John Randolph of Roanoke: "Proceedings that are a crying sin before God and man"

In his essay "The Missouri Controversy and Sectionalism", which may be found in Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism, Robert Pierce Forbes mentions that "[i]n 1816, John Randolph of Roanoke denounced the domestic slave trade on the floor of Congress and called for a federal investigation into it." Randolph has long been one of my favorite characters in American history. I was generally aware of his views on the slave trade but was unaware of the speech. Having located it in the Annals of Congress, I thought I'd share it with you.

As usual, the ever-colorful, acid-tongued Randolph pulled no punches. Taking the floor on Friday March 1, 1816 following a discussion of routine matters relating to the District of Columbia, Randolph rose to address "a subject of infinitely more importance in every point of view." At the outset he damned both the slave trade as an "abomination" and his colleagues in the House for their moral blindness (I have transposed all quotes from the third person to the first and added some paragraph breaks):

I wish that some other gentleman had undertaken the business; but as no one has thought proper to awaken the House to a sense of their concern in it, or to point the finger of scorn at it, I will take upon myself the office to do it, and to call upon the House to put a stop to proceedings at this moment carried on under our very noses; proceedings that are a crying sin before God and man; a practice which is not surpassed for abomination in any part of the earth; for in no part of it, not even excepting the rivers on the coast of Africa, is there so great and so infamous a slave market as in the metropolis, in the very Seat of Government of this nation, which prides itself on freedom.

Randolph denied that he would weaken the institution of slavery, and affirmed that citizens were entitled to purchase slaves.

[B]ut it is not necessary to that exercise that this city should be made a depot of slaves, who are bought either from cruel masters or kidnapped - slaves stolen from their masters, and free persons stolen, as I might say, from themselves. It is not necessary that we should have, here in the very streets of our new metropolis, a depot for this nefarious traffic - in comparison with which the traffic from Africa to Charleston or Jamaica is mercy, is virtue.

Randolph suggested, offensively to modern ears, that the fact that slaves in America ceased being "savages" and became "civilized" only heightened the barbarity of slave market:

Indeed there can be no comparison rationally instituted between taking these savages from their native wilds and tearing the civilized informed negro, habituated to cultivated life, from his master, his friends, his wife, his children, or his parents.

Randolph conceded that slaves would have to move from place to place. But he condemned the "systematic slave market" and moved that it be investigated and stopped:

As to the right of passing through the place, as ordinary occasions might require, it is unquestionable; but there is a great difference between that and making the District a depot for a systematic slave market - an assemblage of prisons where the unfortunate beings, reluctant, no doubt, to be torn from their connexions, and the affections of their lives, are incarcerated and chained down, and thence driven in fetters like beasts, to be paid for like cattle.

I therefore move that the Committee of the District of Columbia should be instructed to inquire into the inhuman and illegal traffic in slaves carried on in this District, and to devise some speedy means to put a stop to it.

A comment that Randolph interpreted as an attempt to deflect responsibility for addressing the issue prompted him to a diatribe against heartless slave-traders and masters:

The object of my resolutions is a more coercive police. I know that the demands for cotton, tobacco, and latterly of sugar, create a demand for slaves, and we have a description of people here like those described by Mungo Park, (only that that they are not so humane or so honest) white traders who make this their depot, and sell human beings; and to verify this charge, and show the audacious villainy of their proceedings, consider these words of an advertisement of a sale of negroes - "No objection to TRADERS bidding."

The increase in the price is the temptation for which their base, hard-hearted masters sold out of their families the negroes who had been raised among them. This very day I heard a horrible fact from a respectable gentleman as he came to the House, which I will relate. A poor negro, by hard work and saving of his allowances, had laid by money enough to buy the freedom of his wife and child, and had paid it from time to time into the hands of his master, but the poor fellow died. The transaction was an affair of hon or with the master, and the day after the poor fellow's death, the woman and child were sold.

One fact like this speaks volumes. I repeat, that if the honorable chairman of the Committee of the District of Columbia refuses to take upon him the inquiry into this rank offence, I will myself be among these people.

Randolph closed with an anecdote worthy of an abolitionist:

I was lately mortified at being told by a foreigner of high rank, "You call this the land of liberty, and every day that passes things are done in it at which the despotisms of Europe would be horrorstruck and disgusted."

The House then passed the following resolution:

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to inquire into the existence of an inhuman and illegal traffic in slaves carried on in and through the District of Columbia, and to report whether any, and what, measures are necessary for putting a stop to the same.

Messrs. Randolph, Joseph Hopkinson (Federalist, PA), Charles Goldsborough (Federalist, MD), William Mayrant (Democratic-Republican, SC) and John Kerr (Democratic-Republican, VA) were appointed as members of the committee. The undistinguished nature of the panel suggests that the House had no interest in addressing the issue.

"I shall do nothing to disturb the sleep of the child or the repose of the mother"

I have previously published several posts on the 1826 duel held between then Secretary of State Henry Clay and Virginia Senator John Randolph of Roanoke. Reading the account of the duel, and the accompanying endnotes, contained in Henry Clay: The Essential American gives me another excuse to revisit this colorful event.

What I realized when I read the Heidlers' description was that Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton had been a witness to and participant in events leading up to the duel and had witnessed the duel itself. What is more, Benton composed a description of those events, published in his autobiography.

I located an 1858 printing of Benton's autobiography, Thirty Years' View; or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, From 1820 to 1850 (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1858), at Google Books. It turns out that Benton's description of the duel is detailed to the point of being turgid. I therefore thought that I'd highlight a few angles that I think are particularly interesting.

On Saturday April 1, 1826, Randolph approached Benton and asked him whether he “was a blood-relation of Mrs. Clay.” Benton said he was (Mrs. Clay's maiden name had been Lucretia Hart). Randolph “immediately replied that that put an end to a request which he had wished to make of me.” He then proceeded to explain that he had received and accepted a challenge from Clay and was hoping that Benton would be his second. Since Benton could not serve, Randolph would ask Col. Edward F. Tattnall (spelled "Tatnall" throughout Benton's account) to do so.

