For six years, as we have said, Mr. Randolph led the Republican party in the House of Representatives, and supported the measures of the administration,—all of them. In the spring of 1807, without apparent cause, he suddenly went into opposition, and from that time opposed the policy of the administration,—the whole of it.
Why this change? If there were such a thing as going apprentice to the art of discovering truth, a master in that art could not set an apprentice a better preliminary lesson than this: Why did John Randolph go into opposition in 1807? The gossips of that day had no difficulty in answering the question. Some said he had asked Mr. Jefferson for a foreign mission, and been refused. Others thought it was jealousy of Mr. Madison, who was known to be the President's choice for the succession. Others surmised that an important state secret had been revealed to other members of the House, but not to him. These opinions our tyro would find very positively recorded, and he would also, in the course of his researches, come upon the statement that Mr. Randolph himself attributed the breach to his having beaten the President at a game of chess, which the President could not forgive. The truth is, that John Randolph bolted for the same reason that a steel spring resumes its original bent the instant the restraining force is withdrawn. His position as leader of a party was irksome, because it obliged him to work in harness, and he had never been broken to harness. His party connection bound him to side with France in the great contest then raging between France and England, and yet his whole soul sympathized with England. This native Virginian was more consciously and positively English than any native of England ever was. English literature had nourished his mind; English names captivated his imagination; English traditions, feelings, instincts, habits, prejudices, were all congenial to his nature. How hard for such a man to side officially with Napoleon in those gigantic wars! Abhorring Napoleon with all a Randolph's force of antipathy, it was nevertheless expected of him, as a good Republican, to interpret leniently the man who, besides being the armed soldier of democracy, had sold Louisiana to the United States. Randolph, moreover, was an absolute aristocrat. He delighted to tell the House of Representatives that he, being a Virginian slaveholder, was not obliged to curry favor with his coachman or his shoeblack, lest when he drove to the polls the coachman should dismount from his box, or the shoeblack drop his brushes, and neutralize their master's vote by voting on the other side. How he exulted in the fact that in Virginia none but freeholders could vote! How happy he was to boast, that, in all that Commonwealth, there was no such thing as a ballot-box! "May I never live to see the day," he would exclaim, "when a Virginian shall be ashamed to declare aloud at the polls for whom he casts his vote!" What pleasure he took in speaking of his Virginia wilderness as a "barony," and signing his name "John Randolph of Roanoke," and in wearing the garments that were worn in Virginia when the great tobacco lords were running through their estates in the fine old picturesque and Irish fashion!
Obviously, an antique of this pattern was out of place as a leader in the Republican party. For a time the spell of Jefferson's winning genius, and the presence of a powerful opposition, kept him in some subjection; but in 1807 that spell had spent its force, and the Federal party was not formidable. John Randolph was himself again. The immediate occasion of the rupture was, probably, Mr. Jefferson's evident preference of James Madison as his successor. We have a right to infer this, from the extreme and lasting rancor which Randolph exhibited toward Mr. Madison, who he used to say was as mean a man for a Virginian as John Quincy Adams was for a Yankee. Nor ought we ever to speak of this gifted and unhappy man without considering his physical condition. It appears from the slight notices we have of this vital matter, that about the year 1807 the stock of vigor which his youth had acquired was gone, and he lived thenceforth a miserable invalid, afflicted with diseases that sharpen the temper and narrow the mind. John Randolph well might have outgrown inherited prejudices and limitations, and attained to the stature of a modern, a national, a republican man. John Randolph sick—radically and incurably sick—ceased to grow just when his best growth would naturally have begun.
