University of Virginia Library

John Randolph, of Roanoke, was one of the most remarkable men of
our country. He has now been dead over forty years, yet all over the
land, in Virginia particularly, you hear his sayings reported as if they had
been uttered but yesterday.

In early life he was frequently thrown into company with men more
or less poisoned with French infidelity. Then appeared the power of
maternal love and piety. He once said: "I should have been a French
atheist if it had not been for one thing, and that was the memory of the
times when my departed mother used to take my little hands in hers, and
caused me on my knees to say; `Our Father, who art in Heaven.' "

Many instances of Mr. Randolph's great eccentricity of character are
still retained throughout the country. But in them the public is but little
interested.

In pure Anglo-Saxon and in Latin Mr. Randolph was a good scholar.
He was very familiar with Virgil. His ear was easily offended by the
use of a wrong word, or the mispronunciation of the right word. Even
in his last sickness, some one said: "Mr. Randolph, do you lay easy?"
He replied: "I lie as easily as perhaps a dying man can."

Mr. Randolph often crossed the sea. He highly valued British honesty,
British manufactures and British laws. He admitted very readily our indebtedness
to the British constitution for many of our liberties, civil and
religious. He carefully studied the writings of Edmund Burke. I long
owned a copy of that statesman's writings, which once belonged to Randolph.

It was often underlined, and in many places the margin was
covered with pencil notes. Mr. Randolph's great speeches gave unmistakable
evidence of his intimate acquaintance with Burke.

From early boyhood I had read and heard much of Mr. Randolph.
His early speeches were commended by Patrick Henry and other great
men. He was wholly opposed to the war of 1812. This made him
many enemies. For a time it cost him his seat in Congress. He never
spoke in high terms of Mr. Madison's administration. This was one of
the points on which he and Mr. Clay widely differed. But Randolph
greatly admired Mr. Monroe and his public measures.

In gaining a prodigious influence over his constituents, Mr. Randolph
very successfully used two arts. One was to make young men afraid of
his tongue. The other was to win over all the old men by special attention.
He greatly praised, he even flattered old men. But his tongue was
a terror to the young. Often at the hustings, and sometimes in Congress,
he said: "No man ever had such constituents."

At one time Mr. Randolph seemed intent on vieing with others in raising
fine horses. At a heavy cost he made one or two importations. The
result was not satisfactory. He had a few fine animals for the saddle and
sulky; but his own statement was that his horses were "too light for the
draft and too slow for the turf."

I was once in a company of gentlemen from Virginia and North Carolina,
when some one said Mr. Randolph seemed to have very little self-knowledge.
One present replied, "However that may be, gentlemen, I
think you will admit he knows a deal about other people."

Through life Mr. Randolph seems to have been a stranger to fear; no
man ever saw his face blanched with terror. When a young man he was
in Petersburg, Virginia. Being on the street some one told him of a desperado
near the market, who had committed some outrage and refused to
surrender to the officer of the law. "Where is he," said Mr. Randolph,
and immediately started down Sycamore street. A number followed.
Coming near the violent man, he fixed his eye on him, marched fearlessly
up to him, laid his hand on him, and said, "Constable, do your duty."

Early in life Mr. Randolph took a lively interest and participation in
the disputes and troubles arising out of the alien and sedition laws. This
was in the days when the elder Adams was president. The election of
Mr. Jefferson brought with it the early repeal of those odious measures,
and was therefore hailed with joy by Mr. Randolph. To this time Mr.

Randolph referred, during the administration of the younger Adams, when
he said: "I bore some humble part in putting down the dynasty of John
the First, and, by the grace of God, I hope to aid in putting down the
dynasty of John the Second."

It has sometimes been said that Mr. Randolph never originated or carried
out any great measure. And this is true. But he thought the world
was too much governed. He believed that beyond the protection of the
people in their rights, most of the measures proposed under the promise of
immense benefit to the people, were delusive and injurious. Mr. Clay's
"American System," the "Panama Congress," and all such schemes were
objects of his strong aversion.

In 1829-'30, "the Mother of States and of Statesmen" was honored with
a convention to make for her a new constitution. That was by far the ablest
and most venerable body of men I have ever seen assembled on affairs of
State. In it were two ex-Presidents—Madison and Monroe, the Chief
Justice of the United States—John Marshall, Littleton Waller Tazewell,
John Randolph of Roanoke, Richard Venable, Philip Dodridge, Briscoe
G. Baldwin, Chapman Johnson, Richard Morris, Samuel Taylor, Benjamin
Watkins Leigh, Judge Coalter, Henry St. George Tucker, and a large
number of men of high consideration.

