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AMERICAN STATESMEN
EDITED ET
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
rCT THIRTy-TWO VOLUMES
VOL. XVI.

THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY
JOHN RANDOLPH

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JOHN RANDOLPH

HENEY ADAMS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
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COPYRIGHT, 1882 AND 1898, BY HENBY ADAMS
COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY HOUGHTON, MLFFLIN SCO.
ALL EIGHTS BESERVED

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
1. Youth  1
n. Virginian Politics  25
HI. In Hakness  48
rv. A Centhalizino Statesman .... 74
V. Vaulting Ambition  95
VI. Yazoo and Judge Chase .... 122
Vn. The Quakrel  153
VIII. Monroe and the Smiths .... 189
IX. "A Nuisance and a Curse" .... 217
X. Eccentricities  247
XI. Blifil and Black George .... 266
xn. "Faculties Misemployed" .... 290
Index  305

ILLUSTEATIONS
John Randolph  Frontispiece
From the painting by Chester Harding in the Cor
coran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.
Autograph from a MS. in the Library of the Bos
ton Athenaeum.
The Tignetteof "Roanoke," Mr. Randolph's estate,
is from a drawing after a cut in Howe's ," Virginia
and its Antiquities." Page
Samuel Chasb  facing 82
From Sanderson's " Biography of the Signers to
the Declaration of Independence," after a painting
by Jarris.
Autograph from the Declaration of Independence.
John Taylor op Caroline  facing 198
From a painting in the possession of the Virginia
State Library, Richmond, Va.
Autograph from a MS. in the archives of the State
Department, at Washington.
James Wilkinson  facing 260
After a print presented to the Library of Harvard
University by Lucian Carr, Esq., from a plate in the
possession of Colonel John Mason Brown, of Louis
ville, Ky., and now inserted in the Library's copy of
Wilkinson's " Memoirs," Philadelphia, 1816, vol, i.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection, Boston
Public Library.
Facsimile of John Randolph's Handwriting facing 300
Letter written from London, April 22, 1831, to
Jllartin Van Buren. Prom the original in the archives
of the State Department at Washington.

JOHN RANDOLPH

CHAPTER I
YOUTH

"William Randolph, gentleman, of Tur
key Island," born in 1650, was a native of
Warwickshire in England, as his tombstone
declares. Of his ancestry nothing is certainly
known. The cause and the time of his coming
to Virginia have been forgotten. The Henrico
records show that in 16T8 he was clerk of Hen
rico County, a man of substance, and married
already to Mary Isham; that in 1685 he was
" Captain William Randolph " and Justice of
the Peace ; that in 1706 he conveyed to son
Henry " land called by the name of Curies, with
Longfield," being all that land at " Curies "
lately belonging to Nathaniel Bacon, Jr. ; that
in 1709 "Col. William Randolph of Turkey
Island " made his will, which mentioned seven
sons and two daughters; and finaUy that in
1711 he died.

2 JOHN RANDOLPH
Turkey Island, just above the junction of
the James and Appomattox rivers, lies in a re
gion which has sharply attracted the attention
of men. In 1675 Nathaniel Bacon lived near
by at his plantation called Curies, and in that
year Bacon's famous rebeUion gave bloody as
sociations to the place. About one hundred
years afterwards Benedict Arnold, then a gen
eral in the British service, made a destructive
raid up the James River which drew aU eyes
to the spot. Neither of these disturbances, his
torical as they are, made the region nearly so
famous as it became on June 30, 1862, when
fifty thousand northern troops, beaten, weary,
and disorganized, converged at Malvern HiU
and Turkey Island bridge, and the next day
fought a battle which saved their army, and
perhaps their cause, without a thought or a
care for the dust of forgotten Randolphs on
which two armies were trampling in the cradle
of their race.
WiUiam Randolph of Turkey Island was not
the first Randolph who came to Virginia, or the
only one who was there in 1678, but he was
the most successful, when success was the proof
of energy and thrift. He provided weU for his
nine children, and henceforth their descendants
swarmed like bees in the Virginian hive. The
fifth son, Richard, who lived at Curies, Nathaniel

YOUTH 3
Bacon's confiscated plantation, and who married
Jane BoUing, a great-great-granddaughter of
John Rolfe and Pocahontas, disposed by wUl,
in 1742, of forty thousand acres of the choicest
lands on the James, Appomattox, and Roanoke
rivers, including Matoax, about two miles west
of Petersburg, and Bizarre, a plantation some
ninety miles further up the Appomattox River.
John, the youngest son of this Richard of Curies,
born in 1742, married in 1769 Frances Bland,
daughter of a neighbor who lived at Cawsons,
on a promontory near the mouth of the Appo
mattox, looking north up the James River to
Turkey Island. Here on June 2, 1773, their
youngest child, John, was born.
In these last days of colonial history, the
Randolphs were numerous and powerful, a fam
ily such as no one in Virginia would wish to
offend; and if they were proud of their posi
tion and importance, who could fairly blame
them ? There was even a Randolph of Wilton,
another of Chatsworth, as though they meant
to rival Pembrokes and Devonshires. There
was a knight in the family, old Sir John, sixth
son of WiUiam of Turkey Island, and father
of Peyton Randolph, who was afterwards presi
dent of the American Congress. There was
a historian, perhaps the best the State has yet
produced, old WiUiam Stith. There were

4 JOHN RANDOLPH
many members of the Council and the House
of Burgesses, an innumerable list of blood re
lations and a score of aUied families, among
the rest that of Jefferson. FinaUy, the King's
Attorney-General was at this time a Randolph,
and took part with the crown against the col
ony. The world upon which the latest Ran
dolph baby opened his eyes was, so far as his
horizon stretched, a world of cousins, a colonial
aristocracy aU his own, supported by tobacco
plantations and negro labor, by colonial pat
ronage and royal favor, or, to do it justice, by
audacity, vigor, and mind.
This small cheerful world, which was in its
way a remarkable phenomenon, and produced
the greatest Ust of great names ever known
this side of the ocean, was about to suffer a
wreck the more fatal and hopeless because no
skiU could avert it, and the dissolution was so
quiet and subtle that no one could protect him
self or secure his children. The boy was born
at the moment when the first shock was at
hand. His father died in 1775 ; his mother,
in 1778, married Mr. St. George Tucker of Ber
muda, and meanwhile the country had plunged
into a war which in a single moment cut that
connection with England on which the old Vir
ginian society depended for its tastes, fashions,
theories, and above aU for its aristocratic status

YOUTH 5
in politics and law. The Declaration of In
dependence proclaimed that America was no
longer to be English, but American ; that is
to say, democratic and popular in all its parts,
— a fact equivalent to a sentence of death upon
old Virginian society, and foreboding dissolu
tion to the Randolphs with the rest, until they
should learn to master the new conditions of
American life. For passing through such a
maelstrom a century was not too short an aUow-
ance of time, yet this smaU Randolph boy, not
a strong creature at best, was born just as the
downward plunge began, and every moment
made the outlook drearier and more awful.
On January 3, 1781, he was at Matoax with
his mother, who only five days before had been
confined. Suddenly it was said that the British
were coming. They soon appeared, under the
command of Brigadier-General Benedict Arnold,
and scared Virginia from Yorktown to the moun
tains. They hunted the Governor like a tired
fox, and ran him out of his famous mountain
fastness at MonticeUo, breaking up his govern
ment and mortifying him, until Mr. Jefferson at
last refused to reassume the office, and passed
his trust over to a stronger hand. St. George
Tucker at Matoax thought it time to seek safer
quarters, and hurried his wife, with her little
baby, afterwards the weU-known Judge Henry

6 JOHN RANDOLPH
St. George Tucker, away to Bizarre, ninety miles
up the Appomattox.
Here he left her and went to fight CornwaUis
at Gmlford. Henceforward the Uttle Randolphs
ran wild at Bizarre. Schools there were none,
and stern discipUne was never a part of Vir
ginian education. Mrs. Tucker, their mother,
was an affectionate and exceUent woman ; Mr.
Tucker a kind and admirable stepfather ; as for
the boy John Randolph, it is said that he had
a warm and amiable disposition, although the
only well-authenticated fact recorded about his
infancy is that before his fifth year he was
known to swoon in a mere fit of temper, and
could with difficulty be restored. The life of
boyhood in Virginia was not well fitted for
teaching self-control or mental discipline, quali
ties which John Randolph never gained; but
in return for these the Virginian found other ad
vantages which made up for the loss of method
ical training. Many a Virginian lad, especiaUy
on such a remote plantation as Bizarre, Uved in
a boy's paradise of indulgence, fished and shot,
rode like a young monkey, and had his memory
crammed with the genealogy of every weU-bred
horse in the State, grew up among dogs and
negroes, master equaUy of both, and knew aU
about the prices of wheat, tobacco, and slaves.
He might pick up much that was high and

YOUTH 7
noble from his elders and betters, or much that
was bad and brutal from his inferiors ; might,
as he grew older, back his favorite bird at a
cocking-main, or haunt stables and race-courses,
or look on, with as much interest as an English
nobleman felt at a prize-ring, when, after the
race was over, there occurred an old-fashioned
rough-and-tumble fight, where the champions
fixed their thumbs in each other's eye-sockets
and bit off each other's noses and ears; he
might, even more easily than in England, get
habits of drinking as freely as he talked, and
of talking as freely as the utmost license of the
English language would allow. The cUmate
was genial, the soil generous, the life easy, the
temptations strong. Everything encouraged
individuality, and if by accident any mind had
a natural bent towards what was coarse or
brutal, there was Httle to prevent it from fol
lowing its instinct.
There was, however, another side to Virginian
life, which helped to civilize young savages, —
the domestic and family relation ; the influence
of father and mother, of women, of such read
ing as the country-house offered, of music,
dancing, and the table. John Randolph was
born and bred among gentlefolk. Mr. Tucker
had refinement, and his wife, along with many
other exceUent quaUties, had two very feminine

8 JOHN RANDOLPH
instincts, — family pride and religion. To in
oculate the imagination of her son with notions
of family pride was an easy task, and to show
him how to support the dignity of his name
was a natural one. " Never part with your
land," was her solemn injunction, which he did
not forget ; " keep your land, and your land
will keep you." This was the English theory,
and Randolph acted on it through life, although
it was becoming more and more evident, with
every passing year, that the best thing to be
done with Virginian land, at the ruling prices,
was to part with it. His passion for land
became at last sheer avarice, a quaUty so rare
in Virginia as to be a virtue, and he went on
accumulating plantation after plantation with
out paying his debts, while the land, worth very
little at best, was steadily becoming as worth
less as the leaves which every autumn shook
from its forests. Not an acre of the forty
thousand which his grandfather bequeathed
now belongs to a Randolph, but the Randolphs
or any one else might have bought back the
whole of it for a song at any time within half a
century. Thus the boy took life awry from the start ;
he sucked poison with his mother's milk. Not
so easy a task, however, was it for her to teach
him her other strong instinct ; for, although he

YOUTH 9
seems reaUy to have loved his mother as much
as he loved any one, he was perverse in child
hood as in manhood, and that his mother should
try to make him religious seems to have been
reason enough for his becoming a vehement
deist. At what age he took this bent is no
where said; perhaps a little later, when he
went for a few months to school at WiUiams-
burg, the focus of Virginian deism. At Bizarre
he seems rather to have turned towards story
books, and works that appealed to his imaginar
tion ; the kind of reading he would be apt to
find in the cupboards of Virginian houses, and
such as a boy with fits of moodiness and a lively
imagination would be likely to select. Thus he
is said to have read, before his eleventh year,
the Arabian Nights, Shakespeare, Homer, Don
Quixote, Gil Bias, Plutarch's Lives, Robinson
Crusoe, GuUiver, Tom Jones. The chances are
a thousand to one that to this list may be added
Peregrine Pickle, the Newgate Calendar, Moll
Flanders, and Roderick Random. Whether
Paradise Lost or Sir Charles Grandison and
Pamela were soon added to the number, we
are not told ; but it is quite safe to say that,
among these old, fascinating volumes, then
found in every Virginian country-place, as in
every English one, Randolph never learned to
love two books which made the Ubrary of every

10 JOHN RANDOLPH
New England farmhouse, where the freer literar
ture would have been thought sinful and hea
thenish. If he ever read, he must have disUked
the Pilgrim's Progress or the Saint's Rest ; he
would have recoiled from every form of Puri
tanism and detested every affectation of sanc
tity. The kind of literary diet on which the boy
thus fed was not the healthiest or best for a
nature like his ; but it made the literary educa
tion of many a man who passed through life
looked on by his feUows as well read with no
wider range than this ; and as Randolph had a
quick memory he used to the utmost what he
had thus gained. His cleverest iUustrations
were taken from Shakespeare and Fielding. In
other literature he was weU versed, according to
the standards of the day : he read his Gibbon,
Hume, and Burke ; knew English history, and
was at home in the English peerage ; but it was
to Shakespeare and Fielding that his imagination
naturaUy turned, and in this, as in other things,
he was a true Virginian, a son of the soil and
the time.
As he grew a few years older, and looked
about him on the world in which he was to play
a part, he saw little but a repetition of his own
surroundings. When the Revolutionary War
closed, in 1783, he was ten years old, and

YOUTH 11
during the next five years he tried to pick up
an education. America was then a smaU, strag
gling, exhausted country, without a government,
a nationality, a capital, or even a town of thirty
thousand inhabitants ; a country which had not
the means of supplying such an education as the
young man wanted, however earnestly he tried
for it. His advantages were whoUy social, and
it is not to be denied that they were great. He
had an immense family connection, which gave
him confidence and a sense of power ; from his
birth surrounded by a society in itself an educa^-
tion, he was accustomed to the best that Virginia
had, and Virginia had much that was best on
the continent. He saw about him that Virginian
gentry which was the child of English squirarchy,
and reproduced the high breeding of Bolingbroke
and Sir Charles Grandison side by side with the
coarseness of Swift and Squire Western. The
contrasts were curious, in this provincial aristo
cracy, between old-fashioned courtesy and cul
ture and the roughness of plantation habits.
Extreme eccentricity might end in producing a
man of a new type, as brutal at heart as the
roughest cub that ran loose among the negro
cabins of a tobacco plantation, violent, tyranni
cal, vicious, cruel, and licentious in language as
in morals, while at the same time trained to
habits of good society, and sincerely feeling that

12 JOHN RANDOLPH
exaggerated deference which it was usual to
affect towards ladies; he might be weU read,
fond of inteUigent conversation, consumed by
ambition, or devoured by self-esteem, with man
ners grave, deferential, mild, and charming when
at their best, and intolerable when the spirit of
arrogance seized him. Nowhere could be found
a school of more genial and simpler courtesy
than that which produced the great men and
women of Virginia, but it had its dangers and
affectations ; it was often provincial and some
times coarse.
John Randolph, the embodiment of these con
trasts and peculiarities, was an eccentric type
recognized and understood by Virginians. To
a New England man, on the contrary, the type
was unintelligible and monstrous. The New
Englander had his own code of bad manners,
and was less tolerant than the Virginian of
whatever varied from it. As the character of
Don Quixote was to Cervantes clearly a natural
and possible product of Spanish character, so to
the people of Virginia John Randolph was a
representative man, with quaUties exaggerated
but genuine; and even these exaggerations
struck a chord of popular sympathy; his very
weaknesses were caricatures of Virginian faU-
ings ; his genius was in some degree a caricature
of Virginian genius ; and thus the boy grew up

YOUTH 13
to manhood, as pure a Virginian Quixote as
ever an American Cervantes could have con
ceived. In the summer of 1781 he had a few months'
schooUng, and afterwards was again at school,
about one year, at WiUiamsburg, tiU the spring
of 1784, when his parents took him on a visit to
Bermuda, the home of his stepfather's famUy.
In the autumn of 1787 he was sent to Prince
ton, where he passed a few months; the next
year, being now fiif teen, he went for a short time
to Columbia CoUege, in New York. This was
aU the schooling he ever had, and, excepting
perhaps a Uttle Latin, it is not easy to say what
he learned. " I am an ignorant man, sir," was
his own statement. So he was, and so, for that
matter, are the most learned: but Randolph's
true ignorance was not want of book-learning ;
he had quite as much knowledge of that kind
as he could profitably use in America, and his
mind was naturaUy an active one, could he only
have put it in sympathy with the movement of
his country. At this time of Ufe, when the
ebuUition of youth was stiU violent, he was
curiously torn by the struggle between conserva
tive and radical instincts. He read Voltaire,
Rousseau, Hume, Gibbon, and was as deistlcal
in his opinions as any of them. The Christian
reUgion was hateful to him, as it was to Tom

14 JOHN RANDOLPH
Paine ; he loved everything hostUe to it. "Very
early in life," he wrote thirty years afterwards,
" I imbibed an absurd prejudice in favor of Ma-
hometanism and its votaries. The crescent had
a talismanic effect on my imagination, and I
rejoiced in aU its triumphs over the cross (which
I despised), as I mourned over its defeats ; and
Mahomet H. himself did not more exult than I
did when the crescent was planted on the dome
of St. Sophia, and the cathedral of the Constan-
tines was converted into a Turkish mosque."
This was radical enough to suit Paine or Saint
Just, but it was the mere inteUectual fashion of
the day, as over-vehement and unhealthy as its
counterpart, the religious spasms of his later
life. His mind was always controUed by his
feeUngs ; its antipathies were stronger than its
sympathy ; it was restless and uneasy, prone to
contradiction and attached to paradox. In such
a character there is nothing very new, for at
least nine men out of ten, whose intelUgence is
above the average, have felt the same instincts :
the impulse to contradict is as familiar as
dyspepsia or nervous excitability; the passion
for referring every comparison to one's self is a
primitive quality of mind by no means confined
to women and children; but what was to be
expected when such a temperament, exaggerated
and unrestrained, full of self-contradictions and

YOUTH 15
stimulated by acute reasoning powers, remark
able audacity and quickness, violent and vindic
tive temper, and a morbid constitution, was
planted in a Virginian, a slave-owner, a Ran
dolph, just when the world was bursting into fire
and flame ?
Of course, whUe at coUege, the young Ran
dolph had that necessary part of a Southern
gentleman's education in those days, a duel, but
there is no reason to suppose that he was given
to brawls, and in early Ufe his temper was
rather affectionate than harsh. His friendships
were strong, and seem to have been permanent.
He was inteUigent and proud, and may have
treated with contempt whatever he thought
mean or contemptible. He certainly did quar
rel with a Virginian feUow-student, and then
shot him, but no one can now say what excuse
or justification he may have had. His oppo
nent's temper in after life was quite as violent
as his own, and the quarrel itself rose from a
dispute over the mere pronunciation of a word.
In the year 1788 be was at coUege in New
York with his elder brother Richard, and we
get a gUmpse of him in a letter to his step
father, dated on Christmas Day, 1788 : —
" Be well assured, my dear sir, our expenses since
our arrival here have been enormous, and by far
greater than our estate, especially loaded as it is with

16 JOHN RANDOLPH
debt, can bear ; however, I flatter myself, my dear
papa, that upon lookiag over the accounts you will find
that my share is by comparison trifling, and hope that
by the wise admonitions ^of so affectionate a parent,
and one who has our welfare and interest so much at
heart, we may be able to shun the rock of prodigality
upon which so many people continually split, and
by which the unhappy victim is reduced not only to
poverty, but also to despair and all the horrors at
tending it."
This was unusual language for a Virginian
boy of fifteen! It would have been safe to
prophesy that the rock of prodigaUty was not
one of his dangers. Down to the last day of
his life he talked in the same strain, always
complaining of this old EngUsh indebtedness,
living with careful economy, but never wilUng
to pay his debt, and never able to resist the
temptation of buying land and slaves. The
letter goes on : —
" Brother Richard writes you that I am lazy. I
assure you, dear papa, he has been egregiously mis
taken. 1 attend every lecture that the class does.
Not one of the professors has ever found me duU
with my business, or even said that I was irregular.
... If brother Richard had written you that I did
nothing all the vacation, he would have been much
in the dark; neither was it possible for me. We
lived in this large building without a soul in it but

YOUTH 17
ourselves, and it was so desolate and dreary that I
could not bear to be in it. I was always afraid that
some robber, of which we have a plenty, was coming
to kill me, after they made a draught on the house."
Nervous, excitable, loving warmly, hating
more warmly stUl, easily affected by fears,
whether of murderers or of poverty, lazy ac
cording to his brother Richard, neither duU
nor irregular, but timid, according to his own
account, this letter represents him as he showed
himself to his parents, in rather an amiable
light. It closes with a suggestion of politics:
" Be so good, my dear sir, when it is conven
ient, to send me the debate of the convention in
our State." He was too true a Virginian not
to oppose the new Constitution of the United
States which Patrick Henry and George Mason
had so vehemently resisted; but that Consti
tution was now adopted, and was about to be set
in motion. From this moment a new school
was provided for the boy, far more interesting
to him than the lecture-rooms of Columbia Col
lege, — a school which he attended with extraor
dinary amusement and even fascination.
" I was at Federal HaU," said he once in a
speech to his constituents ; " I saw Washing
ton, but could not hear him take the oath to
support the federal Constitution. The Consti
tution was in its chrysaUs state. I saw what

18 JOHN RANDOLPH
Washington did not see, but two other men in
Virginia saw it, — George Mason and Patrick
Henry, — the secret sting which lurked beneath
the gaudy pinions of the butterfly." Wiser
men than he, not only in Virginia but else
where, saw and dreaded the centralizing, over
whelming powers of the new government, and
are not to be blamed for their fears. Without
boldly assuming that America was a country
to which old rules did not apply, that she stood
by herself, above law, it was impossible to look
without alarm at the tendency of the Constitu
tion ; for history, from beginning to end, was
one long warning against the abuse of just such
powers. Were Randolph alive to-day, he would
probably feel that his worst fears were realized.
From his point of view as a Virginian, a slave
owner, a Randolph, it was true that, although
the Constitution was not a butterfly and did
not carry poison under its wings, — for only at
Roanoke could a butterfly be found with a
secret sting in such a part of its person, — it
did carry a fearful power for good or evil in
the tremendous sweep of its pinions and the
terrible grip of its claws.
Another little incident sharpened Randolph's
perception of the poison which lay in the new
system. " I was in New York," said he nearly
forty years afterwards, " when John Adams

TOUTH 19
took his seat as Vice-President. I recoUect —
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 coach
man of the then Vice-President for coming too
near the arms emblazoned on the scutcheon of
the vice-regal carriage. Perhaps I may have
some of this old animosity rankUng in my
heart, . . . coming from a race who are known
never to forsake a friend or forgive a foe."
The world would be an uncomfortable residence
for elderly people if they were to be objects
of lifelong personal hatred to every boy over
whose head their coachman, without their know
ledge, had once snapped a whip, and especially
so if, as in this case, the feud were carried
down to the next generation. Of course the
sting did not lie in the coachman's whip. Had
the carriage been that of a Governor of Vir
ginia or a Lord ChanceUor of England or had
the coachman of his own old-fashioned four-
horse Virginian chariot been to blame, John
Randolph would never have given the matter
another thought; but that his brother, a Vir
ginian gentleman of ancient famUy and large
estates, should be struck by the servant of a
Yankee schoolmaster, who had neither family,
wealth, nor land, but was a mere shoot of a

20 JOHN RANDOLPH
psalm-singing democracy, and that this man
should lord it over Virginia and Virginians,
was maddening ; and the sight of that Massa
chusetts whip was portentous, terrible, inex
pressible to the boy, Uke the mysterious solitude
of his great schoolhouse, which drove him out
into the street in fear of robbery and murder.
The Attorney-General of the new govern
ment was a Randolph, — Edmund, son of John,
and grandson of Sir John, who was brother to
Richard of Curies, — and when, in 1790, the
seat of administration was transferred to Phil
adelphia, John Randolph left Columbia CoUege
and went to Philadelphia to study law in the
Attorney-General's train. Here, excepting for
occasional visits to Virginia, and for interruption
by yeUow fever, he remained until 1794, occu
pying himself very much as he liked, so far as
is now to be learned. He was not pleased
with Mr. Edmund Randolph's theories in the
matter of teaching law. He studied system-
aticaUy no profession, neither law nor medi
cine, although he associated with students of
both, and even attended lectures. He seems
to have enjoyed the life, as was natural, for
Philadelphia was an agreeable city. " I know,"
said he many years afterwards, " by fatal expe
rience, the fascinations of a town life, — how
they estrange the mind from its old habits and

YOUTH 21
attachments." This "fatal experience" was
probably a mere figure of speech ; so far as can
be seen, his residence in New York and Phila
delphia was the most useful part of his youth,
and went far to broaden his mind. A few of
his letters at this period are extant, but they
teU little except that he was Uving with the
utmost economy and was deeply interested in
politics, taking, of course, a strongly anti-feder-
aUst side.
In April, 1794, he returned to Virginia, to
assume control of his property. In after years
he complained bitterly of having "been plun
dered and oppressed during my nonage, and left
to enter upon life overwhelmed with a load of
debt which the profits of a nineteen years' mi
nority ought to have more than paid ; and,
ignorant as I was, and even yet am, of busi
ness, to grope my way without a clue through
the labyrinth 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." He lived with his elder brother
Richard, who was now married, at Bizarre, near
Farmville, a place better known to this genera
tion as the town from which General Grant
dated his famous letter caUing upon General
Lee for a surrender of the Confederate Army

22 JOHN RANDOLPH
of Northern Virginia. From here he could
direct the management of his own property at
Roanoke, some mUes to the southward, whUe he
enjoyed the society at Bizarre and economized
his expenses.
Nothing further is recorded of his life until
in the spring of 1796 he visited his friend
Bryan in Georgia, and during a stay in Charles
ton came under the notice of a bookseller, who
has recorded the impression he made : " A
tall, gawky-looking, flaxen-haired stripling, ap
parently of the age from sixteen to eighteen,
with a complexion of a good parchment color,
beardless chin, and as much assumed self-con
fidence as any two-footed animal I ever saw," in
company with a gray-headed, florid-complexioned
old gentleman, whom he slapped on the back
and caUed Jack, — a certain Sir John Nesbit, a
Scotch baronet, with whom he had become inti
mate, and whom he beat in a horse-race, each
riding his own horse. The bookseUer at once
set him down as the most impudent youth he
had ever seen, but was struck by the sudden
animation which at moments lighted up his
usually duU and heavy face.
After his stay at Charleston, he went on to
his friend Bryan's in Georgia, where he proved
his convivial powers, as in South Carolina he
had proved his superiority in horse-racing.

YOUTH 23
" My eldest brother," wrote Bryan afterwards,
" stUl bears a friendly remembrance of the rwm
ducking you gave him." This visit to Georgia
was destined to have great influence on his
later career. He found the State convulsed
with excitement over what was long famous as
the Yazoo fraud. The legislature of Georgia,
in the preceding year, had authorized the sale
of four immense tracts of land, supposed to
embrace twenty miUions of acres, for five hun
dred thousand doUars, to four land companies.
It was proved that, with one exception, every
member of the legislature who voted for this
bUl was interested in the purchase. A more
flagrant case of wholesale legislative corruption
had never been known, and when the facts were
exposed the whole State rose in indignation
against it, elected a new legislature, annuUed
the sale, expunged the act from the record,
and finaUy, by caUing a convention, made the
expunging act itself a part of the state con
stitution. With his natural vehemence of tem
per, Randolph caught aU the excitement of his
friends, and became a vehement anti- Yazoo man,
as it was caUed, for the rest of his life.
The visit to Georgia accomplished, he turned
homewards again, and was suddenly met by the
crushing news that his brother Richard was
dead. In every way this blow was a terrible

24 JOHN RANDOLPH
one. His brother had been his oldest and
closest companion. The widow and two chil
dren, one of whom was deaf and dumb from
birth, and ultimately became insane, besides
the whole burden of the joint estabUshment,
now came under John Randolph's charge.
" Then," to use his own words, " I had to un
ravel the tangled skein of my poor brother's
difficulties and debts. His sudden and un
timely death threw upon my care, helpless as I
was, his fanuly, whom I tenderly and passion
ately loved." Richard's last years had been
embittered by a strange and terrible scandal,
resulting in a family feud, which John, with
his usual vehemence, made his own. These
complications would have been trying to any
man, but to one of his peculiar temper they
were a source of infinite depression and despair.

CHAPTER II
VIEGINIAN POLITICS
Politics meanwhile were becoming more
and more violent. The negotiation of Jay's
treaty with England, which took place in 1794,
foUowed by its publication in June, 1795, and
the extraordinary behavior of France, threw the
country into a state of alarming excitement.
Randolph shared in the indignation of those
who thought the treaty a disgraceful one, and
there is a story, told on the authority of his
friends, that at a dinner, pending the ratifica
tion, he gave as a toast, " George Washington,
— may he be damned ! " and when the company
declined to drink it, he added, "if he signs
Jay's treaty." No one can fairly blame the
opposition to that treaty, which indeed chal
lenged opposition; and that Randolph should
have opposed it hotly, if he opposed it at aU,
was only a part of his nature ; but none the less
was it true that between his Anglican tastes
and his Gallican poUcy he was in a false posi
tion, as he was also between his aristocratic
prejudices and his democratic theories, his de-

26 JOHN RANDOLPH
istical doctrines and his conservative tempera
ment, his interests as a slave-owner and his
theories as an ami des noirs, and finaUy in the
entire delusion which possessed his mind that a
Virginian aristocracy could maintain itself in
aUiance with a democratic polity.
Perhaps these flagrant inconsistencies might
have worked out ten years sooner to their nat
ural result, had not John Adams and New
England now stood at the head of the govern
ment. If Randolph could wish no better fate
for his own countryman, Washington, than that
he might be damned, one may easily imagine
what were his feelings towards Washington's
successor, whose coachman had cracked his whip
over Richard Randolph. For thirty years he
never missed a chance to have his fling at both
the Adamses, father and son; "the cub," he
said, " is a greater bear than the old one ; " and
although he spared no prominent Virginian,
neither Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Mon
roe, nor Clay, yet the only persons against whom
his strain of invective was at aU seasons copious,
continuous, and vehement were the two New
England Presidents. To do him justice, there
was every reason, in his category of innate
prejudices, for the antipathy he felt ; and espe
cially in regard to the administration- of the
elder Adams there was ample ground for honest

VIRGINIAN POLITICS 27
divergence of opinion. For one moment in the
career of that administration the country was
in real danger, and opposition became almost
a duty. When hostilities with France broke
out, and under their cover the Alien and Sedi
tion laws were passed, backed by a large army,
with the scarcely concealed object of overawing
threatened resistance from Virginia, it was time
that opposition should be put in power, even
though the opposition had itself undertaken to
nuUify acts of Congress and to prepare in secret
an armed rebeUion against the national govern
ment. FeeUng ran high in Virginia during the year
1798. Mr. Madison had left Congress, but both
he and Mr. Jefferson, the Vice-President, were
busy in organizing their party for what was too
much like a dissolution of the Union. They
induced the legislatures of Virginia and Ken
tucky to assert the right of resistance to na
tional laws, and were privy to the preparations
making in Virginia for armed resistance ; or if
they were not, it was because they chose to be
ignorant. Monroe was certainly privy to these
warlike preparations; for, in the year 1814,
Randolph attacked in debate the conscription
project recommended by Monroe, then Secretary
of War, and said, "Ask him what he would
have done, whUst Governor of Virginia, and

28 JOHN RANDOLPH
preparing to resist federal usurpation, had such
an attempt been made by Mr. Adams and his
ministers, especiaUy in 1800 ! He can give
the answer." At a stiU later day, in January,
1817, Randolph explained the meaning of his
innuendo. " There is no longer," said he, " any
cause for concealing the fact that the grand
armory at Richmond was built to enable the
State of Virginia to resist by force the encroach
ments of the then administration upon her in
disputable rights." Naturally Randolph himself
was in thorough sympathy with such schemes,
and it would be surprising if he and the hot
headed young men of his stamp did not drag
their older chiefs into measures which these
would have gladly avoided.
Seizing this moment to enter political life,
with characteristic audacity he struck at once
for the highest office within his reach ; at the
age of twenty-six, he announced himself a candi
date for Congress. Both parties were keenly
excited over the contest in Virginia, and the
federalists, with Washington at their head, were
greatly distressed and alarmed, for they knew
what was going on, and after opposing to the
utmost Mr. Madison's nullification resolutions,
straining every nerve to allay the excitement, as
a last resource they implored their old opponent,
Patrick Henry, to come to their rescue. Unwil-

VIRGINLAN POLITICS 29
lingly enough, for his strength was rapidly
failing, Henry consented. Nothing in his Ufe
was nobler. The greatest orator and truest
patriot in Virginia, a sound and consistent demo
crat, sprung from the people and adored by
them, this persistent and energetic opponent of
the Constitution, who had denounced its over-
swoUen powers and its "awful squint towards
monarchy," now came forward, not for office,
nor to qualify or withdraw anything he had ever
said, but with his last breath to warn the people
of Virginia not to raise their hand against the
national government. Washington himself, he
said, would lead an army to put them down.
" Where is the citizen of America who wiU dare
lift his hand against the father of his country ?
No ! you dare not do it ! In such a parricidal
attempt, the steel would drop from your nerve
less arm ! "
In the Ught of subsequent history there is a
solemn and pathetic grandeur in this dying
appeal of the old revolutionary orator, by the
tavern porch of Charlotte, at the March court,
in 1799, — a grandeur partly due to its sim
plicity, but more to its association with the
great revolutionary struggle which had gone
before, and with the awful judgment which feU
upon this doomed region sixty-five years after
wards. There was, too, an element of contrast

30 JOHN RANDOLPH
in the composition ; for when the old man f eU
back, exhausted, and the great audience stood
sUent with the conviction that they had heard
an immortal orator, who would never speak
again, make an appeal such as defied reply, then
it was that John Randolph's taU, lean, youthful
figure cUmbed upon the platform and stood up
before the crowd.
What he said is not recorded, and would in
no case be very material. He himself, in 1817,
avowed in Congress the main burden of his ad
dress: "I was asked if I justified the establish
ment of the armory for the purpose of opposing
Mr. Adams's administration. I said I did ; that
I could not conceive any case in which the people
could not be intrusted with arms ; and that the
use of them to oppose oppressive measures was
in principle the same, whether those of the
administration of Lord North or that of Mr.
Adams." At this period Randolph did not talk
in the crisp, nervous, pointed language of his
after Ufe, but used the heroic style which is stUl
to be seen in the writings of his friend, "the
greatest man I ever knew, John Thompson, the
immortal author of the letters of Curtius."
The speech could have been only a solemn de
fense of states' rights ; an appeal to state pride
and fear; an ad hominem attack on Patrick
Henry's consistency, and more or less effective

VIRGINIAN POLITICS 31
denunciation of federaUsts in general. What
he could not answer, and what must become the
more impressive through his own success, was
the splendor of a sentiment ; history, past and
coming ; the awe that surrounds a dying prophet
threatening a new doom deserved.
Vague tradition reports that Randolph spoke
for three hours and held his audience ; he rarely
failed with a Virginian assembly, and in this
case his whole career depended on success.
Tradition further says that Patrick Henry re
marked to a by-stander, " I have n't seen the
little dog before, since he was at school ; he was
a great atheist then;" and after the speech, shak
ing hands with his opponent, he added, " Young
man, you caU me father ; then, my son, I have
something to say unto thee : Kee'p justice, keep
truth, — and you wiU live to think diEferently."
Randolph never did live to think differently,
but ended as he began, trying to set bounds
against the power of the national government,
and to protect those boimds, if need be, by force.
Whether his opinions were wrong or right,
criminal or virtuous, is another matter, which
has an interest far deeper than his personaUty,
and more lasting than his fame; but at least
those opinions were at that time expressed with
the utmost clearness and emphasis, not by him
but by the legislatures of more than one State ;

32 JOHN RANDOLPH
and as he was not their author, so he is not to
be judged harshly for accepting or adhering to
them. Doubtless, as time passed and circum
stances changed, Randolph figured as a political
Quixote in his championship of states' rights,
which became at the end his hobby, his mania ;
he played tricks with it untU his best friends
were weary and disgusted; but, so far as his
wayward life had a meaning or a moral purpose,
it lay in his strenuous effort to bar the path of
that spirit of despotism which in every other
age and land had perverted government into a
curse and a scourge. The doctrine of states'
rights was but a fragment of repubUcan dogma
in 1800, and circumstances alone caused it to
be remembered when men forgot the system of
opinions of which it made a part; isolated,
degraded, defiled by an unnatural union with
the slave power, the doctrine became at last a
mere phrase, which had stiU a meaning only to
those who knew what Mr. Jefferson and the
republicans of America had once beUeved ; but
to Randolph it was always an inspired truth
which purified and elevated his whole existence ;
the faith of his youth, it seemed to him to
sanctify his age ; the helmet of this Virginian
Quixote, — a helmet of Mambrino, if one
pleases, — it was in Quixote's eyes a helmet aU
the same. What warranted such enthusiasm in

VIRGINIAN POLITICS 33
this threadbare formula of words ? Why should
thousands on thousands of simple-minded, hon
est, plain men have been wilUng to die for a
phrase? The repubUcan party, which assumed control
of the government in 1801, had taken great
pains to express its ideas so clearly that no
man could misconceive them. At the bottom
of its theories lay, as a foundation, the histor
ical fact that poUtical power had, in aU experi
ence, tended to grow at the expense of human
liberty. Every government tended towards
despotism; contained somewhere a supreme,
irresponsible, self-defined power caUed sover
eignty, which held human rights, if human
rights there were, at its mercy. Americans
believed that the Uberties of this continent
depended on fixing a barrier against this
supreme central power called national sover
eignty, which, if left to grow unresisted, would
repeat here all the miserable experiences of
Europe, and, faUing into the grasp of some
group of men, would be the centre of a mUi
tary tyranny ; that, to resist the growth of this
power, it was necessary to withhold authority
from the government, and to administer it with
the utmost economy, because extravagance gen
erates corruption, and corruption generates
despotism; that the Executive must be held

34 JOHN RANDOLPH
in check; the popular branch of the legisla^
ture strengthened, the Judiciary curbed, and
the general powers of government strictly con
strued ; but, above aU, the States must be sup
ported in exercising aU their reserved rights,
because, in the last resort, the States alone could
make head against a central sovereign at Wash
ington. These principles implied a poUcy of
peace abroad and of loose ties at home, leaned
rather towards a confederation than towards
a consolidated union, and placed the good of
the human race before the glory of a mere
nationality. In the famous Virginia and Kentucky resolu
tions of 1798, Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson
set forth these ideas with a care and an author
ity which gave the two papers a character
hardly less decisive than that of the Constitu
tion itself. The hand which drafted the Decla
ration of Independence drafted the Kentucky
Resolutions ; the hand which had most share in
framing the Constitution of the United States
framed that gloss upon it which is known as
the Virginia Resolutions of 1798. Kentucky
declared her determination "tamely to submit
to undelegated, and consequently unlimited,
powers in no man or body of men on earth,"
and it warned the government at Washington
that acts of undelegated power, " unless arrested

VIRGINIAN POLITICS 35
on the threshold, may tend to drive these States
into revolution and blood ; " that submission to
such acts " would be to surrender the form of
government we have chosen, and to Uve under
one deriving its powers from its own will, and
not from our authority ; and that the co-States,
recurring to their natural right in cases not
made federal, wUl concur in declaring these acts
void and of no force." WhUe Kentucky used
this energetic language, dictated by Mr. Jeffer
son, Virginia echoed her words with the em
phasis of a mathematical demonstration, and
laid down as a general principle of the consti
tutional compact that, " in case of a deliberate,
palpable, and dangerous exercise of other pow
ers not granted by the said compact, the States,
who are the parties thereto, have the right, and
are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the
progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within
their respective Umits, the authorities, rights,
and liberties appertaining to them."
Whether this was good constitutional law
need not be discussed at present ; at aU events,
it was the doctrine of the repubUcan party in
1800, the essence of republican principles, and
for many years the undisputed faith of a vast
majority of the American people. The principle
that the central government was a machine,
established by the people of the States for cer-

36 JOHN RANDOLPH
tain purposes and no others, was itself equivalent
to a declaration that this machine could lawfully
do nothing but what it was expressly empowered
to do by the people of the States; and who
except the people of the States could properly
decide when the machine overstepped its bounds ?
To make the Judiciary a final arbiter was to
make the machine master, for the Judiciary was
not only a part of the machine, but its most
irresponsible and dangerous part. The class of
lawyers, trained, as they were, in the common
law of England, could conceive of no political
system without a core of self-defined sovereignty
in the government, and the Judiciary merely
reflected the training of the bar. Judiciary,
Congress, and Executive, all parts of one mech
anism, could be restrained only by the constant
control of the people of the States. There can
be Uttle doubt that this was the opinion of
Patrick Henry in 1800, as it was of Randolph,
Madison, and Jefferson ; on no other theory, as
they believed, could there be a guaranty for
their liberties, and certain it is that the opposite
doctrine, which made the central machine the
measure of its own powers, offered no guaranty
to the citizen against any stretch of authority
by Congress, President, or Judiciary, but in prin
ciple was merely the old despotic sovereignty
of Europe, more or less disguised.

VIRGINIAN POLITICS 37
Not, therefore, in principle did Randolph dif
fer from Patrick Henry ; it was in applying the
principle that their ideas clashed so rudely ; and
this appUcation always embarrassed the subject
of states' rights. That the central government
was a mere creature of the people of the States,
and that the people of those States could un
make as they had made it, was a fact unques
tionable and unquestioned ; but it was one thing
to claim that the people of Virginia had a con
stitutional right to interpose a protest against
usurpations of power at Washington, and it was
another thing to claim that they should support
their protest by force. Patrick Henry and Mr.
Madison shrank from this last appeal to arms,
which John Randolph boldly accepted ; and, in
his defense, it is but fair to say that a right
which has nowhere any ultimate sanction of
force is, in law, no right at aU.
With the correctness of the constitutional
theories which have perturbed the philosophy of
American poUtics it is needless to deal, for it is
not their correctness which is now in question
so much as the motives and acts of those who
believed in them. There is no reason to doubt
that Randolph honestly believed in aU the theo
ries of his party ; was deeply persuaded of the
corruption and wickedness inherent in every
government which defines its own powers ; and

38 JOHN RANDOLPH
wished to make himself an embodiment of purity
in politics, apart from every influence of power
or person. For a generation Uke our own, in
whose ears the term of states' rights has become
hateful, owing to its perversion in the interests
of negro slavery, and in whose eyes the comfort
able doctrines of unlimited national sovereignty
shine with the glory of a moral principle sancti
fied by the blood of innumerable martyrs, these
narrow and jealous prejudices of Randolph and
his friends sound Uke systematized treason ; but
they were the honest convictions of that gener
ation which framed and adopted the Constitu
tion, and the debates of the state conventions in
1788, of Massachusetts as weU as of New York
and Virginia, show that a great majority of
the American people shared the same fears of
despotic government. Time wiU show whether
those fears were well founded, but whether they
prove real or visionary, they were the essence of
republican politics ; and Randolph, whatever his
faults may have been, and however absurdly in
practice his system might work, has a right to
such credit as honest convictions and love of
liberty may deserve.
On these ideas, advocated in their most ex
treme form, he contested the field with Patrick
Henry, and carried with him the popular sym
pathies. A few weeks later, Patrick Henry was

VIRGINIAN POLITICS 39
dead, and young "Jack Randle," as he was
caUed in Virginia, had secured a seat in Con
gress. It would be folly to question the abilities of
a man who, at twenty-six, could hold his own
against such a champion, and win spurs so
gilded. The proof of his genius Ues in his au
dacity, in the boldness with which he commanded
success and controUed it. More than any other
southern man he felt the intense self-confidence
of the Virginian, as contrasted with his northern
rivals, a moral superiority which became dis
astrous in the end from its very strength ; for
the resistless force of northern democracy lay
not in its leaders or its poUtical organization,
but in its social and industrial momentum, and
this was a force against which mere individuaUty
strove in vain. Randolph knew Virginia, and
knew how far he could domineer over her by
exaggerating her own virtues and vices ; but he
did not so weU understand that the world could
not be captured off-hand, like a seat in Congress.
His intelUgence told him the fact, but his un
governable temper seldom let him practice on it.
MeanwhUe the crisis, which for a time had
threatened a catastrophe, was passing away;
thanks, not to the forbearance of Randolph or
his friends, but to the personal interference of
that old bear whom Randolph so cordiaUy hated.

40 JOHN RANDOLPH
the President of the United States. Fate, how
ever, seemed bent upon making mischief between
these two men. In December, 1799, Randolph
took his seat, cordially welcomed by his party
in the House, and within a very short time
showed his intention to chaUenge a certain lead
ership in debate. He was in the minority, but
a minority led by Albert GaUatin was not to
be despised, when it contained men like John
Nicholas of Virginia, Samuel Smith of Mary
land, Edward Livingston of New York, Nathan
iel Macon of North Carolina, and Joseph
Nicholson of Maryland. Randolph was ad
mitted, as of right, into this Uttle circle of
leaders, and plunged instantly into debate. He
had already addressed the House twice, — the
first time on the census biU; the second on a
petition from free negroes in favor of emanci
pation, an act of Ucense which led him to hope
"that the conduct of the House would be so
decided as to deter the petitioners, or any per
sons acting far them, from ever presenting one
of a simUar nature hereafter ; " and on Janu
ary 9, 1800, he rose again, and spoke at some
length on a motion to reduce the army. The
speech, to say the least of it, was not happy : its
denunciation of standing armies was not clever
enough to enliven the staleness of the idea, and
its praise of the militia system lay open to the

VIRGINIAN POLITICS 41
same objection; but its temper was fatal, had
the speech been equal to Pitt's best. Speaking
invariably of the army as "mercenaries" and
"hirelings," "loungers who Uve upon the pub
lic," "who consume the fruits of their honest
industry under the pretext of protecting them
from a foreign yoke," he at last added, "The
people put no confidence in the protection of a
handful of ragamuffins." This troubled even
his friends, and the next day he rose again to
" exchange," as he expressed it, the term raga
muffin. The same evening he was at the theatre
with his friends Macon, Nicholson, Christie of
Maryland, and others, when two young marine
officers came into the box behind them, and
made remarks, not to Randolph, but at him:
" Those ragamuffins on the stage are black Vir
ginia ragamuffins ; " " They march weU for raga
muffins ; " " Our mercenaries would do better ; "
until at length one of them crowded into the
seat by Randolph, and finally, at the end of the
performance, as he was leaving, his coUar was
violently jerked from behind, and there was
some jostling on the stairs. The next morning
Randolph wrote a letter to the President, begin
ning, —
" Sir, — Known to you only as holding, in common
with yourself, the honorable station of servant to the
same sovereign people, and disclaiming all preten-

42 JOHN RANDOLPH
sions to make to you any application which in the
general estimation of men requires the preface of
apology, I shall, without the circumlocution of com
pliment, proceed to state the cause which induces
this address."
Then, after saying in the same astonishing dic
tion that he had been insulted by two young
marine officers, one of whom was named Mc-
Knight, he concluded, —
" It is enough for me to state that the independ
ence of the Legislature has been attacked, the ma
jesty of the people, of which you are the principal
representative, insulted, and your authority con
temned. 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."
To this wonderful piece of bombast the Presi
dent made no reply, but inclosed it in a very
brief message to the House of Representatives
as relating to a matter of privilege " which, in
my opinion, ought to be inquired into in the
House itself, if anywhere." "I have thought
proper to submit the whole letter and its ten
dencies to your consideration, without any other
comments on its matter or style." The message
concluded by announcing that an investigation
had been ordered.
This reference to the House was very dis-

VIRGINIAN POLITICS 43
tasteful to Randolph, and when a committee
of investigation was appointed he hesitated to
appear before it. He was stiU more annoyed
when the committee made its report, which con
tained a sharp censure on himself for " deviat
ing from the forms of decorum customary in
official communications to the chief magistrate,"
and for demanding redress from the Executive
in a matter which respected the privileges of
the House, thereby derogating from the rights
of that body. In vain Randolph protested that
he had not written " Legislature," but " Legis
lator;" in vain he disavowed the idea that a
breach of privilege had taken place, and de
clared that he had addressed the President only
in his mUitary capacity ; the majority had him
in a position where the temptation to punish
was irresistible, and he was forced to endure
the stripes.
Even Mr. GaUatin's skillful defense of him
was a little equivocal. " As I do not feel my
self possessed of sufficient courage," said he,
" to support the character of a reformer of re
ceived customs, I shaU not, when they are only
absurd but harmless, pretend to deviate from
them, and I do not mean to change my manner
in order to assume that used by the gentleman ;
but he certainly has a right to do it if he thinks
proper." One can hardly doubt that the expe-

44 JOHN RANDOLPH
rience of being insulted in public, and censured
for it by Congress, though somewhat sharp, did
Randolph good. He was more cautious for a
long time afterwards; talked less about raga
muffins and hirelings ; went less out of his way
to challenge attention ; and was more amenable
to good advice. Indeed, it might be supposed
from the index to the reported debates that he
did not again open his mouth before the adjourn
ment ; but, on the other hand, he has himself
said that the best speech he ever made was on
the subject of the Connecticut Reserve at this
session, and the record shows that on AprU 4,
1800, he did speak on this subject, although his
remarks were not reported. In fact, he took an
active share in the public business.
His spirits seem to have been much depressed.
"I too am wretched," he wrote to his friend
Bryan, in the course of the winter. He says
that he meditated resigning his seat and going
to Europe. He seems to have been suffering
under a complication of trials, the mystery of
which his biographers had best not attempt to
penetrate ; for his wails of despair, sometimes
genuine, but oftener the effect of an uncontroUed
temperament, teU nothing more than that he
was morbid and nervous. " My character, like
many other sublunary things, hath lately under
gone an almost total revolution." No such

VIRGINIAN POLITICS 45
change is apparent, but possibly he was reaUy
suffering under some mental distress. There is
talk even of a love affair, but it is very certain
that no affair of the heart had at any time a
serious influence over his life.
Nothing, however, is more remarkable than
the solemnity with which he regarded himself.
It is curious that a man so quick in seeing the
weakness of others, and in later life so admira
bly terse in diction and ideas, should have been
able to see nothing preposterous in his own mag
niloquence, or could have gravely written a
letter such as that to the President ; but he was
writing in a simUar vein to his only very inti
mate friend, Bryan, teUing him that " the eagle
eye of friendship finds no difficulty in piercing
the veU which shrouds you ; " that " you seek
in vain to fly from misery; it wUl accompany
you ; it wiU rankle in that heart in whose cruel
wounds it rejoices to dweU." This was not the
tone of his friend, for Bryan had used language
which, if profane, was at least natural, and had
only said that he " was in a heU of a taking for
two or three days," on account of a love affair,
and was going to Europe in consequence. Bom
bast, however, was a fault of the young Virginian
school. John Thompson, one of Randolph's
intimates, the author of Gracchus, Cassius, Cur
tius, and Heaven knows how many more clas-

46 JOHN RANDOLPH
sical effusions, wrote in the same stilted and
pseudo-Ciceronian sentences. This young man
died in 1799, only twenty-three years old ; his
brother WilUam was another of Randolph's
friends, and not a very safe one, for his habits
were bad even at twenty, and grew worse as he
went on. All these young men seem to have
lived on mock heroics. John Thompson, writ
ing to his brother in 1799, mentions that Ran
dolph is running for Congress : " He is a bril
liant and noble young man. He wiU be an
object of admiration and terror to the enemies
of Uberty." WiUiam Thompson was, if possible,
stiU more in the clouds than his brother John ;
his nonsense was something never imagined out
of a stage drama of Kotzebue. " Often do I ex
claim. Would that you and I were cast on some
desert island, there to Uve out the remainder of
our days unpoUuted by the communication with
man ! " In politics, in love, in friendship, all
was equaUy classic ; every boyish scrape was a
Greek tragedy, and every stump speech a terror
to the enemies of liberty. To treat such effu
sions in boys of twenty as serious is out of the
question, even though their ringleader was a
member of Congress ; but they are interesting,
because they show how solemnly these yoimg
reformers of 1800 believed in themselves and in
their reforms. The world's great age had for

VIRGINIAN POLITICS 47
them begun anew, and the golden years returned.
They were real Grracchi, Curtii, Cassii.
His Uttle coUision with the President, there
fore, was calculated to do Randolph good. He
had come to Washington a devoted admirer of
the first Pitt, hoping, perhaps, to imitate that
terrible cornet of horse, and, unless Ukenesses
are very deceptive, he studied, too, the tone and
temper of the younger Pitt, the great orator of
the day, who had been prime minister at twenty-
five, and was stiU ruUng the House of Com
mons, as Randolph aspired to rule the House of
Representatives. The sharp check received at
the outset was a corrective to these ideas; it
made him no less ambitious to command, but it
taught him to curb his temper, to bide his time,
and not expose himself to ridicule.

