John Randolph of Roanoke

“ I have elsewhere noticed the noble qualities both of head and heart which were possessed by Martha Jefferson. It was the growth and development of these which years afterwards made John Randolph, of Roanoke—though he had quarrelled with her father—pronounce her the "noblest woman in Virginia." [40] Thomas Mann Randolph was intellectually not less highly gifted. He was a constant student, and for his genius and acquirements ranked among the first students at the University of Edinburgh. ”

“ Thus, Thomas Jefferson was the great-grandson and John Marshall the great-great-grandson of William Randolph and Mary Isham. Perhaps no other couple in American history is so remarkable for the number of distinguished descendants. Not only were they the ancestors of Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, but also of "Light Horse Harry" Lee, of Revolutionary fame, Edmund Randolph, Washington's first Attorney-General, John Randolph of Roanoke, George Randolph, Secretary of War under the Confederate Government, and General Robert E. Lee, the great Southern military leader of the Civil War. ”

“ James Waddell, it is said, was a relative of the celebrated teacher, Dr. Moses Waddell, of Georgia, president of the State University, 1819-29.
JOHN RANDOLPH. 1773=1833.
John Randolph of Roanoke, was born at Cawson’s, Virginia, being a descendant of Pocahontas in the seventh [Pg 138] generation. He lost his father early in life. His beautiful mother, to whom he was devotedly attached, afterwards married St. George Tucker, who happily was a true father to her children and educated John himself. Her death in 1788 was a life-long distress to her gifted son. ”

“ John Randolph, a cousin of John Randolph of Roanoke, ran away from home at sixteen, settling in Augusta. He was a merchant and became wealthy. Letitia, a daugter m. Wm. F. Smith, of Greenville, parent of J. Ran, Mrs. Anna Lilly, Mrs. Wilson Brown, Mrs. Mary Randolph, Mrs. Lee Christian and Prof. W. Ballard Smith of McDonough, Md. His son, John T. Randolph, m. Anne Farish, lived and died Charlottesville, Va., leaving four sons, viz., William who m. his first cousin, Mary Smith, parents of Edmund and Bruce Randolph of Augusta Co., Thomas F., Dr. John, and Walter Randolph. ”

“ Many conservatives among the Republicans deplored this shifting to the former views of their opponents. In the actual preparations for war, the passing of acts for an embargo, for a loan, for increasing the army and adding to the navy, John Randolph, the overtalented genius of Roanoke, raised his voice in both derision and prophecy.
"If a writ were to issue," said he, with an eloquence too erratic to be convincing, "against the Republican party of 1798, it would be impossible for a constable with a search-warrant to find it. Death, resignations, and desertions, have thinned its ranks. ”

“ Material things vanish, and then what remains? Life should be more rewarding than this. (Text.)
(1820)
LIFE, VENERATION FOR
Powhatan Bouldin’s “Home Reminiscences” has a story which shows John Randolph’s peculiar veneration for growing things. The incident is related by a friend of Randolph’s nephew:
When I was a boy I visited at Roanoke. The house was completely environed by trees and underwood, and seemed to be in a dense virgin forest. Mr. Randolph would not permit even a switch to be cut near the house.
Without being aware of this, one day I committed a serious trespass. ”

“ Their household gods have broken.
The curse is on thee, - wolves for men,
And briers for corn-sheaves giving!
Oh, more than all thy dead renown
Were now one hero living!
This work was published before January 1, 1928, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ They made less tobacco, and applied themselves more to domestic manufactures.
On the 22d of this month, 1775, died suddenly of an apoplexy, at Philadelphia, the able and virtuous Peyton Randolph, president of congress, aged fifty-two years, descended from a family long noted in Virginia for its wealth, talents, and influence; he was the second son of Sir John Randolph, and Susan Beverley, his wife. Peyton Randolph, being bred to the law, was, in 1748, appointed king's attorney for the colony, being then but twenty-four years of age. ”