In this convention the policy of the East was to have as little change as
possible. On the other side the desire was for great changes. Early in
the session one gentleman used the phrase, "I protest." Mr. Randolph
seeing that the member was likely to aid the party desiring change, undertook
to destroy his influence by pouring ridicule on him for using language
technically proper only in the British House of Lords.

Another member, before his election, had opposed any convention, or
any change in the constitution. Subsequently he was a candidate for the
convention, and agreed to favor considerable changes, particularly in the
matter of representation. In a speech of some power, Mr. Randolph
compared him to the captain, so famous in a celebrated novel, who fought
on any side. The chief power of the speech was probably in weakening
the courage of the gentleman, and in restraining him from the masterly
defence he was capable of making in any respectable cause.

In the convention was a preacher, who had made some noise in the
world. I was present when he rose to make his address, intended to be
powerful. But Mr. Randolph, who was a great actor, drew many eyes to
himself. At first he leaned forward, gazed as if with wonder and in awe.

For two or three minutes he looked and acted as if he expected something
great. By degrees he seemed to lose interest in the speaker, and finally
sunk back into his seat, with a strong expression of contempt on his countenance.
He had not said a word, nor violated any parliamentary law.
The acting was perfect. It had its effect. The speaker could not rally
the courage of his party.

Yet near the close of the convention Mr. Randolph made a declaration
of his good will towards every member of the body, but this came too
late to relieve some very painful emotions in several minds.

The new constitution was submitted to the vote of the people in 1830.
In April Mr. Randolph addressed the people who had elected him. I
heard his speech at Charlotte Court-house. His appearance was impressive.
He was tall and thin. His beardless face was pale, and full of
small wrinkles. He was dressed like an old man, very neatly, but very
simply. His eyes were as brilliant as they had ever been. His long
bony forefinger seemed to have the power of a magician's wand. In five
days from that time I could have repeated the whole speech.

And yet that speech disappointed some. A stranger, of some intelligence,
came there expecting to be thrilled, or melted, or aroused to indignation.
But Mr. Randolph, so far from being impassioned, was as calm
as any man ever seems to be. He affected no humor. He was as simple
as a little child. A few times his irony was cutting, his sarcasms biting,
his rebuke terrible, but there seemed to be no passion in it all.

Mr. Randolph put his hearers in possession of his own thoughts. This
was his aim. And his thoughts were indelibly impressed on the mind of
every intelligent listener. My judgment to-day, at the distance of nearly
forty-seven years is, that it was one of the most effective speeches I have
ever heard. It was conclusive. No one asked any questions. The old
men wept. Here is one entire paragraph: "Formerly tyrants and the
authors of misrule used to slit the noses, crop the ears, and brand the skin
of those under their hated power. But this course made it unpleasant to
look at their subjects. Their faces were hideous. Afterwards they tried
another plan. They hired out their subjects to fight for foreign potentates,
in wars in which they had no concern. Many of these mercenaries never
returned. This plan left their country filled with widows and orphans.
At length this scheme was abandoned. But our modern wrong-doers in
power have found a far better way of gaining their vile ends. They give
to each man what they denominate a fee simple title to a piece of land,

perhaps as much as he can cultivate. He calls it his own. His house is
his castle. The law protects him in his possessions. He is encouraged
to ply all the arts of industry, and to make all he can. Then the hated
tyrants send around the tax-gatherer, three or four times a year, and take
all he has made. This pays. Remember what I say. This one is to be
the modern game."

Mr. Randolph never was married. He left a will, with codicils. This
was virtually set aside, after long litigation, except so much as liberated
his slaves. However much men may have hated or pitied Mr. Randolph,
no man ever held him in contempt.

John Randolph of Roanoke.—The following sketch of this distinguished
orator, written thirty years ago, but never published, is furnished
by a gentleman who had been in habits of intimacy with him ever since.
It was written off-hand, after residing with him in the same hotel at
Georgetown for some weeks, in a constant familiar intercourse which has
continued at intervals until his decease. The writer bears his testimony
that nothing in the life and conduct of Mr. Randolph, during all their
subsequent acquaintance, gave him occasion to believe for a moment that
his early impressions of his character were in the slightest degree erroneous.—N.
Y. Courier.

