 | CHAPTER VIII. John Randolph |  |
CHAPTER VIII.
MONROE AND THE SMITHS.
Of all republican factions the most mischievous
was that which gathered round Robert
Smith, the Secretary of the Navy, and his
brother, Samuel Smith, the senator from Maryland.
The latter, during this turbulent session,
had contributed not a little to vex and worry
Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison by an attempt
to force himself upon them as a special envoy
to London to aid or supplant Monroe in his difficult
negotiations on the neutral trade. The
first effect of Randolph's violent outburst was
to drive General Smith back to discipline; the
remote result was to give him more influence
than before. As Smith wrote to his brother-in-law,
Wilson Cary Nicholas, on April 1, 1806: —
"The question was simply, Buy or Fight! Both
Houses by great majorities said, Buy! The manner
of buying appears a little disagreeable. Men will
differ even on that subject. Politicians will believe
it perfectly honest to induce France, `by money,' to
coerce Spain to sell that which she has absolutely
declared was her own property, and from which she
of our views and plans will render abortive
this negotiation, and make the Executive and poor
little Madison unpopular. Against this last he vents
his spleen. However, he spares nobody, and by this
conduct has compelled all to rally round the Executive
for their own preservation. From the Potomac,
north and east, the members adhere to the President;
south, they fall off daily from their allegiance."
Although Mr. Jefferson irritated the Smiths
by passing directly over their heads and taking
another Maryland man, the federalist lawyer
William Pinkney, as his new minister to England,
General Smith could now only submit in
silence to this sharp rebuke, the more marked
because the new appointment was not laid
before the Cabinet or discussed in advance.
Randolph's revolt had instantly stiffened the
party discipline, and the Smiths were forced
to wait.
The Smiths, however, knew when to wait
and when to intrigue, while Randolph knew
neither the one nor the other. To do him justice,
he was a wretched intriguer and no office-seeker.
He and his friends were remarkably
free from the meaner ambitions of political life;
they neither begged patronage nor asked for
money, nor did they tolerate jobbery in any
form. Mr. Madison always believed otherwise,
having sought an office, and with having persecuted
Mr. Madison for refusing it; but this
story merely marked a point in the quarrel; it
was a symptom, not a cause. Certain members
of Congress urged Randolph's appointment as
Minister to England, to fill the office which
Monroe held, which General Smith wanted, and
which William Pinkney got; but Randolph
himself did not know of the suggestion or hear
of the President's refusal until after the whole
transaction was closed. Then he was told of
the matter by the member who had been most
active in it, and, according to an account published
in the "Richmond Enquirer," evidently
by himself, he replied, "If I did not know you
so well, I should suppose you were sent to me
by the Executive to buy off my opposition, which
they fancy must take place from the course they
pursue." For years Randolph had been steadily
coming nearer a quarrel with his party leaders:
he was striving, as he believed, to drag them
back to their purer principles of 1800; they
were pleasantly drifting with the easy current
of power. The rupture was a mere matter of
time. Randolph's political isolation was in any
case inevitable, if Madison were to fill the executive
chair, for Mr. Madison, the President of
the United States, was a very different character
Resolutions.
He went back to Bizarre in April, 1806, a
ruined statesman, never again to represent authority
in Congress or to hope for ideal purity
in government. His illusions of youth were
roughly brushed away. He saw, what so few
Virginians were honest enough to see, that the
Virginian theory had been silently discarded by
its own authors, and that through it pure government
could never be expected. Henceforward
he must be only a fault-finder, a common
scold, whose exaggerated peculiarities of manner
would invite ridicule, and whose only means
of influence must lie in the violence of his temper
and the sharpness of his tongue. Among
thousands of honest and enthusiastic young men
who in every generation rush into public life,
with the generous confidence that at last government
shall be made harmless and politics refined,
Randolph was neither the greatest nor
the best; his successes and failures were not the
most alluring, and his fate was not more tragic
than that of others: but it is the misfortune of
these opal-winged dragon-flies of politics that
from the moment their wings become tarnished
and torn they themselves become objects of disgust.