Then Randolph told Benton a secret and swore him to silence: he would not fire on Clay:

Before leaving, he told me he would make my bosom the depository of a secret which he should commit to no other person: it was, that he did not intend to fire at Mr. Clay. He told it to me because he wanted a witness of his intention, and did not mean to tell it to his second or any body else; and enjoined inviolable secrecy until the duel was over.

Procedural details and efforts by the seconds to dissuade the participants delayed matters for a week, but the duel was at last scheduled to take place on Saturday April 8th at 4:00 p.m. The location was the Virginia side of the Potomac, selected by Randolph because, if shot, his native state was “his chosen ground to receive his blood.”

That morning, Benton met with Randolph, hoping to obtain a reaffirmation of his commitment not to fire at Clay. Afraid to ask Randolph directly (because Randolph might take a direct question as an affront to his honor), Benton hit upon a scheme to elicit the information indirectly. He related to Randolph that he had visited the Clay residence the evening before and encountered a pathetic scene. The youngest Clay boy was sleeping on the sofa. Although apparently unaware of the impending duel, Mrs. Clay was “the picture of desolation.” Always physically frail, she was still despondent over the recent deaths of two daughters. “I told him of my visit to Mr. Clay the night before – of the late sitting – the child asleep – the unconscious tranquillity of Mrs. Clay; and added, I could not help reflecting how different all that might be the next night.”

Randolph understood and gave Benton the reassurance he was hoping for. “He understood me perfectly, and immediately said, with a quietude of look and expression which seemed to rebuke an unworthy doubt, 'I shall do nothing to disturb the sleep of the child or the repose of the mother.'"

Immediately before the duel, however, two events occurred that caused Randolph to question his resolve. First, Randolph became flustered when he dropped his pistol on the dueling ground, causing it to discharge. More importantly, shortly before that, during his carriage ride to the dueling ground, he had learned that Clay had requested a change in the rules that made his (Randolph's) injury or death more likely.

The duel was to be with pistols at ten paces, and the seconds had agreed to a procedure that minimized the likelihood that either participant would be shot. Immediately after the command to “fire,” there would be a quick count, “One, two, three, stop.” Hopefully, the participants, neither of whom was experienced with firearms, would not have time to raise their pistols and make accurate shots before the “stop” order was recited.

Shortly before the duel, however, Clay's second, Thomas J. Jesup, at Clay's request, asked Randolph's second to agree to slow down the count. Apparently Clay was concerned that, because he had no experience with pistols, he would not even have time to raise his pistol, leaving him defenseless if Randolph was able to get off a shot. Randolph's second declined the request, and the procedure was not changed.

Word of the request got back to Randolph, who apparently believed that the procedure had in fact been altered to slow down the count. Randolph decided that he might fire at Clay, but only to “disable” him. As he wrote in a note shortly before the duel:

"Information received from Col. Tatnall [Randolph's second] since I got into the carriage may induce me to change my mind, of not returning Mr. Clay's fire. I seek not his death. I would not have his blood upon my hands – it will not be upon my soul if shed in self-defence – for the world. He has determined, by the use of a long, preparatory caution by words, to get time to kill me. May I not, then, disable him? Yes, if I please."

When the time came, Randolph did indeed fire at Clay. “Mr. Randolph's bullet struck the stump behind Mr. Clay.” Clay's bullet was likewise wide of its mark.

After the first shots were exchanged, Benton pulled Randolph aside to try to settle the affair. During that conversation, Randolph affirmed that he had aimed only to disable Clay:

[H]e declared to me that he had not aimed at the life of Mr. Clay; that he did not level as high as the knees – not higher than the knee-band; "for it was no mercy to shoot a man in the knee;” that his only object was to disable him and spoil his aim. And then added, with a beauty of expression and a depth of feeling which no studied oratory can ever attain, and which I shall never forget, these impressive words: "I would not have seen him fall mortally, or even doubtfully wounded, for all the land that is watered by the King of Floods and all his tributary streams."

Clay and Randolph had agreed to a second exchange of fire, but Randolph assured Benton that, this time, he would not defend himself. “[Randolph] regretted this fire [his first shot at Clay] the instant it was over. He felt that it had subjected him to imputations from which he knew himself to be free – a desire to kill Mr. Clay, and a contempt for the laws of his beloved State [dueling was illegal in Virginia]; and the annoyances which he felt at these vexatious circumstances revived his original determination, and decided him irrevocably to carry it out.” “He left me to resume his post . . . with the positive declaration that he would not return the next fire."

Randolph was true to his word. Benton recounts the famous climax:

I withdrew a little way into the woods, and kept my eyes fixed on Mr. Randolph, who I then knew to be the only one in danger. I saw him receive the fire of Mr. Clay, saw the gravel knocked up in the same place, saw Mr. Randolph raise his pistol – discharge it in the air; heard him say, “I do not fire at you, Mr. Clay;” and immediately advancing and offering his hand. He was met in the same spirit. They met half way. shook hands, Mr. Randolph saying, jocosely, “You owe me a coat, Mr. Clay" - (the bullet had passed through the skirt of the coat, very near the hip) – to which Mr. Clay promptly and happily replied, "I am glad the debt is no greater."

"Who is there who is not shocked at its enormity?"

In his remarks of January 29, 1850, Henry Clay next introduced his fifth and sixth compromise resolutions, which, “like the third and fourth [the two Texas resolutions], are somewhat connected together.” These concerned slavery and the slave trade within the District of Columbia:

5th. Resolved, That it is inexpedient to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, whilst that institution continues to exist in the State of Maryland, without the consent of that State, without the consent of the people of the District, and without just compensation to the owners of slaves within the District.

