 | CHAPTER V. John Randolph |  |
CHAPTER V.
VAULTING AMBITION.
There is nothing to show that Randolph was
the real author of Judge Chase's impeachment;
on the contrary, it appears from the letters 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 manager
in that cause, of which he was now in charge.
Nicholson, too, had made all the preparations
for this second, more serious exercise of the impeaching
power. However readily the scheme
may have fallen in with Randolph's wishes and
prejudices, it was certainly Nicholson who urged
him to action, and provided him with such law
as he could not do without. Properly, therefore,
the credit or discredit of the measure
should have fallen upon Nicholson and Mr.
Jefferson, but Randolph willingly relieved them
of the load.
Judge Chase's recent charge to the Baltimore
grand jury in May, 1803, offensive as it
or misdemeanor as to render his conviction certain,
and the impeachers thought it safer to
strengthen their cause by alleging other offences
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 impeachment, and without complaint
from the suitors in his court. To go back
four years, and search old court records for
offences forgotten and condoned, was awkward.
Could the impeachers excuse themselves
and their House for permitting 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 coordinate
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
would not do himself is so large as to strike
even careless attention. He would have shuddered
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. Jefferson 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 politicians; 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.
such a motion, and he condescended to act a
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 bill had been introduced to change the
circuits, by which Judge Chase was assigned to
that of Pennsylvania, and one of the Pennsylvanian
members, John Smilie, made a speech
on February 16, 1803, in connection with this
bill. 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 well-known stories of Chase's arbitrary
conduct at the trial of Fries in April,
1800. These remarks were of so little importance
in Mr. Smilie'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
fun in the solemnity with which Randolph now
rose and said that Mr. Smilie'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 all possibility of bringing
think proper to take any steps in the business.
Finding 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 well to myself as to those whom
I represent, to investigate the charges then
made, and the official character of the judge in
general."
Mr. Smilie 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 fill
with sufficient authority, was a stroke of Randolph's
wit, characteristic of the man. As for
the whole statement with which Randolph introduced
his motion, it is curious chiefly because it
is, to say the least, inconsistent with the facts.
Mr. Smilie's speech had no more than the oration
of Cicero against Clodius to do with Randolph's
sudden zeal. Smilie'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, 1803; and it was
only then that the idea of impeachment was
suggested. Yet this invocation of Smilie in
place of Mr. Jefferson was less amusing than
the coolness with which the speaker required
the House to believe that his only knowledge
was derived from a few remarks made in Congress
three years after the offence. The trial of
Fries had taken place in Philadelphia, in April,
1800, within twenty rods of the building where
Randolph was then sitting as a member of Congress,
and excited great attention, especially
among the members, many of whom were present
at it; Mr. Dallas, the most prominent republican
lawyer in the State, closely connected
with all the leaders of his party, acted as counsel
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 afterwards
caused by President Adams's pardon
of Fries, Randolph still asserted that the subject
was new to him, when Mr. Smilie, 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 alleged iniquity, but, with other members,
I was employed in discharging my duties
to my constituents, 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
go so far as to assert that he and his
friends had never heard of Callender's trial at
Richmond, which was to constitute other counts
in the indictment?
Mr. Smilie, thus put forward as official accuser,
told his story over again. Without other
evidence, after a long debate, the inquiry was
ordered, and Randolph, with his friend Nicholson,
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 Callender; 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 Jefferson 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 complicated, but it is so
closely entwined with the thread of Randolph's
life 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
friend Bryan, did not end the matter of the Yazoo
grants, and the very pains taken to fortify
that act by incorporating it in the state Constitution
showed doubt as to its legality. The
companies 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,
wherever there was money to be made by it,
had transferred the property to others. A wild
speculation followed involving some two million
dollars in Massachusetts alone. Were the
companies and these third parties innocent
purchasers? 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 evidence that the purchasers knew their
risk was that the companies in all cases declined
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
actually owned and occupied the land; and at
length, in 1802, Mr. Jefferson succeeded in obtaining
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. Madison, the Secretary
of the Treasury, Mr. Gallatin, and the
Attorney-General, Mr. Levi Lincoln, commissioners
for arranging the terms of settlement,
reported, on February, 14, 1803, that although
in their opinion the title of the claimants
could not be supported, yet they believed that
"the interest of the United States, the tranquillity
of those who may hereafter inhabit
that country, and various equitable considerations
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 million
acres be set aside, within which, under certain
restrictions, the claimants might locate the
quantity of land allotted to them, or from the
sale of which they were to receive certificates
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,
in 1810, the subject came before the Supreme
Court, in the case of Fletcher against Peck,
Chief Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of
the court that the legislature of Georgia had,
by its act of 1795 and its grants of land, executed
a contract with the claimants; that the
rescinding act of 1796 impaired the obligation
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 intended
to resist the Yazoo claims had a difficult
task on his hands. The President, Mr.