After conceiving the career of a Pericles
or a Cæsar, to fall back among common men
self-respect. When his theories broke down,
and his Virginian leaders decided that their
own principles were visionary, Randolph had
nothing to do in political life but to accept what
other men accepted, or to look on and grumble
at evils which he no longer hoped to cure. He
had failed as a public man, and had dragged
with him in his failure all his friends and his
principles. Though he remained forever before
the public, he could not revive dead hopes or
bring back the noble aspirations of 1800.
To follow him through five-and-twenty years
of miserable discontent and growing eccentricities
would be time thrown away. He represented
no one but himself; he had very few
friends, and mere rags and tatters of political
principles. His party flung him aside, and
Mr. Jefferson, for a time very bitter against
him, soon learned that he was as little to be
feared as to be loved. Randolph, on his side,
dubbing his old leader with the contemptuous
epithet of "St. Thomas of Cantingbury," lost
no chance of expressing for Mr. Jefferson a
sort of patronizing and humiliating regard. In
his eyes Mr. Jefferson as President had weakly
betrayed all the principles he had preached in
opposition. The time was to come when Mr.
Jefferson would return to those principles, but
and it drove him mad.
For a while, however, he still hoped to retrieve
himself by bringing Mr. Monroe forward
as the candidate of Virginia for the next general
election in 1808. His letters to Nicholson
during the summer of 1806 give glimpses of his
situation before it was made wholly desperate
by the collapse of Monroe's treaty with England
in March, 1807, and the caucus nominations
of Mr. Madison in January, 1808.
RANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
"Bizarre, 3 June, 1806. . . . The public prints
teem with misrepresentations, which it would be vain
to oppose, even if an independent press could be found
to attempt it. The torrent is for the present resistless.
I long for the meeting of Congress, an event
which hitherto I have always deprecated, that I may
face the monster of detraction. . . . Nothing will be
left undone to excite an opposition to me at the next
election, but I have no expectation that it will be effected,
or of its success in case it should. There are
too many gaping idolaters of power among us, but,
like you, we have men of sterling worth; and one
thing is certain, — that, however we may differ on the
subject of the present administration, all parties here
(I speak of the republicans) unite in support of Monroe
for President. I have heard of but one dissenting
voice, Giles, who is entirely misled; all his information
talk of an expression of the opinion of our legislature
to this effect at their next meeting. An inefficient
opposition is making to Garnett. Thompson, I
believe, will have an opponent likewise, but this is
not yet determined on. From what I have written
above you are not to infer that I mean to yield a
bloodless victory to my enemies. You know me well
enough, I hope, to believe that a want of perseverance
is not among my defects. I will persevere to
the last in the cause in which I am embarked."
"24 June, 1806. . . . As to politics, lies are your
only sort of wear nowadays. Some artificial excitement
has been produced in favor of administration,
but it will affect no election, unless perhaps Thompson's,
and, on second thoughts, Mercer's. Beau
Dawson and his friend Bailey are in a fair way of
promotion. I can't tell what provision the President
that is to be can make for these two worthy chevaliers
d'industrie, unless he gives them foreign embassies.
As to his respectable brother-in-law, he will
succeed, I suppose, to the vacant Secretaryship of
State, and will be every way qualified to draw the instructions
and receive the dispatches of the two illustrious
diplomates. . . . You ask what are our
prospects in Virginia. Depend upon it, a very large
majority of us are decidedly opposed to Madison's
pretensions; and if the other States leave it to Virginia,
he never will be President."
