Chapter IX: Part 9

Here we have the explanation of the great puzzle of American politics,--the unnatural alliance, for sixty years, between the plantation lords of the South and the democracy of the North, both venerating the name of Jefferson, and both professing his principles. It was not, as many suppose, a compact of scurvy politicians for the sake of political victory. Every great party, whether religious' or political, that has held power long in a country, has been founded upon conviction,--disinterested conviction. Some of the cotton and tobacco lords, men of intellect and culture, were democrats and abolitionists, like Jefferson himself. Others took up with republicanism because it was the reigning affectation in their circle, as it was in the chateaux and drawing-rooms of France. But their State pride it was that bound them as a class to the early Republican party. The Southern aristocrat saw in Jefferson the defender of the sovereignty of his State: the "smutched artificer" of the North gloried in Jefferson as the champion of the rights of man. While the Republican party was in opposition, battling with unmanageable John Adams, with British Hamilton, and with a foe more powerful than both of those men together, Robespierre,--while it had to contend with Washington's all but irresistible influence, and with the nearly unanimous opposition of educated and orthodox New England,--this distinction was not felt. Many a tobacco aristocrat cut off his pig-tail and wore trousers down to his ankles, which were then the outward signs of the inward democratic grace. But time tries all. It is now apparent to every one that the strength of the original Democratic party in the South was the States' Rights portion of its platform, while in the North it was the sentiment of republicanism that kept the party together.

Young politicians should study this period of their country's history. If ever again a political party shall rule the United States for sixty years, or for twenty years, it will be, we think, a party resembling the original Republican party, as founded in America by Franklin, and organized under Jefferson. Its platform will be, perhaps, something like this: simple, economical government machinery; strict construction of the Constitution; the rights of the States scrupulously observed; the suffrage open to all, without regard to color or sex,--_open_ to all, but _conferred_ only upon men and women capable of exercising it.

John Randolph agreed upon another point with Mr. Jefferson: lie was an abolitionist. But for the English debt which he inherited, it is extremely probable that he would have followed the example of many of the best Virginians of his day, and emancipated his slaves. He would, perhaps, have done so when that debt was discharged, instead of waiting to do it by his last will, but for the forlorn condition of freedmen in a Slave State. His eldest brother wrote, upon the division of the estate, in 1794:

"I want not a single negro for any other purpose than his
immediate emancipation. I shudder when I think that such an
insignificant animal as I am is invested with this
monstrous, this horrid power."

He told his guardian that he would give up all his land rather than own a slave. There was no moment in the whole life of John Randolph when he did not sympathize with this view of slavery, and he died expressing it. But though lie was, if possible, a more decided abolitionist than Jefferson, he never for a moment doubted the innate superiority of a Virginia gentleman to all the other inhabitants of America. He had not even the complaisance to take his hair out of queue, nor hide his thin legs in pantaloons. He was not endowed by nature with understanding enough to rise superior to the prejudices that had come down to him through generations of aristocrats. He was weak enough, indeed, to be extremely vain of the fact that a grandfather of his had married one of the great-granddaughters of Pocahontas, who, it was believed, performed the act that renders her famous at Point of Rocks on the Appomattox, within walking distance of one of the Randolph mansions. It is interesting to observe what an unquestioning, childlike faith he always had in the superiority of his caste, of his State, and of his section. He once got so far as to speak favorably of the talents of Daniel Webster; but he was obliged to conclude by saying that he was the best debater he had ever known _north of the Potomac_.

This singular being was twenty-six years of age before any one suspected, least of all himself, that he possessed any of the talents which command the attention of men. His life had been desultory and purposeless. He had studied law a little, attended a course or two of medical lectures, travelled somewhat, dipped into hundreds of books, read a few with passionate admiration, had lived much with the ablest men of that day,--a familiar guest at Jefferson's fireside, and no stranger at President Washington's stately table. Father, mother, and both brothers were dead. He was lonely, sad, and heavily burdened with property, with debt, and the care of many dependants. His appearance was even more singular than his situation. At twenty-three he had still the aspect of a boy. He actually grew half a head after he was twenty-three years of age.

"A tall, gawky-looking, flaxen-haired stripling, apparently
of the age of sixteen or eighteen, with complexion of a good
parchment color, beardless chin, and as much assumed
self-consequence as any two-footed animal I ever saw."

So he was described by a Charleston bookseller, who saw him in his store in 1796, carelessly turning over books. "At length," continues this narrator,

"he hit upon something that struck his fancy; and never did
I witness so sudden, so perfect a change of the human
countenance. That which was before dull and heavy in a
moment became animated, and flashed with the brightest beams
of intellect. He stepped up to the old gray-headed gentleman
(his companion), and giving him a thundering slap on the
shoulder, said, 'Jack, look at this!'"

Thus was he described at twenty-three. At twenty-six he was half a head taller, and quite as slender as before. His light hair was then combed back into an elegant queue. His eye of hazel was bright and restless. His chin was still beardless. He wore a frock-coat of light blue cloth, yellow breeches, silk stockings, and top-boots. Great was the love he bore his horses, which were numerous, and as good as Virginia could boast. It is amusing to notice that the horse upon which this pattern aristocrat used to scamper across the country, in French-Revolution times, was named _Jacobin_!