6th. Resolved, That it is expedient to prohibit within the District the slave-trade, in slaves brought into it from States or places beyond the limits of the District, either to be sold therein a merchandise, or to be transported to other markets without the District of Columbia.

Before turning to Clay's remarks, a couple of points are worth noting. First, several aspects of the Fifth resolution were bound to be controversial. Northerners, of course, would be unhappy that slavery was proposed to be retained in the District. But southerners would be unhappy too. The major problem was that the resolution described abolition in the District as “inexpedient” but possible under certain conditions. That is, it conceded that Congress had the power under the Constitution to abolish slavery. In addition, some might reasonably ask – What happened to Virginia? The resolution listed the consent of Maryland as a prerequisite to abolition in the District. Why not Virginia?

Likewise, the sixth resolution was subject to attack from both sides. Southerners would complain that Congress had no power to limit the slave trade at all. But northerners would no doubt focus on the extremely limited nature of the restriction. Residents could continue to buy and sell slaves in the District. The resolution prohibited, in effect, only the operations of commercial slave traders.

Clay, presumably concerned about southern objections, emphasized the limited nature of the restriction in his speech. To assuage northern concerns, he disingenuously tried to characterize the exemption of individual sales as a humanitarian provision. At the same time, he attempted both to enlist southern support and reassure northerners by affirming that southerners detested the slave trade every bit as much as northerners did (citing none other than his arch enemy John Randolph of Roanoke):

I do not mean by that [the slave trade] the alienation and transfer of slaves from the inhabitants within this District – the sale by one neighbor to another of a slave which the one owns and the other wants, that a husband may perhaps be put along with his wife, or a wife with her husband.

I do not mean to touch at all the question of the right of property in slaves amongst persons living within the District; but the slave trade to which I refer was, I think, pronounced an abomination more than forty years ago, by one of the most gifted and distinguished sons of Virginia, the late Mr. [John] Randolph [of Roanoke].

And who is there who is not shocked at its enormity? Sir, it is a great mistake at the North, if they suppose that gentlemen living in the slave States look upon one who is a regular trader in slaves with any particular favor or kindness. They are often – sometimes unjustly, perhaps – excluded from social intercourse. I have known some memorable instances of this sort.

Clay also referred indirectly to the justification he would likely provide for not including the consent of Virginia as a prerequisite to the abolition of slavery in the District: Virginia's portion of the District had been retroceded to it:

But, then, what is this trade? It is a good deal limited since the retrocession of the portion of the District formerly belonging to Virginia.

There are Alexandria, Richmond, Petersburg, and Norfolk south of the Potomac, and Baltimore, Annapolis and perhaps other ports north of the Potomac. Let the slave-dealer, who chooses to collect his slaves in Virginia and Maryland, go to these places; let him not come here and establish his jails and put on his chains, and sometimes shock the sensibilities of our nature by a long train of slaves passing through the avenue leading from this Capitol to the house of the Chief Magistrate of one of the most glorious Republics that ever existed.

Why should he not do it? Sir, I am sure I speak the sentiments of every Southern man, and every man coming from the slave States, when I say let it terminate, and it is an abomination; that there is no occasion for it; it ought no longer to be tolerated.

The Quids

In American political history, the term “Tertium Quids” (Latin for “third somethings”, often abbreviated to “Quids”) is almost universally used to identify a group of radical Republicans whose “great object”, in the words of Russell Kirk, “was the restriction of power of [the federal] government to that sphere specifically assigned by constitution and precedent.” The term Quids came from the fact that its members were neither mainstream Jeffersonian Republicans nor Federalists, but “third somethings”.

The group dates from 1806, when John Randolph of Roanoke broke with Thomas Jefferson:

Randolph had denounced the Yazoo scandals in January 1805; he quarreled with Jefferson and Madison over the Florida scheme in December of that year [the so-called Two Million Dollar Act, passed in February 1806, the funds of which were intended to be used to purchase the Floridas from Spain]. On March 6, 1806, he spoke against [Andrew] Gregg's Resolution, which was intended to cut off commerce with Britain – here siding with the Federalists, though not joining them. By August 15, his alienation from Jefferson was complete; and he formed the faction of the Tertium Quids, which little band of Southerners he led most of the rest of his life.

Other Quids, or Old Republicans as they were sometimes called, included Nathanial Macon of North Carolina, Spencer Roane of Virginia, John Taylor of Caroline and Richard Stanford.

In Empire of Liberty, Gordon S. Wood points out, however, that Randolph's group of radicals was not the first to bear the name Quids. Ironically, the term appears to have first been used on the state level in Pennsylvania to identify a minority group of moderate Jeffersonian Republicans who were, at the time, engaged in a bitter fight with the radical majority.

The radical Republicans who gained ascendancy in Pennsylvania shortly after 1800 were headed by Dr. Michael Leib and William Duane. Leib, a member of the state legislature who later became a member of the House and the U.S. Senate, “was totally committed to turning the poor and the common laborers of Pennsylvania into political actors” “and the most extreme forms of majoritarian democracy.” Duane was the “irascible” editor of the Aurora whose acid pen had gotten him charged with sedition under the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1898 (among other things).

In 1803, the radicals had control of the state legislature and were able to engineer the impeachment and dismissal of a Federalist judge. By 1805, however, the radical coalition was showing signs of strain. The radicals were able to impeach but failed to convict three other Federalist judges who were members of the state supreme court.

Things came to a head later in 1805, when the radicals denied renomination to the moderate Jeffersonian Republican incumbent governor, Thomas McKean. With the support of other moderates such as Alexander J. Dallas, McKean “combined with the Federalists to create a coalition ticket” and “narrowly won the bitterly contested election for the governorship.”