"7 July. . . . From what I can learn, my name
is the general theme of invective in the Northern
this district) who are very willing to lend a helping
hand to pull me down. Giles, I am told, has been
very violent, and has even descended to unworthy
means of which I had deemed him incapable. I
have no favors to ask. I want nothing. Let justice
be done to my motives, which I know to have been
upright, and I am content. No member of the administration
has reason to think them otherwise, I
am sure; and if they suppose they have, they shall
not dare to say so with impunity. . . . About the
close of the last session of Congress, Granger inquired
of a gentleman from Richmond, then at Washington,
whether there was not such a character as
Creed Taylor in my district, and if he would not be
brought forward to oppose me. (Giles who had always
professed to despise Mr. T.) has been busy making
the same inquiries. I am told that he (G.) has
shown a letter which I wrote him in full confidence
during the winter, to my prejudice. `Where dwelleth
honor?' "
These letters to Nicholson are far less notable
than the series of letters which Randolph was
now writing to Monroe. Of all the great names
in American history, that of Monroe seems to
the keen eyes of critics to stand on the smallest
intellectual foundation. Individuality, originality,
strong grasp of principles, he had to a
less degree than any other prominent Virginian
of his time; but while usually swept along by
general respect as a man whose personal honesty
was above dispute, and whose motives
were sincerely pure. As Mr. Madison's chief
rival in popularity, although absent in England,
he now became a disturbing force in
Virginian politics, and Mr. Jefferson on one
side, Randolph, Nicholson, Taylor, Tazewell,
and their friends on the other, disputed fiercely
the possession of this ally. Far away in London,
Mr. Monroe began to receive letters filled
with such honeyed flattery as few men except
those who wield power and dispense patronage
are so happy as to hear. No reader can help
noticing that Randolph could flatter, and perhaps,
for the moment, he may have believed
his flattery sincere. He had reason, too, in
feeling kindly towards Mr. Monroe, for Monroe
was showing much kindness to Randolph's
poor deaf-and-dumb nephew, St. George, who
had been sent abroad. The following extracts
from Randolph's letters show the man in a new
character, — that of political manager. The
first was written in the full excitement of his
winter struggle.
RANDOLPH TO MONROE.
"Washington, March 20, 1806. . . . There is
no longer a doubt but that the principles of our administration
compass of a letter (indeed, a volume would be too
small) cannot suffice to give you even an outline. Suffice
it to say that everything is made a business of bargain
and traffic, the ultimate object of which is to raise
Mr. Madison to the presidency. To this the old
republican party will never consent, nor can New
York be brought into the measure. Between them
and the supporters of Mr. Madison there is an open
rupture. Need I tell you that they (the old republicans)
are united in your support? that they look to
you, sir, for the example which this nation has yet to
receive to demonstrate that the government can be
conducted on open, upright principles, without intrigue
or any species of disingenuous artifice? We are extremely
rejoiced to hear that you are about to return
to the United States. Much as I am personally interested,
through St. George, in your stay in Europe, I
would not have you remain one day longer. Your
country requires, nay demands, your presence. It is
time that a character which has proved invulnerable
to every open attack should triumph over insidious
enmity."
"Alexandria, April 22, 1806. . . . Last night
Congress adjourned, under circumstances the most
extraordinary that I ever witnessed. It would be
impossible for me, even if it were advisable, to give
you a sketch, much less a history, of our proceedings.
The appointment of Mr. Pinkney to the Court of
London will, no doubt, be announced to you, at least
as soon as this letter can reach the place of its destination.
republican party, which has been followed by a proscription
of the anti-ministerialists. Among the
number of the proscribed are Mr. Nicholson, who
has retired in strong disgust; the Speaker, who will
soon follow him from a like sentiment; and many
others of minor consequence, such as the writer of
this letter, cum multis aliis. My object at present is
merely to guard you, which your own prudence, perhaps,
renders an unnecessary caution, against a compromitment
of yourself to men in whom you cannot
wholly confide. Be assured that the aspect of affairs
here, and the avowed characteristics of those who
conduct them, have undergone a material change
since you left America. In a little while I hope you
will be on the spot to judge for yourself, to see with
your own eyes and to hear with your own ears. All
the statements of our public prints are, at present,
garbled, owing to the peculiar situation of the place
which is the established seat of our government."