It was in March, 1799, the year before the final victory of the Republicans over the Federal party, that the neighbors of John Randolph and John Randolph himself discovered, to their great astonishment, that he was an orator. He had been nominated for Representative in Congress. Patrick Henry, aged and infirm, had been so adroitly manipulated by the Federalists, that he had at length agreed to speak to the people in support of the hateful administration of John Adams. John Randolph, who had never in his life addressed an audience, nor, as he afterwards declared, had ever imagined that he could do so, suddenly determined, the very evening before the day named for the meeting, to reply to Patrick Henry. It was an open-air meeting. No structure in Virginia could have contained the multitude that thronged to hear the transcendent orator, silent for so many years, and now summoned from his retirement by General Washington himself to speak for a Union imperilled and a government assailed. He spoke with the power of other days? for he was really alarmed for his country; and when he had finished his impassioned harangue, he sunk back into the arms of his friends, as one of them said, "like the sun setting in his glory." For the moment he had all hearts with him. The sturdiest Republican in Virginia could scarcely resist the spell of that amazing oratory.

John Randolph rose to reply. His first sentences showed not only that he could speak, but that he knew the artifices of an old debater; for he began by giving eloquent expression to the veneration felt by his hearers for the aged patriot who had just addressed them. He spoke for three hours, it is said; and if we may judge from the imperfect outline of his speech that has come down to us, he spoke as well that day as ever he did. States' Rights was the burden of his speech. That the Alien and Sedition Law was an outrage upon human nature, he may have believed; but what he _felt_ was, that it was an outrage upon the Commonwealth of Virginia. He may have thought it desirable that all governments should confine themselves to the simple business of compelling the faithful performance of contracts; but what he _insisted upon_ was, that the exercise by the government of the United States of any power not expressly laid down in the letter of the Constitution was a wrong to Virginia. If John Adams is right, said he, in substance, then Virginia has gained nothing by the Revolution but a change of masters,--New England for Old England,--which he thought was _not_ a change for the better.

It was unnecessary, in the Virginia of 1799, for the head of the house of Randolph to be an orator in order to secure an election to the House of Representatives. He was elected, of course. When he came forward to be sworn in, his appearance was so youthful, that the Clerk of the House asked him, with the utmost politeness, whether he had attained the legal age. His reply was eminently characteristic of the tobacco lord: "Go, sir, and ask my _constituents_: they sent me here." As there was no one present authorized by the Constitution to box the ears of impudent boys on the floor of the House, he was sworn without further question. It has often occurred to us that this anecdote, which John Randolph used to relate with much satisfaction, was typical of much that has since occurred. The excessive courtesy of the officer, the insolence of the Virginia tobacconist, the submission of the Clerk to that insolence,--who has not witnessed such scenes in the Capitol at Washington?

It was in December, 1799, that this fiery and erratic genius took his seat in the House of Representatives. John Adams had still sixteen months to serve as target for the sarcasm of the young talent of the nation. To calm readers of the present day, Mr. Adams does really seem a strange personage to preside over a government; but the cairn reader of the present day cannot realize the state of things in the year 1800. We cannot conceive what a fright the world had had in the excesses of the French Revolution, and the recent usurpation of General Bonaparte. France had made almost every timid man in Christendom a tory. Serious and respectable people, above forty, and enjoying a comfortable income, felt that there was only one thing left for a decent person to do,--to assist in preserving the _authority_ of government. John Adams, by the constitution of his mind, was as much a tory as John Randolph; for he too possessed imagination and talent disproportioned to his understanding. To be a democrat it is necessary to have a little pure intellect; since your democrat is merely a person who can, occasionally, see things and men as they are. New England will always be democratic enough as long as her boys learn mental arithmetic; and Ireland will always be the haunt of tories as long as her children are brought up upon songs, legends, and ceremonies. To make a democratic people, it is only necessary to accustom them to use their minds.

Nothing throws such light upon the state of things in the United States in 1800, as the once famous collision between these two natural tories, John Adams and John Randolph, which gave instantaneous celebrity to the new member, and made him an idol of the Republican party. In his maiden speech, which was in opposition to a proposed increase of the army, he spoke disparagingly of the troops already serving, using the words _ragamuffins_ and _mercenaries_. In this passage of his speech, the partisan spoke, not the man. John Randolph expressed the real feeling of his nature toward soldiers, when, a few years later, on the same floor, he said: "If I must have a master, let him be one with epaulets; something which I can look up to; but not a master with a quill behind his ear." In 1800, however, it pleased him to style the soldiers of the United States ragamuffins and mercenaries; which induced two young officers to push, hustle, and otherwise discommode and insult him at the theatre. Strange to relate, this hot Virginian, usually so prompt with a challenge to mortal combat, reported the misconduct of these officers to the President of the United States. This eminently proper act he did in an eminently proper manner, thanks to his transient connection with the Republican party. Having briefly stated the case, he concluded his letter to the President thus:

"The independence of the legislature has been attacked, and
the majesty of the people, of which you are the principal
representative, insulted, and your authority contemned. In
their name, I demand that a provision commensurate with the
evil be made, and which will be calculated to deter others
from any future attempt to introduce the reign of terror
into our country. In addressing you in this plain language
of man, I give you, sir, the best proof I can afford of the
estimation in which I hold your office and your
understanding; and I assure you with truth, that I am, with
respect, your fellow-citizen, John Randolph."

