MR. M. CONWAY'S "EDMUND RANDOLPH."
IT is with difficulty-that ordinary Englishmen can bring them- selves to feel any deep interest in the early history of the big American Republic. The stage seems to them a narrow one, the actors for the most part of mediocre quality, the events to be wanting in size, and to lack the dramatic element which the evolution of centuries and the competition of whole peoples among themselves add to the annals of the countries of the Old World. The Colonial history of America is, indeed, more interesting, if less important, than that of the Union in which the Colony merged its individuality, and became a sort of magnified county of a theoretical State itself not a phase of natural growth, but the purely artificial creation of a paper Con- stitution. Nevertheless, to the student of constitutional history and law, the beginnings of American history are in a high degree instructive and scientifically interesting. When the true history of the Union shall be written—and the day is not now far distant—it will be seen that it owed much more to the crafty policy of Vergennes, who deliberately sacrificed the interests of France in America that the rise of British power in the East might be balanced by its annihilation in the West, than to any fervour for nationality upon the part of the colonists. The steady help of France and the blunders of Lord North's Government, coupled with a singular lack at the time of able public servants of the Crown, brought a military success to the Thirteen Colonies that forced them to look about for a Constitution under a condition of things un- parallelled in history. The revolution was the work of the aristocratic landowners of the South, and was accepted rather than desired by the traders and small farmers of the New England Colonies and New York. But North and South the Colonies soon discovered that to assure their joint independence as a nation, they must sacrifice more or less of their several autonomy, and North and South the sacrifice was found equally distasteful. In Colonial Independence it was not at first clearly seen that the creation of a new State was involved. Long after the Declaration of Independence, membership of the State Assembly was much more sought after than membership of Congress. To the authority of Washington none demurred ; it was proposed that he should be invested with the title of Highness, even with that of Majesty or Elective Majesty, and Gouverneur Morris spoke of his government as ma eour. But the desire was almost universal to restrict the powers of the Federal Government within the narrowest limits. That in the end a truer view was taken of the necessities of a new nation, if it was to be a living reality and not a mere lifeless aggregation, was principally due to the political sagacity and untiring eloquence of the most unpartisan and most maligned of American statesman,—the first Attorney-General of the United States, Edmund Randolph.
It is, indeed, better to render justice late than not to render it at all. But too prolonged a delay may work a mischief not easily reparable. For nearly a hundred years the cloud has been allowed to rest on the Virginian statesman's memory, and it may be that even Mr. Conway's eloquence will not wholly remove what Edmund Randolph's own indignant vindication failed to dissipate. Few Americans, however, will read this stirring and closely reasoned appeal without a sense, more or less distinct, that the name of a true patriot has been restored to its rightful place on the honour-roll of their country. Nor • Omitted Chapters of History Disclose l in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph. Governor of Virginia, &c. By lioneure D. Conway. New York and
London; Panama. will the reader on this side of the Atlantic fail to be moved, perhaps instructed, by the touching record of the sacrifice of a. brilliant career to the gross exigencies of party politics.
The Randolphs of Virginia were descended from an old English family, and occupied a foremost position among the gentry of Raleigh's Colony. The Attorney-Generalship of the Colony was almost an appanage of the family. Sir John Randolph, Edmund's grandfather, whom Mr. Conway de- scribes, surely mistakenly, as the only native American on whom a title was bestowed, was Attorney-General ; so was John Randolph, the father of Edmund ; and so, too, was his uncle and adoptive father, Peyton, Washington's close friemt and virtual predecessor in the Presidential chair. Of many other eminent Randolphs the names are well known to students of American history ; but of all the Randolphs, the only one noticed in the usual biographies, even in the Biographie Universelle, and in the Eneyclopxdia Britannica, is- John Randolph of Roanoke, an altogether inferior politician,. remembered chiefly by his rabid advocacy of State-rights, and his duel with the celebrated Henry Clay. When the Revo- lution broke out, the earlier John Randolph felt himself bound by his oath of office, and retired to England to live upon a Ministerial pension of E100 a year. The son, on the other hand, espoused with ardour the Colonial cause, and in 1775 was appointed Aide-de-Camp to Washington, upon the strong re- commendation of several Virginian notables, one of whom was Jefferson. In the same year, Peyton Randolph died, and_ towards its close Edmund was elected by the citizens of Williamsburg to represent them in the famous Virginian Convention of 1776, in which he was the youngest member, being only twenty-three years of age. He was immediately appointed on the Committee (including Patrick Henry, Madi- son, Mason, H. Lee, and other less known names) charged with the preparation of a Declaration of Rights and a plan of government.