"Bizarre, July 3, 1806. . . . There is a system
of which you are not informed, but in which, nevertheless,
every effort will be made, indeed is making,
to induce you to play a part so as to give a stage effect
that may suit a present purpose. I wish it were in
my power to be more explicit. Be assured, however,
that you have friends, whose attachment to you is not
to be shaken, and from whose zeal you have at the
same time nothing to fear. I need not tell you, I
hope, that the fervor of my attachment has never
betrayed me into a use of your name on any occasion,
before Congress, called for and justified the
measure."
"Bizarre, September 16, 1806. . . . If heretofore
I had been at a loss to fix upon the individual the
most disinterested and virtuous whom I have known,
I could now find no difficulty in determining; nor do
I hesitate to declare that the very arguments which
you adduce to dissuade your friends from supporting
you at the next presidential election form with me
an invincible motive for persisting in that support,
since they exhibit the most irrefragable proof of that
superior merit which you alone are unwilling to acknowledge.
Yet I must confess there are considerations
amongst those presented by you that would
have great and perhaps decisive influence upon my
mind where the pretensions of the candidates were
nearly equal. But in this case there is not only a
strong preference for the one party, but a decided
objection to the other. It is not a singular belief
among the republicans that to the great and acknowledged
influence of this last gentleman [Mr. Madison]
we are indebted for that strange amalgamation of
men and principles which has distinguished some of
the late acts of the administration, and proved so injurious
to it. Many, the most consistent and influential
of the old republicans, by whose exertions the present
men were brought into power, have beheld, with unmeasurable
disgust, the principles for which they had
contended, and, as they thought, established, neutralized
at the touch of a cold and insidious moderation.
view in aiding to produce a change in the administration
was the advancement of themselves and their
connections, but of those disinterested and generous
spirits who served from attachment to the cause
alone, and who neither expect nor desire preferment.
Such men, of whom I could give you a list that would
go near to fill my paper, ascribe to the baneful counsels
of the Secretary of State that we have been gradually
relaxing from our old principles, and relapsing
into the system of our predecessors; that government
stands aloof from its tried friends, whilst it hugs to
its bosom men of the most equivocal character, and
even some who have been and still are unequivocally
hostile to that cause which our present rulers stand
pledged to support; and that you are at this moment
associated with a colleague whom former administrations
deemed a fit instrument to execute the evermemorable
treaty of London! They are, moreover,
determined not to have a Yazoo President if they can
avoid it, nor one who has mixed in the intrigues of
the last three or four years at Washington. There is
another consideration, which I know not how to touch.
You, my dear sir, cannot be ignorant, although of all
mankind you, perhaps, have the least cause to know
it, how deeply the respectability of any character may
be impaired by an unfortunate matrimonial connection.
I can pursue this subject no further. It is at
once too delicate and too mortifying. Before the
decision is ultimately made I hope to have the pleasure
of communicating fully with you in person.
to be in danger, and union and activity on the
part of its friends indispensable to its existence. But
that union can never be obtained under the presidency
of Mr. Madison. . . . I will never despair of
the republic whilst I have life, but never could I see
less cause for hope than now. I have beheld my
species of late in a new and degrading point of view,
but at the same time I have met with a few Godlike
spirits, who redeem the whole race in my good
opinion."
The story of Randolph's famous quarrel with
his party has now been told in a spirit as
friendly to him as his friends can require or expect,
— has been told, so far as possible, in his
own words, without prejudice or passion, and
shall be left to be judged on its merits. There
are, however, a few questions which students
of American history will do well to ask themselves
before taking sides with or against the
partisans of Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, and
Monroe. Did or did not Randolph go with his
party in disregarding its own principles down
to the moment when he became jealous of Madison's
influence? Was that jealousy a cause of
his feud? Was the Yazoo compromise a measure
so morally wrong as to justify the disruption
of the party? Had he reason to think
Monroe a safer man than Madison? Had he
and Mr. Gallatin, were quite as responsible as
Madison, for "that strange amalgamation"
which he complained of? Or, to sum up all
these questions in one, was Randolph capable
of remaining true to any principle or any friendship
that required him to control his violent
temper and imperious will?
