, I believe we should differ in opinion 
 I consider them as masked infidels and Jacobins : and if I had time
 
 24 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 and it was worth while, I think I could prove it upon them. I would 
 refer to the review of the life of Dr. Beatty, and of Coelebs, and a few 
 others, to prove that either knowingly, or ignorantly (I have hardly 
 charity enough to believe the latter), they have misrepresented and 
 attacked Christianity. "Were you not pleased with the spirited 
 defence against them which the Quarterly reviewers have made for 
 Montgomery ? As to Walter Scott, I have always thought he was 
 sinking in every successive work. He is sometimes himself again in 
 Marmion" and the ' : Lady of the Lake ;" but when I read these, 
 and thought of the " Lay of the Last Minstrel," it always seemed tc 
 me that " hushed was the harp the minstrel gone." I believe I 
 am singular in this preference, and it may be that I was so " spell- 
 bound" by " the witch notes" of the first, that I could never listen to 
 the others. But does it not appear that to produce one transcend- 
 ently fine epic poem is as much as has ever fallen to the life of one 
 man ? There seems to be a law of the Muses for it. I was always 
 provoked with him for writing more than his first. The top of Par- 
 nassus is a point, and there he was. and should have been content. 
 There was no room to saunter about on it; if he moved, he must 
 descend ; and so it has turned out, and he is now (as the Edinburgh 
 reviewers say of poor Montgomery) " wandering about on the lower 
 .slopes" of it. 
 
 I have not seen nor heard of Ridgley since his political campaign 
 commenced. It closed yesterday, and we have not yet heard how he 
 lias fared. There is a report in town of the federalists having suc- 
 ceeded in Frederick, which I expected would be the case from 
 
 P 's having had the folly and meanness to go all over the county 
 
 making speeches. Ridgley's election is more doubtful, as the ad- 
 ministration are very strong in his county. If he is elected, you 
 will write to him, but don't discourage him too much. If he can 
 command his temper, and be tolerably prudent. I think he may do 
 some good. If cunning is necessary, he is indeed in a desperate 
 case. I cannot think that the duty of an honest man when he con- 
 sents to become a politician, is so difficult and hopeless as you seem 
 to consider it. He will often, it is true, be wrong, but this may 
 enable him to correct his errors. He will often have to submit to 
 disappointments, but they may make him better and wiser. If he 
 pursues his course conscientiously, guarding against his own am- 
 bition, and exercising patience and forbearance towards others, he 
 will generally succeed better than the most artful intriguer ; and the 
 worst that can happen is. that in bad and distempered times he may 
 be released from his obligations. [Meant to be a picture of Ran 
 dolph himself. Editor.'] Nor even then is there an end of his use- 
 fulness ; for, besides many things that he may yet do for the common 
 good, the public disorder may pass away, and when the people arf
 
 RETIREMENT. 25 
 
 sobered by suffering, they will remember who would have saved them 
 from it ; and his consequence and ability to serve them will be incal- 
 culably increased, and their confidence in him unbounded. " E<re- 
 gia virtus paucorum." I have forgotten your quotation from Salfust 
 you can supply it. It struck me forcibly, and I believe it admira- 
 bly suited to these times ; and that if this " egregia virtus" can be 
 found among even a few of our politicians, who can be pressed ami 
 kept in the public service, we may be safe. 
 
 The opposition making to the administration may succeed (though 
 I do not think it can) ; but if it did I should hope but little from it : 
 and that, because it is the opposition of a party. If it is the honest- 
 est party, it would be beaten again immediately ; for of two contend- 
 ing factions, the worst must be, generally, successful. This is just 
 as plain to me as that of two gamesters ; he who cheats most will 
 commonly win the game. We should therefore, I think, burn the 
 ^ cards, or give up the game of party, and then, I believe, the knaves might 
 ' be made the losers. " Keep up party and party spirit" should be 
 (if they have any sense) the first and great commandment of the 
 
 administration to its followers. Let P & Co. keep up a constant 
 
 volley of the most irritating provocations against every one who does 
 not belong to their party, and the weakest friend of the administra- 
 tion will fall into the ranks against them, and follow wherever they 
 are ordered. 
 
 Suppose some ruinous and abominable measure, such as a French 
 alliance, is proposed by the government ; will the scolding of the 
 federalists in Congress gain any of the well-meaning but mistaken 
 and prejudiced friends of the administration, and induce them to 
 oppose it ? Will not such persons, on the contrary, be driven to con- 
 sider it a party question, and the clamor and opposition of these 
 persons, as a matter of course 1 Will men listen to reasonings against 
 it. judge of it impartially, and see its enormity, who are blinded by 
 party spirit ? But let such men as Cheves or Lowndes, men who are 
 not party men or who will leave their party when they think them 
 wrong ; let them try if conciliation, and a plain and temperate 
 exposure of fche measure will not be effectual ; and it is certainly rea- 
 sonable to expect it would. I am. besides, inclined to think that the 
 worst men of a party will be uppermost in it ; and if so, there would, 
 perhaps, be no great gain from a change. If every man would set 
 himself to work to abate, as far as possible, this party spirit : if 
 the people could be once brought to require from every candidate 1 
 a solemn declaration, that he would act constitutionally according to 
 his own judgment, upon every measure proposed, without considering 
 what party advocated or opposed it (and I cannot think that such a 
 ground would be unpopular), its effects would be, at least, greatly 
 diminished. This course might not, it is possible, succeed in ordi- 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 26 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 nary times, and when this spirit is so universally diffused and 
 inflamed ; but we are approaching to extraordinary times, when se- 
 rious national affliction will appease this spirit, and give the people 
 leisure and temper to reflect. Something too might then be done 
 towards promoting a reformation of habits and morals, without which 
 nothing of any lasting advantage can be expected. Could such an 
 administration as this preserve its power, if party spirit was even con- 
 siderably lessened ? And is this too much to expect ? If so. there 
 is nothing, I think, to be done but to submit to the punishment that 
 Providence will bring upon us, and to hope that that will cure us 
 I am, you will think, full of this subject. 
 
 Farewell. Yours. 
 
 F. S. KEY 
 
 Randolph to Key. 
 
 ROAXOKE, October 17, 1813. 
 
 DEAR FRANK Never was letter more welcome than that which I 
 just now received from you, and which I must thank you for on the 
 day set apart for letter-writing in the city of 0., or defer it for ano- 
 ther week. Alas ! so far from taking the field against the poor par- 
 tridges, I can hardly hobble about my own cabin. It pleased G-od 
 on Tuesday last to deprive me of the use of my limbs. This visita- 
 tion was attended with acute pain, reminding me most forcibly of my 
 situation at your uncle's nearly six years ago. 
 
 By the papers, I see that our friend Ilidgely has not succeeded in 
 his election. I am gratified, however, to find that he was at the head 
 of the ticket on which his name stood. Lloyd. I perceive, has car- 
 ried his point in Talbot. I have a great mind to publish your letter. 
 If any thing could do good, that, I am certain, would open the eyes of 
 many, as many, at least, as would read it. But I have no faith, and 
 cannot be saved. I look to the sands of Brandenburgh and the 
 mountains of Bohemia with a faint hope of deliverance. You can 
 expect nothing but groans and sighs from a poor devil, racked by 
 rheumatism and tortured by a thousand plagues. I can barely sum- 
 mon heart enough to congratulate you and Mrs. K. (to whom give my 
 best love) on the late happy event in your family. I shall be proud 
 if my gun can furnish a piece of game for her. When I get better 
 you shall hear from me at full. When you see Ilidgely present me 
 most affectionately to him and his twily excellent wife. I cannot be 
 glad of his defeat, since it seems that the complexion of your legis- 
 lature depended upon success there or in some county on the eastern 
 shore ; but I am convinced that it is best for him and his : and I am 
 inclined to think no worse for the country. How can a foolish spend- 
 thrift young man be prevented from ruining himself? How can you 
 appoint a guardian to a people bent on self-destruction ? The state
 
 RETIREMENT. 
 
 27 
 
 of society is radically vicious. It is there, if at all. that the remedy 
 should be applied. 
 
 I will give you an instance. One of my overseers had acted in 
 the most scandalous and indeed dishonest manner. Of course he had 
 to decamp. Two gentlemen, in the most friendly manner, cautioned me 
 against a contest at law with an oversee)-. No matter what the merits 
 of the case, the employer must be cast. If I had been in Turkey, 
 and this fellow a Janizary, they could not have thought the case 
 more desperate, and I know that they ivere right. 
 
 "We agree entirely in opinion respecting the Review, and nearly 
 so on tbe subject of the rival journal. I wish I could get them 
 more regularly, for in my condition any thing of that kind is 
 a treasure. Under any other circumstances I should be ashamed of 
 returning you this meagre epistle, in reply to your rich and copious 
 letter. 
 
 Yours entirely, 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 
 Key to Randolyh. 
 
 GEORGETOWN, November 27, 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEXD * * * I have heard indirectly that your are 
 still sick. I hope this attack will not be such an one as you had at 
 my uncle's. Pain and sickness are sad companions any where, but 
 particularly in the country. It is hard to feel them and think them 
 the trifles that (compared to other things) they certainly are. He 
 alone who sends them can give us strength and faith to bear them 
 as we ought. I wish you every relief, but above all, this. Let me 
 hear from you as often as you can. Your letters may be short, but 
 I shall not find them ' ; meagre." * * * Maryland is in great agita- 
 tion about the Alleghany election. The returned members will 
 take their seats, and when they have elected the Governor and Coun- 
 cil, then their right to their seats will be tried. This piece of jockeyship 
 will degrade and ruin the party for ever. Perhaps it is well it should 
 be so ; the more each party disgraces itself the better. 
 
 I agree exactly with you, that " the state of society is radically 
 vicious," and that it is there that the remedy is to be applied. Put 
 down party spirit ; stop the corruption of party elections ; legislate 
 not for the next election, but for the next century ; build Lancaster 
 schools in every hundred, and repair our ruined churches ; let every 
 country gentleman of worth become a justice of the peace, and show 
 his neighbors what a blessing a benevolent, religious man is ; and let 
 the retired patriot, who can do nothing else, give his country hifi 
 prayers, and often in his meditations " think on her who thinks not
 
 28 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 for herself" " egregia virtus paucorum," &c. I often think of your 
 apt quotation. I believe, nay, I am sure, that such a course, if hon- 
 estly attempted, would succeed and save us. God bless you. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 F. S. KEY. 
 
 Randolph to Key. 
 
 RICHMOND, Dec. 15, 1813. 
 
 DEAR FRANK: I thank you very sincerely for your kind letter, 
 which has been forwarded to me at this place (where I have been up- 
 wards of a month), and also for your remembrance of my request 
 about the pamphlets, which I received yesterday. I wish, if any op- 
 portunity offers (I mean a good one), you would send me " War in 
 Disguise ;" it is bound up with the " Dangers of the Country." and 
 some other pamphlets ; and I pray you take care of my favorite fowl- 
 ing-piece. My fears are not from the use of it, but from rust. 
 
 You see what great objects fill my mind when the day "is big 
 with the fate" of the whole race of man For my part, my fears of 
 the power and arts of France, almost overpower the exercise of my 
 judgment. I can see no cause why the world should not be punished 
 now as in the days of Caesar or Nebuchadnezzar ; nor why Bonaparte 
 may not be as good an instrument as either of those tyrants. En- 
 deavoring to turn away my mind from such contemplations. I try to 
 submit myself to him whose chastisement is love. 
 
 ' ; Put down party spirit !" Put a little fresh salt on the sparrow's 
 tail, and you will infallibly catch him. You will put down party 
 spirit when you put down whisky-drinking, and that will be when the 
 Greek calends come. I agree with you perfectly on the subject of 
 the poor, unoffending Canadians. To us they are innocent ; and in 
 the eye of Heaven we must appear like so many descendants of Cain, 
 seeking to imbrue our hands in our brothers' blood ! Suppose Eng- 
 land to lose Canada, she gets in exchange for it our whole navigation. 
 We were her great and only commercial rival. We possessed a ton- 
 nage, six years ago. greater than that of Great Britain at the acces- 
 sion of the present king. Greater than any other nation, except our 
 parent state, ever owned. Our ships are short-lived, our seamen 
 must have employment ; all the foreign seamen, and many of the na- 
 tive, will seek the Russian, or some other neutral service. We may 
 establish manufactures : but what of that? Those of England want 
 no vent here. Moreover, she well knows that although peace may !>< 
 restored, it will be a peace of double duties and restrictions, a - war 
 in disguise/' In short, I can see no motive in a wise English admin- 
 istration for putting an end to the war. My only trust is in their 
 folly. Lord Castlereagh is not much better than his countryman, 
 with the last syllable of his name, whom you met in the street.
 
 RETIREMENT. 
 
 29 
 
 Peace or war, the ruin of this country is inevitable ; we cannot 
 have manufactures on a great scale. Already our specie is drawn off 
 to pay for domestic manufactures from the middle and eastern States 
 All the loans. &c., are spent in New-York ; and whilst she and Penn- 
 sylvania and New England are thriving in the most wonderful man- 
 ner, with us the straw (near market) of a crop of wheat is worth 
 more than the grain; and we are feeding our horses and oxen with 
 superfine flour, although the crop of Indian corn is superabundant 
 the flour being the cheaper of the two. 
 
 I heard of our friend, Sterrett Ridgley. by a gentleman who saw 
 him at the races. I cannot regret that he is not compelled to mingle 
 in the throng at Annapolis. Sallust, in that quotation of mine to 
 which you so frequently refer, speaking of the exploits of the Romap 
 people ^surpassed by the Greeks in eloquence and .earning, and by 
 the Gauls in military prowess), declares it to be his opinion, after long 
 and attentive study and observations, that " Egregiam virtutem 
 paucorum civium cuncta patiavisse." He goes on to add (I wish I 
 had the book before me), " Sed post quam luxu atque desidio civitas 
 corrupta est, rureus Respublica magnitudine sua, vitia sustentabat." 
 In like manner, we have seen modern France, by the very force of 
 magnitude and number, support the unutterable vices of her rulers, 
 and bear down all before her. As we cannot be saved by the 
 extraordinary virtue of a few, so neither can we rely upon the height 
 of our power to sustain the incapacity and corruption of our rulers, 
 and :f the great mass of our people. 
 
 As to Lancaster schools, I am for the thing, the substance, 
 but not the name. It is stolen by a fellow whom I detest. I hope 
 you have abolished his cruel and stupid punishments in your George- 
 town Institution. An article in the Quarterly Review (I think No. 
 XI.), satisfied me that Lancaster was an impostor, and a hard-hearted 
 wretch. There is a late review on " National Education " (in No. 
 XV. I believe), which pleased me very much My best wishes attend 
 all who are dear to you. I hear that your poor protegee, Miss A. B.. 
 has sealed her final ruin. 
 
 Adieu, and believe me, always, most cordially, yours, 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 Tuesday, Dec. 15, 1813. Wednesday. 
 
 P. S. Have you read Lord Byron's Giaour? I have been delighted 
 with it. He is a poet, as was emphatically said of our P. Henry, 
 ; ' He is an orator !" I have also been much pleased with Horace in 
 London, and the Intercepted Twopenny Post.
 
 30 'LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Key to Randolph. 
 
 GEORGETOWN, January 20. 1814. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, * * * I have no news that I think would 
 interest you. Cheves is said to have been made Speaker, against the 
 wishes of the administration party, who were very active for Grundy. 
 I cannot help thinking his election a favorable circumstance. 
 
 I can hear nothing of the book .you mention (English) from any 
 one but Swift, who says he heard it spoken of in New- York as an 
 ingenious performance. I would read it, and give you my opinion 
 of it. if I came across it, provided it was not too long. I don't be- 
 lieve there are any new objections to be discovered to the truth of 
 Christianity, though there may be some art in presenting ol<L onos in 
 a new dress. My faith has been greatly confirmed by the infidel 
 writers I have read ; and I think such would be the effect upon any one 
 who has examined the evidences. Our Church recommends their perusal 
 to students of divinity, which shows she is not afraid of them Men 
 may argue ingeniously against our faith as indeed they may against 
 any thing but what can they say in defence of their own ? I would 
 carry the war into their own territories. I would ask them what they 
 believed. If they said they believed any thing, I think that thing 
 might be shown to be more full of difficulties, and liable to infinitely 
 greater objections than the system they opposed, and they more 
 credulous and unreasonable for believing it. If they said they be- 
 lieved nothing, you could not, to be sure, have any thing further to 
 say to them. In that case they would be insane, or, at best, illy 
 qualified to teach others what they ought to believe or disbelieve. 
 
 I can never doubt (for we have the word of God for it. and it is so 
 plainly a consequence of his goodness) that all who inquire, with that 
 sincerity and earnestness which so awful a subject requires, will find 
 the truth " Seek, and ye shall find." Did you ever read " Grotius 
 de Veritate ?" I should like to see an infidel attempt an answer to 
 that book. * * *. 
 
 Randolph to Key. 
 
 RICHMOND, February 17, 1814. 
 
 DEAR FRANK : You plead want of time, and I may. with equal 
 truth declare, that I have nothing worth twelve and half cents 
 which, I believe, is the postage from here to the city of 0. Indeed 
 I have been living myself in " a world without souls.," until my heart 
 is " as dry as a chip," and as cold as a dog's nose." Do not suppose, 
 however, that the Jew book has made any impression upon me ; as I 
 cannot see how the human mind, unassisted by the light of Christi-
 
 RETIREMENT. 
 
 31 
 
 anity, can stop half-way at deism, instead of travelling the whole 
 length to which fair deduction would lead it, to frozen, cheerless athe- 
 ism ; so it appears to me most wonderful, that any man, believin^ in 
 the Old Testament, can reject the New ; and it is perhaps not the 
 least conclusive of the proofs of the authenticity of the latter, that 
 the Jews, admitting as it were the premises, should blindly reject the 
 inevitable conclusion. 
 
 Have you read the work of Paley, reviewed in a late Edinburgh 'I 
 
 - The Lord deliver me from Archdeacon Paley !" I am persuaded 
 that, with the best intentions, this man has done infinite rather 
 great mischief to the cause lie espouses. You are rich in hav- 
 ing Swift and Meade with you. I am glad that the Colonel 
 (what is his Christian name?) has escaped the recoil of our own 
 
 measures. Bid him and W accept my best wishes. Poor 
 
 W ! what a situation his imprudence has reduced him to ! I 
 
 have thought a hundred times of the meeting and parting, when he 
 returns to his prison-house, between him and his family ; and I bless 
 God that I have been the probable means of saving Charles and Mrs. 
 Ridgely from a like pang. Why do you say nothing of Charles 
 Sterrett Ridgely? It is the more necessary, since he has given up 
 writing to me. My warmest wishes attend him and all at Oakland ! 
 Remember me, also, to Blenheim and the Woodyard. 
 
 We are all in a bustle here with the news from Europe. For my 
 part, I hope that Blunderbuss Castlereagh may succeed in prevent- 
 ing a peace " which shall confirm to the French Empire an extent of 
 territory France under her kings never knew." If they permit him 
 to retain the low countries and Piedmont, they will act like the 
 sapient commissioner appointed to examine the vaults of the Par- 
 liament House, on the alarm of the gunpowder-plot, who reported. 
 
 that he had discovered seventy-five barrels of gunpowder concealed 
 under faggots ; that he had caused fifty to be removed, and /tojn'/l the 
 other twenty-Jive would do no harm" 
 
 I see the Federal Republican, on the authority of the Evening 
 Post, has accused me of being ; ' an obvious imitator of Lord Chatham." 
 Let them bepraise .their favorites as much as they ]. lease, and at my 
 expense, too, provided they do not class me with the servile herd of 
 imitators whom I despise and shun. No man is more sensible, than 
 I am of the distance between myself and Lord Chatham ; but I would 
 scorn to imitate even him. My powers, such as they are, have not 
 been improved by culture. The first time that I ever dreamed of 
 speaking in public, was on the eve of my election in March, 1799, 
 when I opposed myself (fearful odds !) to Patrick Henry. My man- 
 ner is spontaneous, flowing, like my matter, from the impulse of the 
 moment ; and when I do not feel strongly, I cannot speak to any 
 purpose. These fits are independent of my volition. The best
 
 32 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 speech that I ever made, was about the third or fourth, on the subject 
 of the Connecticut Reserve, 1800. During the last four or five years. 
 I have perceived a sensible decline in my powers which I estimate 
 with as much impartiality as you would ; in a word, as if they had 
 belonged to another. I am not better persuaded of the loss of my 
 grinders, or of the wrinkles in my face and care as much for the one 
 as the other. Any other man but yourself (or perhaps Meade) would 
 take this long paragraph as proof that I am insincere, or self-deceived. 
 To tell you the truth, I am sensible of the gross injustice that has 
 been done me in the paragraph in question. I had as lief be accused 
 of any crime, not forbidden by the decalogue, as of imitation. If 
 these critics choose to say that I have neglected, or thrown away, or 
 buried my talent, I will acquiesce in the censure ; but amongst the 
 herd of imitators I will not be ranked, because I feel that I could 
 not descend to imitate any human being. But I have long ago 
 learned 
 
 Malignum spurnere vulgus. 
 
 Best wishes to Mrs. Key and the little ones. If Meade be with 
 you, I salute him. 
 
 Yours, truly, 
 
 JOHN, RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 Francis Scott Key, Esq. 
 
 I have been delighted with the. Posthumus Works of Burke 
 the father of political wisdom and have revelled in literary sweets : 
 Horace in London ; Rejected Adresses ; Twopenny-post Bag*; The 
 Giaour, and the critique upon it in the Edinburgh Review. Many 
 articles in that journal, and in the Quarterly, have amused and in- 
 structed me. I know you do not like the Scotch fraternity of critics ; 
 neither do I ; butyas est ab hoste docere. What a picture of French 
 society does the review of Grimm unfold ! There are some deep re- 
 flections in that article, which I suppose comes from the pen of Du- 
 gald Stewart. It is eminently favorable to the cause of morality. 
 
 Our great folks at Cr. treat us little folks in Virginia very much 
 as great folks are wont to treat little ones, viz., with sovereign 
 neglect. 
 
 Randolph to Key. 
 
 RICHMOND, March 2, 1814. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Your letter found me in bed, harassed and afflicted 
 with gouty affection of the alimentary canal. It was, I believe, the 
 best medicine that could have been administered to me, but, aided by 
 an anniversary discourse, which Joe Lewis was considerate enough 
 to send me, and which came also in the nick of time, the effect was 
 wonderful. I am half disposed to be angry with you for passing
 
 RETIREMENT. 
 
 33 
 
 over the said discourse as if it never had existed, and especially for 
 leaving me to the charity of Joe Lewis, but for whose contribution I 
 might have been deprived of the pleasure of seeing it at all ; for you 
 need not flatter yourself that the newspapers generally will republish 
 it. Now, bj way of penance for this- misplaced modesty, I do enjoin 
 upon you to thank the aforesaid Joe in my name for his most oblig- 
 ing attention ; one that has given me a pleasure that I shall not of- 
 fend you in attempting to express. 
 
 You are right, my friend, but who will follow you ? Who will 
 abandon the expedient to adopt the counsels of self-denial, of mortifi- 
 cation, of duty ? For my part, much as I abhor the factious motive 
 and manner of the opposition prints, and many of its leaders, if I 
 could find as many men of my way of thinking as drubbed the 
 French at Agincourt, I would throw off the yoke, or perish in the 
 attempt. 
 
 Louisiana is not my country. I respect as much the opinions of 
 the people of London as of the Western States. After these avowals 
 you will not - be glad" I fear ' to see my nil admirari." My father 
 left, for some reason of his own, this old family adage, and adopted 
 f ari qua gentiat for his motto. But although I have returned to 
 the old family maxim, I cannot shake off the habit which I acquired 
 during thirty years' practice of speaking my mind sometimes. Nev- 
 ertheless, I am persuaded that if we could all read your discourse, 
 it would produce a most happy and beneficial effect on all ranks of 
 the people. But the people will not hear, cannot read, and if they 
 could, cannot understand, until the paroxysm of drunkenness is over. 
 Wanting your faith I cannot repress my forebodings. They weigh 
 me down and immerse body and soul. I never stood more in need 
 of your society. In this world without souls every body is taken up 
 with " the one thing needful" what that is you must not consult St. 
 Paul but the Jewish doctors, to discover. 
 
 I was struck with the review of Grimm, and with the hypothesis 
 of the reviewer, on the tendency of a certain state of society^ to 
 deaden the feelings, ossify the heart, and sharpen the sense of ridi- 
 cule. Yes, in spite of its being French verse, I was pleased with the 
 tribute of Voltaire to the power of that God, whom he never knew. 
 I have been looking over the four first numbers of the Edinburgh 
 Review, and was struck with the change of principle. 
 
 In answer to the foregoing letter Mr. Key writes : 
 
 " I have not yet seen the Giaour, but have looked over the Bride 
 of Abydos. It has some fine passages in it, but it is too full of 
 those crooked-named out-of-the-way East Indian things, 
 long ago, however, resolved that there shall be no such poet as WaJ- 
 
 VOL. II. 2*
 
 34 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ter Scott as long as he lives, and I can admire nobody that protends 
 to rival him. 
 
 {: I should like to have the first numbers of the Edinburgh Review. 
 I remember very well the great and shameful change of principle it 
 has undergone. It is to be regretted that it is so popular a work in 
 this country. How came the re-publishers by their recommendations of 
 it ? I see you are among them with some good company, and some 
 rather bad. Is it not desirable that there should be a good Ameri- 
 can Literary Review ? One inculcating the sound principles of the 
 quarterly reviewers, and exposing our book-makers, would perhaps 
 improve both our taste and habits. Have you seen an article in 
 Bronson's select reviews on American song-writing ? I do not know 
 who the author is, but I think he could conduct such a work with 
 much spirit. I have seldom, I think, seen a better piece of criti- 
 cism." 
 
 In reply, Randolph says : 
 
 " I do think a review on the plan you mention would be highly 
 beneficial, and if I was fit for any thing I should like to engage in a 
 work of the sort. But fourteen years of congressional life have 
 rendered me good for nothing. It may be an excuse for idleness, 
 for this devil attacks me in every shape. But it seems to me, to 
 work any material change in the state of things, we must begin (as 
 some logicians lay their premises) a great way off I mean with 
 the children ; the old folks have taken their ply, and will neither 
 bend nor break. 
 
 " ' How came the Edinburgh Review by my recommendation ?' 
 Because the re-publishers applied for it by letter ; and when I gave 
 it I had not gotten sight of the cloven foot ; I had seen, however, some 
 puerile abuse of myself in that journal ; but this and much more 
 would have been amply atoned for by very many masterly articles, 
 if they had not betrayed a want of reverence for religion, and a 
 hankering after France. Nevertheless, some of the late numbers in 
 a great measure redeem their former sins. The truth is that men of 
 diffrent principles, political as well as religious, write for that journal, 
 and it may be always quoted against itself. There are some noble 
 specimens of the art of criticism in the two last numbers that I 
 have seen. 
 
 " I cannot yield the precedence of Lord Byron to Walter Scott. I 
 admit your objection to the ' crooked-named out-of-the-way Turkish 
 things.' But this must be pardoned in a traveller, who has explored 
 the woods that wave o'er Delphi's steep, and swam across the Helles- 
 pont. No poet in our language (the exception is unnecessary), 
 Shakspeare and Milton apart, has the same power over my feelings 
 as Byron. He is. like Scott, careless, and indulges himself in great
 
 RETIREMENT. 35 
 
 license ; biit he does not. like your favorite, write by the piece. I 
 am persuaded that his fragments are thrown out by the true spirit 
 of inspiration, and that he never goads his pen to work. When you 
 have read the Giaour, the first, I think, of his poems, I am persua- 
 ded that you will change your opinion of this singular author, and 
 yet more singular man. His feelings are too strong to endure the 
 privation of religious sentiment. His time is not yet come, but he 
 cannot continue to exist in the chill and gloom of skepticism. 
 
 " Meade is daily expected here. There is a general wish that ho 
 should preach the first sermon in the Monumental Church. 
 
 ' What an occasion for a man who would not sink under it ! He 
 might do a great deal of good were he to yield to the desire of the 
 congregation, and establish himself amongst them ; but where is the 
 field in which he would not do good ? 
 
 " I have not seen the article you mention in Bronson's Select Re- 
 view. In its new form I think that a respectable and useful publi- 
 cation. To be sure, it is made of scissors ; but it is so far beyond 
 the Port-Folio as to be comparatively good. The last is the most con- 
 temptible thing that ever imposed on the public in the shape of a 
 magazine and that is going very far. When your letter and 
 
 W 's P. S. arrived, I was in all the horrors of what is vulgarly 
 
 called BZtie Devils ; nor am I yet wholly recovered. I could not, 
 however, resist the inclination to make my acknowledgments for your 
 kindness." 
 
 R'l/ndolph to Key. 
 
 RICHMOND, May 7th, 181* 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND Mr. Meade tells me that he expects to see 
 you in a few days. I cannot let him depart without some token of 
 my remembrance. He goes away early on Monday morning, so that, 
 to guard against failure, I write to-day. He has made an engage- 
 ment to preach in Hanover, thirty-five miles off, on Monday evening. 
 No man can respect or admire his zeal in the sacred cause to which 
 he has devoted himself, more than I do but I fear he will wear 
 himself out, and that the sum of his usefulness will, on the whole, be 
 diminished, unless he will consent to spare himself. His health and 
 strength are evidently impaired since I saw him last. I fear for his 
 breast. I must refer you to him for what occurs here, except the 
 eagerness of all classes and ranks of people to hear him. No man 
 can be more generally revered than he is. 
 
 As to the review, I am out of the question on that and every 
 other subject requiring any species of exertion. I said truly when 
 I told you that congressional life had destroyed mefruges con- 
 sumere this is all that I am fit for : and such is my infirmity of
 
 36 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 body that I make a very poor hand even at that notwithstanding I 
 am one cf those who (as the French say) sum ne pour la digestion. 
 
 Since the hot weather set in, I have ,been in a state of collapse, 
 and am as feeble as an infant with all this I am tortured with 
 rheumatism, or gout, a wretched cripple, and my mind is yet more 
 weak and diseased than my body. I hardly know myself, so irreso- 
 lute and timid have I become. In short, I hope that there is not an- 
 other creature in the world as unhappy as myself. This I can say to 
 you. To the world I endeavor to put on a different countenance, and 
 hold a bolder language : but it is sheer hypocrisy, assumed to guard 
 against the pity of mankind. 
 
 Mr. Meade will preach to-morrcw in the new church. He is 
 anxio'us on account of a silly piece, which that prince of coxcombs 
 has stuck into his paper. He has had no time for prepara- 
 tion on so useful a subject, and is uneasy that the public expectation 
 has been led to it. Indeed who could treat it as it deserves ? cer- 
 tainly no man whom I ever heard. Remember me kindly to Mrs. 
 Key and all friends, amongst whom I must particularly mention 
 West and Sterrett Ridgely. 
 
 Most sincerely yours, 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 
 I left the letter open that I might say a word about my friend's 
 discourse. He explained in a few satisfactory and appropriate words 
 why he should not touch upon a subject which many of his hearers 
 had been led to expect he would treat (the burning of the theatre on 
 whose site the new church was erected), and then gave us a most ex- 
 cellent sermon on the pleasure of the true Christian's life. A prayer 
 which he introduced into this discourse, that the heart, even if it ivere 
 but one, of the unconverted might be touched, was most affecting. 
 
 He preaches this afternoon at the Capitol, on the subject of the 
 Bible Societies. \ 
 
 Sunday, 2 o'clock, P. M. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ANCESTRAL PRIDE ST. GEORGE MADNESS. 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH had a morbid sensibility on the subject of his family 
 and his property. He belonged to one of the oldest, most numerous, 
 and wealthy families in Virginia he cherished his family pride, and
 
 ANCESTRAL PRIDE. 37 
 
 valued hereditary fortune far beyond its pecuniary worth. A money- 
 loving, or a money-making spirit constituted no part of his character. 
 His feelings and opinions on these subjects were purely English ; the 
 proud, yet munificent and accomplished Baron of some time-honored 
 castle with its thousand acres, and its villages of grateful and happy 
 tenants, handed down from sire to son. with all the associations of 
 pride and affection clustering around its walls and its forests, consti- 
 tuted his beau ideal (not without reason) of the perfect gentleman. 
 Such, in no small degree, were the characters that composed the old 
 Virginia aristocracy. Randolph loved their memory formed him- 
 self on their model despised the law that sapped the foundation of 
 their greatness and still hoped to preserve, in his own name and 
 family, some specimen that might be worthy of a comparison with 
 those noble men of the olden time. 
 
 He cherished the memory of his father with an increasing fond- 
 ness to the day of his death He always kept his father's miniature 
 hung up before him in his chamber, or about his person, when long 
 abroad from home. Last November, when on his way to Richmond, 
 where he expected to be detained a few weeks only, he wrote back to 
 Dudley, ' ; be so good as to send me my father's picture and three 
 lockets they are in my writing-table drawer." He was now the only 
 son, St. George and Tudor the sons of Richard, the only other de- 
 scendants of that father whose memory he dwelt on so fondly. His 
 had been an " unprosperous life," and was now, as he thought, rapidly 
 drawing to a close. St. George was deaf and dumb " the most 
 pitiable of the step-sons of nature." Tudor was all that was left, the 
 pride and hope of the family. These subjects caused him unceasing 
 anxiety. The intensity of his feeling's cannot be understood, nor 
 justly appreciated by the novi liomims of modern times. They 
 amounted almost to a monomania they furnish a solution of many 
 of the apparent inconsistencies of his after life, and was the imme- 
 diate cause of a rupture between himself and his step-father, whom, 
 up to a very recent period, he had loved and venerated with the affec- 
 tion and pride of a son. The efforts of mutual friends to heal this 
 unfortunate breach between father and son, was the principal cause 
 of his long delay in Richmond during the past winter and spring. 
 Writing to Dudley in January, he says, " I have been detained here 
 by a very unpleasant piece of business" and again in February, " I
 
 33 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 have been, indeed, very much disturbed of late, by an occurrence as 
 unexpected as it is distressing ; and, perhaps, I tinge other objects 
 with the hue of the medium through which I observe them." 
 
 The first cause of this misunderstanding with his step-father is 
 very characteristic of the man, and illustrates the feeling of family 
 pride that burned so intensely in his breast. The subject of con- 
 versation was the passing of the Banister estate from an infant of 
 that family, to a brother of the half blood of the Shippen family. 
 Mr. Randolph said that occurrence gave rise to the alteration 
 of the law of descents, and placed it on its present footing : he also 
 expressed in strong terms his disapprobation of the justice or 
 policy of such a law. Judge Tucker replied: "Why, Jack, you 
 ought not to be against that law, for you know if you were to die 
 without issue, you would wish your half brothers to have your estate." 
 " I'll be damned, sir, if I do know it," said Randolph, in great excite- 
 ment ; and from that day ceased with his good and venerable step- 
 father all friendly intercourse. This occasion gave rise to many 
 cruel and unjust suspicions. Once brought to suspect a selfish mo- 
 tive in him he had so much venerated, he began to look back with a 
 jealous eye on all his past transactions, and " trifles light as air" 
 became "confirmations strong as holy writ." 
 
 In 1810-1 1 he called in an attorney and proposed instituting suit 
 He stated that Judge Tucker had never, in fact, settled his accounts 
 as his guardian that he had taken the accounts stated upon trust 
 that Judge Tucker had contrived, fraudulently he thought, to appro- 
 priate to himself certain slaves, which had been given to his mother 
 by her father, Colonel Bland, upon her marriage with his father, 
 Johr. Randolph the elder, wMch his father had held thenceforth till 
 the day of his death, and which were mentioned as a part of his 
 estate. He stated all the circumstances of the case ; and admitted 
 mat the question of his father's right to the slaves depended on the 
 xmstruction and effect of the statute of Virginia of 1758, making 
 ^arole gifts of slaves void. He stated the facts and the law on which 
 ne rested his claim to the slaves with as much precision as coun- 
 sel could have stated them in a bill in Chancery ; he was perfectly 
 acquainted with the statute on the subject, and the decisions of the 
 Court of Appeals upon it. His counsel dissuaded him from his pur- 
 pose cf bringing suit : but he often afterwards recurred to the subject.
 
 ANCESTRAL PRIDE. 39 
 
 and never seems to have been wholly reconciled. The old man, how- 
 ever, was unconscious of having given him any cause of offence. He 
 sent a mutual friend to see Mr. Randolph soon after his arrival in 
 Richmond : " Do me the favor," says he, " to go and see Mr. Ran- 
 dolph, and ask him if he ever received a letter from me on the sub- 
 ject of the misunderstanding between himself and his brother Bev- 
 erly, and whether he ever answered it? Then ask him what has 
 alienated him from one, whom for more than thirty years he has 
 known as a father ?' ! 
 
 Randolph replied to the messenger, after a frown, that he had 
 received the letter alluded to, and had not answered it ; and after a 
 long pause said he had imposed it as a law on himself on this subject, 
 not to converse about it. 
 
 The cause of this alienation of mind we have seen. His morbid 
 sensibility on these subjects was now in a new and unexpected form 
 to be sorely tried ; his family pride to be deeply mortified, and his 
 fond hopes of its future continuance and of its future distinction to 
 be blasted forever. 
 
 He thus writes to Mr. Key : 
 
 ROANOKE, June 3, 1814. 
 
 DEAR FRANK My departure from Richmond was as sudden as 
 the occasion was mournful and distressing. My eldest nephew. 
 St. George, in consequence of an unsuccessful attachment to Miss 
 
 , the daughter of a worthy neighbor of his mother, had become 
 
 unsettled in his intellects, and on my arrival at Farmville I found him 
 a frantic maniac. I have brought him up here, and Dr. Dudley, a 
 friend and treasure to me above all price, assists me in the manage- 
 ment of him We have no hopes of his restoration. 
 
 I would congratulate you on the late most important occurrences 
 in Europe ; but I cannot write. Let ine hear from you, I pray. 
 Commend me to Mrs. Key, and West, and Ridgely, and all who care 
 to inquire after me. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OP ROANOKE. 
 
 Randolph to Key. 
 
 ROANOKK, July 14, 1814. 
 
 DEAR FRANK I have but half a sheet of paper left, and it is tun 
 late to send to the Court House (thirteen miles) for more. But with 
 this half sheet and half a drop of ink diluted to a penful, I hope to 
 make out something like a letter.
 
 40 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 It is not the young man you saw in Georgetown, just before the 
 declaration of war, whose unhappy condition I described ; lie is yet 
 at Cambridge : the patient is his elder brother, just entering his 
 twenty-third year, and has been deaf and dumb from his cradle. 
 
 This is the principal cause of his present situation : He has made 
 several attempts to marry, and brooding over the cause of his failure 
 has reduced him to his present state. He has become manageable 
 with little trouble. His memory for words, persons, and events is 
 unimpaired, but he cannot combine. He has dwelt a great deal on 
 the terrors of future punishment also, and often mentioned the devil, 
 but that was subsequent to his total derangement. His mind runs on 
 it only as on other subjects of primary interest. 
 
 I saw some account of your campaigns in the newspapers. Wads- 
 worth's letter is a curiosity an honest account from a military com- 
 mander. Your labors, my good friend, are drawing to a close. Rely 
 upon it, we have peace forthwith. The points in " contestation," our 
 rulers say, are removed by the peace in Europe, and will not be 
 " touched" (another favorite phrase) in the treaty of peace. They 
 might as well say they were removed by our declaration of war, if 
 they were neutral rights, for that they contended for. Poor devils, 
 what a figure they do cut ! Yet they will look as consequential as 
 ever, and even carry the people with them. 
 
 Have you read the Corsair ? or have you lost all relish for such pro- 
 ductions ? I think his lordship is falling into the errors ascribed by 
 him to Walter Scott. There is, however, some exquisite poetry. I have 
 been trying to forget my wretched situation in the perusal of Burke. 
 I have read his matchless diatribe on the attack of D. of B. and 
 L. of L. his letters on the regicide peace, and indeed the whole 
 of the fifth volume, New- York edition. How much it is to be re- 
 gretted that he did not live to publish his abridgment of English 
 Historj I have also run over the Reflections, and the Appeal from 
 the New to the Old Whigs. that he could have seen this day ! 
 You say nothing of Bonaparte. How I long for half an hour's chat with 
 you on the subject of these late surprising and providential events. 
 
 Present me affectionately to Mrs. Key and your little one. and 
 remember me kindly to West and Ridgely. when you see them. If Lord 
 Byron's Ode to Bonaparte is in Georgetown, pray send me a copy 
 by post. Dudley returns your greeting. He is to me a treasure 
 above all price. Exclusive of his excellent temper, alacrity, and in- 
 telligence, he is a most skilful physician. I should sink without his 
 support. I thank God that he has raised up to me such an help. 
 Adieu, my dear sir. I am in truth, yours, 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 
 1 came down here yesterday with my poor nephew, who seems 
 incurably alienated from his mother. I shall return in a few days.
 
 ANCESTRAL PRIDE. 
 
 Randolph to Brockenbrough. 
 
 ROANOKE, July 15, 1814. 
 
 I had begun to fear that my long' visitation of last winter and 
 spring, had put you so much out of the habit of writing to me, that 
 you would never resume it. But your letter of the 6th (just re- 
 ceived) encourages me to hope that I shall hear from you as formerly. 
 It was a sensible relief to me. But I will say nothing about my 
 situation. 
 
 Poor St. George continues quite irrational. He is however very 
 little mischievous, and governed pretty easily. His memory of per- 
 sons, things, words, and events, is not at all impaired ; but he has no 
 power of combination, and is entirely incoherent. His going to the 
 Springs is out of the question, and mine, I fear, equally so, although 
 my rheumatism requires the warm bath. By this time you are on 
 your way thither. Except that it is too cold, the weather could not 
 have been finer. 
 
 What a climate we live under ! 
 
 As to peace, I have not a doubt that we shall have it forthwith. 
 Our folks are prepared to say that the pacification of Europe has 
 
 swept away the matters in contestation, as M , the Secretary of 
 
 State, has it. All that we see in the Government prints is to recon- 
 cile us the better to the terms which they must receive from the 
 enemy. From the time of his flight from Egypt, my opinion of the 
 character of Bona.parte has never changed, except for the worse. I 
 have considered him from that date a coward, and ascribed his suc- 
 cess to the deity he worships, Fortune. His insolence and rashness 
 have met their just reward. Had he found an efficient government 
 in France, on his abandonment of his brave companions in arms in 
 Egypt, and returned to Paris, he would have been cashiered for ruin- 
 ing the best appointed armament that ever left an European port. 
 But all was confusion and anarchy at Paris, and instead of a coup do 
 fusil, he was rewarded with a sceptre. He succeeded in throwing 
 the blame of Aboukir on poor Brueys. He could safely talk of 
 " his orders to the Admiral," after L' Orient had blown up. His 
 Russian and German campaign is another such commentary on his 
 character ; it is all of a piece. 
 
 If the allies adhere to their treaty of Chaurnont, the peace of Eu- 
 rope will be preserved ; but in France, I think, the seeds of disorder 
 must abound. Instead of the triple aristocracy of the Noblesse, the 
 Church, and the Parliaments, I see nothing but janissaries, and a 
 divan of ruffians Algiers on a great scale. Moral causes I see- 
 none ; and I am well persuaded that these are not created in a day. 
 Matters of inveterate opinion, when once rooted up, are dead, never 
 to revive ; other opinions must succeed them. But I am prosing--
 
 42 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 uttering a string of common-place that everyone can write, and no 
 one can deny. But you brought it on yourself. You expected 
 that I would say something, and I resolved to try. I can bear wit- 
 ness to the fact of Mrs. Brockenbrough's prediction respecting Bona- 
 parte's retirement. I wish I were permitted to name five ladies who 
 should constitute the Cabinet of this country ; our affairs would be 
 conducted in another guess manner. This reminds me of Mrs. G-., of 
 whom I have at last heard. Mr. Gr. wrote me late in February, from 
 London. They were going to Bath, and " if circumstances on the 
 continent would permit, meant to take a tour through France." 
 How well-timed their trip to Europe has been. 
 
 I am here completely hors clu monde. My neighbor, , with 
 
 whom I have made a violent effort to establish an intercourse, has 
 been here tivice, by invitation W. Leigh, as 'often, on his way to 
 court ; and on Saturday, I was agreeably surprised, by stumbling on 
 Frank Grilmer, who was wandering to and fro in the woods, seeking 
 my cabin. He left on Tuesday for his brother's in Henry. Except 
 my standing dish, you have my whole society for nine weeks. On the 
 terms by which I hold it, life is a curse, from which I would will- 
 ingly escape, if I knew where tojfy. I have lost my relish for read- 
 ing : indeed, 1 could not devour even the Corsair with the zest that 
 Lord Byron's pen generally inspires. It is very inferior to the 
 Giaour, or the Bride. The character of Conrad is unnatural. Blessed 
 with his mistress, he had no motive for desperation. 
 
 My plantation affairs, alwa}*s irksome, are now revolting. I have 
 lost three-fourths of the finest and largest crop I ever had. 
 
 My best respects and regard to Mrs. B. 
 
 I am, as ever, yours. 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE 
 
 Dr. Dudley is (as you may suppose) a treasure to me above all 
 price. Withou 1 him, what should I do? He desires his respects to 
 you both. 
 
 As to an English Constitution for France, they will have one 
 when they all speak the English language, and not before. Have 
 you read Morris's oration on the 29th of June ? His description of 
 Bonaparte, "taking money for his crown," is very fine. It is a pic- 
 ture. I see him. There are some cuts in the same page that our 
 fulminating statesmen will not like. 
 
 Sunday the \lth. I am compelled to be at Prince Edward 
 Court to-morrow, and the weather is so intolerably hot, that I shall 
 go a part of the way this afternoon, and put my letter in the Farm- 
 ville post-office, whence it will go direct to Richmond, instead of 
 waiting five days 1 on the road. Our crops, lately drowned, are now 
 burning up. I begin to feel the effects of the fresh in my health as 
 well as my purse. Dudley and myself both have experienced the ill
 
 ANCESTRAL PRIDE. 43 
 
 consequeuces of our daily visits to the low grounds. The negroes, 
 however, continue healthy. Out of more than two hundred, not a 
 patient since I came home. 
 
 Who is it that says " il-y-a tant de plaisir a bavarder avec uii 
 ami !" Perhaps you will reply that the pleasure is not so great ctre 
 bavardi. 
 
 Randolph to Key. 
 
 ROANOKE, July 31, 1814. 
 
 Affliction has assailed me in-a new shape. My younger nephew 
 whom you saw in G. Town two years ago has fallen, I fear, into a con- 
 firmed pulmonary consumption. He was the pride, the sole hope of 
 our family. How shall I announce to his wretched mother that the 
 last stay of her widowed life is falling 1 Give me some comfort, my 
 good friend, I beseech you. He is now travelling by slow journeys 
 home. What a scene awaits him there ! His birth-place in ashes, 
 his mother worn to a skeleton with disease and grief, his brother cu f 
 off from all that distinguishes man to his advantage from the brute 
 beast. I do assure you that my own reason has staggered under this 
 cruel blow. I know, or rather have a confused conception of what 
 I ought to do, and sometimes strive, not altogether ineffectually I 
 hope, to do it ; but again all is chaos and misery. My faculties are 
 benumbed ; I feel suffocated ; let me hear from you. I pray. 
 
 Yours, in truth, 
 
 J. K. 
 
 St. George, my elder nephew, is calm and governable, but entirely 
 irrational. Commend me to Mi%. Key, and to Kidgely and West. 
 Since writing the above my whole crop (tobacco and corn) is destroyed 
 by a fresh, the greatest that has been known within twenty years. I 
 fear a famine next summer ; for this country, if we had the means of 
 buying, is out of the way of a supply, except by distant land-carriage, 
 and the harvests of Rappahannock, &c., cannot be brought up to 
 Richmond by water. The poor slaves I fear will suffer dreadfully. 
 
 Randolph to Brockenbrough. 
 
 ROANOKE, Aug. 1, 1814. 
 
 You find in me, I fear, not merely an unprofitable but a trouble- 
 some correspondent ; all my conversation is on paper. I have no one 
 to converse with, for I have hardly seen Dudley since my return from 
 Farmville. and I try to forget myself, or to obtain some relief from m\ 
 own thoughts, by pouring them out on one who has heretofore lent t*. 
 me perhaps too partial an ear. I have lived to feel that there aro - man \
 
 44 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 things worse than poverty or death," those bugbears that terrify the 
 great children of the world, and sometimes drive them to eternal ruin. 
 It requires, however, firmer nerves than mine to contemplate, without 
 shrinking, even in prospect, the calamities which await this unhappy 
 district of country famine and all its concomitant horrors of dis- 
 ease and misery. To add to the picture, a late requisition of militia 
 for Norfolk carries dismay and grief into the bosoms of many fami- 
 lies in this country ; and to have a just conception of the scene, it is 
 necessary to be on the spot. This is our court day, when the con- 
 scripts are to report themselves, and I puiposely abstain from the 
 sight of wretchednes that I cannot relieve. I have indeed enough of 
 it at home. The river did not abate in its rise until last night at 
 sunset. It has, after twenty -four hours, just retired within its banks. 
 The ruin is tremendous. The granary of this part of the* State is 
 rifled of its stores. Where then are the former furnishers of the 
 great support of life to look for a supply ? With a family of more 
 than two hundred mouths looking up to me for food, I feel an awful 
 charge on my hands. It is easy to rid myself of the burthen if I could 
 shut my heart to the cry of humanity and the voice of duty. But in 
 these poor slaves I have found my best and most faithful friends ; 
 and I feel that it would be more difficult to abandon them to the cruel 
 fate to which our laws would consign theip, than to suffer with them. 
 v Among other of his tracts, I have been reading to-day Burke on 
 the Policy of the Allies. If the book is within your reach, pray give 
 it a perusal. It has a strong bearing on the present circumstances 
 of France. A thousand conceptions have arisen in my mind on that 
 subject and on the actual condition of our country, which I regret 
 it has not been in my power to commit to paper ; but these bubbles of 
 the imagination have vanished : I could not embody them in the 
 happy moment of projection. You see that I speak the language of 
 an adept, although hardly out of my noviciate. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MILITARY CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Some time in the month of July, 1814, Cochrane made his appear- 
 ance in the Chesapeake. This appearance of a formidable enemy 
 within their own borders, spread consternation among the unprotected 
 people along the shores. Many depredations and outrages were
 
 MILITARY CAMPAIGN ^ 
 
 committed at Hampton, Havre de Grace, and other exposed places 
 Finally an army was landed and marched across the country towards 
 Washington City. They were met by a body of raw militia and a few 
 marines, at Bladensburg. where was fought, or rather was run, the 
 celebrated races of Bladensburg. Washington fell into the hands of 
 the enemy, and the archives and public buildings were destroyed. On 
 the news of this disaster, Randolph hastened to the scene of action, 
 prepared, if occasion required, to lend his aid in defending the shores 
 of Virginia. 
 
 The following letter, addressed to Dr. Dudley, will show how the 
 military spirit had come over him : 
 
 CAMP FAIRFIEIA, September 2, 1814. 
 
 MY DEAR THEODORE You may be surprised at not hearing 
 from me. But. first, I lost my horses ; secondly, I got a violent 
 bilious complaint, not cholera, but cousin-german to it ; thirdly, I 
 heard the news of Washington, and, without delay, proceeded hither. 
 I am now under orders to proceed to the brick house, forty-two miles 
 on York road, just below the confluence of Pamunkey and Mattapony. 
 Should you come down, report yourself to the surgeon-general, Dr. 
 Jones, of Nottoway. But first come to camp, and see Watkins 
 Leigh, the governor's aid. 
 
 But his military career was very brief. Finding that the enemy 
 meditated an attack on Baltimore, and that all danger of an imme- 
 diate invasion of the shores of Virginia had passed by, he hastened 
 back to Richmond. On the 8th of September, he writes to Mr. Key 
 from that city : 
 
 " I have been here ten days, including four spent in reconnoiter- 
 iug the lower country between York and James River, from the con- 
 fluence of Mattapony and Pamunkey to the mouth of Chickahomany. 
 You will readily conceive my anxiety on the subject of my friends 
 at Blenheim, the Woodyard, and Alexandria. Thank God ! George- 
 town is safe. 1 was in terror for you and yours. Pray, let me hear 
 from you. Tell me something of Sterrett Ridgely, and remember 
 me to him and all who care to remember me. I have witnessed a sad 
 spectacle in my late ride ; but I do not wish to depress your spirits. 
 Dudley is at home with St. George. Poor Tudor is ill. very ill. at 
 Mr. Morris's, near New- York. 
 
 Mr. Randolph remained in Richmond about a mouth. Hearing 
 ^till more unfavorable tidings of his nephew, he set out about the 
 ; .Hh of October on a journey to Morrisania, the family residence of
 
 46 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Governeur Morris. Esq., near the city of New- York. On the 13th, he 
 writes from Baltimore to Dudley : 
 
 " I have been detained here since Monday, by the consequences of 
 an accident that befel me at Port Conway (opposite Port Royal), on 
 Monday morning. At three o'clock, I was roused to set out in the 
 stage. Mistaking, in the dark, a very steep 'Staircase for a passage, 
 at the end of which I expected to find the descent, walking boldly 
 on, I fell from the top to the bottom, and was taken up senseless. 
 My left shoulder and elbow were severely hurt ; also the right ankle. 
 My hat saved my head, which was bruised, but not cut. Neverthe- 
 less, I persevered, got to Georgetown, and the next day came to this 
 place, where I have been compelled to remain in great pain." 
 
 October 23d, 1814, he writes from Morrisania: 
 
 " After various accidents, one of which had nearly put an end to 
 my unprosperous life, and confined me nearly a week on the road, I 
 reached this place yesterday. Tudor is better ; I have hopes of him. 
 if we can get him to Virginia in his present plight." 
 
 November 17th. he again writes to Dr. Dudley : 
 
 " On returning from Morrisania, on Sunday, the 24th of October, 
 the driver overturned me in Cortlandt-street, by driving over a pile 
 of stones, &c., before a new house, unfinished, which nuisance extended 
 more than half way across a narrow street. I am very seriously in- 
 jured. The patella is, in itself, unhurt ; but the ligaments are very 
 much wrenched, so that a tight bandage alone enables me to hobble from 
 one room to another witt the help of a stick. I hope to be able to 
 bear the motion of a carriage by the last of this week. I shall then 
 go to Philadelphia, and hope to see you by the first of next month ; 
 assuredly (God willing) before Christmas. I am a poor miserable 
 cripple, and you are my only support." 
 
 He arrived in Philadelphia about the first of December, and re- 
 mained in that city the greater part of the winter, the weather being 
 too inclement for him to travel. His time was most agreeably spent 
 in the society of some of his old and most valued friends. Mrs. Clay, 
 the widow of his late much lamented friend, Joseph Clay ; Dr. Chap- 
 man, Mr. Parish, and others. The son of Mr. Clay, who bore his 
 name, John Randolph Clay, he took to Virginia with him. defrayed 
 the expenses of his education for a number of years, and watched 
 over him with the care and anxiety of a father. 
 
 On his arrival in Richmond, he thus writes to Mr. Key : 
 
 RICHMOND, March 9, 1815. 
 
 "DEAR FIIA.XK : I have lately got out of the habit of writing to 
 my friends, even to you you to whom I am so much indebted.
 
 MILITARY CAMPAIGN. 47 
 
 Such is the conscience of that state of mind under which I have 
 unhappily labored for a long, long time past the victim of ennui, 
 indolence, and despair. I am not even as thankful as I ought to be 
 for the great blessing lately vouchsafed us, at the moment when the 
 wits of our rulers had become inextricably puzzled, and all their ex- 
 pedients to raise men or money had failed. Well, here is a peace at 
 last ; and a peace, if I may judge of the stagnation here, very like 
 a war : but this topic has become stale and threadbare. 
 
 I found my poor boy here worse than I left him four months 
 before, and daily declining. I must try to send him to the Mediter- 
 ranean coast of Europe, although with little hope. Sometimes I 
 think he had better give up his innocent life in the arms of his poor 
 mother, instead of perishing (as I fear will be his lot should he cross 
 the Atlantic) among strangers in a foreign land ! Yet. again, what 
 boots it wJiere we die. 
 
 What are you going to do have you given up the editorial 
 scheme ? Do you really think that the mere restoration of peace 
 has anticipated all your schemes to be of service to this poor country ? 
 Are the present men and measures riveted upon the nation, at least 
 for our lifetime ? I think so, and therefore I wish to keep out of 
 the vortex " betwixt vexed Scylla and the hoarse Calabrian shore ;" 
 not to tread that " huge Serbonian bog, where armies whole (of 
 politicians) have sunk." 
 
 Do not think this a nolo cpiscopari, because of a certain letter 
 that you may have seen. Times have changed since that letter was 
 written, and nos mutamus in illis. If I can compass it, I will go 
 with mv poor sick boy, and sit by him and comfort him as well as 
 I can. 
 
 On his return home, Mr. Randolph was urged by his old friends 
 to become a candidate for Congress in the approaching elections ; 
 they assailed him on all hands, entreated him, followed him with 
 solicitations that brooked no denial. Many who had deserted him 
 on a former occasion wished for an opportunity to retrieve them- 
 selves, and to show their high appreciation of a man whom, in the 
 hour of excitement and party blindness, they had been induced to 
 abandon. The communication of the determination of his friends to 
 support him at the ensuing election brought out a swarm of detract- 
 ors, whom he was urged to answer. He steadily refused. " It is too 
 late," says he, " in the day to vindicate my public character before a 
 people whom I represented fourteen years, and whom, if they do not 
 now know me, never will. I therefore abstain from all places of public 
 resort, as well from inclination' as principle." He entered the field
 
 4-g LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 with his old competitor, Mr. Epps, and was triumphantly elected. 
 Writing to Mr. Key on the 25th of April, he says : " You will have 
 heard of my re-election ; an event which has given me no pleasure, 
 except so far as it has been gratifying to my friends. It is a station 
 as unfit for me as I am for it. For a long time my mind has refused 
 to travel in that track. I cannot force myself to think on the sub- 
 ject of my public affairs. I am engrossed by reflections of a very 
 different, and far more important nature. I am a stricken deer.' 
 and feel disposed to ' leave the hind.' The hand of calamity has 
 pressed sorely upon me ; I do not repine at it. On the contrary, I 
 return thanks for the (apparent) evil as well as good, which He who 
 knows what is best for me has appointed for my portion in this life. 
 May it have the effect of drawing me close unto Him, without whose 
 gracious mercy I feel that I am a lost, undone creature." 
 
 Mr. Key expressed himself sincerely gratified at the triumph of 
 his friend : " Such an one," says he, " has not to my knowledge ever 
 fallen to the lot of any man. It does equal honor to the electors 
 and the elected." Mr. Key delicately suggested to him that there is 
 a virtue, the most difficult, but the most noble, which he was now 
 called upon to practise ; it was to show the meekness and moderation 
 of true magnanimity after so signal a victory. " Excuse me," says 
 he. " for thinking of reminding you of this. It springs from a 
 heart, among whose warmest wishes it is, that you should exhibit 
 every grace and dignity of which this poor frail nature of ours is 
 capable." 
 
 Randolph, in reply, says : " You will have perceived I hope, my good 
 
 friend, from my letter by Dr. , that I have felt no disposition to 
 
 indulge in an unbecoming triumph on the event of the late election 
 in this district. I do assure you with the utmost sincerity, that, so 
 far as I am personally concerned, I cannot but regret the partiality 
 of my friends, who insisted on holding me up on this occasion. I 
 am engrossed by sentiments of a far different character, and I look 
 forward to the future in this world, to say nothing of the next, with 
 anticipations that forbid any idle expression of exultation. On the 
 contrary, my sensations are such as become a dependent creature, 
 whose only hope for salvation rests upon the free grace of Him to 
 whom we must look for peace in this world, as well as in the world 
 to come. I cannot give expression to the feelings which fill my
 
 NEW ENGLAND 
 
 49 
 
 mind, and by which it is overcome ; I struggle even with the diffi- 
 culty of repressing them on occasions, and before persons, where the 
 only effect would be to cover me with ridicule." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 THE subjects of difficulty between the United States and Great Britain 
 affected the interests of the New England States more than any other 
 section of the Union. It was their seamen that were captured, their 
 carrying trade that was interdicted by maritime adjudications, their 
 shipping and commerce that were crippled and destroyed by the or- 
 ders in council. The Southern States, being wholly given to plant- 
 ing and other agricultural pursuits, were only affected by the tempo- 
 rary suspension of a market for the sale of their products. Both, 
 however, united in their petitions and remonstrances to Congress, 
 and in demands for a redress of their grievances. But when the 
 measures adopted for this purpose began to operate, it was found by 
 the New England States that the remedy was more burthensome 
 and 'destructive than the evils complained of. An American seaman 
 was occasionally captured, but as a compensation hundreds of British 
 sailors fled to our more lucrative and agreeable service. Much too 
 frequently, it is true, an American vessel and her cargo were con- 
 demned by a British court of admiralty, yet many escaped and pur- 
 sued a successful and profitable voyage ; but the embargo drove ev- 
 ery seaman from the service, and by one fell blow put an end to all 
 commerce. Before this fatal expedient there was hazard in every 
 enterprise, but there was hope to cheer on the adventurers ; now 
 even hope was extinguished, and the means of winning a precarious 
 subsistence from the perilous deep were wrested from them. These 
 were the feelings and opinions in New England. Massachusetts in- 
 terposed her authority ; pronounced the law unconstitutional and op- 
 pressive, and declared, that unless some speedy remedy were applied, 
 necessity, the law of self-preservation that rises above all other law. 
 would impel her to some ulterior and more decisive course. To the 
 
 VOL. II. 4
 
 50 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 honor of Mr. Jeft'erson be it said, he yielded to the necessity of the 
 case, and consented to a repeal of the embargo laws. Up to this 
 period there was nothing but what was highly creditable to both par- 
 ties. But Mr. Jefferson had gone into retirement, and other coun- 
 cils ruled the destiny of the nation. Measure after measure was 
 adopted, embarrassing and ruinous to the interests of New England, 
 until finally the whole nation was plunged in war. All its armies 
 and military resources were transported to the frontiers of Canada, 
 and pledged to a war of aggression and conquest, while the Atlantic 
 borders were left exposed to the ravages of the enemy. Napoleon 
 had been conquered by the frosts of Russia, and was ati exile on the 
 shores of Elba. England had redoubled her energies and made the 
 war a vindictive punishment of the people for the sins of their gov- 
 ernment rapine, brutality, and murder followed in the train of her 
 armies, and their approach was more to be dreaded by the helpless 
 and the innocent, than the invasion of the traitorous Arnold. -In 
 this state of affairs Massachusetts again interposed ; but times had 
 changed ; the country was involved in war, and whether right or 
 wrong, she required all good citizens to help to bring it to a success- 
 ful end. New England at this crisis was charged at least Massa- 
 chusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut were charged with the de- 
 sign of seeking a separate peace with Great Britain, and placing 
 themselves in a position of neutrality during the further progress of 
 the war, if indeed they did not cherish the ulterior purpose of a 
 complete and final separation from the other States of the Union. 
 
 Whether this accusation be true or not, forms no part of our in- 
 <iuiry. We would fain hope indeed we have good reason to believe 
 that it was untrue and that it formed a part of those party tactics 
 which are too often resorted to to bring odium on political opponents, 
 by misrepresenting their designs and their motives. The accusation, 
 however, was made at the time by the minority of the Massachusetts 
 Legislature that opposed the election of delegates to the Hartford 
 Convention. 
 
 At this dark and melancholy period, when a vindictive foreign 
 war was ravaging our coasts, and disrupture and civil war were 
 threatened within, Mr. Randolph was called upon to interpose his 
 good offices in behalf of his country. He was told that his voice 
 would be heard in New England, and that his admonitions would
 
 NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 51 
 
 receive their just consideration. He did not hesitate to give them 
 
 in the midst of pain, disease, domestic affliction, and mental suffering, 
 he addressed to the people of New England, through one of her dis- 
 tinguished Senators, the following letter. Let it be read with atten- 
 tion ; it does honor to the head and to the heart of the man that 
 penned it. The reader cannot fail to be animated by the patriotism 
 that glowed in his bosom, and to be cheered by the high appreciation 
 he placed on the value of the Union, not as an end to be maintained 
 at all hazards, but as a means to secure the peace and the happiness 
 of the whole country. Let it not be said, after a perusal of this let- 
 ter, that Mr. Randolph entertained unfounded and unreasonable pre- 
 judices against the people of New England. He cherished no such 
 feelings. When New England, became the advocate of a system of 
 protection that proved to be as ruinous to the interests of his people 
 as the embargo had been to them, he did not complain and declare 
 in his peculiar and emphatic way, that nothing manufactured north 
 of Mason and Dixon's line should ever enter into his house ; but he 
 never ceased to cherish towards the people of New England the pro- 
 foundest sentiments of respect and regard. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 15, 1814. 
 
 DEAR SIR, You will doubtless be surprised, but (I trust) not 
 offended at the receipt of this letter. Of the motives which dictate 
 it I shall forbear to speak : let them be gathered from its context. 
 But should you ascribe my selection of you as the object of its ad- 
 dress to any other cause than respect for your character and confi- 
 dence in your love of country, you will have done much injustice to 
 me ; but more to yourself. 
 
 At Washington, I learned the result of the dispatches brought 
 by the John Adams (a name of evil omen), and there rumors were 
 afloat, which have since gathered strength, of a disposition in Massa- 
 chusetts, and indeed throughout New England, to follow the example 
 of Nantucket, and declare for a neutrality in the present contest 
 with Great Britain. I will not believe it. What ! Boston, the cra- 
 dle of American independence, to whose aid Virginia stept forth un- 
 solicited, when the whole vengeance of the British ministry was 
 wreaked on that devoted town. Boston ! now to desert us, in our 
 utmost need, to give up her old ally to ravage, at the price of her 
 own impunity from the common enemy ? I cannot, will not believe 
 it. The men, if any such there be among you, who venture to insin- 
 uate such an intent by the darkest inuendo. do they claim to be the 
 disciples of Washington ? They are of the school of Arnold. I
 
 52 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 am not insensible to the vexations and oppressions, with which you 
 have been harassed, with little intermission, since the memorable 
 embargo of 1807. These I am disposed, as you well know, neither 
 to excuse, nor to extenuate. Perhaps I may be reminded of an au- 
 thority, to which I always delight to refer, " Segnius irritant animos, 
 fyc." but let me tell such gentlemen, that our sufferings under politi- 
 cal quacks of our own calling in, are not matter of hearsay. It is 
 true they are considered by the unhappy, misguided patient, as evi- 
 dence of the potency and consequently (according to his system of 
 logic) of the efficacy of the medicine, as well as the inveteracy of the 
 disease. It is not less true that this last has become, from prepos- 
 terous treatment, in the highest degree alarming. The patient him- 
 self begins to suspect something of the sort, and the doctors trem- 
 bling, eacn for his own character, are quarrelling and calling hard 
 names among themselves. But they have reduced us to such a con- 
 dition, that nothing short of the knife will now do. " We must 
 fight, Mr. Speaker !" said Patrick Henry in 1775, when his sagacious 
 mind saw there was nothing else left for us but manly resistance or 
 slavish submission ; and his tongue dared to utter what his heart 
 suggested. How much greater the necessity now, when our country 
 is regarded not as a property to be recovered, and therefore spared, 
 so far as is compatible with the end in view ; but as an object of 
 vengeance, of desolation. 
 
 You know my sentiments of the men at the head of our affairs, 
 and of the general course of administration during the last eight 
 years. You know also that the relation, in which I stand towards 
 them, is one of my own deliberate choice : sanctioned not more by 
 my judgment than by my feelings. You, who have seen men (in the 
 ranks, when I commanded in chief in the House of Representatives, 
 and others, at that time too green to be on the political muster roll 
 whose names had never been pronounced out of their own parish) 
 raised to the highest offices ; you who are thoroughly acquainted with 
 the whole progress of my separation from the party with which I 
 was once connected in conduct, do not require to be told, that " there 
 was a time in which I stood in such favor in the closet, that there 
 must have been something extravagantly unreasonable in my wishes, 
 if they might not ALL have been gratified." But I must acknow- 
 ledge that you have seen instances of apostasy among your quondam 
 political associates, as well as my own, that might almost justify a 
 suspicion, that I too, tired of holding out, may wish to make my 
 peace with the administration, by adding one more item " to the long 
 catalogue of venality from Esau to the present day." Should such 
 a shade of suspicion pass across your mind, I can readily excuse it, 
 in consideration of the common frailty of our nature, from which I 
 claim no peculiar exemption, and the transcendent wickedness of the
 
 NEW ENGLAND. 53 
 
 times we live in ; but you will have given me credit for a talent 
 which I do not possess. I am master of no such ambidexterity : 
 and were I to attempt this game, which it is only for adepts (not 
 novices) to play ! I am thoroughly conscious, that like other bung- 
 ling rogues, I should at once expose my knavery and miss my object 
 not that our political church refuses to open her arms to the vilest 
 of heretics and sinners who can seal their abjuration of their old 
 faith by the prosecution of the brethren with whom they held and 
 professed it : but I know that my nerves are of too weak a fibre to 
 hear the question ordinary and extraordinary from our political in- 
 quisitors. I can sustain with composure and even with indifference 
 the rancorous hatred of the numerous enemies, whom it has been my 
 lot to make in the course of my unprosperous life but I nave not 
 yet steeled myself to endure the contemptuous pity of those noble 
 and high-minded men, whom I glory to call my friends, and I am on 
 too bad terms with the world, to encounter my own self-disrespect. 
 
 You may however very naturally ask, why I have chosen you for 
 the object of this address ? Why I have not rather selected some 
 one of those political friends, whom I have yet found " faithful among 
 the faithless," as the vehicle of my opinions ? It is because the avt- 
 nue to the public ear is shut against me in Virginia, and I have been 
 flattered to believe that the sound of my voice may reach New Eng- 
 land. Nay, that it would be heard there, not without attention and 
 respect. With us the press is under a virtual imprimatur, and it 
 would be more easy, at this time, to force into circulation the treasu 
 ry notes, than opinions militating against the administration, through 
 the press in Virginia. We were indeed beginning to open our eyes 
 in spite of the opiate with which we were drugged by the newspa- 
 pers, and the busy hum of ttye insects that bask in the sunshine of 
 court patronage, when certain events occurred, the most favorable 
 that could have happened for our rulers ; whose " luck," verifying 
 the proverb, is in the inverse ratio of their wisdom ; or, perhaps I 
 ought to say, who have the cunning to take advantage of glaring acts 
 of indiscretion, in their adversaries at home and abroad, as these 
 may affect the public mind ; and such have never failed to come to 
 their relief, when otherwise* their case would have been hopeless. I 
 give you the most serious assurance, that nothing less than the 
 shameful conduct of the enemy and the complexion of certain occur- 
 rences to the eastward could have sustained Mr. Madison after the 
 disgraceful affair at Washington. The public indignation would 
 have overwhelmed, in one common ruin, himself and his hireling 
 newspapers. The artillery of the press, so long the instrument of 
 our subjugation, would, as at Paris, have been turned against the de- 
 stroyer of his country : when we are told that old England says he 
 " shall," and New England that he " must," retire from office, as the
 
 54 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 price of peace with the one, and of union with the other, we have 
 too much English blood in our veins to submit to this dictation, or to 
 any thing in the form of a threat. Neither of these people know 
 any thing of us. The ignorance of her foreign agents, not only of 
 the country to which they are sent, but even of their own, has ex- 
 posed England to general derision. She will learn, when it is too 
 late, that we are a high-minded people, attached to our liberty and 
 our country, because it is free, in a degree inferior to no people un- 
 der the sun. She will discover that " our trade would have been 
 worth more than our spoil," and that she has made deadly enemies 
 of a whole people, who, in spite of her and of the world, of the sneers 
 of her sophists, or of the force of her arms, are destined to become, 
 within the present session, a mighty nation. It be.ongs to New 
 England to say, whether she will constitute a portion, an important 
 and highly respectable portion of this nation, or whether she will 
 dwindle into that state of insignificant, nominal independence, which 
 is the precarious curse of the minor kingdoms of Europe. A sepa 
 ration made in the fulness of time, the effect of amicable arrange- 
 ments, may prove mutually beneficial to both parties : such would 
 have been the effect of American independence, if the British min- 
 istry could have listened to any suggestion but that of their own im- 
 potent rage : but a settled hostility embittered by the keenest recol- 
 lections, must be the result of a disunion between you and us, under 
 the present circumstances. I have sometimes wished that Mr. Madi- 
 son (who endeavored to thwart the wise and benevolent policy of 
 General Washington " to regard the English like other nations, as 
 enemies in war, in peace friends,") had succeeded in embroiling us 
 with the Court of St. James, twenty years sooner. We should in 
 that case, have had the father of his country to conduct the war and 
 to make the peace ; and that peace would have endured beyond the life- 
 time of the authors of their country's calamity and disgrace. But I 
 must leave past recollections. The present and the immediate future 
 claim our attention. 
 
 It may be said, that in time of peace, the people of every portion 
 of our confederacy find themselves too happy to think of division ; 
 that the sufferings of a war, like this, arerequisite, to rouse them to 
 the necessary exertion : war is incident to all governments ; and 
 wars I very much fear will be wickedly declared, and wefkly waged. 
 even by the New England confederacy, as they have been by every 
 government (not even excepting the Roman republic), of which we 
 have any knowledge ; and it does appear to me no slight presump- 
 tion that the evil has not yet reached the point of amputation, when 
 peace alone will render us the happiest (as we are the freest) people 
 under th'e sun ; at least too happy to think of dissolving the Union, 
 which, as it carried us through the war of our revolution, will, I
 
 NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 55 
 
 trust, bear us triumphant through that in which we have been 
 plunged, by the incapacity and corruption of men, neither willing to 
 maintain the relations of peace, nor able to conduct the operations of 
 war. Should I, unhappily, be mistaken in this expectation, let us see 
 what are to be the consequences of the separation, not to us, but to 
 yourselves. An exclusion of your tonnage and manufactures from 
 our ports and harbors. It will be our policy to encourage our own, 
 or even those of Europe in preference to yours : a policy more ob- 
 vious than that which induced us of the South, to consent to dis- 
 criminating duties in favor of American tonnage, in the infancy of 
 this government. It is unnecessary to say, to you, that I embrace 
 the duties on imports, as well as the tonnage duty, when I allude to 
 the encouragement of American shipping. It will always be our 
 policy to prevent your obtaining a naval superiority, and Conse- 
 quently to cut you off entirely from our carrying trade. The same 
 plain interest will cause us to prefer any manufactures to your own. 
 The intercourse with the rest of the world, that exchanges our sur- 
 plus for theirs, will be the nursery of our seamen. In the middle 
 States you will find rivals, not very heartily indisposed to shut out 
 the competition of your shipping. In the same section of country 
 and in the boundless West, you will find jealous competitors of your 
 mechanics you will be left to settle, as you can, with England, the 
 question of boundary on the side of New Brunswick, and unless you 
 can bring New-York to a state of utter blindness, as to her own in- 
 terests, that great, thriving, and most populous member of the south- 
 ern confederacy will present a hostile frontier to the only States of 
 the union of Hartford, that can be estimated as of any efficiency 
 Should that respectable city be chosen as the seat of the Eastern 
 Congress, that body will sit within two days' march of the most pop- 
 ulous county of New- York (Duchess), of itself almost equal to some 
 of the New England States. I speak not in derision, but in sober- 
 ness and sadness of heart. Rather let me say, that like a thorough- 
 bred diplomatist. I try to suppress every thing like feeling, and treat 
 this question as a dry matter of calculation ; well knowing, at the 
 same time, that in this, as in every question of vital interest, " our 
 passions instruct our reason." The same high authority has told us 
 that jacobinism is of no country, that it is a sect found in all. Now. 
 as our jacobins in Virginia would be very glad to hear of the bom- 
 bardment of Boston, so, I very much fear, your jacobins would not 
 be very sorry to hear of a servile insurrection in Virginia. But such 
 I trust is the general feeling in neither country, otherwise I should 
 at once agree that union, like the marriages of Mezentius. was the 
 worst that could befall us. For, with every other man of common 
 sense, I have always regarded union as the means of liberty and 
 safety ; in other words of happiness, and not as an end, to which
 
 56 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 these are to be sacrificed. Neither, at the same time, are means so 
 precious, so efficient (in proper hands) of these desirable objects, to 
 be thrown, rashly aside, because, in the hands of bad men, they have 
 been made the instrument almost of our undoing. 
 
 You in New England (it is unnecessary I hope to specify when I 
 do not address myself personally to yourself) are very wide of the 
 mark, if you suppose we to the south do not suffer at least as much 
 as yourselves, from the incapacity of our rulers to conduct the de- 
 fence of the country. Do you ask why we do "not change those ru- 
 lers ? I reply, because we are a people, like your own Connecticut, 
 of steady habits. Our confidence once given is not hastily with- 
 drawn. Let those who will, abuse the fickleness of the people ; I 
 shall say such is not the character of the people of Virginia. They 
 may be deceived, but they are honest. Taking advantage of their 
 honest prejudices, the growth of our revolution, fostered not more 
 by Mr. Jefferson than by the injuries and (what is harder to be 
 borne) the insults of the British ministry since the peace of 1783, a 
 combination of artful men, has, with the aid of the press, and the 
 possession of the machinery of government (a powerful engine in any 
 hands) led them to the brink of ruin. I can never bring myself to 
 believe, that the whole mass of the landed proprietor* in any coun- 
 try, but especially such a country as Virginia, can seriously plot its 
 ruin. Our government is in the hands of the landed proprietors 
 only. The very men of whom you complain, have left nothing un- 
 done that tJiey dared to do, in order to destroy it. Foreign influence 
 is unknown among us. What we feel of it is through the medium of 
 the General Government, which acted on, itself, by foreign renega- 
 does, serves as a conductor, between them and us. of this pernicious 
 influence. I know of no foreigner who has been, or is, in any re- 
 spectable office in the gift of the people, or in the government of 
 Virginia. No member of either House of Congress, no leading 
 member of our Assembly, no judge of our Supreme Courts : of the 
 newspapers printed in the State, as far as my knowledge' extends, 
 without discrimination of party, they are conducted by native Vir- 
 ginians. Like yourselves, we are an unmixed people. I know the 
 prejudice that exists against us, nor do I wonder at it, considering 
 the gross ignorance on the subject that prevails north of Maryland, 
 and even in many parts of that neighboring State. 
 
 What member of the confederacy has sacrificed more on the altar 
 of public good than Virginia? Whence did the General Govern- 
 ment derive its lands beyond the Ohio, then and now almost the only 
 source of revenue? From our grant, a grant so curiously worded, 
 and by our present Palinurus too, as to except ourselves, by its lim- 
 itations, from the common benefit. 
 
 By its conditions it was forbidden ground to us. and thereby the
 
 NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 57 
 
 foundation was laid of incurable animosity and division between the 
 States on each side of that great natural boundary, the river Ohio. 
 Not only their masters, but the very slaves themselves, for whose 
 benefit this regulation was made, were sacrificed by it. Dispersion is 
 to them a bettering of their present condition, and of their chance 
 for emancipation. It is only when this can be done without danger 
 and without ruinous individual loss that it will be done at all. But 
 what is common sense to a political Quixote ? 
 
 That country was ours by a double title, by charter and by "on- 
 quest. George Rogers Clark, the American Hannibal, at the head 
 of the State troops, by the reduction of Post Vincennes, obtained 
 the lakes for our northern boundary at the peace of Paris. The 
 march of that great man and his brave companions in arms across 
 the drowned lands of the Wabash, does not shrink from a compari- 
 son with the passage of the Thrasimene marsh. Without meaning 
 any thing like an invidious distinction, I have not heard of any ces- 
 sion from Massachusetts of her vast wilds ; and Connecticut has had 
 the address, out of our grant to the^/m, to obtain, on her own pri- 
 vate account, some millions of acres : whilst we, yes we, I blush to 
 say it, have descended to beg for a pittance, out of the property once 
 our own, for the brave men by whose valor it had been won, and 
 whom heedless profusion had disabled us to recompense. We met 
 the just fate of the prodigal. We were spurned from the door, 
 where once we were master, with derision and scorn ; and yet we 
 hear of undue Virginian influence. This fund yielded the Gov- 
 ernment, when I had connection with it, from half a million to eight 
 hundred thousand dollars, annually. It would have preserved us 
 from the imposition of State taxes, founded schools, built bridges 
 and made roads and canals throughout Virginia. It was squandered 
 away in a single donative at the instance of Mr. Madison. For the 
 sake of concord with our neighbors, by the same generous but mis- 
 guided policy, we ceded to Pennsylvania Fort Pitt, a most important 
 commercial and military position, and a vast domain around it, as 
 much Virginia as the city of Richmond and the county of Henrico. 
 To Kentucky, the eldest daughter of the Union, the Virginia of the 
 west, we have yielded on a question of boundary, from a similar con- 
 sideration. Actuated by the same magnanimous spirit at the in- 
 stance of other States (with the exception of New-York, North Ca- 
 rolina, and Rhode Island), we accepted, in 1783, the present Consti- 
 tution. It was repugnant to our judgment, and fraught, as we feared, 
 with danger to our liberties. The awful voice of our ablest and 
 soundest statesmen, of Patrick Henry, and of George Mason, never 
 before or since disregarded, warned us of the consequences. Neither 
 was their counsel entirely unheeded, for it led to important subse- 
 quent amendments of that instrument. I have always believed this 
 
 VOL. n. 3*
 
 58 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 disinterested spirit, so often manifested by us, to be one of the chief 
 causes of the influence which we have exercised over the other States. 
 Eight States having made that Constitution their own, we submitted 
 to the yoke for the sake of union. Our attachment to the Union is 
 not an empty profession. It is demonstrated by our practice at home. 
 No sooner was the Convention of 1788 dissolved, than the feuds of 
 federalism and anti-federalism disappeared. I speak of their effects 
 on our councils. For the sake of union, we submitted to the low- 
 est state of degradation ; the administration of John Adams. The 
 name of this man calls up contempt and derision, wheresoever it is 
 pronounced. To the fantastic vanity of this political Malvolio may 
 be distinctly traced our present unhappy condition. I will not be so 
 ungenerous as to remind you that this personage (of whom and his 
 addresses, and his answers, I defy you to think without a bitter 
 smile) was not a Virginian, but I must in justice to ourselves, insist 
 in making him a set-off against Mr. Madison. They are of such equal 
 weight, that the trembling balance reminds us of that passage of 
 Pope, where Jove " weighs the beau's wits agains the lady's hair. 
 
 "The doubtful beam long nods from side to side, 
 At length the wits mount up. the hairs subside." 
 
 Intoxicated not more by the fulsome adulation with which he was 
 plied, than by the fumes of his own vanity, this poor old gentle- 
 man saw a visionary coronet suspended over his brow, and an air- 
 drawn sceptre " the handle towards his hand," which attempting to 
 clutch, he lost his balance, and disappeared never to rise again. He 
 it was. who " enacting" Nat. Lee's Alexander, raved about the peo- 
 ple of Virginia as " a faction to be humbled in dust and ashes," 
 when the sackcloth already was prepared for his own back. 
 
 But I am spinning out this letter to too great a length. What is 
 your object PEACE? Can this be attained on any terms, whilst 
 England sees a prospect of disuniting that confederacy, which has 
 already given so deep a blow to her maritime pride, and threatens at 
 no very distant day to dispute with her the empire of the ocean ? 
 The wound which our gallant tars have inflicted on her tenderest 
 point, has maddened her to rage. Cursed as we are with a weak and 
 wicked administration, she can no longer despise us. Already she 
 begins to hate us ; and she seeks to glut a revenge as impotent as it 
 is rancorous, by inroads that would have disgraced the buccaneers, 
 and bulletins that would only not disgrace the sovereign of Elba. 
 She already is compelled to confess in her heart, what her lips deny, 
 that if English bull-dogs and game-cocks degenerate on our soil, Eng- 
 lish MEN do not : and should (which God forbid) our brethren of the 
 East desert us in this contest for all that is precious to man, we will 
 maintain it. so long as our proud and insulting foe shall refuse to ac- 
 cede to equitable terms of peace. The Government will then pass
 
 NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 59 
 
 into proper hands the talents of the country will be called forth, and 
 the schemes of moon-struck philosophers and their disciples pass away 
 and - leave not a rack behind." 
 
 You know how steady and persevering I endeavored, for eight 
 yoars, to counteract the artful and insidious plans of our rulers to 
 embroil us with the country of our ancestors, and the odium which I 
 have thereby drawn upon myself. Believing it to be my duty to 
 soften, as much as possible, the asperities which subsisted between the 
 two countries, and which were leading to a ruinous war, I put to ha- 
 zard, nay, exposed to almost certain destruction, an influence such as 
 no man. perhaps, in this country, at the same age. had ever before at- 
 tained. (The popularity that dreads exposure is too delicate for pub- 
 lic service. It is a bastard species : the true sort will stand the hard- 
 est frosts. Is it my fault (as Mr. Burke complained of the crowned 
 heads of Europe) that England will no longer .suffer me to find pal- 
 liatives for her conduct? No man admired more than I did her 
 magnanimous stand against the tyrant, before whom all the rest of 
 Christendom at one time bowed : No man, not even her own Wilber- 
 force and Perceval, put up more sincere prayers for her deliverance. 
 In the remotest isle of Australasia, my sympathy would have been 
 enlisted, in such a contest, for the descendants of Alfred and Bacon, 
 and Shakspeare, and Milton, and Locke, on whom I love to look 
 back as my illustrious countrymen in any contest I should have 
 taken side with liberty ; but on this depended (as I believed and do 
 still believe) all that made my own country dear in my sight. It is 
 past and unmindful of the mercy of that protecting Providence 
 which has carried her through the valley of the shadow of death. 
 England " feels power and forgets right." I am not one of the whin- 
 ing set of people who cry out against mine adversary for the force of 
 his blow. England has. unquestionably, as good a right to conquer 
 us, as we have to conquer Canada ; the same right that we have to 
 conquer England, and with about as good prospect of success. But 
 let not her orators declaim against the enormity of French prin- 
 ciples, when she permits herself to arm and discipline our slaves, and 
 to lead them into the field against their masters, in the hope of excit- 
 ing by the example a general insurrection, and thus render Virginia 
 another St. Domingo. And does she talk of jacobinism ! What is 
 this but jacobinism ? and of the vilest stamp ? Is this the country 
 that has abolished the slave trade? that has made that infamous, in- 
 human traffic a felony ? that feeds with the bread of life all who hun- 
 ger after it, and even those who, but for her, would never have known 
 their perishing condition ? Drunk with the cup of the abominations 
 of Moloch, they have been roused from the sleep of death, like some 
 benighted traveller perishing in the snows, and warmed into lit' 1 by 
 the beams of the only true religion. Is this the country of Wilber
 
 60 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 force and Howard ? It is ; but, like my own, my native land, it 
 has fallen into the hands of evil men, who pour out its treasure and 
 its blood at the shrine of their own guilty ambition. And this im- 
 pious sacrifice they celebrate amidst the applauses of the deluded 
 people, and even of the victims themselves. 
 
 There is a proneness in mankind to throw the blame of their 
 sufferings on any one but themselves. In this manner. Virginia is 
 regarded by some of her sister States ; not adverting to the fact, that 
 all (Connecticut and Delaware excepted) are responsible for the 
 measures that have involved us in our present difficulties. Did we 
 partition your State into those unequal and monstrous districts which 
 nave given birth to a new word in your language, of uncouth sound, 
 calling up the most odious associations. Did we elect the jacobins 
 whom you sent to both Houses of Congress the Bidwells, and Gan- 
 netts. and Skinners. to spur on the more moderate men from Vir- 
 ginia to excesses which they reluctantly gave into at the time, ard 
 have since been ashamed of '( Who hurried the bill suspending the 
 privilege of the writ of HABEAS CORPUS through a trembling servile 
 Senate, in consequence, as he did not blush to state, of a vcrbcJ com- 
 munication from the President? A Senator from Massachusetts. 
 and professor in her venerable university. In short, have not your 
 first statesmen (such I believe was the reputation of the gentleman in 
 question at the time), your richest merchants, and the majority of 
 your delegation in Congress vied in support of the men and the mea- 
 sures that have led to our present suffering and humiliated condition ? 
 
 If you wished to separate yourselves from us, you had ample pro- 
 vocation in time of peace, in an embargo the most unconstitutional 
 and oppressive ; an engine of tyranny, fraud, and favoritism. Then 
 was the time to resist (we did not desert England in a time of war), 
 but you were then under the dominion of a faction among yourselves, 
 j-et a formidable minority, exhibiting no signs of diminution ; and it 
 is not the least of my apprehensions, from certain proceedings to the 
 eastward, that they may be made the means of consigning you again, 
 and for ever, to the same low, insolent domination. The reaction of 
 your jacobins upon us (for although we have some in Virginia, they 
 are few and insignificant) through the men at Washington, (" who 
 must conciliate good republicans,") is dreadful. Pause, I beseech 
 you, pause ! You tread on the brink of destruction. Of all the At- 
 lantic States you have the least cause to complain. Your manufac- 
 tures, and the trade which the enemy has allowed you, have drained 
 us of our last dollar. How then can we carry on the war? Wit); 
 men and steel stout hearts, and willing hands and these from the 
 days of Darius and Xerxes, in defence of the household gods of free 
 dom, have proved a match for gold. Can they not now encounter 
 paper? We shall suffer much from this contest, it will cut deep;
 
 NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 61 
 
 but dismissing its authors from our confidence and councils for ever, 
 (I speak of a few leaders and their immediate tools, not of the delud- 
 ed, as well in as out of authority,) we shall pass, if it be the good 
 pleasure of Him whose curses are tempered with mercies, through an 
 agony and a bloody sweat, to peace and salvation ; to that peace 
 which is only to be found in a reconciliation with Him. - Atheists 
 and madmen have been our lawgivers," and when I think on our past 
 conduct I shudder at the chastisement that may await us. How has 
 not Europe suffered for her sins ! Will England not consider, that, 
 like the man who but yesterday bestrode the narrow world, she is 
 but an instrument in his hands, who breaketh the weapons of his 
 chastisement, when the measure of his people's punishment is full ? 
 
 When I exhort to further patience to resort to constitutic nal 
 means of redress only, I know that there is such a thing as tyianny 
 as well as oppression ; and that there is no government, however re- 
 stricted in its power, that may not, by abuse, under pretext of exer- 
 cise of its constitutional authority, drive its unhappy subjects to des- 
 peration. Our situation is indeed awful. The members of the Union 
 in juxtaposition held together by. no common authority to which 
 men can look up with confidence and respect. Smitten by the charms 
 of Upper Canada, our President has abandoned the several States to 
 shift for themselves as they can. Congress isfelo de se. In practice 
 there is found little difference between a government of requisitions 
 on the States, which these disregard, or a government of requisitions 
 on the people, which the governors are afraid to make until the pub- 
 lic faith is irretrievably ruined. Congress seemed barred by their 
 own favorite act of limitations, from raising supplies ; prescription 
 runs against them. But let us not despair of the commonwealth. 
 Some master-spirit may be kindled by the collision of the times, who 
 will breathe his own soul into the councils and armies of the repub-' 
 lie ; and here indeed is our chiefest danger. The man who is credu- 
 lous enough to believe that a constitution, with the skeleton of an es- 
 tablishment 'of 10,000 men, not 2,000 strong, (such was our army 
 three years ago,) is the same as with an army of 60,000 men, may be 
 a very amiable neighbor, but is utterly unfit for a statesman. Al- 
 0-eady our government is in fact changed. We are become a mili- 
 tary people, of whom more than of any other it might have been said 
 fortuuatos sua si bona norint. If under such circumstances you ask 
 me what you are to do, should a conscription of the model of Bona- 
 parte be attempted ? I will refer you to its reputed projector, Co- 
 lonel Monroe. Ask him what he would have done, whilst governor 
 f Virginia, and preparing to resist Federal usurpation, had such an 
 attempt been made by Mr. Adams and his ministers ; especially in 
 I 800 He can give the answer. 
 
 But when you complain of the representation of three-fifths of
 
 62 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 our slaves. I reply that it is one of the articles of that compact, 
 which you submitted to us for acceptance, and to which we reluc- 
 tantly acceded. Our Constitution is an affair of compromise between 
 the States, and this is the master-key which unlocks all its difficul- 
 ties. If any of the parties to the compact are dissatisfied with their 
 share of influence, it is an affair of amicable discussion, in the mode 
 pointed out by the constitution itself, but no cause for dissolving the 
 confederacy. And when I read and hear the vile stuff against my 
 country printed and uttered en this subject, by fire-brands, who 
 ought to be quenched for ever, I would remind, not these editors 
 of journals and declaimers at clubs, but their deluded followers 
 that every word of these libels on the planters of Virginia, is as ap- 
 plicable to the father of his country as to any one among us ; that in 
 the same sense we are "slaveholders," and "negro drivers," and 
 " dealers in human flesh," (I must be pardoned for culling a few 
 of their rhetorical flowers.) so was lie, and whilst they upbraid Vir- 
 ginia with her Jeffersons and her Madisons, they will not always re- 
 member to forget that to Virginia they were indebted for a Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 . I am, with the highest respect and regard, dear sir, your obe- 
 dient servant, 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 i 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 THE reader is already aware, from many expressions let fall from the 
 pen of Mr. Randolph, that he is deeply engaged in the great subject 
 of religion ; his necessary duties give way, and are postponed to this 
 all-engrossing question. % 
 
 In childhood and early youth, he was trained by a devoted and 
 pious mother, in the doctrines and the practices of the Christian 
 church. The impressions of those early lessons, though a long time 
 disregarded, were never entirely effaced from his memory ; and the 
 hallowed associations that clustered around the name of his adored 
 and sainted mother, the fond remembrances of childhood and inno- 
 cence, never failed to awaken' the deepest emotions in his affectionate 
 and sympathetic heart. Yet he lived for many years in open derision
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 63 
 
 and mockery of that religion whose holy and divine precepts he could 
 not efface from his mind. Coming into life at an epoch when French 
 philosophy had not only overturned the monarchies of Europe, but 
 had undermined and destroyed the foundation of all morals and reli- 
 gion, his ardent soul, like thousands of the best spirits of the age. 
 caught the contagion of its influence, threw oft 7 all religious restraint. 
 as the highest proof of freedom, and became, if not a mocker, at 
 least a cold despiser of the religion of humility and self-sacrifice. 
 But the despotism under which France had been made to groan, in 
 consequence of her atheistic madness ; the desolation that had swept 
 over Europe ; the deep calamities brought on his own country by war 
 and restrictions ; the many misfortunes and afflictions that in thick 
 succession had befallen himself and his ill-fated family ; his entire 
 separation from all political associations and party excitements, and 
 the profound solitude, for the most part, in which he lived, all con- 
 spired to bring back his mind to its early associations. As " the 
 stricken deer," to which he likened himself, faint, and panting in the 
 hot chase, seeks the fresh fountains and cooling shades of its native 
 valley, so he, faint and heart-stricken at the desolations of' an irre- 
 ligious age, and athirst for the pure waters of life, sought consolation 
 in that religion which his mother, on bended knee, with his little 
 hands in hers uplifted to heaven, had taught him in his infancy. 
 
 He read the Old and New Testament, with the aid of good com- 
 mentators, with care and diligence. The best authors were at his 
 command " old standard authors" constituted his daily food, though 
 sometimes, in humility, he would complain that they were " too solid 
 for his weak stomach." It is a great mistake to take Mr. Kandolph 
 at his word, and suppose him to be an ignorant man. " I am an ig- 
 norant man, I am an ignorant man," is the mortifying yet too deeply 
 conscious sentiment of every man of an all-grasping genius like his ; 
 but no man was more thoroughly imbued than he with the rich lore 
 of old English learning, or more deeply penetrated with the manly 
 and martyr-like spirit of that religion which triumphed over the fag- 
 got and the dungeon. Being a man of the highest order of poetic 
 genius himself, he sought only the society o* kindred spirits. Milton 
 and Cowper, and the old English divines, now obsolete and forgotten, 
 were his daily and nightly companions. He was also most fortunate 
 in his living associates. No man had better or more faithful frienda
 
 64 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 His country or age can furnish no nobler specimens of a high Chris 
 tian virtue than the three friends with whom Mr. Randolph alone 
 conversed on " free-will, fate and philosophy," and to whose opinions 
 he bowed with the profoundest respect and reverence. The first to 
 whom we allude is the present Bishop Meade, of Virginia, a gentle- 
 man, a scholar, and a Christian. The reader is already aware of the 
 high regard Mr. Randolph had for that pious and venerable man. 
 The second person was the late Dr. Moses Hogue, president of 
 Hampden Sydney College. Mr. Randolph, for many years, lived 
 in the immediate neighborhood of the college ; and the society of 
 its venerable head, the chief ornament of the institution, was 
 always sought by him with avidity. " I consider Dr. Hogue," says 
 he, " as the ablest and most interesting speaker that I ever heard, 
 in the pulpit or out of it ; and the most perfect pattern of a Christian 
 teacher that I ever saw. His life affords an example of the great 
 truths of the doctrine that he dispenses to his flock ; and if he has a 
 fault (which, being mortal, I suppose he cannot be free from) I have 
 never heard it pointed out." Nothing can be added to this picture. 
 Francis Scott Key, Esq., late of Washington City, is the other per- 
 son to whom we have made allusion. The reader has already per- 
 ceived the great intimacy existing between these two friends. They 
 were kindred spirits. " Frank Key," though an eminent and suc- 
 cessful advocate, was a poet of a high order of genius. " The Star- 
 spangled Banner," written while he was detained on board the Brit- 
 ish fleet, an anxious spectator of the bombardment of Fort M'Henry 
 and the assault on Baltimore, thrills the heart of every American 
 who hears its patriotic strains, and has become one of our most popu- 
 lar national songs. He was a pure spirit ; the friend that knew him 
 best and valued him most, thus speaks of him : " He perseveres in 
 pressing on toward the goal, and his whole life is spent in endeavors 
 to do good for his unhappy fellow-men. The result is that he enjoys 
 a tranquillity of mind, a sunshine of the soul, that all the Alexanders 
 of the earth can neither confer nor take away." 
 
 Dr. Brockenbrough had hitherto, for the most part, been in the 
 same category with himself, somewhat skeptical ; hence, in their re- 
 lations, Randolph rather assumed the province of a teacher than 
 .scholar, on the subject of morals and religion. Writing to that gen- 
 tleman from Buckingham Court House, the 29th May, 1815, he says :
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 65 
 
 " I got here to-day. To-morrow we are to begin our inquisition. 
 [A contested election.] This business does not suit me at all. My 
 thoughts are running in a far different channel. I never feel so free 
 from uneasiness as when I am reading the Testament, or hearing 
 some able preacher. This great concern presses me by day and by 
 night, almost to the engrossing of my thoughts. It is first in my 
 mind when I wake, and the last when I go to sleep. I think it be- 
 comes daily more clear to me. All other things are as nothing when 
 put in comparison with it. You have had a great comfort in the 
 presence of Mr. Meade. I. too, am not without some consolation ; 
 for I have received a letter from Frank Key, that I would not ex- 
 change for the largest bundle of bank notes that you ever signed. 
 Hear him. ' I cannot describe to you the gratification your letter 
 has given me. The sentiments they express, I thank God I am no 
 stranger to ; and they have been made to lead me, through much 
 anxiety and distress, to a state of peace and happiness as far above 
 what I have deserved, as below what I yet hope, even in this life, to 
 attain. May you soon, my friend, experience the most delightful 
 of all sensations, that springs from a well grounded hope of recon- 
 ciliation with God ! You are in the right track. [God grant it 
 may be so !] God is leading you. Your sentiments show the divinity 
 that stirs within you. That we have ruined ourselves that an ever- 
 lasting life is before us that we are about (how soon we know 
 not) to enter upon it, under the sentence of Almighty condemnation 
 and that we can do nothing to save ourselves from this misery ; 
 these convictions are the genuine work of the Spirit ; other founda- 
 tion can no man lay ! They lead us to a Saviour who gives us all we 
 want pardon, peace, and holiness. They do not bid us first to be- 
 come righteous, and then come to him ; but they bring us to him as 
 we are as sinners to be pardoned for our sins, and cleansed from 
 all our iniquities. This is the true doctrine of our Church, and the 
 plain meaning of the Gospel ; and indeed it seems to me; notwith- 
 standing some peculiarities (about which there has been much 
 useless disputation), that in these essential points almost all sects 
 agree.' " 
 
 Writing to Mr Key himself, from the same place, two days after 
 
 the above, he says : 
 
 " I cannot refrain from unburthening some of my thoughts to you. 
 I carry your last letter (of the 1 1th) constantly in my pocket, read- 
 ing it frequently, and praying God that your charitable anticipations 
 respecting me may be realized. After all, is there not selfishness at 
 the bottom of that yearning of my heart to believe? Can that faith, 
 setting aside its imperfection, be acceptable in the sight of God. to
 
 QQ LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 which the unhappy sinner is first moved by the sense of self-preser- 
 vation ? 
 
 " I am brought on here by this contested election ; but my mind 
 is not at all in the thing. 
 
 " Indeed I must tell you what gives me great uneasiness ; that, 
 instead of being stimulated to the discharge of my duties, I am daily 
 becoming more indifferent to them, and, consequently, more negli- 
 gent. I see many whose minds are apparently little occupied on the 
 subject that employs me, with whom I think I should be glad to ex- 
 change conditions ; for surely, when they discharge conscientiously 
 their part in life, without the same high motive that I feel, how cul- 
 pable am I. being negligent ! For a long time the thoughts that now 
 occupy me, came and went out of my mind. Sometimes they were 
 banished by business; at others, by pleasure. But heavy afflic- 
 tions fell upon me. They came more frequently, and staid longer 
 pressing upon me, until, at last, I never went asleep nor awoke but 
 they were last and first in my recollection. Oftentimes have they 
 awakened me, until, at length, I cannot, if I would, detach myself from 
 them. Mixing in the business of the world I find highly injurious 
 to me. I cannot repress the feelings which the conduct of our fel- 
 low-men too often excites ; yet I hate nobody, and I have endeavored 
 to forgive all who have done me an injury, as I have asked forgiveness 
 of those whom I may have wronged, in thought or deed. If I could 
 have my way, I would retire to some retreat, far from the strife of the 
 world, and pass the remnant of my days in meditation and prayer ; 
 and yet this would be a life of ignoble security. But, my good friend, 
 I am not qualified (as yet, at least,) to bear the heat of the battle. 
 I seek for rest for peace. I have read much of the New Testament 
 lately. Some of the texts are full of consolation ; others inspire 
 dread. The Epistles of Paul I cannot, for the most part, compre- 
 hend ; with the assistance of Mr. Locke's paraphrase, I hope to ac- 
 complish it. My good friend, you will bear with this egotism ; for 
 I seek from you instruction on a subject, in comparison with which 
 all others sink into insignificance. I have had a strong desire to go 
 to the Lord's Supper ; but I was deterred by a sense of my un- 
 worthiness : and, only yesterday, reading the denunciation against 
 those who received unworthily, I thought it would never be in my 
 power to present myself at the altar. I was present when Mr. 
 Hogue invited to the table, and I would have given all I was worth 
 to have been able to approach it. There is no minister of our church 
 in these parts. I therefore go to the Presbyterians, who are the most 
 learned and regular ; but having been born in the Church of Eng- 
 land, I do not mean to renounce it. On the contrary, I feel a com- 
 fort in repeating the Liturgy, that I would not be deprived of for 
 worlds. Is it not for the want of some such service that Socinian-
 
 RELIGION. g7 
 
 ism has crept into the eastern congregations ? How could any So- 
 cinian repeat the Apostle's Creed, or read the Liturgy ? I begin to 
 think, with you, about those people. You remember the opinions 
 you expressed to me last winter concerning them. Among the causes 
 of uneasiness which have laid hold upon me lately, is a strong anxiety 
 for the welfare of those whom I love, and whom I see walking in 
 darkness. But there is one source of affliction, the last and deepest, 
 which I must reserve till we meet, if I can prevail upon myself to 
 communicate it even then. It was laid open ly one of those wonder- 
 ful coincidences, which men call chance, but which manifest the hand 
 of God. It has lacerated my heart, and taken from it its last hope 
 in this world. Ought I not to bless God for the evil (as it seems in my 
 sight) as well as the good ? Is it not the greatest of blessings, if it be 
 made the means of drawing me unto him ? Do I know what to ask 
 at his hands? Is he not the judge of what is good for rne ? If it 
 be his pleasure that I perish, am I not conscious that the sentence is 
 just? 
 
 " Implicitly, then, will I throw myself uponhis mercy ; ' Not my 
 will, but thine be dqne :' ' Lord be merciful to me a sinner ;' ' Help. 
 Lord, or I perish.' And now. my friend, if, after these glimpses of 
 the light, I should shut mine eyes and harden my heart, which now 
 is as melted wax ; if I should be enticed back to the ' herd,' and lose 
 all recollection of my wounds, how much deeper my guilt than his 
 whose heart has never been touched by the sense of his perishing, un- 
 done condition. This has rushed upon my mind when I have thought 
 of partaking of the Lord's supper. After binding myself by that sa- 
 cred rite, should passion overcome me, should I be induced to forget 
 in some unhappy hour that holy obligation, I shudder to think of it. 
 There are two ways only which I am of opinion that I may be ser- 
 viceable to mankind. One of these is teaching children ; and I have 
 some thoughts of establishing a school. Then, again, it comes into 
 my head that I am borne away by a transient enthusiasm ; or that I 
 may be reduced to the condition of some unhappy fanatics who mis- 
 take the perversion of their intellects for the conversion of their 
 hearts. Pray for me." 
 
 On another occasion, writing to Mr. Key, he says : 
 ' I took up yesterday a work, which I never met with before, the 
 ' Christian Observer.' In a critique of Scott, vol. XII. > upon the 
 Bishop of Lincoln's ' Refutation of Calvinism,' it is stated that no man 
 is converted to the truth of Christianity without the self-experience of a 
 miracle. Such is the substance. He must be sensible of the working 
 of a miracle in his own person. Now, my good friend, I have never 
 experienced any thing like this. I have been sensible, and am 
 always, of the proneness to sin in my nature. I have grieved un- 
 feignedly for my manifold transgressions. I have thrown myself
 
 (J3 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 upon the mercy of my Redeemer, conscious of my own utter ina- 
 bility to conceive one good thought, or do one good act without his 
 gracious aid. But I have felt nothing like what Scott requires. 
 Indeed, my good friend. I sometimes dread that I am in a far worse 
 condition than those who never heard the Word of God, or, who 
 having heard, reject it if any condition can be worse than the last. 
 When I am with Mr. Hogue I am at ease. He makes every thing 
 plain to me. But when I hear others I am disturbed. Indeed, my 
 doubts and misgivings do not desert me always in his presence. I 
 wish I could see you, and converse with you. To you I have no 
 scruple in writing in this style ; but to any other I feel repugnant 
 to communicate. I fear that I mistake a sense of my sins for true 
 repentance, and that I sometimes presume upon the mercy of God. 
 Again, it appears incredible that one so contrite as I sometimes 
 know myself to be, should be rejected entirely by infinite mercy. 
 Write to me upon this topic not my own state but give me your 
 ideas generally on salvation ; or direct me to some publication that 
 puts it in the clearest light. I have carefully read the gospels, but 
 cannot always comprehend." 
 