Madison, Mr. Gallatin, 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 respectable citizens were petitioners
for the settlement. 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
refusal to compromise would throw the whole
matter into the courts, with the result of retarding
settlement, multiplying expenses, and probably
getting in the end an adverse decision.
It would create serious political ill-feeling 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 legislature
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 public 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,
"provided such repeal be not forbidden by
the Constitution of such State, or of the United
States;" the sixth affirmed that the rescinding
act of Georgia "was forbidden neither by
the Constitution 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 government; and the last forbade any
used in satisfying the claims.
These resolutions covered the whole ground;
they swept statements of fact, principles of law,
theories of the Constitution, considerations of
equity, like 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 task-master,
and cracked his whip as though they were his
own negroes. "No course that can be pursued
shall prevent me from bringing out the sense
of the House. Whether the question on these
resolutions shall be attempted to be got rid of
by the previous question, or by a postponement,
I will 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 relinquish till I shall have exercised
every energy 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 marshalled in support of these claims.
We have had to contend against the bear of the
arctic and the lion of the torrid zone." Matthew
Lyon, once a martyr to the sedition law,
Griswold's face and rolled with him on the
floor of the House, was in fact a supporter of
the compromise; and being a man of strong
sense and courage, did not shrink from Randolph's
whip. He made a sensible speech
in reply to this challenge, 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 majority,
52 to 51. On all 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 without
prejudice or feeling, it must be acknowledged
to involve a serious doubt. That Randolph
was right need not be argued; that he
was wholly in the wrong is not to be lightly
admitted. The people of Georgia believed
themselves betrayed by their agents, who had,
in their name, entered into a contract against
public interest, induced thereto by corrupt
motives. Were the people to be forever bound
representatives?
They had instantly, publicly, violently disavowed
those agents and repudiated their act,
calling upon all the parties who had meanwhile
paid value for lands, under the obnoxious
grants, to receive back their money and surrender
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 College case, lay
in the breast of Chief Justice Marshall, waiting
till Mr. Jefferson's day should be over. Yet,
even now, with all the weight of those decisions
and many more, it is hard for laymen to surrender
their judgment on this subject. Were
a state legislature to-day bribed by a great
railroad company to confer a grant of exclusive
privileges, fatal to the public interests, for a
nominal consideration, it would be dangerous
to the public 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
once an implied right, in every grant, to alter or
amend it, if contrary to public interest? Was
it politically safe, even though legally correct,
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 sovereignty,
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 settlement
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 solid 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. Gallatin, his strongest friend;
and if he made enemies of the northern democrats,
it was because he knew the weakness
not work in such paths; only a classical, overtowering
love of rule thus ventures to defy the
opinion of others. Had Randolph wanted office
he would, like Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison,
have conciliated the northern democrats
and smoothed the processes of corruption; he
would have shut his eyes to what was going
on in the lobby, well aware that his blind war
against his party must do more harm than good.
Office he did not want, and he willingly flung
his chances away, but only to grasp at the
higher, moral authority of a popular tribune.
He believed that the administration, backed by
northern democrats, was forgetting the principles
on which it had claimed and won confidence
and power; he foresaw an over-powerful
Executive purchasing influence by jobs and
patronage, the experience of all past ages, and
falling at last into the hands of a Cæsar 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 all expenditure
of any kind that fed an interest; all
assumptions of power, all concessions to influential
fraud, were mere steps to Roman degradation.
Madman he may have been, but his
madness had a strong element of reason and
wrong; the time was near at hand when he
was to tell them that he could no longer share
their offices and honors.
Thus far, although touching the extreme limit
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 offences long ago tacitly condoned,
he was still more formidable to Mr.
Jefferson and the Cabinet. With such dictatorial
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 political comet, and
no extraordinary knowledge of mathematics
was needed to show them where to look for a
coming collision.
The session, however, was now at an end,
and Randolph buried himself again at Bizarre.
As a curiosity, the following extracts from a
on August 27, 1804, are worth reading. The
famous duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander
Hamilton had just taken place, and
Burr's political ruin, caused chiefly by the enmity
of De Witt Clinton and by the bitter persecution
of De Witt Clinton's newspaper, the
"American Citizen," edited by an Englishman
named Cheetham, was the excitement of the
day.
RANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
"I have not seen, although I have heard, of the
attack which you mention, upon Gallatin, in the
`Aurora.' That paper is so long in reaching me,
and, moreover, is so stuffed with city, or rather suburb,
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,'
published almost upon the spot, should so grossly misrepresent
a plain matter of fact, so easily ascertained,
what reliance can be placed upon a newspaper statement?