CHAPTER ni
IN HAKNESS
In the autumn of 1800 the presidential elec
tion took place, which overthrew the federalist
sway, and brought the repubUcan party into
power. As every reader knows, Jefferson and
Burr received an equal number of electoral
votes, a result which, under the Constitution as
it then stood, threw the choice into the House
of Representatives, where the vote must be
taken by States. This business absorbed atten
tion and left little opening for members to put
themselves forward in debate. Randolph, Uke
the rest, could only watch eagerly and write
letters, two of which, addressed to Joseph H.
Nicholson, then for a few days absent from his
seat, are curious as showing his state of mind
towards Mr. Jefferson, the idol of his party.
The first letter is dated December 17, 1800 : —
" There is not a shadow of doubt that the vote will
be equal between them [Jefferson and Burr], and if
we suffer ourselves to be bullied by the aristocrats
they wiU defeat the election. The only mode for us
to adopt is to offer them choice of the men, and see

IN HARNESS 49
on which horn of the dilemma they will chose to hang
themselves. ... I need not say how much I would
prefer Jefferson to Burr ; but I am not like some of
our party, who are as much devoted to him as the
feds were to General Washington. I am not a mon
archist in any sense."
These ideas seem to have startled Nicholson,
who repUed with a remonstrance, whUe in the
mean time public opinion in Washington quickly
decided that Jefferson alone could be accepted
as the repubUcan candidate. On January 1,
1801, a fortnight later, Randolph wrote with a
considerable change of tone : —
"I have very obscurely expressed, or yon have
misconceived, my meaning, if you infer from either
of my letters that the election, whether of J. or B.,
to the presidency is in my estimation a matter of
indifference." i
Then, after explaining that the wiU of the
people would in any case decide his conduct and
preferences, he continued : —
" 'T is true that I have observed, with a disgust
which I have been at no pains to conceal, a spirit of
personal attachment evinced by some of the support
ers of Mr. J., whose republicanism has not been the
most unequivocal. There are men who do right from
wrong motives, if indeed it can be morally right to
act with evil views. There are those men who sup
port republicans from monarchical principles ; and if

50 JOHN RANDOLPH
the head of that very great and truly good man can
be turned by adulatory nonsense, they will endeavor
to persuade him that our salvation depends on an in
dividual. This is the essence of monarchy, and with
this doctrine I have been, am, and ever will be, at
issue." This was sound doctrine for a man of the
people, who held no office and had no object in
poUtics beyond the pubUc good ; but in a man
himself aspiring to rival the demi-god, and who
instinctively disUked what other men adored, it
was open to misinterpretation. Mr. Jefferson
was quick — no man was quicker — to feel a
breath of coldness in his supporters. What
would he have thought had Nicholson shown
him these letters ?
For the present Randolph's independence
roused no iU-feeling or suspicion. Mr. Jefferson
got his election by the withdrawal of federaUst
votes. The session passed without bringing to
Randolph any special opportunity for distin
guishing himself; and on March 4, 1801, the
new administration was organized. In every
way it was favorable to Randolph's ambition.
The President was a Virginian and a blood
relation, although perhaps not on that account
dearer to Randolph's affections; the Secretary
of State was a Virginian ; and, stUl better, the
appointment of GaUatin as Secretary of the

IN HARNESS 51
Treasury removed from the House its oldest and
ablest leader.
The summer of 1801 was passed quietly at
Bizarre, while Mr. Jefferson was getting his new
administration into order, and preparing a series
of measures intended to purify the Constitution
and restore the States to their proper functions.
On July 18, 1801, Randolph writes thus to his
friend Nicholson : —
" If you are not surfeited with politics, I am. I
shall therefore say but a word on that subject, to tell
you that in this quarter we think that the great work
is only begun, and that without a substantial reform
we shall have Uttle reason to congratulate ourselves
on the mere change of men. Independent of its
precariousness, we disdain to hold our privileges by
so base a tenure. We challenge them as of right,
and will not have them depend on the complexion of
an individual. The objects of this reform wrU at
once suggest themselves to you."
In other words, if Mr. Jefferson did not prove
reformer enough, Randolph would do his own
reforming, and wished for Nicholson's help.
Here already is the germ of his future develop
ment and the clue to his erratic career. The
writer goes on : —
" It is no exaggeration when I tell you that there
is more of poUtics in the preceding page than I have
thought, spoken, or written since I saw you. During

52 JOHN RANDOLPH
this period I have been closely engaged in my own
affairs, which afford very Uttle of satisfaction or
amusement." He had passed the last session in the same
house with the Nicholsons, and wished to do so
again : —
"Do exert yourself and procure lodgings for us
both in time. I shall want stabling for two horses,
and a carriage house. . . . By Christmas I expect
the leeches of Washington, having disgorged much of
their last winter's prey, will be pretty sharp set. On
making up my accounts I find that, independent of
the unlucky adventure of my pocket-book, I have
had the honor of expending in the service of the
United States nearly $1,000, exclusive of their com
pensation. Such another blood-letting, in addition to
the expensive tour which I undertake to-morrow [to
the warm springs] and the faU of produce, wiU be
too much for my feeble frame to endure. I therefore
wish to lay aside the character of John BuU for a
time at least ; and, although I wUl not Uve in a sty,
wish you to have some eye to economy in the arrange
ment above mentioned. 'T is the order of the day,
you know."
And finaUy comes a significant little postscript :
"What think you of the New Jersey super
visor ? " The New Jersey supervisor was James
Linn, a member of the last Congress, whose
doubtful vote decided the State of New Jersey

IN HARNESS 53
for Jefferson, and who now received his reward
in the profitable office of supervisor. Randolph
seems to have questioned the perfect disinterest
edness of the transaction on either side.
This glimpse of his private Ufe shows the
spirit in which he took up his new responsi
bilities. He prided himself on independence.
These old repubUcans of the South, Giles,
Macon, Nicholson, Randolph, and their friends,
always asserted their right to judge party mea
sures by their private standard, and to vote as
they pleased ; nor was this right a mere theory,
for they exercised it freely, and sometimes
fatally, to their party interests. Whether they
were wise or foolish statesmen, the difference
between them and others was simply in this
pride, or, as some may caU it, self-respect, which
made them despise with caustic contempt poU
ticians who obeyed party orders and surrendered
their consciences to a caucus. Even in 1801
Randolph would probably have horsewhipped
any man who dared teU him he must obey his
party, but the whip itself would not have ex
pressed half the bitter contempt his heart felt
for so mean a wretch. To be jealous of execu
tive influence and patronage was the duty of a
true republican, and to wear the livery of a su
perior was his abhorrence. Randolph, from the
first, was jealous of Mr. Jefferson. Whether
he was right or wrong is the riddle of his Ufe.

54 JOHN RANDOLPH
When Congress met, December 7, 1801, the
House chose Nathaniel Macon for its Speaker.
Honest, simple-minded, ignorant as a North
Carolinian planter in those days was expected
to be, and pure as any Cincinnatus ever bred
by Rome, Macon was dazzled and bewitched by
the charm of Randolph's manner, mind, and
ambition. Few southern men could ever resist
Randolph's caresses when he chose to caress,
and the men who foUowed him most faith
fully and beUeved in bim to the last were
the most high-minded and unselfish of south
erners. Macon was already on his knees to
him as before an ApoUo, and in spite of innu
merable rude shocks the honest North Caro-
Unian never quite freed himself from the
strange fascination of this young Virginian
Brutus, with eyes that pierced and voice that
rang like the vibration of glass, and with the
pride of twenty kings to back his more than
Roman virtue. This conception of Randolph's
character may have shown want of experience,
but perhaps Macon had, among his simple theo
ries, no stronger conviction than that Randolph
was, what he himself was not, a true man of
the world. At aU events, the Speaker instantly
made his youthful idol chairman of the Ways
and Means Committee and leader of the House.
Thus, from the start, Randolph was put in the

IN HARNESS S5
direct line of promotion to the Cabinet and the
presidency. During the whole of Mr. Jeffer
son's first administration, from 1801 to 1805,
he was on trial, like a colt in training. Long
afterwards Mr. GaUatin, in one of his private
letters, ran over the Ust of candidates for
honors, favored by the triumvirate of Jefferson,
Madison, and himseK : " During the twelve
years I was at the Treasury I was anxiously
looking for some man that could fiU my place
there and in the general direction of the
national concerns ; for one, indeed, that could
replace Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and my
self. Breckenridge of Kentucky only appeared
and died ; the eccentricities and temper of
J. Randolph soon destroyed his influence;" so
that Mr. WilUam H. Crawford of Georgia
became at last the residuum of six great repu
tations. Randolph began, like Breckenridge, with
marked superiority of will, as weU as of tal
ents, and ruled over the House with a hand
so heavy that WiUiam Pitt might have envied
him. Even Mr. Jefferson in the White House,
wielding an influence little short of despotic,
did not venture to put on, like Randolph, the
manners of a despot. Outside the House, how
ever, his authority did not extend. In the
Cabinet and in the Senate other men over-

56 JOHN RANDOLPH
shadowed him, and some dramatic climax could
hardly fail to spring from this conflict of
forces. The story of Randolph's career as a
party leader marks an epoch ; round it cluster
more serious difficulties, doubts, problems, para
doxes, more disputes as to fact and theory, more
contradictions in the estimate to be put on men
caUed great, than are to be found in any other
part of our history. Elsewhere it is not hard
for the student to find a clue to right and
wrong ; to take sides, and mete out some mea^
sure of justice with some degree of confidence ;
but in regard to John Randolph's extraordinary
career from 1800 to 1806 it is more than likely
that no two historians wiU ever agree.
From the moment of his first appearance in
Congress, Randolph claimed and received recog
nition as a representative of the extreme school
of Virginian republicans, whose political creed
was expressed by the Resolutions of 1798.
Dread of the Executive, of corruption and
patronage, of usurpations by the central gov
ernment ; dread of the Judiciary as an invari
able servant to despotism; dread of national
sovereignty altogether, were the dogmas of this
creed. AU these men foresaw what the people
of America would be obliged to meet; they
were firmly convinced that the central govern
ment, intended to be the people's creature and

IN HARNESS 57
servant, would one day make itself the people's
master, and, interpreting its own powers without
asking permission, would become extravagant,
corrupt, despotic. Accordingly they set them
selves to the task of correcting past mistakes,
and of establishing a new line of precedents
to fix the character of future poUtics. Every
branch of the government except the Judiciary
was in their hands. Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madi
son, and Mr. GaUatin were their greatest lead
ers; Macon, the Speaker, was heart and soul
with them ; Joseph H. Nicholson and Randolph
were Macon's closest friends, and by these
three men the House of Representatives was
ruled. If any government could be saved, this
was it.
No one can deny the abiUty with which Mr.
Jefferson's first administration began its career,
or the brilUant success which it won. During
twelve years of opposition the party had ham
mered out a scheme of government, forging it,
so to speak, on the anvil of federalism, so as to
be f ederaUsm precisely reversed. The constitu
tion of the repubUcan party was the federaUsts'
constitution read backwards, like a mediaeval
invocation of the devil ; and this was in many
respects and for ordinary times the best and
safest way of reading it, although foUowed for
only a few years by its inventors, and then

58 JOHN RANDOLPH
going out of fashion, never again to be heard of
except as mere party shibboleth, not seriously
intended, even by its loudest champions, but
strong for them to conjure with among honest
and earnest citizens. In 1801, however, the
party was itself in earnest. Mr. Jefferson and
his Virginian foUowers thoroughly believed
themselves to have founded a new system of
polity. Never did any party or any adminis
tration in our country begin a career of power
with such entire confidence that a new era of
civUization and liberty had dawned on earth.
If Mr. Jefferson did not rank among his foUow
ers as one of the greatest lawgivers recorded in
history, a resplendent figure seated by the side
of Moses and Solon, of Justinian and Charle
magne, the tone of the time much beUes them.
In his mind, what had gone before was mon-
archism ; what came after was alone true repub-
Ucanism. However absurdly this doctrine may
have sounded to northern ears, and to men who
knew the relative character of New England
and Virginia, the stiU greater absurdities of
leading, federalists lent some color of truth to
it ; and there can be no doubt that Mr. Jeffer
son, by his very freedom from theological pre
judices and from Calvinistic doctrines, was a
sounder democrat than any orthodox New Eng
lander could ever hope to be. Thus it was that

IN HARNESS 59
he took into his hand the federalists' constitu
tion, and set himself to the task of stripping
away its monarchical excrescences, and restoring
its true republican outlines ; but its one serious
excrescence, the only one which was essentiaUy
and dangerously monarchical, he could not, or
would not, touch ; it was his own office, — the
executive power.
When Randolph spoke of a " substantial
reform," he meant that he wanted something
radical, something more than a mere change of
office-holders. The federalists had built up the
nation at the expense of the States ; their work
must be undone. When he returned to Wash
ington he found what it was that the President
and the party proposed to do by way of restoring
purity to the system. In the executive depart
ment, forms were to be renounced; patronage
cut down ; influence diminished ; the army and
navy reduced to a police force ; internal taxes
abandoned ; the debt paid, and its centraUzing
influence removed from the body politic ; nay,
even the mint aboUshed as a useless expense,
and foreign coins to be used in preference to
those of the nation, since even a copper cent,
the only national coin then in common use, was
a daily and irritating assertion of national over
state sovereignty. In the legislative depart
ment there could be little change except in sen-

60 JOHN RANDOLPH
timent, and in their eamest wish to heal the
wounds that the Constitution had suffered ; but
in the Judiciary ! — there was the rub !
The test of the party policy lay here. AU
these Jeffersonian reforms, payment of debt,
reduction of patronage, abandonment of eti
quette, preference of Spanish doUars, touched
only the surface of things. The executive
power was stiU there, though it might not be so
visible; the legislative power was also there,
dangerous as ever even by its very acts of re
form; while, to exorcise these demons effectu
aUy, it was necessary to alter the Constitution
itself, which neither Mr. Jefferson nor his party
dared to do. There was something not merely
ridicidous, but contemptible, in abolishing the
President's receptions and stopping the coinage
of cents, while that terrible clause was left in
the Constitution which enabled Congress to
make all laws it might choose to think " neces
sary and proper" to carry out its own powers
and provide for the general welfare; or while
the Judiciary stood ready at any moment to in
terpret that clause as it pleased.
Certainly Randolph's own wishes would have
favored a thorough revision of the Constitution
and the laws ; he knew where the radical danger
lay, and would have supported with his usual
energy any radical measures of reform, but it

IN HARNESS 61
was not upon him that responsibUity rested.
The President and the Cabinet shrank from
strong measures, and the northern democrats
were not to be relied upon for their support.
Moreover, the Senate was stiU narrowly divided,
and the federaUsts were not only strong in num
bers, but in abUity. Perhaps, however, the real
reason for foUowing a moderate course lay
deeper than any mere question of majorities.
The repubUcan party in 1801 would not touch
the true sources of political danger, the execu
tive and legislative powers, because they them
selves now controUed these powers, and they
honestly thought that, so long as this was the
case, states' rights and private liberties were
safe. The Judiciary, however, was not within
their control, but was whoUy federalist, and
likely for many years to remain so, — a fortress
of centralization, a standing threat to states'
rights. The late administration had in its last
moments, after the election of Mr. Jefferson,
taken a series of measures meant not only to
rivet its own hold over the Judiciary, but to
widen and strengthen the influence of national
at the expense of state courts by reconstructing
the judiciary system, reducing to five the num
ber of judges on the supreme bench, and in
creasing the district courts to twenty-three, thus
creating as many new judges. This done, the

62 JOHN RANDOLPH
late President fiUed up these offices with feder
aUsts ; the Senate confirmed his appointments ;
and, to crown aU, the President appointed and
the Senate confirmed the ablest of the Virginian
federaUsts, the Secretary of State, John Mar
shall, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
The new President was furious at this ma
noeuvre, and to the last day of his life never
spoke of what he caUed the " midnight appoint
ments " without an unusual display of temper,
although it is not clear that a midnight appoint
ment is worse than a midday appointment, or
that the federalists were boimd to please a Pre
sident who came into office solely to undo their
work. The real cause of Mr. Jefferson's anger,
and its excuse, lay beneath the matter of patron
age, in the fact that the Judiciary thus estab
lished was a serious if not fatal obstacle to his
own success; for untU the fountain of justice
should be purified the stream of constitutional
law could not run pure, the necessary legal pre
cedents could not be estabUshed, the States
could not be safe from encroachments, or the
President himself from constant insult.
Thus it was that the most serious question
for the new President and his party regarded
the Judiciary, and this question of the Judi
ciary was that which Congress undertook to
settle. Randolph, and men of his reckless na-

IN HARNESS 63
ture, seeing clearly that Chief Justice MarshaU
and the Supreme Court, backed by the array of
circuit and district judges, could always over
turn repubUcan principles and strict construc
tion faster than Congress and the President
could set them up, saw with the same clearness
that an entire reform of the Judiciary and its
adhesion to the popular wiU were necessary,
since otherwise the gross absurdity would f oUow
that four fifths of the people and of the States,
both Houses of Congress, the Executive, and
the state Judiciaries might go on forever declar
ing and maintaining that the central govern
ment had not the right to interpret its own
powers, whUe John MarshaU and three or four
old federalists on the supreme bench proved the
contrary by interpreting those powers as they
liked, and by making their interpretation law.
Randolph and his friends, therefore, wished to
reconstruct the Judiciary throughout, and to
secure an ascendency over the courts of law, but
the northern democrats dreaded nothing more
than the charge of revolutionary and violent
attacks on the Constitution ; the President and
Cabinet gave no encouragement to hasty and
intemperate measures ; all the wise heads of the
party advised that Chief Justice Marshall and
the Supreme Court should be left to the influ
ence of time ; and that Congress should be con-

64 JOHN RANDOLPH
tent with aboUshing the new circuit system of
the federaUsts, and with getting rid of the new
judges. On January 4, 1802, Randolph moved for an
inquiry into the condition of the judiciary estab
lishment, and the motion was referred to a
committee of which his friend Nicholson was
chairman. Pending their report, a bUl came
down from the Senate by which the Judiciary
Act of 1800 was repealed. The debate which
now ensued in the House was long and discur
sive. The federaUsts naturaUy declared that
this repealing act put an end forever to the
independence of the Judiciary, and that it was
intended to do so ; they declaimed against its
constitutionality ; ransacked history and law to
prove their positions, and ended by declaring,
as they had declared with the utmost simplicity
of faith on every possible occasion for ten years
past : " We are standing on the brink of that
revolutionary torrent which deluged in blood
one of the fairest countries in Europe." Yet
the Repealing Act was in fact not revolution,
but concession ; overthrowing a mere outer line
of defense, it left the citadel intact, and gave a
tacit pledge that the federaUst supreme bench
should not be disturbed, at least for the present.
When it is considered that Chief Justice Mar
shall, in the course of his long judicial career,

m HARNESS 65
rooted out Mr. Jefferson's system of poUty more
effectuaUy than aU the Presidents and aU the
Congresses that ever existed, and that the Su
preme Court not only made war on states'
rights, but supported with surprising unanimity
every political and constitutional innovation on
the part of Congress and the Executive, it can
only be a matter of wonder that Mr. Jefferson's
party, knowing weU the danger, and aware that
their Uves and fortunes depended, or might
probably depend, on their action at this point,
should have let Chief Justice Marshall slip
through their fingers. To remodel the whole
bench might have been revolution, but not to
remodel it was to insure the failure of their
aim. The republicans were over-confident in their
own strength and in the permanence of their
principles ; they had in fact hoodwinked them
selves, and Mr. Jefferson and John Randolph
were responsible for their trouble. The party
had reaUy fought against the danger of an over
grown governmental machine, but Mr. Jeffer
son and John Randolph had told them they
were fighting against monarchy. Setting up,
to excite themselves, a scarecrow with a crown
upon its head, they caUed it King John I., and
then, with shouts of delight, told It to go back
to Braintree. The scarecrow vanished at their

66 JOHN RANDOLPH
word, and they thought their battle won. Ran
dolph saw from time to time that, so far as
there had been any monarchy in question, the
only difference was that Thomas Jefferson in
stead of John Adams wore the shadow of a
crown, but even Randolph had not the perspi
cacity or the courage to face the whole truth,
and to strike at the very tangible power which
stood behind this imaginary throne. He, like
aU the rest, was wiUing to be silent now that
his people were masters ; he turned away from
the self -defined, sovereign authority which was
to grind his " country," as he caUed Virginia,
into the dust ; he had, it may be, filxed his eyes
somewhat too keenly on that phantom crown,
and in imagination was wearing it himself, —
King John II.
The debate on the Judiciary in the session of
1801-2 lacks paramount interest because the
states'-rights repubUcans, being now in power,
were afraid of laying weight on their own princi
ple, although there was then no taint of slavery
or rebeUion about it, and although it was a
principle of which any man, who honestly be
lieved in it, must be proud. On the day when
Randolph moved his inquiry, Mr. Bayard of
Delaware, in debating the new apportionment
biU, had proposed to make 30,000 instead of
33,000 the ratio of representation, and had

IN HARNESS 67
given as his reason the belief that an addition
of ten members to the House would do more
than an army of 10,000 men to increase its
energy, and to give power by giving popularity
to the government. Randolph sprang to his
feet as Bayard sat down, and burst into a strong
states'-rights speech; yet even then, speaking
on the spur of his feelings, he was afraid to say
what was in his mind, — that the powers of
government were abeady too strong, and needed
to be diminished. " Without entering into the
question whether the power devolved on the
general government by the Constitution exceeds
that measure which in its formation I would
have been willing to bestow, I have no hesitation
in declaring that it does not faU short of it;
that I dread its extension, by whatever means,
and shaU always oppose measures whose object
or tendency is to effect it." Throughout the
speech he stood on the defensive ; he evaded the
challenge that Bayard threw down.
The same caution was repeated in the judi
ciary debate, where there was still less excuse
for timidity. The biU could be defended only
on the ground that the new Judiciary had been
intended to strengthen the national at the ex
pense of the state courts ; and that the principle
of limited powers could only be maintained by
fostering the energies of the States, and espe-

68 JOHN RANDOLPH
cially of the state Judiciaries, and by protecting
them from the interference of the general gov
ernment. Randolph showed himself afraid of
this reasoning ; his party dreaded it ; the Presi
dent discouraged it; and the federalists would
have been delighted to caU it out. When, on
February 20, 1802, Bayard concluded his long
judiciary speech, Randolph again rose to answer
him, and again took the defensive. In an in
genious and vigorous argument, as nearly states
manlike as any he ever made, he defended the
repeal as constitutional, and certainly with suc
cess. He conceded a great deal to the opposition.
" I am free to declare that, if the intent of this
biU is to get rid of the judges, it is a perversion
of your power to a base purpose; it is an un
constitutional act. The quo animo determines
the nature of this act, as it determines the
innocence or guUt of other acts." What, then,
was the quo animo, the intent, which constrained
him to this repeal ? Surely this was the moment
for laying down those broad and permanent
principles which the national legislature ought
in future to observe in dealing with extensions
of the central power; now, if ever, Randolph
should have risen to the height of that really
great argument which alone justifies his exist
ence or perpetuates his memory as a statesman.
What was his "substantial reform"? What

IN HARNESS 69
were its principles ? What its limits ? "If you
are precluded from passing this law lest depraved
men make it a precedent to destroy the inde
pendence of your Judiciary, do you not concede
that a desperate faction, finding themselves
about to be dismissed from the confidence of
their country, may pervert the power of erecting
courts, to provide to an extent for their adher
ents and themselves?" "We assert that we
are not clothed with the tremendous power of
erecting, in defiance of the whole spirit and
express letter of the Constitution, a vast judicial
aristocracy over the heads of our f eUow-citizens,
on whose labor it is to prey." "It is not on
account of the paltry expense of the new estab
lishment that I wish to put it down. No, sir !
It is to give the death-blow to the pretension of
rendering the Judiciary an hospital for decayed
poUticians ; to prevent the state courts from be
ing engulfed by those of the Union ; to destroy
the monstrous ambition of arrogating to this
House the right of evading all the prohibitions
of the Constitution, and holding the nation at
bay." That is aU ! Just enough to betray his
purpose without justifying it; to show temper
without proving courage or forethought ! This
was not the way in which Gallatin and Madison
had led their side of the House. Take it as one

70 JOHN RANDOLPH
wiU, aU this talk about "judicial aristocracy"
preying on labor, these sneers at " decayed poli
ticians," was poor stuff. Worse than this:
without a thorough justification in principle, the
repeal itself was a blow at the very doctrine of
strict construction, since it strained the powers
of Congress by a dangerous precedent, without
touching the power of the Judiciary ; it was the
first of many instances in which Mr. Jefferson's
administration unintentionaUy enlarged and ex
aggerated the powers of the general government
in one or another of its branches.
By way of conclusion to a speech which, as
Randolph must have felt, was neither candid nor
convincing, he made a remark which showed
that he was stiU jealous of executive influence,
and that he wished to act honestly, even where
his own party was concerned, in proving his
good faith. Mr. Bayard twitted him with being
a mere tool of Mr. Jefferson, and the sneer
rankled. " If the gentleman is now anxious to
protect the independence of this and the other
House of Congress against executive influence,
regardless of his motives, I pledge myself to
support any measure which he may bring for
ward for that purpose, and I believe I may
venture to pledge every one of my friends."
Whether Mr. Jefferson would be flattered by
this hint that his finger was too active in legis-

IN HARNESS 71
lation seems to have been a matter about which
Randolph was indifferent.
The Judiciary BiU, however, was not Ran
dolph's work, but was rather imposed upon him
by the party. His speech showed that he was
in harness, under strict discipUne, and rather
anxious to disguise the fuU strength of his
opinions than to lay down any party doctrine.
The bill passed the house by a large majority
and became law, while the practical work of
the Ways and Means Committee f eU to Ran
dolph's special care, and proved serious enough
to prevent his eccentric mind from worrying
about possible evils in a distant future. He
was obliged to master Gallatin's financial
scheme; to explain and defend his economies,
the abolition of taxes, and operations in ex
change, — details of financial legislation which
were as foreign to Randolph's taste and habits
of mind as they were natural to Gallatin. This
was the true limit of his responsibUity, and
there is nothing to prove that he was otherwise
consulted by the President or the Cabinet.
The federalists, who were better men of busi
ness and more formidable debaters than the
republican majority, offered the usual opposi
tion and asked the ordinary troublesome ques
tions. At this early day the rules of the House
had not been altered ; to stop debate by silen-

72 JOHN RANDOLPH
cing the minority was impossible, and therefore
Randolph and his friends undertook to stop
debate by silencing themselves, answering no
questions, listening to no criticisms, and voting
solidly as the administration directed. Such a
poUcy has long since proved itself to be not
only dangerous and dictatorial, but blundering,
for it gives an irresistible advantage of sarcasm,
irony, and argument to the minority, — an ad
vantage which the federaUsts were quick to use.
After a short trial the experiment was given up.
The repubUcans resumed their tongues, a Uttle
mortified at the ridicule they had invited, and
in future they preferred the more effective
policy of gagging their opponents rather than
themselves ; but there remained the remarkable
fact that this attempt to check waste of time
was made under the leadership of John Ran
dolph, who in later years wasted without the
least compunction more public time than any
public man of his day in discursive and unprofit
able talk. The explanation is easy. In 1802
Randolph and his party wished to prove their
competence and to make a reputation as practi
cal men of business ; they frowned upon waste
of time, and wanted the pubUc to understand
that they were not to blame for it. Randolph
set the example by speaking as little as possi
ble, always to the point, and by indulging his

IN HARNESS 73
rebeUious temper only so far as might safely
be aUowed ; that is to say, in outbursts against
the federalists alone.
He gained ground at this session, and was a
more important man in May, 1802, when he
rode home to Bizarre, than in the previous au
tumn when he left it. Congress had done good
work under his direction. The internal taxes
were aboUshed and half the government patron
age cut off ; the army and navy suffered what
Mr. Jefferson caUed a " chaste reformation ; "
the new federaUst judiciary was swept away.
It is true that, with aU these reforms in detaU,
not one dangerous power had been expressly
limited, nor had one word of the Constitution
been altered or defined; no federalist prece
dents, not even the Alien and Sedition laws,
were branded as unconstitutional by either
House of Congress or by the Executive. The
government was reformed, as an army may be
cut down, by dismissing half the rank and file
and reducing the expenses, whUe leaving aU its
latent strength ready at any moment for recaU-
ing the men and renewing the extravagance.
There is nothing to show that Randolph now
saw or cared for this fact, although he after
wards thought proper to throw upon others the
responsibUity for inaction.

CHAPTER IV
A CENTEALIZIN6 STATESMAN
After the session closed, early in May, 1802,
Randolph retired to Bizarre and remained there,
undisturbed by politics, until called back to
Washington by the meeting of Congress in
December. In the interval events happened
which threatened to upset aU the theories of the
new administration. Napoleon, having made
peace with England, turned his attention to
America, sending a huge armament to St. Do
mingo to rescue that island from Toussaint and
the blacks, whUe at the same instant it was made
known that he had recovered Louisiana from
Spain, and was about to secure his new posses
sion. FinaUy, at the close of the year, it was
suddenly announced that the Spanish Intendant
at New Orleans had put an end to the right of
deposit in that city, recognized by the Spanish
treaty of 1795. The world naturaUy jumped
to the conclusion that aU these measures were
parts of one great scheme, and that a war with
France was inevitable.
Randolph's position was that of a mere

A CENTRALIZING STATESMAN 75
mouth-piece of the President, and Mr. Jefferson
adopted a policy not without inconvenience to
subordinates. To foreign nations Mr. Jeffer
son spoke in a very warlike tone ; at home he
ardently wished to soothe irritation, and to pre
vent himself from being driven into a war
distasteful to him. For Mr. Jefferson to act
this double part was not difficult; his nature
was versatUe, supple, gentle, and not conten
tious ; for Randolph to imitate him was not so
easy, yet on Randolph the burden feU. He
was commissioned by the government to manage
the most delicate part of the whole business, the
action of the House. It was Randolph who, on
December 17, 1802, moved for the Spanish
papers ; forced the House into secret committee,
which he emphaticaUy caUed "his offspring;"
kept separate the public and the secret com
munications from the President; and held the
party together on a peace policy which the
westem repubUcans did not like, in opposition
to the federalists' war policy which many repub
licans preferred. Unfortunately, the debates
were mostly secret, and very little ever leaked
out ; this only is certain : the President sent to
the House a pubUc and cautious message, with
documents; Randolph carried the House into
secret session to debate them; there some ad
ministration member, either Randolph or Nich-

76 JOHN RANDOLPH
olson, produced a resolution, drawn up by Mr.
Madison or by the President himself, appropri
ating two miUion doUars "to defray any expenses
which may be incurred in relation to the inter
course between the United States and foreign
nations ; " this resolution was referred to a
committee, with Nicholson for chairman, who
made a report explaining that the object of the
appropriation was to purchase East and West
Florida and New Orleans, in preference to mak
ing war for them ; and, on the strength of this
secret report, the House voted the money.
The public debate had been running on at
intervals while these secret proceedings were in
hand, but the reports are singularly meagre and
duU. It seems to have been Randolph's poUcy
to hold his party together by keeping open the
gap between them and the federalists, and these
tactics were not only sound in party policy, but
were suited to his temper and talents. The
federalists wanted war, not so much with Spain
as with Napoleon. Kentucky and Tennessee
wanted it, not because they cared for the fed
eralists' objects, but because they were more sure
to get the mouth of the Mississippi by fighting
than by temporizing. To prevent Kentucky
and Tennessee from joining the opposition, it
was necessary to repel the federaUsts, and yet
promise war to the western repubUcans in case

A CENTRALIZING STATESMAN 77
the proposed purchase should faU. No task
could be more congenial to Randolph's mind
than that of repelUng insidious advances from
federalists. He trounced them vigorously ;
showed that they had offered to sacrifice the
navigation of the Mississippi some years before
there had been a federalist party at all, or even
a House of Representatives, and after proving
their innate wickedness and the virtues of the
party now in power, he concluded, —
" When an administration have formed the design
of subverting the pubUc liberties, of enriching them
selves or their adherents out of the pubUc purse, or
of crushing aU opposition beneath the strong hand
of power, war has ever been the favorite ministerial
specific. Hence have we seen men in power too
generaUy incUned to hostile measures, and hence the
opposition have been, as uniformly, the champions
of peace, not choosing to nerve with new vigor, the
natural consequence of war, hands on whose hearts or
heads they were unwilling to bestow their confidence.
But how shaU we account for the exception which is
now exhibited to this hitherto received maxim ? On
the one part the solution is easy. An administration,
under which our country fiourishes beyond aU former
example, with no sinister views, seeking to pay off the
public incumbrances, to lessen the pubUc burdens, and
to leave to each man the enjoyment of the fruits of
his own labor, are therefore desirous of peace so long
as it can be preserved consistently with the interests

78 JOHN RANDOLPH
and honor of the country. On the other hand, what
do you see ? ShaU I say an opposition sickening at
the sight of the pubUc prosperity; seeking through
war, confusion, and a consequent derangement of our
finances, that aggrandizement which the public f eUcity
must forever forbid ? No, sir ! My respect for this
House and for those gentlemen forbids this declara
tion, whilst, at the same time, I am unable to account
on any other principle for their conduct."
In aU this matter, so far as general poUcy
was concerned, the administration behaved dis
creetly and weU. No fault is to be found with
Randolph, unless, perhaps, the usual one of
temper. In every point of view, peace was the
true policy ; forbearance towards Spain proved
to be the proper course ; distrust of the federal
ists was fuUy justified. There was no exag
geration in the picture of public content which
he drew, or in the rage with which the federal
ists looked at it. The stiU unknown character
of Napoleon Bonaparte was the only cloud in
the political horizon; and untU this developed
itself there was no occasion for the President to
hazard the success of his pacific policy.
So far as Louisiana was concerned, Ran
dolph's activity seems to have stopped here.
He did his part efficiently, and supported the
administration even more steadily than usual.
In the other work of the session, he was the

A CENTRALIZING STATESMAN /9
most active member of the House ; aU financial
business came under his charge, whUe much
that was not financial depended on his approval;
in short, he with his friend Nicholson and the
Speaker controUed legislation.
It is not, however, always easy, or even pos
sible, to see how far this influence went. One
biographer has said that at this session he spoke
and voted for a bUl to prevent the importation
of slaves ; but this was not the case. Some of
the States, alarmed at the danger of being in
undated with rebel negroes from St. Domingo
and Guadaloupe, had passed laws to protect
themselves, and, in order to make this legisla
tion effective, a monstrous bUl was reported by
a committee of Congress, according to which no
captain of a vessel could bring into the ports of
any State which had passed these laws a negro,
mulatto, or person of color, under penalty of
one thousand dollars for each. No negro or
mulatto, slave or free, fresh from bloody St.
Domingo or from the Guinea coast, whether
born and educated in Paris, a citizen of France,
or a free citizen of the United States, a soldier
of the Revolution, could, under this biU, saU
into any of these ports without subjecting the
master of his vessel to a fine of one thousand
doUars. Even the coUectors of customs were
directed to be governed by the laws of the

80 JOHN RANDOLPH
States. Such a measure excited opposition.
Leading republicans from the North pointed
out the unconstitutional and impossible nature
of its provisions, and moved its recommitment.
So far as Randolph is concerned, the report
mentions him only as one of those who opposed
recommitment, and insisted on the passage of
the bUl as it stood. The opposition carried its
point ; the biU was amended and passed on
February 17, 1803. Randolph did not vote on
its passage, although his name appears at the
next division the same day.
He seems to have been beaten again on the
subject of the Mint, which he moved to aboUsh.
Indeed, after making one strong effort to over
come opposition to this measure, he was so de
cidedly defeated that he never touched the
subject again, and ceased to sneer at the "in
signia of sovereignty." On the other hand, he
carried, without serious opposition, the impor
tant bUl for establishing a fund for schools and
roads out of the proceeds of land sales in the
Northwestern territory, and he shared with his
friend, Nicholson, the burden of impeaching
Judge Pickering, whose mental condition ren
dered him incapable of sitting on the bench.
With this impeachment, on March 4, 1803,
the session closed. By the federalists, the at
tack on Judge Pickering was taken as the first

A CENTRALIZING STATESMAN 81
of a series of impeachments, intended to revolu
tionize the political character of the courts, but
there is nothing to prove that this was then the
intent of the majority. The most obnoxious
justice on the supreme bench was Samuel Chase
of Maryland, whose violence as a political parti
san had certainly exposed him to the danger of
impeachment ; but two years had now passed
without producing any sign of an intention to
disturb him, and it might be supposed that the
administration thus condoned his offenses. Un
luckily, Judge Chase had not the good taste or
the judgment to be quiet. He irritated his
enemies by new indiscretions, and on May 13,
1803, nearly three months after Pickering's im
peachment, Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to Joseph
H. Nicholson, suggested that it would be weU
to take him in hand : —
" You must have heard of the extraordinary charge
of Chase to the grand jury at Baltimore. Ought this
seditious and official attack on the principles of our
Constitution and on the proceedings of a State to go
unpunished ? And to whom so pointedly as yourself
wiU the pubUc look for the necessary measures ? I
ask these questions for your consideration. As for
myself, it is better that I should not interfere."
Accordingly, Nicholson took up the matter,
and consulted his friends, among others Macon,
the Speaker, who, in a letter dated August 6,

82 JOHN RANDOLPH
1803, expressed grave doubts whether the judge
ought to be impeached for a charge to the grand
jury, and his firm conviction that, if any attempt
at impeachment should be made, Nicholson, at
aU events, ought not to be the leader. On this
hint that no candidate for the judge's office
should take the lead, Nicholson seems to have
passed on to Randolph the charge he had re
ceived from the President.
As usual, Randolph passed his summer at
Bizarre. Some of his letters at this period are
preserved, but have no special interest, except
for a single sentence in one addressed to GaUa
tin on June 4, which seems to prove that Ran
dolph was not very serious in his parade of
devotion to peace. Monroe had been sent to
France to negotiate for the purchase of New
Orleans, whUe at home not only the press, but
the President, in order to support his negotia
tion, openly threatened war should he faU.
Randolph said, —
" I think you wise men at the seat of government
have much to answer for in respect to the temper
prevailing around you. By their fruit shall ye know
them. Is there something more of system yet intro
duced among you ? Or are you stiU in chaos, with
out form and void ? Should you have leisure, give
me a hint of the first news from Mr. Monroe. After
all the vaporing, I have no expectation of a serious
war. Tant pis pour nous I "

^^^>^a^t<M-.^^^ f^^^-^

A CENTRALIZING STATESMAN 83
" So much the worse for us ! " This sounds
little like his comments on the war policy of
the federalists.
The criticism, too, on the want of system in
the Cabinet reflected on Mr. Jefferson's want of
method and grasp. The President, it seems,
enforced no order in his surroundings, but al
lowed each cabinet officer to go his own gait,
without consulting the rest. Apparently Gal
latin shared this opinion, annoyed at his faUure
to get Mr. Jefferson's support in efforts to con
trol waste in the navy.
AU this grumbling was idle talk. For this
time, again, Mr. Jefferson's happy star shone so
brightly that cavil and criticism were unnoticed.
Little as Randolph was disposed to bow before
that star, he could not help himself where such
uninterrupted splendor dazzled aU his friends.
Within a month after this letter was written,
the news arrived that Monroe had bought New
Orleans; had bought the whole west bank of
the Mississippi ; had bought, Heaven only knew
what ! the whole continent ! — excepting only
West Florida, which had been the chief object
of his mission.
The effect of such extraordinary success was
instantaneous. Opposition vanished. The fed
eralists kept up a sharp fusillade of slander and
abuse, but lost ground every day, and Mr. Jef-

84 JOHN RANDOLPH
ferson stood at the flood-mark of his immense
populaiity and power, while Randolph shared
in the prestige the administration had gained.
His influence in the House became irresistible,
and his temper more domineering than ever.
In his district he had no rival; in the House
he overrode resistance. The next session, of
1803-4, was a long series of personal and party
triumphs. In order to give the new treaty immediate
effect. Congress was caUed for October 17,
1803. Macon was again chosen Speaker;
Randolph and Nicholson, at the head of the
Ways and Means, were reinforced by Caesar A.
Rodney, who had defeated Bayard in Delaware.
The House plunged at once into the Louisiana
business. Although the federalists were very
imperfectly informed, they divined the two weak
points of the treaty : for France had sold Loui
siana without consulting Spain, although she was
pledged not to alienate it at aU, and could con
vey no good title without Spain's assent; she
had sold it, too, without defining its boundaries,
and on this account Spain became again a party
to the bargain. Spain had protested against the
sale as invaUd ; it was to be expected that, even
if she withdrew her protest against the sale, she
would insist on defining the boundaries to suit
herself. The federalists naturaUy wanted to

A CENTRALIZING STATESMAN 85
know what Spain had to say on the subject, and
they moved for the papers. The republicans
were determined not to gratify them, and Ran
dolph refused the papers.
This was treading very closely in federalist
footsteps, for few acts of the federalists had ex
cited more criticism than their refusal of papers
in the dispute over Jay's treaty. Randolph
rejected the federaUst doctrine that the House
had nothing to do but to carry the treaty into
effect, yet he foUowed it so closely in practice
that his majority almost rebeUed, and even
Nicholson could not be induced to go with him.
This, however, was not all. Only some four
months before, he had written to Gallatin him
self, the only consistent advocate of peace in
the whole government, that it would be the
worse for us if we had not a serious war. Like
many if not most southem men, he wanted a
war with Spain, and was pacified only by the
assurance that Florida would certainly be ours
without it. Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison,
Mr. Monroe and Mr. Livingston, had aU writ
ten or said, more or less privately, that under
the treaty a fair claim could be set up to West
Florida as having at one time been included in
Louisiana. There was hardly a shadow of sub
stance in this assumption, in itself an insult
to Spain, put forward without the sanction of

86 JOHN RANDOLPH
France, and calculated to embarrass relations
with both powers ; yet Randolph, as though in
order to force the hands of government, boldly
stated this shadowy claim as an express title:
" We have not only obtained the command of
the mouth of the Mississippi, but of the Mobile,
with its widely extended branches, and there is
not now a single stream of note, rising within
the United States and faUing into the Gulf of
Mexico, which is not entirely our own, the Apa-
lachicola excepted." On the strength of this
assertion, which he afterwards confessed to be
unfounded, he reported a bill which authorized
the President, whenever he should deem it expe
dient, " to erect the shores, waters, and inlets of
the bay and river of Mobile, and of the other
rivers, creeks, inlets, and bays emptying into
the Gxdf of Mexico east of the said river Mo-
bUe," into a coUection district of the United
States, with ports of entry and with the neces
sary officers of revenue. This bUl passed
through Congress and was signed by the Presi
dent, although it actually annexed by statute
the whole coast of Florida on the Gulf. As
for Spain, Randolph ignored her existence ; he
considered her right of reclamation as not worth
notice. Nothing could have tended more di
rectly to bring on the war, which the act indi
rectly authorized the President to begin.

A CENTRALIZING STATESMAN 87
Nevertheless, there was one point in this
Louisiana business which Randolph, of aU liv
ing men, was most certain to mark and expose.
Mr. Jefferson had instantly seen it, and had
lost no time in explaining it to his confidants.
What effect would the acquisition and the mode
of acquisition have upon states' rights and on
the Constitution? No one could doubt the
answer, for it was plain that the Louisiana pur
chase, in every possible point of view, was fatal
to states' rights. From the ground which Mr.
Jefferson and his friends had consistently
taken, the Constitution was a caref uUy consid
ered compact between certain States, with a
view to union for certain defined objects ; any
measure likely to alter the ficxed relations and
the established balances of the Constitution
without an amendment required the consent of
all the parties ; it might even be argued, as
Timothy Pickering actuaUy did assert, that in
an extreme case a State had the right to treat
the Constitution as abrogated if the status were
altered against her single wiU. The Louisiana
purchase was such an extreme case. No one
doubted, and Randolph least of aU, that it
completely changed the conditions of the con
stitutional compact ; rendering the nation, inde
pendent of the States, master of an empire
immensely greater than the States themselves ;

88 JOHN RANDOLPH
pledging the nation in effect to the admission
of indefinite new States ; insuring an ultimate
transfer of power from the old original parties
in the compact to the new States, thus forced
on their society ; and foreboding the destruction
of states' rights by securing a majority of States,
without traditions, history, or character, the
mere creatures of the general government, thou
sands of miles from the old Union, inhabited in
1803, so far as the territory was populated at
aU, only by Frenchmen, Spaniards, or Indians,
and fitted by climate and conditions for a people
different from that of the Atlantic seaboard.
There was, indeed, no end to the list of in
stances in which this purchase affected the
original Union. No federalist measure had
ever approached it in constitutional importance.
The whole list of questionable federaUst prece
dents was insignificant beside this one act.
By what authority was the Union to put on
this new character and to accept this destiny,
of which no man had an idea on July 3, 1803,
and which was an accomplished fact on the next
day ? Who did it ? It was the perfectly Inde
pendent act of President Jefferson and twenty-
six senators. This constitutional cataclysm was
effected by the treaty-making power ; Congress
had not been otherwise consulted ; the States
had not been caUed upon in any other way to

A CENTRALIZING STATESMAN 89
assent ; the central government, not the States,
was party to the new contract.
Mr. Jefferson, in this far-reaching action,
scandalized even himself. "The Executive,"
said he, " has done an act beyond the Constitu
tion. The legislature must ratify it, and throw
themselves on the country for an act of indem
nity." He drew the necessary amendment to
the Constitution, consulting his Cabinet, and
getting official opinions ; writing to his friends,
and soon receiving letters in reply. Shocked to
find that his party, perverted by the possession
of power, would not hear of amending the Con
stitution or seeking indemnity, he supplicated
them to listen to him : " Our peculiar security
is in the possession of a written Constitution.
Let us not make it a blank paper by construc
tion." He said that this new rule of construc
tion abolished the Constitution. His supporters
persisted in their own contrary opinion, and in
the end he acquiesced.
Randolph was probably the most thorough
going states'-rights man in the republican party,
for he had assailed Patrick Henry, and was one
day to stand by Calhoun on this favorite creed.
So extreme were his views that at a later period
he boasted of having never voted for the admis
sion of any new State Into the Union, not even
for that of Ohio in the session of 1802. Now

90 JOHN RANDOLPH
that the federaUsts were out of office, they too
had become alive to the Importance of this prin
ciple, for, at bottom, Massachusetts was as jeal
ous as Virginia of any stretch of power likely to
weaken her influence. The federalist leaders in
Congress, accordingly, now attacked the admin
istration for exceeding Its powers, and Mr. Gris-
wold of New York, In a temperate and reasonable
speech, took precisely the ground which Mr.
Jefferson had taken In his private letters, that
the annexation of Louisiana and its inhabitants
by treaty was a plain violation of the Constitu
tion. Randolph replied, and the reply was a
curious commentary on his past and future po
litical life. Not a word feU from his lips which
could be construed into a states'-rights senti
ment. He who had raged with the violence of
a wild animal against the constitutional theories
of Washington and John Adams did not whis
per a remonstrance against this new assumption
of power, which, according to Mr. Jefferson,
made blank paper of the Constitution. He
advanced an astonishing argument to show that
a right to acquire territory must exist, because
the national boundaries In certain directions,
under the treaty of 1783, were disputed or
doubtful, and because the government had ob
tained territory at Natchez and elsewhere with
out raising the question. The federalists, he

A CENTRALIZING STATESMAN 91
said, had wanted to seize New Orleans by force,
and were therefore estopped from reasoning
that It could not be annexed by treaty. The
conditions of acquisition, moreover, being a part
of the price, were involved In the right to ac
quire ; for if the Constitution covered the right
to purchase territory, it covered also the price
to be paid for that territory, whether this in
cluded the naturalization of the inhabitants or
special privUeges to foreign nations. Acting
doubtless under the advice and Instructions of
Mr. Madison, he denied that there was any un
constitutional stipulation In the treaty ; he even
denied that the pledge given in It, that " the
Inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be Incor
porated in the Union," meant that they should
be Incorporated Into the Union of States, or that
the further pledge, that they should be " ad
mitted as soon as possible, according to the
principles of the federal Constitution, to the
enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and
Immunities of citizens of the United States,"
meant that they were to enjoy any political
rights. If this reasoning satisfied Randolph, it should
certainly have pleased those who had labored
for fifteen years, against the bitterest opposition
from Randolph and his friends, to strengthen
the national government; but how Mr. Ran-

92 JOHN RANDOLPH
dolph, after making such an argument, could
ever again claim credit as a champion of states'
rights is a question which he alone could answer.
Under such rules of construction, according to
Mr. Jefferson's view, the President and two
thirds of the senators might abolish the States
themselves and make serfs of every Randolph
in Virginia, as indeed, some sixty years after
wards, was done. This is no captious criticism.
Mr. Jefferson's language Is emphatic. He de
clared that this construction " would make our
powers boundless," and It did so. Randolph
himself acknowledged his mistake. " We were
forewarned ! " he cried in 1822. " I for one,
although forewarned, was not forearmed. If I
had been, I have no hesitation in declaring that
I would have said to the imperial Dejanira of
modern times, ' Take back your fatal present ! ' "
From this moment It became foUy to deny that
the general government was the measure of its
own powers, for Randolph's own act had changed
theory Into fact, and he could no more undo
what he had done than he could stop the earth
in its revolution.
Having swaUowed without even a grimace
this enormous camel, Randolph next strained
at a gnat. A bill came down from the Senate
authorizing the President to take possession of
the new territory and to exercise aU the powers

A CENTRALIZING STATESMAN 93
of government untU Congress should make pro
vision on the subject. Of course the authority
thus conveyed was despotic, but so was the pur
chase itself; cli-cumstances aUowed no delay,
and the President was properly responsible for
his trust, which would last only so long as Con
gress permitted. Randolph, however, was vigi
lant in his watchfulness against the danger of
executive encroachments. "If we give this
power out of our hands, it may be irrevocable
untU Congress shaU have made legislative pro
vision ; that is, a single branch of the govern
ment, the executive branch, with a smaU minority
of either House, may prevent its resumption."
Had he refused to confer this dictatorial power
at aU, he would at least have had a principle
to support him, but he was ready to approve
despotic principles for four months, tiU the ses
sion ended, though not a moment longer. In
the end he aUowed the President to govern
Louisiana with the powers of a King of Spain
untU a rebeUion became imminent.
Of other measures, only two were of enough
interest to deserve notice. While the regular
business of the session went on, exacting that
attention which the chairman of Ways and
Means must always expect to give, two subjects
came before the House, which were to decide
Randolph's future career, — the Impeachment

94 JOHN RANDOLPH
of Judge Chase and the Yazoo claims. Thus
far aU had gone weU with him ; his infiuence
had SteadUy increased with every year of his
service ; his control over the House was great,
for among the repubUcans who obeyed his lead,
there was not a single member competent to
dispute it. Already the federalists dreaded this
aristocratic democrat, who, almost alone In his
party, had the abUity and the courage to act
upon his theories ; and they looked on with a
genuine feeling of terror, as though they saw in
his strange and restless face a threat of social
disaster and civil anarchy, when, with the whole
power of the administration behind him and a
majority of two to one in the House, he rose
In his place to move the impeachment of Judge
Chase.