Upon this point Randolph's Virginian admirers
will listen to no argument: they insist
that he was their only consistent statesman;
they reject Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and
Mr. Monroe, and utterly repudiate President
Washington, Patrick Henry, and John Marshall,
in order to follow this new prophet of
evil. Without Randolph, the connection of
Virginian history would, in their eyes, be lost.
Perhaps they are right. Readers must solve
the riddle as truth and justice shall seem to require.
Meanwhile Randolph fretted at Bizarre, and
wrote long letters, signed "Decius," to the
"Richmond Enquirer," until the much-desired
month of December came, and he returned to
fight his battles at Washington. Passions,
however, had now cooled. Calmer himself, he
found all parties ready to meet him in a formal
truce. Nicholson had gone upon the bench, but
Macon was still Speaker, and Randolph himself,
his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee.
Mr. Jefferson's message, very different
in tone from that of the year before, was calculated
to soothe party quarrels and to satisfy
Randolph's wishes. In reality the President's
belligerency of December, 1805, had been intended
as a ruse and a false demonstration to
cover a retreat from foreign difficulties; and
Randolph, knowing this, had made use of his
knowledge to worry the administration and to
damage Mr. Madison by affecting at one time
to take these belligerent threats as serious, and
by throwing ridicule upon them at other times
as quackery. In December, 1806, the President,
satisfied that the ruse of last year had
failed, sent in a message breathing only peace
and the principles of 1800. Randolph chose to
look upon it as a triumph for himself, and wrote
to Nicholson accordingly: —
RANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
"Georgetown, 10 December, 1806. . . . The
message of the 3d was, as you supposed, wormwood
to certain gentry. They made wry faces, but, in fear
of the rod and in hopes of sugar-plums, swallowed it
with less apparent repugnance than I had predicted.
. . . Of all the men who have met me with the
greatest apparent cordiality, old Smilie is the last
whom you would suspect. I understand that they
a truce. The higher powers are in the same goodly
temper, as I am informed. I have seen nobody belonging
to the administration but the Secretary of the
Navy, who called here the day before yesterday, and
whose visit I repaid this morning. You may remember,
some years ago, my having remarked to you the
little attention which we received from the grandees,
and the little disposition which I felt to court it. I
have therefore invariably waited for the first advance
from them, because at home I conceive myself bound
to make it to any gentleman who may be in my neighborhood."
Burr's conspiracy now broke out, startling
the nation out of its calm, and proving, or seeming
to prove, the justice of Randolph's suspicions
and anxieties. For a time a sort of panio
reigned in Washington except among the federalists.
Randolph and his friends sneered at the
last year's work; Smith and his friends grumbled
at the supineness of this year. The expressions
of both these factions in their private
letters were very characteristic.
On December, 26, 1806, Macon wrote to
Nicholson, "The doings here will surely convince
every candid man in the world that the
republicans of the old school were not wrong
last winter. Give truth fair play, and it will
prevail." A fortnight later, January 9, 1807,
C. Nicholas: —
"My ambition is at an end. I sicken when I look
forward to a state of things that would require exertions.
We have established theories that would stare
down any possible measures of offence or defence.
Should a man take a patriotic stand against those
destructive and seductive fine-spun follies, he will be
written down very soon. Look at the last message!
It in some sort declared more troops to be unnecessary.
It is such, however, that the President cannot
recommend (although he now sees the necessity) any
augmentation of the army. Nay, I, even I, did not
dare to bring forward the measure until I had first
obtained his approbation. Never was there a time
when executive influence so completely governed the
nation."