“ Late in life Randolph seems to have been sensible of the enormity of his conduct. On the 2nd of July, 1810, he used the following language in a letter to the Hon. Bushrod Washington: "I do not retain the smallest degree of that feeling which roused me fifteen years ago against some individuals. For the world contains no treasure, deception, or charm which can seduce me from the consolation of being in a state of good will toward all mankind, and I should not be mortified to ask pardon of any man with whom I have been at variance for any injury which I may have done him. ”

“ He has a compass to steer by, and a port to sail to, instead of being afloat on the waste of waters, the sport of every breeze that blows. It is touching to observe that this unhappy, sick, and sometimes mad John Randolph, amid all the vagaries of his later life, had always a vein of soundness in him, derived from his early connection with the enlightened men who acted in politics with Thomas Jefferson. ”

“ The amount of all the speeches of John Randolph in the House, for two or three years is, that himself and myself are the only two honest and consistent men in the United States. Himself eternally in opposition to government, and myself as constantly in favor of it. He is now in correspondence with his friend Quincy. What will come of it, let Virginia and Massachusetts judge. ”

“ John Randolph sought Evadne in the familiar porch which had grown to be to him the sweetest spot on earth.
"You are always busy," he said with a smile, as he lifted the garment she was making for the little waif who was to have her first taste of heaven at 'The Willows.' Satan has no chance to find an occupation for you."
"But, oh, Doctor Randolph, what a drop in the bucket all our doing seems, when we think of the need of the world!"
"Yet without the drops the bucket would be empty, dear friend. God never expects the impossible from us, you know. ”

“ The sportsman has no need to urge a well-broken desert horse—it will turn into the hot trail and stretch out in pursuit till the speed sends a gale whistling past the ears of the rider and the dust from his heels lingers above the mesa like the smoke from a flying express. ”

“ At a quarter before twelve o’clock, on the twenty-fourth day of June, 1833, aged sixty years, he breathed his last, in a chamber of the City Hotel, Philadelphia.
From the very necessities of the nature of an Eccentric, John Randolph could not be in harmony with the time in which he lived. But this difference was intensified into enmity by the irritable nature of his mind and the diseased condition of his body; nay, by his very virtues and genius. To increase the enmity and his own misfortune, he threw himself with ardor upon the losing side of an irrepressible conflict in government. ”

“ Mr. Johnson is said to have a certified copy of the Randolph will providing for the liberation of the slaves—their transportation into Ohio, the purchase of land for them, its distribution among them etc. How much money has been raised for the lawyers I could not find but some money has been raised & more probably will be.
Speaking of John Randolph the Master, old Mr. Fountain Randolph said "my father said he had lots of peculiarities about him. He never sold a slave & never allowed them to be abused. ”

“ The person to whom this work was entrusted was Edward Randolph, a cousin of Robert Mason who inherited the property claim to the Piscataqua county. To these men had old John Mason bequeathed his deadly feud with Massachusetts, and the fourteen years which Randolph now spent in New England were busily devoted to sowing the seeds of strife. In 1678 the king appointed him collector and surveyor of customs at the port of Boston, with instructions to enforce the navigation laws. Randolph was not the man to do unpopular things in such a way as to dull the edge of the infliction ”

“ He was sent by the Confederate government in 1862 to England and France, and in 1863-'4 to Canada, to obtain commissary supplies. He went to Mexico after the civil war closed, was there till Maximilian's reign came to an end, then returned to the United States, and has since resided in Washington, D. C., and Berkeley Springs, W. Va. — Another son, John Randolph, statesman, b. in Winchester, Va., 24 Dec., 1823, received his early education at a private school near his home, entered Richmond academy, and finished his studies at the University of Virginia, where he was graduated in law in 1844. ”

“ If only Randolph had stood for the Constitution, wrote Madison, "it would have given it a decided and unalterable preponderancy," and Henry would have been "baffled."
The New England opposition, Madison assured Randolph, was from "that part of the people who have a repugnance in general to good government ... a part of whom are known to aim at confusion and are suspected of wishing a reversal of the Revolution.... Nothing can be further from your [Randolph's] views than the principles of the different sets of men who have carried on their opposition under the respectability of your name." ”