This language so well accords with our present sense of the becoming, that a person unacquainted with that period would be unable to point to a single phrase calculated to give offence. In the year 1800, however, the President of the United States saw in every expression of the letter contemptuous and calculated insult. "The majesty of the people," forsooth! The President merely their "representative"! "plain language of man"! and "with respect, your fellow-citizen"! To the heated imaginations of the Federalists of 1800, language of this kind, addressed to the President, was simply prophetic of the guillotine. So amazed and indignant was Mr. Adams, that he submitted the letter to his Cabinet, requesting their opinion as to what should be done with it. Still more incredible is it, that four members of the Cabinet, in writing, declared their opinion to be, that "the contemptuous language therein adopted requires a public censure." They further said, that,

"if such addresses remain unnoticed, we are apprehensive
that a precedent will be established which must necessarily
destroy the ancient, respectable, and urbane usages of this
country."

Some lingering remains of good-sense in the other member of the Cabinet prevented the President from acting upon their advice; and he merely sent the letter to the House, with the remark that he "submitted the whole letter and its tendencies" to their consideration, "without any other comments on its matter and style."

This affair, trivial as it was, sufficed in that mad time to lift the young member from Virginia into universal notoriety, and caused him to be regarded as a shining light of the Republican party. The splendor of his talents as an orator gave him at once the ear of the House and the admiration of the Republican side of it; while the fury of his zeal against the President rendered him most efficient in the Presidential canvass. No young man, perhaps, did more than he toward the election of Jefferson and Burr in 1800. He was indeed, at that time, before disease had wasted him, and while still enjoying the confidence of the Republican leaders and subject to the needed restraints of party, a most effective speaker, whether in the House or upon the stump. He had something of Burke's torrent-like fluency, and something of Chatham's spirit of command, with a piercing, audacious sarcasm all his own. He was often unjust and unreasonable, but never dull. He never spoke in his life without being at least attentively listened to.

Mr. Jefferson came into power; and John Randolph, triumphantly re-elected to Congress, was appointed Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means,--a position not less important then than now. He was the leader of the Republican majority in the House. His social rank, his talents, his position in the House of Representatives, the admiration of the party, the confidence of the President, all united to render him the chief of the young men of the young nation. It was captivating to the popular imagination to behold this heir of an ancient house, this possessor of broad lands, this orator of genius, belonging to the party of the people. He aided to give the Republican party the only element of power which it lacked,--social consideration. The party had numbers and talent; but it had not that which could make a weak, rich man vain of the title of Republican. At the North, clergy, professors, rich men, were generally Federalists, and it was therefore peculiarly pleasing to Democrats to point to this eminent and brilliant Virginian as a member of their party. He discharged the duties of his position well, showing ability as a man of business, and living in harmony with his colleagues. As often as he reached Washington, at the beginning of a session, he found the President's card (so Colonel Benton tells us) awaiting him for dinner the next day at the White House, when the great measures of the session were discussed. It was he who moved the resolutions of respect for the memory of that consummate republican, that entire and perfect democrat, Samuel Adams of Massachusetts. It was he who arranged the financial measures required for the purchase of Louisiana, and made no objection to the purchase. During the first six years of Mr. Jefferson's Presidency, he shrank from no duty which his party had a right to claim from him. Whatever there might he narrow or erroneous in his political creed was neutralized by the sentiment of nationality which the capital inspires, and by the practical views which must needs be taken of public affairs by the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means.

These were the happy years of his life, and the most honorable ones. Never, since governments have existed, has a country been governed so wisely, so honestly, and so economically as the United States was governed during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Randolph himself, after twenty years of opposition to the policy of this incomparable ruler, could still say of his administration, that it was the only one he had ever known which "seriously and in good faith was disposed to give up its patronage," and which desired to go further in depriving itself of power than the people themselves had thought. "Jefferson," said John Randolph in 1828, "was the only man I ever knew or heard of who really, truly, and honestly, not only said, _Nolo episcopari_, but actually refused the mitre."

For six years, as we have said, Mr. Randolph led the Republican party in the House of Representatives, and supported the measures of the administration,--all of them. In the spring of 1807, without apparent cause, he suddenly went into opposition, and from that time opposed the policy of the administration,--the whole of it.