 Writing to Dr. Brockenbrough, from Roanoke, the 4th of July. 
 1815, he says: 
 
 " It was to me a subject of deep regret that I was obliged to 
 leave town before Mr. Meade's arrival. I promised myself much 
 comfort and improvement from his conversation. My dear sir, there 
 is, or there is not, another and a better world. If there is. as we 
 all believe, what is it but madness to be absorbed in the cares of 
 a clay-built hovel, held at will, unmindful of the rich inheritance 
 of an imperishable palace, of which we are immortal heirs ? We ac- 
 knowledge these things with our lips, but not with our hearts ; we 
 lack faith. 
 
 We would serve God provided we may serve mammon at the 
 same time. For my part, could I be brought to believe that this 
 life must be the end of my being. I should be disposed to get rid of 
 it as an incumbrance. If what is to come be any thing like what is 
 passed, it would be wise to abandon the hulk to the underwriters, the 
 worms. I am more and more convinced that, with a few exceptions, 
 this world of ours is a vast mad-house. The only men I ever knew 
 well, ever approached closely, whom I did not discover to be unhappy, 
 are sincere believers of the Gospel, and conform their lives, as far as 
 the nature of man can permit, to its precepts. There are only thr&. 
 of them/' [Meade, Hogue, Key?] "And yet, ambition, and ava- 
 rice, and pleasure, as it is called, have their temples crowded with 
 votaries, whose own experience has proved to them the insufficiency 
 and emptiness of their pursuits, and who obstinately turn away from
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 69 
 
 the only waters that can slake their dying thirst and heal their dis- 
 eases. 
 
 " One word on the subject of your own state of mind. I am well 
 acquainted with it too well. Like you, I have not reached that 
 lively faith which some more favored persons enjoy. But I am per- 
 suaded that it can and will be attained by all who are conscious of 
 the depravity of our nature, of their own manifold departures from the 
 laws of God, and sins against their own conscience ; and who are sin- 
 cerely desirous to accept of pardon on the terms held out in the 
 Gospel. Without puzzling ourselves, therefore, with subtle disqui- 
 sitions, let us ask, are we conscious of the necessity of pardon ? are 
 we willing to submit to the terms offered to us to consider ' Chris- 
 tianity as a scheme imperfectly understood, planned by Infinite 
 Wisdom, and canvassed by finite comprehensions' to ask of our 
 Heavenly Father that faith and that strength which iy our own 
 unassisted efforts we can never attain ? To me it would be a stronger 
 objection to Christianity did it contain nothing which baffled my 
 comprehension, than its most difficult doctrines. What professor 
 ever delivered a lecture that his scholars were not at a loss to com- 
 prehend some parts of it ? But that is no objection to the doctrine. 
 But the teacher here is God! I may deceive myself, but I hope 
 that I have made some progress, so small indeed that I may be 
 ashamed of it, in this necessary work, even since I saw you. I am 
 no disciple of Calvin or Wesley, but I feel the necessity of a changed 
 nature ; of a new life ; of an altered heart. I feel my stubborn and 
 rebellious nature to be softened, and that it is essential to my com- 
 fort here, as well as to my future welfare, to cultivate and cherish 
 feelings of good will towards all mankind ; to strive against envy, 
 malice, and all uncharitableness. I think I have succeeded in for- 
 giving all my enemies. There is not a human being that I would 
 hurt if it were in my power ; not even Bonaparte." 
 
 Mr. Randolph was now destined to receive the severest stroke of 
 misfortune that had befallen him since the death of his brother 
 Richard. It seems that his ill-fated family were destined to fall one 
 by one, and to leave him the sole and forlorn wreck of an ancient 
 house, whose name and fortunes he had so fondly cherished. Tudor. 
 the last hope, had been sent abroad this spring (1815) in search of 
 health. He had scarcely reached Cheltenham, England, when he 
 fell into the arms of death. In a letter from Dr. Brockenbrough. 
 Mr. Randolph received the first tidings of this melancholy event. 
 He was dumb he opened not his mouth. " Your kind and conside- 
 rate letter," says he, contained the first intelligence of an event
 
 70 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 which I have long expected, yet dreaded to hear. I can make no 
 comment upon it. To attempt to describe the situation of my mind 
 would be vain, even if it were practicable. May God bless you : to 
 him alone I look for comfort on this side the grave ; there alone, if 
 at all. I shall find it." 
 
 Many said his mind was unsettled ; that this dark destiny drove 
 reason from her throne, and made him mad. In the vulgar estima- 
 tion of a cold and selfish world he was ourely mad. The cries of a 
 deep and earnest soul are a mockery to the vain and unfeeling multi- 
 tude. David had many sons : Randolph this only hope, ike child of 
 his affections. Yet when Absalom was slain, " the king was much 
 moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept ; and as 
 he wept, thus he said, ' my son Absalom my son, my son Absa- 
 lom ! would God I had died for thee, Absalom, my son, my son !'" 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS CONGRESS BANK CHARTER. 
 
 IN the midst of all his domestic afflictions, bodily ailments, and 
 mental anxiety, Mr. Randolph never lost sight of public affairs. 
 u As to politics," says he, " I am sick of them, and have resolved to 
 wash my hands of them as soon as possible." The thought of min- 
 gling again in the strife of party politics was loathing to him ; but 
 he could not banish from his mind the intimate knowledge of politi- 
 cal events, their causes and consequences, which he possessed in so 
 eminent a degree ; nor could he prevent the natural affinity for those 
 ; moral and political principles and agencies, which are for ever 
 g and moulding the social and political institutions of mankind, 
 e was a statesman by nature nascitur non fita born statesman. 
 'Tvatinris, however trivial or brief, have a pith and meaning 
 
 J sagest reflections of most other men. 
 
 Many of his reflections rise to the dignity of political aphorisms, 
 and are worthy to be ranked with the profound maxims of the great
 
 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. 71 
 
 master of political philosophy. Last May. after Bonaparte had es- 
 caped from Elba, marched in triumph to Paris, and driven the fright- 
 ed Bourbon once more from his throne, Mr. Randolph thus discourses 
 on the affairs of Europe : 
 
 ' On the late events in Europe, which baffle all calculation, I have 
 looked with an eye not very different from yours." [Addressed to Mr 
 Key.] " The Bourbons refused to abolish the slave trade. Bona- 
 parte, from temporal views, no doubt, has made it the first act after 
 his restoration ! Here is food for solemn meditation. The situation 
 of England is, according to my conception of things, more awful than 
 ever. A sated libertine at the head of the government ; a profligate 
 debauchee her prime minister. When I think on Wilberforce and "his 
 worthy compeers, I cannot despair. Ten such would have saved So- 
 dom. But what a frightful mass of wickedness does that country, as 
 well as our own, present ! Both rescued, by the most providential in- 
 terference of Heaven, from ruin. But what do we see ? Humble 
 and hearty thanks for unmerited mercy ? Self-abasement, penitence 
 for past offences, and earnest resolutions for future amendment, 
 through divine assistance ? I can recognize none of these. Even 
 in myself how faint are these feelings, compared with my conscious- 
 ness of their necessity ! England, I sometimes think, stands on the 
 verge of some mighty convulsion. The corruption of her government 
 and her principal men, the discontents of her needy and profligate 
 lower orders, the acts of her Cobbetts and Burdetts, all seem to threaten 
 the-overthrow of her establishment, in Church and State. Jacobinism 
 has. I believe, a stronger hold in that country than in any other in Eu- 
 rope. But the foolishness of human wisdom, nothing daunted by re- 
 peated overthrows of all its speculations and the confusion of its plans, 
 yet aspires to grasp and to control the designs of the Almighty." 
 
 But the period had come for John Randolph to appear again 
 on the public stage. The times had been truly eventful. The cycle 
 of five and twenty years, in which the spirit of human liberty fought 
 for her existence, had rolled round and come to a close. Born of the 
 divine love shed forth in the gospel of Jesus Christ, bursting up in 
 radiant majesty from the crumbling ruins of an effete feudalism, the 
 cheerful voice of the Spirit of Liberty was first heard in the National 
 Assembly of France, speaking in the accents of hope and of joy to 
 the down-trodden millions of the earth. But, alas ! in the wanton 
 excess of an untried freedom, she quickly ran into a wild fanati- 
 cism, and swept the good as well as the evil into one common 
 ruin. Seeking to break the oppressor's rod, and to tear down his tow-
 
 72 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ers and his dungeons of cruelty, she condemned time-honored virtue to 
 the same indiscriminate death with hoary-headed vice, and pointed 
 her finger of contempt and mockery at venerated wisdom no less 
 than at cant and hypocrisy. This mad Spirit, lovely even in her 
 madness, though mangled by the guillotine, and suffocated in the 
 dungeons of the Conciergerie, rose triumphant, swept like an angel of 
 destruction over the hills of Ardenne, the plains of Lombardy, and 
 called down from the Pyramids of Egypt the witness of ages on the 
 heroic deeds of her sons amid the desert sands of Africa. But 
 wearied with excess, and hunted down, like Acteon, by the blood- 
 hounds that had been nurtured in her own bosom, she at length fell 
 beneath the iron heel of an imperial despotism, and was finally crushed 
 and stifled in the blood of Waterloo. In the death agonies of Wa- 
 terloo, freedom expired ; a leaden peace was restored to Europe, and 
 a new lease of thirty years for their dominions and their thrones, was 
 vouchsafed to monarchs. Peace also, about the same time, was re- 
 stored to our own borders, and with it came temptations to seduce 
 the watchful guardian from his vigilant protection of the Constitu- 
 tion, and dangers more threatening than war to the liberties of the 
 country. Pressed by a common necessity, bearing a heavy burthen 
 of taxes, and confronting on every hand the external foes of their 
 country, the mass of the people had but one object, were impelled by 
 one sentimenta speedy and successful termination of hostilities. 
 That accomplished, each individual plunged into his own chosen field 
 of enterprise, eagerly bent on his own aggrandizement, while the 
 government was left, unrestrained and unobserved, to pursue its 
 course in repairing the damages brought on the country by that most 
 unprofitable of all work, the struggle to see how much harm each 
 can do to the other. The obstructions of embargo and non- 
 intercourse, followed by the destructive operations of a maritime 
 war. had brought in their train a series of evil consequences. The 
 republican party, as we already know, advocated those measures. 
 Without stopping to inquire whether right or wrong, the task 
 K-vnlved on them, being still in the ascendent, to remedy the evils 
 they must have foreseen and anticipated. " The embargo." said Mr. 
 Randolph long ago, was the Iliad of all our woes." The repub- 
 licans were placed in a most difficult and critical position. 
 
 young and ardent spirits who urged on the war, and conducted
 
 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. 73 
 
 it to a successful termination, were well suited for a time of 
 excitement and destruction ; but when the period arrived for heal- 
 ing and building up, graver counsel would have been more desirable. 
 It required the utmost prudence and delicacy to restore the Consti- 
 tution to its normal state, and to adjust the various and conflicting 
 interests of the country in the well-poised scale of a wise abstinence 
 and justice. Unfortunately, the republican party adopted those mea- 
 sures of relief which were most fatal to their principle:. They who 
 had come into power on the overthrow of the doctrines of Hamilton, 
 were now, under the plea of necessity, about to outstrip the great fede- 
 ral leader himself in the adoption and advocacy of those temporizing 
 and unconstitutional expedients they had so loudly condemned. 
 - Until the present session," says Mr. Randolph, ' ; I had not a concep- 
 tion of the extent of the change wrought in the sentiments of the 
 people of this country by the war. I now see men trained in the 
 school of the opposition to the administration of John Adams, who, 
 down to June, 1812, were stanch sticklers for the Constitution, ab- 
 jure all their former principles, and declare for expediency against 
 right." " We have been told, sir," said Mr. Randolph at a later 
 period, " that the framers of the Constitution foresaw the rising sun 
 of some new sects, which were to construe the powers of the govern- 
 ment differently from their intention ; and therefore the clause grant- 
 ing a general power to make all laws that might be necessary and 
 proper to carry the granted powers into effect, was inserted in the. 
 Constitution. Yes, such a sect did arise some twenty years ago ; 
 and, unfortunately, I had the honor to be a member of that church. 
 Prom the commencement of the government to this day, differences 
 have arisen between the two great parties in this nation ; one con- 
 sisting of the disciples of Mr. Hamilton, the Secretary of the Trea- 
 sury ; and another party, who believed that in their construction of 
 the Constitution, those to whom they opposed themselves exceeded 
 the just limits of its legitimate authority ; and I pray gentlemen to 
 take into their most serious consideration the fact, that on this very 
 question of construction, this sect, which the framers of the Constitu- 
 tion foresaw might arise, did arise in their might, and put down the 
 construction of the Constitution according to the Harniltonian ver- 
 sion. But. did we at that day dream that a new sect would arise after 
 them, which would as far transcend Alexander Hamilton and his dis- 
 
 VOL. II. 4
 
 74 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ciples as they outwent Thomas Jefferson. James Madison and John 
 Taylor, of Caroline 1 This is the deplorable fact. Such is now the 
 actual state of things in this land ; and it is not a subject so much 
 of demonstration as it is self-evident ; it speaks to the senses, so that 
 every one may understand it." 
 
 The first ofthat series of measures which gave birth to this new sect 
 of politicians, and brought about the state of things so much deplored 
 by Mr. Randolph, was the Bank Charter, passed at this session of 
 Congress. , 
 
 The first incorporation of a bank, in 1791, was opposed by Tho- 
 mas Jefferson and the republican party, as being an unwarranted 
 assumption of power, nowhere granted in the Constitution. Conse- 
 quently, when the charter of the old bank expired in 1811, they 
 refused to renew it on the same ground. Henry Clay, then a sena- 
 tor from Kentucky, argued the question at great length : " This 
 vagrant power," says he, " to erect a bank, after having wandered 
 throughout the whole Constitution in quest of some congenial spot 
 whereon to fasten, has been at length located, by the gentleman from 
 Georgia, on that provision which authorizes Congress to lay and col- 
 lect taxes. In 1791 the power is referred to one part of the instru- 
 ment; in 1811. to another. Sometimes it is alleged to be deducible 
 from the power to regulate commerce. Hard pressed here, it dis- 
 appears, and shows itself under the grant to coin money. The saga- 
 cious Secretary of the Treasury, in 1791, pursued the wisest course. 
 He has taken shelter behind general high-sounding and imposing 
 terms. He has declared in the preamble to the act establishing the 
 bank that it will be very conducive to the successful conducting of 
 the national finances ; will tend to give facility to the obtaining of 
 loans ; and will be productive of considerable advantage to trade and 
 itulust,-y in general. No allusion is made to the collection of taxes. 
 \\ hat is the nature of this government ? It is emphatically fede- 
 ral, vested with an aggregate of specified powers for general pur- 
 poses, conceded by existing sovereignties, who have themselves 
 retained what is not so conceded. It is said that there are cases 
 in which it must act on implied powers. This is not controverted , 
 but the implication must be necessary, and obviously flow from the 
 enumerated power with which it is allied. The power to charter 
 companies is not specified in the grant, and, I contend, is of a nature
 
 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. 75 
 
 not transferable by mere implication. It is one of the most exalted 
 attributes of sovereignty. In the exercise of this gigantic power, we 
 have seen an East India Company created, which has carried dismay, 
 desolation and death, thoughout one of the largest portions of the habit- 
 able globe ; a company which is. in itself, a sovereignty, which has 
 subverted empires, and set up new dynasties, and has not only made 
 war, but war against its legitimate sovereign ! Under the influence 
 of this power, we have seen arise a South Sea Company and a Missis- 
 sippi Company, that distracted and convulsed all Europe, and 
 menaced a total overthrow of all credit and confidence, and universal 
 bankruptcy. Is it to be imagined that a power so vast would have 
 been left by the wisdom of the Constitution to -doubtful inference?" 
 Such was the forcible reasoning that induced the republicans in 
 1811 to refuse to recharter the bank or to incorporate another simi- 
 lar institution. They stood by the Constitution. But now, in 1816, 
 every thing was changed ; and what seemed unconstitutional before 
 had become clearly necessary and proper, and therefore constitu- 
 tional. Mr. Clay, who had become their leader and exponent, under- 
 takes to justify his change of position : " The consideration," says he, 
 {1 upon which I acted in 1811 was, that as the power to create a cor- 
 poration, such as was proposed to be continued, was not specifically 
 granted in the Constitution, and did not then appear to me to be 
 necessary to carry into effect any of the powers which were specifi- 
 cally granted, Congress was not authorized to continue the bank. 
 The Constitution contains powers delegated and prohibitory ; powers 
 expressed and constructive. It vests in Congress all powers neces- 
 sary to give effect to the enumerated powers ; all that may be neces- 
 sary to put in motion and activity the machine of government which 
 it constructs. The powers that may be so necessary are deducible 
 by construction ; they are not defined in the Constitution ; they are, 
 from their nature, undefinablc. When the question is in relation to 
 one of these powers, the point of inquiry should be, is its exertion 
 necessary to carry into effect any of the enumerated powers and ob- 
 jects of the General Government ? With regard to the degree of ne- 
 cessity, various rules have been at different times laid down ; but. 
 perhaps, at last, there is no other than a sound and honest judgment 
 exercised, under the checks and control which belong to the Consti- 
 tution and the people.
 
 yg LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 "The constructive powers being auxiliary to the specifically 
 granted powers, and depending for their sanction and existence upon 
 a necessity to give effect to the latter which necessity is to be 
 sought for and ascertained by a sound and honest discretion it is 
 manifest that this necessity may not be perceived, at one time, under 
 one state of things, when it is perceived, at another time, under a 
 different state of things. The Constitution, it is true, never changes ; 
 it is always the same ; but the force of circumstances and the lights 
 of experience may evolve, to the fallible persons charged with its ad- 
 ministration, the fitness and necessity o7 a particular exercise of con- 
 structive power to-day, which they did not see at a former period." 
 Mr. Clay then goes on to state facts which, in his judgment, rendered 
 a bank in 1811 unnecessary. There were other means of conducting 
 the fiscal affairs of the Government ; " They," says he, " superseded 
 the necessity of a national institution." But how stood the case in 
 1816, when he was called upon again to examine the power of the 
 General Government to incorporate a national bank? A total change 
 of circumstances was presented ; events of the utmost magnitude 
 had intervened. These events made a bank, in the opinion of Mr. 
 Clay, necessary and proper, as an implied power, and therefore con- 
 stitutional. But Mr. Clay does not do full justice to his position in 
 1811. He then declared that the power to charter companies is not 
 specified in the grant, and is of a nature not transferable by mere 
 implication. It is one of the most exalted attributes of sovereignly. It 
 is inconceivable how a man, holding these opinions, could suffer any 
 possible circumstances that might arise, to influence and change his 
 position . 
 
 Yet Mr. Clay did shift his ground entirely, and contend, that 
 although the power to charter companies was not specified in the 
 grant, and was one of the most exalted attributes of sovereignty, still 
 it was a constructive power necessary and proper to carry into effect 
 those specifically granted, and therefore to be implied as a consequent 
 and appendage to them. T/ie force of circumstances may evolve to 
 the fallible persons, charged with the administration of the govern- 
 ment, t^eJUncss and mrcssity of a particular exercise- of constructive 
 r to-day, which they did not see at a former period. And the 
 nf necessity which renders such constructive power constitu- 
 tional is made to depend on the sound and honest judgment of those
 
 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. 77 
 
 iu authority. Men who wish to exercise a doubtful power, not spe- 
 cified in the grant, may themselves create the circumstances that shall 
 render its exercise, in their estimation, necessary and proper. In- 
 stead of looking to the charter to see whether the power is granted. 
 they have only to consider the force of circumstances urging on them, 
 and to consult their own judgments (fallible persons) a to the degree 
 of necessity which justifies the assumption of an undelegated author- 
 ity. This is a virtual surrender of the Constitution. By such a law 
 of interpretation, the jurisdiction of the Federal Government is made 
 unlimited, and, instead of possessing delegated, specifically defined, 
 and limited powers, it becomes a magnificent, all-absorbing, all-gov- 
 erning empire, with unrestrained and unlimited authority.. 
 
 But Mr. Clay did not stand alone in this abandonment of the Con- 
 stitution. He was followed by a decided majority of the republican 
 party in Congress, and by all the executive authorities, with the Pre- 
 sident at their head. At first, there were some constitutional scru- 
 ples manifested by the members of the House of Representatives. 
 Men could not be brought to believe the difficulties in question, if 
 they existed at all, were such as to require the House to sacrifice 
 principle at the shrine of necessity. On the 10th of January, 1814, 
 Mr. Eppes, from the Committee of Ways and Means, reported that 
 the power to create corporations within the territorial limits of the 
 States, without the consent of the States, is neither one of the pow- 
 ers delegated by the Constitution of the United States, or essentially 
 necessary for carrying into effect any delegated power. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, moved that the Committee of the 
 Whole be discharged from the consideration of this report, which was 
 agreed to. and offered, as a substitute, a resolution that the Commit- 
 tee of Ways and Means be instructed to inquire into the expediency 
 of establishing a national bank, to be located in the District of Co- 
 lumbia. In this way they thought to get around the constitutional 
 question. But men soon came to see the alarming consequences of 
 an interpretation which permitted Congress, in the District, to do the 
 most unconstitutional acts, merely because they possessed exclusive 
 jurisdiction. 
 
 At length, all these subterfuges were abandoned ; and ou the 8th 
 of January, 1816, an ominous day for the bank, Mr. Calhoun re- 
 ported M A bill to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the
 
 78 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 United States." In his opening argument, he undertook to show the 
 necessity that urged to the adoption of the measure now proposed. 
 ~ We have," says he, " in lieu of gold and silver, a paper medium, un- 
 equally but generally depreciated, which affects the trade and indus- 
 try of the nation : which paralyzes the national arm ; which sullies 
 the faith, both public and private, of the United States a paper no 
 longer resting on gold and silver as its basis. We have, indeed, 
 laws regulating the currency of foreign coin, but they are. under pre- 
 sent circumstances, a mockery of legislation, because there is no coin 
 in circulation. The right of making money an attribute of sove- 
 reign power, a sacred and important right was exercised by two 
 hundred and sixty banks, scattered over every part of the United 
 States ; not responsible to any power whatever for their issues of 
 paper. The next and great inquiry was," he said, " how this evil 
 was to be remedied ? Restore." said he, ' these institutions to their 
 original use ; cause them to give up this usurped power , cause them 
 to return to their legitimate office of places of discount and deposit; 
 let them be no longer mere paper machines ; restore the state of 
 things which existed anterior to 1813, which was consistent with 
 the just policy and interests of the country ; cause them to fulfil 
 their contracts ; to respect their broken faith ; resolve that every 
 where there shall be an uniform value to the national currency ; 
 your constitutional control will then prevail." A National Bank, he 
 argued, was the specific to cure all these evils. 
 
 Mr. Randolph, who made his appearance in the House for the first 
 time about the period that Mr. Calhoun introduced his bill, took 
 occasion to say, that he had listened to the honorable gentleman with 
 pleasure. He was glad to see a cause so important in hands so able. 
 He promised the honorable gentleman, though he might not agree 
 with his mode of remedying the evil, he would go with him in the 
 application of any adequate remedy to an evil which he regarded as 
 most enormous. 
 
 Mr. Randolph said he rose to ask two questions one of the gen- 
 tleman from South Carolina, aud the other of the gentleman from 
 -first, how the paper to be created by this bank will cor- 
 rect the vitiated state of our currency? and, secondly, how bank 
 notes can answer the purpose of a circulating medium better than 
 treasury notes? Though no stickler for treasury notes, Mr. Ran-
 
 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. 79 
 
 dolph intimated his opinion that they were, in time of peace, a better 
 substitute for gold and silver than any paper he had yet heard sub- 
 mitted. He added some incidental observations, and concluded by 
 saying, that he was sorry to see the apathy, the listlessness on this 
 subject ; on a question, which, if it passed, would, perhaps, be the 
 most important decided since the establishment of the Constitution ; 
 and that though he agreed fully as to the extent of the existing evil, 
 the remedy had been totally mistaken. 
 
 During the progress of the bill through the House, a motion was 
 made to strike out that part which authorizes the Government to 
 subscribe a certain portion of the stock. Mr. Randolph said he 
 should vote for this motion, because one of his chief objections (one 
 of them, he repeated) was the concern which it was proposed to give 
 to the United States in the bank. He referred to the sale, by the 
 Secretary of the Treasury, some years ago. of the shares belonging to 
 the Bank of the United States, and stated the reasons of his approv- 
 ing that step ; but, he added, that it was a strong argument against 
 the feature of the bank bill now under consideration, that whenever 
 there should be, in this country a necessitous and profligate adminis- 
 tration of the Government, that bank stock would be laid hold of by 
 the first Squanderfield at the head of the Treasury, as the means of 
 filling its empty coffers. But, if there was no objection to this fea- 
 ture stronger than that it would afford provision for the first rainy 
 day, it might not be considered so very important. He argued, how- 
 ever, that it was eternally true, that nothing but the precious metals, 
 or paper bottomed on them, could answer as the currency of any 
 nation or age, notwithstanding the fanciful theories that great pay- 
 ments could only be made by credits and paper. How, he asked on 
 this point, were the mighty armies of the ancient world paid off? 
 Certainly not in paper or bank credits. He expressed his fears, lest 
 gentlemen" had got some of their ideas on these subjects from the 
 wretched pamphlets under which the British and American press had 
 groaned, on the subject of a circulating medium. He said he had 
 once himself turned projector, and sketched the plan of a bank, of 
 which it was a feature, that the Government should have a concern 
 in it ; but he became convinced of the fallacy of his views he found 
 his project would not answer. His objections to the agency of the 
 Government in a bank was, therefore, he said, of no recent date, but
 
 gQ LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 one long formed the objection was vital ; that it would be an engine 
 of irresistible power in the hands of any administration ; that it 
 would be in politics and finance, what the celebrated proposition of 
 Archimedes was in physics a place, the fulcrum ; from which, at 
 the will of the Executive, the whole nation could be hurled to de- 
 struction, or managed in any way, at his will and pleasure. 
 
 This bill, in the view of Mr. Randolph, presented two distinct 
 questions : the one frigidly and rigorously a mere matter of calcula- 
 lation ; the other, involving some very important political conside- 
 rations. 
 
 In regard to the present depreciation of paper, he did not a^ree 
 with those who thought the establishment of a National Bank would 
 aid in the reformation of it. If he were to go into the causes frhich 
 produced the present state of things, he said, he should never end. 
 As to the share the banks themselves had in producing it, hi re- 
 garded the dividends they had made since its commencement as con- 
 clusive proof 
 
 " The present time, sir," continued Mr. Randolph, " is, in my view, 
 one of the most diastrous ever witnessed in the republic, and this bill 
 proves it. The proposal to establish this great bank is but resorting 
 to a crutch, and, so far as I understand it, it is a broken one ; it will 
 tend, instead of remedying the evil, to aggravate it. The evil of the 
 times is a spirit engendered in this republic, fatal to republican prin- 
 ciples fatal to republican virtue : a spirit to live by any means but 
 those of honest industry ; a spirit of profusion : in other words, the 
 spirit of Catiline himself (dieni avidus sui profusuA a spirit of ex- 
 pediency, not only in public but in private life : the system of Didler 
 in the farce living any way and well ; wearing an expensive coat. 
 and drinking the finest wines, at any body's expense. This bank, I 
 imagine, sir, (I am far from ascribing to the gentleman from South 
 Carolina any such views,) is, to a certain extent, a modification of the 
 same system. ^ Connected, as it is to be, with the Government, when- 
 ever it goes into operation, a scene will be exhibited on the great 
 theatre of the United States p at which I shudder. If we mean to trans- 
 mit our institutions unimpaired to posterity ; if some, now living, wish 
 to continue to live under the same institutions by which they are now 
 ruled and with all its evils, real or imaginary, I presume no man 
 will question that we live under the easiest government on the globe 
 -we must put bounds to the spirit which seeks wealth by every path 
 but the plain and regular path of honest industry and honest fame. 
 
 Let us not disguise the fact, sir. we think we are living in the bet- 
 ter times of the Republic. We deceive ourselves ; we are almost in
 
 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 81 
 
 the days of Sylla and Marius : yes, we have almost got down to the 
 time of Jugurtha. It is unpleasant to put one's self in array against a 
 great leading interest in a community, be they a knot of land specula- 
 tors, paper jobbers, or what not : but, sir, every man you meet in this 
 House or out of it, with some rare exceptions, which only serve to 
 prove the rule, is either a stockholder, president, cashier, clerk, or 
 doorkeeper, runner, engraver, paper-maker, or mechanic, in some way 
 or other, to a bank. The gentleman from Pennsylvania may dismiss 
 his fears for the banks, with their one hundred and seventy millions 
 of paper, on eighty-two millions of capital. However great the evil 
 of their conduct may be, who is to bell the cat ? who is to take the 
 bull by the horns ? You might as well attack Gibraltar with a pocket 
 pistol as to attempt to punish them. There aiv very few who dare 
 speak truth to this mammoth. The banks are so linked together with 
 the business of the world, that there are very few men exemp\ from 
 their influence. The true secret is, the banks are creditors as well as 
 debtors ; and if they were merely debtors to us for the paper in our 
 pockets, they would soon, like Morris and Nicholson, go to jail (figu- 
 ratively speaking) for having issued more paper than they were able 
 to pay when presented to them. A man has their note for fifty dol- 
 lars, perhaps, in his pocket, for which he wants fifty Spanish milled 
 dollars ; but they have his note for five thousand in their possession, 
 and laugh at his demand. We are tied hand and foot, sir, and bound 
 to conciliate this great mammoth, which is set up to worship in this 
 Christian land : we are bound to propitiate it. Thus whilst our govern- 
 ment denounces hierarchy ; will permit no privileged order for con- 
 ducting the services of the only true God ; whilst it denounces nobi- 
 lity has a privileged order of new men grown up, the pressure of 
 whose foot, sir, I feel at this moment on my neck. If any thing 
 could reconcile me to this monstrous alliance between the bank and 
 the government, if the object could be attained of compelling the 
 banks to fulfil their engagements, I could almost find it in my heart 
 to go with the gentleman in voting for it. 
 
 li The stuff uttered on all hands, and absolutely got by rote by the 
 haberdashers' boys behind the counters in the shops, that the paper 
 now in circulation will buy any thing you want as well as gold and 
 silver, is answered by saying that you want to buy silver with it. 
 The present mode of' banking, sir, goes to demoralize society ; it is as 
 much swindling to issue notes with the intent not to pay, as it is bur- 
 glary to break open a house. If they are unable to pay, the banks 
 are bankrupts ; if able to pay and will not, they are fraudulent bank- 
 rupts. But a man might as well go to Constantinople to preach 
 Christianity, as to get up here and preach against the banks. To 
 pass this bill would be like getting rid of the rats by setting fire to 
 the house. Whether any other remedy can be devised, I will not 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 g2 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 now undertake to pronounce. The banks have lost all shame, and 
 exemplify a beautiful and very just observation of one of the finest 
 writers, that men banded together in a common cause, will collectively 
 do that at which every individual of the combination would spurn. 
 This observation has been applied to the enormities committed and 
 connived at by the British East India Company ; and will equally 
 appply to the modern system of banking, and still more to the spirit 
 of party. 
 
 ' As to establishing this bank to prevent a variation in the rate of 
 exchange of bank paper, you might as well expect it to prevent the 
 variations of the wind ; you might as well pass an act of Congress 
 (for which, if it would be of any good, I should certainly vote) to 
 prevent the northwest wind from blowing in our teeth as we go from 
 the House to our lodgings. 
 
 ' But, sir, I will conclude by pledging myself to agree to any ade- 
 quate means to cure the great evil, that are consistent with the ad- 
 ministration of the government, in such a manner as to conduce to 
 the happiness of the people and the reformation of the public morals." 
 
 Mr. Randolph combated the bill in all its stages, moved amend- 
 ments with a view of abridging and restraining the powers of the 
 corporation, and, finally, on the 5th of April, 1816, when the bill was 
 sent back from the Senate with sundry amendments for the concur- 
 rence of the House, he moved, for the purpose of destroying the bill, 
 that the whole subject be indefinitely postponed ; and supported his 
 motion by adverting to the small number of members present, and 
 the impropriety of passing, by a screwed up, strained, and costive 
 majority, so important a measure, at the end of a session, when the 
 members were worn down and exhausted by a daily and long atten- 
 tion to business ; a measure which, in time of war, and of great pub- 
 lic emergency, could not be forced through the House ; a measure so 
 deeply involving the future welfare, and which was to give a color 
 and character to the future destiny of this country ; a measure which, 
 if it and another (the tariff) should pass into laws, the present ses- 
 sion would be looked back to as the most disastrous since the com- 
 mencement of the republic ; and which, much as he deprecated war. 
 he would prefer war itself to either of them. Mr. Randolph then 
 proceeded to argue against the bill as unconstitutional, inexpedient, 
 and dangerous. His constitutional objections, he said, were borne 
 out by the decision of Congress in refusing to renew the charter of 
 the old bank, which decision was grounded on the want of constitu-
 
 POLITICAL REFLECTIONS. 33 
 
 tional power. He adverted, also, in support of his opinion, to the 
 instructions from the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky to their 
 senators to vote agains t t the old bank ; which instructions were given 
 on the ground of that institution being unconstitutional. " I declare 
 to you, sir," said Mr. Randolph, " that I am the holder of no stock 
 whatever, except live stock, and had determined never to own any 
 but, if this bill passes, I will not only be a stockholder to the 
 utmost of my power, but will advise every man, over whom I have 
 any influence, to do the same, because it is the creation of a great 
 privileged order of the most hateful kind to my feelings, and because 
 I would rather be the master than the sla re. Tf I must have a 
 master, let him be one with epaulettes something that I can fear 
 and respect, something that I can look up to but not a master with 
 a quill behind his ear." 
 
 After finally passing through both Houses, the bank bill was pie- 
 sented to Mr. Madison ; he signed it, and it became a law. Mr. 
 Madison, it is well known, was hitherto opposed to the incorporation 
 of a National Bank on constitutional grounds. His Report in 1799- 
 1800, to the Virginia legislature on the general powers of the Fed- 
 eral Government, is conclusive and unanswerable on that subject. 
 But on the present occasion he waived the question of the constitu- 
 tional authority of the legislature to establish an incorporated bank, 
 as being precluded, in his judgment, by repeated recognitions, under 
 varied circumstances, of the validity of such an institution in acts of 
 the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the government, 
 accompanied by indications, in different modes, of a concurrence of 
 the general will of the nation. 
 
 Mr. Clay and his compeers surrendered the Constitution on the 
 plea of necessity tlie farce of circumstances, Mr. Madison on the 
 score of precedent repeated recognitions of the validity of such an 
 institution ! Well might the patriot weep over this last, fatal act of 
 a great and a good man ! Well might he bemoan the imbecility of 
 human nature, when he beheld the same hand that constructed the 
 immortal argument by which the Constitution is made to rest on its 
 true and lasting basis, in old age destroy the glorious work of its' 
 meridian power. 
 
 Randolph did not scruple to charge this act to the weakness of
 
 84 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 old age. Some years after this event, and when the bank was in fur- 
 career, fulfilling all his predictions, hear what he says : 
 
 " I am sorry to say, because I should be the last man in the world 
 to disturb the repose of a venerable man, to whom I wish a quiet end 
 of his honorable life, that all the difficulties under which we have 
 labored, and now labor, on this subject (Tariff and Internal Improve- 
 ment by the General Government), have grown out of a fatal admis- 
 sion, by one of the late Presidents of the United States, an admission 
 which runs counter to the tenor of his waole political life, and is ex- 
 pressly contradicted by one of the most luminous and able state pa- 
 pers that ever was written, the offspring of his pen an admission 
 which gave a sanction to the principle, that this government had the 
 power to charter the present colossal Bank . the United States. 
 Sir," said Mr. Randolph. that act, and one other, which I will not 
 name, bring forcibly home to my mind a train of melancholy reflec- 
 tions on the miserable state of our mortal being. 
 
 ' In life's last scenes, what prodigies arise ! 
 Fears of the brave and follies of the wise. 
 From Marlbo*ough's eyes the streams of dotage flow ; 
 And Swift expires a driv'ler and a show.' 
 
 " Such is the state of the case, sir. It is miserable to think of it 
 and we have nothing left to us but to weep over it." 
 
 And again, on the same occasion, in 1824 
 
 " But the gentleman from New- York, and some others who have 
 spoken on this occasion, say. What ! shall we be startled by a shadow ? 
 Shall we recoil from taking a power clearly within (what ?) our reach ? 
 Shall we not clutch the sceptre the air-drawn sceptre that invites 
 our hand, because of the fears and alarms of the gentleman from 
 Virginia? 
 
 " Sir. if I cannot give reason to the committee, they shall at least 
 have authority. Thomas Jefferson, then in the vigor of his intellect, 
 was one of the persons who denied the existence of such powers 
 James Madison was another. He, in that masterly and unrivalled 
 report in the legislature of Virginia, which is worthy to be the text- 
 book of every American statesman, has settled this question. For 
 me to attempt to add any thing to the arguments of that paper, would 
 be to attempt to gild refined gold to paint the lily to throw a per- 
 fume on the violet to smooth the ice or add another hue unto the 
 rainbow in every aspect of it, wasteful and ridiculous excess. Nei- 
 hold up my farthing rush-light to the blaze of that me- 
 ridian sun. But. sir, I cannot but deplore my heart aches when I 
 -that the hand which erected that monument of political 
 wisdom, should have signed the act to incorporate the present Bank 
 of the United States ."
 
 HOME SOLITUDE. 85 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 HOME SOLITUDE. 
 
 MR. RANDOLPH was not less strenuous in his opposition to the " revenue 
 bill," or tariff measure, of this eventful session ; but we pass that, for 
 the present, until it conies up again in a more aggravated form. Death, 
 it seems, had made his friends the chosen mark for his fatal weapons. 
 Mrs. Judith Randolph died in March, at the house of hw friend a 
 great and a good man Dr. John H. Rice, of Richmond. She doubt- 
 less died of a broken heart. Bereft of every comfort, life had no 
 charms for her, and she sought death as a blessing. Her friends 
 and Mr. Randolph's friends followed her mortal remains in sad pro- 
 cession to Tuckahoe the family seat of her ancestors some miles 
 above Richmond, on James River, where they rest in peace beneath 
 the shadow of those venerable oaks that witnessed the sweet gambols 
 of her joyous and innocent childhood. 
 
 No sooner was this sad bereavement communicated to Mr. Ran- 
 dolph, than he was called to the bedside of a dying friend an old 
 and tried friend a companion who had stood by him through evil as 
 well as good report, as he fought like a bold champion for the Con- 
 stitution and the rights of the people. "Yesterday (April llth) we 
 buried poor Stanford. I staid by his bedside the night before he 
 died. Jupiter was worn down by nursing him, and is still feeling the 
 effects of it. He returned home on Sunday morning, and has been 
 sick ever since. My own health is not much better, and my spirits 
 worse. Poor Stanford ! he is not the least regretted of those who 
 have been taken from me within the past year." 
 
 In addition to his present family Dr. Dudley and young Clay 
 Mr. Randolph took upon himself the charge and the responsibility of two 
 other orphan boys. " I have just returned from Baltimore, where I 
 went to meet the sons of my deceased friend Bryan, consigned to my 
 care. They are fine boys, but have been much neglected. I propose 
 to place them at Prince Edward College, under the care of Dr. 
 Hogue, after they shall have undergone some preparatory tuition at 
 Mr. Lacy's school."
 
 gg LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 These acts speak for themselves. By these, and such as these, 
 that crowd his whole life, let him be judged. Here is one the 
 world have agreed to condemn as a misanthrope a hater of his 
 fellow-man. It is certain he did not seek to be known of men. 
 Few could understand (" My mother she understood me !"). few 
 could appreciate him. 
 
 While apparently absorbed in the business of legislation, the great 
 question was still uppermost in his thoughts. Before leaving Wash- 
 ington for his solitary home, he sought an interview with his trusty 
 friend, " Frank Key," and rode over to Georgetown (May 7th, 1816.) 
 for that purpose. But failing to meet with him. he went into Semmes's 
 Hotel, and wrote him the following letter : 
 
 " Hearing, at Davis's, yesterday, that you were seen in 
 town the evening before. I came here in the expectation of the pleas- 
 ure of seeing you ; but my intelligence proved to be like the greater 
 part that happens under that name in this poor, foolish world of 
 ours. I had also another motive. I wished to give Wood an oppor- 
 tunity to finish the picture. I called last evening, but he was gone to 
 Mt. Vernon. I shall drive by his apartment, and give him the last 
 sitting this morning. It is a soothing reflection to me, that your 
 children, long after I am dead and gone, may look upon their some- 
 time father's friend, of whose features they will have perhaps retained 
 some faint recollection. Let me remind you that, although I am 
 childless, I cannot forego my claim to the return picture, on which I 
 st a very high value. 
 
 " Your absence from home is a sore disappointment to me. I 
 wanted to have talked with you. unreservedly, on subjects of the high- 
 est interest. I wanted your advice as a friend, on the course of my 
 future life. Hitherto it has been almost without plan or system 
 the sport of what we call chance. 
 
 " About a year ago. I got a scheme into my head, which I have 
 more than once hinted to you ; but I fear my capacity to carry it 
 into execution. 
 
 ' There is. however, another cause of uneasiness, about which I 
 
 could have wished to confer freely with you. It has cost me many a 
 
 ithin a few months past especially. In the most important 
 
 of human concerns I have made no advancement ; on the contrary 
 
 > always the case when we do not advance). I have fallen back. 
 
 ind is filled with misgivings and doubts and perplexities that 
 
 me no repose. Of the necessity for forgiveness I have the 
 
 -fron.rr.st conviction : but I cannot receive any assurance that it has 
 
 been accorded to me. Tr. short, I am in the worst conceivable situ
 
 HOME SOLITUDE. 
 
 87 
 
 atiou as its respects my internal peace and future welfare. I want 
 aid ; and the company and conversation of such a friend as yourself 
 might assist in dispelling, for a time, at least, the gloom that de- 
 presses .me. I have humbly sought comfort where alone it is effectu- 
 ally to be obtained, but without success. To you and Mr. Meade I 
 can venture to w^ite in this style, without disguising the secret work- 
 ings of my heart. I wish I could always be in reach of you. The 
 solitude of my own dwelling is appalling to me. Write to me, and 
 direct to Richmond. 1 ' 
 
 To this Mr. Key replied : 
 
 " As we could not confer upon the subjects ycu mention, we must 
 postpone them till we meet again, or manage them in writing ; just 
 as you please. In either way you will have much to exuise in me ; 
 but I trust you will find within yourself a counsellor and comforter 
 who will guide you ' into all peace.' Desperate indeed would be 
 our case, if we had nothing better to lead us than our own wisdom 
 and strength or the experience of our friends. If, notwithstanding 
 all your doubts and misgivings, you are sincerely and earnestly desi- 
 rous to know the truth, and resolved to obey it, cost what it may, you 
 have the promise of God that it shall be revealed to you. If you are 
 convinced you are a sinner, 'that Christ alone can save you from 
 the sentence of condemnation incurred by your sins, and from the 
 dominion of them ; if you make an entire and unconditional surren- 
 der of yourself to his service, renouncing that of the world and of 
 yourself; if you thus humbly and faithfully come to him, 'he will in 
 no wise cast you out.' 
 
 " You can do much for the cause of religion, whatever plan of life 
 you may adopt ; you can resolutely and thoroughly bear your testi- 
 mony in its favor. You can adorn its doctrines, and so preach them 
 most powerfully by a good life. You can be seen resisting and over 
 coming, in the strength of God, the powerful and uncommon tempta- 
 tions that oppose you ; and your light can. and, I trust, will shim; 
 far and brightly around you. Do not be disheartened by the diffi- 
 culties you may feel ; they are experienced by all, and grace and 
 strength to overcome them are offered to all. The change from dark- 
 ness to light, from death to life, is the result of no single effort, but 
 of constant and persevering, and. often, painful striving. How can 
 it be otherwise when we think of what that change is ? It finds us 
 ' dead in trespasses and sins.' ' having our conversation in the flesh,' 
 ' fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.' ' children of 
 wrath,' 'without Christ.' 'strangers to the covenant of promise, 1 
 ' having no hope, and without God in the world ' and it makes us 
 ; nigh by the blood of Christ :' ' no more foreigner i and strangers, hut, 
 fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God;' 'ju.-ti 
 fied by faith, and having peace with God, through our Lord JCSUK
 
 gg LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Christ/ May you experience this change, my dear friend, in all its 
 blessedness." 
 
 Randolph thus replied : 
 
 c: ROANOKE, June 16, -1816. 
 
 " Owing to the incorrigible negligence of the postmaster at Rich- 
 mond. I did not get your letter of the 22d of last month until this 
 morning. I had felt some surprise at not hearing from you, and the 
 delay of your letter served but to enhance its value. I read it this 
 morning in bed. and derived great consolation from the frame of mind 
 to which it disposed me. My time has been a wretched one since I saw 
 you dreary and desponding. I heard Mr. Hogue yesterday ; and dur- 
 ing a short conversation, riding from church, he told me that he believed 
 that there were times and seasons when all of us were overcome by 
 such feelings iu spite of our best efforts against them ; efforts which, 
 however, we ought by no means to relax, since they tended both to miti- 
 gate the degree and shorten the period of our sufferings. My own 
 case (every body, no doubt, thinks the same) appears to be peculiarly 
 miserable. To me the world is a vast desert, and there is no merit 
 in renouncing it, since there is no difficulty. There never was a time 
 when it was so utterly destitute of allurement for me. The difficulty 
 with me is to find some motive to adtion something to break the 
 sluggish tenor of my life. I look back upon the havoc of the past 
 year as upon a bloody field of battle, where my friends have perished. 
 I look out towards the world, and find a wilderness, peopled indeed, 
 but not with flesh and blood with monsters tearing one another to 
 pieces for money or power, or some other vile lust. Among them 
 will be found, with here and there an exception, the professors of the 
 religion of meekness and love, itself too often made the bone of con- 
 tention and faction. Is it not strange that a being so situated should 
 find difficulty in renouncing himself, the dominion of his own bad pas- 
 sions ? To such an one another and a better world is a necessary 
 refuge, and yet he cannot embrace it. 
 
 " My dear friend, it is very unreasonable that I should throw the 
 burthen of my black and dismal thoughts upon you ; but they so 
 weigh me down that I cannot escape from them ; and when I can 
 speak without restraint, they will have vent." 
 
 Mr. Randolph spent the summer at home entirely alone. Dr. 
 Dudley's health required a visit to the Virginia Springs, where he 
 remained during the season. The boys were at school. With 
 the exception of a short visit to Richmond, he did not leave his 
 ".vii plantation. His time was consumed in silence and in solitude. 
 Thore can be no question that this entire abstinence from human 
 y the cheerful face of man and woman the morning saluta-
 
 DYING, SIR DYING. 39 
 
 tion and the evening converse with friends loving and beloved had a 
 pernicious influence on his health, his mind, and his temper. 
 
 No man enjoyed with a higher relish the intellectual and polished 
 society of those friends, men and women, whom he had endeared to 
 him by the strongest ties of affection, no man felt more keenly its ab- 
 sence. Yet it seems to have been his lot to live in solitude ; so few 
 understood him ! 
 
 On the 25th of October he thus writes to Mr. Key : 
 
 " If your life is so unsatisfactory to you, what must that of others 
 be to them ? For my part, if there breathes a creature more empty 
 of enjoyment than myself, I sincerely pity him. My opinions seem 
 daily to become more unsettled, and the awful mystery which shrouds 
 the future alone renders the present tolerable. The darkness of my 
 hours, so far from having passed away, has thickened into the deepest 
 gloom. I try not to think, by moulding my mind upon the thoughts 
 of others ; but to little purpose. Have you ever read Zimmerman 
 on Solitude ? I do not mean the popular* cheap book under that 
 title, but another, in which solitude is considered with respect to its 
 dangerous influence upon the mind and the heart. I have been 
 greatly pleased with it for a few hours. It is a mirror that reflects 
 the deformity of the human mind to whomsoever will look into it. 
 
 " Dudley is with me. He returned about a month ago from our 
 Springs, and I think he has benefited by the waters. He returns 
 your salutation most cordially. We have been lounging a la Virgini- 
 anne, at the house of a friend, about a day and a half's ride off. In 
 a few days I shall return to the same neighborhood, not in pussuit of 
 pleasure, but pursued by ennui." 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 DYING, SIR DYING. 
 
 
 
 THE session of Congress which terminated the 4th of March, 1817, 
 presents nothing of much public interest. The most remarkable act 
 of the session is the compensation law, as it was called, by which 
 members voted themselves a fixed salary for their services, instead of 
 the usual per diem allowance. 
 
 Mr. Randolph's half brother, Henry St. George Tucker, was a
 
 90 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 member of this Congress. On his way to Washington he was upset 
 in the stage had his shoulder dislocated, and in other respects was 
 much injured. So soon as the news of this accident reached him, 
 Mr. Randolph hastened to the bedside of his brother, and on his 
 return to Washington wrote the following letter : 
 
 ' : I have been very unwell since I left you. but not in consequence 
 of my journey to your bedside. On the contrary I believe I am the 
 better for it in every respect. A wide' gulf has divided us, of time 
 and place and circumstance. Our lot has been different, very differ- 
 ent indeed. I am ' the last of the family ' of my family at least 
 and I am content that in my person it should become extinct. In 
 the rapid progress of time and of events, it will quickly disappear 
 from the eye of observation, and whatsoever of applause or disgrace 
 it may have acquired in the eyes of man, will weigh but little in the 
 estimation of Him by whose doom the everlasting misery :>r happi- 
 ness of our condition is to be irrevocably fixed. ' We are indeed 
 clay in the potter's hands.' " 
 
 Mr. Randolph's health during this winter was wretched in the 
 extreme ; more especially towards the close. The reader is already 
 aware of his determination ' to wash his hands of politics " he had 
 announced to his friends that he would not be a candidate again foi 
 Congress. On Saturday night. February 8th, he wrote to Dr. 
 Dudley 
 
 "Your letter of the 2d was put into my hands this morning, just 
 as I was about to make my last dying speech." The next Tuesday 
 he says ' I scribbled a few lines to you on Saturday evening last, 
 jat which time I was laboring under the effects of fresh cold, taken 
 in going to and coming from the House, where I delivered my valedic- 
 tory. It was nearer being, than I then imagined, a valedictory to this 
 world. That night, and the next day and night, I hung suspended 
 between two worlds, and had a much nearer glimpse than I have ever 
 yet taken of the other. 
 
 ' ; That I have written this letter with effort will be apparent from 
 the face of it. I am not ashamed to confess that it has cost me some 
 bitter tears but they are not the tears of remorse. They flow from 
 the workings of a heart known only to Him ifcto whom the prayers 
 and the groans of the miserable ascend. I feel that in this world 1 
 am alone that all my efforts (ill-judged and misdirected I am wil- 
 ling to allow they must have been) have proved abortive. What 
 remains of my life must be spent in a cold and heartless intercourse 
 with mankind, compared with which the solitude of Robinson Crusoe 
 was bliss. I have no longer a friend. Do not take this unkindly, for 
 it is not meant so. On this subject, as well as on some others, per-
 
 DYING, SIR DYING. 91 
 
 haps, I have been an enthusiast but I know neither how to concili- 
 ate the love nor to command the esteem of mankind ; and like the 
 officious ass in the fable, must bear the blows inflicted on my pre- 
 sumption. May Grod bless you, my brother. You have found the 
 peace of this world. May you find that of the world to come, which 
 passeth all understanding. If it be his good pleasure, we may meet 
 again ; if not in this life, in life everlasting, where all misunderstand- 
 ing and misinterpretation shall be at an end ; and the present delu- 
 sions of self appear in their proper and vile deformity, and the busy 
 cares and sorrows which now agitate and distress us sttai more trivial 
 than the tears of infancy succeeded, not by transient, but everlast- 
 ing sunshine of the heart. Amen, and so let it be. 
 
 . JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 
 Jan. 21, 1817. Tuesday. 
 
 Suna-ay morning. I have been reading Lear these two days, and 
 incline to prefer it to all Shakspeare's plays. In that and Timon only, 
 it has been said, the bard was in earnest. Read both the first espe- 
 cially. 
 
 Tuesday, Feb. 18th. " I had hardly finished my last letter (Sun- 
 day the 16th) to you, when I was seized by spasms that threatened 
 soon to terminate all my earthly cares ; although the two nights since 
 have been passed almost entirely without sleep, I am much better." 
 
 Sunday, February 23d. " The worst night that I have had since 
 my indisposition commenced. It was, I believe, a case of croup, com- 
 bined with the affection of the liver and the lungs. Nor was it un- 
 like tetanus, since the muscles of the neck and back were rigid, and 
 the jaw locked. I never expected, when the clock struck two, to 
 hear the bell again : fortunately, as I found myself going, I dispatched 
 a servant (about one) to the apothecary for an ounce of laudanum. 
 Some of this poured down my throat, through my teeth, restored me 
 to something like life. I was quite delirious, but had method in my 
 madness ; for .they tell me I ordered Juba to load my gun and to 
 shoot the first " doctor" that should enter the room ; adding, they are 
 only mustard seed, and will serve just to sting him. Last night I 
 was again very sick ; but the anodyne relieved me. I am now per- 
 suaded that I might have saved myself a. great deal of suffering by 
 the moderate use of opium. This day week, when racked with cramps 
 and spasms, my " doctors" (I had two) prescribed (or rather, admin- 
 istered) half a glass of Madeira. Half a drop of rain water would 
 have been as efficient. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I 
 attended the House ; brought out the first day by the explosion of 
 the motion to repeal the internal taxes : and the following days by 
 some other circumstances that I will not now relate. Knocked up 
 completely by the exertion, instead of recalling my physicians, I took 
 uiy own case boldly in hand ; took one and a half grains of calomel ;
 
 92 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 on Tuesday night and yesterday using mercurial friction. The liver 
 is again performing its functions, and I am, this evening, decidedly 
 better than I have been since the first attack, which I may date from 
 my fall at Mr. T.'s, on Tuesday, the 21st of January. From that pe- 
 riod, the operations of the liver have been irregular and disturbed. 
 I conceive the lungs to be affected by sympathy, with the other viscus. 
 I have taken from five to ten grains of the hypercarbonated natron 
 every day, most generally five grains, in a tablespoonful of new milk, 
 sometimes repeating the dose at night. My drink has been slippery 
 elm tea and lemonade. Appetite for acids very strong. Severe 
 pains in the fasciae of the legs and the tendons, just above the outer 
 ankle bone ; also, knees, &c. I have taken, from the first, a pill of 
 one and a half grains of calomel about two, sometimes three times a 
 week ; and several doses of Cheltenham salts. I have used the vola- 
 tile liniment for my throat and limbs ; also, gargles of sage tea. bo- 
 rax, &c. 
 
 Mrs. John M., Mrs. B., and Mrs. F. K., have been very kind in 
 sending me jellies, lemons, &c., &c. Thomas M. N. has been ex- 
 tremely attentive and obliging. Mr. K. of New York, Mr. Chief 
 Justice, Mr. H. of Maryland, Mr. M. of South Carolina, Mr. B. of 
 Georgetown, (I need not name Frank Key.) M. (no longer Abbe) C. 
 de S.. and D., have been very kind in their attentions. Mr. M. sent 
 me some old, choice Madeira, and his man cook to dress my rice (a 
 mystery not understood any where on this side of Cape Fear river), 
 sending also the rice to be dressed ; and Mr. Chief Justice came to 
 assist me in drawing up my will which I had strangely and crimi- 
 nally neglected for some time past, and of which neglect I was more 
 strangely admonished in a dream." 
 
 About this time, says Mr. Wm. H. Roane, who was a member of 
 Congress from Virginia during the session of 1816-17, " I remem- 
 ber that one morning Mr. Lewis came into the House of Repre- 
 sentatives and addressed Mr. Tyler and myself, who were the youngest 
 members from Virginia, and said we must go to Georgetown to Mr. 
 Randolph. We asked for what ; he said that Mr. Randolph had told 
 him that he was determined not to be buried as beau Dawson had 
 been, at the public expense, and he had selected us young bloods to 
 come to him and take charge of his funeral. We went over imme- 
 diately. When we entered Mr. Randolph's apartments he was in 
 his morning gown. He rose and shook us by the hand. On our in- 
 quiries after his health, he said, 4 Dying ! dying ! dying ! in a dread- 
 ful .state.' He inquired what was going on in Congress. We told 
 him that the galleries were filling with people of the District, and
 
 DYING, SIR DYING. 93 
 
 that there was considerable excitement on the re-chartering of the 
 batch of banks in the District. He then broke off and commenced 
 upon another subject, and pronounced a glowing eulogium upon the 
 character and talents of Patrick Henry. After sitting for some time, 
 and nothing being said on the business on which we had been sent to 
 him. we rose and took our leave. When we got to the door, I said. 
 I wish, Mr. Randolph, you could be in the House to-day.' He shook 
 his head ' Dying, sir, dying !' When we had got back to the T Iouse 
 of Representatives, Mr. Lewis came in and asked how we had found 
 Mr. Randolph. We laughed and said as well as usual that we had 
 spent a very pleasant morning with him, and been much amused by 
 his conversation. Scarcely a moment after, Mr. Lewis exclaimed, 
 ' There he is !' and there to be sure he was. He had entered by 
 another door, having arrived at the Capitol almost as soon as we did. 
 In a few moments he rose and commenced a speech, the first sentence 
 of which I can repeat verbatim. ' Mr. Speaker,' said he, ' this is 
 Shrove Tuesday. Many a gallant cock has died in the pit on this 
 day, and I have come to die in the pit also.' He then went on with 
 his speech, and after a short time turned and addressed the crowd of 
 ' hungry expectants,' as he called them tellers, clerks, and porters in 
 the gallery." 
 
 Mr. Randolph left Washington the day after Mr. Monroe's inau- 
 guration. " No mitigation of my cruel symptoms took place until 
 the third day of my journey, when I threw physic to the dogs, and 
 instead of opium, tincture of columbo, hypercarbonate of soda, &c., 
 &c., I dratik, in defiance of my physician's prescription, copiously of 
 cold spring water, and ate plentifully of ice. Since that change of re- 
 gimen my strength has increased astonishingly, and I have even 
 gained some flesh, or rather, skin. The first day, Wednesday the 5th, 
 I could travel no farther than Alexandria. At Dumfries, where I 
 lay, but slept not, on Thursday night, I had nearly given up the ghost. 
 At a spring, five miles on this side, after crossing Chappawamsick, I 
 took, upon an empty and sick stomach, upwards of a pint of living 
 water, unmixed with Madeira, which I have not tasted since. It was 
 the first thing that I had taken into my stomach since the first of Feb- 
 ruary that did not produce nausea It acted like a charm, and enabled 
 me to get on to B.'s that night, where I procured ice. I also devoured 
 with impunity a large pippin (forbidden fruit to me). Next day I
 
 94 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 got to the Oaks, forty-two miles. Here I was more unwell than the 
 night before. On Sunday morning I reached my friends, Messrs. A 
 & Co., to breakfast, at half past eight." 
 
 On the road between the Boiling Green and Fredericksburg, 
 he came up with the stage with Mr. Koane and other members of 
 Congress on their homeward journey. As he drew up his phaeton 
 along side the stage, Mr. Roane called out, " How are you, Mr. Ran- 
 dolph ?" " Dying, sir, dying !" and then dashed off and out travelled 
 the stage. 
 
 He was, indeed, much nearer dying than his friends imagined. 
 Shortly after his arrival in Richmond he was taken very ill, and lay 
 for many weeks utterly prostrate and helpless at the house of Mr. 
 Cunningham, in that city. In after years he often recumd to this 
 period as the time of his greatest prostration. March 3d, 1824, he 
 says, " You have no idea how very feeble I am. I crawled yesterday 
 to P. Thompson's bookseller's shop, butcould not get back afoot. 
 The vis vitae has not been lower with me since the spring of 1817, 
 How well I recollect this very day of that year !" 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONVERSION. 
 
 FOR a long time the state of Mr. Randolph's health was such that he 
 confined himself entirely at home, and even ceased correspondence 
 with his friends, which at all times constituted his principal source of 
 enjoyment. His first attempt was the following letter addressed to 
 his friend Key : 
 
 ROANOKE, Feb. 9, 1818. 
 
 JAR FRANK : A long while ago I wrote to you in reply to the 
 inly letter that I have received for many, many months. I know 
 it you have something better to do than to be scribbling to me ; 
 jg you to take my case into your special consideration. I am 
 the world as if I were in Kamtschatka or Juan Fer- 
 nandezwithout a single neighbor, confined by my infirmities often 
 to the house, and disabled by them from attending to my affairs, 
 which might give me amusement and employment at the same time.
 
 CONVERSION. 95 
 
 The state of manners around me cannot be paralleled, I believe, on 
 the face of the earth all engaged with unremitting devotion in the 
 worship of 
 
 " The least erected spirit 
 That fell from heaven." 
 
 This pursuit I know to be general throughout the land, and, indeed, 
 I fear throughout the world ; but elsewhere it is tempered by the 
 spirit of society, and even by a love of ostentation or of pleasure. 
 Here it reigns undivided. There is no intercourse but of business : 
 and a man who will ride more miles for a shilling than a post-boy. 
 will hardly go one to visit a sick neighbor. * * * * I am afraid you 
 will consider the foregoing as no proof of what I am about to add : 
 but let me assure you that there is nothing personal between these 
 - poor rich men" and me ; on the contrary, I feel toward them only 
 pity and good will, and let no occasion pass without manifesting the 
 latter disposition. 
 
 I think that the state of solitude and dereliction in which I am 
 placed, has not been without some good effect in giving me better 
 views than I have had of the most important of all subjects ; and I 
 would not exchange it, comfortless as it is, for the heartless inter- 
 course of the world, I know that " if a man says he loves God, and 
 hates his brother, he is a liar;" but I do not hate my brethren of the 
 human family. I fear, however, that I cannot love them as I ought. 
 But God, I hope and trust, will in his good time put better disposi- 
 tions into my heart. There are few of them, I am persuaded, more 
 undeserving of love than I am. 
 
 March 2. Every day brings with it new evidences of my weak- 
 ness and utter inability, of myself, to do any good thing, or even to 
 conceive a tingle good thought. With the unhappy father in the 
 Gospel, I cry out, " Lord ! I believe, help thou mine unbelief." 
 When I think of the goodness, and wisdom, and power of God, I seem, 
 in my own eyes, a devil in all but strength. I say this to you, who 
 will not ascribe it to affected humility. Sometimes I have better 
 views, but again I am weighed down to the very earth, or .lost in a 
 labyrinth of doubts and perplexities. The hardness of my own 
 heart grieves and astonishes me. Then, again, I settle down in a 
 state of coldness and indifference, which is worse than all. But the 
 quivering of our frail flesh, often the effect of physical causes, cannot 
 detract from the mercy of our Creator, and to him I commit myself. 
 " Thy will be done !" 
 
 M does not " give me all the news," nor, indeed, any for a 
 
 long time past. At the commencement of the session of Congress, he 
 wrote pretty frequently, and through him I heard of you. It would 
 delight me very much to spend a few weeks with you. I would even 
 try to be an usher in your school. [Mr. Key was teaching his own
 
 96 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 children.] At least, I could teach the younger children to read. 
 (iive my love to them all, and to their mother. I had a sister once, 
 and I never think of her without being reminded of Mrs. Key. 
 
 I have not read Cunningham's poem. Is it the author of " The 
 Velvet Cushion ?" I have lately met with an entertaining work from 
 the pen of an English Jacobin, Hazlitt's Character of Shakspeare ; 
 and have tried to read Coleridge's Literary Life. There .are fine pas- 
 <ages. but his mysticism is too deep for me. I have seen, too, a ro- 
 mance, called the Life of Patrick Henry a wretched piece of fus- 
 tian. 
 
 I have not turned entirely a savage, although a man of the 
 woods, and almost wild. Bodily motion seems to be some relief to 
 mental uneasiness, and I was delighted yesterday morning to hear 
 that the snipes are come. On this subject of mental malady, it ap- 
 pears that madness is almost epidemic among us. Many cases have 
 appeared in Petersburg and elsewhere. In this county we had a 
 preacher of the Methodist sect (not itinerant), a man of excellent 
 character and very good sense. He was generally esteemed, and al- 
 though quite poor, by the aid of a notable wife lived neatly and com- 
 fortably. Last winter the clerk of our county died, and this preacher, 
 by diligent canvass, got the place by one vote, in a court of more than 
 twenty magistrates. From the time that he commenced his canvass 
 his manners changed. A still further change was perceptible after 
 he got the office ; and -a few weeks ago he got quite insane. His 
 friends set off with him on a journey to Georgia. But the first night 
 he gave them the slip, and is supposed to have drowned himself. I 
 heard yesterday that a party were out seeking for him. He had taken 
 laudanum for the purpose of suicide, but his stomach would not re- 
 tain it. Some ascribe his malady to remorse, others to the effects of 
 sudden prosperity. This county seems to labor under a judgment. 
 It has been conspicuous for the order and morality of the inhabit- 
 ants ; and such is the general character, I hope, yet. But within 
 two or three years past it has been the theatre of crimes of the 
 deepest atrocity. Within a few months there have occurred two in- 
 stances^ of depravity, the most shocking that can be conceived. But 
 I am giving you a county history, instead of a letter. Farewell, my 
 dear friend ; while I have life I am yours. 
 
 RICHMOND, April 29, 1818. 
 
 DEAR FRANK On my arrival here the day before yesterday, I 
 found the picture and the picture-frame which poor L. left for me. 
 
 Wood has again failed, but not so entirely as at first. It is you 
 in some of your humors, but neither your serious nor more cheerful 
 face. It shall hang, however, near my bed, and I hope will prove a 
 benefit as well as a pleasure to me. My love to Mrs. Key. I hope
 
 CONVERSION. 97 
 
 she has presented you with a better likeness of yourself than any 
 painter can draw. If I could envy you, I should covet one of your 
 boys, and. perhaps, one of your girls too, if I were not so old. 
 
 I have " read Manfred," and was overpowered by the intense 
 misery of the writer. Unless he shall seek refuge above, where alone it 
 is to be found, it is to be feared madness, perhaps suicide, is his portion. 
 It created in me the strongest interest for the unhappy author, and I 
 actually projected writing him a letter, such a one as could have dis- 
 pleased no man, and might, perhaps, have done good. The air of pre- 
 sumption which such a step might carry with it made me drop the 
 ' notion." 
 
 I have long been satisfied in my own mind respecting the princi- 
 ples, political, moral, and religious, of the journal you mention. I 
 suspect Franklin's were not very different. I am gratified, however, 
 at this castigation of that caricature of a caricature, Phillips. He 
 " out-Currans" Curran. 
 
 I do not take, but shall order the Christian Observer. I have 
 seen many of the numbers, and found them admirable. 
 
 " Fare thee well, and if for ever, 
 Still for ever fare thee well." 
 
 I regret the stifling of your poetical bantling. Can't you send me 
 some of the " disjecta membra ?" There is no need of a bottle of spirits 
 of wine to preserve them in apothecary fashion. On reaching this 
 place, I found my poor nephew, who has been a tenant of the man- 
 sion that inspired your muse. Sir P. Francis is not Junius, the 
 reviewer to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 On his return from Richmond, Mr. Randolph sank down into the 
 deepest melancholy ; some even allege that it amounted to an aberra- 
 tion of mind to positive delirium The reader is aware that for years 
 previous to this time, the deepest gloom, lasting many days in succes- 
 sion, overshadowed his mind, evincing the existence of some corroding 
 care, for which he neither sought, nor would receive, any sympathy. 
 
 The subject of religion had become the all-absorbing theme 
 of his meditations. God, freedom, and immortality ; sin, death, and 
 the grave ; Christ, redemption, and free grace, are " high matters," 
 well calculated, at any time, to disturb the strongest intellect. 
 
 But when we come to consider the solitude in which he lived, 
 the emaciated condition of his delicate frame, worn down by long and 
 torturing disease, the irritable state of his nervous system " he was 
 almost like a man without a skin" the constant and sleepless excite- 
 ment of his mental faculties and of his brilliant imagination induced 
 by this morbid irritability ; when we throw ourselves into his condi- 
 
 VOL. n. 5
 
 Pg LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 tion, and conceive of the crowd of burning thoughts that pressed upon 
 his mind, pass in melancholy review the many friends that had been 
 torn from him by the hand of death, the many who had forgotten him 
 and forsaken him as a fallen man, no longer serviceable to them ; call to 
 remembrance that his own father's house was desolate. St. George in 
 the mad-house, himself, like Logan, alone in his cabin, without a drop 
 of his father's blood save that which coursed in his own well-nigh ex- 
 hausted veins ; and, above all, when we call to remembrance his first. 
 his youthful, and his only love, which is said to have greatly revived 
 in his mind at this time with the painful yet hallowed associations 
 that clustered around its cherished memory, who can wonder that a 
 man, with the temperament of John Randolph, under these circum- 
 stances should fling away all restraint, and should cry aloud in the 
 anguish of his soul, and should so act and speak as to excite the 
 astonishment of those around, and induce them to believe that he 
 was a madman ! In a similar situation David was a madman ; Byron 
 was a madman ; Rousseau all high-souled, deep-feeling men of 
 genius, in the eye of the world were madmen. 
 
 Dr. Dudley says, that for many weeks his conduct towards him- 
 self, who was the only inmate of his household, had been marked by 
 contumelious indignities, which required almost heroic patience to 
 andure, even when aided by a warm and affectionate devotion, and an 
 anxious wish to alleviate the agonies of such a mind. All hope of 
 attaining this end, he says, finally failed, and he announced to Mr 
 Randolph his determination no longer to remain with him. Mr. 
 Randolph then addressed him the following letter, so full of affec- 
 tion and tenderness, that it shows his best friends did not understand 
 him. and that in his dark days of horror, when caprice and petulance 
 marked his conduc*, they did him a cruel injustice by supposing that 
 the harsh expression or extravagant conduct, forced out by the an- 
 jruish of his soul, was really intended as a premeditated injury to 
 their feelings. 
 
 : - August, 1818. 
 
 ' I consider myself under obligations to you that I can never re- 
 pay. I have considered you as a blessing sent to me by Providence, 
 in my old age, to repay the desertion of my other friends and nearer 
 connections ^ It is in your power (if you please) to repay me all the 
 lebt of gratitude that you insist upon being due to me;" although I 
 consider myself, in a pecuniary point of view, largely a gainer by
 
 CONVERSION. 
 
 99 
 
 our connection. But if you are unwilling to do so, I must be content 
 to give up my last stay upon earth ; for I shall, in that case, send the 
 boys to their parents. Without you, I cannot live here at all, and 
 will not. What it is that has changed your manner towards me I 
 cannot discover. I have ascribed it to the disease (hypochondriasis) 
 by which you are afflicted, and which affects the mind and temper, as 
 well as the animal faculties. In your principles, I have as unbounded 
 confidence as I have in those of any man on earth. Your disinterest- 
 edness, integrity, and truth, would extort my esteem and respect, even 
 if I were disposed to withhold them. I love you as my own son would 
 to God you were ! I see, I think, into your heart mine is open 
 before you, if you will look into it. Nothing could ever eradicate 
 this affection, which surpasses that of any other person (as I believe) 
 on earth. Your parents have other children I have only you. 
 But I see you wearing out your time and wasting away in this desert, 
 where you have no society such as your time of life, habits, and taste 
 require. I have looked at you often engaged in contributing to my 
 advantage and comfort, with tears in my eyes, and thought I was self- 
 ish and cruel in sacrificing you to my interest. I am going from 
 home ; will you take care of my affairs until I return ? I ask it as a 
 fa.vor. It is possible that we may not meet again ; but, if I get more 
 seriously sick at the springs than I am now, I will send for you, un- 
 less you will go with me to the White Sulphur Springs. Wherever 
 I am. my heart will love you as long as it beats. From your boy- 
 hood I have not been lavish of reproof upon you. Recollect my 
 past life." 
 
 Mr. Randolph set out on his journey to the Springs spent some 
 days in Lynchburg went as far as Bottetourt County ascended 
 the Peaks of Otter, the highest point of the Blue Ridge Mountains 
 in Virginia and then returned home to Roanoke. There seems to 
 have been a total change in his mind about this time. From the 
 deepest gloom and despondency, he seems to have attained clearness 
 and satisfaction on the subject of religion. He said they wanted him 
 to go to the Springs, but he had found a spring here, on this hill (Roa- 
 noke), more efficacious a well a fountain of living waters. He 
 thus writes to Mr. Key : 
 
 ROANOKE, Sept. 7, 1818. 
 
 Congratulate me, dear Frank wish me joy you need not ; give 
 it you cannot I am at last reconciled to my God, and have assur- 
 ance of his pardon, through faith in Christ, against which the very 
 gates of hell cannot prevail. Fear hath been driven out by perfect 
 love. I now know that you know how I feel ; and within a month.
 
 100 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 for the first time, I understand your feelings and character, and that 
 of every real Christian Love to Mrs. Key and your brood. 
 
 I am not now afraid of being ' ; righteous overmuch," or of 
 " Methodistical notions." 
 
 Thine, in Truth, 
 
 J. R. OF R. 
 
 Let Meade know the glad tidings, and let him. if he has kept it. 
 read and preserve my letter to him from Richmond years ago. 
 
 He thus writes to Dr. Brockenbrough : 
 
 September 25. 
 
 MY GOOD FRIEND, I am sorry that Quashee should intrude 
 upon you unreasonably. The old man, I suppose, knows the pleasure 
 I take in your letters, and therefore feels anxious to procure his mas- 
 ter the gratification. I cannot, however, express sorrow for I do 
 not feel it at the impression which you tell me my last letter made 
 upon you. May it lead to the same happy consequences that I have 
 experienced which I now feel in that sunshine of the heart, 
 which the peace of God, that passeth all understanding, alone can 
 bestow! 
 
 Your imputing such sentiments to a heated imagination does not 
 surprise me, who have been bred in the school of Hobbs and Bayle, 
 and Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, and Hume and Voltaire and Gib- 
 bon ; who have cultivated the skeptical philosophy from my vain- 
 glorious boyhood 1 might almost say childhood and who have felt 
 all that unutterable disgust which hypocrisy and cant and fanaticism 
 never fail to excite in men of education and refinement, superadded 
 to our natural repugnance to Christianity. I am not, even now, in- 
 sensible to this impression : but as the excesses of her friends (real 
 or pretended) can never alienate the votary of liberty from a free 
 form of government, and enlist him under the banners of despot- 
 ism, so neither can the cant of fanaticism, or hypocrisy, or of both 
 (for so far from being incompatible, they are generally found united 
 in the same character may God in his mercy preserve and defend 
 us from both) disgust the pious with true religion. 
 
 Mine has been no sudden change of opinion. I can refer to a 
 record, showing, on my part, a desire of more than nine years' standing, 
 to partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper ; although, for two- 
 and-twenty years preceding, my feet had never crossed the threshold 
 of the house of prayer. This desire I was restrained from indulging. 
 by the fear of eating and drinking unrighteously. And although 
 that fear hath been cast out by perfect love, I have never yet gone to 
 the altar, neither have I been present at the performance of divine ser- 
 vice, unless indeed I may so call my reading the liturgy of our church,
 
 CONVERSION. 10} 
 
 and some chapters of the Bible to my poor negroes on Sundays. Such 
 passages as I think require it, and which. I feel competent to explain. 
 I comment upon enforcing as far as possible, and dwelling upon^ 
 those texts especially that enjoin the indispensable accompaniment 
 of a good life as the touchstone of the true faith. The Sermon from 
 the Mount, and the Evangelists generally ; the Epistle of Paul to the 
 Ephesians, chap. vi. ; the General Epistle of James, and the First 
 Epistle of John ; these are my chief texts. 
 
 The consummation of my conversion I use the word in its 
 strictest sense is owing to a variety of causes, but chiefly to the con- 
 viction, unwillingly forced upon me, that the very few friends which 
 an un prosperous life (the fruit of an ungovernable temper) had left 
 me were daily losing their hold upon me, in a firmer grasp of am- 
 bition, avarice, or sensuality. I am not sure that, to complete the 
 anti-climax, avarice should not have been last ; for although, in some 
 of its effects, debauchery be more disgusting than avarice, yet, as it 
 regards the unhappy victim, this last is more to be dreaded. Dissi- 
 pation, as well as power or prosperity, nardens the heart ; but avarice 
 deadens It to every feeling but the thirst for riches. Avarice alone 
 could have produced the slave-trade ; avarice alone can drive, as it 
 does drive, this infernal traffic, and the wretched victims of it, like so 
 many post-horses, whipped to death in a mail-coach. Ambition has 
 its reward in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ; but 
 where are the trophies of avarice ? the handcuff, the manacle, and 
 the blood-stained cowhide ? What man is worse received in society 
 
 for being a hard master ? Every day brings to light some H e 
 
 or H ns in our own boasted land of liberty ! Who denies the 
 
 hand of a sister or daughter to such monsters ? Nay, they have even 
 appeared in " the abused shape of the vilest of women." I say 
 nothing of India, or Amboyna, of Cortez or Pizarro. 
 
 When I was last in your town I was inexpressibly shocked (and 
 perhaps I am partly indebted to the circumstance for accelerating my 
 emancipation) to hear, on the threshold of the temple of the least 
 erect of all the spirits that fell from heaven, these words spoken, by 
 a man second to none in this nation in learning or abilities j one, too, 
 whom I had, not long before, seen at the table of our Lord and 
 Saviour : ' I do not want the Holy Ghost (I shudder while I write), 
 or any other spirit in me. If these doctrines are true (St. Paul's), 
 there was no need for Wesley and Whitfield to have separated from 
 the church. The Methodists are right, and the church wrong. I 
 want to see the old church," &c. &c. : that is, such as this diocese was 
 under Bishop Terrick, when wine-bibbing and buck-parsons were sent 
 out to preach ' ; a dry clatter of morality," and not the word of God, 
 for 1 6,000 Ibs. of tobacco. When I speak of morality it is not as 
 condemning it ; religion includes it, but much more. Day is now
 
 102 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 breaking and I shall extinguish my candles, which are better than nc 
 light ; or if I do not. in the presence of the powerful king of day 
 they will be noticed only by the dirt and ill savor that betray all 
 human contrivances, the taint of humanity. Morality is to the Gospel 
 not even as a farthing rushlight to the blessed sun. 
 
 By the way. this term Methodist in religion is of vast compass 
 and effect, like tory in politics, or aristocrate in Paris, " with the 
 lamp-post for its second," some five or six-and-twenty years ago. 
 
 Dr. Hoge? " a Methodist parson." Frank Key? a fanatic," (I 
 heard him called so not ten days ago,) "a Methodistical, whining, &c., 
 &c." Wilberforce? "a Methodist." Mrs. Hannah More? "ditto." 
 It ought never to be forgotten, that real converts to Christianity on 
 opposite sides of the globe agree at the same moment to the same 
 facts. Thus Dr. Hoge and Mr. Key, although strangers, understand 
 perfectly what each other feels and believes. 
 
 If I were to show a MS. in some unknown tongue to half a dozen 
 persons, strangers to each other and natives of different countries, 
 and they should all give me the same translation, could I doubt their 
 acquaintance with the strange language? On the contrary, can I, 
 who am but a smatterer in Greek, believe an interpreter who pretends 
 to a knowledge of that tongue, and yet cannot tell the meaning of 
 
 Tirrrrat ? 
 
 I now read with relish and understand St. Paul's epistles, which 
 not long since I could not comprehend, even with the help of Mr. 
 , Locke's paraphrase. Taking up, a few days ago, at an " ordinary," 
 the life of John Bunyan, which I had never before read, I find an 
 exact coincidence in our feelings and opinions on this head, as well 
 as others. 
 
 Very early in life I imbibed an absurd prejudice in favor of 
 Mahomedanism and its votaries. The crescent had a talismanic 
 effect on my imagination, and I rejoiced in all its triumphs over the 
 cross (which I despised) as I mourned over its defeats ; and Mahomet 
 II. himself did not more exult than I did, when the crescent was 
 planted on the dome of St. Sophia, and the cathedral of the Con- 
 stantines was converted into a Turkish mosque. To this very day I 
 feel the effects of Peter Randolph's Zanga on a temper naturally im- 
 patient of injury, but insatiably vindictive under insult. 
 
 On the night that I wrote last to you I scribbled a pack of non- 
 sense to Rootes, which serves only to show the lightness of my heart. 
 About the same time, in reply to a question from a friend, I made the 
 t'.'llnwing remarks, which, as I was weak from long vigilance, I re- 
 <>d him to write down, that I might, when at leisure, copy it into 
 my diarj From it you will gather pretty accurately the state of my 
 mind 
 
 I hav> been up long before day, and write with pain, from a sense
 
 CONVERSION. 1Q3 
 
 of duty to you and Mrs. B., in whose welfare I take the most earnest 
 concern. You have my prayers : give me yours, I pray you. 
 Adieu ! 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 
 I was on the top of the pinnacle of Otter this day fortnight : a 
 little above the earth, but how far beneath heaven ! 
 
 " NOTE. It is my business to avoid giving offence to the world, 
 especially in all matters merely indifferent. I shall therefore stick 
 to my old uniform, blue and buff, unless God sees fit to change it for 
 black. I must be as attentive to my dress, and to household affairs, 
 as far as cleanliness and comfort are concerned, as ever, and indeed 
 more so. Let us take care to drive none away from God by dress- 
 ing religion in the garb of fanaticism. Let us exhibit her as she is. 
 equally removed from superstition and lukewarmness. But we must 
 take care, that while we avoid one extreme we fall not into the other : 
 no matter which. I was born and baptized in the Church of Eng- 
 land. If I attend the Convention at Charlottesville, which I rather 
 doubt, I shall oppose myself then and always to every attempt at 
 encroachment on the part of the church, the clergy especially, on the 
 rights of conscience. I attribute, in a very great degree, my long 
 estrangement from God to my abhorrence of prelatical pride and 
 puritanical preciseness ; to ecclesiastical tyranny, whether Roman 
 Catholic or Protestant ; whether of Henry V. or Henry VIII ; of 
 Mary or Elizabeth ; of John Knox -or Archbishop Laud ; of the 
 Cameronians of Scotland, the Jacobins of France, or the Protestants 
 of Ireland. Should I fail to attend, it will arise from a repugnance 
 to submit the religion, or church, any more than the liberty of my 
 country, to foreign influence. When I speak of my country, I mean 
 the Commonwealth of Virginia. I was born in allegiance to George 
 III.; the Bishop of London ( Terrick !) was my diocesan. My an- 
 cestors threw off the oppressive yoke of the mother country, but they 
 never made me subject to New England in matters spiritual or tern 
 poral ; neither do I mean to become so, voluntarily." 
 
 Mr. Key, on getting the news of his friend's conversion, responded 
 in this wise: 
 
 " I do, indeed, my dear friend, rejoice with you I have long 
 wished, and often believed with confidence, that you would experience 
 what God has now blessed you with. I need not tell you (if I could) 
 of its value, for I trust you feel it to be ' unspeakable.' May the- 
 grace that has brought you from ! darkness to light,' from ' death to 
 life,' keep you forever ! 
 
 " Nor do I rejoice merely on your own account or mine. The
 
 104 LltE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 wonders that God is every where doing show us that these are no or- 
 dinary times, and justify us in hoping and expecting for greater mani- 
 festations of his power and goodness. You stand on an eminence 
 let your light shine' brightly, that all may see it steadily, that they 
 may know whence it comes, and ' glorify your Father which is in 
 heaven.' 
 
 " Write to me often and particularly ; ' out of the abundance of the 
 heart the mouth speaketh :' and may I always hear that you are fol- 
 lowing the guidance of that blessed Spirit that will ' lead you into all 
 truth.' leaning on that Almighty arm that has been extended to deliver 
 you. trusting only in the only Saviour, and ' going on' in your way to 
 him ' rejoicing.' 
 
 CHAPTBE X. 
 
 IDIOSYNCRACIES. 
 
 A QUICK, intuitive understanding, a vivid imagination, an irritable 
 temper, superadded to an extremely delicate and diseased constitu- 
 tion, produced a complicated character in John Randolph, that ren- 
 dered him remarkably sensitive to outward influences. He was. 
 indeed, a creature of impulse, influenced for the time being by the cir- 
 cumstances by which he was surrounded. Things that could produce 
 no impression on men of less delicate sensibility, would affect him 
 most seriously. An east wind, that could produce no impression on 
 the cold, ph.egmatic temperament of Dr. Johnson, operated on the 
 nerves of John Randolph like a sirocco of the desert. He was gen- 
 erally disposed to look on the dark side of the picture, to imagine the 
 worst, and suffer intensely from an anticipation of what might never 
 happen 
 
 So long as he lived in solitude, unaffected by the influences of the 
 busy world, his mind dwelt for the most part on religious subjects : 
 but when again thrown into the excited arena of political strife, he per- 
 ceived so clearly, by a sort of intuition as it were, the lowest intrigues 
 of party politicians, felt so intensely the meanness and baseness of 
 their trafficking purposes, that he was often betrayed into a harshness 
 of expression and an extravagance of behavior, that might lead one 
 unacquainted with his peculiar temperament to suppose that he was?
 
 IDIOSYNCRACIES. 
 
 105 
 
 a man of a vindictive and unfeeling temper that delighted in the tor 
 ture of others, while he was himself uninfluenced by a moral or reli- 
 gious restraint of any kind. No man was more conscious than he 
 of this peculiarity of his nature, or more deeply deplored its conse- 
 quences. The reader will perceive, through all his correspondence, 
 that he did not conceal from his friends these deformities of charac- 
 ter, and that he never relaxed in earnest efforts however useless 
 they may have proved to overcome and to correct the unfortunate 
 deficiencies of his nature. 
 
 During the present year (1819) there was a gent.ial pecuniary em- 
 barrassment and distress in the country. Mr. Randolph lost a large 
 sum of money deposited in the hands of a mercantile firm in Rich- 
 mond. He is said to have been deeply affected by this occurrence, 
 and, as might have been expected, spoke in harsh terms of the delin- 
 quent merchants 
 
 Frequent allusion is made to the subject in the following corres- 
 pondence, though religion is the principal theme. 
 
 RICHMOND, May 3, 1819. Sunday. 
 
 DEAR FRANK : It is so long since I heard from you that I almost 
 begin to think that you have struck me out of your books. I had. 
 however, the gratification to hear of you through Mr. Meade, whom 
 I had not the good fortune to see as he passed through this town, 
 having left it on the day of his arrival. You have no conception 
 of the gloom and distress that pervade this place. There has been 
 nothing like it since 1785, when, from the same causes (paper money 
 and a general peace) there was a general depression of every thing. 
 It seems to me, my dear friend, that in the present instance we are 
 punished in the offending member, if I may so express myself. We 
 have been the devoted worshippers of mammon, and in our darling 
 wealth we are made to suffer. May it be the means of opening our 
 eyes to the folly and sinfulness of our past conduct, and of inducing 
 us to lay up treasure where moth corrupteth not and thieves do not 
 break in and steal. 
 
 Very contrary to my judgment, and yet more against my feelings, 
 I am again a public man. The application was made in a way that I 
 could not with propriety resist. I was called upon (among other con- 
 siderations) to ' redeem a pledge " and to prevent a contest for the 
 Representation of the District. My views upon the subject of pub- 
 lie affairs, as well as other matters, are far other than they have been. 
 I now see in its full deformity the wickedness of Party Spirit, of 
 
 VOL. II.
 
 106 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 which I was so long a votary, and I look forward to the next winter 
 with no other pleasant anticipation but that of seeing you. 
 
 Poor H n ! He is gone, I see, to his account. I heard with 
 
 much gratification that he had been long engaged in serious prepara- 
 tion for this awful change. How poor and pitiful now seem all the 
 angry and malevolent feelings of which he was the author or the 
 object ! My dear Frank, what is there in this world to satisfy the 
 cravings of an immortal nature ? I declare to you that the business 
 and pleasures of it seem to me as of no more consequence than the 
 game of -push-pin that occupies the little negroes at the corner of the 
 street. 
 
 Do not misunderstand me, my dear friend. My life (I am 
 ashamed to confess it) does not correspond with my belief. I have 
 made a vile return for the goodness which has been manifested to- 
 wards me but I still cling to the cross of my Redeemer, and with 
 God's aid firmly resolve to lead a life less unworthy of one who calls 
 himself the humble follower of Jesus Christ. I am here on a busi- 
 ness of much consequence to me. It is to draw, if I can, a sum of 
 money from the hands of a merchant which has been appropriated to 
 an object which I have long had at heart. I have some fears of 
 losing it ; but if I do, I have the fullest confidence that I ought ; and 
 must devise some other provision against the daily nightmare that 
 has so long oppressed me. You will be at no loss to conjecture the 
 subject. 
 
 Since I saw you, I have become more infirm and more indolent 
 than ever. This last is my besetting sin. My spirits often desert 
 me, and indeed it is no matter of wonder ; for a more forlorn and des- 
 titute Creature can hardly be found. I have outlived my relations 
 and friends, except a few who are far away. 
 
 On the subject of his return to Congress, Key replies : 
 
 " You know my opinion about public life that a man has no more 
 right to decline it than to seek it. I do not know, perhaps, all its dangers. 
 
 ? V? 5 aVe D d - ubt they are great ' But whatever tne J be > the grace 
 
 I is sufficient for them, and he who enters upon them with a 
 
 to his glory, and depends entirely on his grace, will find 
 
 cr< things made straight,' and the mountains made plains be- 
 
 !?iL l , V ertaml y in such a statesman who lives ' by faith and 
 
 t can evidently serve the cause of religion, and I trust 
 
 and pray that thus your light may shine. 
 
 i will indeed be set 'on a hill.' Innumerable eyes will be 
 fastened on you. The men of the world will look for something with 
 ,ch they may reproach you, and your faith ; while < the blessed com- 
 pany of all fei thful people ' will look to see if they may ' take know- 
 
 vrT' J , U haVe been with Christ '-may thev have to 
 thank (rod always for you !'
 
 IDIOSYNCRACIES. 107 
 
 " You have no idea what an interest is excited in your behalf among 
 religious persons. I believe that many a fervent prayer is offered 
 up for you by people who never saw your face." 
 
 To whom thus Randolph : 
 
 "Your letter has produced a strange and indescribable feeling. 
 That I, who have long been an object of malevolence or indifference to 
 most of them that know me, should receive the prayers of strangers ! 
 May God bless all such charitable souls. Perhaps if we were to- 
 gether I could exnlain the state of my feelings on paper I find it 
 out of my power to do so. When I think on Mr. Hoge, our friend 
 Meade and some others, I am. almost driven to despair. To divest 
 ourselves of our human feelings, is, I know, impossible neither haw 
 I ever supposed it otherwise. But there are times when they quite 
 overcome me, and when the chaos of my mind can be compared with 
 nothing but the state that poor Cowper was in before he found peace, 
 or rather after the death of Mrs. Erwin. But at my gloomiest mo- 
 ments,when I think how much less I suffer than I have deserved when 
 I remember that ' he who bore in heaven the second name had not 
 on earth whereon to lay his head,' and that he died the death of the 
 Cross when I think how far my ingratitude to God transcends all 
 other human ingratitude the treachery and unthankfulness of man- 
 kind vanish before these considerations, and I cry out, ' not my will 
 but thy will be done.' But although I can suffer, I cannot do ; and 
 my life is running off in indolent speculations upon my duty, instead 
 of being devoted to its performance. Amidst all these lamentable 
 failures, however. I hold fast my resolution, with his gracious assist- 
 ance, to put my whole trust in God, to pour out ray whole soul in 
 fervent prayer ; and in his good time he may increase my strength 
 to wrestle with the temptations that beset me. By the late bank- 
 ruptcies I am reduced from ease and independence to debt and 
 straitened circumstances. I have endavored in vain to sell a part of 
 my property at a reduced price, to meet my engagements. 
 
 I had not heard of M -. - 's death. May our latter end be like 
 his. Indeed I am here entirely removed from the converse of my 
 species. I know not what is doing in the world ; but even in this 
 retreat the groans of the children of mammon sometimes break upon 
 my ear. If I cannot arrange my affairs I fear I must resign my seat. 
 I say " I fear," because I would avoid-all appearance of fickleness and 
 caprice. What you tell me ought to nerve my resolution. Alas ! it 
 is in the persons of her friends and from their hands that religion 
 receives her deadliest wounds. God grant that I may always bear 
 this in mind, and that this consideration may deter me from much 
 evil, and spur me on to do good." 
 
 August 8th, 1819. " You have formed too favorable an opinion of
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 my state, which too often reminds me of the seed that ' fell upon stony 
 places.' This is not said out of any affected humility, far worse than 
 the highest presumption, but from a comparison of the fruit with what 
 the tree ought to bear. 
 
 " Can there be faith even as a grain of mustard seed when such is 
 the life ? It has pleased God to visit us with the most destructive 
 drought in the memory of any living man. Great apprehensions are 
 entertained of famine, but I trust that he who feedeth the young 
 ravens will not suffer us to starve. Indeed, so far from being over- 
 careful and troubled about the things of this world, I am culpably 
 remiss respecting them, and this indolent supineness had led to more 
 than one evil consequence. I am worn out, body and mind, and the 
 least exertion, corporeal or intellectual, exhausts me entirely. Even 
 the writing of this letter will be sensibly felt. Whilst you and others 
 of my friends are bearing the heat and burthen of the day. I am 
 languishing in inglorious indolence. 
 
 " I am more than satiated with the world. It is to me a rearful 
 prison-house of guilt and misery. I fear that my feelings towards it 
 are not always sufficiently charitable ; but an eternity here would be 
 punishment enough for the worst offenders. Towards the meeting of 
 Congress I look forward with no agreeable anticipations. I am sen- 
 sible of a great decline of my faculties, not the less injurious from 
 being premature. In short. I have lost all hope of public service. 
 and whithersoever I direct my eyes a dark cloud seems to impend. 
 This gloom is not constitutional. It is the result of sad experience 
 of myself as well as others. I would not have you think that it is 
 accompanied by a spirit of repining ; far from it. I adore the good- 
 ness and the wisdom of God. and submit myself to his mercy most 
 implicitly, acknowledging that if he were to deal with me according 
 to my deserts 1 1 could not abide it.' My own short-comings are the 
 sources of my regrets, 'and why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not 
 the things that I say?' This, my dear friend, troubles me by day 
 and by night 'Tis not what others do, but what I do, or oinit, that 
 annoys me. 
 
 ' Cases of insanity and suicide (although not so numerous as might 
 have been expected, judging from the effects of the South Sea and 
 Mississippi bubbles) have not been unfrequent in this quarter. As 
 many as three ministers of the gospel, and several other devout 
 professors, have ended their lives by their own hands. I wish you 
 had been a little more expliciton the Baltimore matters. There are 
 many individuals there that I personally wish well to, and would 
 be glad to hear that they had escaped the general contamination." 
 
 " I am sorry." says Key in response. " to observe your despond- 
 ing feelings ; you must fight your way through them. ' Heaviness 
 may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.' The Chris-
 
 1DIOSYNCRACIES. 109 
 
 tian must always lament his remaining corruptions, and that the 
 fruits of his faith correspond so little with what he intends and de- 
 sires. But that he brings forth any fruit is matter of rejoicing, for 
 it is the work of grace ; and he has cause to be thankful for this very 
 desire to do better and he has the consolation of a clear promise 
 from God that he will not leave his work undone, but that this grace 
 shall make him ' abound more and more in every good word and 
 work.' 
 
 ' In the seasons of despondency which I have felt, great relief has 
 been afforded to my mind by the Psalms. I often come to passages 
 that seem to be spoken right at me, and joy and peace were ' shed 
 abroad in my heart.' I think they would be blessed in the same way 
 to you. Have you read Miss Taylor's Poems ? You may see them 
 reviewed in the Christian Observer. I send you a Magazine that is 
 published here, which I hope will be faithfully conducted. 
 
 " I would tell you more of these Baltimore troubles and abomi- 
 nations, but I really know very little about them. I understand the 
 grand jury, at their late court, have found indictments against many 
 of them." 
 
 To which Kandolph replied. August 22d : 
 
 " Your letter of the 16th has just arrived to cheer my solitude. 
 Acceptable as it is, it would not have been so promptly acknowledged 
 but for what you say about the Psalms. Once, of all the books of 
 Holy Writ, they were my especial aversion ; but, thanks be to God ! 
 they have long constituted a favorite portion of that treasure of wis- 
 dom. As you say, many passages seem written ' right at me.' It 
 is there that I find my sin and sorrows depicted by a fellow-sinner 
 and fellow-sufferer ; and there too I find consolation. I chiefly read 
 the version in the Book of Common Prayer, and mine is scored and 
 marked from one end to the other. ' Why art thou so heavy, my 
 soul ? and why art thou so disquieted within me 1 put thy trust 
 in God, for I will yet give him thanks, which is the help of my coun- 
 tenance and my God. " 
 
 After making inquiries about many of his old friends, some of 
 whom, he feared, had gone by the board in the general wreck, he thus 
 continues : 
 
 " I do assure you that I sometimes look back upon old times until 
 it seems a dream ; but it is a dream that often draws tears in my 
 eyes. 
 
 " Miss Key (your uncle Philip's daughter) is, I presume, unmar- 
 ried ; for there was nobody in the district deserving of her, when I 
 knew it, and she has too much good sense to throw herself away on 
 flimsy members of Congress or diplomatic adventurers. I often think
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 of the pain I suffered at her father's, more than eleven years ago , 
 of the kindness and attention I then received. Cripple as I then 
 thought myself. I had no forecast that in so short a time I should be 
 almost superannuated. My sight is nearly gone, and my memory of 
 recent events no better. When you, see or hear from Mr. Meade. 
 mention me in the warmest terms of Regard and respect. * * * * In 
 your next I expect a dish of chit-chat. P. S. I wish the first leisure 
 half hour you light upon you would take up your pen and tell me all 
 about it. ' About what?' Why. every thing and every body. There's 
 that fine fellow, D. M y, whom you have not once named ; nor J. 
 
 C n, whom, for the life of me, I can hear nothing about whether 
 
 he has gone to pieces in the general wreck ? I speak of his fortune, 
 for my confidence in his principles is unshaken. Then there is your 
 friend Mr. T. 
 
 " You see, Frank, that I am, indeed, growing old, and, like other 
 dotards, delight in garrulity and gossip. To tell you the truth. I 
 stay here, and look at the trees until I almost conceit myself a dryad : 
 at least you perceive I am no grammarian." 
 
 To Dr Brockenbrough he speaks more unreservedly on all sub- 
 jects than to any other man. Take the following letters, written 
 about the same time as those addressed to Mr. Key : 
 
 " I was very glad to learn from Quashee that you were well enough 
 to walk the streets when he was in Richmond. I make it almost a 
 matter of conscience, notwithstanding, to bore you with my letters ; 
 but I must beg you to take into consideration that I am cut off from 
 all intercourse with the rest of the world, and unable to obtain the 
 slightest information of what is passing in it. It would be a charity 
 to drop me a line now and then. I have hardly seen a white face 
 since I got home, until last evening, when Colonel C. showed me a 
 letter from T. asking a discharge from him and his brother and son- 
 in-law. If I had had any expectations from that quarter, this let- 
 ter would have put an end to them. T. and M. will receive no release 
 from me. I will not persecute them : but their conduct deserves 
 no indulgence. I had intended to have been in Richmond ten days 
 ago, but my health is so deplorably bad that I cannot .venture to leave 
 my own house even for a day ; and it is well for me. Here, then, I 
 must live, and here I must die, ' a lone and banished man :' and what 
 banishment can be worse than his who is ashamed to show his face to 
 society ? I nerve myself up to bear it as I would to undergo a sur- 
 ical operation ; but the cases are widely different. The one must 
 soon end in a cure, or in death ; but every succeeding day brings no 
 relief, but utter aggravation of wretchedness, to the other. These 
 days, however. God be praised ! must have an end. 
 
 " An Enquirer fell into my hands yesterday. What a contrast be-
 
 IDIOSYNCRACIES. _Q! 
 
 tween the universal cry of the country and the testimony of our gra- 
 cious sovereign to our great and increasing prosperity ! You have 
 them in the same columns. It will make a figure in Europe. Bal- 
 timore seems to have suffered not less than Richmond. Pray let me 
 know if S. and B. have failed ; and, if you can, the cause of J. S 
 leaving the Bank of Baltimore. 
 
 " My best respects to Mrs. B. These glaring long days make me 
 think of her. I lie in bed as long as I can to shorten them, and 
 keep my room darkened. Perhaps a strait waistcoat would not be 
 amiss. Have E. and A. stopped ? Farewell.* If we ever meet again, 
 it must be here. Should I ever get in reach of a ship bound to any 
 foreign land, I will endeavor to lose sight of this for ever." 
 
 To the same : 
 
 " I have long been indebted to you for your letter by Mr. Wat- 
 kins, which reminded me of those which I used to receive from you 
 some years ago, when I was not so entirely unable as I am now to 
 make a suitable return to my correspondents. I feel mofet seriously 
 this incapacity and deplore it, but for the life of me I cannot rouse 
 myself to take an interest in the affairs of this ' trumpery world ' as 
 ' the antiquary ' calls it, and with a curious felicity of expression ; 
 for it is upon a larger scale what a strolling play-house is upon a 
 smaller, all outside show and tinsel, and frippery, and wretchedness. 
 There are to be sure a few, a very few, who are what they seem to be. 
 But this ought to concern me personally as little as any one ; for 
 I have no intercourse with those around me. I often mount my 
 horse and sit upon him ten or fifteen minutes, wishing to go some- 
 where but not knowing where to ride, for I would escape any where 
 from the incubus that weighs me down, body and soul ; but the fiend 
 follows me 'ex croupa.' You can have no conception of the intense- 
 ness of this wretchedness, which in its effect on my mind I can com- 
 pare to nothing but that of a lump of ice on the pulse of the wrist, 
 which I have tried when a boy. And why do I obtrude all this upon 
 you? Because from the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh. I 
 can be and am silent for days arid weeks together, except on indiffe- 
 rent subjects ; but if I address myself to a friend, the misery that 
 preys upon me will not be suppressed. The strongest considerations 
 of duty are barely sufficient to prevent me from absconding to some 
 distant country, where I might live and die unknown. There is a 
 selfishness in our occupations and pursuits, after the first gloss of 
 youth has worn off, that hardens us against our fellow-men. This I 
 now know to be the necessary consequence of our nature, but it is 
 not therefore the less revolting I had hoped to divert the gloom that 
 overhangs rue by writing this letter at the instigation of old Quashee. 
 but I struggle against it in vain. Is it not Dr. Johnson who says 
 that to attempt ' to think it down is madness ? '
 
 H2 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ' Your brother William aud myself hit upon the same 4th of July 
 toast with some variation : mine was State Rights, de mortuis nil 
 nisi bonum.' It will hardly appear in the newspapers. I agree with 
 you on the subject of the Bankrupt Law, with some shades of differ- 
 ence. I would not have the General Government touch the subject 
 at all. But some mode I think ought to be devised for setting aside 
 the present shameful practices : robbing one man to pay another, &c. 
 
 After a good deal about the pecuniary embarrassment of the 
 times, and many frient who were involved in the catastrophe, the 
 letter thus concludes : 
 
 " My best regards to Mrs. B. Tell her I have rc-ad nothing for 
 six weeks, being 'high gravel blind,' and having nothing to -ead 
 but old standard authors, who are too solid for my weak stomach 
 and this hot weather. Adieu ! 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 J. R. OF ROANOKE. 
 A worn-out man and pen. 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 CONGRESS POLITICAL PARTIES. 
 
 AFTER Mr. Randolph had been in Washington some two or three 
 weeks, he thus gives the result of his observations to a friend, under 
 date of the 21st of December, 1819. - Here I find myself isofe, al- 
 most as entirely as at Roanoke, for the quiet of which (although I 
 left it without a desire ever to see it again) I have sometimes panted : 
 or rather, to escape from the scenes around me. Once the object of 
 proscription, I am become one of indifference to all around me ; and 
 in this respect I am in no wise worse off than the rest ; for, from 
 all that I can see and learn, there are no two persons here that care 
 a single straw for one another. My reception is best by the old ja- 
 cobins enragts; next, by the federalists, who have abjured their 
 heresies and reconciled themselves to the true Catholic Church ; worst 
 of all, by the old minority men, white washed into courtiers." 
 
 When Mr. Randolph returned to Congress in 1819, the relation 
 of political parties had been entirely changed. The restoration of
 
 POLITICAL PARTIES. - 
 
 peace put an end to all the questions which had hitherto divided 
 them. With the exception of the bank whose chartered existence 
 commenced in 1791, and closed in 1811 all the great subjects dis- 
 cussed in the halls of legislation and by the press, grew out of 
 our relations with foreign countries. Washington had scarcely taken 
 in hand the reins of government when the French revolution burst 
 forth, and disturbed the repose of Europe. The Republican ten- 
 dencies of the French people, notwithstanding their bloody extrav- 
 agancies, found at all times in the United-States a strong and sym- 
 pathizing party. On the other hand, there was a powerful party 
 that deprecated French influence, and sympathized with England in 
 her efforts to repress those revolutionary tendencies. All those who 
 were opposed to a strong centralizing government, and favored the 
 independence of the States so far as consisted with the strict limita- 
 tions of the Constitution, leaned to the French side of the question. 
 Those of the contrary opinions took the opposite. As the destructive 
 war between those great belligerent powers waxed hotter and hotter, 
 its exciting and maddening influences were more deeply felt by the 
 sympathizing parties here. Each accused the other of wishing to in- 
 volve the country in the war on the side of their respective friends. 
 Anglomania, Gallomania, raged like an epidemic through the land, 
 and every subject discussed partook of its influence the Indian 
 Wars, Whisky Insurrection, Gennet's reception, Jay's treaty, and 
 the depredations on our commerce. 
 