General Smith's comments on the "destructive
and seductive fine-spun follies," which he so
detested, forgot to note that, whether destructive
or not, they sprang straight from the theories
of his party, which had no moral existence
except on and in those principles. John Adams
had been sent back to Braintree for no other
avowed reason than that Smith might establish,
as the practice of government, what he now
called "fine-spun follies." Randolph felt the
shame of such an inconsistency. The meeting
of two extremes is always interesting, and the
General Smith on one side was repudiating the
theories he had "established" in 1800, and was
frankly going back to his old federalist policy,
Randolph, who still believed in the "fine-spun
follies" of his youth, was also confessing that
in practice they had failed, and that the night
of corruption and violence was again closing
upon mankind. On February, 15, 1807, a few
weeks after General Smith's letter to Nicholas,
Randolph wrote to Joseph Nicholson: —
"I do now believe the destiny of the world to be
fixed, at least for some centuries to come. After
another process of universal dominion, degeneracy,
barbarian irruption and conquest, the character of man
may, two thousand years hence, perhaps, begin to
wear a brighter aspect. Cast your eyes backward to
the commencement of the French Revolution; recall
to mind our hopes and visions of the amelioration of
the condition of mankind, and then look at things as
they are! I am wearied and disgusted with this picture,
which perpetually obtrudes itself upon me."
The republican party had broken up in factions,
and even its best members had lost faith
in their own theories. Among these factions
Randolph's group of "old republicans" held a
sort of monopoly in pure republican principles,
while the rest were contented with carrying on
the government from day to day, disputing, not
looked down on them all with bitter contempt.
His letters to Nicholson became gall.
RANDOLPH TO NICHOLSON.
"Committee Room, 17 February, 1807. . . .
Bad as you suppose matters to be, they are even
worse than you apprehend. What think you of that
Prince of Prigs and Puppies, G. W. C[ampbell] for
a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States!!!
Risum teneas? You must know we have made a new
circuit, consisting of the three western States, with an
additional associate justice. A caucus (excuse the
slang of politics) was held, as I am informed, by the
delegations of those States for the purpose of recommending
some character to the President. Boyle was
talked of, but the interest of C. finally prevailed.
This is `Tom, Dick, and Harry' with a vengeance.
. . . If Mr. `American,' whom, by the way, I never
see, should persevere in the attack which you tell me
he is making upon me, I shall issue letters of marque
and reprisal against his principals. The doughty
general [Samuel Smith] is vulnerable at all points,
and his plausible brother [Robert Smith] not much
better defended. The first has condemned in terms
of unqualified reprobation the general measures pursued
by the administration, and lamented that, such
was the public infatuation, no man could take a position
against it without destroying himself and injuring
the cause which he attempted to serve, — with
much more to the same tune. I called some time
items of the estimate for this year. The Secretary
called up his chief clerk, who knew very little
more of the business than his master. I propounded
a question to the head of the department; he turned
to the clerk like a boy who cannot say his lesson, and
with imploring countenance beseeches aid; the clerk
with much assurance gabbled out some commonplace
jargon, which I would not take for sterling; an explanation
was required, and both were dumb. This
pantomime was repeated at every new item, until, disgusted,
and ashamed for the degraded situation of the
principal, I took leave without pursuing the subject,
seeing that my subject could not be attained. There
was not one single question relating to the department
that the Secretary could answer."
Randolph's temper was now ugly beyond
what was to be expected from a man whose objects
were only to serve the public and to secure
honest government. His hatred of the northern
democrats broke out in ways which showed a
wish to rule or ruin. When the bill for prohibiting
the slave-trade was before the House,
a bill chiefly supported by the Varnums and
Bidwells, Sloans, Smilies, and Findleys, whom
he so much disliked, he broke out in a startling
denunciation of the clause which forbade the
coast-wise slave-trade in vessels under forty
tons. This provision, he said, touched the right
of private property; he feared it might one day
he had rather lose the bill, he had rather lose
all the bills of the session, he had rather lose
every bill passed since the establishment of the
government, than agree to the clause; it went
to blow the Constitution into ruins; if ever the
time of disunion should arrive, the line of severance
would be between the slave-holding and
the non-slave-holding States. Besides attempting
thus to stir up trouble between the South
and North, he made a desperate effort to put
the Senate and House at odds, and showed a
spirit of pure venom that went far to sink his
character as an honest man.