Although Prof. Wood does not precisely specify, it was apparently during this campaign that Duane fashioned the term “Quids” as a contemptuous reference to the moderates – they were “third somethings,” neither Jeffersonian fish nor Federalist fowl.

"I confirm all the directions in my will respecting my slaves"

I was generally aware that John Randolph of Roanoke had manumitted his slaves (this list suggests almost 400) in his will and also provided that land be purchased for them; that after Randolph’s death in 1833 the will was contested for years (I believe a brother maintained that Randolph had been insane); and that in 1846, after the contest was resolved, the former slaves were transported to Ohio.

In Famous Americans of Recent Times (1867), however, James Parton provides further details of Randolph’s determination on his deathbed to insure that his wishes were carried out. I cannot vouch for the story Parton tells; but even if it is a fable, it is well worth retelling, for it captures perfectly the stubborn determination of that strangely admirable man. I have added additional paragraph breaks for readability:

The last act of John Randolph's life, done when he lay dying at a hotel in Philadelphia, in June, 1833, was to express once more his sense of this blighting system. Some years before, he had made a will by which all his slaves were to be freed at his death. He would probably have given them their freedom before his death, but for the fact, too evident, that freedom to a black man in a Slave State was not a boon. The slaves freed by his brother, forty years before, had not done well, because (as he supposed) no land had been bequeathed for their support. Accordingly, he left directions in his will that a tract of land, which might be of four thousand acres, should be set apart for the maintenance of his slaves, and that they should be transported to it and established upon it at the expense of his estate. "I give my slaves their freedom," said he in his will, "to which my conscience tells me they are justly entitled."

On the last day of his life, surrounded by strangers, and attended by two of his old servants, his chief concern was to make distinctly known to as many persons as possible that it was really his will that his slaves should be free. Knowing, as he did, the aversion which his fellow-citizens had to the emancipation of slaves, and even to the presence in the State of free blacks, he seemed desirous of taking away every pretext for breaking his will. A few hours before his death, he said to the physician in attendance: "I confirm every disposition in my will, especially that concerning my slaves whom I have manumitted, and for whom I have made provision."

The doctor, soon after, took leave of him, and was about to depart. "You must not go," said he, "you cannot, you shall not leave me." He told his servant not to let the doctor go, and the man immediately locked the door and put the key in his pocket. The doctor remonstrating, Mr. Randolph explained, that, by the laws of Virginia, in order to manumit slaves by will, it was requisite that the master should declare his will in that particular in the presence of a white witness, who, after hearing the declaration, must never lose sight of the party until he is dead.

The doctor consented, at length, to remain, but urged that more witnesses should be sent for. This was done. At ten in the morning, four gentlemen were ranged in a semicircle round his bed. He was propped up almost in a sitting posture, and a blanket was wrapped round his head and shoulders. His face was yellow, and extremely emaciated; he was very weak, and it required all the remaining energy of his mind to endure the exertion he was about to make. It was evident to all present that his whole soul was in the act, and his eye gathered fire as he performed it. Pointing toward the witnesses with that gesture which for so many years had been familiar to the House of Representatives, he said, slowly and distinctly: "I confirm all the directions in my will respecting my slaves, and direct them to be enforced, particularly in regard to a provision for their support." Then, raising his hand and placing it upon the shoulder of his servant, he added, "Especially for this man."

Having performed this act, his mind appeared relieved, but his strength immediately left him, and in two hours he breathed his last.

The illustration of Randolph at the top is taken from the site of the Virginia Historical Society, which asserts that "This 1829 watercolor of Randolph, by Arthur J. Stansbury, was said by a contemporary to be 'an accurate and by no means caricatured or exaggerated representation of his singular personal appearance.'"

The Missouri Compromise: A "great Joy" to the North?

Several months ago, I wrote a post on the Missouri Compromise entitled The Missouri Compromise: Compromise, Armistice or Defeat? The post concluded, based on a review of congressional votes, that northern representatives viewed the first Missouri Compromise – the Compromise of 1820 – as a defeat:

In short, it would appear that, from the southern perspective, the Compromise of 1820 was in fact a compromise. An overwhelming majority of southern senators and a slim majority of southern representatives voted in favor of the compromise or the key concession they were asked to make to achieve it.

To the North, however, the Compromise of 1820 was not a compromise. It was not even an armistice – it was a defeat. Of those northern legislators who voted, 82% of Senators and 86% of Representatives voted against compromise or against the key concession they were asked to make.

Recently, Robert Pierce Forbes, the author of The Missouri Compromise and Its Aftermath: Slavery and the Meaning of America (which I see is slated to be released in paperback August 15), was kind enough to visit these pages and left the following comment to the post:

All very true. But what do you make of the fact that [James] Tallmadge and [John W.] Taylor celebrated and congratulated each other?

Since a comment from one of the leading authorities on the Compromise is not exactly an everyday event, I thought I’d explore it and venture a response.

Prof. Forbes describes the celebration and congratulations he refers to in his comment in greater detail in his book, as follows:

[T]idings of the Missouri vote brought “great Joy” to the originator of the restriction amendment and its principal backer. From former representative James Tallmadge, John W. Taylor received fervent congratulations: “You have in this business a monument to your fame. Accept the thanks of a sincere friend for your perseverance – Talents – & devotion to the cause of your nation – & of suffering human nature.” For his part, as he wrote to his wife, Taylor also felt satisfaction. “We have gained all that was possible, if not all that was desired. . . . an ample recompense for all the time and talent it has cost us.”

It strikes me that we are viewing here, in part, a not uncommon human reaction to defeat after a long and bitter struggle. The two warriors had lost, but they could console themselves with the knowledge that they had fought the good fight against large odds and had at least achieved something.