 As those who were opposed to French influence were in the as- 
 cendent, they pushed their measures to an open rupture with France, 
 and, as a means of repressing the further progress of her revolution- 
 ary doctrines, enacted those harsh and unconstitutional remedies 
 called the Alien and Sedition Laws, which were the immediate cause 
 of their overthrow. 
 
 The resolutions of the legislatures of Virginia and of Kentucky, 
 growing out of the above laws, and the exposition of those resolutions 
 by Mr. Madison, in his report to the Virginia legislature in 1800, 
 constitute the doctrine and political faith, so far as they go, of the 
 republican party that came into power under the auspices of Mr. 
 Jefferson. 
 
 But no sooner was Mr. Jefferson installed in office, than he was? 
 called on to encounter the same difficulties which had so much em-
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 barrassed his predecessors in their intercourse with foreign powers. 
 The federal party, now in the minority, and much weakened by 
 their late overthrow, opposed all his measures, and wielded his own 
 arguments against him. They had contended that the Constitution 
 justified any measure that tended to promote " the public good and 
 general welfare." This broad doctrine was denied by the republican 
 party, and was totally annihilated by Mr. Madison's report. But the 
 first important measure of Mr. Jefferson involved a contradiction of his 
 doctrines. We were in danger of a rupture with Spain and France, 
 on account of the navigation of the Mississippi. To put an end to 
 these difficulties, Louisiana was purchased. Mr. Jefferson said there 
 was no constitutional authority for the act, that it could only be jus- 
 tified from the necessity of the case, and that the people must sanction 
 it by an express provision in the Constitution. Then followed the em- 
 bargo law, which the federalists in like manner opposed on the ground 
 of its unconstitutionality. They contended that it was the result of 
 " the public good and general welfare" construction, so much and so 
 successfully condemned by the party now in power. Then followed 
 other restrictive measures, and finally the war with Great Britain, all 
 of which were opposed, as we already know, by the federalists, as 
 parts of the same erroneous and destructive and unconstitutional 
 policy. These divisions and difficulties, growing out of our foreign 
 relations, were finally healed and put to rest by the termination of 
 the wax. Former asperities were smothered down, old animosities 
 forgotten, and the exciting cause of party heats was burnt out and ex- 
 tinguished in the general pacification of the world. New questions, 
 arising for the first time since the organization of the government, 
 had now to be discussed and solved. The functions of the gov- 
 ernment, as restrained and directed by the limitations of the Consti- 
 tution, had to be exercised on a class of cases entirely different from 
 those which had hitherto tested their capacity. 
 
 Under the monopolizing influence of the embargo, non-intercourse, 
 and war measures of the last eight or nine years, a great manufactur- 
 ing interest had been stimulated into being. During this long period 
 of stagnation to commerce and agriculture, mucti capital was with- 
 drawn from them and vested in manufactures. This great interest 
 was likely to be seriously affected by the restoration of peace and of 
 reciprocal commerce with other manufacturing nations.
 
 POLITICAL PARTIES. 
 
 During the long continental wars, when the omnipotent British 
 fleet drove the commerce of all the belligerent powers from the 
 ocean, our merchantmen, under the protection of the neutral flag of 
 their country, gathered a rich harvest in the carrying trade. They 
 had now to be reduced to the bounds of a legitimate commerce, and 
 subjected to the eager rivalry of other more powerful and commercial 
 States. 
 
 By the acquisition of Louisiana, a vast dominion had been added 
 to our territories, and our population was rapidly spreading over that 
 immense and fertile region. The means of internal communication 
 became questions of serious consideration. The resources of tiie 
 country lay dormant in their primeval state, like a vast weltering 
 chaos, waiting for some brooding spirit to breathe life and forc into 
 its teeming elements. The South American provinces catching the 
 spirit of freedom from our example, had thrown off the yoke of the 
 mother country, and were looking to us for countenance, and stretch- 
 ing forth the hand for aid in their arduous struggle for independence. 
 
 These were the great themes that filled the public mind at the 
 coming in of Mr. Monroe's administration and during its continuance. 
 It was called the period of good feeling. The Federal party entirely 
 disappeared, and its members were received into the ranks of their 
 old opponents. But many respectable men among them, not disposed 
 to abandon principles which they had honestly adopted, retired to 
 private life. The rhetorical phrase of Mr. Jefferson, in his inaugural 
 address, was made to have a practical meaning. The popular word 
 was, - We are all Federalists, all Republicans." The existence of a 
 distinct Federal party, or a distinct Republican party, was denied, 
 and the leading politicians cultivated with great assiduity, the favor 
 and support of all men, without regard to former distinctions, count- 
 ing them as brothers of the same republican family. 
 
 This new state of things was made the theme of congratulation 
 to the country by the newspaper writers and the fourth of July 
 orators of the time. " I come not here to burn the torch of Alecto," 
 says one of the latter ; " to me there is no lustre in its fires, nor 
 cheering warmth in its blaze. Let us rather offer and mingle our 
 congratulations, that those unhappy differences which alienated one 
 portion of our community from the rest, are at an end ; and that 
 a vast fund of the genius and worth of our country has been restored
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 to its service, to give now vigor to its career of power and prosperity. 
 To this blessed consummation the administration of our venerable 
 Monroe has been a powerful auxiliary. The delusions of past years 
 have rolled away, and the mists that once hovered over forms of now 
 unshaded brightness, are dissipated for ever. We can now all meet 
 and exchange our admiration and love in generous confraternity of 
 feeling, whether we speak of our Jefferson or our Adams, our Madi- 
 son or our Hamilton, our Pinckney or our Monroe ; the associations 
 of patriotism are awakened, and we forget the distance in the politi- 
 cal zodiac which once separated these illustrious luminaries, in the 
 full tide of glory they are pouring on the brightest pages of our 
 history." 
 
 This amalgamation of all parties was a dangerous experiment jn 
 the health and soundness of the Republic. Over action was the ne- 
 cessary consequence of the destruction of all the countervailing influ 
 ences of the system : and the generation of some latent chronic 
 disease, which in after time must seriously affect the constitution of 
 the body politic. The French government, the laborious work of a 
 thousand years, was destroyed in a single night, by the sacrifice of all 
 the orders of their distinctive privileges and opposing influences on 
 what they fondly deemed to be the altar of patriotism. The flood- 
 gates were now opened ; and from this single blunder there followed 
 a series of frightful consequences, which history in the course of half a 
 century has not been able to understand nor to portray. 
 
 It is lamentable to see a country cut up into factions, following 
 this or that great leader with a blind, undoubting hero-worship ; it is 
 contemptible to see it divided into parties, whose sole end is the spoils 
 of victory ; such an one is nigh its end : but. on the other hand, it is 
 equally true, that no government can be conducted by the people and 
 for the benefit of the people, without a rigid adherence to certain fixed 
 principles, which must be the test of parties, and of men and of their 
 measures. These principles once determined, they must be inexora- 
 ble in their application, and compel all men either to come up to 
 their standard, or to declare against it ; their criterion of political 
 faith must be the same as that of Christian faith laid down by Christ 
 himself ttxy wJw are not for us arc against us. Men may betray, 
 principles never can Oppression is the invariable consequence of
 
 POLITICAL PARTIES. 
 
 117 
 
 misplaced confidence in treacherous man ; never is it the result of 
 the working of a sound, just, and well-tried principle. 
 
 If the proposition be true, that ours is a government peculiar in 
 its nature, unknown in former times, or to other nations, then the 
 political doctrines arising from a contemplation of its structure and 
 the principles by which it is to be conducted, should be peculiar also : 
 the analogies of history, and the examples of other states, should 
 serve rather as beacons of warning than as precedents to be followed. 
 If it be true, that ours is a government of delegated authority, arising 
 out of the constitutional compact of sovereign and independent 
 States, which delegated powers are specified and strictly limited, 
 while all others are reserved to the States, or to the people of the 
 States ; then there must grow out of this peculiar and jealous rela- 
 tion of the States and the people of the States to each ;ther acd to 
 the government they have mutually drawn over them for their com- 
 mon protection, certain political principles as essential for the sojtnd 
 and healthy action of the complicated system as vital air is to the 
 human body. 
 
 The same wise abstinence that influenced the structure should 
 control the action of this governmental machinery. It would seem 
 that the first inquiry a prudent statesman should propound to him- 
 self would be this is the power delegated? Does the charter specify 
 the grant? If not, is it a necessary inference as the means of carry- 
 ing into effect a power granted ? If it be neither the one nor the other, 
 but is in itself a distinct and substantive power, he should say to 
 himself, this power ought not to be exercised, however expedient or 
 necessary it may seem to me at this time ; to place it among the 
 delegated powers by construction, is to construe away the Constitu- 
 tion my example will be made a precedent for still bolder construc- 
 tion, until there shall be nothing left to the States or to the people ; 
 and this well-balanced republic of confederated States shall sink down 
 into a consolidated and despotic empire. These reflections seem not 
 to have influenced the statesmen of Mr. Monroe's administration. 
 The new and brilliant career that lay before them kindled their 
 imaginations ; and each, like an Olympian courser, eagerly pressed 
 forward to take the lead in every enterprise. In projecting schemes 
 to develope and to direct the resources and the domestic concerns of 
 the people, they seemed to vie with each other in giving to the limita-
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 tions of the Constitution the utmost latitude of interpretation. Nor 
 is it at all surprising, when we consider the materials of which the 
 government was composed. The minority men of embargo times 
 had been whitewashed into courtiers, with their old leader (Monroe) 
 at the head of the government, who, to obtain that station, was 
 accused of sacrificing every principle he ever professed. The Fede- 
 ralists (latitudinarians in principle), who had abjured their heresies, and 
 reconciled themselves to tlie true catholic church, constituted the body 
 of voters in the two Houses of Congress ; while their parliamentary 
 leaders were the same intrepid young men, who entering into public 
 life in times of war, when boldness was the first requisite in a states- 
 man, kept up the same ardent career in peace, and mounted first 
 the one and then the other hobby, on which they hoped to ride 
 into popular favor. The only men left behind in this wild race, 
 were the few Jacobins of the Adams and Jefferson times, who 
 looked with astonishment and rage (enrages) on the adroit and unex- 
 pected manner in which the reins of government had been slipped 
 from the hands of the true Republicans. 
 
 " The spirit of profession and devotion to the court has increased 
 beyond my most sanguine anticipations," says John Randolph in a 
 letter to Dr. Brockenbrough. dated December 30th, 1819. "The 
 die is cast. The Emperor is master of the Senate, and through that 
 body commands the life and property of every man in the Republic ! 
 The person who fills the office seems to be almost without a friend. 
 Not so the office itself." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 MISSOURI QUESTION. 
 
 THE great subject not only of discussion, but of deep and fearful 
 agitation in Congress to its close, on the 3d of March, 1821, and 
 among the people, was the Missouri Question, or the question of 
 slavery in its political influence on the legislation of the country. 
 This subject, together with the question of right to the waste lands
 
 MISSOURI QUESTION. . H9 
 
 lying within the jurisdiction of some of the larger States, constituted 
 the chief obstacle in the way of a cordial and harmonious union of 
 the States, even in the time of their utmost peril, when they were 
 contending for their independence. When the States were called 
 upon to contribute their portion of men and money to conduct the 
 war on the issue of which depended their existence, the question was, 
 In what ratio shall they contribute? After trying the valuation of 
 landed property, with its improvements, they abandoned it, and 
 adopted the ratio of population as the best evidence of ability to con- 
 tribute, and as the most practicable plan ; and it was agreed that in 
 determining the amount of population in each State, five slaves 
 should be counted as equal to three free men. Thus the slavery ques- 
 tion was settled for the time. 
 
 When the Articles of Confederation were proposed to the States 
 for adoption, some of them, enough to defeat the measure, refused to 
 come into the Confederation, unless the waste lands were admitted and 
 received as common property ; especially after the treaty of peace in 
 1783, and the boundaries of the United States were defined, they con- 
 tended that all the waste, or back lands within those boundaries, 
 having been bought with the common blood and treasure of all, was 
 the joint property of all the States. It was maintained by the 
 States on the other hand, that the land lay within their chartered 
 limits, and rightfully belonged to them. This subject was a serious 
 obstacle in the way of a more permanent union, At length it was agreed 
 to propose to the States to grant, in a spirit of harmony and conces- 
 sion, all their rights to the Confederation. New- York set the exam- 
 ple, and made a concession of all her rights west of her present bound- 
 ary ; though her title was regarded as of no value. South Carolina 
 followed next ; she also had little or nothing to concede. Then came 
 Virginia : her title to lands lying northwest of the Ohio, and extend- 
 ing to the Lakes and the Mississippi, was for a long time disputed, 
 but after a jealous and thorough investigation, it was finally given 
 up and conceded that her title was valid. On the 1st of March, 1784, 
 a deed was executed by Virginia, granting this immense domain to 
 the Confederation on the condition that the territory so ceded shall 
 be laid out and formed into States, and that the States so formed shall 
 be distinct republican States, and admitted members of the Federal
 
 120 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Union, having the same rights of sovereignty, freedom, and indepen- 
 dence, as the other States. 
 
 Immediately on the reception of this grant, Congress, on the 23d 
 of April. 1784, passed a resolution extending its jurisdiction over the 
 uewly acquired territory, and projected a plan of government for the 
 new States that might grow up therein, according to the conditions of 
 the grant. It was admitted that Congress had no authority under 
 Articles of Confederation for the measures adopted ; the plea of ne- 
 cessity alone was urged in their justification. Congress resolved that 
 the settlers shall, either on their own petition or on the order of Con- 
 receive authority from them, for their free males of full age. 
 to meet together, for the purpose of establishing a temporary govern- 
 ment, to adopt the constitution and laws of any one of the original 
 States, subject to alteration by their ordinary legislature ; and to 
 erect counties or other divisions, for the election of members of their 
 legislature. They further resolved, that when any such State shall 
 have acquired twenty thousand free inhabitants, on giving due proof 
 thereof to Congress, they shall receive from them authority to call 
 a convention of representatives to establish a permanent constitution 
 and government for themselves. Provided, that both the temporary 
 and permanent governments be established on the principle that they 
 shall for ever remain a part of the Confederacy of the United States 
 of America, and be subject to the articles of confederation. 
 
 These articles, together with others, prescribing the mode of self- 
 government to be pursued by the new States, as they shall from time 
 to time be carved out of the recently acquired territory, Congress 
 resolved shall be formed into a charter of compact ; and shall stand 
 as fundamental constitutions between the thirteen original States, 
 and each of the several States now newly described, unalterable from 
 and after the sale of any part of the territory of such State but by 
 the joint consent of the United States in Congress assembled, and 
 of the particular State within which such alteration is proposed to be 
 made. Notwithstanding the unalterable nature of this charter of 
 nmipact. Congress did, by an Ordinance of the 13th of July, 1787, 
 materially modify the same, and introduced a new article, by which 
 it was ordained that " there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary 
 -rvitude in the territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, 
 whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Thus we per-
 
 MISSOURI QUESTION. 121 
 
 ceive that, prior to the adoption of the present Constitution, which 
 was some months after the above ordinance, the whole of the North- 
 western Territory had been provided with a government. 
 
 No other lands were ceded to the Confederation, or were expected 
 to be. The jurisdiction of Virginia extended over the District of 
 Kentucky to the borders of the Mississippi. So did the jurisdiction 
 of North Carolina extend over Tennessee, and of Georgia over the 
 whole country now embraced within the limits of Alabama and Mis- 
 sissippi. Massachusetts did not surrender her jurisdiction over the 
 District of Maine ; Vermont was a sovereign State, though not in the 
 Confederation, disputing her independence with New-York on the 
 one hand, and New Hampshire on the other. 
 
 Thus it appears that at the time of the adoption of the present 
 Constitution, every foot of land embraced within the borders of the 
 United States under the treaty of independence in 1783, was em- 
 braced within the jurisdiction of some one of the States, or the Con- 
 gress of the United States under the cliarter of compact of the 23d 
 April, 1784; amended and enlarged by the Ordinance of the 13th 
 July, 1 787. The framers of the Constitution, therefore, in contem- 
 plation of the facts before them, had only to introduce an article 
 binding the new government to fulfil the contracts of the old one, 
 and an article authorizing Congress to dispose of, and make all need- 
 ful rules and regulations, respecting the territory or other property 
 belonging to the United States. Such articles were introduced, and 
 they were sufficient for the purpose. 
 
 A proposition was made in the Convention to authorize Congress 
 " to institute temporary governments for the new States " arising 
 within tlue unappropriated lands of the United States, But this 
 was unnecessary, because the object contemplated had already been 
 accomplished by the charter of compact and the ordinance, and the 
 article in the Constitution requiring a fulfilment of those contracts. 
 As to lands within tuc jurisdiction of the States ; Georgia for exam- 
 ple, however much Congress might claim the right to them as com- 
 mon property, they never disputed the jurisdiction of the State. 
 Those wise men. therefore, declined acting on the proposition, they 
 never granted an unnecessary power. 
 
 The slave-question was equally well and wisely settled by the pro- 
 visions of the Constitution. The same rule which had been adopted 
 
 VOL. n. 6
 
 122 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 under the Confederation as the ratio of contribution, was made the 
 basis of representation and tazation. Representatives and direct 
 taxes were apportioned among the several States according to their 
 respective numbers ; and to determine the number, Jive slaves were 
 to be counted as equal to three free men The Slave-States, by this 
 rule, lost in representation, but they gained whenever the government 
 resorted to direct taxation ; that being very seldom, the general re- 
 sult has been a loss to the slave-holding States. But they cannot 
 complain, it was a rule insisted on by themselves when, under the 
 Confederation, it was only the basis of contribution of men and mo 
 ney. They said that two-fifths of the slaves, the old and the young, 
 were a burthen to their owners and ought not to be taxed ; this was 
 considered reasonable, and they were exempted. 
 
 By an article in the Constitution, the importation of slaves was 
 permitted for twenty years : that is, the slave-trade was tolerated for 
 that length of time ; and by another provision, owners of slaves were 
 protected in their rights whenever they escaped into States where 
 involuntary servitude was not allowed by law. It is obvious, that 
 every other question which could arise touching the subject of slavery 
 was of a local and domestic nature, and was reserved to the States 
 or to the people. 
 
 Thus did the framers of our Constitution, clearly perceiving and 
 appreciating the delicacy of the subject, wisely provide for the diffi- 
 culties which had so much embarrassed the States and the Confede- 
 ration in regard to the public lands and the subject of slavery. Their 
 measures were complete and exhaustive of the subject, so far as the 
 existing limits of the United States were concerned. They did not 
 contemplate an extension of the Union beyond its present bounda- 
 ries. The serious difficulties that now so much threaten the integ- 
 rity of the republic, have grown out of the purchase and acquisition 
 of foreign territory. It is true the Constitution provides for the ad- 
 mission of new States ; but the States contemplated were those ex- 
 pected to grow up within the existing borders of the Union Maine, 
 Vermont, the North Western States, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missis- 
 sippi, and Alabama. None others were anticipated. That the vast 
 dominions of the King of Spain, extending from the borders of the 
 Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, would ever become a portion of the 
 territories of the United States, was a thing our forefathers never
 
 MISSOURI QUESTION. 
 
 dreamed of, much less provided for. in that Constitution tl 
 cautiously limited and guarded in all its parts, as a fit 
 for their posterity. 
 
 The acquisition of Louisiana was without constitutional 
 Mr. Jefferson, who made the purchase, admitted it to b 
 wished a ratification of the act by the people; but that 
 done. It would be dangerous to take their silent acquit 
 evidence of approval. The amendment of the Constif 
 Mr. Jefferson desired, by the insertion of an ex post facto cl 
 doning its infraction under the pressure of an imperious u"-' 
 was never attempted. The deed stands now as it did then-^ naked 
 usurpation of power, sanctioned only by the silent acquiescence of tht 
 people. "We do not wish to be understood as condemning- it. The 
 evils which must necessarily have flowed from the continuance <v. 
 Louisiana in the hands of a foreign and hostile power, are muci. 
 
 greater, as we conceive, than those which aught t<] 
 sary consequence of its annexation to the Union, 
 alter the fact in regard to it that it was acqi 
 rity. and that there has been no amendment of t| 
 fying the deed. 
 
 It is said, however, that under the war and 
 Congress may acquire foreign territory ; under 
 which it is obtained, it may be held and g( 
 the sword, it may be held and governed by 
 trine, whether derived from the war or treaty-i 
 the consequence that Congress may acquire for< 
 it and govern it as a province as England gofl 
 provinces, as she now governs Canada and the 
 a startling conclusion ; but it is the inevitaj 
 premises ; grant the one, and you are forced 
 Congress, having acquired the territory, mue 
 of the Constitution. This is a total surrej 
 strict construction, which requires a distinj 
 of every substantive power by Congress, as 
 tory, making and unmaking laws for it, 
 the spirit of the Constitution ! What th 
 opinion. A States-rights man holds one 
 a Consolidationist or Federalist holds ai 
 
 iltjs a 
 
 iot 
 
 frati- 
 
 :d by 
 doc- 
 leads to 
 id hold 
 ^thirteen 
 This is 
 of the 
 jr. But 
 [the spirit 
 >ctrine of 
 le exercise 
 of a terri- 
 to be. In 
 matter of 
 t subject ; 
 left to a
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 
 fui 
 
 excl 
 
 beei 
 
 now! 
 
 authl 
 
 were 
 gress 
 whetht 
 attempl 
 sition tt 
 in the 
 concepti 
 the StatJ 
 were whc 
 were spe 
 to all Sta4 
 
 But 
 Missouri, 
 subject of i 
 told, on 
 to legislate 
 stance to 
 
 Congress for the time being to say what is legislation in 
 the Constitution. These are the absurd and dangerous 
 of a false doctrine, and we are now reaping the conse- 
 tter admit honestly and candidly with Mr. Jefferson, 
 acquisition was without constitutional authority, and, 
 ie, that all the subsequent acts in regard to it must 
 same character. The truth is, that nearly all the legis- 
 ess for the last half century, on the subject of territo- 
 tained by their own examples and precedents alone, 
 grant of power in the Constitution. 
 Ipuri presented herself for admission into the Union, 
 mas made in Congress to amend her constitution, by 
 ^use. that " all children of slaves, born within the said 
 dmission thereof into the Union, shall be free, but 
 ervice until the age of twenty-five years ; and the 
 >D of slavery, or involuntary servitude, is prohibited, 
 nishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have 
 ;." This proposition came too late. Missouri was 
 t State, made so by the permission and by the 
 s ; she could not be thrown back by the will of 
 Jonial state. Her internal and domestic affairs 
 lute control ; and the only inquiry left to Con- 
 ne whether her Constitution was republican, and 
 she shall be admitted into the Union. The 
 ton her domestic policy was a monstrous propo- 
 [bngress, save such an one as we have described 
 r, could have entertained. Men having a just 
 tions of the Constitution and of the rights of 
 perceived that the internal affairs of a State 
 jurisdiction of a government, whose powers 
 ly limited to a few general subjects common 
 
 Territory beyond the limits of the State of 
 it question was presented here was a fair 
 Congress had no right to legislate, we are 
 rery in that Territory what right had they 
 lot ? What right had they in the first in- 
 of foreign territory ? Under the treaty-
 
 MISSOURI QUESTION. 125 
 
 making power, it is answered. Then under the treaty-making power 
 it must be governed as a necessary inference, or implication. The 
 proposition to confer on Congress the power to make a temporary 
 government for territories was distinctly rejected by the framers of 
 the Constitution. Any specific grant to that effect is not pretended. 
 Congress has the right to make treaties this confers on them the 
 power to purchase by treaty and to take possession of foreign terri- 
 tory having a right to acquire by treaty, the necessary inference is 
 that they have the right to make laws and to govern the territory ;r the 
 province acquired this is the line of argument. Now all implied 
 powers have no other limitation on them, but the will of those who 
 make the implication let the Protective Tariff, the system of In- 
 ternal Improvements by the General Government, and the Bank, 
 serve as examples and illustrations of this truth. When you go be- 
 yond the specific grants and resort to implication for such a distinct, 
 substantive and important power as the one under consideration, then 
 all the limitations in the Constitution are of no avail. Take either 
 alternative, therefore, that Congress had no constitutional authority 
 either to purchase or to govern foreign territory or that, under the 
 treaty-making power, they had the right to acquire and to govern, 
 then there is no limitation on the exercise of the power, usurped 01 
 implied, save that imposed by themselves. The examples and prece- 
 dents set by their predecessors constitute their only guide. The 
 spirit of the Constitution as manifested in these authorities must be 
 thoir only rule of action. It was precisely in accordance with the 
 history of past legislation that the Missouri compromise was accom- 
 plished. It seems to have grown up as a tacit, though well under- 
 stood agreement, that North of a certain line involuntary servitude 
 should not exist, and South of it slavery should be tolerated. The 
 compromise ordinance of 1787 originated in this feeling. 
 
 Repeated attempts at an early day were made in Indiana and Il- 
 linois to suspend the article of the Ordinance prohibiting slavery be- 
 yond the Ohio but they were always opposed and defeated by South- 
 ern men. On the contrary, when the provisions of the Ordinance 
 were extended to Southern territory, the article on the subject of 
 slavery was striken out. Thus there grew up from the nature of the 
 case, and under the force of circumstances, a sort of common law un- 
 derstanding, that all North of a certain line, restrictions on the sub-
 
 126 L * FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ject of slavery should be enforced, and South of it, they should be 
 removed. When, therefore, the question was raised in regard to 
 newly acquired foreign territory, the same rule was enforced. It was 
 imposed by a combined northern majority on the South who, without 
 a dissenting voice, steadily opposed it. This geographical majority 
 ingrafted on the Missouri bill a provision " that in all that territory 
 eded by France to the United States, under the name of Louisiana, 
 which lies north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north lati- 
 tude, not included within the limits of the State contemplated by this 
 act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punish- 
 ment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted, 
 shall be and is hereby for ever prohibited." Thus we see that the line 
 was extended and definitely laid down by northern men. The whole 
 South voted against it under the impression that Congress had no 
 right to legislate on the subject ; but we have seen their error in sup- 
 posing that there were any constitutional provisions on the subject at 
 all and that, whether as usurped or implied power, there was no 
 other limitation on it, save that of precedent and authority. And it 
 was precisely in accordance with precedent and authority, and the 
 common sentiment silently grown up among the States, that this line 
 was laid down and extended. The northern men took on themselves 
 the fearful responsibility of acting alone in this business. They dic- 
 tated the line and said by that we will stand. All subsequent legis 
 lation has been based on the faith of this pledge. Iowa has been ad- 
 mitted as a State into the Union Minnesota and Oregon organized 
 as Territories on its faith. And can any reasonable man see why 
 this line should not as well extend to the Pacific ocean, as to the 
 Rocky Mountains ? to the territories recently acquired of Mexico, as 
 well as to those which in 1803 were purchased of France? There is 
 no constitutional authority for the acquisition or the government of 
 either as territory or a province the necessity of the case in the 
 first instance, and the subsequent practice of the government, can 
 alone be adduced as justification and authority. 
 
 The same rules, precedents, and examples, apply as well in the 
 one case as in the other. And above all, that overwhelming senti- 
 ment of justice, that spirit of concession and compromise, which pre- 
 sided over the birth and infancy of the Constitution, and preserved it 
 from destruction when well-nigh torn asunder by the Missouri con-
 
 COMPROMISE BILL. 127 
 
 vulsion, urge on us now with tenfold force, at a moment when all the 
 nations of the earth are torn up from their deep foundations and 
 this blessed Constitution stands as the only sheltering rock in whose 
 broad shadow, far stretching over the dark waters, their scattered 
 fragments may come together and be re-formed. If the sentiment of 
 brotherly forbearance, if a generous pride in the glory and prosperity 
 of our common country do not prevail at this crisis, we shall then 
 hang our heads in sorrow, mourn over the departed spirit of our fa- 
 thers, and look with fearful forebodings on that dark demon, that has 
 come to usurp its place the mad spirit of fanaticism, engendered in 
 ambition and fostered by the lust of plunder and dominion. 
 
 CHAPTBE XIII. 
 
 COMPROMISE BILL SMUGGLED THROUGH THE HOUSE. 
 
 MR. RANDOLPH'S opposition to the Missouri Bill, with the obnoxious 
 clause in it prohibiting slavery beyond a certain line, was very de- 
 cided. In common with the southern members, he regarded the 
 whole proceeding as unconstitutional destructive of the vital in- 
 terests of the South a dangerous precedent, that might be used for 
 still greater encroachments hereafter and would listen to no com- 
 promise on the subject. One night, when the House was engaged in 
 debating the great question, and there seemed but a faint prospect 
 of its adjustment, Mr. Randolph, it is said, accosted Mr. Clay, the 
 Speaker of the House, who, for a moment, was absent from the chair, 
 and said to him, " Mr. Speaker, I wish you would quit the chair, and 
 leave the House ; I will follow you to Kentucky, or any where else." 
 Mr. Randolph was told, in reply, that his proposition was a very seri- 
 ous one ; and that if he would meet Mr. Clay the next morning, in 
 the Speaker's room, the latter would converse with him fully on the 
 whole subject. The interview accordingly took place, and the parties 
 had a long conversation, relating, principally, to the propriety of a 
 compromise. Mr. Randolph was decidedly opposed to any compro- 
 mise, and Mr. Clay was in favor of acceding to one, if it could be
 
 128 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 done without any sacrifice of principle After the termination of this 
 interview, they never exchanged salutations, or spoke to each other 
 again, during the session. We do not vouch for the truth of this 
 statement ; but it is very certain, that Mr. Randolph spoke in no 
 measured terms of the course of the Speaker of the House (Mr. Clay) 
 on the subject of the compromise, and charged him with taking ad- 
 vantage of his office, and conniving, if not actually aiding, in smug- 
 gling the bill through the House, contrary to the rules of proceeding, 
 thereby depriving him and other members of their constitutional 
 right to a final vote, on a motion for reconsideration, which the 
 Speaker knew Mr. Randolph was about to make. 
 
 His own account of that transaction is so graphic, so character- 
 istic of the man, that we here give it to the reader entire. 
 
 " On the night that that bill had its last vote in the House, my 
 colleague, W. S. Archer, was a new member. I declared, publicly 
 and openly, that in case that bill should pass, with the amendment 
 then proposed, unless another amendment should succeed which 
 did not succeed I declared, conditionally, that I should move for 
 a reconsideration of the vote. Myself and my colleague, who, with 
 another gentleman, whom I shall not refer to, though near me 
 (Mr. Macon), were the only persons whom I have heard of, be- 
 longing to the Southern interest, who determined to have no com- 
 promise at all on this subject. They determined to cavil on the nine- 
 tieth part of a hair, in a matter of sheer right, touching the dearest 
 interests, the life-blood of the Southern States. The House was ex- 
 hausted ; a gentleman fainted in front of the chair, and tumbled on 
 the ground. In this state of things, my colleague asked whether it 
 would not do as well to put off the motion till to-morrow (for he was 
 in ill health and much fatigued) ? I said I could not agree to that, 
 till I had taken the opinion of the court, in the last resort. After 
 that question had eventuated, as I foresaw it might, I rose in my 
 place, and asked of the Speaker whether it was in order to move a recon- 
 sideration of the vote. He said that it was. Sir, I am stating facts 
 of more importance to the civil history of this country than the battle 
 which took place not far from this. He said it was. I then asked 
 him (to relieve my colleague, who had just taken his seat for the first 
 time that session), whether it would be in order to move the recon- 
 sideration of the vote, on the next day ? He said something to this 
 effect : Surely the gentleman knows the rules of the House too well 
 not to know that it will be in order at any time during the sitting, to- 
 morrow or the next day. I replied. I thought I did ; but I wanted 
 to make assurance doubly sure, to have the opinion of the tribunal. 

 
 COMPROMISE BILL. 
 
 129 
 
 in the last resort. I then agreed to accommodate my colleague, in 
 the state of exhaustion in which the House then was I agreed to 
 suspend my motion for a reconsideration, and we adjourned. The 
 next morning, before either House met, I learned no matter how 
 no matter from whom, or for what consideration that it was in contem- 
 plation that this clock (Senate chamber), which is hardly ever in order, 
 and the clock in the other House, which is not in a better condition! 
 should somehow disagree ; that the Speaker should not take his seat 
 in the House till the President had taken his seat nere ; and then, 
 that when I went into the House to make my motion. I was to be 
 toH that the Chair regretted very much that the clerk had gone off 
 with the bill ; that it was not in their possession, and the case was 
 irreparable ; and yet I recollect very well, when we applied to the 
 Secretary of State for a parchment roll of an act which had not been 
 duly enrolled, two sections were left out by the carelessness of the 
 clerks and of the committee of enrollment. That act was, by the 
 House of Representatives, in which it originated, procured from the 
 archives of the Department of State, and put on the statute books, as 
 it passed not as it was on the roll and enrolled anew. It was the 
 act for the relief of the captors of the Mirboha and Missonda. As 
 soon as I understood this, sir, I went to the Speaker myself, and 
 told him that I must have my vote for reconsideration that day. 
 
 " I can only say that I inferre'd not from what he told me that 
 my information was correct. I carne off immediately to this House 
 (Senate.) It wanted about twenty minutes of the time when the Sen- 
 ate was to meet. I saw that most respectable man whom we have 
 just lost, and begged to speak with him in private. We retired to a 
 committee room, and to prevent intrusion we locked the door. I told 
 him of the conspiracy laid to defeat me of my constitutional right to 
 move a reconsideration, (though I think it a dangerous rule, and 
 always voted against its being put on the rules at all, believing that, 
 to prevent tampering and collusion, the vote to reconsider ought to 
 be taken instantly, yet, sir, as it was then, I had a right to make the 
 motion.) I told this gentleman that he might, by taking the chair 
 of the Senate sooner than the true time, lend himself unconsciously 
 to this conspiracy against my constitutional rights as a member of 
 the other House from the State of Virginia, I spoke, sir, to a man 
 of honor and a gentleman, and it is unnecessary to say that he did 
 not take the chair till the proper hour arrived. As soon as that hour 
 arrived, we left the committee room together. I went on to the 
 House of Representatives, and found them in session, and the clerk 
 reading the journal, meanwhile there had been runners through the 
 long passage, which was then made of plank, I think, between the 
 two Houses, hunting for Mr. Gaillard. Where is he ? He is not to 
 bo found. The House of Representatives having organized itself, 
 
 VOL. n. 6*
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 when I came m from the door of the Senate. I found the clerk read 
 ing the journal ; the moment after he had finished it I made the mo- 
 tion, and was seconded by my colleague, Mr. Archer, to whom I could 
 appeal not that my testimony wants evidence. I should like to see 
 the man who would question it on a matter of fact. This fact is well 
 remembered ; a lady would as soon forget her wedding day as I forget 
 this. The motion to reconsider was opposed ; it was a debateable 
 question, and the Speaker stated something this way ' that it was 
 not for him to give any orders ; the Clerk knew his duty.' The Clerk 
 went more than once my impression is, that he went more than 
 twice. I could take my oath, and so, I believe, could Mr. Archer, 
 that he made two efforts, and came back under my eye, like a mouse 
 under the eye of a cat, with the engrossed bill in his . hand. His 
 bread was at stake. At last he, with that pace, and countenance, and 
 manner, which only conscious guilt can inspire, went off, his poverty, 
 not his will consenting ; and before the debate was finished, back he 
 comes with the bill, from the Senate, which had then become a law, 
 before it was decided whether they would reconsider it at my mo- 
 tion or not, which motion nailed the bill to the table until it should 
 have been disposed of. Notorious as these facts are. so anxious was 
 one side of that House to cover up their defection ; such was the anx- 
 iety of the other to get Missouri in on any conditions, that this thing 
 was hushed up, just as the suspension of the Habeas Corpus was 
 hushed up. 
 
 " The bill was passed through the forms of law. Missouri was ad- 
 mitted into the Union contrary to the Constitution, as much so as if 
 I had voted the other way in the first instance, and the Speaker had 
 ordered the Clerk to put my name with the ayes in the journal when 
 I had voted no because, sir, agreeably to the Constitution of the 
 United States every member has a right to his vote, under the forms 
 of the House, whether these forms are wise or foolish ; and my col- 
 league and myself were ousted out of our right to reconsider, for 
 which I would not have taken all the land within the State of Mis- 
 souri." 
 
 Mr. Randolph was greatly excited during the agitation of the 
 uri question ; he did not sleep of nights ; and his energetic, 
 quick temper, exasperated by the scenes around him, inflamed by 
 long watc-hing and anxiety, gave a peculiar force and piquancy to all 
 he said. His indignation was particularly levelled at Mr. Clay, not 
 that he had any personal dislike to that gentleman, apart from his 
 political course, but as he was the leader of the spurious Republican 
 party then in the ascendent, Mr. Randolph thought him entitled to 
 the animadversions that were aimed at the party itself, particularly
 
 COMPROMISE BILL. 
 
 as he was not only their leader, but their chief spokesman, setting 
 forth on all occasions, and embellishing their doctrines by his copious 
 and ornate style of oratory. 
 
 Old minority men, turned courtiers, and whitewashed Federalists, 
 composed the self-styled Republican party, when in truth they did 
 not possess the first principle the doctrine of State rights, that 
 should characterize a party bearing that title. Mr. Clay's course on 
 the bank in 1811, and again in 1816, his course on internal improve- 
 ments, and his conduct in regard to < ; the compromise," as it was un- 
 derstood by all strict constructionists, eminently fitted him for the 
 leadership of such a mongrel party ; and surely he was not spared in 
 the animadversions of those who perceived the old leaven of Federal- 
 ism penetrating the whole mass under the shallow disguise of a new 
 name. 
 
 In the following strictures Mr. Randolph is particularly pointed 
 and severe. 
 
 - The anniversary of Washington's birth-day (says he, in a letter 
 to Dr. Brockenbrough, Feb. 23d, 1820) will be a memorable day in the 
 history of my life, if indeed any history shall be attached to it. Yes- 
 terday, I spok*e four hours and a half to as attentive an audience as 
 ever listened to a public speaker. Every eye was riveted upon me, 
 save one, and that was sedulously and affectedly turned away. The 
 ears, however, were drinking up the words as those of the royal Dane 
 imbibed " the juice of cursed heberon," though not, like his, uncon- 
 scious of the leprous distilrnent ; as I could plainly perceive by the 
 play of the muscles of the face, and the coming and going of the 
 color, and the petty agitation of the whole man, like the affected fidget 
 and flirt of the fan whereby a veteran coquette endeavors to hide her 
 chagrin from the spectators of her mortification. 
 
 - This person was no other than Mr. Speaker himself, the only 
 man in the House to whose attention I had a right. He left the chair, 
 called Cobb to it, paced the lobby at the back of it in great agitation, 
 resumed, read MSS., newspapers, printed documents on the table 
 (i. e affected to read them), beckoned the attendants, took snuff, 
 looked at his shoe-buckles, at his ruffles, towards the other side of the 
 House every where but at me. I had mentioned to him as deli- 
 cately as I could, that being unable to catch his eye, I had been 
 obliged (against my will, and what I thought the rule of order ;iiid 
 decorum in debate) to look elsewhere for support. This apology 1 
 expected would call him to a sense of what was due to himself and 
 his station, as well as to me ; but it had none effect. At last, when 
 you might have heard a pin drop upon the carpet, he beckoned one
 
 132 LIFE OF 3ORy RANDOLPH. 
 
 of the attendants and began whispering to the lad (I believe to fetch 
 his snuff-box). ' Fooled to the top of my bent,' I ' checked in mid 
 volley,' and said : ' The rules of this House, sir, require, and properly 
 require, every member when he speaks to address himself respectfully 
 to Mr. Speaker ; to that rule, which would seem to imply a correla- 
 tive duty of respectful attention on the part of the Chair, I always 
 adhere ; never seeking for attention in the countenances of the mem- 
 bers, much less of the spectators and auditors in the lobby or the gal- 
 lery: as, however. I find the Chair resolutely bent on not attending 
 to me, I shall take my seat :' which I did accordingly. The chas- 
 tisement was so deserved, so studiously provoked, that it was not in 
 my nature to forego inflicting it. Like ' Worcester's rebellion, it L<AJ 
 ' my way and I found it. 1 
 
 " He replied in a subdued tone of voice, and with a manner quite 
 changed from his usual petulance and arrogance (for it is generally 
 one or t'other, sometimes both). ' that he had paid all possible atten- 
 tion,' &c., which was not true, in fact: for from the time that i en- 
 tered upon the subject of his conduct in relation to the bank in 1811 
 (renewal of old charter), and in 1816 (the new bank), and on inter- 
 nal improvements, &c. (quoting his words in his last speech, that 
 ' this was a limited, cautiously restricted government'), and held up 
 the ' Compromise' in its true colors, he never once glanced his eye 
 upon me but to withdraw it, as if he had seen a basilisk. 
 
 " Some of the pretenders to the throne, if not the present incum- 
 bent, will hold me from that day forth in cherished remembrance. I 
 have not yet done, however, with the pope or the pretenders, their 
 name is legion. 
 
 " My dear friend, I have been up since three o'clock ; as soon as 
 I could see to write I began this letter, if it deserve the name of one. 
 I have received my death-wound on Tuesday, the 1st, and Wednes- 
 day, the 2d of February. Had I not spoken on the last of these 
 days, I might have weathered this point and clawed off of death's lee 
 shore. My disease is assuming a hectic type. I believe the lungs 
 are affected symptomatically, through sympathy with the liver, at 
 least I hope so. Yet why hope when the vulture daily whets his 
 beak for a repast upon my ever-growing liver, and his talons are fixed 
 in my very vitals? I am done with public life, as soon as the business 
 of Congress will permit me to leave it ; at any rate, immediately after 
 the adjournment I shall travel perhaps take a sea voyage, not to 
 get rid of duns (although the wolf will be at my door in the shape 
 of the man I bought that land of), but to take the only chance of 
 prolonging a life, that I trust is now not altogether useless. 
 
 : Remember me kindly to all friends ; respectfully to Mr. Roane. 
 Tell him that I have fulfilled his injunction, and I trust proved 
 myself ' a zealous, and consistent, and (I wish I could add) able,
 
 COMPROMISE BILL. 133 
 
 defender of State Rights.' I have yet to settle with the Supreme 
 
 Court 
 
 "'I am hurt a plague of both ike Houses I am sped ! "Tis not 
 so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but 'twill serve : ask 
 for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man,' " 
 
 The foregoing, and other letters that followed close upon it in 
 quick succession, show the diseased condition of body, and the excited 
 and feverish state of mind under which Mr. Randolph was laboring 
 at this time. 
 
 Thursday morning. 5 o'clock, Feb. 24, 1820. 
 
 I have been up since half past three. My sensations are indes- 
 cribable. The night before last I had a return of the spasms. At 
 present I am free from pain ; but what I feel is worse than pain, un- 
 less in its most acute form, and even then I think I cculd better bear 
 it. Whatever it be, something is passing in the nobler viscera of no 
 ordinary character. They have got a Missouri question there, that 
 threatens a divulsion of soul from body. Nausea in its worst form 
 (sea sickness) is not equal to what I feel. I have it slightly, accom- 
 panied with a sinking of the spirits, a soul-sickness, a sensation 
 as if I should swoon away instantly ; meantime, diarrhoea is not idle, 
 from twenty to fifty calls in the four and twenty hours. Every thing 
 I eat (only milk and crackers, heated over again in the oven) passes 
 unchanged. So did gruel when I took some well boiled and gelatinous. 
 
 " You will not see my name on the yeas and nays yesterday on the 
 Senate's bill. I could not remain in the house, the air of which is 
 unchanged for weeks. It smells like a badly kept comodite, (shouldn't 
 there be two m's in that word ?) and even worse, for you have in ad- 
 dition to ordure and urine all the exhalations that overpowered Matt. 
 Bramble at a fashionable squeeze, and stale tobacco smoke into the 
 bargain ; cigars are smoked in the ante-room. The avenues to our 
 hall are narrow, mean, dark and dangerous, and when you pass the 
 first portal, you are assailed by a compound of villanous smells, which 
 is only a little more diluted when you emerge into light, or rather 
 darkness visible through cross lights that torture the eye. 
 
 " My faithful Juba is sick, very sick, and four nights ago I heard 
 him in his sleep cry out ' I wish 1 and master ivas at home.' These 
 Yankees have almost reconciled me to negro slavery. They have 
 produced a revulsion even on my mind, what then must the effect bo 
 on those who had no scruples on the subject. I am persuaded that 
 the cause of humanity to these unfortunates has been put back a 
 century, certainly a generation, by the unprincipled conduct of am- 
 bitious men, availing themselves of a good as well as of a fanatical 
 spirit in the nation. 
 
 " Tell Mrs. Brockenbrough that Mr. Meade makes anxious inqui-
 
 134 . LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ries about the state of her rnind on the subject of religious opinions 
 He and Frank Key are with us on the question. Frank has just re 
 turned from Frederick, where he was summoned a fortnight ago to 
 attend a (supposed) dying father. The old gentleman is recovering 
 slowly. What must it have been to have his bedside attended by 
 such a son ! He is indeed as near perfection as our poor nature can 
 go, although he would be shocked to hear it said. Severe to him- 
 self, considerate and indulgent to others, speaking ill of none. Day 
 is breaking ; good morning." 
 
 " J. R. of R. to J. B., a letter, like Mrs. Howe's, from the dead 
 to the living. 
 
 Saturday, Feb. 26, 1820. 
 
 " Hear all ye nations ! Last evening the late J. R. of R. who is 
 ; stone dead (the major) precisely ', went to Mrs. F h's ' con- 
 sort ' said dead man being like any other great personage deceased, 
 tired of ' toujours perdrix.' (N. B. : the plural of this French noun- 
 substantive is perdros, according to Mr. Speaker Clay, who has been 
 to Paris, aye, and to Ghent too ; and ought surely to know.) Why 
 shouldn't dead men enjoy a little variety as well as folks that talk in 
 their sleep in Congress ? and there were ' lots of ilvein ' there 
 (see Tom Crib). The French lady proved to be a noun-adjective, 
 as old Lilly hath it. she 'could not stand by herself (or would not) 
 for after some execrable airs, at the beginning of the third (not the 
 third by at least thirt}- it is Dogberry who, after ' sixthly and lastly : 
 brings in ' thirdly') she enacted something like a fit, and threw her- 
 self into the arms of a gentleman (not a false concord I hope I 
 trust it was her husband), whereupon the ' dead man ' not the ' mas- 
 ter of the rolls ' (he deals only in crackers) ' opened wide his mouth ; 
 and called a coach and threw himself into it and drove home, not 
 sJiam-sick. I was heartily glad of our early dismission, and after an 
 almost sleepless night, me void, at my daily occupation, by day- 
 break, boring you. 
 
 " I learn from a very direct source, that this lady was an obscure 
 
 girl, whom Mrs. B 11 ' patronized ' and placed at Mad. Rivaldi's 
 
 boarding-school ; where the protegee was shown off to the glory of 
 
 the patroness, and sung at Mad. R 's concerts and married one 
 
 <>f the teachers, and in short, has been used to exhibition and dis- 
 i'luy from the egg-shell. I felt very much ashamed of being there, 
 not because the room was mean and badly lighted, and dirty, and the 
 company ill dressed, but because I saw, for the first time, an Ameri- 
 can woman singing for hire. I would import our actors, singers, 
 tumblers and jack-puddings, if we must have such cattle, from Eu- 
 n.pe. Hyde de Neuville. a Frenchman, agreed with me, 'that although 
 ly was universally admitted to be very amiable, it was a danger- 
 ous example.' At first (on dit) she was unaffected and sang natu-
 
 COMPROMISE BILL. 135 
 
 rally, and, I am told, agreeably enough, but now she is a bundle of 
 ' affectations ' (as Sir Hugh hath it), and reminds me of the little 
 screech ' owels ' as they say on ' the south side.' 1 Her voice is not bad, 
 but she is utterly destitute of a single particle of taste or judgment. 
 Were she a lady and I in her company, my politeness should never 
 induce me to punish myself by asking her to sing. 
 
 "A member from Virginia, whose avoirdupois entitles him to 
 weight, as well as his being a sort of commis to the P., told me yes- 
 terday, ' that the tale in circulation of the P. having written a let- 
 ter to Mr. Roane. declaring his disapprobation of the compromise, 
 was an idle scandal, for that he had seen the letter (or rather that it 
 had been read to him) and there was no such sentiment expressed in 
 it.' Hem ! retty good ! Don't you think so ? 
 
 " When Mrs. F. was ' screeching,' I was strongly reminded of two 
 lines of a mock Methodist hymn, that poor John Holiingsworth used 
 to sing, when we were graceless youths at college 
 
 " ' ! that I, like Madame French, 
 
 Could raise my ' vice' on high, 
 Thy name should last like oaken hench. 
 To parpctui-ty.' 
 
 " The same ' two single gentlemen rolled into one,' told me that 
 
 M e expressed a desire to maintain the relations of peace and 
 
 amity and social intercourse, with me ; that he did not stand upon 
 etiquette ; did not require any gentleman to pay him the respect of a 
 call in the first instance ; gave examples to that effect, some of which 
 I know to be true (N. B. election coming on), and that he should have 
 sent his invitations to me as well as to the rest, but that he thought 
 they would not be acceptable that I had repelled, &c., &c., &c. 
 
 : Whereupon I said that I had not seen said great man but once 
 (Friday, the llth, riding by, after Mr. King's speech in the Senate) 
 since the Georgetown sheep-shearing, in the spring of 1812. That I 
 had called more than once that spring, on him and Madame, and not 
 at home was the invariable reply ; that he had invited Garnett, as it 
 were out of my own apartment that year, to dine with General Mo- 
 reau. Lewis and Stanford, the only M. C.'s that lodged there besides 
 myself, and omitted to ask me, who had a great desire to see Moreau ; 
 that I lacqueyed the heels of no great man ; that I had a very good 
 dinner at home, which I could not eat, although served at an hour 
 that I was used to ; and that I was very well, as I was, &c. Hodijah 
 Meade writes Archer that I am becoming popular, even in Amelia. 
 Perhaps the great man has heard something to this effect. 
 
 Write me volumes all your news, chat, &c. Yesterday we 
 settled the chat.' not by the rules of ' the Finish' (see Tom Crib), but 
 of the House of Commons, actually coughing, and scraping, and ' ques- 
 tion' questioning some brave fellows that made a stout resistance to
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 be heard, but were outnumbered. I was not party to the outrage 
 did not cough nor cry, but I heard the speaker's voice above the rest. 
 G-. T. spoke" the last promised us novelty at least, borrowed largely 
 from Pinkney. P. Barbour, and your humble servant, during three 
 quarters of an hour that I listened to him. when I left him, I believe, 
 without a single auditor except Mr. Chairman C - b ! as very a 
 Johnny Raw' as ever entered a ring. See again my standard au 
 thority, Tom Crib.' : 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 "I NOW GO FOE BLOOD" MADNESS. 
 
 IMMEDIATELY on the settlement of that exciting subject the Missouri 
 question followed the death of Commodore Decatur, who fell in a 
 duel the 20th March, 1820. with Commodore Barron. This sad 
 event produced a shock throughout the community. The gallant 
 seaman lived in the hearts of his countrymen. His untimely end 
 shrouded the country in mourning. The occasion, the manner, and 
 the place not on the proud deck, in face of the enemies of his coun- 
 try, added poignancy to their grief. None felt more deeply on the 
 occasion than John Randolph. They were friends, and they were kin- 
 dred spirits. To lose so noble a soul from among the few whose love 
 he cherished, under such painful circumstances, and at a time when the 
 country could illy spare so gallant a heart, was more than his weak 
 frame could endure. Worn out with excessive watching and anx- 
 iety on the momentous question which had well nigh torn the Union 
 asunder, emaciated with disease bodily and mental, that for years had 
 known no intermission, with the keen sensibility of a woman, delicate 
 as a sensitive plant, this last calamity proved too rude an assault on 
 the nicely balanced, mysteriously wrought machinery of mind, which 
 went whirling and dashing in mad disorder, and defying for a time 
 the controlling influence of the master's will. 
 
 His conduct on the occasion of the funeral of Commodore Decatur 
 is said to have been very extravagant, The cold and heartless world, 
 that is unconscious of any thing else but a selfish motive, and the igno-
 
 MADNESS. 
 
 rant multitude that followed the funeral pageant, with gaping mouth, 
 agreed on a common explanation of his extravagance by proclaiming 
 the man is mad .'" 
 
 That he might have been greatly excited in manner and conver- 
 sation, and that he was wholly indifferent as to what other people 
 might say or think of him, is highly probable. All his friends agree that 
 his mind, from the cause above alluded to. had been wrought up to 
 the highest pitch of fervor, and that, like a highly-charged electric 
 battery, it threw off brilliant and fiery sparks that scorched and burnt 
 the uncautious person who had the temerity to approach too near. 
 
 This highly charged electric state of mind it can be likened to 
 nothing else lasted through the spring. Mr. Anderson, the Cashier 
 of the United States Branch Bank, in Kichmond, says that about the 
 20th of April, 1820, Mr. Kandolph came into the Bank and asked for 
 writing materials to write a check. He dipped his pen in the ink, 
 and finding that it was black, asked for red ink, saying, " I now go for 
 blood." He filled the checkup, and asked Mr. Anderson to write his 
 name to it. Mr. Anderson refused to write his name : and after im- 
 portuning that gentleman for some time, he called for black ink. and 
 signed John Kandolph, of Roanoke, X his mark. He then called 
 for the porter, and sent the check to Mr. Taylor's, to pay an account. 
 One day I was passing along the street." says Mr. Anderson, ' ; when 
 Mr. Randolph hailed me in a louder voice than usual. The first 
 question he asked me was. whether I knew of a good ship in the 
 James River, in which he could get a passage for England. He said 
 he had been sick of a remittent and intermittent fever for forty days, 
 and his physician said he must go to England. I told him there 
 were no ships here fit for his accommodation, and that he had better 
 go to New- York, and sail from that port. ' Do you think.' said he, 
 ; I would give my money to those who are ready to make my negroes 
 cut my throat? if I cannot go to England from a Southern port I 
 will not go at all.' I then endeavored to think of the best course for 
 him to take, and told him there was a ship in the river. He asked 
 the name of the ship. I told him it was the ' Henry Clay.' He 
 threw up his arms and exclaimed ' Henry Clay ! no. sir ! I will never 
 step on the planks of a ship of that name.' He then appointed to 
 meet me at the bank at 9 o'clock. He came at the hour, drew sev- 
 eral checks, exhausted his funds in the bank, and asked me for a set-
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 tlement of his account, saying he had no longer any confidence in the 
 State banks, and not much in the Bank of the United States ; and 
 that he would draw all his funds out of the bank, and put them in 
 English guineas that there was no danger of them." 
 
 Mr. Randolph spent the summer, as usual, in retirement at Roan 
 oke his excitement gradually wore away, and on the return of au 
 tmnn he was himself again. " I saw him in the autumn of the same 
 year, 1 820, says a friend he was then as perfectly in possession of 
 his understanding as I ever saw him or any other man." He return- 
 ed to Washington about the latter part of November, and thus writes 
 to his friend Brockenbrough : 
 
 WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 1620. 
 
 Dr. Dudley informs me that you have been sick of the prevailing 
 Catarrh. If it has treated you as roughly as it has me, you have 
 found it to be no trifling complaint. By this time, I trust you are as 
 free from it as I have always found you to be from other undue in- 
 fluences. My infirmities of body and mind, have nearly obliged me 
 to lay aside the use of the pen. I cannot see to make or mend one, 
 and am wholly at the mercy of our stationers, whose pens, like Peter 
 Pindar's razors, are " made to sell," and whose interest it is that fifty 
 bad pens should supply the place of one good one. Indeed I have 
 little use for the instrument the receipt of a letter being a rare 
 event in my annals. I ought, perhaps, to take somewhat unkindly, 
 the withdrawal of my old correspondents from an intercourse so bene- 
 ficial on my side, but I do not. A commerce in which the advanta- 
 ges are all on one side will never be prosecuted long what then must 
 be the case with a trade in which (as at present throughout the com- 
 mercial world), both parties are losers. 
 
 The situation of public affairs, and of my own more especially, 
 disturb my daily and nightly thoughts. I believe I must even make 
 up my mind to " overdraw," or to be ' an unfortunate man." Can 
 you put me in no way to become a successful rogue to an amount that 
 may throw an air of dignity over the transaction, and divert the at- 
 tention of the gaping spectators from the enormity of the offence, to 
 that of the sum ? 
 
 As to affairs here. I know nothing of them. They are carried on 
 by a correspondence between Heads of Houses I do not mean in 
 the University sense of the term but boarding-houses, who have an 
 understanding with some Patron in the Ministry, to whom they re- 
 port themselves," and from whom they " receive orders :> from time to 
 time. 
 
 I dined yesterday with the S. of the T., and, although as far as I 
 was concerned, the party was a very pleasant one, I can conceive of
 
 MISSOURI QUESTION ACT THE SECOND 139 
 
 
 
 nothing, in the general, more insipid than these Ministerial dinners. 
 You are invited at five. The usage is to be there 15 or 20 minutes 
 after the time. Dinner never served until six ; and a little after 
 seven coffee closes the entertainment, without the least opportunity for 
 
 conversation. Quant a moi, I was placed at his S ship's left hand. 
 
 and he did me the honor to address his conversation almost exclu- 
 sively to me. Now you know that as ' attentions ' constitute the 
 great charm of manners, so are they more peculiarly acceptable to 
 them that are least accustomed to them such as antiquated belles, 
 discarded statesmen, and bankrupts of all sorts whether in person 
 or in character. 
 
 " Nothing can be more dreary than the life we lead here. 'Tis 
 scmething like being on board ship, but not so various. We stupidly 
 doze over our sea-coal fires in our respective messes, and may truly 
 be said to hibernate at Washington." 
 
 CHAPTEE XV 
 
 MISSOURI QUESTION. ACT THE SECOND. 
 
 SHORTLY after the opening of the session, this exciting subject again 
 came up in a most unexpected form. Missouri under the " com- 
 promise act" of March the 6th, 1820, had adopted a constitution with 
 a clause declaring that//-ce negroes and mulattoes should -not emigrate 
 into the State. It was contended that free negroes and mulattoes 
 were citizens of the State of their residence ; and as such, under the 
 Constitution, had a right to remove to Missouri or any other State 
 in the Union, and there enjoy all tfye privileges and immunities of 
 other citizens of the United States emigrating to the same place ; 
 and. therefore, that the clause in the constitution of Missouri, above 
 alluded to, was repugnant to the constitution of the United States, 
 and she ought not to be admitted into the Union. On the other hand 
 it was maintained that the African race, whether bond or free, were 
 not parties to our political institutions ; that therefore, free negroes 
 and mulattoes were not citizens, within the meaning of the constitu- 
 tion of the United States ; and that even if the constitution of Mis- 
 souri were repugnant to that of the United Statr.. the latter was par-
 
 140 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 
 
 amount, and would overrule the conflicting provision of the power 
 without the interference of Congress. 
 
 Notwithstanding the reasonableness of this view of the subject, 
 a stern and inflexible majority, the same as at the last session, re- 
 pelled every proposition, in every form, which aimed at the reception 
 of the offending State. Scarcely a day elapsed that did not bring up 
 the question in some shape or other. The presidential election had 
 taken place in November preceding ; it became the duty of the Pre- 
 sident of the Senate, in presence of the other House, to count the 
 votes of the States. The Senate being present, and their President 
 having counted the votes of all the other States, opened the package 
 containing the vote of the State of Missouri, and handed it to the 
 tellers to be counted. Mr. Livermore, of New Hampshire, objected, 
 because Missouri was not a State of this Union. The Senate then 
 withdrew. In the House the following resolution was then submitted : 
 " Resolved That Missouri is one of the States of this Union, and 
 her vote ought to be received and counted." An animated debate 
 ensued, in which Mr. Randolph largely participated. "We shall only 
 bring together here, under one view, what he said on the constitu- 
 tional question involved in the controversy. No man had a clearer 
 perception of the meaning and spirit of that sacred instrument, more 
 highly valued it as a government when properly administered, or did 
 more, as the reader will see in the sequel, to restore it to its proper 
 interpretation. 
 
 Mr. Randolph said " He could not recognize in this House, or 
 the other, singly or conjointly, the power to decide on the votes of 
 any State. Suppose you strike out Missouri and insert South Caro- 
 lina, which has also a provision in its Constitution repugnant to the 
 Constitution 'of the United States ; or Virginia, or Massachusetts, 
 which had a test, he believed, ia its Constitution ; was there any less 
 power to decide on their votes than on those of Missouri ? He main- 
 tained that the electoral college was as independent of Congress as 
 uongress was of them ; and we have no right to judge of their pro- 
 ceedings. He would rather see an interregnum, or have no votes 
 counted, than see a principle adopted which went to the very founda- 
 tion on which the presidential office rested. Suppose a case in which 
 some gentlemen of one House or the other should choose to object to 
 the vote of some State, and say that if it be thus, such a person is 
 f it be otherwise, another person is elected ; did any body 
 ever eee the absurdity of such a proposition ? He deemed the course
 
 MISSOURI QUESTION ACT THE SECOND. 
 
 pursued erroneous, and in a vital part, on the ascertainment of the 
 person who had been elected by the people Chief Magistrate of the 
 United States, the most important office under the Constitution. 
 * id * * gj ie | iag now p resen ted herself (Missouri) for the first time 
 in a visible and tangible shape ; she comes into this House, not in 
 forma pauperis, but claiming to be one of the co-sovereignty of this 
 confederated government, and presents to you her vote, by receiving or 
 rejecting which the election of your Chief Magistrate will be lawful 
 or unlawful. He did not mean by the vote of Missouri, but by the 
 votes of all the States. 
 
 " Now comes the question, whether we will not merely repel her, 
 but repel her with scorn and contumely. Cui ^ono ? she might add, 
 quo warranto 1 He should like to hear from the gentleman from 
 New Hampshire (Mr. Livermore) where this House gets its authority. 
 He should like to hear some of the learned (or unlearned) sages of 
 the land, with which this House, as well as all our legislative bodies, 
 abounds, show their authority for refusing to receive the votes of 
 the State ol Missouri. He went back to first principles. The elec- , 
 toral colleges are as independent of this House as we are of them. 
 They had as good a right to pronounce on their qualifications as this 
 House has of its members. Your office in regard to the electoral votes, 
 is merely ministerial to count the votes and you undertake to re- 
 ject votes ! To what will this lead ? * * * * The wisest men may 
 make Constitutions on paper, as they please. What was the theory 
 of this Constitution ? It is that this House, except upon a certain 
 contingency, has nothing to do with the appointment of President and 
 Vice-President of the United States, and by States only can it act on 
 this subject, unless it transcend the limits of the Constitution. What 
 was to be the practice of the Constitution as now proposed ? That 
 an informal meeting- of this and the other House is to usurp the ini- 
 tiative, the nominative power, with regard to the two first officers of 
 the government ; that they are to wrest from the people their inde- 
 feasible right of telling us whom they wish to exercise the functions 
 of government, in despite and contempt of their decision. Is there 
 to be no limit to the power of Congress ? no, mound or barrier to stay 
 their usurpation ? Why were the electoral bodies established? The 
 Constitution has wisely provided that they shall assemble, each by 
 itself, and not by one great assembly. By this means, assuredly, that 
 system of intrigue which was matured into a science, or rather into 
 an art here, was guarded against. But he ventured to say, the electo- 
 ral college of this much despised Missouri, acting conformably 
 to law and to the genius and nature of our institutions, if it were 
 composed of but one man. was as independent of this House as 
 the House was of it. ***** Let me tell my friend before 
 me (Mr. Archer), we have not the power which he thinks we pos-
 
 142 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 sess and if there be a casus omissus in the Constitution. I want 
 to know where we are to supply the defect. You may keep Missouri 
 out of the Union by violence, but here the issue is joined, and 
 she comes forward in the persons of her electors, instead of repre- 
 sentative, and she was thus presented in a shape as unquestion- 
 able as that of New-York or Pennsylvania, or the proudest and 
 oldest State in the Union. Will you deny them admission ? Will 
 you thrust her electors, and hers only, from this hall ? I made no 
 objection to the vote of New Hampshire ; I had as good a right to 
 object to the vote of New Hampshire, as the gentleman from New 
 Hampshire had to object to the vote of Missouri. The electors of 
 Missouri were as much the homimis probi et legates as those of New 
 Hampshire. This was no skirmish, as the gentleman from Virginia 
 had called it. This was the battle where Greek meets Greek. Let 
 us Buckle on our armor, let us put aside all this flummery, these 
 metaphysical distinctions, these unprofitable drawings of distinc- 
 tions without differences ; let us say now, as we have on another oc- 
 casion (the election of Jefferson and Burr in 1801), 'we will assert. 
 maintain, and vindicate our rights, or put to every hazard, what you 
 pretend to hold in such high estimation ' " 
 
 These arguments, which clearly prove the false and absurd and 
 dangerous position assumed by the House on the Missouri question, 
 were of none avail. And yet a simple truism a mere nullity in fact, 
 in the shape of a compromise resolution, had the effect of magic in heal- 
 ing all the differences that had arisen between the respective parties. 
 Another sad example of the blindness and obstinacy of men, when 
 passion assumes sway of their cooler judgment. 
 
 Mr. Randolph participated in the debate on other subjects during 
 this session of Congress. 
 
 ' ; Yesterday," says, he in a letter dated January 5th, 1821, "we 
 had a triumph over the ' veteran Swiss of State ' and the S. of W. on 
 the appropriation to . cover Indian arrearages. He (C n) is po- 
 litically dead. L s. towards the close of the debate, ' put in ' and 
 
 imputed want of economy to the Committee of Ways and Means 
 when I was a member. This gave me an opportunity to contrast the 
 military expenditure of 1803-4-5 of 800.000 800,000, and 700,000, 
 respectively with the modern practice. In 1804 we took possession 
 Jew Orleans (an event utterly unlocked for) without incurring 
 
 one farthing of additional expense. Mr. L s looked very foolish. 
 
 and uglier than usual. Mr. M. of S. C. (the successor of Mr! 
 
 -n s man * nday) made several attempts, I was told, to get 
 
 t ?*V n '" S P atron ' 8 Defence, but his timidity prevented success. 
 
 1 ou will see a most villainous report of yesterday's proceed-
 
 MISSOURI QUESTION ACT THE SECOND. 143 
 
 ings, in the court paper. The r 1 pretends he can't hear me. 
 
 There was not a man in the House that did not hear me. It is a 
 usual massacre. Pray ask Ritchie not to publish it. I will correct 
 it for his paper, and send it on, that the people of Virginia at least 
 may be undeceived. I am made to talk nonsense, such as ' kissing 
 of hands' for 'imposition of hands.' There is a studied and de- 
 signed suppression of what passed." 
 
 Besides Mr. Randolph, Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, and 
 Spencer Roane, Chief Justice of Virginia, were the most conspicu- 
 ous State-rights men in that time of amalgamation and confusion of 
 all parties. They were ever consistent and uniform in their adher- 
 ence to the principles of the strict construction school, and always 
 urgent for those measures of economy and that course of " wise and 
 masterly inactivity," which must ever characterize a party based on 
 such principles. Of the former of those gentlemen Mr. Randolph 
 was the mess-mate while in Congress, and on terms of unreserved 
 daily intercourse ; with Judge Roane he did not pretend to stand on 
 a footing of intimacy ; but he respected his virtues, his talents, his 
 long services, and had begun to look to him as a fit person to be se- 
 lected by " all the honest men" as a candidate for the presidency. 
 
 " With the exception of my old friend, Mr. Macon," says he to 
 Dr. Brockenbrough, " you are the only person with whom I hold any 
 intercourse, except of that heartless sort which prevails in what is 
 called the world. Your letters, therefore, are as much missed by me 
 as would be an only member of one's family who should disappear at 
 breakfast and leave one to a solitary and cheerless meal. So much 
 
 of your penultimate as relates to Mr. M I shall take the liberty 
 
 to communicate to one of the N. C. delegation. I am truly concerned 
 at your anticipations respecting Mr. Roane's health. I earnestly 
 hope that your presage may prove fallacious, although, when I reflect 
 on your skill and intimate knowledge of the man, I feel very appre- 
 hensive of its truth. 
 
 " I began Fabricius. but was obliged to drop it. He sets out 
 with a string of truisms conveyed in the style of a schoolboy's theme. 
 Mercy upon us ! What has become of the intellect and taste of our 
 country ? Your secret is as safe with me as in your own breast ; but 
 rely upon it, if either of the personages you mention should present 
 any thing fit to be offered to the H. of D. it will be ascribed to some 
 other hand, and, if it smack of the old school, to the pen of Mr 
 Roane. I differ from you about ' his being a Virginian ;' not that I 
 doubt the fact. But take my word for it, he is becoming every day 
 more and more known out of the State, and occupies a larco space
 
 14-i LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 in the public eye. I think he can be elected easily against any one 
 yet talked of." 
 
 ' I read Mr. Roane's letter," says he on another occasion, " with 
 the attention that it deserves. Every thing from his pen on the sub- 
 ject of our laws and institutions excites a profound interest. I was 
 highly gratified at the manner in which it was spoken of in my hear- 
 ing by one of the best and ablest men in our House. It is indeed high 
 time that the hucksters and money-changers should be cast out of the 
 Temple of justice. The tone of this communication belongs to ano- 
 ther age ; but for the date, who could suppose it to have been written 
 in this our 'day of almost universal political corruption? I did not 
 road the report on the lottery case. The print of the Enquirer is too 
 much for my eyes ; and, besides, I want no argument to satisfy me 
 that the powers which Congress may exercise, where they possess ex- 
 clusive jurisdiction, may not be extended to places where they pos- 
 sess solely a limited and concurrent jurisdiction. The very statement 
 of the question settles it, and every additional word is but an incum- 
 brance of help." 
 
 In the same letter he says : 
 
 " If I possessed a talent that I once thought I had, I would try 
 to give you a picture of Washington. The state of things is the 
 strangest imaginable ; but I am like a speechless person who has the 
 clearest conception of what he would say, but whose organs refuse to 
 perform their office. There is one striking fact that one can't help 
 seeing at the first glance that there is no faith among men ; the 
 state of political confidence may be compared to that of the commer- 
 cial world within the last two or three years. ***** Our State 
 politics, like those of the General Government, are a conundrum to 
 me, and I leave the unriddling of them to the ingenious writers who 
 construct and solve enigmas and charades for the magazines. * * * * 
 
 ' I have been trying to read Southey's Life of Wesley for some 
 days. Upon the whole, I find it a heavy work, although there are 
 some very striking passages, and it abounds in curious information. 
 From 279 to 285 inclusive of volume the second is very fine. Yes- 
 terday I was to have dined with Frank Key, but was not well enough 
 to go. He called here the day before, and we had much talk toge- 
 ther. He perseveres in pressing on towards the goal, and his whole 
 life is spent in endeavoring to do good for his unhappy fellow-men. 
 The result is, that he enjoys a tranquillity of mind, a sunshine of the 
 soul, that all the Alexanders of the earth can neither confer nor take 
 away. This is a state to which I can never attain. I have made up 
 my mind to suffer like a man condemned to the wheel or the stake. 
 Strange as you may think it. I could submit without a murmur to 
 pass the rest of my life ' on some high lonely tower, where I might 
 outwatch the bear with thrice great Hermes,' and exchange the enjoy-
 
 HIS WILL. 
 
 145 
 
 merits of society for an exemption from the plagues of life. These 
 press me down to the very earth ; and to rid myself of them, I would 
 gladly purchase an annuity and crawl into some hole, where I might 
 commune with myself and be still." 
 
 -THURSDAY, March 1, 1821. 
 
 " I am in luck this morning. Johnny has brought me a letter from 
 you instead of returning from the Post-office empty handed as usual. 
 It gives me great satisfaction to find that the good people of my dis- 
 trict are not dissatisfied with my course this winter. 
 
 ' ; Last night there was, as I am informed by the gentlemen of our 
 club, a most disgraceful scene in the H. of R. on the Bankrupt bill, 
 which, by virtue of the previous question, will be forced through the 
 House without being committed, or even once read ! except by its 
 title a bill of 65 sections ! 
 
 " The bankrupt land speculators and broken merchants are, like 
 the sons of Zeruiah, too strong for us.' So you see our coronation 
 will be graced by a general jail delivery. 
 
 ' Mrs. Brockenbrough's rheumatism, which is an opprobrium of 
 medicine, gives me real concern. I sympathize with her in the liter- 
 al sense of the term. 
 
 " My pains are aggravated by having neither society nor books to 
 relieve my ennui. 
 
 "' You mention whatever comes into your head' To be sure you 
 ought. It is the charm of a letter. 
 
 "The gentlemen you mention are right in their 'attentions' to 
 Miss . I consider the society of such a woman as the best possi- 
 ble school for a young man, and solace for an old one. 
 
 I have not read Col. Taylor's book, but I heartily agree with Mr. 
 Jefferson that 'the Judiciary gravitates towards consolidation.' 
 I consider this district to be the TTOVCTTQ) and the Supreme Court to be 
 the lever of the political Archimedes. I do not know whether you 
 can make out my Greek character. 
 
 " I give you joy that this is the last epistle that you will be plagued 
 with from me from this place." 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 "BE NOT SOLITARY; BE NOT IDLE." HIS WILL SLAVES. 
 
 MR. RANDOLPH'S solitary residence at Roanoke had become more 
 and more intolerable to him. " The boys" were off at school. Dr. 
 Dudley, at his solicitation, had moved to Richmond, and he was like 
 VOL. n. 7
 
 146 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 the " Ancient Mariner" on the wide sea " alone alone all all 
 alone !" 
 
 " You do not overrate the solitariness," says he, " of the life I lead 
 here. It is dreary beyond conception, except by the actual sufferer 
 I can only acquiesce in it, as the lot in which I have been cast by 
 the good providence of God, and endeavor to bear it, and the daily 
 increasing infirmities, which threaten total helplessness, as well as I 
 may. ' Many long weeks have passed since you heard from me' and 
 why should I write ? To say that I have made another notch in my 
 tally ? or to enter upon the monstrous list of grievances, mental and 
 bodily, which egotism itself could scarcely bear to relate, and none oth- 
 er to listen to. You say truly : ' there is no substitute' for what you 
 name, ' that can fill the heart.' The better conviction has long ago rush- 
 ed upon my own, and arrested its functions. Not that it is without its 
 paroxysms, which, I thank heaven, itself alone is conscious of. Perhaps 
 I am wrong to indulge in this vein ; but I must write thus or not at all. 
 No punishment, except remorse, can exceed the misery I feel. My 
 heart swells to bursting, at past recollections ; and as the present is 
 without enjoyment, so is the future without hope ; so far at le^t, as 
 respects this world. 
 
 " Here I am yearning after the society of some one who is not 
 merely indifferent to me, and condemned, day after day, to a solitude 
 like Robinson Crusoe's. But each day brings my captivity and ex 
 ile nearer to their end." 
 
 To Dr. Brockenbrough, June 12th, he says: "This letter is 
 written as children whistle in the dark, to keep themselves from being 
 afraid. I dare not look upon that ' blank and waste of the heart 1 
 within. Dreary, desolate, dismal there is no word in our language, 
 or any other, that can express the misery of my life. I drag on like 
 a tired captive at the end of a slave-chain in an African Coffle. I go 
 because I must. But this is worse than the sick man's tale." 
 
 From this solitude he sent forth lessons that should be graven on 
 the heart of every young mar.. His own sad experience adds weight 
 to his precepts. Out of the deep anguish of his heart poured forth 
 the words of wisdom. His admonitions give a sure guide to the be- 
 wildered mind, and cheering hope to the depressed spirit. No young 
 man can give heed to them and follow them, without finding to his 
 joy that he has hit upon the true and only path of success in human 
 life he will find that activity, cheerful activity, in some useful call- 
 ing in daily intercourse with his fellow man, is the business, the 
 solace, and the charm of existence. 
 
 " The true cure for maladies like yours, " says he to Dr. Dudley,
 
 HIS WILL. . k 
 
 who had written in a desponding tone, " is employment. ' Be not soli- 
 tary ; be not idle !' was all that Burton could advise. Rely upon it, 
 life was not given us to be spent in dreams and reverie, but for ac- 
 tive, useful exertion ; exertion that turns to some account to our- 
 selves or to others not laborious idleness (I say nothing about re- 
 ligion, which is between the heart and its Creator.) This preaching 
 is. I know, foolish enough ; but let it pass. We have all two educa- 
 tions ; one we have given to us the other we give ourselves ; and 
 after a certain time of life, when the character has taken its ply, it is 
 idle to attempt to change it. 
 
 " If I did not think it would aggravate your symptoms, I would 
 press you to come here. In the sedulous study and practice of your 
 profession I hope you will find a palliative, if not a complete cure, 
 for your moral disease. Yours is the age of exertion the prime and 
 vigor of life. But I have 'fallen into the sear and yellow leaf: and that 
 which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of 
 friends, ( : Regan What need one ?') I must not look to have ; but, 
 in their stead -.' 
 
 " Rely upon it. you are entirely mistaken in your estimate of the 
 world. Bad as it is. mankind are not quite so silly as you suppose. 
 Look around you, and see who are held in the highest esteem. I will 
 name one Mr. Chief Justice. It is not the ' rogue' who gains the 
 good opinion of his own sex, or of the other. It is the man, who by 
 the exercise of the faculties which nature and education have given 
 him, asserts his place among his fellows ; and, whilst useful to all 
 around him, establishes his claim to their respect, as an equal and 
 independent member of society. He may have every other good 
 quality under heaven ; but, wanting this, a man becomes an object 
 of pity to the good, and of contempt to the vile. Look at Mr. Leigh, 
 his brother William, Mr. Wickham, Dr. Brockenbrough, &c., &c., 
 and compare them with the drones which society is impatient to 
 shake from its lap. 
 
 " One of the best and wisest men I ever knew has often said to 
 me, that a decayed family could never recover its loss of rank in the 
 world, until the members of it left off talking and dwelling upon its 
 former opulence. This remark, founded in a long and close observa- 
 tion of mankind, I have seen verified, in num trous instances, in my 
 own connections ; who, to use the words of my oracle, ' will never 
 thrive, until they can become " poor folks :" ' he added, ' they may 
 make some struggles, and with apparent success, to recover lost 
 ground : they may, and sometimes do, get half way up again ; but 
 they are sure to fall back ; unless, reconciling themselves to circum- 
 stances, they ^corne in form, as well as in fact, poor folks.' 
 
 i The blind pursuit of wealth, for the sake of hoarding, is a species 
 of insanity. There are spirits, and not the least worthy, who, con-
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 tent with an humble mediocrity, leave the field of wealth and ambi- 
 tion open to more active, perhaps more guilty, competitors. Nothing 
 can be more respectable than the independence that grows out of 
 self-denial. The man who, by abridging his wants, can find time to 
 devote to the cultivation of his mind, or the aid of his fellow-crea- 
 tures, is a being far above the plodding sons of industry and gain. 
 His is a spirit of the noblest order. But what shall we say to the 
 drone, whom society is eager : to shake from her encumbered lap?' 
 who lounges from place to place, and spends more time in ' Adoniz- 
 ing' his person, even in a morning, than would serve to earn his 
 breakfast ? who is curious in his living, a connoisseur in wines, fas- 
 tidious in his cookery ; but who never knew the luxury of earning a 
 single meal ? Such a creature, ' sponging' from house to house, and 
 always on the borrow, may yet be found in Virginia. One more 
 generation will, I trust, put an end to them ; and their posterity, if 
 they have any, must work or steal directly. 
 
 " Men are like nations : one founds a family, the other an empire : 
 both destined, sooner or later, to decay. This is the way in which 
 ability manifests itself. They who belong to a higher order, like 
 Newton, and Milton, and Shakspeare. leave an imperishable name. 
 I have no quarrel with such as are content with their original obscu- 
 rity, vegetate on from father to son ; ; whose ignoble blood has crept 
 through clodpoles ever since the flood ;" but I cannot respect them. 
 He who contentedly eats the bread of idleness and dependence is 
 beneath contempt. 
 
 " Noscitur e socio. ' Tell me your company and I will tell you 
 what you are.' But there is another description of persons, of far 
 inferior turpitude, against all connection with whom, of whatsoever 
 degree. I would seriously warn you. This consists of men of broken 
 fortunes, and all who are loose on the subject of' pecuniary engage- 
 ments. Time was, when I was fool enough to believe that a man 
 might be negligent of such obligations, and yet a very good fellow, 
 &c. ; but long experience has convinced me that he who is lax in this 
 respect is utterly unworthy of trust in any other. He might do an 
 occasional act of kindness (or what is falsely called generosity) when 
 it lay in his way, and so may a prostitute, or a highwayman ; but he 
 would plunge his nearest friends and dearest connections,- the wife 
 of his bosom, and the children of his loins, into misery and want, 
 rather than forego the momentary gratification of appetite, vanity, or 
 laziness. I have come to this conclusion slowly and painfully, but 
 certainly. Of the Shylocks, and the smooth-visaged men of the 
 world, I think as I believe you do. Certainly, if I were to seek for 
 the hardest of hearts, the most obdurate, unrelenting, and cruel, I 
 should find them among the most selfish of mankind. And who are 
 the most selfish ? The usurer, the courtier, and above all. the spend-
 
 HIS WILL. 
 
 149 
 
 thrift. Try them once as creditors, and you will find, that even the 
 Shylocks, we wot of. are not harder. 
 
 " You know my opinion of female society. Without it, we should 
 degenerate into brutes. This observation applies with tenfold force 
 to young men, and those who are in the prime of manhood ; for, after 
 a certain time of life, the literary man may make a shift (a poor one, 
 I grant) to do without the society of ladies. To a young man, nothing 
 is so important as a spirit of devotion (next to his Creator) to some 
 virtuous and amiable woman, whose image may occupy his heart, and 
 guard it from the pollution which besets it on all sides. Neverthe- 
 less, I trust that your fondness for the company of ^dies may not rob 
 you of the time which ought to be devoted to reading and meditating 
 on your profession ; and, above all, that it may not acquire for you 
 the reputation of dangler in itself bordering on the contemptible, 
 and seriously detrimental to your professional character. A cautious 
 old Squaretoes, who might have no objection to employing such a one 
 at the bar, would, perhaps, be shy of introducing him as a practitioner 
 in his family, in case he should have a pretty daughter, or niece, or 
 sister ; although all experience shows, that of all male animals, the 
 dangler is the most harmless to the ladies, who quickly learn, with 
 the intuitive sagacity of the sex, to make a convenience of him, while 
 he serves for a butt, also. 
 
 " Rely upon it. that to love a woman as ' a mistress,' although a 
 delicious delirium an intoxication far surpassing that of Cham- 
 pagne is altogether unessential, nay, pernicious, in the choice of a 
 wife ; which a man ought to set about in his sober senses, choosing 
 her, as Mrs. Primrose did her wedding-gown, for qualities that ' wear 
 well.' I am well persuaded that few love-matches are happy ones. One 
 thing, at least, is true, that if matrimony has its cares, celibacy has 
 no pleasures. A Newton, or a mere scholar, may find employment in 
 study ; a man of, literary taste can receive, in books, a powerful 
 auxiliary ; but a man must have a bosom friend, and children around 
 him, to cherish and support the dreariness of old age." 
 
 Just as he was about to leave home for Washington, the first of 
 December, 1821, while his horses were at the door, and he booted 
 and spurred, and Johnny and his travelling companion, Richard 
 Randolph, impatiently waiting for him in the cold, Mr. Randolph sat 
 down and wrote his will the will which, after a long contest, was 
 finally established as his last will and testament. 
 
 In May, 1819, he wrote a will, and deposited it with Dr. Brocken- 
 brough. to the following effect : 
 
 " I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience tells 
 me they are justly entitled. It has a long time been a matter of the
 
 150 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 deepest regret to me, that the circumstances under which I inherited 
 them, and the obstacles thrown in the way by the laws of the land, 
 have prevented my emancipating them in my lifetime, which it is my 
 full intention to do, in case I can accomplish it. 
 
 "All the rest and residue of my estate (with the exceptions here- 
 after made), whether real or personal. I bequeath to William Leigh, 
 Esquire, of Halifax, attorney at law, to the Rev. Win. Meade, of 
 Frederick, and to Francis Scott Key, Esqr., of (reorgetown, District 
 of Columbia, in trust, for the following uses and purposes, viz : 
 1st. To provide one or more tracts of land in any of the States or 
 Territories, not exceeding in the whole four thousand acres, nor less 
 than two thousand acres, to be partitioned and apportioned by them. 
 in such manner as to them may seem best, among the said slaves- 
 2d. To pay the expense of their removal, and of furnishing them with 
 necessary cabins, clothes, and utensils." Then follow other pro- 
 visions. The will of 1821 is substantially the same as the above. 
 The first item is : "I give and bequeath to all my slaves their free- 
 dom, heartily regretting that I have ever been the" owner of one. 
 2. I give to my executor a sum not exceeding eight thousand dol- 
 lars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, to transport and settle 
 said slaves to and in some other State or Territory of the United 
 States, giving to all above the age of forty not less than ten acres of 
 land each." 
 
 He then makes a special annuity to his " old and faithful servants. 
 Essex and his wife Hetty " the same allowance to his " woman- 
 servant, Nancy " to Juba (alias Jupiter) to Queen and to Johnny, 
 his body-servant. 
 
 In the codicil of 1 826, he says : " I do hereby confirm the be- 
 quests to or for the benefit of each and every of my slaves, whether 
 by name or otherwise." 
 
 In 1828, ''Being in great extremity, but in my perfect senses," 
 says he, " I write this codicil to my will in the possession of my 
 friend, William Leigh, of Halifax, Esquire, to declare that that will 
 is my sole last will and testament ; and that if any other be found of 
 subsequent date, whether will or codicil, I do hereby revoke the 
 same." 
 
 In a codicil of 183 1, Mr. Randolph says : On the eve of embark- 
 ing for the United States (he was then in London), considering my
 
 HIS WILL. 
 
 feeble health, to say nothing of the dangers of the seas, I add this 
 codicil to my last will and testament and codicils thereto, affirming 
 them all, except so far as they may be inconsistent with the follow- 
 ing disposition of my estate." The third item of disposition is this: 
 - 1 have upwards of two thousand pounds sterling in the hands of Baring 
 Brothers & Co., of London, and upwards of one thousand pounds, 
 like money, in the hands of Gowau and Marx. This money I leave 
 to my executor, Win. Leigh, as a fund for carrying into execution niy 
 will respecting my slaves ; and, in addition to the provision which I 
 have made for my faithful servant John, sometimes callei John 
 White, I charge my whole estate with an annuity to him, during his 
 life, of fifty dollars, and as the only favor I ever asked of any govern- 
 ment, I do entreat the Assembly of Virginia to permit the said John 
 and his family to remain in Virginia." 
 
 And finally, in his dying hour, he gathered witnesses around him : 
 and when the spirit was trembling to escape from the frail tenement 
 that bound it, summoned all his energies in one last moment, and con- 
 firmed, in the most solemn form, before Grod and those witnesses, all 
 the dispositions he had made in his will, in regard to his slaves. 
 " More especially/' said he, " in regard to this man !" bringing down 
 his hand with force and energy on the shoulder of John, who stood 
 weeping beside the couch of his expiring master and greatest benefactor. 
 
 Let the reader pause and reflect on these things ; here are deeds, 
 not promises facts that speak for themselves ; they need no addition, 
 no embellishment. Here is a man who made no pretensions to phi- 
 lanthropy despised the pretence of it. The hypocritical cant, for 
 ever prating about it, pouring forth its cheap abundance of words, but 
 which, unaccompanied with substantial works of true charity, are as 
 sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. Here is a man who cavilled 
 for the nineteenth part of a hair in a matter of sheer right who 
 would admit no compromise in the Missouri question, and was ready 
 to put every thing to hazard in vindication of the rights of the South. 
 ' L I now," says he, on that occasion, ' appeal to this nation, whether 
 this pretended sympathy for the rights of a few free negroes is to su- 
 persede the rights of the free white population, of ten times their whole 
 number." These words were uttered in February, 1821. In Decem- 
 ber following the same man madefrec, and provided for the comfort- 
 able maintenance of three hundre'd negro slaves Is there a man of
 
 }52 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 that majority that voted against him. with all their professed sympa- 
 thy, who would have done likewise ? And how completely has been 
 fulfilled the prophecy of Mr. Randolph, uttered on the occasion of 
 the Missouri agitation " I am persuaded that the cause of humanity 
 to these 'unfortunates, has been put back a century certainly a gene- 
 ration by the unprincipled conduct of ambitious men, availing them- 
 selves of a good as well as of a fanatical spirit, in the nation." 
 
 There can be no doubt, that if the agitation of this lavery ques- 
 tion had not been commenced and fermented by men who had no pos- 
 sible connection with it, and who, from the nature of the case, could 
 have no other motive but political ambition and a spirit of aggression ; 
 had that subject been left as we found it, under the compromises of 
 the Constitution, and the laws of God and conscience, aided by an en- 
 lightened understanding of their true interests been left to work their 
 silent, yet irresistible influences on the minds of men, there can be 
 no doubt that thousands would have followed the example of John 
 Randolph, in Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and that 
 long ere this, measures would have been adopted for the final, though 
 gradual, extinguishment of slavery within their borders ; as it is, that 
 event has again been put oft' for another generation. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 LOG-BOOK AND LETTERS. 
 
 " As one of the very few persons in the world (Dr. Brokenbrough) 
 who really care whether I sink or swim, I am induced to send you 
 the following extract from my log-book : relying on your partiality to 
 excuse the egotism ; and if you experience but the tenth part of the 
 pleasure I felt on reading your account of your November jaunt, I 
 shall be much gratified, as well as yourself : 
 
 21, December 10th, Monday, half-past 11, A. M. Left Rich- 
 mond. Four miles beyond the oaks met Mrs. T b and poor Mrs. 
 
 h. Reached Underwood half-an-hour by run, and pushed on 
 to Suiter's, where I arrived quarter past five. Very comfortable quar- 
 ters. Road heavy. 
 
 . " 1 1th. Tuesday. Breakfasted .at eight A. M., and reached Batta- 
 der by quarter past twelve. Fed my horses and arrived at Freder-
 
 LOG-BOOK AND LETTERS. 
 
 153 
 
 icksburg half-past three. Road heavy. Mansfield lane almost im- 
 passable. Excellent fare at Gray's, and the finest oysters I have seen 
 for this ten year. 
 
 :: 12th, Wednesday. Hard frost. Left Fredericksburg at nine, 
 A. M. Reached Stafford, C. H., at half-past eleven, Dumfries at five 
 minutes past three, P. M., and Occoguon at half-past five. I made 
 no stop except to breathe the horses, from Dumfries to Neabsco., sixty- 
 tive minutes three and a half miles. The five miles beyond Dumfries 
 employed nearly two hours. Roads indescribable. 
 
 ' : 13th, Thursday. Snow; part heavy rain. Waited until meri- 
 dian, when, foreseeing that if the roads froze in their then state, they 
 would be impassable ; and that the waters between me and Alexan- 
 dria would be out perhaps for several days, I set out in the height of 
 the storm, and through a torrent of mud, and water, and sloughs of 
 all degrees of viscidity, I got to Alexandria before five, where a fine 
 canvas-back, and divers other good things, set my blood into circula- 
 tion. 
 
 " 14th, Friday. Bitter cold. Reached Washington half-past 
 eleven. House does not sit to-day. Funeral. No southern mail. 
 Waters out. 
 
 "15th. Very cold. No southern mail. Waters out. Just beyond 
 Pohick I met a man driving a double chair. 
 
 " J. R. ' Pray, sir, can I ford Accotink ?' 
 
 " Traveller. ' If you drive brisk perhaps you may.' 
 
 " J. R. ' Did you cross it, sir ?' 
 
 " T. ' Yes ; but it is rising very fast.' 
 
 " As I pressed my little mare on, or rather as she pushed on after 
 comrade and Johnny, I thought of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour. 
 of the old Gabertunzie, as, in breathless anxiety, they turned the 
 head-land, and found the water-mark under water. Pohick, a most 
 dangerous ford at all times, from the nature of the bend of the stream, 
 which is what is called a kettle-bottom, was behind me, and no retreat 
 and no house better than old Lear's hovel, except the church, where 
 were no materials for a fire. When I reached Accotink, the sand- 
 bank in the middle of the stream was uncovered ; but for near a mile 
 I was up to the saddle-skirts. A great price, my good sir, for the 
 privilege of franking a letter, and the honor of being overlooked by 
 the great men, new as well as old. 
 
 " Just at the bridge over Hunting Creek, beyond Alexandria, I 
 met the mail cart and its solitary driver. The fog was Cimmerian. 
 
 " J. R. ' How far do you go to-night, friend ?' 
 
 ' D. ' To Stafford Court-house, sir. Can I ford the Accotink ?' 
 
 " J. R. ' I think you may ; but it will be impossible before mid- 
 night: I am really sorry for you.' 
 
 " D. ' God bless your honor.' 
 
 VOL. u. .7*
 
 j^4 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ' I am satisfied this poor fellow encounters every night dangers 
 and sufferings in comparison with which those of our heroes are flea 
 bites. 
 
 " Friday morning. Your letter of the 25th (Christmas day) did 
 not reach me until this morning. I have been long mourning over 
 the decline of our old Christmas sports and pastimes, which have 
 given way to a spirit of sullen fanaticism on the one hand, or affected 
 fashionable refinement on the other, which thinly veils the selfishness 
 and inhospitality it is designed to cover. Your own letter may be 
 cited as a proof that I am no grumbler (in this instance at least) at 
 the times, although friend Lancaster, after puffing me in his 'w*y. 
 was moved by the spirit (when I would not subscribe to his books) to 
 say that the character I disclaimed in the H. of R. was the one that 
 fitted me. 'Difficilis, querulus, laudatur temporis acti.' .You date 
 on Christmas day ; you do not make the least mention of the season. 
 into such ' desuetude ' has the commemoration of the nativity of the 
 
 great Redeemer fallen. On the eve of that day P a gave a grand 
 
 diplomatic dinner, at which Messrs, les Envoyes enrages were pre- 
 sent, but held no intercourse. At this dinner J. Q. A. (the cub is a 
 greater bear than the old one) gave this toast, rising from his chair 
 at the time : ' Alexander the Great, Emperor of all the Russias, and 
 
 the Cross.' Cross vs. Crescent, I presume ; and no doubt M. P a 
 
 wrote to his court, announcing ' the disposition of this government 
 towards Russia.' He is a wretched ass (this P.), who is writing a 
 book on America, and whom every body quizzes. Some very laugh- 
 able instances of this have been related to me. Travelling through 
 Ohio, he was as much scandalized as John Wesley by the want of a 
 commodite, and took the host to task about it. The fellow gravely 
 assured him that were he to erect such a temple to a heathen and 
 obscure deity, the people would rise in arms and burn it to the ground : 
 and this mystification completely took, and was clapped down in 
 P 's notes. I expect to see it under the head of state of religion. 
 
 " To return. The next day the parties were reconciled, and all is 
 hushed up. Yesterday. I had the honor of a visit from M. 1'Envoye 
 de sa Majeste tres Chretienne and the Secretary of Legation. This 
 great honor and distinction (for such the folks here deem it) I sus- 
 pect I owe to the exercise of a quality for which I have not, I fear, 
 been greatly distinguished ; I mean discretion ; for, although I was 
 present. I refused to be a referee, when applied to from various quar- 
 ters, on the subject of the quarrel. I did not hesitate to say that cer- 
 tain very offensive words imputed to de N. were not uttered by him ; 
 but I declined giving any account of the matter, except to my old 
 friend, Mr. Macon. and one other person, forbidding the mentioning 
 of my name under the strongest sanctions. 
 
 "On reading over the above. I perceive that it is 'horribly
 
 L'Ki-BOOK AND LETTERS. 155 
 
 stuffed' with scraps of French. This apparent affectation (for it is 
 only apparent) is owing to a silly falling in with the fashion in this 
 place, where the commonest English word or phrase is generally ren- 
 dered in (not always good) French. 
 
 " I showed your letter to my most discreet friend, Mr. Macon. 
 He concurs with me that the first part (relative ^o the chair) of what 
 you heard is pretty much ' all my eye. Betty ; ' but will not agree as 
 to the remainder, which I class under the same head. Else how 
 comes the greatest latitudinarian in our State, and a professed one 
 too. who acknowledges no ' law,' but his favorite one of circumstances, 
 a bank man, or any thing you please, to have received greater and 
 more numerous marks of the favor of the Legislature of Virginia 
 (recent ones too) than any citizen in it, the three last Presidents ex- 
 cepted ? I detest mock-modesty, and will not deny that if I had the 
 disposition, and could undergo the labor, (neither of which is the case.) 
 I might acquire a certain degree of influence in the House, chiefly 
 confined, however, to the small minority of old-fashioned Republicans. 
 As to the first station, there was a time in which I might not have 
 disgraced it, for I had quickness and a perfect knowledge of our 
 rules and orders, with a competent acquaintance with parliamentary 
 law in general. But since the dictatorship of Mr. C y. ' on a change 
 tout cela' (French again), and I am now almost as raw as our newest 
 recruits. Then. t too, I had habits of application to business ; but, 
 my good friend, while I am running on (Alnaschar-like), I protest I 
 
 believe the thought entered no head but Mr. S 's (to whom, of 
 
 course, I am much obliged for his good opinion) ; for no suggestion 
 of the sort ever occurred to me until I read it under your hand. 
 
 " My days of business, of active employment, are over. My judg- 
 ment. I believe, has not deserted me, and when it does, as old George 
 Mason said, I shall be the last person in the world to find it out : 
 my principles I am sure have not ; and if, which God forbid, they 
 should, I shall be the first person to find it out. Till that shall hap- 
 pen. I will be ' the warder on the lonely hill.' 
 
 Why cannot all the honest men (not poor Burr's sort) unite in a 
 man for the presidency who possesses: 1. Integrity, 2. firmness, 3. 
 great political experience, 4. sound judgment and strong common 
 sense, 5. ardent love of country and of its institutions and their spirit. 
 6. unshaken political consistency in the worst of times, 7. manners (if 
 not courtly) correct. I could name such a man. 
 
 " Apropos to Burr. I have been reflecting this morning on the 
 fate of some of the most active and influential (pardon the slang) of 
 them that contributed to effectuate the change in 1800-1. Burr 
 stands foremost ; Ned. Livingston ; W. C. N. ! though last, not least. 
 It is mournful to think on I might mention a good many more who 
 played an under part in the drama, such as Duane. Merriwether, 
 Jones. &c.. &c."
 
 156 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 In the appropriation bill for the ensuing year, there was a large 
 undefined appropriation for the Indian Department asked for by the 
 Secretary of War, and was understood to be intended to cover up a 
 deficiency of the past year. Mr. Randolph, the 4th of January, 1822, 
 moved a re-commitment of the bill. 
 
 " Unreasonable jealousy of the Executive Government," said he, 
 often led to the opposite extreme a blind confidence in the govern- 
 ing power. From this jealousy md confidence he felt himself free. 
 He believed that this House also was as free from unreasonable 
 jealousy as any reasonable body ought to be. In fact, jealousy in 
 public life was like that same ' green-eyed monster' in the domestic 
 circle, which poisoned the source of all social happiness. It was 
 extraordinary, and yet apparent, that the case had occurred in which 
 confidence had lost its true character, and taken another, which he 
 would not name in this House. It was remarkable, as well on the 
 other side of the Atlantic as this, that a general suspicion had gone 
 abroad, that the department which emphatically holds the purse- 
 strings of the nation, was more remiss than any other in guarding 
 against the expenditure of its subordinate agents. If it should be 
 generally and unanswerably understood, that the body whose duty 
 it was to guard the public treasure from wasteful expenditure, had 
 abandoned their trust to a blind confidence in the dispensers of pub- 
 lic patronage, they must immediately and justly lose all the confi- 
 dence of the community. He had heard yesterday, with astonish- 
 ment, a proposition to surrender inquiry to a confidence in the 
 integrity and ability in the officer who had made the requisition. 
 When this House should be disposed to become a mere chamber in 
 which to register the edicts, not of the President, but of the heads of 
 departments it would be unimportant whether the members of this 
 House professed to represent 35.000 freemen, or collectively the 
 single borough of Sarum. This proceeding was to him unprece- 
 dented. * He would give to the Government his confidence 
 when it was necessary, and he would not give it to the Government, 
 nor to any man further than that, unless to his bosom friend. But 
 there was a wide difference between voting for an advance for the 
 service of the current year, and voting for the same sum to cover a 
 deficiency of the past year, under cover of an advance for the present 
 year." 
 
 The same day, January 4th, before making the above speech, he 
 thus writes to Dr. Brockenbrough : 
 
 " A question will come on to-day respecting an appropriation, 
 ostensibly in advance (or ; on account,' as trading folks say) of the 
 military expenditures of the current year : but really to cover a defi-
 
 LOG-BOOK AND LETTERS. ^57 
 
 ciency (or excess of expenditure) for the last year. The sum is only 
 $100,000; yet, my word for it! this honest gentleman (who had 
 kept him up half a night to win back a few dollars) will vote it with- 
 out the least scruple, at the nod of an executive officer. In short, 
 the greater part of us view with equal eye 
 
 ' The public million and the private groat.' 
 
 n The ' arguments' yesterday, when the question was pending, 
 were ' Having the fullest confidence in the head of the war depart- 
 ment ;' ' can any gentleman believe or suppose that the Secretary of 
 War could ask an improper appropriation,' &c., &c., all to the same 
 tune ; and although Tracey, of New- York, and Trimble, of Kentucky. 
 
 distinctly opposed the imposition, that old sinner, of ' MarlandJ 
 
 by sheer force of lungs, induced some right well-meaning people to 
 think the objections (which they did not understand, nor the answer 
 
 neither) satisfactorily repelled. Even L s, with whom I dined, 
 
 agreed that the thing was wrong ; said he had told S. S. it ought to 
 be in a separate grant, expressive of its true character ; but that S. 
 said ' he did not like to trust it,' and so thrust it in the partial appro- 
 priation bill for 1822, where he hoped, no doubt, it would pass unob- 
 served. 
 
 "By the way, I believe I wrote that C n had 'accepted.' 
 
 He and L. are, I think, shot dead by their want of retenue. More 
 French, and I am not sure that it is good French. 
 
 " On the day of your ' debauch,' I dined with Van Buren and the 
 whole New- York delegation in both Houses, with the V. P. at their 
 head. Although it no doubt had a meaning like ' the shake of the 
 head' in the ' Critic,' I did not exactly find it out, but I believe I was 
 not far off the true construction. Many here think that neither 
 
 C n, nor C : s, nor C y will be ' run' that this is but a 
 
 ruse de guerre to weaken C d and of course strengthen the East- 
 ern and Northern interest. 
 
 " Since I came to the House, Baldwin, speaking of the present 
 candidate, said to me " The people ought to put down (I trust they 
 will) every man who has put himself forward at this premature time.' 
 I left my letter open for what I might hear, and I have heard nothing 
 else." 
 
 " Washington, Jan. 13, 1822. My good friend I had taken it 
 for granted that you were gone. Orpheus like, to fetch your wife from 
 the infernal regions, or at least through infernal ways, when I received, 
 this morning, your welcome letter of Friday (the 1 1th). The truth 
 is, I am disappointed by the Enquirer, and so you may tell him. Al- 
 though it is not very desirable to be studiously misrepresented and 
 caricatured to the rest of the States, yet I was fain to content myself 
 with standing (substantially at least, if not in form) on my own title,
 
 158 ~IFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 with the good people of poor old Virginia (God help her !) through 
 the medium of the Enquirer. When any of the courtiers are to speak, 
 
 Gr s takes his seat in his box, and makes the best report he can : 
 
 e. g. McD 's speech, which is greatly softened in point of arro- 
 gance, and which is much improved by the total omission of the sui- 
 cidal declaration towards its close, that the money was wanting ' to 
 pay vouched accounts then lying on the Secretary of War's table.' 
 When one of the country party speak, the duty is devolved upon an 
 incapable deputy : but mere incapacity will not account for such man- 
 ifest and repeated perversions. Take the following as some among 
 the most glaring in the last report of a speech which satisfied many 
 others much more than it did its author. (Here follow numerous cor- 
 rections of the report alluded to.) 
 
 " The words for which I was called to order by S.. are not those 
 stated in the report. Those words were subsequently used I said 
 not one syllable about the soldiers ' dealing in perfumery.' What the 
 creature means I can't even divine. In short, it may be considered 
 as the greatest outrage of the sort ever committed." 
 
 i; Tuesday. Jan. 15. 1822. I wrote you a letter the day before 
 yesterday, in a character that might have passed for Sir Anthony 
 Scrabblestone's. You no doubt remember that old acquaintance of 
 our reverend friend the holy Clerk of Copmanhurst. and are full as 
 well acquainted with his handwriting as that pious anchorite was 
 with" his person. However, I have (in addition to the apology that 
 my implements are furnished by contract) the further justification of 
 my Lord Arlington's high authority. 
 
 Did you preserve the Baltimore paper that contained No. 1 8, of 
 ; a Native Virginian?' Nos. 19 and 20 have since been sent me. 
 They are well written, and unanswered, if not unanswerable. Had 
 they appeared in a paper of general circulation, and one that possess- 
 ed any share of public confidence, they would, I think, have produced 
 some effect, if indeed the public be not dead to all sensation. 
 
 " There is a young man here by the name of Chiles, making re- 
 ports of our proceedings for the ' Boston Daily Advertiser.' Mr. 
 .ills of the Senate (from Massachusetts) gave me his report of the 
 doings of Friday, the 4th instant with the help of such a report as 
 that. I could have given Mr. Ritchie what I said almost verbatim. 
 But the truth is, that after the occasion passes away, I can seldom re- 
 call what I said until lam put in mind, by what I did not say, or by 
 some catch-word ; at the same time, I have given Mr. Ritchie the 
 substance, and, where any particular word or incident occurred, the 
 x-ry language that I used. I am determined, hereafter, to wait for 
 * report from Boston, and with a slight alteration, when neces- 
 [ will sond it to the Enquirer. The N. I. does not condense as 
 he pretends. Of all the speeches made on the subject, it was the
 
 LOG-BOOK AND LETTERS 
 
 159 
 
 longest and the most audible. In the report it is one of the shortest, 
 and yet stuffed with expletives not used by me, as well as perver- 
 sions of meaning. There is no mistaking this, when continually oc- 
 curring. 
 
 " The discussion of the M. A. bill has done me no service." 
 