Mr. Randolph is beyond comparison the most singular and striking person
that I ever met with. As an orator he is unquestionably the first in the
country, and yet there are few men who labor under so many physical disadvantages.
He seems made up of contradictions. Though his person
is exceedingly tall, thin and disproportioned, he is the most graceful man
in the world; and with an almost feminine voice, he is more distinctly heard
in the House than either Mr. D. or Roger—though the former is more
noisy than a field preacher, and the latter more vocifierous than a crier of
oysters. When seated on the opposite side of the halls of Congress Mr.
Randolph looks like a youth of sixteen, but when he rises to speak, there
is an almost sublimity in the effect proceeding from the contrast in his
height when seated or standing. In the former his shoulders are raised,
his head depressed, his body bent; in the latter he is seen with his figure
dilated in the attitude of inspiration, his head raised, his long thin finger

pointing, and his dark, clear, chestnut eye flashing lightning at the object
of his overwhelming sarcasm.

Mr. Randolph looks, acts and speaks like no other man I have ever
seen. He is original, unique in everything. His style of oratory is emphatically
his own. Often diffusive and discursive in his subjects, his
language is simple, brief and direct, and however he may seem to wander
from the point occasionally, he never fails to return to it with a bound,
illuminating it with flashes of wit or the happiest illustrations drawn from
a retentive memory and a rich imagination. Though eccentric in his
conduct in the ordinary affairs of life, and his intercourse with the world,
there will be found more of what is called common sense in his speeches
than in those of any other man in Congress. His illustrations are almost
always drawn from familiar scenes, and no man is so happy in allusions to
fables, proverbs and the ordinary incidents of human life, of which he has
been a keen observer. His is not that fungus species of eloquence which
expands itself into empty declamation, sacrificing strength, clearness and
perspicuity, to the more popular charm of redundant metaphors and
periods rounded with all the precision of the compass. Mr. Randolph is
a man of wit, and wit deals in comparisons; yet his language is perfectly
simple, and less figurative than that of any of our distinguished speakers.
This I attribute to the clearness and vigor of his conceptions. When a
man distinctly comprehends his subject, he will explain himself in a few
words and without metaphor; but when he is incapable of giving it precise
and definite form, his language becomes figurative, and his ideas, like
objects seen through a mist, have neither outline nor dimensions. Nothing
is of more easy comprehension than the ideas and language of the
great orator of Virginia.

Though continually worried by the little terriers of the house, who
seem to be sent there for no other purpose than to bark at him, Mr. Randolph
never becomes loud or boisterous, but utters the most biting sarcasm
with a manner the most irritatingly courteous, and a voice that
resembles the music of the spheres. Such, indeed, is the wonderful clearness
of his voice, and the perfection of his enunciation, that his lowest
tones circulate like echoes through the hall of Congress, and are more distinctly
understood than the roarings of M. L., the bellowings of R. N., or
the bleatings of the rosy and stentorian Robert Ross. In all the requisites
of a great orator he has no superior, and in the greatest of all, that of

attracting, charming, riveting the attention of his hearers, no equal in this
country, or perhaps in the world.

Mr. Randolph has fared, as most distinguished political leaders have
done, in having his conduct misrepresented, his foibles exaggerated, and
his peculiarities caricatured. The fault is in some measure his own. He
spares no adversary, and he has no right to expect they will spare him.
In this respect his example may well be a warning to inculcate among
rival leaders the necessity of toleration in politics as well as religion.
That he is irritable, capricious, and careless of the feelings of those for
whom he has no particular respect or regard, no one will deny. That he
is impatient in argument, and intolerant of opposition, is equally certain;
and the whole world knows that he is little solicitous to disguise his contempt
or dislike. But much of this peevish irritability may find its origin
and excuse in his physical sufferings. Almost from his boyhood he has
never known the blessings of health, nor ever enjoyed its anticipation.
His constitution is irretrievably broken, and though he may live many
years, they will, in all probability, be years of anxiety and suffering, embittered
by ridicule, instead of being soothed by the sympathy of the
world, which is ever apt to suppose that a man cannot be sick without
dying. Men lingering under the slow consuming tyranny of a constitutional
infirmity, and dying, not by inches, but the hundredth part of
inches, seem to me among the most pitiable of the human race. The
world, and even their friends, come at last to believe their malady imaginary,
their complaints without cause. They grow tired of hearing a man
always proclaiming himself a victim to disease, yet at the same time
taking his share in the business, and apparently in the enjoyments of life,
and living on like the rest of his fellow creatures. "They jest at scars
that never felt a wound," and the very circumstances that should excite
additional commiseration too often give occasion to cold neglect or flippant
ridicule.