CHAPTER V
VAULTING AMBITION
Theee Is nothing to show that Randolph
was the real author of Judge Chase's Impeach
ment ; on the contrary, It appears from the let
ters already quoted that Mr. Jefferson himself
was the man who set this engine In motion,
and that It was Nicholson through whom the
President acted. Nicholson Impeached Judge
Pickering, and was the only prominent man
ager in that cause, of which he was now In
charge. Nicholson, too, had made all the pre
parations for this second, more serious exercise
of the impeaching power. However readily the
scheme may have faUen In with Randolph's
wishes and prejudices, it was certainly Nichol
son who urged him to action, and provided him
with such law as he could not do without. Pro
perly, therefore, the credit or discredit of the
measure should have fallen upon Nicholson and
Mr. Jefferson, but Randolph wilUngly reUeved
them of the load.
Judge Chase's recent charge to the Baltimore
grand jury in May, 1803, offensive as it cer-

96 JOHN RANDOLPH
tainly was, seemed hardly such a high crime or
misdemeanor as to render his conviction certain,
and the impeachers thought it safer to strengthen
their cause by aUeging other offenses of earlier
date. Yet Chase had sat on the bench and
administered justice for three years since Mr.
Jefferson's election without a sign of impeach
ment, and without complaint from the suitors
in his court. To go back four years, and search
old court records for offenses forgotten and con
doned, was awkward. Could the impeachers
excuse themselves and their House for permit
ting this notorious criminal to wear his robes
and expound the Constitution and the laws for
so many years, without an attempt on their part
to relieve a groaning people from the tyranny
of a worse than Jeffries or Scroggs? Could
the House venture to set out on this crusade
against a coiirdlnate and independent branch of
the government, without at least an Invitation
from the Executive? Mr. Jefferson, however,
would not burn his fingers in such a flame.
" As for myself, it is better that I should not
Interfere." Nicholson and Randolph were hot
headed men ! They had the courage of their
convictions, and they accepted the difficult task.
Mr. Jefferson was a little too apt to evade
open responsibility; the number of Instances
In which he encouraged others to do what he

VAULTING AMBITION 97
would not do himself Is so large as to strike
even careless attention. He would have shud
dered at the Idea of betraying friends, but It Is
not to be denied that a sanguine temperament
and perfect faith in his own honest purposes
sometimes caused him to lead those friends into
difficulties from which, In case of failure, he
could not extricate them. Had Randolph been
a wise or cautious man, he would have Insisted
that nothing should induce him to touch the
impeachment until the President had sent to the
House some official message, as In the case of
Judge Pickering, upon which an inquiry might
be founded. Being neither wise nor cautious,
but on the contrary deeply jealous of Mr. Jeffer
son and his interference, Randolph undertook to
act alone. Perhaps, like many another man, his
mind was overmastered by the splendor of the
Hastings trial, then so recent, which has dazzled
the good sense of many poUticians ; perhaps he
was deluded by the ambition to rival his great
teacher, Edmund Burke; but more probably
he was guided only by the political faith of his
youth, by the Influence of Nicholson, and his
own impatient temper.
On January 5, 1804, Randolph rose to move
for an Inquiry into the conduct of Judge Chase.
No official document existed on which to found
such a motion, and he condescended to act a

98 JOHN RANDOLPH
little comedy, not so respectful to the House or
the country as might have been expected from a
Randolph, whose sense of truth and honor was
keen. In the course of the last session, a bUl
had been introduced to change the circuits, by
which Judge Chase was assigned to that of
Pennsylvania, and one of the Pennsylvanian
members, John SmUie, made a speech on Feb
ruary 16, 1803, In connection with this biU. In
order to explain why Mr. Chase should be put
on some other circuit, where he would not be
obnoxious to the bar and the people, he recalled
the weU-known stories of Chase's arbitrary con
duct at the trial of Fries in AprU, 1800. These
remarks were of so Uttle importance in Mr.
SmUIe's mind that he put no weight upon them
except for the passing object they were meant
to serve. The idea of impeachment did not
enter his head.
There was, therefore, a certain grimace of fim
In the solemnity with which Randolph now rose
and said that Mr. SmUIe's remarks on that
occasion and the facts stated by him were of
such a nature as the House was bound to notice.
" But the lateness of the session (for we had, if
I mistake not, scarce a fortnight remaining)
precluding aU possibUity of bringing the sub
ject to any efficient result, I did not then
think proper to take any steps in the business.

VAULTING AMBITION 99
Fmding my attention, however, thus drawn to
a consideration of the character of the officer
In question, I made It my business, considering
it my duty as weU to myseK as to those whom
I represent, to Investigate the charges then
made, and the official character of the judge in
general." Mr. SmUie was a very respectable but not
very weighty member of the House, and this
sudden elevation to the rank of public accuser,
which Mr. Jefferson, If any one, could alone fiU
with sufficient authority, was a stroke of Ran
dolph's wit, characteristic of the man. As for
the whole statement with which Randolph intro
duced his motion, it is curious chiefly because it
is, to say the least, Inconsistent with the facts.
Mr. SmUIe's speech had no more than the ora
tion of Cicero against Clodius to do with Ran
dolph's sudden zeal. SmUIe's speech was made
on February 16, 1803 ; Chase's address ,to the
grand jury at Baltimore was made nearly three
months afterwards, on May 2, 1808 ; and it was
only then that the Idea of Impeachment was
suggested. Yet this invocation of SmUie in
place of Mr. Jefferson was less amusing than
the coolness with which the speaker required
the House to beUeve that his only knowledge
of Judge Chase's conduct at the trial of Frie.«
was derived from a few remarks made In Con-

100 JOHN RANDOLPH
gress three years after the offense. The trial of
Fries had taken place In PhUadelphia, In April,
1800, within twenty rods of the building where
Randolph was then sitting as a member of Con
gress, and excited great attention, especiaUy
among the members, many of whom were pre
sent at it ; Mr. Dallas, the most prominent re
publican lawyer in the State, closely connected
with aU the leaders of his party, acted as coun
sel for Fries, and threw up his brief on account
of the judge's conduct ; William Lewis, one of
the best lawyers Pennsylvania ever had, and a
federalist by previous tastes, was also In the
case and guided the course of Dallas: yet, In
spite of this notoriety, and the dissensions after
wards caused by President Adams's pardon of
Fries, Randolph stiU asserted that the subject
was new to him when Mr. SmUie, in February,
1803, made his passing allusion to It. "It is
true that the deliberations of Congress were
then held in Philadelphia, the scene of this
aUeged Iniquity, but, with other members, I was
employed in discharging my duties to my con
stituents, not In witnessing in any court the
triumph of my principles. I could not have
been so employed." Even if this were true, did
his ignorance excuse the inaction of his whole
party ? Or would his effrontery go so far as to
assert that he and his friends had never heard

VAULTING AMBITION lOl
of CaUender's trial at Richmond, which was to
constitute other counts In the Indictment ?
Mr. SmiUe, thus put forward as official ac
cuser, told his story over again. Without other
evidence, after a long debate, the Inquiry was
ordered, and Randolph, with his friend Nichol
son, was put at the head of the committee. On
March 26, 1804, they reported seven articles of
impeachment : the first and second covering the
case of Fries ; the third, fourth, and fifth that
of CaUender; the sixth that of Judge Chase's
refusal to discharge the grand jury at Newcastle
in June, 1800, until they should have indicted a
Delaware printer; and the seventh embracing
that charge to the grand jury at Baltimore In
May, 1803, which had stirred up President Jef
ferson to set the whole movement afoot. With
this the session ended, and the trial went over
to the next year.
The Yazoo claims came before the House in
the regular course of business. The story of
these claims is long and compUcated, but it is so
closely entwined with the thread of Randolph's
Ufe that to omit or slur it would be to sever
the connection of events, and to miss one of the
decisive moments of his career.
The rescinding act, already mentioned as
passed by the State of Georgia in the year 1796
at the time when Randolph was visiting his

102 JOHN RANDOLPH
friend Bryan, did not end the matter of the Ya
zoo grants, and the very pains taken to fortify
that act by incorporating it in the state Consti
tution showed doubt as to its legaUty. The com
panies had, in fact, paid their money, obtained
their grants, and sold considerable portions of
the land to private individuals throughout the
Union ; and these persons, in their turn, wher
ever there was money to be made by it, had
transferred the property to others. A wUd
speculation foUowed, Involving some two mlUIon
doUars In Massachusetts alone. Were the com
panies and these third parties innocent pur
chasers ? Were they, or any of them, Ignorant
that the title of Georgia to the lands in question
was doubtful, that the grants had been obtained
by corruption, and that the State of Georgia
would certainly revoke them? The only evi
dence that the purchasers knew their risk was
that the companies In aU cases decUned to give
a warranty as against any defect In their title
from the State of Georgia.
When Georgia rescinded and expunged the
act of 1795, a certain number of the purchasers
surrendered their titles and received back their
money. The United States government next
intervened as protector of the Indians, who
actually owned and occupied the land ; and at
length, in 1802, Mr. Jefferson succeeded in ob-

VAULTING AMBITION 103
taining from Georgia the cession of such rights
as she had over all that vast territory which now
makes the States of Alabama and Mississippi.
The purchasers under the Yazoo grants who
still clung to their titles gave due notice of their
claims, and the law which authorized the treaty
of cession provided for a compromise with these
claimants. The Secretary of State, Mr. Madi
son, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. GaUatin,
and the Attorney-General, Mr. Levi Lincoln,
commissioners for arranging the terms of set
tlement, reported, on February 14, 1803, that
although in their opinion the title of the claim
ants could not be supported, yet they believed
that "the interest of the United States, the
tranquUlity of those who may hereafter inhabit
that country, and various equitable considera
tions which may be urged in favor of most of
the present claimants " rendered it expedient
to enter Into a compromise on reasonable terms.
They proposed, therefore, that five miUion acres
be set aside, within which, under certain restric
tions, the claimants might locate the quantity of
land aUotted to them, or from the sale of which
they were to receive certificates for their pro
portion of the proceeds, something like one
sixth or one eighth of their claim.
Thus the matter now stood, and it should be
mentioned, by way of parenthesis, that when,

104 JOHN RANDOLPH
in 1810, the subject came before the Supreme
Court, in the case of Fletcher against Peck,
Chief Justice Marshall deUvered the opinion of
the court that the legislature of Georgia had,
by Its act of 1795 and its grants of land, exe
cuted a contract with the claimants; that the
rescinding act of 1796 Impaired the obUgation
of that contract, and was therefore repugnant
to the Constitution of the United States; that
it could not devest the rights acquired under
the contract; and that the court would not
enter Into an Inquiry respecting the corruption
of a sovereign State.
It is plain, therefore, that any one who in
tended to resist the Yazoo claims had a difficult
task on his hands. The President, Mr. Madi
son, Mr. GaUatin, and Mr. Lincoln were against
him ; several acts of Congress stood In his way ;
the Supreme Court was behind him, ready to
trip him up ; a very large number of most re
spectable citizens were petitioners for the settle
ment. The compromise suggested would cost
nothing to Georgia, for she had given the lands
to the United States, and would cost nothing to
the United States, for they held the lands as a
gift from Georgia. A refusal to compromise
would throw the whole matter Into the courts,
with the result of retarding settlement, multiply
ing expenses, and probably getting In the end

VAULTING AMBITION 105
an adverse decision. It would create serious
political Ul-feeUng in the party, and, on the
other hand, what possible object could be
gained by It ?
Randolph was equal to the occasion. On
February 20, 1804, he opened his attack on
the commissioners' report by moving a string
of resolutions: first, that the Georgia legisla
ture had not the power of alienating territory
" but In a rightful manner and for the public
good ; " second, that It is " the Inalienable right
of a people " to abrogate an act passed with bad
motives, to the pubUc detriment ; the third and
fourth recited the circumstances of the case;
the next affirmed the right of a legislature to
repeal the act of a preceding legislature, " pro
vided such repeal be not forbidden by the Con
stitution of such State, or of the United States ; "
the sixth affirmed that the rescinding act of
Georgia " was forbidden neither by the Consti
tution of that State, nor by that of the United
States;" the seventh declared that the claims
had not been recognized either in the cession
by Georgia, or In any act of the federal govern
ment ; and the last forbade any part of the
reserved five mUlion acres to be used in satis
fying the claims.
These resolutions covered the whole ground ;
they swept statements of fact, principles of law,

106 JOHN RANDOLPH
theories of the Constitution, considerations of
equity, Uke a flock of sheep Into one fold to be
sheared. Randolph, too, was in deadly earnest,
and In his most domineering temper. When he
saw that the Committee of the Whole showed
signs of evading a vote on his resolutions, he
stood over them like an Egyptian taskmaster,
and cracked his whip as though they were his
own negroes. " No course that can be pursued
shaU prevent me from bringing out the sense of
the House. Whether the question on these res
olutions shaU be attempted to be got rid of by
the previous question, or by a postponement, I
wUl have the sense of the House expressed to
the public ; for this Is one of the cases which,
once being engaged in, I can never desert or
reUnquIsh tUl I shaU have exercised every en
ergy of mind and faculty of body I possess In
refuting so nefarious a project." He was warmly
supported, and as warmly opposed. "Persons
of every political description," said he, " are
marshaled in support of these claims. We
have had to contend against the bear of the
arctic and the lion of the torrid zone." Mat
thew Lyon, once a martyr to the sedition law,
the man most famous as having spit in Roger
Griswold's face and roUed with him on the
floor of the House, was in fact a supporter of
the compromise; and, being a man of strong

VAULTING AMBITION 107
sense and courage, did not shrink from Ran
dolph's whip. He made a sensible speech In
reply to this chaUenge, keeping his temper on
this occasion at least. At length, after two
days' debate, a vote was reached, not on the
question of adopting, but of postponing, the
resolutions. On the first Randolph defeated
his opponents by the narrowest possible ma
jority, 52 to 51. On aU the others he was
beaten by majorities varying from 2 to 7, and
after this postponement of his other resolutions
he himself acquiesced In abandoning the first.
The object he had in view was gained ; he had
forced the House to delay legislation for another
year. If, now, the Yazoo affair be considered with
out prejudice or feeling, It must be acknow
ledged to involve a serious doubt. That Ran
dolph was right need not be argued; that he
was whoUy In the wrong Is not to be Ughtly
admitted. The people of Georgia beUeved
themselves betrayed by their agents, who had.
In their name, entered Into a contract against
pubUc Interest, Induced thereto by corrupt mo
tives. Were the people to be forever bound by
the corrupt and dangerous bargain of their
representatives ?
They had iustantly, publicly, violently disar
vowed those agents and repudiated their act.

108 JOHN RANDOLPH
caUing upon aU the parties who had meanwhile
paid value for lands, under the obnoxious
grants, to receive back their money and sur
render their titles. What more could they have
done? What more should they be required to
do? In 1796, and even In 1804, the law was not
yet decided. The case of Fletcher against
Peck, that of Terrett against Taylor, and the
still more famous Dartmouth CoUege case, lay
In the breast of Chief Justice MarshaU, waiting
tiU Mr. Jefferson's day should be over. Yet,
even now, with aU the weight of those decisions
and many more, it is hard for laymen to sur
render their judgment on this subject. Were
a state legislature to-day bribed by a great
ralU'oad company to confer a grant of exclusive
privileges, fatal to the public interests, for a
nominal consideration, it would be dangerous to
the pubUc safety to affirm that the people could
never free themselves from this servitude. To
overcome the difficulty by resorting to some
theory like that of eminent domain is merely
John Randolph's proposition under another
form ; It Is state sovereignty, to which we must
come at last. Was it not simpler to assume at
once an implied right. In every grant, to alter
or amend it. If contrary to public Interest?
Was it politically safe, even though legaUy cor-

VAULTING AMBITION 109
rect, to make this hazardous experiment of tying
the limbs of sovereignty with the thin threads
of judge-made law ?
Randolph's resolutions turned on state sov
ereignty, but when he came to debate he used
a weapon more effective for the moment, because
states' rights sound less persuasively in the ears
of the party in power than in those of the
opposition. He denounced the Yazoo settle
ment as a corrupt job, to be forced through
Congress by an Interested lobby, and declared,
doubtless with perfect honesty, that the purity
of government was gone forever if this gross
outrage on decency were to succeed. In taking
this position, Randolph was consistent ; he stood
on soUd party ground, opposing a combination
of northern democrats, federalists, and executive
influence, which he thought corrupt. To do
this required no little courage, and if there were
selfish or personal motives behind his action
they are not to be seen. If he struck at Mr.
Jefferson and Mr. Madison, he struck also at
Mr. GaUatin, his strongest friend; and if he
made enemies of the northern democrats, It was
because he knew the weakness of their party
principles. Mean ambition does not work In
such paths ; only a classical, over-towering love
of rule thus ventures to defy the opinion of
others. Had Randolph wanted office he would,

110 JOHN RANDOLPH
Uke Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, have con-,
ciliated the northern democrats and smoothed!
the processes of corruption ; he would have shut
his eyes to what was going on In the lobby, weU
aware that his blind war against his party must
do more harm than good. Office he did not
want, and he wiUingly flung his chances away,
but only to grasp at the higher, moral authority
of a popular tribune. He beUeved that the
administration, backed by northern democrats, \
was forgetting the principles on which It had J
claimed and won confidence and power; he
foresaw an over-powerful Executive purchasing
influence by jobs and patronage, the experience
of aU past ages, and faUing at last into the
hands of a Caesar or a Bonaparte. In his eyes,
all the easy roads of doubtful virtue led to this.
Debt, taxes, armies, navies, and offices of every
sort; executive Intermeddling, legislative jobs,
and aU expenditure of any kind that fed an in
terest ; aU assumptions of power, aU concessions
to Influential fraud, — were mere steps to Ro
man degradation. Madman he may have been,
but his madness had a strong element of reason
and truth. He told his party that they were
going wrong ; the time was near at hand when
he was to teU them that he could no longer
share their offices and honors.
Thus far, although touching the extreme Umit

VAULTING AMBITION 111
of propriety in the manner of his opposition,
he had not passed beyond bounds, and, what
told most In his favor, he won his single-handed
battle; the path of compromise was blocked,
and he himself was now a great political power,
for never before had any man, living or dead,
fought such a fight in Congress and won it.
Feared by the federalists for having by an
arbitrary act, avowedly his own, Impeached
Judge Chase for offenses long ago tacitly con
doned, he was stiU more formidable to Mr.
Jefferson and the Cabinet. With such dicta
torial power over the House of Representatives,
what might he not do should he oppose a vital
measure of the administration, as he had resisted
the Yazoo compromise? Even at this early
moment, shrewd observers might calculate the
orbit of this poUtical comet, and no extraordi
nary knowledge of mathematics was needed to
show them where to look for a coming coUision.
The session, however, was now at an end,
and Randolph buried himself again at Bizarre.
As a curiosity, the foUowing extracts from a
letter written by him to Joseph H. Nicholson,
on August 27, 1804, are worth reading. The
famous duel between Aaron Burr and Al
exander Hamilton had just taken place, and
Burr's political ruin, caused chiefly by the en
mity of De Witt Clinton and by the bitter per-

112 JOHN RANDOLPH
secution of De Witt CUnton's newspaper, the
" American Citizen," edited by an EngUshman
named Cheetham, was the excitement of the
day. EAiroOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
" I have not seen, although I have heard, of the
attack which you mention, upon GaUatin, in the
'Aurora.' That paper is so long in reaching me,
and, moreover, is so stuffed with city, or rather sub
urb, politics, that I seldom look at it. Indeed, I
have taken a disgust at newspapers ever since the
deception and disappointment which I felt in the case
of Langdon's election. If the 'Boston Chronicle,'
pubUshed almost upon the spot, should so grossly mis
represent a plain matter of fact, so easily ascertained,
what reliance can be placed upon a newspaper state
ment ? My increduUty refused to credit HamUton's
death, which I thought it very likely would be contrar
dieted by the next maU ; and, until I saw Morris's
wretched attempt at oratory, regarded it merely as a
matter of speculation. You ask my opinion on that
subject; it differs but Uttle, I beUeve, from your
own. I feel for Hamilton's immediate connections
real concern ; for himself, nothing ; for his party and
those soi-disant repubUcans who have been shedding
crocodUe tears over him, contempt. The first are
justly punished for descending to use Burr as a tool
to divide their opponents ; the last are hypocrites, who
deify Hamilton merely that they may offer up their
enemy on his altars. If Burr had not faUen, like

VAULTING AMBITION 113
Lucifer, never to rise again, the unprincipled persecu
tion of Cheetham might do him service. (By the way,
I wonder if Dennie adverted to Cheetham's patronage
of General Hamilton's memory when he said that,
' except the imported scoundrel,' etc., etc., aU bewailed
his loss.) As it is, those pubUcations are calculated to
engage for him the pity even of those who must deny
their esteem. The people, who ultimately never fail
to make a proper decision, abhor persecution, and,
while they justly refuse their confidence to Mr. Burr,
they wiU detest his oppressors. They cannot, they
wUl not, grope in the vUe mire of seaport poUtics, not
less vitiated than their atmosphere. Burr's is indeed
an irreparable defeat. He is cut off from aU hope
of a retreat among the federalists, not so much be
cause he has overthrown their idol as because he
cannot answer their purpose. If his influence were
sufficient to divide us, Otis and Morris would to-mor
row, ere those shoes were old in which they foUowed
Hamilton to the grave, go to the hustings and vote
for Burr; and if his character had no other stain
upon it than the blood of HamUton, he should have
mine, for any secondary office. I admire his letters,
particularly that signed by Van Ness, and think his
whole conduct in that affair does him honor. How
much it is to be regretted that so nice a perception
of right and wrong, so deUcate a sense of propriety,
as he there exhibits should have had such little
influence on his general conduct ! In his correspond
ence with Hamilton, how visible is his ascendency
over him, and how sensible does the latter appear

114 JOHN RANDOLPH
of it ! There is an apparent consciousness of some
inferiority to his enemy displayed by Hamilton
throughout that transaction, and from a previous
sight of their letters I could have inferred the issue
of the contest. On one side there is labored obscur
ity, much equivocation, and many attempts at eva
sion, not unmixed with a little blustering; on the
other, an unshaken adherence to his object and an
undeviating pursuit of it, not to be eluded or baffled.
It reminded me of a sinking fox pressed by a vigor
ous old hound, where no shift is permitted to avaU
him. But perhaps you think me inclined to do Burr
more than justice. I assure you, however, that when
I first saw the correspondence, and before my feelings
were at aU excited for the man, as they have been
in some degree by the savage yeU which has been
raised against him, I applauded the spirit and ad
mired the style of his compositions. They are the
first proof which I ever saw of his abiUty."
One more letter is worth a little attention.
The Louisiana business was rapidly taking a new
phase. The Spanish minister at Washington,
the Marquis of Casa Yrujo, Irritated by the
cavalier manner in which his country had been
treated, made himself very disagreeable to Mr.
Madison, and in return was charged by WilUam
Jackson, editor of the " PoUtical Register," of
Philadelphia, with an attempt to corrupt the
press by Spanish gold. Mr. Charles Pinckney
of South Carolina, our minister at Madrid, had,

VAULTING AMBITION 115
without the authority of government, under
taken to break off his relations with the govern
ment of Spain. W. C. C. Claibome, the new
Governor of Louisiana, had managed to Irritate
New Orleans. The British frigates Cambrian
and Leander were searching every vessel that
entered or left the harbor of New York, and
seizing men and ships without mercy. It is
well to know what Randolph, in his private
talk, had to say about matters so loudly dis
cussed by him at a later time.
On October 14, 1804, he wrote from Bizarre
to the Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gal
latin : — EANDOLPH TO GAILATIN.
" On my return from Fredericksburg, after a ra
cing campaign, I was very agreeably accosted by your
truly welcome letter, to thank you for which, and not
because I have anything, stable news excepted, to
communicate, I now take up the pen. It is some
satisfaction to me, who have been pestered with in
quiries that I could not answer on the subject of
pubUc affairs, to find that the ChanceUor of the Ex
chequer and First Lord of the Treasury is in as com
fortable a state of ignorance as myself. Pope says of
governments, that is best which is best administered.
What idea, then, could he have of a government
which was not administered at aU ? The longer I
live, the more do I incline to somebody's opinion

116 JOHN RANDOLPH
that there is in the affairs of this world a mechanisih
of which the very agents themselves are ignorant,
and which, of course, they can neither calculate nor
control. As much free wUl as you please in every
thing else, but in politics I must ever be a necessita
rian. And this comfortable doctrine saves me a deal
of trouble and many a twinge of conscience for my
heedless ignorance. I therefore leave Major Jackson
and his Ex. of Casa Yrujo to give each other the Ue
in Anglo-American or CastiUan fashions, just as it
suits them ; and when people resort to me for intelU
gence, instead of playing the owl and putting on a face
of solemn nonsense, I very fairly teU them, with per
fect nonchalance, that I know nothing of the matter,
— from which, if they have any discernment, they
may infer that I care as little about it, — and then
change the subject as quickly as I can to horses, dogs,
the plough, or some other upon which I feel myself
competent to converse. In short, I like originaUty
too weU to be a second-hand poUtician when I can
help it. It is enough to live upon the broken vict
uals and be tricked out in the cast-off finery of you
first-rate statesmen aU the winter. When I cross the
Potomac I leave behind me aU the scraps, shreds, and
patches of politics which I coUect during the session,
and put on the plain homespun, or, as we say, the
' Virginia cloth,' of a planter, which is clean, whole,
and comfortable, even if it be homely. Neverthe
less, I have patriotism enough left to congratulate
you on the fuUness of the public purse, and cannot
help wishing that its situation could be concealed

VAULTING AMBITION 117
from our Sangrados in politics, with whom depletion
is the order of the day. On the subject of a navy,
you know my opinion concurs with yours. I really feel
ashamed for my country that, whilst she is hector
ing before the petty corsairs of the coast of Barbary,
she should truckle to the great pirate of the Ger
man Ocean ; and I would freely vote a naval force
that should blow the Cambrian and Leander out of
water. Indeed, I wish Barron's squadron had been
employed on that service. I am perfectly aware of
the importance of peace to us, particularly with Great
Britain, but I know it to be equally necessary to her ;
and in short, if we have any honor as a nation to lose,
which is problematical, I am unwUUng to surrender it.
" On the subject of Louisiana you are also ap
prised that my sentiments coincide with your own,
and it is principaUy because of that coincidence that
I rely upon their correctness. But as we have the
misfortune to differ from that great political luminary,
Mr. Matthew Lyon, on this as well as on most other
points, I doubt whether we shaU not be overpowered.
If Spain be ' f aUen from her old CastiUan faith,
candor, and dignity,' it must be aUowed that we
have been judicious in our choice of a minister to
negotiate with her ; and Louisiana, it being presum
able, partaking something of the character which dis
tinguished her late sovereign when she acquired that
territory, the selection of a pompous nothing for a
Governor wiU be admitted to have been happy. At
least if the appointment be not defensible on that
principle, I am at a loss to discover any other tenable

118 JOHN RANDOLPH
point. In answer to your question I would advise
the printing of — thousand copies of Tom Paine's
answer to their remonstrance, and transmitting them
by as many thousand troops, who can speak a lan
guage perfectly inteUigible to the people of Louisi
ana, whatever that of their Governor may be. It is,
to be sure, a little awkward, except in addresses
and answers, where each party is previously weU ap
prised of what the other has to say, that, whilst the
eyes and ears of the admiring Louisianiaus are fiUed
with the majestic person and sonorous periods of their
chief magistrate, their understandings should be ut
terly vacant. If, however, they were aware that, even
if they understood English, it might be no better,
they would perhaps be more reconciled to their situ
ation. You reaUy must send something better than
this mere ape of greatness to these Hispano-Gaulo.
He would make a portly figure delivering to 'my
lords and gentlemen ' a speech which Pitt had pre
viously taught him ; we want an automaton, and a
puppet wUl not supply his place."
This letter, which otherwise contains nothing
remarkable except perhaps its egotism, might
equaUy weU have been written by a federalist
in opposition to government. The writer shows
irritation at his want of influence in public
affairs; he wiU vote a navy to blow British
ships out of water ; he is ready to face a war
rather than surrender the national honor; he
wishes to send some thousands of troops to over-

VAULTING AMBITION 119
awe his feUow-cItlzens at New Orleans ; and he
has none but words of contempt for aU the
President's appointments. What else could a
federaUst have said, and how could he have
shown less respect for the sentiments of 1800 ?
Randolph, however, was a fault-finder by pro
fession; what he wrote in this jocular way is
perhaps not to be taken as serious. Eccentric,
as his friends acknowledged, It was not always
easy to tie him down to one opinion ; nor was
It even quite certain that he himself remem
bered his own opinions from one month to an
other. Yet in regard to the most notable idea
expressed in this letter, he was so far consistent
as to repeat It In a stiU more emphatic form
during the next session of Congress ; for when,
on December 6, 1804, the biU for "the more
effectual preservation of peace in the ports and
harbors of the United States " came before the
House, he delivered a violent harangue on the
subject : —
" I would be glad to see a remedy more complete
than the one mentioned in this biU. ... I would like
to see the armed vessels employed in disturbing our
peaceable commerce blown out of the water. I wish
to see our American officers and seamen lying yard-
arm and yard-arm in the attack, and the question
of peace or war staked on the issue, if the conduct of
such marauders were justified by the government of

120 JOHN RANDOLPH
the nation to which they belong. This language may
appear different from what I have constantly used,
but our situation is also different. Heretofore I was
not disposed to engage in hostiUties for the protection
of our navigation, but we then had no maritime force.
We have since created one. If we had no navy, we
could not meet them on the ocean ; but having one,
I would apply it to the best purpose, that of effica
ciously defending our ports and harbors, and would
struggle tUl the whole of our marine was annihilated,
if in the contest Britain should not leave us a single
ship. Though we lost aU, we should not lose our
national honor ; though we should not beat her on
the ocean, we should save our reputation; but to
suffer insult to be added to injury is indeed a degra
dation of national honor, and ought never to be borne
with, let it come from any nation whatever."
There was no exaggeration in the mild re
mark that this language might appear different
from that which he had constantly used; but
why and how was the situation different? In
the name of common truth and consistency, who
made the American navy? Who laid It up?
Who persisted, during the utmost perils of our
government. In vehement assertions that a navy
was a mere Invitation of insult ? Who for years
vomited fire and blood against the federaUst
party for trying to be prepared against war?
In the course of American history the reader
may meet with many mad inconsistencies, but

VAULTING AMBITION 121
he wiU never find one more bewUdering than
this. In Randolph's later Ufe there would have
been no loss for an explanation, but In this case
he had nursed his new patriotism for two entire
months ; it was no flash of sudden excitement ;
it was mere temper. He was angry, and had
forgotten his principles.

CHAPTER VI
TAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE
Congress met on November 5, 1804, a
month earlier than usual, and Randolph came
to Washington in the temper which his letter
to GaUatin Indicates. He was irritable, ner
vous, extravagant, and had doubtless many ex
cuses for being so. More jealous than ever of
executive influence, he seemed at last aUve to
the mistakes he had made In straining party
principles; he began to lecture his followers
with the pragmatic air of a pedagogue, and
sought out occasions to worry them with smaU
discipline. As chairman of the Committee on
Ways and Means he reported against the re
mission of duties on books Intended for the use
of coUeges and seminaries of learning, and his
report dogmatized thus : —
"The Constitution of the United States was a
grant of Umited powers for general objects which
Congress had no right to exceed. ... Its leading
feature was an abhorrence of exclusive privileges.
. . . On the privUege asked for ... we refer to the
eighth section of the first article, where it is declared

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 123
that Congress shall have power to levy and collect
taxes, duties, imposts, and excises ; but aU duties,
imposts, and excises shaU be uniform throughout the
United States. The impost shall be uniform, . . .
that is to say . . . there shaU not be two measures
to mete with. If Congress undertake to exempt one
class of people from the payment of the impost, they
may exempt others also. . . . Indeed, it cannot be
seen where they are to stop. . . . Perhaps it may
be said that . . . philosophical apparatus is ex
empted from duty when imported for the benefit of
seminaries of learning, . . . but I beUeve that law
to be an unconstitutional law, as well as some others
passed by former Congresses."
This was strict construction run riot; on
such principles it would not have been difficult
to prove that Congress could lay no imposts at
aU, because. In the sense contended, no possible
impost could be uniform; one or another class
of people might always be exempt from its
burden, imless Ught, air, and water could be
made dutiable ; but granting that Randolph was
correct, he might at least have consoled the peti
tioners by teUIng them that a means of evading
the difficulty existed ; that to obtain their object
they need only go to the President and Invoke
the treaty-making power which brought Louisi
ana, aU Its inhabitants and aU their property,
real and personal, through the custom house.

124 - JOHN RANDOLPH
made them aU citizens, and gave them special
privileges of foreign trade, without offense to
the Constitution, or authority from an act of
Congress. Two days after thus teaching the House its
business, Randolph, Nicholson, Macon, and the
whole body of strict constructionists undertook
to teU it that Congress could not embank or
bridge the Potomac, because Virginia and Mary
land had a right of navigation there, although
navigation might even be Improved by the
change. These petty attempts to restrict a
power which had just been declared sufficient to
subvert, by a mere treaty, the existing status of
the Union, were vexatious and irritating. They
drove the northern democrats Into sUent rebel
lion. The House aUowed Randolph to say what
he liked, but paid no attention to his lectures,
and he harmed only his own cause. " Mere
metaphysical subtleties," said Mr. Jefferson
openly before a large company at his own
table ; and he added : " they ought to have no
weight." With Randolph in this state of Incessant irri
tation, it is easy to understand the excitable
temper with which he approached the Yazoo
claim when, on January 29, 1805, It made Its
appearance before the House. At his coolest
moments the word Yazoo was to him what the

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 125
sight of a bodkin was to Sir Piercle Shafton;
but in his present condition of mind the effect
was beyond aU measure violent. He took the
floor, and after speaking for a few minutes
with apparent self-control broke out into a
tirade such as the House had never yet heard
from him, or from any other man : —
"Past experience has shown that this is one of
those subjects which poUution has sanctified ; that the
haUowed mysteries of corruption are not to be pro
faned by the eye of pubUc curiosity. No, sir, the
orgies of Yazoo speculation are not to be laid open to
the pubUc gaze. None but the initiated are permitted
to behold the monstrous sacrifice of the best interests
of the nation on the altars of corruption. When this
abomination is to be practiced, we go into conclave.
Do we apply to the press, that potent engine, the
dread of tyrants and of vUlains, 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 operation,
which, in the language of a gentleman from Connect
icut, goes directly to the object. The demon of spec
ulation at one sweep has wrested from the nation
their best, their only defense, and closed every avenue
of information. But the 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 or for whom
it is done."

126 JOHN RANDOLPH
After much more of this wild denunciation,
which should have been stopped by the Speaker
at once; after Imputing to the House corrupt
motives and " pubUc plimder " and " out-of-door
intrigues " under " exact discipline," — he tried
to re-state his case and to argue upon it ; but his
arguments were as wild as his invective, and he
always returned to the easier task of denuncia
tion. Gideon Granger, the Postmaster-General,
had very improperly undertaken to act as agent
of the claimants, and Randolph f eU foul of him
with tremendous virulence : —
" His gigantic grasp embraces with one hand the
shores of Lake Erie, and stretches with the other to
the bay of Mobile. MiUions of acres are easUy di
gested by such stomachs ! The retaU trade of fraud
and imposture yields too slow and smaU a profit to
gratify their cupidity. They buy and seU corruption
in the gross, and a few milUons, more or less, is hardly
felt to the account. ... Is it come to this ? Are
heads of executive departments of the government to
be brought into this House, with aU the influence
and patronage attached to them, to extort from us
now what was refused at the last session of Con-

He felt it an outrage that he should be
obliged to fight such a battle. He raged like a
maniac because his party had gone off after
false leaders, and left him to prophesy destruc-

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 127
tion and woe to the echoes of the chamber. A
party that had come to power only four years
ago, saying and beUeving that they had created
for the first time In man's history a system of
pure and democratic government, under which
corruption was impossible, now forced their
leader to devote his most passionate energies to
the task of convincing them that the Postmaster-
General, the master of executive patronage,
should not be a lobbyist for private claimants
on the floor of Congress. These methods of
influencing legislatures Randolph had always
charged on the federaUsts as their own dis
honest European practices, the fruit of their
monarchical theories; he was genuinely tor
tured to find himself wrong, and to see that
his own foUowers had turned federaUst. He
had the courage to teU them so : —
" What is the spirit against which we now struggle
and which we have vainly endeavored to stifle ? A
monster generated by fraud, nursed in corruption,
that in grim sUence awaits its prey ! It is the spirit
of federalism, — that spirit which considers the many
as made only for the few, which sees in government
nothing but a job, which is never so true to itself as
when false to the nation ! When I behold a certain
party supporting and clinging to such a measure,
almost to a man, I see only men faithful to their own
principles ; pursuing with steady step and untired zeal

128 JOHN RANDOLPH
the uniform tenor of their political life. But when
I see, associated with them, in firm compact, others
who once raUied under the standard of opposite prin
ciples, I am fiUed with apprehension and concern.
Of what consequence is it that a man snules in your
face, holds out his hand, and declares himself the
advocate of those poUtical principles to which you are
also attached, when you see him acting with your
adversaries upon other principles, which the voice of
the nation has put down, never to rise again in this
section of the globe ? "
What Randolph thus said was to a great ex
tent true. The republican party, when in oppo
sition, set up an Impossible standard of political
virtue, and now that they were in power found
that government could not be carried on as they
had pledged themselves to conduct it. Ran
dolph himself shared their Inconsistencies. He
had talked and voted as his interests or passions
dictated, supporting the constitutionaUty of the
Louisiana purchase. Intriguing for war with
Spain, inciting to war with England, governing
by military power the people of New Orleans,
without a thought of the precedents he helped
to establish, but he had the merit of seeing
others' mistakes If not his own. He had the
courage to proclaim the offenses of his party.
This it was which gave him the confidence
and support of friends and constituents. They

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 129
believed in his honesty of purpose, and pardoned
aU else.
The debate went on for several days with
increasing violence. Language unprecedented
was used. Randolph attacked Granger with
savage ferocity. He found the whole weight
of the administration, and especiaUy the influ
ence of Mr. Madison, thrown into the scale
against him, and he struggled desperately
against It. Beaten by five votes on the divi
sion, he stIU carried his point In preventing
actual legislation by this Congress, and stood
In the gap with a courage fairly to be caUed
heroic, had It not been to so great an extent
the Irrational outcome of an undiscIpUned and
tyrannical temper. A true statesman, with
some concession and good management, might
perhaps have carried aU his points, thus over
awing his party, reestablishing his favorite
states' rights, and breaking In advance the
force of MarshaU's law. Nay, It was not Im
possible that by dexterity and steady persist
ence he might shut up the Dartmouth CoUege
case forever in gremio magistratus, or drive
the Chief Justice from the bench. Randolph
clutched with both hands at Marshall's throat,
but to be victor in such a contest he needed
MarshaU's mind.
The Yazoo debate closed on Saturday, Feb-

130 JOHN RANDOLPH
ruary 2, and on Febraary 9 Randolph appeared
with his brother managers before the Senate to
open the impeachment of Judge Chase. It was
the weightiest moment of his pubUc Ufe ; for an
instant he chaUenged a place in history beside
the masters of oratory and power. Where aU
others, including Mr. Jefferson himself, shrunk
back, he stood forward, whUe the object of his
ambition, If gained, assured him high rank
among the great men of his century.
The Impeachment of Justice Chase is a land
mark In American history, because It was here
that the Jeffersonian repubUcans fought their
last aggressive battle, and, wavering under the
shock of defeat, broke into factions which
slowly abandoned the field and forgot their
discipline. That such a battle must one day
be fought for the control of the Judiciary was
from the beginning believed by most repubUcans
who understood their own principles. With
out controUIng the Judiciary, the people could
never govern themselves in their own way ; and
although they might, over and over again, in
every form of law and resolution, both state
and national, enact and proclaim that theirs
was not a despotic but a restricted government,
which had no right to exercise powers not dele
gated to it, and over which they, as States, had
absolute control, it was none the less certain

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 131
that Chief Justice MarshaU and his associates
would disregard their wiU, and would Impose
upon them his own. The people were at the
mercy of their creatures. The Constitutions
of England, of Massachusetts, of Pennsylvania,
authorized the removal of an obnoxious judge on
a mere address of the legislature, but the Consti
tution of the United States had so fenced and
fortified the Supreme Court that the legislature,
the Executive, the people themselves, could ex
ercise no control over It. A judge might make
any decision, violate any duty, trample on any
right, and If he took care to commit no in
dictable offense he was safe In office for Ufe.
On this Ucense the Constitution imposed only
one check : It said that aU cIaoI officers should
be removed from office " on Impeachment for,
and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other
high crimes and misdemeanors." This right
of Impeachment was as yet undefined, and if-
stretched a little beyond strict construction it
might easily be converted Into something for
which it had not been intended ; might even be
made to serve for the British removal of judges
by address. That, in order to do this, the strict
constructionists must strain the language of the
Constitution out of Its true sense was evident,
but they had, without flinching, faced the same
difficulty In the Louisiana purchase. The actual

132 JOHN RANDOLPH
disregard of the Constitution would hardly be
so flagrant In regard to impeachment as it had
been in regard to the treaty-making power.
This suggestion was actuaUy carried out by
the Impeachment of Judge Pickering In 1803-4.
In this case twenty senators had voted Judge
Pickering's removal from office on a simple
hearing of the case, without defense or even
the appearance of the accused by counsel. The
final vote had not declared Pickering guUty
either of high crimes or misdemeanors, but
simply "guilty as charged." The proceeding
was a mere inquest of office under a judicial
form. In the eyes of Randolph, Nicholson,
Macon, GUes, and the Virginian school In gen
eral, an impeachment and a removal from office
by this process need Imply no crIminaUty ; it
was a declaration by Congress that a judge
held dangerous opinions, which made It neces
sary for the public safety that another man
should be substituted in his place. In their
eyes the Senate was not to be considered a
court of justice, but simply a part of the con
stitutional machine for making appointments
and removals.
In theory this view was very simple and rear
sonable; in practice it met with difficulties.
The conviction of Pickering In March, 1804,
was carried by nineteen votes in a Senate of

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 133
thirty-four members, and, even after conviction,
only twenty senators voted for his removal.
Five administration senators absented them
selves; several others voted unwillingly, and
the immediate Impeachment of Chase on the
very day of Pickering's conviction startled these
hesitating republicans, whose consciences were
already so heavy laden. Other difficulties were
still more certain. A summary vote of expul
sion from office, which was feasible enough in
the case of a friendless, absent, unknown, and
Imbecile New Hampshire district judge, was out
of the question when a venerable justice of the
Supreme Court appeared at the bar of the Sen
ate, backed by a body-guard of the ablest law
yers in America, who were considerably less
afraid of Congressmen than Congressmen of
them. There could be no summary process
here. There must be a regular, formal trial,
according to the rules and principles of law.
The Senate must be a court.
Cogent reasons, therefore, forced Randolph
at the outset to abandon his own theory of im
peachment, and, what was much more fatal, to
establish a precedent tending to break this
theory down. He began by accepting the
whole paraphernalia of the law, and by de
manding the conviction of Chase as a criminal.
By thus admitting that criminality of a deep

134 JOHN RANDOLPH
nature alone warranted the removal of a su
preme judge, Randolph's victory would have
made impeachment as useless as his defeat made
it, for there never sat on the Supreme Bench
another judge rash enough to imitate Chase by
laying himself open to such a charge. To
restore Its usefulness he must have fought an
other battle under great disadvantages.
Judge Chase's offenses were serious. The
inimediate cause of Impeachment, his address to
the grand jury at Baltimore on the 2d May,
1803, proved that he was not a proper person
to be trusted with the Interpretation of the laws.
In this address he said that those laws were
rapidly destroying aU protection to property
and aU security to personal Uberty. " The late
alteration of the federal Judiciary," said he,
"by the abolition of the office of the sixteen
circuit judges, and the recent change in our
state Constitution by the establishing of uni
versal suffrage, and the further alteration that
is contemplated in our state Judiciary, If
adopted, wiU, in my judgment, take away aU
security for property and personal Uberty. The
independence of the national Judiciary Is al
ready shaken to Its foundations, and the virtue
of the people alone can restore It." That by
this reference to the virtue of the people he
meant to draw a contrast with the want of vir-

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 135
tue in their government was made clear by a
pointed insult to Mr. Jefferson : " The modem
doctrines by our late reformers, that aU men in
a state of society are entitled to enjoy equal Ub
erty and equal rights, have brought this mighty
mischief upon us, and I fear that It wIU rapidly
progress until peace and order, freedom and
property, shaU be destroyed." These opinions
were formidable, because they were held by
every member of the Supreme Court ; for they
were the opinions of the federalist party, whose
leaders were at this moment, on the same sys
tem of reasoning, preparing for a dissolution of
the Union.
There was gross absurdity in the idea that
the people who, by an immense majority, had
decided to carry on their government in one
way should be forced by one of their own ser
vants to turn about and go in the opposite di
rection; and the Indecorum was greater than
the absurdity, for if Judge Chase or any other
official held such doctrines, even though he were
right, he was bound not to insult officiaUy the
people who employed him. On these grounds
Mr. Jefferson privately advised the Impeach
ment, and perhaps Randolph might have acted
more wisely had he foUowed Mr. Jefferson's
bint to rely on this article alone, which in the
end came nearer than any other to securing con-

136 JOHN RANDOLPH
victlon. In so cumbersome a procedure as that
of Impeachment, It was peculiarly necessary to
narrow the field of dispute, to exclude doubtful
points of law, and avoid cumulative charges.
Randolph thought otherwise. Conscious that
he would meet with strong opposition in the
Senate, he determined to make his attack over
whelming by proving criminality, even though
in doing it he gave up for the time his theory
that impeachment need Imply no criminal of
fense ; and therefore, placing the real cause of
impeachment last In the order of his articles,
he threw Into the foreground a long series of
charges, which concerned only questions of law.
Going back to the year 1800 and the famous
trials of Fries and CaUender, he made out of
these materials no less than six compUcated
articles, embracing numerous charges. StIU
another article was framed to cover a com
plaint foimded on the judge's treatment of the
grand jury at Newcastle In the same year.
Thus these seven heads of Impeachment, in
tended as they were to support each other with
irresistible cumulative power, withdrew the
trial from the region of politics, and Involved
It beyond extrication in the meshes of legal
methods and maxims. Bristling with difficult
points of pure law ; turning on doubtful ques
tions of practice ; Involving a flat assumption

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 137
of numerous abstract propositions, they required
a categorical, off-hand decision on the rules of
evidence, the reciprocal rights and duties of
judge, counsel, and jury, the customs In differ
ent courts and In different places, the legality
of bad manners, and the humanity of strict
law, only to prove that Justice Chase had been
actuated by corrupt and criminal motives, — for
it seemed at first to be conceded that no mere
error of judgment would warrant his conviction.
The articles of impeachment which Randolph
presented to the House on March 26, 1804, and
which were, he claimed, drawn up with his own
hand, rested whoUy on the theory of Chase's
criminality; they contained no suggestion that
impeachment was a mere inquest of office. But
when Congress met again, and, on December
3, the subject came before the House, It was
noticed that two new articles, the fifth and
sixth, ha;d been quietly Interpolated, which
roused suspicion of a change in Randolph's plan.
No one could say that the original charges in
volved any other victim than the one named
in them; they could not be tortured into an
attack on the court as a whole ; but the two
new articles wore a threatening look. The fifth
charged that Judge Chase had issued a capias
against the body of CaUender, whereas the law
of Virginia required a summons to appear at

138 JOHN RANDOLPH
the next court ; it aUeged no evil intent, as aU
the other articles had done, and by thus making
a mere error Impeachable it put the whole court
at the mercy of Congress. The sixth went far
ther. Assuming that the statute required the
federal courts to foUow in each State of the
Union the modes of process usual in that State,
this article Impeached Judge Chase for having
held CaUender to trial at the same term at which
he was indicted. Although the sixth, unUke the
fifth article, aUeged that this act was done "with
intent to oppress," It was pecuUarly alarming,
because one of the earliest decisions of the
Supreme Court had been directly contrary to
the doctrine that the United States courts were
bound to foUow the modes of process usual in
the state courts, and there was not a judge on
the supreme bench whose practice in this respect
had not rendered him liable to impeachment
on the same charge. No one could doubt that
Randolph and his friends, seeing how little
their ultimate object would be advanced by a
conviction on the old charges, inserted these
new articles in order to correct their mistake
and to make a foundation for the freer use of
Impeachment as a political weapon.
The behavior of GUes and his friends in the
Senate strengthened this suspicion. He made
no concealment of his theories, and labored

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 139
earnestly to prevent the Senate from caUIng
itself a court, or from exercising any functions
that belonged to a court of law. To some ex
tent he succeeded, but when at last he declared
that the Secretary had no right to administer
an oath, and that a magistrate must be caUed
In for the purpose ; when he was led stUl further
to acknowledge that on his doctrine the Senate
itself had no right to Issue writs, summonses,
and subpoenas, so that aU the proceedings against
Judge Pickering had been unconstitutional and
his removal lUegal, — the Senate lost patience
and rebeUed. From that moment the fate of
Randolph was sealed.
In aU these transactions Giles and Randolph
acted In the closest alliance. Their Idea of
Impeachment was honestly held and openly
avowed; they did their utmost to force It on
their party, and it is clear that, except on such
a theory, Randolph was absurdly out of place
in trying to conduct a trial of such Importance.
For an Inquest of office, whatever such a pro
ceeding might be, he was perhaps as competent
as another; but that a Virginian planter, who
occasionaUy sat on a grand jury, should be vain
enough to suppose himself capable of arguing
the most perplexed questions of legal practice
was incredible ; and when, in addition, he was
obliged to fling his glove in the faces of the best

140 JOHN RANDOLPH
lawyers In America, his rashness became laugh
able. Even though he had aU the resources of
his party In the House to draw upon, including
Joseph H. Nicholson and Cassar A. Rodney,
both fair lawyers, yet at the bar before him he
saw not only Justice Chase, keen, vigorous, with
long experience and ample learning, but also, at
Chase's side, counsel such as neither Senate nor
House could command, at whose head, most for
midable of American advocates, was the roUick-
ing, witty, audacious Attorney-General of Mary-
land ; boon companion of Chase and the whole
bar; drunken, generous, slovenly, grand; buU-
dog of federalism, as Mr. Jefferson called him ;
shouting with a schoolboy's fun at the idea
of tearing Randolph's indictment to pieces and
teaching the Virginian democrats some law, —
the notorious reprobate genius, Luther Martin.
If the sight of these professional enemies
were not enough to disturb Randolph's self-
confidence as he rose to open the case under
their contemptuous eyes, the sight of the senate
chamber might have done so without their aid.
In spite of aU his party Influence, Randolph
saw few men before him upon whose friendly
sympathy he could count. Hated by the north
ern democrats, he saw the head and front of
northern democracy, Aaron Burr, presiding over
the court. The supreme bench, led by Chief

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 141
Justice MarshaU, a man whom Randolph deeply
respected, was looking on with sympathies which
were certainly not with him. Among southern
senators, his closest associate was Giles of Vir
ginia, whom no man ever trusted without regret.
The thirty-four senators consisted of eleven
northern democrats, fourteen democrats from
the South, and nine federaUsts. If from his
own party Randolph could expect Uttle genuine
regard. It is easy to conceive the Intensity of Ul-
wIU with which the federaUst senators Ustened
to his argument. Moderate men, Uke Bayard
of Delaware, and Dayton of New Jersey, had
little patience with him or his opinions, while
the New England senators regarded him with
extreme antipathy and contempt as hearty as
that which he had so freely showered on them
and their friends. To face the humor of Tracy,
the senator from Connecticut, was more trying
than to defy the bitter tongue of Timothy
Pickering, which spared not even his own per
sonal and party friends, or to Ignore the presence
of Pickering's coUeague, the " cub," who was "a
greater bear than the old one," and whose capa
city for expressing contempt was exceeded only
by his right to feel It, — Mr. J. Q. Adams of
Massachusetts. Before this unsympathetic band of critics, on
the 9th February, 1805, Randolph and his as-

142 JOHN RANDOLPH
soclates appeared, and In a speech of about one
hour and a half, which by its unusual caution
proved that, if not cowed, he was at least for
once subdued by the occasion and the audience,
he unfolded to the Senate his articles of Im
peachment. On no other occasion In Ran
dolph's Ufe was he compeUed to foUow a long
and consecutive train of thought within the
narrow bounds of logical method, and his argu
ments at this trial are therefore the only exact
test of his reasoning powers. His failure was
decided. From the point of view which law
yers must take, his arguments, if arguments
they can be caUed, are not even third-rate;
they are the feeblest that were made In the
course of this long trial. He undertook to
speak as an authority upon the law, when he
knew no more law than his own overseer ; nat
uraUy given to making assertion stand for
proof, he asserted legal principles calculated to
make Luther Martin's eyes sparkle with delight.
From first to last he never rose above the at
mosphere of a court room. Avoiding all discus
sion of Impeachment as a theory, and leaving
unnoticed the political meaning of his eighth
article, he deliberately tangled his Umbs in the
meshes of law, and offered himself a wiUing
victim to the beak and claws of the eagles who
were marking him for their sport.