 " Jan. 18. 1822. I'm afraid you think me such a tiresome ego- 
 tist that you are fain to drop my correspondence. To say the truth, 
 I am vexed at being made to talk such nonsense, and bad English 
 into the bargain 'proven' cum multis aliis ejusdem farinae, familiar 
 enough, indeed, to congressional ears, but which never escaped from 
 my lips. 
 
 u There is a very impudent letter in Walsh, which I half suspect 
 he wrote to himself ' hungry mouths to stop, and dogs not above 
 eating dirty pudding' must sound peculiarly offensive in his ears, 
 since he could not even get the run of the kitchen when he was here 
 in 1816-17. At that time he had the effrontery to tell me to my 
 face, that he had no doubt I was far more eloquent than Patrick 
 Henry. The Intelligencer puts words into my mouth that I never 
 uttered, and these furnish the basis of Mr. W.'s comments, with those 
 great critics and annotators for ' debate.' read ' detail ' (which I 
 said neither health nor inclination allowed me to enter into), and 
 what becomes of the comment ? Of one thing I am sure, that the 
 House is not yet becoming tired of me ; and I shall take especial 
 care that it do not." 
 
 " Jan. 19. My avocations are such, that my time, like my 
 money, runs away in driblets, without producing an l effeck.' I have 
 more than once thought of using my pen in some other way besides 
 scribbling to you : but, some how or other, I can find none so pleasant, 
 and time is always wanting. I have read nothing, but have been 
 very-much in company. Like the long waists of our mothers. I really 
 believe I am growing, if not generally, at least somewhat, in fashion. 
 But I hope I am not so old a fool as to presume upon this ; for of all 
 fools, an old one is the least tolerable. 
 
 ' ; Like most parvenus, the man you mention is a sorry black- 
 guard, in dress, manners, figure (a complete paddy), countenance, 
 and principle. I could have given him 'such a sackfull of sair 
 bones,' that ha could have borne the marks to his grave. But I pur- 
 posely abstained from the slightest notice of him. It is not the least 
 of our success against temptation, to suppress the overwhelming re 
 tort, and, just as it rises to the tongue, to give a good gulp and swal- 
 low it." 
 
 Peb, 1. You will see a correction of Grales's in yesterday's Intel- 
 ligencer. He has restored the words that I used, almost verbatim. 
 They were these : ' Transubstautiation, I was going to say ; but I 
 would not, from respect to a numerous and most respectable class of
 
 160 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 persons ; but would say, as auy in priestcraft, kingcraft, or another 
 craft which (as great as is the Diana of the Ephesians !) I would not 
 name.' Yet I have received an indignant remonstrance from a 
 Roman Catholic of "Washington City, ' on my invective against that 
 sect,' of which you may see some notice in to-morrow's Moniteur. 
 
 Administration is sunk into much contempt with our House, and 
 the other too. They hail from ' four corners.' Instead of Dana's 
 triangular war,' we have a quadrangular one. They must dissolve 
 in their own imbecility. By the way, I want my ' native Virginian,' 
 when you are done with him. 
 
 I trust the Virginian Government will not be weak enough to 
 dismiss the " claim " of Kentucky. I suspect it was got up to defray 
 C s' electioneering campaign for the winter." 
 
 " Feb. 7. I am at last gratified by a letter from you. To say 
 the truth, I had rather, much rather, that the thing had not ap- 
 peared ; but as to ' being affronted ' at it, that was out of the ques- 
 tion. Indeed, if I do not egregiously deceive myself, a great change 
 has been wrought in my character. I am become quiet and sedate 
 torpid, if you will but much less disposed to take or give offence 
 than I once was. This remark is made, not in reference to the little 
 incident above alluded to, but in that vein of egotism to which I am 
 too prone. 
 
 " You do right in endeavoring to reconcile L. and T. ; but in the 
 course of my observation, I cannot recall a single instance of cordi- 
 ality between reconciled friends. Poor human nature ! The view 
 which I am compelled to take of it every day, augments my pity for 
 it. We dare not trust ourselves with the truth. It is too terrible. 
 Hence the whole world is in masquerade. ' Words were invented,' 
 said Talleyrand, ' to conceal our thoughts.' Hence, a conventional 
 language, in which it is understood that things are never tu be 
 called by their right names, and which at last ceases to answer its 
 original design, except with the vulgar great and small. 
 
 ' I must be a very uncommon personage to ' astonish all the 
 world' with what Ida not do. Since I am not able to astonish them 
 with my exploits, it is very good in them to be negatively charged on 
 my account. I heartily wish that I had never given them any other 
 cause of wonder. 
 
 " Poor T. T r ! I know his disease. It has been killing me 
 
 wch-meal, a long, long while. Give him my best regards. It is a 
 dreadful thing to find out, as he has done, too late, what stuff the 
 world is made of; to have an illusion dispelled that made life agree- 
 able to us. Did you ever read ' Cobbett's Sermons,' or his ' Cottage 
 Economy ?' If not, pray do. They are written with great originality 
 and power, and I heartily wish they were in the hands of all who 
 can read.
 
 THE APPORTIONMENT BILL. Igj 
 
 " There has been a great deal of stuff uttered in our House for 
 the last two or three days. It has degenerated into a mere bear 
 garden ; and, really, when I see strangers on the platform, I feel 
 ashamed of belonging to the body. I have been a good deal pressed 
 to join the squabble ; for it don't deserve the name of debate ; but I 
 have refrained, if the expression can be applied, where, instead of 
 desire, one feels only disgust. I have not yet seen the Chief Justice, 
 although we have exchanged visits. I am glad *o hear that you in- 
 tend to ' write again soon.' If you knew the feeling I have when a 
 letter from you is brought in, you would shower them down like snow. 
 My health and spirits are incurably bad. If I can raise the money, 
 I mean to dissipate my chagrin and ennui in some foreign land. In- 
 cessant change of place, and absence of all occupation, seem indis- 
 pensable to my tolerable existence. I am become almost reconciled 
 to pain ; but there is a sensation of another sort that is worse than 
 death. Familiar as I am to it, it serves but to increase its misery. 
 At this moment, I am obliged to relinquish my pen from the com- 
 bined effects of bodily disease and mental distress. Adieu. 
 
 J. R. OF R. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE APPORTIONMENT BILL. 
 
 " GOVERNMENT, to be safe and to be free, must consist of Representatives having a 
 common interest and a common feeling with the represented." JOHN RAN- 
 DOLPH. 
 
 THE great business of the session was the apportionment of repre- 
 sentatives among the States, according to the new census. It seems 
 to have been the policy of Congress, as the population increased, to 
 increase the ratio of representation from decade to decade, so as to 
 keep down the numbers of the House of Representatives. This sub- 
 l"ect was one of exciting interest to all parties. None felt more deeply 
 than Mr. Randolph, not only the importance of the principles involved 
 but the serious influence the new apportionment was likely to have 
 on the relative weight and standing of the old Commonwealth which 
 he had been so proud to represent for so many years, as the Empire 
 State. " Yesterday I rose, (says he, the 7th of February, the day tho 
 question was taken) at 3, and to-day at 2 ; A. M. I cannot sleep.
 
 162 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Two bottles of champagne, or a dozen of gas, could not have excited 
 me like this apportionment bill." 
 
 A variety of propositions werp made to fix the ratio, ranging from 
 35,000 to 75,000. The committee reported 40.000. Mr. Tucker, of 
 Virginia, proposed 38,000. By the ratio of the committee. Virginia 
 would lose one member, and fall below New-York and Pennsylvania. 
 By the ratio of Mr. Tucker she would retain her present delegation in 
 Congress. Mr. Randolph was in favor of the latter proposition. But 
 his arguments reach far beyond the particular interest his own State 
 had in the question. They are profound and statesmanlike are wor- 
 thy of our most serious consideration and the principle they evolve 
 should be made a cardinal doctine in the creed of those who hold that 
 the responsibility of the representative the independence and sover- 
 eignty of the States, and the cautious action of the Federal Govern- 
 ment on the subjects strictly limited to it. are the only sound rules 
 for interpreting the Constitution. The danger is in having too small 
 a representation. No country was ever ruined by the expense of its 
 legislation ; better pay an army of legislators than an army of soldiers. 
 
 - 1 cannot enter into the reasoning," said Mr. Randolph, " which 
 goes to show that two huhdred members, or this ratio of 42,000, or 
 what not. is to serve some great political purpose, whilst one member 
 more or less, or 1000 in the ratio, more or less, would produce a ca- 
 lamitous effect. To such prescience which could discover such impor- 
 tant effects from such causes he had no claim ; but this he would say, 
 it was made an objection to the Constitution by some of the greatest 
 men this country ever produced, and perhaps as great as it ever would 
 produce. It was, in itself, a vital objection to George Mason's putting 
 his hand to the Constitution, that the representation in Congress was 
 limited not to exceed one member for every 30,000 souls, whilst on 
 the other hand, a most unbounded discussion was given over the in- 
 crease of the ratio. It was an objection to the Constitution, on the 
 part of some of the wisest men this country ever produced. It was an 
 objection on the part of Patrick Henry, whose doubts, I need not ask 
 you, Mr. Speaker, to recur to. I fear you have been too familiar 
 with them in the shape of verified predictions, whose doubts experi- 
 ence has proved to be prophetic. On a question of this sort, shall we 
 be told of the expense of compensating a few additional members of 
 this body? He knew \ve had. in a civil point of view, perhaps the 
 most expensive government under the sun. We had, taking one gen- 
 tleman's declaration, an army of legislators. There was a time, and he 
 wished he^uight live to see it again, when the legislators of the country
 
 THE APPORTIONMENT BILL. 163 
 
 outnumbered the rank and file of the army, and the officers to boot. 
 I wish I may see it again. Did any man ever hear of a country ru- 
 ined by the expense of its legislation ? Yes, as the sheep are ruined 
 by so much as is required for the nourishment of the dogs. As to 
 the civil list, to pay a host of legislators, is it this pay that has run 
 up the national debt 1 Is it their pay that produces defalcations of 
 the revenue 1 Did mortal man ever hear of a country that was ru- 
 ined by the expense of its civil list, and more especially by the legis 
 lative branch of it ? We must take a number that is convenient for 
 business, and at the same time sufficiently great to represent the in- 
 terests of this great empire. This empire, he was obliged to say, 
 for the term republic had gone out of fashion. He would warn, not 
 this House, for they stood in no need cf it, but the good, easy, sus- 
 ceptible people of this country, against the empiricism in politics, 
 against the delusion that because a government is representative, 
 equally representative, if you will, it must therefore be free. Govern- 
 ment, to be safe and to be free, must consist of representatives having 
 a common interest and common feeling with the represented. 
 
 When I hear of settlements at the Council Bluffs, and of bills for 
 taking possession of the mouth of the Columbia River, I turn, not a 
 deaf ear, but an ear of a different sort to the sad vaticination of 
 what is to happen in the length of time : believing, as I do, that 
 no government extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific can be fit 
 to govern me, or those whom I represent. There is death in the pot, 
 compound it how you will. No such government can exist, because it 
 must want the common feeling and common interest with the govern- 
 ed, which is indispensable to its existence. * * * * The first House 
 of Representatives consisted of but sixty-five members. Mr. Ran- 
 dolph said he well remembered that House. He saw it often, and 
 that very fact was, he said, to him a serious objection to so smaL a 
 representation on this floor. The truth is, said he, we came out of 
 the old Constitution in a chrysalis state, under unhappy auspices. 
 The members of the body that framed the Constitution were second 
 to none in respectability. But they had been so long without power, 
 they had so long seen the evils of a government without power, that 
 it begot in them a general disposition to have king Stork substituted 
 for king Log. They organized a Congress to consist of a small num- 
 ber of members, and what was the consequence ? Every one in the 
 slightest degree conversant with the subject must know, that on the 
 first step in any government depends, in a great degree, the charac- 
 ter and complexion of that government. What, I repeat, was the 
 consequence of the then limited number of the representative body ? 
 Many, very many, indeed all that could be called fundamental laws, 
 were passed by a majority, which, in the aggregate, hardly exceeded in 
 number the committee which was the other day appointed to bring in
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 the bill now on your table ; and thereby, said he, hangs (not a tale, 
 but) very serious ones, which it is improper to open here and now. 
 Among the other blessings which we have received from past legisla- 
 tion, we should not have been sitting at this place if there had been 
 a different representation. Those who administered the government 
 were in a hurry to go into the business of legislation before they 
 were ready and here I must advert to what had been said with re- 
 gard to the redundance of debate. For my part, said he, I wish we 
 could have done nothing but talk, unless, indeed, we had gone to 
 sleep for many years past ; and coinciding in the sentiment which 
 had fallen from the gentlemen from New- York, give me fifty speeches. 
 I care not how dull or how stupid, rather than one law on the 
 statute book ; and if I could once see a Congress meet and adjourn 
 without passing any act whatever. I should hail it as one of the most 
 acceptable omens. * * * * The case of a State wisely governed by 
 its legislature, that of Connecticut, for example," he argued, " would 
 be preposterously applied to this government, representing as it does 
 more than a million of square miles, and more than twenty millions 
 of people, for such ere long would be the amount of our population. 
 To say that 200 shall be the amount of our representation, and then 
 to proportion that number among the States, would be putting the 
 cart before the horse, or making a suit of clothes for a man and then 
 taking his measure. The number of representatives ought to be suf- 
 ficient to enable the constituent to maintain with the representative 
 that relation without which representative government was as great a 
 cheat as transubstantiation he was going to say but would not, 
 from respect to a numerous and most respectable class of persons, 
 but he ^vould say, as any priest-craft, king-craft, or another craft, 
 which (as great is the Diana of the Ephesians !) he would not name 
 When I hear it proposed elsewhere to limit the numbers of the re- 
 presentatives of the people on this floor, I feel disposed to return 
 the answer of Agesilaus when the Spartans were asked for their 
 arms : come and take them !' It appeared to be the opinion of some 
 gentlemen, who seemed to think that He who made the world should, 
 have consulted them about it, that our population would go 'on in- 
 creasing, till it exceeded the limits of the theory of our representative 
 government. He rememberered a case in which it had been seriously 
 proposed, and by a learned gentleman too, that inasmuch as one of 
 his brethren was increasing his property in a certain ratio, in the 
 course of time it would amount, by progressive increase, to the value 
 of the whole world, and this man would thus become master of 
 the world. These calculations would serve as charades, conun- 
 drums, and such matters, calculated to amuse the respectable 
 class (much interested in such matters) of old maids and old bache- 
 lors, of which Mr. R said he was a most unfortunate member. To 
 this objection, that the number of the House would soon become
 
 THE APPORTIONMENT BILL. 
 
 too great, to this bugbear it was sufficient to reply, that when the 
 case occurred it would be time to provide for it. We will not take 
 the physic before we are sick, remembering the old Italian epitaph, 
 : I was well, I would be better, I took physic, and here I am.' * * * * 
 He was in favor of making the House as numerous as the Consti- 
 tution would permit, always keeping within such a number as would 
 not be inconvenient to the House for the transaction of business. 
 For, in tha.t respect, the legislature of a little Greek or Swiss repub- 
 lic might be as numerous as that of the Kingdom of Great Britain. 
 The only limit was, the capacity to do business in one chamber ; and 
 it was desirable to have as great a number as would keep on this side 
 of a mob. 
 
 " One of the most profound female writers of the present age 
 and, perhaps, he might amend by striking out the word female had 
 pointed out the superiority of the legislative body of England over 
 that of France, from the circumstance that, of the British Parlia- 
 ment, no man is permitted to read a speech, but is obliged to pro- 
 nounce it extempore ; while in the French Legislative Assembly, the 
 rage for making speeches was excited by the usage, that any member 
 who could manufacture one, or get some one else to do it for him, 
 ascended the tribune, and delivered, and afterwards published it ; 
 and hence their notion, that an assembly of more than one hundred, 
 if composed of Newtons, might be called a mob. The practice in 
 England naturally forced out the abilities of the house. The speaker 
 was obliged to draw on his own intellectual resources, and upon those 
 talents with which heaven had endowed him. Talents descend from 
 heaven ; they are the gift of God ; no patent of nobility can confer 
 them ; and he whAad the right, beyond a monarch's power to grant, 
 did conduct the public affairs of the country. By the contrary prac- 
 tice, awarding to Madame De Stael, the French nation was cheated, 
 and men passed for more than they were worth. * * A gentle- 
 
 man from Georgia had feared a large ratio would introduce an oli- 
 garchy. But it would be recollected that our government, in its 
 head, was monarchical. It was useless to quarrel about words, for 
 such is the fact : and. as some writers say, not the best form of mo- 
 narchy, the elective : but on this he would express no opinion. There 
 was another body that was oligarchical the Senate, and an oligar- 
 chy of the worst, for the representatives of the State sovereignties 
 were not revocable by them. What would become of the House of 
 Representatives if the whole rays of Executive influence were to be 
 concentrated upon it ? It would be consumed, or, like a diamond 
 under a lens, would evaporate. Nevertheless, there were dull speeches 
 delivered in the Houses of Parliament, as well as here. Witness 
 those of Mr. Fuller, or of Mr. Drake. This was one of those cases 
 in which the maxim de morluis nil nisi bonum did not hold. He 
 complained of the growtli of the contingent expenses of the House.
 
 166 LIFE OF. JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 which had been incurred for the accommodation of the members, in a 
 profusion of stationery, easy arm-chairs, and a mass of printed docu- 
 ments that nobody reads ! These accommodations, like those at 
 Banks, did no good to those who made use of them. He believed 
 that an increased ratio would be one of the means of getting rid of 
 these incumbrances." 
 
 These observations are worthy of most serious consideration. IB 
 the opinion of Mr. Kandolph, an enlargement of the numbers of the 
 House of Representatives would, in the end, produce an economy of 
 expenditure for their own accommodation, would reduce the chances 
 of executive influence, give a more immediate and responsible repre- 
 sentation to the people, enlarge the field of political interest in the 
 country, by bringing the representative and the represented more 
 closely together, would lessen the propensity, and take away the faci- 
 lities for sectional combinations and partial and unconstitutional 
 legislation, more effectually call forth the real talent and patriotism 
 of the House, and add to the weight and respectability of the States. 
 which are the only opposing forces and counterweights to the strong 
 centripetal tendencies of the Federal Government. These are results 
 greatly to be desired. The wisest men foresaw the dangers of too 
 small a representation. It was a serious objection to the Constitu- 
 tion. We have felt the evil consequences in more ways than one. 
 Let the evil be remedied : reduce the army : red^e the navy ; they 
 have almost become useless in our vastly-extendedierritory and com- 
 manding position. Build no more fortifications ; build no more ships 
 but steam-ships, and make them useful as mail-carriers and explorers 
 of unknown regions. Abolish the land system (which is expensive). 
 and sell out to the States the public lands within their respective 
 borders. Collect no more revenue than is needed for an economical 
 administration of the government. Increase the representatives ot 
 the people in Congress ; let them avoid all doubtful* questions ; con- 
 fine themselves to the few subjects of a common interest, specifically 
 delegated, and proceed on the maxim, that a " wise and masterly in- 
 at-tivity'' in the science of legislation, as well as in the practice of the 
 healing art. is the truest evidence of wisdom and prudence. When 
 these things are done, then the great danger so much apprehended 
 by our fathers need no longer to be the cause of uneasiness to their 
 Children, and w<- may go on adding State after State until our Fede- 
 rative Union shall overspread the whole continent. The truth is.
 
 THE APPORTIONMENT BILL. Ig7 
 
 the addition of States from different sections of widely-divtj/sified and 
 opposing interests has done more than any thing else to bring back 
 the action of the government to its legitimate sphere, by diminishing 
 the chances and the desire of sectional combinations. 
 
 Mr. Randolph's efforts were all in vain. The ratio was fixed at 
 40,000 On the 6th of February, by means of the previous question, 
 the bill was carried by a vote of nearly two to one, and Virginia, 
 henceforth, had to take her rank, in numerical strength at least, as 
 a second or third-rate State. Mr. Randolph spoke most feelingly on 
 the occasion. 
 
 " I confess," said he, " that I have (and I am not ashamed to own 
 it) an hereditary attachment to the State that gave me birth. I shall 
 act upon it as long as I act upon this floor, or any where else. I 
 shall feel it when I am no longer capable of acting any where. But 
 I beg gentlemen to bear in mind, if we feel the throes and agonies 
 which they impute to us at the sight of our departing power, there is 
 something in fallen greatness, though it be in the person of a despot 
 something to enlist the passions and feelings of men, even against 
 their reason. Bonaparte himself believed he had those who sympa- 
 thized with him. But if such be our condition if we are really so 
 extremely sensitive on this subject do not gentlemen recollect the 
 application of another received maxim in regard to sudden, I will 
 not say upstart, elevation, that some who are once set on horseback, 
 know not, nor care not, which way they ride ? I am a man of 
 peace. With Bishop Hall, I take no shame to myself for making 
 overtures of pacification, when I have unwittingly offended. But. 
 sir, I cannot permit, whatever liberties may be taken with me, I can- 
 not permit any that may be taken with the State of Virginia to pass 
 unnoticed on this floor. I hope the notice which I shall always take 
 of them will be such as not only becomes a member of this House, 
 but the dignity of that ancient State." 
 
 While the star of Virginia was in the ascendant, and her do- 
 minion was acknowledged by all. her course was one of self-sacrifice. 
 A royal domain she surrendered as a peace-offering to the Confede 
 ration ; she exhausted her own resources to fill the common treasury ; 
 ever careful of the rights of others, she neglected her own, and stu 
 died more the common welfare than her private interest. No statuh 
 can rise up and condemn her as mean or selfish, unjust or wasteful 
 
 Let those who are now in the ascendant go and do likrv. 
 above all, let them take care that the maxim given by Mr. Randolph 
 as a warning, prove not prophetic " that some who" (by sudden <!<
 
 168 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 vation) are once set on horseback, know not, nor care not, which 
 way they ride." 
 
 >'ext day after the passage of the bill. Mr. Randolph thus writes 
 to his friend Brockenbrough. 
 
 Washington, Thursday, 4 o'clock p. M., Feb. 7, 1822. 
 From Dudley's letter, written the day after the event, I had an- 
 ticipated the cause of my not having heard from you within the 
 week. My good friend, " neither can I write," but for a different 
 reason. I am now down, abraded., by long-continued stretch of mind 
 and feeling. We may now cry out " Ichabod, :> for our glory is de- 
 parted. I made last night my final effort to retrieve our fortunes, 
 and the Virginia delegation (to do them justice, sensible when too 
 late of their error) did what they could to second me. I do them 
 this justice with pleasure, if there was one I did not note the excep- 
 tion. Had they supported me from the first, we could have carried 
 
 38,000 or 38.500. S e of W e got alarmed at my earnest 
 
 deprecation of the conduct of the majority, of which he was one, 
 
 and came to me repeatedly, and tried to retrace his steps. So did 
 
 some others (i. e. "try back "), but the mischief had gone too far to 
 
 be remedied. Our fathers have eaten grapes, and my teeth, at least, 
 
 are set on edge. I am sensible that I have spoken too much, and 
 
 perhaps my friends at a distance may think me more faulty in this 
 
 respect than they would do, had they been on the spot for since my 
 
 first (also unpublished) opposition to the u Yazoo " bill, I have never 
 
 spoken with such effect upon the House, as on Saturday last : a^d 
 
 I am certain by their profound attention last night, that I lost no 
 
 thing even with them that divided against me, at least the far greater 
 
 part of them. If in this I shall find by the representation of others 
 
 that my self-love has deceived me. I will be more than ever on my 
 
 guard against that desperately wicked and most deceitful of all 
 
 things, my own heart. I pray you, therefore, not to have the fear of 
 
 the Archbishop of Grenada before your eyes, but tell me truly, if I 
 
 am mistaken. This you can readily learn through Mr. Ritchie, to 
 
 whom please show this letter, or through some of our assembly men, 
 
 or others, who have correspondents here. I do not want to know 
 
 the source whence your information comes ; nor yet am I setting a 
 
 clap-trap, vain as I am (for vanity I know is imputed to me by my 
 
 enemies, and I fear (as has been said) that they come nearer the 
 
 truth of one's character than our friends do), and sweet as applause 
 
 is, (Dr. South says of the seekers of praise, that they search for 
 
 what ' flashes for a moment in the face like lightning, and perhaps 
 
 says he, it hurts the man.") I fish for no opinion on the character 
 
 of my endeavors to render public service, except as regards their 
 
 too frequent repetition ; it is rather to obtain the means of hereafter 
 
 avoiding censure that this request is made.
 
 DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 PINCKNEY, MARSHALL, TAZEWELL DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE. 
 
 MONDAY, the 25th of February, Mr. Randolph prematurely an- 
 nounced the death of William Pinckney, a Senator from Maryland, 
 and a distinguished jurist and orator. He had obtained the infor- 
 mation from one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, who came iu 
 while the House was in session, and gave the information to Mr. Ran- 
 dolph as coming from a gentleman of the bar, who told him he had 
 seen the corpse. Mr. Randolph immediately rose and pronounced 
 the following eulogy, which, considering that it was sudden and ex- 
 temporaneous, is unsurpassed in eloquence: 
 
 He arose to announce to the House the death of a man who filled 
 the first place, in public estimation, in the first profession in that es- 
 timation, in this or any other country : 
 
 " We have been talking," says he, " of General Jackson, and a 
 greater man than he is not here, but gone for ever ! I allude, sir, to 
 the boast of Maryland and the pride of the United States the pride 
 of us all, and particularly the pride and ornament of that profession 
 of which you, Mr. Speaker (Stephenson), are a member, and an emi 
 nent one. He was a man with whom I lived when a member of this 
 House ; and a new one too ; and ever since he left it for the other ] 
 spaak it with pride in habits not merely negatively friendly, but of 
 kindliness and cordiality. The last time I saw him was on Saturday, the 
 last Saturday but one, in the pride of life and full possession and vit^r 
 of all his faculties, in that lobby. He is now gone to his account (for 
 as the tree falls so it must lie), where we must all go where I must 
 soon go. and by the same road, too the course of nature ; and when.* 
 all of us, put off the evil day as long as we may, must also soon go 
 For what is the past but a span ; and which of us can look forward to 
 as many years as we have lived ? The last act of intercourse between 
 us was an act, the recollection of which I would not be without for 
 all the offices that all the men of the United States have filled or ever 
 shall fill. He had, indeed, his faults, his foibles ; I should rather say 
 sins. Who is without them? Let such, such only, cast the first 
 stone. And these foibles, if you will, which every body could see. 
 because every body is clear-sighted with regard to the faults and foi- 
 bles of others, he, I have no doubt, would have been the first to ac- 
 knowledge, on a proper representation of them. Every thing now is 
 
 VOL. II. 8
 
 170 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 hidden from us not, God forbid, that utter darkness rests upon the 
 grave, which, hideous as it is, is lighted, cheered, and warmed with 
 light from heaven ; not the impious fire fabled to be stolen from 
 heaven by the heathen, but by the Spirit of the living God. whom we 
 all profess to worship, and whom I hope" we shall spend the remainder 
 of the day in worshipping ; not with mouth honor, but in our hearts, 
 in spirit and in truth ; that it may not be said of us also, ; This people 
 draweth nigh unto me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 
 Yes, it is just so ; he is gone. I will not say that our loss is irrepar- 
 able, because such a man as has existed may exist again. There has 
 been a Homer, there has been a Shakspeare, there has been a Mil- 
 ton, there has been a Newton. There may be another Piuekney. but 
 there is none now. And it was to announce this event that I have 
 risen. I am almost inclined to believe in presentiments. I have 
 been all along, as well assured of the fatal termination of that disease 
 with which he was afflicted as I am now ; and I have dragged my 
 weary limbs before sunrise, to the door of his sick chamber (for I 
 would not intrude on the sacred grief of the family), almost every 
 morning since his illness. From the first, I had almost no hope." 
 
 In these early and pious visitations to the sick chamber of virtue 
 and genius, he was frequently accompanied by the Chief Justice. 
 What a beautiful and touching tribute to the memory of Pinckney. 
 that the greatest orator and statesman, and the greatest jurist of his 
 age, should watch with so much interest and tenderness, the last ex- 
 piring breath of him who in life had rivalled the one in eloquence and 
 the other in profound learning. 
 
 Though premature, the event of Mr. Pinckney's death soon fol- 
 lowed the announcement. 
 
 " Mr. Pinckney (says Randolph to a friend) breathed his last 
 about 1C o'clock (midnight). The void cannot be filled. I have not 
 slept, on an average, two hours, for the last six days. I have been 
 at his lodgings, more than half a mile west of mine, every day, by 
 sunrise often before and this morning before daybreak. I heard 
 from him last night at ten, and sat up (which I have not done before 
 for six weeks) until the very hour that he expired. He died literally 
 in harness. To his exertions in the Dudley cause, and his hard train- 
 ing to meet Tazewell in the cochineal case, as 'tis called, may be fairly 
 n.M-ribed his death. The void will never be filled that he has left, 
 well is second to no man that ever breathed ; but he has taken 
 -t as much pains to hide his light under a bushel as P. did to 
 -..-t his on a hill. He and the Great Lord Chief are in that par-nobile ; 
 but Tazewell, in point of reputation, is far beyond both Pinckney and 
 Marshall."
 
 DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE. J^ 
 
 . Saturday, March 9th, Mr. Randolph made a speech of two hours, 
 against the Bankrupt bill. Finding by a vote, to strike out the enact- 
 ing clauses, that the bill would pass by a large majority, and that 
 being the only remaining subject of importance before the House, he 
 obtained leave of absence on Monday, the llth, and set out for New- 
 York, to embark on board the packet ship Amity, for Liverpool. 
 
 From ' : on board the steamboat Nautilus, under weigh to the 
 Amity, Saturday, March 16, 1822," he addressed a letter to his con- 
 stituents : 
 
 " My friends, for such indeed you have proved yourselves to be. 
 through good and through evil report, I throw myself on your indul- 
 gence, to which I have never yet appealed in vain. It is now just 
 five years since the state of my health reluctantly compelled me to 
 resist your solicitations (backed by my own wishes) to oifer my ser- 
 vices to your suffrages. The recurrence of a similar calamity-obliges 
 ie to retire, for a while, from the field of duty. 
 
 " Should the mild climate of France and the change of air restore 
 my health, you will again find me a candidate for your independent 
 suffrages at the next election (1823). 
 
 " I have an especial- desire to be in that Congress, which will de- 
 cide (probably by indirection) the character of the executive gov- 
 ernment of the Confederation for, at least, four years perhaps for 
 ever ; since now, for the first time since the institution of this gov- 
 ernment, we have presented to the people the army candidate for the 
 presidency, in the person of him who, judging from present appear- 
 ance, will receive the support of the Bank of the United States also. 
 This is an union of the purse and sword, with a vengeance one 
 which even the sagacity of Patrick Henry never anticipated, in this 
 shape at least. Let the people look to it, or they are lost for ever. 
 They will fall into that gulf, which, under the artificial, military, and 
 paper systems of Europe; divides Dives from iTazarus, and grows 
 daily and hourly broader, deeper, and more appalling. To this state 
 of things we are rapidly approaching, under an administration, the 
 head of which sits an incubus upon the State, while the lieutenants 
 of this new Mayor of the palace are already contending for the suc- 
 cession ; and their retainers and adherents are with difficulty kept 
 from coming to blows, even on the floor of Congress. We are arrived 
 at that pitch of degeneracy when the mere lust of power, the retm 
 tion of place and patronage, can prevail, not only over every consid- 
 eration of public duty, but stifle the suggestions of personal honor, 
 which even the ministers of the decayed governments of Europe 
 have not yet learned entirely to disregard."
 
 172 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 From tbe same steamboat, Nautilus, he addressed the following 
 note to Dr. Brockenbrough. 
 
 ' ; As I stepped into the Nautilus, a large packet from Washington, 
 among which was yours inclosing ' Uncle Nat's' letter, was put into 
 my hands. 
 
 " The ' Native of Virginia' is indiscreet in covering too much 
 ground. He ought to have darned and patched old Tom's Mantle, 
 and fought behind it as a Telemonian shield. 
 
 ; ' Add to my P. S. in the address to my constituents, that letters. 
 via New-York, to the care of the P. Master, will reach me. My ad- 
 dress is, care of John & Win. Gilliatt, London, until further notice. 
 I am nearing the Amity. Farewell ! farewell !" 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 THE VOYAGE. 
 
 A"TER the Amity had gotten fairly under way, and the passengers 
 somewhat acquainted with each other, they sought, by various amuse- 
 ments, to relieve the tedium of their voyage. Whist was a favorite 
 game on board ; and here Mr. Kandolph soon proved his superiority 
 as a player. It became a contest each night, who should have him a? 
 a partner, and finally they took turns. 
 
 I observed, one morning, says Mr. Jacob Harvey, of New- York. 
 to whom \ve are indebted for the incidents of this voyage, that Mr. 
 Randolph was examining a very large box of books, containing enough 
 to keep him busy reading during a voyage round the world. I asked 
 him why he had brought so many with him 1 "I want to have their 
 bound in England, sir," replied he. " Bound in England !" ex- 
 claimed I, laughing, " why did you not send them to New-York or 
 Boston, where you can get them done cheaper?" 
 
 U hat. sir." replied he sharply. " patronize some of our Yankee 
 taskmasters : those patriotic gentry, who have caused such a heavy 
 duty to be imposed upon foreign books ? Never, sir, never ; I will 
 neither wear what they make, nor eat what they raise, so long as my
 
 THE VOYAGE. 173 
 
 tobacco crop will enable me to get supplies from old England : and 
 I shall employ John Bull to bind my books, until the time arrives 
 when they can be properly done South of Mason and Dixon's line ! r 
 He was kind enough to offer me the use of them, saying : " Take my 
 advice, and don't read any of the novels ; and when you get home, sir, 
 t</!l your father that / recommended abstinence from novel reading 
 and whisky punch. Depend upon it. sir. they are both equally in- 
 jurious to the brain !" 
 
 His favorite author was Milton, and he frequently gave us read- 
 ings from " Paradise Lost," stopping occasionally to point out the 
 beauties of the poem. Young, Thomson, Johnson, and Southey, did 
 not please his taste ; they were, he said, " too artificial." But his 
 classification of modern poems was very original. 
 
 u Sir, I place first on this list, Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress, for 
 its great wit and satire ; next, the Two Penny Post Boy, for similar 
 excellencies ; and third, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, for every variety 
 of sentiment, well expressed. But, sir (no offence to Ireland) K I can : t 
 go Moore's songs ; they are too sentimental by half ; all ideal and 
 above nature." 
 
 Turning over his books one day, I was surprised to find a copy of 
 '' Fanny." Mr. Halleck's very clever satirical poem, which had been 
 recently' published. " I am glad," said I, ' ; that you do not proscribe 
 Yankee poetry as well as Yankee codfish." 
 
 i no, sir," replied he, " I always admire talent, no matter where 
 it comes from ; and I consider this little work as the best specimen 
 of American poetry that we have yet seen. I am proud of it, sir : 
 and I mean to take it to London with me, and to present it to that 
 lady whose talents and conversation I shall most admire." 
 
 I may mention here, although somewhat out of place, that when we 
 met in London in June following, 1 suddenly recollected the circum- 
 stance, and said to him : " By the way, Mr. Randolph, to whom did 
 you present 'Fanny?'" 
 
 ' To your countrywoman, Miss Edgeworth, sir : she has no com- 
 petitor in my estimation. She fairly won the book, sir." 
 
 He proposed, one fine morning, to read Fanny to me aloud, and 
 on deck, where we were enjoying a fine breeze and noonday sun. It 
 was the most amusing " reading" I ever listened to. The notes were 
 much longer than the poem ; for. whenever he came to a well-known
 
 174: LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 name, up went his spectacles and down went the book, and he branch 
 ed off into some anecdote of the person or of his family. Thus we 
 
 - progressed" slowly from page to page, and it actually consumed 
 three mornings before we reached 
 
 " And music ceases when it rains 
 In Scudder's balcony." 
 
 I was one morning looking over his books for my own amusement, 
 and observed that several of the prettiest editions were marked 
 " This for Miss " 
 
 " How is this ?" said I : ' ; some fair lady .seems to have enchained 
 you." 
 
 " Ah," replied he, " if you only knew her, the sweetest girl in the 
 
 Ancient Dominion,' and a particular favorite of mine, sir ; I shall 
 have all these books beautifully bound in London, sir. fit to grace 
 her centre-table on my return." 
 
 I took up one of them, a volume of old plays, and after reading 
 a few pages, exclaimed : " Surely you have not read these plays 
 lately, Mr. Randolph, or you would not present this book to Miss 
 ; it is too lascivious for her eyes." 
 
 He immediately ran his eye over -the page ; then took the book 
 out of my hands, and immediately indorsed on the back " not fit for 
 Bet." Then, turning to me, he said with warmth : 
 
 " You have done me an infinite service, sir. I would not for 
 worlds do aught to sully the purity of that girl's mind. I had for- 
 gotten those plays, sir, or they would not have found a place in my 
 box. I abominate as much as you do, sir, that vile style of writing 
 which is intended to lessen our abhorrence of vice, and throw ridi- 
 cule on virtuous conduct. You have given me the hint, sir. Come, 
 assist me in looking over all these books, lest some other black sheep 
 may have found its way into the flock." 
 
 We accordingly went through the whole box. but found no other 
 volume deserving of condemnation, much to Randolph's satisfaction. 
 He then presented me with several books, as keepsakes; and he 
 wanted to add several more, but I had to decline positively. His 
 generosity knew no bounds ; and had I been avaricious of mental 
 food, I might have become possessed of half his travelling library. 
 On the 5th of April, we landed about noon. The wind had
 
 THE VOYAGE. 
 
 changed since Randolph predicted that we would strike : Sligo Head] 
 and we first saw the high mountains of Donegal. The atmosphere 
 was beautifully clear, and we ran along the coast near enough to see 
 the houses, &c. Towards night Randolph said to me : 
 
 " Well, sir, I now believe the anecdoft related by Arthur Young. 
 In his notes on Ireland he says, that one day a farmer took his Son. 
 a young boy, some distance from home, in the county Meath.. They 
 came to a tree ; the boy was astonished, stopped, and asked, ' Father, 
 what is that?' never haying seen one before. Here have we been 
 sailing along the Irish coast for a whole day, and not a single tree 
 have I yet seen !" 
 
 It was too true. Barren are the mountains of Donegal, no treos 
 are to be seen ; and it is no wonder that an American should be 
 struck with astonishment, just arriving from his own well-wooded 
 shores. 
 
 The moon was shining brightly when we came up with the island 
 of " Rathlin," or " Raghery ;" but the tide ran so strongly against us 
 we passed it very slowly, notwithstanding we had a stiff breeze in our 
 favor. As Mr. Randolph gazed upon its rugged shore, he said : 
 
 " That island I have wished much to see, sir. I suppose that 
 you are aware that its inhabitants are a most peculiar race. They 
 look down with contempt upon the ' Continent] as they call Ireland 
 (only three miles distant) ; and the greatest curse known to them is, 
 ; May Ireland be your latter end.' They have their own laws and 
 usages ; intermarrying among themselves : pay great deference to 
 their landlord and priest ; smuggle a little for an honest livelihood ; 
 and the severest punishment practised among them is, banishment to 
 Ireland ."' 
 
 Next day we ran down the Channel, passing and meeting hun 
 dreds of vessels, from the stately Indiaman to the small fishing 
 smack. The American vessels were easily discovered from the Brit- 
 ish, by their white canvas, bright sides, and sharp bows. It was a 
 very exciting scene, and Randolph was in fine spirits. The sight of 
 Old England brought back the "olden time" to his memory, and lie 
 shed tears of delight. 
 
 " Tliank God." exclaimed he, "that I have lived to behold the 
 land of Shakspeare, of Milton* of my forefathers ! May her greatness 
 increase through all time !"
 
 176 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 It was past eleven o'clock at night when we reached the dock, and 
 we remained on board till next morning. Before parting, Randolph 
 said to me, " I do not wish you to tell any one that I am here. I do 
 not covet any attentions, at present, sir. I have come to England 
 to see, and not to be seen 7 to hear, and not to be heard. I don't 
 want to be made a lion of. sir. You understand me. I have formed 
 a friendship for you, which I hope will be continued, sir ; and when 
 you come to London, you must instantly inform me of your arrival : 
 there is my address, sir. God bless you j^and remember you tell 
 your father not to give you ivhisky punch or novels." 
 
 LONDON, May 27th, 1822. Monday. 
 
 MY DEAR BET : On Saturday I had the pleasure to receive your 
 letter of the 10th of last month; and a great one it was ; for, altho ; 
 I took somewhat of a French leave of you, I do assure you. my dear, 
 that "my thoughts, too, were with you on the ocean." Among my 
 treasures I brought a packet, containing all the letters I have ever 
 received from you ; and the reading over these, and talking of you to 
 a young Irish gentleman, whose acquaintance I happened to make 
 on board the steamboat, was the chief solace of my voyage. It was a 
 short one, although a part of it was somewhat boisterous, and the 
 press of sail carried by our ships (the packets more especially), when 
 those of other nations are under reefed and double-reefed topsails. 
 exposes them to greater danger, while it shortens their voyage ; and 
 yet, such is the skill of our seamen, that insurance is no higher upon 
 our bottoms than upon European ones. Indeed, our voyages remind- 
 ed me of our tobacco crop. You see I can't " sink the tailor." The 
 vessel is out so short a time that she avoids many dangers to which 
 dull sailers are exposed. 
 
 We made the coast of Ireland at noon on Good Friday, and at 
 twelre on the following night we were safe in the Regent's Dock, in 
 Liverpool. When you consider that we had to come the North Pas- 
 sage (that is, between the coast of Ireland and Scotland), and crooked 
 as our path was. to go out of our way to Holyhead for a pilot, it was 
 an astonishing run. The first land we made in Ireland was Runar- 
 dallah (liquid n, as in Spanish), or the Bloody Foreland, bearing on 
 our lee (starboard), bore S. S. E. 6 leagues an ominous name. Fal- 
 coner's beautiful poem, The Shipwreck, will render you mistress of 
 the sea-phrases. The coast of Donegal, far as the eye can reach, is 
 lonely, desolate, and naked ; not a tree to be seen, and a single Mar- 
 tello tower the only evidence that it was the dwelling-place of man. 
 Not even a sail was in sight ; and I felt a sensation of sadness and 
 desolation, for we seemed more forsaken and abandoned than when 
 surrounded only by the world of waters. This is the coast to which
 
 THE VOYAGE. 
 
 177 
 
 our honest American (naturalized) merchants smuggle tobacco, when 
 piracy under Arligan colors or the slave-trade is dull. Tory island 
 rises like the ruins of some gigantic castle, out of the sea. I presume 
 that it is basaltic, like the Giant's Causeway, of which we could not get 
 a distinct view ; but Fairhead amply compensated us. I must not for- 
 get, however, the beautiful revolving light of Ennistra Hull, which 
 at regular intervals of time broke upon us like a brilliant meteor, and 
 then died away; while that on the Mull of Contire (mistaken by our 
 captain, who had never gone the North Passage before, for Kachlin, 
 or Rahery, as the Irish call it) was barely visible. It is a fixed light, 
 and a very bad one. After passing Fairhead, I " turned in," and was 
 called up at dawn to see Ailsa Graig, which our captain maintained 
 would be too far distant to be seen in our course, while I as stoutly de- 
 clared we must see it if we had light. And here, by the way, my 
 dear, I found my knowledge of geography always gave me the advan- 
 tage over my companions, and rendered every object doubly interest- 
 ing. The Irish Channel swarmed with shipping, and as we " near- 
 ed ;i the Isle of Man, and her Calf, I looked out for Dirck Hatteraick 
 and his lugger. * We hugged the Irish shore Port Patrick, a nice 
 little white town on our right ; but the green hills of Erin were as 
 < ; brown as a berry." When we came in sight of the entrance into 
 Strangford Lock, I longed to go ashore and see Mrs. Cunningham, at 
 Dundrum. Tell this to my friend Ed. C., and give my love to Mrs. 
 Ariana, and the whole firm. Holyhead is a fine object : so is the 
 Isle of Anglesea. At the first glance I recognized the Parry's Mine 
 mountain, with Lord Grosvenor's copper treasures ; and Gray's Bard 
 rushed into my mind at the sight of the Carnarvonshire hills, with 
 Snowdon overtopping them all still, not a tree to be seen. The fields 
 of Man are divided by stone " march-dykes," and the houses are 
 without shade, or shelter from the bleak easterly winds. The float- 
 ing light off Hoyle-sands, which we passed with the speed of a race- 
 horse a strong current and stiff breeze in our favor was a most 
 striking object. One view of it represented a clergyman preaching 
 by candlelight, the centre light being the head ; and the two others 
 gave a lively picture of impassioned gesture of the arms, as they 
 were tossed up and down. 
 
 Although our pilot, and the captain too, declared the thing to be 
 impossible, we did get " round the rock," and passing a forest of 
 masts in the Mersey, were safely moored at quarter-past twelve, in 
 the dock, where ships are put away under lock and key, like books in 
 a book-case. 
 
 After a very sound and refreshing sleep, I rose and went ashore, 
 in search of breakfast for not a spark of fire, not even a candle or 
 lamp, can be brought into the dock, on any pretext whatsoever. At 
 the landward gate I stopped, expecting to be searched, but the guard 
 
 VOL. II. 8*
 
 !7g LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 
 
 did not even make his appearance ; so on I passed with little Jem, a 
 wicked dog of a cabin-boy, carrying my bundle, to the King's Arms, 
 in Castle street ; but I had hardly commenced my breakfast, when 
 the femme d'affaires, in the person of a strapping Welsh wench, who 
 had tried before to put me up two pair of stairs, entered the room, 
 and with well dissembled dismay ' begged my pardon, but the room was 
 engaged (it was the best in the house) for the Lord Bishop of the Isle 
 of Man. and the the the Dean of of Canterbury." Here again my 
 knowledge of England, to say nothing of innkeepers, stood me in good 
 stead. I coolly replied that they would hardly arrive before I had 
 finished breakfast, and requested to see her master or mistress, as the 
 case might be. " Mrs. Jones was sick," but her niece would wait on 
 me. She came in the person of a pretty young married woman ; and 
 now the tale varied to " the room being engaged for a family daily ex- 
 pected." " The name ?" " The name had not been given was very 
 sorry for the mistake," &c. " Mistakes, madam, must be rectified : 
 as soon as this nameless family arrives, I will make my bow and give 
 up the parlor." " Very handsome, and very genteel, and a thousand 
 thanks" and a courtesy at every word. Next day* the arrival of a 
 regiment from Ireland unlocked the whole mystery. The room was 
 wanted for the officers. And here, my dear, I am sorry to say that, 
 except by cross-examination, I have not obtained a word of truth 
 from any of the lower orders in this country. I think that in this 
 respect, as well as in honesty, our slaves greatly excel them. In ur- 
 banity they are also far superior. Now, don't you tell this to any 
 body not even to your father but keep the fact to yourself, for a 
 reason that I will communicate to you when I see you ; and a very 
 important one it is. 
 
 After receiving every civility from the collector, Mr. Swainson, 
 and from my countrymen, Mr. James King, Mr. Maury, and Mr. 
 Haggerty, and seeing the docks, and the Islington market. I was im- 
 patient to leave Liverpool, which bears the impress of trade upon it, 
 and is, of course, as dull as dull can be. The market is of new erec- 
 tion, and I believe altogether unique far surpassing even that of 
 Philadelphia, not only in the arrangement (which is that of a square, 
 roofed, well lighted, and unencumbered with carts, and unannoyed 
 by a public street on each side of it), but in the variety and delicacy 
 of its provisions. Here, for the first time, I saw a turbot, and Mr. 
 King bought half a one for our dinner, for which he paid half a 
 guinea. The variety and profesion of the vegetables, and the neat, 
 rosy-cheeked " Lancashire witches," that sprinkled them with water 
 to keep them fresh, who were critically clean in their dress and per- 
 sons, was a most delightful spectacle. Whatever you buy is taken 
 home for you by women whose vocation it is ; and Mr. King's house 
 is two miles off, at the beautiful village of Everton. commanding a
 
 THE VOYAGE. 
 
 179 
 
 fine view of the Mersey and the opposite coast of Cheshire. For a 
 full account of Liverpool, sec its " Picture," at Roanoke, where you 
 will find, if you have them not, the other books referred to in this let- 
 ter, and I shall write, by this packet, to Leigh, to send them to you. 
 The packets sail with the punctuality of stage-coaches, and arrive al- 
 most as regularly. The Albion formed the first and most melan- 
 cholly exception. We were long kept in painful suspense respecting 
 the names of the passengers. I was afraid that my unfortunate 
 friend Tuboeuf was one of the " five Frenchmen." The Mr. Clark, 
 and lady, I take for granted is an. old acquaintance, George Clark, of 
 Albany, son of a former royal governor of New-York, and a man of 
 very large estate, returning with his wife to England, after fifteen or 
 twenty years' absence. Dupont may be another very old acquaint- 
 ance, whom I knew thirty-four years ago in New- York, and saw in 
 Charleston in 1796, and a few months ago in Washington. His 
 
 name is Victor Dupont. son of D de Nemours, and brother of 
 
 Irenee D. They have a large powder and woollen manufactory on 
 the Brandywine, in Delaware. Tuboeuf. I see, had not left the U. S. 
 Both he and Dupont told me they were about to cross the Atlantic. 
 The history of the former is the " romance of real life." In educa 
 tion and feeling, he is more than half a Virginian. His father was 
 killed by the Indians when he was a child, and he knows the rifle, 
 hunting-shirt, and moccasons. His father was the friend of my near 
 and dear relative, Jack Banister, of Battersea. When Tuboeuf Paine 
 arrived at City Point he found his young friend had been dead sev- 
 eral years. This connection determined him to Virginia, and he weiu 
 out to the Holston country, where he was killed, and where the sou 
 lived until manhood. But I shall never get off from Liverpool. 
 
 On Wednesday morning, April 10th, I set out alone, in a post- 
 chaise ; and now you must take an extract from my " log-book." 
 
 Verdure beautiful ; moss on youngest trees shows dampness of 
 climate. Dr. Solomon and Gilead House. The Doctor dead, but 
 quackery is immortal. Highficld, the seat of Mrs. Parke, on the 
 right ; very fine object. Around Liverpool, in their fine pastures, I 
 saw the most wretched looking horses, and even cows not a good 
 horse in the town. To Prescot, with a fine view of Knowsley Park, 
 and a glimpse of the house. Legs of Man, (the arms of the Isle of 
 Man are three legs, and the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, were lords of 
 Man, as Shakspeare will tell you, Hen. VI.) The park-keeper in the 
 kitchen send for him and talk about the horses ; all in training on 
 Delamere forest, except old Milo and one other. The Earl and Count- 
 ess in town, (this always means London Karfloxrp. Mr. G. will deci- 
 pher and translate my Greek for you.) So is Lord Stanley, the 
 Earl's eldest son, who represents the county in Parliament. Cross 
 the Sankey canal, the first executed in England. Soon after, pass
 
 130 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 under the Bridgewater canal. To Warrington, Nag's Head : cross 
 the Mersey, and enter Cheshire. At High Leigh, West Hall, Eger- 
 ton Leigh, Esq., (the road-book falsely places this seat beyond Knuts- 
 ford), and High Leigh (or East) Hall. Geo. Leigh, Esq. See Debrett's 
 Baronetage. At Mere, which, as the name imports, is a beautiful 
 sheet of natural water, too small to be dignified with the name of 
 lake, but large enough to be quite rough with the wind, I came to 
 the first descent that could be called a hill: for although hills and 
 mountains too were in sight all around me, the roads are conducted 
 on a level. On the right is Mere Hall. Peter L. Brooke, Esq.. a fine 
 seat. I ought to mention that all the seats are embosomed in fine 
 woods. There were some noble pines at High Leigh, which a Vir- 
 ginian overseer would soon have down for tobacco sticks. The houses 
 of the poorest people are adorned with honeysuckles, and have flower 
 pots in the windows, with geraniums, &c. Dear Mrs. Bell, I thought 
 of her at every step ; and, by the way, Mr. G. writes that she was in 
 Richmond on the 26th. and well, although he does not say a word of 
 a certain E. T. C., or. indeed, any body else but the Brockenbro's. 
 and to them he allows not quite a line. His letter of a page and a 
 half is most provokingly concise. What there is of it is horribly 
 stuffed with epithets of war, and what not, about " Fox, and Burke, 
 and Pitt, and Brutus, and Cassius. and Junius, and Rome ;" descend- 
 ing by regular anti-climax to "Russia, and Poletica, and Adams." 
 Pray tell him from me, that I could hardly have expected much 
 worse even from Mr. Walsh, if I had the misfortune to be afflicted 
 with his correspondence. And I had rather have heard of old Aggy 
 than all those fine ancients and would-be-fine moderns. Now, this from 
 Frank G., who can write so well, and so much to the purpose, is too 
 bad. I assure you, reading the result of the election of Ned Mayo, in 
 Henrico, was more interesting. 
 
 Before reaching Knutsford, I travelled along the huge, high wall 
 of Tatton Park, twelve miles in circumference. It extends to the 
 very town. Dine at Knutsford. and drive into the park ; superb do- 
 main ; fine sheet of water on the right, with a view of the Lancashire 
 hills, about Worsley. For the sixth time to-day it snowed. Re- 
 turned, and struck off from the London road, to Northwich, to see 
 the mines of fossil salt. 
 
 On the right of Northwich is the seat, and a very fine one it is, 
 of Sir John Stanley, who married the eldest daughter of Gibbon's 
 friend, Lord Sheffield. I felt when I saw him at Chester, as if he 
 was an old acquaintance. He was foreman of the grand jury, and 
 had his hands full of business, for there were seventy felons against 
 whom bills were preferred. I breakfasted at a small inn, at Sandy- 
 way head, having passed through a road of heavy and deep sand, 
 with considerable hills. But before reaching S. H., I made the
 
 THE VOYAGE. Igj 
 
 postillion drive through Vale Royal Park, the proprietor of which, 
 Thomas Cholmondeley, Esq., is one of the new coronation peers, by 
 the title of Lord Delamere. With the names and proprietors of all 
 these places I was as familiarly acquainted as if I had lived all my 
 life in the palatinate. Nothing can be more beautiful than these 
 parks. Here I saw that rara avis (rare bird) the black swan, in 
 company with white ones. I drove about two miles and a half before 
 I reached the house, when I caused the postillion to return. There 
 was no fear of disturbing the family, although his lordship had re- 
 turned from town the day preceding, for it was only six o'clock, and 
 the great in England seldom leave their beds before noon. The 
 whole establishment, although not so great as Tatton, is princely. I 
 told the keepers of the lodges, who were very grateful for their shil- 
 lings, to tell Lord D., if he asked, that a foreign gentleman travelling 
 for his health had taken the liberty to drive through his beautiful 
 grounds. Over Delamere forest, a rough, barren tract, for eight 
 miles. Very likely government have inclosed and planted it, for the 
 " forest" contained not a tree or shrub ; and individuals also have 
 done much in this way. At present the trees are almost knee high. 
 At Kelsah we leave the forest and emerge into the rich pastures and 
 meadows of Cheshire. To Chester the Albion hotel; drive to 
 Eaton Hall, Lord Grosvenor's ; return dine ; misconduct of inn- 
 keeper, who put me into his own filthy bed-chamber ; (town full, it 
 being assize time). Remove to the Royal hotel; visit the cathedral. 
 " and let my due feet never fail to walk the studious cloisters pale." 
 &c. At every turn since I came from Liverpool, I have been break- 
 ing out into quotations from Milton and Shakspeare. Bad Latin in 
 a bishop ; epitaph ; and worse scholars in the Royal School. None 
 of the boys could give the Latin of their coronation banner, and I 
 offered half a guinea to him who would complete the following lines : 
 : < Vir bonus est quis ? Qui consulta patruum, qui," and translate 
 them. Only one boy could supply " leges juraque servat," and he be- 
 gan " Vir bonus est quis" " He is -a good man" so I took up my 
 half guinea and walked out, thinking of Mr. Brougham and his bill. 
 To the Castle here two boys arraigned for robbery. 
 
 Saturday through Eaton Park ; see the horses and grounds, and 
 pheasants, and hares, and deer, and stables in comparison with 
 which last, the finest house I ever saw in America is a mere hovel. 
 (I except the public buildings at Washington, and the Bank of Penn- 
 sylvania.) To Wrezham, in Wales, which principality I entered six 
 miles from Chester. Near W., on the left, is a magnificent entrance 
 into Acton Park, Sir Foster CunlifiVs, with greyhounds, in stone, on 
 the gates. Cross the Dee, to Overton, eight miles. The beauty of 
 this country throws all that I have seen before or since into the 
 shade. Nothing can be imagined finer. The village of Overton is a
 
 182 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 perfect paradise, and the vale of Dee is more like fairy-land than real 
 earth and water. Mr. Price's seat, at Bryxypys, surpasses all I have 
 seen yet. To Ellesmere Bridgewater arms. The Earl of B. has a 
 great estate here. The mere very beautiful. Dine, and go on to 
 Shrewsbury. Country changes, and becomes comparatively ugly. 
 To the Lion mu. at Shrewsbury. Sunday drive through a lovely 
 country, to Battlefield church, five miles, on the very site of the bat- 
 tle ground where Harry Percy's spur became cold ; mound of the 
 slain. Parish clerk and wife true English cottagers. Sunday school 
 of clean, fine children. Rev. Mr. Williams, of Battlefield, preaches 
 to a congregation of rustics a truly evangelical sermon. Church per- 
 fectly clean ; rush mats to kneel on. How differen't from Chester 
 cathedral. Only equipage a single "taxed cart." Mr. William.'; 
 preached at Emngton in the evening. Returned the same road to 
 Shrewsbury ; ascended Lord Hill's column most heavenly view. 
 Remember that I am now on the Severn, and turn to Gray's Letters 
 Leave the Lion, and my friend Bourne, the head waiter, and the 
 truly respectable landlady, with regret I hope on all sides, and go on. 
 with sleek, fine horses, and clean chaise, and obliging driver, to Iron- 
 bridge, thirteen miles, where I changed chaise and horses, and cross- 
 ing the Severn a second time, over the bridge of one arch, ascended 
 a mountainous hill on the other side, through Madely market. These 
 are the greatest iron works (Colebrooke Dale) in England. To 
 Bridgeworth, seven miles, to sup and sleep. This town pleases me 
 more than any I have seen before or since. It is old. clean, pleasant, 
 romantic, with no commercial, manufacturing, or fashionable taint 
 about it. Cheltenham sickened me of the last. 
 
 Monday, 15th wound round the high hill of red stone ; stopped : 
 ascended to the ruin of the castle and the church ; ludicrous epitaph : 
 returned to the chaise, and completed our descent to the Severn, " the 
 very principal light and capital feature of my journey." which I again 
 crossed. Stopped at a small house of call to beg an idle pin. Old 
 man and wife show me their cows ; their, tenderness to the mother- 
 less lamb, and pity of me. Their gratitude to their cow, which, said 
 the dame, ' ; when my house was burnt, maintained our whole family, 
 old and unsightly as she looks, but making me pounds of butter 
 a week." Caetera desunt. 
 
 Monday, past 12, May 27, 1822. 
 
 MY DEAR BET, When, a few minutes ago, I wrote "cetera 
 desunt," as I folded my letter which young Mr. Hammond waited 
 to the last minute to take to Liverpool, I did not know that the be- 
 ginning, as well as the conclusion, was wanting. I now inclose it to 
 Mr. H.. with a request that he will put the two under one cover, and 
 address it to your father as he promised to do with the first for it
 
 THE VOYAGE. 
 
 183 
 
 was to avoid exposing your name to strangers, that I got him to take 
 the Ifetter. He carries a map of the city, in which the new improve- 
 ments are laid down ; with this, and the Ambulator, and the Pictures 
 of London (all at Roanoke), and Smith's English Atlas (also there), 
 you can travel with me without once mistaking your way, and. 1 hope, 
 pleasantly, as well as easily. 
 
 I left the old farmer (Evans) and his dame (for he has a small 
 farm under Mr. Whittemore, member for the borough of Bridge- 
 north), as well as his ale-house. I left the old couple fondling their 
 lamb, and caressing it and their kine one a Hereford red, with a 
 fine calf, which they had been debating about selling to the butcher : 
 but at last their affections got the better of their poverty, and the old 
 man concluded, by saying, it would be a pity to kill the poor thing. 
 and he would e ? en keep it for the mother's sake. Although I stopped 
 for a pin to fasten up the envious curtain behind the chaise, yet I asked 
 for a draught of milk, warm from the favorite cow, which was given 
 to me in a clean porringer, with a face of as true benevolence as I 
 ever saw. On taking leave, I asked to contribute towards the re- 
 building of the burnt house, telling them it was the custom in the 
 country I came from. But the old man, with a face of great surprise, 
 said, " I was kindly welcome to the milk ; it was a thing of nothing :" 
 and they both rejected the money (only two half-crowns), until I told 
 them they must oblige me by accepting it, or I should be ashamed 
 of having such a trifle returned. Whereupon the gude man said he 
 would give the postillion with the return chaise a skinful of his best 
 ale, when he came back ; and the dame, ascribing her good fortune 
 to the mercy shown to the calf, promised, at my request, to remember 
 me, in her prayers, as the sick stranger to whom she had ministered ; 
 and I left them, with feelings of deep respect for their honest poverty 
 and kind-heartedness. Mr. Whittemore is a great proprietor here. 
 His great house, on the right, is under repair, and he occupies a " cot- 
 tage " in the village ; about such a house as Mr. Wickham's His 
 poor tenant at Quat is the third iHstance I have met with of a per- 
 son refusing money here. The first was the parish-clerk, at Battle- 
 field ; the next, Bourne, the head-waiter at the Lion ; a thing hardly 
 credible in England, where the rapacity of this class, in particular, i^ 
 proverbial ; for asking Mr. Wickham's pardon for making free with 
 his person, as well as his house you meet with as well dressed per- 
 sons as himself M ho will make you a low bow for sixpence ; aye. and 
 beg for it, to boot. I thought a thousand times of Mr. WickhamV 
 speech. Plunder is the order of the day. Shopkeepers, tradesmen. 
 but, above all, innkeepers, waiters, postillions, ostlers, and cliamlier- 
 maids, fleece you without mercy ; all is venal. Pray remember the 
 boots ! Something for the waiter, sir ! and this at a coffee-imus. 
 where you have only stepped in to take a glass of negus, after a
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 play, and. have paid a double price for it. You can't get a reply 
 to the plainest question without paying for it, unless you^ga into 
 a shop; and to speak to one whom you don't know, is received 
 with an air as if you had clapped a pistol to his breast. 
 
 But I should do the greatest injustice were I not to say, that the 
 higher ranks a few despicable and despised fashionables ex- 
 cepted are as unpretending and plain as our old-fashioned Virgin- 
 ian gentlemen, whom they greatly resemble. This class of men is 
 now nearly extinct, to my great grief, and the shame and loss of our 
 country. They are as distinct from the present race in their manners, 
 dress, principles, and every thing but anatomical structure, as an 
 eagle is from a pig, or a wild turkey from a turkey-buzzard. The 
 English gentleman is not graceful, not affable, but plain, sincere, kind, 
 without one particle of pretension in dress, manner, or any thing 
 else. 
 
 At Kidderminster, I breakfasted (15 miles), and saw the carpet 
 manufactory, and bought four hearth rugs. I also visited the old 
 church, as was my custom, and copied an epitaph, not on the rich 
 and great, but a poor sergeant, erected by his colonel ; I mean the 
 monument was, not the epitaph. We entered Worcestershire some 
 miles before we reached Kidderminster. It is perhaps the finest 
 county in the kingdom, take it for all and all. Among the seats 
 between Kidderminster and Worcester, are Halleburg ; the Bp. of 
 W.'s. where the pigs (hogs, we should call them,) were in the beauti- 
 ful grounds ; Waverley House, Mrs. Orange, a rich widow lady, 
 with an only daughter, unmarried this is one of the prettiest and 
 finest places I have seen ; Sir John Fleming Leicester's, between 
 Knutsford and Northwich (which I just remember to have omitted), is 
 another very capital place ; and I am sure I have not mentioned a 
 thousand superior to any thing we have. But the air of comfort and 
 fatness since we left Lancashire, is very refreshing. The houses are 
 old and weather-stained, but clean to fastidiousness ; some of frame- 
 work, filled in with brick ; the^timbers black, and the brick-work 
 overcast vr.th lime, and white as this paper ; casement-lights, leaden 
 sashes, &c. Ombresley Court, Lady Downshire's, which is the 
 ancient seat of the Sandys family, is a fine place. She is a Sandys, 
 and Baroness S. in her own right. I thought of Walpole and Pulte- 
 ney. and her progenitor who sunk into a peerage. 
 
 At Worcester, in driving into the Hop Pole Inn yard, the postil- 
 lion had nearly killed a poor girl, with a child in her arms. She was 
 thrown down, but, God be praised ! neither were hurt. I would not 
 ire what I felt while the suspense lasted for any consideration. 
 Town full. Quarter sessions. Cleanest and prettiest town (a city) 
 [ have yet seen. Determined to remain, and see the cathedral ; 
 bnt next morning I determined otherwise.
 
 INCIDENTS IN ENGLAND. 185 
 
 Giving up, for the present, my pilgrimage to Cheltenham, I set 
 out on the top of the coach, paying 12 shillings for my fare to Lon- 
 don, and through the Vale of Evesham, and an enchanting coun- 
 try through Pershire, Bengeworth, Morton, Broadway (where is a 
 tremendous hill, commanding the whole vale and the Malvern Hills), 
 Morton, Woodstock, Oxford, a city of palaces 
 
 And here, my dear Bet, I must again abruptly close this long- 
 winded epistle, with assurances of my exalted regard. 
 
 ,T. R. OF R. 
 
 I broke open this letter myself. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 INCIDENTS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 IN the month of June, says Mr. Harvey, I went over to London, ac- 
 companied by my father, who had been summoned to attend a com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons, to give evidence in a case of some 
 importance. I had prepared my father for an introduction to my 
 most eccentric friend, and yet, when I did introduce him, he could 
 scarcely refrain from smiling. " Sir," said Mr. Randolph, " I am 
 proud to make the acquaintance of the son of that man who received 
 the thanks. of Congress for his kindness to my poor countrymen. 
 Your son, my young friend here, sir, tells me he has delivered my 
 letter, and I hope you will soon receive the books from my bookseller 
 in Washington. Keep them as a momento of my friendship, sir." 
 My father thanked him warmly for his kindness, and we entered into 
 a general conversation. Suddenly Randolph rose from his chair, and, 
 
 in his most imposing manner, thus addressed him : " Mr. II , two 
 
 days ago I saw the greatest curiosity in London ; aye, and in England, 
 too, sir compared to which, Westminster Abbey, the Tower, Somer- 
 set House, the British Museum, nay Parliament itself, sink into utter 
 insignificance ! I have seen, sir, Elizabeth Fry, of Newgate, and I 
 have witnessed there, sir, miraculous effects of true Christianity upon 
 the most depraved of human beings bad women, sir, who are worse, 
 if possible, than the devil himself! and yet the wretched outcasts
 
 186 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 have been tamed and subdued by the Christian eloquence of Mrs 
 Fry ! I have seen them weep repentant tears whilst she addressed 
 them. I have heard their groans of despair, sir ! Nothing but reli- 
 gion can effect this miracle, sir ; for what can be a greater miracle 
 than the conversion of a degraded, sinful woman, taken from the very 
 dregs of society ! Oh ! sir, it was a sight worthy the attention of 
 angels ! You must, also, see this wonder, sir ; and, by the way. tku 
 is one of her visiting days let us go at once ; we shall just be in 
 time. She has given me permission to bring any of my friends with 
 me. I shall introduce you, sir, with great pleasure." We immedi- 
 ately ordered a coach, and drove to Mrs. Fry's house, but found, to 
 our no small disappointment, that she was not in town that day. 
 
 It was my good fortune, afterwards, to become acquainted with 
 Mrs. Fry, and to spend a day or two at her country-seat, near Lon- 
 don, and I need scarcely add, that my admiration of her character 
 was, if possible, increased by this introduction into her social circle. 
 In the course of conversation, I said to Miss Fry, " Pray tell me in 
 what way you became acquainted with my eccentric friend Randolph ?' : 
 " Why," replied she, ' : in rather an eccentric way. One day my mo- 
 ther was in town, getting ready to go to Newgate, when a stranger 
 was announced. A tall, thin gentleman, with long hair, and very 
 strangely dressed, entered the parlor, walked deliberately up to my 
 mother, who rose to receive him, and held out his hand, saying, in 
 the sweet tone of a lady's voice, ' I feel I have some right to intro- 
 duce myself to Elizabeth Fry, as I am the friend of her fr-iend. Jessy 
 Kersey, of Philadelphia, (a celebrated preacher in the Society of 
 Friends). I am John Randolph, of Roanoke, State of Virginia ; the fel- 
 low countryman of Washington.' My mother, who had heard a great 
 deal of him from different persons, gave him a cordial reception ; and 
 was so extremely pleased with his most original conversation, she not 
 only took him with her to Newgate, but invited him to come and see us. 
 We have since seen him several times, and have been highly delighted 
 with him. Last week some strangers were to dine with us. and my 
 mother invited him to be of the number. In writing the note of in- 
 vitation, I apologized to him for naming so unfashionably early an 
 hour Asfmtr o'clock, knowing that at the west end he never- dined be- 
 fore eigJit. His reply was quite characteristic, and made us all 
 laugh heartily. Here it is : ' Mr. Randolph regrets that a prior en-
 
 INCIDENTS IN ENGLAND. -[37 
 
 gagement will deprive him of the pleasure of dining with Mrs Fry 
 on Thursday next. No apology, however, was necessary for the early 
 hour named in her note, as it is two liours later than Mr. 11. is accus- 
 tomed to dine in Virginia ; and he has not yet been long enough in 
 London to learn how to turn day into night, and vice versa.' " 
 
 I told Randolph, next day, that I had seen his note. " Well, sir," 
 said he, " and was I not right to be candid .? Mrs. Fry is a most sen- 
 sible woman, sir, and she shows her good taste by opposing the fool- 
 ish customs of the aristocracy ; and I wanted her to know that I agreed 
 with her, sir. I can go all but the late dinners ; they are killing me. 
 sir ; and I must quickly run away from London, or cut my noble ac- 
 quaintances." 
 
 Before my arrival in London, Lord L , meeting Randolph 
 
 one night, under the gallery of the House of Comiions, introduced 
 himself to him, and they became very intimate. His lordship said 
 to me one day afterwards, " I have never met with so thoroughly 
 well-informed a gentleman as your friend Randolph, no matter what 
 the subject history, belles-lettres, biography; but, sir, the most 
 astonishing part of all is, that he possesses a minute local knowledge 
 of England and Ireland. I thought that I knew them well, but I 
 assure you I was obliged to yield the palm to him. I have purposely 
 tried to puzzle or confuse him, but all in vain. His conversational 
 powers are most dazzling, even in London, sir, where we pride our- 
 selves on good talkers. I never have been so much struck with any 
 stranger ; and although a high tory, I always forgot that he was a re- 
 publican. By the way, not a very bigoted one, sir. I never heard 
 him abuse the aristocracy ! I was so much pleased with him, on our 
 first interview, I determined to pay him a mark of respect, which I 
 was sure would gratify his Virginia pride. I solicited permission 
 from the Lord Chancellor, to introduce Mr. Randolph, as a distin- 
 guished American, into the House of Lords, by the private entrance. 
 near the throne, instead of obliging him to force his way, with the 
 crowd, at the common entrance. Having obtained his lordship's con- 
 sent, I then introduced Mr. Randolph to the door-keeper, and desired 
 him to admit him whenever he presented himself, without requiring 
 him to exhibit any special order. His figure and whole appearance 
 are so singular, I ran no risk in having any counterfeit Randolphs, 
 and I said so to the door-keeper, as some excuse for omitting our
 
 138 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 usual practice. When I told him of his privilege, I saw at once that 
 I had won my way to his heart ; and amply has he repaid me, sir. by 
 tho richness of his conversations whenever we have since met." 
 
 A few days after my arrival in London, continues Mr. Harvey. 
 I had an opportunity of testing the value of this privilege of private 
 entry. It will be recollected that George Canning, in the year 1822. 
 just previous to his intended departure as governor-general of India 
 (which never took place, owing to Lord Castlereagh's death), intro 
 duced, and carried through the House of Commons, the c: Roman 
 Catholic Peers' bill," as it was called, which he intended as a fare 
 well legacy to his countrymen. It passed by a handsome majority 
 and was then sent to undergo the fiery ordeal of the House of Lords 
 The subject engrossed public attention, and there was great anxiety 
 
 to attend the debate on the appointed night. The Marquis of L 
 
 was kind enough to present me with an order to admit two persons 
 myself and friend and I returned to our lodgings in great glee. 
 There I found Randolph, told him of my good luck, and offered him 
 the unoccupied half of my order. 
 
 " Pray, sir," said he " at which door do you intend to enter the 
 House ? 
 
 " At the lower door, of course," replied I " where all strangers 
 enter." 
 
 " Not all strangers if you please," said he, " for I shall enter at the 
 private door, near the throne ! " " Oh, my dear sir," replied I, " your 
 privilege, I dare say, will answer on any common occasion ; but to- 
 night the members of the House of Commons will entirely fill the 
 space around the throne, and no stranger, depend upon it, will be 
 admitted there. So be wise, and don't refuse this chance, or you 
 will regret it." 
 
 " What sir," retorted he, " do you suppose I would consent to 
 .-truggle with and push through the crowd of persons who, for two 
 long hours, must fight their way in at the lower door ? Oh 'no, sir ! I 
 shall do no such thing ; and if I cannot enter as a gentleman com- 
 moner, I go not at all ! " 
 
 After vainly endeavoring to induce him to change his mind, we 
 separated ; he for the aristocratic entrance, I for the common one. 
 With great difficulty, and wondering how I had preserved my coat-tails 
 whole. I finally squeezed myself into the House, half suffocated, and
 
 INCIDENTS IN ENGLAND. 139 
 
 was fortunate enough (being then young and active) to secure a stand 
 at the bar, from whence I could see my noble lord's face, and hear 
 every word that was spoken. Casting a glance towards the throne 
 soon after my entrance, to my no small surprise and envy, I beheld 
 ' Randolph of Roanoke " in all his glory, walking in most leisurely, 
 and perfectly at home, along-side of Canning, Lord Castlereagh, Sir 
 Robert Peel, and many other distinguished members of the House 
 of Commons. Some of these gentlemen even selected for him a pro- 
 minent position, where he could see and hear perfectly, and I observ- 
 ed many courtesies passing between them during the night. Very 
 shortly after Mr. Randolph's arrival in London, a splendid ball 
 was given, under the immediate patronage of George the Fourth and 
 the principal nobility, for the benefit of the poor Irish peasantry of 
 Munster and Connaught, who were suffering from the effects of 
 famine, attended as usual by disease. It was a magnificent affair. 
 Randolph attended, glad of an opportunity to give his mite, and to 
 behold at the same time the congregated aristocracy of Great Britain. 
 l - It was cheap, sir, very cheap " said he to me, " actors and actresses 
 innumerable, and all dressed out most gorgeously. There were 
 jewels enough, sir, there, to make new crowns for all the monarchs 
 of Europe ! And I, too, republican though I am, must needs go 
 in court-dress ! Well sir, don't imagine that I was so foolish as to 
 purchase a new suit, at a cost of twenty-five or thirty guineas. Oh 
 no ! I have not studied London life for nothing. I have been told, 
 sir, that many a noble lady would appear at the ball that night with 
 jewels hired for the occasion ; and I took the hint, sir, and hired a 
 full court-dress for five guineas. When I beheld myself in the glass, 
 I laughed at the oddity of my appearance, and congratulated my- 
 self that I was three thousand miles from Charlotte Court-House. 
 Had I played the harlequin there, sir, I think my next election 
 would be doubtful. I stole into the room, with rather a nervous 
 walk, and was about selecting a very quiet position in a corner, when 
 your countryman, Lord Castlereagh, seeing my embarrassment, 
 came forward, and with an air of the most finished politeness, insist- 
 ed upon being my chaperon. For one hour he devoted himself to 
 me, and pointed out all persons of notoriety in the crowd as they 
 passed us in review. Such was the fascination of his manners, I for- 
 got, for the moment, that I was speaking to the man who had sold
 
 |90 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 his country's independence and his own ; who had lent his aid to a 
 licentious monarch to destroy his queen, who, if guilty, might point 
 to her husband's conduct as the cause of her fall. But, sir, I was 
 spellbound for that hour, for never did I meet a more accomplished 
 gentleman ; and yet he is a deceitful politician, whose character none 
 can admire. An Irish tory, sir, I never could abide." Miss Edge- 
 worth and Randolph met together for the first tii^e at the breakfast- 
 table of a very distinguished Irish member of Parliament (now a 
 peer of the realm). The gentleman to whom I refer, told me that 
 it was an intellectual feast, such as he had rarely enjoyed before. 
 To use his own words : 
 
 " Spark produced spark, and for three hours they kept up the 
 fire, until it ended in a perfect blaze of wit, humor, and repartee. 
 It appeared to me that Mr. R. was more intimately acquainted with 
 Miss Edgeworth's works than she was herself. He frequently quoted 
 passages where her memory was at fault ; and he brought forward 
 every character of any note in all her productions : but what most 
 
 astonished us was, his intimate knowledge of Ireland. Lady T 
 
 and myself did nothing but listen ; and I was really vexed when some 
 public business called me away." 
 
 "'Who do you think I met under the gallery of the House of 
 Commons ?" said Randolph to me one day. " You can't guess, and 
 so I'll tell you. There was a spruce, dapper little gentleman sitting 
 next to me, and he made some trifling remark, to which I replied. 
 We then entered into conversation, and I found him a most fascinat- 
 ing witty fellow. He pointed out to me the distinguished members 
 who were unknown to me, and frequently gave them a friendly shot. 
 At parting, he handed me his card, and I read with some surprise, 
 ; Mr. Thomas Moore.' Yes. sir, it was the ' Bard of Erin ;' and upon 
 this disoDvery I said to him, ' Well, Mr. Moore, I am delighted to 
 meet you thus ; and I tell you, sir, that I envy you more for being 
 the author of the " Twopenny Post-bag " and " Tom Crib's Memorial 
 to Congress," than for all your beautiful songs, which play the fool 
 with young ladies' hearts.' He laughed heartily at what he called 
 my ' singular taste,' and we parted the best friends imaginable." 
 
 Mr. Randolph was present at a large meeting of the African In- 
 stitution at London. Mr. Wilberforce, after speaking with his usual 
 ability and eloquence on the appropriate subjects of the occasion, 
 concluded by pronouncing a warm panegyric upon the example set 
 by the United States of America, in making the slave-trade piracy, 
 and upon Mr. Randolph's great efforts in promoting that act.
 
 INCIDENTS IN ENGLAND. 19J 
 
 Mr. Randolph then rose to return thanks for the mark of respect 
 towards the United States of America. After a few appropriate re- 
 marks, he thanked the meeting for the grateful sense they had 
 expressed towards America ; and also assured them thftt all that was 
 exalted in station, in talent, and in moral character among his coun- 
 trymen, was (as was also to be found in England) firmly united for 
 the suppression of this infamous traffic. It was delightful to him to 
 know that Virginia, the land of his sires, the place of his nativity, 
 had for half a century affixed a public brand and indelible stigma 
 upon this traffic, and had put in the claim of the wretched objects of 
 it to the common rights and attributes of humanity. 
 
 The plainness of Mr. Randolph's appearance, says a London 
 paper, his republican simplicity of manners, and easy and unaffected 
 address, attracted much attention, and he sat down amidst a burst of 
 applause. 
 
 Mr. Randolph travelled extensively in England and Scotland, 
 met a flattering and distinguished reception wherever he went, was 
 pleased with every thing, and delighted every body with his cordial 
 manner and fascinating conversation. He returned to the United 
 States about the last of November, and was present during the last 
 session of the seventeenth Congress, which, on the 3d of March, 1823, 
 was closed ; but he did not open his lips on any occasion whatever : 
 indeed there was no discussion of any importance during the session. 
 Immediately on the adjournment he hurried off to Virginia, and 
 spent some days with his friend, William R. Johnson, in Chesterfield, 
 who was then in high training for the great match race between the 
 North and the South. The exercise and excitement of mind in anti- 
 cipation of his favorite sport produced an evident change in Mr. Ran- 
 dolph's health ; it was much improved ; he slept better than he had 
 for ten years. 
 
 " To that night," says he, " spent on a shuck matress in a little 
 garret room at Chesterfield Court-house, Sunday, March the 9th, 
 1823, I look back with delight. It was a stormy night. The win- 
 dows clattered, and William R. Johnson got up several times to try 
 and put a stop to the noise, by thrusting a glove between the loose 
 sashes. I heard the noise ; I even heard him ; but it did not dis- 
 turb me. I enjoyed a sweet nap of eight hours, during which, he said, 
 he never heard me breathe. N. B. I had fasted all day. and supped 
 (which I have not done since) on a soft egg and a bit of biscuit. My
 
 192 LI FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 feelings next day were as new and delightful as those of any bride 
 the day after her nuptials, arid the impression (on memory at least) 
 as strong." 
 
 He was present (as most lovers of the turf were) at the celebrated 
 race between Eclipse and Henry, on the Long Island Course, in the 
 month of May. He stood in a very conspicuous place on the stand 
 during the race, surrounded by gentlemen of the North and the 
 South ; and he evidently was very confident of the success of Henry. 
 But after the result, to him so unexpected, and while the thousands 
 of spectators were vociferously applauding the successful rider 
 (Purdy), Mr. Randolph gave vent to his great disappointment by 
 exclaiming to those around him in his most satirical tone : 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, it is a lucky thing for the country that the 
 President of the United States is not elected by acclamation, else 
 Mr. Purdy would be our next President, beyond a doubt." 
 
 He then left the ground, and spent the evening with Mr. Rufus 
 King, at Jamaica. Next day he said to a friend, with a sigh : 
 
 " Ah, sir ! only for that unfortunate vote on the Missouri question. 
 Jte would be our man for the presidency. He is, sir, a genuine Eng- 
 lish gentleman of the old school ; just the right man for these degen- 
 erate times. But, alas ! it cannot be !" 
 
 Mr. Randolph, soon after this event, retired into his usual summer 
 solitude, at Roanoke. Thence, on the 25th of July, he asks Dr. 
 Brockenbrough, " You and Mr. Wickham are wise men, but a by- 
 stander, you know, sees the blots of better players than himself. 
 Are you both resolved to die in harness ? You may put the question 
 to me, but I tell you NO. March 3, 1825, is the utmost limit of my 
 servitude. But what's the use of talking? ' a man will do what he 
 will do ;' a saying, which, like some others, I once took to be rather 
 silly, but which, I have since found out, contains much sense. * * * 
 
 " You wouldn't infer it from the tone of this epistle, but I too am 
 sick seriously sick, as well as home-sick, i. e. as Sir John Brute was 
 wife-sick. My oaks send love and duty to you and the silent Mad- 
 ame, and hope you'll never be as tired of them as their master is. I 
 would go among the Selvidges, beyond the ' mountings,' but I dare 
 not encounter Pharaoh's plagues. I'd rather be swallowed up in the 
 Red Sea at once.
 
 EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS. 193 
 
 " P. S. In sheer distress what to do with myself, I yesterday 
 read Don Juan the third, fourth and fifth cantos for the first 
 time fact, I assure you. It is diabolically good. The ablest, I am 
 inclined to think, of all his performances. I now fully comprehend 
 the cause of the odium plusquam theologicum of the lake school, to- 
 ward this wayward genius. I am not sorry that I had not read the 
 whole when I was in Southey's company. I could not have conversed 
 so unreservedly as I did on the subject of Byron's writings." 
 
 In October, he says : " The life I lead here is enough to destroy 
 the intellectual and moral faculty of any .luman being. It resembles, 
 in many points, solitary confinement. It .s the daily recurrence of 
 the same dreary scene ; and when evening sets in, so that I cannot 
 read or ride, nothing can be imagined more forlorn. But I struggle 
 through it, as the will of Providence. 
 
 " I've received from London some publications on the subject of 
 slavery, that have awakened me more than ever to that momentous 
 question. They are from Wilberforce, T. Clarkson, Adam Hodgson, 
 and a larger pamphlet, entitled ' Negro Slavery as it exists in the 
 U. S. and the West Indies, especially in Jamaica ' that being held 
 up as the negro paradise, by the W. I. body in England." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS CONSOLIDATION IS THE ORDER OF 
 THE DAY "SPEAK A CHEERING WORD TO THE GREEKS." 
 
 IN 1822, a leading federalist, one who was conspicuous in the attempt 
 to elect Burr over Jefferson, and was opposed to every measure of 
 the Jefferson and of the Madison administrations, in 1822, made use 
 of these words : " The federalists almost unanimously declared their 
 approbation of the leading measures of the Government, and gave it 
 their cordial support. The National Government, indeed, destroyed 
 the federal party, in the only way it could be destroyed, by adopting 
 substantially its principles." This was true in that " era of good- 
 feeling," when we were " all federalists and all republicans." The 
 VOL. n. 9
 
 194 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 seeds of consolidation were sowed broad-cast. But at no period were 
 more rapid strides made toward a prostration of all the barriers of 
 the Constitution, than at the first session of the eighteenth Congress. 
 A general distress pervaded all departments of business. The peo- 
 ple were taught to look to Government for relief, and were ready to 
 acquiesce in any measure that gave hopes of present alleviation, 
 without regard to the consequences ; and, besides this, there seemed to 
 lie a universal madness a national and individual ambition that 
 o'erleaped all bounds, and embraced the whole world in .'ts aspiring 
 grasp. The body politic seemed to be radically diseased. " You are 
 right," said Randolph, to a friend who was deploring .he state of 
 things, ' : consolidation is the order of the day. The epidemic shows 
 itself in a thousand Protean forms : so was despotism epidemic from 
 the foundations of the world. In that state of the body politic the 
 predisposition turns every pimple to cancer." With this belief, 
 and in this spirit, he met and manfully, though often unsuccessfully, 
 fought each Protean shape, as it successively arose to distil its lep- 
 rous poison into the Constitution, or to develope the seeds of some 
 gangrenous ulcer, deep festering in the body politic. 
 
 The first subject Mr. Randolph met and successfully opposed, 
 was the measure proposed by Congress to be adopted on the Greek 
 question. It will be recollected that the Spanish provinces, Mexico, 
 Peru, New Granada, and others, had been struggling for a long time 
 for their independence. They had been recognized by the United 
 States as independent Republics, and ministers had been sent to re- 
 side near their respective governments. But Spain still persisted in 
 her efforts to reconquer her revolted provinces ; and it was rumored 
 that aid would be granted her for this purpose, by the allied powers 
 of Europe. In the mean time, the Greeks, also, had revolted from 
 the odious yoke of Turkish despotism, and were fighting with a valor 
 and a success worthy of the better days of Thermopylae and of Mar- 
 athon. 
 
 In this state of things, the President in his annual message to 
 Congress expressed the opinion that there was reason to hope that 
 the Greeks would be successful in the present struggle with their 
 oppressors, and that the power that has so long crushed them had 
 lost its dominion over them for ever. The same communication con- 
 tained other matters of great importance, in relation to the rumored
 
 EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS. 195 
 
 combination of foreign sovereigns to interfere in the affairs of South 
 America. Under these circumstances, Mr. Webster thought it was 
 proper and becoming that the communication of the President should 
 receive some response from the House of Representatives. Accord- 
 ingly, on Monday, December the 8th. 1823, he submitted for consider- 
 ation a resolution : " That provision ought to be made, by law, for 
 defraying the expense incident to the appointment of an agent, or 
 commissioner, to Greece, whenever the President shall deem it expe- 
 dient to make such appointment.' 1 
 
 On the 19th of January the resolution was called up, and Mr. 
 Webster delivered his sentiments on the subject embraced in it, in a 
 speech of great power, eloquence, and feeling. When he sat down, 
 Mr. Clay introduced a resolution : " That the people of these States 
 would not see, without serious inquietude, any forcible interposition 
 by the allied powers of Europe, in behalf of Spain, to reduce to 
 their former subjection those parts of the continent of America which 
 have proclaimed and established for themselves, respectively, inde- 
 pendent governments, and which have been solemnly recognized 
 by the United States." Thus the whole field of foreign politics was 
 brought within the scope of the debate. 
 
 Next day Mr. Poinsett delivered his sentiments at length on the 
 subject, and concluded by moving a modification of Mr. Webster's 
 resolution, so as merely to express the sympathy of the nation for the 
 suffering Greeks, and the interest felt by the Government in their wel- 
 fare and success. Mr. Clay then followed and expressed himself with 
 great force. It was, indeed, a glorious theme ! wide as the sufferings 
 of humanity ; deep as the love of liberty in the breast of man. It 
 was a subject that took hold on the hearts of the people ; predisposed 
 to sympathize with nations struggling against despotism every where, 
 how could they resist the appeals of the glorious descendants of 
 Leonidas, and of Epaminondas, and Philopoemen ; aided, too, by 
 the condensed logic of Webster, the varied learning of Poinsett, 
 and the fervid eloquence of Henry Clay? A harvest of golden 
 opinions was to be the destined reward of this day's exhibition. 
 Webster was to be translated into Greek, to be read with rapture 
 through the Peloponnesus, and to be pronounced side by side with 
 Demosthenes from the heights of the Acropolis ; while Clay was to 
 receive the thanks and the gratitude of the South American Repub
 
 190 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 lies through the person of the great Liberator, the modern Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 Under such circumstances, it took a man of no ordinary strength 
 of character to resist these seductive measures, and expose their true 
 nature and tendency. John Randolph was the man for the times ; 
 he was then, as he had been for years past, " the solitary warder on 
 the wall : :: all others were asleep, or caught away by the enthusiasm ; 
 he saw the danger, and gave the alarm. 
 
 - This." said he, " is perhaps one of the finest and prettiest themes 
 for declamation ever presented to a deliberative assembly. But it 
 appears to me in a light very different from any that has as yet been 
 thrown upon it. 
 
 " I look at the measure as one fraught with deep and deadly dan- 
 ger to the best interests and to the liberties of the American people ; 
 so satisfied, sir, am I of this, that I have been constrained by the 
 conviction to overcome the almost insuperable repugnance I feel to 
 throwing myself upon the notice of the House ; but I feel it to be 
 my duty to raise my voice against both these propositions. 
 
 My intention in rising at present, sir, is merely to move, that the 
 eommittee rise, and that both of the resolutions may be printed. I 
 wish to have some time to think of this business, to deliberate, before 
 we take this leap in the dark into the Archipelago, or the Black Sea. 
 or into the wide-mouthed La Plata. I know, sir, that the post of 
 honor is on the other side of the House, the post of toil and of diffi- 
 culty on this side, if, indeed, any*body shall be with me on this side. 
 It is a difficult and an invidious task to stem the torrent of public- 
 sentiment, when all the generous feelings of the human heart are ap- 
 pealed to. But I was delegated, sir. to this House, to guard the 
 interests of the people of the United States, not to guard the rights 
 of other people ; and. if it was doubted, even in the case of England, 
 a land fertile above all other lands (not excepting Greece herself) in 
 great and glorious men if it was doubted whether her interference 
 in the politics of the continent, though separated from it only by a 
 narrow strait, not so wide as the Chesapeake, as our Mediterranean 
 Sea, had redounded either to her honor or advantage ; if the effect of 
 that interference has been a monumental debt that paralyzes the arm 
 that might now strike for Greece, that certainly would have struck 
 for Spain, can it be for us to seek, in the very bottom of the Mediter- 
 ranean, for a quarrel with the Ottoman Porte? And this, while we 
 have an ocean rolling between? While we are in that sea without a 
 single port to refit a gun-boat ; and while the powers of Barbary lie 
 in succession in our path, shall we open this Pandora's box of politi- 
 cal evils ? Are we prepared for a war with these pirates ? (not that
 
 EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS. 197 
 
 we are not perfectly competent to such a war, but) does it suit our 
 finances ? Does it suit, sir, our magnificent projects of roads and 
 canals ? Does it suit the temper of our people ? Does it promote 
 their interests ? will it add to their happiness ? Sir, why did we 
 remain supine while Piedmont and Naples were crushed by Austria ? 
 Why did we stand aloof, while the Spanish peninsula was again 
 reduced under legitimate government ? If we did not interfere then, 
 why now ? 
 
 " This Quixotism, in regard either to Greece or to South Ameri- 
 ca, is not what the sober and reflecting minds of our people require 
 at our hands. Sir, we are in debt as individuals, and we are in debt 
 as a nation ; and never, since the days of Saul and David, or Caesar 
 and Catiline, could a more unpropitious period have been found for 
 such an undertaking. The state of society is too much disturbed. 
 There is always, in a debtor, a tendency either to torpor or to despe- 
 ration neither condition is friendly to such deliberations. But I 
 will suspend what I have further to say on this subject. For my part. 
 I see as much danger, and more, in the resolution proposed by the 
 gentleman from Kentucky, as in that of the gentleman from Massa- 
 chusetts. The war that may follow on the one, is a distant war ; it 
 lies on the other side of the ocean. The war that may be induced 
 by the other, is a war at hand ; it is on the same continent. I am 
 equally opposed to the amendment which has been since offered to 
 the original resolutions. Let us look a little further at all of them. 
 Let us sleep upon them before we pass resolutions, which, I will not 
 say, are mere loops to hang speeches on, and thereby commit the na- 
 tion to a wa^- the issues of which it is not given to human sagacity 
 to divine." 
 
 The resolutions were postponed. When again taken up, Mr. Ran- 
 dolph spoke at large upon them. We must be content with a few par- 
 agraphs, only. 
 
 " It is with serious concern and alarm," said Mr. Randolph, " that 
 I have heard doctrines broached in this debate, fraught with conse- 
 quences more disastrous to the best interests of this people, than any 
 that I ever heard advanced, during the five and twenty years since I 
 have been honored with a seat on this floor. They imply, to my ap- 
 prehension, a total and fundamental change of the policy pursued by 
 this Government, ah urbe condita from the foundation of the Repub- 
 lic, to the present day. Are we, sir, to go on a crusade, in another 
 hemisphere, for the propagation of two objects as dear and delightful 
 to my heart, as to that of any gentleman in this, or in any other as- 
 sembly Liberty and Religion and, in the name of these holy 
 words by this powerful spell, is this nation to be conjured and be- 
 guiled out of the highway of heaven out of its present compara-
 
 198 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 tively happy state, into all the disastrous conflicts arising from tha 
 policy of European powers, with all the consequences which flow from 
 them ? Liberty and Religion, sir ! Things that are yet dear, in spite 
 of all the mischief that has been perpetrated in their name. I be- 
 lieve that nothing similar to this proposition is to be found in modern 
 history, unless in the famous decree of the French National Assem- 
 bly, which brought combined Europe against them, with its united 
 strength ; and, after repeated struggles, finally effected the downfall 
 of the French power. 
 
 ' I will respectfully ask the gentleman from Massachusetts. 
 whether, in his very able and masterly argum ;nt and he has said 
 all that could be said on the subject, and much more thai* I supposed 
 could have been said by any man in favor of his resolution whether 
 he, himself, has not furnished an answer to his speech. I had not 
 the happiness myself to hear his speech, but a friend has read it to 
 me in one of the arguments in that speech, towards the conclusion. 
 I think, of his speech, the gentleman lays down from Puffendorff, in 
 reference to the honeyed words and pious professions of the Holy Al- 
 liance, that these are all surplusage, because nations are always sup- 
 posed to be ready to do what justice and national law require. Well, 
 sir, if this be so. why may not the Greeks presume why are they 
 not in this principle, bound to presume that this Government is dis- 
 posed to do all, in reference to them, that they ought to do, without 
 any formal resolutions to that effect ? I ask the gentleman from Mas- 
 sachusetts, whether the doctrine of Puffendorff does not apply as 
 strongly to the resolution as to the declaration of the Allies that is. 
 if the resolution of the gentleman be indeed that almost nothing he 
 would have us suppose, if there be not something behind this nothing, 
 which divides this House, (not horizontally, as the gentleman has 
 somewhat quaintly said but vertically) into two unequal parties: one 
 the advocate of a splendid system of crusades, the other, the friends 
 of peace and harmony ; the advocates of a fireside policy for, as 
 long as all is right at the fireside, there cannot be much wrong else- 
 where whether, I repeat, does not the doctrine of Puffendorff apply 
 as well to the words of the resolution, as to the words of the Holy 
 Alliance ? 
 
 " There was another remark that fell from the gentleman from 
 Massachusetts of which I shall speak, as I shall always speak of 
 any thing from that gentleman, with all the personal respect that 
 may be consistent with the freedom of discussion. Among other 
 cases forcibly put by the gentleman, why he would embark in this 
 incipient crusade against Mussulmen, he stated this as one that they 
 hold human beings as property. Aye, sir, and what says the Con- 
 stitution of the United States on this point? unless, indeed, that 
 instrument is wholly to be excluded from consideration unless it is
 
 EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS. 
 
 to be regarded as a mere useless parchment, worthy to be burnt, as 
 was once actually proposed. Does not that Constitution give its sanc- 
 tion to the holding of human beings as property ? Sir, I am not go- 
 ing to discuss the abstract question of liberty or slavery, or any other 
 abstract question. I go for matters of fact. But I would ask gen- 
 tlemen in this House, who have the misfortune to reside on the 
 wrong side of a certain mysterious parallel of latitude, to take this 
 question seriously into consideration whether the Government of the 
 United States is prepared to say, that the act of holding human be- 
 ings as property, is sufficient to place the party so offending, under 
 the ban of its high and mighty displeasure ? 
 
 " Sir, I am afraid, that, along with some most excellent atlributes 
 and qualities the love of liberty, jury trial, the writ of habeas cor- 
 pus, and all the blessings of free government we have derived from 
 our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, we have got not a little of their John 
 Bull, or rather John Bull-dog spirit their readiness to fight for any 
 body, and on any occasion. Sir, England has been for centuries the 
 game-cock of Europe. It is impossible to specify the wars in which 
 she has been engaged for contrary purposes ; and she will with great 
 pleasure, see us take off her shoulders the labor of preserving the 
 balance of power. We find her fighting, now for the Queen of Hun- 
 gary then for her inveterate foe, the King of Prussia now "at war 
 for the restoration of the Bourbons and now on the eve of war with 
 them for the liberties of Spain. 
 
 " These lines on the subject, were never more applicable, than they 
 have now become: 
 
 " ' Now "Europe's balanced neither side prevails, 
 Foi; nothing's left in either of the scales.' 
 
 " If we pursue the same policy, we must travel the same road, and 
 endure the same burthens, under which England now groans. But, 
 glorious as such a design might be, a President of the United States 
 would, in my apprehension, occupy a prouder place in history, who, 
 when he retires from office, can say to the people who elected him, I 
 leave you without a debt, than if he had fought as many pitched bat- 
 tles as Caesar, or achieved as many naval victories as Nelson. And 
 what, sir, is debt? In an individual it is slavery. It is slavery of 
 the worst sort, surpassing that of the West India Islands, for it en- 
 slaves the mind, as well as it enslaves the body ; and the creature who 
 can be abject enough to incur and to submit to it, receives, in that condi- 
 tion of his being, perhaps, an adequate punishment. Of course. I sjicnk 
 of debt, with the exception of unavoidable misfortune. I speak <if 
 debt caused by mismanagement, by unwarrantable generosity, by briii'_ r 
 generous before being just. I am aware that this sentiment was ridi 
 culed by Sheridan, whose lamentable end was the best common tury 
 upon its truth. No, sir ; let us abandon these projects. Let us say
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 to those seven millions of Greeks, ' We defended ourselves when we 
 were but three millions, against a power, in comparison with which 
 the Turk is but a lamb. Go and do thou likewise.' And so with 
 the governments of South America. If ; after having achieved their 
 independence, they have not valor to maintain it, I would not commit 
 the safety and independence of this country in such a cause. I will, 
 in both these, pursue the same line of conduct which I have ever pur- 
 sued, from the day I took a seat in this House, in 1799, from which, 
 without boasting. I challenge any gentleman to fix upon me any color- 
 able charge of departure. 
 
 " Let us adhere to the policy laid down by the second as well as 
 the first founder of our republic by him who was the Camjlus, as 
 well as Romulus, of the infant State to the policy of peace, com- 
 merce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances 
 with none; for to entangling alliances we must come, if you once em- 
 bark in policy such as this. And. with all my British predilections, 
 I suspect I shall, whenever that question shall present itself, resist 
 as strongly an alliance with Great Britain, as with any other power. 
 We are sent here to attend to the preservation of the peace of this 
 country, and not to be ready, on all occasions, to go to war, whenever 
 any thing like what, in common parlance, is termed a turn up. takes 
 place in Europe. 
 
 "What, sir, is our condition? We are absolutely combatting 
 shadows. The gentleman would have us to believe his resolution is 
 all but nothing ; yet, again, it is to prove omnipotent, and fill the 
 whole globe w-ith its influence. Either it is nothing, or it is some- 
 thing. If it be nothing, let it return to its original nothingness ; 
 let us lay it on the table, and have done with it at once ; but, if it is 
 that something, which it has been on the other hand represented to 
 be, let us beware how we touch it. For my part, I would sooner put 
 the shirt of Nessus on my back than sanction these doctrines doc- 
 trines such as I never heard from my boyhood till now. They go 
 the whole length. If they prevail, there are no longer any Pyre- 
 nees ; every bulwark and barrier of the Constitution is broken down : 
 it is become tabula, v asa, a carte blancfo, for every one to scribble on 
 it what he pleases." 
 
 The resolutions were laid on the table, never afterwards to be 
 called up.
 
 INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 201 
 
 . 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 
 
 IMMEDIATELY after the close of the foregoing debate, within a few days, 
 there followed a discussion on an appropriation to defray the expenses of 
 a survey of the country, with reference to an extended and connected 
 scheme of roads and canals. But two years previous, May. 1822, Mr. 
 Monroe had demonstrated, in the most elaborate manner, the unconsti- 
 tutionality of any system of internal improvement by the Federal Gov- 
 ernment. Having duly considered the bill, entitled " An act for the 
 preservation and repair of the Cumberland Road," he returned it 
 to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, under the 
 conviction that Congress did not possess the power, under the Con- 
 stitution, to pass such a law. 
 
 A power to establish turnpikes, with gates and tolls, and to enforce 
 the collection of the tolls by penalties, implies a power to adopt 
 and execute a complete system of internal improvement. Mr. Mon- 
 roe contended that Congress did not possess this power that the 
 States individually could not grant it. If the power exist, it must 
 be either because it has been specifically granted to the United States, 
 or that it is incidental to some power which has been specifically 
 granted. It has never been contended that the power was specifi- 
 cally granted. It is claimed only as being incidental to some one or 
 more of the powers that are specifically granted. 
 
 The following are the powers from which it is said to be derived : 
 1st. From the right to establish post-offices and post-roads. 2d. From 
 the right to declare war. 3d. To regulate commerce. 4th. To pay 
 the debts, and provide for the common defence and general welfare. 
 5th. From the power to make all laws necessary and proper for car- 
 rying into execution all the powers vested by the Constitution in the 
 Government of the United States. 6th. From the power to dispose 
 of, and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory 
 and other property of the United States. 
 
 Mr. Monroe took up the power thus claimed, and by a most 
 extended and elaborate review of the history and the principles 
 
 VOL. n. 9*
 
 202 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 of the Constitution, demonstrated that it could not be derived 
 from either of those powers specified, nor from all of them united, 
 and that in consequence it did not exist. 
 
 These views, so distinct and unequivocal, were set forth by Mr. 
 Monroe on the 4th of May, 1822, in a special message, addressed to 
 Congress. In December, 1823, a bill was introduced into the House 
 of Representatives, by which the President of the United States was 
 authorized to cause the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates to 
 be made, of the routes of such roads and canals as he may deem of 
 national importance, in a commercial or military point of view, or 
 necessary for the transportation of the public mail. This bill, it was 
 understood, contemplated a scheme of internal improvement on the 
 most extended scale; as such, it was discussed and voted upon. 
 The debate was long, and was ably conducted. Mr. Clay, as usual. 
 was the great champion of this as of all the other brilliant schemes 
 of the day. It was natural, therefore, that he and Randolph should 
 come in collision on all occasions. The one was the bold leader of a 
 new school of politicians, sprung up out of the ruins of the old Ham- 
 iltonian dynasty, who by interpolation or construction made the Con- 
 stitution mean any thing and every thing their ardent minds chose 
 to aspire to. The other was the clear-sighted, consistent, and up- 
 right statesman, that stood by the old landmarks of republicanism, 
 as they were laid down by the fathers of the faith ; and never could 
 be induced to depart from them by the hope of reward or the fear 
 of denunciation. They were the Lucifer and the Michael of contend- 
 ing hosts : 
 
 " Now waved their fiery swords, and in the air 
 Made horrid circles : two broad suns their shields 
 Bkz'd opposite, while expectation stood 
 In horror ; from each hand with speed retir'd 
 Where erst was thickest fight, the angelic throng, 
 And left large field ; unsafe within the wind 
 Of such commotion." 
 
 Or Randolph, rather, wafc the faithful Abdiel 
 
 " Nor number, nor example with him wrought 
 To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, 
 Though single. From amidst them forth he passed, 
 And with retorted scorn his back he turned 
 On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed."
 
 INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 203 
 
 Mr. Randolph, on the 31st of January, 1824, delivered his senti- 
 ments at large on the bill. The reader must here also be content 
 with a few paragraphs : 
 
 ' ; During no very short course of public life," said Mr. R., " I do 
 not know that it has ever been my fortune to rise under as much em- 
 barrassment, or to address the House with as much repugnance as 
 I now feel. That repugnance, in part, grows out of the necessity that 
 exists for my taking some notice, in the course of my observations, 
 of the argument, if argument it may be called, of an honorable mem- 
 ber of this House, from Kentucky. And, although I have not the 
 honor to know, personally, or even by name, a large portion of the 
 members of this House, it is not necessary for me to indicate the 
 cause of that repugnance. But this I may venture to promise the 
 committee, that, in my notice of the argument of that member, I 
 shall show, at least, as much deference to it, as he showed to the 
 message of the President of the United States of America, on re- 
 turning a bill of a nature analogous to that now before us I i&y at 
 least as much ; I should regret if not more. With the argument of 
 the President, however, I have nothing to do. I wash my hands of 
 it, and will leave it to the triumph, the clemency, the mercy of the 
 honorable gentleman of Kentucky if, indeed, to use his own lan- 
 guage, amid the mass of words in which it is enveloped, he has been 
 able to find it. My purpose in regard to the argument of the gen- 
 tleman from Kentucky is, to show that it lies in the compass of a 
 nut-shell ; that it turns on the meaning of one of the plainest words 
 in the English language. I am happy to be able to agree with that 
 gentleman in at least one particular, to wit : in the estimate the gen- 
 tleman has formed of his own powers as a grammarian, philologer. 
 and critic ; particularly as those powers have been displayed in the 
 dissertation with which he has favored the committee on the inter- 
 pretation of the word establish. 
 
 u ' Congress,' says the Constitution. ' shall have power to estalfixk 
 (ergo, says the gentleman, Congress shall have power to construct) 
 post-roads.' 
 