Why this change? If there were such a thing as going apprentice to the art of discovering truth, a master in that art could not set an apprentice a better preliminary lesson than this: Why did John Randolph go into opposition in 1807? The gossips of that day had no difficulty in answering the question. Some said he had asked Mr. Jefferson for a foreign mission, and been refused. Others thought it was jealousy of Mr. Madison, who was known to be the President's choice for the succession. Others surmised that an important state secret had been revealed to other members of the House, but not to him. These opinions our tyro would find very positively recorded, and he would also, in the course of his researches, come upon the statement that Mr. Randolph himself attributed the breach to his having beaten the President at a game of chess, which the President could not forgive. The truth is, that John Randolph bolted for the same reason that a steel spring resumes its original bent the instant the restraining force is withdrawn. His position as leader of a party was irksome, because it obliged him to work in harness, and he had never been broken to harness. His party connection bound him to side with France in the great contest then raging between France and England, and yet his whole soul sympathized with England. This native Virginian was more consciously and positively English than any native of England ever was. English literature had nourished his mind; English names captivated his imagination; English traditions, feelings, instincts, habits, prejudices, were all congenial to his nature. How hard for such a man to side officially with Napoleon in those gigantic wars! Abhorring Napoleon with all a Randolph's force of antipathy, it was nevertheless expected of him, as a good Republican, to interpret leniently the man who, besides being the armed soldier of democracy, had sold Louisiana to the United States. Randolph, moreover, was an absolute aristocrat. He delighted to tell the House of Representatives that he, being a Virginian slaveholder, was _not_ obliged to curry favor with his coachman or his shoeblack, lest when he drove to the polls the coachman should dismount from his box, or the shoeblack drop his brushes, and neutralize their master's vote by voting on the other side. How he exulted in the fact that in Virginia none but freeholders could vote! How happy he was to boast, that, in all that Commonwealth, there was no such thing as a ballot-box! "May I never live to see the day," he would exclaim, "when a Virginian shall be ashamed to declare aloud at the polls for whom he casts his vote!" What pleasure he took in speaking of his Virginia wilderness as a "barony," and signing his name "John Randolph of Roanoke," and in wearing the garments that were worn in Virginia when the great tobacco lords were running through their estates in the fine old picturesque and Irish fashion!

Obviously, an antique of this pattern was out of place as a leader in the Republican party. For a time the spell of Jefferson's winning genius, and the presence of a powerful opposition, kept him in some subjection; but in 1807 that spell had spent its force, and the Federal party was not formidable. John Randolph was himself again. The immediate occasion of the rupture was, probably, Mr. Jefferson's evident preference of James Madison as his successor. We have a right to infer this, from the extreme and lasting rancor which Randolph exhibited toward Mr. Madison, who he used to say was as mean a man for a Virginian as John Quincy Adams was for a Yankee. Nor ought we ever to speak of this gifted and unhappy man without considering his physical condition. It appears from the slight notices we have of this vital matter, that about the year 1807 the stock of vigor which his youth had acquired was gone, and he lived thenceforth a miserable invalid, afflicted with diseases that sharpen the temper and narrow the mind. John Randolph _well_ might have outgrown inherited prejudices and limitations, and attained to the stature of a modern, a national, a republican man. John Randolph _sick_--radically and incurably sick--ceased to grow just when his best growth would naturally have begun.

The sudden defection of a man so conspicuous and considerable, at a time when the Republican party was not aware of its strength, struck dismay to many minds, who felt, with Jefferson, that to the Republican party in the United States were confided the best interests of human nature. Mr. Jefferson was not in the least alarmed, because he knew the strength of the party and the weakness of the man. The letter which he wrote on this subject to Mr. Monroe ought to be learned by heart by every politician in the country,--by the self-seekers, for the warning which it gives them, and by the patriotic, for the comfort which it affords them in time of trouble. Some readers, perhaps, will be reminded by it of events which occurred at Washington not longer ago than last winter.[1]

"Our old friend Mercer broke off from us some time ago; at
first, professing to disdain joining the Federalists; yet,
from the habit of voting together, becoming soon identified
with them. Without carrying over with him one single person,
he is now in a state of as perfect obscurity as if his name
had never been known. Mr. J. Randolph is in the same track,
and will end in the same way. His course has excited
considerable alarm. Timid men consider it as a proof of the
weakness of our government, and that it is to be rent in
pieces by demagogues and to end in anarchy. I survey the
scene with a different eye, and draw a different augury from
it. In a House of Representatives of a great mass of good
sense, Mr. Randolph's popular eloquence gave him such
advantages as to place him unrivalled as the leader of the
House; and, although not conciliatory to those whom he led,
principles of duty and patriotism induced many of them to
swallow humiliations he subjected them to, and to vote as
was right, as long as he kept the path of right himself. The
sudden departure of such a man could not but produce a
momentary astonishment, and even dismay; but for a moment
only. The good sense of the House rallied around its
principles, and, without any leader, pursued steadily the
business of the session, did it well, and by a strength of
vote which has never before been seen.... The augury I draw
from this is, that there is a steady good sense in the
legislature and in the body of the nation, joined with good
intentions, which will lead them to discern and to pursue
the public good under all circumstances which can arise, and
that no _ignis fatuus_ will be able to lead them long
astray."