The sudden defection of a man so conspicuous and considerable, at a time when the Republican party was not aware of its strength, struck dismay to many minds, who felt, with Jefferson, that to the Republican party in the United States were confided the best interests of human nature. Mr. Jefferson was not in the least alarmed, because he knew the strength of the party and the weakness of the man. The letter which he wrote on this subject to Mr. Monroe ought to be learned by heart by every politician in the country,—by the self-seekers, for the warning which it gives them, and by the patriotic, for the comfort which it affords them in time of trouble. Some readers, perhaps, will be reminded by it of events which occurred at Washington not longer ago than last winter.[1]
"Our old friend Mercer broke off from us some time ago; at first, professing to disdain joining the Federalists; yet, from the habit of voting together, becoming soon identified with them. Without carrying over with him one single person, he is now in a state of as perfect obscurity as if his name had never been known. Mr. J. Randolph is in the same track, and will end in the same way. His course has excited considerable alarm. Timid men consider it as a proof of the weakness of our government, and that it is to be rent in pieces by demagogues and to end in anarchy. I survey the scene with a different eye, and draw a different augury from it. In a House of Representatives of a great mass of good sense, Mr. Randolph's popular eloquence gave him such advantages as to place him unrivalled as the leader of the House; and, although not conciliatory to those whom he led, principles of duty and patriotism induced many of them to swallow humiliations he subjected them to, and to vote as was right, as long as he kept the path of right himself. The sudden departure of such a man could not but produce a momentary astonishment, and even dismay; but for a moment only. The good sense of the House rallied around its principles, and, without any leader, pursued steadily the business of the session, did it well, and by a strength of vote which has never before been seen…. The augury I draw from this is, that there is a steady good sense in the legislature and in the body of the nation, joined with good intentions, which will lead them to discern and to pursue the public good under all circumstances which can arise, and that no ignis fatuus will be able to lead them long astray."
Mr. Jefferson predicted that the lost sheep of the Republican fold would wander off to the arid wastes of Federalism; but he never did so. His defection was not an inconsistency, but a return to consistency. He presented himself in his true character thenceforth, which was that of a States' Rights fanatic. He opposed the election of Mr. Madison to the Presidency, as he said, because Mr. Madison was weak on the sovereignty of the States. He opposed the war of 1812 for two reasons:—1. Offensive war was in itself unconstitutional, being a national act. 2. War was nationalizing. A hundred times before the war, he foretold that, if war occurred, the sovereignty of the States was gone forever, and we should lapse into nationality. A thousand times after the war, he declared that this dread lapse had occurred. At a public dinner, after the return of peace, he gave the once celebrated toast, "States' Rights,—De mortuis nil nisi bonum." As before the war he sometimes affected himself to tears while dwelling upon the sad prospect of kindred people imbruing their hands in one another's blood, so during the war he was one of the few American citizens who lamented the triumphs of their country's arms. In his solitude at Roanoke he was cast down at the news of Perry's victory on the lake, because he thought it would prolong the contest; and he exulted in the banishment of Napoleon to Elba, although it let loose the armies and fleets of Britain upon the United States. "That insolent coward," said he, "has met his deserts at last." This Virginia Englishman would not allow that Napoleon possessed even military talent; but stoutly maintained, to the last, that he was the merest sport of fortune. When the work of restoration was in progress, under the leadership of Clay and Calhoun, John Randolph was in his element, for he could honestly oppose every movement and suggestion of those young orators,—national bank, protective tariff, internal improvements, everything. He was one of the small number who objected to the gift of land and money to Lafayette, and one of the stubborn minority who would have seen the Union broken up rather than assent to the Missouri Compromise, or to any Missouri compromise. The question at issue in all these measures, he maintained, was the same, and it was this: Are we a nation or a confederacy?
Talent, too, is apt to play the despot over the person that possesses it. This man had such a power of witty vituperation in him, with so decided a histrionic gift, that his rising to speak was always an interesting event; and he would occasionally hold both the House and the galleries attentive for three or four hours. He became accustomed to this homage; he craved it; it became necessary to him. As far back as 1811, Washington Irving wrote of him, in one of his letters from Washington:
"There is no speaker in either House that excites such universal attention as Jack Randolph. But they listen to him more to be delighted by his eloquence and entertained by his ingenuity and eccentricity, than to be convinced by sound doctrine and close argument."
As he advanced in age, this habit of startling the House by unexpected dramatic exhibitions grew upon him. One of the most vivid pictures ever painted in words of a parliamentary scene is that in which the late Mr. S.G. Goodrich records his recollection of one of these displays. It occurred in 1820, during one of the Missouri debates. A tall man, with a little head and a small oval face, like that of an aged boy, rose and addressed the chairman.
"He paused a moment," wrote Mr. Goodrich,