DEATH OF JOHN RANDOLPH, OF ROANOAKE.
He died at Philadelphia in the summer of 1833--the scene of his
early and brilliant apparition on the stage of public life, having
commenced his parliamentary career in that city, under the first Mr.
Adams, when Congress sat there, and when he was barely of an age to
be admitted into the body. For more than thirty years he was the
political meteor of Congress, blazing with undiminished splendor
during the whole time, and often appearing as the "planetary plague"
which shed, not war and pestilence on nations, but agony and fear
on members. His sarcasm was keen, refined, withering--with a
great tendency to indulge in it; but, as he believed, as a lawful
parliamentary weapon to effect some desirable purpose. Pretension,
meanness, vice, demagogism, were the frequent subjects of the
exercise of his talent; and, when confined to them, he was the
benefactor of the House. Wit and genius all allowed him; sagacity
was a quality of his mind visible to all observers--and which
gave him an intuitive insight into the effect of measures. During
the first six years of Mr. Jefferson's administration, he was the
"Murat" of his party, brilliant in the charge, and always ready for
it; and valued in the council, as well as in the field. He was long
the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means--a place always
of labor and responsibility, and of more then than now, when the
elements of revenue were less abundant; and no man could have been
placed in that situation during Mr. Jefferson's time whose known
sagacity was not a pledge for the safety of his lead in the most
sudden and critical circumstances. He was one of those whom that
eminent statesman habitually consulted during the period of their
friendship, and to whom he carefully communicated his plans before
they were given to the public. On his arrival at Washington at the
opening of each session of Congress during this period, he regularly
found waiting for him at his established lodgings--then Crawford's,
Georgetown--the card of Mr. Jefferson, with an invitation for dinner
the next day; a dinner at which the leading measures of the ensuing
session were the principal topic. Mr. Jefferson did not treat in
that way a member in whose sagacity he had not confidence.
It is not just to judge such a man by ordinary rules, nor by
detached and separate incidents in his life. To comprehend him,
he must be judged as a whole--physically and mentally--and under
many aspects, and for his entire life. He was never well--a chronic
victim of ill health from the cradle to the grave. A letter from
his most intimate and valued friend, Mr. Macon, written to me after
his death, expressed the belief that he had never enjoyed during
his life one day of perfect health--such as well people enjoy.
Such life-long suffering must have its effect on the temper and
on the mind; and it had on his--bringing the temper often to the
querulous mood, and the state of his mind sometimes to the question
of insanity; a question which became judicial after his death, when
the validity of his will came to be contested. I had my opinion on
the point, and gave it responsibly, in a deposition duly taken,
to be read on the trial of the will; and in which a belief in his
insanity, at several specified periods, was fully expressed--with
the reasons for the opinion. I had good opportunities of forming an
opinion, living in the same house with him several years, having
his confidence, and seeing him at all hours of the day and night.
It also on several occasions became my duty to study the question,
with a view to govern my own conduct under critical circumstances.
Twice he applied to me to carry challenges for him. It would have
been inhuman to have gone out with a man not in his right mind,
and critical to one's self, as any accident on the ground might
seriously compromise the second. My opinion was fixed, of occasional
temporary aberrations of mind; and during such periods he would do
and say strange things--but always in his own way--not only method,
but genius in his fantasies: nothing to bespeak a bad heart, but
only exaltation and excitement. The most brilliant talk that I
ever heard from him came forth on such occasions--a flow for hours
(at one time seven hours), of copious wit and classic allusion--a
perfect scattering of the diamonds of the mind. I heard a friend
remark on one of these occasions, "he has wasted intellectual
jewelry enough here this evening to equip many speakers for great
orations." I once sounded him on the delicate point of his own
opinion of himself:--of course when he was in a perfectly natural
state, and when he had said something to permit an approach to
such a subject. It was during his last visit to Washington, two
winters before he died. It was in my room, in the gloom of the
evening light, as the day was going out and the lamps not lit--no
one present but ourselves--he reclining on a sofa, silent and
thoughtful, speaking but seldom, and I only in reply, I heard him
repeat, as if to himself, those lines from Johnson, (which in fact
I had often heard from him before), on "Senility and Imbecility,"
which show us life under its most melancholy form.
"In life's last scenes what prodigies surprise,
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise!
From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,
And Swift expires, a driveller and a show."
When he had thus repeated these lines, which he did with deep
feeling and in slow and measured cadence, I deemed it excusable
to make a remark of a kind which I had never ventured on before;
and said: Mr. Randolph I have several times heard you repeat these
lines, as if they could have an application to yourself, while no
person can have less reason to fear the fate of Swift. I said this
to sound him, and to see what he thought of himself. His answer was:
"I have lived in dread of insanity." That answer was the opening of
a sealed book--revealed to me the source of much mental agony that
I had seen him undergo. I did deem him in danger of the fate of
Swift, and from the same cause as judged by his latest and greatest
biographer, Sir Walter Scott.