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 143
To analyze such an address Is useless. Not
even the warmest of his friends has ever thought
It a good example of his merits, and no one
wiU care to waste time in proving self-evident
defects. Nevertheless, the peroration has been
often quoted as a specimen of his more care-
fuUy studied eloquence, and since this perora
tion lUustrates the best as weU as the worst of
the speech It shaU stand as a fair test of its
value. " The respondent hath closed his defense by an ap
peal to the great Searcher of hearts for the purity of
his motives. For his sake I rejoice that by the timely
exercise of that mercy, which for wise purposes has
been reposed in the Executive, this appeal is not
drowned by the blood of an innocent man crying
aloud for vengeance ; that the mute agony of widowed
despair and the waUing voice of the orphan do not
plead to Heaven for justice on the oppressor's head.
But for that intervention, self-accusation before that
dread tribunal would have been needless. On that
awful day the blood of a poor, ignorant, friendless,
unlettered German, murdered under the semblance
and color of law, would have risen in judgment at
the throne of grace against the unhappy man ar
raigned at your bar. But the President of the
United States, by a well-timed act at once of justice
and mercy (and mercy, like charity, covereth a mul
titude of sins), wrested the victim from his grasp,
and saved him from the countless horrors of remorse

144 JOHN RANDOLPH
by not suffering the pure ermine of justice to be dyed
in the innocent blood of John Fries."
These words closed the speech, and were
doubtless carefuUy considered, probably com
mitted to memory in advance, and intended to
produce a deep effect on the Senate ; but they
wUl not bear analysis. In drawing the articles
of impeachment, Randolph had carefuUy avoided
the aUegation that John Fries was " an innocent
man." The managers had no idea of taking
evidence in support of such a theory ; they pre
ferred to avoid It, because they knew that Fries
was guilty, under aggravated circumstances, of
what the law caUed treason ; that In any case
he must have been convicted ; that his counsel
had thrown up their brief, against Judge Chase's
prayers, solely because they saw no other ground
on which to found an appeal for executive par
don ; and, finaUy, that Judge Chase had made
no mistake in his rulings. AU this was weU
known to Randolph, who would certainly, in
his articles of Impeachment, have aUeged that
Fries was innocent, had there been the smaUest
possibUity of proving it. With what decent
apology, then, could Randolph venture upon
so gross and evident a misstatement of fact?
What treatment could he expect from Luther
Martin ?
" The President of the United States, by a

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 145
weU-tlmed act at once of justice and of mercy,
wrested the victim from his grasp." What
made the Executive pardon an act of justice ?
What proved It ? What evidence did the man
agers propose to offer on that head ? None what
ever. President Adams pardoned Fries as an
act of mercy, rather than hang, for the first time
In the national history, a political criminal, who
had thrown himself, undefended, on the court.
Judge Chase, then, was to be held guUty because
President Adams had not hung Fries. Curran
is said to have claimed a verdict from an Irish
jury on the ground that his only witness had
been spirited away by the attorney for the de
fense. Randolph claimed a conviction on the
ground that, had the President not spirited
away aU excuse for complaint, there might have
been a grievance, although none was aUeged in
the Indictment. The whole array of Chase's
counsel must have joined In broad laughter over
this novel idea, as they drank that night to the
confusion of democratic lawyers, and promised
themselves a pleasure to come.
Their pleasure came In due time. If any
student of American history, curious to test the
relative value of reputations, wIU read Ran
dolph's opening address, and then pass on to
the argument of Luther Martin, he wiU feel
the distance between show and strength, between

146 JOHN RANDOLPH
inteUectual brightness and InteUectual power.
Nothing can be finer in its way than Martin's
famous speech. Its rugged and sustained force ;
Its strong humor, audacity, and dexterity; Its
even flow and simple choice of language, free
from rhetoric and affectations; its close and
compulsive grip of the law; its good-natured
contempt for the obstacles put in its way, — aU
these signs of elemental vigor were like the
forces of nature, simple, direct, fresh as winds
and ocean, but they were opposite qualities to
those which Randolph displayed. The contrast
with Randolph's closing address Is much more
striking; for whether It were that the long ex
citement had broken his strength, or that the
arguments of Martin, Harper, Hopklnson, and
Key had shattered his Indictment and humiliated
his pride, or whether, In this painful effort to
imitate legal minds and logical methods, he at
last flung himself like a chUd on the ground,
crushed by the consciousness that his mind
could not follow out a fixed train of thought,
could not support the weight of this InteUectual
armor which It had rashly put on, certain it is
that Randolph appeared In his closing speech
more like a criminal fearing sentence than like
a tribune of the people dragging a tyrant to his
doom. On February 27, 1805, he appeared before

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 147
the Senate to make this closing address. He
was UI and unprepared, although he had surely
been engaged on the subject long enough to
need Uttle more preparation than a single night
of hard work. He no longer had the lash of
Luther Martin to fear, for his own word was to
be the last ; while it was clear that, as the case
stood, conviction was more than doubtful, and
Randolph's own reputation and authority could
now be saved only by some serious effort. In
spite of aU these motives for exertion, he aston
ished the Senate by the desultory and erratic
style of his address. Soon he broke down. He
was forced to apologize: he had lost, he said,
his voluminous notes ; but it was only too evi
dent that these could not have helped him ; it
would have been quite In character had he, in
his disgust, flung his notes Into the fire, con
scious that he was helpless to deal with their
mass of unmanageable matter. With or without
notes, no man of a clear mind could possibly
have run wUd, as he now did. This closing ar
gument or harangue, gi-eat as the occasion was,
hardly rises to the level of Randolph's ordinary
stump-speeches ; equaUy weak in arrangement
and reasoning, equaUy inexact In statement and
violent in denunciation, it has fewer gleams of
wit, fewer clever iUustrations, and none of those
occasional flashes of inspired prophecy which

148 JOHN RANDOLPH
sometimes startled hostUe hearers Into admira
tion. When Randolph sat down he had be
trayed his own weakness; he was no longer
dangerous, except to his friends.
To reproduce or analyze an harangue like
this, of which Randolph himself was keenly
ashamed, would be unfair. He was honest In
acknowledging his failure, and It Is useless to
prove what he was first to confess and proclaim.
The task, he said, was one for which he felt
himself " physicaUy as weU as moraUy incompe
tent." " My weakness and want of ability pre
vent me from urging my cause as I could wish,
but it Is the last day of my sufferings and of
yours." Again and again he apologized to the
Senate for his Incompetency in a manner almost
abject, as though he were crushed under it. He
did more : he pleaded the fact In deprecation of
criticism. The newspapers of the time show
how complete was the impression of his faUure ;
but among the eye-witnesses of the scene was
one who recorded on the spot the effect made
upon him by Randolph and his speech. " On
the reopening of the court," wrote Mr. J. Q.
Adams, " he began a speech of about two hours
and a half, with as little relation to the subject-
matter as possible, — without order, connection,
or argument ; consisting altogether of the most
hackneyed commonplaces of popular declama-

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 149
tion, mingled up with panegyrics and Invectives
upon persons, with a few weU-expressed ideas, a
few striking figures, much distortion of face and
contortion of body, tears, groans, and sobs, with
occasional pauses for recoUection, and continual
complaints of having lost his notes. He finished
about half past two. Mr. Harper then made a
very few observations on one of the authorities
he had produced, to which he replied with some
petulance." Mr. Adams was certainly a warm partisan of
Judge Chase, but he made no such comments
on the speeches of other managers, and indeed
paid a smaU compliment to Rodney, who had
spoken the day before. His description of the
contents of Randolph's speech Is accurate enough
to create confidence in his account of its deUvery,
and It is only to be regretted that he said no
thing about that voice which Virginian hearers
were apt to think the most melodious in the
world. On March 1 Randolph's defeat was at last
seen in aU Its overwhelming completeness.
When the senators came to a vote, only the
third, fourth, and eighth articles received even
a majority of their voices. The highest point
reached by the Impeachers was In the vote of
19 to 15 on the eighth article, Mr. Jefferson's
peculiar property. Five democratic senators

150 JOHN RANDOLPH
from northern States and GalUard of South
Carolina refused to foUow Randolph's lead.
Worse than this, so thoroughly had Luther
Martin and his brother counsel broken Into
atoms the suspicious fifth and sixth articles of
Randolph's Indictment that not a single senator
sustained the one, and only four supported the
other, although Randolph's honor was at stake,
for Martin had openly charged him with having
misquoted the law of Virginia ; " How this hath
happened is not for me to say," and no defense
was offered to the charge. Wrathful beyond
measure, Randolph and Nicholson hurried back
to the House of Representatives, and on the spot
moved that two new articles be added to the
Constitution. Randolph's amendment declared
that aU judges should be removed by the Presi
dent on a joint address of both Houses ; whUe
Nicholson proposed that senators should be re
movable at any time by the legislatures of their
own States. These resolutions were made the
order of the day for the first Monday In Decem
ber, when Congress was to meet. The same
evening Mr. J. Q. Adams made another curious
entry in his diary. Informed in society of what
had taken place In the House, he added : " I
had some conversation on the subject with Mr.
Madison, who appeared much diverted at the
petulance of the managers on their disappoint-

YAZOO AND JUDGE CHASE 151
ment." Considering the source from which the
impeachment sprang, Mr. Madison's diversion
would perhaps have seemed to be in better taste
had it been less openly displayed.
This was the end of Judge Chase's impeach
ment, a poUtical mistake from its inception by
Mr. Jefferson down to its last agonies In Ran
dolph's closing address. As though every act
of Randolph's life, no matter what its motive
or Its management, were fated to Injure aU that
he most regarded, and to advance every inter
est he hated, so this impeachment made the
Supreme Court Impregnable ; for the first time
the Chief Justice could breathe freely. Not
only had Randolph proved impeachment to be
a clumsy and useless Instrument as applied
to judicial officers, but he seemed reckless In
regard to the fate of his proposed constitutional
amendment, and was clearly more angry with
the Senate than with the court. As though not
satisfied with aUowing Nicholson to throw a
gross insult in the very faces of senators by an
amendment to the Constitution which branded
them as false to their constituents, Randolph
would not allow the House to appropriate money
for any expenses of Judge Chase's trial except
such as should be certified by himself, and In no
case for the expenses of witnesses for the defense.
Whether he was right or wrong in principle was

152 JOHN RANDOLPH
a matter of little consequence, for, in the temper
of the two Houses, the blU thus passed was a
positive insiUt to the Senate. Even Giles took
up the chaUenge, and declared that as he had
drawn the form of summons by which all the
witnesses had been commanded to attend, with
out indicating on whose behalf they were caUed,
he could not admit that any distinction should
be made In paying them. The Senate unani
mously insisted on amending the bUl, and Ran
dolph insisted with equal obstinacy that the
blU should not be amended. The two Houses
were thus driven into a quarrel and the biU
was lost. Randolph then, in flat contradiction
of every flnanclal doctrine he had ever pro
fessed, wished the House to pay his witnesses
out of the contingent fund, and was defeated
only by the withdrawal of the federaUst mem
bers, which left the House without a quorum
whenever the resolution was brought up. In
the midst of this mischievous confusion, the
session ended at half past nine o'clock on the
evening of March 3, 1806, three days after
Chase's acquittal.

CHAPTER VII
THE QUAEBEL
The result of Chase's trial was disastrous to
the influence of Randolph and his whole sect.
It widened the breach between him and the
northern democrats, and deepened his distrust
of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, who had
taken such good care not to aUow their own
credit to be involved with his. The Yazoo
quarrel added intensity to the feeUng of bitter
ness with which the session closed. When,
after March 4, 1805, he went home to Bizarre,
he was oppressed with feeUngs of disappoint
ment and perhaps of rage. There Is no proof
that he held the President or Mr. Madison
responsible for the defeat of the Impeachment ;
certainly he never brought such a charge ; but
he thought them to blame for the lax morality
of the Yazoo biU, and he was particularly irri
tated with Mr. Madison, whose brother-in-law,
John G. Jackson, a member of Congress from
Virginia, had been a prominent supporter of
that biU, and had sharply criticised Randolph's
course In a speech to the House at a time when

154 JOHN RANDOLPH
Randolph's authority was trembling on the verge
of overthrow. A few extracts from letters writ
ten during the summer to Joseph Nicholson wUl
show the two correspondents and friends in their
own fairest light : —
EAUDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
" BizABKE, 29 March, 1805. . . . My sins against
Monroe, in whose debt I have been for near five
months, would have excited something of compunc
tion in me were I any longer susceptible of such sen
sations ; but I wUl write to him immediately on your
subject ; and, take my word for it, my good friend,
he is precisely that man to whom your spirit would
not disdain to be obliged. For, if I know you, there
are very few beings in this vUe world of ours from
whom you would not scorn even the semblance of ob
Ugation. In a few weeks I shall sail for London my
self. ... I gather from the public prints that we are
severely handled by the feds and their new alUes.
Not the least equivocal proof, my friend, that the
trust reposed in us has not been betrayed. I hope to
be back in time to traU a pike with you in the next
campaign. ... I wish very much to have if it were
but half an hour's conversation with you. Should
you see GaUatin, commend me to him and that ad
mirable woman his wife. What do you augur from
the vehement puff of B[urr] ? As you weU know,
I never was among his persecutors, but this is over
stepping the modesty of nature. Besides, we were
in Washington at the time, and heard nothing of the

THE QUARREL 155
miraculous effects of his valedictory. Rely upon it,
strange things are at hand. Never did the times re
quire more union and decision among the real friends
of freedom. But shaU we ever see decision or union ?
I fear not. To those men who are not disposed to
make a job of politics, never did pubUc affairs pre
sent a more awful aspect. Everything and every
body seems to be jumbled out of place, except a few
men who are steeped in supine indifference, whilst
meddUng fools and designing knaves are governing
the country under the sanction of their names."
" 30 April. Of aU the birds of the air, who should
Ught upon me to-day but our dapper sergeant-at-
arms. His presence would have been of Uttle mo
ment had he not informed me that he left you in
Washington in your usual good health and spirits.
Tou know Wheaton, and wiU not be surprised when I
teU you that from his impertinences I picked up some
inteUigence not altogether uninteresting. The ex-
Vice [Burr] and Dayton, between whom, you know,
there has long subsisted a close political connection,
and my precious coUeague Jackson, who is deeply con
cerned with this last in some very masterly specular
tions, together with J. Smith of Ohio, himself no
novice, and whose votes on a late occasion you cannot
have forgotten, have given each other the rendez
vous in the northwestern corner of our Union. The
pious Mnea,s and faithful Achates are, I understand,
about to reconnoitre lower Louisiana. As to the
upper district, I have no doubt they can safely trust
that province to their weU-tried coadjutor, the new

156 JOHN RANDOLPH
Governor [WUkinson]. Nicholson, my good friend,
rely upon it, this conjunction of maUgu planets bodes
no good. As Mr. J. is again seated in the saddle for
four years, with a prospect of reelection for life, the
whole force of the adversaries of the man, and, what
is of more moment, of his principles, wUl be bent to
take advantage of the easy creduUty of his temper,
and thus arm themselves with power, to set both at
defiance as soon as their schemes are ripe for exe
cution. I do not like the aspect of affairs. ... If
you have not amused yourself with the Dean of St.
Patrick's lately, let me refer you to his ' Free
Thoughts on the Present State of Affairs ' for a de
scription of a race of politicians who have thriven
wonderf uUy since his time. The ' whimsicals ' advo
cated the leading measures of their party untU they
were nearly ripe for execution, when they hung
back, condemned the step after it was taken, and on
most occasions affected a glorious neutrality."
" 23 October. ... I saw the great match for three
thousand dollars : Mr. Tayloe's Peacemaker, 5 years
old, lbs. 118, against Mr. Ball's ch. c. Florizel, 4 years
old, lbs. 106, both by Diomed ; four mUe heats. It
was won with perfect ease by Florizel, beating his
adversary in a canter. . . . Thus, you see, whUe
you turbulent folks on the east of Chesapeake are
wrangling about Snyder and McKean, we old Virgin
ians are keeping it up, more majorum. De gustibus
non est disputandum, says the proverb ; nevertheless,
I cannot envy the taste of him who finds more
amusement in the dull scurriUty of a newspaper than

THE QUARREL 157
in 'Netherby's Calendar,' and prefers an election
groimd to a race-field. That good feUow Rodney
has taken the trouble to send me a PhUadelphia
print, full of abuse against myself, for which I had to
pay 7/6 postage. If there had been any point in the
piece I should have thought it very hard to be obliged
to pay for having my feelings wounded ; and as it is,
to see a nameless somebody expose himself in an at
tempt to slander me is not worth the money. I do not
understand their actings and doings in our neighbor
State. As Dr. Doubly says, I fear there is some
thing wrong on both sides. On the one hand indis
cretion, intemperance, and rashness ; on the other,
versatiUty and treachery. I speak of the leaders.
As to the mass of society, they always mean weU, as
it never can become their interest to do iU. Before
the election for Governor was decided in Pennsylva
nia, I was somewhat dubious whether we should be
able to reinstate Macon in the Speaker's chair. I
am now seriously apprehensive for his election ; and
more on his account than from pubUc considerations,
although there is not a man in the House, himself
and one other excepted, who is in any respect quaU-
fied for the office. I cannot deny that the insult
offered to the man would move me more than the
injury done the pubUc by his rejection. Indeed, I
am not sure that such a step, although productive of
temporary inconvenience, would not be foUowed by
permanent good effects. It would open the eyes of
many weU-meaning persons, who, in avoiding the
ScyUa of innovation, have plunged into the Charybdis

158 JOHN RANDOLPH
of federalism. . . . Do not faU to be in Washing
ton time enough to counteract the plot against the
Speaker, and pray apprise such of his friends as are
within your reach of its existence."
When we reflect that these letters were writ
ten by one angry politician to another, and that
Randolph's relations with Nicholson were ab
solutely confidential, it must be agreed that on
the whole they give an agreeable Impression of
Randolph, We see him, with Nicholson, Ma
con, and a few other very honest men, looking
on with anxiety while Burr and Dayton were
hatching their plot, and working on the " easy
creduUty" of Mr. Jefferson's temper. Their
anxiety was not without ample cause, although
Mr. Jefferson did not share It until too late to
prevent the danger. We see them watching
"meddUng fools and designing knaves" who
surrounded the administration, and their esti
mates of character were not very far from right.
We see, too, the contempt with which Ran
dolph's group regarded the "whimsicals" of
their party, and "my precious colleague Jack
son," brother-in-law of the Secretary of State,
and John Smith of Ohio, Burr's friend, who
had voted for Justice Chase's acquittal. There
Is no sign of violence or revenge In these let
ters ; in reading them one Is forced to beUeve
that In this Virginian character there were two

THE QUARREL 159
sides, so completely distinct that the one had no
connection with the other. The nobler traits,
shown only to those he loved, were caught
by GUbert Stuart In a portrait painted In this
year, when Randolph was thirty-three. Open,
candid, sweet In expression, fuU of warmth,
sympathy, and genius, this portrait expresses all
his higher instincts, and Interprets the mystery
of the affection and faith he inspired in his
friends. If there were other expressions in this
mobile face which the painter did not care to
render, he at least succeeded in showing artists
what the world values most, — how to respect
and dignify their subject.
Randolph's letters to Nicholson were not
more temperate or sensible than those he wrote
to GaUatin at the same time, which covertly
suggest without openly expressing two of the
writer's antipathies, the Smiths of Maryland
and Mr. Madison. Robert Smith was Secre
tary of the Navy, and Mr. Madison was a rival
with Mr. Monroe for the succession to the
presidency. EANDOIiPH TO GALLATIN.
" 28 June, 1805. ... I do not understand your
manoeuvres at headquarters, nor should I be sur
prised to see the Navy Department aboUshed, or, in
more appropriate phrase, swept by the board, at the

160 JOHN RANDOLPH
next session of Congress. The nation has had the
most conclusive proof that a head is no necessary
appendage to the estabUshment."
" 25 October. ... I look forward to the ensuing
session of Congress with no very pleasant feelings.
To say nothing of the disadvantages of the place,
natural as weU as acquired, I anticipate a plentiful
harvest of bickering and blunders; of which, how
ever, I hope to be a quiet if not an unconcerned
spectator. ... I regret exceedingly Mr. Jefferson's
resolution to retire, and almost as much the prema
ture annunciation of that determination. It almost
precludes a revision of his purpose, to say nothing
of the intrigues which it wUl set on foot. If I were
sure that Monroe would succeed him, my regret would
be very much diminished. Here, you see, the Vir
ginian breaks out ; but, Uke the Prussian cadet, ' I
must request you not to make this known to the Sec
retary of the Treasury.' "
The sudden announcement of Mr. Jefferson's
withdrawal now made Madison a candidate for
the presidency In 1808, and. In Randolph's
opinion, Madison was a Yazoo man, a colorless
seml-f ederaUst, an intriguer with northern demo
crats and southern speculators, one who never
set his face firmly against an intrigue or a job.
Holding the man at this low estimate. It was
out of the question for Randolph to support him,
and he turned to Monroe, who alone could con
test with Madison the State of Virginia. As

THE QUARREL 161
luck would have it, Mr. Madison, unknown to
Randolph, was doing much to justify this hos
tiUty. Between him and the President at
Washington, and Mr. Monroe and Mr. Charles
Pinckney at Madrid, the Spanish dispute had
been brought to a pass which only Randolph's
tongue could describe. After claiming West
Florida as a part of the Louisiana purchase,
and aUowing Randolph to erect MobUe by law
into a coUection district for the United States
customs, they had been compeUed to receive a
terrible castigation from the Marquis of Casa
Yrujo at Washington, and to hear his bitter
severities supported at Madrid and Indorsed at
Paris. Their own minister at Madrid, Charles
Pinckney, undertaking to bully the Spanish
government into concessions, actuaUy made a
sort of public declaration of war, which Mr.
Madison hastUy disavowed by sending Monroe
to Madrid. Monroe suffered ignominious de
feat. The Spanish government, which, as must
be owned, was whoUy in the right, Ustened very
civilly to aU that Monroe had to say, and after
keeping him five months hanging about Madrid
declined to yield a single point, and left him
to travel back to Paris in high dudgeon. At
Paris, M. TaUeyrand coldly announced that an
attack upon Spain was an attack upon France,
and that Spain was right in every particular.

162 JOHN RANDOLPH
Monroe returned to his legation at London, not
a little bewildered and mortified, just in time
to find that Mr. Pitt, during his absence, had
upset the rules hitherto recognized as regulating
the subject of neutral commerce, and that Sir
William Scott had announced in his Admiralty
Court a new decision, which swept scores of
innocent American ships, without warning, as
good prize into British ports.
Here was a list of misadventures weU calcu
lated to keep Mr. Madison busily at work, with
very little prospect of repairing them. For
a time during the summer of 1805, every one
at Washington, except the Secretary of the
Treasury, fulminated war against Spain. On
reflection, however, the President thought bet
ter of it. This paciflc tum took place about
October 23, when Randolph was writing so
mUdly to Nicholson and Gallatin ; and it was
caused ostensibly by the war news in Europe.
At a cabinet meeting on November 12, Mr.
Jefferson accordingly suggested a new overture
to Bonaparte. " I proposed," said he In his
manuscript memoranda, " we should address
ourselves to France, informing her It was a last
effort at amicable settlement with Spain, and
offer to her or through her a sum of money for
the rights of Spain east of Iberville, say the
Florldas." "It was agreed unanimously, and

THE QUARREL 163
the sum to be offered fixed not to exceed five
mUlIon doUars." Not only was It distinctly
understood and stated in Mr. Jefferson's own
hand at the time that this money " was to be
the exciting motive for France, to whom Spain
Is In arrears for subsidies," but in the course of
the next week dispatches arrived from Paris
containing an informal offer from TaUeyrand to
effect the object desired on condition of a pay
ment of seven miUions, which were of course to
go to France ; and this proposition from TaUey
rand was Instantly accepted as the groundwork
of the new offer of five milUons.
The President wished to send instructions on
the spot authorizing General Armstrong, our
minister at Paris, to pledge government for the
first installment of two mUUons, but was over
ruled, and it was decided to wait an appropria
tion from Congress. Then the question rose.
How was the subject to be got before Congress ?
Secrecy was required, for in this whole transac
tion everything was to be secret ; but to conceal
measures which must be confided to two hun
dred men was not a light task, and Mr. Jeffer
son, with his easy temper, forgot that John
Randolph was not so easy-tempered as himseK.
At length the President arranged the plan.
He sent to Congress his annual message, con
taining a very warlike review of the Spanish

164 JOHN RANDOLPH
difficulties, and a few days later he foUowed up
this attack by sending papers showing, among
other things, that trespasses had been commit
ted in the Mississippi territory by two parties
of Spanish subjects. To these communications
Congress was to respond in a series of beUiger-
ent resolutions, drawn by the President himself.
This done, he was to send a secret message
requesting an appropriation of two miUions
towards buying Florida, and this secret message
was to be made the subject of a confidential re
port from a special committee, to be foUowed
by an immediate appropriation.
In due time the matter was arranged. Con
gress met on December 2. Macon, after a
sharp contest, was reelected Speaker, the north-
em democrats at last working up their courage
so far as fairly to rebel against the tyranny
of the Virginian group. Randolph and Nichol
son were again put at the head of the Ways
and Means Committee. The annual message,
sounding war, was sent In on December 3 ; the
secret message, inviting Congress to make pro
vision for a settlement, foUowed on December
6 : both were referred to committees at the head
of which Randolph and Nicholson were placed,
and the President restlessly waited for the echo
of his words.
The echo did not come. On the contrary, a

THE QUARREL 165
series of Uvely scenes foUowed such as no comic
dramatist, neither Sheridan nor Mark Twain
himself, could represent with aU the humor of
the reality. Either dramatist or novelist would
be taxed with gross exaggeration who should
describe the events of this winter as grotesquely
as they occurred, or should paint the queer
figure of Randolph, booted, riding-whip In hand,
flying about among the astonished statesmen,
and flinging, one after the other, Mr. Jefferson,
Mr. Madison, and dozens of helpless congress
men headlong Into the mire. The Instant Ran
dolph grasped the situation, he saw that Mr.
Madison had converted the Spanish dispute Into
a French job. He put the President's messages
in his pocket. Honestly indignant at what he
considered a mean attempt to bribe one nation
to join in robbing another, he thought the whole
transaction only worthy of Madison's groveling
character. All his prejudices were strengthened
and his contempt for the Secretary was turned
into a passion. Meanwhile, he had found that
Mr. Madison's partisans were extremely active,
and that his candidacy was to be prevented only
by vigorous resistance. " One of the first causes
of surprise," said he, " which presented itself to
me, on coming to the seat of government, was
that, while the people of the United States
thought aU eyes were fixed on the shores of the

166 JOHN RANDOLPH
Atlantic, aU eyes were In fact fixed on the half
way house between this and Georgetown ; that
the question was not what we should do with
France or Spain or England, but who should be
the next President." " I came here disposed to
cooperate with the government In aU Its mea
sures. I told them so." Mr. Madison's avowed
candidacy and the disclosure of the two-mUlion
job cut aU pacffic plans short ; he had no choice
but to Interpose ; he felt himself forced Into a
dilemma. For a time he hesitated. CaUing his com
mittee together, he affected to see nothing in
the secret message that could be construed as
a request for money to purchase Florida, and
a majority of the committee joined bim in this
view. He went to see Mr. Madison, and, ac
cording to his account, the Secretary told him
that France was the great obstacle to the com
promise of Spanish difficulties ; that she would
not permit Spain to settle her disputes with us
because France wanted money, and we must
give her money or have a Spanish and French
war, — aU which, whether Mr. Madison said it
or not, was true, but put a terrible weapon into
Randolph's hands. He caUed on the President,
always affecting total ignorance as to executive
plans, and professing a wish to cooperate with
the government so far as his principles and

THE QUARREL 167
judgment would permit; yet when Mr. Jeffer
son explained that he wanted two miUions to
buy Florida, Randolph replied without reserve
that he would never consent, because the money
had not been asked for in the message, and he
would not take on his own shoulders or those
of the House the proper responsibility of the
Executive; but even if the money had been
expressly asked, he should have been averse to
granting It, because, after the faUure of every
attempt at negotiation, such a step would dis
grace us forever ; because France wovdd be en
couraged to blackmaU us on all occasions, and
England would feel contempt for our measures
and attitude towards herself. He did not mince
his words.
The meeting of the committee and the in
terviews with Mr. Madison and the President
seem all to have taken place on December 7 and
8. Randolph now waited a week, and then
on December 14 cooUy set out for Baltimore,
where he passed another week, whUe the ad
ministration was fuming in Washington, unable
to caU the committee together. On December
21 he returned, and by this time the excite
ment had waxed high, so that even his friend
Nicholson remonstrated. The committee was
Instantly called, and Randolph, booted and
spurred, as he had ridden from Baltimore, was

168 JOHN RANDOLPH
hurrying to the committee-room, when he was
stopped by his friend GaUatin, who put Into his
hands a paper headed " Provision for the pur
chase of Florida." Randolph broke out upon
him with a strong expression of disgust. He
declared that he would not vote a shUling ; that
the whole proceeding was highly disingenuous ;
that the President said one thing In public,
another In private, took aU the honor to himself,
and threw aU the odium on Congress ; and that
true wisdom and cunning were utterly Incom
patible in the management of great affairs.
Then, striding off to his committee, he put his
opinions into something more than words. Ex
cept for Mr. BidweU of Massachusetts, the com
mittee was wholly under his control, and, instead
of reporting the two-mlUion appropriation pro
posed by Mr. BidweU, the majority directed
Randolph to ask the Secretary of War what
force was needed to protect the southwest fron
tier. When the Secretary's answer was received,
the committee met again, and a second time Mr.
BidweU moved the resolution to appropriate the
two milUons. Randolph induced the committee
to reject the motion, and then himself drafted a
warlike report, which closed with a resolution
to raise troops for the defense of the southwest
frontiers " from Spanish inroad and insult."
He seems to have dragged Nicholson with

THE QUARREL 169
him by main force, for among Judge Nicholson's
papers is a sUp of Randolph's handwriting, care
fuUy preserved and indorsed In the Judge's
hand : " John Randolph's note relative to the
vote of two miUions for the Florldas. Last of
December, 1805, or first of January, 1806, just
before the report was made."
EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
" I am stiU too unweU to turn out. My bowels are
torn aU to pieces. If you persist in voting the money,
the committee wiU alter its report. Write me on this
subject, and teU me what you are doing. How is
Edward to-day ? I 've heard from St. George. He
got to Norfolk in time for the Intrepid, on the 24th,
Tuesday. She was loaded, and only waiting for a fair
wind. If the southeaster of Friday did not drive her
back into the Chesapeake, she has by this time crossed
the Gulf Stream. The poor feUow was very seasick
going down the bay. Yours truly, J. R.
" Me. Nicholson of Maryland."
Nicholson did not persist, and accordingly the
report as Randolph drafted it was adopted by
the aid of federaUst votes in committee, and was
presented to the House on January 3, 1806.
This serio-comic drama had now consumed a
month, during which time Randolph was gravely
undertaking to govern the country in spite of
itself, and, by tactics of delay, resistance, and

170 JOHN RANDOLPH
dictation, to defeat the wUl of the President and
the party. He had succeeded In checking the
Yazoo compromise by Uke tactics, and he did
not altogether f aU in this new struggle, although
no sooner had the House recovered possession of
the subject than It went Into secret session, flung
Randolph's report aside, and took up in Its place
the President's two-miUion appropriation. Ran
dolph, whose temper never aUowed him to play
a losing game with coolness or skiU, threw him
self with a sort of fury into the struggle over
his report, and day after day for a week occu
pied the floor in committee of the whole House.
Beaten in committee, and forced to see the
appropriation reported, he kept up his opposi
tion at every stage In Its passage, whUe the
federaUsts smUed approval, and the northern
democrats sulkily voted as they were bidden.
On January 11 Randolph's warlike report was
rejected by a vote of 72 to 68, and on the 14th
the House adopted BidweU's resolution by a
vote of 77 to 64, the federalists and twenty-
seven repubUcans voting with Randolph against
the administration.
At length the House reopened Its doors, and
the world asked curiously what had happened
in the long conclave. Randolph was not the
man to let himself be overriden in secret. His
method of attack was always the same : to

THE QUARREL 171
spring suddenly, violently, straight at the face
of his opponent was his invariable rule ; and in
this sort of rough-and-tumble he had no equal.
In the white heat of passionate rhetoric he could
gouge and kick, bite off an ear or a nose, or hit
below the waist ; and he did it with astonishing
quickness and persistence. No public man in
America ever rivaled him In these respects ; it
was his imapproached talent. With a frail
figure, wretched health, and despondent tem
perament, he could stand on the floor of the
House two or three hours at a time, day after
day, and with violent gesticulation and piercing
voice pour out a continuous stream of vitupera
tion in weU-chosen language and with sparkUng
iUustration. In the spring of 1806 he was new
In the role, and stIU wore some of the shreds
and patches of official dignity. The world was
scandalized or amused, according to Its politics,
at seeing the President's cousin and friend, Vir
ginian of Virginians, spoiled child of his party
and recognized mouthpiece of the administra
tion, a partisan raller against federaUsm, whose
bitter tongue had for years spit defiance upon
everything smacking of federal principles, now
suddenly tum about and rail at Mr. Jefferson
and Mr. Madison, as he had railed at Washing
ton and John Adams, whUe he voted steadily
with federaUsts and exercised diabolical Inge-

172 JOHN RANDOLPH
nuity to thwart and defeat the measures of
friends. His melodramatic success was largely
one of scandal, but there was in it also an ele
ment of respectabUity. To defy power requires
courage, and although Randolph's audacity too
closely resembled mere bad temper, yet It was
rare, and to the uncritical pubUc admirable.
Moreover, there could be no doubt of the in
fernal ablUty with which he caught and tor
tured his victims; and finaUy, although the
question of fact was unfortunately little to the
purpose even then, and now only Interests mere
f umblers of historical detaU, it Is quite certain
that in his assertions he was essentiaUy correct,
and that the sting of his criticisms lay in their
truth. On March 6, 1806, he began his long public
career of opposition. Mr. Gregg of Pennsyl
vania had offered a resolution for prohibiting the
importation of British goods, In retaliation for
Mr. Pitt's attack on our carrying trade. Mr.
Crowninshield of Salem supported the measure
in a speech strongly warUke In tone, which
certainly promised more than was afterwards
achieved as a result of our future conquests,
besides suggesting confiscation of British debts
to the amount of forty miUion doUars. Mr.
Crowninshield was a New England demo
crat, a thorough supporter of Mr. Jefferson, a

THE QUARREL 173
" Yazoo man," who had lately aUowed himself
to be made Secretary of the Navy and declined
to serve. On aU these accounts he was an ob
ject of hatred to Randolph, who rose when he
sat down.
First he gave Mr. Crowninshield a stinging
blow in the face : " I am not surprised to hear
men advocate these wild opinions, to see them,
goaded on by a spirit of mercantile avarice,
straining their feeble strength to excite the
nation to war, when they have reached this
stage of Infatuation that we are an overmatch
for Great Britain on the ocean. It is mere
waste of time to reason with such persons.
They do not deserve anything like serious refu
tation. The proper arguments for such states
men are a strait- waistcoat, a dark room, water
gruel, and depletion." Then, after a few words
on the dispute with England, adopting the ex
treme ground that the carrying trade was a
mushroom, a fungus, not worth a contest, an
unfair trade, to protect which we were to be
plunged Into war by the spirit of avaricious
traffic, he hit one of his striking iUustrations :
"What! shaU this great mammoth of the
American forest leave his native element, and
plunge, Into the water In a mad contest with
the shark ! Let him beware that his proboscis
is not bitten off In the engagement. Let him

174 JOHN RANDOLPH
stay on shore, and not be excited by the mus
sels and periwinkles on the strand." Then he
touched on the poUcy of throwing weight into
the scale of France against England, and on
the effects of foreign war in subverting the
Constitution, graduaUy coming round to the
proposed confiscation of British debts in order
to strike another ugly blow at Mr. Crownin-
shield's face : " God help you, If these are your
ways and means for carrying on war ; if your
finances are in the hands of such a chanceUor
of the exchequer ! Because a man can take an
observation and keep a log-book and a reckon
ing, can navigate a cock-boat to the West Indies
or the East, shaU he aspire to navigate the great
vessel of state, — to stand at the helm of public
councils? Ne sutor ultra crepidam ! "
This, however, was mere by-play ; it was not
Crowninshield at whom his harangue was aimed,
but far more important game, and his audience
could see him approach nearer and nearer his
real victim, as though he were himself drawn on
against his own judgment by the fascination of
hatred. " Yon may go to war for this excrescence of the
carrying trade, and make peace at the expense of the
Constitution ; your Executive wUl lord it over you."
" I have before protested, and I again protest, against
secret, irresponsible, overruUng influence. The first

THE QUARREL 175
question I asked when I saw the gentleman's resolu
tion was, ' Is this a measure of the Cabinet ? ' Not
of an open, declared Cabinet, but of an invisible,
inscrutable, unconstitutional Cabinet, without respon
sibUity, unknown to the Constitution! I speak of
back-stairs influence, -— of men who bring messages
to this House, which, although they do not appear
on its journals, govern its decisions. Sir, the first
question I asked on the subject of British relations
was, ' What is the opinion of the Cabinet ? ' ' What
measures wUl they recommend to Congress ? ' WeU
knowing that, whatever measures we might take, they
must execute them, and therefore that we should have
their opinion on the subject. My answer was, and
from a Cabinet minister, too, ' There is no longer
any Cabinet.' Subsequent circumstances, sir, have
given me a personal knowledge of the fact."
This attempt to drag Mr. GaUatin Into the
business of discrediting the President and Sec
retary of State was a serious if not a fatal
mistake ; but Randolph was already out of his
head. After aUenatIng GaUatin, he insulted
the whole House, exasperating poor Sloan of
New Jersey as he had already embittered
Crowninshield : " Like true poUtical quacks,
you deal only in hand-bUls and nostrums. Sir,
I blush to see the record of our proceedings;
they resemble nothing but the advertisements
of patent medicines. Here you have 'the worm-

176 JOHN RANDOLPH
destroying lozenges;' there 'Church's cough-
drops ; ' and, to crown the whole, ' Sloan's vege
table specific,' an InfaUible remedy for aU
nervous disorders and vertigos of brain-sick pol
iticians, — each man earnestly adjuring you to
give his medicine only a fair trial." This done,
he suddenly shot another arrow within the sacred
circle of the administration Into the secret and
mysterious Spanish embroglio : " And where
are you going to send your poUtical panacea,
resolutions and hand-blUs excepted, your sole
arcanum of government, your king cure-aU?
To Madrid? No! You are not such quacks
as not to know where the shoe pinches. To
Paris ! " " After shrinking from the Spanish
jackal, do you presume to buUy the British
lion?" Another foul blow, for his Ups were
sealed on what had been done in secret session ;
but It brought him at last to his end. " Unde
derivatur? Whence comes it," this non-im
portation bantling ? " Some time ago, a book
was laid on our tables, which, Uke some other
bantUngs, did not bear the name of Its father."
This was Mr. Madison's weU-known examina
tion Into the British doctrine of neutral trade.
" If, sir, I were the foe, as I trust I am the
friend, of this nation, I would exclaim, 'Oh
that mine enemy would write a book ! ' At the
very outset. In the very first page, I beUeve,

THE QUARREL 177
there is a complete abandonment of the prin
ciple In dispute. Has any gentleman got the
work?" Then he read a few lines from the
book, and flung it aside. Again sweeping away
over a long, discursive path of unconnected dis
cussion about Spain, France and England, New
Orleans, Holland, and a variety of lesser topics,
including remarks made by " the greatest man
whom I ever knew, the immortal author of
the letters of Curtius," he closed by another
chaUenge to the administration : —
" Until I came into the House this morning I had
been stretched on a sick-bed ; but when I behold the
affau's of this nation, instead of being where I hoped
and the people beUeved they were, in the hands of
responsible men, committed to Tom, Dick, and Harry,
to the refuse of the retaU trade of poUtics, I do feel,
I cannot help feeUng, the most deep and serious
concern. If the executive government would step
forward and say, 'Such is our plan, such is our
opinion, and such are our reasons in support of it,'
I would meet it fairly, would openly oppose or pledge
myself to support it. ... I know, sir, that we may
say and do say that we are independent (would it
were true !), as free to give a direction to the Execu
tive as to receive it from him ; but do what you wiU,
foreign relations, every measure short of war, and
even the course of hostUities, depend upon him. He
stands at the helm, and must guide the vessel of state.
You give him money to buy Florida, and he pur-

178 JOHN RANDOLPH
chases Louisiana. Tou may furnish means ; the ap
pUcation of those means rests with him. Let not
the master and mate go below when the ship is in
distress, and throw the responsibUity upon the cook
and the cabin-boy ! "
The next day he returned to the attack, and
assaUed Mr. Madison's pamphlet with a sort of
fury. " No, sir ; whatever others may think, I
have no ambition to have written such a book as
this. I abjure the very Idea." He caUed it " a
miserable card-house of an argument, which the
first puff of wind must demolish." " Sir, I
have tried, but I could not get through this work.
I found it so wiredrawn, the thread so fine, that
I could neither see nor feel It ; such a tangled
cobweb of contradictions that I was obUged to
give it up." Flinging it violently upon the
floor, as though it were only flt to be trampled
on, he maintained that England was justffiable
in all her measures, even in impressing our sea
men ; Impressment was a necessity of war. He
attacked the navy department for waste. He
affirmed that Great Britain was the sole bul
wark of the human race.
This was the man who, barely a year before,
had been crying out that the navy should be
employed to blow the British frigates out of
water, and who wished to see our officers and sea
men lying yard-arm and yard-arm in the attack.

THE QUARREL 179
" Though we lost aU, we should not lose our
national honor." Within the year Great Brit
ain had made more than one additional on
slaught upon our national honor, but Randolph
would now Usten to no thought of war, and
derided the use of our navy. After aU, there
was much to be said on this side of the ques
tion, and, as events proved, had Mr. Jefferson
foUowed his first impulse in the summer of
1805, and seized the moment for going to war
with Spain and France, he might perhaps have
checkmated the aggressive tories in England,
prevented the war of 1812, and probably saved
himself, his successor, and his party from being
driven into a false position In regard to the
Uberties of Europe and the states' rights of
America. Randolph, however, did not advocate
this policy now, when he might have done so
with effect. Repeatedly and emphaticaUy he
declared himself opposed to war with Spain or
France or any other nation. "There was no
party of men in this House or elsewhere in favor
of war." " We were not for war ; we were for
peace." His only recommendation, repeated
over and over again, was one of the most ex
traordinary, as coming from his mouth, that
human wit could have imagined : —
" I can readUy teU gentlemen what I wiU not do.
I wiU not propitiate any foreign nation with money.

180 JOHN RANDOLPH
I wiU not launch into a naval war with Great
Britain. ... I wiU send her money, sir, on no
pretext whatever, much less on pretense of buying
Labrador or Botany Bay, when my real object was
to secure Umits which she formaUy acknowledged at
the peace of 1783. I go farther. I would, if any
thing, have laid an embargo. This would have got
our property home, and our adversary's into our
power. If there is any wisdom left among us, the
first step towards hostiUty wUl always be an embargo.
In six months aU your mercantUe megrims would
vanish. As to us, although it would cut deep, we can
stand it." " What would have been a firm measure ?
An embargo. That would have gone to the root of
the evU."
With what Interest and amusement, with
what fury and unconcealed mortification, such
speeches were Ustened to by the House may be
easily conceived. That they were desultory,
and skipped from subject to subject with little
apparent connection, was an additional charm.
No one could teU where or when his sudden
blows were to f aU. He dwelt on nothing long
enough to be tedious. He passed hither and
thither, uttering sense and nonsense, but always
straining every nerve to throw contempt on Mr.
Madison and his supporters. In his next speech
he avowed himself to be no longer a republican ;
he belonged to the third party, the quiddists or

THE QUARREL 181
quids, being that tertium quid, that "third
something," which had no name, but was really
an anti-Madison movement, an " anti- Yazoo "
combination. When at last, on April 5, 1806,
he dragged the Spanish embroglio before the
open House under pretext of correcting the
secret journal, the personal bias of his opposi
tion became stiU more strongly marked. He
told how Mr. Madison had said to him that
France wanted money, and we must give her
money. " I considered It a base prostration of
tlie national character to excite one nation by
money to buUy another nation out of Its pro
perty, and from that moment and to the last
moment of my Ufe my confidence in the princi
ples of the man entertaining those sentiments
died, never to live again." No answer to this
charge was ever made ; no satisfactory answer
was possible. Mr. Madison's counter-statement,
which may be seen In the third volume of his
printed correspondence (p. 104), is equivocal
and disingenuous. The " two-million " transac
tion was one of the least defensible acts of Mr.
Jefferson's administration ; but this does not
affect the fact that Randolph was merely using
It, and the private knowledge which Mr. Madi
son's confidence had given him, in order to carry
out an attempt at political assassination. His
deepest passions were not roused by the " two-

182 JOHN RANDOLPH
miUIon job," but by Madison's overpowering
Influence. From the first this domination had
galled him: in the Yazoo contest It strove to
defeat him on his own ground ; it crowed over
him on his own dunghiU; and he had fought
and beaten It with the desperate courage of his
Virginian game-cocks. Even at this moment
he was proclaiming the fact in his speeches.
"The whole executive government has had a
bias to the Yazoo Interest ever since I had a seat
here. This is the original sin which has created
aU the mischiefs which gentlemen pretend to
throw on the impressment of our seamen and
God knows what ! This Is the cause of those
mischiefs which existed years ago." "The
Yazoo business is the beginning and the end,
the Alpha and Omega of our alphabet." Mr.
Madison's influence had been brought into the
House and pitted against his own ; he was now
retaUating by an attack on Mr. Madison before
the country. A rumor ran through Washington
that he meant to impeach Madison for attempt
ing to get the two miUions to Europe before
receiving authority from Congress, and he did
in fact make a desperate attempt to drag GaUa
tin into support of this charge.
UnluckUy for Randolph, it was not directly
Mr. Madison, but the President, who had in
vented and carried out the whole " two-milUon "

THE QUARREL 183
scheme down to its smaUest detail. All the
Cabinet knew this fact, and the President's
conscience was of course active in stimulating
him to protect his Secretary. The party could
not let Mr. Madison perish as a martyr before
the altar of Jeffersonian popularity. To sustain
him was no matter of choice, but a necessity.
The northem democrats never faltered In their
discipline, and the southem republicans were
slowly whipped back to their ranks. Ran
dolph's wUd speeches between March 5 and
April 21, 1806, were fatal only to himself. In
his struggle against the administration on the
two-mlUion policy, early In January, he carried
with him some twenty-seven republicans, in
cluding a majority of the Virginia delegation ;
but his withdrawal from the party in April,
and his unexpected devotion to England, left
these foUowers in an awkward place, where little
could be done by resisting Madison within the
party, and stiU less by foUowing Randolph into
opposition.. One by one they feU away from
their eccentric and extravagant chief.
MeanwhUe, Randolph showed an astonish
ing genius for destroying his own influence and
strengthening his opponents. He obstructed
the business of the House, and then sneered
at the majority for the condition their affairs
were in. He brought up the navy appropria-

184 JOHN RANDOLPH
tions with a blank for contingent expenses,
and told the House to fiU it up as they pleased ;
their decision would be no check on the expen
diture ; whether they provided the money or not,
the department would spend it. He kept back
the appropriation biUs tiU late In the session,
and then rose to inform the House, with a con
temptuous smUe, that AU-Fools' Day was at
hand, when. If they did not pass the blU for the
support of government, they would look like
fools Indeed. He made the most troublesome
attempts to abolish taxes. He had another bout
with the Yazoo men, and managed to procure
the rejection of their blU. He tore the mask
of secrecy from the Spanish negotiation, and
succeeded In defeating aU chance of its suc
cess. He even irritated Napoleon against the
government, and helped to confirm both France
and Great Britain In their meditated aggres
sions. His vehemence of manner was equal to
the violence of his language and acts. One of
the members, Sloan, of the " vegetable specific,"
described him on the floor of the House inviting
the attacks of his enemies, and representing
them as crying out, " Away with him ! Away
with him ! Clap on the crown of thorns ! "
(clapping his hand on the top of his head).
" Crucify him ! Crucify him ! " (whirling his
arm about). On another occasion. It seems, he

THE QUARREL 185
shook his fist at a member, and not only ordered
him to sit down, but to go down the back stairs.
Finally he charged Mr. Findley of Pennsylvania,
once his " venerable friend " and " political
father," not only with "mumbling," but with
being an old toothless driveler, in his second
dotage. Yet In his most violent passions he kept his
coolness of head, and knew weU how to subor
dinate an enmity to an interest. Even while
most bitterly charging Mr. Madison with sub
servience to France, and proving his charge by
betraying private conversations, as no man of
true self-respect could have done, he was him
self helping the Secretary to put the coimtry on
its knees before Napoleon in an attitude more
humiliating than the United States had ever
yet assumed towards a foreign power. In the
session of 1804-5 Congress, out of deference to
France and to the obligations of international
law, passed an act to regulate the trade with
revolted St. Domingo, and to restrain It within
proper and peaceful Umits. In the summer of
1805 Napoleon, stiU unsatisfied, issued an order
that the United States government should stop
the trade altogether. His peremptory note on
the subject to TaUeyrand, dated August 10,
1805, Is curious, not only as an example of his
extraordinary ignorance, but stiU more as a

186 JOHN RANDOLPH
specimen of his emphasis. " I want you to
send a note to the American minister here, . . .
and declare to him that it is time to stop this."
M. TaUeyrand obeyed. General Turreau, also,
his minister at Washington, notified Mr. Madi
son that " this system must continue no longer
(ne pourrait pas durer^." These letters were
caUed for and printed, while Congress, In De
cember, 1805, and January, 1806, were consid
ering a biU Introduced by Senator Logan of
Pennsylvania to prohibit the trade in question.
That Logan's biU was in reaUty a subordinate
but essential part of the two-mUUon scheme is
self-evident ; but Randolph, not Mr. Jefferson
or Mr. Madison, is the subject of this story,
and it is interesting to ask whether Randolph
denounced the biU and exposed the shame to
which the administration was privy.
To prohibit the trade with St. Domingo was
to make the United States government a party
in the attempt to reestabUsh French influence
in the American hemisphere; It was to help
Napoleon in his plan of reenslaving the negroes
whom France had declared free ; It was to en
force a French sham blockade by our legisla
tion, to bolster up a mere pretense of French
occupancy, to throw the whole trade of this
rich market Into the hands of England, and to
endanger the life of every American in St. Do-

THE QUARREL 187
mingo. Mr. Madison had resisted the measure
as long as he dared. He now yielded, partly
to the mandate of Napoleon, partly to the
outcry of the southern slaveholders, who were
wild with fear of the revolted Haytian negroes,
and who seized with avidity upon the biU. They
forced it through the House with unreasoning
arrogance, at the time when Randolph, an ami
des noirs, a hater of slavery, was angriest at the
attempt of Mr. Madison to bribe the French
government with five miUIon doUars. This new
proof of the "base prostration of the national
character" inherent in the Florida negotiation
might have been a terrible weapon In Ran
dolph's hands had he chosen to use it, but, so
far from using it, he Imitated Mr. Madison's
own conduct: he hid himself from sight. "I
voted in favor of it," said he in 1817. He was
mistaken. He did not vote at aU ; he gave the
bUl his silent support. " I voted in favor of it
because I considered St. Domingo as an anomaly
among the nations of the earth, and I considered
it my duty, ... as a representative above aU
of the southem portion of the United States, to
leave nothing undone which could possibly give
to the white population In that island an as
cendency over the blacks." For such a purpose
he could consent to use the powers of centraliza
tion In defiance of International law, in contempt

188 JOHN RANDOLPH
of the rights of northern merchants, and in for
getfulness of constitutional theories; but If he
held the arbitrary prohibition of trade with St.
Domingo to be constitutional, how was he after
wards to denounce as unconstitutional either
the embargo, or the non-Intercourse, or the law
abolishing the coastwise slave-trade ?
Thus, at length, on AprU 21, 1806, this
extraordinary session closed, one of the most
remarkable in the history of our government.
Randolph was left a political wreck; the true
Virginian school of politics was forever ruined ;
Macon was soon driven from the speakership,
and Nicholson forced on to the bench ; GaUatin
was paralyzed; Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison,
and ultimately Mr. Monroe were thrown into
the hands of the northern democrats, whose
loose political morality henceforward found no
check; the spirit of Intrigue was stimiUated,
and the most honest and earnest convictions of
the republican party were discredited. That
Mr. Jefferson had steadily drifted away from
his original theories was true, and that his
party, Uke aU other parties, was more or less
corrupted by power can hardly be denied ; but
Randolph's leadership aggravated these evUs,
deprived him and the better southern republi
cans of all influence for good, and left corrupt
factions to dispute with each other the posses
sion of merely selfish power.