Mr. Jefferson predicted that the lost sheep of the Republican fold would wander off to the arid wastes of Federalism; but he never did so. His defection was not an inconsistency, but a return to consistency. He presented himself in his true character thenceforth, which was that of a States' Rights fanatic. He opposed the election of Mr. Madison to the Presidency, as he said, because Mr. Madison was weak on the sovereignty of the States. He opposed the war of 1812 for two reasons:--1. Offensive war was in itself unconstitutional, being a _national_ act. 2. War was nationalizing. A hundred times before the war, he foretold that, if war occurred, the sovereignty of the States was gone forever, and we should lapse into nationality. A thousand times after the war, he declared that this dread lapse had occurred. At a public dinner, after the return of peace, he gave the once celebrated toast, "States' Rights,--_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_." As before the war he sometimes affected himself to tears while dwelling upon the sad prospect of kindred people imbruing their hands in one another's blood, so during the war he was one of the few American citizens who lamented the triumphs of their country's arms. In his solitude at Roanoke he was cast down at the news of Perry's victory on the lake, because he thought it would prolong the contest; and he exulted in the banishment of Napoleon to Elba, although it let loose the armies and fleets of Britain upon the United States. "That insolent coward," said he, "has met his deserts at last." This Virginia Englishman would not allow that Napoleon possessed even military talent; but stoutly maintained, to the last, that he was the merest sport of fortune. When the work of restoration was in progress, under the leadership of Clay and Calhoun, John Randolph was in his element, for he could honestly oppose every movement and suggestion of those young orators,--national bank, protective tariff, internal improvements, everything. He was one of the small number who objected to the gift of land and money to Lafayette, and one of the stubborn minority who would have seen the Union broken up rather than assent to the Missouri Compromise, or to _any_ Missouri compromise. The question at issue in all these measures, he maintained, was the same, and it was this: Are we a nation or a confederacy?

Talent, too, is apt to play the despot over the person that possesses it. This man had such a power of witty vituperation in him, with so decided a histrionic gift, that his rising to speak was always an interesting event; and he would occasionally hold both the House and the galleries attentive for three or four hours. He became accustomed to this homage; he craved it; it became necessary to him. As far back as 1811, Washington Irving wrote of him, in one of his letters from Washington:

"There is no speaker in either House that excites such
universal attention as Jack Randolph. But they listen to him
more to be delighted by his eloquence and entertained by his
ingenuity and eccentricity, than to be convinced by sound
doctrine and close argument."

As he advanced in age, this habit of startling the House by unexpected dramatic exhibitions grew upon him. One of the most vivid pictures ever painted in words of a parliamentary scene is that in which the late Mr. S.G. Goodrich records his recollection of one of these displays. It occurred in 1820, during one of the Missouri debates. A tall man, with a little head and a small oval face, like that of an aged boy, rose and addressed the chairman.

"He paused a moment," wrote Mr. Goodrich,

"and I had time to study his appearance. His hair was
jet-black, and clubbed in a queue; his eye was black, small,
and painfully penetrating. His complexion was a
yellowish-brown, bespeaking Indian blood. I knew at once
that it must be John Randolph. As he uttered the words, 'Mr.
Speaker!' every member turned in his seat, and, facing him,
gazed as if some portent had suddenly appeared before them.
'Mr. Speaker,' said he, in a shrill voice, which, however,
pierced every nook and corner of the hall, 'I have but one
word to say,--one word, sir, and that is to state a fact.
The measure to which the gentleman has just alluded
originated in a dirty trick!' These were his precise words.
The subject to which he referred I did not gather, but the
coolness and impudence of the speaker were admirable in
their way. I never saw better acting, even in Kean. His
look, his manner, his long arm, his elvish
fore-finger,--like an exclamation-point, punctuating his
bitter thought,--showed the skill of a master. The effect of
the whole was to startle everybody, as if a pistol-shot had
rung through the hall."--_Recollections_, Vol. II. p. 395.

Such anecdotes as these, which are very numerous, both in and out of print, convey an inadequate idea of his understanding; for there was really a great fund of good sense in him and in his political creed. Actor as he was, he was a very honest man, and had a hearty contempt for all the kinds of falsehood which he had no inclination to commit. No man was more restive under debt than he, or has better depicted its horrors. Speaking once of those Virginia families who gave banquets and kept up expensive establishments, while their estates were covered all over with mortgages, he said: "I always think I can see the anguish under the grin and grimace, like old Mother Cole's dirty flannel peeping out beneath her Brussels lace." He was strong in the opinion that a man who is loose in money matters is not trustworthy in anything,--an opinion which is shared by every one who knows either life or history. "The time was," he wrote,

"when I was fool enough to believe that a man might be
negligent of pecuniary obligations, and yet be a very good
fellow; but long experience has convinced me that he who is
lax in this respect is utterly unworthy of trust in any
other."

He discriminated well between those showy, occasional acts of so-called generosity which such men perform, and the true, habitual, self-denying benevolence of a solvent and just member of society. "Despise the usurer and the miser as much as you will," he would exclaim, "but the spendthrift is more selfish than they." But his very honesty was most curiously blended with his toryism. One of his friends relates the following anecdote:--

"Just before we sailed, the Washington papers were received,
announcing the defeat of the Bankrupt Bill by a small
majority. At that moment, I forgot that Randolph had been
one of its most determined opponents, and I spoke with the
feelings of a merchant when I said to him,--

"'Have you heard the very bad news from Washington this
morning?'

