John Randolph of Roanoke

Epilogue

Epilogue “i would not die in Washington,” Randolph once groused, “be eulogized by men i despise, and buried in the Congressional Burying Ground.”1 For the most part, his wishes were granted. his body was transported to norfolk by the steamboat Pocahontas, then to Richmond on the Patrick Henry. A short service, marked by the firing of thirteen guns, preceded the journey to Roanoke . There his friends buried him just a few paces from the front door, under a tall pine. his face was turned westward, at his direction, so he could keep an eternal eye on henry Clay.2 When Congress reconvened, more than a month went by before Randolph ’s passing was acknowledged. his successor, Thomas T. Bouldin, rose on February 11, 1834, to explain “the reason why Mr. Randolph’s death was not here announced.” Those words had barely passed Bouldin’s lips when he collapsed and died.3 one is tempted to conclude that Randolph really did not want to be eulogized in Congress. Randolph’s will freed his slaves and granted them extensive land holdings in ohio. But this will was one of at least three wills and four codicils that came to light upon his death. it took twelve years of hearings and pleadings to sort through the maze of intentions and establish his will of 1821 and the codicil of December 5, 1821, as the true last will and testament.4 Randolph’s slaves at last received their freedom and made their way to land purchased for them by the Randolph estate in Mercer County, ohio. They were met there with such hostility and threats of violence that they never took possession of the land. Ensuing litigation—which lasted until 1917—resulted in no recovery. Randolph’s slaves and their heirs received nothing of the estate willed to them by their master.5 229 230 John Randolph of Roanoke in 1879, John Randolph Bryan traveled to Roanoke and supervised the removal of Randolph’s remains to hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.6 his final place of rest was on the most elevated point overlooking the James River.7 Locals joshed that the rumblings heard from that quarter were not passing coal trains, but Randolph turning over in his grave at the latest political outrage. The joke elicited knowing laughter, later slight grins, and finally quizzical looks as Randolph’s memory faded in the historical twilight. in the twentieth century, most historians have reduced Randolph to the Jeffersonian era’s public enemy.8 Dumas Malone judged him “a weird figure and an odd character—willful, capricious [and] neurotic,” displaying “excesses of arrogant belligerency . . . explained, in terms of modern psychology , as over-compensation for his lack of virility.”9 Madison biographer irving Brant diagnosed “something akin to madness” in his conduct.10 A chorus of writers dismissed Randolph’s actions, words, and policy positions as “political and personal,” “a literal devotion to a petrified version of the Republican creed,” resentment of Jefferson’s sway, jealousy of Madison’s influence , and a host of “eccentricities and temper.”11 he “temperamentally was unfit to lead a majority,” one wrote, “[and] in finest fettle in the work of destruction .”12 in 1941, a graduate student at Duke University proffered a different view. Russell Kirk found Randolph to be “the most interesting and unusual man ever to be a power in the Congress of the United states.”13 Kirk’s alternative judgment became the subject of his book John Randolph of Roanoke: A Study in American Politics. “Wisely or not,” Kirk wrote, “Randolph would not bend before the demands of the hour, as did Jefferson; nor would he alter his convictions, as did Calhoun. . . . [h]e grew more intense in his beliefs and more biting in their expression.”14 Discovering in Randolph a fascinating combination of realism, consistency, and relevance—a “lively mind” in a “radical man”—Kirk resolved to rescue Randolph from the slights of history. “As a pious act,” he wrote, introducing his subject, “i summon up John Randolph from among the shades.”15 Kirk called the man he summoned forth “a genius, the prophet of southern nationalism and the architect of southern conservatism.”16 The conservatism that emerged from his life, letters, and speeches was rooted in a “half-indolent distaste for alteration,” a dedication to an agricultural society , a “love of local rights” and “assertive individualism,” and a sensitivity about slavery.17 These impulses were quickened by the strong drift of society away from “the tranquil...