CHAPTER Vni
MONROE AND THE SMITHS
Op aU repubUcan factions the most mischiev
ous was that which gathered round Robert
Smith, the Secretary of the Navy, and his
brother, Samuel Smith, the senator from Mary
land. The latter, during this turbulent session,
had contributed not a little to vex and worry
Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison by an attempt
to force himself upon them as a special envoy
to London to aid or supplant Monroe In his dif
ficult negotiations on the neutral trade. The
first effect of Randolph's violent outburst was
to drive General Smith back to discipUne ; the
remote result was to give him more influence
than before. As Smith wrote to his brother-in-
law, Wilson Cary Nicholas, on AprU 1, 1806 : —
" The question was simply, Buy or Fight ! Both
Houses by g^eat majorities said, Buy ! The manner
of buying appears a Uttle disagreeable. Men wiU
differ even on that subject. Politicians wUl beUeve
it perfectly honest to induce France, ' by money,' to
coerce Spain to seU that which she has absolutely
declared was her own property, and from which she

190 JOHN RANDOLPH
would not part. Mr. R. expects that this pubUc
explosion of our views and plans wiU render abortive
this negotiation, and make the Executive and poor
Uttle Madison unpopular. Against this last he vents
his spleen. However, he spares nobody, and by this
conduct has compeUed all to raUy round the Execu
tive for their own preservation. From the Potomac,
north and east, the members adhere to the President ;
south, they faU off daily from their aUegiance."
Although Mr, Jefferson irritated the Smiths
by passing directly over their heads and taking
another Maryland man, the federalist lawyer
WiUiam Pinkney, as his new minister to Eng
land, General Smith could now only submit In
silence to this sharp rebuke, the more marked
because the new appointment was not laid
before the Cabinet or discussed In advance.
Randolph's revolt had instantly stiffened the
party discipline, and the Smiths were forced
to wait.
The Smiths, however, knew when to wait
and when to Intrigue, while Randolph knew
neither the one nor the other. To do him jus
tice, he was a wretched Intriguer and no office-
seeker. He and his friends were remarkably
free from the meaner ambitions of poUtical Ufe ;
they neither begged patronage nor asked for
money, nor did they tolerate jobbery in any
form. Mr. Madison always believed otherwise,

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 191
and his foUowers openly charged Randolph with
having sought an office, and with having per
secuted Mr. Madison for refusing It; but this
story merely marked a point in the quarrel ; it
was a symptom, not a cause. Certain members
of Congress urged Randolph's appointment as
minister to England, to fiU the office which
Monroe held, which General Smith wanted,
and which William Pinkney got ; but Randolph
himself did not know of the suggestion or hear
of the President's refusal until after the whole
transaction was closed. Then he was told of
the matter by the member who had been most
active in It, and, according to an account pub
lished in the " Richmond Enquirer," evidently
by himself, he repUed, " If I did not know you
so weU, I should suppose you were sent to me
by the Executive to buy off my opposition, which
they fancy must take place from the course they
pursue." For years Randolph had been steadily
coming nearer a quarrel with his party leaders :
he was striving, as he believed, to drag them
back to their purer principles of 1800; they
were pleasantly drifting with the easy current
of power. The rupture was a mere matter of
time. Randolph's political isolation was in any
case Inevitable, if Madison were to fiU the ex
ecutive chair, for Mr. Madison, the President of
the United States, was a very different charac-

192 JOHN RANDOLPH
ter from Mr. Madison the author of the Vir
ginia Resolutions.
He went back to Bizarre In April, 1806, a
ruined statesman, never again to represent au
thority In Congress or to hope for ideal purity
in government. His lUusions of youth were
roughly brushed away. He saw, what so few
Virginians were honest enough to see, that the
Virginian theory had been sUently discarded by
its own authors, and that through it pure govern
ment could never be expected. Henceforward
he must be only a fault-finder, a common scold,
whose exaggerated peculiarities of manner would
iuArlte ridicule, and whose only means of influ
ence must lie in the violence of his temper and
the sharpness of his tongue. Among thousands
of honest and enthusiastic young men who in
every generation rush into pubUc life, with the
generous confidence that at last government
shaU be made harmless and politics refined,
Randolph was neither the greatest nor the best ;
his successes and failures were not the most
aUurIng, and his fate was not more tragic than
that of others : but it Is the misfortune of these
opal-winged dragon-flies of poUtics that from
the moment their wings become tarnished and
torn they themselves become objects of disgust.
After conceiving the career of a Pericles or a
Caesar, to faU back among common men with

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 193
vulgar aims and mean methods Is fatal to self-
respect. When his theories broke down, and
his Virginian leaders decided that their own
principles were visionary, Randolph had nothing
to do in poUtical life but to accept what other
men accepted, or to look on and grumble at
evils which he no longer hoped to cure. He
had faUed as a pubUc man, and had dragged
with him in his failure aU his friends and his
principles. Though he remained forever before
the public, he could not revive dead hopes or
bring back the noble aspirations of 1800.
To f oUow him through five-and-twenty years
of miserable discontent and growing eccentri
cities would be time thrown away. He repre
sented no one but himself; he had very few
friends, and mere rags and tatters of political
principles. His party flung him aside, and
Mr. Jefferson, for a time very bitter against
him, soon learned that he was as little to be
feared as to be loved. Randolph, on his side,
dubbing his old leader with the contemptuous
epithet of "St. Thomas of Cantingbury," lost
no chance of expressing for Mr. Jefferson a
sort of patronizing and humUiating regard. In
his eyes Mr. Jefferson as President had weakly
betrayed aU the principles he had preached in
opposition. The time was to come when Mr.
Jefferson would return to those principles, but

194 JOHN RANDOLPH
meanwhile Randolph was ruined. He knew it,
and it drove him mad.
For a whUe, however, he stiU hoped to re
trieve himself by bringing Mr. Monroe forward
as the candidate of Virginia for the next gen
eral election in 1808. His letters to Nicholson
during the summer of 1806 give glimpses of his
situation before It was made whoUy desperate
by tlA coUapse of Monroe's treaty with Eng
land In March, 1807, and the caucus nominations
of Mr. Madison in January, 1808.
EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
" BizAEEB, 3 June, 1806. . . . The pubUc prints
teem with misrepresentations, which it would be vain
to oppose, even if an independent press could be found
to attempt it. The torrent is for the present resist
less. I long for the meeting of Congress, an event
which hitherto I have always deprecated, that I may
face the monster of detraction. . . . Nothing wUl be
left undone to excite an opposition to me at the next
election, but I have no expectation that it wUl be ef
fected, or of its success in case it should. There are
too many gaping idolaters of power among us, but,
Uke you, we have men of sterling worth ; and one
thing is certain, — that, however we may differ on the
subject of the present administration, aU parties here
(I speak of the repubUcans) unite in support of Mon
roe for President. I have heard of but one dissent
ing voice, GUes, who is entirely misled ; aU his iuf or-

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 195
mation is from E[ppes], his representative. They
talk of an expression of the opinion of our legislature
to this effect at their next meeting. An inefficient
opposition is making to Garnett. Thompson, I be
lieve, wUl have an opponent Ukewise, but this is not
yet determined on. From what I have written above
you are not to infer that I mean to yield a bloodless
victory to my enemies. You know me weU enough,
I hope, to beUeve that a want of perseverance is not
among my defects. I wiU persevere to the last in the
cause in which I am embarked."
" 24 June, 1806. ... As to poUtics, lies are your
only sort of wear nowadays. Some artificial excite
ment has been produced in favor of administration,
but it wiU affect no election, unless perhaps Thomp
son's, and, on second thoughts, Mercer's. Beau
Dawson and his friend BaUey are in a fair way of
promotion. I can't teU what provision the President
that is to be can make for these two worthy chema-
tiers d'industrie, unless he gives them foreign embas
sies. As to his respectable brother-in-law, he wiU
succeed, I suppose, to the vacant Secretaryship of
State, and wUl be every way qualified to draw the
instructions and receive the dispatches of the two
Ulustrious diplomates. . . . You ask what are our
prospects in Virginia. Depend upon it, a very large
majority of us are decidedly opposed to Madison's
pretensions ; and if the other States leave it to Vir
ginia, he never wUl be President."
" 7 July. . . . From what I can learn, my name
is the general theme of invective in the Northern

196 JOHN RANDOLPH
prints, and there are not wanting some of us (one of
this district) who are very wilUng to lend a helping
hand to puU me down. GUes, I am told, has been
very violent, and has even descended to unworthy
means of which I had deemed him incapable. I
have no favors to ask. I want nothing. Let justice
be done to my motives, which I know to have been
upright, and I am content. No member of the ad
ministration has reason to think them otherwise, I
am sure ; and if they suppose they have, they shaU
not dare to say so with impunity. . . . About the
close of the last session of Congress, Granger inquired
of a gentleman from Richmond, then at Washington,
whether there was not such a character as Creed
Taylor in my district, and if he would not be brought
forward to oppose me. GUes (who had always
professed to despise Mr. T.) has been busy making
the same inquiries. I am told that he (G.) has
shown a letter which I wrote him in fuU confidence
during the winter, to my prejudice. ' Where dweU-
eth honor?'"
These letters to Nicholson are far less notable
than the series of letters which Randolph was
now writing to Monroe. Of aU the great names
in American history, that of Monroe seems to
the keen eyes of critics to stand on the smaUest
inteUectual foundation. IndividuaUty, origi
nality, strong grasp of principles, he had to a
less degree than any other prominent Virginian
of his time ; but, while usually swept along by

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 197
the current of prevaiUng opinion, he enjoyed
general respect as a man whose personal hon
esty was above dispute, and whose motives were
sincerely pure. As Mr. Madison's chief rival
in popularity, although absent in England, he
now became a disturbing force In Virginian poU
tics, and Mr. Jefferson on one side, Randolph,
Nicholson, Taylor, TazeweU, and their friends
on the other, disputed flercely the possession of
this ally. Far away In London, Mr. Monroe
began to receive letters fiUed with such honeyed
flattery as few men except those who wield
power and dispense patronage are so happy as
to hear. No reader can help noticing that Ran
dolph could flatter, and perhaps, for the moment,
he may have believed his flattery sincere. He
had reason, too, In feeling kindly towards Mr.
Monroe, for Monroe was showing much kindness
to Randolph's poor deaf and dumb nephew, St.
George, who had been sent abroad. The fol
lowing extracts from Randolph's letters show
the man in a new character, — that of political
manager. The flrst was written In the fuU
excitement of his winter struggle.
EANDOLPH TO MONEOB.
"Washington, March 20, 1806. . . . There is
no longer a doubt but that the principles of our
administration have been materiaUy changed. The

198 JOHN RANDOLPH
compass of a letter (indeed, a volume would be too
small) cannot suffice to give you even an outline.
Suffice it to say that everything is made a business
of bargain and traffic, the ultimate object of which
is to raise Mr. Madison to the presidency. To this
the old repubUcan party wUl never consent, nor can
New York be brought into the measure. Between
them and the supporters of Mr. Madison there is an
open rupture. Need I teU you that they (the old
repubUcans) are united in your support? that they
look to you, sir, for the example which this nation
has yet to receive to demonstrate that the government
can be conducted on open, upright principles, without
intrigue or any species of disingenuous artifice ? We
are extremely rejoiced to hear that you are about to
return to the United States. Much as I am person
aUy interested, through St. George, in your stay in
Europe, I would not have you remain one day longer.
Your country requires, nay demands, your presence.
It is time that a character which has proved invulner
able to every open attack should triumph over insidi
ous enmity."
" Alexandeia, April 22, 1806. . . . Last night
Congress adjourned, under circumstances the most
extraordinary that I ever witnessed. It would be
impossible for me, even if it were advisable, to give
you a sketch, much less a history, of our proceedings.
The appointment of Mr. Pinkney to the Court of
London wUl, no doubt, be announced to you, at least
as soon as this letter can reach the place of its des
tination. A decided division has taken place in

%^'^7^^z^ ^//^iyt^^^'l^ 

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 199
the republican party, which has been foUowed by a
proscription of the anti-ministeriaUsts. Among the
number of the proscribed are Mr. Nicholson, who
has retired in strong disgust ; the Speaker, who wiU
soon foUow him from a like sentiment ; and many
others of minor consequence, such as the writer of
this letter, cum multis aliis. My object at present
is merely to guard you, which your own prudence,
perhaps, renders an unnecessary caution, against a
compromitment of yourself to men in whom you can
not whoUy confide. Be assured that the aspect of
affairs here and the avowed characteristics of those
who conduct them have undergone a material change
since you left America. In a Uttle whUe I hope you
wiU be on the spot to judge for yourself, to see with
your own eyes and to hear with your own ears. AU
the statements of our public prints are, at present,
garbled, owing to the pecuUar situation of the place
which is the established seat of our government."
" BizAEEE, July 3, 1806. . . . There is a system
of which you are not informed, but in which, never
theless, every effort wiU be made, indeed is making,
to induce you to play a part so as to give a stage
effect that may suit a present purpose. I wish it
were in my power to be more expUcit. Be assured,
however, that you have friends, whose attachment to
you is not to be shaken, and from whose zeal you
have at the same time nothing to fear. I need not
teU you, I hope, that the fervor of my attachment
has never betrayed me into a use of your name on
any occasion, except where your public dispatches.

200 JOHN RANDOLPH
laid by government before Congress, caUed for and
justified the measure."
"BizAEEE, September 16, 1806. ... If hereto
fore I had been at a loss to fix upon the individual
the most disinterested and virtuous whom I have
known, I could now find no difficulty in determining ;
nor do I hesitate to declare that the very arguments
which you adduce to dissuade your friends from
supporting you at the next presidential election form
with me an invincible motive for persisting in that
support, since they exhibit the most irrefragable proof
of that superior merit which you alone are unwUling
to acknowledge. Yet I must confess there are con
siderations amongst those presented by you that would
have great and perhaps decisive influence upon my
mind where the pretensions of the candidates were
nearly equal. But in this case there is not only a
strong preference for the one party, but a decided
objection to the other. It is not a singular belief
among the republicans that to the great and acknow
ledged infiuence of this last gentleman [Mr. Madison]
we are indebted for that strange amalgamation of
men and principles which has distinguished some of
the late acts of the administration, and proved so
injurious to it. Many, the most consistent and influ
ential, of the old repubUcans, by whose exertions the
present men were brought into power, have beheld,
with unmeasurable disgust, the principles for which
they had contended, and, as they thought, estab
Ushed, neutralized at the touch of a cold and insidi
ous moderation. I speak not of the herd of place-

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 201
hunters, whose sole view in aiding to produce a change
in the administration was the advancement of them
selves and their connections, but of those disinterested
and generous spirits who served from attachment to
the cause alone, and who neither expect nor desire
preferment. Such men, of whom I could give you a
list that would go near to fiU my paper, ascribe to
the baneful counsels of the Secretary of State that
we have been graduaUy relaxing from our old prin
ciples, and relapsing into the system of our prede
cessors ; that government stands aloof from its tried
friends, whilst it hugs to its bosom men of the most
equivocal character, and even some who have been
and StUl are unequivocaUy hostUe to that cause which
our present rulers stand pledged to support ; and
that you are at this moment associated with a col
league whom former administrations deemed a fit
instrument to execute the ever-memorable treaty of
London ! They are, moreover, determined not to
have a Yazoo President if they can avoid it, nor one
who has mixed in the intrigues of the last three or
four years at Washington. There is another con
sideration, which I know not how to touch. You,
my dear sir, cannot be ignorant, although of aU man
kind you, perhaps, have the least cause to know it,
how deeply the respectabUity of any character may
be impaired by an unfortunate matrimonial connec
tion. I can pursue this subject no further. It is at
once too delicate and too mortifying. Before the
decision is ultimately made I hope to have the
pleasure of communicating fuUy with you in person.

202 JOHN RANDOLPH
With you, I believe the principles of our government
to be in danger, and union and activity on the part
of its friends indispensable to its existence. But
that union can never be obtained under the presi
dency of Mr. Madison. ... I wiU never despair of
the republic whilst I have life, but never could I see
less cause for hope than now. I have beheld my
species of late in a new and degrading point of view,
but at the same time I have met with a few God
like spirits, who redeem the whole race in my good
opinion." The story of Randolph's famous quarrel with
his party has now been told in a spirit as
friendly to him as his friends can require or
expect, — has been told, so far as possible. In
his own words, without prejudice or passion,
and shaU be left to be judged on Its merits.
There are, however, a few questions which stu
dents of American history wIU do weU to ask
themselves before taking sides with or against
the partisans of Jefferson, Madison, Randolph,
and Monroe. Did or did not Randolph go with
his party In disregarding its own principles
down to the moment when he became jealous
of Madison's influence? Was that jealousy a
cause of his feud ? Was the Yazoo compromise
a measure so moraUy wrong as to justify the dis
ruption of the party ? Had he reason to think
Monroe a safer man than Madison? Had he

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 203
not reason to know that Mr. Jefferson himself
and Mr. GaUatin were quite as responsible as
Madison for " that strange amalgamation "
which he complained of? Or, to sum up aU
these questions In one, was Randolph capable
of remaining true to any principle or any
friendship that required him to control his vio
lent temper and imperious wiU ?
Upon this point Randolph's Virginian ad
mirers wIU listen to no argument: they insist
that he was their only consistent statesman ;
they reject Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and
Mr. Monroe, and utterly repudiate President
Washington, Patrick Henry, and John Mar
shaU, in order to foUow this new prophet of
evU. Without Randolph, the connection of
Virginian history would, In their eyes, be lost.
Perhaps they are right. Readers must solve
the riddle as truth and justice shall seem to
require. Meanwhile Randolph fretted at Bizarre, and
wrote long letters, signed "Declus," to the
"Richmond Enquirer," until the much-desired
month of December came, and he returned
to fight his battles at Washington. Passions,
however, had now cooled. Calmer himself, he
found aU parties ready to meet him in a formal
truce. Nicholson had gone upon the bench,
but Macon was stIU Speaker, and Randolph

204 JOHN RANDOLPH
himself, until March 4, 1806, could not be de
posed from his chairmanship of the Ways and
Means Committee. Mr. Jefferson's message,
very different in tone from that of the year
before, was calculated to soothe party quarrels
and to satisfy Randolph's wishes. In reaUty
the President's belligerency of December, 1805,
had been intended as a ruse and a false demon
stration to cover a retreat from foreign difficul
ties; and Randolph, knowing this, had made
use of his knowledge to worry the administra
tion and to damage Mr. Madison by affecting
at one time to take these beUigerent threats as
serious, and by throwing ridicule upon them at
other times as quackery. In December, 1806,
the President, satisfied that the ruse of last year
had failed, sent In a message breathing only
peace and the principles of 1800. Randolph
chose to look upon It as a triumph for himself,
and wrote to Nicholson accordingly : —
EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
"Geoegbtown, 10 December, 1806. . . . The
message of the 3d was, as you supposed, wormwood
to certain gentry. They made wry faces, but, in fear
of the rod and in hopes of sugar-plums, swaUowed it
with less apparent repugnance than I had predicted.
... Of all the men who have met me with the
greatest apparent cordiaUty, old Smilie is the last
whom you would suspect. I understand that they

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 205
(you know who they are) are weU disposed towards
a truce. The higher powers are in the same goodly
temper, as I am informed. I have seen nobody be
longing to the administration but the Secretary of the
Navy, who caUed here the day before yesterday, and
whose visit I repaid this morning. You may remem
ber, some years ago, my having remarked to you the
Uttle attention which we received from the grandees,
and the Uttle disposition which I felt to court it. I
have therefore invariably waited for the first advance
from them, because at home I conceive myself bound
to make it to any gentleman who may be in my
neighborhood." Burr's conspiracy now broke out, startUng the
nation out of its calm, and proving, or seeming
to prove, the justice of Randolph's suspicions
and anxieties. For a time a sort of panic
reigned in Washington except among the feder
alists. Randolph and his friends sneered at the
last year's work ; Smith and his friends grum
bled at the supineness of this year. The ex
pressions of both these factions in their private
letters were very characteristic.
On December 26, 1806, Macon wrote to
Nicholson, " The doings here will surely con
vince every candid man In the world that the
republicans of the old school were not wrong
last winter. Give truth fair play and it wIU
prevail." A fortnight later, January 9, 1807,

206 JOHN RANDOLPH
General Smith wrote to his brother-in-law, W.
C. Nicholas : —
" My ambition is at an end. I sicken when I look
forward to a state of things that would require exer
tions. We have established theories that would stare
down any possible measures of offense or defense.
Should a man take a patriotic stand against those
destructive and seductive fine-spun foUies, he wiU be
written down very soon. Look at the last message !
It in some sort declared more troops to be unneces
sary. It is such, however, that the President cannot
recommend (although he now sees the necessity) any
augmentation of the army. Nay, /, even I, did not
dare to bring forward the measure until I had first
obtained his approbation. Never was there a time
when executive influence so completely governed the
nation." General Smith's comments on the "destruc
tive and seductive fine-spun foUies," which he so
detested, forgot to note that, whether destruc
tive or not, they sprang straight from the theo
ries of his party, which had no moral existence
except on and in those principles. John Adams
had been sent back to Braintree for no other
avowed reason than that Smith might estabUsh,
as the practice of government, what he now
caUed "fine-spun foUies." Randolph felt the
shame of such an inconsistency. The meeting
of two extremes is always Interesting, and the

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 207
moment of their contact Is portentous. WhUe
General Smith on one side was repudiating the
theories he had " estabUshed " In 1800, and was
frankly going back to his old federaUst poUcy,
Randolph, who stiU believed In the " fine-spun
foUies" of his youth, was also confessing that
In practice they had faUed, and that the night
of corruption and violence was again closing
upon mankind. On February 15, 1807, a few
weeks after General Smith's letter to Nicholas,
Randolph wrote to Joseph Nicholson : —
" I do now beUeve the destiny of the world to be
fixed, at least for some centuries to come. After
another process of universal dominion, degeneracy,
barbarian irruption and conquest, the character of man
may, two thousand years hence, perhaps, begin to
wear a brighter aspect. Cast your eyes backward to
the commencement of the French Revolution ; recaU
to mind our hopes and visions of the amelioration of
the condition of mankind, and then look at things as
they are I I am wearied and disgusted with this
picture, which perpetuaUy obtrudes itself upon me."
The repubUcan party had broken up In fac
tions, and even Its best members had lost faith
In their own theories. Among these factions
Randolph's group of " old republicans " held a
sort of monopoly in pure repubUcan principles,
whUe the rest were contented with carrying on
the govemment from day to day, disputing, not

208 JOHN RANDOLPH
about principles, but about offices. Randolph
looked down on them aU with bitter contempt.
His letters to Nicholson became gaU.
EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
"Committee Room, 17 February, 1807. . . .
Bad as you suppose matters to be, they are even
worse than you apprehend. What think you of that
Prince of Prigs and Puppies, G. W. C[ampbeU] for
a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States ! ! !
Risum teneas ? Tou must know we have made a new
circuit, consisting of the three western States, with an
additional associate justice. A caucus (excuse the
slang of politics) was held, as I am informed, by the
delegations of those States for the purpose of recom
mending some character to the President. Boyle was
talked of, but the interest of C. finaUy prevaUed.
This is 'Tom, Dick, and Harry' with a vengeance.
... If Mr. ' American,' whom, by the way, I never
see, should persevere in the attack which you teU me
he is making upon me, I shaU issue letters of marque
and reprisal against his principals. The doughty
general [Samuel Smith] is vulnerable at aU points,
and his plausible brother [Robert Smith] not much
better defended. The first has condemned in terms
of unqualified reprobation the general measures pur
sued by the administration, and lamented that, such
was the pubUc infatuation, no man could take a posi
tion against it without destroying himself and injur
ing the cause which he attempted to serve, — with
much more to the same tune. I called some time

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 209
since at the navy office to ask an explanation of cer
tain items of the estimate for this year. The Secre
tary caUed up his chief clerk, who knew very Uttle
more of the business than his master. I propounded
a question to the head of the department ; he turned
to the clerk like a boy who cannot say his lesson, and
with imploring countenance beseeches aid ; the clerk
with much assurance gabbled out some commonplace
jargon, which I would not take for sterUng ; an ex
planation was required, and both were dumb. This
pantomime was repeated at every new item, until,
disgusted, and ashamed for the degraded situation
of the principal, I took leave without pursuing the
subject, seeing that my object could not be attained.
There was not one single question relating to the
department that the Secretary could answer."
Randolph's temper was now ugly beyond
what was to be expected from a man whose
objects were only to serve the pubUc and to
secure honest govemment. His hatred of the
northern democrats broke out In ways which
showed a wish to rule or ruin. When the blU
for prohibiting the slave-trade was before the
House, a biU chiefly supported by the Vamums
and BidweUs, Sloans, SmUies, and Findleys,
whom he so much disUked, he broke out in a
startUng denunciation of the clause which for
bade the coastwise slave-trade In vessels under
forty tons. This provision, he said, touched the

210 JOHN RANDOLPH
right of private property; he feared it might
one day be made the pretext for universal eman
cipation; he had rather lose the blU, he had
rather lose aU the bUls of the session, he had
rather lose every biU passed since the estab
lishment of the govemment, than agree to the
clause; It went to blow the Constitution Into
ruins ; if ever the time of disunion should arrive,
the line of severance would be between the slave-
holding and the non-slaveholding States. Be
sides attempting thus to stir up trouble between
the South and North, he made a desperate effort
to put the Senate and House at odds, and
showed a spirit of pure venom that went far to
sink his character as an honest man.
On March 3, 1807, his means of effecting
further mischief were to be greatly curtaUed,
for on that day the Ninth Congress came to an
end, and Randolph lost his hold on the Ways
and Means Committee. This was not his only
disaster, for, on the same day, Mr. Erskine, the
British minister at Washington, received from
London a copy of the new treaty which Mr.
Monroe and Mr. Pinkney had barely succeeded
in negotiating with the British government.
Hurrying with It to Mr. Madison, the minister
supposed that an extra session of the Senate
would be Immediately caUed for March 4 ; but
Instead of this, the President decUned to send

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 211
the treaty to the Senate at aU, and contented
himseK with denouncing It In very strong lan
guage to aU the senators who caUed upon him.
The treaty was indeed a very bad one, but it
carried on Its shoulders the fortunes of the old
republicans, and Its humiliating reception was
a fatal blow to Randolph's hope of retrieving
his own fortunes by attaching them to those of
James Monroe. Randolph of course felt no
doubt as to the motives which prompted so stern
a rebuke before an expectant nation. He wrote
to Monroe accordingly : —
EANDOLPH TO MONEOB.
"BizAEEB, March 24, 1807. ... Mr. T. M.
Randolph suddenly decUnes a reelection, in favor of
WUson Nicholas, whose talents for intrigue you weU
know, I presume. Had I known of Mr. Purviance's
arrival, I should certainly have remained in Wash
ington for the purpose of seeing him, and procuring
better information concerning the treaty than the
contradictory accounts of the newspapers furnish. I
have considered the decree of Berlin to be the great
cause of difficulty ; at the same time, I never had a
doubt that clamor would be raised against the treaty,
be it what it might. My reasons for this opinion I
wUl give when we meet. They are particular as weU
as general. Prepare yourself to be surprised at some
things which you wiU hear."
The old republicans were now In despair.

212 JOHN RANDOLPH
Recognizing the fact that Monroe was out of
the race, they turned their attention to New
York. Of all northern democracy, the demo
crats of New York and Pennsylvania, the Cheet-
hams and Duanes, had been most repulsive to
Randolph, but in his hatred for Mr. Madison he
was now ready to unite with these dregs of cor
ruption, rather than submit to the Secretary of
State; he was ready to make George Clinton
President, and to elevate De Witt Clinton, most
selfish, unscrupulous, and unsafe of democrats.
Into a position where the whole government
patronage would Ue at his mercy. He wrote
again to Monroe, evidently to prepare him for
being gently set aside : —
EANDOLPH TO MONROE.
" Richmond, May 30, 1807. . . . The friends of
Mr. Madison have left nothing undone to impair the
very high and just confidence of the nation in your
self. Nothing but the possession of the government
could have enabled them to succeed, however par
tially, in this attempt. In Virginia they have met
with the most determined resistance, and although I
believe the executive influence wiU at last carry the
point, for which it has been unremittingly exerted,
of procuring the nomination of electors favorable to
the Secretary of State, yet it is not even in its power
to shake the confidence of the people of this State in
your principles and abiUties, or to efface your public

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 213
services from their recollection. I should be wanting
in my duty to you, my dear sir, were I not to apprise
you that exertions to diminish the value of your char
acter and pubUc services have been made by persons,
and in a manner that wiU be scarcely credible to you,
although at the same time unquestionably true. Our
friend Colonel Mercer, should you land in a northern
port, can give you some correct and valuable infor
mation on this and other subjects. MeanwhUe, the
repubUcans of New York, sore with the coaUtion
effected by Mr. John Nicholas between his party and
the federalists (now entirely discomfited), and know
ing the auspices under which he acted, are irrecon
cilably opposed to Mr. Madison, and striving to bring
forward Mr. Clinton, the Vice-President. Much con
sequently depends on the part which Pennsylvania
wiU take in this transaction. There is a leaning, evi
dently, towards the New York candidate. Whether
the executive influence wUl be able to overcome this
predisposition yet remains to be seen. In the person
of any other man than Mr. M. I have no doubt it
would succeed. But the repubUcans of Pennsylvania,
setting aU other considerations aside, are indignant at
the recoUection that in aU their struggles with the
combined parties of McKean, etc., and the federal
ists, the hand of government has been felt against
them, and so far as it has been exerted they choose to
ascribe [it] to the exertions of Mr. M. Such is, as
nearly as I can coUect, the posture of affairs at pre
sent. WUson C. N[icholas] and Duane are both in
town at this time. Some important result is no doubt

214 JOHN RANDOLPH
to flow from this conjunction. When you return, you
wUl hardly know the country. A system of espion
age and denunciation has been organized which per
vades every quarter. Distrust and suspicion gener
aUy prevaU in the intercourse between man and man.
AU is constraint, reserve, and mystery. Intrigue
has arrived at a pitch which I hardly supposed it
would have reached in five centuries. The man of
aU others who, I suppose, would be the last suspected
by you is the nucleus of this system. The maxim of
Rochefoucauld is in him completely verified, ' that an
affectation of simpUcity is the refinement of impos
ture.' Hypocrisy and treachery have reached their
acme amongst us. I hope that I shaU see you very
soon after your arrival. I can then give you a fuU
explanation of these general expressions, and proof
that they have been made upon the surest grounds.
Amongst your unshaken friends you may reckon two
of our chanceUors, Mr. Nicholson of Maryland, Mr.
Clay of PhUadelphia, Col. Jno. Taylor, and Mr.
Macon." At the same time. Judge Nicholson wrote to
Monroe a letter which is worth a moment's
notice on account of the support It gave to
Randolph's views : —
JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON TO MONEOB.
"Baltimoee, April 12, 1807. ... As to the
pubUc sentiment, I cannot readUy state what it is.
Perhaps there is none. The President's popularity
is unbounded, and his will is that of the nation. His

MONROE AND THE SMITHS 215
approbation seems to be the criterion by which the
correctness of aU public events is tested. Any treaty,
therefore, which he sanctions wUl be approved of by
a very large proportion of our people. The federal
ists will murmur, but as this is the result of system,
and not of principle, its impression wUl be neither
deep nor extensive. A Uteral copy of Jay's treaty,
if ratified by the present administration, would meet
their opposition, whUe the same instrument, although
heretofore so odious to some of us, would now com
mand the support of a large body who caU themselves
democrats. Such is our present infatuation. To
this general position, however, there are some honest
exceptions. There is a portion who yet retain the
feeUngs of 1798, and whom I denominate the old
repubUcan party. These men are personaUy attached
to the President, and condemn his measures when
they think bim wrong. They neither wish for nor
expect anything from his extensive patronage. Their
pubUc service is intended for the public good, and has
no view to private emolument or personal ambition.
But it is said they have not his confidence, and I
lament it. You must have perceived from the pubUc
prints that the most active members in the House of
Representatives are new men, and I fear that foreign
nations wUl not estimate American talent very highly
if our congressional proceedings are taken as the rule.
If you knew the Sloans, the Alstons, and the Bid
weUs of the day, and there are a great many of them,
you would be mortified at seeing the affairs of the
nation in such miserable hands. Yet these are styled

216 JOHN RANDOLPH
exclusively the President's friends. . . . These facts
wiU enable you to form an early opinion as to the
necessity of remaining in England. You know Mr.
Jefferson perfectly well, and can therefore calculate
the chances of his approving anything done not in
precise conformity to his instructions. He is, how
ever, somewhat different from what he was. He feels
at present his own strength with the nation, and
therefore is less incUned to yield to the advice of his
friends. Your return is anxiously wished for by
many who, I presume you know, are desirous of put
ting you in nomination for the presidency. My own
expectations are not very sanguine on this subject.
Great efforts are making for and by another. The
Virginia and New York elections which take place in
the course of the present month wiU determine much.
The point is made throughout Virginia, I beUeve,
and much soUcitude is felt and expressed by the can
didate for the presidency as to the result of the sev
eral elections. It is to be hoped, therefore, that you
wUl return as early as possible."
What course things might have taken had
nothing occurred to disturb domestic poUtics
must be left to conjecture. Fate now decreed
that a series of imexpected events should create
an entirely new situation, and bury in rapid
oblivion aU memory of old repubUcan principles.
The aggressions of Europe forced America out
of her chosen path.

CHAPTER IX
"a nuisance and a CtmSE"
Randolph's letters to Nicholson carry on the
story : — EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
" BizAEEB, 25 March, 1807. ... I fuUy intended
to have written to you the day before my departure
from Washington, but was prevented by an accident
which had nearly demoUshed me. Being very un-
weU on Monday night, the 2d, and no carriage to be
procured, I accepted the offer of one of his horses
from Dr. Bibb (successor to Spalding), and we set
out together for Georgetown. Not very far beyond
our old estabUshment (SaUy Dashiell's), the only girth
there was to the saddle gave way, and as it fitted the
horse very badly it came with his rider at once to the
ground. Figure to yourself a man ahnost bruised to
death, on a dark, cold night, in the heart of the capi
tal of the United States, out of sight or hearing of a
human habitation, and you wiU have a tolerably exact
idea of my situation, premising that I was previously
knocked up by our legislative orgies, and some scrapes
that our friend Lloyd led me into. With Bibb's
assistance, however, I mounted the other horse, aud
we crept along to Crawford's, where I was seized with

218 JOHN RANDOLPH
a high fever, the effects of which have not yet left
me. To end this Canterbury tale, I did not get out
of bed untU Wednesday afternoon, when I left it to
begin a painful journey homewards. Anything, how
ever, was preferable to remaining within the ten-
mUes-square one day longer than I was obliged. . . .
Colonel Burr (^quantum mutatus ah illo .') passed by
my door the day before yesterday, under a strong
guard. So I am told, for I did not see him, and
nobody hereabouts is acquainted with his person.
The soldiers escorting him, it seems, indulged his
aversion to be pubUcly known, and to guard against
inquiry as much as possible he was accoutred in
a shabby suit of homespun, with an old white hat
flapped over his face, the dress in which he was ap
prehended. From the description, and indeed the
confession of the commanding officer to one of my
neighbors, I have no doubt it was Burr himself. His
very manner of traveUng, although under arrest, was
characteristic of the man, enveloped in mystery."
The arrival of Burr at Richmond led to the
summons of a grand jury, on which Randolph
served. Thus he was brought in contact with
a new object of intense aversion, the famous
General WUkinson, who, for twenty years, had
played fast and loose with treason, and who, at
the last moment, saved Mr. Jefferson's adminis
tration from a very serious danger by turning
against Burr. Randolph could not think of the
man henceforward with ordinary patience, and

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 219
perhaps his Irritation was a little due to the fact
that Wilkinson's vices had so much helped to
cover what he beUeved to be Mr. Jefferson's
blunders. EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
"Richmond, 25 June, 1807. . . . Yesterday the
grand jury found bUls of treason and misdemeanor
against Burr and Blennerhassett, una voce, and this
day presented Jonathan Dayton, ex-senator, John
Smith of Ohio, Comfort Tyler, Israel Smith of New
York, and Davis Floyd of Indiana, for treason.
But the mammoth of iniquity escaped ; not that any
man pretended to think him innocent, but upon cer
tain wire-drawn distinctions that I wiU not pester
you with. Wilkinson is the only man that I ever
saw who was from the bark to the very core a vU-
lain. . . . Perhaps you never saw human nature in
so degraded a situation as in the person of WUkin
son before the grand jury, and yet this man stands
on the very summit and pinnacle of executive favor,
whUst James Monroe is denounced. As for such
men as the quids you speak of, I should hardly
think his Majesty would stoop to such humble quarry,
when James Monroe was in view. TazeweU, who is
writing on the other side of the table, and whom you
surely remember, says that he makes the fifth. The
other four you have not mistaken. My friend, I am
standing on the soil of my native country, divested
of every right for which our fathers bled. PoUtics
have usurped the place of law, and the scenes of 1798

220 JOHN RANDOLPH
are again revived. Men now see and hear, and feel
and think, politically. Maxims are now advanced
and advocated, which would almost have staggered
the effrontery of Bayard or the cooler impudence of
Chauncy Goodrich, when we were first acquainted.
But enough of this ! It wiU not be long, I presume,
before I shaU see you again. The news of the cap
ture of the Chesapeake arrived this moming, and I
suppose the President wiU convene Congress, of course.
I have been looking for something of this sort ever
since the change of ministry and rejection of the
treaty was announced. I have tried to avert from
my country a war which I foresaw must succeed the
foUies of 1805-6, but I shaU not be the less disposed
to withdraw her from it or carry her through with
honor." The President did not immediately convene
Congress. With great wisdom and forbearance,
accepting the British minister's disavowal of
the Chesapeake outrage, he waited to hear from
England, only issuing a proclamation to exclude
the British ships of war from our harbors.
Congress was called together for October 26,
and Randolph then appeared at Washington
In a temper bad even for him. The northern
democrats controlled everything. Macon was
obliged to decline being a candidate for the
speakership ; Varnum of Massachusetts was put
in the chair, and his first act was to appoint

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 221
George W. CampbeU of Tennessee, " that prince
of prigs and puppies," chairman of the Ways
and Means Committee. Randolph showed his
temper on the very first day by bringing a
charge against Nicholas B. Vanzandt, the regu
lar candidate for clerk of the House, too sud
denly and positively for contradiction, which
caused Vanzandt to be defeated and disgraced.
The man happened to be a protege of Mrs.
Madison. That Randolph should have been
beside himself with rage and mortification is
natural enough, for he could no longer doubt
the odium in which he had involved himself
and even his friend Macon, who, dazzled by
his wit and overawed by his wIU, found himself
isolated and shunned, dropped from the speaker
ship, and at cross-purposes with his party. The
speU was now at an end, and Macon, although
retaining friendly relations with Randolph, has
tened at this session to draw away from him in
politics, and gave an almost unquaUfied support
to the administration. Mr. Jefferson, with his
usual dexterity, had already reduced Randolph's
Influence In the House by providing his ally,
Nicholson, with a seat on the bench, and Nichol
son probably welcomed this means of escape from
a position which Randolph had made so uncom
fortable. Within a few weeks more Randolph
succeeded in making himself a mere laughing

222 JOHN RANDOLPH
stock for his enemies. Even Macon and Nichol
son were obUged to agree that recovery of his
Influence was scarcely possible. The story of
this last and fatal eccentricity, hardly mentioned
by his biographers, merits a place here as further
evidence of that Irrationality which made his
opinions worthless, and his political course for
ten years to come Uttle more than a series of
wayward Impidses.
He had been vehement In regard to the Chesa
peake outrage, and considered Mr. Jefferson's
cautious measures very Insufficient. Nicholson
had caUed his attention to Lord Chatham's
Falkland Island speech, and he wrote from Bi
zarre, in reply, as foUows, July 21, 1807 : —
EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
" I have indulged myself in reading once more the
speech to which you allude. It is the inspiration of
divine wisdom, and as such I have ever adored it.
But, my good friend, I cannot with you carry my
zeal so far as to turn missionary and teach the gos
pel of politics to the heathens of Washington. More
easUy might a camel pass through a needle's eye
than one particle of the spirit of Chatham be driven
into that 'trembUng councU,' to whom the destinies
of this degraded country are unhappily confided. . . .
But great God ! what can you expect from men who
take Wilkinson to their bosoms, and at the same
time are undermining the characters of Monroe and

«A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 223
Macon, and plotting their downfall! There is but
one sentiment here, as far as I can learn, on the sub
ject of the late outrage : that, as soon as the fact was
ascertained, Congress should have been convened, a
strict embargo laid, Erskine [the British minister]
sent home, our Ministers recaUed, and then we might
begin to deliberate on the means of enforcing our
rights and extorting reparation. The Proclamation
(or, as I term it, the apology') is received rather
coldly among us. Many persons express themselves
much mortified at it. Every one I see asks what
govemment means to do, and I might answer, 'What
they have always done ; nothing ! ' . . . I should not
be surprised, however, if the Drone or Humble Bee
(the Wasp has saUed already) should be dispatched
with two tniUions (this is our standing first bid) to
purchase Nova Scotia, and then we might go to war
in peace and quiet to ascertain its boundaries."
So soon as Congress met, Randolph hastened
to proclaim these sentiments, with additions of
startling Import, rivaling Mr. Crowninshleld's
projected triumphs. Not only should Congress
have been Immediately convened, and our min
isters In London, Pinkney and Monroe, recaUed,
after requiring full measures of redress, which
were to be sent over by a special envoy; not
only should the nation have been put into a
posture of defense ; but, " redress being refused,
instant retaUation should have been taken on
the offending party. I would have Invaded Can-

224 JOHN RANDOLPH
ada and Nova Scotia, and made a descent on
Jamaica. I would have seized upon Canada and
Nova Scotia as pledges to be retained against a
future paciflcatlon, untU we had obtained am
ple redress for our wrongs." This was soaring
on the wings of Chatham, and Indeed it would
have been necessary to soar on some wings
if Randolph meant to attack Nova Scotia and
Jamaica. Redress was refused; for, although
the British government disavowed the attack
on the Chesapeake, the men were not returned,
but either hanged or kept In jail for the next
four years. Randolph, however, Instead of con
tinuing to demand redress, or seizing upon Can
ada and Nova Scotia, declared that he would
not, without great reluctance, vote money for
the maintenance of " our degraded and dis
graced navy."
A few weeks after this tirade, news arrived
of fresh aggressions from England and France ;
the Berlin Decree was to be enforced, and the
Orders In CouncU were to be issued without
delay. The next day the President sent down
a confldential message asking for an embargo,
and the House went at once Into secret session.
What passed there Is only partlaUy known, but
It was asserted by Mr. Fisk of Vermont, in a
speech made later in the session, that there
had been a scramble between Randolph and

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 225
Crowninshield as to who should have the honor
first to propose the measure, and Randolph
urged expedition, as he had a bUl ready pre
pared. Certain It Is that Randolph got the
better of Crowninshield, and his resolution or
dering an embargo stands on the secret journal
of the House. A blU for the same purpose just
then came down from the Senate, and Ran
dolph, after supporting it on December 18 as
the only measure which could promote the na
tional interests, rose on December 19 to oppose
It as partial, imconstltutlonal, a new invention,
and he aUeged as his strongest objection that it
was expressly aimed at Great Britain. He voted
against It.
This last somersault was more than even
Macon and Nicholson could understand. Nich
olson wrote, in astonishment, to ask what It
meant, and Randolph's reply and defense are
worth reading : —
EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
" December 24, 1807. . . . Come here, I beseech
you. I wiU then show you how impossible it was
for me to have voted for the embargo. The circum
stances under which it presented itseK were pecuUar
and compeUed me to oppose it, although otherwise a
favorite measure with me, as you weU know. It was,
in fact, to crouch to the insolent mandate of Bona
parte ' that there should be no neutrals ; ' to subscribe

226 JOHN RANDOLPH
to that act of perfidy and violence, his decree, at
the moment when every consideration prompted us
to resist and resent it. Non-importation and non-
exportation, — what more can he require? Ought
we to have suffered ourselves to be driven by him
out of the course which, whether right or wrong,
our government had thought proper to pursue to
wards England ? to be dragooned into measures that
in all human calculation must lead to immediate war ?
Put no trust in the newspaper statements. They wiU
mislead you. But come and view the ground, and I
wiU abide the issue of your judgment."
To Nicholson, then, Randolph did not plead
the unconstitutlonaUty of the embargo, or Its bad
Influence as a stretch of centralized power. To
announce such a discovery to Nicholson would
have been ridiculous, after both of them had for
two years insisted on an embargo as the wisest
of possible measures. Only the immediate cir
cumstances excused the vote, the wish not to
act partiaUy against England, the very power
which had just declared war on our commerce,
after having committed that outrage, disavowed
but not yet redressed, which had caused Ran
dolph, only a few weeks before, to urge an attack
upon Canada.
Such a combination of contradictions and in
consistencies was enough to destroy the weight
of Pitt or Peel ; no reputation, least of aU one

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 227
so indifferent as Randolph's, could stagger under
it. He stIU hoped to retrieve his f ortimes by
securing the defeat of Mr. Madison, but to
do so he was now obUged to keep himself in
the background, for fear of hurting Monroe's
chances by coupling them with his own unpopu
larity. Just at this moment Monroe reached
America, and Randolph was reduced to see him
by stealth. The same day on which he wrote
to Nicholson to excuse his course about the
embargo he wrote also to Monroe, asking an
interview : — EANDOLPH TO MONEOB.
" December 24, 1807. My dear Sir, — In abstain
ing so long from a personal interview with you, I
leave you to judge what violence I have commit
ted upon my private feelings. Before your arrival,
however, I had determined on the course which I
ought to pursue, and had resolved that no personal
gratification should induce me to hazard your future
advancement, and with it the good of my country,
by any attempt to blend the fate of a proscribed
individual with the destiny which, I trust, awaits
you. It is, nevertheless, of the first consequence to us
both that I should have a speedy opportunity of com
muning fuUy with you. This, perhaps, can be best
effected at my own lodgings, where we shaU not be
exposed to observation or interruption. I shall, how
ever, acquiesce with pleasure in any other arrange
ment which may appear more eligible to you.
" Yrs. unalterably."