In addition, as Prof. Forbes himself points out in the next paragraph, it was possible to see this as the beginning, not the end, of the match. The first round had been close, and there was reason to believe the odds would be better in the second:

Moreover, the struggle to admit Missouri was hardly finished. The principal task for opponents of restriction was consolidating their position. They had prevailed by just three votes, and even if, as I think it should be, [John] Randolph’s assertion that six more northern votes waited in the wings if needed is taken seriously, this still amounted to a tenuous margin. By every indication, most “doughfaces” could expect stiff reelection challenges; the Seventeenth Congress would undoubtedly be still more unfriendly to slavery expansion.

Was the first Missouri vote a defeat? Yes, but a glorious one. The South’s nose had at least been bloodied, and Northern consciousness, as we might say today, had been raised. There would be future battles, and victory would ultimately result.

It goes without saying that I would be delighted to highlight any comment or response from Prof. Forbes.

"I have come here to hear that voice"

Having just related one the well-known clashes between Henry Clay and John Randolph of Roanoke, I thought I’d pass on Robert Remini’s charming story of the reconciliation that took place between the two men in late February or the beginning of March 1833, less than three months before Randolph’s death. I have added a paragraph break for readability:

The reconciliation took place quite by accident. “There was no explanation, no intervention,” said Clay. Randolph had gone to the Senate one evening which the Kentuckian was speaking. “Help me up,” Randolph commanded, “I have come here to hear that voice.” Clay spotted him “looking as if he were not long for this world; and being myself engaged in a work of Peace [the conclusion of the Nullification Crisis],” he walked over to Randolph when he had concluded his speech and extended his hand. Randolph seized it, and their salutations were “cordial on both sides.”

Ever the consummate politician, Clay later left his card at Randolph’s lodgings, but the two men never met again. The Virginian died a few months later on May 24 [1833], after pronouncing Clay “a brave man, he is a consistent man . . . an independent man and an honest man.” Still, when he died, he wanted to be buried facing west so could keep an eye on Henry Clay. Just in case.

Henry Clay Outsmarts John Randolph of Roanoke

The House passed the legislation comprising the Missouri Compromise on March 2, 1820. The next day, March 3, John Randolph of Roanoke moved for reconsideration. Robert V. Remini tells the story as well as anyone:

Speaker [Henry] Clay turned to [Randolph] with a look of studied contempt. After a moment he announced that the hour was late, the members exhausted. The motion, he declared, would be postponed until the following day. At that time, it would be in order.

The following day Randolph rose to have the vote reconsidered. Clay ruled him out of order, until the routine business of the House had been concluded. Meanwhile, as Speaker he signed the Missouri bill and had the clerk deliver it to the Senate. When Randolph rose once more after the routine matters had been completed, Clay blithely announced that the bill had gone over to the Senate and could not be retrieved. The Missouri vote, already taken, was final.

The Original Dough Faces -- Or Is That Doe Faces?

In an earlier post I discussed the origin of the term “dough face” and whether it was “dough face” or “doe face.”

Add Glover Moore to those who squarely straddle the fence:

Because of a misinterpretation of a remark made by John Randolph, the eighteen Northerners who made it possible to admit Missouri without restriction [on slavery] became known as “dough faces.” . . . Perhaps he regarded absentees and last minute converts as half-baked or easily molded, or they may have reminded him of children who daubed their faces with dough and became frightened by a glance at the mirror. It is also possible that the epithet should be spelled “doe faces” and was an allusion to the timidity of the female deer.

Moore notes that, whether or not Randolph had particular individuals in mind, eighteen northern members of the House of Representatives who either did not vote or voted in favor of removing the anti-slavery restriction on March 2, 1820 were forever tarred with the epithet. For the record, four northern Representatives were absent during the vote (“DR” stands for Democratic-Republican; “F” for Federalist; and “U” unclear):

Caleb Tompkins (DR, New York) (brother of Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins)
Walter Case (DR, New York)
Harmanus Peek (DR, New York)
Henry W. Edwards (DR, Connecticut)

Fourteen northern Representatives voted affirmatively to strike the anti-slavery proviso:

Mark L. Hill (DR, Massachusetts)
John Holmes (DR, Massachusetts) (no, not that John Holmes)
Jonathan Mason (F or U, Massachusetts)
Henry Shaw (DR, Massachusetts)
Samuel Eddy (DR, Rhode Island)
James Stevens (DR, Connecticut)
Samuel A. Foote (DR, Connecticut) (who later inadvertently precipitated the Webster-Hayne debate)
Henry Meigs (DR, New York)
Henry R. Storrs (F, New York)
Joseph Bloomfield (DR, New Jersey)
Charles Kinsey (DR, New Jersey)
Bernard Smith (DR, New Jersey)
Henry Baldwin (DR or U, Pennsylvania) (a future Justice of the Supreme Court)
David Fullerton (DR, Pennsylvania)

The final vote in the house was 90 for eliminating the anti-slavery provision, 87 for retaining it. No Representative from a slaveholding state voted for retention. The dough face votes and abstentions were thus critical.

"Doe Face" or "Dough Face"?

John Randolph of Roanoke famously coined the term dough face during the debates over the Missouri Crisis as a term of opprobrium for northern representatives who were willing to sacrifice their principles to cast votes in favor of measures favored by the south. Frustratingly, I can’t find a web-verifiable citation to the original quote. I suspect that it may have appeared in a newspaper report, rather than the Annals of Congress, but that's just a guess.

Citing a secondary source, Robert Pierce Forbes provides the quote and context as follows:

John Randolph . . . bitterly sneered that he had always known that the northern representatives who voted for the Compromise “would give way. They were scared at their own dough faces – yes, they were scared at their own dough faces! – We had them, and if we had wanted three more, we could have had them; yes, and if these had failed, we could have three more of these men, whose conscience, and morality, and religion, extend to ‘thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude.’”

