University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER X.

ECCENTRICITIES.

If disappointment and sorrow could soften a
human heart, Randolph had enough to make
him tender as the gentlest. From the first,
some private trouble weighed on his mind, and
since he chose to make a mystery of its cause a
biographer is bound to respect his wish. The
following letter to his friend Nicholson, written
probably in the year 1805, shows his feeling
on this point: —

From such expressions not much can be
safely inferred. Doubtless he imagined his
character and career to be greatly influenced
by one event or another in his life, but in reality
both he and his brother Richard seem to
have had from the first the same vehement, ill-regulated
minds, and the imagination counted
for more with them than the reality, whatever
it was. His was a nature that would have made
for itself a hell even though fate had put a
heaven about it. Quarrelling with his brother's
widow, he left Bizarre to bury himself in a poor
corner among his overseers and slaves at Roanoke.
"I might be now living at Bizarre," he
wrote afterwards, "if the reunion of his [Richard's]
widow with the [traducers?] of her husband
had not driven me to Roanoke;" "a
savage solitude," he called it, "into which I
have been driven to seek shelter." This was
in 1810. He had already quarrelled with his
step-father, Judge Tucker, as kind-hearted a
man as ever lived, and of this one-sided quarrel
we have an account which, even if untrue, is
curious. It seems that Randolph had been talking
violently against the justice and policy of
the law which passed estates, in failure of direct
heirs, to brothers of half-blood; whereupon
Judge Tucker made the indiscreet remark,
"Why, Jack, you ought not to be against that

law, for you know if you were to die without
issue you would wish your half-brothers to have
your estate." "I 'll be damned, sir, if I do
know it," said Randolph, according to the story,
and from that day broke off relations with his
step-father. In 1810 he was only with the utmost
difficulty dissuaded by his counsel from
bringing suit against Judge Tucker for fraudulent
management of his estate during that guardianship
which had ended more than fifteen
years before. He knew that the charge was
false, but he was possessed by it. Two passions,
besides that for drink, were growing on
him with age, — avarice and family pride;
taken together, three furies worse than the
cruelest disease or the most crushing disasters.
Yet disaster, too, was not wanting. His nephew
St. George, Richard's eldest son, deaf and dumb
from his birth, became quite irrational in 1813,
and closed his days in an asylum. The younger
nephew, Tudor, whom he had loved as much as
it was in his nature to love any one, and who
was to be the representative of his race, fell into
a hopeless consumption the next year, and, being
sent abroad, died at Cheltenham in 1815.
Thus Randolph, after falling out with his stepfather
and half-brothers, after quitting Bizarre
and quarrelling with his brother's widow, lost
his nephews, failed in public life, and was
driven from his seat in Congress. Had he been
an Italian he would have passed for one possessed
of the evil eye, one who brought destruction
on all he loved, and every peasant would
have secretly made the sign of the cross on
meeting him. His defeat by Eppes in the
spring of 1813 disgusted him with politics, and
he visited his mortification on his old friends.
Macon wrote to Nicholson February 1, 1815: —

The sudden and happy close of the war in
January, 1815, brought about a curious revolution

in the world of politics. Everything that
had happened before that convulsion seemed
now wiped from memory. Men once famous
and powerful were forgotten; men whose political
sins had been dark and manifold were forgiven
and received back into the fold. Among
the rest was Randolph. He recovered his seat
in the spring of 1815, and returned to Congress
with a great reputation for bold and sarcastic
oratory. He came back to a new world, to a
government which had been strengthened and
nationalized by foreign war beyond the utmost
hopes of Washington or John Adams. Mr.
Jefferson's party was still in power, but not a
thread was left of the principles with which
Mr. Jefferson had started on his career in 1801.
The country had a debt compared with which
that of the federalist administrations was light;
it had a navy which was now more popular than
ever Mr. Jefferson had been in his palmiest
days, and an army which Randolph dared no
longer call "ragamuffin;" the people had faced
the awful idea of conscription, at the bidding of
James Madison and James Monroe, two men
who had nearly broken up the Union, in 1798,
at the mere suggestion of raising half a dozen
regiments; at the same command the national
bank was to be reëstablished; — in every direction
states' rights were trampled on; — and all
this had been done by Randolph's old friends
and his own party. During his absence, Congress,
like school-boys whose monitor has left
the room, had passed the bill for the Yazoo
compromise. This was not the whole. Chief
Justice Marshall and the Supreme Court were
at work. Their decisions were rapidly rivetting
these results into something more than mere
political precedents or statute law. State sovereignty
was crumbling under their assaults,
and the nation was already too powerful for
the safety of Virginia.