228 JOHN RANDOLPH
This coquetry between Monroe and Randolph
continued aU winter, while Randolph's friends
were making ready to nominate Monroe for
the presidency. To prevent the nomination of
Madison was no longer possible ; aU that could
be done was to make Independent nominations
of Monroe in Virginia, and of George Clinton
in New York, on the chance of defeating Mr.
Madison, and substituting the stronger of his
two rivals In his place. The Secretary, how
ever, overbore aU opposition. Giles and W. C.
Nicholas managed his canvass in Virginia, and
on January 21, 1808, a large caucus of the
Virginia legislature nominated him for the
presidency. Two days later, at a congressional
caucus called by Senator Bradley of Vermont,
eighty-three senators and members confirmed
the action of Virginia. Macon, Randolph, and
aU the " old repubUcans " held themselves aloof
from both caucuses, but aU they could do for
Monroe was to give him a weak independent
nomination. How far Mr. Monroe made himself a party
to this transaction Is not quite clear. There Is,
however, no doubt that he was In fuU sympathy
with the old repubUcans against Mr. Madison,
and Randolph's letters Imply that his sympathy
was more than passive.

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 229
EANDOLPH TO MONEOE.
" Geoegbtown, March 9, 1808. ... A con
sciousness of the misconstruction (to your prejudice)
which would be put upon any correspondence be
tween us has hitherto deterred me from writing.
You wUl have no difficulty in conceiving my motives
in putting this violence upon my feeUngs, especiaUy
after the explanation which I gave of them whUst
you were here. The prospect before us is daily
brightening. I mean of the future, which untU of
late has been extremely gloomy. As to the present
state of things, it is far beyond my powers to give an
adequate description of it. Mr. W. C. N. begins of
late to make open advances to the federaUsts, fearing,
no doubt, that the bait of hypocrisy has been seen
through by others. I must again refer you to Mr.
Leigh for full information of what is going on here.
The indiscretion of some of the weaker brethren,
whose intentions, I have no doubt, were good, as you
wUl have perceived, has given the enemy great ad
vantage over us."
" Geoegbtown, March 26, 1808 .... Among
the events of my pubUc life, and especiaUy those
which have grown out of the last two years, no cir
cumstance has inspired such keen regret as that which
has begotten the necessity of the reserve between us
to which you aUude ; not that I have been insensible
to the cogent motives to such a demeanor on both
sides ; far from it. I must have been blind not to
have perceived them. They suggested themselves at

230 JOHN RANDOLPH
a very early period to my mind, and my conduct was
accordingly regulated by them. But there are occa
sions in Ufe, and this, with me, was one of them,
in which necessity serves but to embitter instead of
resigning our feelings to her rigid dispensations. I
leave you then to judge with what avidity I shaU
seize the opportunity of renewing our intercourse
when the causes which have given birth to its suspen
sion shall have ceased to exist, since amongst the en-
J03mients which life has afforded me there are few,
very few, which I value in comparison with the pos
session of your friendship. In a Uttle whUe I shall
quit the political theatre, probably forever, and I shaU
carry with me into retirement none of the surprise
and not much of the regret excited by the blasting
effects of ministerial artifice and power upon my
public character, should I find, as I fear I shaU, that
they have been enabled to reach even your own."
The worst trait of these Insidious attempts
to poison Monroe's mind was not their insinua
tions, but their transparent character of revenge.
Monroe was one tool, and CUnton another ; both
equaUy used by Randolph, not to forward his
own views of public good, but to puU down Mr.
Madison. If there was nothing in Monroe's
character or career which could lead any sensi
ble man to believe him truer than Madison to
the forgotten traditions of his party, there was
everything In George Clinton's history to prove
that he was a blind agent of the northern demo-

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 231
cracy. His late career as Governor of New
York had been notoriously and scandalously
controUed by his nephew De Witt, and the self
ishness of DeWitt Clinton was such that to
trust in his hands the fortunes of "old repub-
Ucanism " would have been one degree more
ridiculous than to trust them, as Randolph did
twenty years afterwards, to the tender sym
pathies of Andrew Jackson. Not patriotism,
but revenge, Inspired Randolph's passion; the
impulse to strike down those whom he chose
to hate. As he worked on Monroe's wounded
pride to make of It a weapon against Madison,
so he Incited and urged the friends of Monroe
in other States to devote themselves to the Inter
ests of Clinton. Thus he wrote to Nicholson to
stir up Maryland. EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
" Feibruary 20, 1808. . . . Our friend gains ground
very fast at home. SuUivan, the Governor of Mas
sachusetts, has declared against M[adiso]n. The
repubUcans of that great State are divided on the
question, and if Clay be not deceived, who says that
Pennsylvania, Duane non obstante, wUl be decidedly
for the V[ice] P[resident], the S[ecretary] of S[tate]
has no chance of being elected. Impress this, I pray
you, on our friends. If the V. P.'s interest should
be best, our electors (in case we succeed) will not
hazard everything by a division. If the election

232 JOHN RANDOLPH
comes to the House of Representatives M[adiso]n is
the man."
" March 24, 1808. . . . Lloyd says that the oppo
nents of Madison in Maryland and in Baltimore par
ticularly are uimerved ; that they are timid, and that
unless the V[ice] P[resident]'s friends exert them
selves aU is lost in your State ; that if yourself were
to go to Queen Anne's and make known your support
of C[linton] it would decide the Eastern Shore. This
I am certain you wUl do, as weU as everything else
in your power to promote the cause. It is necessary
to speak and to speak out ; especiaUy those who justly
possess the pubUc confidence, which you do in a most
eminent degree."
At the same time he was consumed by a fe
verish Impulse to thrust himself forward In the
House. Thus he lost prestige with every day
that passed. As the session drew to its close,
and his obstructive temper became more and
more evident, Macon wrote to Nicholson bewail
ing It, but confessing the ImpossibiUty of con
troUIng him : —
" I am reaUy afraid that our friend R. wiU injure
himself with the nation in this way. An attempt is
now making, and wiU, I think, be continued, to im
press on the minds of the people that he speaks with
a view to waste time. If this opinion should prevaU,
it wiU, I fear, injure not only him, but the nation
also, because what injures him in public estimation
wiU injure the people also. His talents and honesty

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 233
cannot be lost without a loss equal to them both, and
they cannot be ascertained. But you know him as
weU as I do."
This was written on AprU 14, 1808 ; the ses
sion closed on the 25th, and on June 1 Macon
wrote again : —
" Madison, I stUl think, wiU be the next President.
If the New Yorkers mean to run CUnton in good
earnest, as we country people say, it is time they had
begun. The Madisonians wiU not lose anything by
neglect or indolence. They may overact their part,
and, Lq their zeal to keep Randolph down, may make
some lukewarm about Madison. If R. had stuck to
the embargo, he would have been up in spite of
them." AU the efforts of Randolph and his friends
to defeat Mr. Madison vanished in thin smoke.
When November arrived, there was little or no
opposition; Virginia was solid in his support,
and he received 122 out of 175 electoral votes,
the f uU strength of his party, except six votes for
Clinton in New York. His first act as Presi
dent justified In Randolph's eyes the worst that
had ever been said of him. Allowing himself to
be dragooned by Giles and General Smith into
abandoning Mr. Gallatin, his first choice for
Secretary of State, President Madison nominated
for that office Robert Smith, whose administra
tion of the navy had been a scandal not only

234 JOHN RANDOLPH
to Randolph, but to GaUatin. Thus at the out
set the new administration was thrown into the
hands of a selfish faction, which proclaimed their
contempt for old republican principles to every
one who would listen. GaUatin alone, without
courage or hope, tried to persevere in the old
path. To pursue Randolph's course farther through
the meanderlngs of his opposition would be waste
of time. He at last convinced himself that his
own party was not less extravagant and danger
ous than those federaUsts whose doctrines he
had begun by so furiously denouncing. To dis
cover that one has made so vast a blunder Is
fatal to elevation of purpose ; under the reaction
of such disappointment, no man can keep a
steady course. The iron entered Randolph's
soul. Now for the first time his habits became
bad, and at Intervals, until his death, he drank
to excess. After days or weeks of Indulgence,
during which the liquor served only to give him
more vivacity, he seemed suddenly to sink under
it, and remained In a state of prostration until
his system reacted from the abuse. Probably
In consequence of this license his mind showed
signs of breaking down. He was at times dis
tinctly irrational, though never quite Incapable
of self-control. His health began to give way ;
his lungs became affected ; his digestive organs

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 235
were ruined ; erratic gout, as the doctors caUed
It, ran through his system. Nevertheless, he
returned every autumn to Washington, and,
although Isolated and powerless, he found a sort
of dismal pleasure in watching the evils he could
no longer prevent or cure.
In abandoning Jefferson, Madison, Giles, W.
C. Nicholas, and the whole band of his old co
adjutors, Randolph had stiU shown some degree
of shrewdness In trying to retain the respect and
support of Monroe. So long as Monroe, Taze
weU, John Taylor of Caroline, and a few more
respectable Virginians, stood apart from the ad
ministration and professed old republican prin
ciples, Randolph was not quite deserted. There
was always a chance that he and his friends
might come back to power, and there is a certain
historical interest in the quarrel which at last
separated him even from Monroe, and left him
hopeless and desperate.
Mr. Madison's cabinet was from the first a
failure. GaUatin, the Secretary of the Trea
sury, stood alone as the representative of old
republicanism, although only on Its economical
side, and GaUatin's struggle to prevent the
Treasury from being plundered by factions
under the Smiths and Giles was patient and
prolonged. Two years passed, during which it
was easy to see that Mr. Madison grew steadily

236 JOHN RANDOLPH
weaker, whUe Duane, Giles, General Smith, old
Vice-President Clinton, and a score of other
personal enemies were straining every nerve to
break him down by driving Gallatin from the
Treasury. In the event of Gallatin's defeat, as
In that of his victory, Randolph might expect to
find himself once more acting with a large party,
and with good hopes of reasonable success. To
wait the crisis and to use It was an easy task, for
he had but to hold his tongue atid to support his
friends. Unfortunately he could do neither.
Some extracts from his letters to Nicholson,
to whom, as a connection of GaUatin's by mar
riage, he wrote strongly as the crisis approached,
wIU best show how deep an interest he felt in the
result. EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
" Geoegbtown, 2^e5rMa»n/ 14, 1811. . . . For some
days past I have been attending the debates in the
Senate. Giles made this morning the most uninteUi-
gible speech on the subject of the Bank of the U. S.
that I ever heard. He spoke upwards of two hours,
seemed never to understand himself (except upon one
commonplace topic, of British influence), and conse
quently excited in his hearers no other sentiment but
pity or disgust. But I shaU not be surprised to see him
puffed in aU the newspapers of a certain faction. The
Senate have rejected the nomination of Alex. Wolcott
to the bench of the Supreme Court, — 24 to 9. The
President is said to have felt great mortification at

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 237
this result. The tmth seems to be that he is Presi
dent de jure only. Who exercises the office de facto
I know not, but it seems agreed on all hands that
there is something behind the throne greater than the
throne itself. I cannot help differing with you re
specting [Gallatin's] resignation. If his principal
wiU not support him by his influence against the cabal
in the ministry itself as w^U as out of it, a sense of
self-respect, it would seem to me, ought to impel him
to retire from a situation where, with a tremendous
responsibiUty, he is utterly destitute of power. Our
cabinet presents a novel spectacle in the poUtical
world; divided against itself, and the most deadly
animosity raging between its principal members, what
can come of it but confusion, mischief, and ruin !
Macon is quite out of heart. I am almost indifferent
to any possible result. Is this wisdom or apathy ?
I fear the latter."
" Since I wrote to you to-night, Stanford has shown
me the last ' Aurora,' a paper that I never read ; but
I could not refrain, at his instance, from casting my
eyes over some paragraphs relating to the Secretary
of the Treasury. Surely under such circumstances
Mr. G[aUatin] can no longer hesitate how to act.
It appears to me that only one course is left to him,
— to go immediately to the President, and to demand
either the dismissal of Mr. [Smith] or his own. No
man can doubt by whom this machinery is put in
motion. There is no longer room to feign ignorance,
or to temporize. It is unnecessary to say to you that
I am not through you addressing myself to another.

238 JOHN RANDOLPH
My knowledge of the interest which you take, not
merely in the welfare of Mr. G., but in that of the
State, induces me to express myself to you on this
subject. I wish you would come up here. There
are more things in this world of intrigue than you
wot of, and I would Uke to commune with you upon
some of them."
"Geoegbtown, Fdmiary 17, 1811. ... I am
not convinced by your representations respecting
[GaUatin], although they are not without weight.
Surely it would not be difficult to point out to the
President the impossibiUty of conducting the affairs
of the government with such a counteraction in the
very Cabinet itself, without assuming anything Uke a
disposition to dictate. Things as they are cannot go
on much longer. The administration are now, in fact,
aground, at the pitch of high tide, and a spring tide,
too. Nothing remains but to Ughten the ship, which
a dead calm has hitherto kept from going to pieces.
If the cabal succeed in their present projects, and I
see nothing but promptitude and decision that can
prevent it, the nation is undone. The state of affairs
for some time past has been highly favorable to their
views, which at this very moment are more flattering
than ever. I am satisfied that Mr. G. by a timely
resistance to their schemes might have defeated them,
and rendered the whole cabal as impotent as nature
would seem to have intended them to be ; for in point
of abiUty (capacity for intrigue excepted) they are
utterly contemptible and insignificant. I do assure
you, my friend, that I cannot contemplate the present

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 239
condition of the country without the gloomiest pre
sages. The signs of the times are of the most direful
omen. The system cannot continue, if system it may
be called, and we seem rushing into one general dis
solution of law and morals. Some Didius, I fear, is
soon to become the purchaser of our empire ; but, in
whatever manner it be effected, everything appears
to announce the coming of a rmzster. Thank God, I
have no chUdren ; but I have those who are yet dear
to me, and the thoughts of their being hewers of wood
and drawers of water, or, what is worse, sycophants
and time-servers to the venal and corrupt wretches
that are to be the future masters of this once free and
happy land, fiU me with the bitterest indignation.
Would it not almost seem that man cannot be kept
free ; that his ignorance, his cupidity, and his base
ness wiU countervail the effects of the wisest institu
tions that disinterested patriotism can plan for his
security and happiness ? "
"Richmond, March 10, 1811. ... I could not
learn, as I passed through Washington, how matters
stood respecting G[aUatin] and S[mith]. The gen
eral impression there was that S[mith] would go out,
and that the Department of State would be offered
to Monroe. I do, however, doubt whether Madison
wiU be able to meet the shock of the 'Aurora,'
' Whig,' ' Enquirer,' ' Boston Patriot,' etc., etc. ; and
it is highly probable that, beaten in detaU by the
superior activity and vigor of the Smiths, he may
sink ultimately into their arms, and unquestionably
wiU, in that case, receive the law from them. I know

240 JOHN RANDOLPH
not why I should think so much on this subject, but
it engrosses my waking and sleeping thoughts."
Now came the long-looked-for revolution
which should have restored Randolph's Influ
ence. Whether or not GaUatin was affected by
these appeals, certain it Is that early in the
month of March he resigned his office; that Mr.
Madison declined to accept the resignation, and
worked up his courage to the point of dismiss
ing Robert Smith, and defying the senatorial
cabal of Giles, Leib, Samuel Smith, and Vice-
President Clinton. On March 20, 1811, the
President wrote to Monroe, offering him the
Department of State, and with It, of course,
the prospect of succession to the throne itself.
On the 23d, Monroe accepted the offer. The
" old repubUcans " once more saw the Executive
whoUy in their hands.
This critical moment, when everything de
pended upon harmony, was chosen by Randolph
as the time to quarrel with Monroe, as he had
already quarreled with Madison and Jefferson.
That the fault was altogether his own is not to
he said, for in truth the immediate fault was
Monroe's. Two years had now elapsed since
Monroe's return home In a sort of disgrace ; he
was poor ; he was, in real truth, no more fanati
cal about his old principles than Madison him
self, and at least it was not he who had drawn

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 241
up the Virginia resolutions of 1798 ; he wanted
to get back into office; his connection with
Randolph stood in his way, and It is probable
that he aUowed himself to repudiate this influ
ence somewhat too openly. In the month of
January, 1811, Randolph was at Richmond, and
heard stories to this effect. A little more tact
or less pride woidd have made him patient whUe
Monroe was cUmbing again up the ladder of
office ; but patience was not Randolph's best
trait. He Immediately wrote the foUowing let
ter to the man for whose character he had aU
through life felt so profound reverence and
such affectionate respect : —
EANDOLPH TO MONEOE.
Bell Tavben, Monday Night,
Jan. 14, 1811.
Deae Sib, — The habits of intimacy which have
existed between us make it, as I conceive, my duty to
inform you that reports are industriously circulated
in this city to your disadvantage. They are to this
effect : That in order to promote your election to the
Chief Magistracy of the Commonwealth you have de
scended to unbecoming compUances with the members
of the Assembly, not excepting your bitterest personal
enemies ; that you have volunteered explanations to
them of the differences heretofore subsisting between
yourself and administration which amount to a dere-
Uctiou of the ground which you took after your return

242 JOHN RANDOLPH
from England, and even of your warmest personal
friends. Upon this, although it is unnecessary for
me to pass a comment, yet it would be disingenuous
to conceal that it has created unpleasant sensations
not in me only, but in others whom I know you justly
ranked as among those most strongly attached to you.
I wished for an opportunity of mentioning this subject
to you, but none offered itself, and I would not seek
one, because, when I cannot afford assistance to my
friends, I wiU never consent to become an incumbrance
on them. I write in haste, and therefore abruptly.
I keep no copy, and have only to enjoin on you that
this communication is in the strictest sense of the term
confidential, solely for your own eye. Yours,
John Randolph of Roanoke.
To this characteristic assault Mr. Monroe re
sponded as best he could. He sent his son-In-
law, George Hay, to Randolph, and Randolph
refused to talk with him. He wrote to John
Taylor of Caroline, and to Randolph himself.
Randolph's final reply was sent from Washing
ton precisely at the time of the cabinet crisis,
when Monroe's appointment as Secretary of
State was becoming daUy more certain.
EANDOLPH TO MONEOB.
Qbobgetown, March 2, 1811.
Dbab Sie, — I have purposely delayed answering
your letters because you seem to have taken up the
idea that I labored under some excitement (of an an-

«A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 243
gry nature it is to be presumed from the expressions
employed in your communication to Colonel Taylor,
as weU as in that to myself), and I was desirous that
my reply should in appearance as weU as in fact pro
ceed from the calmest and most deUberate exercise of
my judgment.
How my letters in Richmond could excite an unplea
sant feeling in your bosom towards me I am whoUy
at a loss to comprehend. Let me beg you to review
them, to reflect for a moment on the circumstances
of the case, and then ask yourself whether I could or
ought to have done otherwise than as I did in appris
ing you of the reports injurious to your honor that
were in the mouth of every man of every description
in Richmond. I certainly held no intercourse with
those who were hostUe to your election, but it surely
required no power of inspiration to divine that, when
such language was held by your own supporters, those
to whom you were pecuUarly obnoxious would hardly
omit to make a handle of it to injure you. You may
weU feel assured that no man would venture to ap
proach me with observations directly derogating from
your character.
Those who spoke to me on the subject generaUy
mentioned it as a source of real regret and sorrow ; a
few sounded to see how far they might go, and, re
ceiving no encouragement, drew off. But it was im
possible for me to shut my ears or eyes to the passing
scene, and in my hearing the most injurious state
ments were made, with which, as weU as with the
general impression of all with whom I conversed in

244 JOHN RANDOLPH
relation to them, I deemed it my duty to acquaint
you ; mutatis mutandis, I should have expected a
simUar act of friendship on your part.
Ask yourself again, my dear sir, whether your cau
tious avoidance, and that of every one near you, of
every sort of communication with me, and of every
mark of accustomed respect and friendship, was not
iu itself a change in the relation between us, which
nothing on my part could have given the least occa
sion for ; and whether I was not authorized to infer,
as weU as the pubUc, — in short, whether it was not
intended that the pubUc should infer, — not only that
aU poUtical connection, but that aU communication,
was at an end between us.
Under these circumstances, is it my conduct or
your own that is likely to put a stop to our old inter
course ; and is it you or / that have a right to com
plain of the abandonment of the old ground of relation
that existed between us ? Let me add that a passage
in your letter to Col. Taylor (I mean that which was
in circulation at Richmond) respecting the motives of
the minority (with whom you had just disavowed aU
poUtical connection whatever) has been deemed by
many of the most inteUigent among them as a just
cause of complaint, as furnishing to their persecutors
a colorable pretext for renewing and persevering in
the most unpopular and odious of all the charges that
have been brought against them. We cannot doubt
the sincerity of your impression, but know it to be
erroneous, and feel it to be injurious to us.
And now let me declare to you, which I do with

"A NUISANCE AND A CURSE" 245
the utmost sincerity of heart, that during the period
to which you refer I never felt one angry emotion
towards you. Concern for your honor and character
was uppermost in my thoughts. A determination to
adhere to the course of conduct which my own sense
of propriety and duty to myself pointed out had
almost dwindled into a secondary consideration.
Accept my eamest wishes for your prosperity and
happiness. I have long since abandoned aU thoughts
of poUtics except so far as is strictly necessary to the
execution of my legislative duty.
Again I offer you my best wishes.
John Randolph of Roanokb.
Thus Randolph bade fareweU to another
President that was to be. Three weeks after
this letter was written, Monroe was Secretary
of State, and In a short time it appeared that,
had Randolph not abandoned him, he had cer
tainly been quite eamest in his intention to
abandon Randolph. No more was heard of
" old repubUcan " principles from Monroe until
many years had elapsed; but within a short
time it appeared that he was ready to accept, if
not to welcome, what Randolph most opposed,
— a war with England, loans, navies, armies,
and even a miUtary conscription.
During aU these troubles and through aU
manner of party feuds, personal quarrels, and
hostile intrigues, in spite of the fact that he

246 JOHN RANDOLPH
now habitually voted with the federalists, Ran
dolph succeeded in keeping control of his dis
trict and in securing his reelection both In 1809
and 1811, when John W. Eppes took up his
residence there with the avowed purpose of
breaking Randolph down. In 1813, however,
his opposition to the war with England proved
too heavy a weight to carry, and Mr. Eppes,
after a sharp contest, defeated him, while the
" Richmond Enquirer " denounced him as " a
nuisance and a curse."

CHAPTER X
ECCENTBICITIE8
If disappointment and sorrow could soften a
human heart, Randolph had enough to make
him tender as the gentlest. From the first,
some private trouble weighed on his mind, and
since he chose to make a mystery of Its cause a
biographer is bound to respect his wish. The
foUowing letter to his friend Nicholson, written
probably in the year 1805, shows his feeUng on
this point : — EANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
" Monday, 4 March. Dear Nicholson, — By you
I would be understood ; whether the herd of man
kind comprehend me or not, I care not. Yourself,
the Speaker, and Bryan are, of all the world, alone
acquainted with my real situation. On that subject
I have only to ask that you wiU preserve the same
reserve that I have done. Do not misunderstand
me, my good friend. I do not doubt your honor or
discretion. Far from it. But on this subject I am,
perhaps, foolishly fastidious. God bless you, my
noble fellow. I shall ever hold you most dear to my
heart."

248 JOHN RANDOLPH
Prom such expressions not much can be safely
inferred. Doubtless he imagined his character
and career to be greatly Influenced by one event
or another In his life, but In reality both he and
his brother Richard seem to have had from the
first the same vehement, lU-regulated minds, and
the Imagination counted for more with them than
the reaUty, whatever it was. His was a nature
that would have made for itself a heU even
though fate had put a heaven about it. Quar-
reUng with his brother's widow, he left Bizarre
to bury himself in a poor comer among his over
seers and slaves at Roanoke. " I might be now
Uving at Bizarre," he wrote afterwards, " If the
reunion of his [Richard's] widow with the
[traducers ?] of her husband had not driven me
to Roanoke ; " "a savage solitude," he caUed It,
" Into which I have been driven to seek shelter."
This was In 1810. He had already quarreled
with his stepfather, Judge Tucker, as kind-
hearted a man as ever lived, and of this one
sided quarrel we have an account which, even if
untrue, is curious. It seems that Randolph had
been talking violently against the justice and
poUcy of the law which passed estates, In faUure
of direct heirs, to brothers of half-blood ; where
upon Judge Tucker made the Indiscreet remark :
" Why, Jack, you ought not to be against that
law, for you know if you were to die without

ECCENTRICITIES 249
issue you would wish your half-brothers to have
your estate." "I'U be damned, sir, If I do
know It," said Randolph, according to the story,
and from that day broke off relations with his
stepfather. In 1810 he was only with the
utmost difficulty dissuaded by his counsel from
bringing suit against Judge Tucker for fraudu
lent management of his estate during that guar
dianship which had ended more than fifteen
years before. He knew that the charge was
false, but he was possessed by It. Two passions,
besides that for drink, were growing on him with
age, — avarice and f amUy pride ; taken together,
three furies worse than the crudest disease or
the most crushing disasters. Yet disaster, too,
was not wanting. His nephew St. George, Rich
ard's eldest son, deaf and dumb from his birth,
became quite Irrational in 1813, and closed his
days in an asylum. The younger nephew, Tudor,
whom he had loved as much as It was In his
nature to love any one, and who was to be the
representative of his race, fell Into a hopeless
consumption the next year, and, being sent
abroad, died at Cheltenham in 1815. Thus
Randolph, after faUIng out with his stepfather
and half-brothers, after quitting Bizarre and
quarreling with his brother's widow, lost his
nephews, failed In public life, and was driven
from his seat In Congress. Had he been an

250 JOHN RANDOLPH
Italian he would have passed for one possessed
of the evil eye, one who brought destruction
on aU he loved, and every peasant would have
secretiy made the sign of the cross on meeting
him. His defeat by Eppes in the spring of
1813 disgusted him with poUtics, and he visited
his mortification on his old friends. Macon
wrote to Nicholson February 1, 1815 : —
" Jonathan did not love David more than I have
Randolph, and I stiU have that same feeling towards
him, but somehow or other I am constrained from
saying [anything] about it or him, unless now and
then to defend him against false accusations, or what
I beUeve to be such. There is hardly any evU that
afflicts one more than the loss of a friend, especiaUy
when not conscious of having given any cause for it.
I cannot account for the coldness with which you say
he treated you, or his not staying at your house whUe
in Baltimore. Stanford now and then comes to
where I sit in the House, and shows me a letter from
R. to him, which is all I see from him. He has not
wrote to me since he left Congress [in March, 1813],
nor I but once to him, which was to inclose him a
book of his that I found in the city when I came to
the next session. I have said thus much in answer
to your letter, and it is more than has been said or
written to any other person."
The sudden and happy close of the war In
January, 1815, brought about a curious revolu-

ECCENTRICITIES 251
tion In the world of politics. Everything that
had happened before that convulsion seemed
now wiped from memory. Men once famous
and powerful were forgotten ; men whose politi
cal sins had been dark and manifold were for
given and received back Into the fold. Among
the rest was Randolph. He recovered his seat
In the spring of 1815, and returned to Congress
with a great reputation for bold and sarcastic
oratory. He came back to a new world, to a
government which had been strengthened and
nationalized by foreign war beyond the utmost
hopes of Washington or John Adams. Mr.
Jefferson's party was stIU in power, but not a
thread was left of the principles with which
Mr. Jefferson had started on his career In 1801.
The country had a debt compared with which
that of the federalist administrations was Ught ;
It had a navy which was now more popular than
ever Mr. Jefferson had been In his palmiest
days, and an army which Randolph dared no
longer caU " ragamuffin ; " the people had faced
the awful idea of conscription, at the bidding of
James Madison and James Monroe, two men
who had nearly broken up the Union, in 1798,
at the mere suggestion of raising half a dozen
regiments; at the same command the national
bank was to be reestablished ; — In every direc
tion states' rights were trampled on ; — and aU

252 JOHN RANDOLPH
this had been done by Randolph's old friends
and his own party. During his absence. Con
gress, like schoolboys whose monitor has left
the room, had passed the bill for the Yazoo
compromise. This was not the whole. Chief
Justice MarshaU and the Supreme Court were
at work. Their decisions were rapidly riveting
these results Into something more than mere
political precedents or statute law. State sov
ereignty was crumbUng under their assaults,
and the nation was already too powerful for the
safety of Virginia.
Mr. Jefferson, in his old age, took the alarm,
and began to preach a new crusade against the
Supreme Court and the heresies of federal prin
ciples. He raUied about him the " old republi
cans " of 1798. Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe,
Mr. GaUatin and the northem democrats, were
Uttle disposed to betake themselves again to
that uncomfortable boat which they had gladly
abandoned for the broader and stancher deck
of the national ship of state ; but WiUiam B.
Giles was ready to answer any bugle-caU that
could summon him back to the Senate, or give
him another chance for that cabinet office which
had been the ambition of his Ufe; and John
Randolph was at all times ready to clap on again
his helmet of Mambrino and have a new tUt at
the windmill which had once already demol-

ECCENTRICITIES 253
Ished him. If Virginia hesitated. South Caro
Una might be made strong In the faith, and
Georgia was undaunted by the Yazoo experi
ence. If the northern democrats no longer
knew what states' rights meant, the slave power,
which had grown with the national growth,
could be organized to teach them.
Into this movement Randolph flung himself
headlong, and in such a party he was a formid
able aUy. Doubtless there was much about him
that seemed ridiculous to bystanders, and stiU
more that not only seemed, but was, Irrational.
Neither his oratory nor his wit would have been
tolerated In a northern State. To the cold
blooded New Englander who did not love ex
travagance or eccentricity, and had no fancy
for plantation manners, Randolph was an ob
noxious being. Those traits of character and
person of which he was proud, as evidence of
his Pocahontas and Powhatan ancestry, they
instinctively attributed to an ancestral type of
a different kind. It was not the Indian whom
they saw in this lean, forked figure, with Its
elongated arms and long, bony forefinger, point
ing at the objects of his aversion as with a
stick; it was not an Indian countenance they
recognized In this parchment face, prematurely
old and seamed with a thousand small wrinkles ;
in that bright, sharply sparkling eye; in the

254 JOHN RANDOLPH
flattering, caressing tone and manner, which
suddenly, with or without provocation, changed
into wanton brutality. The Indian owns no
such person or such temperament, which, if
derived from any ancestry, belongs to an order
of animated beings stiU nearer than the Indian
to the jealous and predaceous instincts of dawn
ing inteUigence.
There Is no question that snch an antagonist
was formidable. The mode of political warfare
at flrst adopted by instinct, he had now by long
experience developed Into a science. Terror
was the favorite resource of his art, and he had
so practiced as to have reached a high degree of
success in using It. He began by completely
mastering his congressional district. At best,
it is not easy for remote, sparsely settled com
munities to shake off a poUtical leader who has
no prominent rival in his own party, and no
strong outside opposition, but when that leader
has Randolph's advantages it becomes Impossible
to contest the field. His constituents revolted
once, but never again. His pecuUarities were too
weU known and too much In the natural order
of things to excite surprise or scandal among
them. They liked his long stump speeches and
sharp, epigrammatic phrases, desultory style and
melodramatic affectations of manner, and they
were used to coarseness that would have sick-

ECCENTRICITIES 255
ened a Connecticut peddler. They liked to be
flattered by him, for flattery was one of the
instruments he used with most lavishness. " In
conversing with old men in Charlotte County,"
says a native of the spot, writing in 1878, " they
wiU talk a long time about how Mr. Randolph
flattered this one to carry his point; how he
drove men cl^ai out of the country who offended
him ; how ridiculous he sometimes made his ac
quaintances appear: they wIU entertain you a
long time In this way before they wIU mention
one word about his friendship for anybody or
anybody's for him."
He was simple enough in his methods, and, as
they were aU intended to lead up to terror In
the end, there was every reason for simpUfying
them to suit the cases.
" How do you do, Mr. L. ? I am a candidate
for Congress, and should be pleased to have
your vote."
"Unfortunately, I have no vote, Mr. Ran
dolph." " Good-morning, Mr. L."
He never forgave a vote given to his oppo
nent, and he worked his district over to root out
the influences which defeated him In 1813. One
example of his method Is told In regard to a Mr.
S., a plain farmer, who had carried his precinct
almost unanimously for Eppes. Randolph Is

256 JOHN RANDOLPH
said to have sought him out one court day in the
most pubUc place he could find, and, addressing
him with great courtesy, presently put to him
a rather abstruse question of poUtlcs. Passing
from one puzzUng and confusing inquiry to an
other, raising his voice, attracting a crowd by
every artifice in his power, he drew the unfortu
nate man farther and farther into the most awk
ward embarrassment, continuaUy repeating his
expressions of astonishment at the Ignorance to
which his victim confessed. The scene exposed
the man to ridicule and contempt, and Is said to
have destroyed his influence.
He sometimes acted a generous, sometimes a
brutal, part ; the one, perhaps, not less sincere
than the other whUe It lasted, but neither of
them In any sense simple expressions of emotion.
Although he professed vindictiveness as a part
of his Powhatan inheritance, and although he
proclaimed himself to be one who never forsook
a friend or forgave a foe, it Is evident that his
vindictiveness was often assumed merely in order
to terrify; there was usuaUy a method and a
motive In his madness, noble at first in the dawn
of young hope, but far from noble at last In the
gloom of disappointment and despair. " He did
things," says Mr. Henry Carrington, "which
nobody else could do, and made others do things
which they never did before, and of which they

ECCENTRICITIES 257
repented aU the days of their lives; and on
some occasions he was totaUy regardless of pri
vate rights, and not held amenable to the laws
of the land."
This trait of his character gave rise to a mass
of local stories, many of which have found their
way into print, but which are for the most part
so distorted In passing through the mouths of
overseers and neighbors as to be quite worthless
for biography. Another mass of legend has
coUected Itself about his life In Washington and
his travels. The less credit we give to the more
extravagant of these stories, the nearer we shall
come to the true man. At times he was violent
or outrageous from the mere effect of drink, but,
to do him justice, his brutality was commonly
directed against what he supposed, or chose to
think, presumption. Ignorance, dishonesty, cant,
or some other trait of a low and groveling mind.
He rarely Insulted any man whom he believed
to be respectable, and he was always kind and
affectionate to those he loved ; but although he
controUed himself thus far in society, he carried
terrorism In poUtics to an extreme. He could
be gentle when he pleased, but he often pre
ferred to be arrogant. Only a few months
before his death, in February, 1833, he forced
some states'-rights resolutions through a meeting
of the county of Charlotte. A certain Captain

258 JOHN RANDOLPH
WatMns, who was at the meeting, decUned to
foUow him, and avowed himself a supporter of
President Jackson. Randolph, whUe his resolu
tions were under discussion, addressed himself
to Captain Watkins, saying that he did not
expect "an old Yazoo speculator" to approve
of them. Captain Watkins rose and denied the
charge. At this, Randolph looked him steadUy
in the face, and pointing his finger at him said, —
" You are a Yazoo man, Mr. Watkins."
Mr. Watkins, much agitated and embar
rassed, rose again and made an explanation.
Randolph, with the same deUberatlon, simply
repeated, —
" You are a Yazoo man, Mr. Watkins."
A third time Mr. Watkins rose, and was met
again by the same cold assertion, "You are a
Yazoo man ; " until at last he left the room,
completely broken down.
Mr. Watkins had. In fact, once owned some
of the Yazoo land warrants. He was, of course,
no admirer of Randolph, who rode rough-shod
over him In return. If It be asked why a man
who treated his neighbors thus was not fifty
times shot down where he stood by exasperated
victims, the answer Is that he knew those with
whom he was dealing. He never pressed a
quarrel to the end, or resented an Insult further
than was necessary to repel it. He was notori-

ECCENTRICITIES 259
ous for threatening to use his weapons on every
occasion of a tavern quarrel, but at such times
he was probably excited by drink; when quite
himself he never used them If It was possible
to avoid It. In 1807 he even refused to fight
General WUkinson, and aUowed the general to
post him as a coward ; and he did this on the
ground that the general had no right to hold
him accountable for his expressions: "I can
not descend to your level." Indeed, with all
Randolph's quarrelsome temper and vindictive
spirit, he had but one duel during his public life.
His insulting language and manner came not
from the heart, but from the head : they were
part of his system, a method of controUIng soci
ety as he controUed his negroes. His object was
to rule, not to revenge, and it wotdd have been
folly to let himself be shot unless his situation
required It. Randolph had an ugly temper and
a strong wiU ; but he had no passions that dis
turbed his head.
In what Is called poUte society these tactics
were usuaUy unnecessary, and then bad man
ners were a mere habit, controUable at wIU. In
such society, therefore, Randolph was seen at
his best. The cultivated Virginian, with wit
and memory, varied experience, audacious tem
per, and above aU a genuine flavor of his native
soil ; the Virginian, In his extremest form, such

260 JOHN RANDOLPH
as any one might weU be curious once to see,
— this was the attraction In Randolph which;
led strangers to endure and even to seek his
acquaintance. Thus, as extremes meet, Massar
chusetts men were apt to be favorites with this
IshmaeUte ; they were so thoroughly hostUe to
aU his favorite prejudices that they could make
a tacit agreement to disagree In peace. Josiah
Quincy was one of his friends; EUjah MiUs,
the Massachusetts senator, another. In a letter
dated January 19, 1816, Mr. MiUs thus describes
him: —
" He is really a most singular and interesting man ;
regardless entirely of form and ceremony in some
things, and punctiUous to an extreme in others. He,
yesterday, dined with us. He was dressed in a
rough, coarse, short hunting-coat, with small-clothes
and boots, and over his boots a pair of coarse cot
ton leggings, tied with strings round his legs. He
engrossed almost the whole conversation, and was
exceedingly amusing as weU as eloquent and instruc
tive." Again on January 14, 1822 : —
" Our Massachusetts people, and I among the num
ber, have grown great favorites with Mr. Randolph.
He has invited me to dine with him twice, and he has
dined with us as often. He is now what he used to
be in his best days, in good spirits, with fine manners
and the most fascinating conversation. . . . For the

"1

ECCENTRICITIES 261
last two years he has been in a state of great pertur
bation, and has indulged himself in the ebulUtions of
Uttleness and acerbity, in which he exceeds almost
any man Uving. He is now in better humor, and is
capable of making himself, exceedingly interestipg
and agreeable. How long this state of things may
continue may depend upon accident or caprice. He
is, therefore, not a desirable inmate or a safe friend,
but under proper restrictions a most entertaining and
instructive companion."
In 1826 Mr. MiUs was IU, and Randolph in
sisted on acting as his doctor.
" He now lives within a few doors of me, and has
called almost every evening and morning to see me.
This has been very kind of him, but is no earnest of
continued friendship. In his likings and dislikings,
as in everything else, he is the most eccentric being
upon the face of the earth, and is as likely to abuse
friend as foe. Hence, among aU those with whom he
has been associated during the last thirty years, there
is scarcely an individual whom he can caU his friend.
At times he is the most entertaining and amusing
man alive, with manners the most pleasant and agree
able ; and at other times he is sour, morose, crabbed,
Ul-natured, and sarcastic, rude in manners, and repul
sive to everybody. Indeed, I think he is partially
deranged, and seldom in the full possession of his
reason." The respectable senator from Massachusetts,
" poor Uttle MiUs," as Randolph caUs him, seems

262 JOHN RANDOLPH
to have snatched but a fearful joy in this lU-
assorted friendship.
The system of terrorism, which was so effec
tive in the politics of Charlotte, was not equally
well suited to the politics of Washington; to
overawe a congressional district was possible,
but when Randolph tried to crush Mr. Jefferson
and Mr. Madison by these tactics, the experi
ment not only failed, but reacted so violently
as to drive him out of public life. Neverthe
less, within the waUs of the House of Represen
tatives his success was considerable ; he Inspired
terror, and to oppose him required no Uttle
nerve, and, perhaps, a brutality as reckless as
his own. He made It his business to break In
young members as he would break a colt, bear
ing down on them with superciliousness and sar
casm. In later Ufe he had a way of entering
the House, booted and spurred, with whip in
hand, after the business had begun, and loudly
saluting his friends to attract attention ; but If
any one whom he disliked was speaking, he
woidd abruptly tum on his heel and go out.
Mr. S. G. Goodrich describes him In 1820, dur
ing the Missouri debate, as rising and crying
out In a shriU voice, which pierced every nook
and corner of the haU, " Mr. Speaker, I have
but one word to say, — one word, sir ; and that
Is to state a fact. The measure to which the

ECCENTRICITIES 263
gentleman has just alluded originated In a dirty
trick." Under some circumstances he even ven
tured on physical attacks, but this was very rare.
He had a standing feud with WUUs Alston of
North CaroUna, and they Insulted each other
without serious consequences for many years.
Once, In 1811, as the members were leaving the
House, Alston, in his hearing, made some offen
sive remark about a puppy. Randolph de
scribed the scene to Nicholson In a letter dated
January 28, 1811 : —
" This poor wretch, after I had prevaUed upon the
House to adjourn, uttered at me some very offensive
language, which I was not bound to overhear; but
he took care to throw himself in my way on the stair
case, and repeat his foul language to another in my
hearing. Whereupon I said, 'Alston, if it were
worth whUe, I would cane you, — and I beUeve I
wiU cane you ! ' and caned him accordingly, with all
the nonchalance of Sir Harry WUdair himself."
The affair, however, got no further than the
poUce court, and Randolph very justly added
In his letter, " For Macon's sake (although he
despises him) I regret it, and for my own, for
in such cases victory Is defeat." He caUed him
self an Ishmael: his hand was against every
body, and everybody's hand was against him.
His poUtical career had now long ended, so far
as party promotion was concerned, and there

264 JOHN RANDOLPH
remained only an overpowering egotism, a con
suming rage for notoriety, contemptible even In
his own eyes, but overmastering him Uke the
passion for money or drink.
Of all his eccentricities, the most pitiful and
yet the most absurd were not those which sprang
from his lower but from his higher instincts.
The better part of his nature made a spasmodic
struggle against the passions and appetites that
degraded it. Half his rudeness and savagery
was due to pride which would aUow no one to
see the fuU extent of- his weakness. At times
he turned violently on himself. So In the
spring of 1815 he snatched at reUgion, and for
an instant felt a serious hope that through the
church he might purify his nature ; yet even In
his most tender moments there was something
almost humorous In his childlike incapacity to
practice for two consecutive instants the habit
of self-control or the simplest Instincts of Chris
tianity. " I am no disciple of Calvin or Wes
ley," he wrote In one of these moods, " but I
feel the necessity of a changed nature ; of a new
life ; of an altered heart. I feel my stubborn
and rebeUious nature to be softened, and that
It Is essential to my comfort here, as weU as to
my future welfare, to cultivate and cherish feel
ings of good-wUl towards all mankind ; to strive
against envy, maUce, and aU uncharitableness.

ECCENTRICITIES 265
I think I have succeeded In forgiving aU my
enemies. There is not a human being that I
would hurt If it were In my power ; not even
Bonaparte." If in his moments of utmost Christian exal
tation he could only think he had forgiven his
enemies and would hurt no human being If he
had the power, what must have been his pas
sion for Inflicting pain when the devil within his
breast held unchecked dominion !

CHAPTEE XI
BLIFIL AND BLACK GEOEGE
So long as Mr. Monroe was In office, although
his administration, aided by the Supreme Court,
paid less regard to states' rights and leaned more
strongly to centralization than either the admin
istrations of Madison or Jefferson, Randolph did
not venture again upon systematic opposition.
He had learned a lesson : he would have no more
personal quarrels with Virginian Presidents, and
restrained his temper marvelously weU, but not
because he Uked Monroe's rule better than that
of Monroe's predecessors ; far from It ! " The
spirit of profession and devotion to the court
has Increased beyond my most sanguine anticipa
tions," said he in 1819 ; " the Emperor [Mon
roe] Is master of the Senate, and through that
body commands the life and property of every
man in the republic. The person who fiUs the
office seems to be without a friend. Not so the
office Itself." In 1820 one of the President's
friends made, on his behaU, an advance to Ran
dolph. " I said," writes Randolph, February 26,
1820, " that he had Invited Garnett, as It were.

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 267
out of my own apartment, that year [1812], to
dine with General Moreau, Lewis, and Stanford,
the only M. C.'s that lodged there besides my
self, 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." Although fuUy warranted in feeling
hatred for Monroe, Randolph remained In har
mony with the administration until he was going
to Europe, in March, 1822, and Issued, from
" on board the steamboat Nautilus, under weigh
to the Amity " packet, a letter to his constitu
ents, expressing the Intention to stand again for
Congress In 1823 : —
" I have an especial desire to be in that Congress,
which wiU decide (probably by indirection) the charac
ter of the executive government of the confederation
for at least four years, — perhaps forever ; since now,
for the first time since the institution of this govern
ment, we have presented to the people the army can
didate for the presidency in the person of him [Cal
houn] who, judging from present appearance, wiU
receive the support of the Bank of the United States
also. This is an union of the sword and purse 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 forever. . . .
To this state of things we are rapidly approaching,
under an administration the head of which sits an

268 JOHN RANDOLPH
incuhvs upon the state, whUe the lieutenants of this
new Mayor of the Palace are already contending for
the succession."
Had Randolph's knowledge of history been
more accurate or his memory quicker than it
was, he would not here have faUen into the
blunder of insulting the President by a compU-
ment. To speak of the incubus Monroe as a
" new Mayor of the Palace " was nonsense, for,
of aU men that ever lived, the Mayors of the
Palace were the most efficient rulers. What
Randolph doubtless meant was to brand Monroe
as "this new roi faineant," this do-nothing king
ChUderich, whose lieutenants, Calhoun, Craw
ford, Adams, were contending for the succession.
Against Monroe J Randolph did not care to
break his lance, even though Monroe was the
worst of aU the Virginian traitors to states'
rights, and the ilaost ungrateful for support
and encouragement In his days of disgrace. Not
Monroe, but Monroe's lieutenants were to be
denounced In advance. Randolph liked none of
them, but especially hated Calhoun and Clay,
then representatives of the ardent nationality
engendered by the war of 1812. Mr. Clay was
Speaker, and, with a temper as domineering and
a manner as dictatorial as that of Randolph him
self, he could not faU to rouse every jealous
and ugly demon In Randolph's nature, and draw

BLDIL AND BLACK GEORGE 269
out aU the exhaustless vituperation of his tongue.
The inevitable quarrel began during the debate
on the Missouri Compromise, when Randolph
made a determined effort to drive Clay from its
support. They are said to have met for consul
tation In a private interview, after which they
held no further relations even of civility, and it
Is easy to Imagine that the language exchanged in
such a dialogue may have been such as neither
might care to repeat. In any case it is true that
Clay, as Speaker, rode ruthlessly over Randolph's
opposition, and jockeyed him out of his right
to move a reconsideration of the bill. The war
between them was henceforth as bitter as either
party could make It, and came within a hair's
breadth of costing Randolph his life.
Personal antipathies, jealousy, prejudice, and
the long train of Randolph's many vices had,
therefore, something to do with the certain hos
tiUty towards Monroe's successor for which he
was now preparing ; but between his opposition
In 1825 and that In 1806 there was this differ
ence : in 1806 his quarrel was with old friends,
whom, on a mere divergence of opinion in re
gard to detaUs of poUcy, he had no right to
betray ; In 1825 his quarrel was legitimate and
his poUcy sound, from his point of view. This
fact partially rehabilitated his reputation, and
made him again, to no smaU extent, an impor-

270 JOHN RANDOLPH
tant historical character. John Randolph stands
In history as the legitimate and natural precur
sor of Calhoun. Randolph sketched out and
partly filled in the outlines of that political
scheme over which Calhoun labored so long,
and against which Clay strove successf uUy whUe
he lived, — the identification of slavery with
states' rights. All that was ablest and most
masterly, all except what was mere metaphy
sical rubbish, In Calhoun's statesmanship had
been suggested by Randolph years before Cal
houn began his states'-rights career.
Between the slave power and states' rights
there was no necessary connection. The slave
power, when in control, was a centralizing in
fluence, and aU the most considerable encroach
ments on states' rights were Its acts. The
acquisition and admission of Louisiana; the
embargo ; the war of 1812 ; the annexation
of Texas " by joint resolution ; " the war with
Mexico, declared by the mere announcement
of President Polk; the Fugitive Slave Law;
the Dred Scott decision, — all triumphs of the
slave power, — did far more than either tariffs
or Internal Improvements, which in their origin
were also southern measures, to destroy the
very memory of states' rights as they existed in
1789. Whenever a question arose of extending
or protecting slavery, the slaveholders became

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 271
friends of centralized power, and used that dan
gerous weapon with a kind of frenzy. Slavery
in fact required centraUzation In order to main
tain and protect Itself, but It required to con
trol the centralized machine ; it needed despotic
principles of government, but It needed them
exclusively for Its own use. Thus, in truth,
states' rights were the protection of the free
States, and as a matter of fact, during the dom
ination of the slave power, Massachusetts ap
pealed to this protecting principle as often and
almost as loudly as South CaroUna.
The doctrine of states' rights was in itself a
sound and true doctrine ; as a starting point of
American history and constitutional law, there
is no other which wiU bear a moment's exami
nation ; It was as dear to New England as to
Virginia, and its prostitution to the base uses of
the slave power was one of those unfortunate
entanglements which so often perturb and mis
lead history. This prostitution, begun by Ran
dolph, and only at a later time consummated by
Calhoun, was the task of a man who loudly and
pathetlcaUy declared himself a victim to slavery,
a hater of the detestable institution, an ami des
noirs ; who asserted that aU the misfortunes of
his life — and they had been neither few nor
inconsiderable — were light In the balance when
compared with the single misfortune of having

272 JOHN RANDOLPH
been bom the master of slaves. It was begun
in the Missouri debate in 1819 and 1820,
but unfortunately Randolph's speeches In these
sessions, although long and frequent, are not
reported, and his drift is evident only from later
expressions. His speech on Internal improve
ments, January 31, 1824, set forth with admir
able clearness the nature of this new fusion of
terrorism with lust for power, — the birth-marks
of aU Randolph's brood. Struck out like a
spark by sharp contact with Clay's nobler
genius, this speech of Randolph's flashes through
the dull atmosphere of the time, untU It leaps
at last across a gap of forty years and seems to
linger for a moment on the distant horizon, as
though consciously to reveal the dark cloud of
smoke and night In which slavery was to be
suffocated. "We are told that, along with the regulation of
foreign commerce, the States have yielded to the gen
eral govemment in as broad terms the regpilation of
domestic commerce, — I mean the commerce 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 comm&rce, as
they have heretofore, under the other power, prohib-

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 273
ited foreign commerce. But why put extreme cases?
This government cannot go on one day without a
mutual understanding and deference between the
state and general governments. This govemment
is the breath of the nostrUs of the States. Gentle
men may say what they please of the preamble to
the Constitution; but this Constitution is not the
work of the amalgamated population of the then ex
isting confederacy, 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 authority,'
it is in the power of the States to extinguish this s
government 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-Presi
dent, aud the thing is done. ... I said that this gov
ernment, if put to the test — a test it is by no means
calculated to endure — as a govemment for the man
agement of the internal concerns of this country, is
one of the worst that can be conceived, which is de
termined by the fact that it is a govemment not hav- ~\
ing a common feeUng and 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 responsibUity of this House to the
people, by means of the elective franchise, depends
aU the security of the people of the United States
against the abuse of the powers of this government.
But, sir, how shaU a man from Mackinaw or the
YeUowstone River respond to the sentiments of the
people who Uve in New Hampshire ? It is as great

274 JOHN RANDOLPH
a mockery, — a greater mockery than to talk to these
colonies about their virtual representation in the
British 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 aU the powers of
the States as weU as of the general govemment are
devolved on this House. . . . We did beUeve there
were some parchment barriers, — no ! what is worth
aU 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 biU passes, we
can believe so no longer.
" There is one other power 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 unfortunate predicament
with myself, — of every man who has the misfortune
to be and to have been born a slaveholder. If Con
gress possess the power to do what is proposed by
this biU, 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 wiU they find the power ?
They may foUow the example of the gentlemen who
have preceded me, and hook the power on to the first
loop they find in the Constitution. Thsy 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 this or that of

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 275
the granted powers, but results from aU of them,
which is not only a dangerous but the 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 wiU 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 shaU arrive, as assur
edly it has arrived elsewhere, and in aU probabUity
may arrive here, that a coalition of knavery and fanat
icism shaU for any purpose be got up on this floor,
/ 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."
On the whole, subject to the chance of over
looking some less famous effort, this speech, with
its companions at this session, may be fairly

276 JOHN RANDOLPH
taken as Randolph's masterpiece, and warrants
placing him In very high rank as a political
leader. Grant that it is wicked and mischiev
ous beyond aU precedent even In his own mis
chievous career ; that its effect must be to create
the dangers which it foretold, and to bring the
slave power Into the peril which it helped to
create : grant that It was In flagrant contradic
tion to his speeches on the Louisiana purchase,
his St. Domingo vote, and his outcry for an
embargo; that it was inspired by hatred of
Clay; that It related to a scheme of Internal
Improvement which Mr. Jefferson himself had
invented, and upon which he had once looked
as upon the flower, the crown, the hope, and
aspiration of his whole political system ; that it
was a deliberate, cold-blooded attempt to pervert
the old and honorable principle of states' rights
Into a mere tool for the protection of negro!
slavery, which Randolph professed to think the
worst of all earthly misfortunes ; that it assumed,
with an arrogance beyond belief, the settled pur
pose of the slave power to strain the Constitution
In Its own Interests, and to block the govem
ment at Its own wIU, — grant aU this and what
ever more may be required, stUl this speech Is
wonderfully striking. It startles, not merely by
Its own brightness, although this Is Intense, but
by the very darkness which It makes visible.