His parliamentary life was resplendent in talent--elevated in moral
tone--always moving on the lofty line of honor and patriotism, and
scorning every thing mean and selfish. He was the indignant enemy of
personal and plunder legislation, and the very scourge of intrigue
and corruption. He reverenced an honest man in the humblest garb,
and scorned the dishonest, though plated with gold. An opinion was
propagated that he was fickle in his friendships. Certainly there
were some capricious changes; but far more instances of steadfast
adherence. His friendship with Mr. Macon was historic. Their names
went together in life--live together in death--and are honored
together, most by those who knew them best. With Mr. Tazewell, his
friendship was still longer than that with Mr. Macon, commencing
in boyhood, and only ending with life. So of many others; and
pre-eminently so of his neighbors and constituents--the people of
his congressional district--affectionate as well as faithful to him;
electing him as they did, from boyhood to the grave. No one felt
more for friends, or was more solicitous and anxious at the side
of the sick and dying bed. Love of wine was attributed to him; and
what was mental excitement, was referred to deep potations. It was
a great error. I never saw him affected by wine--not even to the
slightest departure from the habitual and scrupulous decorum of his
manners. His temper was naturally gay and social, and so indulged
when suffering of mind and body permitted. He was the charm of the
dinner-table, where his cheerful and sparkling wit delighted every
ear, lit up every countenance, and detained every guest. He was
charitable; but chose to conceal the hand that ministered relief. I
have often seen him send little children out to give to the poor.
He was one of the large slaveholders of Virginia, but disliked
the institution, and, when let alone, opposed its extension.
Thus, in 1803, when as chairman of the committee which reported
upon the Indiana memorial for a temporary dispensation from the
anti-slavery part of the ordinance of 1787, he puts the question
upon a statesman's ground; and reports against it, in a brief and
comprehensive argument:
"That the rapid population of the State of Ohio sufficiently
evinces, in the opinion of your committee, that the labor of
the slave is not necessary to promote the growth and settlement
of colonies in that region. That this labor, demonstrably
the dearest of any, can only be employed to advantage in the
cultivation of products more valuable than any known to
that quarter of the United States: and the committee deem it
highly dangerous and inexpedient to impair a provision wisely
calculated to promote the happiness and prosperity of the
northwestern country, and to give strength and security to that
extensive frontier. In the salutary operation of this sagacious
and benevolent restraint, it is believed that the inhabitants of
Indiana will, at no very distant day, find ample remuneration
for a temporary privation of labor and emigration."
He was against slavery; and by his will, both manumitted and
provided for the hundreds which he held. But he was against
foreign interference with his rights, his feelings, or his duties;
and never failed to resent and rebuke such interference. Thus,
he was one of the most zealous of the opposers of the proposed
Missouri restriction; and even voted against the divisional line
of "thirty-six thirty." In the House, when the term "slaveholder"
would be reproachfully used, he would assume it, and refer to a
member, not in the parliamentary phrase of colleague, but in the
complimentary title of "my fellow-slaveholder." And, in London,
when the consignees of his tobacco, and the slave factors of his
father, urged him to liberate his slaves, he quieted their intrusive
philanthropy, on the spot, by saying, "Yes: you buy and set free to
the amount of the money you have received from my father and his
estate for these slaves, and I will set free an equal number."
In his youth and later age, he fought duels: in his middle life, he
was against them; and, for a while, would neither give nor receive a
challenge. He was under religious convictions to the contrary, but
finally yielded (as he believed) to an argument of his own, that
a duel was private war, and rested upon the same basis as public
war; and that both were allowable, when there was no other redress
for insults and injuries. That was his argument; but I thought his
relapse came more from feeling than reason; and especially from
the death of Decatur, to whom he was greatly attached, and whose
duel with Barron long and greatly excited him. He had religious
impressions, and a vein of piety which showed itself more in
private than in external observances. He was habitual in his
reverential regard for the divinity of our religion; and one of his
beautiful expressions was, that, "If woman had lost us paradise,
she had gained us heaven." The Bible and Shakespeare were, in his
latter years, his constant companions--travelling with him on the
road--remaining with him in the chamber. The last time I saw him (in
that last visit to Washington, after his return from the Russian
mission, and when he was in full view of death) I heard him read the
chapter in the Revelations (of the opening of the seals), with such
power and beauty of voice and delivery, and such depth of pathos,
that I felt as if I had never heard the chapter read before. When
he had got to the end of the opening of the sixth seal, he stopped
the reading, laid the book (open at the place) on his breast, as he
lay on his bed, and began a discourse upon the beauty and sublimity
of the Scriptural writings, compared to which he considered all
human compositions vain and empty. Going over the images presented
by the opening of the seals, he averred that their divinity was in
their sublimity--that no human power could take the same images,
and inspire the same awe and terror, and sink ourselves into such
nothingness in the presence of the "wrath of the Lamb"--that he
wanted no proof of their divine origin but the sublime feelings
which they inspired.