"'No, sir,' replied he, with eagerness; 'what is it?'

"'Why, sir, I am sorry to tell you that the House of
Representatives has thrown out the Bankrupt Bill by a small
majority.'

"'Sorry, sir!' exclaimed he; and then, taking off his hat
and looking upwards, he added, most emphatically, 'Thank God
for all his mercies!'

"After a short pause he continued: 'How delighted I am to
think that I helped to give that hateful bill a kick. Yes,
sir, this very day week I spoke for three hours against it,
and my friends, who forced me to make the effort, were good
enough to say that I never had made a more successful
speech; it must have had _some_ merit, sir; for I assure
you, whilst I was speaking, although the Northern mail was
announced, not a single member left his seat to look for
letters,--a circumstance which had not occurred before
during the session!'

"I endeavored to combat his objections to a Bankrupt Bill
subsequently, but, of course, without any success: _he felt
as a planter, and was very jealous of the influence of
merchants as legislators_."

There are flashes of sense and touches of pathos in some of his most tory passages. As he was delivering in the House one of his emphatic predictions of the certain failure of our experiment of freedom on this continent, he broke into an apology for so doing, that brought tears to many eyes. "It is an infirmity of my nature," said he,

"to have an obstinate constitutional preference of the true
over the agreeable; and I am satisfied, that, if I had had
an only son, or what is dearer, an only daughter,--which God
forbid!--I say, God forbid, for she might bring her father's
gray hairs with sorrow to the grave; she might break my
heart, or worse than that--what? Can anything be worse than
that? Yes, sir, I _might break hers_!"

His fable, too, of the caterpillar and the horseman was conceived in arrogance, but it was pretty and effective. Every tory intellect on earth is pleased to discourse in that way of the labors of the only men who greatly help their species,--the patient elaborators of truth. A caterpillar, as we learn from this fable, had crawled slowly over a fence, which a gallant horseman took at a single leap. "Stop," says the caterpillar,

"you are too flighty; you want connection and continuity; it
took me an hour to get over; you can't be as sure as I am
that you have really overcome the difficulty, and are indeed
over the fence."

To which, of course, the gallant horseman makes the expected contemptuous reply. This is precisely in the spirit of Carlyle's sneers at the political economists,--the men who are not content to sit down and howl in this wilderness of a modern world, but bestir themselves to discover methods by which it can be made less a wilderness.

There is so much truth in the doctrines of the original States' Rights party,--the party of Jefferson, Madison, and Patrick Henry,--that a very commonplace man, who learned his politics in that school, is able to make a respectable figure in the public counsels. The mere notion that government, being a necessary evil, is to be reduced to the minimum that will answer the purposes of government, saves from many false steps. The doctrine that the central government is to confine itself to the duties assigned it in the Constitution, is a guiding principle suited to the limited human mind. A vast number of claims, suggestions, and petitions are excluded by it even from consideration. If an eloquent Hamiltonian proposes to appropriate the public money for the purpose of enabling American manufacturers to exhibit their products at a Paris Exhibition, the plainest country member of the Jeffersonian school perceives at once the inconsistency of such a proposition with the fundamental principle of his political creed. He has a compass to steer by, and a port to sail to, instead of being afloat on the waste of waters, the sport of every breeze that blows. It is touching to observe that this unhappy, sick, and sometimes mad John Randolph, amid all the vagaries of his later life, had always a vein of soundness in him, derived from his early connection with the enlightened men who acted in politics with Thomas Jefferson. The phrase "masterly inactivity" is Randolph's; and it is something only to have given convenient expression to a system of conduct so often wise. He used to say that Congress could scarcely do too little. His ideal of a session was one in which members should make speeches till every man had fully expressed and perfectly relieved his mind, then pass the appropriation bills, and go home. And we ought not to forgot that, when President John Quincy Adams brought forward his schemes for covering the continent with magnificent works at the expense of the treasury of the United States, and of uniting the republics of both Americas into a kind of holy alliance, it was Randolph's piercing sarcasm which, more than anything else, made plain to new members the fallacy, the peril, of such a system. His opposition to this wild federalism involved his support of Andrew Jackson; but there was no other choice open to him.

Seldom did he display in Congress so much audacity and ingenuity as in defending General Jackson while he was a candidate for the Presidency against Mr. Adams. The two objections oftenest urged against Jackson were that he was a military chieftain, and that he could not spell. Mr. Randolph discoursed on these two points in a most amusing manner, displaying all the impudence and ignorance of the tory, inextricably mingled with the good sense and wit of the man. "General Jackson cannot write," said a friend. "Granted," replied he. "General Jackson cannot write because he was never taught; but his competitor cannot write because he was not teachable." He made a bold remark in one of his Jacksonian harangues. "The talent which enables a man to write a book or make a speech has no more relation to the leading of an army or a senate, than it has to the dressing of a dinner." He pronounced a fine eulogium on the Duke of Marlborough, one of the worst spellers in Europe, and then asked if gentlemen would have had that illustrious man "superseded by a Scotch schoolmaster." It was in the same ludicrous harangue that he uttered his famous joke upon those schools in which young ladies were said to be "finished." "Yes," he exclaimed, "_finished_ indeed; finished for all the duties of a wife, or mother, or mistress of a family." Again he said:

"There is much which it becomes a second-rate man to know,
which a first-rate man ought to be ashamed to know. No head
was ever clear and sound that was stuffed with
book-learning. My friend, W.R. Johnson, has many a groom
that can clean and dress a racehorse, and ride him too,
better than he can."