 ' One would suppose, that, if any thing could be considered as 
 settled, by precedent in legislation, the meaning of the words of the 
 Constitution must, before this time, have been settled, by the uniform 
 sense in which that power has been exercised, from the commence- 
 ment of the Government to the present time. What is the fact ? 
 Your statute-book is loaded with acts for the ' establishment' of post- 
 roads, and the post-master general is deluged with petitions tor tin 
 'establishment' of post-offices ; and yet, we are now gravely debating 
 on what the word ' establish' shall be held to mean ! A curious pre- 
 dicament we are placed in : precisely the reverse of that of Moliure'.s
 
 204 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 citizen turned gentleman, who discovered, to his great surprise, that 
 he had been talking ' prose' all his life long without knowing it. A 
 common case. It is just so with all prosers, and I hope I may not 
 exemplify it in this instance. But, sir, we have been for five and 
 thirty years establishing post-roads, under the delusion that we were 
 exercising a power specially conferred upon us by the Constitution, 
 while we were, according to the suggestion of the gentleman from 
 Kentucky, actually committing treason, by refusing, for so long a 
 time, to carry into effect that very article of the Constitution ! 
 
 " To forbear the exercise of a power vested in us for the public 
 good, not merely for our own aggrandizement, is. according to the 
 argument of the gentleman from Kentucky, treachery to the Consti- 
 tution ! I, then, sir, must have commenced my public life in trea- 
 son, and in treason am I doomed to end it. One of the first votes 
 that I ever had the honor to give, in this House, was a vote against 
 the establishment, if gentlemen please, of a uniform system of bank- 
 ruptcy a power as unquestionably given to Congress, by the Consti- 
 tution, as the power to lay a direct tax. But, sir, my treason did 
 not end there. About two years after the establishment of this uni- 
 form system of bankruptcy, I was particeps criminis, with almost 
 the unanimous voice of this House, in committing another act of 
 treachery in repealing it ; and Mr. Jefferson, the President of the 
 United States, in the commencement of his career, consummated the 
 treason by putting his signature to the act of repeal. 
 
 " Miserable, indeed, would be the condition of every free people, 
 if, in expounding the charter of their liberties, it were necessary to go 
 back to the Anglo-Saxon, to Junius and Skinner, and other black- 
 letter etymologists. Not, sir, that I am very skilful in language : 
 although I have learned from a certain curate of Brentford, wliose 
 name will survive when the whole contemporaneous bench of Bishops 
 shall be buried in oblivion, that words the counters of wise men. 
 the money of fools that it is by the dexterous cutting and shuffling 
 of this pack, that is derived one-half of the chicanery, and much 
 more than one-half of the profits of the most lucrative profession in 
 the worl-d and, sir, by this dexterous exchanging and substituting 
 of words, we shall not be the first nation in the world which has 
 been cajoled, u" we are to be cajoled, out of our rights and liberties. 
 
 " In the course of the observations which the gentleman from 
 Kentucky saw fit to submit to the committee, were some pathetic 
 ejaculations on the subject of the sufferings of our brethren of the 
 West. Sir, our brethren of the West have suffered, as our brethren 
 throughout the United States, from the same cause, although with 
 them the cause exists in an aggravated degree, from the acts of those 
 to whom they have confided the power of legislation ; by a departure 
 and we have all suffered from it I hope no gentleman will under-
 
 INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 205 
 
 stand me, as wishing to make any invidious comparison between dif- 
 ferent quarters of our country, by a departure from the industry, the 
 simplicity, the economy, and the frugality of our ancestors. They 
 have suffered from a greediness of gain, that has grasped at the sha- 
 dow while it has lost the substance from habits of indolence, of pro- 
 fusion, of extravagance from an aping of foreign manners and of 
 foreign fashions from a miserable attempt at the shabby genteel, 
 which only serve to make our poverty more conspicuous. The way to 
 remedy this state of suffering, is, to return to those habits of labor 
 and industry, from which we have thus departed. 
 
 " With these few remarks," continued Mr. R., -permit me now to 
 recall the attention of the committee to the original design of this 
 Government. It grew out of the necessity, indispensable and un- 
 avoidable, in the circumstances of this country, of some general 
 power, capable of regulating foreign commerce. Sir, I am old 
 enough to remember the origin of this Government ; and, though I 
 was too young to participate in the transactions of the day, I have a 
 perfect recollection of what was public sentiment on the subject. 
 And I repeat, without fear of contradiction, that the proximate, as 
 well as the remote cause of the existence of the federal government, 
 was the regulation of foreign commerce. Not to particularize all the 
 difficulties which grew out of the conflicting laws of the States, Mr. 
 R. referred to but one, arising from Virginia taxing an article 
 which Maryland then made duty-free ; and to that very policy, may 
 be attributed, in a great degree, the rapid growth and prosperity of 
 the town of Baltimore. If the old Congress had possessed the power 
 of laying a duty of ten per cent, ad valorem on imports, this Consti- 
 tution would never have been called into existence. 
 
 " But we are told that, along with the regulation of foreign com- 
 merce, the States have yielded to the General Government, in as 
 broad terms, the regulation of domestic commerce I mean the com- 
 merce among the several States and that the same power is possessed 
 by Congress over the one as over the other. It is rather unfortunate 
 for this argument, that, if it applies to the extent to which the power 
 to regulate foreign commerce has been carried by Congress, they 
 may prohibit altogether this domestic commerce, as they have here 
 tofore, under the other power, prohibited foreign commerce. 
 
 " But why put extreme cases 1 This Government cannot go un 
 one day without a mutual understanding and deference between the 
 State and General Governments. This Government is the breath of 
 the nostrils of the States. Gentlemen may say what they please of 
 the preamble to the Constitution ; but this Constitution is not th< 
 work of the amalgamated population of the then existing coufede 
 racy, but the offspring of the States ; and however high we may 
 carry our heads and strut and fret our hour ' dressed in a little brief
 
 2Q6 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 authority,' it is in tne power of the States to extinguish this Govern- 
 ment at a blow. They have only to refuse to send members to the 
 other branch of the legislature, or to appoint electors of President 
 and Vice-President, and the thing is done. Gentlemen will not un- 
 derstand me as seeking for reflections of this kind ; but, like Fal- 
 staff j s rebellion I mean Worcester's rebellion they lay in my way 
 and I found them." 
 
 ; I remember to have heard it said elsewhere," said Mr. R., " that 
 when gentlemen talk of precedent, they forget they were not in West- 
 minster Hall. Whatever trespass I may be guilty of upon the atten 
 tion of the Committee, one thing I will promise them, and will faith- 
 fully perform my promise. I will dole out to them no political meta- 
 physics. Sir, I unlearned metaphysics almost as early as Fontenelle, 
 and he tells us, I think, it was at nine years old. I shall say nothing 
 about that word municipal. I am almost as sick of it as honest Fal- 
 staff was of ' security ;' it has been like ratsbane in my mouth, ever 
 since the late ruler in France took shelter under that word to pocket 
 our money and incarcerate our persons, with the most profound 
 respect for our neutral rights. I have done with the word municipal 
 ever since that day. Let us come to the plain common sense con- 
 struction of the Constitution. Sir, we live under a government of a 
 peculiar structure, to which the doctrines of the European writers on 
 civil polity do not apply ; and when gentlemen get up and quote 
 Vattel as applicable to the powers of the Constitution of the United 
 States, I should as soon have expected them to quote Aristotle or the 
 Koran. Our Government is not like the consolidated monarchies of 
 the old world. It is a solar system ; an imperium in imperio ; and 
 when the question is about the one or the other, what belong to the 
 imperium and what to the imperio, we gain nothing by referring to 
 Vattel. He treats of an integral government a compact structure, 
 totusteres atquerotundus. But ours is a system composed of two dis- 
 tinct governments ; the one general in its nature, the other internal. 
 Now, sir, a government may be admirable for external, and yet exe- 
 crable for internal purposes. And when the question of power in the 
 government arises, this is the problem which every honest man has 
 to work. The powers of government are divided in our system be- 
 tween the General and- State Governments, except such powers which 
 the people have very wisely retained to themselves. With these 
 exceptions, all the power is divided between the two Governments. 
 The given power will not lie unless, as in the case of direct taxes, 
 the power is specifically given ; and even then the State has a con- 
 current power. The question for every honest man to ask himself 
 is, to which of these two divisions of government does the power in 
 contest belong ? This is the problem we have to settle : Does this 
 power of internal improvement belong to the General or to the State
 
 INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 207 
 
 Governments, or is it a concurrent power ? Gentlemen say we have, by 
 the Constitution, power to establish post-roads ; and, having established 
 post-roads, we should be much obliged to you to allow us therefore the 
 power to construct roads and canals into the bargain. If I had the phy- 
 sical strength, sir ; I could easily demonstrate to the committee that, 
 supposing the power to exist on our part, of all the powers that can be 
 exercised by this House, there is no power that would be more sus- 
 ceptible of abuse than this very power. Figure to yourself a commit- 
 tee of this House determining on some road, and giving out the con- 
 tracts to the members of both Houses of Congress, or to their friends, 
 &c. Sir, if I had strength, I could show to this committee that the 
 Asiatic plunder of Leadenhall-street has not been more corrupting 
 to the British Government than, the exercise of such a pcfyrer as this 
 would prove to us. 
 
 " I said," continued Mr. R., " that this Government, if put ;o the 
 test a test it is by no means calculated to endure as a government 
 for the management of the internal concerns of this country, is one 
 of the worst that can be conceived, which is determined bi the fact 
 that it is a government not having a common feeling amr common 
 interest with the governed* I know that we are told and it is the 
 first time the doctrine has been openly avowed that upon the res- 
 ponsibility of this House to the people, by means of the elective fran- 
 chise, Depends all the security of the people of the United States 
 against the abuse of the powers of this Government. 
 
 " But, sir, how shall a man from Mackinaw, or the Yellow Stone 
 River, respond to the sentiments of the people who live in New Hamp- 
 shire ? It is as great a mockery a greater mockery than it was to 
 talk to these colonies about their virtual representation in the Bri- 
 tish Parliament. I have no hesitation in saying that the liberties of 
 the colonies were safer in the custody of the British Parliament than 
 they will be in any portion of this country, if all the powers of the 
 States, as well as of the General Government, are devolved on this 
 House ; and in this opinion I am borne out, and more than borne out, 
 by the authority of Patrick Henry himself. 
 
 " It is not a matter of conjecture merely, but of fact, of notoriety, 
 that there does exist on this subject an honest difference of opinion 
 among enlightened men ; that not one or two, but many States in 
 the Union see, with great concern and alarm, the encroachments of 
 the General Government on their authority. They feel that they 
 have given up the power of the sword and the purse, and enabled 
 men, with the purse in one hand and the sword in the other, to 
 rifle them of all they hold dear." "We now begin to per- 
 ceive what we have surrendered ; that, having given up the power of 
 the purse and the sword, every thing else is at the mercy and for- 
 bearance of the General Government We did believe there were
 
 208 ] - IFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 some parchment barriers no ! what is worth all the parchment 
 barriers in the world that there was, in the powers of the States, 
 some counterpoise to the power of this body ; but, if this bill passes. 
 we can believe so no longer." 
 
 " There is one other power," said Mr. K., " which may be exercised, 
 in case the power now contended for be conceded, to which I ask the 
 attention of every gentleman who happens to stand in the same un- 
 fortunate predicament with myself of every man who has the mis- 
 fortune to be, and to have been born, a slaveholder. If Congress 
 possess the power to do what is proposed by this bill, they may not 
 only enact a sedition law for there is precedent but they may 
 emancipate every slave in the United States, and with stronger 
 color of reason than they can exercise the power now contended for. 
 And where will they find the power? They may follow the example 
 of the gentlemen who have preceded me, and hook the power upon 
 the first loop they find in the Constitution. They might take the 
 preamble, perhaps the war-making power, or they might take a 
 greater sweep, and say, with some gentlemen, that it is not to be 
 found in^his or that of the granted powers, but results from all of 
 them, which is not only a dangerous, but tjie most dangerous doctrine. 
 Is it not demonstrable that slave labor is the dearest in the world, 
 and that the existence of a large body of slaves is a source of danger ? 
 Suppose we are at war with a foreign power, and freedom should be 
 offered them by Congress, as an inducement to them to take a part in 
 it ; or, suppose the country not at war, at every turn of this federal 
 machine, at every successive census, that interest will find itself 
 governed by another and increasing power, which is bound to it 
 neither by any common tie of interest or feeling. And if ever the 
 time shall arrive, as assuredly it has arrived elsewhere, and, in all 
 probability, may arrive here, that a coalition of knavery and fanati- 
 cism shall, for any purpose, be got up on this floor, I ask gentlemen 
 who stand in the same predicament as I do, to look well to what 
 they are now doing, to the colossal power with which they are now 
 arming this Government. The power to do what I allude to is, I 
 aver, more honestly inferable from the war-making power than the 
 power we are now about to exercise. Let them look forward to the 
 time when such a question shall arise, and tremble with me at the 
 thought that that question is to be decided by a majority of the 
 votes of this House, of whom not one possesses the slightest tie of 
 common interest or of common feeling with us." 
 
 The debate on this important question was kept up ten days 
 longer. On the 10th of February, Mr. Randolph moved that the 
 bill be indefinitely postponed. The motion was overruled, and the 
 bill was passed by a majority of 1 15 to 86. So soon as the vote was
 
 SUPREME COURT. 209 
 
 announced, it was moved that the House go into committee of the 
 whole on the state of the Union, with a view of taking up the bill for 
 a revision of the tariff. Mr. Randolph exclaimed, "Sufficient for the 
 day is the evil thereof," and hoped that the House would do no such 
 thing ; they, however, did go into committee, and made some pro- 
 gress in the bill. 
 
 The measure above adopted by the House, was sanctioned by the 
 President, thus furnishing another instance of a most extraordinary 
 and flagrant abandonment of first principles, on a vital point of the 
 Constitution. Mr. Madison's arguments as to the unconstitution- 
 ality of the Bank, stand unanswered and unanswerable ; yet, in 
 1816, Mr. Madison, under the pressure of circumstances, the plea of 
 necessity, and the force of precedent, signed the Bank bill. 
 
 No man argued more clearly and conclusively than Mr. Monroe 
 the unconstitutionality of a system of internal improvement; yet, 
 under the influence of a yielding complacency, that was reluctant to 
 oppose the encroaching spirit of the times, he sanctioned a measure 
 that adopted the system in its broadest sense, and swept away every 
 barrier of the Constitution. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SUPREME COURT DULL DINNER HUDDLESFORD's OAK. 
 
 ABOUT the time the Roads and Canals bill was discussed in the House. 
 a case was argued before the Supreme Court, involving the same prin- 
 ciples. Aaron Ogden, under several acts of the Legislature of the 
 State of New- York, claimed the exclusive navigation of all the waters 
 within the jurisdiction of the State, with boats moved by fire or 
 steam. Gibbons employed two steamboats in running between Eliz- 
 abethtown, New Jersey, and New- York, in violation of the exclusive 
 privilege. He was enjoined by the Chancellor of New- York, and 
 in his answers stated, that the boats were enrolled and licensed, to be 
 employed in carrying on the coasting trade, under the acts of Con-
 
 210 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 gress and insisted on his right, in virtue of such licenses, to navi- 
 gate the waters between Elizabethtown and the city of New-York, 
 the acts of the legislature of the State of New- York to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 The question was, whether the laws of Congress, passed in virtue 
 of the clause of the Constitution which confers on them the power 
 to regulate commerce among the several States, shall contravene and 
 supersede the laws of New-York, granting a monopoly to certain indi- 
 viduals to navigate steam vessels on the waters within the jurisdic- 
 tion of that State. 
 
 The whole controversy turned on the interpretation of this clause 
 of the Constitution " Congress shall have power to regulate com- 
 merce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with 
 the Indian tribes." 
 
 The Chief Justice, to arrive at his conclusions, took the broadest 
 latitude of construction. " It has been said, argues he, that these 
 powers" (powers enumerated in the Constitution) " ought to be con- 
 strued strictly. But why ought they to be so construed 1 Is there 
 one sentence in the Constitution which gives countenance to this 
 rule ? In the last of the enumerated powers, that which grants ex- 
 pressly the means for carrying all others into execution, Congress is 
 authorized ' to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper' for 
 the purpose." With this broad principle as his rule of construction, 
 he then goes on to argue that the power to regulate commerce with 
 foreign nations, is full and absolute and that it embraces the right 
 to regulate navigation. The next step is to prove that the power to 
 regulate commerce among the States is as broad and comprehensive 
 as the power to regulate it with foreign nations. " Commerce among 
 the States," says he, " cannot stop at the external boundary line of 
 
 each State, but may be introduced into the interior." " The 
 
 genius and character of the whole Government seem to be, that its 
 action is to be applied to all the external concerns of the nation, and 
 to those internal concerns which affect the States generally." .... 
 " Commerce among the States must, of necessity, be commerce 
 with the States. In the regulation of trade with the Indian tribes. 
 the action of the law, especially when the Constitution was made, 
 was chiefly within a State. The power of Congress, then, whatever 
 it may be, must be exercised within the territorial jurisdiction of the
 
 SUPREME COURT. 211 
 
 several States." . . . . " This power, like all others vested in Con- 
 gress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and 
 acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the Consti- 
 tution." " The power of Congress, then, comprehends navi- 
 gation within the limits of every State in the Union, so far as 
 that navigation may be, in any manner, connected with ' commerce 
 with foreign nations, or among the several States, or with the Indian 
 tribes.' " 
 
 He goes on to apply these principles self-evident axioms us he 
 called them to the case before the Court, and decided against the 
 exclusive privilege of navigation granted by the laws and sustained 
 by the Judiciary of New- York. 
 
 In conclusion, the Chief Justice says : ' ; Powerful and ingenious 
 minds, taking, as postulates, that the powers expressly granted to the 
 government of the Union, are to be contracted by construction into the 
 narrowest possible compass, and that the original powers of the States 
 are retained, if any possible construction will retain them, may, by a 
 course of well-digested, but refined and metaphysical reasoning, found- 
 ed on these premises, explain away the Constitution of our country, 
 and leave it, a magnificent structure indeed to look at, but totally 
 unfit for use." 
 
 But the Chief Justice did not pe*rceive, that, by pursuing the 
 oroad doctrines laid down by him, the several departments of gov- 
 ernment, especially the one over which he presided the Judiciary, 
 whose business it is to construe and interpret might, step by step, 
 absorb all the powers reserved to the States, and to the people, and 
 make the government a magnificent structure indeed, not merely to 
 look at, but one wielding all the concentrated powers of a consoli- 
 dated empire. The true rule is to go neither to the one extreme nor to 
 the other, but to give to each and to all that which rightfully belongs 
 to them. 
 
 This opinion of the Chief Justice gave great umbrage to the 
 States-rights men. They said he travelled out of the record, to 
 make an elaborate argument in behalf of those principles which were 
 then urged in Congress as a justification of a general system of in- 
 ternal improvement among the States. 
 
 Mr. Randolph says to Dr. Brockenbrough, the 3d of March : 
 
 " The Chief Justice yesterday delivered a most able opinion in the
 
 212 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 great New- York steamboat case, fatal to the monopoly. It is said that 
 he decided in favor of the power of the General Government to make 
 internal improvements,' but I don't believe it. He is too wise a 
 man to decide any point not before his court." No man admired 
 Marshall more than John Randolph ; he held him up, as the reader 
 knows, as a model to the young to the world ; but he did not let 
 his partiality for the man blind his judgment as to the dangerous 
 doctrines of the Judge. When he had read " the opinion," he says : 
 It is the fashion to praise the Chief Justice's opinion in the case of 
 Ogden against Gibbons. But you know I am not a fashionable man ; 
 I think it is unworthy of him. Lord Liverpool has set him an ex- 
 ample of caution in the last speech of the king : one that shames our 
 gasconading message. I said it was too long before I read it. It 
 contains a great deal that has no business there, or indeed any where. 
 Mr. Webster's phrase, ' unit,' which he adopts, is a conceit (concetto), 
 and a very poor one. borrowed from Dr. Rush, who with equal reason 
 pronounced disease to be a unit. Now, as this tJieory of the Doctor 
 had no effect whatever upon his practice, and that alone could affect his 
 patients, it was so far a harmless maggot of the brain. But when 
 that theory was imbibed at a single gulp by his young disciples, 
 who were sent out annually from Philadelphia, it became the means 
 of death not to units, or tens, or hundreds, but thousands, and tens 
 of thousands. 
 
 " A judicial opinion should decide nothing and embrace nothing 
 that is not before the court. If he had said that ' a vessel, having the 
 legal evidence that she has Conformed to the regulations which Con- 
 gress has seen fit to prescribe, has the right to go from a port of any 
 State to a port of any other with freight or in quest of it, with passen- 
 gers or in quest of them, non obstante such a law as that of the State 
 of New-York under which the appellee claims,' I should have been 
 satisfied. 
 
 11 However, since the case of Cohen vs. Virginia, I am done with 
 th? Supreme Court. No one admires more than I do the extraordi- 
 nary powers of Marshall's mind : no one respects more his amiable 
 deportment in private life. He is the most unpretending and unas- 
 suming of men. His abilities and his virtues render him an orna- 
 ment not only to Virginia, but to our nature I cannot, however, 
 help thinking, that he was too long at the bar before he ascended the 
 bench ; and that, like our friend T , he had injured, by the indis- 
 criminate defence of right or wrong, the tone of his perception (if you 
 will allow so quaint a phrase) of truth or falsehood." 
 
 John Marshall was, after the most straitest sect," a Federal- 
 ist of the Hamilton school. The reader, doubtless, well remembers 
 his attempt to play at the game of Diplomacy with Talleyrand, and
 
 SUPREME COURT. 213 
 
 the figure he cut in the X. Y. Z. business. Soon after his return to 
 the United States he was elected a member of Congress, from the 
 Richmond District, in the spring of 1799, after a most violent and 
 bitter contest, beating John Clopton. the old republican representa- 
 tive. Mr. Adams, in 1800, removed Timothy Pickering from the 
 head of his cabinet, and put General Marshall in his place ; and in 
 1801, as one of the last acts of his administration, made him Chief 
 Justice of the United States. 
 
 The man of great parts and of upright principles will perform 
 justly and nobly the duties of whatever station he may be placed in. 
 This maxim was well illustrated by Judge Marshall. As a partisan 
 leader he was bold, fearless, uncompromising, and devoted to the 
 principles of the cause he espoused. When elevated to the Bench 
 he rose serenely above all party influences, and became the enlight- 
 ened, wise, and upright Judge. But it is very clear, that wherever 
 the powers of the Federal Government were concerned, he could not 
 rise above those doctrines which had been so thoroughly inculcated 
 on his mind. His federal principles, by long practice and thorough 
 digestion, had so completely become a part of his mental system as 
 to be a law of thought on all questions of constitutional interpreta- 
 tion. The tendency of the Supreme Court is now to the opposite 
 extreme. The system of judicial reasoning, like all other moral sys- 
 tems built on the laws of the human mind, and not the principles of an 
 exact science, revolves in a cycle ; and in a series of years, will find 
 itself occupying in regular succession the same positions which it had 
 held at some former period. The mind progresses, but it is in a circle. 
 
 On the 20th of March, Mr. Randolph writes to his friend : 
 
 " Mr. King of N. Y., his colleague, Mr. Chief Justice, Tazewell 
 and some three or four more dine with me to-morrow, so that I shah 
 have good company, at least, if not a good dinner." Two days after, 
 he says : i( Mr. Chief Justice, Tazewell, Van Buren, Benton, Morgan, 
 of N. Y., and George Calvert, dined with me yesterday (Mr. King 
 was sick, of his late freak in the Senate, I shrewdly suspect) ; and 
 your ' fat sail-ion party' was hardly more dull than we were. The 
 Chief Justice has no longer the power ' d'etre vif.' Tazewell took to 
 prosing at the far end of the table to two or three, who formed a sort 
 of separate coterie ; V. B. was unwell, and out of spirits ; and I waa 
 obliged to get nearly or quite drunk, to keep them from yawning 
 outright."
 
 214 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Mr. Randolph was informed, about this time, that Miss Roane, 
 the daughter of the late Judge Spencer Roane, was expected to visit 
 Washington. 
 
 - If Miss Roane," says he, " should honor our metropolis with her 
 presence, I shall make it a point to call upon her if for no other 
 cause, from the very high respect in which I held her father whilst 
 living, and hold his memory, being dead. I consider him as a great 
 loss to his country, not only in his judicial character, but as a 
 statesman, who formed a rallying point for the friends of State-rights. 
 Besides, he had the judgment to perceive, and the candor to acknow- 
 ledge, the consistency of my public conduct with my avowed princi- 
 ples ; and he had too much greatness of mind to lend himself to the 
 long and bitter persecution with which I was assailed by two govern- 
 ments, by the press, by a triumphant party (many of whom were old 
 sedition law federalists), until, Sertorius like, after having waged 
 a long war upon my own resources, I was vanquished as much by 
 treachery in my own camp, as by the courage or the conduct of the 
 enemy My hopes (plans, I never had any) have been all blasted, 
 and here I am, like Huddlesford's oak. 
 
 " ' Thou, who unmoved hast heard the whirlwind chide 
 Full many a winter, round thy craggy bed. 
 And like an earth-born giant hast outspread 
 , Thy hundred arms, and Heaven's own bolts defied, 
 
 Now liest along thy native mountain's side, 
 Uptorn ! yet deem not that I come to shed 
 The idle drops of pity o'er thy head, 
 Or, basely, to insult thy blasted pride. 
 
 " ' No, still 'tis thine, though fallen, imperial Oak, 
 To teach this lesson to the wise and brave 
 
 That 'tis far better, overthrown and broke, 
 In Freedom's cause to sink into the grave, 
 
 Than in submission to a tyrant's yoke, 
 
 Like the vile Reed, to bow and be a slave.' 
 
 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 TARIFF PROPHECY LEWIS McLEAN. 
 
 THE Tariff question, during "the spring of 1824, was thoroughly 
 discussed, and for the first time distinctly recognized and placed on 
 the footing of a protective policy. We pass over this subject, and
 
 TARIFF. 
 
 215 
 
 Mr. Randolph's great speech on its leading principles, for the present. 
 Mr. Randolph, however, watched the bill in all its stages, and opposed 
 many of its most objectionable parts in the incipient stage. Some of 
 his best speeches are those short, comprehensive, and pithy discourses 
 delivered on the spur of the occasion, on some isolated point under 
 discussion. On the motion to reduce the duties on coarse woollens. 
 Mr. Randolph said : 
 
 " I am surprised that the votaries of humanity persons who ~an- 
 not sleep, such is their distress of mind at the very existence of negro 
 slavery should persist in pressing a measure, the effect of which is 
 to aggravate the misery of that unhappy condition, whether viewed in 
 reference to the slave, or to his master, if he be a man possessing a 
 spark of humanity ; for what can be more pitiable than the situation 
 of a man who has every desire to clothe his negroes comfortably, but 
 who is absolutely prohibited from so doing by legislative enactment ? 
 I hope that none of those who wish to enhance to the poor slave (or 
 what is the same thing to his master) the price of his annual blan- 
 ket, and of his sordid suit of coarse, but, to him, comfortable woollen 
 cloth, will ever travel through the southern country to spy out the 
 nakedness, if not of the land, of the cultivators of the soil. It is no- 
 torious that the profits of slave labor have been, for a long time, on 
 the decrease ; and that, on a fair average, it scarcely reimburses the 
 expense of the slave, including the helpless ones, whether from infancy 
 or age. The words of Patrick Henry, in the Convention of Virginia, 
 still ring in my ears : ' They may liberate every one of your slaves. 
 The Congress possess the power, and will exercise it.' Now, sir, the 
 first step towards this consummation, so devoutly wished by many, is 
 to pass such laws as may yet still further diminish the pittance which 
 their labor yields to their unfortunate masters, to produce such a 
 state of things as will insure, in case the slave shall not elope from 
 his master, that his master will run away from him. Sir, the blindness, 
 as it appears to me I hope gentlemen will pardon the expression 
 with which a certain quarter of this country I allude particularly to 
 the seaboard of South Carolina and Georgia has lent its aid to in- 
 crease the powers of the general government on points, to say the least, 
 of doubtful construction, fills me with astonishment and dismay. And 
 I look forward, almost without a ray of hope, to the time which tin- 
 next census, or that which succeeds it, will assuredly bring forth, 
 when this work of destruction and devastation is to commence in tin- 
 abused name of humanity and religion, and when the imploring eyes 
 of some will be, as now, turned towards another body, in the v.-iin 
 hope that it may arrest the evil, and stay the plague." 
 
 April 12, Mr.. Randolph said : " If the House would lend me its
 
 216 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 attention five minutes, I think I can demonstrate that the argument 
 of the gentleman from Delaware in favor of the increased duty on 
 brown sugar, is one of the most suicidal arguments that ever reared 
 its spectral front in a deliberative assembly. 
 
 The gentleman objects to reducing the duty on sugar, because 
 it will diminish the revenue, which he says we cannot dispense with. 
 and yet he wishes to continue it as a bounty of 83 per 100 Ibs. (not 
 the long hundred of 1 12 Ibs.), until the sugar planting and sugar ma- 
 nufacture should be extended, so as to supply the whole demand of 
 our consumption. Then what becomes of the revenue from sugar 
 that we cannot dispense with ? This is what I call a suicidal argu- 
 ment, it destroys itself. 
 
 Mr. McLean, at the commencement of his reply, appearing to 
 be much irritated, Mr. Randolph rose and assured him that he in- 
 tended not the slightest disrespect or offence but Mr. McLean 
 went on to say that the gentleman from Virginia had displayed a 
 good head, but he would not accept that gentleman's head, to be 
 obliged to have his heart along with it. 
 
 Mr. Randolph replied : 
 
 "It costs me nothing, sir, to say that I very much regret 
 that the zeal which I have not only felt, but cherished, on the sub- 
 ject of laying taxes in a manner which, in my judgment, is incon- 
 sistent, not merely with the spirit, but the very letter of the Constitu- 
 tion, should have given to my remarks, on this subject, a pungency, 
 which has rendered them disagreeable, and even offensive to the gen- 
 tleman from Delaware. For that gentleman I have never expressed 
 any other sentiment but respect I have never uttered, or entertain- 
 ed, an unkind feeling towards that gentleman, either in this House 
 or elsewhere, nor do I now feel any such sentiment towards him. I 
 never pressed my regard upon him I press it upon no man. He 
 appears to have considered my remarks as having a personal applica- 
 tion to himself. I certainly did not intend to give them that direc- 
 tion, and I think that my prompt disclaimer of any such intention 
 ought to have disarmed his resentment, however justly it may have 
 been excited. He has been pleased, sir. to say something, which, 
 no doubt, he thinks very severe, about my head and my heart. 
 
 " ^?. w eas y' s * r ' wou ld it be for me to reverse the gentleman's 
 proposition, and to retort upon him, that I would not, in return, take 
 that gentleman's heart, however good it may be. if obliged to take 
 such a head into the bargain. 
 
 But. sir. I do not think this I never thought it and. there- 
 fore. I cannot be so ungenerous as to say it: for. Mr. Speaker, who 
 made me a searcher of hearts? of the heart of a fellow-man, a fellow
 
 TARIFF. 217 
 
 sinner ? Sir, this is an awful subject ! better suited to Friday or 
 Sunday next (Good Friday and Easter Sunday), two of the most 
 solemn days in the Christian calendar when I hope we shall all con- 
 sider it, and lay it to heart as we ought to do. 
 
 ' But, air, I must still maintain that the argument of the gentle- 
 man is suicidal he has fairly worked the equation, and one-half of 
 his argument is a complete and conclusive answer to the other. And. 
 sir, if I should ever be so unfortunate as, through inadvertence, or 
 the heat of debate, to fall into such an error, I should, so far from 
 being offended, feel myself under obligation to any gentleman who 
 would expose its fallacy, even by ridicule as fair a weap >n as any 
 in the whole Parliamentary armory. I shall not go so far as to 
 maintain, with my Lord Shaftesbury, that it is the unerring test of 
 truth, whatever it may be of temper ; but if it be proscribed as a 
 weapon as unfair as it is confessedly powerful, what shall we say (I 
 put it, sir, to you and to the House) to the poisoned arrow ? to the 
 tomahawk and the scalping-knife ? Would the most unsparing use 
 of ridicule justify a resort to these weapons? Was this a reason 
 that the gentleman sould sit in judgment on my heart? yes, sir, 
 my heart which the gentleman (whatever he may say) in his heart 
 believes to be a frank heart, as I trust it is a brave heart. Sir, I 
 dismiss the gentleman to his self-complacency let him go yes, sir, 
 let him go, and thank his God that he is not as this publican." 
 
 This is the finest retort of the kind to be found in the English lan- 
 guage. Its admirable style and temper cannot be too strongly 
 recommended to those who in the heat of debate may be tempted to 
 say severe and irritating things. This is a model for them to follow : 
 ' A soft answer turneth away wrath." Mr. Randolph's conduct on 
 this occasion was looked upon with admiration by all gentlemen. 
 
 " Mr. King, of New-York," says he to a friend, " came to me yes- 
 terday, and said that ' all the Georgetown mess were loud in their 
 praises of my reception of McLean of Delaware's attack upon me on 
 Monday (the day before yesterday), the 12th; that the Patroon (Van 
 Rensselaer) was d lighted,' &c., &c., &c. Tattnall of Georgia (a preux 
 chevalier), told Mr. Macon that nothing could be more dignified or 
 gentlemanly than my reply, and that it was just what it ought to 
 have been. Many others tell me that this is the general sentiment." 
 
 Mr. Randolph frequently expressed to his friends his surprise at 
 this attack upon him, and could not conceive the motive. He had a 
 true regard for the gentleman from Delaware, though he might not 
 have been aware of it ; lie pressed his regard upon no man. As far 
 back as 1820, when Mr. McLean first took his seat in Congress, Mr. 
 
 VOL. ir. 10
 
 218 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Randolph, with characteristic accuracy and penetration, had described 
 him to a friend, his origin and history, and that of his family, and 
 concluded by saying, " He is the finest fellow I have seen here, by a 
 double distance." 
 
 Mr. Randolph watched the tariff bill in all its stages, and resisted 
 it so long as there was any. hopp. At length he wrote to a friend : 
 
 " I am satisfied (now) that nothing can avail to save us. Indeed 
 I have long been of that opinion. ' The ship will neither wear nor 
 stay, and she may go ashore, and be d d,' as Jack says." 
 
 Friday, 25th April, he says : 
 
 " The tariff is finished, (in our House at least,) and so am I. I 
 was sent for on Tuesday in all haste to vote upon it ; when I got 
 there the previous question was taking, and the clerk reading the 
 yeas and nays. 
 
 " At the end, Gilmore (a fine fellow, by the way, although a 
 Georgian and a Crawford man) moved for a call of the House. When 
 that was over, Wilde, from Georgia, moved to amend the title. I, as 
 big a fool as he, got up to tell him what an ass he was. (By the way, 
 for ' Smith's verses on the old continental money,' which the reporter 
 put into my mouth why or wherefore he only can tell read what 
 I actually did say : Sun/Vs verses on* tJte motto upon Chief Justice 
 Whitshed's coach. So much for reporters. That over, Drayton, of 
 S. C.. who is the Purge of the House, got up to make another motion 
 to amend. By this time the noisome atmosphere overcame me, and 
 A left the hall. Mr. D. on his legs ; but a copious effusion of blood 
 from the lungs has been the consequence. It came on in about thirty 
 minutes after I got home ; so that the debate on the amendment of 
 the tariff bill has the honor of my coup de grace." 
 
 Mr. Randolph was appointed on the committee to investigate the 
 charges ot mismanagement brought by Ninian Edwards against the 
 Secretary of the Treasury. In reference to this subject he writes to 
 his constituents from on board the ship Nestor, at sea, May 1 7 : 
 
 ' Fellow-citizens, friends, and freeholders A recurrence of the 
 same painful disease that drove me from my post some two years ago 
 again compels me to ask a furlough, for I cannot consent to consider 
 myself in the light of a deserter. But no consideration whatever 
 would have induced me to leave Washington, so long as a shadow of 
 doubt hung over the transactions of the Treasury, which I was (among 
 others) appointed to investigate. * * * * I confess that I was not 
 without some misgivings that all was not right. Holding myself aloof 
 from the intrigues and intriguers of Washington, I had remained a
 
 SECOND VOYAGE TO EUROPE. 
 
 219 
 
 passive spectator of a scene such as I hope never again to witness. 
 Not that I was without a slight, a very slight, preference in the 
 choice of the evils submitted to us for our Acceptance. I inclined 
 towards Mr. Crawford, for some reasons which were private and per- 
 sonal, and with which it is unnecessary to trouble you ; but, chiefly, 
 because you preferred him to his competitors, and because, if elected! 
 he would, in a manner, be compelled to throw himself into the hands 
 of the least unsound of the political parties of the country ; that he 
 would, by the force of circumstances, be compelled to act with us (the 
 people), whilst the rival candidates would, by the same force of cir- 
 cumstances, be obliged to act against us, and with the tribe of office 
 hunters and bankrupts that seek to subsist upon our industry and 
 means." 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 SECOND VOYAGE TO EUEOPE. 
 
 MR. JACOB HARVEY, who died in 1848, was an Irishman by birth; 
 he emigrated some thirty years ago from his native country, and made 
 the city of New-York the place of his residence. He was a mer- 
 chant by profession, and those who knew him in his business bear tes- 
 timony to his extensive information, his skill and prudence, his integ- 
 rity and liberality. He was a man of refined literary tastes, brilliant 
 wit, genuine humor, and exquisite delicacy of feeling. These quali- 
 ties rendered him, in the social relations of life, an instructive and 
 fascinating companion. The acquaintance that commenced between 
 him and Mr. Randolph, on his first voyage to Europe, grew into an 
 unreserved intimacy that lasted to the day of his death. Speaking 
 of him, in a letter to his niece from London, he says : " His name 
 is Jacob Harvey, son of Joseph Massey H.. a Limerick mer- 
 .chant, attached to the society of Friends what is called a gay 
 Quaker. His grandfather, Reuben H., was a merchant of Cork, and 
 during the war of 1776 received a letter under General Washington's 
 own hand, returning his thanks and those of Congress for his kind- 
 ness to our countrymen in Ireland, prisoners and others. Ho was 
 introduced to me by Mr. Golden, as we left the quay." 
 
 Having assisted Mr. Randolph, says Mr. Harvey, in making
 
 220 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 his preparations for the voyage, I left him at Bunker's, and promised 
 to call upon him next morning at half past nine o'clock, to accompany 
 him to the steamboat, which was to convey him to the packet. 
 
 I charged him to have all his luggage ready, as the steamboat 
 was to start precisely at ten o'clock, which he promised to do. Next 
 morning, punctual to my appointment, I entered his sitting-room, ex- 
 pecting, of course, to find him. cap in hand, ready to walk to White- 
 hall dock, the moment I appeared. Judge, then, of my utter aston- 
 ishment to see him sitting at the table, in his dressing-gown, with a 
 large Bible open before him, pen in hand, in the act of writing a let- 
 ter ; while ' John' was on his knees, most busily employed in mpty- 
 ing one trunk and filling another ! 
 
 " In the name of heaven," said I. " Mr. Randolph, what is the 
 matter ? Do you know that it will soon be ten o'clock, and the steam- 
 boat waits for nobody ? You promised me last night to have every 
 thing packed up and ready when I called, and here you are not even 
 dressed yet !" 
 
 " I cannot help it, sir," replied he ; ' : I am all confusion this morn- 
 ing ; every thing goes wrong ; even my memory has gone ' a good 
 wool gathering.' I am just writing a farewell letter to%ay constitu- 
 ents, and, would you believe it, sir, I have forgotten the exact words 
 of a quotation from the Bible, which I want to use, and, as I always 
 quote correctly, I cannot close my letter until I find the passage ; 
 but strange to say, I forget both the chapter and verse. I never was 
 at fault before, sir ; what shall I do ?" 
 
 " Do you remember any part of the quotation ?" said I, " perhaps 
 I can assist you with the rest, as time is precious." 
 
 It begins," replied he. " ' How have I loved thee, oh Jacob ;' but 
 for the life of me, I cannot recollect the next words. Oh my head ! 
 my head ! Here, do you take the Bible, and run your eye over that 
 page, whilst I am writing the remainder of my address." 
 
 "My dear sir," said I. " you have not time to do this now, but let 
 us take letter, Bible, and all on board the steamboat, where you will 
 have ample time to find the passage you want, before we reach the 
 packet." 
 
 After some hesitation and reluctance, he agreed to my proposi- 
 tion, and then, suddenly turning round, he said, in a sharp tone :
 
 SECOND VOYAGE TC EUROPE. 221 
 
 " Well, sir, I will not take John with me, and you will please get 
 back his passage-money to-morrow. He must go home, sir." 
 
 " Not take John with you !" exclaimed I. " Are you mad ? Do 
 you forget how much you suffered last voyage for want of John or 
 Juba. and how repeatedly you declared that you would never again 
 cross the Atlantic without one of them ? It is folly, and I cannot 
 consent to it." 
 
 ' I have decided, sir ; the question is no longer open to discus- 
 sion." 
 
 " At least," said I, " be so good as to give some reason for such a 
 decision." 
 
 " Why, sir," replied he, " John has disobliged me. He has been 
 spoiled by your free blacks, and forgets his duty ; and I have no idea 
 of having to take care of him all the way to Europe and back again !" 
 Then, turning to po9r John, who was completely crest-fallen, he went 
 on : " Finish that trunk at once, and take it down to the steamboat, 
 and on-your return take your passage in the Philadeljlhia boat ; and 
 
 when you get to Philadelphia, call on Mr. , in Arcll street, and 
 
 tell him that I have sailed ; then go on to Baltimore, and call on Mr. 
 
 , in Monument Place, and say that I shall write to him from 
 
 London ; thence proceed to Washington ; pack up my trunks, which 
 you will find at my lodgings, and take them with you to Roanoke, 
 and report yourself to my overseer." After a pause, he added, in a 
 sarcastic tone, " Now, John, you have heard my commands ; but you 
 need not obey them, unless you choose to do so. If you prefer it, when 
 you arrive in Philadelphia, call on the Manumission Society, and they 
 ivill make you free, and I shall never Iqok after you. Do you hear, 
 sir ?" 
 
 This unjust aspersion of John's love was too much for the faith- 
 ful fellow ; his chest swelled, his lips quivered, his eyes filled, as he 
 replied, in much agitation : 
 
 " Master John, this is too hard. I don't deserve it. You know 
 I love you better than every body else, and you know you will find 
 me at Roanoke when you come back !" 
 
 I felt my blood rising, and said : " Well, Mr. Randolph, I could 
 not have believed this had I not seen it. I thought you had more 
 compassion for your slaves. You are positively unjust in this case, 
 for surely, you have punished him severely enough by leaving him
 
 222 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 behind you, without hurting his feelings. You have made the poor 
 fellow cry." ,. 
 
 " What," said he quickly, " does he shed tears ?" " He does," re- 
 plied I, "and you may see them yourself." " Then," said he, "he 
 shall go with me I John, take down your baggage, and let us forget 
 what has passed. I was irritated, sir, and I thank you for the re- 
 buke." 
 
 Thus ended this, curious scene. John instantly brightened up, 
 soon forgot his master's anger, and was on his way to the boat, in a 
 few minutes, perfectly happy. 
 
 Just as the boat was casting off, Randolph called out to .ne 
 . " Good-by, my friend, and remember, I shall land at the Cove of 
 Cork (the dangers of the sea always excepted), and go over to Limer- 
 ick, and spend a day or two at your father's h'ouse." 
 
 I did not place much dependence upon this hasty promise, and 
 was, therefore, agreeably surprised, a few weeks afterwards, by re- 
 ceiving a letter from home, informing me that " Randolph o*f Roan- 
 oke" had really paid my family a visit, of which they had not receiv- 
 ed the slightest intimation, until he entered the parlor and introduced 
 himself. He made himself extremely agreeable, and they were very 
 sorry to part with him the next day. 
 
 " Sir," said he, speaking of Ireland, " much as I was prepared to 
 see misery in the South of Ireland, I was utterly shocked at the con- 
 dition of the poor peasantry between. Limerick and Dublin. Why, 
 sir. John never felt so proud at being a Virginia slave. He looked 
 with horror upon the mud hovels and miserable food of the white 
 slaves, and I had no fear of his running away. The landlords, and 
 the clergy of the established church, have a fearful account to give, 
 some day or other, sir, of the five and ten talents intrusted to them. 
 I could not keep silence, sir, but every where, in the stage-coaches and 
 hotels, I expressed my opinions fearlessly. One morning, whilst 
 breakfasting at Morrison's, in Dublin, I was drawn into an argument 
 with half a dozen country gentlemen, all violent tories. who seemed 
 to think that all the evils of Ireland arose from the disloyalty of the 
 Catholics. I defended the latter, on the ground that they were de- 
 nied their political rights; and I told them very plainly, in the lan- 
 guage of Scripture, that until they ' unmuzzled the ox which treadeth 
 out the corn,' they must expect insurrections and opposition to the
 
 SECOND VOYAGE TO EUROPE. 223 
 
 government. I had no sooner uttered these words than they all en- 
 deavored to silence me by clamor, and one of them insinuated that 
 I must be a ' foreign spy.' I stood up at once, sir, and after a pause, 
 said, ' Can it be possible that I am in the metropolis of Ireland, the 
 centre of hospitality, or do I dream? Is this the way Irish gentle- 
 men are wont to treat strangers, who happen to express sympathy for 
 the wrongs of their countrymen 1 If, gentlemen, you cannot refute 
 my arguments, at least do not drown my voice by noisy assertions, 
 which you do not attempt to prove. If ever any of you should visit 
 old Virginia, I shall promise you a fair hearing, afr all events ; and 
 you may compare our system of slavery with yours aye, and be the 
 judges yourselves !' This pointed rebuke had the desired effect ; the 
 moment they discovered who I was they instantly apologized for their 
 rudeness, insisted upon my dining with them ; and never did I spend 
 a more jovial day. The instant politics were laid aside, all was wit 
 and repartee, and song. So ended my first and last debate with a 
 party of Irish tories." 
 
 Of England, he says. " there never was such a country on the face 
 of the earth, as England ; and it is utterly impossible that there ever 
 can be any combination of circumstances hereafter, to make such an- 
 other country as old England now is God bless her ! But in Ire- 
 land," he added, " the Government and the Church, or the Lion and 
 the Jackal, have divided the spoils between them, leaving nothing for 
 poor Pat, but the potatoes. The Marquis of Wellesley, sir, does his 
 best to lesseiL the miseries of the peasantry, and yet he is abused by 
 both factions a pretty good proof that he acts impartially between 
 them, sir." 
 
 From England, Mr. Randolph crossed over into France. From 
 Paris, he addressed the following letter to his friend, Dr. Brocken- 
 brough : 
 
 PARIS, July 24, 1824. 
 
 This date says every thing. I arrived here on Sunday after- 
 noon, and am now writing from the Grand Hotel de Castile, rue 
 Richelieu and Boulevard des Italiens for, as the French say, it gives 
 upon both, having an entrance from each. 
 
 I need not tell either of you. that it is in the very focus of gayoty 
 and fashion ; and if the maitre d'hotel may be credited, it is al- 
 ways honored by the residence of " M. le Due de Davuansaire," when- 
 ever his Grace pays a visit to his birthplace. The civilities which,
 
 224 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 through the good offices of my friend, Mr. Foster, were tendered to 
 me two years ago, from : Davuansaire House,' and ' Chisonig,' would 
 render this circumstance a recommendation, if the neatness and com- 
 fort of my apartments did not supersede all necessity for any other 
 recommendation. 
 
 Here, then, am I. where I ought to have been thirty years ago 
 and where I would have been, had I not been plundered and op- 
 pressed during my nonage, and left to enter upon life overwhelmed 
 with a load of DEBT, which the profits of a nineteen years' minority 
 ought to have more than paid ; and ignorant is I was (and even yet 
 am) of business, to grope my way, without a clue, through the laby- 
 rinth of my father's affairs, and brought up among Quakers, an ardent 
 ami des noirs, to scuffle with negroes and overseers, for something like 
 a pittance of rent and profit upon my land and stock. 
 
 ; Uder such circumstances, that I have not been utterly ruined, 
 is due (under God) to the spirit I inherited from my parents, and to the 
 admirable precepts, and yet more admirable example of my revered mo- 
 ther honored and blessed be her memory. Then I had to unravel the 
 tangled skein of my poor brother's difficulties and debts. His sud- 
 den and untimely death threw upon my care, helpless as I was, his 
 family, whom I tenderly and passionately loved, and with whom I 
 might be now living, at Bizarre, if the reunion of his widow with the 
 
 of her husband had not driven me to Roanoke ; where, but 
 
 for my brother's entreaty and forlorn and friendless condition, I 
 should have remained ; and where I should have obtained a release 
 from my bondage more than twenty years ago. Then I might have 
 enjoyed my present opportunities ; but time misspent and faculties 
 misemployed, and senses jaded by labor, or impaired by excess, can- 
 not be recalled any more than that freshness of the heart, before it 
 has become aware of the deceits of others, and of its own. 
 
 " But how do you like Paris ? for all this egotism you might have 
 poured out from Washington." 
 
 Not in the least. And I stay here only waiting for my letters. 
 
 which are to the return of this day's post from London. To 
 
 you I need .not say one word of the Lions of Paris, but will, in a 
 word, tell you, that crucifixes, and paintings of crucifixions, and 
 prints of Charlotte Corday and Marie Antoinette, &c., are the fashion 
 of the day. That the present dynasty, infirmly seated in the saddle : 
 and that by little and little every privilege, acquired not by the de- 
 signs of its authors, but by the necessary consequences of such a revo- 
 lution, will be taken from the people ; nay, I am persuaded that the 
 lands will be resumed, or (what is the same thing) an ample equiva- 
 lent will be plundered from the public, to endow the losers with. At 
 the next session of the deputies, the measure of reimbursing the emi- 
 grants a measure the very possibility of which was scouted, only
 
 SECOND VOYAGE TO ENGLAND. 225 
 
 three years ago. The Marquis de La Fayette had sailed for the 
 United States about ten days before my arrival here. I am sorry 
 he has taken the step. It will do no good to his reputation, which 
 at his time of life he ought to nurse. I take it for granted, that 
 Ned Livingston, or some other equally pure patriot, will propose 
 another donation to him ; the last, I think, was on the motion of Beau 
 Dawson. I hope I may be there, to give it just such another recep- 
 tion as M. Figaro had at my hands. Although it is certainly a species 
 of madness (and I hear that this malady is imputed to me) to be 
 wearing out my strength and spirits, and defending the rights (whe- 
 ther of things or of persons) of a people who lend their countenance 
 to them that countenance the general plunder of the public, in the 
 expectation either that they may share in the spoil, or that their 
 former peculations will not be examined into. 
 
 I consider the present King of France, and his family, to be as 
 firmly seated on the throne of the Tuilleries, as ever Louis XIV. 
 was at Versailles ; all possibility of counter-revolution is a mere chi- 
 mera of distempered imagination. It would be just as possible to re- 
 store the state of society and' manners which existed in Virginia a 
 half a century ago ; I should as soon expect to see the Nelsons, and 
 Pages, and Byrds, and Fairfaxes, living in their palaces, and driving 
 their coaches and sixes ; or the good old Virginia gentlemen on the 
 assembly, drinking their twenty and forty bowls of rack punches, and 
 madeira, and claret, in lieu of a knot of deputy sheriffs and hack at- 
 torneys, each with his cruet of whisky before him, and puddle of 
 tobacco-spittle between his legs. 
 
 But to return to Paris. It is wonderfully improved since you 
 saw it ; nay, since the last restoration, but it is still the filthiest hole. 
 no< excepting the worst parts of the old town of Edinboro', that I 
 ever saw out of Ireland. I have dined, for your sake, chez Beau- 
 villiers, and had bad fare, bad wine, and even bad bread, a high 
 charge and a surly gar$on. Irving, whom you know by character 
 (ou/ ex-minister at Madrid), was with me. He says all the Traiteurs 
 are bad, and the crack ones worst of all. I have also dined with Very, 
 the first restaurateur of the Palais Royal, four times ; on one of 
 which occasions I had a good dinner and zfair glass of champagne 
 next door to Very, once, at the Cafe' de Chartres with Pravot Pas- 
 tel ; all in the Palais Royal ; all bad, dear, and not room enough, 
 even at Beauvilliers 1 or Very's, to sit at ease. I can have a better 
 dinner for half a guinea at the Traveller's, in a saloon fit for a prince, 
 and where gentlemen alone can enter, and a pint of the most exqui- 
 site Madeira, than I can get here for fifteen francs. I have dined 
 like a marketman for 5 fr. 10 sous; that is the cheapest. All the 
 wine, except le vin ordinaire, is adulterated shockingly. The Eng- 
 lish, that made every thing dear, and spoiled the ganjons and filles. 
 
 VOL. u. 10*
 
 226 L1FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 whose greediness is only equalled by their impudence. Crucifixes, 
 madonnas, and pictures and prints of that cast, with Charlotte Cor- 
 day, &c., &c., are the order of the day. Paris swarms with old 
 priests, who have been dug up since the restoration, and they manu- 
 facture young ones (Jesuits especially) by hundreds at a single ope- 
 ration. 
 
 Monsieur, whom you saw at Edinburgh, is remarkable, as I hear, 
 for consuming a hat per day, when one is each morning put upon his 
 toilet. Hats were not so plenty then. 
 
 I made a strange mistake in my order to Leigh. I intended to 
 have given him control over all my funds, except the tobacco sold 
 after that period, which I wished to reserve as a fund, on which to 
 play here I mean in Europe. Pray, let it be so, deducting my 
 check for the passage money. 
 
 And now, my good friend, let me tell you that the state of my 
 eyes, and of my health, and of my avocations too for I have a great 
 deal of writing to do may cause this to be the last letter that you 
 shall receive from me until my return, when we shall, I hope, chat 
 about these and other matters once more. 
 
 In case you should not have gone to Kentucky, I expect a regu- 
 lar bulletin from you. There is one subject very near my heart that 
 you must keep me informed about. I know that women (with great 
 plasticity on other subjects) never will take advice upon that. I 
 know that they rush into ruin with open eyes, and spend the rest of 
 their lives in cursing, at least, the happier lot of their acquaintances, 
 who have in fche most important concern of life been governed by the 
 dictates of common sense. *Che man is too old ; he has not nous 
 enough ; he is helpless. If he had ten thousand a year, he would 
 not be a match for her. I don't know who is worthy of her. But 
 let him be of suitable age, with mind and taste congenial with her 
 own, and of ari erect spirit as well as carriage of body. They shall 
 have my blessing. 
 
 Adieu, 
 
 J. R. OF R. 
 
 Except a few of the English, with which people Paris swarms, 
 I have not seen, either in the streets or elsewhere, any thing that by 
 possibility might be mistaken for a gentleman. The contrast in this 
 respect with London is most striking ; indeed I would as soon com- 
 pare the Hottentots with the French as these last with the English. 
 No Enquirer yet received, and I pine for news from home. 
 
 The latter part of the summer Mr. Randolph spent among the 
 mountains of Switzerland. August the 25th he says: "I was at 
 Lauterbrunnen gazing on the Stubbach, or seeing 'the soaring Jung- 
 frau rear her never-trodden snow. 1 "
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 227 
 
 He arrived in New-York the 2d day of December, when the result 
 of the Presidential election was still in doubt, and hastened on to 
 Washington. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 PKESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 THE Presidential election of 1824 was the legitimate result of the 
 preceding " era of good feelings." In that contest there was not one 
 political principle involved. In no State in the Union, Delaware 
 alone excepted, did the people pretend to keep up their old party 
 organization. The word federalist was not heard in political circles ; 
 it was a mark of rudeness to attach that epithet to any gentleman ; 
 the measures it represented had long since been exploded ; the word 
 itself, as calling up unpleasant reminiscences, had grown obsolete : 
 and every body professed to belong to the great republican family. 
 It was suspected there were many federalists in disguise, and that 
 their profession of republicanism was merely a lip service ; but no 
 one could point them out, or identify them by their political acts. 
 The party had been dissolved, the federalists themselves admitted ; 
 but they contended that it had only been dissolved by the republi- 
 cans embracing their doctrines. And it is very true that all the 
 leading measures of Congress were of a federal stamp, and that they 
 were bottomed on principles of the most latitudinous kind ; the very 
 same that Hamilton used in defending his obnoxious schemes, that 
 brought such discredit on the name of federalism. It was impossible 
 to draw a line of distinction between men, or to set up any standard 
 by which to judge their opinions. Old measures and the divisions 
 they occasioned had passed away ; new measures, under entirely new 
 and variant circumstances, had been brought forward ; but they in- 
 volved the same principles of interpretation, and required the same 
 line of argument in their defence, as the old ones : but men did not 
 divide upon them as they had done heretofore. Those who professed 
 to abhor the doctrines of Hamilton, when applied to the schemes of
 
 228 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 his day, now embraced them as the only means of defending and sus- 
 taining their own measures. A change of circumstances was thought 
 to justify a change of political principle. In Hamilton's day, and 
 down to 1811, a national bank was unconstitutional ; but now, in the 
 estimation of republicans, it had become " necessary and proper. 1 ' 
 and therefore constitutional. Those who came into power with Mr. 
 Jefferson, professing hostility to a national bank, and who refused in 
 1811 to re-charter the old one, established in 1816 a similar institu- 
 tion. The latitudinous construction of the Constitution by the 
 Adams administration in 1798-99, and the odious measures based 
 thereon, such as the alien and sedition laws, constituted the principal 
 objection to that administration, and were the mi.in cause of its over- 
 throw : and the substitution of a party professing the contrary doc- 
 trines a party that professed to interpret the Constitution literally, 
 and that would exercise no power that had not been specifically given 
 by some express grant in the Charter. This party pursued their 
 principles for some years, and furnished a model of a plain, just, and 
 economical government ; but in 1816, while nominally in power, they 
 elected their President, and for eight years seemed to control the 
 measures of his administration ; and yet those measures, as we have 
 abundantly seen, were founded on the same principles that had been 
 so loudly condemned and unequivocally repudiated under the Adams 
 dynasty : so easily are men deceived by names and appearances ; so 
 hard is it to follow a rigid rule of abstinence, when appetite and 
 opportunity invite to indulgence. 
 
 A respectable minority, with John Randolph at the head, invaria- 
 bly opposed the consolidating measures of the times : demonstrated 
 their identity with the exploded doctrines of federalism, and warned 
 the people of the dangerous consequences ; but it was a sort of Cassan- 
 dra voice, that nobody heeded : it seemed impossible to restore the old 
 landmarks, and to convince the people that they had gone backwards, 
 and fallen into the old paths they had once abandoned. All were ex- 
 expecting some special advantage from the legislation of the day ; the 
 hopes of profit had stifled the remonstrances of truth ; and the popular 
 leaders were constantly dazzling the imaginations of the people with 
 some magnificent scheme, by which they hoped to gain renown for them- 
 selves, and to fasten to their fortunes by the ties of a common interest 
 some class or section of the community. The presidential candidates
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 were all committed, or in some way identified with those schemes. 
 Mr. Adams, Mr. Calhoun, and Mr. Crawford, were members of the 
 cabinet ; but they had not been slow in expressing themselves on all 
 occasions, and had given unequivocal evidence of their devotion to 
 those broad doctrines that swept away the barriers of the Constitu- 
 tion, and made it a convenient instrument to sanction whatever might 
 be deemed for the time being to be necessary and proper. 
 
 Mr. Clay, as the leader in the House of Representatives, had been 
 their most ardent, active, and eloquent champion. His position gave 
 him the advantage of the initiative in all popular measures, and he never 
 failed to identify himself with them by some bold and eloquent dis- 
 course. Not content with sweeping away the barriers within the narrow 
 horizon of domestic politics, he embraced in the wide scope of his phi- 
 lanthropic regard all the oppressed and struggling nations of the earth; 
 and, turning a deaf ear to the warning of the father of his country, 
 he hastened to speak a word of encouragement, and to stretch out an 
 arm of help without regard to the consequences to his own country. 
 His ambition for public display, his thirst for present and personal 
 applause, his frank and manly character, his sanguine temperament, 
 and bold imagination, with a quick, comprehensive, yet undisciplined 
 mind, made him just the character to be led off by any popular theme 
 that might promise distinction and popularity just the man to fol- 
 low with undoubting faith the shining ignis fatuus of the hour, and 
 to be dazzled by it and deceived. 
 
 General Jackson had not been in political life, and possessed 
 great military renown ; this gave him an advantage over his competi- 
 tors : but he was not known to differ materially from them in his 
 polittea opinions. There were no public acts to commit him ; but 
 all his correspondence and conversations, so far as they were made 
 known to the public, proved that at that time he had no clear con- 
 ception of the principles that divided the old federal and republican 
 parties, and that he was equally devoted to those new measures which 
 had done so much to bring back in disguise the ascendency of 
 federal doctrines. 
 
 In this state of things the partisans of each of the candidates for 
 the presidency sought to impress on the public mind the idea that 
 their friend was par excellence the true republican candidate. But 
 it was impossible to persuade the people to this belief, when there
 
 230 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 was no political principle dividing them no platform of doctrine on 
 which they were called to stand, so as to be separated and distin- 
 guished from those around them. The consequence was, the whole 
 country was divided into sectional and personal factions. The West 
 and Southwest voted for a western and southwestern man ; New- 
 York and New England voted for a New England man ; while the 
 Southern and Middle States were divided between a northern, a 
 southern, and a western man. There was no principle to bring the 
 discordant sections together, and to cause them to sacrifice their 
 friend on the altar of the public good : there was no such public 
 good nothing in the whole controversy that would justify any such 
 immolation. What advantage had Mr. Adams over Mr Clay, or 
 Mr. Crawford, or General Jackson ? or what advantage had either of 
 these over him, so as to induce the friends of one to surrender him 
 that they might thereby secure the success of the other ? It was not 
 publicly pretended that one was sounder in his political opinions than 
 the other : and they all stood on their own personal merits as having 
 done some service to the country and to the republican cause. The 
 friends of Mr. Crawford endeavored to gain an advantage for him 
 by procuring a " regular nomination," according to the usages of the 
 party. It had been usual for a convention, or, as it was called, a 
 caucus, of republican members at the proper time to assemble to- 
 ggther, and to designate some suitable person for the presidency or 
 whom the people might concentrate their votes, so as to prevent the 
 triumph of those principles which they regarded as so obnoxious : so 
 long as federalism continued in organized opposition, this concentra- 
 tion was the only means of securing the ascendency to the republican 
 party. But federalism had long ceased to exist as an opposing fo~ce. 
 This party machinery, therefore, in the absence of those higher mo- 
 tives of combination, could only be made to subserve the purposes of 
 faction, and to give an undue advantage where none was deserved. 
 
 The friends of Mr. Ciawford, however, being mostly from Vir- 
 ginia and New-York, and considering themselves as the true stand- 
 ards of republican orthodoxy, persisted in their course, notwith- 
 standing a formidable opposition, and called together their conven- 
 tion the 14th of February, 1824. Out of two hundred and si*ty-one 
 members of Congress, only sixty-four attended the meeting in person, 
 ana two by proxy. The two proxies and sixty -two members present
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 231 
 
 voted for Mr. Crawford. Of the sixty -two votes, one-half were from 
 New-York and Virginia. This convention did not exceed one-fourth 
 of the members of Congress, and was composed entirely of the friends 
 of one only of the candidates- there was no comparison of opinions 
 no sacrifices of personal preferences and mutual concessions for the 
 good of a common cause. Under such circumstances, it is obvious 
 that the meeting could make no pretensions to nationality, not even 
 to a full and fair party organization. Yet it was proclaimed as " the 
 regular nomination " according to the usages of the party, and the 
 republicans called on to sustain it as such. In Virginia, the people 
 gave it their support, because Mr. Crawford was their choice under 
 all circumstances. But in New-York it met with a very different 
 fate. Mr. Crawford was not a favorite with the people of New- York, 
 though her delegation voted for him in the caucus of 1816 in oppo- 
 sition to Mr. Monroe, and came near defeating by their skilful and 
 secret management the only person Seriously spoken of by the peo- 
 ple. Finding that the " regular nomination," according to party 
 usage, which carried such a potent spell with it heretofore, had lost 
 its influence, and that if the people were left to themselves, Mr. 
 Crawford was certain of defeat, his friends took refuge in the legis- 
 lature, and determined to gain their point by keeping the election 
 from the people. Up to this time the electors of President and 
 Vice-President had been nominated by the legislature. The people 
 now determined to take the election in their own hands. A bill to that 
 effect passed the lower House with only four dissenting voices, such 
 was the unanimity on the subject ; but it was defeated in the Senate, 
 where there were a majority of Mr. Crawford's friends. So great 
 was the excitement in the State, that the Governor called an extra- 
 session of the legislature to execute the will of the people. But the 
 Senate again defeated the bill, and the Assembly adjourned without 
 doing any thing. All this was done in the name of liberty. The 
 majority of the Senate assumed to be the only true exponents of re- 
 publicanism, and Mr. Crawford as its only true representative, and 
 in order to carry their measures, committed great violence on their 
 own principles. But even the legislature would not sustain thi.s 
 violent effort to force the State to cast her vote for one she did not 
 prefer.
 
 232 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 When the nominations were made, Mr. Crawford got only four 
 out of the thirty-six electoral votes of New- York. 
 
 The events of this presidential campaign furnish an instructive 
 page of history, which should be well considered by the people. It 
 was just the combination of circumstances to tempt ambitious men 
 to form coalitions for their own personal ends, and to make a 
 regular bargain and sale of the rights of the people. In the absence 
 of all political principle in a mere contest between individuals for 
 power what was to prevent a union of the North and the South, or 
 the East and the West, in a regular contract for a. division of the 
 spoils? There was no election by the people. Adams, Crawford. 
 Clay and Jackson, were all voted for, but no one obtained a majority 
 of the electoral colleges. The duty of making a choice between the 
 three highest candidates now devolved on the House of Representa- 
 tives. For a long time Mr. Clay was expected to be one of the three. 
 The vote of Louisiana, which his friends expected, being given 
 against him, caused Mr. Crawford to have a few more votes than he, 
 and the contest was between Jackson, who had the highest number 
 of votes in the electoral colleges, Adams, and Crawford. Mr. Clay, 
 from his great influence, had entire control of the election. He de- 
 cided in favor of Mr. Adams, and immediately accepted, at his hands, 
 the office of Secretary of State. He was openly charged in the House 
 of Representatives with bargain and corruption. He repelled the 
 charge with becoming indignation. The reasons he gave for voting 
 for Mr. Adams were just situated as he was, he could not have 
 voted otherwise but the fact of his accepting office from the man he 
 himself had elevated into the seat of power, condemned him. He 
 should have given the vote, but declined the office. His own con- 
 sciousness of innocence may have sustained him in the performance 
 of the deed, but it could not screen him from the inferences that 
 would be drawn from it by a censorious world. Men's motives are 
 known only to themselves ; language, says Talleyrand, was given to 
 conceal them ; and that which is avowed, is rarely the true cause of 
 any action. Knowing these things, it is not surprising that a 
 jealous and censorious world will at least suspect the motive, where 
 the act and the circumstances might justify the imputation of a bad 
 one. 
 
 During the time of the ballotting. an incident took place that wa?
 
 HIS CONSTITUENTS. 233 
 
 very characteristic of John Randolph ; it showed his great accuracy in 
 the statement of a fact, at the same time his jealous observance not 
 only of the rights of the States, but even of the forms and expres- 
 sions in which those rights might be involved. Mr. Webster was 
 appointed by the tellers who sat at one table, and Mr. Randolph by 
 those at the other, to announce the result of the ballotting. After the 
 ballots were counted out, Mr. Webster rose, and said : Mr. Speaker, 
 the tellers of the votes at this table have proceeded to count the bal- 
 lots contained in the box set before them ; the result they find to be, 
 that there are for John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, 13 votes; 
 for Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, 7 votes ; for Wm. H. Crawford, of 
 Georgia, 4 votes. 
 
 Mr. Randolph, from the other table, made a statement corres- 
 ponding with that of Mr. Webster, in the facts, but varying in the 
 phraseology, so as to say that Mr. Adams, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. 
 Crawford, had received the votes of so many States, instead of so 
 many votes. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVILI. 
 
 "SUCH CONSTITUENTS AS MAN NEVER HAD BEFORE, AND 
 NEVER WILL HAVE AGAIN." 
 
 FROM Charlotte Court-house, Tuesday, April 5th, 1825, Mr. Ran- 
 dolph writes to Dr. Brockenbrough : " Much against my will I 
 do not deceive myself I am involved in another election. Two 
 more years, if I live as long, in that bear garden, the House of 
 Representatives ! You ask after my health, it is wretched in the 
 extreme. Nothing but an earnest desire to avoid the imputation of 
 giving myself airs, brought me here yesterday." He was at Prince 
 Edward Court-house, also, on Monday, the 18th the day of elec- 
 tion in that county. It was the first time the writer of this memoir 
 had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Randolph among his constituents, or 
 hearing him on the hustings. He was then a lad at the neighboring 
 college Hampden Sydney. That day was given as a holiday to 
 the students, and they all repaired at an early hour to the Court-
 
 234 LI FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 house to see the wonderful man of whom they had heard so much. 
 I saw Mr. Randolph when he arrived on the " court green ;" he 
 alighted from his sulky some distance from the Court-house, and 
 handed over the reins to Johnny, who was in an instant by his side. 
 He was dressed in his old " uniform of blue and buff." with knee- 
 buckles, and long fair-top boots. He seemed to limp slightly in his 
 L'ait, which only added dignity and gravity to his carriage. The 
 moment his arrival was known, the people came flocking from all 
 directions towards him. The tavern-porches, the shops, and offices, were 
 soon emptied, and every body went running towards the great object 
 of attraction. His old acquaintances (and who were not old acquaint- 
 ances there?) were eager to take him by the hand ; they pressed for- 
 ward without ceremony, and their greetings were most cordially re- 
 ciprocated. To all the old men he had something to say. pointed 
 and appropriate, that seemed to give them infinite satisfaction a 
 word of recognition, that meant more than it expressed, and went 
 home to the heart. He marched slowly towards the Court-house, 
 still greeting and talking with his friends, as they came up to-take 
 liira by the hand. Many followed him, doubtless, from curiosity ; but 
 much the largest portion of the crowd that hovered around him. 
 were men who had known him all their lives, and had seen him a 
 hundred times before ; yet they followed him with as much interest 
 as the youngest school-boy there, and their eyes could not be sated by 
 gazing upon him. Such is the magic influence of genius and of 
 true greatness on the human mind. 'Tis said that Robert Burns 
 could not arrive at an inn, at midnight, without its being known to 
 all the inmates, who would come flocking, even in their night gar 
 ments, to see, for the twentieth time, perhaps, the enchanting coun- 
 tenance of Scotland's noblest bard, who, like Randolph, from his 
 earliest youth, had no other thought but to serve and adorn his na- 
 tive land. 
 
 " E'n then a wish (I mind its power), 
 A wish, that to my latest hour 
 
 Shall strongly heave my breast 
 That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake, 
 Some usefu' plan or book could make. 
 
 Or sing a sang at least. " 
 
 Mr. Randolph was pressed to make a speech. He pleaded his 
 wretched health, and begged to be excused. But no excuse would be
 
 HIS CONSTITUENTS. 285 
 
 taken ; his old friends wanted to hear him ; it was a long time since 
 they had that pleasure ; great changes had taken place in politics ; 
 they had heard much about them, but wanted to hear from his own 
 lips how the matter stood. Finding that no apology would be taken, 
 that such men as the Mortons, the Prices, the Watkins' and the Ven- 
 ables, were urging on him to say something to gratify the people, he 
 at length consented ; and retiring from the multitude, he sat down 
 on an oaken bench in the corner of the Court-house yard, and rested 
 his head on the end of his umbrella. No one approached or dis- 
 turbed him. After sitting some ten or fifteen minutes, he arose, and 
 asked the sheriff to make proclamation that he would address the 
 people. There was no need of that; they were all there, pressing 
 around, and waiting patiently his pleasure to speak to them. As he 
 approached the stile, the crowd receded, and opened a way for him 
 to pass. I followed in his wake, unconscious of what I was doing, 
 and stood near his left side, where I could hear every word that was 
 uttered, and see every motion of every muscle of the whole man. I 
 was too young to remember what was said, at this distance of time. 
 The newspapers said he "addressed his constituents in a manner and 
 with n, liter which gave great and universal satisfaction. He des- 
 canted, with great eloquence and power, on the alarming encroach- 
 ments of tlte General Government upon the rights of tJie States." I 
 have no doubt that was the theme of his discourse. But what I saw 
 I shall never forget the manner of the man. The tall, slender fig- 
 ure, swarthy complexion, animated countenance ; the solemn glance, 
 that passed leisurely over the audience, hushed into deep silence be- 
 fore him, and bending forward to catch every look, every motion and 
 every word of the inspired orator ; the clear, silver tones of his 
 voice ; the distinct utterance full, round expression, and emphasis 
 of his words ; the graceful bend and easy motion of the person, as he 
 turned from side to side; the rapid, lightning-like sweep of the 
 hand when something powerful was uttered ; the earnest, fixed gaze, 
 that followed, as if searching into the hearts of his auditors, while 
 his words were telling upon them ; then, the ominous pause, and the 
 twinkling of that long, slender forefinger, that accompanied the 
 keen, cutting sarcasm of his words all these I can never forget 
 My beau ideal of the orator was complete. What I had read of De- 
 mosthenes and Cicero, aided by the lights of Longinus and Quiuctil-
 
 236 LI FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ian, was fulfilled in this man. I have heard him several times since 
 from the same place. Those who have heard him elsewhere concur 
 in the opinion, that before the people of Prince Edward he was pecu- 
 liarly free and happy. These were the people that stood by him in 
 the darkest hour of his fortunes ; " when two administrations" and 
 the whole political press made war upon him, they shielded him from 
 the assaults of his enemies, and cheered him in the desolate and dan 
 gerous path he had to tread, by the light of their countenance and 
 the voice of their approbation. It is not wonderful, then, that in 
 the presence of such a people, the reminiscences of the olden time 
 should rekindle the' slumbering fires of his heart, and inspire his 
 thoughts with more than their wonted force and brilliancy. 
 
 From the stand, Mr. Randolph retired to the bench in the Court- 
 house. The polls were opened, and the voting commenced. Each 
 one, as he came up, pronounced with a clear and audible voice the 
 name of John Randolph as the person voted for for Congress. There 
 was not a dissenting voice. When any one of the old men gave his 
 vote, Mr. Randolph partly rose from his seat, and in the most bland 
 and affecting manner thanked him for his vote. He seemed to say, 
 I am grateful, sir, and proud to have the approbation of a man of 
 your independence, understanding, integrity, and weight of character. 
 The old man returned the salutation with a look that said, I am 
 proud, also, to have the privilege of voting for you, Mr. Randolph. 
 There was no pretence, no affectation in all this ; it was natural, 
 spontaneous, and, to those who knew the history of the parties and 
 their relations to each other, it was truly affecting. No one could 
 look upon the scene without exclaiming, that with such constituents 
 and such representatives, no danger or harm could befall the Repub- 
 lic. They were men, for the most part, owners of the soil, and living 
 by its cultivation ; men who, from their youth up, by the daily read- 
 ing of the best conducted political journals, and their monthly con- 
 versations and discussions at the Court-house on political topics, had 
 become familiar with the institutions of their country and the man- 
 ner in which they had been conducted who knew the characters of 
 all public men that had risen above a neighborhood reputation, and 
 could judge dispassionately and without enthusiasm of their objects 
 and the tendency of their measures they were models of republican 
 simplicity, intelligence, and virtue. The same, for the most part
 
 HIS CONSTITUENTS. 
 
 237 
 
 may bo said of all Mr. Randolph's district. He had represented 
 them for five and twenty years ; they all knew him men, women, 
 and children and he knew them. These are the people of whom he 
 spoke, when he said, on a memorable occasion in the House of Rep- 
 resentatives : 
 
 " I will go back to the bosom of my constituents to such con- 
 stituents as man never had before, and never will have again and I 
 ^hall receive from them the only reward that I ever looked for, but 
 the highest that man can receive the universal expression of their 
 approbation of their thanks. I shall read it in their beaming faces ; 
 I shall feel it in their gratulating hands. The very children will 
 climb around my knees, to welcome me. And shall I give up them, 
 and this ? And for what ? For the heartless amusements and va- 
 pid pleasures and tarnished honors of this abode of splendid misery, 
 of shabby splendor ? for a clerkship in the war office, or a foreign mis- 
 sion, to dance attendance abroad, instead of at home or even for a 
 Department itself? Sir, thirty years make sad changes in man. 
 When I first was honored with their confidence, I was a very young 
 man, and my constituents stood almost in parental relation to me, and 
 I received from them the indulgence of a beloved son. But the old 
 patriarchs of that day have been gathered to their fathers- 1 - some adults 
 remain, whom I look upon as my brethren : but the far greater part 
 were children little children or have come into the world since my 
 public life began. I know among them, grand-fathers, and men mus- 
 ter-free, who were boys at school when I first took my seat in Con- 
 gress. Time, the mighty reformer and innovator, has silently and 
 slowly, but surely changed the relation between us ; and I now stand 
 to thera in loco parentis in the place of a father and receive from 
 them a truly filial reverence and regard. Yes, sir, they are my chil- 
 dren who resent, with the quick love of children, all my wrongs, 
 real or supposed. Shall I not invoke the blessings of our common 
 Father upon them. Shall I deem any sacrifice too great for them ? 
 To them I shall return, if we are defeated, for all of consolation that 
 awaits me on this side of the grave. I feel that I hang to existence 
 but by a single hair the sword of Damocles is suspended over me." 
 
 Mr. Randolph spent the summer in his usual solitude at Roan- 
 oke. In June, he says to Dr. Brockenbrough : 
 
 - You are very good in taking time to write to me, but I hope 
 you will continue to do so, notwithstanding the drudgery of penman- 
 ship that you are subjected to for your letters constitute the only 
 link between me and the world, at present a world where I have 
 but a little while longer to stay. I feel those internal monitions (of 
 which the patient alone is sensible) that convince me that I cannot
 
 238 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 hold out much longer, and although life has no one attraction left foi 
 me. I cannot but look towards its point of dissolution, with some mis- 
 givings of iniud. We shall probably never meet again on this side 
 of the grave : beyond it, all is involved in obscurity. I have just as 
 much expectation of living to the end of the century, as to the close 
 of the year. There is nothing left now for regimen or medicine to 
 act upon. I have never been in such a condition ; not even in 1817." 
 
 July 8th, he says : " Your kind letter of the 3d has just arrived 
 to throw a cheerful ray over my clouded mind. Although I stood in 
 no need of any such assurance, yet the -ieclaration it contained at the 
 outset gave me most sensible gratification. I believe we ha/e dealt 
 as little in professions as any persons similarly circumstanced ever 
 did ; and for a plain reason neither of us distrusted the sincerity 
 of his sentiments towards the other. My dear friend, my strength 
 ebbs apace. My health (like the stocks) fluctuates, but gets worse. 
 I have lost my grasp upon the world. If it be not mad then I am. 
 Its political, religious and commercial relationships are, in my view, 
 irrational and contemptible ; but I still cherish a warm feeling of 
 regard and of interest in the welfare of those who have manifested 
 kindly dispositions towards me. Indeed, I wish well to all I must 
 except a few ' caitiffs' and would do good to all, if it was in my 
 power. Among those who have shown me favor, I set high value upon 
 the attachment of Frank Grilmer ; and I too had a very strong desire for 
 his sake, that he would take the professorship. I was concerned to 
 learn by a late letter from Mr. Barksdale, that he looked very ill, and 
 was more desponding than when B. saw him in March. When you 
 write to him, name, me among those who think often and always kind- 
 ly of him. 
 
 <: The rains have destroyed our crops of every description but In- 
 dian corn, and that is much injured. If I live as long, which I do 
 not at all look forward to, I shall assuredly take the voyage you 
 mention. It is dreary enough to be in a land of strangers, a cipher 
 and at sufferance ; but any thing is better than the horrors of this 
 climate, and indeed our state of society and manners is so changed, 
 that were I to remain here, it must be in a sort of dreamy existence, 
 among my books and shades, ignorant of what might be passing in 
 the world around me. 
 
 " Jarvis, I remember, some fourteen years ago, made me laugh 
 very heartily at poor Nicholson's table in Baltimore ; but I might 
 defy him now to raise even a smile, except of ' such a sort ' as Ju- 
 lius Caesar could not endure. You are right to be as convivial as 
 you can ; soberly, as Lady Grace says. Duke est desipere. * I am 
 persuaded that our self-righteous denouncers of our old-fashioned 
 sports and pastimes have added nothing to the stock of our morali- 
 ty ; our young men and boys have exchanged the five's-court, and
 
 HIS CONSTITUENTS. 239 
 
 other athletic exercises, fbr the tavern-bench, squirting tobacco-juice, 
 and drinking whisky-grog. The girls, instead of balls and dress, 
 &c., discourse of original sin ' fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge 
 absolute.' But after all, we shall look in vain for the worth or man- 
 ners of the last generation. 
 
 " I read little but Dr. Barrow, and not much of him. I have 
 sometimes thought of attacking Atterbury and South ; but after a 
 short application, my eyes become dim and my head swims, and I 
 have to take a turn or two about the room to recover myself. I 
 would not trouble you with this long (for such it is) and stupid letter, 
 but for the assurance that it is gratifying to you to hear from me in 
 my present reduced condition. You may judge what it is, when I 
 tell you that I have not seen my plantation since my return from 
 Europe. 
 
 " Butler's Reminiscences I read two years ago, and was much dis- 
 appointed in them. Do you note an article in the Edinburgh Review 
 on the subject of the West Indies ? It is written in a most fero- 
 cious spirit of philanthropy. My infirmity admonishes me to lay 
 down my pen." 
 
 The monotony and tedium of his solitary life were greatly re- 
 lieved by a visit from his friends, Dr. and Mrs. Brockenbrough, in 
 the month of October. They spent a week with him. Most of his 
 correspondence, before and after, was in reference to this visit. It 
 was an important era in the chronicles of Roanoke. November 25th, 
 he writes, " I am truly glad the'agues fled before the thing with the 
 hard name. Old Mrs. D. says of you, any body may see from his 
 face that he is a mighty clever man. What say you to that, my dear 
 madam ? * * * * You know me well ; ' distrust ' is a sin that I 
 canno* easily forgive. I can truly say that the pleasantest week by 
 far that I have spent for years, was that that you and Mrs. B. 
 spent here." 
 
 Mr. Randolph was detained at home on business till late in De- 
 cember. He did not arrive in Washington " Babylon," as he called 
 it till Christmas. In the mean time, he had been elected to the 
 Senate of the United States, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the re- 
 signation of Gov. James Barbour, who had been appointed, by Mr. 
 Adams, Secretary of War. 
 
 The election took place the 17th of December. The candidates 
 nominated were Judge Henry St. George Tucker, the half-brother 
 of Mr. Randolph, William B. Giles, John Floyd, and John Ran- 
 dolph. On the first ballot, the vote stood : Tucker 65, Randolph
 
 240 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 63. Giles 58, Floyd 40. According to the rule of the House, Mr. 
 Floyd was dropped, and the second ballot stood: Tucker 87. Randolph 
 79, Giles 60. Mr. Giles being likewise dropped under the rules, and 
 the members having prepared and deposited their ballots in the 
 boxes, Mr. Jackson on the part of the friends of Mr. Tucker, rose 
 and stated to the House, that it was the desire of Mr. Tucker, in 
 no event, to be placed in competition with Mr. Randolph. Con- 
 sidering that Mr. R. had no chance of being elected, they had on 
 their own responsibility, put Mr. Tucker in nomination. But as the 
 collision was now between these two gentlemen, they thought it due 
 to Mr. Tucker's feelings and request to withdraw his name. Some 
 conversation then ensued, in which it was suggested that the ballot- 
 boxes ought to be emptied and the ballots again collected. Mr. 
 Jackson declared he did not know the ballots had been put in the 
 boxes, or he should have withdrawn Mr. Tucker sooner. One gen- 
 tleman remarked that the person who had been last dropped, ought, 
 under these circumstances, to be again before the House. But the 
 chair decided, that as the ballots had been all deposited in the boxes, 
 and there being no mistake or irregularity, they must be counted 
 under the rule of the House. This was accordingly done, and the 
 ballots stood, Randolph 104, Tucker 80. Mr. Randolph, having a 
 majority, was declared duly elected.' 
 
 On the reception of the news of this election, through a letter 
 from Dr. Brockenbrough, Judge Tucker thus responds : " I have 
 barely time before the closing of the mail to acknowledge the receipt 
 of your friendly letter, and to express my hearty concurrence in the 
 gratification you feel at the election of my brother. I could wish in- 
 deed that my name had been withheld, yet hope that its withdrawal 
 even at the time it took place, was not too late to manifest my de- 
 ference to him. God preserve him long as an honor to his station 
 and the Old Dominion. I cannot but think that this occurrence will 
 reanimate his spirit, and restore him to that activity in the public 
 co.uncils for which he was always remarkable, until he thought him- 
 self unkindly treated by his native State. He will now, I trust, see 
 in himself her favorite son."
 
 THE ADAMS ADMINISTRATION. 241 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIX. 
 
 THE ADAMS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 THE reader is already aware that Mr. Randolph took no interest in 
 tLe late Presidential contest. There were jircum stances that inclined 
 him to favor the pretensions of Mr. Crawford ; b;it it was a mere 
 personal preference ; and as there were no principles involved in the 
 controversy, he left the country with rather a feeling of indifference 
 as to the result of the election. But no sooner was the contest de- 
 cided by the election of John Quincy Adams in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, than Mr. Randolph gave unequivocal evidences of hos 
 tility to the new administration. For this he has been blamed by 
 many persons. It seemed like a pre-determination to condemn men 
 when they as yet had perpetrated no act worthy of condemnation. 
 But it must not be forgotten that we have a written Constitution, 
 containing the fundamental law of all our political institutions. We 
 have a Federal Government and State Governments, each with 
 limited and specified powers, and acting as mutual checks and balances 
 to each other. An over-action on the part of the one or the other 
 would destroy the equilibrium, and endanger the existence of our 
 complicated and nicely-adjusted system of Government. Hence the 
 necessity of a scheme of doctrine, or rules of interpretation, by which 
 the Constitution was to be construed, and the different departments 
 guided in their administration of the Government. Our statesmen 
 have something more to do than advise measures. They have to 
 show that those measures are sanctioned by the Constitution, and 
 that, in their final result, they will not disturb the harmony of the 
 system. 
 
 In consequence of this necessity imposed on our public men, there 
 had grown up at a very early period two distinct schools of politicians, 
 differing widely in their doctrines and rules of interpretation. But, 
 during the recent administration, as the reader is aware, these dis- 
 tinctions were effaced, and men seemed to stand on the same platform, 
 professing a general, vague, undefined belief in the doctrines of repub- 
 licanism. Mr. Adams, having acted a conspicuous part under Mr 
 
 VOL. ir. 1 1
 
 242 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Monroe, had now to take an independent position, and to mark out a 
 line of policy for himself. Rising from a subaltern station into the 
 chief magistracy of the Republic, where he could not be restrained 
 by the authority of superiors, one would naturally suppose that his 
 mind would take the direction of its early thoughts and associations. 
 Mr. Adams's early education unfitted him to associate with those 
 statesmen who looked with jealousy on the Federal Government, who 
 deprecated its over-action as dangerous to the Union, and who abste- 
 miously exercised those powers that had been actually delegated to 
 it. Being the son of the late President John Adams, he received his 
 education mostly abroad, while his father, as Minister of the United 
 States, attended the various courts of Europe. At a very early 
 period, before he had performed any public service whatever, General 
 Washington, doubtless, in compliment to his father, appointed him 
 Minister Plenipotentiary to the Hague. During the eventful period 
 of his father's administration, he continued abroad in daily connec- 
 tion with the habits, opinions, and associations of the royal courts to 
 which he was successively transferred as Minister of the United 
 States. 
 
 After the political revolution of 1800 had condemned the admin- 
 istration of John Adams, and driven him from the helm of affairs, 
 one of his last acts was the recall of his son, to save him from the 
 mortification of being dismissed by Mr. Jefferson. 
 
 Soon after his return, John Quincy Adams was elected to the 
 Senate of the United States from Massachusetts. He was elected 
 as a federalist by a federalist Legislature ; and one of his first acts 
 in the Senate was to oppose the purchase of Louisiana, then the favo- 
 rite measure of the republican party. But he had not been in the 
 Senate long before an eventful and radical change took place in his 
 public conduct. The restrictive policy of Mr. Jefferson, as the reader 
 is aware, was very much opposed in New England. It crippled their 
 commerce, on which they were mainly dependent for support. The 
 embargo, in 1808, capped the climax of restriction ; and the opposi- 
 tion in New England, led on by the old federal leaders, knew no 
 bounds in their denunciations of those measures, which they regarded 
 as so destructive of their interests. 
 
 Mr. Adams conceived the idea, or was informed by what he 
 deemed good authority, that his old friends and associates were about
 
 THE ADAMS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 243 
 
 to commit an act of treason to the country ; that so deep was their 
 hostility to the measures of the Government, and so great their deter-' 
 mination to get rid of the burthen, that they contemplated a separa- 
 tion from the Union. Through the interposition of a distinguished 
 Senator, he called on the President, and communicated to him his 
 apprehensions. 
 
 He spoke of the dissatisfaction of 'the eastern portion of our Con- 
 federacy with the restraints of the embargo. That there was nothing 
 which might not be attempted to rid themselves of it. That he had 
 information of the most unquestionable certainty, that certain citizens 
 of the Eastern States (naming. Massachusetts particularly) were in 
 negotiation with agents of the British Government, the object of which 
 was an agreement that the New England States should take no further 
 part in the proceedings of the Federal Government ; that, without form- 
 ally declaring their separation from the union of the States, they should 
 withdraw from all aid and obedience to them ; that their navigation and 
 commerce should be free from restraint or interruption by the British ; 
 that they should be considered and treated by them as neutrals, and 
 as such might conduct themselves towards both parties. He assured 
 Mr. Jefferson that there was imminent danger that a separation 
 would take place ; that the temptations were such as might debauch 
 many from their fidelity to the Union. The course of Mr. Adams 
 brought upon him the hostility of his own legislature : another per- 
 son was elected to succeed him, and he was instructed, during the 
 remnant of his term, to oppose the measures of the administration. 
 He retired from a position he could no longer hold with honor. The 
 purity of his motives was defended in the Senate by a member of 
 the administration party against the denunciations of his late col- 
 league, who manifested feelings of the deepest hostility towards 
 him. 
 
 Soon after his retirement, Mr. Adams was tendered a mission to 
 the court of St. Petersburg, but the Senate did not think such a mis- 
 sion at that time was necessary, and did not confirm the appointment. 
 He was renominated by Mr. Madison on his accession to the Presi- 
 dency, and the appointment was confirmed by the Senate. Mr. 
 Adams continued abroad in various diplomatic capacities till the 
 summer of 1817, when he was recalled by Mr. Monroe, and placed at 
 the head of his administration as Secretary of State.
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH 
 
 During this " era of good feelings" nothing occurred to develope 
 the opinions of Mr. Adams as to the true construction of the Consti- 
 tution. He is known to have favored the magnificent schemes of that 
 day, and is thought to have had much influence over the mind of 
 Mr. Monroe in producing the great change of sentiment on the sub- 
 ject of internal improvement. Thus we perceive that the early edu- 
 cation, and the diplomatic career of Mr. Adams in the midst of royal 
 courts, and the strongly concentrated and despotic governments of 
 an hereditary aristocracy, illy fitted him to appreciate the unpretend- 
 ing and abstemious doctrines of that republican school for which he 
 abandoned his old friends, and, as they say, basely calumniated them. 
 His change of position did not involve a change of politics. He 
 merely exchanged a broken and divided party for one in the ascend- 
 ant. There never was an occasion to test the sincerity of this change 
 until he was elected President of the United States. In this ex- 
 alted station, unrestrained by the routine of office, he was not long 
 in manifesting the bold and ardent aspirations of his mind. Endowed 
 with a poetic genius and an ardent imagination, possessing a quick, 
 irascible, and obstinate temper, a man of the closet, wholly unused 
 to the restraints and the caution of legislative experience, he mounted 
 the chair of state with the boldness and the confidence of Phaeton 
 into the chariot of the sun. 
 
 The great idea that filled the mind and kindled the imagination 
 of Mr. Adams was a magnificent scheme of internal improvement, to 
 be constructed by the General Government. In his inaugural address 
 he recurs to the subject, as he says, with peculiar satisfaction. " It 
 is that," he continues, "from which I am convinced that the unborn 
 millions of our posterity who are in future ages to people this conti- 
 nent, will derive their most fervent gratitude to the founders of the 
 Union ; that on which the most beneficent action of its Government 
 will be most deeply felt and acknowledged. The magnificence and 
 splendor of their public works are among the imperishable glories of 
 the ancient republics The roads and aqueducts of Rome have been 
 the admiration of all after ages ; and have survived thousands of 
 years after all her conquests have been swallowed up in despotism, 
 or become the spoil of barbarians." Mr. Adams did not doubt the 
 power of Congress to enter in this field of rivalry with the ancient 
 republics ; and to surpass even the Roman empire, with the spoils of
 
 THE ADAMS ADMINISTRATION. 245 
 
 a world in its treasury, in the magnificence and splendor of their 
 roads and aqueducts. He impatiently rejects the contrary proposi- 
 tion as unworthy of consideration, and boldly and dogmatically an- 
 nounces " that .the question of the power of Congress to authorize 
 the making of internal improvements is, in other words, a question 
 whether the people of this Union, in forming their common social 
 compact as avowedly for the purpose of promoting the general wel- 
 fare, have performed their work so ineffably stupid as to deny them- 
 selves the means of bettering their own condition. I have too much 
 respect for the intellect of my country to believe it." 
 
 In his annual message, the .President again dilates on this subject 
 with his peculiar animation and earnestness : " The spirit of improve- 
 ment is abroad upon the earth. It stimulates the heart, and sharp- 
 ens the faculties, not of our fellow-citizens alone, but of the nations 
 of Europe, and of their rulers. While dwelling with pleasing satisfac- 
 tion upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us 
 not be unmindful that liberty is power ; that the nation blessed with 
 the largest portion of liberty, must, in proportion to its numbers, be 
 the most powerful nation upon earth ; and that the tenure of power 
 by man is. in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that 
 it shall be exercised to ends of benificence, to improve the condition 
 of himself and his fellow-man. While foreign nations, less blessed 
 with that freedom which is power, than ourselves, are advancing with 
 gigantic strides in the career of public improvement, were we to slum- 
 ber in indolence, or fold up our arms and proclaim to the world that 
 we are palsied by the will of our constituents; would it not be to cast 
 away the bounties of Providence, and doom ourselves to perpetual 
 inferiority ?" 
 
 But the President was surpassed, if possible, in his ideas of a 
 magnificent and all-powerful Government, by the Secretaries whom he 
 had gathered around him, as constitutional advisers. The Secretary 
 of State, while a popular orator on the floor of Congress, had never 
 failed, when occasion offered, to describe in glowing terms, the bene- 
 fits to be derived from a free and unrestrained exercise of all those 
 powers that Congress, in its wisdom, might deem necessary and pro- 
 per to promote the common good and general welfare. But the Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury went beyond them both in defining the object 
 and the duties of Government. In his annual report he says the
 
 246 L1FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 duty of a provident Government is " to augment the number and va 
 riety of occupations for its inhabitants ; to hold out to every degree 
 of labor, and to every modification of skill, its appropriate object 
 and inducement ; to organize the whole labor of a country ; to entice 
 into the widest ranges its mechanical and intellectual capacities, in- 
 stead of suffering them to slumber ; to call forth, wherever hidden, 
 latent ingenuity, giving to effort activity, and to emulation ardor ; to 
 create employment for the greatest amount of numbers, by adapting 
 it to the diversified faculties, propensities, and situations of men, so 
 that every particle of ability, every shade of genius, may come into 
 requisition." 
 
 In the eye of these political economists, Government is every 
 thing, the people nothing. In their estimation, Government is a 
 unit, having absolute control over the property and the industry of 
 the people ; directing the resources of the one and the energies of 
 the other, into this or that channel, as may seem best to its sovereign 
 and omnipotent will. 
 
 Doctrines like these were not ventured even in the palmiest days 
 of federalism. John Adams, the father, and Hamilton, the Secretary, 
 could not hold a light to the son, and those luminaries around him. 
 who drew their inspiration from some modern political philosophy, 
 which taught that the prosperity of the people must be based upon, 
 and measured by, the omnipotent and unlimited powers conferred on 
 the Government. It is not surprising that the people awoke from 
 their long dream of security, and that they were alarmed at the bold- 
 ness and the confidence with which these extraordinary doctrines 
 were announced by the highest authorities known to the Constitu- 
 tion. It is not surprising, that John Randolph, the champion of 
 State-rights, should sound the tocsin to warn the people, and that in 
 the midst of so much error of doctrine, and bold usurpation of au- 
 thority, he should express doubts of a long continuance of our fede- 
 rative Government, as designed and constructed by our forefathers: 
 
 " We are now making an experiment," says he, " which has never 
 yet succeeded in any region or quarter of the earth, at any time, from 
 the deluge to this day. With regard to the antediluvian times, his- 
 tory is not very full ; but there is no proof that it has ever succeeded, 
 even before the flood. One thing, however, we do know, that it has 
 never succeeded since the flood ; and, as there is no proof of its hav-
 
 THE ADAMS ADMINISTRATION. 247 
 
 ing succeeded before the flood, as de non apparentiby,s et turn ezisten- 
 tibus eadem est ratio; it is good logic to infer, that it has never suc- 
 ceeded, and never can succeed any where. In fact the onusprobandi 
 lies on them that take up the other side of the question ; for although 
 post hoc ergo propter hoc be not good logic, yet. when we find the same 
 consequences generally following the same events, it requires nothing 
 short of the skepticism of Mr. Hume, to deny that there is no con- 
 nection between the one and the other . whatever, metaphysically 
 speaking, there may be of necessary connection between cause and 
 eflect. 
 
 " I say, then, that we are here making an experiment which ha- 
 never succeeded in any time or country, and which as Gcd shall 
 judge me at the great and final day I do in my heart 'believe will 
 here fail ; because I see and feel that it is now failing. It is an in- 
 firmity of my nature ; it is constitutional ; it was born with me ; it 
 has caused the misery (if you will) of my life ; it is an infirmity of 
 my nature to have an obstinate constitutional preference of the true 
 over the agreeable; and I am satisfied, that if I had an only son, or. 
 what is dearer, an only daughter which God forbid ! I say. God 
 forbid ! for she might bring her father's gray hairs with sorrow to the 
 grave ; she might break my heart ; but, worse than that, what ! Can 
 any thing be worse than that? Yes, sir, I might break hers. I 
 should be more sharp-sighted to her foibles than any one else 
 
 ' I say, in my conscience and in my heart, I believe that this ex- 
 periment will fail. If it should not fail, blessed be the Author of 
 all Good for snatching this people as a brand from the burning, 
 which has consumed as stubble all the nations all the fruitfuluess 
 of the earth which, before us, have been cut down, and cast into the 
 are. Why cumbereth it the ground ? Why cumbereth it ? Cut it 
 down ! Cut it down ! 
 
 " I believe that it will fail ; but, sir, if it does not fail, its success 
 will be owing to the resistance of the usurpation of one man, by a 
 power which was not unsuccessful in resisting another man, of the 
 same name, and of the same race. And why is it that I think it will 
 fail? Sir, with Father Paul, I may wish it to be perpetual, esto 
 perpetua, but I cannot believe that it will be so. I do not believe that 
 a free republican government is compatible with the apery of Euro- 
 pean fashions and manners is compatible with the apery of Euro- 
 pean luxury and habits ; but if it were, I do know that it is entirely 
 incompatible with what I have in my hand a base and baseless 
 paper system of diplomacy, and a hardly better paper system of 
 exchange. 
 
 " Now, sir, John Quincy Adams, coming into power under these 
 inauspicious circumstances, and with these suspicious allies and con- 
 nections, has determined to become the apostle of liberty, of un'Versal
 
 248 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 liberty, as his father was, about the time of the formation of the 
 Constitution, known to be the apostle of monarch)'. It is no secret. 
 I \vas in New-York when he first took his seat as Vice-President. I 
 recollect for I was a schoolboy at the time attending the lobby of 
 Congress, when I ought to have been at school. I remember the 
 manner in which my brother was spurned by the coachman of the 
 then Vice-President, for coming too near the arms emblazoned on 
 the scutcheon of the vice-regal carriage. Perhaps I may have somt 
 of this old animosity rankling in my heart, and, coming from a race 
 who are known never to forsake a friend or forgive a foe. I am taught 
 to forgive my enemies ; and I do, from the bottom of my heart, most 
 sincerely, as I hope to be forgiven ; but it is my enemies, not the 
 enemies of my country, for, if they come here in the shape .f the 
 English, it is my duty to kill them ; if they come here in a worse 
 shape wolves in sheeps 1 clothing, it is my duty and my business to 
 tear the sheep-skins from their backs, and, as Windham said to Pitt, 
 open the bosom, and expose beneath the ruffled shin the filthy dow- 
 las. This language was used in the House of Commons, where they 
 talk and act like men ; where they eat and drink like men ; and do 
 other things like men, not like Master Bettys. Adams determined 
 to take warning by his father's errors : but in attempting the perpen- 
 dicular, he bent as much the other way. Who would believe that 
 Adams, the son of the sedition-law President, who held office under 
 his father who, up to December 6, 1807, was the undeviatin te . 
 stanch adherent to the opposition to Jefferson's administration, then 
 almost gone who would believe he had selected for his pattern the 
 celebrated Anacharsis Cloots, ' orator of the human race ?' As 
 Anacharsis was the orator of the human race, so Adams was de- 
 termined to be the President of the human race, when I am not wil- 
 ling that he should be President of my name and race ; but he is. 
 and must be, till the third day of March, eighteen hundred and 
 I forget when. He has come out with a speech and a message, and 
 with a doctrine that goes to take the whole human family under his 
 special protection. Now, sir. who made him his brother's keeper? 
 Who gave him, the President of the United States, the custody of 
 the liberties, or the rights, or the interests of South America, or any 
 other America, save, only, the United States of America, or any other 
 country under the sun ? He has put himself, we know, into the way. 
 and I say. God send him a safe deliverance, and God send the coun 
 try a safe deliverance from his poli'cy from his policy."
 
 THE PANAMA MISSION. 249 
 
 CHAPTEE XXX. 
 
 THE PANAMA MISSION BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE. 
 
 THE American system of Mr. Clay was not confined to the mere do- 
 mestic affairs of the United States, it contemplated a wider range, 
 and embraced within its scope an intimate political relationship with 
 all the republics and empires of North and South America. On 
 the floor of the House of Representatives, in 1820, he gave the first 
 outline of this American policy. " What would I give," says he, 
 " could we appreciate the advantages of pursuing the course I pro- 
 pose. It is in our power to create a system of which we shall be 
 the centre, and in which all South America will act with us. Im- 
 agine the vast power of the two continents, and the value of the in- 
 tercourse between them, when we shall have a population of forty, 
 and they of seventy millions. In relation to South America, the 
 people of the United States will occupy the same position as the 
 people of New England do to the rest of the United States. We 
 shall be the centre of a system, which would constitute the rallying 
 point of human freedom against all the despotism of the old world. 
 Let us no longer watch the nod of any European politician. Let us 
 become real and true Americans, and place ourselves at the head of 
 the American system." 
 
 So soon as Mr. Clay took possession of the Department of State, he 
 had an ample field for the exercise of his passion for diplomacy. He 
 not only instilled his doctrines into the minds of our public function- 
 aries abroad, but he immediately commenced a line of policy which 
 must soon consummate his cherished schemes, and place himself at 
 the head of an American Holy Alliance, to defend human freedom 
 against the despotism oftlie old world. 
 
 The Spanish American Republics, by various treaties among them- 
 selves, had determined to appoint delegates to meet in Congress at 
 Panama, for the purpose of devising means more effectually to prose- 
 cute the war with Spain, who had not yet acknowledged their inde- 
 pendence ; to settle some principles of international law ; and to di- 
 gest some plan of co-operation with the United States, to prevent the 
 
 VOL. n. 11*
 
 250 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 interference of any other nation in the present war, on behalf of 
 Spain, and to resist the further colonization of the American ^oast 
 by the nations of Europe. There were many and serious difficulties 
 in the way of any participation on the part of the United States in 
 the deliberations and decisions of this Congress. Nor was their pre- 
 sence at first anticipated. But this Assembly furnished too favorable 
 an opportunity for Mr. Clay to accomplish his schemes, to let it escape 
 He. as Secretary of State, intimated to the resident Ministers at 
 "\V;i<Lington, in the name of the Government, that the United States. 
 if formally invited, would, on their part, appoint a person to repre- 
 sent them. The invitation of course was extended ; but before ac- 
 cepting it, the President thought that certain important preliminary 
 questions should be settled. It appeared to him to be necessary, be- 
 fore the assembling of such a Congress, to settle between the differ- 
 ent powers to be represented, several preliminary points ; such as the 
 subjects to which the attention of the Congress should be directed ; 
 the substance and the form of the powers to be given to the respect- 
 ive Representatives; and the mode of organizing the Congress. 
 These subjects were discussed for many months in verbal conferences. 
 They were not merely preliminary, but vital as to the propriety of 
 accepting the invitation. 
 
 They were never settled. But the Secretary of State, and the 
 President, whose imagination had now become inflamed with the same 
 brilliant theme, were not to be diverted from their purpose by these 
 grave difficulties. Two such ardent and obstinate tempers united on 
 the same object, were not to be balked by ordinary obstacles. 
 