To this day, historians remain uncertain where Randolph got the phrase. Prof. Forbes himself suggests that Randolph intended the phrase to be “doe face”, and that it was misunderstood and subsequently interpreted to be “dough face”:

It is apt that the wracked, erratic, half-mad Virginian should have coined the peculiar epithet, “doe face,” that became, in a curious mutation, “doughface,” the universal term of contempt for such “Northern men with Southern principles,” or rather, as Randolph implied, with no principles at all.

Prof. Forbes supports this contention by reference to a passage in Theodore Dwight Weld’s American Slavery As It Is: The Testimony of a Thousand Voices (New York, 1839). There, Weld mysteriously states:

“Doe face,” which owes its paternity to John Randolph, age has mellowed into “dough face” – a cognomen quite as expressive and appropriate, if not as classical.

Weld also suggests that the “cognomen” “dough face” came to be rationalized as a reference to northern flour that was eagerly shipped to southern customers (emphasis added):

Our newspapers are full of these and similar daily occurrences among slaveholders, copied verbatim from their own accounts of them in their own papers, and all this we fully credit; no man is simpleton enough to cry out, “Oh, I can't believe that slaveholders do such things,” – and yet when we turn to the treatment which these men mete out to their slaves, and show that they are in the habitual practice of striking, kicking, knocking down and shooting them as well as each other – the look of blank incredulity that comes over northern dough-faces, is a study for a painter: and then the sentimental outcry, with eyes and hands uplifted, “Oh, indeed, I can't believe the slaveholders are so cruel to their slaves.” Most amiable and touching charity! Truly, of all Yankee notions and free state products, there is nothing like a “dough face” – the great northern staple for the southern market – “made to order,” in any quantity, and always on hand. “Dough faces!” Thanks to a slaveholder's contempt for the name, with its immortality of truth, infamy and scorn.

Weld does not explain why the original phrase as he understood it, “doe face,” was expressive. Presumably, he understood it to mean that the men were as timid as female deer in their accommodation of the south.

Other commentators have more or less thrown up their hands. Leonard L. Richards, for example, characterized Randolph as referring to “weak men, timid men, half-baked man,” suggesting he believed the word was “dough” rather than “doe.” But Richards then punted:

Not everyone understood Randolph’s reference, and no one dared to ask for an explanation. A few apparently thought the sardonic Virginia aristocrat had a female deer in mind and the word he used was doe. Others thought he was referring to a child’s game where children put dough on their faces, worked it into strange configurations, and then looked at their reflections.

Whatever Randolph had in mind, his words stuck.

Most others have opined that the original word was “dough” and then tried to explain why. Daniel Walker Howe has opted for the children’s game theory:

Randolph, mocking the northerners intimidated by the South, referred to a children’s game in which the players daubed their faces with dough and then looked in a mirror and scared themselves.”

This is also Sean Wilentz’s explanation:

[Randolph] was probably referring to a game where children placed wet dough on their faces and frightened themselves and their friends by looking in a mirror.

"I would not have seen him fall wounded for all the land that is watered by the King of Floods"

I have previously mentioned the duel between John Randolph of Roanoke and Henry Clay. Kenneth S. Greenberg points out a few more details:

When John Randolph and Henry Clay fought a duel in 1824 Randolph aimed at Clay’s knees on the first shot and fired into the air on the second. He later told Thomas Hart Benton: “I would not have seen him fall mortally, or even doubtfully, wounded for all the land that is watered by the King of Floods and all his tributary streams.”

After the duel, Randolph treated his seconds with great courtesy and rewarded them for their service. He

gathered with his friends and produced an envelope – an envelope he had earlier left with instructions to be opened in the event of his death. It contained a note that directed that the gold coins that Randolph carried in his pocket be made into seals and given to the seconds. “But Clay’s bad shooting shan’t rob you of your seals,” Randolph announced, “I am going to London and have them made for you.”

About the illustration:

A figurative portrayal of the presidential race of 1824. A crowd of cheering citizens watch as candidates (left to right) John Quincy Adams, William Crawford, and Andrew Jackson stride toward the finish. Henry Clay has dropped from the race and stands, hand on head, on the far right saying, "D--n it I cant save my distance--so I may as well "draw up."" He is consoled by a man in riding clothes, "Well dont distress yourself--there'll be some scrubbing by & by & then you'll have a chance." Assorted comments come from the crowd, reflecting various sectional and partisan views. A Westerner with stovepipe hat and powder horn: "Hurra for our Jacks-"son."" Former President John Adams: "Hurra for our son "Jack."" Two men in coachmen's livery: "That inne-track fellow [Crawford] goes so well; that I think he must have got the better of the bots [boss?]." and "Like enough; but betwixt you & I--I dont think he'll ever get the better of the "Quinsy."" A ragged Irishman: "Blast my eyes if I dont "venter" a "small" horn of rotgut on that "bald filly" in the middle [Adams]." A Frenchman: "Ah hah! Mon's Neddy I tink dat kick on de "back of you side" is worse den have no dinner de fourt of july." In the left background is a platform and an inaugural scene, the "Presidential Chair" with a purse "

John Randolph, "prevaricating, base, calumniating scoundrel, poltroon and coward"

John Randolph of Roanoke fought a number of duels, but on at least one occasion he declined to so, apparently because he did not consider the challenger his equal. As Kenneth S. Greenberg explains,

James Wilkinson, disgraced by involvement in Aaron Burr’s schemes to detach the Western states, practically begged John Randolph for a duel in 1807. “I have no hesitation,” he wrote, “to appeal to your justice, your magnanimity and your gallantry, to prescribe the manner of redress.” Randolph denied his request. “I cannot descend to your level,” he wrote.

Spurned, Wilkinson publicly “posted” Randolph as a coward by

printing handbills and posting them all over the District of Columbia. “Hector unmasked,” he announced. “In justice to my character, I denounce John Randolph, M.C., to the world as a prevaricating, base, calumniating scoundrel, poltroon and coward.”