He made the sweeping assertion, that no man had ever presided over a government with advantage to the country governed, who had not in him the making of a good general; for, said he, "the talent for government lies in these two things,--sagacity to perceive, and decision to act." Really, when we read this ingenious apology for, or rather eulogy of, ignorance, we cease to wonder that General Jackson should have sent him to Russia.

The religious life of Randolph is a most curious study. He experienced in his lifetime four religious changes, or conversions. His gentle mother, whose name he seldom uttered without' adding with tender emphasis, "God bless her!" was such a member of the Church of England as gentle ladies used to be before an "Evangelical" party was known in it. She taught his infant lips to pray; and, being naturally trustful and affectionate, he was not an unapt pupil. But in the library of the old mansion on the Appomattox, in which he passed his forming years, there was a "wagon-load" of what he terms "French infidelity," though it appears there were almost as many volumes of Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Collins, Hume, and Gibbon, as there were of Diderot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, and Voltaire. These works he read in boyhood; and when he came to mingle among men, he found that the opinions of such authors prevailed in the circles which he most frequented. Just as he, a natural tory, caught some tincture of republicanism from Jefferson and his friends, so he, the natural believer, adopted the fashion of scepticism, which then ruled the leading minds of all lands; and just as he lapsed back into toryism when the spell which drew him away from it had spent its force, so he became, in the decline of his powers, a prey to religious terrors. For twenty-two years, as we have said, he held aloof from religion, its ministers, and its temples. The disease that preyed upon him so sharpened his temper, and so perverted his perceptions of character, that, one after another, he alienated all the friends and relations with whom he ought to have lived; and he often found himself, between the sessions of Congress, the sole white tenant of his lonely house at Roanoke,--the sick and solitary patriarch of a family of three hundred persons. He sought to alleviate this horrid solitude by adopting and rearing the orphaned sons of old friends; to whom, when he was himself, he was the most affectionate and generous of guardians. But even they could not very long endure him; for, in His adverse moods, he was incarnate Distrust, and, having conceived a foul suspicion, his genius enabled him to give it such withering expression that it was not in the nature of a young man to pass it by as the utterance of transient madness. So they too left him, and he was utterly alone in the midst of a crowd of black dependants. We see from his letters, that, while he saw the impossibility of his associating with his species, he yet longed and pined for their society and love. Perhaps there never lived a more unhappy person. Revering women, and formed to find his happiness in domestic life, he was incapable of being a husband; and if this had not been the case, no woman could have lived with him. Yearning for companionship, but condemned to be alone, his solace was the reflection that, so long as there was no one near him, he was a torment only to himself. "Often," he writes in one of his letters,

"I mount my horse and sit upon him for ten or fifteen
minutes, wishing to go somewhere, but not knowing where to
ride; for I would escape anywhere from the incubus that
weighs me down, body and soul; but the fiend follows me _en
croupe_.... The strongest considerations of duty are barely
sufficient to prevent me from absconding to some distant
country, where I might live and die unknown."

A mind in such a state as this is the natural prey of superstition. A dream, he used to say, first recalled his mind to the consideration of religion. This was about the year 1810, at the height of those hot debates that preceded the war of 1812. For nine years, he tells us, the subject gradually gained upon him, so that, at last, it was his first thought in the morning and his last at night. From the atheism upon which he had formerly plumed himself, he went to the opposite extreme. For a long time he was plunged into the deepest gloom, regarding himself as a sinner too vile to be forgiven. He sought for comfort in the Bible, in the Prayer-book, in conversation and correspondence with religious friends, in the sermons of celebrated preachers. He formed a scheme of retiring from the world into some kind of religious retreat, and spending the rest of his life in prayers and meditation. Rejecting this as a cowardly desertion of the post of duty, he had thoughts of setting up a school for children, and becoming himself a teacher in it. This plan, too, he laid aside, as savoring of enthusiasm. Meanwhile, this amiable and honest gentleman, whose every error was fairly attributable to the natural limitations of his mind or to the diseases that racked his body, was tormented by remorse, which would have been excessive if he had been a pirate. He says that, after three years of continual striving, he still dared not partake of the Communion, feeling himself "unworthy." "I was present," he writes, "when Mr. Hoge invited to the table, and I would have given all I was worth to have been able to approach it." Some inkling of his condition, it appears, became known to the public, and excited great good-will towards him on the part of many persons of similar belief.