 But a few days before the meeting of Congress, the 30th of No- 
 vember, 1825, the Secretary wrote to the several Spanish American 
 Ministers, residing at "Washington. After expressing his regret that 
 these subjects had not been arranged, he proceeds : " But as the want 
 of the adjustment of these preliminaries, if it should occasion any 
 inconvenience, could be only productive of some delay, the Prasident 
 has determined, at once, to manifest the sensibility of the United 
 States to whatever concerns the prosperity of the American hemis- 
 phere, and to the friendly motives which have actuated your Govern- 
 ments in transmitting the invitation which you have communicated. 
 He has. therefore, resolved, should the Senate of the United States, 
 now expected to assemble in a few days, give their advice and consent,
 
 THE PANAMA MISSION. 251 
 
 to send Commissioners to the Congress at Panama." Accordingly, 
 in his annual message, the 6th of December, the President announces 
 to Congress that " the invitation has been accepted, and ministers on 
 the part of the United States will be commissioned to attend at those 
 deliberations." 
 
 New offices were to be created, and the whole policy of the coun- 
 try, in despite jof the warning of the father of his country, was to be 
 changed, by mere Executive will, without the advice and consent of 
 the Representatives of the States, or of the people. 
 
 This extraordinary measure was deemed by the President to be 
 within the constitutional competency of the Executive ; and, before 
 ascertaining the opinion of the Legislature as to its expediency, by 
 first obtaining a creation of the offices proposed to be filled, and then 
 an appropriation for the salaries, he nominated Richard C. Anderson, 
 of Kentucky, and John Sergeant, of Pennsylvania, to be Envoys 
 Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary to the Assembly of 
 American Nations, at Panama. 
 
 Mr. Randolph took his seat in the Senate a few days after the 
 message containing these nominations was communicated to that body. 
 
 On the 4th of January, 1826, he writes to a friend, "We are 
 here, as dull as the ' Asphaltic Pool.' Yet I think it possible (not 
 to say probable) that we shall not continue so during the remainder 
 
 of the session If any check can be given to the Ex. Power. I 
 
 have long believed that the Senate alone had the reins. The H. of 
 R.. from its character and composition, can never be formidable to a 
 P. who has common sense." The "Asphaltic Pool" was soon driven 
 and tossci by a mighty tempest. 
 
 After repeated calls on the President for fuller information, 
 which he very mincingly dealt out to them, the Senate at length com- 
 menced in conclave to discuss the Panama question. 
 
 Mr. Van Buren, on the 15th of February, submitted a resolu- 
 tion, ''That upon the question, whether the United States shall be rep- 
 resented in the Congress of Panama, the Senate ought to act with 
 open doors ; unless it shall appear that the publication of documents 
 necessary to be referred to in debate will be prejudicial to existing 
 negotiations." 
 
 He submitted a further resolution, " That the President be re- 
 spectfully requested to inform the Senate whether such objection ex-
 
 252 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 isted in the publication of the documents communicated by the Ex- 
 ecutive, or any portion of them ; and, if so, to specify the parts the 
 publication of which would, for that reason, be objectionable." 
 
 Mr. Randolph opposed these resolutions. He protested against 
 opening the doors, and contended that the President was a co-ordin- 
 ate branch of the Government, and was entitled to all possible respect 
 from the Senate. ; ' It is his duty," said he, " to lay before us infor- 
 mation on which we must act ; if he does not give us sufficient informa- 
 tion, it is not our business to ask more." The resolutions, however, were 
 adopted ; and the next day, the President sent the following message 
 in reply : " In answer to the two resolutions of the Senate, of the 15th* 
 instant, marked (Executive) and which I have received, I state re- 
 spectfully, that all the communications from me to the Senate, relat- 
 ing to the Congress at Panama, have been made, like all other cciu- 
 munications upon Executive business, in confidence, and most of them 
 in compliance with a resolution of the Senate, requiring them confi- 
 dentially. Believing that the established usage of free confidential 
 communications between the Executive and the Senate ought, for the 
 public interest, to be preserved unimpaired, I deem it my indispensa- 
 ble duty to leave to the Senate, itself, the decision of a question in- 
 volving a departure, hitherto, so far as I am informed, without exam- 
 ple, from that usage, and upon the motives for which, not being in- 
 formed of them, I do not feel myself competent to decide." 
 
 This message changed the tone of Mr. Randolph towards the 
 President. Some weeks afterwards, when addressing the Senate with 
 open doors, he alluded to this subject. 
 
 " I did maintain," said he, " the rights of the President ; but from 
 the moment he sent us this message, from that moment did my tone 
 and mariner to him change ; from that moment was I an altered man, 
 and, I am afraid, not altered for the better. 
 
 ' Sir, if he would leave to the Senate the decision of the question. 
 I would agree with him ; but the evil genius of the American house 
 of Stuart prevailed. He goes oil to say that the question 'involves 
 a departure, hitherto, so far as I am informed, without example, from 
 that usage, and upon the motives for which, not being informed of 
 them, I do not feel myself competent to decide.' If this had been 
 prosecuted for a libel, what jury would have failed to have found a 
 verdict on such an inuendo ? That we were breaking up from our 
 own usages to gratify personal spleen? I say nothing about our 
 movements, because he was not informed of them. The inuendo was,
 
 THE PANAMA MISSION. 253 
 
 that our motives were black and bad. That moment did I put. like 
 Hannibal, my hand on the altar, and swear eternal enmity against 
 him and his, politically. From that moment I would do any thing 
 within the limits of the Constitution and the law ; for, as Chatham 
 said of Wilkes, ' I would not, in the person of the worst of men* vio- 
 late those sanctions and privileges which are the safeguard of the 
 rights and liberties of the best ; but, within the limits of the Consti- 
 tution and the law, if I don't carry on the war, whether in the Penin- 
 sula or any where else, it shall be for want of resources.' " 
 
 After further observations on the resolutions moved in conclave. 
 Mr. Randolph repeated what he had then said in reference to the 
 message of the President. 
 
 " Who made him a judge of our usages ? Who constituted Lim ? 
 He has been a professor, I understand. I wish he had left off the 
 pedagogue when he got into the Executive chair. Who made him 
 the censor morum of this body 1 Will any one answer this question ? 
 Yes or no ? Who ? Name the person. Above all, who made him 
 the searcher of hearts, and gave him the right, by an inuendo black 
 as hell, to blacken our motives 1 Blacken our motives ! I did not 
 say that then. I was more under self-command ; I did not use such 
 strong language. I said, if he could borrow the eye of Omniscience 
 himself, and look into every bosom here ; if he could look into that 
 most awful, calamitous, and tremendous of all possible gulfs, the 
 naked unveiled human heart, stripped of all its covering of self-love, 
 exposed naked, as to the eye of God I said if he could do that, he was 
 not, as President of the United States, entitled to pass upon our 
 motives, although he saw and knew them to be bad. I said, if he 
 had converted us to the Catholic religion, and was our father confes- 
 sor, and every man in this House at the footstool of the confessional 
 had confessed a bad motive to him by the laws of his church, as by 
 this Constitution, above the law and above the church, he, as Presi- 
 dent of the United States, could not pass on our motives, though we 
 had told him with our own lips our motives, and confessed they were 
 bad. I said this then, and I say it now. Here I plant my foot ; 
 here I fling defiance right into his teeth before the American people : 
 here I throw the gauntlet to him and the bravest of his compeers, to 
 come forward and defend these miserable lines : ' Involving a depar- 
 ture, hitherto, so far as I am informed, without example, from that 
 usage, and upon the motives for which, not being informed of them, 
 I do not feel myself competent to decide.' Amiable modesty ! I 
 wonder we did not, all at once, fall in love with him, and agree una 
 voce to publish our proceedings, except myself, for I quitted the 
 Senate ten minutes before the vote was taken. I saw what was to
 
 254 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 follow ; I knew the thing would not be done at all. or would be done 
 unanimously. Therefore, in spite of the remonstrances of friends, 
 I went away, not fearing that any one would doubt what my vote 
 would have been, if I had staid. After twenty-six hours' exertion, 
 it was time to give in. I was defeated, horse, foot, and dragoons 
 cut up, and clean broke down by the coalition of Blifil and Black 
 George by the combination, unheard of till then, of the puritan with 
 the blackleg." 
 
 CHAPTEK XXXI. 
 
 DUEL WITH HENRY CLAY. 
 
 THE remarks contained in the closing paragraph of the preceding 
 chapter, 'were made in reference to the coalition between Mr. Clay 
 and Mr. Adams. Mr. Randolph was fully persuaded that it was the 
 result of corrupt motives ; and being so persuaded, he did not hesi- 
 tate to express himself in the strongest terms of denunciation. But, 
 on the present occasion, he so far forgot himself as to indulge in lan- 
 guage of the grossest personal insult. We do not believe that this 
 was a premeditated and malicious assault on the private reputation 
 of an absent rival. In the heat of debate, Randolph often used ex- 
 pressions that in cooler moments he regretted. Concentration of 
 thought and intensity of expression were characteristic of his mind. 
 Few men could say more pithy or pungent things. His sentences 
 were aphorisms, without a superfluous ornament, and pregnant with 
 meaning. On the present occasion, while the blood was up, and the 
 mind glowing with intense action, we are persuaded that he looked 
 only to the vividness of his illustrations and the aptness of his allu- 
 sions. He felt only the strength of the orator giving intensity to his 
 expressions ; he perceived only the effect on his audience, and did 
 not consider the wound he might inflict on the feelings of the subject 
 of his allusions. If the thought flashed across his mind at the mo- 
 ment, it was too late ; while " at the top of his bent," and in the eye 
 of the Senate, he could not pause to weigh consequences. When, per- 
 haps, in the next hour after taking his seat, he may have regretted 
 that any offensive words had escaped his lips. So conscious was he
 
 DUEL WITH HENRY CLAY. 
 
 255 
 
 of his proneness to this license in the heat of debate, that he not un- 
 frequently asked pardon of the House, or of the Senate, while a mem- 
 ber of that body, for any unguarded and injurious expressions he 
 may have uttered. We can readily fancy that when his attention 
 was called to the subject by a friend, he would exclaim, " God for- 
 give me ! but it is too late now; it can't be helped." Having fluug 
 down the gauntlet, and challenged the boldest champion of the admin- 
 istration to take it up, he was not the man to take back any insulting 
 expressions that might provoke an acceptance of his challenge. Hav- 
 ing offered the insult, he calmly awaited the consequences, not doubt- 
 ing what those consequences would be. Mr. Clay was not a man of 
 such forbearance and Christian virtue as to permit a gross im- 
 putation on his motives to pass unnoticed. The circumstances by 
 which he was surrounded, and the quarter from which it came, for- 
 bade it on this occasion. He was compelled to act. He had reached 
 a crisis in his public career ; a vast suspicion hung upon the integrity 
 of his late conduct; the public had fixed a jealous eye on his move- 
 ments ; had he then quailed, or even been silent, under the charge of 
 bankruptcy in morals, both public and private, his political fortunes 
 would have been ruined beyond the hope of redemption. Randolph, 
 too, was the man to confront. He had been the evil genius that from 
 the beginning stood in the way of his aspirations ; not as the weird 
 sisters in the path of Macbeth, to cheer him on with prophecies of 
 future greatness, but as the angel with the flaming sword, that 
 checked the presumptuous Baalam as he went up to curse the chil- 
 dren of God. 
 
 He strode from the vestibule to the speaker's chair, and from that 
 elevated position fixed his eye on a still more lofty seat. Randolph's 
 keen and practised perception saw the dangerous and the vaulting 
 ambition of the man, and from that moment marked him as an 
 object of especial notice. While the country yet paused, and her 
 fate still hung balanced between peace and war, Clay, with burning 
 zeal, urged on to strife, Randolph's voice was heard for peace. On 
 the political arena they met, and with ethereal weapons fought. 
 When the trophies of victory reared on the bloody field of combat 
 shall have mouldered into dust, the intellectual conflicts of these 
 great orators shall live in the memory of coming ages. Soon they 
 parted : one to the shades and the solitude of Roanoke, the other to the
 
 256 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 achievement of still higher exploits in the cabinet of diplomacy. 
 Again they met on the same arena. Peace had returned, and with 
 it a tide of prosperity that maddened the minds of the multitude. 
 and filled the imaginations of gravest statesmen with schemes of 
 magnificence and grandeur that brooked no constitutional restraint 
 in the way of their complete and immediate execution. But the 
 towering genius of the young Apollo soared above them all. and 
 bore away the crown of victory, while the people stood charmed 
 with the melodious tones of his persuasive voice, and enchanted by 
 the magic spell he had thrown about their bewildered minds. But 
 the eagle, towering in his pride, was doomed to fall. The kteri 
 archer sped an arrow, plumed with feathers fallen from his own wing. 
 that brought him wounded to the earth. " From the time that I en- 
 tered upon the subject of his conduct in relation to the Bank, in 
 1811 (renewal of the old charter) and in 1816 (the new Bank), and 
 on internal improvements, &c , (quoting his own words in his last 
 speech that ' this was a limited cautiously restricted government.] and 
 held up the ' compromise' in its true colors, he never once glanced 
 his eye upon me but to withdraw it, as if he had seen a basilisk." 
 But the glance of the basilisk, nor the archer's shaft, could quell his 
 aspiring mind. Borne up on the popular breeze, he still mounted 
 aloft, and waved defiance to his enemies. Scorning meaner things, 
 his wide vision stretched across the continent, and embraced far dis- 
 tant republics in the scope of his philanthropy. A halo of glory 
 seemed to hover about his brow, and he rode like a sun, eclipsing the 
 beams of lesser luminaries. But his hour had come ; the fatal blun- 
 der had been committed. Proud and confident, he had never mis- 
 trusted his own infallibility. The averted countenance of retiring 
 friends, the chilling breath of cold suspicion, taught him when too 
 late that he also was mortal. In this hour of abandonment and 
 peril, his old enemy dealt him a deadly blow. He had no right to 
 complain ; he could not exclaim et tu, Brute ! for no friendship had 
 ever been professed : on the contrary, Randolph had ever deprecated 
 his ambition as dangerous, and felt justified in the use of any weapon 
 that might curb its career. Embittered by the denunciations heaped 
 upon him on every hand, and chafed by the prospect of falling for 
 tunes. Clay only saw in his ancient rival a cunning Mephistopheles. 
 heaping scornful words upon him, and smiling in triumph at his over-
 
 DUEL WITH HENRY CLAY. 257 
 
 throw. Stung to desperation, he sought revenge in the blood of his 
 adversary. Pity he knew no other mode of vindicating an injured 
 character than a resort to mortal combat. It is a reproach to civili- 
 zation, if not to Christianity, that they have found no other means 
 of wiping away the stains of dishonor than that which is exacted by 
 the bloody code of a barbarous age. 
 
 These two remarkable men, so often meeting in the arena of de- 
 bate, and now for the first time on the bloody field, were born within 
 a day's ride of each other. One in the baronial halls of his an- 
 cestors, on the lofty banks of the Appomattox, the other in an hum- 
 ble dwelling amidst the slashes of Hanover. While the poor depu- 
 ty clerk, in the intervals of toil, picked up his scanty crumbs of 
 knowledge, the proud son of fortune enjoyed the richest repasts in 
 the highest seminaries of learning. While the one yet a youth, was 
 borne into the halls of Congress by the sweet voices of the people, 
 the other was still fighting his uncouth way to fame and fortune 
 among the hunters of Kentucky. 
 
 Born to command, each was reared in that school that best fitted 
 him to perform the part Providence had assigned him. In daily 
 contact with his fellows, the one became affable, courteous, winning 
 in his ways, and powerful in his influence over the mind and the will 
 of the admiring multitude ; the other, in retirement and solitude, 
 cherished those sterner virtues that made him the unbending advo- 
 cate of truth, the unwavering defender of the Constitution, and 
 the intrepid leader of those who rallied around the rights of the 
 States as the only sure guarantee of the rights of the people. 
 
 The acknowledged champions of the two great political parties 
 again reorganized, and with the hopes of the whole country resting 
 upon them, these two men were about to meet for the purpose of ex- 
 tinguishing the lives of each other. Sad end to a bright career ! But 
 encompassed as they were by a false sense of honor, which they them- 
 selves had cherished, there was no other alternative but to fight. 
 With a laudable desire to terminate the difference between the parties 
 in a manner alike honorable to both, General Jesup and Colonel 
 Tattnall mutually agreed to suspend the challenge and acceptance, 
 in order that, if possible, satisfactory explanations might be entered 
 into. 
 
 General Jesup, as the friend of Mr. Clay, stated that the injury
 
 258 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 of which that gentleman complained consisted in this : that Mr. Ran- 
 dolph had charged him with having forged or manufactured a paper 
 connected with the Panama mission ; also, that he had applied to him 
 the epithet black legs. General Jesup considered it necessary that 
 Mr. Randolph should declare that he had no intention of charging 
 Mr. Clay, either in his public or private capacity, with forging or 
 falsifying any paper, or misrepresenting any fact ; and also, that the 
 term black legs, if used, was not intended to apply to him. 
 
 Colonel Tattnall made the communication to Mr. Randolph. His 
 reply cut off all hope of any satisfactory adjustment of the diffi- 
 culty ; " I have gone, says he, as far as I could in waiving my pri- 
 vilege to accept a peremptory challenge from a minister of the 
 Executive Government, under any circumstances, and especially un- 
 der such circumstances. The words used by me were, that I thought 
 it would be in my power to show evidence, sufficiently presumptive, 
 to satisfy a Charlotte jury, that this invitation was " manufactured " 
 here that Salagar's letter struck me as being a strong likeness in 
 point of style, &c., to the other papers. I did not undertake to prove 
 this, but expressed my suspicion that the fact was so. I applied to 
 the administration the epithet, " puritanic, diplomatic, black-legged 
 administration." 
 
 " I have no explanations to give I will not give any I am called 
 to the field I have agreed to go and am ready to go." 
 
 " The night before the duel," says General James Hamilton, of 
 South Carolina, " Mr. Randolph sent for me. I found him calm, but 
 in a singularly kind and confiding mood. He told me that he had 
 something on his mind to tell me. He then remarked, ' Hamilton, 
 I have determined to receive, without returning, Clay's fire ; nothing 
 shall induce me to harm a hair of his head ; I will not make his wife 
 a widow, or his children orphans. Their tears would be shed over 
 his grave ; but when the sod of Virginia rests on my bosom, there is 
 not in this wide world one individual to pay this tribute upon mine.' 
 His eyes filled, and resting his head upon his hand, we remained 
 some moments silent. I replied, ' My dear friend (for ours was a sort 
 of posthumous friendship, bequeathed by our mothers), I deeply re- 
 gret that you have mentioned this subject to me ; for you call upon 
 me to go to the field and to see you shot down, or to assume the re- 
 sponsibility, in regard to your own life, in sustaining your determina-
 
 DUEL WITH HENRY CLAY. 259 
 
 tion to throw it away. But on this subject, a man's own conscience 
 and his own bosom are his best monitors. I will not advise, but un- 
 der the enormous and unprovoked personal insult you have offered 
 Mr. Clay, I cannot dissuade. I feel bound, however, to communi- 
 cate to Colonel Tattnall your decision.' He begged me not to do so. 
 and said ' he was very much afraid that Tattnall would take the 
 studs and refuse to go out with him.' I, however, sought Colonel 
 Tattnall, and we repaired about midnight to Mr. Randolph's lodg- 
 ings, whom we found reading Milton's great poem. For some mo- 
 ments he did not permit us to say one word in relation to the ap. 
 preaching duel ; and he at once commenced one of those delightful 
 criticisms on a passage of this poet, in which he was wont so enthu- 
 siastically to indulge. After a pause, Colonel Tattnall remarked, 
 ; Mr. Randolph. I am told you have determined not to return Mr. 
 Clay's fire ; I must say to you, my dear sir, if I am only to go out 
 to see you shot down, you must find some other friend.' Mr. Ran- 
 dolph remarked that it was his determination. After much conver- 
 sation on the subject, I induced Colonel Tattnall to allow Mr. Ran- 
 dolph to take his own course, as his withdrawal, as one of his friends, 
 might lead to very injurious misconstructions. At last, Mr. Ran- 
 dolph, smiling, said, ' Well, Tattnall, I promise you one thing, if I 
 see the devil in Clay's eye. and that with malice prepense he means 
 to take my life, I may change my mind.' A remark I knew he made 
 merely to propitiate the anxieties of his friend. 
 
 " Mr. Clay and himself met at 4 o'clock the succeeding evening, on 
 the banks of the Potomac. But he saw ' no devil in Clay's eye,' but 
 a man fearless, and expressing the mingled sensibility and firmness 
 which belonged to the occasion. 
 
 " I shall never forget this scene, as long as I live. It has been my 
 misfortune to witness several duels, but I never saw one, at least in 
 its sequel, so deeply affecting. The sun was just setting behind the 
 blue hills of Randolph's own Virginia Here were two of the most 
 extraordinary men our country in its prodigality had produced, about 
 to meet in mortal combat. Whilst Tattnall was loading Randolph's 
 pistols I approached my friend, I beliered, for the last time ; I took 
 his hand ; there was not in its touch the quivering of one pulsation. 
 He turned to me and said, ' Clay is calm, but not vindictive I hold 
 my purpose, Hamilton, in any event ; remember this.' On handing
 
 LIFE OF JOH1N RANDOLPH. 
 
 him his pistol, Colonel Tattnall sprung the hair-trigger. Mr. Ran- 
 dolph said, ' Tattnall, although I am one of the best . shots in Vir- 
 ginia, with either a pistol or gun, yet I never fire with the hair-trigger ; 
 besides, I have a thick buckskin glove on, which will destroy the de- 
 licacy of my touch, and the trigger may fly before I know where I 
 am.' But, from his great solicitude for his friend, Tattnall insisted 
 upon hairing the trigger. On taking their position, the fact turned 
 out as Mr. Randolph anticipated ; his pistol went off before the word, 
 with the muzzle down. 
 
 u The moment this event took place. General Jesup, Mr. Clay's 
 friend, called out that he would instantly leave the ground with his 
 friend, if that occurred again. Mr. Clay at once exclaimed, it was 
 entirely an accident, and begged that the gentleman might be allowed 
 to go c n. On the word being given, Mr. Clay fired without effect, 
 Mr. Randolph discharging his pistol in the air. The momeit Mr. 
 Clay saw that Mr. Randolph had thrown away his fire, with a gush of 
 sensibility, he instantly approached Mr. Randolph, and said with an 
 emotion I never can forget : ' I trust in God, my dear sir, you are 
 untouched ; after what has occurred, I would not have harmed you 
 for a thousand worlds.' " 
 
 Thus ended this affair. None but the uncharitable will believe, 
 after what passed on the field, that Randolph had any malicious mo- 
 tive in the words that fell from him on the floor of the Senate. Had 
 a bloodthirsty spirit burned in his bosom. * the best shot in Virginia' 
 would not have permitted this opportunity to escape of levelling his 
 weapon at the breast of an old rival, whose ponderous blows he had 
 felt for fifteen years, and whose political opinions he considered so 
 dangerous to the country. The true character of the man shone forth 
 when he declared his intention not to injure a hair of Mr. Clay's 
 head and a gush of sensibility came over him at the thought of his 
 forlorn condition. Mr. Clay had a wife and children to mourn his 
 loss ; but there wa% not one to shed a tear over his solitary grave. 
 He knew the safety of his adversary but with the immediate pros- 
 pect of death before him, the sublime strains of the godlike Milton 
 attuned his heart to softest influences ; and the cords of affection so 
 long silent and rusted by the chilling breath of a cold world, awak- 
 ened by the soft echoes of long past memories, now vibrated a sweet, 
 though mournful melody, that mingled its harmonious notes with the 
 divine song of the poet :
 
 SLAVERY. 261 
 
 "How mournfully sweet are the echoes that start 
 When Memory plays an old tune on the heart." 
 
 John Randolph was not understood. Many who professed to 
 know him. and who considered themselves his friends, could not com- 
 prehend " the hair-trigger" sensibility of the man. 
 
 A few days after this affair, " Friday morning, April 14, 1826," 
 he wrote thus to his friend, Dr. Brockenbrough : 
 
 " I cannot write I tried yesterday to answer your letter, biU I 
 could not do it. My pen choked. The hysteria passio or poor old 
 Lear, came over me. I left a letter for you in case of the worst. It 
 now lies on my mantel-piece. Perhaps you maj, one time or other, 
 see it. I am a fatalist. I am all but friendless. Only one human 
 being ever knew me. She only knew me. Benton begins to under- 
 stand and to love me. Nothing has stood in his way. No lions in 
 his path. Had I suffered it, he would have gone with me, as my 
 friend. In that case I should not have violated the laws of Virginia. 
 
 It was not my intention to do so and .... were ardent. 
 
 honorable, devoted to my cause, but obtuse, wanted tact. I am a fatal- 
 ist on no one occasion of my life have I ever been in extremity, that 
 they, to whom my heart yearned and turned for aid, or at least for 
 comfort, have not appeared to hold aloof from me. I say appeared. 
 I am assured that it was appearance, only, in both instances, on the 
 part of the two persons in Virginia, who shared highest in my confi- 
 dence and regard. But when a man comes home from the strife and 
 conflict of this wicked world, and its vile and sinful inhabitants, it is 
 then that a certain tone of voice an averted look or even the sweet 
 austere composure of our first mother, cuts him to the heart in the 
 reception of the wife of his bosom. The words are nothing the 
 countenance and the tone of voice, the last especially, every thing. 
 
 " I again repeat, that I cannot write. But I shall be thankful for 
 your letters ; as long as I could, I gave you what I had. I too am 
 bankrupt, and have as good a right to break as the rest. God bless 
 you both.' 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 MR. RANDOLPH participated largely in the debates of the present ses- 
 sion. The absence and illness of his colleague. Mr. Tazewell, im- 
 posed a double duty upon him. The extraordinary state of affairs
 
 262 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 acting on a nervous sensibility, at all times acute exasperated now 
 by long protracted disease, made him more than commonly animated 
 and eccentric in his manner and style of speaking. ' The fever," 
 says he. Feb. 27, 1826, " and the toast and water (I touch nothing else), 
 keeps me more intoxicated (exhilarated, rather) than two bottles of 
 champagne." Many thought him mad ; but there was a method in 
 his madness. All his speeches had a purpose bearing on the past 
 history and the future destiny of the obnoxious incumbents in office. 
 While many thought he was scattering sparks and even fhebrands 
 around him in wanton sport, he was forging weapons to be used in 
 the coming contest with the men in power. Many of his speeches 
 on these occasions were truly characteristic, some of them far-seeing 
 and prophetic, especially the one delivered March 2, on " Negro 
 Slavery in South America." 
 
 "I know there are gentlemen," said Mr. Randolph, -not only 
 from the Northern, but from the Southern States, who think that 
 this unhappy question for such it is of negro slavery, which the 
 Constitution has vainly attempted to blink, by not using the term, 
 should never be brought into public notice, more especially into that 
 of Congress, and most especially here. Sir, with every due respect 
 for the gentlemen who think so, I differ from them, toto cado. - Sir, 
 it is a thing which cannot be hid it is not a dry-rot that you can 
 cover with the carpet, until the house tumbles about your ears you 
 might as well try to hide a volcano in full operation it cannot be 
 hid ; it is a cancer in your face, and must be treated secundum artem ; 
 it must not be tampered with by quacks, who never saw the disease 
 or the patient it must be, if you will, let alone ; but on this very 
 principle of letting it alone, I have brought in my resolution. I 
 am willing to play what is called child's play let me alone and 
 I will let you alone ; let my resolution alone, and I will say no- 
 thing in support of it ; for there is a want of sense in saying any 
 thing in support of a resolution that nobody opposes. Sir, will the 
 Senate pardon my repeating the words of a great man, which cannot 
 be too often repeated? 'A small danger, menacing an inestimable 
 object, is of more importance, in the eyes of a wise man. than the 
 greatest danger which can possibly threaten an object of minor con- 
 sequence.' I do not put the question to you, sir. I know what your 
 answer will be. I know what will be the answer of every husband, 
 father, son, and brother, throughout the Southern States ; I know that 
 on this depends the honor of every matron and maiden of every ma- 
 tron (wife or widow) between the Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico. I know 
 that upon it depends the life's blood of the little ones which are lying
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 263 
 
 in their cradles, in happy ignorance of what is passing around them ; 
 and not the white ones only, for shall not we too, kill shall we not 
 react the scenes which were acted in G-uatarnala, and elsewhere, except, 
 I hope, with far different success ; for if, with a superiority in point of 
 numbers, as well as of intelligence and courage, we should suffer our- 
 selves to be, as them, vanquished, we should deserve to have negroes 
 for our task-masters, and for the husbands of our wives. This, then, 
 is the inestimable object, which the gentleman from Carolina views in 
 the same light that I do, and that you do too, sir, and to which every 
 Southern bosom responds ; a chord which, when touched, even by 
 the most delicate hand, vibrates to the heart of every man in our 
 country. I wish I could maintain, with truth, that it came within the 
 other predicament that it was .a small danger, but it is a great dan- 
 ger ; it is a danger that has increased, is increasing, and must be di- 
 minished, or it must come to its regular catastrophe." 
 
 But it is not our purpose to make further allusion to Mr. Ran- 
 dolph's public acts during the present excited session. Let us turn 
 to the inner man, and view him seated* by his solitary fireside, com- 
 muning with almost the only friend to whom he felt at liberty to un- 
 veil the secret workings of his heart. Friday, January 6, 1826, he 
 writes to Dr Brockenbrough : 
 
 Your letter, addressed to Petersburg, has just hove in sight; I 
 should like " to have a word with you touching a certain subject." 
 When I first heard of it I was thunderstruck. For that was the 
 only person who had (repeatedly) urged this matter upon me, by the 
 strongest expressions that our language affords. At first it revived 
 very strongly the recollection of the " ratting" (as the English phrase 
 it) among the " minority-men/' some twelve or fourteen years ago ; 
 when this very person (and long before his seceding from us) wrote 
 to me somewhat in this strain " Let Monroe go over to the ministry. 
 if he will as for us," &c., &c. Well, what of all this ; I have seen 
 and conversed with the party, in the most familiar manner, without 
 one bitter feeling. The, event was too recent to be forgotten, but it 
 did not tinge, in the slightest degree, the kindly intercourse between 
 us. Am I to blame a man for being what nature and education made 
 him ? In this case, I am persuaded that all the blame lies at the door 
 of the latter. What could be expected from such an example (to say 
 nothing of the precepts) as this poor fellow had always before him 
 And again, is it not more than an even wager, that I have deieei.- n; 
 least as great, although not of the same character? My horse .Mark 
 Anthony is fleeter than Janus, but Janus is the better horse. Why 
 should I curse twenty poor devils that I could name, because they an; 
 mean? They can't help it. The leopard cannot change his spots.
 
 204 LI FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Now, after all this philosophy, if it may be called such, do not 
 suppose that I mean to compromise with fraud, and falsehood, and 
 villany, in any shape. I only mean not to run a tilt against -wind- 
 mills or flocks of sheep. Yesterday I took a good long ride of eight 
 or nine miles, and am now going to do likewise. J. R. OF R. 
 
 To the same. 
 
 Saturday, January 14th, 1826. 
 
 Your letter of Thursday gives me very great relief: continue, I pray 
 you, to write, if it be but a line. I noted Giles's " discovery ;" but. 
 this absurdity notwithstanding, it is a stinging piece. If he were not 
 himself " particeps criminis," he would touch upon the libel against 
 the whole West, in the case of John Smith, of Ohio ; and above all, 
 the suspension of the habeas corpus. 
 
 On the whole, I am firmly. persuaded that nothing but a paper, 
 such as he would manage (and the vocation is as creditable as school- 
 keeping), can arrest (if it can) the present current of affairs. 
 
 Your questions relating to the Senate I cannot (agreeably to our 
 
 rule) answer. As to Mr. M-^ , I did not know, until I heard it 
 
 from you, that he had been in the lachrymatory mood at all. 
 
 Poor Gilrner ! He is another of the countless victims of calomel. 
 I had indulged a hope that he would at least live to finish his life of 
 Fabricius. He told me some years ago, that if he survived me he 
 meant to write a biography of me. But what he would have found 
 to say that is not in the newspapers, I cannot conjecture. 
 
 You are right to like the Ch. J.'s Madeira, or any body's, if it be 
 old and good. I ride every day from six to ten miles. A friend has 
 just told me that M.'s pathos excited great laughter in the House. 
 
 J. R. OF R. 
 To the same. 
 
 WASHINGTON. January 30th, 1826. 
 
 Your letter of the 28th Jam satis terris nivis. It began to snow 
 about an hour before day, and continues to fall fast and furious, re- 
 minding me of schoolboy and snow-bird days, ' : departed, never to 
 return.' 1 I rode out yesterday some six or eight miles, and the day 
 before as far (when I paid my devoirs to Madame la Presidente. I 
 could do no less). I have even attended two days in the Senate, but 
 if ever man was dying, I am. It does not take more than one hour 
 for food, &c., to pass from my esophagus through the rectum, un- 
 changed. This I have proved with various substances. The coffee 
 passes off (not by the bladder) without a change of hue or smell. 
 The least mental fatigue, above all, the jabber of Congress, prostrates 
 
 me. My old friend. Mr. M . comes " to keep me company." with 
 
 the most amiable disposition in the world, and leaves me exhausted 
 and worn down. If some one would sit by and say nothing, I could 
 bear it ; but conversation no, no, no.
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 265 
 
 I have always believed that St. Thomas of Cantingbury's jewels 
 were Bristol stones in other words, that he was insolvent. What 
 else could be expected from his gimcracks and crack-brained notions 
 and " improvements ?" Ah ! that La Fayette business. Do you re- 
 member my Cassandra voice from Paris, about the tirae of his em- 
 barkation for the U. S. ? I am more and more set against all new 
 things. I only wanted to know who C. Gr. was, because in the En- 
 quirer, of October the 25th last, F. Key published an answer to him ; 
 I have seen neither. I am against all Colonization, &c., societies 
 am for the good old plan of making the negroes ivork, and thereby 
 enabling the master to feed and clothe them well, and take care of 
 them in sickness and old age. 
 
 TotJie same. 
 
 Wednesday Mcxning, Febrc.'.ry . at, 1826. 
 
 Yesterday we had a very interesting debate in the Senate, in which 
 I took part. I verily believe it assisted the determination of my 
 disease to the surface, for I was never more animated. A superficial 
 speech, you will say. Be that as it may, it drew upon me a great 
 many handsome and nattering compliments ; and from one quarter, 
 my friend Benton (for I was on his side), I believe sincere. We dif- 
 fered from the presiding officer upon what Mr. J. would call a 
 " speck" in the political horizon ; but it turned out to be of vital con- 
 sequence as we probed it. It was laid over for mature consideration. 
 After the debate, and while some Indian treaties were being read, 
 Mr. C. sent for me, and said, that the question had assumed a new 
 and important aspect required solemn consideration and decision 
 my views were strong and important, &c.. &c. He then sent for B. 
 and told him much the same. He electioneers with great assiduity. 
 Although it has no influence on the marked attention that I have re- 
 ceived from him, yet the civilities of the palace have produced an 
 evident effect on the manner of some others towards your humble 
 servant. Indeed, since my call on Mrs. A (in return for her civility 
 while I was confined), M., of Massachusetts, who is the ear-trumpet 
 and mouthpiece of tte palace in our House, has changed his de- 
 meanor from (not " sweet") " austere composure" to officious cor- 
 diality. 
 
 Your letter of Monday my God ! where will all this end ? It 
 will soon be disgraceful to be honest and pay one's debts. It is bit- 
 ter cold, and I am suffering with it and erysipelas. Adieu ! 
 
 Monday Morning, February 6, 
 Your letters are my only comfort : that of the 4th was brought in 
 just now on my breakfast tray. I can't help being sorry for that 
 poor man to whom you were called the morning you wrote, although 
 VOL. H. 12
 
 266 LJ FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 he did, some twenty or thirty years ago (how time passes !) attempt 
 by a deep-laid scheme of to beggar a family that I was much 
 
 attached to ; one, too, with which he was nearly connected, and that 
 he kept upon the most friendly terms with his debts have floored 
 him It is strange, passing strange people will get in debt ; and 
 instead of working and starving out, they go on giving dinners, keep- 
 ing carriages, and covering aching bosoms with smiling faces, go 
 about greeting in the market-places, &c. I always think that I can 
 see the anguish under the grin and grimace, like old mother Cole's 
 dirty flannel peeping out beneath her Brussel's lace. Th ; .s killed 
 poor H H., and is killing like a slow poison all persons so circum- 
 stanced, who possess principle or pride. I never see one of these 
 martyrs to false pride writhing under their own reflections, that I am 
 not in some degree reconciled, to the physical fire that I carry in my 
 
 bosom. The man whom H 's fall will probably prostrate, would 
 
 himself have been no better off than his principal, but for 
 speculation and a lucky sale, just as the tide began to fall, a few 
 years ago. 
 
 I send you the " Citizen." The schoolmaster writes better than 
 his employer. J. R. OF E.. 
 
 To the same. 
 
 Monday, the 20th February, 1826. 
 
 For the first time during the last four or five days, I got a little 
 ride yesterday, sick as I was and am. I called on the Ch. J., and 
 told him what you said about L., and he joined me. in a hearty appro- 
 bation of his refusal to become a candidate for the Assembly, or any 
 thing else, until he shall have secured - a competence, however mode- 
 rate, without which no man can be independent, and hardly honest." 
 The words are Junius's to Woodfall, when he declined sharing any 
 part of the profits of his celebrated letters. 
 
 I told him, also, of my firm and positive refusal to present to the 
 Senate the petition of the Colonization Society, although earnestly 
 entreated to do so, by F. Key. That I thought the tendency of it 
 bad and mischievous ; that a spirit of morbid sensibility, religious 
 fanaticism, vanity, and the love of display, were the chief moving 
 causes of that society. 
 
 That true humanity to the slave was to make him do a fair day's 
 work, and to treat him with all the kindness compatible with due 
 subordination. By that means, the master could afford to clothe and 
 feed him well, and take care of him in sickness and old age ; while 
 the morbid sentimentalist could not do this. His slave was unpro- 
 vided with necessaries, unless pilfered from his master's neighbors ; 
 because the owner could not furnish them out of the profits of the 
 negro's labor there being none. And at the master's death, the 
 poor slaves were generally sold for debt (because the philanthropist
 
 NEGRO SLAVERY. 
 
 267 
 
 had to go to BANK, instead of drawing upon his crop), and were dis- 
 persed from Carolina to the Balize ; so that in the end the superfine 
 master turned out, like all other ultras, the worst that could be for 
 the negroes. 
 
 This system of false indulgence, too. educates (I use the word in 
 its strict and true meaning) all those pampered menials who, sooner 
 or later, find their way to some Fulcher, the hand-cuffs, and the Ala- 
 bama negro trader's slave-chain. How many suoh have I met within' 
 the different " coffles " (Mungo Park) of slaves that I had known living 
 on the fat of the land, and drest as well as their masters and mistresses. 
 I wished all the free negroes removed, with their own consent, out of the 
 slave States especially ; but that, from the institution of the Passover 
 to the latest experience of man, it would be found, that no two dis- 
 tinct people could occupy the same territory, under one government, 
 but in the relation of master and vassal. 
 
 The Exodus of the Jews was effected by the visible and miracu- 
 lous interposition of the hand of God ; and that without the same 
 miraculous assistance, 'the Colonization Society would not remove the 
 tithe of the increase of the free blacks, while their proceedings and 
 talks disturbed the rest of the slaves. Enough ; enough Rain 
 sleet drizzle. J. R. OF R. 
 
 To the same. 
 
 Monday morning, February 27th, 1826. 
 
 Graillard died yesterday, at 4 o'clock, P. M. Although, on this 
 account, the Senate will transact no business to-day, yet, as I yester- 
 day received from H. T. the sad news of his son's death, and have 
 Tazewell to keep up with us, I can only acknowledge your letter of 
 this morning (written on Saturday). Poor Grilmer ! he is only gone 
 a little while before all that he loved or cared for. I am proud that 
 I was one of the number. 
 
 As Dr. says, " I take" what you say about V. B.'s " address." 
 I do assure you he has not warmed himself into my good graces by 
 flattery, to which, like all men, I am accessible, and perhaps more so 
 than men generally are, although I begin to think, that if they go on 
 much longer as they do at present, I shall, like Louis Quatorze, not 
 know when I am flattered. As to V. B. and myself, we have been a 
 little cool; it was under that state of things that I mentioned him 
 He has done our cause disservice by delay, in the hope of getting 
 first Graillard, then Tazewell (while he was sick here), and since, while 
 absent at Norfolk, and some other aid. I was for action, knowing 
 that delay would only give time for the poison of patronage to do its 
 office. His extreme delicacy upon all matters of money (upon which 
 he never bestows a thought), having (as Junius says) secured a com- 
 petency however moderate, his scorn of debt or obligation, won liiin 
 first my good opinion. But if he has not, others have poured " the
 
 208 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 leprous distilment into the porches of mine ears." The V. P. has 
 actually made love to me ; and my old friend, Mr. Macon, reminds 
 me daily of the old major, who verily believed that I was a nonesuch 
 of living men. In short, Friday's affair has been praised on all 
 hands, in a style that might have gorged the appetite of Cicero him- 
 self. Mr. M. returned on Saturday from Lloyd's (he gave a party on 
 .that day, and had invited Mr. M. three times before, who had ex- 
 'cused himself), and asked me if my face did not burn. I really did 
 not comprehend the question. It was a saying, when I was a boy, that 
 when backbitten the ears burned. He went on in a way that I shall 
 not repeat, as the sentiments of every man at table. 
 
 To tJie same. 
 
 March 4th, 1826 ; WASHINGTON, Saturday morn., four o'clock. 
 
 I have been up an hour and a half, trying to kindle a fiic, and have 
 at last succeeded. I cannot sleep. Death shakes his dart at me ; 
 but I do not, cannot fear him. He has already killed my friends 
 Gilmer Tazewell. I fear that I shall never see the last again. The 
 first is removed for ever. This February and these ides of March 
 will live in future times, as the black year does yet in the North of 
 Europe in Iceland particularly ; tliat it depopulated of its enligh- 
 tened, virtuous, and pious inhabitants ; poor indeed, but pious and 
 good, and therefore happy ; happy as mortality can be. And what 
 is that? 
 
 This cold black plague has destroyed the only two men that Vir- 
 ginia has bred since the Revolution, who had real claims to learning ; 
 the rest are all shallow pretenders ; they were scholars, and ripe and 
 good ones, and the soil was better than the culture. Here the mate- 
 rial surpassed the workmanship, tasteful and costly as it was. 
 
 I had read " Burns and Byron " before I received the Compiler. 
 I am a passionate admirer of both. I shall not pretend to decide 
 between them in point of genius. They were the most extraordinary 
 men that England and Scotland have produced since the days of Mil- 
 ton and Napier of Merchiston, although there be no assignable rela- 
 tion between logarithms and poetry. They are incommensurable. 
 
 Write ; but do not expect bulletins for some days. I have no 
 phthisis, nor fear of it. My cough is symptomatic, or sympathetic, 
 or some other " sym." 
 
 McNaught is not the only suicide, even in Richmond. Now. 
 when too late, I ani a confirmed toast-and-water man. My convivial- 
 ities for fifteen years (1807-1822) are now telling upon me. If man- 
 kind had ever profited even by their own experience ! Now that poor 
 Frank is gone, and cannot execute his threat of writing my life, I 
 would turn autobiographer. But he meant to dedicate to Tazewell ! 
 That word, that name seems to petrify me. If living, blind like
 
 LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 269 
 
 " Thamyris and blind Meonides," and like a greater than they he 
 who achieved " things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." 
 
 I am really ill ; the whole machine is rotten ; the nails and 
 screws that I drive will not take hold, but draw out with the decayed 
 wood. J. "R. OF R. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 LETTERS. FROM ABROAD. 
 
 EARLY in May, before the adjournment of Congress, Mr. Randolph 
 sailed from the Delaware Bay on his third voyage to Europe. He 
 arrived in Liverpool about the middle of June. " I have barely time 
 to tell you," says he to a friend, " that I had a very disagreeable pas- 
 sage, finding B n, the master of the Alexander, to be the most 
 
 conceited and insufferable tyrant of the quarter-deck that I ever saw, 
 and I have been to sea going on these three and forty years." 
 
 He remained in Liverpool for some time, enjoying the hospitali- 
 ties of the place. "I am arrived in time for" elections," says he. 
 ' l You will see a lame report of an aquatic excursion, in which I bore 
 a part, yesterday. Mr. Huskisson and Mr. John Bolton are just 
 arrived to take me to the Mayor's to dinner." From Liverpool Mr. 
 Randolph travelled extensively in England, Wales, and on the Con- 
 tinent. "We are happy to have it in our power to allow him to speak 
 "of those travels in his own words. 
 
 To Dr. Brockenbrough. 
 
 HOLKHAM, Sunday, July 16th, 1826. 
 
 A month has now elapsed since I landed in England, during which 
 time I have not received a line from any friend, except Benton, who 
 wrote to me on the eve of his departure from Babylon the Great to 
 Missouri. Missouri ! and here am I writing in the parlor of the New 
 Inn, at the gate of Mr. Coke's park, where art has mastered nature 
 in one of her least amiable moods. To say the truth, he that would 
 see this country to advantage must not end with the barren sands 
 and flat infertile healths (strike out the /, I meant to write heaths) 
 of the east country, but must reserve the Vale of Severn and Wales 
 for a bonne bouche. Although I was told at Norwich that Mr. Coke 
 was at home (and by a particular friend of his too), yet I find that
 
 270 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 he and Lady Anne are gone to the very extremity of this huge county 
 to a wool fair, at Thetford, sixty-five miles off; and while my com- 
 panion. Mr. Williams, of S. C. (son of David R. W.), is gone to the 
 Hall, I am resolved to bestow, if not " all," a part at least of " my 
 tediousness" upon you. Tediousness, indeed, for what have I to 
 write about, unless to tell you that my health, so far from getting bet- 
 ter, was hardly ever worse. Like the gallant General H., I am 
 "pursued by a diarrhoea" that confines me to my quarters, and may 
 deprive my native land of the " honor" of my sepulchre. The mis- 
 chief is, that in this age of fools and motions in Congress, my ashes 
 can have no security that some wiseacre may not get a vote (because 
 no one will oppose him through mere vi-s inertia and ennui), that my 
 "remains" too may be removed to their parent earth. 
 
 Mr. Williams has been very attentive and kind to me. I have 
 been trying to persuade him to abandon me to the underwriters as a 
 total loss, but he will' not desert me ; so that I meditate giving him 
 the slip for his own sake. We saw Dudley Inn and a bad race at 
 Newmarket on our way to Norwich. There we embarked on the 
 river Yare, and proceeded to Yarmouth by the steam packet. We 
 returned to Norwich by land, and by different routes ; he by the 
 direct road, and I by Becc/es, fifteen miles further; and yet I 
 arrived first. Through Lord Suffield's politeness, who gave me a 
 most hearty invitation to Gunton, I was enabled to see the Castle (now 
 the county jail) to the best advantage. His lordship is a great pri- 
 son discipline financier, and was very polite to me when I was in 
 England four years ago. I met him by mere accident at the inn at 
 Norwich, where the coach from Beccles stopped. 
 
 At this distance of time and place, our last winter's squabbles, 
 over Panama itself, seem somewhat diminished in importance. Foi 
 my part if I can get rid of that constitutional disease, which certain 
 circumstances brought on last winter with symptoms of great aggra- 
 vation, I shall care very little about the game, and nothing about them 
 that play it. 
 
 With some of these circumstances, you are unacquainted the 
 chief one was the long absence of my coadjutor, which flung upon 
 my shoulders a load that Atlas could not have upheld. 
 
 I see that Ritchie has come out against me. I looked for nothing 
 better. But why talk of such things. M. H. knows more than he 
 cares to tell. I was detained in town to attend the funeral of Mrs. 
 Marx of Croydon. She was a charming woman, and her attention to 
 poor Tudor, on his death bed, laid me under heavier obligations 
 than this (equivocal) mark of respect to her memory can repay. 
 God willing, I shall return to the United States with De Cost, who 
 leaves Liverpool on the 24th of October, in the York. It is possi- 
 ble that I may be taken with a fit of longing to see Roanoke,
 
 LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 271 
 
 (where I heartily wish that I now could be) that may accelerate my 
 return. Meanwhile, you can have no conception of the pleasure that 
 a long gossiping letter, from you, could give me. It would cheer 
 my exile, which is no more voluntary than that of the Romans, who 
 
 were forbidden the use of fire and water at Rome, an4 I was but 
 
 I can't write now, for my heart is heavy to sadness. It well may be 
 so, for it has not been kindly treated. God bless you both I hope 
 that the experience of last year has not been thrown away upon you. 
 Here the climate has been almost as bad as ours is in a favorable 
 summer. The drought has been unparalleled and the distress im- 
 pending over the land, tremendous. A failure of the potato crop, 
 in Ireland, threatens to thicken the horrors of the picture. The 
 ministers are not upon a " bed of roses." Musquitoes aboun>l here. 
 I have just killed a " gallinipper." Adieu ! J. R. OF R. 
 
 To tlie same. 
 
 THE HAGUE, Tuesday, August 8, 1826. 
 
 " The Portfolio reached me in safety." So much had I written 
 of a letter to you in London, but I was obliged to drop my pen in G. 
 Marx's compting-house, and here I am, and at your service at the 
 Hague. My dear friend, I wish you could see, and why can't you ? 
 for I wear a window in my breast what is passing in my bosom. 
 You could find there, thoughts black as hell sometimes, but nothing 
 of the sort towards any one of the few the very few who, like you, 
 have clung to me, through good and evil reports. What an ill star- 
 red wretch have I been through life a not uneventful life and yet, 
 how truly blest have I been in my friends ; not one, no. not one has 
 ever betrayed me, whom I have admitted into my sanctum sancto- 
 rum. Bryan, Benton, Rutledge let me not forget him, whom I 
 knew before either of the others, although for the last thirty years 
 we have met but once. The last letter tliat I received on my depar- 
 ture from Washington, was from him. In the late election, he was 
 the warm supporter of General J., whom he personally knew and es- 
 teems ; and I confess that the testimony of one whom I have known 
 intimately for more than six and thirty years, to be sans pcur ct sans 
 reproclie, and who is an observer and an excellent judge of mankind, 
 weighs as it ought to weigh with me, in favor of the veteran. I 
 know him (Genl. J.) to be a man of strong and vigorous mind, of 
 dignified deportment, and is, I believe, omniftznore solatus. I think 
 this is no small matter. In the olden time, when credit existed, be- 
 cause there was real capital, a man in debt I mean a landed man 
 in debt might be trusted. But not so now, for reasons that are cu- 
 rious and amusing ; which (were I to state them) would cause this 
 letter to run into an essay on the progress of society, that would re- 
 quire quires instead of pages.
 
 272 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 In ray passage from London I met with a serious accident, that 
 might have been fatal. We broke our engine, and when the pilot 
 boarded us, I was desirous to get on board of his boat ; to do this. 
 I had to cross the quarter-dock. The sky-light of the ladies' cabin 
 was open, but (four bienstance) the " orifice " was covered with our 
 colors, and the grating being removed only about 18 inches, a com- 
 plete pit-fall or trap was made, into which I fell, and my right side, 
 immediately below the insertion of the false ribs into the spine, was 
 ' brought up by the combings of the sky-light." I lay for some mi- 
 nutes nearly senseless, and it was more than an hour before I could 
 be moved from the deck. My whole side, xidney and liver, are very 
 much affected. It has obliged me to suspend my course of Swain's 
 Panacea, upon which I entered a few days before I left London. 
 
 I have not seen Mr. Gallatin. Mr. John A. King, our c/targ6 
 d'affaires, was very polite to me. We met on neutral ground, at the 
 Traveller's Club-House, in Pall Mall, No. 49. 
 
 I am pleased with Holland. Cleanliness here becomes a virtue. 
 My companion's, Mr. Wm's passport wanting some formularies, and 
 our charge (Mr. C. Hughes ! oh for some of Giles' notes of admira- 
 tion ! ! ! !) not being present, Sir Charles Bagot has been good enough 
 to do the needful. I waited upon him in Mr. Wm's behalf and was 
 received by him with the greatest warmth, asked to dine en famillc. 
 (as I leave the Hague to-morrow for Leyden), and told that any let- 
 ters brought to dinner would be forwarded by his courier to London. 
 To him, therefore, I am obliged for a conveyance for this. 
 
 Apropos to Giles. I think I know him to the bottom, if he has 
 any bottom. I know also the advantages that will be taken of inc. 
 the formidable array of enemies that I have to encounter. I might 
 have neutralized some of them; but as Bonaparte said on another 
 occasion, u it is not in my character " Whatever may be the decision 
 of the Virginia Assembly on my case, I shall always say that a ca- 
 pricious change of her public agents has never been the vice of the 
 Government or the people of Virginia, and that whenever a man is 
 dismissed from the service of either, it is strong presumptive evi- 
 dence (prima facie) of his unfitness for the place. 
 
 I hope, however, that no report of my speeches will be taken a.- 
 evidence of what I have uttered, for I have never seen any tiling 
 further from a just representation than the report of one that G. and 
 S. say I in part revised, and so I did, and if they had printed it by 
 their own proof-sheet now in London, I should have been better sa- 
 tisfied with that part; the first, that I did not revise, is mangled and 
 hardly intelligible even to me. The warning, which they make me 
 give to my friend from Missouri, is to poor little Miles of Mass., and 
 the whole affair is as much bedevilled as if they had at random picked 
 out every other word. So much for that. Neither Gales (whom I 
 wlicited) nor Seaton took down my speeches.
 
 LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 273 
 
 Your intelligence about the election, about "W. S. A., and W. R. 
 J., and W. B. (?., was highly gratifying. I hope that my initials are 
 intelligible to you, for your Miss S., upon whom you say Mr. M. D. 
 was attending, is une inconnue a moi. I did not know that you had 
 any Richmond Belles, of whom the Beaux could say, " I love my love 
 with an S., because," &c., &c. 
 
 Poor Stephenson, I think, has no daughter, or child, even. Remem- 
 ber me kindly to him and the Lord Chief, and do not forget my best 
 love and duty to madame. Tell her, and mark it yourself, that you 
 at home may and can write long gossiping letters, but a man at the 
 end of a journey, harassed by a valet de place, and commissionaire 
 pour le passeporte, has no stomach but for his coffee ai } bed. Such 
 is my case (this day excepted, and even to-day I am a good deal wea- 
 ried by a jaunt to Scheveling, and Mr. Wm's business), and such has 
 it been since I set my foot on the quay at Liverpool. 
 
 And so old Mr. Adams is dead ; on the 4th of July, too, just half 
 a century after our Declaration of Independence ; and leaving his son 
 on the throne. This is Euthenasia, indeed. They have killed Mr. 
 Jefferson, too, on the same day, but I don't believe it. 
 
 Great news from Turkey. That country is either to be renovated 
 as a great European power, or it is to be blotted from the list of na- 
 tions, at least on this side the Hellespont. It is a horse medicine 
 now in operation. It will kill or cure. 
 
 I am sensible that this letter is not worth sending across the At- 
 lantic. But what am I to do ; you expect me to write. 
 
 Pray, has the Enquirer come out against me. I see something that 
 
 looks like it in the matter of Mr. D., of M s. Le vrai n'estpas tou- 
 
 jours le maisemblable. There is a dessous de cartes there, that is not 
 understood. But who does really understand any thing? The En- 
 glish know us only through the medium of New- York and Yankee news- 
 papers, and which is worse, through the Yankees themselves. The only 
 Virginia papers that I saw at the North and South American Coffee 
 House, were the Norfolk Beacon, ditto Herald, and Richmond Whig. 
 They don't take the Enquirer. What a pretty notion they must 
 have of us in Virginia, Adieu for the present. 
 
 To t/te same. 
 
 PALL MALL, Sept. 22, 1826. Friday. 
 
 I write because you request me to do so ; but really, my deai 
 friend, I have nothing to tell you, that you may not find in the news- 
 papers ; and they are as dull and as empty as the town. They who 
 can take pleasure in the records of crime, may indeed find amuse- 
 ment in Bow Street and other criminal reports. It is now agreed on 
 all hands, that misery, crime and profligacy are in a state of rapid 
 and alarming increase. The Pitt and paper system (for although he 
 
 VOL. II. 12*
 
 274 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 did not begin it, yet he brought it to its last stage of im-perfection) ; 
 is now developing features that " fright the isle from its propriety." 
 
 Your letter reached me in Paris, where I was in a measure com- 
 pelled to go, in consequence of my having incautiously set my foot in 
 that huge man-trap, France. I had there neither time nor opportu- 
 nity to answer it, and now I have not power to do it. The dinner 
 to M. does, I confess, not a little surprise me. I know not what to 
 think of these times, and of the state of things in our country. The 
 vulgarity and calumny of the press I could put up with, if I could 
 see any tokens of that manly straight-forward spirit and manner 
 that once distinguished Virginia. Sincerity and truth are so far out 
 of fashion that nobody now-a-days seems to expect them in the inter- 
 course of life. But I am becoming censorious and how can I help 
 it, in this canting and speaking age, where the very children are made 
 to cry or laugh as a well-drilled recruit shoulders or grounds his fire- 
 lock. 
 
 I dined yesterday with Mr. Marx. It was a private party and 
 took additional cold. This morning my expectoration is quite bloody, 
 but I do not apprehend that it comes from the lungs. It is disagree- 
 able, however, not only in itself, but because I have promised my 
 Lord Chief Justice Best to visit him at his seat in Kent, and another 
 gentleman, also, in the same county ; " invicta" " unconquered Kent." 
 
 Mr. Marx has shipped my winter clothing to his brother. By this 
 time you will be thinking of a return to Richmond ; and before this 
 reaches you, I hope that you and madame will be restored to the com- 
 forts of your own fireside, where I mean to come and tell you of my 
 travels. God bless you both. J. R. OF R. 
 
 To the same. 
 
 PALL MALL, October 13, 1826. 
 
 Another packet has arrived, and no letter for me. The last that 
 I received from you was (in Paris) dated July. How is this, my 
 good friepd ? you, who know how I yearn for intelligence from the 
 other side of the Atlantic, and that I have no one to give it to me 
 but yourself. 
 
 Mr. W. J. Barksdale writes his father, that a run will be made 
 
 at me by G s, this winter. On this subject, I can only repeat 
 
 what I have said before that when the Commonwealth of Virginia 
 dismisses a servant, it is strong presumptive evidence of his unfit- 
 ness for the station. If it shall apply to my own case, I cannot help 
 it. But I should have nothing to wish on this subject, if the As- 
 ' sembly could be put in possession of a tolerably faithful account of 
 what I have said and done. I have been systematically and indus- 
 triously misrepresented. I had determined to devote this last sum- 
 mer to a revision of my speeches, but my life would have paid the 
 forfeit, had I persisted in that determination. Many of the misrepre-
 
 HIS DEFEAT FOR THE SENATE. 275 
 
 scntations proceed from the " ineffable stupidity" of the reporters, but 
 some must, I think, be intentional. Be that as it may, the mangled 
 limbs of Medea's children, were as much like the living creations as 
 the disjecta membra of my speeches resemble what I really did say. 
 In most instances my meaning has been mistaken. In some it has 
 been reversed. If I live, I will set this matter right. So much for 
 Ego. 
 
 I see that Peyton R. advertises his land on River. This 
 
 was the last of my name and race left whom I would go and see. 
 The ruin is no doubt complete. Dr. Archer has - resumed the prac- 
 tice of the bar ;" and poor Mrs. Tabb, by the death of Mrs. Coupland, 
 is saddled with two more helpless grand-children. She is the best 
 and noblest creature living ; and I pray God that I may live once 
 more to see her a true specimen of the old Virginia matron. 
 
 On>. the 24th, God willing, I depart with DeCost, in the York. 
 My health is by no means so good as it has been since my arrival on 
 this side the Atlantic ; but I have made up my mind to endure lifr 
 to the last. 
 
 My best regards to Mr. and Mrs. Rootes. I exerted myself to 
 see her proteges, Jane and Marianna Bell, but they were at Rams- 
 gate, out of my reach. Mr. Barksdale talks of returning to Virginia 
 next autumn. I fear that he will put it off till it is too late. 
 
 Town is empty, and I live a complete hermit, in London. If you 
 see the English newspapers, you will see what a horrible state of so- 
 ciety exists in this strange country, where one class is dying of 
 hunger and another with surfeit. The amount of crime is fearful; 
 and cases of extreme atrocity are not wanting. The ministry will 
 not find themselves upon a bed of roses when Parliament meets. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 HIS DEFEAT FOR THE SENATE. 
 
 AT the opening of Congress, in December, 1826, Mr. Randolph took 
 up his winter quarters at his old lodgings, Dowson's, No. 2, on Capi- 
 tol Hill. His health was extremely bad during the winter. Almost 
 his only companion, was his old and tried friend, Mr. Macon, of 
 North Carolina a man whose matured wisdom, simplicity of man- 
 ners, and integrity of character, distinguished him as the admired 
 relict of a purer age, and the venerable patriarch of a new genera-
 
 276 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 tion. How pleasant it is to look into the quiet parlor of those two 
 remarkable men ! While the busy and anxious politicians were hold- 
 ing their secret conclaves, and plotting the means of self-advance- 
 ment, they sat, whole hours together, in the long winter nights, keep- 
 ing each other company. In silence they sat and mused, as the fire 
 burned. Each had his own private sorrows and domestic cares to 
 brood over ; both felt the weight of years pressing upon them, and 
 still more, the wasting hand of disease. They had long since learned 
 to look upon the honors of the world as empty shadows, and to 
 value the good opinion of the wise and good more than the applause 
 of a multitude. Nothing but the purest patriotism, an ardent de- 
 votion to their country and her noble institutions, could hold them to 
 the discharge of their unpleasant duties, while every admonftion of 
 nature warned them to lay aside the harness of battle, and be at 
 rest. 
 
 What eventful scenes had they passed through ! Side by side 
 they stood and beheld the young eagle plume himself for flight, and 
 mount into the sky, with liberty and universal emancipation inscribed 
 on his star-spangled banner. With anxious eye they saw him plunge 
 into the dark clouds, and battle with the storms, and hailed him with 
 delight as he emerged from the perils that encompassed his path, and 
 glanced his outspread wing in the sunbeams of returning day, and 
 wafted himself higher and still higher in his ethereal flight. 
 
 But now, behold ! in mid-career a mortal foe encounters him in 
 fiercest battle " An eagle and a serpent wreathed in fight !" and 
 like the maiden on the sea-shore did they watch, with suppressed 
 heart, " the event of that portentous fight." 
 
 " Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling, 
 With clang of wings and screams, the Eagle sailed 
 Incessantly sometimes on high, concealing 
 Its lessening orbs sometimes, as if it failed, 
 Dropp'd through the air ; and still it shrieked and wailed, 
 And casting back its eager head, with beak 
 And talon unremittingly assailed 
 The wreathed Serpent, who did ever seek 
 Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak. 
 
 ;1 What life, what power, was kindled and arose 
 Within the sphere of that appalling fray ! 
 *********
 
 HIS DEFEAT FOR THE SENATE. 277 
 
 Swift changes in that combat many a check, 
 And many a change, a dark and wild turmoil : 
 Sometimes the Snake around his enemy's neck 
 Lock'd in stiff rings his adamantine coil, 
 Until the Eagle, faint with pain and toil, 
 Remitted his strong flight, and near the sea 
 Languidly flutter'd, hopeless so to foil 
 His adversary, who then rear'd on high 
 His red and burning crest, radiant with victory. 
 
 " Then on the white edge of the bursting surge. 
 Where they had sunk together, would the Snase 
 Relax his suffocating grasp, and scourge 
 The wind with his wild writhings; for to break 
 That chain of torment, the vast bird would shake 
 The strength of his unconquerable wings, 
 As in despair, and with his sinewy neck, 
 Dissolve in sudden shock those linked rings, 
 Then soar, as swift as smoke from a volcano springs." 
 
 So may our country, like her noble symbol, triumph over every 
 enemy ! So may she shake the strength of her unconquerable wings, 
 and dissolve, in sudden shock, the adamantine coil of that wreathed 
 serpent that now seeks upon her heart a mortal wound to wreak ! 
 
 After this manner, we may suppose that those venerable sages, 
 seated by their solitary fireside, looked back on the rapid career of 
 their country its dangers and triumphs of past years, in which they 
 had participated and meditated with awe and trembling on the 
 many difficulties that now beset her path. What a treasure of wis- 
 dom, could those meditations have been embodied in words, and 
 handed down for our instruction ! But a faint glimmering of what 
 passed in the mind of one of those men, may be found in the letters 
 At the close of this chapter. 
 
 Mr. Randolph continued faithful in the discharge of his duties in 
 the Senate. He rarely opened his mouth during the session, but 
 made it a point never to miss a vote. He suffered martyrdom during 
 many a tedious and protracted debate ; but, however painful, he 
 never abandoned his post when action was required. 
 
 But his enemies would not allow the old Commonwealth of Vir- 
 ginia long to be honored by the services, and adorned by the illus- 
 trious character, of her most devoted and faithful son. Too faithful 
 in his devotion, she again was made. to deal out to him his accustomed 
 reward " a step-son's portion."
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Mr. Randolph's doctrine was too stern, abstemious, and unpalata- 
 ble to the lovers and the parasites of power. His restrictive system 
 had grown obsolete. Lulled in the lap "of prosperity, the people had 
 ceased to listen to his warning voice. Too often had he repeated to 
 unwilling ears, " that the inevitable tendency of this system, by even 
 a fair exercise of the powers of the Federal Government, has a cen- 
 tripetal force the centrifugal force not being sufficient to overcome 
 it : and at every periodic revolution, we are drawing nearer and 
 nearer to the final extinguishment that awaits us." They ceased to 
 listen to him, or returned such answer as was given to the prophets 
 of old : Are not things now as they were before, and have always 
 been? then hush your babblings, and disturb not the people with 
 your idle prophecies. 
 
 Even in his native State, that had been the standard-bear er of the 
 doctrine of State-rights, he now found, to his mortification, a woful 
 degeneracy. In the days of Hamilton and the elder Adams, when 
 the centripetal force of the Federal Government, by an intense over- 
 action, was rapidly hurrying the system to its final catastrophe, the 
 counterpoise of Virginia, almost alone, restored the rightful balance. 
 and gave it once more an onward and harmonious movement. But 
 now, in these latter days, when the legitimate successors of old fede- 
 ralism, under a new name, were in the ascendent, the position of Vir- 
 ginia in regard to them was not merely doubtful, but she was about to 
 throw her whole weight on the side of centralism, by rejecting from 
 her councils the only man that could arrest the rapid tendencies of 
 the Government in that direction. From 1800 to the present time, 
 there had been scarcely a show of opposition in Virginia to the con- 
 servative States-rights doctrine of George Mason and Thomas Jef- 
 ferson. But during the " era of good feelings," and the undisturbed 
 repose of Mr. Monroe's administration, the pernicious doctrines of a 
 contrary school had been widely disseminated. And now that the 
 elements of party strife were again set in motion, mainly through the 
 exertions of Mr. Randolph himself; now that the great fountains of 
 the political deep were broken up, and men were struggling to re-form 
 themselves around some fixed principles, according to their natural 
 affinities, without regard to former associations, which had long since 
 been obliterated, it was discovered that the old federalism of John 
 Adams, newly baptized, had numerous and powerful friends in a land
 
 HIS DEFEAT FOR THE SENATE. 279 
 
 where it could never have flourished under its original name. Many 
 who were the followers of Mr. Jefferson, and still professed his doc- 
 trine when applied to the alien and sedition law, adopted the Ameri- 
 can system in all its parts. Bank, protective tariff, internal improve- 
 ment by the Federal Government, and political alliances with foreign 
 republics which system could only be supported by the same doc- 
 trine that justified those obnoxious laws. 
 
 Mr. Randolph did not spare those men. Neither ige nor sta- 
 tion could escape his burning indignation. He knew them all their 
 history, both public and private his denunciations were often bitter, 
 personal, and sometimes insulting. 
 
 This drew upon him not only a political, but a rancorous and unre- 
 lenting personal opposition. Old reminiscences were revived, and 
 many sought to wreak their vengeance upon him for wounds iuflici- 
 ed in days long gone by ; instead of yielding their private feelings to 
 the public good, they preferred the unholy incense of personal re- 
 venge to the rich oblation of a self-sacrifice on the altar of their 
 country.. 
 
 But Mr. Randolph, after all, could not be defeated without taking 
 some man from his own ranks, who could carry off some personal 
 friends to his support. Mr. Floyd, Mr. Giles, and others of the Re- 
 publican party, were spoken of as his competitors. During all this 
 excited canvass, in which so much personal and bitter feeling was per- 
 mitted to enter, Mr. Randolph remained calm and unmoved. New 
 Year's day he writes to his friend, Dr. Brockenbrough : 
 
 " I am greatly obliged to Mr. May and my other friends and sup- 
 porters ; but no occasion has yet presented itself, on which I could, 
 with propriety, have said any thing; and to be making one, would. I 
 think, be unworthy of my character and station. The fabrications 
 of my enemies, I cannot help. I can only say that there exists 
 not the slightest foundation for them. I feel, perhaps, too keenly for 
 the state of the country. I have (as who has not ?) my own private 
 sorrows ; and I have participated in the deep affliction of my poor 
 brother. If it be any crime to be grave. I plead guilty to the charge, 
 but, at the same time, thank heaven ! I feel myself to be calm, com- 
 posed and self-possessed. To pretend indifference to the approach- 
 ing election, would be the height of affectation and falsehood but. go 
 how it may, I trust that I shall bear myself under success or Defeat, 
 in a manner that my friends will not disapprove. I have ever looked 
 up to Virginia, as to a mother, whose rebukes I was bound to reerivc
 
 280 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 with filial submission ; and no instance of her displeasure, however 
 severe, shall ever cause me to lose sight of niy duty to her " 
 
 At length an available candidate was found in the person of Mr. 
 Tyler, then Governor of the State. 
 
 When the friends of Mr. Randolph learned that he was to be op- 
 posed by that gentleman, they addressed him a note, the 18th Janu- 
 ary, 1827, in which they say " We understand that the friends of 
 the Administration and others will support you for the Senate in op- 
 position to Mr. Randolph. We desire to understand destinctly. 
 whether they have your consent or not." 
 
 Mr. Tyler replied " My political opinions on the fundamental 
 principles of the Government, are the same as those espoused by Mr. 
 Randolph, and I admire him most highly, for his undeviating attach- 
 ment to the Constitution, manifested at all times, and through all the 
 events of a long political life ; and if any man votes for me under a 
 different persuasion, he most grievously deceives himself. You ask 
 me whether I have yielded my consent to oppose him. On the contrary. 
 I have constantly opposed myself to all solicitations." Mr. Tyler, 
 however, was run against Mr. Randolph, and was successful m defeat- 
 ing him. With what magnanimity Mr. Randolph bore this defeat. 
 and how cheerfully he submitted to the rebuke, coming from his 
 native State venerated and beloved, with all her unkindness. may be 
 seen from the following letters, addressed to Dr. Brockenbrough. that 
 range from the first of January, to the close of Congress. 
 
 Wednesday, Jan. 3, 1827. 
 
 Yesterday I had the gratification of seeing my old friend Mr. 
 Macon elected to the Presidency of the Senate. He had not a 
 single vote to spare. I apprehend that he owed his, election chiefly 
 to the absence of Chambers of Maryland, who had gone to the eastern 
 shore, and who arrived from Baltimore not ten minutes after Mr. M. 
 had taken the chair. Mr. Silsbee of Massachusetts voted for him. 
 So did Mr. Noble of Indiana, and H. of Ohio. The other vote, I con- 
 jecture, was given by Mr. Mills, for one of our side (King) was also 
 absent, although it was not generally known. This is the greatest 
 and almost the only gratification that I have received here. It was 
 altogether unexpected. 
 
 Friday, Jan. 5, 1827. 
 
 I write, although I have nothing in the world to say. Yester- 
 day letters were received stating that P. P. B. would receive the vote 
 of the administration men, notwithstanding his refusal to be noinina-
 
 HIS DEFEAT FOR THE SENATE. 81 
 
 ted by them. I wish with all my heart the thing was decided one 
 way or other ; although I am sensible that the precipitation of one of 
 my friends on a former occasion did mischief. I have neither the 
 right nor the will to dictate, but to you (who are not a member) I can 
 say that my present situation is far from being agreeable. General 
 Smythe has not at all disappointed me he has acted magnanimously 
 and like a patriot. I looked for such a course from him I never 
 had a feeling of enmity against him nothing ever passed between 
 us, beyond a single spar. 
 
 Sunday morning, Jan. 7 : 1827. 
 
 Mr. Macon is highly gratified at your mention of him. I could 
 not resist the inclination to show him that part of your letter. He is 
 to me, at this time, a treasure above all price ; but that consideration 
 apart, he richly deserves every sentiment of respect and veneration 
 that can be felt for his character. 
 
 The news here is that the administration folks are chuckling at the 
 prospect of my discomfiture. They are, or affect to be, in high spir- 
 its upon that subject. It must be confessed that my situation is 
 awkward enough. 
 
 Monday morning. Jan. 8, 1827. 
 
 Your letters and Mr. Macon's society are my greatest resources 
 against the miserable life we lead here. Tazewell tells me that he is 
 well convinced that the article in question was written here. Mr. 
 Macon, who reads the paper to his daughter, flung it into the fire 
 with great indignation. I cannot understand Mr. K.'s reasons, and 
 therefore they cannot be satisfactory to me, although no doubt they 
 are perfectly so to himself. 
 
 Poor old S. will, I think, be re-elected. His masters have shaken 
 the whip over him to secure his future unconditional obedience. 
 
 This morning was ushered in by a salute of cannon. A great 
 dinner is to be eaten in honor of the day. Mr. M. and I foreswore 
 public dinners ever since one that we gave Monroe in 1803, on his 
 departure for France. Consequently, neither of us go. The day is 
 wet and dirty, if there be such a word, and we shall lose nothing by 
 staying at home. 
 
 I should like very well to see the antique you mention. It ought 
 to be preserved with care. How little, in fact, do we know of our 
 early history. Perhaps there was nothing to tell ; but all the plan- 
 tations seem to have been considered as a terra incognita by the 
 mother country. I am sorry for what you mention respecting Mr. 
 M., of Fk. But it can't be helped. 
 
 Friday morning, Jan. 12, 1827. 
 
 Another mail, and no letter from you. I can't help feeling anxious 
 and uneasy.
 
 282 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 My old friend is a good deal better ; but I, after many days of 
 premonition, from pains in the right side, &c., have had a very smart 
 attack. My constitution is so worn out that it can resist nothing, 
 and cannot recover itself as it once could. It seems to be the pre- 
 vailing opinion here that the friends of the powers that be are some- 
 what despondent. Pennsylvania they say has given the most deci- 
 sive indications of her adherence to Jackson. The dinner, although 
 the military men slunk away from it. was attended by a formidable 
 array of adversaries. 
 
 The weather is excessively gloomy, and sheds its malign influence 
 upon my spirits. I can't read, and my old friend's cough is excited 
 by talking ; so we sit, and look at the fire together, and once in 
 half an hour some remark is made by one or the other. 
 
 Saturday, Jan. 13, 1827. 
 
 Your letter of Thursday gives me much relief, although it con- 
 tains intelligence of a very unpleasant nature. I allude to the publi- 
 cation you mention. I know that such things to one especially not 
 at all inured to them are most unpleasant ; but I trust that the im- 
 pudent excuse of the printer will not be entirely thrown away, for it 
 is as true as it is shameless. My good friend, I have long been of 
 the opinion, that we are fast sinking into a state of society the most 
 loathsome that can be presented to the imagination of an honorable 
 man. Things, bad as they are, have not yet reached the lowest deep. 
 If I had health and strength, I think that I would employ a portion 
 of them in an inquiry into the causes that propel us to this wretched 
 state. Why is it that our system has a uniform tendency to bring 
 forward low and little men, to the exclusion of the more worthy ? I 
 have seen the operation of this machine from the beginning. The 
 character of every branch of the Government has degenerated. In 
 point of education and manners, as well as integrity, there has been 
 a frightful deterioration every where. In this opinion I am sup- 
 ported by the experience of one of the most sagacious and observing 
 men, himself contemporary with the present system from the com- 
 mencement. My dear friend, I cannot express to you the thousandth 
 part of the disgust and chagrin that devour me. ' When I landed at 
 New-York the complexion of Jthe public journals made me blush for 
 the country. There was a respectable foreigner, my fellow-passen- 
 ger, and I thought I could see the dismay which he attempted to con- 
 ceal, at certain matters that passed, as things of course, in one of the 
 first boarding-houses in that city. To me, the prospect is as cheer- 
 less and desolate as Greenland. Yourself, and one or two others, 
 separated by vast distances and execrable roads, form here and there, 
 as it were, an oasis in the Sahara. My soul is " out of taste," as 
 people say of their mouths after a fever. I dream of the snow-cap- 
 ped Alps, and azure lakes and waterfalls, and villages, and spires of
 
 HIS DEFEAT FOR THE SENATE. 283 
 
 Switzerland, and I awake' to a scene of desolation such as one might 
 look to find in Barbary or upper Asia. But the morale, as the 
 French would say. is worse than the physique and the materiel. I 
 remember well when a member of Congress was respected by others 
 and by himself. But I cannot pursue this theme. 
 
 The Government is as you describe it to be. They have nearly 
 monopolized the press ; and if the opposition prints lend themselves 
 to their views the cause is hopeless. However, such is the growing 
 conviction of their depravity, that I believe the people will throw 
 them off at the next election. I shall expect your letters, of course, 
 with eagerness. Yours truly, J. R. ^F R. 
 
 Sunday morning, January 14, 1827. 
 
 Your letter of Friday is just received. The artifices resorted to 
 are worthy of the tools of such an administration as ours. By this 
 time to-morrow I shall know the result. Be it what it may, it will 
 exercise a very decisive influence over what may remain of my life ^o 
 come. Success I knmv cannot elate me, and I hope that defeat will 
 not depress me : but I have taken a new view of life, of public life 
 especially ; and if I am not a wiser and a better man for iny last 
 year's experience, you may pronounce me an incorrigible, irreclaim- 
 able fool. 
 
 Yesterday Mr. Chief Justice paid me a very friendly visit. His 
 manner said more than his words. I am not vain but proud of the 
 distinguished marks of regard which I have received on many occa- 
 sions from this truly good and great man. Our conversation was 
 interrupted by the unexpected and undesired visit of another person. 
 
 Yours truly, J. R. OF R. 
 
 * 
 
 Friday, January 19. 1827. 
 
 Your most welcome letter of Wednesday is just now received 
 Every syllable in the way of anecdote is gratifying in a high degree. 
 
 My first impression was to resign. There were, notwithstanding, 
 obvious and strong objections to this course ; my duty to my friends, 
 the giving of a handle to the charges of my enemies that I was the 
 slave of spleen and passion, and many more that I need not specify 
 There was but one other course left, and that I have taken, not with- 
 out the decided approbation of my colleague, and many other friends 
 here. I find, too, that it was heartily desired by my enemies that I 
 should throw up my seat. They even propagated a report on Mon- 
 day, that I had done so in a rage, and left the city. Numerous 
 concurring opinions of men of sense and judgment, who have had no 
 opportunity of consulting together, have reached me, that fortify n^ 
 in the line of conduct that I have taken. Nothing, then, remains but 
 a calm and dignified submission to the disgrace that has been put 
 upon me [his ejection from the Senate]. It is the best evidence tliat 
 I can give my friends of the sense which I feel, and will for ever 
 cherish, of their kind and generous support. J R OF R.
 
 r Saturday, January 20, 1827. 
 
 " Bore me ?" Your letter has become more necessary to me than 
 my breakfast ; and it is almost as indispensable for me to say a few 
 words to you upon paper, as soon as I have finished it. It consists 
 of a cup of tea and a cracker, without butter, which I never touch. 
 My constitution is shaken ; nerves gone, and digestive powers almost 
 extinct. I look forward to hopeless misery. As to a ' : firm and dig- 
 nified" discharge of my duty, I hope that I shall be equal to it, so far 
 as attendance and voting goes. I can't go farther, because I am 
 unable. What I shall do with myself I am at a loss to conjecture. 
 I have already found the solitude of Roanoke insupportable. With 
 worse health, and no better spirits, how can I endure it? But too 
 much of this egotism. 
 
 I would give not a little to know the rep^y of Mrs. B. to tie 
 member in question. The tear shed by her eyes for my defeat is 
 more precious in my own than the pearl of Cleopatra. I beseech 
 you not to omit writing whenever you can. I require all the +ime 
 that you can bestow upon me. Except Mr. M., I am desolate. 
 
 Sunday morning, February 11. 1827. 
 
 I have not written as usual, because I almost made it a matter of 
 conscience to oppress you with my gloom. I have never been more 
 entirely overwhelmed with bad health and spirits. I look forward 
 without hope, and almost without a wish, to recover. What can be 
 more cheerless and desolate than the latter days that are left to me ? 
 I am, however, relieved from one apprehension the fear of surviving 
 all who may care for me. I feel that this can hardly be, for without 
 some almost miraculous change in a worn-out constitution, I shall 
 hardly get through the year. The thoughts of returning here tor- 
 ment and harass me by day and by night. Little do you even 
 know of the character and composition of the House. If I were even 
 able to exert myself. I should never obtain the floor. The speech 
 which I made on the tariff was owing to a waiving of the right of 
 another to speak. I feel that my public life ought to terminate with 
 this session of Congress. These thoughts are for you, and you alone. 
 I have risen from a sleepless bed to give utterance to them. 
 
 I saw the V. P. yesterday. He is in good spirits ; he is sustained 
 by a powerful passion. For my part, I am far from thinking a seat 
 in the S. very desirable, although, certainly, to be preferred to any 
 other position in this Government. If I could have done it with pro- 
 priety, I should not have hesitated to retire voluntarily from mine. 
 
 Wednesday, Feb. 14, 1827. 
 
 Yesterday ^he Senate gave no equivocal evidence on behalf of 
 the woollen bill from the other House. My colleague is, I think, 
 more disgusted and wounded than I am. We are bound hand and 
 foot, and the knife is at our throat. There is no help but from the
 
 HIS DEFEAT FOR THE SENATE. 285 
 
 people through the State Legislatures. We are sold before our faces 
 in open market. 
 
 Thursday, Feb. 15, 1827. 
 
 The V. P. has pressed me very warmly to take a seat in his car- 
 riage, which will travel the direct road by Carter's Ferry. This temp- 
 tation is a very strong one in my present feeble condition. A plea- 
 sant companion, easy stages, and exemption from all the cares of a 
 journey that will bring me to my own door. But then I shall not 
 see you. This consideration would determine me to forego his invita- 
 tion if I could see you and one or two others without bustle in a 
 rjuiet way. But I take it that the close of a session of Assembly is 
 (like one in Congress) as the last days of a long voyage. 
 
 Among my afflictions and privations, I cannot read. I have abso- 
 lutely lost ail taste for reading of every sort, except the letters of my 
 friends. Books, once a necessary of life, have no longer a single 
 charm for me. How this has happened I know not ; but it is so. I 
 should not talk so eternally of myself if I felt at liberty to speak of 
 other people : I do not mean in the way of censure, but in any way. 
 I think I see a great deal more than meets the usual eye ; but then 
 I may be mistaken. Of one thing I am certain, that nothing can 
 surpass the disgust of my colleague. His countenance speaks volumes. 
 Indeed I cannot blame him. I know that there is nothing in this 
 thing that, from its length, seems a letter ; but I can't help it. Adieu 
 to you both. 
 
 Saturday, February 17, 1827. 
 
 Your last was dated this day week. Yesterday we had no mail 
 in consequence of the storm of Thursday. That storm nearly demo- 
 lished me. I took a violent cold at the door of the Senate waiting 
 until two hackney coaches could disengage themselves from a jam. 
 I have since been much worse. I hope to get a line from you to-day. 
 
 I mentioned to you the V. P.'s invitation to accompany him. You 
 will think me a strange, inconsistent creature, when I tell you that I 
 am at.a loss what to do. Home I must go; and yet for me home has no 
 charms. I think of its solitude, which I can no longer relieve by 
 field-sports, or books, and my heart dies within me. Stretched on a 
 sick-bed, alone, desolate, cheerless. I must devise some other plan, 
 and I want to see you and consult you about it. You see what little 
 mercy my querulous selfishness has upon you. 
 
 The prospect here is far from brightening. I know others, and 
 abler men than myself, who think differently ; but they take counsel 
 of their hopes and wishes. I, who have neither to bias me, can see 
 more plainly, with weaker vision. Not that I am at all indifferent 
 (far from it) to the question of change of the bad and corrupt men at 
 the head of our affairs. I allude to wishes of a different sort. 
 
 What you say about the spirit of the times and the state of soci-
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 ety, has " often and over" occurred to me. I want to be at rest ; 
 with Gray's prophetess, I cry out " leave me. leave me to repose !" I 
 am almost as well convinced that I shall not live twelve months, as 
 twelve times twelve, and I wish to die in peace. My best love to 
 Mrs. B. God bless you both, my dear friends. 
 
 Wednesday, Feb. 21, 1827. 
 
 I have omitted for some days to bore you with my querulous 
 notes, because I knew that you had better use for your time than to 
 read them. And now, that I have taken up my pen, what shall I 
 say ? Still harp upon the old string ? My good friend, you will. I 
 am sure, bear with my foolishness. I am incapable of business. I 
 have not been so sensible of the failure of my bodily powers since 
 1817. when you saw me at Mr. Cunningham's ; and in my dreary and 
 desolate condition I naturally turn to you. 
 
 My view of things in Richmond coincided with your own, before 
 I knew what your impressions were. I think that I shall make my 
 escape, with the V. P., via Cartersville. It is the very road that I 
 travelled here, and is the obvious way back again. 
 
 I shall have again to attend a six hours' sitting to-day. It abso- 
 lutely murders me. The H. of R. sat late last night. Mr. Rives 
 gained great, and I believe deserved praise. Mr. Archer passed a 
 severe rebuke upon one of his colleagues from beyond the Blue 
 Ridge, who spoke very irreverently, 'tis said, of his native State. 
 
 I fear that when we do meet, I shall teaze you to death with my 
 egotism. A man with a tooth-ache thinks only of his fang. I am 
 become the most inert and indolent of creatures. I want to get into 
 port. Nothing would suit me so well as an annuity, and nothing to 
 do. You see how selfish I am. But all my selfishness vanishes when 
 I think of you. God bless you both. Adieu. 
 
 Thursday, Feb. 22, 1827. 
 
 General S. Smith, of Maryland, made a very strong speech yes- 
 terday on the colonial trade bill and the report accompanying it. He 
 exposed, without reserve, the ignorance and incapacity of our cabi- 
 net, and particularly of the Secretary of State ; and pointed out 
 many manifest errors in the bill and report, between which he show- 
 ed more than one instance of discrepancy. His speech was so much 
 approved that a subscription for its publication was immediately set 
 on foot and filled. I think it will have great effect on the public 
 opinion. I listened to it with great attention, and after he had con- 
 cluded, the old gentleman came and thanked me for it. He said that 
 my occasional nods of assent to what he said was a great support to 
 him, and enabled him to get through with what he had to say with 
 more animation and effect than he had anticipated. The applause 
 bestowed upon him by very many members of the Senate, seemed to 
 warm the old man's heart.
 
 HIS DEFEAT FOR THE SENATE. 287 
 
 Friday, Feb. 23, 1827. 
 
 Yesterday we adjourned much earlier than usual, on the motion 
 of Mr. Johnson, of Louisiana, who means to inflict upon us a speech 
 of unconscionable length, if I am to judge from the apparatus of 
 notes and books which he has collected. It will, no doubt, receive 
 contribution from the S. of S. It is strange that the administration 
 should be reduced to rely upon so feeble and confused an understand- 
 ing as that of J., whom no one can listen to, and who is unanswera- 
 ble because he is unintelligible. His friend and patron passes my 
 window every morning, arm in arm with M. C.'s, whom he ap- 
 pears to be vainly engaged in drilling. My good friend, politics re- 
 mind me of Goldsmith's character of a schoolmaster any other em- 
 ployment seems " genteel" in comparison to it. 
 
 Saturday, Feb. 24, 1827. 
 
 Your letter of Thursday and the Enquirer of the same date are just 
 now brought in I am truly sensible of the kind partiality of my 
 friends, but I feel that my career is drawing to a close. My system 
 is undermined and gone, and a few months must, I should think (and 
 almost hope) put an end to my sufferings. God only knows what 
 they have been. I think it probable that I shall take the steamboat 
 to Richmond ; in which case I shall have the pleasure to see you 
 once more. I don't like to hear of your being ' unwell," and hope 
 that the approaching adjournment of the Assembly will relieve you 
 from your harassing employment at the Bank. 
 
 I have lain all night listening to the rain. I have not passed one 
 quite so bad this winter. I shall, nevertheless, go to the Senate, for 
 I have made it a point not to miss a vote. I tasked myself beyond 
 my strength in retaining my seat, and am by no means quite satis- 
 fied that 1 took the right course in that matter. It is not now, how- 
 ever, to be remedied. 
 
 Many thanks for your news of my niece. God bless her ! I 
 wrote to her the day before yesterday. 
 
 We had yesterday a confused jumble of two and a half hours from 
 J.. of L. But I have no doubt that the best face that the adminis- 
 tration can put on the matter will appear in print. The chairman of 
 foreign relations has been weighed and found wanting. The man has 
 not a shadow of pretension to ability or information. Adieu. 
 
 Sunday, Feb. 25, 1827. 
 
 My lamentations must, I am sure, weary you, and not a little. 
 Like Dogberry, I bestow all my tediousness upon you. I have had 
 another bad night. Not so bad however as the preceding one. But 
 I am in a state of utter atony. I think that you medical men have 
 such a term. I have lost all relish for every thing, and would will- 
 ingly purchase exemption from all exertion of body and mind at
 
 288 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 almost any price. My old friend, Mr. M., remarks my faint and lan- 
 guid aspect, but even he little knows of what is passing within. If 
 change of scene brings no relief, and I have little hope that it will. 
 I cannot long hold out under it ; and why do I reiterate this to you? 
 Because I have no one else to tell it to, and out of the fulness of the 
 heart the mouth speaketh. I can no longer imagine any state of 
 things under which I should not be wretched. I mean a possible 
 state. I am unable to enter into the conceptions and views of those 
 around me. They talk to me of grave matters, and I see children 
 blowing bubbles. 
 
 Monday morning, Feb. 26. 1827. 
 
 Your letter of Friday, which ought to have arrived yesterday 
 morning, came in with the northern mail. No two instruments of 
 music ever accorded more exactly than our opinions do, concerning 
 public men and measures. I am heartily sick of both, and only wish 
 to find some resting-place, where I may die in peace. I saw a letter 
 from Crawford to Mr. M., a day or two ago, that affected me most 
 deeply. Nothing can be more simple and touching than the manner 
 in which he speaks of himself and his affairs. What a fate his has 
 been ! 
 
 I agree with you, about the great man of Richmond. His an- 
 tagonist I know well. He is a frog at the utmost degree of disten- 
 tion. How I shall get home I can't yet tell. My helplessness is in- 
 conceivable. I want a dry nurse somebody to pick me up and take 
 me away. I have passed another horrid night. Garnett writes me 
 that he obtained relief from Dr. Watson, during his late visit to Rich- 
 mond There is some talk of a fight in the other House, but I con- 
 jecture that it will end in smoke. I listen, but say nothing. 
 
 Your letter of Saturday, and the Enquirer of Wednesday, are just 
 now put into my hands. " Old Prince Edward has come out man- 
 fully" indeed ; and if any thing could exhilarate me, it would be such 
 a manifestation of the confidence of those who know me best ; but to 
 the dead fibre all applications are vain. 
 
 SENATE, Thursday, March 1, 1827. 
 
 I can only thank you for your letter of Tuesday. We meet at 
 ten ; and yesterday we adjourned at the same hour. It almost killed 
 me, and has worsted my old friend, Mr. M., a good deal. In common 
 with all the honest and sagacious men here, he partakes of the gen- 
 eral disgust; and I think it not at all unlikely that he will throw up 
 his commission before the next winter. S. of S. C., one of the most 
 sterling characters, and of untiring zeal and labor hitherto, begins 
 also to despond, seeing, as he does, that the administration is more 
 effectually served by its professed opponents than by its friends. 
 They are utterly insufficient. This is for you only. 
 
 This is probably the last note that you will receive from me until
 
 ELECTION TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 289 
 
 we meet. You must be prepared for a great change in me greater 
 in temper, &c., than in health. You both, I know, will put up with 
 my tediousness. I feel that I am becoming a burthen to others, as 
 well as to myself, and the thought depresses me not a little. " Time 
 and the hour run through the longest day." What a fate ours would 
 have been if we had been condemned to immortality here. 
 
 Saturday, March 3, 1827. 
 
 We sat until after two this morning. The House of Representa- 
 tives, by a very thin vote, adhered to their amendment to the Colo- 
 nial Bill. Had it been put off until to-day, it would not have been 
 done. We shall. I take it for granted, also adhere, and so the bill 
 will be lost. I have made my arrangements to go in the Potomac 
 to-morrow, at 9 o'clock. When I consider, that at this session the 
 Bankrupt Bill, the Woollen Bill, the Naval School, and two Dry Docks, 
 and the Colonial Bill, have all failed, I am of opinion that (as we say 
 in Virginia) we have made a " great break." In fact, the administra- 
 tion have succeeded in no one measure. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 ELECTION TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 So soon as it was known in Washington that Mr. Randolph had 
 been defeated for the Senate, Dr. George W. Crump, who repre- 
 sented his district, published a letter to his constituents, declining a 
 re-election, and united with Mr. Randolph's other friends, in an- 
 nouncing him as a candidate for Congress. 
 
 The legislature was still in session, as he passed through Rich- 
 mond. His friends in that body invited him, as a token of their re- 
 spect, to partake of a public dinner. He said, in reply : ' The fee- 
 bleness of my health admonishes me of the imprudence I commit in 
 accepting your very kind and flattering invitation, but I am unable 
 to practise the self-denial which prudence would impose. I have 
 only to offer my profound acknowledgment, for an honor to which I 
 am sensible of no claim on my part, except the singleness of purpose 
 with which I have endeavored to uphold our common principles, never 
 more insidiously and vigorously assailed than now, and never more 
 
 VOL. II. 13
 
 290 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 resolutely defended and asserted." To a complimentary toast, call- 
 ing him " the constant defender of the principles of the Constitution, 
 the fearless opponent of a mischievous administration," he made a 
 very brief but appropriate answer " He knew that of late years it 
 had become a practice, that the person thus selected as the object of 
 distinction and hospitality, should make his acknowledgments in a 
 set speech ; but as a plain and old-fashioned Virginian, it was, he must 
 be permitted to say, a custom more honored in the breach than the 
 observance. He felt assured that no declaration of his principles was 
 called for on the occasion. It would, indeed, be too severe a tax upon 
 the courtesy of that intelligent auditory, for him to attempt to gloss 
 over what he had done or omitted to do. He did not oxpect them to 
 judge of those principles from any declarations that he might see fit 
 to make, instead of inferring them from the acts of his public life, 
 which had commenced in the last century, and had terminated but a 
 few days ago." Mr. Randolph received several similar invitations 
 from his old constituents, but he was constrained to decline them all. 
 He expressed his regret at being unable to partake of the hospitality 
 and festivity of his friends, " to whom," says he, " I am bound by 
 every tie that can unite me to the kindest and most indulgent con- 
 stituents that ever man had." 
 
 It is almost needless to say, that at the April elections he was 
 returned to Congress by his old constituents, without opposition. 
 The summer was spent in his accustomed solitude at Roanoke : and 
 as to the thoughts anti feelings that occupied and harassed him during 
 that monotonous period, we leave him to speak for himself, in the fol- 
 lowing letters to his friend, Dr. Brockenbrough : 
 
 ROANOKE, March 30, 1827 ; Friday. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND My worst anticipations have been realized. 
 t got home on the 22d (Thursday), and since then I have scarcely 
 been off my bed except when I was in it. My cough has increased 
 very much, and my fever never intermits ; with this, pain in the Ireast 
 and all the attendant ills. Meanwhile I am, with the exception of 
 my servants, as if on a desert island. I feel that my doom is sealed, 
 as it regards this life at least. I do not want to distress you, or to 
 make you gloomy ; but you had a right to know the truth, and I have 
 told it to you. 
 
 My best regards to Mrs. B. Write to me when you have nothing 
 better to do. I shall be detained here all the summer, if I last as 
 long. Like other spendthrifts, I have squandered my resources, and 
 am pennyless.
 
 ELECTION TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 291 
 
 ROANOKK. May 15th, 1827 ; Tuesday. 
 
 Your letter gives me much concern. These sudden and repeated 
 attacks alarm me. Pray do not fail to write and let me know how 
 you are. I would readily embrace Mrs. B.'s kind invitation (God 
 bless her for it) ; but, my good friend, I am unfit for society. My 
 health is better more so in appearance than in reality ; but my spi- 
 rits are (if any thing) worse. In other words, a total change has 
 been effected in my views and feelings, and nothing can ever-restore 
 the slightest relish for the world and its affairs. If property in this 
 country gave its possessor the command of money, I would go abroad 
 immediately. But I feel that I am fixed here for life. I am sensibly 
 touched by the kind interest expressed for my welfare by the Wick- 
 hams (and others). Make my best acknowledgments to them. Yester- 
 day I received a present offish from a man whom I hardly know, who 
 sent it eight miles. On Saturday, for the first time. I made an essay 
 towards riding, and got as far as Mrs. Daniel's, who, I heard, was 
 very unwell. I repeated the experiment on Sunday ; but yesterday 
 was cold and cloudy, and the rain. I am persuaded, saved us last night 
 from another frost. 
 
 By this time, I conjecture that my niece is in Richmond. Give 
 her my best love, and Mrs. B. and Mary also. Remember me most 
 kindly to Leigh, Stevenson, and all who ask after me. 
 
 Reading over what I have written, I find that I have expressed 
 myself unhappily, not to say ungraciously, on the subject of Mrs. B.'s 
 invitation. What I meant was, that I could not be in Richmond 
 without being thrown into society. It is inexpressibly fatiguing and 
 irksome to me to keep up those forms of intercourse which usage has 
 rendered indispensable. He who violates them deserves to be kicked 
 out of company. This is one among many reasons why I like to go 
 abroad. You may ask 
 
 patria qui exsul , 
 
 Sequoque fugif? 
 
 but I have no such vain expectation. 
 
 Five, P. M. Since writing the above I have felt so peculiarly 
 desolate and forlorn, that I would be glad to transport myself any 
 where from this place. For some days this feeling has been gaining 
 the mastery over me. What wouldn't I give to be with you at this 
 moment, or to see you drive up to my door ! The pain in my right 
 side and shoulder has increased, and that, no doubt, occasions, in part 
 at least, my wretched sensations. To-morrow will bring but the same 
 joyless repetition of the same dull scene. 
 
 ROANOKE, May 22, 1827 ; Tuesday. 
 
 Your last (14th) gives me considerable relief on the subject of 
 your health. Now that you have hit upon the remedy, I hope to 
 hear no mor of your spasmodic paroxysms. I have followed your
 
 292 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 advice with sensible benefit ; but nothing seems to relieve the anxiety, 
 distress, and languor to which I am by turns subjected, or the pains, 
 rheumatic or gouty, that are continually flying about me. 
 
 I have passed a wretched week since my last. Why my letters 
 are so long getting to hand. I cannot tell perhaps it would be well 
 for you if they should miscarry altogether, for they are little else 
 besides lamentations. I cannot express to you the horror I feel at 
 the idea of a winter in Washington. I have used a very improper 
 word, for it is a feeling of loathing, of unutterable disgust. I am (of 
 course) obliged to " every body" for their inquiries and " apparent 
 concern" respecting my health; but there are some individuals 
 towards whom I entertain a warmer feeling, and I beg you to express 
 it for me to Leigh, the Wickhams, and others whom I need not 
 name, although I will name Mr. and Mrs. T. Taylor. 
 
 Whichever way I look around me, I see no cheering object in 
 view. All is dark, and comfortless, and hopeless : for I cannot dis- 
 guise from myself, that the state of society and manners is daily and 
 not slowly changing for the worse. After making every allowance 
 for the gloom of age and disease, there are indications not to be mis- 
 taken of general deterioration. If I survive this winter I must try 
 and hit upon some plan of relief, for I would not spend another year 
 1827 for any imaginable earthly consideration. This is not a bull, 
 although it may look like one. 
 
 I have some conveniences here (not to say comforts) that I can- 
 not always meet with from home ; and this consideration, and the 
 vis inertias which grows daily stronger, have detained me here, where 
 I vegetate like the trees around me. Give my best love to Mrs. B., 
 and Mary. I most heartily wish that I could see you all. 
 
 ROANOKE, Tuesday, June 12, 1827. 
 
 Your lettet of the 5th was received last night. When I wrote 
 that to which you refer, I had not received Mr. Chiles's and Mr. 
 Allen's, with your P. S. They came about a week afterwards I 
 wrote you a few hardly legible lines on Friday evening. The next 
 morning I got into my chair and drove to W. Leigh's, whence I re- 
 turned yesterday. I would have stayed longer, but there were young 
 people in the house, and I felt as if I was a damper upon their cheer- 
 fulness. Luckily I had a cool morning for my return home. 
 
 I have had a visit from a Stouldburg old Mr. Archibald B. It 
 almost made me resolve never to leave my own plantation again. 
 I hardly think that I shall go to the Springs. I have a decided 
 aversion to mixing with mankind, especially where I am known. I 
 have been obliged to give up riding on horseback altogether. It 
 crucified me, and I did not get over a ride of two miles in the course 
 of the whole day. I will stay at home, and take your prescription. 
 I wish I could see your Dr. Johnston's book. There are other rea-
 
 ELECTION TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 293 
 
 sons why I should stay at home : I have no clothes, and no money: 
 In fact, I never was in so abject a state of misery and poverty since 
 I was born. They who complain are never pitied. But I have so true 
 a judgment of the value of this world and its contents, that I would 
 not give the strength and health of one of my negro men for the wis- 
 dom of Solomon, and the wealth of Croesus, and the power of Csesar. 
 " Though Solomon, with a thousand wives, 
 
 To get a wise successor strives, 
 
 But one, and he a fool, survives." 
 
 So much for the pleasure of offspring. 
 
 My best love to Mrs. B. and Mary, and to my niece, who is with 
 you. I hope. Tell her that I got her two *ast letters a great while 
 after they were written ; and that I should have written in return, but 
 that I was never in a frame of mind for it. My life is spent in pain 
 and sorrow. " We passed in maddening pain life's feverish dream," 
 was said of poor Collins. It is almost true of me. I have a thousand 
 things to attend to, many duties to perform, and all are neglected. 
 I know and feel that I am incurring an awful responsibility, but 
 that only serves to add to the miseries of the day and night. 
 
 ROANOKE, September 4, 1827. 
 
 I certainly took it for granted that you were at the Springs, or I 
 should have written, although I have been particularly unwell of 
 late, and have had a great deal of company, most ot which I could 
 have gladly dispensed with. Indeed, I have more than once regret- 
 ted that 'not at liome was inadmissible in the country. At this time 
 I am laboring under a sharp attack of bile, and am hardly able to 
 direct my pen. All those symptoms of anxiety, distress, &c., I need 
 not recapitulate to you. I had anticipated your caution respecting 
 wine, but am not the less thankful for it. Kidder R. was here, and 
 had no one to join him in a glass of claret, so that, as Burns says, I 
 helped him to i slice of my constitution, although my potation was 
 very moderate. If people would not harass me with their unmean- 
 ing visits I should do much better. 
 
 RoANOKE,Nof. 6, 1827; Tuesday. 
 
 I write because you request it. I got home on Friday evening 
 (the 2d), and Sara and the wagons arrived here next night. This 
 morning I received your letter of the 1st, Thursday. In answer to 
 your inquiry, I am worse, decidedly worse than when I wrote from 
 Amelia. I wrote you a long letter from thence, which I afterwards 
 threw into the fire and like it, I am withering, consuming away. I 
 will try and see you if I can, on my way to W. Nothing but the circum- 
 stance attending my election, prevents an immediate resignation of 
 my seat. My good friend. I can't convey to you language can't ex- 
 press the thousandth part of the misery I feel. 
 
 I found a long letter from you. at Charl. C. H. You say that
 
 294 LI FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 >' without something of the sort (cotton spinning), Richmond is done 
 over." My dear friend, she is " done over," and past recovery. She 
 wears the fades Hippocratica. That is not the worst the country is 
 also ruined past redemption, body and soul soil and mind. 
 
 My friend, Mr. Barksdale, has resolved to sell out and leave 
 Amelia. He is right, and would be so, were he to give his establish- 
 ment there away. If I live through the coming year, I too, will break 
 my fetters. He was almost my only resource. They have dried up, one 
 by one, and I am left in the desert alone. 
 
 Mrs. B. ' wants to see me" God bless her. When I come, you 
 must hide me. I can write no more, even of this nonsense. Farewell. 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 1827 ; Saturday. 
 
 I confess that I have been disappointed, nay almost hurt, at 
 not hearing from you. My good friend, I am sore and crippled, 
 mind and body and I might add estate. These, according to the 
 Liturgy, embrace all the concerns of man, but there is another branch 
 in which I am utterly bankrupt. 
 
 You say that you have nothing to communicate, and yet Steven- 
 son tells me that the election made a great sensation with you 
 
 Quant a mai. I am dying as decently as I can. For three days 
 past, I have rode out, and people who would not care one groat, if I died 
 to-night are glad that I am so much better, &c.. &c , with all that 
 wretched grimace that grown-up makers of faces call, and believe to 
 be, politeness, good-breeding, &c. I had rather see the children or 
 monkeys mow and chatter. 
 
 My diet is strict. Flesh once a day (mutton, boiled or roasted), 
 a cracker and cup of coflfee. morning and night, no drink but toast 
 water. But it will not do. For the first time in my life, I now be- 
 gin to drink in the night, and copiously. I would give fifty pounds 
 if no one would ask me again, " how I do ?" 
 
 Mr. Macon, who was strictly neutral last year, is now decided for 
 Jackson. Perhaps this may give some relief to our friend, Christo- 
 pher Quandary. From some Fanquier and other symptoms, I fear 
 that the Chief J. ifcquandaryish too. 
 