"The young man is no bug eater"

John Randolph of Roanoke -- he of Blifil and Black George fame -- is one of the most colorful political figures of the early part of the Nineteenth Century.

Kenneth S. Greenberg relates a wonderful little story that reflects the oratorical abilities of the young Randolph. Randolph was born in 1773 and was first elected to Congress in 1798, so the event probably occured in the mid '90s:

The young John Randolph . . . began his career in Virginia politics [with a grand discourse]. In an election-day gathering he spoke just after the aged and venerable Patrick Henry, orator of an earlier era. One listener reacted to Randolph's words in a way that would have warmed the heart of any statesman. Comparing him to Patrick Henry, the man exclaimed: "I tell you what, the young man is no bug eater neither."

John Randolph of Roanoke on Henry Clay

Mr. Clay took his seat in the House of Representatives in December, 1811; his first stride was from the door to [Speaker's] chair, where he commenced to play the dictator; he fixed his eyes on the presidency, and I, who had been twelve years in Congress, fixed mine upon him, and have kept them there ever since. Sulla said that he saw many a Marius in Caesar.

The Clay-Randolph Duel

As a result of John Randolph's Blifil and Black George speech, recounted in earlier posts, Henry Clay challenged Randolph to a duel. Although the story is fairly well known, I can't help relating it. Here is Merrill Peterson's summary:

Randolph, having provoked the challenge, could not decline it. As much as he hated Clay's politics he had a sneaking admiration for him personally -- Black George, after all, was a good-natured knave -- and had been heard to say, "I prefer to be killed by Clay to any other death." The two men met, with their seconds, on the Virginia side of Potomac on April 8 [1826]. Neither was experienced with dueling pistols. Both missed on the first exchange of shots at ten paces. This was enough to satisfy the code duello, but it did not satisfy Clay. He insisted on another round, and Randolph consented. Clay then put his bullet through the long, voluminous white coat Randolph wore for the occasion. Uninjured, and drained of any desire to injure Clay, he fired into the air, dropped his pistol, came forward, extended his hand and said, "You owe me a new coat, Mr. Clay." Taking his hand, Clay replied, "I am glad the debt is no greater."

John Greenleaf Whittier on John Randoph of Roanoke

The poet John Greenleaf Whittier was a Quaker and forceful advocate of abolition. Yet he penned a moving tribute to John Randolph of Roanoke. Even more surprising is the fact that the poem included three stanzas praising Randolph's attitude toward slavery and his slaves:

He held his slaves, yet made withal
No false and vain pretences,
Nor paid a lying priest to seek
For Scriptural defences.
His harshest words of proud rebuke,
His bitterest taunt and scorning,
Fell fire-like on the Northern brow
That bent to him in fawning.

He held his slaves; yet kept the while
His reverence for the Human;
In the dark vassals of his will
He saw but Man and Woman!
No hunter of God’s outraged poor
His Roanoke valley entered;
No trader in the souls of men
Across his threshold ventured.

And when the old and wearied man
Lay down for his last sleeping,
And at his side, a slave no more,
His brother-man stood weeping,
His latest thought, his latest breath,
To Freedom’s duty giving,
With failing tongue and trembling hand
The dying blest the living.

John Randolph of Roanoke, Abolitionist

As difficult and ornery a man as Randolph was in many respects, he had one highly unusual quality: he seems to have truly detested slavery. Unlike Jefferson, Randolph even freed all of his slaves upon his death.

Although at least one biographer attributes Randolph’s dislike of slavery in part to moral qualms, it seems safe to say that his principal motivation may be ascribed to more practical concerns: he was convinced that slavery was devastating to the prosperity of the white society that harbored it.

The most well-known manifestation of Randolph’s stance came in 1803. On February 8 of that year, the House of Representatives received a petition from a convention held in Vincennes, Indiana Territory in December 1802, chaired by future president William Henry Harrison. The petition sought the suspension, for ten years, of Article 6 of the Northwest Ordinance, which barred slavery from the Territory. The petition apparently argued that the Territory was suffering from a shortage of labor and that it was necessary, for the time being, to import slaves until a sufficient white population became available.

The House referred the petition to a Select Committee headed by Randolph. The other members were Roger Griswold (Fed - CT), Robert Williams (Rep - NC), Lewis R. Morris (Fed - VT) and William Hoge (Rep - PA).

On March 2, 1803, Randolph delivered to the House the Committee’s Report, written apparently by Randolph himself, which strongly endorsed the exclusion of slavery as “wisely calculated to promote the happiness and prosperity of the Northwestern country.” It was the Committee’s view

That the rapid population of the State of Ohio sufficiently evinces, in the opinion of your Committee, that the labor of slaves 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. That 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.

For these reasons, the Committee recommended rejection of the petition:

Resolved, that it is inexpedient to suspend, for a limited time, the operation of the sixth article of compact between the original States, and the people and States west of the river Ohio.

How odd it is to think that fierce John Randolph of Roanoke played a potentially key role in preserving the free-labor status of the old Northwest. It is also worth noting that, Old Republican though Randolph was, it clearly did not occur to him that the federal government lacked the power to exclude slavery from the Territories.

"Who Made Him His Brother's Keeper?"

John Randolph's March 30, 1826 Senate speech inveighing against John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, discussed in a post yesterday, is so bizarre that I thought I'd provide another excerpt.

Here Randolph displays his stream-of-consciousness/free association style, moving from Adams the Son to Adams the Father and then back to Son again, intermingled with references to a French revolutionary, British statesmen, Randolph's brother, and Randolph himself playing hooky as a boy, over thirty years earlier. Randolph's vicious wit is also in evidence. I have added paragraph breaks for readability:

Now, sir, John Quincy Adams coming into power under these inauspicious circumstances, and with these suspicious allies and connexions, has determined to become the apostle of liberty, as his father was, about the time of the formation of the Constitution, known to be the apostle of monarchy. It is no secret -- I was in New York when he first took his seat as Vice President. I recollect -- for I was a school boy at the time, attending the lobby of Congress, when I ought to have been at school -- I remember the manner in which my brother was spurned by the coachman of the then Vice President, for coming too near the arms blazoned on the scutcheon of the Vice-Regal carriage.