On March 3, 1807, his means of effecting further
mischief were to be greatly curtailed, for
on that day the Ninth Congress came to an end,
and Randolph lost his hold on the Ways and
Means Committee. This was not his only disaster,
for, on the same day, Mr. Erskine, the
British Minister at Washington, received from
London a copy of the new treaty which Mr.
Monroe and Mr. Pinkney had barely succeeded
in negotiating with the British government.
Hurrying with it to Mr. Madison, the Minister
supposed that an extra session of the Senate
would be immediately called for March 4; but
instead of this, the President declined to send
the treaty to the Senate at all, and contented
to all the senators who called upon him.
The treaty was indeed a very bad one, but it
carried on its shoulders the fortunes of the old
republicans, and its humiliating reception was
a fatal blow to Randolph's hope of retrieving
his own fortunes by attaching them to those
of James Monroe. Randolph of course felt no
doubt as to the motives which prompted so
stern a rebuke before an expectant nation. He
wrote to Monroe accordingly: —
RANDOLPH TO MONROE.
"Bizarre, March 24, 1807. . . . Mr. T. M.
Randolph suddenly declines a reëlection, in favor of
Wilson Nicholas, whose talents for intrigue you well
know, I presume. Had I known of Mr. Purviance's
arrival, I should certainly have remained in Washington
for the purpose of seeing him, and procuring
better information concerning the treaty than the
contradictory accounts of the newspapers furnish. I
have considered the decree of Berlin to be the great
cause of difficulty; at the same time, I never had a
doubt that clamor would be raised against the treaty,
be it what it might. My reasons for this opinion I
will give when we meet. They are particular as well
as general. Prepare yourself to be surprised at some
things which you will near."
The old republicans were now in despair.
Recognizing the fact that Monroe was out of
York. Of all northern democracy, the democrats
of New York and Pennsylvania, the Cheethams
and Duanes, had been most repulsive to
Randolph, but in his hatred for Mr. Madison he
was now ready to unite with these dregs of corruption,
rather than submit to the Secretary
of State; he was ready to make George Clinton
president, and to elevate De Witt Clinton, most
selfish, unscrupulous, and unsafe of democrats,
into a position where the whole government
patronage would lie at his mercy. He wrote
again to Monroe, evidently to prepare him for
being gently set aside: —
RANDOLPH TO MONROE.
"Richmond, May 30, 1807. . . . The friends of
Mr. Madison have left nothing undone to impair the
very high and just confidence of the nation in yourself.
Nothing but the possession of the government
could have enabled them to succeed, however partially,
in this attempt. In Virginia they have met
with the most determined resistance, and although
I believe the executive influence will at last carry
the point, for which it has been unremittingly exerted,
of procuring the nomination of electors favorable
to the Secretary of State, yet it is not even
in its power to shake the confidence of the people
of this State in your principles and abilities, or to
efface your public services from their recollection.
sir, were I not to apprise you that exertions to diminish
the value of your character and public services
have been made by persons, and in a manner
that will be scarcely credible to you, although at the
same time unquestionably true. Our friend Colonel
Mercer, should you land in a northern port, can give
you some correct and valuable information on this
and other subjects. Meanwhile, the republicans of
New York, sore with the coalition effected by Mr.
John Nicholas between his party and the federalists
(now entirely discomfited), and knowing the auspices
under which he acted, are irreconcilably opposed
to Mr. Madison, and striving to bring forward Mr.