In this painful situation is Mr. Randolph at present, and it seems to me
that an apology at least for his selfish disregard of the feelings of others
may be found in his own hopeless sufferings and the want of sympathy.
I know of no situation more calculated to make a man a misanthrope;
and those who are foremost and loudest in their condemnation of Mr.
Randolph would do well to look to their own hearts, place themselves in
his situation, and then ask whether it does not naturally lead to, though it
may not justify, occasional irritation, or even habitual ill temper. I here

speak of this distinguished man as the world speaks of him. But so far
as I saw him, and this was at all hours, he is full of benignity and kindness.
His treatment of servants, and especially his own slaves, was that
of the kindest master, and he always called his personal attendant
"Johnny," a circumstance, to my mind, strongly indicative of habitual
good will towards him. To me, from whose admiration or applause he
could at that time at least anticipate neither honor or advantage, his behavior
was uniformly kind, almost affectionate, and it will be very long
before I lose the recollection of his conciliating smile, the music of his
mellow voice, or the magic of his gentle manners. We passed our evenings
together, or I may perhaps rather say a good portion of the night,
for he loved to sit up late, because, as he was wont to say, the grave, not
the bed, was the place of rest for him. On these occasions there was a
charm in his conversation I never found in that of any other person.

Virginia was the goddess of his idolatry, and of her he delighted to
talk. He loved her so much, and so dearly, that he sometimes almost forgot
he was also a citizen of the United States. The glories and triumphs
of the eloquence of Patrick Henry, and the ancient hospitality of the
aristocracy of the Old Dominion, were also his favorite subjects, of which
he never tired, and with which he never tired me. In short, the impression
on my mind is never to be eradicated, that his heart was liberal,
open and kind, and that his occasional ebullitions of spleen and impatience
were the spontaneous, perhaps irrepressible, efforts of a suffering
and debilitated frame, to relieve itself a moment from the eternal impression
of its own unceasing worryings.

But, whatever may be the defects of Mr. Randolph's temper, no one
can question his high and lofty independence of mind, or his unsullied
integrity as a public agent or a private gentleman. In the former character,
he has never abandoned his principles to suit any political crisis,
and in the latter he may emphatically be called an honest man. His
word and his bond are equally to be relied on, and as his country can
never accuse him of sacrificing her interests to his own ambition, so no
man can justly charge him with the breach of any private obligation. In
both these respects, he stands an illustrious example to a country in which
political talents are much more common then political integrity, and where
it is too much the custom to forget the actions of a man in our admiration
of his speeches.

It is with regret I add, that this brilliant man, who has already attracted

attention, not only of his countrymen, but of the world, will, in all probability,
survive but a few years. His health appears irretrievably lost, and
his constitution irreparably injured. A premature decay seems gradually
creeping upon all his vital powers, and an inevitable, unseen influence
appears to be dragging him to the grave. At the age of thirty, with all
the world in his grasp, wealth in his possession, and glory and power in
perspective, he is, in constitution, an infirm old man, with light, glossy
hair, parted over his forehead and tied loosely behind with a black riband;
teeth white as ivory; an eye sparkling with intellect, and a countenance
seamed with a thousand small wrinkles. At a distance of a hundred
yards, he will be mistaken for an overgrown boy of premature growth;
approach him, and at every step his appearance changes, and he becomes
gradually metamorphosed into an old man. You will then see a face such
as you never saw before, never will see again; if he likes you, a smile,
such as you never beheld on the face of any other man; and when that
smile passes away, a countenance bearing an expression of long continued
anxiety and suffering that will make your heart ache.

Such is Mr. Randolph, as he appeared to me at the age of thirty years.
He may be wayward, eccentric, self-willed and erratic. His opponents
sometimes insinuate that he is mad; but this is nothing more than the
whisperings of party malignity. Would to heaven there were more such
madmen among our rulers and legislators to make folly silent and wickedness
ashamed; to assert and defend the ancient principles of our revolution;
to detect quack politicians, quack lawyers and quack divines, and
to afford to his countrymen an example of inflexible integrity both in
public and private life. But he is original and unique in this as in everything
else; and when he departs this scene, in which he has suffered the
martyrdom of sickness and detraction combined, if living, I will bear this
testimony, that he will not leave behind any man that can claim superiority
over him as a glorious orator, a sagacious, high-minded, independent
patriot, and inflexibly honest man."