Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States

RANDOLPH

RANDOLPH, John, was born in Chesterfield county, Va., June 2, 1773, and died at Philadelphia, May 24, 1833. From 1799 until 1813 he was a democratic congressman from Virginia. After 1801 he was for some years the administration leader in the house; but in 1805 he quarreled with his party (see QUIDS), and for some years he was a free lance, claiming to be a better democrat than the dominant party, and yet opposing the embargo and the war of 1812 in company with the federalists. He was out of congress 1813-15, having been defeated by Jefferson's son-in-law, John W. Eppes, but was again in congress 1815-17, 1819-23 and 1827-9, and in the last interval was United States senator, 1825-7. During a part of the year 1830 he was minister to Russia.

—Randolph's attenuated frame, his shrill voice, his powers of bitter sarcasm, his extraordinary eccentricities of speech, dress and manner, his pride of descent from Pocahontas, and, with it all, his real political power of thought, made him the problem of his own time. He was variously supposed to be crazy, emasculated, or guilty of some enormous secret crime; but he seems to have been only a supremely selfish spirit, loving a few others because they belonged to him, and his selfishness was concentrated into disease as they were taken from him by death.

—See Garland's Life of Randolph; F. W. Thomas' John Randolph; Parton's Famous Americans; 2.5 Harver's Monthly; 103 North American Review.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.