Mr. Jefferson, in his old age, took the alarm,
and began to preach a new crusade against the
Supreme Court and the heresies of federal principles.
He rallied about him the "old republicans"
of 1798. Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe,
Mr. Gallatin and the northern democrats, were
little disposed to betake themselves again to
that uncomfortable boat which they had gladly
abandoned for the broader and stauncher deck
of the national ship of state; but William B.
Giles was ready to answer any bugle-call that
could summon him back to the Senate, or give
him another chance for that cabinet office which
had been the ambition of his life; and John
Randolph was at all times ready to clap on again
his helmet of Mambrino and have a new tilt at
the windmill which had once already demolished

him. If Virginia hesitated, South Carolina
might be made strong in the faith, and
Georgia was undaunted by the Yazoo experience.
If the northern democrats no longer
knew what states' rights meant, the slave power,
which had grown with the national growth,
could be organized to teach them.

Into this movement Randolph flung himself
headlong, and in such a party he was a formidable
ally. Doubtless there was much about him
that seemed ridiculous to by-standers, and still
more that not only seemed, but was, irrational.
Neither his oratory nor his wit would have been
tolerated in a northern State. To the coldblooded
New Englander who did not love extravagance
or eccentricity, and had no fancy
for plantation manners, Randolph was an obnoxious
being. Those traits of character and
person of which he was proud as evidence of his
Pocahontas and Powhatan ancestry, they instinctively
attributed to an ancestral type of
a different kind. It was not the Indian whom
they saw in this lean, forked figure, with its
elongated arms and long, bony forefinger,
pointing at the objects of his aversion as with
a stick; it was not an Indian countenance they
recognized in this parchment face, prematurely
old and seamed with a thousand small wrinkles;
in that bright, sharply sparkling eye; in the

flattering, caressing tone and manner, which
suddenly, with or without provocation, changed
into wanton brutality. The Indian owns no
such person or such temperament, which, if
derived from any ancestry, belongs to an order
of animated beings still nearer than the Indian
to the jealous and predacious instincts of dawning
intelligence.

There is no question that such an antagonist
was formidable. The mode of political warfare
at first adopted by instinct, he had now by long
experience developed into a science. Terror
was the favorite resource of his art, and he had
so practised as to have reached a high degree of
success in using it. He began by completely
mastering his congressional district. At best,
it is not easy for remote, sparsely settled communities
to shake off a political leader who has
no prominent rival in his own party, and no
strong outside opposition, but when that leader
has Randolph's advantages it becomes impossible
to contest the field. His constituents revolted
once, but never again. His peculiarities
were too well known and too much in the natural
order of things to excite surprise or scandal
among them. They liked his long stump
speeches and sharp, epigrammatic phrases, desultory
style and melodramatic affectations of
manner, and they were used to coarseness that

would have sickened a Connecticut peddler.
They liked to be flattered by him, for flattery
was one of the instruments he used with most
lavishness. "In conversing with old men in
Charlotte County," says a native of the spot,
writing in 1878, "they will talk a long time
about how Mr. Randolph flattered this one to
carry his point; how he drove men clean out of
the country who offended him; how ridiculous
he sometimes made his acquaintances appear:
they will entertain you a long time in this way
before they will mention one word about his
friendship for anybody or anybody's for him."

He was simple enough in his methods, and
as they were all intended to lead up to terror
in the end, there was every reason for simplifying
them to suit the cases.

"How do you do, Mr. L.? I am a candidate
for Congress, and should be pleased to have
your vote."

"Unfortunately, I have no vote, Mr. Randolph."

"Good-morning, Mr. L."