Some of his letters written during this period contain an almost ludicrous mixture of truth and extravagance. He says in one of them, that his heart has been softened, and he "_thinks_ he has _succeeded_ in forgiving all his enemies"; then he adds, "There is not a human being that I would hurt if it were in my power,--not even Bonaparte." In another place he remarks that the world is a vast mad-house, and, "if what is to come be anything like what has passed, it would be wise to abandon the bulk to the underwriters,--the worms." In the whole of his intercourse with mankind, he says he never met with but three persons whom he did not, on getting close to their hearts, discover to be unhappy; and they were the only three he had ever known who had a religion. He expresses this truth in language which limits it to one form or kind of religion, the kind which he heard expounded in the churches of Virginia in 1819. Give it broader expression, and every observer of human life will assent to it. It is indeed most true, that no human creature gets much out of life who has no religion, no sacred object, to the furtherance of which his powers are dedicated.

He obtained some relief at length, and became a regular communicant of the Episcopal Church. But although he ever after manifested an extreme regard for religious things and persons, and would never permit either to be spoken against in his presence without rebuke, he was very far from edifying his brethren by a consistent walk. At Washington, in the debates, he was as incisive and uncharitable as before. His denunciations of the second President Adams's personal character were as outrageous as his condemnation of parts of his policy was just. Mr. Clay, though removed from the arena of debate by his appointment to the Department of State, was still the object of his bitter sarcasm; and at length he included the President and the Secretary in that merciless philippic in which he accused Mr. Clay of forgery, and styled the coalition of Adams and Clay as "the combination of the Puritan and the Blackleg." He used language, too, in the course of this speech, which was understood to be a defiance to mortal combat, and it was so reported to Mr. Clay. The reporters, however, misunderstood him, as it was not his intention nor his desire to fight. Nevertheless, to the astonishment and sorrow of his religious friends, he accepted Mr. Clay's challenge with the utmost possible promptitude, and bore himself throughout the affair like (to use the poor, lying, tory cant of the last generation) "a high-toned Virginia gentleman." Colonel Benton tells us that Mr. Randolph invented an ingenious excuse for the enormous inconsistency of his conduct on this occasion. A duel, he maintained, was private war, and was justifiable on the same ground as a war between two nations. Both were lamentable, but both were allowable when there was no other way of getting redress for insults and injuries. This was plausible, but it did not deceive _him_. He knew very well that his offensive language respecting a man whom he really esteemed was wholly devoid of excuse. He had the courage requisite to expiate the offence by standing before Mr. Clay's pistol; but he could not stand before his countrymen and confess that his abominable antithesis was but the spurt of mingled ill-temper and the vanity to shine. Any good tory can fight a duel with a respectable degree of composure; but to own one's self, in the presence of a nation, to have outraged the feelings of a brother-man, from the desire to startle and amuse an audience, requires the kind of valor which tories do not know. "Whig and tory," says Mr. Jefferson, "belong to natural history." But then there is such a thing, we are told, as the regeneration of the natural man; and we believe it, and cling to it as a truth destined one day to be resuscitated and purified from the mean interpretations which have made the very word sickening to the intelligence of Christendom. Mr. Randolph had not achieved the regeneration of his nature. He was a tory still. In the testing hour, the "high-toned Virginia gentleman" carried the day, without a struggle, over the communicant.

During the last years of his life, the monotony of his anguish was relieved by an occasional visit to the Old World. It is interesting to note how thoroughly at home he felt himself among the English gentry, and how promptly they recognized him as a man and a brother. He was, as we have remarked, _more_ English than an Englishman; for England does advance, though slowly, from the insular to the universal. Dining at a great house in London, one evening, he dwelt with pathetic eloquence upon the decline of Virginia. Being asked what he thought was the reason of her decay, he startled and pleased the lords and ladies present by attributing it all to the repeal of the law of primogeniture. One of the guests tells us that this was deemed "a strange remark from a _Republican_" and that, before the party broke up, the company had "almost taken him for an aristocrat." It happened sometimes, when he was conversing with English politicians, that it was the American who defended the English system against the attacks of Englishmen; and so full of British prejudice was he, that, in Paris, he protested that a decent dinner could not be bought for money. Westminster Abbey woke all his veneration. He went into it, one morning, just as service was about beginning, and took his place among the worshippers. Those of our readers who have attended the morning service at an English cathedral on a week-day cannot have forgotten the ludicrous smallness of the congregation compared with the imposing array of official assistants. A person who has a little tincture of the Yankee in him may even find himself wondering how it can "pay" the British empire to employ half a dozen reverend clergymen and a dozen robust singers to aid seven or eight unimportant members of the community in saying their prayers. But John Randolph of Roanoke had not in him the least infusion of Yankee. Standing erect in the almost vacant space, he uttered the responses in a tone that was in startling contrast to the low mumble of the clergyman's voice, and that rose above the melodious amens of the choir. He took it all in most serious earnest. When the service was over, he said to his companion, after lamenting the hasty and careless manner in which the service had been performed, that he esteemed it an honor to have worshipped God in Westminster Abbey. As he strolled among the tombs, he came, at last, to the grave of two men who had often roused his enthusiasm. He stopped, and spoke: