The Green Ba Vol. X.
No. 7.
BOSTON.
July, 1898.
JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE. By Susan P. Lee. AMONG the statesmen and law makers who figured in the first three decades of this century, few occupied so prominent a position and few have passed so com pletely out of mind as the brilliant and ec centric John Randolph of Roanoke. His life and character have much to interest the student of human nature, who may derive valuable lessons from a rapid glance at the man and his surroundings. His successes, failures and weaknesses, and the causes which dimmed the bright promise and disappointed the reasonable hope of the first half of his life, have been chronicled by friend and opponent; the one, over-praising his excellencies and condon ing his faults — the other scarcely willing to allow him any virtue, while magnifying all his defects. Let us take the middle course and endeavor to judge Randolph impartially, examining the influences which made him what he was. John Randolph, the youngest son of John Randolph of Matoax, and Frances Bland his wife, was born at Cawsons near the mouth of the Appomattox river in Virginia, and was little more than two years old when his father died in 1775. Delicate in health, beautiful in person and countenance, pain fully sensitive in disposition, and uncom monly quick of intelligence, the orphan baby was the darling of his widowed mother and grandfather. He also possessed a tem per so violent that he is said to have fainted from passion before he was four years old. This temper joined to a resolute will, made the indulgence of his loving friends more
hurtful than it might have proved to a more gentle and better balanced nature. As the lad grew older he showed a keen wit and a remarkable perception of charac ter. His characteristics wrere as many and various as if good and evil genii had en dowed him at his birth with qualities fitted to make him happy and beneficent, or wretched and harmful, as he should yield him self to their benign or malevolent impulses. St. George Tucker, afterwards the emi nent jurist, married Mrs. Frances Bland Randolph, and bestowed upon her three little boys the same love and care which he gave to their half-brothers, his own children. But the times were greatly agitated, and it was impossible to educate and train the boys with regularity. John, however, early picked up schooling enough to enable him to appropriate eagerly the treasures of the "book closet " at Matoax. The history, poetry and romance stored there delighted his imagination, stimulated his poetical taste, and filled his mind with information of inestimable value in his after life. The invasion of Virginia, in 1781, by the traitor Arnold, drove Mr. Tucker's house hold from Matoax to Bizarre, ninety miles above Petersburg on the Appomattox river. Leaving his family there in safety, Mr. Tucker joined Greene's army, then in front of Cornwallis in North Carolina. The excitement of the campaign did not pre vent thought for his step-sons. Failing to secure a suitable tutor for them, he sent them, after Christmas, to what was then the best school in Virginia. -77