 Tazewell talks of going home, and has asked me to go with him. If 
 I could bear the beastly abominations of a steamboat, I would do it, 
 for here I cannot stay. Mr. M. recruited very much after his arrival, 
 but within a few days he has been complaining, and in very bad spirits. 
 The fact is, that his grand-children torture my old friend almost to 
 death. I bless God that I have none. Of all the follies that man is 
 prone to, that of thinking that he can regulate the conduct of others, 
 is the most inveterate and preposterous. Mr. Macon has no such weak- 
 ness ; but the aberrations of his descendants crucify him. What has 
 become of all the countless generations that have preceded us ? Just 
 what will become of us. and of our successors. Each will follow the
 
 ELECTION TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 295 
 
 devices and desires of its own heart, and very reasonably expect that 
 its descendants will not, but will do, like good boys and girls, as they 
 are bid. And so the papas and mammas, and grand-papas and grand- 
 mammas flatter themselves utterly regardless of their own contuma- 
 cy. If ever I undertake to educate, or regulate atiy thing, it shall be 
 a thing that cannot talk. I have been a Quixotte in this matter, and 
 well have I been rewarded as well as the woful Knight in the Galley 
 slaves in the Brown mountain. 
 
 WASHINGTON, Friday, Dec. 21, 1827. 
 
 At last I have a letter from you. Your epistles are like angels' 
 visits, " short and far between." I have one too from the Chief Jus- 
 tice, whom Mrs. B. will smile to hear me describe as one of the 
 best-bred men alive. I sent him the King's speech and documents, 
 and here in return is a letter that I would not exchange for a Diploma 
 from any one of our Universities. 
 
 Nothing was further from my intention than to touch any nerve 
 in Watkins. &c., when I mentioned his having written a book. At 
 that time, I thought C. Q. was ascribed to Grarnett. I referred to 
 his publications some years ago against Jackson. Do you remember 
 that Dr. Johnson, who hardly rose to the dignity and polish of a bear, 
 told Boswell that he thought himself a very well-bred man ? Now. 
 I thought that I rallied our friend that night, with playful good hu- 
 mor, incapable of wounding even as sensitive a person as he on that 
 occasion seemed to be. 
 
 Although I rode out on "Wednesday, I am no better. Yesterday 
 the atmosphere was loaded with rticum, and to-day it is hardly better. 
 The first good spell of weather that seems settled, I shall leave this 
 place, pour jamais. I have yet some confidence left in mankind, and 
 much in my constituents. Now, let me beg you not to mention this 
 to any one. I have heard of my conversation with W. L. at your 
 house with alterations, I can't say with emendations. How every 
 idle word I utter flies abroad upon the wings of the wind. I know not. 
 I could not help smiling at the version given of my retort, that " J. 
 could not write because he had never been taught, and Adams be- 
 cause he was not teachable " the two last words were changed into 
 " a man of abilities." This is like the National Intelligencer's re- 
 ports of me. 
 
 I am sensible that these effusions of querulous egotism can have 
 no value in your eyes. I will therefore try something c'lse. 
 
 Mr. Barbour's motion is, to say the least of it. ill-timed. I be- 
 lieve that he consulted no one about it. Our play is to win the game 
 to keep every thing quiet; to give no handle for alarm, real or pre- 
 tended ; to finish the indispensable public business, and to go home. 
 
 As you make m mention of Mrs. B. or of Mary. I conclude that 
 they are both well. My love to them both. I have been not a little
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. ' . ' 
 
 amused with hearing a gentleman describe the artful and assiduous, 
 and invidious court paid to a certain lady, the year before last, at the 
 Springs, by a certain grtjat. very great man. I now understand why 
 she introduced the subject of General Jackson to me of all the peo- 
 ple in the world, when I last saw her the only instance of want 
 of good taste that I ever remarked in that lady. Quant d moi. I 
 was (as became me) mute as a fish. 
 
 I agree that it is a serious objection to any man that he has such 
 a hanger-on as C. B. But when I am determined upon turning off a 
 very bad overseer, I shall not be deterred, because I can't get exactly 
 him whom I would prefer. This squeamishness does for girls, but 
 with men, you must act as a man upon what is, and not upon what 
 ought to be. I have seen no man but Genl. W., and there were 
 strong objections to him, that I think fit for the office. 
 
 WASHINGTON, Saturday, Dec. 22, 1827. 
 
 My cough and pain in the breast are both much worse, owing to my 
 being a few minutes in the House yesterday, from which I was speed- 
 ily driven by the atmosphere. I cannot believe it possible that the 
 Ch. J. can vote for the present incumbent. To say nothing of his 
 denunciation of all the most respectable federalists ; the implacable 
 hatred and persecution of this man and his father of the memory of 
 Alexander Hamilton (the best and ablest man of his .party, who 
 basely abandoned him for old Adams' loaves and fishes), would, I sup- 
 pose, be an insuperable obstacle to the C. J.'s support of the younger 
 A. When I say the best and ablest of his party, I must except 
 the Ch. J. himself, who surpassed H. in moral worth, and although 
 not his equal as a statesman, in point of capacity, is second to none. 
 Hamilton has stood very high in my estimation ever since the contest 
 between Burr and Jefferson ; and I do not envy a certain Ex.-P. or 
 your predecessor, the glory of watching his stolen visits to a courtezan, 
 and disturbing the peace of his family by their informations. I have 
 a fellowrfeeling with H. He was the victim of rancorous enemies, 
 who always prevail over lukewarm friends. He died because he pre- 
 ferred death to the slightest shade of imputation or disgrace. He was 
 not suited to the country, or the times ; and if he lived now, might 
 be admired by a few, but would be thrust aside to make room for any 
 fat-headed demagogue, or dextrous intriguer. His conduct, too, on 
 the acquisition of Louisiana, proved how superior he was to the Otises 
 and Quincys, and the whole run of Yankee federalists. 
 
 Yours are the only letters that I receive from Richmond the 
 one mentioned yesterday, from the Ch. J., excepted. Indeed I have 
 had but three others ; one from Mr. Leigh, and two from Barksdale. 
 It is now snowing fast, and I fear that I shall be detained here much 
 longer than I could wish. I left the House yesterday, after an
 
 ELECTION TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 297 
 
 hour's stay in it, and, as I finished my ride, I saw the flag waving 
 over the Hall of the Representatives. I thought what fools men 
 were, to be there listening to jackanapes, and what fools we, the people, 
 were, to submit to their rule. I must get away, or die outright. 
 
 WASHINGTON, Wednesday, Dec. 26, 1827. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, Your letter, too, looks a little more like 
 " past times " than those which I have received from you of late. I 
 wonder that you should be at a loss for something to write about, for 
 Mr. Speaker, whom I saw some days ago for a single minute, related 
 to me that you had given a splendid party ; for so I interpreted the 
 word fandango, used by him. 
 
 But for a visit last evening from Frank Key, who came and sat 
 about three hours with me, yesterday would have been the dullest 
 Christmas day that I can recollect. We want a synonym for the 
 French triste. I was invited to dine, enfamilte. with Mr. Hamilton, 
 of South Carolina, but the day was so particularly detestable, that I 
 could not stir abroad. The Pennsylvania Avenue is a long lake of 
 mud. I go nowhere, and see nobody but Mr. Macon. He is so deaf 
 that he picks up none of the floating small trash in the Senate, and I 
 am hard put to it to make him hear my hoarse whispers. 
 
 I understood the whole matter of Mr. H.. of Kentucky, and the 
 " very great man," and I readily comprehended the lady's scruples ; 
 one. especially, that was to be looked for in a female of delicacy and 
 right feeling ; for I have felt, and I do feel the same, myself. But 
 there is no alternative. 
 
 You say that "all the world are amazed how the devil I knmo 
 every thing before any body eZse." I got that piece of information 
 from Lynchburg, a long while ago, through my silent, discreet friend. 
 W. -u., who, I verily believe, never mentioned it to any body else, 
 but, as the Waverly man says, " kept a calm sough." I have paid 
 more money of my own for intelligence than, I believe, any other 
 public man living ; but this came gratis. Apropos to the Waverly 
 man. His last work (Canongate) is beneath contempt. The mask 
 is off, and he stands confessed a threadbare jester, repeating his worn- 
 out stories. I wish that some one would take pen in hand, and abolish 
 him quite. It might be easily done. 
 
 I pray you write to me as often and as fully as you can. I have 
 no other epistolary aliment, except from Harry Tucker. God bless 
 you both. 
 
 My most respectful and friendly regards to Mr. Wiekham. when- 
 ever you see him. He has won upon my esteem. I made the very 
 
 same remark upon the Ch. J 's dignified and simple manners. 
 
 that evening, that Mrs. B. did. Pray tell him that I hope soon to 
 see him here. 
 
 VOL. n. 13*
 
 298 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION A WISE AND MASTERLY 
 INACTIVITY. 
 
 MR. RANDOLPH'S opposition commenced with the administration. 
 His objection was not confined to the measures, but extended to the 
 men the principles they avowed and the manner in which they 
 came into power. In his judgment they were condemned in the be- 
 ginning, and it was folly to wait to strike the first blow until they 
 could safely intrench themselves behind the walls of patronage, and 
 the well furnished batteries of a pensioned press. Like a skilful 
 leader, he dashed at once on the foe, and gave him a stunning and 
 fatal blow, ere he was aware of the near approach of an enemy. Two 
 years ago, in the Senate, we observed his bold and vigorous onset ; 
 and now, in another field, his charges on the intrenchments of the 
 enemy are still more fearless and effective. " I shall carry the war 
 into Africa," said he, " Delenda est Carthago ! I shall not be con- 
 tent with merely parrying. No, Sir, if I can so help me God ! I 
 will thrust also ; because my right arm is nerved by the cause of the 
 people and of my country." 
 
 It was conceded, on all hands, that he was the leader of the op- 
 position in Congress. 
 
 A member from Ohio, in responding to a rhetorical inquiry pro- 
 pounded by himself " Who is it that manifested this feeling of pro- 
 scription towards us and our posterity ?" answered, ' Sir, it is the 
 man who is now at the head of the opposition to this administration : 
 it is the man who was placed by you, Sir, at the head of the principal 
 committee of this House. Yes, Sir, he was placed there by aid of 
 the vote of the very people that he has derided and abused ; and if 
 ill health had not prevented, would have been in that exalted station. 
 It is the man that is entitled to more credit if it is right that this 
 administration should go down for his efficiency in effecting that ob- 
 ject, than any three men in this nation. This is not a hasty opinion 
 of mine ; it is one long held, and often expressed. I have been an 
 attentive observer of his course ever since the first organization of 
 the party to which he belongs. From the moment he took his seat
 
 LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION. 299 
 
 in the other branch of the legislature, he became the great rallying 
 officer of the South. Our southern brethren were made to believe 
 that we, of the North, were political fiends, ready to oppress them 
 .with heavy and onerous duties, and even willing to destroy that 
 property they held most sacred. Sir, these are not exaggerated 
 statements relative to the course of this distinguished individual. 
 He is certainly the ablest political recruiting sergeant that has been 
 in this or any other country." 
 
 Another member " considered him the commanding general of 
 the opposition force, and occupying the position of a commander, in 
 the rear of his troops, controlling their movements; issuing his 
 orders ; directing one subaltern where and how to move his forces ; 
 admonishing another to due and proper caution, and to follow his 
 leader ; nodding approbation to a third, and prompting him to ex- 
 traordinary exertion ; examples of which he has given us ii. this 
 debate." 
 
 Mr. Kandolph was eminently fitted to be the leader of the repub- 
 lican party, at this time. The time-serving policy, and the " cen- 
 tripetal" tendency of the last twelve or fifteen years, had utterly 
 obliterated all traces of its former existence. The old principles that 
 constituted it, were effaced from the memory. He was the " Old 
 Mortality," whose sharp chisel could retrace the lines on the whited 
 sepulchres, and bring them out in bold relief, in all their original 
 strength and freshness. His was the prophet's voice, to stir the dry 
 bones in the valley. 
 
 In the first place, he was purely disinterested. He filled the sta- 
 tion assigned him by his beloved constituents ; his ambition extended 
 not beyond. His age, his wretched health, and " church yard cough," 
 admonished him that he might not live to witness the triumph of his 
 cause. None but the most uncharitable could suspect his motives, or 
 doubt that his right arm was nerved by the cause of the people and 
 of his country. The history of all nations, and of their governments, 
 was well known to him ; the causes of their rise, progress, and de- 
 cline, were thoroughly studied and digested. He knew the Consti- 
 tution of his own country its strength, its weakness, and the dangers 
 that beset it. Possessing a thorough acquaintance with human 
 character, and a keen insight into the motives of individuals, he was 
 familiar with the history, both public and private, of every prominent
 
 300 LI FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 man connected with the Government. Nothing escaped his observa- 
 tion. No " Senior Falconi " could work the wires in his presence, 
 without being detected and exposed. He possessed a fearless spirit, 
 that dared to look at the naked truth to confront it boldly, and to 
 speak to it. 
 
 He called things by their right names ; he called a spade a spade, 
 offend whom it might. His mind was untrammelled by professional 
 habits : nor was it fettered to the narrow round of an inferior trade. 
 His comprehensive genius, with a free and fearless spirit, travelled 
 over every field. of knowledge, and appropriated to itself the richest 
 fruits of ancient and modern lore. While others were poring over 
 their books, or plodding through a labored and methodical speech, 
 striving by a slow inductive process to arrive at their conclusion, he. 
 with a comprehensive glance surveyed the whole field, and by an in- 
 tuitive perception leapt to the conclusion without an apparent effort. 
 No man more completely fulfilled his own beautiful fable of the cat- 
 erpillar and the huntsman. "A caterpillar comes to a fence; he 
 crawls to the bottom of the ditch, and over the fence ; some one of his 
 hundred feet always in contact with he object upon which he moves 
 a gallant horseman, at a flying leap, clears both ditch and fence. 
 ; Slop !' says the caterpillar, ' you are too flighty, you want connection 
 and continuity ; it took me an hour to get over ; you can't be as 
 sure as I am, who have never quitted the subject, that you have over- 
 come the difficulty, and are fairly over the fence.' ' Thou miserable 
 reptile,' replies our huntsman, ' if, like you, I crawled over the earth 
 slowly and painfully, should I ever catch a fox, or be any thing more 
 than- a wretched caterpillar?' " With these qualities of head and of 
 heart a profound statesman, a ready debater, a resolute will, pos- 
 sessing the spirit of command he was eminently fitted to be the 
 leader of a great party. While others were bewildered, or timidly 
 waited the coming of events, he was quick to perceive and prompt to 
 act 
 
 His policy during the present session was a wise and masterly in- 
 activity. The administration was in a minority, and with a ' sar 
 donic sneer" had told the leaders of the opposition that they had be- 
 come ' responsible for the measures of the Government." But Mr. 
 Randolph urged his friends to do nothing stand still and observe a 
 wise and masterly inactivity. He often used that expression : " We
 
 LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION. 301 
 
 ought," said he, " to observe that practice which "is the hardest of all. 
 especially for young physicians we ought to throw in po medicine 
 at all to abstain to observe a wise and masterly inactivity." That 
 was not only his policy then, but at all times. We are indebted to 
 him for a political maxim that embraces the whole duty of an Amer- 
 ican statesman. Let the Government abstain as much as possible 
 from legislation ; interfere not at all with individual interests ; leave 
 all they can to the States, and to the boundless energies of a free and 
 enlightened people. In a word, the true constitutional spirit of the 
 Federal Government would prompt it at all times (there are excep- 
 tions of course to all rules) to observe a wise and masterly inactivity ; 
 it would fulfil its whole duty in that. Whither would the contrary 
 doctrine of the men then in power that Government must do every 
 thing 'nave carried us ? to what a condition has it brought the na- 
 tions of Europe? Let their enormous standing armies, bankrupt 
 treasuries, irredeemable national debts, wretched and impoverished 
 people, answer the question ! 
 
 All of Mr. Randolph's speeches during the present session were 
 interesting and instructive. Some of them are tolerably fair speci- 
 mens of his style of thought and composition ; especially the one in 
 answer to Mr. Everett, of Massachusetts, on the first of February, 
 which was revised by himself and dedicated to his constituents : " To 
 my constituents, whose confidence and love have impelled and sus- 
 tained me under the effort of making it, I dedicate this speech." 
 
 It is a great mistake to suppose that he had no method in his dis- 
 course. His was not a succession of loose thoughts and observations 
 strung together by the commonplace rules of association, but the pro- 
 found method of a mind of genius, that looked into the very heart of 
 a subject, and drew forth the law of association by which its ideas are 
 bound together in an adamantine chain of cause and effect. Like the 
 musician who draws from a simple ballad an infinite variety of har- 
 monies, in all of which may be traced the elements of the original 
 song so, Randolph, in his speeches, expanded the original thought 
 into a rich and copious variety ; but every illustration was suggested 
 by the subject : each episode tended to accomplish the purpose he 
 had in view. Let the following extract from the speech now under 
 consideration, suffice as a specimen of his large acquaintance with 
 history ; profound knowledge of human character ; his copiousness
 
 302 LIFE OF JOH- v ' r RANDOLPH. 
 
 of illustiation, and the rapidity, beauty, strength, and purity of his 
 style. After reviewing the observations of other speakers that 
 had gone before him. suggested by a former speech of his. he 
 comes directly to the subject in hand the unfitness of the present 
 rulers : we wanted statesmen who could wisely direct the helm of 
 State, and not orators to make speeches, or logicians to write books : 
 Sir, said he, I deny that there is any instance on record, in 
 history, of a man not having military capacity, being at the head of 
 any Government with advantage to that Government, and with credit 
 to himself. There is a great mistake on this subject. It is not those 
 talents which enable a man to write books and make speeches, that 
 qualify him to preside over a Government. The wittiest of poets has 
 told us that 
 
 " All a rhetorician's rules 
 Teach only ho<v to name his tools." 
 
 We have seen professors of rhetoric, who could no doubt descant i*u- 
 ently upon the use of these said tools, yet sharpen them to so wiry an 
 edge as to cut their own fingers with these implements of their trade. 
 Thomas ii Becket was as brave a man as Henry the Second, and, in- 
 deed, a braver man less infirm of purpose. And who were the Hil- 
 debrands. and the rest of the papal freebooters, who achieved victory 
 after victory over the proudest monarchs and States of Christendom? 
 These men were brought up in a cloister, perhaps, but they were en- 
 dowed with that highest of all gifts of Heaven, the capacity to lead 
 men, whether in the Senate or in the field. Sir, it is one and the 
 same faculty, and its successful display has always received, and al- 
 ways will receive, the highest honors that man can bestow : and this 
 will be the case, do what you will, cant what you may about military 
 chieftains and nrilitary domination. So long as man is man, the vic- 
 torious defender of his country will, and ought to receive, that coun- 
 try's suffrage for all that the forms of her government allow her to 
 give. 
 
 A friend said to me not long since: ""Why, General Jackson 
 can't write. 1 ' Admitted." (Pray, Sir, can you tell me of any one 
 that can write? for, I protest, I know nobody that can.) Then, 
 turning to my friend, I said : li It is most true that General Jackson 
 cannot write," (not that he can't write his name or a letter, &c.,) " be- 
 cause he has never been taught ; but his competitor cannot write, 
 because -he was not teachable ;" for he has had every advantage of 
 education and study. Sir, the Duke of Marlborough, the greatest 
 captain and negotiator of his age, which was the age of Louis the 
 Fourteenth, and who may rank with the greatest men of any age, 
 whose irresistible manners and address triumphed over every obsta-
 
 * LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION. 393 
 
 cle in council, as his military prowess and conduct did in the field 
 
 this great man could not spell, and was notoriously ignorant of all 
 that an undergraduate must know, but which it is not necessary for 
 a man at the head of affairs to know at all. Would you have super- 
 seded him by some Scotch schoolmaster ? Gentlemen forget that it 
 is an able helmsman we want for the ship of state, and not a profes- 
 sor of navigation or astronomy. 
 
 Sir, among the vulgar errors that ought to go into Sir Thomas 
 Brown's book, this ought not to be omitted : that learning and wis- 
 dom are not synonymous, or at all equivalent. Knowledge and wis- 
 dom, as one of our most delightful poets sings 
 
 :; Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, 
 Have ofttimes no connection : Knowledge dwells 
 TH hearts replete with thoughts of other men; 
 Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 
 Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ; 
 Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. 
 Books are not seldom talismans and spells, 
 By which the magic art of shrewder wits 
 Holds the unthinking multitude enchained." 
 
 And not books only, Sir. Speeches are not less deceptive. I not 
 only consider the want of what is called learning, not to be a disquali- 
 fication for the commander-iu-chief in civil or military life ; but I do 
 consider the possession of too much learning to be of most mischiev- 
 ous consequence to such a character, who is to draw from the cabinet 
 of his own sagacious mind, and to make the learning of others, or 
 whatever other qualities they may possess, subservient to his more 
 enlarged and vigorous views. Such a man was Cromwell ; such a 
 man was Washington : not learned, but wise. Their understandings 
 were not clouded or cramped, but had fair play. Their errors were 
 the errors of men, not of schoolboys and pedants. So far from the 
 want of what is called education being a very strong objection to a 
 man at the head of affairs, over-education constitutes a still stronger 
 objection. (In the case of a lady it is fatal. Heaven defend me from 
 an over-educated accomplished lady ! Yes, accomplished indeed ; for 
 she wfinisiied for all the duties of a wife, or mother, or mistress of a 
 family.) We hear much of military usurpation, of military despot- 
 ism, of the sword of a conqueror, of Cresar, and Cromwell, and Bona- 
 parte. AVhat little I know of Roman history has been gathered 
 chiefly from the surviving letters of the great men of that day. and 
 of Cicero especially ; and I freely confess that if I had then lived, 
 and had been compelled to take sides, I must, though very reluc- 
 tantly, have sided with Caesar, rather than have taken Pompey for 
 my master. It was the interest of the House of Stuart and 
 they were long enough in power to do it to blacken the character 
 of Cromwell, that great, arid. I must add, bad man. But, Sir, the
 
 304 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 devil himself is not so black as he is sometimes painted. And who 
 would not rather have obeyed Cromwell than that self-styled Parlia- 
 ment, which obtained a title too indecent for ine to name, but by 
 which it is familiarly known and mentioned in all the historians from 
 that day to this. Cromwell fell under a temptation, perhaps too 
 strong for the nature of man to resist ; but he was an angel of light 
 to either of the Stuarts, the one whom he brought to the block, or 
 his son, a yet worse man, the blackest and foulest of miscreants that 
 over polluted a throne. It has been the policy of the House of 
 Stuart and their successors it is the policy of kings to villify and 
 blacken the memory and character of Cromwell. But the cloud is 
 rolling away. We no longer consider Hume as deserving of the 
 slightest credit. Cromwell " was guiltless of his country's blood ;" 
 his was a bloodless usurpation. To doubt his sincerity at the outset 
 from his subsequent fall would be madnees. Religious fervor was 
 the prevailing temper and fashion of the times. Cromwell was no 
 more of a fanatic than Charles the First, and not so much of a hypo- 
 crite. It was not in his nature to have signed the attainder of such 
 a friend as Lord Strafford, whom Charles meanly, and selfishly, and 
 basely, and cruelly, and cowardly repaid for his loyalty to him by an 
 ignominious death a death deserved indeed by Strafford for his trea- 
 son to his country, but not at the hands of his faithless, perfidious 
 master. Cromwell was an usurper 'tis granted ; but he had scarcely 
 any choice left him. His sway was every way preferable to that 
 miserable corpse of a Parliament that he turned out. as a gentleman 
 would turn off a drunken butler and his fellows ; or the pensioned 
 tyrant that succeeded him, a dissolute, depraved bigot and hypocrite, 
 who was outwardly a Protestant and at heart a Papist. He lived and 
 died one, while pretending to be a son of the Church of England 
 aye, and sworn to it and died a perjured man. If I must have a 
 master, give me one whom I can respect, rather than a knot of knav- 
 ish attorneys. Bonaparte was a bad man ; but I would rather have 
 had Bonaparte than such a set of corrupt, intriguing, public plun- 
 derers as he turned adrift. The Senate of Rome, the Parliament of 
 England, " the Council of Elders and Youngsters," the Legislature of 
 France all made themselves first odious and then contemptible : 
 and then comes an usurper ; and this is the natural end of a corrupt 
 civil government. 
 
 There is a class of men who possess great learning, combined with 
 inveterate professional haTaits, and who, ipso facto, or perhaps I should 
 rather say ipsis factis, for I must speak accurately, as I speak before 
 a professor, are disqualified for any but secondary parts any where, even 
 in the cabinet. Cardinal Richelieu was, what ? A priest. Yes, but 
 what a priest ! Oxenstiern was a chancellor. He it was who sent 
 his son abroad to see quam parva sapiotiia regitur mundus with
 
 LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION. 305 
 
 how little wisdom this world is governed. This administration seemed 
 to have thought that even less than that little would do for us. The 
 gentleman called it a strong, an able cabinet second to none but 
 Washington's first cabinet. I could hardly look at him for blushing. 
 What, Sir ! is Gallatin at the head of the Treasury Madison in the 
 department of State ? The mind of an accomplished and acute dia- 
 lectician, of an able lawyer, or, if you please, of a great physician, 
 may, by the long continuance of one pursuit of one train of ideas 
 have its habits inveterately fixed, as effectually to disqualify the pos- 
 sessor for the command of the councils of a country. He may, never- 
 theless, make an admirable chief of a bureau an excellent man of 
 details, which the chief ought never to be. A man may be capable 
 of making an able and ingenious argument on any subject within the 
 sphere of his knowledge ; but every now and then the master sophist 
 will start, as I have seen him start, at the monstrous conclusions to 
 which his own artificial reasoning had brought himself. But this 
 was a man of more than ordinary natural candor and fairness of 
 mind. Sir, by words and figures you may prove just what you 
 please ; but it often and most generally is the fact, that, in propor- 
 tion as a proposition is logically or mathematically true, so it is poli- 
 tically and commonsensically (or rather nonsensically) false. The 
 talent which enables a man to write a book, or make a speech, has no 
 more relation to the leading of an army or a senate, than it has to 
 the dressing of a dinner. The talent which fits a man for either 
 office is the talent for the management of men : a mere dialectician 
 never had, and never will have it ; each requires the same degree of 
 courage, though of different kinds. The very highest degree of moral 
 courage is required for the duties of government. I have been 
 amused when I have seen some dialecticians, after assorting their words 
 " the counters of wise men. the money of fools" after they had laid 
 down their premises, and drawn, step by step, their deductions, sit 
 down completely satisfied, as if the conclusions to which they had 
 brought themselves were really the truth as if it were irrefragably 
 true. But wait until another cause is called, or till another court 
 sits till the bystanders and jury have had time to forget both argu- 
 ment and conclusion, and they will make you just as good an argu- 
 ment on the other side, and arrive with the same complacency at a 
 directly opposite conclusion, and triumphantly demand your assent 
 to this new truth. Sir, it is their business I do not blame them. 
 I only say that such a habit of mind unfits men Tor action and for 
 decision. They want a client to decide for them which side to take ; 
 and the really great man performs that office. This habit unfits 
 them for government in the first degree. The talent for government 
 lies in these two things sagacity to perceive, and decision to act. 
 Genuine statesmen were never made such by mere training ; nas-
 
 306 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 cuntur non fiunt : education will form good business men. The 
 maxim, nascitur non Jit, is as true of statesmen as it is of poets. 
 Let a house be on fire, you will soon see in that confusibn who 
 has the talent to command. Let a ship be in danger at sea, 
 and ordinary subordination destroyed, and you will immediately 
 make the same discovery. The ascendency of mind and of character 
 rises and rises as naturally and as inevitably where there is fair play 
 for it, as material bodies find their level by gravitation. Thus, a 
 great logician, like a certain animal, oscillating between the hay on 
 different sides of him, wants some power from without, before he can 
 decide from which bundle to make trial. Who believes that Wash- 
 ington could write a good book or report as Jefferson, or make an 
 able speech as Hamilton? Who is there that believes that Crom- 
 well would have made as good a judge as Lord Hale ? No, Sir ; these 
 learned and accomplished men find their proper place under those 
 who are fitted to command, and to command them among the rest. 
 Such a man as Washington will say to Jefferson, do you become my 
 Secretary of State ; to Hamilton, do you take charge of my purse, or 
 that of the nation, which is the same thing ; and to Knox, do you be 
 my master of horse. All history shows this ; but great logicians and 
 great scholars are, for that very reason, unfit to be rulers. Would 
 Hannibal have crossed the Alps, when there were no roads with 
 elephants in the face of the warlike and hardy mountaineers, and 
 have carried terror to the very gates of Rome, if his youth had been 
 spent in poring over books? Would he have been able to maintain 
 himself on the resources of his own genius for sixteen years in Italy, 
 in spite of faction and treachery in the Senate of Carthage, if he had 
 been deep in conic sections and fluxions, and the differential calculus, 
 tr say nothing of botany and mineralogy, and chemistry ? " Are you 
 not ashamed," said a philosopher to one who was born to rule ; " are 
 you not ashamed to play so well upon the flute ?" Sir. it was well 
 put. There is much which becomes a secondary man to know much 
 that it is necessary for him to know, that a first-rate man ought to 
 be ashamed to know. No head was ever clear and sound that was 
 stuffed with book learning. You might as well attempt to fatten and 
 strengthen a man by stuffing him with every variety and the greatest 
 quantity of food. After all, the chief must draw upon his subalterns, 
 for much that he does not know and cannot perform himself. My 
 triend. W m. R. Johnson, has many a groom that can clean and dress 
 a race-horse, and ride him too, better than he can. But what of that ? 
 Sir, we are, in the European sense of the term, not a military people. 
 We have no business for an army ; it hangs as a dead weight upon 
 the nation, officers and all All that we hear of it is through pam- 
 phletsindicating a spirit that, if I was at the head of affairs, I should 
 very speedily put down. A state of things that never could have
 
 LETTERS FROM ROANOKE. 
 
 grown up under a man of decision of character at the head of the 
 State, or the Department a man possessing the spirit of command ; 
 that truest of all tests of a chief, whether military or civil. Who 
 rescued Braddock when he was fighting, secundem artem, and his 
 men were dropping around him on every side ? It was a Virginia 
 militia major. He asserted in that crisis, the place which properly 
 belonged to him, and which he afterwards filled in a manner we all 
 know. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXVII. 
 
 LETTERS FROM ROANOKE. 
 
 WE again leave the reader to follow Mr. Randolph into his accus- 
 tomed summer quarters, there to commune with him alone, and to 
 commiserate his unhappy lot. With a heart most exquisitely attuned, 
 as the reader has learned to know, to love and friendship, he had no, 
 wife nor children to share his home and fortune, and to fill that aching 
 void, that none but domestic affection can fill. Wholly dependent on 
 outward friendship, he found the world all too busy for that, and was 
 desolate. The reader will not be at a loss to perceive that the fol- 
 lowing letters were addressed to Dr. Brockenbrough. 
 
 ROANOKE, Tuesday evening, May 27, 1828. 
 
 My dear friend, I hope to hear from you by Sam on Saturday 
 night, and to receive Lord Byron in a coffin, where I shall very soon 
 be. I daily grow worse ; if that can be called " growth " which is 
 diminution and not increase. My food passes from me unchanged. 
 Liver, lungs, stomach (which I take to be the original seat of dis 
 ease), bowels, and the whole carnal man are diseased to the last ex- 
 tent. Diarrhoea incessant nerves broken cramps spasms ver- 
 tigo. Shall I go on ? no, I will not. 
 
 I have horses that I cannot ride wine that I cannot drink and 
 friends too much occupied with their own affairs to throw away a day 
 (not to say a week) upon me. Of these, except Mr. Macon. your- 
 self and Barksdale. who has entangled himself with Mrs. Tabb's 
 estates, are all that I care to see here. Meanwhile, my dear friend, 
 I am not without my comforts, such as they be. I have a new passion 
 arising within me, which occupies me incessantly the improvement 
 of my estate. But for three men : A. B. V. (your old master). 
 Creed Taylor, and Patrick Henry, I should have commenced thirty 
 years ago, what now I can hardly begin finish, never. Don't you 
 smile at my array of names ? i; Le vrai n'est pas toujours
 
 308 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 blable." Perhaps I might say, without hazarding more than public 
 speakers (of whom I have been one) often do, "jamais " for " tou- 
 jours" 
 
 My cough is tremendous. The expectoration from mucus has 
 become purulent. My dear friend, you and I know that the cough 
 and diarrhoea, and pain in the side and shoulder, are the last stage of 
 my disorder, whether of lungs in the first instance, or of liver. 
 
 I send you the measure of my thigh at the thickest part. Calves 
 I have none, except those that suck their dams ; but then I have 
 ankles that will out-measure yours or any other man's as far as you 
 beat me in thighs. 
 
 I am super-saturated with politics ; care nothing about conven- 
 tion or no convention, or any thing but the P. election, and no great 
 deal about that. The country is ruined, thanks to Mr. Jefferson and 
 Mr. Ritchie, who, I suppose, is ashamed of sending me the Enquirer, 
 for I never get it. It is a temporizing, time-serving print, which I 
 heartily despise, and should not care to have it, except that it is the 
 Moniteur of the poor old, ruined and degraded Dominion. Neverthe- 
 less, ask somebody (for Ritchie is too much of a Godwinian to attend 
 to facts) to send it to me. 
 
 Ro ANOKE. Friday, May 30, 1828. 
 
 Although I wrote to you so short a time ago by Sam, as well as by 
 the post, yet as my frank has not expired (at one time indeed I expect- 
 ed not to live out my 60 days' leave), I write again to tell you that 
 extremity of suffering has driven me to the use of what I have had a 
 horror of all my life I mean opium; and I have derived more re- 
 lief from it than I could have anticipated. I took it to mitigate se- 
 vere pain, and to check the diarrhoea. It has done both ; but to my 
 surprise it has had an equally good effect upon my cough, which now 
 does not disturb me in the night, and the diarrhoea seldom, until to- 
 wards daybreak, and then not over two or three times before break- 
 fast, instead of two or three and thirty times. Yet I can't ride but 
 I hobble with a stick, and scold and threaten my lazy negroes who are 
 building a house between my well and kitchen, and two (a stable boy 
 and under gardener) mending the road against you come or Barks- 
 dale. I want to see nobody else, that will come, except Leigh and 
 Mr. Wickham. and they won't. Yes, let me except W. M. Watkins. 
 who has been twice to see me ; once spent the day from early break- 
 fast, until after dinner and seemed to feel a degree of interest in 
 my life, that I thought no one took, except mv " woman kind," and 
 
 / i TTT T f / 
 
 my friend Win. Leigh. 
 
 Disgusted to loathing with politics, I have acquired a sudden taste 
 for improving my estate, and my overseers are already aghast at my 
 inspection of their doings. My servants here had been corrupted, 
 by dealing with a very bad woman, that keeps an ordinary near me.
 
 ' LETTERS FROM ROANOKE. 309 
 
 Twenty odd years ago, I saw her, then about 16, come into Charlotte 
 court to choose a very handsome young fellow of two and twenty, for 
 her guardian, whom she married that night. She was then as beau- 
 tiful a creature as ever I saw (some remains yet survive). They re- 
 minded me of Annette and Lubin, but alas ! Lubin Became a whisky 
 sot, and Annette a double you. Her daughters are following the 
 same vocation, and her house is a public nuisance. I have been 
 obliged to go there and lecture her at first she was fierce, but I re- 
 minded her of the time when she chose her guardian, extolled her 
 beauty told her that I could not make war upon a woman and that 
 with a widow that if she wanted any thing, she might command 
 much more from me as a gentleman, by a request, than she could 
 mal-e by trafficking with my slaves. She burst into tears, promised 
 to do so no more, and that I might, in case of a repetition of her of- 
 fence, ' : do with her as I pleased." Her tears disarmed me, and I with- 
 drew my threat of depriving her of her license, &c., &c. : Voila un 
 roman. 
 
 ROANOKE, Aug. 10, 1828. 
 
 Your brother Tom, who dined here and lay here last Tuesday, 
 tells me that you say " you believe that I have forgot you." I told 
 the colonel to reply in jockey phrase, that ' : the boot was on the other 
 leg." Until I saw him, I took it for granted that you had gone on 
 from Charlottesville to the Springs, and I should as soon think of ad- 
 dressing a letter to Tombuctoo, as to our watering places. Moreover, 
 he tells me that u he does not think that you will go at all." Now all the 
 circumstances of the case taken together, I think I have some right 
 to complain ; but as that is a right which I had much rather waive 
 than exercise, I shall content myself with laughing at you most heart- 
 ily, for the part you had in the accouchment of Carter's mountain, 
 which, after violent throes, has not produced even a mouse. My good 
 friend, you and your compeers, Ex-P s, Ch. J s, and learned 
 counsellors (to say nothing of the little tumbler), remind me of my 
 childhood, when we used to play at " ladies andgentlemeny' and make 
 visits from the different corners of the room, and cut our bread or 
 cake into dishes of beef, mutton, &c. What is all this for ? a me- 
 nace ? Then it must be treated with contempt ; a persuasive, or ar- 
 gument ? then / should treat it likewise. Against all self-created as- 
 sociations, taking upon themselves the functions of government, I set 
 my face ; and I should disregard the propositions of the convention, 
 however reasonable or just, because of the manner in which they had 
 been got up. Richardson and Gaines and Joe Wyatt are my politi- 
 cal attorneys ; in fact, and by them only, I mean to be bound one set 
 is enough, and I am vain enough to believe that my opinion and wish- 
 es are entitled to as much respect from the assembly (cet.eris paribus) 
 as that of any member of the Charlottesville convention. In truth
 
 310 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 we are a fussical and fudgical people. We do stau.d in need of " In- 
 ternal Improvement" beginning in our own bosoms, extending to 
 our families and plantations, or whatever our occupation may be ; and 
 the man that stays at home and minds his business, is the one that is 
 doing all that can be done (rebus existentibus) to mitigate the evils of 
 the times. 
 
 " Well, after all this expectoration, how is your cough ?" Steadily 
 -vttiug worse ; d'allieurs, I am better I mean as to the alimentary 
 canal. Why can't you and madam come and see me ? We are burnt 
 to a cinder ; although I had beautiful verdure this summer, until late 
 in July. But if you could but see my colt Topaz, out of Ebony ; my 
 filly Sylph, out of Witch ; or my puppy Ebony, you would admit that 
 the wonders of the world were ten, and these three of them. Adieu ! 
 
 J. R. OF R. 
 
 P. S. My frank being out, I subject you to double postage, to 
 tell you that I clearly see in the C. C. a sort of tariffical log rolling 
 between Ja. R. and the " mounting men," to tax the rest of the State 
 and spend the money among themselves. I expect to live to see the 
 upper end of Charlotte combine to oppress and plunder the lower 
 end ; or vice versa. The cui bono Mr. Mercer can tell, so can such 
 contractors as his friend J. Gr. Gr. &c. 
 
 Did you read Mr. J.'s letter ? I could not get through with it. 
 Who does these things ? It is exhumation. 
 
 ROANOKE, Tuesday, September 30, 1828. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND Your letter, which I received last night, was 
 a complete surprise upon me I had begun to think that I was 
 never to hear from you again. I have been here five cheerless 
 months. Two letters from you, and one from Barksdale, written 
 early in May ! Did you get one from me in reply to your penul- 
 timate, addressed to Philadelphia? Since my return home from 
 W. I have not once slept out of my own bed ; neither have I 
 eaten from any other man's board, except when carried to Char- 
 lotte C. H. by business. With the exception of a few visitors. I 
 have been solitary, or worse being occasionally bored with company 
 that I would have been glad to dispense with. There is a disease 
 prevailing on Dan river, which they call the cold plague. It is very 
 fatal and speedy ; the patient dying on the second or third day. In 
 Virginia we have a moral cold plague, that has extinguished every 
 social and kindly feeling. I do not believe that there ever existed a 
 state of society no, not even in Paris so selfish and heartless as 
 ours ; and then the pecuniary distress that stares you in the face, 
 whichsoever way you turn ! The like has never been seen and felt 
 in this country before. If I had the means of insuring a mutton 
 cutlet and a bottle of wine in a foreign land, I would take shipping 
 in the next packet.
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 My good friend, my health is very bad. My disease is eating me 
 uway, and for the last month I have been sensible of a dejection of 
 mind that I can't shake off. Perhaps some interchange of the cour- 
 tesies and civilities of life might alleviate it; but these are unknown 
 in this region. 
 
 ROANOKE, Tuesday, October 28. 1828. 
 
 You are very good, but I cannot accept your kind invitation. I 
 have lived here six solitary months in sickness and sorrow, until I 
 find myself unfit for general converse with mankind. Mr. Barksdale 
 presses me to go to How Branch, but I cannot. Sometimes, in a fit 
 of sullen indignation, I almost resolve to abjure all intercourse with 
 mankind ; but the yearnings of my heart after those whom I have 
 loved, but who, in the eagerness of their own pursuits, seem to have 
 cast me aside, tell me better. 
 
 My good friend, I am sick, body and mind. I am without a sin- 
 gle resource, except the workings of my own fancy. Fine as the 
 weather is and has been all this month, I have not drawn a trigger 
 I often think of the visit you and madame made me three years ago 
 just at this time. Although I never get a word from her, give her my 
 best love. God bless you, may you never feel as I do. J. K. OF R. 
 
 CHARLOTTE C. H., November 4, 1828. 
 I got here to-day with some difficulty, and attempted to return 
 
 home, but have been compelled to put back into port. Yesterday I 
 
 was unable to attend. Indeed I have been much worse for the last 
 
 five or six days. 
 
 Vote of the county at 4 P. M., Tuesday Jackson 270 ; Adams 57 
 The sun is more than an hour high, but I am obliged to go to 
 
 bed. No letters from you for a long time. J. R. OF R. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RETIREMENT FROM CONGRESS. 
 
 GENERAL JACKSON was elected, by a large majority, President of the 
 United States. No man contributed more than Mr. Randolph to 
 this result none expected to profit less from the triumph of his 
 cause. His sole object was to turn out men from office who had 
 climbed up the wrong way, and whose principles were ruinous to the 
 Constitution, and to the Union as a union of co-Qqual ;ui<l imlcpen 
 dent States. Having accomplished this end. he had imtliintr more to 
 desire. Whether the new men in office would fulfil his expectations
 
 312 L LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 remained to be seen. One thing was certain, if they did not, they 
 would find no support from him. The spoils of office had no charm 
 to lull him into forgetfulness of his duty the sop of Cerberus could 
 not close his watchful eye. nor silence his warning voice. Principles, 
 not men, were not empty sounds on his lips, but a rule of action from 
 which he never deviated ; friend or foe alike shared his indignation 
 whenever they betrayed a perverseness in their opinions, or a selfish- 
 ness in their motives. His course was understood from the begin- 
 ning. " The gentleman from Massachusetts warns us," says he, '' that 
 if the individual we now seek to elevate shall succeed, he will in his 
 turn, become the object of public pursuit ; and that the same pack 
 will be unkennelled at his heels, that have run his rival down. It 
 may be so. I have no hesitation to say, that if his conduct shall 
 deserve it, and I live, I shall be one of that pack; because I main- 
 tain the interests of stockholders against presidents, directors, and 
 cashiers." 
 
 After the election Mr. Randolph, as he had always done, kept 
 aloof from political intrigues ; took no personal interest in the for- 
 mation of the new cabinet ; nor did he open his mouth during the 
 session of Congress that closed the day General Jackson was inau- 
 gurated President of the United States. 
 
 He had nothing more to do; his work was finished. He an- 
 nounced his intention not to be a candidate for re-election, and to bid 
 adieu for ever to public life. It was certainly the last time he ever 
 appeared on the floor of Congress. The question has often been 
 asked, where are the monuments of his usefulness ? what important 
 measure did he ever advocate 1 The answer to this inquiry can only 
 be found in contrasting the results of his labor with those of his 
 great rival. Mr. Clay exerted all his great faculties and command- 
 ing influence to build up his American system. Randolph labored 
 with equal assiduity to prevent its being built up ; and after it was 
 established, was unremitting in his exertions to tear it down. It has 
 been torn down ; and none did more than he in the work of demoli- 
 tion. One prop after another was taken from beneath this magnifi- 
 cent structure, and it now lies a heap of ruins. The American sys- 
 tem is a mouldering ruin the very memory of it has grown obso- 
 lete ; but the American people were never more prosperous, and the 
 American Constitution was- never more ardently cherished by their
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 313 
 
 grateful hearts. The American system, whatever might have been 
 the design of the great projector, worked only for the benefit of the 
 presidents, directors, and cashiers ; the destruction of it has resulted 
 to the infinite advantage of the stockholders. But this is a service 
 the people do not appreciate a ^negative virtue, in their estimation, 
 for which there is no reward. He is more valued who invites them 
 to a feast, than he who holds them from the poisoned chalice. We 
 have labored, throughout the Life of Mr. Randolph, to show that there 
 are principles of the Constitution behind all measures ind all admin- 
 istrations, of infinitely more importance than the temporary advan- 
 tage that might be obtained by an infringement of them. These 
 principles he studied with unremitting assiduity, and drew from them 
 the golden rule that a statesman must abstain from much legislation, 
 and leave every thing to the unrestrained energies of the people. He 
 taught, as the soundest maxim of philosophy, not only in the practice 
 of the medical art, but of political science, a wise and masterly in- 
 activity. 
 
 But these lessons of wisdom have fallen like seed by the way- 
 side, and many are tempted to ask, Where are the fruits of the long 
 life and labors of this man? If the doctrine of State-rights, en- 
 grafted on the Constitution by George Mason, and expounded by 
 Jefferson and by Madison, be an essential element in our federative 
 system, then what a debt of gratitude do we owe to John Randolph, 
 who ever defended those principles through evil as well as through good 
 report'; never swerved from their practice ; and finally, when the cen- 
 tripetal tendencies of the present administration were rapidly hasten- 
 ing their destruction, rescued them from ruin, and gave the federa- 
 tive system a new impulse, which we trust will restore it to its origi- 
 nal balance, and a just and harmonious action. 
 
 The people are beginning to awake from their delusions. When 
 they shall fully perceive and understand the fact that all those bril- 
 liant schemes that so much dazzled their fancy and made such potent 
 appeals to their interests, were not only calculated to corrupt, oppi 
 and bankrupt the community, but to sweep away all the landmarks 
 and barriers that stood in the way of lawless power, then will the 
 name of John Randolph, whose prophetic voice had warned them of 
 these consequences, be fondly cherished by thirn, and handed down 
 
 VOL. n. 1 4
 
 314 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 from generation to generation as one of the greatest benefactors a 
 kind Providence had vouchsafed to their country. 
 
 The following letters were written by Mr. Randolph to his friend. 
 Dr. Brockenbrough, during the session of Congress : 
 
 * WASHINGTON, Nov. 29. 1828. 
 
 MY GOOD FRIEND Your kind letter reached me yesterday, but too 
 late to thank you for it by return mail. At Fredericksburg I re- 
 ceived such representations of the Dumfries road, as to induce me to 
 take the steamboat. As there was only one other passenger, the 
 cabin was quite comfortable. The boat is a new one, and a very fine 
 one, and always gets up to the wharf. Her deck is roofed. We got 
 here at two o'clock, but I lay until eight. Found Dr. Hall (N. C.) 
 here (at Dawson's), and this morning Colonel Benton and Mr. Gilmer 
 have arrived. 
 
 My cough is very much worse, and the pain in my breast and side 
 increased a good deal. God bless you both. Pray write as often as 
 you conveniently can. Yours, ever. J. R. OF R. 
 
 Dr. BfcOCKENBROUGH. 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 1828. 
 
 You have no doubt heard that Mr. A. does not return to Quincy. 
 On dit, that a very ungracious reception awaits him in Boston. & 
 great deal has been said of the ' philosophy" with which he bears his 
 defeat, but a friend of mine, who saw him yesterday, tells me that he 
 is emaciated to a great degree, and looks ten years older than he did 
 last winter ; that his features are sunken, and his coat, although but- 
 toned, hanging about him like a man's coat upon a boy. In short, 
 said my informant, your epithets " lank and lean," applied to the ad- 
 ministration, were forcibly recalled to my mind by the personal ap- 
 pearance of the P. Clay, too, he added, endeavors to put a good 
 face on the matter ; but after working himself up into one of these 
 humors, the collapse is dreadful. Such are the rewards of ambition. 
 
 " Ambition thus shall tempt to rise, 
 Then whirl the wretch on high, 
 To bitter scorn a sacrifice, 
 And grinning infamy." 
 
 You see I have nothing to write, when I send you stale poetry. My 
 duty and love to Madame, and kind and respectful remembrance to 
 Mr. Wickham. Yours, ever. J. R. OF R. 
 
 WASHINGTON, *Dec. 11, 1828; Wednesday. 
 
 Your letter shows on the face of it how much you are straitened 
 I wish I could spare you some of mine, that hangs 
 leayy on my hands. In addition to my other annoyances, I am la- 
 boring under a severe influenza, and might sit for the picture of a
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 weeping philosopher, although I have as few claims to philosophy 
 as Mr. J. Q. A. himself. He rides or walks around the square in 
 front of the Capitol, every day. I have not seen him, but Hall tells 
 me that he does very often, and that the sight makes him feel very 
 queerly. " He looks," says Hall, " as if he did not know me, and I 
 look as if I did not know him." His appearance is wretched. An 
 acquaintance of mine called on him a few days ago ; he was much 
 dejected, until some one made an allusion to Giles, when, in great 
 wrath, he pronounced G-.'s statements respecting him to be utterly 
 false ; said G-.'s memory was inventive, &c. ; and, on the whole, con- 
 ducted himself very undignifiedly. 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 1828. 
 
 Your letter, although dated four days ago, did not come to hand 
 until this morning. It needed no excuse, for I am, now-a-day, glad to 
 get a letter from you on any terms. 
 
 Yesterday I dined with our old acquaintance, Dennis A. Smith, 
 at Gadsby's. He spoke with great interest and regard of you. He 
 introduced me to a Dr. McAulay, who has married a lady of fortune, 
 in Baltimore. He was formerly of Virginia, and I conjecture, a son 
 of McAulay, of York. I am glad that you are pleased w&h your 
 adopted daughter. I pray that she may realize your fondest ex- 
 pectations. I have long since done with forming any. If my " body 1 ' 
 and ' ; estate" would permit, my "mind" is bent on spending the rest 
 of my life in travelling not in search of happiness ; that, I know, ib 
 not to be found but of variety, which may be found ; and in which 
 I consider the chief pleasure of life to consist. Habit, I know, can 
 reconcile the gin-horse to his lot ; but I never could have made a gin- 
 horse. 
 
 This place is exceedingly dull. As no purpose can now be an- 
 swered, by giving entertainments, none are made. I am nearly as 
 much alone as I was at Roanoke ; and, with the exception of the daily 
 mails, I am full as much at a loss for resources to break the monotony 
 of the day ; each day being, with the exception of the weather, ex- 
 actly alike. If there be any news, I am in the dark. I only hear 
 that some ladies of the heads of departments have, for the first turn 
 during the present reign, condescended to visit ladies of M C., who 
 have passed several winters here, unnoticed by those grand dignita- 
 ries. This was told me by my friend Benton, who sometimes knocks 
 at my door, and sits a few minutes with me but for whom, I should 
 be utterly ignorant of what's going on. 
 
 As to G.'s ' ; religion," I shall be sorry to pass upon it or him. 
 My quondam neighbor. Peter J., has, I am certain, mistaken his 
 wants, whatever may be the lady's case. My niece is now in Rich- 
 mond, attending the wedding of some female friend. She is an 
 admirable creature, susceptible of high and generous sentiments ; but
 
 316 
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 I have a most pitiful opinion of the friendship of girls generally ; 
 marriage is a touch-stone that few of them can bear. Indeed, it is 
 too much the case with our sex, also. By this time you must be tired 
 of my prosing. Let me hear from you, when you can find leisure to 
 write. Yours truly, J. R. OF R. 
 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 1828. 
 
 After a dreadful night, I am greeted by your letter of Saturday. 
 I am truly concerned to hear of Mrs. B.'s afflicting indisposition. In 
 this climate, as we advance in life, that disorder becomes more com- 
 mon and more formidable. Make my best respects to her. 
 
 My good friend, few persons of my age, have thought more on the 
 subject of government, and my situation for the last forty years has 
 been highly favorable for watching the operations of our own. The 
 conclusions that I have come to, do not very widely differ from your 
 own ; they are any thing but cheering. What you say upon the au- 
 thority of Mr. Short, of the condition of " a solitary itinerant," I know 
 by some thousands of miles' experience, to be true ; but bad as it is, 
 it. is better, far better, than the life I lead here or at home. 
 
 Mr^T. is again in the newspapers. I think this course very ill- 
 advised ; but perhaps I am wrong, and do not take into consideration 
 the very low state into which our society has fallen. 
 
 The influenza has left my eyes weak and inflamed ; but if there 
 was any thing worth communicating, I would tax them to give it to 
 you. I hear nothing and see nobody. I cannot work myself up to 
 take any interest in what is going on, or said to be going on. 
 
 There is not, at this time, on the face of the earth, one spot where 
 a man of sense, attached to the principles of free government, would 
 wish to live. Governments have poisoned every thing. 
 
 Farewell ! I can truly repeat after you, " Whether at home or 
 abroad," God bless you. J. R. OF R, 
 
 January 6, 1829, 
 
 Mr. Bell, of the House of Representatives, from Tennessee, has 
 received a letter from Nashville, informing him that Mrs. Jackson 
 died on the 23d December ; the day for the dinner and ball to Gen. J. 
 
 While awaiting his arrival at the festival, a messenger brought 
 the news of Mrs. Jackson's death. 
 
 I shall probably not be in the Convention. I am sick of public 
 affairs and public men, and have no opinions of constitutions ready 
 made or made to order. 
 
 If it would do any good, I would wish mosl heartily that your 
 connection with the B. of V. was dissolved. You have been a slave 
 to that company ; and after wearing yourself down, and devoting to 
 it time and abilities and acquirements more than enough to amass an 
 independent fortune (otherwise applied), where is your reward ? I
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 tell you plainly arid fairly that, in public opinion, a banking-house ia 
 a house of ill fame, and that all connection with it is discreditable. 
 This, whether just or not, is the general sentiment of the country. 
 
 My sufferings, for the last three days especially, have been such 
 that if it were lawful I would pray for death. 
 
 You are sadly misinformed as to the ' ; heroism of our men in 
 office here." Their affectation, like all other affectation, defeats its 
 object. Mrs. A., who has been fuming and fretting all the year past, 
 and who went to bed sick upon the catastrophe being announced, now 
 - is glad that she is no longer the keeper of a great national hotel." 
 Mr. A. is quite rejoiced, and Mr. Clay delighted at the result. A 
 keen and close observer tells me that C. is, on the contrary, down, 
 down, down ; that he cannot support himself ; that he sinks under 
 the effort to bear up against his defeat. 
 
 WASHINGTON, January 12, 1829 ; Monday. 
 
 MY DEAR DOCTOR It won't do for a man, who wishes to indulge 
 in dreams of human dignity and worth, to pass thirty years in public 
 life. Although I do believe that we are the meanest people in the 
 world, I speak of this "court" and its retainers and followers. I am 
 super-saturated with the world, as it calls itself, and have now but 
 one object, which I shall keep steadily in view, and perhaps some 
 turn of the dice may enable me to obtain it : it is, to convert my pro- 
 perty into money, which will enable me to live, or rather to die. 
 where I please ; or rather where it may please God. 
 
 As to State politics I do not wish to speak about them. The coun- 
 try is ruined past redemption : it is ruined in the spirit and character 
 of the people. The standard of merit and morals has been lowered 
 far below "proof." There is an abjectness of spirit that appals and 
 disgusts me. Where now could we find leaders of a revolution ? 
 The whole South will precipitate itself upon Louisiana ami the adjoin- 
 ing deserts. Hares will hirdle in the Capitol. "Sauve qui peut" is 
 my maxim. Congress will liberate our slaves in less than twenty 
 years. Adieu. 
 
 Friday, February G, 1829. 
 
 " This," you will say, " is nothing to you." You know better ; it 
 is a great deal to me, and I sit up in bed to tell you that when you 
 wrote that you did know better. My dear friend, I can hardly write 
 or breathe. I was attacked last Monday about noon. I am now 
 better ; that is, not in extremity. My best love and duty to madame. 
 The itch to know and attach one's self to the great is an inherent 
 vice of our nature. Have you seen Lockhart's Life of Burns? 
 Adieu for the present. 
 
 WASHINGTON, February 9, 1829 ; Monday. 
 
 MY GOOD FRIEND I scratched a few lines to you on Thursday 
 (I think) or Friday, while lying in my bed. I am now out of it, and
 
 313 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 somewhat better ; but I still feel the barb rankling in my side Whe- 
 ther, or not, it be owing to the debility brought on by disease. 1 can't 
 contemplate the present and future condition of my country without 
 dismay and utter hopelessness. I trust that I am not one of those 
 who (as was said of a certain great man) are always of the opinion of 
 the book last read. But I met with a passage in a Review (Edin- 
 burgh) of the works and life of Machiavelli that strikes me with great 
 force as applicable to the whole country south of Potapsco : It is 
 difficult to conceive any situation more painful than that of a great 
 man condemned to watch the lingering agony of an exhausted coun- 
 try, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and raving which 
 precede its dissolution, to see the symptoms of its vitality disappear 
 one by one. till nothing is left but coldness, darkness, and corrup- 
 tion." 
 
 You see that whatever temporary amendment there may be in 
 my health, there is none in my spirits. On the contrary, they were 
 never worse. It is not, I assure you, for the want of such feeble ef- 
 fort as I can make against the foul fiend. 
 
 The- operation of this present Government, like a debt at usuri- 
 ous interest, must destroy the whole South. It eats like a canker 
 into our very core. South Carolina must become bankrupt and de- 
 populated. She is now shut out of the English market for her rice, 
 with all the premium of dearth in Europe. I am too old to move, 
 or the end of this year should not find me a resident of Virginia, 
 against whose misgovern ment I have full as great cause of complaint as 
 against that of the U. S. It has been one mass of job and abuse 
 schools, literary funds, internal improvements, Charlottesville con- 
 ventions, and their spawn. I have as great horror of borrowing as 
 you have ; but a friend having made the offer of some money, on 
 good security, I think 1 shall take up some on mortgage, and make 
 one more trial for life. If you lived in the country, I would come 
 and stay with you ; but when I go to see you, you make dinners, and 
 put yourself out of the way, and to unnecessary expenses, which I 
 don't like to be the occasion of. 
 
 The snow is all gone, and the sun is seen once more. God bless 
 you both. 
 
 Thursday, February 12, 1829. 
 
 MY GOOD FK.IEXD Your letter of Monday came to hand yester- 
 day, after I had written, and too late to thank you for it. Tom Mil- 
 ler writes this morning that the convention bill has passed, and that 
 my friends expect me to be a candidate for a seat in that body. If 
 any one can and will devise a plan by which abler and better men 
 shall be necessarily brought into our councils, I will hail him as my 
 M'.'^nus Apollo ! But as I have no faith in any such scheme, and a 
 thorough detestation and contempt for political metaphysics, and for
 
 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 an arithmetical and geometrical constitution, I shall wash my hands 
 of all such business. The rest of my life, if noUpassed in peace, shall 
 not be spent in legislative wrangling. I am determined, absolutely, 
 not to expose myself to collision where victory could confer no honor. 
 No, my dear friend, let political and religious fanatics rave about 
 their dogmas, while the country is going to ruin under the one, and 
 the others are daily becoming worse members of society. " I'll none 
 of it." " By their fruits shall ye know them." 
 
 P. S. By the time you receive this, you will have seen the Boston 
 correspondence of Mr. Adams. The reply is, I'm told, by Mr. Jack- 
 son. Meanness is the key-word that deciphers every thing in Mr. 
 Adams' character. 
 
 Saturday, February 14, 1829. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND Your opinions concerning the operation of 
 this incubus, miscalled Government. I confess surprise me. I have 
 made every allowance for the dearness of slave labor, and the mon- 
 strous absurdities of our own State legislation. But I cannot shut 
 my eyes to the fact, that a community that is forbidden to buy, can- 
 not sell. " The whole southern country will buy less, and make their 
 own clothing, without making smaller crops." Cui bono this last 
 operation, except to wear out their lands and slaves gratuitously ? It 
 is this very " buying less," that lies at the root of our mischief. If 
 we bought more, we would sell more in proportion, and become rich 
 by the transaction. To pursue a Chinese policy, which we did not 
 want, this Government, by cutting us off from our best customer, 
 England, inflicts a dead loss of $15,000,000 this very year on one 
 southern State alone (South Carolina) ; as returns cannot be made in 
 her commodities. England, in time of dearth, refuses to receive her 
 rice. Formerly she would not eat India rice. In like manner, she 
 will soon become independent of us for her supply of cotton. She is 
 also planting tobacco ; so that the conflagration of the factories, at 
 which I heartily rejoice, will take from us the mite received for their 
 consumption. Again, all the expenditure of this machine of ours is 
 made (Norfolk and Point Comfort excepted) north of the Chesapeake. 
 All of the dividends of the debt of the bank are received there. No 
 country can withstand such oppression and such a drain. 
 
 As to W. H., I should not pay the slightest regard to any thing 
 that he can say. I am well acquainted with the West Indies, and I 
 have been told by some of the principal proprietors, that with all 
 their heavy charges for provisions, lumber, mules, &c., from which 
 Louisiana is exempt, the sugar crop is clear of all expenses ; these 
 being defrayed by the molasses and rum. Moreover, you are to con- 
 sider that the West Indies suffer under grievous commercial restric- 
 tions, and that Wilberforce and Co. have very much impaired the 
 value of their slaves. (The same thing is at work here.) Nevertheless,
 
 320 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 I was assured, by the most intelligent and opulent of the " West India 
 Body," that the mortgages and embarrassments of Jamaica, occ., grew 
 chiefly out of the proprietors residing in England, and trusting to 
 agents ; sometimes to colonial ostentation and extravagance ; but that 
 there was scarcely an instance of a judicious and active planter per- 
 sonally superintending his affairs, who did not amass a fortune in a 
 very few years. 
 
 England was our best customer, because we were her best cus- 
 to i ers. This is the law of trade, and the basis of wealth ; instead of 
 which, we have the exploded " mercantile system," as it was ridicu- 
 lously called, revived and fastened, like the Old Man of the Sea. 
 around our necks. 
 
 Monday, February 16, 1829. 
 
 I abstained saying any thing about the convention, seeing no 
 cause to change my first impression on that subject. I once told you 
 that every man was of some importance to himself. I found out this 
 too late after I had poured myself out like water for others. From 
 my earliest childhood, I have been toiling and wearing my heart out 
 for other people, who took all I could do and suffer for them as no 
 more than their just dues. My dear friend, I am super-saturated 
 with disgust. My bodily infirmities do not contribute to relieve the 
 feeling ; and if I mix in affairs, I must be content to be set aside, 
 with contemptuous pity, for a testy, obstinate old fool. To this I do 
 not mean to subject myself. " Let the dead bury their dead." I 
 shall not dig or throw one shovel full of earth. Adieu ! 
 
 Thursday, February 19, 1829. 
 
 Your letter of Tuesday (17) is just received. I did not "mistake 
 you very much," for I did not attribute to you opinions favorable to 
 the tariff. The causes of disparity between the East and South, are 
 to be found, among other things, in the former charging and being 
 paid for every militia man in the field during the Revolutionary war, 
 and for every bundle of hay and peck of oats furnished for public 
 service ; in the buying up the certificates of debt for a song, and 
 funding them in the banks ; in the bounty upon their navigation, 
 and the monopoly of trade which the European wars gave them. If 
 the militia services, losses, and supplies of the Carolinas had been 
 brought into account, all New England would not have sold for as 
 much as would have paid them. In regard to the West Indies, the 
 great law of culture prevails that the worst soils hardly reproduce 
 the expense of cultivation. If even in Georgia, where the cane does 
 not yield one-half the strength of syrup, sugar can be made to profit, 
 what must be the yield of the rich, fresh lands of Jamaica, St. Kitts^ 
 or Juvinau? The syrup of New Orleans is, by the proof. 8 of the 
 West Indies, 16.
 
 ELECTED TO THE CONVENTION. f 321 
 
 I have not seen the picture. No steamboat can, I am persuaded, 
 approach within fifty miles of this place. 
 
 From what I hear, public expectation will be much disappointed 
 in regard to the composition and character of the new cabinet. This 
 is for you alone. " As you have done with political economies," so 
 am I with politics, and politicians too. I went yesterday to vote, in- 
 effectually, against " the Gate Bill." I shall be agreeably disap- 
 pointed if it does not pass the Senate. 
 
 Monday morning, February 23, 1829. 
 
 MY GOOD FRIEND I don't know why I write to you, unless it 
 be to assuage or divert the chagrin by which I am devoured. I have 
 never witnessed so complete a discomfiture as is expressed in the 
 faces of such of my friends as I see, and they tell me that there is 
 not one exception among the eminent men who lately acted together. 
 The countenances of the adverse party beam with triumph, as might 
 be expected. 
 
 I am making my arrangements to get away, and yet, I am better 
 off here than I shall probably ever be again. I have a comfortable 
 apartment and receive the most kind attentions from all the gentle- 
 men under this roof, particularly Major Hamilton, Col. Benton and 
 D. Hall. I shall never again know the comforts of society. The 
 Ch. Justice was good enough to sit an hour with me yesterday ; and 
 I had afterwards a visit from Mr. Quincy, my old fellow-laborer. 
 He said that if Gen. J. had called to his councils high men, the East 
 would be satisfied. He then asked who the present men were ? add- 
 ing, " They say that this is C 's arrangement." It continues to 
 
 be intensely cold. Have I lost ground in Madame's good graces ? 
 I shall be sorely mortified if it be so. 
 
 Thursday morning, Feb. 26, 1829. 
 
 My dear friend, I've been thinking of you all night, awake or 
 asleep, aud to-morrow, I hope to hear from you. You will see a most 
 extraordinary announcement in this day's Telegraph. I am credibly 
 informed by my friend H., that the V. P. is as much astounded by 
 these results as any body, and is as indignant. This is most private 
 and particular. Every body shocked, except Clay and Co. Stran- 
 gers partake of these feelings. My highest regards to Madame. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 ELECTED TO THE CONVENTION. 
 
 ON his retirement from Congress, Mr. Randolph hoped to disconnect 
 himself from public affairs, and to spend the remainder of his days 
 
 VOL. II. 14*
 
 322 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 in travelling abroad. But his old constituents were not so willing to 
 give up his services. They had lost him for ever on the floor of Con- 
 gress, but they now wished him to represent them on another theatre. 
 The people of Virginia had determined on a convention to amend the 
 Constitution of the State. Mr. Randolph was called to serve them 
 in that body. 
 
 The reader will perceive, from the following letters, addressed to 
 Dr. Brockenbrough, that he was nominated as a candidate without his 
 knowledge, and greatly against his wishes. He was much embarrassed 
 by this procedure, but at length consented to the -sacrifice, that he 
 might save the feelings of one friend and aid in the election of another 
 who was a candidate also for the convention. 
 
 The letters were written before the election. He was returned 
 of course as a member of the convention, and took his seat in that 
 body when it assembled, on the first Monday of October, in the Hall 
 of Representatives, in the capitol at Richmond. 
 
 ROANOKE, Tuesday, April 21, 1829. 
 
 To my friend Wm. Leigh, who called at the P. 0. yesterday after 
 the stage had left it, I am indebted for your kind letter of the 15th. 
 He was riding post haste from P. Edward election to Halifax Superior 
 Court, for which place he set out this morning by day-light. Such is 
 the life of those who are at the head of the liberal professions in 
 this country. 
 
 Whilst I was expressing to him my surprise at that passage of 
 your letter which referred to my having consented to serve in the 
 convention, if elected ; he told me, to my utter astonishment, that a 
 proclamation to that effect had been made at the last Charlotte Court, 
 and by a staunch friend of mine too, and a man of honor and truth. 
 Now, I have held but one language on this subject from first to last, 
 and you know what that is. To you, to B., W., L., and others, in wri- 
 ting and orally, I have explicitly avowed my determination to have 
 nothing to do with this matter. The more I have reflected on my 
 retirement from public life, the better satisfied I am of the propriety 
 and wisdom of the step. Before I take any in reference to this last 
 matter, I shall see the gentleman who made the declaration in my 
 behalf. He will be here about the last of this week. 
 
 My dear friend, we shall not " meet in October." I am anchored 
 for life. My disease every day assumes a more aggravated character. 
 I have been obliged to renounce wine altogether. Coffee is my only 
 cheerer. A high fever every night, which goes off about day break 
 with a colliquative sweat ; violent pain in the side and breast; inces- 
 sant cough, with all my tenacity of life this can't hold long. I have
 
 ELECTED TO THE CONVENTION. 323 
 
 rode once or twice a mile or two, but it exhausts me. The last three 
 days have been warm, but last night we had a storm, and it was cold 
 again. Luckily I have no appetite, for I have hardly any thing to eat 
 except asparagus, which is -very fine and nice. I tried spinach d la 
 Fran^aise, but it disagrees with me. You see that, like Dogberry, " I 
 bestow all my tediousness upon you." You know my maxim, " that 
 every man is of great consequence to himself." The trees are bud- 
 ding and the forest begins to look gay, but when I cast my eyes upon 
 the blossoms, the sad lines of poor Michael Bruce recur to my mem- 
 ory : 
 
 " Now Spring returns, but not to me returns 
 The vernal joy my better years have known ; 
 Dim in my breast, life's dying taper burns, 
 And all the joys of life with health are flown." 
 
 Remove Mr. Manvy ! You amaze me. What, the iriend and 
 school-fellow and class-mate of Jefferson, the first appointment to that 
 consulate by Washington ! Pray, what is the matter ? And who is 
 to be the successor ? 
 
 ROANOKE, Tuesday, April 28, 1829. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND You and I, if I mistake not, have long ago 
 agreed that there is no such thing as free agency. I am at this mo- 
 ment a striking example of the fact. In short, to save the feelings 
 of a man of as much truth and honor as breathes, who believed him- 
 self to be doing right, and to avoid injuring certain friends and 
 interests, which the withdrawal of my name would, it seems, occasion, 
 I am fain even to let it stand, at the risk of incurring the imputation 
 of fickleness (for the world will never know the true version), and at 
 what I shrink from with unutterable disgust, the prospect of again 
 becoming a member of a deliberative, i. e. spouting assembly. 
 
 ROANOKE, Friday, May 22, 1829. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND It is a long while since I heard from you, and 
 I am in a condition that requires all the aid my friends can give. If I 
 could have been permitted to remain in the privacy I thought I had 
 found, my life might have been prolonged some months possibly 
 years : but the kindness of my friends has destroyed me. I have 
 been in a manner, forced upon exertions to which my strength was 
 utterly unequal, and at an expense of suffering, both body and mind, 
 of which none but the unhappy victim can have a conception. I 
 have not been so ill since this month last year. 
 
 As I have not the least prospect of attending Halifax election, I 
 count upon being left out, a result which I by no means deprecate ; 
 having already attained the only two objects that I had at heart, and 
 which prevented my withdrawing my name in the out set the saving 
 the feelings of one friend, who had " declared me." and promoting the
 
 324 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 election of another (W. L.). I am an entire stranger in Halifax, and 
 personal courtship is as necessary to success in Politics as in Love 
 They have four candidates of their own. 
 
 To be killed by kindness is, to be sure, better than to be murdered, 
 and it is some consolation to know that you have done service to one 
 friend, and gratified many : but I have been most keenly sensible of 
 the cruelty of which I could not complain. 
 
 My kindest regards to Mrs. B. and to Mr. Wickham when, you see 
 him. Your much afflicted but sincere friend. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION EVERY CHANGE IS NOT REFORM. 
 
 No body of men that ever assembled in Virginia, created more interest 
 than this convention. The State had been agitated for many years, 
 on the subject of constitutional reform. Most of the slave property. 
 and other wealth, were in the eastern section, extending from the Alle- 
 gany to the sea shore, while a large free population were scattered over 
 the western section, among the mountains. These people were almost 
 unanimous in favor of an amendment of the Constitution, fixing the 
 basis of representation on free white population. The result of such 
 a measure, would be to change the balance of power, by giving the 
 right of taxation to one portion, while the property to be taxed, for 
 the most part, belonged to another portion of the Commonwealth ; 
 thus divorcing taxation and representation, which, according to Ameri- 
 can doctrine, should be inseparable. The eastern counties, who were 
 to be the sufferers, strenuously opposed so radical a change in the fun- 
 damental law. It was not a mere question of reform, that might af- 
 fect all parts alike, but it was one of power between two sections of 
 the State, essentially different in feelings, habits, and interests ; it 
 was a question, too, that deeply involved that most difficult and deli- 
 cate of all subjects, the right of slave representation. For these rea- 
 sons, a deep and absorbing interest was felt in the deliberations of 
 the convention now assembled in the capitol, at Kichmond. Each 
 section put forth its strength. The ablest men were selected, without
 
 THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION. 325 
 
 regard to locality. Gentlemen living in the lower part of the State, 
 were elected by districts beyond the mountains, because of their coin- 
 cidence of opinion with their distant constituents. 
 
 Perhaps no assembly of men ever convened in Virginia, display- 
 ing a larger amount of genius and talent certainly none that con 
 tained a greater number of individuals whose reputation had extended 
 beyond the borders of the State, and reached the farthest limits of 
 the Union. There were many of less renown, who, in after years, ac- 
 quired equal eminence in their professional and political career. In- 
 deed, of the one hundred men that composed that Convention, much 
 the larger portion were above the ordinary standard of talents, expe- 
 rience, and weight of character. The Editor of the " Proceedings and 
 Debates" of the Convention, says, "that an assembly of men was 
 drawn together, which has scarcely ever been surpassed in the United 
 States." 
 
 What strange groups, and awkward meetings, took place on that 
 occasion ! Madison and Marshall side by side, in the same delibera- 
 tive body ! Giles and Monroe ! Randolph, Tazewell, Garnett, Leigh. 
 Johnson, Taylor, Mercer ! Old Federalists, old Democrats. Tertium 
 Quids, and modern National Republicans ! What a crowd of recol- 
 lections must have pressed on the mind of John Randolph, as he cast 
 an eye around that assembly. For thirty years he had been on the 
 political stage ; for full one-third of that time, the whole of the politi- 
 cal press, and two administrations State and Federal, made war 
 upon him ! He was like an Ishmaelite ; his hand against every man, 
 and every man's hand against him. Then a friend was a friend indeed ! 
 and an enemy was one to be remembered ! Now, behold around him 
 so many that were friends, so many that were enemies, and so many 
 who, pretending to be friends, in his hour of need betrayed him ! 
 
 Randolph's manner and bearing, on this extraordinary occasion, 
 was in some respects peculiar, even for him ; but before the Conven- 
 tion adjourned, his bland and conciliatory course exalted him in the 
 estimation of the country, and gratified his devoted friends, even be- 
 yond their most sanguine expectations. 
 
 The first thing done in the Convention, was to divide out to com- 
 mittees different parts of the Constitution, for revision. The must 
 important was the Legislative Committee, to whom was assigned the 
 duty of revising the " Right of Suffrage," the basis of representation
 
 326 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Randolph was a member of this committee. Mr. Madison was chair- 
 man. In the committee room (Senate chamber) he took his seat at 
 the head of a long table, and the members arranged themselves pro- 
 "miscuously along down the sides. Mr. Randolph, on the contrary, 
 took his seat at some distance, in a corner, where he could observe 
 every thing and every body that was passing. Erect in his seat, and 
 his arms folded across his breast, he sat almost motionless, while his 
 keen eye might be observed watching like a cat. Now and then his 
 shrill voice, as if coming from some unseen being, would startle those 
 in the room, and the crowd around would press *brward to see from 
 what quarter so startling a sound had emanated. 
 
 Of all the men assembled there on that great occasion, he was 
 certainly the observed of all observers. The multitude were soon sa- 
 tisfied with seeing Madison, Marshall, Monroe, and other distinguish- 
 ed men, but no gratification could abate their desire to watch every 
 movement, and to catch every word that fell from the lips of John 
 Randolph. They crowded around him whenever he emerged from 
 the capitol ; through the throng of eager admirers he passed, hat in 
 hand, with an ease, and grace, and dignity of manner, that struck 
 every beLolder with admiration. 
 
 Few men escaped with the reputation they brought into that 
 assembly. They found that professional attainments, however ex- 
 tensive, or political studies confined to the measures or the politics 
 of the day, did not qualify them to discuss those great principles 
 which lie at the foundation of all government. Quite other habits 
 of thought than the professional, and a far different training were ne- 
 cessary for the discussion of those questions that involved all the in- 
 terests of man, past, present, and to come. That, however, was the 
 field for John Randolph to display, in a pre-eminent degree, his com- 
 manding genius. His profound knowledge of men, of history, of 
 government ; the causes of the growth and decay of nations ; his 
 patient attention and wonderful faculty of winnowing the chaff, and 
 collecting together the substantial grains of a protracted debate ; his 
 concentrated, pointed, and forcible expressions, making bare in a few 
 words the whole of a complicated subject ; and his vast experience in 
 parliamentary proceedings, gave him an unexpected and controlling 
 influence over the proceedings of the Convention. 
 
 He watched those proceedings with unremitted attention, partook
 
 THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION. 327 
 
 largely in the debates, and before the close of the Convention, was 
 the acknowledged leader of a powerful party, embracing the most dis 
 tinguished men. who opposed all changes in the old Constitution, 
 and actually prevented many that were contemplated by the reform- 
 ers, and who, when they first assembled, supposed themselves in a de- 
 cided majority. Mr. Randolph's speeches, with one exception (and 
 that did not exceed two hours), were generally short, but to the pur- 
 pose. They were well reported by Mr. Stansberry, the best steno- 
 grapher of his time, and some of them are very fair specimens of his 
 peculiar style. 
 
 The cardinal rule that governed his whole political life may be 
 found in the following short speech : 
 
 " Mr. Randolph said, he should vote against the amendment, and 
 that on a principle which he had learned before he came into public 
 life ; and by which he had been governed during the whole course of 
 that life that it was always unwise, yes, highly unwise, to disturb a 
 thing that was at rest. This was a great cardinal principle, that 
 should govern all statesmen never, without the strongest necessity, 
 to disturb that which was at rest. He should vote against the amend- 
 ment on another, and an inferior consideration. Whatever opinion 
 might have been expressed as to a multitude of counsellors, there \va* 
 but one among considerate men as to a multiplicity of laws. The 
 objection urged by the gentleman from Richmond, over the way ( Mi- 
 Nicholas), to the existing clause, was precisely one of the strongest 
 motives with him for preferring the amendment. I am much opposed, 
 said Mr. R., except in a great emergency and then the legislative ma- 
 chine is always sure to work with sufficient rapidity the steam is 
 then up I am much opposed to this 'dispatch of business' The 
 principles of free government in this country (and if they fail, if 
 they should be cast away, here, they are lost for ever, I fear, to the 
 world), have more to fear from over legislation than from any other 
 cause. Yes. sir. they have more to fear from armies of legislators, 
 and armies of judges, than from any other, or from all other causes 
 Besides the great manufactory at Washington, we have twenty-four 
 laboratories more at work, all making laws. In Virginia, we have 
 now two in operation one engaged in ordinary legislation, and ano- 
 ther hammering at the fundamental law. Among all these lawyers, 
 judges, and legislators; there is a great oppression on the people. 
 who are neither lawyers, judges, nor legislators, nor ever expect tiAe : 
 an oppression barely more tolerable than any which is felt under the 
 European governments Sir, I never can forget, that in tliM iriv.it 
 and good Book to which I look for all truth and all wisdom, the Book 
 of Kings succeeds the Book of Judges."
 
 328 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 On a proposition being made to ingraft in the new Constitution 
 a mode in which future amendments shall be made therein. Mr. Ran- 
 dolph addressed the Convention: 
 
 " Mr. President, I shall vote against this resolution : and I will 
 state as succinctly as I can, my reasons for doing so. I believe that 
 they will, in substance, be found in a very old book, and conveyed in 
 these words : ' Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' Sir, I have 
 remarked since the commencement of our deliberations, and with 
 no small surprise, a very great anxiety to provide for futurity. Gen- 
 tlemen, for example, are not content with any present discussion of 
 the Constitution, unless we will consent to prescribe for all time here- 
 after. I had always thought him the most skilful physisian, who. 
 when called to a patient, relieved him of the existing malady, with- 
 out undertaking to prescribe for such as he might by possibility en- 
 dure thereafter. 
 
 Sir, what is the amount of this provision ? It .s either mischiev- 
 ous, or it is nugatory. I do not know a greater calamity that can 
 happen to any nation than having the foundations of its government 
 unsettled. 
 
 Doctor Franklin, who, in shrewdness, especially in all that 
 related to domestic life, was never excelled, used to say that two 
 movings were equal to one fire. And gentlemen, as if they were 
 afraid that this besetting sin of republican governments, this rcrum 
 novarum lubido (to us a very homely phrase, but one that comes pat 
 to the purpose), this maggot of innovation, would cease to bite, are 
 here gravely making provision that this Constitution, which we should 
 consider as a remedy for all the ills of the body politic, may itself be 
 amended or modified at any future time. Sir. I am against any such 
 provision. I should as soon think of introducing into a marriage con- 
 tract a provision for divorce, and thus poisoning the greatest blessing 
 of mankind at its very source at its fountain head. He has seen 
 little, and has reflected less, who does not know that " necessity" is 
 the great, powerful, governing principle of affairs here. Sir, I am 
 not going into that question, which puzzled Pandemonium the ques- 
 tion of liberty and necessity : 
 
 " Free will, fixed fate, foreknowledge absolute ;" 
 
 but I do contend that necessity is one principal instrument of all the 
 good that man enjoys. The happiness of the connubial union itself 
 depends greatly on necessity; and when you touch this, you touch 
 th^,rch, the key-stone of the arch, on which the happiness and well- 
 being of society is founded. Look at the relation of master and 
 slave (that opprobrium, in the opinion of some gentlemen, to all 
 civilized society and all free government). Sir. there are few situa- 
 tions in life where friendships so strong and so lasting are formed.
 
 THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION. 
 
 as iu that very relation. The slave knows that he is bound indisso- 
 lubly to his master, and must, from necessity, remain always under 
 his control. The master knows that he is bound to maintain and 
 provide for his slave so long as he retains him in his possession. And 
 each party accommodates himself to his situation. I have seen the 
 dissolution of many friendships such, at least, as were so called ; 
 but I have seen that of master and slave endure so long as there re- 
 mained a drop of the blood of the master to which the slave could 
 cleave. "Where is the necessity of this provision in the Constitution 1 
 Where is the use of it ? Sir, what are we about ? IJave we not been 
 undoing what the wiser heads I must be permitted to say so yes, 
 sir, what the wiser heads of our ancestors did more than half a cen- 
 tury ago ? Can any one believe that we, by any amendments of ours, 
 by any of our scribbling on that parchment, by any amulet, any legerde- 
 main charm Abrecadabra of ours can prevent our sons from doing 
 the same thing that is, from doing as they please, just as we are 
 doing as we please ? It is impossible. Who can bind posterity ? 
 When I hear of gentlemen talk of making a Constitution for (; all 
 time," and introducing provisions into it for " all time," and yet see 
 men here that are older than the Constitution we are about to destroy 
 (I am older myself than the present Constitution it was established 
 when I was boy) it reminds me of the truces and the peaces of 
 Europe. They always begin : " In the name of the most holy and 
 undivided Trinity," and go on to declare, " there shall be perfect and 
 perpetual peace and unity between the subjects of such and such po- 
 tentates for all time to come ;" and in less than seven years they are 
 at war again. 
 
 Sir, I am not a prophet nor a seer ; but I will venture to predict 
 that your new Constitution, if it shall be adopted, does not last twenty 
 years. And so confident am I in this opinion, that if it were a pro- 
 per subject for betting, and I was a sporting character, I believe I 
 would take ten against it. It would seem as if we were endeavoring 
 (God forbid that I should insinuate that such was the intention of 
 any Ijere) as if we were endeavoring to corrupt the people at the 
 fountain head. Sir, the great opprobrium of popular government is 
 its instability. It was this which made the people of our Anglo- 
 Saxon stock cling with such pertinacity to an independent judiciary, 
 as the only means they could find to resist this vice of popular govern- 
 ments. By such a provision as this, we are now ( inviting, and in a 
 manner prompting, the people to be dissatisfied with their govern-^ 
 raent. Sir, there is no need of this. Dissatisfaction will come soon 
 enough. I foretell now, and with a confidence surpassed by none I ever 
 felt on any occasion, that those who have been the most anxious to 
 destroy the Constitution of Virginia, and to substitute in its place 
 this thing, will not be more dissatisfied now with the result of our
 
 330 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 labors, than this new Constitution will very shortly be opposed by all 
 the people of the State. I speak not at random. I have high autho- 
 rity for what I say now in my eye. Though it was said that the 
 people called for a new state of things, yet the gentleman from Brooke 
 himself (Mr. Doddridge), who came into the Legislative Committee 
 armed with an axe to lay at the root of the tree, told the Convention 
 that he would sooner go home and live under the old Constitution 
 than adopt some of the provisions which have received the sanction 
 of this body. But I am wandering from the point. 
 
 Sir, I see no, wisdom in making this provision for future changes. 
 You must give governments time to operate on toe people, and give 
 the people time to become gradually assimilated to their institutions. 
 Almost any thing is better than this state of perpetual uncertainty. 
 A people may have the best form of government that the wit of man 
 ever devised ; and yet, from its uncertainty alone, may, in effect, live 
 under the worst government in the world. Sir, how often must 
 I repeat, that change is not reform. I am willing that this new Con- 
 stitution shall stand as long as it is possible for it to stand, and that, 
 believe me, is a very short time. Sir, it is vain to deny it. They 
 may say what they please about the old Constitution. The defect is 
 not there. It is not in the form of the old edifice, neither in the de- 
 sign nor the elevation it is in the material it is in the people of 
 Virginia. To my knowledge that people are changed from what they 
 have been. The four hundred men who went out to David, were in 
 debt. The partisans of Caesar were in debt. The fellow-laborers of 
 Cataline were in debt. And I defy you to show me a desperately in- 
 debted people any where, who can bear a regular sober government. 
 I throw the challenge to all who hear me. I say that the character 
 of the good old Virginia planter the man who owned from five to 
 twenty slaves, or less, who lived by hard work, and who paid his debts, 
 is passed away. A new order of things is come. The period has 
 arrived of living by one's wits of living by contracting debts that 
 one cannot pay and above all, of living by office-hunting. Sir, what 
 do we see? Bankrupts branded bankrupts, giving great dinners 
 sending their children to the most expensive schools giving grand 
 parties and just as well received as any body in society. I say, that 
 in such a state of things, the old Constitution was too good for them : 
 they could not bear it. No. sir, they could not bear a freehold suf- 
 frage and a property representation. I have always endeavored to 
 do the people justice, but I will not flatter them ; I will not pander 
 to their appetite for change. I will do nothing to provide for change, 
 I will not agree to any rule of future apportionment, or to any pro- 
 vision for future changes, called amendments of the Constitution. 
 They who love change who delight in public confusion who wish 
 to feed the caldron and make it bubble, may vote, if they please, for
 
 THE VIRGINIA CONVENTION. 331 
 
 future changes. But by what spell by what formula are you going 
 to bind the people to all future time 1 Quis custodiet custodes ? The 
 days of Lycurgus are gone by, when we could swear the people not 
 to alter the Constitution until he should return animo non reverten- 
 di. You may make what entries on parchment you please. Give 
 me a Constitution that will last for half a century that is all I wish 
 for. No Constitution that you can' make will last the one-half of half 
 a century. Sir, I will stake any thing short of my salvation, that 
 those who are malcontent now, will be more malcontent three years 
 hence, than they are at this day. I have no favor for this Constitution. 
 I shall vote against its adoption, and I shall advise all the people of 
 my district, to set their faces aye, and their shoulders against it. 
 But if we are to have it, let us not have it with its death warrant in 
 its very face: with the fades hypocratica the sardonic grin of death 
 upon its countenance." 
 
 The resolution was rejected by a large majority, and the Jonven- 
 tion determined that, the new Constitution should contain in itself 
 no provision for future amendments. 
 
 As the most distinguished member on the floor, Mr. Randolph 
 was assigned the duty of closing the business of the Convention. 
 
 " Mr. Chairman," said he, " for the last time, I throw myself up- 
 on the indulgence and courtesy of this body. I have a proposition 
 to submit, which, I flatter myself which I trust I believe, will be 
 received with greater unanimity than any other which has been offer- 
 ed in the course of our past discussions, with perfect unanimity. 
 You will perceive, sir, that I allude to your eminent colleague, who 
 has presided over our deliberations. When I shall have heard him 
 pronounce from that chair, the words This Convention stands ad- 
 journed sine die,' I shall be ready to sing my political ,/zw/ic dimittis ; 
 for. it will have put a period to three months, the most anxious and 
 painful of a political life, neither short nor uneventful. Having said 
 thus much, I hope I may be permitted to add, that, notwithstanding 
 any heat excited by the collision of debate. I part from every member 
 here, with the most hearty good-will to all. But I cannot consent 
 that we shall separate, without offering the tribute of my approbation, 
 and inviting the House to add theirs infinitely more valuable to 
 the conduct of the presiding officer of this Assembly. If it were a 
 suitable occasion, I might embrace within the scope of my motion, 
 and of my remarks, his public conduct and character elsewhere, with 
 which I have been long and intimately acquainted ; but this, as it 
 would be misplaced, so would it be fulsome. I shall, therefore, restrict 
 myself to the following motion : 
 
 ^'Resolved, That the impartiality and dignity with which Philip P. 
 Barbour, Esq.. hath presided over the deliberations of this House,
 
 332 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 and the distinguished ability whereby he hath facilitated the dispatch 
 of business, receive the best thanks of this Convention.' " 
 
 At the time of this adjournment, no man stood higher than John 
 Randolph in the estimation of the members or of the people. He 
 had won greatly on their affections. A more familiar contact, and 
 closer observation of the man, had served to remove many prejudices. 
 They began to comprehend and appreciate one who had been so long 
 the victim of wilful misrepresentation, and of calumny. Notwith- 
 standing the boldness with which he spoke unpleasant truths in the 
 Convention, his manner, on the whole, was so mild and conciliatory, 
 his wisdom and his genius so conspicuous, that they won for him the 
 esteem and the veneration of every body. His friends, delighted with 
 this state of things, wrote to him from all quarters, congratulating 
 him on this agreeable termination of his labors in the Convention. 
 Here is one of his letters in answer to a friend who had written him 
 on this subject : 
 
 u How I have succeeded in gaining upon the good opinion of the 
 public as you and others of my friends tell me I have done I can- 
 not tell. I made no effort for it, nor did it enter into my imagina- 
 tion to court any man, or party, in or out of the Convention. It is 
 most gratifying, nevertheless, to be told by yourself and others, in 
 whose sincerity and truth I place the most unbounded reliance, that 
 I have, by the part I took in the Convention, advanced myself in the 
 estimation of my country. With politics I am now done ; and it is 
 well to be able to quit winner" 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 MISSION TO RUSSIA. 
 
 BEFORE Mr. Randolph took his seat in the Convention he had been 
 offered the mission to the Court of St. Petersburgh. The President's 
 letter, making the offer, was highly flattering to him. It was in the 
 following words : 
 
 WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 1829. 
 
 DEAR Sin : The office of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plen- 
 ipotentiary to Russia will soon become vacant, and I am anzious that 
 the place should be filled by one of the most capable and distin- 
 guished of our fellow-citizens.
 
 MISSION TO RUSSIA. 333 
 
 The great and rapidly increasing influence tf Russia in the af- 
 fairs of the world, renders it very important that our representative 
 at that Court should be of the highest respectability ; and the expe- 
 diency of such a course at the present moment is greatly increased 
 by circumstances of a special character. Among the number of our 
 statesmen from whom the selection might with propriety be made, I 
 do not know one better fitted for the station, on the score of talents 
 and experience in public affairs, or possessing stronger claims upon 
 the favorable consideration of his country, than yourself. Thus im- 
 pressed, and entertaining a deep and grateful sense of your long and 
 unceasing devotion to sound principles, and the interest ol the peo- 
 ple, I feel it a duty to offer the appointment to you. 
 
 In discharging this office I have the double satisfaction of seek- 
 ing to promote the public interest, whilst performing an act most 
 gratifying to myself, on account of the personal respect and esteem 
 which I have always felt and cherished towards you. 
 
 It is not foreseen that any indulgence as to the period of your 
 departure, which will be required by a due regard to your private af- 
 fairs, will conflict with the interests of the mission : and I sincerely 
 hope that no adverse circumstances may exist, sufficient to deprive 
 the country of your services. 
 
 I have the honor to be, with great respect, 
 
 Your most ob't serv't, 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON. 
 The Hon. JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. 
 
 This letter, as it must necessarily have been, was general, and 
 diplomatic in its terms ; but it was sufficiently explicit to show that 
 Mr. Randolph was needed for a special service ; that his great talents 
 and experience rendered him, in the judgment of the President, pe- 
 culiarly fitted for the service, and that no delay which might be re- 
 quired for his private affairs, would affect the interests of the mission. 
 
 The Secretary of State, Mr. Van Buren, who. inclosed the above 
 communication, stated in his letter that " the vacancy spoken of by 
 the President will be effected by a recall which he feels it to be his 
 duty to make, and the notice of which will be sent the moment your 
 answer is received." 
 
 To the President's invitation Mr. Randolph replied : 
 
 ROANOKE, Sept. 24, 1829. 
 
 SIR : By the last mail I received, under Mr. Van Buren's cover, 
 your letter, submitting to my acceptance the mission to Russia. 
 
 This honor, as unexpected as it was unsought for, is very much 
 enhanced in my estimation, by the very kind and flattering terms in
 
 334: LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 which you have been pleased to couch the offer of the appointment 
 May I be pardoned for saying, that the manner in which it has been 
 conveyed could alone have overcome the reluctance that I feel at the 
 thoughts of leaving private life, and again embarking on the stormy 
 sea of federal politics. This I hope I may do without any impeach- 
 ment of my patriotism, since it shall in no wise diminish my exer- 
 tions to serve our country in the station to which I have been called 
 by her chief magistrate, and under those " circumstances of a special 
 character" indicated by your letter. The personal good opinion and 
 regard, which you kindly express towards me, merit and receive my 
 warmest acknowledgments. 
 
 I have the honor to be. with the highest respect, sir, your most 
 obedient and faithful servant, 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH CF ROANOKE. 
 To ANDREW JACKSON, Esq., President of the U. S. 
 
 Mr. Randolph was not called upon to assume the duaes of his 
 mission till the month of May, 1830, when the appointment was first 
 made known to the public. This was not occasioned by any expressed 
 wish on his part for a delay. It was caused by circumstances over 
 which the President himself had no control ; and which were to him 
 the source of much vexation. 
 
 Every thing was done by the President and Mr. Van Buren to 
 render the appointment agreeable. General Hamilton, and others, 
 had solicited the post of Secretary of Legation for Mr. Cruger, of 
 South Carolina. The reply was that the President had decided to 
 leave that matter altogether to Mr. Randolph. In a letter to him, 
 February 25, 1830, Mr. Van Buren says: "If he (Cruger) will ac- 
 cept, and you approve, no objections will be made from any quarter." 
 
 About a month afterwards he was informed that the friends of 
 Mr. Cruger had declined for him, he not being yet returned from 
 Europe ; and was requested to look about him to suit himself. 
 
 What followed is thus explained by him in a letter to Dr. Brock- 
 enbrough, dated Friday, June 4, 1830 : 
 
 " Thanks for your caution ; but I was forearmed. This matter 
 was left entirely to me. I had a full account of the late incumbent 
 long ago. I waited as long as was practicable for Mr. Cruger, and 
 this day sevennight I sent off Clay, who received the appointment 
 the morning of his arrival. He says: 'He (the P.) told me he 
 wished you to sail by the 15th of June, as the vessel would be ready 
 at Norfolk by that time. As I could not get an audience before 
 eleven o'clock, I have no time to add more. The P. will write to
 
 MISSION TO RUSSIA. 335 
 
 you to-day.' (I shall not receive this until Monday.) ' The commis- 
 sion for me will be made out to-morrow or next day. and your in- 
 structions as soon as possible. He told me, that although he would 
 have liked very much to have shaken you by the hand, yet he would 
 not put you to the inconvenience of coming to this place.' 
 
 " This is vigorous proceeding. Last Friday I broached the sub- 
 ject of my appointment to this youth. After talking of my disap- 
 pointment in regard to Mr. Cruger, I most unexpectedly offered it 
 to him. It was an electric shock. That evening (in two hours after 
 the mail arrived) he left me ; and about the same time at the termi- 
 nation of the week I have his letter, which must have been mailed at 
 twelve on the noon of his arrival in Washington." 
 
 About the latter part of the month of June Mr. Randolph sailed 
 from Hampton Roads. His acceptance of this mission has been 
 much condemned : many of his best friends disapproved of it ; they 
 thought it was inconsistent with his former professions. They seemed 
 to wish that it might be always said of him he never accepted office 
 lived and died in the service of the people the great commoner. 
 But this was taking a limited view of the subject. It must be re- 
 membered that Mr. Randolph had retired from public life ; the ses- 
 sion that closed the 4th of March, 1829, put an end to his legislative 
 career ; his health was feeble ; and his only hope of a prolonged 
 existence was in travelling and sojourning in a better climate than 
 that of his native land. All his plans had a reference to that object; 
 he looked for nothing, expected nothing, from the Government. In 
 this state of things a distinguished and important appointment was 
 offered him. 
 
 On whom could the President have more appropriately bestowed 
 the most signal evidence of his approbation and confidence ? He was 
 by far the most illustrious man in the ranks of the administration, 
 and had done more than any other individual to pull down the for- 
 mer, and to build up the present dynasty. As the President most 
 happily expressed himself, he was moved to make the appointment 
 from " a deep and grateful sense of Mr. Randolph's long and unceas- 
 ing devotion to sound principles and the interest of the people." To 
 have neglected bestowing some mark of distinguished honor on such 
 a man. would have betrayed such a spirit of injustice and ingratitude 
 as to arouse the indignation of the country. 
 
 What more appropriate office could have been assigned him ? 
 The departments at Washington, the missions to London and to
 
 336 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Paris, were too confining, laborious, and vexatious in their details for 
 his feeble health. At the distant court of St. Petersburgh he could 
 not be much perplexed with business ; while, at the same time, to 
 give dignity and importance to his mission, he had assigned him a 
 special duty, the results of which might greatly redound to the good 
 of the country, while it required only occasional attention, and could 
 not suffer by delay. 
 
 In accepting this appointment, he only carried out his original 
 design of going abroad in search of health ; while, at the same time, 
 he served his country in a station she had pressed upon him as an 
 evidence to foreigners of her distinguished regard. But he had said, 
 office had no charms for him ; in his condition, a cup of cold water 
 would be more acceptable. All this was true. Had he sought a 
 change of administration for the sake of office had he retired from 
 the service of the people " to drudge in the laboratories of the depart- 
 ments, or to be at the tail of the corps diplomatique in Europe," he 
 might have been charged with inconsistency. But no one could 
 justly accuse him of seeking to overthrow the administration of Mr. 
 Adams from personal considerations. " Sir," said he, " my ' church- 
 yard cough' gives me the solemn warning, that, whatever part I shall 
 take in the chase, I may fail of being in at the death. I should think 
 myself the basest and the meanest of men I care not what the 
 opinion of the world might be I should know myself to be a scoun- 
 drel, and should not care who else knew it, if I could permit any mo- 
 tive connected with division of the spoil, to mingle in this matter 
 with my poor, but best exertions for the welfare of my country." 
 
 None but the most uncharitable, could doubt the truth and the sin- 
 cerity of this declaration. But it so happened that Mr. Randolph 
 did survive, and that the new administration called on him to leave 
 his retirement, and to perform an important service for the country. 
 in the diplomatic department. What answer could he give 1 I have 
 no desire for office ; its drudgery would be intolerable to me, in my 
 feeble health. I am aware of that, says the President, but there is a 
 special object to be accomplished at one of the most important courts 
 in Europe. I can think of no one more able than yourself, or that 
 will bring more weight of character into the service. I beg of you, 
 for the sake of the country, to accept the office. What answer could 
 he give, to this appeal to his patriotism ? Sir, I am the champion of
 
 MISSION TO RUSSIA. 337 
 
 the people, and will only serve them. I will not accept your bribe, 
 to close my eyes and silence my tongue. Such an answer would have 
 been worthy of Diogenes (whose part he was expected to play on this 
 occasion), but not of a patriot and a statesman, who is willing to serve 
 his country in any capacity ; and who knows that a faithful discharge 
 of his duties, in whatever station, is a good service performed for the 
 benefit of the people. Mr. Kandolph gave the only answer that was 
 becoming in him to give " May I be pardoned for saying that the 
 manner in which it has been couched (the appointment) could alone 
 have overcome the reluctance that I feel at the thoughts of leaving 
 private life, and again embarking on the stormy sea of federal poli- 
 tics. This I hope I may do, without any impeachment of my patri- 
 otism, since it shall in no wise diminish my exertions to serve our 
 country in the station to which I have been called by her Chief Magis- 
 trate." Had Mr. Randolph declined the office so warmly pressed 
 upon him, it would have been a condemnation of the administration 
 in the beginning. It would have been a declaration to the world that 
 he had no faith, no confidence in the man he had been so instrumen- 
 tal in elevating to the presidency. As he did not thus feel, it would 
 have been unpatriotic and unwise, to take a course that would mani- 
 fest such distrust. Indeed, Mr. Randolph had no other alternative, 
 without doing great violence to his true sentiments, but to accept the 
 appointment, at whatever cost to his private interests ; and it was a 
 great sacrifice ; " it has been my ruin," says he, " body and estate, this 
 Baltic business." 
 
 Ml Randolph arrived in St. Petersburgh about the last of August. 
 He writes to Dr. Brockenbrough, 4th September : 
 
 " My reception has been all that the most fastidious could wish. 
 You know I always dreaded the summer climate, when my friends 
 were killing me with the climate of Russia before my time. Nothing 
 can be more detestable. It is a comet ; and when I arrived it was in 
 perihelion. I shall not stay out the aphelion. Heat, dust impal- 
 pable, pervading every part and pore, and actually sealing these last 
 up, annoying the eyes especially, which are farther distressed by the 
 glare of the white houses. Insects of all nauseous descriptions, bugs, 
 fleas, mosquitos, flies innumerable, gigantic as the empire they in- 
 habit ; who will take no denial. Under cover of the spectacles, they 
 do not suffer you to write two words, without a conflict with them. 
 This is the land of Pharaoh and his plagues Egypt, and its ophthal- 
 mia and vermin, without its fertility Holland, without its wealth, 
 
 VOL. n. 15
 
 338 L1FE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 improvements, or cleanliness. Nevertheless, it is beyond all compar 
 ison, the most magnificent city I ever beheld. But you must not 
 reckon upon being laid in earth ; there is, properly speaking, no such 
 thing here. It is rotten rubbish on a swamp; and at two feet you 
 come to water. This last is detestable. The very ground has a bad 
 odor, and the air is not vital. Two days before my presentation to 
 the Emperor and Empress, I was taken with an ague. But my poor 
 Juba lay at the point of death. His was a clear case of black vomit ; 
 and I feel assured that in the month of August, Havana or New 
 Orleans would be as safe for a stranger as St. Petersburgh. It is a 
 Dutch town, with fresh-water-river canals, &c. To drink the water 
 is to insure a dysentery of the worst type. 
 
 ' In consequence of Juba's situation, I walked down one morning 
 to the English boarding-house, where Clay had lodged, kept by a 
 Mrs. Wilson, of whom I had heard a very high character ae a nurse, 
 and especially of servants. I prevailed upon her to take charge of 
 the poor boy, which she readily agreed to do. I put Juba, on whom 
 I had practised with more than Russian energy, into my carriage, got 
 into it, brought him into the bedroom taken for myself, had a blazing 
 fire kindled, so as to keep the thermometer at 65 morning, 70 af- 
 ternoon ; ventilated well the apartment ; poured in the quinine, opium, 
 and port wine ; snake-root tea for drink, with a heavy hand (he had 
 been previously purged with mercurials), and to that energy, under 
 God, I owe the life of my dear faithful Juba." 
 
 Mr. Randolph very soon learnt, on his arrival, that the special 
 object of his mission could not at that time be accomplished. " There 
 has been," says he, " a game playing between my predecessor and a 
 certain great man, in which M. has fairly beaten him. at his own wea- 
 pons ; most disgracefully 'tis true for M., but not less so for the other 
 party. This is the secret of that delay so vexatious to General 
 Jackson, so injurious to me, and so destructive to the success of my 
 mission. The day before I left Hampton Roads, Count Nesselrode's 
 star sunk temperately to the West, and Prince Lieven became the 
 Lord of the ascendent. The waters of Carlsbad are only like young 
 unmarried ladies' dropsical affections, for which they are sent down to 
 their friends in the country, a decent cover for what all consider a 
 virtual superseding of the minister." 
 
 Add to this change in the Ministry, the revolution in France, 
 and in Belgium, the rebellion in Poland, and the cholera then raging 
 through Europe, and it may readily be imagined that Russia was not 
 in a condition to deliberate on such matters, as might without preju- 
 dice be postponed.
 
 MISSION TO RUSSIA. 339 
 
 The Emperor had as much as he could do to attend to affairs at 
 home. The special subject of Mr. Randolph's mission was delayed, 
 and as he had no particular object connected with his public duties to 
 detain him, he sought refuge in a more genial climate. 
 
 He writes from London. Wednesday, Sept. 29, 1830: "I write 
 merely to tell you that after having been lifted on board the coach 
 and steamboat at St. Petersburgh on the 7th 19th instant, I landed 
 this morning at 8 on the Custom-House Wharf, able to walk a few 
 steps." 
 
 October 28, he writes : " I have letters from St. Petersburgh, one 
 a ' note' from Count Nesselrode, as late as the 6th of this month, and 
 I am daily in expectation of others from the same quarter. On Sun- 
 day, if I have strength, we go to New Market, to attend the 3rd 
 October or Houghton meeting. This will be a fine theme for the 
 coalition presses. No matter. Let the curs bark since they cannot 
 bite. I have been so often left for dead and rose again, that they may 
 despair of victory over my feline political lives." 
 
 Many ridiculous stories were told in the United States about Mr. 
 Randolph's conduct and reception in Russia. In allusion to this sub- 
 ject, he writes to his friend : 
 .' 
 
 " The yearnings of my heart after home, have been stifled by the 
 
 monstrous and malignant calumnies which have been heaped upon my 
 unoffending head. To them I have but to oppose the honor of a 
 gentleman, upon which I declare them to be utterly false and ground- 
 less. 
 