Perhaps I may have some of this old animosity rankling in my heart, and, coming from a race who are known never to forsake a friend or forgive an enemy -- I am taught to forgive my enemies, and I do from the bottom of my heart, most sincerely, as I hope to be forgiven; but it is my enemies -- not the enemies of my country; for, if they come here in the shape of the English, it is my duty to kill them; if they come here in a worse shape -- wolves in sheep's clothing -- it is my duty and my business to tear the sheep skins from their backs, and, as Windham said to Pitt, open the bosom and expose beneath the ruffled shirt the filthy dowlas.

. . . [John Quincy] Adams determined to take warning by his father's errors, but in attempting the perpendicular, he bent as much the other way. Who would believe that Adams, the son of the sedition-law President, who held office under his father -- who up to Dec. 6, 1807, was the undeviating, staunch adherent to the opposition to Jefferson's Administration, then almost gone -- who would believe he had selected for his pattern, the celebrated Anacharsis Cloots, "orator of the human race?"

As Anacharsis was the orator of the human race, so Adams was determined to be the President of the human race, when I am not willing that he should be President of my name and race; but he is, and must be, till the third day of March, eighteen hundred and -- I forget when. He has come out with a speech and a message, and with a doctrine that goes to take the whole human family under his special protection. Now, sir, who made him his brother's keeper? Who gave him, the President of the United States, the custody of the liberties, or the rights, or the interests of South America, or any other America, save only the United States of America, or any other country under the sun?

"The President Has Jonathan-Russelled Himself"

John Randolph of Roanoke was a downright bizarre character. An "Old Republican" who broke with Jefferson because he thought Jefferson was too much of a consolidationist (!), Randolph had an odd, high voice and an acid tongue with which he flayed his political enemies.

Reading Randolph's "Blifil and Black George" speech, I discovered, to my delight, that Randolph repeatedly used the verb "Jonathan-Russell," the origin of which I discussed just the other day.

By way of background, the presidential election of 1824 was thrown into the House of Representatives when no candidate received a majority of votes in the Electoral College. Although Andrew Jackson had received a plurality of the popular vote and of the Electoral College votes, Henry Clay lobbied hard for runner-up John Quincy Adams in the House. Clay's influence enabled Adams to become president with a bare majority of votes in the House (13 of 24 states). Adams thereafter appointed Clay to be his Secretary of State, a position then viewed as a stepping-stone to the presidency (James Madison had been Jefferson's Secretary of State; James Monroe had been Madison's; and Adams had been Monroe's). The incipient Jacksonian opposition cried foul: Adam's election was, they charged, the result of a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay.

Merrill Peterson provides an overview of Randolph's speech:

On March 30, 1826, two weeks after the Senate concluded debate on the Panama Mission [Adams and Clay had proposed that the United States send delegates to a Pan-American conference in Panama], John Randolph delivered perhaps the most offensive speech ever heard in that body. The fifty-two year old Virginian, whose gaunt, emaciated frame gave dramatic point to the political degeneration and decay that was his constant theme, launched one of the "elaborate salmagundis and zigzags" with which he had alternately entertained and terrorized Congress for years. Once a master of Swiftian satire, he was now too consumed by malice for that and spoke only in sneers and sarcasms. Some thought him insane, others only demoniacal, but all dreaded the poison of his tongue.

On this day, Randolph touched on the doctrines of the First Message [Adams's nationalistic 1825 State of the Union Address, which included the "lighthouses of the skies" passage that I quoted the other day], recalled the "monarchism" of old John Adams, which the son had inherited, denounced the American System [the pro-Bank, pro-internal improvements, pro-tariff program of Henry Clay], scorned the Panama Congress, where Americans would be forced to commingle with mulatto generals, and accused the secretary of state [Clay] of fraudulently manufacturing the invitation to this assembly. . . . Concluding his harangue, Randolph recurred to the source of these evils, the corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay, which he then bitingly characterized as "the coalition of Blifil and Black George . . . the combination, unheard of till then, of the puritan with the blackleg."

Blifil and Black George were characters from Henry Fielding's Tom Jones. Blifil was a sanctimonious hypocrite; Black George was a morally dubious knave.

In the passage quoted below, Randolph accused the president of having "Jonathan-Russelled himself" by entering into the corrupt bargain with Clay:

I say I will prove, if the Senate will have the patience to listen to me -- I will prove to their satisfaction that the President has Jonathan-Russelled himself. I have as good a right to coin compound verbs as other People. I say the President of the United States has Jonathan-Russelled himself -- has shown that, in the execution of a great public trust, he has done that which has damned Jonathan Russell to everlasting infamy, and enabled him to put his foot on Russell -- to clap an extinguisher on him. If I don't prove it -- it is a pledge that shall be redeemed -- not like the pledge about the navigation of the Mississippi -- not like the pledge about this Spanish American resolution -- it shall be redeemed, or I will sit down infamous and contented for the rest of my life.

And how sir has he Jonathan-Russelled himself? He has done it by the aid and instrumentality of this very new ally. I shall not say which is Blifil and which is Black George. I do not draw my pictures in such a way as to render it necessary to write under them "this is a man, this is a horse." I say this new ally has been the means of Jonathan-Russelling him; and for what? Sir, we hear a great deal of the infirmity of certain constitutions -- not paper constitutions -- we hear a great deal of Constitutional infirmity -- seven years is too long for some of us to wait; and if the President can be disposed of at the end of three years, then, being Jonathan-Russelled, may they not, by some new turning up of trumps, expect to succeed him?