He never forgave a vote given to his opponent,
and he worked his district over to root out
the influences which defeated him in 1813. One
example of his method is told in regard to a Mr.
S., a plain farmer, who had carried his precinct
almost unanimously for Eppes. Randolph is

said to have sought him out one court day in the
most public place he could find, and, addressing
him with great courtesy, presently put to him a
rather abstruse question of politics. Passing
from one puzzling and confusing inquiry to another,
raising his voice, attracting a crowd by
every artifice in his power, he drew the unfortunate
man farther and farther into the most awkward
embarrassment, continually repeating his
expressions of astonishment at the ignorance to
which his victim confessed. The scene exposed
the man to ridicule and contempt, and is said
to have destroyed his influence.

He sometimes acted a generous, sometimes a
brutal, part; the one, perhaps, not less sincere
than the other while it lasted, but neither of
them in any sense simple expressions of emotion.
Although he professed vindictiveness as
a part of his Powhatan inheritance, and although
he proclaimed himself to be one who
never forsook a friend or forgave a foe, it is evident
that his vindictiveness was often assumed
merely in order to terrify; there was usually a
method and a motive in his madness, noble at
first in the dawn of young hope, but far from
noble at last in the gloom of disappointment and
despair. "He did things," says Mr. Henry
Carrington, "which nobody else could do, and
made others do things which they never did before,

and of which they repented all the days of
their lives; and on some occasions he was totally
regardless of private rights, and not held
amenable to the laws of the land."

This trait of his character gave rise to a mass
of local stories, many of which have found their
way into print, but which are for the most part
so distorted in passing through the mouths of
overseers and neighbors as to be quite worthless
for biography. Another mass of legend
has collected itself about his life in Washington
and his travels. The less credit we give
to the more extravagant of these stories, the
nearer we shall come to the true man. At
times he was violent or outrageous from the
mere effect of drink, but to do him justice, his
brutality was commonly directed against what
he supposed, or chose to think, presumption, ignorance,
dishonesty, cant, or some other trait of
a low and grovelling mind. He rarely insulted
any man whom he believed to be respectable,
and he was always kind and affectionate to
those he loved; but although he controlled himself
thus far in society, he carried terrorism in
politics to an extreme. He could be gentle
when he pleased, but he often preferred to be
arrogant. Only a few months before his death,
in February, 1833, he forced some states'-rights
resolutions through a meeting of the county of

Charlotte. A certain Captain Watkins, who
was at the meeting, declined to follow him, and
avowed himself a supporter of President Jackson.
Randolph, while his resolutions were under
discussion, addressed himself to Captain
Watkins, saying that he did not expect "an old
Yazoo speculator" to approve of them. Captain
Watkins rose and denied the charge. At
this, Randolph looked him steadily in the face,
and pointing his finger at him said, —

"You are a Yazoo man, Mr. Watkins."

Mr. Watkins, much agitated and embarrassed,
rose again and made an explanation.
Randolph, with the same deliberation, simply
repeated, —

"You are a Yazoo man, Mr. Watkins."

A third time Mr. Watkins rose, and was met
again by the same cold assertion, "You are a
Yazoo man;" until at last he left the room,
completely broken down.

Mr. Watkins had, in fact, once owned some
of the Yazoo land warrants. He was, of course,
no admirer of Randolph, who rode rough-shod
over him in return. If it be asked why a man
who treated his neighbors thus was not fifty
times shot down where he stood by exasperated
victims, the answer is that he knew those with
whom he was dealing. He never pressed a
quarrel to the end, or resented an insult further

than was necessary to repel it. He was notorious
for threatening to use his weapons on every
occasion of a tavern quarrel, but at such times
he was probably excited by drink; when quite
himself he never used them if it was possible
to avoid it. In 1807 he even refused to fight
General Wilkinson, and allowed the general to
post him as a coward; and he did this on the
ground that the general had no right to hold
him accountable for his expressions: "I cannot
descend to your level." Indeed, with all
Randolph's quarrelsome temper and vindictive
spirit, he had but one duel during his public life.
His insulting language and manner came not
from the heart, but from the head: they were
part of his system, a method of controlling society
as he controlled his negroes. His object was
to rule, not to revenge, and it would have been
folly to let himself be shot unless his situation
required it. Randolph had an ugly temper and
a strong will; but he had no passions that disturbed
his head.