 ' My official correspondence will flatly contradict the most mischie- 
 vous of them, as regards the public interest. 
 
 *' Nothing could be more cordial than my reception in Russia. It 
 was but yesterday (Dec. 19, 1830) that I had my first interview with 
 Prince Lieven since his return to this court, and my reception was 
 like that of a brother. 
 
 li On my arrival at St. Petersburgh I took up my abode at the 
 principal Hotel, Demouth's. where I staid one week. 
 
 " Furnishing myself with a handsome equipage and four or five 
 horses, I called promptly on every diplomatic character, whether Am- 
 bassador, Envoy, or Charge, or even Secretary of Legation, from the 
 highest to the lowest. Not content with sending round my carriage 
 and servants, I called in person and left my cards. 
 
 " Count Athalin, the new representative of France, promptly called 
 on me (being a later comer), and the next day, being ill a-bed, I sent 
 my coach and Secretary of Legation to return his visit. I had pre- 
 viously called on the Charge d' Affaires of France under Charles X.
 
 340 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 " I had not, during my sojourn in St. Petersburgh, the slightest 
 difference with any one, except a British subject, and that was on the 
 construction of a contract. This man (my landlord) and his niece 
 were my fellow-passengers from Cronstadt, and we parted on the most 
 civil and friendly terms. 
 
 " He is not the author of these slanders. 
 
 " Before I thought of cancelling the bargain with Smith, I had ap- 
 plied to Mrs. Wilson to receive and nurse my poor Juba. I removed 
 to her house myself, not as a boarder, but a lodger, and took a room 
 on the ground floor. Except Clay and Capt. Turner, of the ship 
 Fama of Boston, to whom I intrusted my faithful Juba, I did not 
 set eyes upon one of the inmates of the house. Capt. T. at my re- 
 quest was often in my apartment, and to him I fearlessly appeal for 
 the falsehood of these calumnies, so far as I came under his observa 
 tion. They are utterly false. 
 
 : The Court Tailor.' A day or two after I got to Demouth's 
 Hotel, a person very unceremoniously opened my parlor door aud ad- 
 vanced to my bed-room, where I was lying on a sofa. He was the 
 American Consul's Tailor, and said. ' he had been sent for,' but 
 seemed abashed at finding the Consul with me. I. seeing through the 
 trick (it is universally practised there), told him he had been misin- 
 formed, and the man apologized and withdrew. He was sent for 
 about ten days afterwards, and made some clothes for Mr. Clay. 
 
 " I did not refuse to land at Cronstadt. The authorities came on 
 board to visit me, and when they returned. I entered the steamboat 
 and proceeded up to St. Petersburgh. 
 
 " My dress, on presentation to their Imperial Majesties, was a full 
 suit of the finest black cloth that London could afford ; and, with the 
 exception of a steel-cap sword, was the dress of Mr. Madison during 
 the late Convention. (I had indeed no diamond buckles.) In the 
 same dress, never worn except upon those two occasions (with the 
 exception of gold shoe and knee buckles, adopted out of pity to Mr. 
 McLane. and laying aside, at his instance, the sword), I was presented 
 at court h&re On neither occasion did I think of my costume after 
 I had put it on ; nor did it attract observation ; and I am well satis- 
 fied that the love of display on the part of some of our own foreign 
 agents, and the pruriency of female frontlets for coronets and tiaras, 
 have been at the bottom of our court-dress abroad. It is not expected 
 or desired, that a foreign minister shall have exacted from him what 
 is the duty of a subject. I saw Prince Talleyrand at the King's 
 levee as plainly dressed as I was. But what satisfies me on the 
 subject is, that Prince Lieven, on whose goodness I threw myself for 
 instruction at St. Petersburgh, and who saw me in the dress (choseu 
 by Polonius's advice), never hinted any thing on the subject ; but 
 truly said that ' his Majesty the Emperor would receive me as one 
 gentleman receives another ;' and such was the fact."
 
 MISSION TO RUSSIA. 34} 
 
 Mr. Randolph afterwards described this interview to some of his 
 friends. He said he went to the Palace, passed through a number of 
 guards and officers splendidly dressed, and was introduced to the Em- 
 peror alone. He was a handsome young man, dressed in uniform. 
 But a difficulty arose from Mr. Randolph's speaking French imper- 
 fectly, and the Emperor not speaking English. The Emperor sent 
 for some one that could interpret for them ; but after a little time 
 they managed to understand each other Mr. Randolph speaking 
 French very slowly, and the Emperor answering in the same manner. 
 At length, the Emperor asked him if he wished to see the Empress ? 
 Mr. R. replied that he did. The Emperor then bowed, and Mr. 
 Randolph bowed himself out of the presence backwards, according to 
 the etiquette of the court. He was then conducted to another part 
 of the Palace, and introduced, among a large assemblage of laaies. 
 where he was presented to the Empress, she being in advance of the 
 rest. He described her as being very handsome. She questioned 
 him whether he had ever been at court before. He said he had not ; 
 that it was the first time he had ever been in the presence of royalty. 
 She asked him if he knew Mr. Monroe, who had been aide-de-camp to 
 Prince Constantine, and afterwards to the Emperor? He said he 
 did not. She said he was a very fine young man, and a great favo- 
 rite with the Emperor ; and asked if he was not the son of the Post- 
 master-General ? He replied that he was not ; but was the son of 
 the postmaster at Washington. She asked him if he was not a rela- 
 tion of President Monroe 1 He told her he was not. After some 
 further conversation, Mr. Randolph said something which made the 
 Empress laugh " most vociferously." The audience soon ended, and 
 Mr. Randolph had again to bow himself out backwards ; " and it was 
 lucky," said he, " that I happened to be near the door." 
 
 On the 22d of January, 1831, Mr. Randolph wrote to his friend, 
 Mark Alexander, Esq., a late colleague from the Mecklenburgh Dis- 
 trict, then in Washington : 
 
 " I am daily and hourly in the hope of hearing from Russia. My 
 absence from that country has not been of the slightest detriment to 
 our affairs in that quarter. Before my departure, I had put the im- 
 perial ministry in full possession of our propositions and views, and 
 have since been awaiting their answer, which the revolutions in France 
 and Belgium and the insurrection of Poland (to say nothing of the 
 cholera morbus) have retarded. The Russian government have been
 
 34:2 LIFE OF JOHIS ' RANDOLPH. 
 
 too much engrossed by these events, and by the feverish state of 
 Europe, to attend to subjects which may as well be settled next year 
 as now, not being of pressing necessity, and Russia having but a 
 secondary interest in them. If my health shall permit, and there 
 be the most remote prospect of success in the objects we have in 
 view (or any of them), I shall return as soon as the Baltic is open." 
 
 On the 19th of February he writes to Dr. Brockenbrough : 
 
 " Count Nesselrode, who says that ' Mr. Randolph has justly an- 
 ticipated the cause of delay on the part of the Imperial Ministry,' 
 promises me as speedy an answer as the present disturbed state of 
 Europe will permit them to give. It commenced in July last, and 
 the political atmosphere seems to thicken. I shall probably return 
 to Russia in April or May, and I fear that I shall have to pass an- 
 other winter in Europe south of the Alps, of course. The barking 
 of the curs against me in Congress I utterly despise. I think I can 
 see how some of them, if I were present, would tuck their tails be- 
 tween their hind legs, and slink aye, and stink too. Perhaps the time 
 may come when I may see some of them, not face to face, for their 
 eyes could not meet mine, I know by experience. 
 
 " I could give you a great deal of speculation upon the present 
 state of Europe ; for when I please, I can be as dull as another ; but 
 perhaps the next advices might overthrow all my conjectural esti- 
 mates, and leave me, like other builders of theories, a laughing-stock, 
 until some new folly took off attention from my case. It remains to 
 be seen whether Philip Louis, who is no Philip Augustus, can arrest 
 the march of the revolution of July, and chain France to the car of 
 the Holy Alliance. Here I am in the focus of European intrigue, 
 and watching like a cat. I think, however, it requires not the eyes 
 of a lynx, or any other of the feline tribe, to see that this present 
 ' government,' as 'tis the fashion to call it, have no stomach to reform 
 or to liberalism, or to any thing but the emoluments and patronage 
 of office. There are illustrious exceptions Lord Althorp and Sir 
 James Graham, for example but my Lord Grey & Co. are of a very 
 different temper." 
 
 May 2d, he writes: "The heroic resistance of the Poles has 
 found ample occupation for the councils as well as the arms of Rus- 
 sia ; but I fear that the contest cannot be prolonged beyond the 
 present season. It makes one's heart sick to think of the catas- 
 trophe. My thoughts are shared between the Poles and my friends 
 at home ; a sinking of the heart comes over me when I think of 
 either ; a sensation inexplicable, but most painful." 
 
 June 4th, he speaks of the late political changes at home : " Yes- 
 terday, with your letter, I received the intelligence of the resignation 
 of our cabinet. The course of events during the past year is enough 
 to perplex and puzzle abler judgments than mine. I have read the
 
 OPIUM EATER. 34.3 
 
 letters of V. B. and the P. more than once, and with intense interest. 
 At this distance, and with my imperfect knowledge of the state of 
 affairs, it may be presumptuous in me to give an opinion ; but by 
 such lights as 1 have, the step taken by V. B. seems manly and ju- 
 dicious worthy of his character, and of his attachment to Gen'l 
 Jackson, whose reply is worthy of all praise. I cannot help feeling 
 the deepest concern for the old hero, thus, as it were, left to struggle 
 alone against his foes ; and I sincerely and devoutly pray, that he 
 may form an administration that will contribute to his repose and 
 glory, as well as the welfare of his country 
 
 " Lord Palmerston entertained the corps diplomatique, in honor 
 of the king's birth-day, and did me the honor to include me in his in 
 vitation. I went, because I did not feel at liberty to decline. It 
 was, as you may suppose, very grand, but very dull. I was flattered 
 by his lordship's polite attentions, and gratified by the cordial recep- 
 tion of P. Lieven, with whom I had a good deal of conversation." 
 
 "If I abstain," says he, June 16, '-from saying any thing onrpo.i- 
 tics, it is not because I feel indifferent to the state of public opinion 
 at home. Far from it ; and I hope, when you get to New- York, that 
 your promised letter will enlighten me on that head. The events 
 which have taken place during my absence, seem to have unhinged 
 and unsettled every thing. It is a matter of self-gratulation to all 
 who are unconnected with them." 
 
 In the autumn, Mr. Randolph returned to the United States, 
 much reduced in health. When he landed in New- York, his old 
 friend. Mr. Harvey, hastened to see him, and was greatly shocked 
 at his emaciated appearance. " His eagle-eye," says he, " detected, 
 by my countenance, what was passing in my mind, and he said, in a 
 mournful tone of voice : ' Ah, Sir, I am going at last ; the machine is 
 worn out ; nature is exhausted, and I have tried in vain to restore 
 her.' : Why,' replied I, forcing a smile, ' you told me the same thing 
 some years ago, and yet here you are still.' ' True,' rejoined he, 
 ; but I am seven years nearer the grave? " 
 
 CHAPTEK XLII. 
 
 . OPIUM EATER. 
 
 O.v his way home, October, 1831, Mr. Randolph spent a few days in 
 Richmond. He was entirely prostrate never left his bed-room
 
 344 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 rarely his bed; but his friends visited him frequently, and they 
 speak in raptures of his brilliant and instructive conversation. None 
 of them detected in his discourse any thing more than an occasional 
 " flightiness," produced by fever aggravated, perhaps, by the use of 
 opium, to whose soothing qualities he had been compelled to resort. 
 to quiet the pangs of that inexorable disease, which, like the vulture 
 in the heart of Prometheus, had plunged its talons in his vitals, 
 and consumed them with remorseless fangs, from the cradle to the 
 grave. 
 
 Mr. Randolph made no secret of his use of oprm at this time. 
 ' I live by, if not upon opium," said he to a friend. He had been 
 driven to it as an alleviation of a pain to which few mortals were 
 doomed. He could not now dispense with its use. " I am fast sink- 
 ing," ^aid he, " into an opium-eating got, but, please God ! I will shake 
 off the incubus yet before I die ; for whatever difference of opinion 
 may exist on the subject of suicide, there can be none as to ' rush- 
 ing into tlie presence of our Creator ' in a state of drunkenness, whe- 
 ther produced by opium or brandy." To the deleterious influence of 
 that poisonous drug, may be traced many of the aberrations of mind 
 and of conduct, so much regretted by his friends, during the ensu- 
 ing winter and spring. But he was, by no means, under its constant 
 influence. During this period, h. wrote almost daily to his friend, 
 Dr. Brockenbrough. Those letters furnish incontestable evidence 
 that, when they were written at least, his feelings were calm, and his 
 judgment as unclouded as it ever had been. 
 
 He hastened up from Richmond to Charlotte Court-house, to ad- 
 dress the people on court day, the first Monday in November. The 
 subject of his speech, among other things, was his conduct while min- 
 ister to the Court of St. Petersburgh. His anxiety to explain this 
 matter, so unusual with him, and his coldness of manner towards his 
 friends, caused many of them to suspect that he was not altogether 
 himself at that time. The next Monday, he addressed the people of 
 Buckingham. On his return next day, Nov. 15, he wrote from Char- 
 lotte Court-house to Dr. Brockenbrough : 
 
 " On my road to Buckingham, I passed a night in Farmville, in 
 an apartment which in England they would not have thought fit 
 for my servant ; nor on the continent did he ever occupy so mean a 
 one. Wherever I stop, it is the same walls black and filthy bed
 
 OPIUM EATER. 345 
 
 and furniture sordid furniture scanty and mean, generally broken 
 
 no mirror no fire-irons in short, dirt and discomfort, universally 
 prevail, and in most private houses the matter is not mended. The 
 cows milked half a mile off or not got up, and no milk to be had at 
 any distance no Jordan in fact, the old gentry are gone and the 
 nouveaux riches, where they have the inclination, do not know how to 
 live. Biscuit not half cuit, every thing animal and vegetable, smear- 
 ed with melted butter or lard. Poverty stalking through the land, 
 while we are engaged in political metaphysics, and, amidst our filth 
 and vermin, like the Spaniard and Portuguese, look down with con- 
 tempt on other nations, England and France especially. We hug 
 our lousy cloaks around us, take another ch&w of ti'bbacker^ float the 
 room with nastiness, or ruin the grate and fire-irons, where thev 
 happen not to be rusty, and try conclusions upon constitutional 
 points." 
 
 The great degeneracy of the times, was the constant theme of his 
 discourse. He could not shake the sad reflection from his mind. 
 When he thought of what Virginia had been and what she was, he 
 was stung to the quick. His late experience of the high cultivation, 
 the comforts, and the refinements of English society, brought the 
 contrast of* the past and the present more vividly to his recollection. 
 Many thought him mad on this subject. But little could they com- 
 prehend the depth of his feelings, or the anguish of his soul, when 
 he so often exclaimed, " Poor old Virginia ! poor old Virginia ! " What 
 they conceived to be the ebullitions of a diseased fancy, were the la- 
 mentations of a statesman and patriot over the ruins of his country, 
 which his prophetic eye had long foreseen, and his warning voice had 
 in vain foretold ! T}te old gentry are gone ; none knew better than 
 he, the force of this truth. He saw what others could not see ; he 
 saw, from the sea-board to the mountains, nothing but desolation and 
 poverty, where the fires of a noble and generous hospitality had burn- 
 ed on a thousand hearths. He remembered sires and grandsires, 
 whose degenerate sons, lite the Roman youth, pointed to the statues 
 and the monuments of their noble ancestors, instead of achieving a 
 monument for themselves by their own great deeds. 
 
 This was the theme of Mr. Randolph's discourse at Prince Ed- 
 wards Court-house, where, on the third Monday in November, he 
 addressed the people. He passed in review all the old families of Vir- 
 ginia, alluded to the fathers and grandfathers of many then standing 
 around him ; spoke of their energy, sagacity, and efficient usefulness 
 
 VOL. n. 15*
 
 346 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 of character. Then, addressing himself to one individual in parti- 
 cular, as was his custom, he said : You, sir, ' will be the first to admit 
 the higher claims of your father on the country, for general utility 
 and energy of character. I am too old (he sportively added) to know 
 much of his sons personally, but I will venture to affirm, that placed 
 in your father's shoes, and Jiaving to keep off the calf whilst ilie wife 
 milked the cow, you never would have achieved what he has done in 
 point of character and fortune. The young people, now-a-days. 
 .have too much done for them, for them to exert themselves as their 
 fathers and grandfathers have done." He then spoke of many illus- 
 trious men, whose names adorn many pages of our earliest and bright- 
 est history. Henry, Mason, and others ; not one has left a son equal 
 to their father. " In short," said he, " look at the Lees, Washingtons. 
 Randolphs what woful degeneracy !" 
 
 What had all this to do with the politics of the day ? on which 
 he was expected to talk to the people. Was there ever such a scat- 
 ter-brain speech ? Some turned away, shook their heads, and said, 
 "the man is mad;" others maliciously misrepresented what he said, 
 and went about telling people that he had slandered his old friends 
 and neighbors. He struck at the root of the disease, however probed 
 the wound to its core ; the men of seventy-six were gone ; their sons. 
 if not degenerate, were not equal to their fathers ! 
 
 It cannot be denied, that Mr Randolph attributed this great 
 change in the condition of Virginia, mainly to the policy of Mr. Jef- 
 ferson. The destruction of the law of inheritance, followed by the 
 embargo and the non-intercourse system, he conceived, gave the fin- 
 ishing stroke to her prosperity. " The embargo," he said, " was the 
 Iliad of all our woes." The blind fidelity with which the people of 
 Virginia followed Mr. Jefferson in all his schemes, is thus humor- 
 ously described: "I cannot live (says he, March, 1832,) in this mis* 
 erable, undone country, where, as the Turks follow their sacred 
 standard, which is a pair of Mahomet's green breeches, we are gov- 
 erned by the old red breeches of that prince of projectors, St. Thom- 
 as, of CanJircgbury ; and surely, Becket himself never had more pil- 
 grims at his shrine, than the saint of Monticello." 
 
 Another source of great annoyance and excitement to Mr. Ran- 
 dolph, was the conduct of his negroes and overseers during his ab- 
 sence. He suspected that they had taken up a notion he would never
 
 OPIUM EATER. 34.7 
 
 be able to return home again, and that they might do as they pleased, 
 without the fear of his displeasure. His sudden appearance among 
 them took them by surprise, and they were not prepared to give an 
 account of their stewardship. Whether he had just cause of com- 
 plaint, is not for us to determine. One thing is certain, he had to 
 spend near two thousand dollars to buy provisions for their support. 
 One would suppose that three hundred negroes, on the best lands in 
 Virginia, might support themselves. 
 
 " I have been in a perpetual broil (says he, November 15th, 1831,) 
 with overseers and niggers. My head man I detected stealing the 
 wool that was to have clad his own and the other children ; the re- 
 ceiver the very rascal ( one of Mr. Mercer's ' housekeepers,' ) who 
 flogged poor Juba, who had no wool except upon his head. I have 
 punished the scoundrel exemplarily, and shall send him to Georgia 
 or Louisiana, at Christmas. He has a wife and three fine children. 
 Here is a description of his establishment : a log house of the finest 
 class, with two good rooms below, and lofts above ; a barrel half-full 
 of meal (but two days to a fresh supply) ; steel shovel and tongs, bet- 
 ter than I have seen in any other house, my own excepted ; a good 
 bed, filled with hay ; another, not so good, for his children ; eight 
 blankets ; a large iron pot, and Dutch-oven ; frying-pan ; a large fat 
 hog, finer than any in my pen ; a stock of large pumpkins, cabbages, 
 &c., secured for the winter. His house had a porch, or shed, to it, 
 like my own." 
 
 Mr. Kandolph had an old servant by the name of Essex, the 
 father of John. " He was the most g<*iteel servant I ever saw," sayp 
 Mr. Marshall. Mr. Randolph called him familiarly, " Daddy Essex. 
 Although the relation of master and servant was kept up between 
 them, it was done with more cordiality and kindness in the manner 
 of each, than had ever been witnessed between master and slave. It 
 was the custom of Essex, when leaving his master's service at night, 
 *to give him the usual salutations, and this civility was returned* by 
 Mr. Randolph. But on the present occasion, whenever Essex came 
 into his presence, he immediately flew into a passion, accused him oi 
 keeping a tavern in his absence, entertaining a pedler, and once or 
 twice, even went so far as to strike him with a stick. Every body 
 knows the inestimable value he set on John and Juba, but they now 
 shared his wrath. " When I arrived in New-York," said he, " I 
 would not have taken for John or Juba, or the smallest child either 
 of them had, two thousand guineas : but now, I would as soon sell
 
 348 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 them to a negro-trader as not." They were actually driven out of the 
 house, into the corn-field, and other awkward fellows taken into their 
 places. " Moses goes rooting about the house like a hog." Mr. Ran- 
 dolph's friends witnessed, during the winter, many ludicrous scenes 
 between him and his servants. But his fits of excitement did not 
 last long. His extreme irritability, occasioned by disease, and the 
 stimulants he was compelled to use to alleviate pain, may have caused 
 him to magnify the offences of his slaves. But he was prompt in 
 making reparation. His favorite body-servants were soon restored to 
 their proper station. About the first of February, he called on the 
 overseer, and asked him to ride out with him ; said he was going to 
 make friends with his head man, Billy, whom he had put to work in 
 the ditch. They rode to the ditch, and Mr. Randolph said, u Your 
 servant, Billy." " Your servant, master," replied Billy. ' Well, 
 Billy," said he, " I have come to make friends with you." ' Thank 
 you, master," said Billy. " Billy," said Mr. Randolph, " you stole 
 my wool, and sold it for fifty cents." " Yes, master." " But I think 
 I am in debt to you, Billy, for I took your pumpkins and your house, 
 and hog, turned you out of a comfortable house, and gave you three 
 damned whippings. And now, I think I owe you something, and I 
 have come up to settle with you." As the result of the settlement 
 Billy was restored to his place and to his property. 
 
 Mr. Randolph's mind continued to be disordered, and his health 
 to grow more and more feeble, till the month of April, when many of 
 his friends expected he would die. About the twenty-fifth of that 
 month, he was moved to the house of his friend, Mr. John Marshall, 
 at Charlotte Court-house. He frequently sent for Mr. Marshall into 
 his room ; when -that gentleman entered, he would say. " You are too 
 late it is all over." Sometimes he had a small bell in his hand, 
 which he would ring slowly, saying, " It is all over." Sometimes he* 
 would make John ring the bell. He would sometimes ask Mr. Mar- 
 shall, :i Will you stand by me ?" as if he was apprehensive of some 
 personal conflict. He continued much in this condition till the mid- 
 dle of May, with this difference, that his memory gave way almost 
 entirely, and he had sunk into a kind of stupor. 
 
 About the middle of May, after being reduced almost to a skele- 
 ton, his mind began to clear away, his memory returned, and his feel- 
 ings were calm and kind towards every person of whom he spoke. In
 
 OPIUM EATER 349 
 
 a. very short time he seemed to be perfectly himself. The first time 
 Mr Marshall saw him, when a change in his mind was distinctly 
 marked, they were in the room alone. Mr. Randolph burst into 
 tears, and said, " Bear with me, my friend ; this is unmanly, but I am 
 hard pressed." He seemed to be in great pain, and said, " It is im- 
 possible I speak it reverently that the Almighty himself, consist- 
 ent with his holy counsel, can withhold this bitter cup. It is neces- 
 sary to afflict me thus, to subdue my stubborn will." He then 
 prayed a few words audibly, shut his eyes, and seemed to be praying 
 in a low whisper. From this time his spirits were good ; he uni- 
 formly appeared cheerful and. in good temper, conversed handsomely, 
 and spoke of men, whether his political enemies or others, in good 
 humor; his appetite seemed to have improved, and he gradually 
 gained flesh. From this time forth, with rare exceptions, his mind 
 continued unclouded to the day of his death. But it is astonishing 
 how one in his condition, could prolong for a twelve-month, an exist- 
 ence so attenuated, so feeble. 
 
 In August he writes " My lungs made a noble resistance, but, 
 like the Poles, they were over-powered. The disease is now phthisis, 
 and the tubercles are softening for breaking out into open ulcers ; 
 liver, spleen, heart (I hope the pericardium), but above all, the stom- 
 ach, diseased, and this last, I fear, incurable. My diet is water-gruel, for 
 breakfast ; tomatoes and crackers for dinner, and no supper. Yet, 
 these taken in the very smallest quantities that can sustain life, throw 
 me into all the horrors of an indigestion ; so that I put off eating as 
 long as possible, and thereby make a dinner of my breakfast, and a 
 sort of supper at five or six o'clock, of my dinner. Sleep I am nearly a 
 stranger to. Many nights I pass bolt upright in my easy chair ; for 
 when propped up by pillows in bed, so as to be nearly erect from the 
 hips upwards. I cough incessantly and am racked to death." 
 
 Some weeks after this, he says to Dr. Brockenbrough " After I 
 wrote to you on Sunday night, the next day I had a most violent 
 fit of hysteria. I was so moved by the ingratitude of my servants, 
 and my destitute and forlorn condition, that I ' lifted up my voice and 
 wept ;' wept most bitterly. Yet I am now inclined to think that I 
 did the poor creatures some injustice, by ascribing to ingratitude, 
 what was the insensibility of their condition in life. But every body, 
 you only excepted, abandons me in my misery."
 
 350 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 CHAPTEK XLIII. 
 
 THE CONSUMMATION. 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON was elected by State-rights men. There were 
 many others united under his banner, who agreed rnly in their sen- 
 timents of opposition to the ruling powers ; but the political princi- 
 ples that transformed and harmonized the discordant elements into a 
 consistent whole, were the doctrines of the old Republican party. 
 The centripetal tendency of the administration of Adams and Clay, 
 had awakened and alarmed the country. Mr. Clay, with a boldness 
 and an energy peculiar to himself, had pressed forward his American 
 sytem to its final and full consummation. The Bank was omnipotent ; 
 the principle of Protection for protection's sake, was distinctly recog- 
 nized, and nothing remained to complete and to fasten the system on 
 the country, but to carry out those magnificent plans of Improvement 
 which had been projected. 
 
 Randolph, Van Buren, Tazewell, and other distinguished leaders 
 of the old Republican party, sounded the alarm, and raised the stand- 
 ard of opposition. Andrew Jackson was the man selected as their 
 leader. Whether he fully concurred with them in principles and in 
 purposes, could not be known his past life had not been in the line 
 of politics he was pledged to no system the great object was to de- 
 feat the present dynasty, and to take the chances of directing his 
 course by wise counsel, hereafter. Their object is explained by the 
 familiar and homely illustration used by Mr. Randolph, to satisfy his 
 own constituents. " When you have a faithless, worthless overseer," 
 said he, " in whom you could place no confidence, and have resolved 
 to dismiss him, did you ever change your mind, because, for no mat- 
 ter what reason, you could not get the man that you preferred, to 
 every other ? or have you been satisfied to turn him off, and employ 
 the best man that you could get ?" 
 
 Jackson well fulfilled the expectations of those who elevated him to 
 the Presidency. The first great measure of his administration, was 
 to put an end to a system of Internal Improvement, which had been 
 commenced by the Federal Government, and was rapidly growing up 
 into a magnificent scheme of fraud, speculation and expenditure, far
 
 THE CONSUMMATION. 35! 
 
 surpassing the South Sea or Mississippi scheme, that ingulfed all 
 Europe in bankruptcy and ruin. The veto to the Maysville Road 
 bill, arrested this great evil, and did much to bring back the people to 
 a just and sound interpretation of the Constitution. 
 
 All reflecting men, who have any regard to the words and the 
 spirit of a written, limited, and well-defined grant of power to a Fed- 
 erative Union of States, are now satisfied that the construction of 
 roads and canals, and other means of intercommunication, properly 
 belongs to the States. To take it from tnem and to exercise jurisdic- 
 tion within their borders, in the construction of highways, was so 
 gross a violation of the Constitution, and so bold an assumption of 
 the reserved rights of the States, as to render all other usurpations of 
 minor consideration. Like Aaron's rod, it swallowed up every thing 
 else. Besides, the States are better acquainted with their own re- 
 sources, and can conduct the means of their development more eco- 
 nomically, more judiciously, and more extensively. If they, in the pros- 
 ecution of their plans, have involved themselves in so large a debt, 
 suffered so much from fraudulent legislation, as to be driven, some to 
 the necessity of repudiation, others to the verge of bankruptcy, what 
 would have been the condition of the whole Union, had they contin- 
 ued those plans so zealously commenced, and entered on the prosecu- 
 tion of those magnificent surveys which their engineers had reported 
 as practicable, necessary and proper? The States ceasing to be 
 sovereign and independent ceasing to act as a counterweight to the 
 centralizing- influence of the Federal Government, would have been 
 clamorous suppliants for its bounty ; fraudulent combinations would 
 heve carried every thing in the national legislature some of the 
 States would h^ve had large improvements conducted through their 
 borders, while others would have none ; and all would have been load- 
 ed with a debt, only surpassed by the crushing burthen of England. 
 Resorting to that tribunal power, intrusted to the Executive, not 
 only for the preservation of its own independence and dignity, but 
 for the protection of the rights reserved to the States and the people, 
 Andrew Jackson, by the simple exercise of its authority, arrested the 
 centralizing tendency of the Republic, restored the States to their 
 proper equilibrium, rebuked the spirit of Federal usurpation, and 
 saved his country from ruin. 
 
 When Jackson took in his hand the helm of State, the Bank of
 
 352 LIFE OF - IOiLN I1ANDULPH. 
 
 the United States was in the plenitude of its power ; its numerous 
 branches, in close affiliation and absolute dependence on a central 
 power, occupied the most important and commanding positions. Its 
 influence over the currency and the commercial operations of the 
 country, was unbounded. It could make or unmake, build up or de- 
 stroy, at pleasure. Its directory, seated in their marble palace at 
 Philadelphia, like the gods on Olympus, could make rain or sunshine, 
 as it pleased their sovereign will. Even the Representatives of the 
 people, sent to examine into the abominations and sorceries of this red 
 harlot, were dazzled with her brightness. They bowed obsequiously 
 before her golden altars, and returned rejoicing, and uld the people 
 that she was not only pure, but worthy of all trust and confidence. 
 No greater combination of power ever existed under any government. 
 The East India Company, that held an Empire under its sway, and 
 burthened the seas with its treasures, could not boast of greater autho 
 rity. To possess the money influence in a commercial country, is to 
 control its movements, not only in the affairs of government, but in 
 the remotest ramifications of society. It is holding Leviathan with 
 a hook. This power, all pervading and absolute, was unquestionably 
 held by the Bank of the United States. The time had come, not to 
 supplicate, but to demand a renewal of her charter, and a continua- 
 tion of her enormous power for another generation. Shall the de- 
 mand be granted ? was the question now submitted to the Representa- 
 tives of the people, and to the President. 
 
 January 10th, 1832, Randolph says, " I know Jackson to be firm 
 on the Bank of the United States ; and I believe the tariff too. In 
 United States Bank stock there will be a fall, for every thing is set- 
 tled by the London prices ; and there will be a panic. But the Bank 
 will bribe through I detest it, and shall do all I can to defeat it. 
 even by coming into Congress next election si le Roy (Peuple) le 
 veut. When the Union shall crumble to pieces, the Bank will stand. 
 The courts and its debtors will sustain it, in each grain of our rope of 
 sand." In one particular, this prediction has happily not been veri- 
 fied. The Bank is an " obsolete idea," while the Union still survives, 
 we trust, to live for ever. But the other part of the prophecy was lit- 
 erally fulfilled ; the Bank did create a panic, and did bribe through. 
 While the bill was under discussion, Mr. Randolph wrote to his; 
 friends, urging them to resistance. Some of them from the South
 
 THE CONSUMMATION. 
 
 were offended with Jackson, and he was afraid they would suffer their 
 feelings to influence them on this occasion. To Mark Alexander, Esq., 
 his old colleague, he says, " I have just received (June 26, 1832) your 
 blank envelope, covering the Telegraph of the 21st. I write to en- 
 treat you to tell Warren R. Davis and his colleagues (alas ! for poor 
 Johnston), that if, by their votes, the United States Bank bill shall 
 pass the House of Representatives, they will receive the curses, loud 
 and deep, of every old school Republican of the South. To embar- 
 rass Jackson Is a small game, compared with saddling the country 
 with that worst and most flagrant of the usurpations of the Federal 
 Government, and the most dangerous engine against the rights, and 
 very existence of the States. I am warm and abrupt, but I am dy- 
 ing, and have not time to be more courtly and circumlocutory. The 
 Tariff, the Internal Improvement jobs, and the Supreme Court, com- 
 bined, are not to be put into the scale against this accursed thing. 
 The man who supports the Bank and denounces the Tariff as uncon- 
 stitutional, may take his choice between knave or fool, unless he ad- 
 mits that he is both. 
 
 ' : In one case, the power to lay duties, excises, &c., is granted ; in 
 the other, no such power is given. The true key is, that the abuse, 
 under pretence of exercise of any power (midnight judiciary, &c.) is 
 unconstitutional. This unlocks every difficulty. Killing a man may 
 be justifiable homicide, chance-medley, manslaughter or murder, ac- 
 cording to the motives and circumstances of the case. An unwise, 
 but honest, exercise of a power, may be blamed, but it is not unconsti- 
 tutional. But every usurped power (as the Bank) is so." 
 
 The Bank bill, however, passed both Houses of Congress, and 
 was submitted to the President, for his approval. Randolph was not 
 mistaken in his man. " I know Jackson to be firm on the Bank of 
 the United States." Against that formidable institution, he stood 
 up and battled alone. In his reading of the Constitution, there was 
 no authority for it ; to his observation and experience, the existence 
 of such a power was dangerous to a free republic. Satisfied in his 
 mind that the Bank of the United States was both unconstitutional 
 and inexpedient, it was vain to remonstrate. It was idle to tell him 
 that Washington had sanctioned it ; he had as clear a judgment, as 
 pure a patriotism, as Washington. It was useless to tell him, that 
 good and wise men, yielding to the cry of distress, had, for the second
 
 
 354 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 time, established a Bank ; and that Madison, surrendering his own 
 judgment to precedence and authority, had approved it. No such 
 distress existed now ; no such plea of necessity could be urged. 
 Now was the time, in profound peace, to apply the knife and the 
 cautery, to cut out and destroy the cancer that was threatening to 
 consume the Constitution of the country. Deserted by all his friends, 
 as he had been on many trying occasions before, while a military 
 chieftain, he was left alone to rely on his own clear judgment and un- 
 shaken fortitude. When he vetoed the Bank bill, and caused the 
 public money to be removed from the custody of that institution, his 
 friends earnestly entreated him not to do it. But there was one that 
 stood by him a kindred spirit, that would perish with him in the 
 ruins rather than have yielded. 
 
 Had Randolph been on the floor of Congress, the Bank bill would 
 never have passed. He would have scourged the money-changers 
 from the temple. But the veto saved the Republic, and he was re- 
 joiced at it. " Tell Leigh (says he, August 2,) that the veto mes- 
 sage, and some other things, have made a Jackson man of me, and 
 that I shall be delivered of my vote without forceps, or the Csesarean 
 operation." 
 
 But another deed, still greater, if possible, had yet to be per- 
 formed, before the Government could be rescued from its centripetal 
 tendency, and those features of a federative republic that, in the 
 vicissitudes of forty years, had well nigh been effaced, could be re- 
 stored to their original distinctness and beauty. A tariff of duties, 
 onerous to the agricultural interests, and laid solely for the protection 
 of other interests, and as a bounty, had been imposed. The protect- 
 ive policy was distinctly recognized as a principle of legislation ; its 
 friends regarded it as firmly established, and proclaimed it to be as 
 fixed as fate. But this principle of protection, according to States- 
 right doctrine, which was the basis and the essential element of the old 
 Republican party, could only be looked upon as a violent interpola- 
 tion. The most eminent statesmen of the strict-construction school 
 denounced it as an unwarrantable abuse of power, if indeed it was 
 not a plain infraction of the letter of the Constitution, which gave 
 power to lay and collect duties, imports, and taxes, merely for the 
 purposes of revenue. But one of the States of the Confederacy, be- 
 lieving that the right to impose a tax on one class of industry, as a
 
 THE CONSUMMATION. 355 
 
 bounty to another, had not been granted, and hearing a stern ma- 
 jority assert the doctrine, and pronounce it as fixed as fate, pro- 
 claimed that the only safety of the Republic lay in State inter- 
 position. 
 
 Our fathers did not complain of the burthen of their taxes, but 
 contended against the right of taxation without representation. But 
 South Carolina contended that her grievances were even greater than 
 those of our ancestors ; she protested against the tariff system, as 
 founded in usurpation and injustice, and at the same time complained 
 of the onerous nature of the taxes imposed She was heavily taxed 
 for the benefit of others, and yet had no voice in the imposition. 
 Feeling herself aggrieved, and having appealed, as she thought, in 
 vain for redress, she took the remedy of her wrongs in her own hands. 
 The only conservative power of this Confederative Republic is in the 
 States. What matters it how nicely adjusted may be the balance of 
 power between the executive, legislative, and judicial departments at 
 Washington, when they have swallowed up all the powers that were 
 reserved to the States and to the people. Take away the rights that 
 belong to Virginia and the other States as bodies politic, and those 
 that belong to their people, as citizens of each State respectively 
 (strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an American citizen) ; 
 take away these domestic guards, destroy these home securities that 
 we hold in our own hands, and where is the guaranty for our liber- 
 ties? We sb.Duld no longer be a federative republic of equal and 
 sovereign States, but the miserable, degraded provinces of a consoli- 
 dated empire, where a sectional and selfish majority will rule the nation 
 with a rod of non. The States would be recreant to their trust, and 
 unworthy the veneration of their sons, did they not stand by those rights 
 so essential to their own existence, and so invaluable as the means of 
 protecting and preserving the liberties of their people. This is what 
 Massachusetts did in the days of the embargo; it is what South Carolina 
 did on the present occasion. She asserted (and surely she was the 
 best judge) that the tariff which had been forced upon her. was not 
 only ruinous, but as unjust and as unwarrantable as the right claimed 
 by the British parliament to tax the Colonies without their consent. 
 She protested that the tax was forced upon her by those who had no 
 common interest, and declared her resolution to refuse obedience to 
 the law. Whether she acted wisely whether she threw herself
 
 356 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 upon those constitutional rights reserved to her as a State or whethei 
 she resorted to the ultimate right of the oppressed under every form 
 of government, is for the general historian and the political philoso- 
 pher to determine. The biographer of John Randolph has only to 
 say. that he sympathized with the State, and went with her, heart 
 and soul, in the fearful struggle that ensued. He had battled with 
 this tariff system from the beginning, and foresaw the dangerous con- 
 sequences to which it would lead. When the subject was under 
 discussion in 1824, he said, on the floor of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives : 
 
 And what, sir, are we now about to do ? For what was the 
 Constitution formed ? To drive the people of any part of this 
 Union from the plough to the distaff? Sir, the Constitution of the 
 Ufiited States never would have been formed, and if formed, would 
 have been scouted una voce by the people, if viewed as a means of 
 effecting purposes like this. The Constitution was formed for exter- 
 nal purposes, to rais'e armies and navies, and to lay uniform duties on 
 imports, to raise a revenue to defray the expenditure of such objects. 
 What are you going to do now? To turn the Constitution wrong- 
 side out ; to abandon foreign commerce and exterior relations I am 
 sorry to use this Frenchified word the foreign affairs which it was 
 established to regulate, and convert it into a municipal agent ; to carry 
 a system of espionage and excise into every log-house in the United 
 States. * * * But no force no, sir, no force short of Russian des- 
 potism shall induce me to purchase, or, knowing it, to use any arti- 
 cle frotn the region of country which attempts to cram this bill down 
 our throats. On this we of the South are as resolved, as were our 
 fathers about the tea, which they refused to drink ; for this is the 
 same old question of the stamp act in a new shape, viz. : whether they 
 who have no common feeling with us shall impose on us not merely 
 a burdensome but a ruinous tax. and that by way of experiment and 
 sport. And, I say again, if we are to submit to such usurpations, 
 give me George Grenville, give me Lord North, for a master. It 
 is in this point of view that I most deprecate the bill. If from the 
 language I have used, and gentlemen shall believe I am not as much 
 attached to this Union as any one on this floor, he will labor under 
 a great mistake. But there is no magic in this word Union ; I value 
 it as the means of preserving the liberty and happiness of the people. 
 Marriage itself is a good thing ; but the marriages of Mezentius were 
 not so esteemed. The marriage of Sinbad, the Sailor, with the corse 
 of his deceased wife, was an union ; and just such an union will this 
 be. if, by a bare majority in both Houses, this bill shall become a 
 law And I ask, sir, whether it will redound to the honor of this
 
 THE CONSUMMATION. 357 
 
 House, if this bill should pass, that the people should owe their escape 
 to the act of any others, rather than to us ? How will it answer for 
 the people to hase to look up for their escape from oppression, not to 
 their immediate representatives, but to the representatives of the 
 States, or, possibly, to the Executive? * * * * In case this bill 
 should be, unhappily, presented to him (the v President) for his signa- 
 ture, I hope, sir, he will scout it as contrary to the genius of our 
 government, to the whole spirit and letter of our Confederation. I say 
 of our Confederation. Blessed be God, it is a Confederation, and that 
 it contains within itself the redeeming power, which has more than 
 once been exercised, and that it contains within itself the seeds of pre- 
 servation, if not- of this Union, at least of the individual commonwealths 
 of which it is composed." 
 
 In another part of the same speech (1824), Mr. Randolph de- 
 clared : 
 
 " This is not the last tariff measure ; for, in less than five years, 
 I would, if I were a betting man, wager any odds that we have ano- 
 ther tariff proposition, worse by far than that, amendments to which 
 gentlemen had strangled yesterday by the bowstring of the previous 
 question. ***** "When I recollect that the tariff of 1816 was 
 followed by that of 1819-20, and that by this measure of 1823-4, 
 I cannot believe that we are at any time hereafter long to be exempt 
 from the demands of those sturdy beggars, who will take no denial. 
 Every concession does but render every fresh demand and new con^ 
 cession more easy. It is like those dastard nations who vainly think 
 to buy peace." 
 
 They did follow in rapid succession; the tariff of 1828 and of 
 1832, each based on the principle of protection, each more burthen- 
 some than those that had gone before, and proclaimed as fixed as 
 fate. Mr. Randolph watched the crisis brought on by this unwise 
 and oppressive legislation with intensest interest. South Carolina 
 had taken her position, and he knew well she would maintain it. 
 Though in retirement, he was in daily correspondence with the chief 
 actors on the scene ; he knew they were in earnest, that they had 
 counted the costs, and would not lightly hazard the dangers of a 
 rupture and a civil war. In March, 1832, before any decisive steps 
 had been taken, he spoke freely to his friends on the subject of South 
 Carolina nullification. He said that dreadful times were coming, 
 the United States Bank would be broken, and troops would be march- 
 ing through the country ; he said that South Carolina \vould not 
 yield that she would fight ; that General Jackson would be glad to
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 get Hamilton, Calhoun, McDuffie, and Hayne into his power ; that 
 he had no doubt if a war came, as come he feared it must, General 
 Jackson would hang those gentlemen, if he could g*t hold of them ; 
 but that the whole South would unite, for it was their interest to do 
 so. and there would be a. bloody war of it. He read letters from gen- 
 tlemen in South Carolina, and became highly excited on the subject. 
 He said that if the war took place, he would have himself buckled on 
 his horse, Radical, and would fight for the South to the last breath. 
 These expressions, the reader is aware, were used by Mr. Randolph 
 under peculiar circumstances, when he was not altogether himself. 
 In his cooler moments no man looked more calmly or more judi- 
 ciously on this momentous subject. On the 6th of December, before 
 he knew of the ordinances of South Carolina, or the proclamation of 
 tl e President, he writes : 
 
 " A letter from my friend Hamilton indicates the most morbid 
 state of excitement in South Carolina. The truth is, I have no doubt, 
 that imprudent and rash declarations have been made on both sides. 
 and have been carried from one to the other by the earwigs that. 
 more or less, infest all political parties This has put the leaders of 
 the two hostile divisions into the worst state of mind imaginable for 
 cordial and dignified reconciliation. But I have great faith in Jack- 
 son's magnanimity, and I trust that, as soon as he finds himself in a 
 situation to recede without dishonor, he will make the preliminary 
 advances with graceful cordiality." 
 
 Had Randolph himself been on the floor of Congress, events 
 might have been different. No man had more the confidence of both 
 parties than he had ; but unfortunately there was no one of sufficient 
 weight and influence, to give affairs this pacific direction, and they were 
 consequently hurried on to their catastrophe. 
 
 South Carolina, by her ordinance, proclaimed that she would not 
 obey a law of the United States. It was the duty of the President 
 to see that the laws were faithfully executed. General Jackson, by his 
 proclamation, pronounced his determination to see that the Tariff law 
 was properly enforced in South Carolina. The Proclamation contains 
 an elaborate argument in justification of his conduct. It cannot be de- 
 nied that his duty required him to take some such course, but he sustain- 
 ed and justified it, by a resort to the exploded doctrines and reasonings 
 of the old federal school ; if his arguments were true, then the principles 
 of the Republican party, on which he had hitherto acted, were false.
 
 THE CONSUMMATION. 359 
 
 It may have been a right action, but a wrong reason. All power ema- 
 nates from the people, they are sovereign ; but the general undefined 
 mass of individuals, told by the head within the borders of the Uni- 
 ted States, are not the people known to our Institutions : the citizens 
 of each State acting through the body politic, or a convention, or in 
 their primary assemblies, are the people. Whatever they shall do in 
 their sovereign capacity, as the people of a State, may be a revolution, 
 but it can never be a rebellion-; a sovereign cannot rebel against him- 
 self, nor against his coequal sovereigns; he may violate a compact 
 with them, or they may commit a breach of faith towards him, so as to 
 justify resistance and even war. a revolution if you please of all the 
 relations existing between them, but no act of omission or aggression 
 between coequal and independent parties can be construed into a 
 rebellion. 
 
 Here was Jackson's great mistake ; he did not have a clear per- 
 ception of a federative union between coequal and independent States ; 
 he regarded the ordinance of the people of South Carolina, issuing 
 from the highest authority known to a State their sovereign will ex- 
 pressed in Convention as an act of rebellion, and the men and officers 
 appointed to execute their will as rebels that ought to be hung when- 
 ever taken. 
 
 So soon as Kandolph heard of this fatal proclamation, so preg- 
 nant with pestilent heresies, his indignation knew no bounds. The 
 Editor of the Richmond Enquirer endeavored to discriminate between 
 the act itself* and the reasoning in defence of it; but Randolph in- 
 volved both perpetrator and defender in one common denunciation. 
 The 16th of December he says: 
 
 " Your letter of the 12th was received late last night whilst I was 
 under the influence of morphine and blue-pill, but such was the inter- 
 est I took in it, and in the Jesuitical comments of Mr. Enquirer 
 Ritchie on the ferocious and blood-thirsty proclamation of our Djezzar 
 Pacha, that I did not close an eye until daybreak. I am now just 
 out of bed (I o'clock, P. M.). and not more than half alive, indeed not 
 so much. 
 
 " The apathy of our people is most alarming. If they do not 
 rouse themselves to a sense of our condition and put down this \vivu.-h 
 ed old man. the country is irretrievably ruined. The inercciKirj 
 troops who have embarked for Charleston, have not disappointed me 
 they are working in their vocation, poor devils ! I trust that no <jiiar 
 tcr will be given to them.
 
 360 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 - Pray tell William Leigh to write to me forthwith, and to give m/9 
 his full, unreserved opinion upon the state of affairs. I sometimes 
 distrust my own judgment in my present diseased condition. 
 
 " I am heartily glad that my brother refuses to go to the Senate 
 of the U. S. I should not be sorry to see him in our Legislature, 
 where, as 1798-9, the resistance must be made." January 4, 1833. 
 he writes to Mr. Harvey : ' : My life is ebbing fast. What will the 
 New-York Evening Post say to Ritchie's apology for the Proclama- 
 tion, in his ''Enquirer' of the first instant? Never was there so im- 
 pudent a thing. It seems, then, that the President did not know, 
 good, easy man, what his Proclamation contained. Verily, I believe 
 it. He is now all for law and the civil power, and shudders at blood. 
 Save me from my friends' is a good old Spanish proverb. But his 
 soi-disant friends are his bitterest enemies, and use him as a tool for 
 their own unhallowed purposes of guilty ambition. They have first 
 brought him into odium, and then sunk him into contempt. Alas ! 
 alas !" January 31st he says : "I am now much worse than when I 
 wrote you last, and see no probability of my ever recovering suffi- 
 ciently to leave this place. The springs of life are worn out. Indeed, 
 in the abject state of the public mind, there is nothing worth living 
 for. It is a merciful dispensation of Providence, that death can 
 release the captive from the clutches of the tyrant. I was not born 
 to endure a master. I could not brook military despotism in Europe, 
 but at home it is not to be endured. I could not have believed that 
 the people would so soon have shown themselves unfit for free govern 
 ment. I leave to General Jackson, and the Hartford men, and the 
 ultra-federalists and tories. and the office-holders and office-seekers. 
 their triumph over the liberties of tJie country. T/iey will stand 
 damned to everlasting fame." 
 
 But the dying statesman resolved to make another effort to rouse 
 the people, and to pluck the fallen liberties of the country from the 
 grasp of military despotism. The veteran of a hundred fields har- 
 nessed himself for his last battle. The same cause that nerved his 
 youthful arm, now shook the palsy from his aged limbs, and kindled 
 in his bosom once more its slumbering fires. The sight of mercenary 
 troops levied to uphold the usurpations of Government first called forth 
 that bold and manly eloquence, that revealed to the people the future 
 champion of their cause, and made John Thompson exclaim he will 
 become an object of admiration and terror to the enemies of liberty. 
 True to the destiny thus foretold, for more than thirty years he had 
 successfully contended against the minions of power. But now. be- 
 hold the same appalling scenes re-enacted before him the hirelings
 
 THE CONSUMMATION. 3(J1 
 
 of Government marching through the land to trample down the rights 
 of the States and of the people the same doctrines avowed the 
 same excuses offered for the interposition of military authority 
 while the people, sunk into a deep lethargy like that of sleep, are 
 unconscious of the " leprous distilment" that has poisoned the fount- 
 ains of truth, and are forgetful of the threatening dangers that sur- 
 round them. " The apathy of our people is alarming !" 
 
 But there was no apathy in him : he saw, he felt, he acted. Lifted 
 into his carriage like an infant, he went from county to county, and 
 spoke with a power that effectually aroused the slumbering multi- 
 tudes. Too weak to stand, he addressed them from his seat : but 
 like Jupiter seated on Olympus, he shot forth his thunderbolts on 
 every hand, blasting and withering whatever stood in the way. The 
 sublime energies of a patriot soul were his ; they could not be re- 
 pressed, and all the faculties of a dying frame were summoned to this 
 last effort. It was Rke a voice coming from beyond the tomb : there 
 was the skeleton of a man before them, but the people saw the fires of 
 an immortal spirit beaming forth from its blazing sockets ; they heard 
 the trembling accents of an expiring tongue, but felt the living words 
 of an inspired prophet fall upon their tingling ears. Their fathers 
 had heard that clear ringing voice in the days of his youth echo 
 sweet music through their hearts, and had clasped him to their bo- 
 soms as their most cherished son : t/iey now listened to his solemn 
 tones, like the knell of a death-bell, with silence and awe ; and re- 
 ceived his warning admonitions with the duty and reverence of affec- 
 tionate children. 
 
 He did not speak in vain. Throughout his old district, with 
 scarcely a dissenting voice, they adopted his resolutions condemning 
 the tone, the temper, and the doctrines of the Proclamation. In the 
 course of his speech at Buckingham, Mr. Randolph is reported, on 
 what seems to be good authority, to have said : " Gentlemen, I am 
 filled with the most gloomy apprehensions for the fate of the Union. 
 I cannot express to you how deeply I am penetrated with a sense of 
 the danger which at this moment threatens its existence. If Madison 
 filled the Executive chair, he might be bullied into some compro- 
 mise. If Monroe was in power, he might be coaxed into somo adjust- 
 ment of this difficulty. But Jackson is obstinate, headstrong, and 
 fond of fight. I fear matters must come to an open rupture. If so, 
 
 VOL. H. 16
 
 362 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 this Union is gone !" Then pausing for near a minute, raising his fin 
 ger in that emphatic manner so peculiar to his action as a speaker, 
 and seeming, as it were, to breathe more freely, he continued " There 
 is one man, and one man only, who can save this Union that man 
 is HEXRY CLAY. I know he has the power, I believe he will be 
 found to have the patriotism and firmness equal to the occasion." 
 
 Mr. Clay did not disappoint his expectations. Whatever may be 
 said of him as a statesman, none can deny that he is a true-hearted 
 patriot. With parental fondness he cherished his American system 
 with unyielding pertinacity contended for it to the last extremity 
 but when it became a question between that and the integrity of the 
 Union, he did not hesitate ; like Abraham, he was ready to sacrifice 
 his own offspring on the altar of his country, and to see the fond idols 
 he had cherished perish one by one before his lingering eyes. Mainly 
 through his efforts the Compromise bill of 1833 was passed, the 
 principle of protection abandoned, the duties reduced, South Carolina 
 satisfied, her honor preserved, and the Union saved. But let not 
 Jackson be too lightly condemned. He had a difficult task to per- 
 form ; aside from the heresies of his Proclamation we have not con- 
 demned him. There were the laws on the statute book ; he had 
 labored to get them modified : but however much he might disap- 
 prove of their character, or sympathize with those on whose shoulders 
 they fell as a grievous burthen, so long as they were laws, he was 
 bound to see them enforced. , He was not the man to shrink from 
 his duty, and promptly declared that they should be enforced. This 
 was an awful moment for the Republic. 
 
 The most important experiment in the history of government had 
 to be tried. The tfial had to be made, whether State sovereignty 
 was of any avail, or the Federal Government absolute and omnipotent. 
 Had Carolina failed, we should have gone down like the Roman Re- 
 public, into a consolidated empire, with all power concentrated in the 
 capital, and governed by venality and corruption. Had Jackson fail- 
 ed in his duty, and suffered the laws to be put at defiance with impu- 
 nity, the fraternal bonds of this Union would have been dissolved. 
 and we should have existed for a time as petty States, in perpetual 
 warfare, until some master should arise to govern them, or they should 
 fall, as exhausted provinces, into the hands of European power. In 
 this awful moment, when disrupture and civil war seemed inevitable,
 
 THE CONSUMMATION. 353 
 
 that magnanimous spirit of compromise, in which the Constitution 
 was framed, again rescued it from destruction. And so will it ever 
 be while the States have independence and courage to assert their 
 rights, and patriot souls shall guide the helm of affairs. 
 
 This was the auspicious moment for John Randolph to depart 
 He died in the midst of the battle, but the victory had been won. 
 The doctrine of State rights, ingrafted on the Constitution by 
 George Mason, developed by Jefferson, expounded by Madison, and 
 practised by himself, had once more triumphed a strict construction 
 of the Constitution, a total abstinence from the exercise of all powers 
 not specifically granted, an abandonment to the States of the right to 
 control all things affecting their internal and domestic affairs, was 
 once again to become the rule of action to the Federal Government, 
 and to be the means of developing a prosperity in the several States, 
 unparalleled in the annals of history, and of exciting among them a 
 generous spirit of emulation, causing each to strive with all the 
 means of this inventive age, to excel the other in the various walks 
 of industry, in the arts of peace, in the deeds of arms, and in noble 
 acts of chivalry, that will cast a lustre over this great Republic, 
 uneclipsed by the most brilliant achievements of ancient or modern 
 times. 
 
 For this glorious consummation, we are indebted to John Ran- 
 dolph, more than to any other man. His bold and masterly efforts 
 arrested that centripetal tendency which was rapidly destroying the 
 counterbalance of the States, and making them, instead of what they 
 are, proud independent sovereignties, jealous of their peculiar rights. 
 and prompt to defend them, mere abject provinces, bowing patiently 
 to encroachment so long as largesses were bestowed by the bountiful 
 hand of an all-powerful and concentrated empire. 
 
 Let not the absurd notion then be repeated, that he was powerful 
 to pull down, but feeble to build up. There it was, already built up. 
 that beautiful system, unknown to the world before, an imperium in 
 imperio ; he had nothing to add to the design of those who projected 
 it leave it to its own beautiful and simple operations, and like the 
 solar system, we should scarcely know of its existence save by the 
 genial influence shed on the various planets that composed it ; he 
 taught a time and masterly inactivity add nothing to clog its mo- 
 tion nothing to hurry it to rack and ruin, like an unbalanced ho-
 
 364. LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 rologue, and the States and the Union in perpetual harmony, will 
 move, 
 
 " Like a star that maketh not haste, 
 That taketh not rest ; 
 
 each one fulfilling 
 
 His God-given hest." 
 
 CHAPTEE XLIV. 
 
 "I HAVE BEEN SICK ALL MY LIFE." DEATH. 
 
 MR. RANDOLPH attempted to go to the different counties of his old 
 district, in the month of April, and to address the people on the days 
 of election, but he did not succeed. On the 14th of April, he writes 
 to Dr. Brockenbrough. " Your letter of the 4th was received here 
 (Charlotte Court-house) last night, on my return from Buckingham. 
 I made an effort to attend that election, but was obliged to return 
 re infecta, and reached this place so done up by fatigue, that I have 
 not been able to get on to Roanoke. Exercise by gestation is in- 
 dispensable to my existence ; from ten to twenty miles are requisite 
 to enable me to support life. I am now scuffling to get to England 
 in the May packet. Whether I shall succeed or not. I propose being 
 in Richmond immediately after the Cumberland election, if not 
 sooner." He was at Cumberland on the day of election, and started 
 that evening for Richmond ; but was compelled to turn in at Clay Hill, 
 the residence of his friend Barksdale in Amelia. On the 23d. he 
 says : " Although more than half dead when taken out of my car- 
 riage, and enduring excessive pain, I passed a better night than I 
 have had for two months, and was in every respect far better this 
 morning, than I had been within that period ; and I feel satisfied 
 that exercise by gestation, if I take enough of it, will greatly remit my 
 exhausted system. However, while I was chuckling over my success. 
 I suffered a fatal relapse, and the day has been spent in stupor and 
 pain, which did not allow me to dispense with Johnny's presence and 
 services. Deo volcnte, he will set out to-morrow by day with this 
 letter." From George W. Johnson's, near Moody's, Chesterfield. 
 Thursday. May 2d. he writes : I am 'here very ill. I have little 
 expectation of ever leaving this apartment, except on men's shoul-
 
 " 1 HAVE BEEN SICK ALL MY LIFE." DEATH. 335 
 
 ders ; an act of imprudence on the night of my arrival has nearly 
 sealed my doom. Yet with my characteristic reaction, I may go to 
 Petersburg to-morrow, and on Monday, to Richmond. Pray, secure 
 me. if practicable, a parlor and bedroom adjoining, on a lower floor, 
 and speak to Ball to reserve stalls for five horses and three servants. 
 
 " If my dear orother Harry be not gone, entreat him to come to 
 me on the receipt of this. If I can, I will take the packet from the 
 Delaware for London, avoiding the Irish Channel, which is the worst 
 as the English S. Coast is the best of climates." 
 
 He did go on to Petersburg, attended the races, made a tjpeech, 
 passed through Richmond, and. from the Merry Oaks, Iiiday, May 
 17, he writes: 
 
 "Arrived here last night, through torrents of rain that delugod 
 the roads, and made them run like rivers, John and Juba, as wet as 
 drowned rats, but it was an admirable sedative (you are an ' Embro ' 
 man, and possibly a disciple of Cullen) for John's over stimulant. 
 Quant a moi, I came every foot of the way in torture, having been 
 so lumbered by John, that I might as well have been in the pillory, 
 and each jolt over stone, stump, or pole, or old fence rails left in the 
 road, when the new one was made, or the old one ' upset ' for the be- 
 nefit of travelling carriages, those of gentlemen in especial^ as the 
 Waverly man has it. 
 
 " At Botts's gate, Half Sink, I was fain to call and ask the price 
 of his land, and sponge upon him for the night, for I was in agony, 
 but he was gone to the Baltimore races. So, after making some bet- 
 ter arrangements, and watering the tits which were half choked with 
 thirst, I proceeded on over the slashes and ' cross ways ' with peine 
 forte et dure, to the old oaks, ignorant until then that the stage road 
 had been changed, or I would have taken the other, except on account 
 of the house. If Botts's land lay in any other county, except Hen- 
 rico, and especially if it were on the south side, I would buy it and 
 take my chance for selling Spring Hill, which except in point of soil, 
 has every advantage over Half Sink." 
 
 This was the last letter ever written by Mr. Randolph, to his most 
 cherished and confidential friend. He had, in his last journey, pass- 
 ed rapidly by most of the scenes rendered dear to him by the recol- 
 lections of youth, and by the fond associations of love and friendship ; 
 and it so happened that he saw most of the few friends that were left 
 him this side of the grave. What recollections were called up, as he 
 passed for the last time through Amelia love ! love ! blighted love ! 
 deeply buried in his heart's inmost core ! as he passed through Ches-
 
 366 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 terficld, and looked for the last time on the tombs of his beloved fa- 
 ther and mother, at old Matoax, where he had so long wished to lie 
 down and be at rest Petersburgh Richmond there were a few 
 left that still cared for him, that loved him, and warmly pressed his 
 fevered hand as he passed rapidly by, on his last journey. They were 
 now all behind him, and he might exclaim, as he did on a former oc- 
 casion, when he heard of the death of one endeared by early, though 
 mournful recollections : 
 
 " Days of my cherished youth, 
 When all unfelt Time's footsteps fell, 
 
 And all unheeded flew, 
 Dreams of the morn of life, farewell ! a long, a last farewell f 
 
 Mr. Randolph reached the landing at Potomac creek, before the 
 arrival of the steamboat, and considerably in advance of the Fred- 
 ericksburg stage-coaches, which could not keep pace with his fleet 
 horses. 
 
 When the approach of the boat was announced, he was brought 
 out of the room by his servants, on a chair, and seated in the porch, 
 where most of the stage passengers were assembled. His presence 
 seemed to produce considerable restraint on the company ; and though 
 he appeared to solicit it, none were willing to enter into conversation ; 
 one gentleman only, who was a former acquaintance, passed a few 
 words with him ; and so soon as the boat reached the landing, all hur- 
 ried off, and left him nearly alone, with his awkward servants as his 
 only attendants. An Irish porter, who seemed to be very careless 
 and awkward in his movements, slung a trunk round and struck Mr. 
 Randolph with considerable force against the knee. He uttered an 
 exclamation of great suffering. The poor Irishman was much terri- 
 fied, and made the most humble apology, but Mr. Randolph stormed 
 at him would listen to no excuse, and drove him from his presence. 
 This incident increased the speed of the by-standers, and in a few 
 minutes not one was left to assist the dying man. 
 
 Dr. Dunbar, an eminent physician, of Baltimore, witnessing what 
 happened, and feeling his sympathies awakened towards a man so 
 feeble, and apparently so near his end, walked up to the chair, as the 
 servants were about to remove their master, and said, " Mr. Ran- 
 dolph, I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, but I have known 
 your brother from my childhood ; and as I see you have no one with
 
 "I HAVE BEEN SICK ALL MY LIFE" DEATH. 
 
 you but your servants you appear to require a friend. I will be Lappy 
 to render you any assistance in my power, while we are together on 
 the boat " He looked up, and fixed such a searching gaze on the 
 doctor as he never encountered before. But having no other motive 
 but kindness for a suffering fellow man. he returned the scrutinizing 
 look with steadiness. As Mr. Randolph read the countenance of the 
 stranger, who had thus unexpectedly proffered his friendship, his face 
 suddenly cleared up ; and with a most winning smile, and real polite- 
 ness, and with a touching tone of voice, grasping the Doctor's hand, 
 he said, " I am most thankful to you, sir, for your kindness, for I do. 
 indeed, want a friend." 
 
 He was now, with the Doctor's assistance, carefully carried on 
 board, and set down in the most eligible part of the cabin. He seem- 
 ed to be gasping for breath, as he sat up in the chair ; having recov- 
 ered a little, he turned to the Doctor, and said. Be so good, sir. ,f 
 you please, as to give me your name." The Doctor gave him his 
 name, his profession, and place of residence. 
 
 " Ah ! Doctor," said he, " I am passed surgery passed surgery !" 
 ; I hope not, sir," the Doctor replied. With a deeper and more pa- 
 thetic tone, he repeated, " I am passed surgery." 
 
 He was removed to a side berth, and laid in a position where he 
 could get air ; the Doctor also commenced fanning him. His face was 
 wrinkled, and of a parched yellow, like a female of advanced age. 
 He seemed to repose for a moment, but presently he roused up, 
 throwing round an intense and searching gaze. The Doctor was 
 reading a newspaper. 
 
 -What paper is that, Doctor?" 
 
 - The Gazette, sir." 
 
 A very scurrilous paper, sir a very scurrilous paper." 
 
 After a short pause, he continued, " Be so good, sir, as to read 
 the foreign news for me the debates in Parliament, if you please." 
 
 " As the names of the speakers were mentioned, he commented on 
 each ; " Yes," said he, " I knew him when I was in England ;'' then 
 went on to make characteristic remarks on each person. 
 
 In reading, the Doctor fell upon the word budget ; he pronounced 
 the letter u short, as in bud budget. Mr. Randolph said quickly, 
 but with great mildness and courtesy, ' ; Permit me to interrupt you 
 for a moment, Doctor ; I would pronounce that word budget ; like oo in
 
 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 book." " Very well, sir," said the Doctor, pleasantly, and continued 
 the reading, to which Mr. Randolph listened with great attention. 
 Mr. Randolph now commenced a conversation about his horses, which 
 he seemed to enjoy very much ; Gracchus particularly, he spoke of 
 with evident delight. As he lay in his berth, he showed his extremi- 
 ties to the Doctor, which were much emaciated. He looked at them 
 mournfully, and expressed his opinion of the hopelessness of his con- 
 dition. The Doctor endeavored to cheer him with more hopeful views 
 He listened politely, but evidently derived no consolation from the re- 
 marks. Supper was now announced ; the captain and the steward were 
 very attentive, in carrying such dishes to Mr. Randolph as they 
 thought would be pleasing to him. He was plentifully supplied with 
 fried clams, which he ate with a good deal of relish. The steward 
 asked him if he would have some more clams. " I do not know," he 
 replied ; " Doctor, do you think I could take some more clams ?" 
 " No, Mr. Randolph ; had you asked me earlier, I would have advised 
 you against taking any, for they are very injurious ; but I did not 
 conceive it my right to advise you." " Yes you had, Doctor ; and I 
 would have been much obliged to you for doing so. Steward, I can't 
 take any more ; the Doctor thinks they are not good for me." ' 
 
 After the table was cleared off, one of the gentlemen the. one 
 referred to as a former acquaintance of Mr. Randolph's, observed that 
 he should like to get some information about the boats north of Bal- 
 timore- " I can get it for you, sir," replied Mr. Randolph. " Doctor, 
 do me the favor to hand me a little wicker-basket, among my things 
 in the berth below." The basket was handed to him ; it was full of 
 clippings from newspapers. He could not find the advertisement he 
 sought for. The gentleman, with great politeness, said, < ; Don't trou- 
 ble yourself. Mr. Randolph." Several times he repeated, "Don't 
 trouble yourself, sir." At length Randolph became impatient, and 
 looking up at him with an angry expression of countenance, said, "I 
 do hate to be interrupted !" The gentleman, thus rebuked, immedi- 
 ately left him. 
 
 Mr. Randolph then showed another basket of the same kind, filled 
 with similar scraps from newspapers, and observed that he was al- 
 ways in the habit, when any thing struck him in his reading, as likely 
 to be useful for future reference, to cut it out and preserve it in books, 
 which he had for that purpose ; and that he had at home several vol 
 umes of that kind
 
 "I HAVE BEEN SICK ALL MY LIFE." DEATH. 
 
 He showed his arrangements for travelling in Europe ; and after 
 a while, seeing the Doctor writing, he said, "Doctor, I see you 
 are writing ; will you do me the favor to write a letter for me, to a 
 friend in Richmond ?" " Certainly, sir." " The gentleman," he con- 
 tinued, stands A. No. 1, among men Dr. Brockenbrough, of Rich- 
 mond." The letter gave directions about business matters, princi- 
 pally, but it contained some characteristic remarks about his horses. 
 He exulted in their having beaten the stage ; and concluded, " So 
 much for blood. Now," said he, " sign it, Doctor." 
 
 " How shall I sign it, Mr. Randolph ? sign it John Randolph of 
 Roanoke?" 
 
 " No, sir, sign it Randolph of Roanoke." 
 
 It was done accordingly. " Now, Doctor," said he, ' do me the 
 favor to add a postscript." The postscript was added, " I have been 
 
 so fortunate as to meet with Dr. , of , on board this boat, 
 
 and to form his acquaintance, and I can never be sufficiently grateful 
 for his kind attentions to me." 
 
 So soon as the letter was concluded, Mr. Randolph drew together 
 the curtains of his berth ; the Doctor frequently heard 4iim groaning 
 heavily, and breathing so laboriously, that several times he approached 
 the side of the berth to listen if it were not the beginning of the death- 
 struggle. He often heard him, also, exclaiming, in agonized tones. 
 " Oh God ! Oh Christ !" while he was engaged in ejaculatory prayer. 
 
 He now became very restless, was impatient and irascible with 
 his servants, but continued to manifest the utmost kindness and 
 courtesy towards Dr. Dunbar. 
 
 When the boat reached the wharf at Alexandria, where the Doc- 
 tor was to leave, he approached the side of the berth, and said, " Mr. 
 Randolph, I must now take leave of you." He begged the Doctor to 
 come and see him, at Gadsby's, then, grasping his hand, he said, 
 " God bless you, Doctor ; I never can forget your kind attentions to 
 me." 
 
 Next day he went into the Senate chamber, and took his seat in 
 rear of Mr. Clay. That gentleman happened at the time to be on his 
 feet, addressing the Senate. "Raise me up," said Randolph, "I 
 want to hear that voice again." "When Mr. Clay had concluded his 
 remarks, which were very few, he turned round to see from what 
 quarter that singular voice proceeded. Seeing Mr. Randolph, and 
 
 VOL. II. 16*
 
 370 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 that be was in a dying condition, he left his place and went to speak 
 to him ; as he approached, Mr. Randolph said to the gentleman with 
 him, " Raise me up." As Mr. Clay offered his hand, he said, " Mr. 
 Randolph, I hope you are better, sir." " No, sir," replied Randolph, 
 " I am a dying man, and I came here expressly to have this interview 
 with you." 
 
 They grasped hands and parted, never to meet more. 
 
 Having accomplished the only thing that weighed on his mind, 
 having satisfied Mr. Clay, and the world, that, notwithstanding a 
 long life of political hostility, no personal animosity rankled in his 
 heart, he was now ready to continue on his journey, or to meet, with 
 a lighter conscience, any fate that might befall him. 
 
 He hurried on to Philadelphia, to be in time for the packet, that 
 was about to sail from the Delaware. But he was too late ; he was 
 destined to take passage in a different boat, and to a land far differ- 
 ent from that of his beloved England. It was Monday night when 
 he reached the city, and the storm was very high. His friends found 
 him on the deck of the steamboat, while Johnny was out hunting for 
 a carriage. He was put into a wretched hack, the glasses all broken, 
 and was driven from hotel to hotel in search of lodgings, and exposed 
 all the time to the peltings of the storm. He at length drove to the 
 City Hotel, kept by Mr. Edmund Badger. When Mr. Badger came 
 out to meet him, he asked if he could have accommodations. Mr. 
 Badger replied that he was crowded, but would do the best he could 
 for him. On hearing this, he lifted up his hands, and exclaimed, 
 " Great God ! I thank thee ; I shall be among friends, and be taken 
 care of!" 
 
 Mr. Randolph was very ill. Dr. Joseph Parish, a Quaker phy- 
 sician, was sent for. As he entered the room, the patient said, ' : I 
 am acquainted with you, sir, by character. I know you through 
 Giles." He then told the Doctor that he had attended several 
 courses of lectures on anatomy, and described his symptoms with 
 medical accuracy, declaring he must die if he could not discharge the 
 puriform matter. 
 
 " How long have you been sick, Mr. Randolph?" 
 
 ' Don't ask me that question ; I have been sick all my life. I 
 have been affected with my present disease, however, for three years. 
 It was greatly aggravated by my voyage to Russia. That killed me, 
 
 *
 
 'I riAVE BEEN SICK ALL MY LIFE." DEATH. 371 
 
 sir. This Russian expedition lias been a Pultowa, a Beresina to 
 me." 
 
 The Doctor now felt his pulse. " You can form no judgment by 
 my pulse ; it is so peculiar." 
 
 " You have been so long an invalid, Mr. Randolph, you must have 
 acquired an accurate knowledge of the general course of practice 
 adapted to your case." 
 
 " Certainly, sir ; at forty, a fool or a physician, you know." 
 
 " There are idiosyncracies," said the Doctor, " in many constitu- 
 tions. I wish to ascertain what is peculiar about you." 
 
 "I have been an idiosyncracy all my life. All the preparations 
 of camphor invariably injure me. As to ether, it will blow me up. 
 Not so with opium ; I can take opium like a Turk, and have been in 
 the habitual use of it, in one shape or another, for some time." 
 
 Before the Doctor retired, Mr. Randolph's conversation became 
 curiously diversified. He introduced the subject of the Quakers ; 
 complimented them in his peculiar manner for neatness, economy, 
 order, comfort in every thing. "Right," said he, "in every thing 
 except politics there always twistical." He then repeated a portion 
 of the Litany of the Episcopal church, with apparent fervor. The 
 following morning the Doctor was sent for very early. He was 
 callted from bed. Mr. Randolph apologized very handsomely for dis- 
 turbing him. Something was proposed for his relief. He petulantly 
 and positively refused compliance. The Doctor paused and addressed 
 a few words to him. He apologized, and was as submissive as an in- 
 fant. One evening a medical consultation was proposed ; he promptly 
 objected. " In a multitude of counsel," said he, " there is confusion ; 
 it leads to weakness and indecision ; the patient may die while the 
 doctors are staring at each other." Whenever Dr. Parish parted 
 from him, especially at night, he would receive the kindest acknow- 
 ledgments, in the most affectionate tones : " God bless you ; he does 
 bless you, and he will bless you." 
 
 The night preceding his death, the Doctor passed about two hours 
 in his chamber. In a plaintive tone he said, " My poor John, sir, is 
 worn down with fatigue, and has been compelled to go to bed. A 
 most attentive substitute supplies his place, but neither he nor you. 
 sir, are like John ; he knows where to place his hand on any thing, 
 in a large quantity of baggage prepared for a European voyage.' 1 
 
 ,
 
 372 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 The patient was greatly distressed in breathing, in consequence of 
 difficult expectoration. He requested the Doctor, at his next visit, 
 to bring instruments for performing the operation of bronchotomy, 
 for he could not live unless relieved. He then directed a certain 
 newspaper to be brought to him. He put on his spectacles, as he 
 sat propped up in bed. turned over the paper several times, and ex- 
 amined it carefully, then placing his finger on a part he had selected, 
 handed it to the Doctor, with a request that he would read it. It 
 was headed " Cherokee." In the course of reading, the Doctor came 
 to the word " omnipotence," and pronounced it with a full sound on 
 the penultimate omnipotence. Mr. Randolph checked him, and 
 pronounced the word according to Walker. The Doctor attempted 
 to give a reason for his pronunciation. "Pass on," was the quick 
 reply. The word impetus was then pronounced with the e long, " im- 
 petus." He was instantly corrected. The Doctor hesitated on the 
 criticism. " There can be no doubt of it, sir." An immediate ac- 
 knowledgment of the reader that he stood corrected, appeared to sat- 
 isfy the critic, and the piece was concluded. The Doctor observed 
 that there was a great deal of sublimity in the composition. He di- 
 rectly referred to the Mosaic account of creation, and repeated " : Let 
 there be light, and there was light.' There is sublimity." 
 
 Next morning (the day on which he died), Dr. Parish received an 
 early and an urgent message to visit him. Several persons were in 
 the room, but soon left it, except his servant, John, who was much 
 affected at the sight of his dying master. The Doctor remarked to 
 him, " I have seen your master very low before, and he revived ; and 
 perhaps he will again." " John knows better than that, sir." He 
 then looked at the Doctor with great intensity, and said in an earn- 
 est and distinct manner, " I confirm every disposition in my will, es- 
 pecially that respecting my slaves, whom I have manumitted, and for 
 whom I have made provision." 
 
 " I am rejoiced to hear such a declaration from you, sir," replied 
 the Doctor, and soon after, proposed to leave him for a short time, to 
 attend to another patient. "You must not go," was the reply; 
 " you cannot, you shall not leave me. John ! take care that the Doc- 
 tor docs not leave the room." John soon locked the door, and re- 
 ported, " Master, I have locked the door, and got the key in my 
 pocket : the Doctor can't go now."
 
 " 1 HAVE BEEN SICK ALL MY LIFE." DEATH. 373 
 
 He seemed excited, and said " If you do go you need not return." 
 The Doctor appealed to him as to the propriety of such an order, in- 
 asmuch as he was only desirous of discharging his duty to another 
 patient. His manner instantly changed, and he said, " I retract 
 that expression." Some time afterwards, turning an expressive look, 
 he said again, " I retract that expression!" 
 
 The Doctor now said that he understood the subject of his com- 
 munication, and presumed the Will would explain itself fully. He 
 replied in his peculiar way " No, you don't understand it ; T know 
 you don't. Our laws are extremely particular on the subject of 
 slaves a Will may manumit them, but provision for their subsequent 
 support, requires that a declaration be made in the presence of a 
 white witness ; and it is requisite that the witness, after hearing the 
 declaration, should continue with the party, and never lose sight of 
 him, until he is gone or dead. You are a good witness for John. 
 You see the propriety and importance of your remaining with me ; 
 your patients must make allowance for your situation. John told me 
 this morning ' master, you are dying.' " 
 
 The Doctor spoke with entire candor and replied, that it was rath- 
 er a matter of surprise that he had lasted so long. He now made 
 his preparations to die. He directed John to bring him his father's 
 breast button ; he then directed him to place it in the bosom of his 
 shirt. It was an old fashioned, large-sized gold stud. John placed 
 it in the button hole of the shirt bosom but to fix it completely, re- 
 quired a hole on the opposite side. " Get a knife, said he, and cut 
 one." A napkin was called for, and placed by John, over his breast. 
 For a short time he lay perfectly quiet, with his eyes closed. He 
 suddenly roused up and exclaimed " Remorse ! remorse !" It was 
 thrice repeated the last time, at the top of his voice, with great agi- 
 tation. He cried out " let me see the word. Get a Dictionary, let 
 me see the word." " There is none in the room, sir." Write it down 
 then let me see the word.". The Doctor picked up one of his cards. 
 " Randolph of Roanoke" shall I write it on this card ?" " Yes. 
 nothing more proper." The word remorse, was then written in pen- 
 cil. He took the card in a hurried manner, and fastened his eyes on 
 it with great intensity. " Write it on the back," he exclaimed it 
 was so done and handed him again. He was extremely agitat- 
 ed " Remorse ! you have no idea what it is ; you can form no idea 

 
 374 LIFE OF JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 of it, whatever ; it has contributed to bring me to my present situa- 
 tionbut I have looked to the Lord Jesus Christ, and hope I have 
 obtained pardon. Now let John take your pencil and draw a line 
 under the word," which was accordingly done. " What am I to do with 
 the card ?" inquired the Doctor. " Put it in your pocket take care 
 of it when I am dead, look at it." 
 
 The doctor now introduced the subject of calling in some addi- 
 tional witnesses to his declarations, and suggested sending down stairs 
 for Edmund Badger. He replied " I have already communicated 
 that to him." The doctor then said " With your concurrence, sir, I 
 will send for'two young physicians, who shall remain and never lose 
 sight of you until you are dead ; to whom you can make your decla- 
 rations my son, Dr. Isaac Parish, and my young friend and late pu- 
 pil, Dr. Francis West, a brother of Capt. West." 
 
 He quickly asked' 1 Capt. West of the Packet?" " Yes, sir, the 
 same." " Send for him he is the man I'll have him." 
 
 Before the door was unlocked, he pointed towards a bureau, and 
 requested the Doctor to take from it a remuneration for his services. 
 To this the Doctor promptly replied, that he would feel as though he 
 were acting indelicately, to comply. He then waived the subject, by 
 saying " in England, it is always customary." 
 
 The witnesses were now sent for, and soon arrived. The dying 
 man was propped up in the bed, with pillows, nearly erect. Being 
 extremely sensitive to cold, he had a blanket over his head and shoul- 
 ders ; and he directed John to place his hat on, over the blanket, 
 which aided in keeping it close to his head. With a countenance full 
 of sorrow, John stood close by the side of his dying master. The 
 four witnesses Edmund Badger, Francis West, Isaac Parish, and 
 Joseph Parish, were placed in a semi-circle, in full view. He rallied 
 all the expiring energies of mind and body, to this last effort. " His 
 whole soul," says Dr. Parish, " seemed concentrated in the act. His 
 eyes flashed feeling and intelligence. Pointing towards us, with his 
 long index finger, he addressed us." 
 
 " I confirm all the directions in my Will, respecting my slaves, 
 and direct them to be enforced, particularly in regard to a provision 
 for their support." And then raising his arm as high as he could, he 
 brought it down with his open hand, on the shoulder of his favorite 
 John, and added these words especially for this man." He then
 
 I HAVE BEEN SICK ALL MY LIFE." DEATH. 375 
 
 asked each of the witnesses whether they understood him. Dr. Jo- 
 seph Parish explained to them, what Mr. Randolph had said in regard 
 to the laws of Virginia, on the subject of manumission and then ap- 
 pealed to the dying man to know whether he had stated it correctly. 
 " Yes," said he, and gracefully waving his hand as a token of dismis- 
 sion, he added " the young gentlemen will remain with me." 
 
 The scene was now soon changed. Having disposed of that sub- 
 ject most deeply impressed on his heart, his keen penetrating eye 
 lost its expression, his powerful mind gave way, and his fading imagi- 
 nation began to wander amid scenes and with friends that he had left 
 behind. In two hours the spirit took its flight, and all that was 
 mortal of John Randolph of Roanoke was hushed in death. At a 
 quarter before twelve o'clock, on the 24th day of June, 1833, aged sixty 
 years, he breathed his last, in a chamber of the City Hotel, No. 
 41 North Third Street, Philadelphia. 
 
 His remains were taken to Virginia, and buried at Roanoke, not 
 far from the mansion in which he lived, and in the midst of that 
 " boundless contiguity of shade," where he spent so many hours of 
 anguish and of solitude. He sleeps quietly now ; the squirrel may 
 gambol in the boughs above, the partridge may whistle in the long 
 grass that waves over that solitary grave, and none shall disturb or 
 make them afraid. 
 
 That innumerable funeral bells were not tolled, and eulogies pro- 
 nounced, and a monument was not erected to his memory in the 
 capitol of his native State, is because Virginia has not yet Teamed to 
 '' understand" and to appreciate her wisest statesman, truest patriot, 
 and most devoted son. 
 
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 benignant smile, a glow passes all ovor you. So with his pathos, it is not mawkish, nor 
 exaggerated, but ' the real tear :' and leaves the reader if our temperance friends will 
 not pervert our meaning with a ' drop in his eye' also." Boston Post. 
 
 u A very epicurean feast of the richest and daintiest, culled with the most sedulous 
 care and nicest discrimination. It is a collection of luxuries such as was never before 
 made on American soil ; and thousands, when they hear of it, will be ready to greet 
 their favorite purveyor wkh old Chaucer's irrepressible, ' Ah. benedisite .' Ah. ben- 
 dicite r "If. Y. Daily Tribune. 
 
 , " The work will be hailed with satisfaction by every one who can appreciate the 
 
 genial hnrnor, wit, and pathos, which have given such a zest to the Knickerbocker for 
 go many years." Augusta (Jfe.) Gospel Banner. 
 
 . " The title is a very taking and happy one. It cannot fail to have a wide sale, and 
 become immensely popular; readable, quotable, and enjoyable, for all ages, sexes, and 
 conditions." N. Y. Sunday Courier. 
 
 "A most various and pleasant companion for the traveller abroad, or the stayer at 
 home. 1 " Croydon (Ind.) Gazette. 
 
 " We have often wished for just this very book, and we shall welcome it rejoicingly." 
 Susquehanna (Pa.) Register. 
 
 u These ' Knick-Knacks' are bound to have a run wherever Clark and the Knicker- 
 bocker are known, which is everywhere this side of the Kaffirs and the New-Zealand- 
 ers." Nashua (N. H.) Journal. 
 
 " That will be a book for the million for all capable of feeling and enjoying who 
 can neither resist laughter nor forbid tears that will out, and must have vent, when the 
 secret strings of the heart are touched. ' Old Knick ' has many friends and admirers 
 who will thank him for this excellent idea. His ' Knick-Knacks' will go off like hot 
 cakes. They are just the article the people most affect, and cannot fail to be popular 
 with all classes of readers." Reading (Pa.) Journal. 
 
 "To doubt the success of the ' Knick-Knacks' would be about equal to doubting the 
 success of the Knickerbocker Itself; which, happily, is one of the fixed literary facts of 
 American history." Godey't Lady's Book. 
 
 "Those who have enjoyed the 'feast of fat things' spread before them monthly, in 
 the ' Editor's Table' of ' Old Knick,' need no artificial stimulus to create an appetite 
 for the 'Knick-Knacki.'" Adrian (Mich) WatcMmcer. 
 
 " If Clark does not print and sell 60,000 copies, ' the fools are not all dead,' but 
 maintain a very decided majority among the peoples.' " Graham's Magaein*
 
 D. Appleton & Company's Publications. 
 
 UP-COUNTRY LETTERS, 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 Prof. B , National Observatory. 
 
 " Time driveth onward fast ; 
 And in a little while, our lips are dumb.' 1 
 
 Lotos Eaters. 
 
 One neat Volume, 12mo. Cloth, 75 cents. 
 
 Nottcta of tfje ffltss. 
 
 " Full of genial feeling, warm home touches, delicate humor, pure thought, and 
 brilliant sketching." Journal of Commerce. 
 
 " We like this book. There is such an air of naturalness about the whole perform- 
 ance; every page exhibits the marks of a refined and cultivated taste, and affords speci- 
 mens of pure and classic English." Troy Budget. 
 
 " A charming book, so full of genial, hopeful thought such quiet domestic pictures, 
 earnest longings and pure sentiment, that we would it were in all hands. To read it 
 does one good as a medicine." N. Y. Observer. 
 
 "An exquisitely humorous, pathetic, and entertaining book." Am. Whig Revieic. 
 
 " Full of rare reading." State Register. 
 
 " Pleasant reading for a light and leisure hour. We like the style of the letters curt, 
 rattling, and epigrammatic." Nat. Intelligencer. 
 
 "Every page has some passage which is as fresh and sweet to the healthy mind, as 
 the breath of new-mown fields to healthy nostrils." N. Y. Courier A Enquirer. 
 
 "A most unique and charming volume. Off-hand, spirited, dashing, it bewitches us 
 with its easy and graceful familiarity easy and graceful as the movement of a clond, or 
 the swaying of a tree." Albany Knickerbocker. 
 
 " Written in a genial and pleasant style." Boston Traveller. 
 
 "Abounding in interesting incidents and well drawn characters." Hartford Excel- 
 sior. 
 
 "There is much healthful philosophy in the writer's lucubrations, ami a tone of 
 cheery music keeping company with his thoughts. We commend ' Up-Country Let- 
 ters ' to the reader with great satisfaction." Southern Literary Messenger. 
 
 " We are deceived in this beautifully published book, if it do not contain a treasure 
 of very charming light reading." Springfield Daily Republican, 
 
 " Full of wit, happy allusions, and lifelike delineations of character, manners, and 
 customs. Far removed from the commonplace." Boston Journal. 
 
 "A book of quiet life and placid healthful enjoyment" Prov. Journal. 
 
 " A handsome volume of delightful rural sketches and rambling gossip, varying In 
 to30 from delicate humor to touching pathos." Phila. Evening Bulletin. 
 
 " Anybody that relishes Innocent amusement and a hearty laugh will like this book. 
 Many of the letters arc, in their way, perfectly inimitable." Albany Argus. 
 
 " The Letters indicate a fresh writer, and promise pleasant reading." Phila. V. Si 
 Gazette. 
 
 ' We like the style of the author, etc. etc.'' Bait. American. 
 
 " Full of pleasant gossip and delightful reminiscence*." Phila. Courier.
 
 Mrs. Southworth's Popular Novels. 
 
 THE DESERTED WIFE 
 
 A TALE. 
 
 BY EMMA E. DE NEVITT SOUTHWORTH, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "RETRIBUTION, OR, THE VALE OF SHADOWS," ETC. BTO. 
 
 One volume 8vo., f aper cover, price 38 cents. 
 
 Mrs. South worth is a writer of remarkable genius and originality ; manifesting wonder ft 
 in the rivid depicting of character, and in her glowing descriptions of scenery 
 Ha^ar, the heroine of the ' Deserted Wife,' is a magnificent being ; while Raymond, Gusty, 
 ma Mr. Withers, are not merely names, but existences ; they live and move before us, 
 >acn acting in accordance with his peculiar nature. 1 ' Phila. Post. 
 
 " TLis is a ' new American novel,' issued in a most unpretending form, but one of a 
 character far above most of the kindred productions of the day. It displays an insight 
 tr.to human nature and a skill in the delineation and analysis of character, that cannot fail 
 in give the authoress a prominent position among her contemporaries. * 
 
 " The book abounds wHh scenes of intense interest, the whole plot being wrought out 
 with much power and effect ; no one, we are confident, can read it without acknowledging 
 that it possesses more than ordinary merit." Newark Adv. 
 
 " Under the above title w have a new novel of unusual power and of thrilling interest. 
 The scene is laid in one of the Southern States, and the story purports to give a picture 
 o f . manners and customs among the planting gentry, in an age not far removed backward 
 from the present. The characters are drawn with a strong hand. The purpose of th 
 author professedly is to teach the lesson, ' that the fundamental causes of unhappiness in 
 married life, are a defective moral and physical education and a premature contraction 
 f the matrimonial engagement." Troy Whig. 
 
 SHANNONDALE. 
 
 BY EMMA E. DE NEVITT SOUTHWORTH, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE DESERTED WIFE," ETC. 
 
 One volume 8vo., paper cover, 25 cents. 
 
 " Shannondale is a tale of absorbing interest ; the plot of the story is ingenious, wsl- 
 flanned, and veil carried out." 
 
 "The authoress of this volume has won golden opinions in her literary career. Tb 
 rwent tale is destined to be widely popular." 
 
 in. 
 
 THE MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 
 BY EMMA E. DE NEVITT SOUTHWORTH. 
 
 One volume Svo., paper cover, 38 cents. 
 
 Tux graphic and Mining tale is one of the most agreeable of Mrs. Southworth's work* ; 
 JM icenes arc laid in the almost imperial days of Old Virginia, when her sons and daughter* 
 ji.gut almost vie with Europe in grandeur and aristocratic pride and dignity: it ia toM win 
 owerfuJ Iramatic interest.
 
 D. Appleton Sf Co. 's Publications. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED AMERICAN POETS. 
 
 Beautifully printed in one Square crown 8ro. Volume. 
 
 POEMS BY AMELIA, 
 
 (MRS. WELBT, OF KENTUCKY,) 
 
 A new enlarged edition, Illustrated with original designs by ROBERT W. WEIR, Engravx) ci 
 
 Steel in the best manner. 
 Price $2 50 cloth ; $3 gilt sides and edges ; $3 50 imitation morocco ; $4 50 .T.CT. rxtra. 
 
 ' Mrs. Welby, of Kentucky, stands in the highest rank of our female poets ; she in a poet 
 her poems are creations, and they well up from her heart with a naturalness and proclaim 
 which leave no doubt of an inexhaustible fountain. Of their popularity there is sufficient evi 
 dence in the fact that seven editions, issued in rapid succession, leave the demand unditninished 
 It was fitting that such poems, so received, should be clad in the superb outward adornment* 
 which are now before us a triumph of typographic skill, to which the artistic powers of Weii 
 have addsd increased attractions. A more elegant, or more attractive volume has rarely ap 
 peareti from the American press. We are mistaken if Americans do not receive the volume 
 with pleasure and pride." N. Y. Recorder. 
 
 " These poems, by Mrs. Welby, of Kentucky, are characterized by much tenderness of feel- 
 ing, chasteness of sentiment, sweetness of expression, and beauty of description. Many of them 
 also exhibit piety and devotion which heighten the charm of her poetry. The volume is de- 
 lightfully illustrated with original designs by R. W. Weir." Churchman. 
 
 >' It is not necessary for us to express our opinion of the quality of the contents of this book. 
 That we have done frequently heretofore. The volume is eminently beautiful, and eminently 
 creditable to all concerned. The very numerous admirers of the distinguished poetess will find 
 it a casket worthy of the brilliant gem it contains." Louisville Journal. 
 
 li Mrs. Welby's poetry has no need of indorsement ; its sweetness, and elegance, and truth- 
 fulness to nature, have lone been recognized and felt by hundreds and thousands of readers. In 
 very befitting style have the publishers issued this enlarged edition. It has seven finely engraved 
 illustrations, from original designs by Weir. They are exceedingly beautiful, especially ' Me- 
 lodis,' ' The Rainbow, 1 and 'The Mother.' A moie elegant book of poems has rarely been pub- 
 lished." Com. Adv. 
 
 " These poems exhibit great impressibility and ardor of imagination, chastened by purity ol 
 taste and delicacy of feeling. The thoughts are generally exalted, the language beautiful, and 
 the melody for the most part perfect." Evening Post. 
 
 Third Edition reduced in price The complete 
 
 POETICAL WORKS OF FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, 
 
 Illustrated with Fine Steel Engravings ? from paintings by American Artists. One vol., 8vo. 
 
 Price $2 50 ; cloth, gilt leaves, $3 ; Turkey morocco, <6. 
 " Few American poets would bear the test of such an edition as this, so well as Halleck. Ol 
 
 ** . . 4I1 VJ 
 
 guage and also the celebrated Croaker Epistles, which are as good as the best of Tom 
 Moore's, with the further advantage of being different in subject and mode of treatment. The 
 volume is a perfect 'nest of spicery,' and it requires no gift of prdphecy to predict for it a large 
 and immediate sale. About half of the volume will be new to the majority of the readers, and 
 that half contains probably the best expression of Halleck's peculiar genius the felicitous union 
 in his mind of the poet and the man of the world. The wit is exceedingly brilliant, and every 
 Btroke tells and tingles upon the finest risibilities of ' our common nature.' Alnwick Castle, 
 Marco Bo.zzaris, Woman, Red Jacket, Connecticut, and other well known pieces, appear now 
 for the firsv time in an appropriate dress. We doubt not that the volume will literally ' run ' 
 through many editions." Boston Courier. 
 
 SACRED POETS OP ENGLAND AND AMERICA, 
 
 From the Earliest to the Present Time. Edited by RUFCS W. GRISWOLD. 
 
 e wt great care rom te most nspre o te regous ars. 
 
 itor and publishers have shown ereat and good taste in getting up this beautiful 
 
 annot fail to command an extensive sale. The illustrative ens?raviii9 are in tb 
 
 voume, an canno a o comman e . 
 
 finest yle of the art, and each of the numerous specimens is introduced with a brief biogra- 
 phical sketch, which greatly adds to the value of the work. It w one of the purest, safest, auJ 
 most beautiful gift books that a father can present to his daughter, a brother to his sister, or 
 tushand to his wife." Tribune.
 
 A USEFUL BOOK FOR YOUNG MEN. 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY 
 
 HAVE RECENTLY PUBLISHED-PRICE, ONE DOLLAR, 
 PRACTICAL 
 
 MERCANTILE CORRESPONDENCE: 
 
 A COLLECTION OF 
 
 MODERN LETTERS OF BUSINESS, 
 
 With Notes, Critical and Explanatory, an Analytical Index, and an Appendii 
 
 containing Pro Forma Invoices, Account Sales, Bills of Lading and Bill* 
 
 of Exchange ; also, an Explanation of the German C/tain Rule, 
 
 as applicable to the calculation of Exchanges. 
 
 BY WILLIAM ANDEKSON. 
 
 One Volume 12mo., neatly bound. 
 
 " This exceedingly practical volume is calculated to form the youthful mind 
 to habits of business, and familiarize it with objects to which its future energies 
 are to be directed. For this end, it contains a collection of genuine commercial 
 letters, of recent dates, adapted at once to form the style, and to afford a cor- 
 rect insight into the business of the counting-house. These are admirable spe- 
 cimens of literary, as well as business correspondence, and the young man who 
 renders himself familiar with them, and likewise with the other contents of this 
 book, will find himself accomplished, beyond his years, in practical and com- 
 mercial knowledge. This is the first book of the kind, possessing an intrinsic 
 value, that has made its appearance in this country, and it is worthy of the 
 attention of every young person employed in business." Courier and Enquirer. 
 
 " The book is almost invaluable to a mercantile clerk or any one whose 
 business requires epistolary correspondence. The forms of letters introduced 
 are concise, and of sufficient variety to become models for correspondence in 
 commercial transactions. This is the only book of the description in the Eng- 
 lish language that we have seen, and it may be cordially recommended to those 
 who wish to acquire a correct style." Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 " We have looked through this work with much pleasure ; for although it 
 consists of a mass of genuine business correspondence, it is, however, well writ- 
 ten, and is unquestionably one of the best works of ite class. It will be found 
 highly useful to young men who are designed for business pursuits, the best 
 perhaps that has as yet been published. It is strictly suited to form the youth- 
 ful mind to habits of business, and to familiarize it with the objects to which its 
 future energies arc to be directed." Hunt's Merchant's Magazine. 
 
 " This work is designed as a sort of initiatory study for young men destined 
 for mercantile life. One of the most distinguishing marks of a good merchant 
 is the correctness of his correspondence ; and the greatest difficulty encountered 
 by those who begin business is found in this particular branch ; for the young 
 merchant feels sensibly that by his letters his friends abroad judge of his capa- 
 city, his talent, and his character. The author of the work before us remarks 
 that it is quite an anomaly that even in Great Britain this essential portion of a 
 merchant's education is notoriously neglected. Hence, he hopes by this work 
 to supply in a measure the deficiency. We doubt not the book will be a valu- 
 able acquisition to every counting-house." Baltimore American. 
 
 " We have transcribed the title-page, as the best description we can give of 
 the design and contents of this book. It is not one of those collections of thin 
 slops called Letter Writers, which are usually so silly and so sickening, but a 
 work of much higher aim, and more real utility. It seems to be designed to fur- 
 nish to the young man entering; mercantile life with what we may term the lite- 
 rature of the counting-room. The fact that the first edition has been translated 
 into most of the European languages, indicates that it is just such a work as the 
 mercantile world needed. The extended explanation, in the appendix, of mer- 
 cantile technicalities, makes it useful to the non-mercantile portion of the com- 
 munity." Providence Jounuu.
 
 POPULAR BOOKS FOR DOMESTIC READING 
 
 PUBLISHED BY D. APPLETON & CO. 
 
 % Most of these volumes may be had in cloth, gilt edges, at 25 cts. per vL extra. 
 GRACE AGUILAR'S WORKS. 
 
 1. HOME SCENES AND HEART STUDIES. 12mo.. cloth, 75 
 
 cents ; paper cover, 50 cents. 
 
 2. THE DAYS OF BRUCE. 2 vols. 12rao., cloth, $1.50. 
 
 3. THE WOMEN OF ISRAEL. 2 vols. 12mo., clo. $1.50. pap. $1 
 4 THE MOTHER'S RECOMPENSE. 12mo., cloth, 75 cents 
 
 paper. 50 cents. 
 
 5. THE VALE OF CEDARS ; or, the Martyr. 12mo., cloth, 75 
 
 cts. ; paper, 50 cts. . 
 
 G. WOMAN'S FRIENDSHIP ; a Domestic Story. 12mo., cloth, 
 
 75 cts. ; paper, 50 cts. 
 
 1IHS. J'.ri.lS'S LAST WORK. 
 
 HEARTS AND HOMES ; a Story. Two parts bound in 1 vol 
 
 8vo., cloth, 1.50 ; paper, $1. 
 
 MISS SE WELL'S \VO1CKS. 
 
 1. THE EARL'S DAUGHTER; a Tale. 12rao. ) cloth, 75 cts., 
 
 paper, 50 cts. 
 
 2. GERTRUDE ; a Tale. 1 vol. 12mo.. cloth. 75 cts. ; paper. 50 cts. 
 
 3. AMY HERBERT. 1 vol. 12mo.. cloth. 75 cts. ; paper, 50 cts. 
 
 4. MARGARET PERCIVAL. 2 vols. 12mo., cloth $1.50; paper, $1. 
 
 5. LANETON PARSONAGE. 3 vols. 12mo., clo., $2.25 ; pap., $1.50. 
 
 6. WALTER LORIMER. with other Tales. Illustrated. l2mo.. 
 
 cloth, 75 cts. ; paper, 50 eta. 
 
 7. JOURNAL OF A SUMMER TOUR. 12mo., cloth. $1. 
 
 8. EXPERIENCE OF LIFE. 12mo. (Just ready.) Cloth, 75 
 
 eta ; paper, 50 cts. 
 
 Miss ITIcI N TOSH'S WORKS. 
 
 1. EVENINGS AT DONALDSON MANOR. 12mo., clo., 75 cU 
 
 2. TWO LIVES ; oijTo Seem and To Be : a Tale. 12mo., clotii, 
 
 75 cts. ; paper. 60 cts.T 
 
 3. AUNT KITTY'S TALES. 1 vol. 12mo., clo., 75 cts ; pap., 50 cts. 
 
 4. CHARMS AND COUNTER-CHARMS ; a Tale. 1 vol. 12mo. 
 
 cloth, $1 ; paper, 75 cts. 
 
 5. WOMAN IX AMERICA 12mo.. cloth 62 cts.; paper, 50 cts. 
 
 6. THE LOFTY AND THE LOWLY. 2 vols. 12mo., .loth. 
 
 (Just ready.) 
 
 JULIA KAVANAGII'S WORKS. 
 
 1. DAISY BURNS. 1 vol. 12mo., cloth, or paper. (Just lutdy.) 
 1 MADELEINE ; a Tale. ^vol. 12mo., cloth, 75 cts. ; papei, 50 cts 
 1. NATHALIE; a Tale. Wfcl. 12mo.. cloth, $1 ; paper 75 cts. 
 *. WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 1 vol. 12mo.. cloth. 75 cts. 
 
 WORKS RY A. S. ROE. 
 
 1. TO LOVE AND TO BE LOVED. 1 vol. 12mo., cloth. 63 cts 
 'L JAMES MONTJOY, 1 vol. 12mo.. cloth, 75 cts. ; paper. 62 cts 
 :i TIME AND TIDE. 1 vol. 12mo.. 62 cts. ; paper. 38 cts. 
 
 LADY FULLERTON. 
 
 t. GRANTLEY MANOR ; a Tale. 1 vol. 12mo., cloth, 75 cts. ; pa 
 
 per, 50 cts. 
 
 2. ELLEN MIDDLETON ; a Tale. 1 vol. 12mo.. cloth, 75 cts. , 
 
 paper, 50 cts.
 
 LORD MAHON'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. 
 
 7). Appleton <Sf Company have just publislied, 
 
 HTSTORY OF ENGLAND, 
 
 FROM 
 THE PEACE OF UTRECHT TO THE PEACE OF PARIS. 
 
 BY LORD MAHON 
 
 if- 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 HENRY REED, LL.D., 
 frtf / English Literature in the University of Penzsylvanu 
 
 Two handsome 8vo. volumes. Price So. 
 
 Mr. Macaulay't Opinion. 
 
 " Lord Mahon has nndonbtedly some of the most valuable qualities of a historUa- 
 mat diligence in examining authorities, great judgment in weighing testimony, and gieml 
 laipartiality in estimating characters." 
 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 " Lord Mahon has shown throughout, excellent skill in combining, as wef. as con- 
 trasting, the various elements of interest which his materials- afforded ; he ha continued 
 to draw his historical portraits with the same firm and easy hand ; and no one can lay 
 down the book without feeling that he has been nnder the guidance of a singularly clear, 
 high-principled, and humane mind ; one uniting a very searching shrewdness with 
 pare and unaffected charity. He has shown equal courage, judgment, and taste, m 
 Tailing himself of minute details, so as to give his narrative the pictu'esqueness of a 
 
 atemoir. without sacrificing one jot of the real dignity of history His History . 
 
 well calculated to temper the political judgment. It is one great lesson of modesty, for- 
 bearance, and charity." 
 
 . Edinburgh Review. 
 
 " It was with no small satisfaction that we saw t history of this neriod announced 
 from the pen of Lord Mahon, nor have we been disappointed in^ri?" Ik peeiftjons. His 
 native is minute and circumstantial, without being tedious*.. His Historyof the Re-, 
 hellion in particular is clear, distinct, and entertaining. In hUjudgment of persons heir 
 OB the whole fair, candid, V^dtlUcamin^iting." 
 
 ' English Review. * * ' /. 
 
 " Lord Marion's work will supply a desideratum which has long been r -a reaJly 
 food history of the last ISO yean. It is written with an ease of style, a c-*., ..mnd of fhi 
 abject, and a comprehensiveness of view, which evince the possession of nigh qualifica- 
 tions for the great task which the noble author has proposed to himseif. .Lord* Mahoa 
 Tails himself extensively of the correspondence and private diaries of Mie times, which 
 
 pves nnnsnul interest and life to the narrative The authorities quoted foi 
 
 Hpnih or French details are always the original ; and we can hardly remember a refer- 
 taoe of his Lordship's on any subject which is not to the best testimony knewa M 
 acceaible." . 
 
 Sismondi Histoire d^Er^ncars. * 
 
 Bar ie Prince Charles Edonard, en 1745 no^renvoyons nniqnement a 1 'admirable 
 cette expedition dans I'Histoire de Lord Mahon. Tontes les relations T 
 et jugees avec nne saine critique, et Ie recit presents ie vif interet d'nn romaa.' 
 
 Profetsor Smyth University of Cambridge. 
 
 ** ' T Tecom mend to others, what I have jnst had so much pleasure in readlMf y 
 If, the History lately published by Lord Mahon. All that need now be know* f JM 
 m to* the Peace of Utrecht to that of Aut-Ia-Cha;>elle, wi.l be ther foand.'

 
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