My incredulity refused to credit Hamilton's
death, which I thought it very likely would be contradicted
by the next mail; 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 little, I believe, from your
own. I feel for Hamilton's immediate connections
real concern; for himself, nothing; for his party and
crocodile 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 fallen, like Lucifer,
never to rise again, the unprincipled persecution
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., all bewailed
his loss.) As it is, those publications 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 will detest his oppressors. They cannot, they
will not, grope in the vile mire of seaport politics, not
less vitiated than their atmosphere. Burr's is indeed
an irreparable defeat. He is cut off from all hope
of a retreat among the federalists, not so much because
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-morrow,
ere those shoes were old in which they followed
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 Hamilton, 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
of right and wrong, so delicate a sense of propriety,
as he there exhibits should have had such little
influence on his general conduct! In his correspondence
with Hamilton, how visible is his ascendency
over him, and how sensible does the latter appear
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 obscurity,
much equivocation, and many attempts at evasion,
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 vigorous
old hound, where no shift is permitted to avail
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 all excited for the man, as they have
been in some degree by the savage yell which has
been raised against him, I applauded the spirit and
admired the style of his compositions. They are the
first proof which I ever saw of his ability."
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
Madison, and in return was charged by William
Jackson, editor of the "Political Register," of
Philadelphia, with an attempt to corrupt the
press by Spanish gold. Mr. Charles Pinckney
of South Carolina, our minister at Madrid, had,
without the authority of government, undertaken
to break off his relations with the government
of Spain. W. C. C. Claiborne, 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 discussed
by him at a later time.
On October 14, 1804, he wrote from Bizarre
to the Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin:
—
RANDOLPH TO GALLATIN.
"On my return from Fredericksburg, after a racing
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 inquiries
that I could not answer on the subject of
public affairs, to find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
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 all? The longer I
live, the more do I incline to somebody's opinion
that there is in the affairs of this world a mechanism
of which the very agents themselves are ignorant,
and which, of course, they can neither calculate nor
control. As much free will as you please in everything
else, but in politics I must ever be a necessitarian.
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 lie
in Anglo-American or Castilian fashions, just as it
suits them, and when people resort to me for intelligence,
instead of playing the owl and putting on a face
of solemn nonsense, I very fairly tell them, with perfect
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 originality
too well to be a second-hand politician when I can
help it. It is enough to live upon the broken victuals
and be tricked out in the cast-off finery of you
first-rate statesmen all the winter. When I cross the
Potomac I leave behind me all the scraps, shreds, and
patches of politics which I collect during the session,
`Virginia cloth,' of a planter, which is clean, whole,
and comfortable, even if it be homely. Nevertheless,
I have patriotism enough left to congratulate
you on the fullness of the public purse, and cannot
help wishing that its situation could be concealed
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 hectoring
before the petty corsairs of the coast of Barbary,
she should truckle to the great pirate of the German
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 unwilling
to surrender it.
"On the subject of Louisiana you are also apprised
that my sentiments coincide with your own,
and it is principally 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 shall not be overpowered.
If Spain be `fallen from her old Castilian faith,
candor, and dignity,' it must be allowed that we
have been judicious in our choice of a minister to
partaking something of the character which distinguished
her late sovereign when she acquired that
territory, the selection of a pompous nothing for a
Governor, will 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
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 language
perfectly intelligible to the people of Louisiana,
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 well apprised
of what the other has to say, that whilst the
eyes and ears of the admiring Louisianians are filled
with the majestic person and sonorous periods of their
chief magistrate, their understandings should be utterly
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 situation.
You really 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 previously
taught him; we want an automaton, and a puppet
will not supply his place."
This letter, which otherwise contains nothing
remarkable except perhaps its egotism,
in opposition to government. The writer
shows irritation at his want of influence in public
affairs; he will 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
overawe his fellow citizens at New Orleans;
and he has none but words of contempt for all
the President's appointments. What else could
a federalist have said, and how could he have
shown less respect for the sentiments of 1800?
Randolph, however, was a fault-finder by profession;
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 remembered
his own opinions from one month to another.
Yet in regard to the most notable idea
expressed in this letter, he was so far consistent
as to repeat it in a still more emphatic form
during the next session of Congress; for when,
on December 6, 1804, the bill 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
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 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 hostilities 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 efficaciously defending our ports and harbors,
and would struggle till the whole of our marine was
annihilated, if in the contest Britain should not leave
us a single ship. Though we lost all, 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 degradation
of national honor, and ought never to be
borne with, let it come from any nation whatever."
There was no exaggeration in the mild remark
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
of our government, in vehement assertions that
a navy was a mere invitation of insult? Who
for years vomited fire and blood against the
federalist party for trying to be prepared against
war? In the course of American history the
reader may meet with many mad inconsistencies,
but he will never find one more bewildering
than this. In Randolph's later life 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 V. John Randolph | |