In what is called polite society these tactics
were usually unnecessary, and then bad manners
were a mere habit, controllable at will. In
such society, therefore, Randolph was seen at
his best. The cultivated Virginian, with wit
and memory, varied experience, audacious temper,
and above all a genuine flavor of his native

soil; the Virginian, in his extremest form,
such as any one might well be curious once
to see, — this was the attraction in Randolph
which led strangers to endure and even to seek
his acquaintance. Thus, as extremes meet,
Massachusetts men were apt to be favorites
with this Ishmaelite; they were so thoroughly
hostile to all his favorite prejudices that they
could make a tacit agreement to disagree in
peace. Josiah Quincy was one of his friends;
Elijah Mills, the Massachusetts senator, another.
In a letter dated January 19, 1816, Mr. Mills
thus describes him: —

Again on January 14, 1822: —

In 1826 Mr. Mills was ill, and Randolph insisted
on acting as his doctor.

The respectable senator from Massachusetts,

"poor little Mills," as Randolph calls him,
seems to have snatched but a fearful joy in this
ill-assorted friendship.

The system of terrorism, which was so effective
in the politics of Charlotte, was not equally
well suited to the politics of Washington; to
overawe a congressional district was possible,
but when Randolph tried to crush Mr. Jefferson
and Mr. Madison by these tactics, the experiment
not only failed, but reacted so violently
as to drive him out of public life. Nevertheless,
within the walls of the House of Representatives
his success was considerable; he inspired
terror, and to oppose him required no little
nerve, and, perhaps, a brutality as reckless as
his own. He made it his business to break in
young members as he would break a colt, bearing
down on them with superciliousness and sarcasm.
In later life he had a way of entering
the House, booted and spurred, with whip in
hand, after the business had begun, and loudly
saluting his friends to attract attention; but if
any one whom he disliked was speaking, he
would abruptly turn on his heel and go out.
Mr. S. G. Goodrich describes him in 1820, during
the Missouri debate, as rising and crying out
in a shrill voice, which pierced every nook and
corner of the hall, "Mr. Speaker, I have but
one word to say, — one word, sir; and that is to

state a fact. The measure to which the gentleman
has just alluded originated in a dirty trick."
Under some circumstances he even ventured on
physical attacks, but this was very rare. He
had a standing feud with Willis Alston of
North Carolina, and they insulted each other
without serious consequences for many years.
Once, in 1811, as the members were leaving the
House, Alston, in his hearing, made some offensive
remark about a puppy. Randolph described
the scene to Nicholson in a letter dated
January 28, 1811: —

The affair, however, got no farther than the
police court, and Randolph very justly added
in his letter, "For Macon's sake (although he
despises him) I regret it, and for my own, for
in such cases victory is defeat." He called
himself an Ishmael: his hand was against everybody,
and everybody's hand was against
him. His political career had now long ended

so far as party promotion was concerned, and
there remained only an overpowering egotism,
a consuming rage for notoriety, contemptible
even in his own eyes, but overmastering him
like the passion for money or drink.

Of all his eccentricities, the most pitiful and
yet the most absurd were not those which
sprang from his lower but from his higher instincts.
The better part of his nature made a
spasmodic struggle against the passions and appetites
that degraded it. Half his rudeness
and savagery was due to pride which would allow
no one to see the full extent of his weakness.
At times he turned violently on himself.
So in the spring of 1815 he snatched at religion
and for an instant felt a serious hope that
through the church he might purify his nature;
yet even in his most tender moments there was
something almost humorous in his childlike incapacity
to practice for two consecutive instants
the habit of self-control or the simplest instincts
of Christianity. "I am no disciple of Calvin
or Wesley," he wrote in one of these moods;
"but I feel the necessity of a changed nature;
of a new life; of an altered heart. I feel my
stubborn and rebellious nature to be softened,
and that it is essential to my comfort here as
well as to my future welfare, to cultivate and
cherish feelings of good-will towards all mankind;

to strive against envy, malice, and all uncharitableness.
I think I have succeeded in
forgiving all my enemies. There is not a human
being that I would hurt if it were in my
power; not even Bonaparte."

If in his moments of utmost Christian exaltation
he could only think he had forgiven his
enemies and would hurt no human being if he
had the power, what must have been his passion
for inflicting pain when the devil within
his breast held unchecked dominion!