It was while thus engaged that his ethical sagacity probably first pointed out to him the inconsistency, indeed the absurdity, of a community of slave-holders declaring that all men are by nature free and independent. At the close of the Convention, he was elected Attorney-General at the not extravagant salary of 2200. Of his personality at this time we have the following description by one who knew him well :—" His noble stature, his handsome face, his unfailing address, insensibly arrest the attention He spoke with a readiness, with a fulln,ss of illustration, and with an elegance of manner and ex l ression, that excited universal admiration." In 1779, Randolph was elected to Congress. For his services as delegate, he seems to have been pretty well paid,-6s. per mile travelling-money (exclusive of "carriages "), and £12 per day of attendance. In 1782 he resigned. During all these years he maintained a regular correspondence with Washington, whose business affairs in Virginia he managed, and continued to manage for many years, Without any remuneration. In 1786 he was elected Governor of Virginia, and was warmly congratulated upon his election by the President. The inconveniences of the Confederation were being severely felt, and Mr. Conway produces abundant evidence of the great services rendered by Randolph to the Union cause, as opposed to Particularism, at this decisive crisis. The drafting of a new Constitution, under un- precedented conditions, was found to be no easy matter. The British Constitution could not be taken as a model, and first principles had to be thought out and applied to a case novel in political history. It seems to us that Mr. Conway has made it clear that to Randolph more than to any other single man the Constitution of the United States (exclusive of the amendments produced by the Civil War) owes its present shape. He was at once philosophical in his grasp of great principles and practical in their application, and he possessed in a high degree that supreme virtue of statesmanship, conciliability independent of partisanship. What was his merit, however, proved his ruin. His hatred of particular sovereignty brought him into collision with his own State, and with party politicians who vowed Lis destruction. They had not very long to wait. In 1789 he became the first Attorney-General of the United States, on a salary of $2,000. His whole income at this time was not more than $3,000. When Jefferson retired from the office of Secre- tary of State in 1794, he hinted, for reasons of his own, at Randolph as his successor. It was, says Mr. Conway, much as if a "fair Salvstionist,' finding her jewellery was carrying her to the Devil, gave it to her sister." The Secretary of State was practically Foreign Secretary; and upon Randolph's taking office, he found the relations of the country with both France and England had assumed an extremely critical character. The one belligerent desired the neutrality of America, the other her secret aid. The dominant party was favourable to England and adverse to France. Randolph's attitude was one of strict impartiality, irrespective of party, and upon the reports of the British Minister, was viewed with dislike and dread by the Government of Lord Grenville; while it was denounced with equal fervour by the agents of the French Republic, Genet and Fauchet. A despatch of the latter, full of vague denunciations of Randolph, was intercepted at sea in 1795, and forwarded to America to be used against the Secretary of State. With Randolph's record before them, it is difficult to understand how public men in America—and especially how Washington—could attach any importance to the gross but undefined accusations of Fauchet, accusations of receiving bribes and disclosing Cabinet secrets. Mr. Conway prints the despatch in full, and meets every charge, as far as charges so vague can be met, with a refutation that seems to us amply justified by the evidence. After an interview with Washington, whose treatment of the matter displayed a great want both of fairness and generosity, Randolph re- signed, and never again held office in the United States. Probably no public man ever fell upon so intrinsically slight an occasion. Mr. Conway does not tell us why no investigation was ever demanded, either by Randolph or by his accusers. The explanation is this. There, was a sacred- ness about the figure of Washington which caused his decisions to be received with an unquestioning confidence that forbade going behind them for any purpose whatever. 'The fallen Secretary, indeed, reflected with a severity not un- merited upon Washington's behaviour ; but he knew that on any demand for an inquiry, which would look like an inquiry into the President's conduct, the whole voice of the public would be cast against him. He could not, he would not, fight with the saviour of his country. It is tenderness. to Washington's memory, no doubt, that has kept alive the myth of Randolph's treachery and dishonesty, a myth still so vigorous that in 1887 his name figured in an official list of debtors to the United States for a sum long ago paid, and more than paid. It is high time that the shadow so long cast on a noble name should pass away for ever, and the truth be known, even at the cost of some diminution of Washington's fame, if only—to quote the bitter phrase that ends this volume—that Randolph's story may serve "as an exemplary warning against self-truthfulness, an instruction in servility to party or populace, until that resurrection-day when America shall rate personal, as high as national, independence."
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