“ Mrs. Randolph and the doctor watched her with kindly amusement. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement, and there was a bright color in her cheeks; she seemed quite a different creature from the pale, subdued girl of a week before.
"I declare, Barbara, I had no idea that little girl was so pretty," Dr. Randolph remarked in a low tone to his sister-in-law, when Marjorie and Beverly were in the midst of an animated discussion about Captain John Smith and Pocahontas.
"She is charming," Mrs. Randolph answered, smiling. "It is strange how much environment has to do with appearance." ”

“ It is signed Olive Randolph; the name to which she evidently feels herself best entitled.
"The man known in New York City as Randolph Stone was first seen by me in Michigan five years ago. His name then was John Randolph, and how he has since come to add to this the further appellation of Stone, I must leave to himself to explain.
"I was born in Michigan myself, and till my eighteenth [Pg 369] year I lived with my father, who was a widower without any other child, in a little low cottage amid the sand mounds that border the eastern side of the lake. ”

“ With the mighty waves from across the ocean thundering against the foot of that great wall, throwing their spray high over its crest, and at times sweeping pebbles from the pathway, with the solid water rising up as if to grasp the wayfarer, that is a trail of which one may well think with a feeling of awe as well as of delight. ”

“ But he did, and such as no writer need have blushed to own.
Among the caprices of the "genus irritabile vatum," is that of hiding their talents. Some, from sheer spleen, will not write. John Randolph used to say that he would go to his grave "guiltless of rhyme." Yet he talked poetry from morning till night.
As I am out a purveyor for your journal, and not a contributor, I am bound to see that they, from whose writings I pilfer, come by no wrong. I must therefore enter a complaint on behalf of the friend whose letter I sent you, describing a scene on the Mississippi. ”

“ The example of John Randolph is a caution to all honest and prudent men, to sacrifice a little of self-confidence, and to go with their friends, although they may sometimes think they are going wrong. ”

“ In this passage of his speech, the partisan spoke, not the man. John Randolph expressed the real feeling of his nature toward soldiers, when, a few years later, on the same floor, he said: "If I must have a master, let him be one with epaulets; something which I can look up to; but not a master with a quill behind his ear." In 1800, however, it pleased him to style the soldiers of the United States ragamuffins and mercenaries ”

“ He was chiefly instrumental in framing the Georgia Constitution in 1798. From that year till 1801, he was governor of the state, when he again took a seat in the Senate of the United States. He held that office until his death, which occurred on the nineteenth of March, 1806. He was buried about four miles from Washington City. Subsequently, his remains were deposited in the Congressional burial-ground. The inscription upon the stone which covers them was written by John Randolph, his personal friend and admirer. There never lived a truer patriot or more honest man than General James Jackson. ”

“ And John Randolph, our colored coachman, waved his hand with a proud air of ownership, as if he were displaying lofty halls with mahogany stairs and marble pillars, instead of the mortar and brick foundation, in its bare outline, of the old capitol, or House of Burgesses.
"Walk right in, suh. Bring de ladies dis way, boss," John Randolph urged, in a tone of lordly hospitality. "Right hyah is the charmber (room) whar Marse Patrick Henry made dat great speech agin de king—old Marse King George—or bossin' uv de colonies. ”

“ It must have been a sore trial to Sir Walter Raleigh when he learned that his colonists had returned to England. He had sent over a ship with abundant supplies, which reached Roanoke only a few days after Sir Francis Drake sailed away with his fleet. Finding no white people upon the island, the ships returned to England. Sir Richard Grenville also touched at the same point, with three other ships, about fifteen days later. The folly, avarice and timidity of agents such as Ralph Lane have, in all ages, crippled the noblest efforts for human advancement. ”

“ Hay's mind is "harder than Ajax's seven fold shield of bull's hide"; Edmund Randolph came into court "with mysterious looks of awe and terror ... as if he had something to communicate which was too horrible to be told"; Hay is always "on his heroics"; he "hopped up like a parched pea"; the object of Burr's counsel is "to prejudice the surrounding multitude against General Wilkinson"; one newspaper tale is "as impudent a falsehood as ever malignity had uttered"—such was the language with which the arguments were adorned. ”