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 277
Not content with laying down his new poUtical
principle for the union of slaveholders behind
the barrier of state sovereignty, Randolph re
peatedly returned to it, as was his custom when
trying to Impress a fear on men's minds. His
speeches on the tariff at this session of 1824,
considered as a mere extension of the speech on
internal Improvements, are full of astonishingly
clever touches.
" We [of the South] are the eel that is being flayed,
while the cookmaid pats us on the head and cries, with
the clown in King Lear, ' Down, wantons, down ! ' "
" If, under a power to regulate trade, you prevent ex
portation ; if, with the most approved spring lancets,
you draw the last drop of blood from our veins ; if,
secundum artem, you draw the last shilling from our
pockets, what are the checks of the Constitution to
us ? A fig for the Constitution I When the scor
pion's sting is probing us to the quick, shall we stop
to chop logic ? ShaU we get some learned and cun
ning clerk to say whether the power to do this is to
be found in the Constitution, and then, if he, from
whatever motive, shaU maintain the affirmative, shaU
we, like the animal whose fleece forms so material a
portion of this biU, quietly Ue down and be shorn ? "
" If, from the language I have used, any gentleman
shaU beUeve I am not as much attached to this Union
as any one on this floor, he wUl labor under great
mistake. But there is no magic in this word union.
I value it as the means of preserving the Uberty and

278 JOHN RANDOLPH
happiness of the people. Marriage itself is a good
thing, but the marriages of Mezentius were not so
esteemed. The marriage of Sinbad the SaUor with
the corpse of his deceased wife was an union ; and
just such an union wUl this be, if, by a bare majority
in both Houses, this bUl shaU become a law."
This Is very clever, keen, terse, vivacious ; put
in admirably simple and weU-chosen English;
and the discursions and digressions of the speaker
were rather an advantage than a drawback in
these running debates. Much of Randolph's
best wit was In parentheses ; many of his boldest
suggestions were scattered in short, occasional
comments. On the question of taxing coarse
woolens, such as negroes wear, he thrust a little
speech into the debate that was like a dagger in
the very bowels of the South : —
" It is notorious 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 stUl ring in my ears : ' They
may liberate every one of your slaves. The Congress
possess the power, and wiU exercise it.' Now, sir,
the first step towards this consummation so devoutly
wished by many is to pass such laws as may yet stiU
further diminish the pittance which their labor yields
to their unfortunate masters, to produce such a state
of things as wUl insure, in case the slave shaU not

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 279
elope from his master, that his master wiU run away
from him. Sir, the blindness, as it appears to me, —
I hope gentlemen wiU pardon the expression, — with
which a certain portion of this country — I aUude
particularly to the seaboard of South Carolina and
Greorgia — has lent its aid to increase the powers of
the general government on points, to say the least, of
doubtful construction, fiUs me with astonishment and
dismay. And I look forward almost without a ray
of hope to the time which the next census, or that
which succeeds it, wUl assuredly bring forth, when
this work of destruction and devastation is to com
mence in the abused name of humanity and reUgion,
and when the imploring eyes of some wiU be, as now,
turned towards another body, in the vain hope that it
may arrest the evU and stay the plague."
On another occasion he Is reported as saying
of the people of the North, " We do not govern
them by our black slaves, but by their own white
slaves ; " and again, with an amount of drastic
effrontery which at that early day was pecuUar
to himself, " We know what we are doing. We
of the South are united from the Ohio to Florida,
and we can always unite ; but you of the North
are beginning to divide, and you wiU divide.
We have conquered you once, and we can and
wiU conquer you again. Ay, sir, we wiU drive
you to the waU, and when we have you there
once more we mean to keep you there, and wUl
naU vou down Uke base money."

280 JOHN RANDOLPH
What could be more effective than these
alternate appeals to the pride and the terrors
of a slave-owning oUgarchy ? Where among the
most venomous whispers of lago can be foimd
an appeal to jealousy more infernal than some
of those which Randolph made to his southern
coUeagues in the Senate ?
" I know that there are gentlemen 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 bUnk by not using the term, should never be brought
into public notice, more especiaUy into that of Con
gress, and most especiaUy here. Sir, with every due
respect for the gentlemen who think so, I differ from
them toto ccelo. Sir, it is a thing which cannot be
hid ; it is not a dry rot, which you can cover with the
carpet until the house tumbles about your ears ; you
might as weU try to hide a volcano in f uU eruption ;
it cannot be hid ; it is a cancer in your face."
After twisting this barb into the vitals of his
slave-owning friends, he went on to say : —
" I do not put this question to you, sir ; I know
what your answer wiU be. I know what wiU be the
answer of every husband, son, and brother through
out the southern States. I know that on this depends
the honor of every matron and maiden, -r- of every
matron, wife or widow, between the Ohio and the
Gulf of Mexico. I know that upon it depends the

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 281
life's blood of the Uttle ones which are lying in their
cradles in happy ignorance of what is passing around
them ; and not the white ones only, — for shaU not
we, too, kUl?"
No man knew better how to play upon what
he caUed the " chord which, when touched, even
by the most deUcate hand, vibrates to the heart
of every man In our country." He jarred it tiU
It ached. The southem people, far away from
the scene of his extravagances, felt the hand so
roughly striking their most sensitive nerve, and
responded by the admiration that a tortured
animal stIU shows for its master. They remem
bered his bold prophecies and startiing warn
ings, his strong figures of speech, his homely
and terse language. Many now learned to love
him. His naturaUy irrepressible powers for
mischief-making were never so admirably de
veloped. He had at last got hold of a deep
principle, and Invented a far-reaching scheme of
poUtical action.
Circumstances favored him. The presidential
election of 1824 ended In the House of Re
presentatives. Mr. Clay controUed the result;
he preferred J. Q. Adams to General Jackson ;
he caused Mr. Adams's election, and then, like
the man of honp^ and courage that he was, he
stood by the President he had made. Those
readers who care for the details of this affair

282 JOHN RANDOLPH
can find them in Mr. Parton's entertaining life
of Andrew Jackson ; here need only be said that
Randolph saw his opportunity, and repeated
against Clay and Adams the tactics he had used
against Madison and Jefferson, but which he
now used with infinitely more reason and better
prospects of success. Randolph's opposition to
both the Adamses was legitimate; If he hated
this " American house of Stuart," as he caUed
it, he had good grounds for doing so; if he
despised J. Q. Adams, and considered him as
mean a man for a Yankee as Mr. Madison was
for a Virginian, It was not for an instant ima
gined or Imaginable that either of the Yankee
Presidents ever entertained any other feeling
than contempt for him; they had no possible
inteUectual relation with such a mind, but were
fully prepared for his enmity, expected it, and
were in accord with Mr. Jefferson's opinion, in
1806, that It would be unfortunate to be embar
rassed with such a soi-disant friend. The war
fare which Randolph at once declared against
the administration of J. Q. Adams was not only
Inevitable; It was, from many points of view,
praiseworthy, for it cannot be expected that any
one who has sympathy with Mr. Jefferson's
theories of govemment in 1801, unfashionable
though they now are, wUl applaud the theories
of J. Q. Adams In 1825. The two doctrines

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 283
were, In outward appearance, diametricaUy oppo
site ; and although that of Mr. Adams, in sound
accord with the practice If not with the theories
of Mr. Jefferson, seems to have won the day, and
though the powers of the general govemment
have been expanded beyond his utmost views, it
is not the business of a historian to deny that
there was, and stiU Is, great force in the opposite
argument. Mr. Adams, however, stood somewhat too
remote for serious injury, and his position was,
at best, too weak to warrant much alarm on the
part of Randolph and his friends. Not Adams,
but Clay, divided the South and broke, by his
immense popularity, the soUd ranks of the slave-
holding, states'-rights democracy which Ran
dolph wished to organize. It was against Clay
that the bitterest effusions of Randolph's gaU
were directed, and to crush the Kentuckian was
the object of aU his tactics. Mr. Clay was
Secretary of State, and could not reply to the
attacks made upon him in Congress, but he
retaUated as he best could, and sustained a los
ing fight with courage and credit.
Meanwhile Randolph, soured by what he con
sidered the neglect of his State, had not shown
that attention to his duties which is usuaUy
expected of members. He was late In attend
ing Congress, made long absences, and even

284 JOHN RANDOLPH
declined to serve at aU from 1817 to 1819.
Suddenly, on December 17, 1825, he was elected
to the Senate to fiU a vacancy caused by the
appointment of James Barbour as Secretary of
War to Mr. Adams. This election was a curi
ous accident, for the true choice of the Virginian
legislature was undoubtedly Henry St. George
Tucker, Randolph's half-brother, and it was only
his forbearance that gave Randolph a chance
of success. The first vote stood: Tucker, 65;
Randolph, 63 ; Giles, 58 ; Floyd, 40. According
to the rule of the House, Floyd was then dropped,
and the second baUot stood : Tucker, 87 ; Ran
dolph, 79 ; GUes, 60. At each baUot 226 votes
were cast. Mr. Tucker had, however, Instructed
his friends in no event to allow his name to come
in direct competition with Randolph's, and ac
cordingly when, on the third baUot, the contest
was narrowed down to Tucker and Randolph,
not only was the former name withdrawn, but
42 members abstained from voting at all. Ran
dolph got 104 votes, not even a majority of the
legislature, although Mr. Tucker's determination
to withdraw, not announced tiU after the votes
were deposited, was weU known, and made the
choice inevitable.
He took his .seat immediately. Almost at the
same moment President J. Q. Adams sent to the
Senate nominations of two envoys to the pro-

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 285
posed Congress of American nations at Panama.
To this scheme of a great American aUIance
Mr. Clay was enthusiasticaUy attached, but on
Its announcement every loose element of oppo
sition in the Senate drew together Into a new
party, and Randolph once more found himself,
as in 1800, hand in hand with that northern
democracy which he had so many years revUed.
In the place of Aaron Burr, New York was now
led by Martin Van Buren, whose gentle touch
moulded Into one shape elements as discordant
as Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun, Nar
thanlel Macon and Thomas H. Benton, John
Randolph, James Buchanan, and WUliam B.
Giles. On January 15, 1826, Mr. Van Buren began
his campaign by moving to debate the Presi
dent's confidential message In public. Ran
dolph opposed the motion out of respect for
the President. He went back to the old stage
tricks of his opposition to Madison. He was
again descending to comedy. The scene was
arranged beforehand, and he affected respect
only in order that he might give more energy
to his vehemence of contempt. Mr. Clay defied
Van Buren's attack, and Randolph then gave
rein to aU his bitterness. On February 27,
1826, he wrote In deUght at his success : —
" Aa to Van Buren and myself, we have been a

286 JOHN RANDOLPH
Uttle cool. ... He has done our cause disservice
by delay in the hope of getting first GaiUard, then
TazeweU. ... I was for action, knowing that delay
would only give time for the poison of patronage to
do its office. . . . But if he has not, others have
poured 'the leprous distUment into the porches of
mine ears.' The V. P. [Calhoun] has actuaUy made
love to me ; and my old friend Mr. Macon reminds
me daUy of the old major who verUy believed that I
was a nonesuch of living men. In short, Friday's
affair has been praised on aU hands in a style that
might have gorged the appetite of Cicero himself."
Intoxicated by the sense of old power return
ing to his grasp, Randolph now lashed on his
own passions, until at length, In a speech which
exhausted the unrivaled resources of his vocabu
lary In abusing the President and Secretary,
after attributing to them every form of political
meanness, he said, " 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 tiU then, of the
Puritan with the blackleg." Not content with
this. It is said that he went on to caU Mr. Clay's
progenitors to account for bringing Into the
world " this being, so brUliant yet so corrupt,
which, like a rotten mackerel by moonlight,
shined and stunk."
Not for this blackguard abuse, but for certain

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 287
Insinuations against his truth, Mr. Clay called
him out. Randolph had not meant to fight ;
his object was to break Clay's influence, not to
klU him ; his hatred was of the head, not of the
heart ; — but he coidd not refuse. Virginians
would not have tolerated this course even in
him. He had said to General Wilkinson In
1807, " I cannot descend to your level ; " but
he could not repeat it to Henry Clay without
losing caste. On April 8, 1826, they exchanged
shots, and Clay's second buUet pierced the folds
of the white flannel wrapper which Randolph,
with his usual eccentricity, wore on the field.
Randolph threw away his second Sxe, and there
upon offered his hand, which Clay could not
refuse to accept.
As for the President, his only revenge was
one which went more directly to its aim than
Mr. Clay's buUet, and fairly repaid the aUusIon
to Blifil and Black George borrowed from Lord
Chatham. Mr. Adams applied to Randolph
the Unes In which Ovid drew the picture of
Envy: —
" PaUoT in ore sedet ; macies in corpora toto ;
Peotora f elle virent ; lingua est suffnsa veneno."
His face is livid ; gaunt his whole hody ;
His breast is green with gaU ; his tongue drips poison.
With equal justice he might have appUed more
of Ovid's verses : —

288 JOHN RANDOLPH
" Videt ingratos, intabesoitque videndo,
Successus hominum ; carpitque et carpitnr nua ;
Suppliciumque suum est."
He sees with pain men's good fortune,
And pines in seeing ; he taunts and is mocked at once ;
And is his own torture.
Thus Randolph organized the South. Cal
houn himself learned his lesson from the
speeches of this man, " who," said Mr. Vance
of Ohio, In the House of Representatives, on
January 29, 1828, " Is entitled to more credit.
If It is right that this administration should go
down, for his efficiency in effecting that object
than any three men In this nation." "From
the moment he took his seat In the other branch
of the legislature, he became the great rallying
officer of the South." To array the whole slave-
holding influence behind the banner of states'
rights, and use centralization as the Instrument
of slavery; alternately to take the aggressive
and the defensive, as circumstances should re
quire, without seeming to quit the fortress of
defense; to throw loaded dice at every cast,
and caU, " Heads I win, taUs you lose," at every
toss, — this was what Randolph aimed at, and
what he actuaUy accompUshed so far as his
means would aUow. The administration of
Adams, a Puritan and an old federalist, who
had the strongest love for American nationality.

BLIFIL AND BLACK GEORGE 289
was precisely the influence needed to consoU-
date the slaveholding interest. Randolph con
verted Calhoun ; after this conversion Clay
alone divided the slave power, and Clay was
to be crushed by fair means or foul. The cam
paign succeeded. Clay was crushed, and the
slave power ruled supreme.

CHAPTER xn
" FACULTIES MISEMPLOYED "
Randolph certainly became more sagacious
with age, but he did not Improve In poUtical
sagacity alone. That his moral sense was lost
may be true, for his mind had been dragged
through one degradation after another, until its
finer essence was destroyed; but In return It
had gained from its very degradation a quaUty
which at first it wanted. Randolph was a worse
man than In his youth, but a better rhetorician.
No longer heroic even In his own eyes, he could
more cooUy play the hero. His epigrammatic
effects were occasionaUy very striking, especiaUy
on paper. He rose to what In a man of true
character would have been great elevation of
tone in his retort on Mr. McLane of Delaware.
That member had said with perfect justice that
he would not take Randolph's head, If he were
obliged to take his heart along with It.
" How easy, sir, would 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

"FACULTIES MISEMPLOYED" 291
head into the bargain ! But, sir, I do not think this,
— I never thought it, — and therefore I cannot be so
ungenerous as to say it ; for, Mr. Speaker, who made
me a searcher of hearts ? . . . And, sir, if I should
ever be so unfortunate, through inadvertence or the
heat of debate, as to faU into such an error [as that
which Mr. McLane had made in his argument], I
should, so far from being offended, feel myself imder
obUgation to any gentleman who would expose its fal
lacy even by ridicule, — as fair a weapon as any in
the whole parliamentary armory. I shaU not go so
far as to maintain, with Lord Shaftesbm-y, that it is
the unerring test of truth, whatever it may be of tem
per ; but if it be proscribed as a weapon as unfair as
it confessedly is powerful, what shaU we say, I put it,
sir, to you and to the House, to the poisoned arrow ?
to the tomahawk and the scalping-knif e ? Would the
most unsparing use of ridicule justify a resort to these
weapons? Was this a reason that the gentleman
should sit in judgment on my heart? yes, sir, my
heart ! — which the gentleman, whatever he may say
in his heart, beUeves 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 pubU-
can ! "
This was the best of aU Randolph's retorts,
and remarkable for expression and temper. Un
happily for Its effect. It wanted an element
which alone gives weight to such a style of

292 JOHN RANDOLPH
rhetoric. It was melodramatic, but untrue.
One may Imagine with what quiet amusement
Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, Mr. Monroe, Mr.
Clay, not to speak of a score of smaUer victims
Uke Gideon Granger, the poor clerk Vanzandt,
and many an old member, must have smiled
on reading this announcement that Randolph's
frank, brave heart repudiated the use of the
poisoned arrow, the tomahawk, and the scalplng-
knlfe. He was happier, because truer to himself,
in the more brutal forms of personal attack, as
In turning on Mr. Beecher of Ohio, who per
sisted In breaking his long pauses by motions
for the previous question : " Mr. Speaker, In the
Netherlands a man of smaU capacity, with bits
of wood and leather, wUl In a few moments con
struct a toy that, with the pressure of the finger
and the thumb, wiU cry, ' Cuckoo ! Cuckoo ! '
With less of Ingenuity and Inferior materials the
people of Ohio have made a toy that wIU, with
out much pressure, cry, ' Previous question, Mr.
Speaker ! Previous question, Mr. Speaker ! ' "
This must have been very effective as spoken
with his shrUl voice, and accented by his point
ing finger, but It may be doubted whether Ran
dolph ever produced much serious effect in the
elevated style. His most famous bit of self-
exaltation was In the speech on retrenchment
and reform In 1828 : —

"FACULTIES MISEMPLOYED" 293
" I shaU retire upon my resources ; I wUl go back
to the bosom of my constituents, — to such constitu
ents as man never had before, and never wiU have
again ; and I shaU receive from them the only reward
I ever looked for, but the highest that man can re
ceive, — the universal expression of their approbation,
of their thanks. I shall read it in their beaming
faces, I shaU feel it in their gratulating hands. The
very chUdren wiU climb around my knees to welcome
me. And shaU I give up them and this ? And for
what ? For the heartless amusements and vapid
pleasures and tarnished honors of this abode of splen
did misery, of shabby splendor ; for a clerkship in the
war office, or a foreign mission, to dance attendance
abroad instead of at home, or even for a department
itself?" If the criticism already made be just, that the
reply to McLane was melodramatic but untrue,
the same criticism appUes with treble force to
this famous appeal to his constituents. Without
Inquiring too deeply what the children In Char
lotte Coxmty would have said to a suggestion of
cUmbing Randolph's knee, or whether conflict
ing emotions could not be read on the beaming
faces of his constituents. It Is enough to add that
there can be little doubt of Randolph's actual
aberration of mind at this time. He talked quite
wUdly, and his acts had no relation with his
language. This patriot would accept no tawdry
honors from a corrupt and corrupting national

294 JOHN RANDOLPH
government ! He would not take a seat in the
Cabinet, Uke Clay, to help trample on the rights
of Virginia ! He would not take a foreign mis
sion, to pocket the people's money without equi
valent ! He owed everything to his constitu
ents, and from them alone he would receive his
reward! This speech was made In February,
1828, In September, 1829, he was offered and
accepted a special mission to Russia ; he sailed
In June, 1830 ; remained ten days at his post ;
then passed near a year in England; and, re
turning home in October, 1831, drew $21,407
from the government, with which he paid off
his old British debt. This act of Roman virtue,
worthy of the satire of Juvenal, stiU stands as
the most flagrant bit of diplomatic jobbery in
the annals of the United States government.
Had Randolph, at this period of his life, shown
any respect for his own dignity, or had he even
respected the dignity of Congress, he would have
been a very formidable man, but he sacrificed
his influence to an Irrational vanity. His best
friends excused him on the ground that he was
partiaUy insane ; his enemies declared that this
insanity was due only to drink ; and perhaps a
charitable explanation wiU agree with his own
beUef that aU his peculiarities had their source
In an ungovernable temper, which he had In
dulged until It led him to the verge of madness.

"FACULTIES MISEMPLOYED" 295
Be this as it may, certain it is that his flashes of
inspiration were obtained only at a painful cost
of time and power. During these last years
Randolph was like a jockey, thrown early out of
the race, who rides on, with antics and gesticu
lations, amid the jeers and wonder of the crowd,
towards that winning-post which his old rivals
have long since passed. He despised the gaping
clowns who applauded him, even while he enjoyed
amusing them. He despised himself, perhaps,
more than aU the rest. Not once or twice only,
but day after day, and especiaUy during his short
senatorial term, he would take the floor, and,
leaning or lolling against the railing which in
the old senate chamber surrounded the outer
row of desks, he would talk two or three hours
at a time, with no perceptible reference to the
business in hand, whUe Mr. Calhoun sat Uke a
statue In the Vice-President's chair, untU the
senators one by one retired, leaving the Senate
to adjourn without a quorum, a thing till then
unknown to its courteous habits ; and the gaUery
looked down with titters or open laughter at this
exhibition of a half -Insane, half-Intoxicated man,
talking a dreary monologue, broken at long inter
vals by passages beautiful in their construction,
direct in their purpose, and not the less amus
ing from their occasional virulence. These long
speeches, if speeches they could be caUed, were

296 JOHN RANDOLPH
never reported. The reporters broke down in
attempting to cope with the rapid utterance, the
discursiveness and interminable length, the innu
merable "Yes, sirs," and "No, sirs," of these
harangues. Mr. NUes printed in his Register
for 1826 one specimen verbatim report, merely
to show why no more was attempted. In the
same volume, Mr. NUes gave an account of a
visit he made to the senate gaUery on May 2,
1826, when Randolph was talking. LoUing
against the raU, stopping occasionaUy to rest
himself and think what next to talk about,
he rambled on with careless ease in conversa
tional tones, whUe the senate chamber was nearly
empty, and the imperturbable Calhoun patiently
listened from his throne. Mr. NUes did not
know the subject of debate, but when he entered
the gaUery Randolph was giving out a plan to
make a bank : —
" WeU, sir, we agree to make a bank. You sub
scribe $10,000, you $10,000, and you $10,000 or
$20,000 ; then we borrow some rags, or make up the
capital out of our own promissory notes. Next we
buy an iron chest — for safety against fire and against
thieves — but the latter was whoUy unnecessary —
who would steal our paper, sir ? AU being ready, we
issue bills — I wish I had one of them [hunting his
pockets as though he expected to find one] — Uke the
Owl Creek bank, or Washington and Warren, black

"FACULTIES MISEMPLOYED" 297
or red — I think, sir, they begin with ' I promise to
pay ' — yes, promise to pay, sir — promise to pay."
He dwelt upon this making of a bank for
about five minutes, and then said something
concerning Unitarians In reUgion and poUtlcs,
making a dash at the administration, and bring
ing in Sir Robert Walpole. Then he spoke of
the Bible, and expressed his disgust at what
are caUed " family Bibles," though he thought
no family safe without a Bible — but not an
American edition. Those pubUshed by the
Stationers Company of London ought only or
chiefly to have authority, except those from
the presses of the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge. He described these corporations
briefly; they would be flned .£10,000 sterling
If they should leave the word not out of the
seventh commandment, however convenient It
might be to some or agreeable to others (looking
directly at certain members, and half turning
himself round to the ladles). He never bought
an American edition of any book ; he had no
faith In their accuracy. He wished aU his books
to have CadeU's Imprint, — CadeU, of the Strand,
London. But people were liable to be cheated.
He bought a copy of Aristotle's Ethics to pre
sent to a lady — to a lady, sir, who could un
derstand them — yes, sir — and he found it f uU
of errors, though it had CadeU's Imprint —

298 JOHN RANDOLPH
which he gave to be understood was a forgery.
From the Bible he passed to Shakespeare, drub
bing some one soundly for publishing a " family
Shakespeare." He next jumped to the Amer
ican "Protestant Episcopal Church," and dis
avowed aU connection with it, declaring that he
belonged to the Church of Old England ; he had
been baptized by a man regularly authorized by
the bishop of London, who had laid his hands
upon him (laying his own hands on the head
of the gentleman next to him), and he spoke
warmly of the bishop and of the priest. Then
he quoted from the service, "Them that," as
bad grammar. Suddenly he spoke about 'wine
— it was often mentioned In the Bible, and he
approved of drinking It — If In a gentlemanly
way — at the table — not in the closet — not In
the closet; but as to whiskey, he demanded
that any one should show him the word In the
Bible — It was not there — no, sir, you can't
find it In the whole book. Then he spoke of
his land at Roanoke, saying that he held It by a
royal grant. In a minute or two he was talking
of the "men of Kent," saying that Kent had
never been conquered by WiUiam the Norman,
but had made terms with him. He spoke of a
song on the men of Kent which he would give a
thousand pounds to have written. AU these
subjects were discussed within the space of
thirty-five minutes.

"FACULTIES MISEMPLOYED" 299
These Ulustrations of the almost incredible
capacity for attitudinizing which belonged to
Randolph's later career do not affect the fact
that he discovered and mapped out from begin
ning to end a chart of the whole course on which
the slave power was to sail to Its destruction.
He did no legislative work, sat on no commit
tees, and was not remotely connected with any
useful measure or Idea; but he organized the
slave power on strong and weU-chosen ground ;
he taught It discipUne, gave It popular cohesion,
pointed out to it the fact that before It could
hope for power It must break down Henry Clay,
and, having taught his foUowers what to do,
helped them to do it.
In this campaign, Randolph and his friends
made but one strategical mistake, and it was one
of which they were conscious. In order to puU
down Adams and Clay, they were forced to set
up Andrew Jackson, a man whom they knew
to be unmanageable, despotic In temper and
mUitary in discipUne. MeanwhUe, Randolph
was defeated In his candidacy for reelection to
the Senate. Virginia could not tolerate his
extravagances, and sent John Tyler to take his
place. Deeply wounded, he was stiU consoled
by the devotion of his district, which immedi
ately returned him to his old seat in the House.
He was also a member of the constitutional

300 JOHN RANDOLPH
convention of Virginia in 1829, and of course
took the conservative side on the great questions
it was caUed to consider. Broken to pieces by
disease, and in the last stages of consumption,
when President Jackson, amid the jeers of
the entire country, offered him the mission to
Russia, he accepted It, in order to remain In
England about eighteen months. Of this jour
ney, as of his other journeys, It Is better to say
as little as possible; they have no bearing on
his poUtical opinions or influence, and exhibit
him otherwise in an unfavorable light. A warm
admirer of everything EngUsh, nothing deUghted
him so much as attentions from English noble
men. He was impressed by the atmosphere of
a court, and plumped down on his knees before
the Empress of Russia, who was greatly amused,
as weU she might be, at his eccentric ideas of
republican etiquette. Criticism Infuriated him.
"The barking of the curs against me in Con
gress," he wrote from London on February 19,
1831, " I utterly despise. I think I can see how
some of them, if I were present, would tuck their
taUs between their hind legs, and slink — ay,
and stink too ! "
On his return home, in October, 1831, he
hastened to Charlotte to make a speech In de
fense of his conduct as minister ; but the subject
which chiefly occupied his thoughts was the

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^

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"FACULTIES MISEMPLOYED" 301
poverty, the dirt, the pride, and the degeneracy
of Virginia, until he was roused to new life by
the nulUflcation excitement which his own doc
trines, now represented by Mr. Calhoun, were
stirring up in South Carolina and Georgia.
Jackson's administration had displeased him
from the start, but so long as he wore its livery
his tongue had been tied. Now, however, when
South Carolina raised the standard of resist
ance, and refused obedience to an act of Con
gress, Randolph was hot In his applause. He
felt that the days of 1798 had returned. He
wanted to flght with her armies In case of war.
When the President's famous proclamation,
"the ferocious and bloodthirsty proclamation
of our Djezzar," appeared, he was beside him
self with rage. " The apathy of our people Is
most alarming," he wrote. " If they do not
rouse themselves to a sense of om- condition and
put down this wretched old man, the country
is Irretrievably ruined. The mercenary troops
who have embarked for Charleston have not
disappointed me. They are working in their
vocation, poor devils ! / trust that no quarter
will be given to them." Weak and dying as he
was, he set out to rouse Virginia, and spoke
in several counties against Jackson, as he had
spoken against John Adams. NuUification, he
said, was nonsense. He was no nuUIfler, but he

302 JOHN RANDOLPH
would not desert those whose interests were iden
tical with his own. One of the touches in these
harangues Is very characteristic of the taste and
temper of this ami des noirs : —
"There is a meeting-house in this viUage, buUt
by a respectable denomination. I never was in it,
though, like myself, it is mouldering away. The pul
pit of that meeting-house was poUuted by permitting
a black African to preach in it. If I had been there,
I would have taken the uncircumcised dog by the
throat, led him before a magistrate, and committed
him to jaU. I told the ladies, they, sweet souls, who
dressed their beds with the whitest sheets and un
corked for him their best wine, were not far from
having negro chUdren."
He forced a set of states'-rights resolutions
down the throat of his country, driving poor
Captain Watkins and the other malcontents out
of his presence. Nevertheless, the President's
proclamation remained and the force bUl stood
on the statute book, — first-fruits of Randolph's
attempt to maintain the slave power by a union
of slaveholders behind the bulwark of states'
rights; whUe the next was the elevation of
Henry Clay to a position more powerful than
ever, as arbiter between the South and the
North. Anxious to get back to England, where he
hoped, by aid of climate, to prolong his exist-

"FACULTIES MISEMPLOYED" 303
ence, Randolph started again for Europe ; but,
seized by a last and fatal attack on his lungs,
he died in PhUadelphia, May 24, 1833. Of his
deathbed, it is as weU not to attempt a descrip
tion. It was grotesque — Uke his life. During
the few days of his last Illness his mind was
never quite itself, and there can be no pleasure
or profit in describing the expiring Irrational
wanderings of a brain never too steady In its
processes. His remains were taken to Virginia,
and buried at Roanoke. His wiU was the sub
ject of a contest in the courts, which produced a
vast quantity of curious evidence In regard to
his character, and at last a verdict from the
jury that in the later years of his life he was
not of sane mind. It is, perhaps, difficult to
draw any precise line between eccentricity and
Insanity, but it is stiU more difficult to under
stand how the jury could possibly have held the
wiU of 1821, which emancipated his slaves, to
be a saner document than that of 1832, which
did not.
The question of his sanity has greatly troubled
his biographers. He himself caUed his " un-
prosperous life the fruit of an ungovernable
temper." So far as his pubUc speeches are con
cerned, there is no apparent proof that he was
less sane in 1831 than in 1806, except that he
was weakened by age, excesses, and disease.

304 JOHN RANDOLPH
Nevertheless, it seems to be certain that, on
several occasions, he was distinctly irrespon
sible; his truest friends, the Tuckers, thought
so, and the evidence supports them ; but whether
this condition of mind was anything more than
the excitement due to over-indulgence of temper
and appetite is a question for experts to decide.
Neither sickness nor suffering, however, is an ex
cuse for habitual want of self-restraint. Myri
ads of other men have suffered as much without
showing it In brutality or bitterness, and he
himself never in his candid moments pretended
to defend his errors : " Time misspent, and fac
ulties misemployed, and senses jaded by labor
or impaired by excess, cannot be recalled."

INDEX

INDEX

Adams, John, inaugurated as Vice-
President, 19 ; his coachman snaps
whip at Randolph boys, 19 ; ani
mosity of Randolph toward, 19,
26 ; complained to by Randolph
concerning insults of marines,
41 ; senda Randolph's letter to
the House, 42 ; appoints judges,
62 ; accused of monarchy by De
mocrats, 65 ; pardons Fries, 100 ;
praised by Randolph for so doing,
143, 145.
Adams, John Quincy, hatred of
Randolph for, 26 ; his contempt
for Randolph, 141 ; describes Ran
dolph's closing speech in Chase
impeachment, 148 ; describes
Madison's amusement, 150 ; can
didate for succession to Moiuroe,
268; elected by Clay's influence,
281 ; opposed by Randolph, 282 ;
impossibility of agreement with
Randolph, 282, 283 ; unable to
damage Randolph, 283 ; appoints
Barbour secretary of war, 284 ;
nominates envoys to Panama Con
gress, 284; bitterly attacked by
Randolph, 286 ; his quotation ap
plied to Randolph, 287.
Alien and Sedition Acts, their pas
sage and purpose, 27.
Alston, Willis, sneered at by Nichol
son, 215 ; has feud with Randolph,
insults him and is caned, 263.
Armstrong, General John, minister
to France, 163.
Army, motion to reduce, 40 ; abused
as mercenaries by Randolph, 40,
41.

Arnold, Benedict, his raid in Vir-
ginia, 2, 5.
Bacon, Nathaniel, owns estate
Curies, his rebellion, 1, 2.
Bailey, Jeremiah, comment of Ran
dolph on, 195.
Barbary States, dealings of United
States with, 117.
Barbour, James, appointed secretary
of war, 284.
Bayard, James A., moves an in
crease in membership of House,
66, 67 ; speech on judiciary, 68 ;
twits Randolph with being tool
of Jefferson, 70 ; defeated for
Congress by Rodney, 84 ; antipa
thy for Randolph, 141.
Beecher, Philemon, insult of Ran
dolph to, 292.
Benton, Thomas H., numaged by
Van Buren, 286.
Berlin decree, 211, 224.
Bibb, Dr. William W., accompa
nies Randolph out of Washington,
217.
BidweU, Barnabas, supports Jeffer
son's Florida purchase in com
mittee against Randolph, 168 ;
his resolution adopted by the
House, 170 ; supports bill prohib
iting slave trade, 209 ; sneered at
by Nicholson, 215.
Bland, Frances, mother of Ran
dolph, 3 ; marries St. George
Tucker, 4 ; her character, 6, 7 ;
instills family pride into her son,
8 ; unable to make him religious,
8,9.

308

INDEX

Blennerhassett, Harmon, indicted
for treason, 219.
Boiling, Jane, a descendant of Po
cahontas, marries Richard Ran
dolph, 3.
Bonaparte, Napoleon, sends force
against St. Domingo, 74 ; recovers
Louisiana from Spain, 74 ; irri
tated by Randolph's action, 184 ;
commands Talleyrand to order
United States to stop trade with
St. Domingo, 186.
Boyle, John, mentioned for justice
of Supreme Court, 208.
Bradley, Stephen R., calls caucus
to nominate Madison, 228.
Breckenridge, John, his brief career
iu Congress, 55.
Bryan, Joseph, visited by Randolph
in Georgia, 22, 100 ; remarks on
Randolph's conviviality, 23; let
ters of Randolph to, 44, 45 ; his
terse language to Randolph, 45;
said to possess Randolph's " se
cret," 247.
Buchanan, James, managed by Van
Buren, 285.
Burke, Edmund, desire of Randolph
to imitate, in Chase impeach
ment, 97.
Burr, Aaron, his duel with Hamil
ton, 111 ; ruined by enmity of
De Witt Clinton, 111; attacked
by Cheetham, 112 ; remarks of
Randolph on his faU, 112, 113 ;
his conduct in duel admired by
Randolph, 113, 114 ; presides over
impeachment of Chase, 140 ; his
valedictory, 154, 155 ; comments
of Randolph on his Westem
scheme, 155, 156 ; his conspiracy
discovered, 205 ; his arrival in
Virginia described by Randolph,
218; before grand jury in Rich
mond, 218, 219.
Calhoun, Johh C, identity of his
States'-rights views with Ran
dolph's, 89, 270 ; hated by Ran
dolph in 1822, 268; member of

new Democratic party, 285 ;
makes advances to Randolph, 286 ;
converted by him to Southem
view, 288, 289 ; his patience dur
ing Randolph's speeches in Sen
ate, 295, 296 ; supported by Ran
dolph in nullification movement,
301.
Callender, James T. , his trial a cause
for Chase's impeachment, 101,
136, 137, 138.
Campbell, G. W., bitter comments
of Randolph on, 208 ; supplants
Randolph in Ways and Means
Committee, 221.
Canada, its invasion urged by Ran
dolph in 1807, 224.
Carrington, Henry, describes Ran
dolph's eccentricity, 256.
Chase, Judge Samuel, his party vio
lence, 81 ; his impeachment sug
gested by Jefferson, 81, 95 ; moved
by Randolph, 94, 97 ; his charge
to grand jury, 95, 99 ; difficulty
of attempt to impeach, 96; re
mark of Smilie upon, 98 ; articles
against, 101, 136; theory of his
impeachment, 133, 136 ; his of
fenses, 134 ; new articles against,
137 ; his superiority to accusers,
140 ; his coimsel, 140 ; accused by
Randolph of virtual murder, 143,
144 ; his conduct in Fries case
justified, 144, 145; defended by
Martin, 145-146 ; acquitted by
Senate, 149, 150.
Cheetham, James, editor of " Amer
ican Citizen," attacks Burr, 112 ;
remarks of Randolph on, 113, 212.
Chesapeake, attacked by Leopard,
220.
Claibome, W. C. C, career in Louis
iana, 115 ; sneers of Randolph at,
117, 118.
Clay, Henry, hatred of Randolph
for, 268 ; quarrels with him, 269 ;
overrides him in House, 269 ;
causes election of Adams, 281 ;
attacked by Randolph in order to
break his influence with South,

INDEX

309

282, 283 ; unable to reply owing to
situation, 283 ; supports Panama
Congress, 285 ; defies Van Buren,
285; bitterly attacked by Ran
dolph, 286 ; duel with Randolph,
287.
Clay, Joseph, an " old Republican,"
214, 231.
Clinton, De Witt, his enmity to
Burr, 111 ; willhigness of Ran
dolph to aid, against Madison,
212 ; his character and career in
New York, 231.
Clinton, George, readiness of Ran
dolph to support, against Madi
son, 212 ; remarks of Randolph
on his candidacy, 213, 228, 231 ;
used by Randolph as tool against
Madison, 230, 231 ; his career as
governor of New York, 231 ; re
ceives six votes for President,
233 ; tries to drive Gallatin from
Treasury, 236.
Columbia College, studies of Ran
dolph at, 13, 15, 16.
Congress, its work of reform under
Republicans, 73 ; what it had
failed to do, 73 ; authorizes Jef
ferson to occupy West Florida,
86 ; passes act to regulate trade
with St. Domingo, 185 ; at Napo
leon's demand, passes bUl to pro
hibit trade with St. Domingo,
186-188 ; its power over slavery
asserted by Randolph, 272-275,
277, 278.
Constitution, its adoption opposed
by Randolph, 17 ; theory of Re
publican party concerning, 33-36 ;
its revision advocated by Ran
dolph, 60 ; objected to by North
em Democrats, 63 ; in relation to
repeal of Judiciary Act, 70; in
relation to Louisiana purchase, 87-
92 ; amendment to, desired by
Jefferson, 89 ; asserted by Ran
dolph to justify purchase, 90, 91 ;
in connection with bill to author
ize President to govern Louis
iana provisionally, 93 ; in case of

Fletcher v. Peck, 104 ; meaning
of "uniform imposts" in, 122,
123 ; in relation to Potomac navi
gation, 124 ; amendments to, pro
posed after Chase impeachment,
150 ; in relation to coastwise slave
trade, 210 ; to embargo, 225, 226 ;
to internal improvements, 272-
275; possibility of abolition under,
273-275, 278 ; considered by Ran
dolph less valuable than State
rights, 277.
Crawford, William H., considered
GaUatin only successor of the
triumvirate, 55 ; wishes to suc
ceed Monroe, 268. '
Crowninshield, Jacob, supports non
importation, 172 ; hated by Ran
dolph, 173; attacked by Ran
dolph, 173, 174 ; wishes to intro
duce embargo resolution, 225.
Dallas, Alexandeb J,, throws up
brief in Fries trial because of
Chase's conduct, 100.
DashieU, SaUy, keeps boarding-
house in Washington, 217.
Dayton, Jonathan, his opinion of
Randolph, 141 ; connected with
Burr, 155 ; presented by grand
jxiry for treason, 219.
Dawson, John, comment of Ran
dolph on, 195.
Democratic party, of 1824, organ
ized by Van Buren, 285.
Dennie, Joseph, remark of Ran
dolph on, 113.
Diplomatic history : Monroe's mis
sion to France, 83 ; to Spain, 161 ;
the Monroe-Pinkney treaty, 210,
211 ; Randolph's mission to Rus
sia, 294, 300.
Duane, WiUiam, Randolph's opin
ion of, 212, 213, 231; tries to
drive GaUatin from Treasury, 236.
Embaboo, advocated by Randolph,
180, 223 ; introduced by him into
House, 225 ; opposed by Ran
dolph as unconstitutional, 225.

310

INDEX

England, its frigates search Ameri
can vessels, 115; resistance to,
advocated by Randolph, 117, 119;
adopts new rules on neutral com
merce, 162; retaliation against,
advocated in House, 172, 173 ;
submission to, urged by Randolph,
173, 178, 180 ; resistance to, after
Chesapeake affair, advocated by
Randolph, 223, 224.
Eppes, John W. , an opponent of Mon
roe, 195 ; succeeds in defeating
Randolph for Congress, 246, 255.
Erskine, D. M., presents Monroe
treaty to Madison, 210 ; his dis
missal advocated by Randolph,
223.
Federalists, permit election of Jef
ferson, 60 ; their govemment con
sidered "monarchical" by Jeffer
son, 58 ; take possession of judi
ciary, 61, 62 ; condemn repeal of
Judiciary Act as revolutionary,
64 ; their policy in opposition, 71 ;
taimt Republicans with silence in
debate, 72 ; urge war with France,
75, 76 ; attacked by Randolph,
77, 78 ; lose ground after purchase
of Louisiana, 83 ; attack purchase
of Louisiana on grounds of Spain's
objections, 84 ; move caU for
Spanish papers, 85 ; advocate
States' rights in attacking Louisi
ana, 90 ; accused of hypocrisy by
Randolph, 112, 113; hatred of
senators for Randolph in Chase
impeachment, 141 ; leave House
without a quorum, 152 ; voted
with by Randolph, 171, 246 ; their
opposition described by Nichol
son, 215.
Fielding, Randolph's love of, 10.
Findley, William, charged with do
tage by Randolph, 185 ; supports
biU for prohibiting slave trade,
209.
Fisk, James, on Randolph's desire
to introduce embargo resolution, I
224.

Fletcher v. Feck, decision as to irre-
vocabiUty of Yazoo grants, 104;
discussion of its political wisdom,
108.
Florida, West, Jefferson's desire to
purchase, 76, 83 ; claim for, as
serted under Louisiana treaty, 85 ;
Jefferson authorized by Congress
to occupy, 86 ; quarrel with Spain
over, 114, 161.
Floyd, Davis, indicted for treason,
219.
Floyd, John, defeated for United
States Senate, 284.
France, danger of war with, over
Louisiana, 74, 82 ; sells Louisiana,
83 ; upholds Spain in West Flor
ida controversy, 161, 162 ; offers
to gain West Florida for United
States on payment of seven mil
lions, 162, 163 ; plans of Jefferson
to accept this offer, 163, 164 ; de
mands stoppage of trade with St.
Domingo, 185 ; its purposes, 186.
Fries, John, trial of, before Judge
Chase, taken as basis for impeach
ment by Randolph, 98, 99, 136;
character of trial of, 100 ; igno
rance of, asserted by Randolph,
100; pardoned by Adams, 100,
143, 144.
Gaillabd, John, votes for acquittal
of Chase, 150 ; attempts of Van
Buren to control, 286.
GaUatin, Albert, leader of Demo
crats in House, 40 ; attempts to
defend Randolph for writing to
President, 43 ; appointed secre
tary of treasury, 50 ; on failure
of candidates for succession to
triumvirate, 55 ; on Randolph's
eccentricity, 65 ; his leadership
of House compared to Randolph's,
69 ; his financial measures advo
cated by Randolph in House, 71 ;
letter of Randolph to, on prospect
of war, 82 ; annoyed at Jefferson's
lack of system, 83 ; arranges set
tlement with Yazoo claimants.

INDEX

311

103 ; attacked by Randolph in
Yazoo affair, 109; attacked in
" Aurora," Randolph's comments,
112 ; letter of Randolph to, favor
ing war, 115-118 ; letter of Ran
dolph to, on succession to Jeffer
son, 159 ; gives Randolph paper
on Florida purchase, 168 ; at
tempts of Randolph to involve
him in attack on Madison, 175,
182 ; damaged by Randolph's re
volt, 188 ; his appointment as sec
retary of state prevented by Giles
and S. Smith, 233 ; remains secre
tary of treasury, 234, 235 ; at
tacked by Smith faction, 236 ; his
resignation approved by Ran
dolph, 237-239 ; his resignation
not accepted by Madison, 240 ;
does not return to old RepubUcan
principles, 252.
Garnett, James, opposition to his
election in Virginia, 195 ; invited
by Monroe to dine, 266.
Georgia, authorizes corrupt Yazoo
grants, 23 ; annuls them later, 23 ;
incorporates rescinding act in
Constitution, 102 ; cedes territory
to United States, 103 ; its rescind
ing act declared unconstitutional,
104; takes lead in States'-rights
struggle, 253.
GUes, WiUiam B., asserts independ
ence of party, 53; tries to lead
Senate to take legal view of im
peachment, 138, l39; his charac
ter, 141 ; disagrees with Randolph
on point of paying witnesses' ex
penses, 152 ; opposes Monroe for
President, 194 ; comments of Ran
dolph on, 196; manages Madi
son's candidacy in Virginia, 228 ;
prevents appointment of Gallatin
to State Department, 233; tries
to drive GaUatin from Treasury,
236 ; his speech on Bank described
by Randolph, 236 ; renews attack
on centralization, 252 ; defeated
for Senate, 284; majiaged by Van
Buren, 285.