Clinton, the Vice-President. Much consequently
depends on the part which Pennsylvania will take in
this transaction. There is a leaning, evidently, towards
the New York candidate. Whether the executive
influence will be able to overcome this predisposition
yet remains to be seen. In the person of any
other man than Mr. M. I have no doubt it would
succeed. But the republicans of Pennsylvania, setting
all other considerations aside, are indignant at
the recollection that in all their struggles with the
combined parties of McKean, etc., and the federalists,
the hand of government has been felt against
them, and so far as it has been exerted they choose to
ascribe [it] to the exertions of Mr. M. Such is, as
nearly as I can collect, the posture of affairs at present.
Wilson C. N[icholas] and Duane are both in town at
this time. Some important result is no doubt to flow
hardly know the country. A system of espionage
and denunciation has been organized which pervades
every quarter. Distrust and suspicion generally prevail
in the intercourse between man and man. All is
constraint, reserve, and mystery. Intrigue has arrived
at a pitch which I hardly supposed it would have
reached in five centuries. The man of all others who,
I suppose, would be the last suspected by you is the
nucleus of this system. The maxim of Rochefoucauld
is in him completely verified, `that an affectation
of simplicity is the refinement of imposture.'
Hypocrisy and treachery have reached their acme
amongst us. I hope that I shall see you very soon
after your arrival. I can then give you a full explanation
of these general expressions, and proof
that they have been made upon the surest grounds.
Amongst your unshaken friends you may reckon two
of our chancellors, Mr. Nicholson of Maryland, Mr.
Clay of Philadelphia, Col. Jno. Taylor, and Mr.
Macon."
At the same time, Judge Nicholson wrote to
Monroe a letter which is worth a moment's
notice on account of the support it gave to
Randolph's views: —
JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON TO MONROE.
"Baltimore, April 12, 1807. . . . As to the
public sentiment, I cannot readily state what it is.
Perhaps there is none. The President's popularity
is unbounded, and his will is that of the nation. His
correctness of all public events is tested. Any treaty,
therefore, which he sanctions will be approved of by
a very large proportion of our people. The federalists
will murmur, but as this is the result of system,
and not of principle, its impression will be neither
deep nor extensive. A literal copy of Jay's treaty,
if ratified by the present administration, would meet
their opposition, while the same instrument, although
heretofore so odious to some of us, would now command
the support of a large body who call themselves
democrats. Such is our present infatuation. To
this general position, however, there are some honest
exceptions. There is a portion who yet retain the
feelings of 1798, and whom I denominate the old
republican party. These men are personally attached
to the President, and condemn his measures when
they think him wrong. They neither wish for nor
expect anything from his extensive patronage. Their
public service is intended for the public good, and has
no view to private emolument or personal ambition.
But it is said they have not his confidence, and I lament
it. You must have perceived from the public
prints that the most active members in the House of
Representatives are new men, and I fear that foreign
nations will not estimate American talent very highly
if our congressional proceedings are taken as the rule.
If you knew the Sloans, the Alstons, and the Bidwells
of the day, and there are a great many of them,
you would be mortified at seeing the affairs of the
nation in such miserable hands. Yet these are styled
will enable you to form an early opinion as to the
necessity of remaining in England. You know Mr.
Jefferson perfectly well, and can therefore calculate
the chances of his approving anything done not in
precise conformity to his instructions. He is, however,
somewhat different from what he was. He feels
at present his own strength with the nation, and
therefore is less inclined to yield to the advice of his
friends. Your return is anxiously wished for by
many who, I presume you know, are desirous of putting
you in nomination for the presidency. My own
expectations are not very sanguine on this subject.
Great efforts are making for and by another. The
Virginia and New York elections which take place in
the course of the present month will determine much.
The point is made throughout Virginia, I believe,
and much solicitude is felt and expressed by the candidate
for the presidency as to the result of the several
elections. It is to be hoped, therefore, that you
will return as early as possible."
What course things might have taken had
nothing occurred to disturb domestic politics
must be left to conjecture. Fate now decreed
that a series of unexpected events should create
an entirely new situation, and bury in rapid
oblivion all memory of old republican principles.
The aggressions of Europe forced America
out of her chosen path.
| CHAPTER VIII. John Randolph | |