Goodrich, Chauncey, Randolph's
opinion of his impudence, 220.
Goodrich, S. G., describes Randolph
in Missouri debate, 262.
Granger, Gideon, bitterly attacked
by Randolph for favoring Yazoo
compromise, 126, 127, 129 ; tries
to organize opposition to Ran
dolph in his district, 196.
Gregg, Andrew, offers non-importa
tion resolution, 172.
Griswold, Gaylord, of New York,
attacks annexation of Louisiana
as unconstitutional, 90.
Griswold, Roger, fights with Lyon,
106.
Hamilton, Alexander, his duel
with Burr, 111 ; remarks of Ran
dolph on his death, 112, 113, 114.
Harper, R. G., in Chase impeach
ment, 146, 149.
Hay, George, sent by Monroe, in
vain, to appease Randolph, 242.
Henry, Patrick, opposes adoption of
Constitution, 17, 18 ; begged by
Washington to oppose Virginia
Resolutions, 28 ; his speech at
Charlotte, 29 ; nobility of his ac
tion, 29 ; attacked by Randolph,
30, 89 ; remark to Randolph, 31 ;
does not differ in principle from
Randolph, 36, 37 ; but in shrink
ing from appeal to violence, 37 ;
death, 38 ; quoted by Randolph in
regard to slavery, 278.
Hopkinson, Joseph, in Chase im
peachment, 146.
House of Representatives, Randolph
elected to, 39 ; Democratic leaders
of, in 1799, 40 ; activity of Ran
dolph in, 40 ; debates motion to
reduce army, 40, 41 ; censures
Randolph for complaining to Pre
sident, 43 ; elects Jefferson Pre
sident, 50 ; organized by Repub
licans, 64 ; leadership of Ran
dolph in, 56-56 ; debates repeal of
Judiciary Act, 64, 67-71 ; debates
Apportionment BiU, 6(

312

INDEX

repeal of Judiciary BiU, 71 ; votes
money to buy New Orleans and
Florida, 75, 76 ; adopts bill en
forcing restrictions of States on
entrance of negroes from St. Do
mingo, 79 ; debates Louisiana
treaty, 84 ; refuses caU of Feder
aUsts for Spanish papers, 85 ;
passes biU authorizing President
to occupy West Florida, 86 ; de
bate in, over authorizing Presi
dent to govern provisionaUy, 92,
93 ; proceedings in, leading to
impeachment of Chase, 97-101 ;
debates Yazoo compromise, 105-
107, 109 ; rejects Randolph's re
solutions, 107 ; considers biU to
preserve peace in harbors, 119 ;
not influenced by Randolph's ex
treme States'-rights assertions,
124 ; debates Yazoo claim, 125-
129; accused of corruption by
Randolph, 125 ; prevented from
taking action, 129 ; under Ran
dolph's leadership, refuses to ap
propriate money for witnesses of
defense in Chase impeachment,
151, 152 ; receives messages of
Jefferson on West Florida two-
xnilUon scheme, 163, 164 ; action
delayed by Randolph, 167 ; re
jects Randolph's report, 170 ; de
bate in, over the two-million ap
propriation, 170; debate in, over
resistance to England, 172-178 ;
over two-miUion act, 181-182 ; its
business obstructed by Randolph,
183 ; rejects Yazoo bill, 184 ; con
trolled by Northem Democrats in
1807, 220 ; embargo resolution in
troduced into by Randolph, 225 ;
manners of Randolph in, 262-
263 ; speeches of Randolph in, on
slavery, 272-280 ; return of Ran
dolph to, 299.
Ihfeachhent, of Judge Pickering,
80; of Judge Chase, 81, 82, 95-
101, 130-152; poUtical theory of ,
131-132 ; legal theory of, 133, 134,

136-138 ; criminality necessary to
secure, 133, 136.
Internal improvements, Randolph's
speech against in 1824, 272-278.
Isham, Mary, marries WilUam Ran
dolph, 1.
Jackson, Andrew, in election of
1824, 281 ; managed by Van Bu
ren, 285 ; supported by Randolph
against Adams and Clay, 299;
offers Randolph mission to Rus
sia, 300 ; opposed by Randolph on
nullification issue, 301.
Jackson, John G., supports Yazoo
biU against Randolph, 153; said
by Randolph to be connected with
Burr's scheme, 165.
Jackson, WiUiam, edits "PoUtical
Register," charges Yrujo with
bribery, 114; comments of Ran
dolph on, 116.
Jay treaty, opposition to, 25 ; Ran
dolph's toast concerning, 25.
Jefferson, Thomas, connected with
Randolphs, 4 ; his flight before
EngUsh raid, 5; author of Ken
tucky Resolutions, 27, 34 ; his in
terpretation of States' rights, 32,
36; preferred by Randolph to
Burr, 48 ; Randolph asserts inde
pendence of, 49, 61 ; elected, 60 ;
organizes administration, 51 ; ap
points Linn supervisor, 53 ; jeal
ousy of Randolph for, 63 ; differ
ence between his manner of lead
ing and Randolph's, 65 ; member
of triumvirate, 55, 57 ; considers
himself founder of a new poUty,
58; exaggerated estimateof among
foUowers, 58 ; a better Democrat
than any New Englander, 58 ; ex
tent of his reforms, 69, 60 ; un
able to attack judiciary, 60, 62 ;
shrinks from strong measures, 61 ;
angry at midnight appointments,
62 ; his system later destroyed by
Marshall, 66 ; his attitude toward
" monarchical " FederaUsts, 65 ;
as monarchical in practice as

INDEX

313

Adams, 66 ; Randolph caUed his
tool, 70 ; on reduction of army
and navy, 73 ; his double-faced
attitude on foreign affairs, 75;
sends message to House on pur
chase of New Orleans, 75 ; his
poUcy toward Frimce, 78 ; sug
gests impeachment of Chase, 81,
95 ; threatens war with France in
1803, 82 ; lack of system in cab
inet, 82 ; annoyance of Gallatin
with, 83 ; gains popularity through
Louisiana purchase, 84 ; on claim
to West Florida, 85; authorized
by Congress to occupy West
Florida, 86 ; his States'-rights the
ory inconsistent with Louisiana
purchase, 87, 88 ; recognizes the
fact and urges amendment to Con
stitution, 89, 90 ; unable to con
vince supporters, 89 ; authorized
to govern Louisiana temporarily,
92, 93 ; evades responsibiUty in
impeachment of Chase, 96, 97 ;
obtains from Georgia cession of
Westem lands, 102 ; defied by
Randolph in Yazoo matter, 109;
considers Randolph's positions on
powers of Congress "metaphysi
cal subtlety," 124; irritation of
Randolph with, after Chase im
peachment, 153 ; accused by Ran
dolph of "easy creduUty," 156;
his resolution to retire regretted
by Randolph, 160 ; threatens war
with Spain, 162 ; proposes to pa
cify Spain through France, 162 ;
arranges plan to announce war
poUcy openly and secure two mU
lions secretly, 163, 164 ; sends war
and secret messages, 164 ; ex
plains case to Randolph, 167 ; at
tacked by Randolph in House,
175, 177 ; really responsible for
two-mUlion scheme, 182; forced
by Randolph's revolt to rely on
Northem Democrats, 188; drifts
away from early theories, 188 ;
annoyed by Smith's demands,
189; ignores them and appoints

Pmkney minister to England,
190 ; bitter against Randolph, 193 ;
accused of weakness by Randolph,
193 ; tries to win Monroe to sup
port of Madison, 197 ; sends peace
ful message to Congress, 204 ; re
fuses to send Monroe's treaty to
Senate, 210 ; denounces it, 211 ;
his mastery of politics described
by Nicholson, 215-216 ; does not
convene Congress after Chesa
peake affair, 220; issues procla
mation excluding British men-
of-war from harbors, 220 ; gives
Nicholson a judgeship, 221 ; sends
embargo message, 224 ; renews
crusade against centraUzation in
old age, 252.
Judiciary, no the final arbiter of
Constitution in States'-rights the
ory, 36 ; its possession by Fed
eralists at check to RepubUcan
success, 60, 61 ; inability of Repub
Ucans to amend, 62, 63 ; its later
effect on Constitution, 64, 66 ; at
tempt of RepubUcans to quell
through impeachment, 81, 130 ;
its independence secured, 130,
131, 151.
Judiciary Act, passed by Federal
ists, 61 ; appointments imder, 62 ;
its repeal decided upon, 64 ; de
bate over its repeal, 64, 67 ; reasons
assigned by Randolph, 67 ; re
pealed, 71.
Kentttckt, wants war for sake of
Mississippi navigation, 76.
Kentucky Resolutions, drafted by
Jefferson, 27 ; their character, 34,
35.
Key, PhiUp B., in Chase impeach
ment, 146.
Langdon, John, comments of Ran
dolph on his election, 112.
Lewis, William, advises Dallas in
Fries trial, 100; dines with Mo
reau, 267.
Lincoln, Levi, attorney - general,

314

INDEX

arranges compromise with Yazoo
claimants, 103.
Linn, James, his vote secures New
Jersey for Jefferson in 1800,52;
appointed supervisor, Randolph's
comment, 52, 53.
Livingston, Edward, Democratic
leader in House, 40.
Livingston, Robert R., on claim to
West Florida under Louisiana
treaty, 85.
Uoyd, James, an " old RepubU
can," 217, 232.
Logan, George, introduces biU to
prohibit trade with St. Domingo,
186 ; his biU a part of two-million
scheme, 186.
Louisiana, ceded by Spain to France,
74 ; its purchase by Monroe, 83 ;
sale protested against by Spain,
84, 114 ; debate over, in House,
85 ; question of constitutionaUty
of its purchase, 87-92 ; irritation
in, caused by Claibome, 115, 117-
118.
Lyon, Matthew, his fight with Gris
wold, 106 ; supports Yazoo com
promise against Randolph, 107 ;
comments of Randolph on his po
sition regarding Louisiana, 117.
McKean, Thouas, his influence in
Pennsylvania, 213.
McKnight, James, insults Randolph,
41, 42.
McLane, Lewis, insults Randolph,
290; Randolph's reply to, 290-
291.
Macon, Nathaniel, Democratic lead
er in House, 40 ; with Randolph
at theatre, 41 ; chosen speaker,
his character, 54 ; admires Ran
dolph, 54; appoints Randolph
chairman of Ways and Means
Committee, 54 ; influential posi
tion in 1801, 57 ; dissuades Nichol
son from impeaching Chase, 82 ;
reelected speaker, 84; opposes
bridging of Potomac by Congress
as unconstitutional, 124 ; Ran

dolph's opinion of, 167 ; reelected
over opposition of Northem Dem
ocrats, 164 ; effect of Randolph's
revolt on, 188 ; continues speaker
in 1806, 203; letter to Nicholson on
old Republicans, 206 ; loses speak
ership, 220; abandons Randolph
to support administration, 221 ;
holds aloof from congressional
caucus to nominate Madison, 228 ;
bewails Randolph's folly in House,
232, 233 ; complains of Randolph's
coldness, 250 ; managed by Van
Buren, 285 ; praises Randolph,
286.
Madison, James, organizes party to
oppose AUen and Sedition laws,
27 ; drafts Virginia resolutions,
27, 35 ; his interpretation of
States' rights, 36 ; shrinks from
violence, 37 ; member of triumvi
rate, 65, 5T ; his leadership of
House compared to Randolph's,
69 ; his part in New Orleans pur
chase debate, 76 ; on West Florida
claim, 85 ; considers Louisiana
treaty constitutional, 91 ; ar
ranges settlement with^ Yazoo
claimants, 103 ; defied by Ran
dolph in Yazoo matter, 109 ; quar
rels with Yrujo, 114 ; amused at
anger of Randolph after Chase
impeachment, 150, 161 ; irritation
of Randolph with, 163 ; becomes
candidate for presidency, 160 ;
opposed by Randolph in favor of
Monroe, 160 ; quarrel with Yrujo,
161 ; sends Monroe to Madrid to
disavow Pinckney, 161 ; anger of
Randolph at, on account of pro
posed Florida transaction, 165 ;
teUs Randolph of necessity of
paying France, 166 ; attacked by
Randolph, 176, 177 ; his examina
tion of " British trade doctrine "
assaUed by Randolph in House,
176, 178, 180; his two-mUlion
scheme discussed by Randolph
in open House, 181 ; his defense,
181 ; Randolph's jealousy of his

INDEX

315

influence, 182 ; not reaUy respon
sible for two-miUion scheme, 182 ;
yields to Napoleon's demand to
stop St, Domingo trade, 187;
forced by Randolph's revolt to
rely on Northem Democrats, 188 ;
annoyed by Smith's demands, 189;
thinks Randolph an office-seeker,
190 ; opposition to his candidacy in
Virginia, 195, 197 ; described by
Randolph as intriguing, 198 ; and
proscribing opponents, 199 ; at
tacked by Randolph to Monroe,
200-202 ; receives Monroe's treaty,
210 ; his success in Virginia de
scribed by Randolph to Monroe,
212 ; nominated for President,
228 ; efforts of Randolph to rouse
Northem Democrats against, 231 ;
elected President, 233 ; weakness
in nominating Robert Smith secre
tary of state, 233 ; his cabinet a
faUure, 235 ; called a President de
jure by Randolph, 237 ; thought
likely to submit to the Smiths,
239 ; refuses GaUatin's resignar
tion and dismisses R. Smith, 240 ;
offers Monroe Department of
State, 240 ; contrast between his
conduct in 1798 and during war
of 1812, 251 ; does not return to
" old RepubUcan " principles, 252.
MarshaU, John, appointed chief jus
tice by Adams, 62; his power
seen by Randolph, 63 ; not at
tacked by Jefferson, 63 ; his later
influence upon govemment and
the Constitution, 65 ; decides
against Georgia in case of Fletcher
V. Peck, 104 ; discussion as to
equity of his attitude, 108, 109 ;
faUure of Randolph to secure ad
vantage over, 129 ; present at im
peachment of Chase, 141 ; begins
his important decisions, 252.
Martin, Luther, his character, 140 ;
counsel for Chase in impeachment
case, 140 ; his argument, 145-146 ;
charges Randolph with misquot
ing Virginia law, 150.

Maryland, attempt of Randolph to
stir up against Madison, 231, 232.
Mason, George, opposes adoption of
Constitution, 17, 18.
Massachusetts, holds States' rights
doctrine, 38, 90, 271 ; members of
Congress from, on good terms
with Randolph, 260.
Mercer, Charles Fenton, comments
of Randolph on, 195, 213.
MiUs, Elijah, describes Randolph's
eccentricities, 260, 261.
Mint, futile effort of Randolph to
aboUsh, 80.
Mississippi navigation, stopped in
1802, 74 ; desire for, causes Ten
nessee and Kentucky to advocate
war, 76.
Missouri Compromise, Randolph's
part in debates over, 272.
Monroe, James, said by Randolph
to have planned armed resistance
as governor of Virginia in 1800,
27, 28 ; his mission to France to
buy New Orleans, 82 ; buys Lou
isiana, 83 ; on West Florida claim
under treaty, 86 ; praised by Ran
dolph in letter to Nicholson, 164 ;
supported by Randolph for Presi
dent against Madison, 160 ; sent to
Madridby Madison, 161; rebuffed
by Spain, 161 ; returns to Lon
don, 162 ; forced by Randolph's
revolt to rely on Northem Demo
crats, 188 ; attempt of Smith to
supplant, 189 ; attempt of Ran
dolph to unite Virginia in support
of, 194, 197; his character, 196;
receives flattering letters from
Randolph, 197-202 ; his kindness
to Randolph's nephew, 197 ; his
treaty sent to Madison, 210; de
nounced by Jefferson, 211 ; letters
of Randolph to, on treaty, 211,
212-214 ; loses status as candi
date for presidency, 212 ; letter
of Nicholson to, on Jefferson'e
power, 214-216 ; recaU advocated
by Randolph after Chesapeake
affair, 223 ; returns to America,

316

INDEX

227 ; visited by Randolph secretly,
227; coquets with "old Repub
licans," 228; proposed independ
ent nomination of, 228 ; his rela
tions with "old Republicans,"
228 ; letters of Randolph to, on
campaign, 229-230 ; Randolph's
motive in supporting, 230, 231 ;
his appointment as secretary of
state foreseen by Randolph, 239 ;
appointed by Madison, 240; his
questionable conduct toward Ran
dolph, 240, 241 ; quarrel of Ran
dolph with, 241-245 ; tries to pre
vent it, 242 ; abandons his " old
RepubUcan " principles, 245, 251,
252, 266 ; his administration crit
icised by Randolph, 266, 267 ; his
Ueutenants denounced as respon
sible, 268.
Moreau, General Jean Victor, din
ner of Monroe for, 267.
Morris, Gouverneur, remark of
Randolph on his oration on Ham
Uton, 112 ; and on his hatred of
Democrats, 113.
Navy, its use to defend commerce
advocated by Randolph, 120 ; his
inconsistency, 120, 121; Ran
dolph's comments on Smith's
administration of, 169, 209 ; its
use derided by Randolph, 179,
224; popular after war of 1812,
251.
Nesbit, Sir John, rides horse-race
with Randolph, 22.
New England, disliked by Virgin
ians, 19 ; contrast with Virginia,
68 ; its opinion of Randolph's an
cestry, 253.
New Orleans, stoppage of right of
deposit at, 74 ; proposal of Jef
ferson to buy, 75, 76 ; Claiborne's
career in, 115.
New York, holds doctrine of States'
rights, 38; position of CUntons
in, 230-231 ; gives votes for Clin
ton in election of 1808, 233.
Nicholas, John, leader in House in

1799, 40; remarks of Randolph
on, 21^.
Nicholas, Wilson Cary, letters of
Smith to, on two-miUion scheme,
189 ; on feebleness of Jefferson,
206 ; said by Randolph to have in
trigued for seat in Congress, 211,
214; manages Madison's canvass
ui Virginia, 228, 229.
Nicholson, Joseph H., Democratic
leader in House, 40; with Ran
dolph at theatre, 41 ; letters of
Randolph to, on election of 1800,
48, 49 ; remonstrates with Ran
dolph for not supporting Jeffer
son over Burr, 49 ; letters of Ran
dolph to, on prospects in 1800,
51, 62 ; friendship with Macon,
57 ; chairman of committee to in
quire into judiciary, 64 ; in pro
ceedings concerning voting money
to buy New Orleans, 75, 76 ; his
share in impeaching Pickering,
80, 95 ; letter of Jefferson to, sug
gesting impeachment of Chase,
81 ; consults friends, 81 ; dis
suaded from action by Macon, 82 ;
unwilling to support Randolph in
refusing Louisiana treaty papers,
85; urges Randolph to impeach
Chase, 96 ; on committee of in
quiry into Chase's conduct, 101 ;
letter of Randolph to, on HamU
ton and Burr, 111-114; foUows
Randolph in objecting to proposal
to improve Potomac, 124 ; sup
ports Randolph in presenting
Chase's impeachment, 140 ; intro
duces amendment to Constitution
to punish senators, 150 ; letters
of Randolph to, on politics, 154^
158 ; on Ways and Means Com
mittee, 164 ; on committee to re
ceive Jefferson's Florida messages,
164 ; remonstrates with Randolph
for keeping committee waiting,
167 ; urged by Randolph to op
pose Jefferson's scheme, 169;
effect of Randolph's revolt on,
188; letter of Randolph to, on

INDEX

317

opposition to Madison, 194-196;
accepts judgeship, 203, 221 ; let
ter of Randolph to, on Jefferson's
message, 204 ; letter of Macon to,
on the same, 205 ; pessimistic let
ters of Randolph to, 207, 208 ; de
scribes, to Monroe, influence of
Jefferson, 214-216 ; letter of Ran
dolph to, describing departure
from Washington, 217-218; ad
mits faUure of Randolph, 222;
calls Randolph's attention to
Chatham's Falkland Island
speech, 222; astounded at Ran
dolph's opposition to embargo,
225 ; Randolph's reply to, 225 ;
urged by Randolph to move Mary
land to support Clinton, 231 ; let
ter of Macon to, on Randolph's
folly in House, 232, 233 ; letters
of Randolph to, on struggle in
cabinet, 236-2^ ; melancholy let
ter of Randolph to, 247 ; Ran
dolph's coldness to, 250 ; letter of
Randolph to, on caning of Alston,
263.
Niles, Hezekiah, gives verbatim re
port of a speech of Randolph,
296-298.
Non-importation, debated in House,
172; Randolph's attack on, 176;
advocated by him in place of em
bargo, 226.
Northem Democrats, not devoted
to Jefferson, 61 ; object to any
tampering with Constitution, 63 ;
enmity of Randolph to, in Yazoo
case, 109, 110 ; and in Chase im
peachment, 140, 153 ; sustain Jef
ferson and Madison against Ran
dolph, 183 ; reUance of Jefferson,
Madison, and Monroe upon, after
Randolph's revolt, 188 ; attempts
of Randolph to stir up, against
Madison, 212-214, 228, 230 ; con
trol Congress in 1807, 220; def
initely abandon States' rights,
262.
NuUification, Randolph's attitude
toward, 301, 302.

Old RepubUcans, name of Ran
dolph's faction, 205 ; maintain
original principles of party, 207 ;
their hopes of running Monroe
agfunst Madison ruined by Monroe
treaty, 211 ; willing to unite with
Northern Democrats against Mad
ison, 212 ; hold aloof from caucus
to nominate Madison, 228 ; hope
to regain infiuence with accession
of Monroe to Department of State,
240; their principles abandoned
by Monroe, 245; reasserted by
Jefferson, 252.
Orders in Council, 224.
Otis, Harrison Gray, remarks of
Randolph on his wiUingness to
support Burr against Democrats,
113.
Panama Conoeesb, proposal of Ad
ams and Clay to send envoys to,
284, 285 ; opposition of Van Buren
and Randolph to, 285-287.
Pennsylvania, "Old RepubUcan"
feeUng in, 231.
Petition, right of, Randolph's view
of, 40.
Pickering, John, impeached by Ran
dolph and Nicholson, 80 ; signifi
cance of the attack, 80 ; voted
"guUty as charged," 132, 133;
unwillingness of administration
senators to remove, 133.
Pickering, Timothy, his extreme
view of States' rights, 87 ; his con
tempt for Randolph, 141.
Pinckney, Charles, breaks off rela
tions with Spanish govemment,
114 ; tries to bring on war with
Spain, 161 ; disavowed by Madi
son, 161.
Pinkney, WiUiam, appointed min
ister to England, 190 ; Randolph's
comments on, 198, 199 ; with Mon
roe, negotiates treaty, 210 ; his
recaU advocated by Randolph af
ter Chesapeake affair, 223.
Pitt, William, attempt of Randolph
to imitate, 47.

318

INDEX

Pocahontas, ancestor of Randolph,
3,253.
Powhatan, ancestor of Randolph,
253.
Princeton CoUege, studies of Ran
dolph at, 13.
Purviance,  , brings Monroe
treaty to Washington, 211.
Quids, Randolph avows himself a
member of, 180 ; their character,
181 ; break up as a party, 221.
Quincy, Josiah, on good terms with
Randolph, 260.
Randolph, Edmund, attorney-gen
eral, studies of John Randolph
with, 20.
Randolph family, its origin and
standing in Virginia, 1-4.
Randolph, Henry, receives land
from WUUam Randolph, 1.
Randolph, John, ancestry, 1-3 ; pro
perty, 2 ; birth, 3 ; surroxmdings,
4, 5 ; his boyhood, 6 ; violent
temper, 6 ; influenced by famUy
pride, 7, 8 ; passion for land, 8 ;
his reading, 9, 10 ; hostiUty to
Christianity, 9, 13, 14; social
training among Virginia aristo
cracy, 11 ; a typical Virginian for
good or evU, 12, 13 ; schooUng, 13 ;
at Princeton and Columbia col
leges, 13 ; temporary enthusiasm
for Mahometanism, 14 ; passion
for contradiction, 14 ; first duel,
15 ; excuses expenses to his step
father, 15 ; and asserts his dlU-
gence in work, 16 ; opposed to
Federal Constitution, 17, 18 ; sees
Washington's inauguration, 17,
18 ; angered at being pushed
aside by John Adams's coach
man, 19 ; goes to PhUadelphia to
study law with Edmund Ran
dolph, 20 ; his life there, 20, 21 ;
returns to Virginia, 21 ; com
plains of the plundering of his
estate, 21 ; lives with his brother
at Bizarre, 21 ; visits Bryan in

Georgia, 22, 23 ; his appearance
described, 22 ; exploit in horse-
racing, 22 ; becomes interested in
Yazoo frauds, 23 ; returns, de
pressed by his brother's death,
24 ; obUged to support his bro
ther's famUy, 24 ; condemns Jay
treaty, 25 ; offers insulting toast
to Washington, 25 ; difficulties in
Randolph's aristocratic preju
dices and democratic theories,
25, 26 ; his hatred of the Adamses,
26 ; asserts that Monroe prepared
resistance in Virginia in 1800,
27 ; offers himself as cuididate for
Congress, 28 ; repUes to Henry's
speech against nullification, 30;
asserts States'-rights principles,
30, 31 ; remarks of Henry to, 31 ;
becomes in later life apostle of
States' rights, 32; differs from
Henry and Madison in advocating
force in their defense, 37 ; his
theories not confined then to Vir
ginia and South, 37, 38 ; elected
to Congress, 39 ; his strength and
weakness in his self-confidence,
39. In Congress^ member of minor
ity. Welcomed by Democrats in
House, 40 ; addresses House
against petition from free ne
groes, 40 ; advocates reduction of
army and denounces miUtary, 40,
41 ; hustled at theatre by marines,
41 ; writes a protest to President
Adams, 41, 42; censured by com
mittee of House for so doing, 43 ;
vain attempts to explain action,
43 ; profits from experience, 44 ;
speech on Connecticut reserve,
44 ; depressed iu spirits, 44, 45 ;
his fondness for solemn heroics,
45, 46 ; aims to imitate Pitt, 47 ;
letter to Nicholson on Jefferson-
Burr election, 48 ; prefers Jef
ferson, but disavows subjection,
49, 50; his prospects of poUti
cs advancement through Jeffer
son's success, 50, 61 ; letter to

INDEX

319

Nicholson advocating reforms
of administration, 61 ; letter on
accommodations in Washii^on,
52; criticises appointment of Linn,
52; prides himself on independ
ence of party, 53; jealous of
Jefferson, 63.
Democratic Leader. His infiu
ence over Macon, 54 ; appointed
chairman of Ways and Means
Committee, 54 ; in training for
succession to Jefferson and Madi
son, 55 ; his masterful manner in
House, 55 ; not influential outside
House, 66, 56 ; advocates extreme
RepubUcan creed, 56, 60 ; desires
a reform of judiciary, 62, 63 ;
moves an inquiry into judiciary,
64; considers overthrow of Ad
ams a salvation from monarchy,
65, 66; evades complete avowal
of principles in reply to Bayard,
67 ; defends repeal of Judiciary
BiU, 68, 69 ; denies being Jeffer
son's tool, 70 ; duties as chairman
of Financial Committee, 71 ; tries
to diminish debate, 72 ; increases
in reputation, 73 ; charged with
engineering New Orleans pur
chase through the House, 75 ; suc
ceeds in carrying it in secret ses
sion, 76, 76 ; denounces Federal
ists for inconsistency, 76-78 ; his
successful leadership, 78 ; his in
fluence in other matters, 79 ; vote
on prohibition of entrance of ne
groes, 79, 80; moves to abolish
mint, 80 ; carries biU to estabUsh
school and road fund in North
west, 80 ; assists in impeaching
Pickering, 80 ; passes summer at
Bizarre, 82 ; writes to GaUatin
favoring war, 82; criticises dis
order in cabinet, 82 ; his unques
tioned leadership in Congress, 84 ;
refuses papers in Louisiana pur
chase, 86; claims that Louisiana
treaty annexes West Florida, 86 ;
carries biU authorizing President
to assume authority in West Flor

ida, 86 ; discrepancy between his
States'-rights principles and Lou
isiana purchase, 87, 89; later
boasts of never having voted for
admission of any new State, 89 ;
argues the constitutionaUty of
annexation, 90-91 ; his argument
proves too much, 92 ; later admits
his mistakes, 92 ; reluctant to au
thorize Jefferson to govern tempo-
rarily, 93 ; offers impeachment of
Chase, 94, 96 ; not the real author
of impeachment, 95 ; lacks caution
in assuming responsibiUty, 97 ;
led by jealousy of Jefferson, 97 ;
his device to bring impeachment
before the House, 97-99 ; bases it
on a remark of SmiUe, 98, 99 ; ex
plains his inaction in Fries case,
100 ; reports articles, 101 ; intro
duces resolutions defending Geor
gia's action in Yazoo case, 105 ;
avows his purpose to persist, 106 ;
defies opponents, 106 ; succeeds
in delaying legislation, 107 ; de
nounces the Yazoo compromise as
corrupt, 109 ; his courage in op
posing administration in this, 109 ;
damages his chance for office,
110 ; nature of his ambition, 110 ;
retires for rest to Bizarre, 111 ;
his considerations on Burr's duel
with HamUton, 112-114 ; opin
ions of Hamilton, 112 ; admires
Burr as a dueUst, 113, 114 ; de
scribes to Gallatin his refusal to
talk poUtics in vacation, 116
wishes a navy, 117 ; on situation
in Louisiana, 117, 118 ; in Con
gress advocates resistance to Eu
ropean commercial aggressions,
119, 120 ; wiUing to have war
with England, 120 ; forgets incon
sistency in anger, 120, 121 ; grows
irritable and captious, 122 ; op
poses remission of duties on
books for colleges as unconstitu
tional, 122, 123 ; holds that Con
gress has no power to bridge the
Potomac, 124 ; loses influence by

320

INDEX

these extreme positions, 124 ;
makes violent speech against Ya
zoo compromise, 125-128 ; accuses
Congress of corruption, 125, 126 ;
denounces postmaster - general,
126; on abandonment of princi
ples by Republicans, 127, 128;
again succeeds in preventing le
gislation, 129 ; his courage with
out discretion, 129 ; appears be
fore Senate to impeach Chase,
130 ; the highest moment of his
life, 130 ; his theory of impeach
ment, 132 ; obliged to accept le
gal position and declare Chase
criminal, 133 ; includes a long list
of aUeged offenses, 136 ; renders
impeachment not poUtical, but le
gal, 136, 137 ; introduces new arti
cles of a merely technical charac
ter, 137, 138 ; acts in alliance with
GUes, 139 ; his incompetence to
conduct a legal attack, 139 ; over
matched by FederaUst counsel,
140; not sympathized with in
Senate, 140, 141 ; hated by North
em Democrats and New England
FederaUsts, 141 ; his opening
speech a faUure, 142 ; his perora
tion accuses Chase of murder, 143,
144 ; error of his statement of
fact, 144, 145 ; his closing ad
dress, 146-149 ; breaks down, 147 ;
its vagueness and feebleness, 147,
148 ; apologizes to Senate for his
incompetency, 148 ; described by
J. Q. Adams, 148, 149 ; his com
plete defeat, 149, 150 ; his irrita
tion, 150 ; offers amendment to
Constitution aimed at judiciary,
160 ; refuses to aUow House to ap
propriate money for witnesses for
defense, 151 ; quarrels with Sen
ate, 152 ; suffers great loss of pres
tige, 163 ; irritated with Madison,
163, 160 ; letters during recess to
Nicholson, 164-168; remarks on
Burr's Westem schemes, 155,
156 ; on horse-racing, 156 ; on
plots against Macon for speaker.

157 ; agreeableness of his letters,
158 ; portrait by Stuart, 159 ; let
ters to GaUatin on succession to
Jefferson, 159, 160 ; prefers Mon
roe to Madison for President, 160 ;
reappointed head of Ways and
Means Committee, 164 ; consid
ers Madison's scheme to buy Flor
ida from Spain through France a
corrupt job, 165; disgusted at
Madison's avowed candidacy for
presidency, 165, 166 ; induces
committee to oppose Madison's
request for money, 166 ; told by
Madison of situation, 166 ; teUs
Jefferson of his opposition to
plan, 167 ; remonstrated with by
Nicholson, 167 ; receives from
G^atin a paper on purchase of
Florida, 168 ; leads committee to
reject two-miUion scheme and
report In favor of war measures,
168, 169 ; letter to Nicholson, 169 ;
his report rejected by House, 170 ;
fights appropriation bitterly, 170 ;
his furious attacks on his enemies,
171 ; abandons support of admin
istration, 172.
In opposition. Attacks non-im
portation resolutions, 173 ; attacks
influence of Jefferson and his
friends, 174, 175 ; aUenates GaUa
tin, 176 ; accuses administration
of bribery, 176 ; attacks Madison's
examination of British doctrino
of neutral trade, 176-178 ; main
tains justice of England's posi
tion, 178 ; opposes any war, 179 ;
advocates an embargo, 180 ; effect
of speeches on House, ISO ; avows
himself no longer a RepubUcan,
180 ; again attacks Madison's two-
mUUon scheme, 181 ; uses private
knowledge, 181 ; reaUy driven by
jealousy of Madison, 182 ; and ha
tred to Yazoo compromisers, 182 ;
unable to carry House with him
against both Jefferson and Madi
son, 183 ; abandoned by his fol
lowers, 183; obstructs business

INDEX

321

of House, 183, 184 ; defeats suc
cess of Spanish negotiations, 184 ;
his violence and extravagance,
184, 185; supports biU to prohibit
trade with St. Domingo, his rea
sons, 187 ; results of his action in
this session, 188 ; his breach with
Madison leaves Smith with more
influence, 189 ; not an intriguer
or office-seeker, 190 ; suggested as
minister to England, 191 ; his
comments, 191 ; returns to Bizarre
a ruined statesman, 192 ; sees de
cay of Virginian theory, 192 ; his
career henceforward, 192 ; repre
sents no party or friends, 192,
193 ; relations with Jefferson, 193;
considers Jefferson aa weakly
abandoning principles, 193 ; hopes
to rehabilitate himself through
candidacy of Monroe for presi
dency, 194 ; letters to Nicholson
on his own unpopularity and on
Virginia movement for Monroe,
194-196 ; letters to Monroe urging
him to contest presidency with
Madison, 197-202 ; queries as to
Randolph's motives in attacking
Madison, 202, 203; writes " De-
cius " letters, 203 ; returns in
calmer mood to Washington, 203 ;
considers Jefferson's peace mes
sage a personal triumph, 204 ; ex
pects overtures from administra
tion, 206 ; disgusted with failure
of democracy, 207 ; bitter letter
on leaders of RepubUcan party,
208, 209 ; bittemess toward North
ern Democrats, 209 ; opposes bUl
prohibiting coastwise slave trade,
209, 210 ; warns Monroe of failure
of his treaty, 211 ; ready to unite
with Northem Democrats to beat
Madison, 212; letter to Monroe
on intrigues of Madison's friends,
212-214 ; describes his departure
from Washington, 217, 218 ; serves
on grand jury against Burr, 218 ;
his contempt for WUkinson, 218,
219; describes result of Burr's

inquest to Nicholsou, 219; de
plores prevalence of FederaUst
dogmas, 220 ; on Chesapeake af
fair, 220; defeats Vanzandt for
clerk of House, 221 ; loses sup
port of Macon, 221 ; loses last
remnant of a foUowing, 221, 222 ;
condemns feebleness of adminis
tration in Chesapeake case, 223 ;
repeats his condemnations in Con
gress, and advocates invasion of
Canada, 223, 224 ; mtroduces reso
lution in favor of embargo, 225
votes against embargo biU, 225
explains his reasons, 226, 226
sees Monroe by stealth so as not
to damage him, 227 ; his letter to
Monroe, 227 ; holds aloof from
congressional caucus to nominate
Madison, 228 ; letters to Monroe
inciting him against Madison, 229,
230 ; led, not by principle, but
by desire for revenge, 230, 231 ;
urges Nicholson to stir up Mary
land in favor of CUnton, 231, 232 ;
loses prestige in House, 232 ; decay
of manners and of intelUgence,
234, 236 ; letters to Nicholson on
growing opposition to Madison's
administration, 236-240 ; thinks
Gallatin ought to resign, 237, 238 ;
demands explanation from Mon
roe of his reconciUation with Mad
ison, 241, 242 ; refuses to talk with
Monroe's messenger, 242 ; writes
to Monroe severing connection,
241-245 ; defeated for Congress in
1813, 246 ; complains of some
unknown trouble, 247 ; quarrels
with brother's widow, 248 ; and
with his step-father, 248, 249
pained by death of nephew, 249
visits mortification on friends, 250
reelected to Congress, 251 ; joins
Jefferson in attempt to revive
"old RepubUcanism," 252; hated
by New Englanders, 253 ; proud of
Indian ancestry, 253 ; his political
terrorism, 254 ; popular with con
stituents, 254 ; his abiUty to flat-

322

INDEX

ter, 255 ; poUtical methods, 265 ;
renders opponents ridiculous, 255,
266 ; assumes vindictiveness, 256 ;
legends of his intolerance for
meanness, 257; breaks down Wat
kins, 258 ; never pushes violence
too far, 258 ; refuses to fight WU
kinson, 269 ; at his best in society,
259 ; friendly with Quincy, 260 ;
appearance described by Mills,
260, 261 ; his brutaUty in Congress,
262 ; canes Alston, 263 ; calls him
self an IshmaeUte, 263 ; his pride,
264 ; attempts to " experience re
ligion," 264, 265 ; criticises Mon
roe's administration, 266 ; warns
constituents against Calhoun's
candidacy for President, 267 ;
avoids open rupture with Mon
roe, 268; hates Clay, 268; sup
pressed by Clay as speaker, 269 ;
difference between his attitude in
1806 and in 1825, 269, 270.
States^ Rights Advocate. Pre
cursor of Cedhoun, 270 ; condemns
slavery in the abstract, 271;
speech on Internal Improve
ments, 272-275; asserts State
sovereignty, 273; and possibiUty
of Congress attacking slavery,
274, 275 ; this speech his master
piece, 276 ; its inconsistency with
his past record, 276; asserts
States' rights in speech on tariff,
277-278 ; introduces danger to
slavery into debate, 278, 279 ; on
governing the North by dividing
it, 279 ; stirs up South on slavery
question, 280, 281 ; bis enmity
to Adams's admimstration, 282 ;
directs his particular attacks
against Clay, 283 ; lax attendance
in House, 283 ; elected senator
through his half-brother's gener
osity, 284.
In United States Senate. At
tacks Clay's and Adams's propo
sal to send delegates to Panama
Congress, 285 ; once more re
ceives praise from Northem De

mocrats, 286 ; virulent attack on
Clay, 286; his duel with Clay,
287 ; Adams's remark upon, 287 ;
succeeds in organizing South
against Clay and Adams, 288;
converts Calhoun, 289 ; a worse
man, but better rhetorician, in old
age, 290; his retort to McLane,
290-291 ; its cleverness and fal
sity, 292 ; example of personal in
vective, 292 ; his famous appeal
to his constituents, 293; an
nounces purpose to accept no fa
vors from administration, 294;
but goes on special mission to
Russia, 294 ; a fiagrant diplomatic
job, 294; sacrifices infiuence to
vanity, 294 ; accused of insanity,
294 ; his singular harangues In
Senate, 295 ; description of his
maimer by NUes, 296-298 ; his ser
vices in giving slave-power a pro
gramme, 299 ; defeated for Senate,
299. Metum to JSouse, Reelected,
299 ; member of Virginia Consti
tutional Convention, 300 ; de
Ughted with English and Russian
courts, 300 ; defends his course as
minister, 300 ; on Virginian degen
eracy, 301 ; applauds nullification
in South Carolina, 301 ; condemns
Jackson's proclamation, 301 ; sets
out to rouse Virginia against him,
301 ; forces county to adopt States*
rights resolutions, 302 ; starts for
Europe, death, 303; question of
his sanity, 303, 304.
Characteristics. Affectionate-
ness, 15, 159, 257; ambition, 97,
109, 110, 190, 252, 262 ; argumen
tative abiUty, 142-144, 276 ; aris
tocratic ideals, 26, 300 ; arro
gance, 15, 55, 84, 106, 203, 256,
257, 262, 279 ; audacity, 28, 52, 67,
129, 139, 172 ; bombast, 42, 45 ;
coarseness, 255, 300; confidence,
11, 39, 142, 170; courage, 170,
182 ; eccentricity, 183, 184, 192,
222, 257, 264, 294, 303 ; education.

INDEX

323

13, 20 ; egotism, 118, 241-245 ; ex
travagance, 183, 184 ; fighting,
aversion to, 268, 269, 263; fiat-
tery, 255 ; intoxication, 234, 257,
294 ; invective, 126, 126, 129, 171,
174, 175, 185, 262 ; irritabiUty, 14,
124, 248-250 ; jealousy, 53, 122 ;
land, passion for, 8, 16 ; melan
choly, 44, 247 ; oratorical abil
ity, 30, 143, 147, 180, 254, 281,
290-293, 295-298; personal ap
pearance, 166, 263 ; reading, 9,
10, 13 ; reUgious views, 9, 13,
14, 264; sanity, 234, 293, 294,
303, 304 ; social abiUty, 257, 259-
261 ; sport, love of, 22, 156 ; tem
per, 15, 24, 73, 122, 151, 221, 294,
303 ; vindictiveness, 256, 258,
259. Opinions. Army, 40, 69 ; cen
tral govemment, 69, 67, 70 ; Con
stitution of the United States, 18,
60, 91, 93, 122-124, 267, 272-275,
277; democracy, 26, 69, 207;
doughfaces, 279 ; election of 1800,
48, 49 ; election of 1808, 160, 194-
202, 211-214, 227, 229-232; em
bargo, 180, 225, 226 ; Enghind, 82,
117, 119, 173, 180, 220, 223, 224 ;
EngUsh society, 300; Federalist
party, 65, 77, 90 ; Florida, 86 ;
GaUatin's rivalry with Smiths,
236-240 ; impeachment, 133, 136 ;
internal improvements, 272, 273 ;
Jay treaty, 25 ; judiciary, 63, 68 ;
Louisiana purchase, 90, 91, 92 ;
mint, 80 ; navy, 59, 120 ; non-im
portation, 173-177 ; nuUification,
301 ; Panama Congress, 285, 286 ;
party independence, 49, 63, 70 ;
party leadership, 75, 76 ; Repub
Ucan party, 110^ 127, 128, 156, 191,
194r-202, 219, 234, 267 ; slavery, 21,
40, 80, 187, 209, 272-276, 278-281,
302 ; Spain, 116 ; States' rights,
30, 32, 69, 89, 92, 105, 272-275, 288,
301 ; treaty power, 85 ; two-mil
Uon plan, 165-170 ; war powers of
Congress, 272, 274 ; Yazoo grants,
23, 105, 106, 109, 182.

Randolph, John, father of John
Randolph, 3 ; death, 4.
Randolph, John, Attorney-General,
a royaUst, 4.
Randolph, Sir John, son of WiUiam
Randolph, 3.
Randolph, Peyton, president of
Continental Congress, 3.
Randolph, Richard, of Curies, mar
ries Jane Boiling, 3 ; his pro
perty, 3.
Randolph, Richard, at college in
New York, 15 ; caUs his brother
John lazy, 16 ; pushed aside by
John Adams's coachman, 19 ; mar
ries and Uves at Bizarre, 21 ;
death, 23 ; his relations to his
brother, 24 ; leaves widow and
chUdren, 24 ; his feud upheld by
John Randolph, 24.
Randolph, Mrs. Richard, supported
after husband's death by John
Randolph, 24 ; quarrels with him,
248.
Randolph, St. George, Randolph's
nephew, 197, 249.
Randolph, Thomas Mann, declines
reelection to Congress, 211.
Randolph, Tudor, his death, love
of Randolph for, 249.
Randolph, WilUam, of Turkey Is-
hmd, native of Warwickshire, 1 ;
his career in Virginia, 1, 2.
RepubUcan party, its principles in
1800, 33, 34 ; leaders of, m House,
40; defeats Adams, 48; its re
form programme in 1801, 51, 57-
59 ; considers Jefferson a great
law-giver, 68 ; unable to attack
judiciary, 60, 61, 63 j contents
itself with repeal of judiciary
act, 64; its poUcy to check de
bate in House, 72 ; its accom-
pUshments in 1802, 73; Ran
dolph's leadership of, 76-78 ; at
tacks judiciary by impeachment,
81 ; decUnes to amend Constitu
tion to justify annexation of Lou
isiana, 89 ; accused by Randolph
of abandoning principles in Yazoo

324

INDEX

case, 126-128; makes its last
aggressive move in Chase im
peachment, 130; Chase's attack
on, from the bench, 134, 135;
divided by Randolph in struggle
over two-milUon scheme, 170,
183; withdrawal of Randolph
from, 180 ; discipUne of, strength
ened by Randolph's secession, 190 ;
its condition described by Ran
dolph to Monroe, 197, 199-202;
discussion of its real condition,
202, 203 ; no longer upholds theo
ries of 1800, 206, 207 ; its subser
vience to Jefferson, 215 ; factions
in, during Madison's administra
tion, 235-240; its principles in
1815, 261, 266.
Rodney, Caesar A., defeats Bayard
for Congress, 84 ; one of House
n:ianagers of Chase's impeach
ment, 140; his speech compli
mented by J. Q. Adams, 149 ;
sends Randolph an unfriendly
newspaper, 157.
Rolfe, John, ancestor of Randolph,
3.
St. Domingk), attacked by Napoleon,
74 ; biU to prevent entrance of
blacks from, 79, 80 ; stoppage of
trade with, demanded by Napo
leon, 185 ; voted by Congress,
186-188.
Scott, Sir WiUiam, effect of his
Admiralty decision of 1805, 162.
Senate, its functions in impeach
ment discussed, 132-134, 138, 139 ;
its unfriendly reception of Chase's
impeachment, 140, 141 ; argu
ments of Randolph and Martin
before, 141-149; rejects articles
of impeachment, 149, 160 ; cpnsti-
tutional amendment aimed at by
Nicholson, 160 ; disagrees with
House over payment of witnesses,
152; Randolph elected to, 284;
debate over Panama Congress,
285-287 ; Randolph's habits in,
295-298.

Shakespeare, Randolph's liking for,
10.
Slaveholders' advocate bUl against
trade with St. Domingo, 187 ; not
at first advocates of States' rights,
270, 271 ; wamed by Randolph of
dangers to slavery from central
govemment, 272-276, 277; their
manner of ruling the North de
scribed by Randolph, 279 ; skiUf ul
appeals to, 280, 281 ; their grati
tude to Randolph, 281 ; efforts of
Randolph to unite by crushii^
Clay's infiuence in 1824, 283-289 ;
services of Randolph>in organizing
against Adams, 288.
Slavery, opposed by Randolph in
theory, 21, 271, 280; possibUity
of aboUtion of by Congress as
serted by Randolph, 274, 277,
278.
Slave-trade, biU to prevent, from
St. Domingo, 79 ; biU to prohibit,
opposed by Randolph, 209.
Slave-trade, interstate, danger of
its prohibition by Congress as
serted by Randolph, 272.
Sloan, James, attacked by Ran
dolph, 176 ; describes Randolph's
manner, 184 ; supports biU for
prohibiting slave - trade, 209 ;
sneered at by Nicholson, 215.
SmiUe, John, objects to Chase's as
signment to PhUadelphia circuit
because of his conduct at Fries
trial, 98 ; his remarks taken by
Randolph as baaiB for Chase's im
peachment, 98, 99, 101 ; supports
biU prohibiting slave-trade, 209.
Smith, Israel, indicted for treason,
219.
Smith, John, his connection with
Burr, 155; indicted for treason,
219.
Smith, Robert, Randolph's opinion
of, 159, 208 ; visits Randolph, 206;
his incapacity described by Ran
dolph, 209 ; appointed secretary
of state, 233 ; his dismissal ex
pected by Randolph, 239.

INDEX

325

Smith, Samuel, Democratic leader
in House, 40 ; senator from Mary
land, 189 ; tries to supplant Mon
roe, 189 ; driven back to support
of Jefferson by Randolph's revolt,
189 ; his view of two-mill inn
scheme, 189, 190 ; does not re
sent appointment of Pinkney,
190 ; complains of feebleness of
Jefferson's poUcy, 206 ; repudi
ates "fine-spun theories," 206,
207 ; Randolph's opinion of his
inconsistency, 208 ; prevents nom
ination of GaUatin as secretary of
state, 233 ; tries to drive him,
from Treasury, 236.
South CaroUna, leader in revived
States'-rights struggle, 263 ; sup
ported by Randolph in nullifica
tion movement, 301.
Spain, cedes Louisiana to France,
74; puts an end to right of de
posit in New Orleans, 74; pro
tests against France's cession of
Louisiana as invaUd, 84, 114; re
lations with broken off by Pinck
ney, 114 ; refuses to yield to
Monroe, 161 ; popular desire for
war with, 162 ; proposal to buy
West Florida from, through
France, 162, 163, 164, 166.
Stamford, Richard, correspondence
of Randolph with, 250 ; invited by
Monroe to dine, 267,
States' rights, Randolph's advocacy
of, 31-33, 37, 38 ; history of doc
trine of, 32 ; RepubUcan doctrine
of, hi 1800, 33, 34 ; explained by
Virginia and Kentucky Resolu
tions, 34, 35; favored by majority
of people in 1800, 38 ; theory of,
incompatible with Louisiana pur
chase, 87, 88 ; advocated by Fed
eraUsts when in opposition, 90 ;
abandoned by Randolph in de
fending Louisiana purchase, 90 ;
asserted by Randolph in his
Yazoo Resolutions, 105; in con
nection with Potomac navigation,
124 ; damaged by war of 1812,

251, 252; movement for, begun
by Jefferson, 252, 253 ; its connec
tion with slavery, 270 ; Randolph
the originator of its later use to
defend slavery against the North,
272-278.
Stith, WUUam, historian, connected
with Randolph famUy, 3.
Stuart, Gilbert, his portrait of Ran
dolph, 159.
SulUvan, James, opposes Madison,
231.
Talleyrand, Prince Charles Mau
rice DE, supports Spain in West
Florida controversy, 161 ; offers
to secure West Florida for seven
milUons, 163; told by Napoleon
to order United States to stop
trade with St. Domingo, 185, 186.
Taylor, Creed, attempt to run him
as candidate against Randolph,
196.
Taylor, John, of CaroUne, one of
"old RepubUcans," 197, 214,
236 ; appealed to by Monroe to
prevent quarrel with Randolph,
242, 243, 244.
TazeweU, Littleton W., an "old
RepubUcan," 197, 219, 235.
Tennessee, wants war with Spain, 76.
Thompson, John, author of Cur
tius' letters, his style admired by
Randolph, 177 ; its characteris
tics, 30, 46, 46 ; death, 46.
Thompson, Philip R., opposition to
his election iu Virginia, 195.
Thompson, WiUiam, bombastic let
ters to Randolph, 46.
Toussaint I'Ouverture, attacked by
Napoleon, 74.
Tracy, Uriah, his sarcasm, 141.
Tucker, Henry St. George, with
draws from his candidacy for sen
ator in behalf of Randolph, 284.
Tucker, St. Gteorge, marries Ran
dolph's mother, 4; flies before
Arnold's raid, 6, 6 ; in Greene's
army, 6; his kindness to Ran
dolph, 6 ; letters of Randolph to.

326

INDEX

15, 16 ; quarrel of Randolph with,
248,249.
Turreau, General  , notifies Mad
ison that St. Domingo trade must
stop, 186.
Two-milUon scheme, 162-172, 181-
183, 189 ; its connection with biU
to prohibit trade with St. Do
mingo, 186.
Tyler, Comfort, indicted for trea
son, 219.
Tyler, John, succeeds Randolph as
senator from Virginia, 299.
Van BtTRBN, Martin, leader of New
York Democrats, 285 ; moves to
debate Adams's Panama message
in public, 285 ; arranges attack
on administration with Randolph,
285.
Vance, Joseph, on Randolph's ser
vices in organizing South, 288.
Van Ness, WilUam P., connection
with Burr's duel, 113.
Vanzandt, Nicholas B. , defeated
for clerk of House through Ran
dolph's infiuence, 221.
Vamum, Joseph B., supports biU
for prohibitmg slave-trade, 209;
elected speaker, 220 ; appoints
CampbeU to Ways and Means
Committee, 221.
Virginia, society in, 4 ; its ruin in
evitable after separation from
England, 6 ; youthful education
in, 6, 7 ; family pride in, 8 ; read
ing habits in, 9, 10 ; contradic
tions in, 11, 12 ; Randolph typical
of, 12 ; its old life endangered by
adoption of Constitution, 18 ; pre
pares for armed resistance to Se
dition Law, 27, 28 ; adopts fa
mous resolutions of 1798, 27, 35 ;
protest of Henry against, 29 ; po
Utical opinions of its leaders, 56 ;
its political school wrecked by
Randolph's quarrel with Madison
and Jefferson, 188 ; attempts of
Randolph to gain its support for
Monroe over Madison, 194-202,

211, 212, 228 ; carried by Madison,
228, 233; not the leader in new
States'-rights movement, 263 ; so
cial atmosphere of, 259 ; elects
Randolph to Senate, 284 ; re
places him by Tyler, 299; holds
Constitutional Convention, 300 ;
attempt of Randolph to rouse,
against Jackson in 1832, 301.
War power of Congress, its possible
use to emancipate slaves urged by
Randolph, 274, 275.
Washington, George, Randolph wit
nesses his inauguration, 17, 18 ;
Randolph's insulting toast to, 26 ;
begs aid from Henry in 1799, 28.
Watkins, Captain, broken down by
Randolph, 258, 302.
Wheaton,  , informs Randolph
of Burr's schemes, 155.
Wilkinson, General James, connec
tion with Burr, 156; Randolph's
contempt for, 218, 219, 222 ; re
fusal of Randolph to fight, 269.
Wolcott, Alexander, his nomination
rejected by Senate, 236.
Yazoo land grants, made by Geor
gia, revoked because of corrup
tion, 23, 102 ; speculation in,
throughout country, 102 ; diffi
culty as to title, 102 ; cession of
territory to United States, 103 ;
compromise with purchasers pro
posed by United States commis
sioners, 103 ; attack of Randolph
on the compromise, 106, 106 ; de
bate in the House, 106-107, 109 ;
discussion of merits of the revo
cation, 107-109 ; renewed debate
upon, 124-129 ; considered by
Randolph Madison's " origin^Q
sm," 182; bUl rejected, 184;
later passed, 252.
Yrujo, Marquis of Casa, Spanish
minister, quarrels with Madison,
114 ; charged with attempts at
bribery, 114 ; comments of Ran
dolph on, 116.

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