John Randolph of Roanoke

17. Remorse

17 Remorse For her as for himself he spake, When, his gaunt frame upbracing, he traced with dying hand “Remorse!” And perished in the tracing. Randolph walked away from one legislative body and into another one. Against his wishes, he was selected as a delegate to the virginia Constitutional Convention. “i’ll [have] none of it,” he snapped as his name was put forward, but ultimately agreed “with unutterable disgust” to “again become a member of a deliberative, i.e., spouting assembly.”1 his reluctance was born of an innate distrust of constitutional conventions, particularly those that came with change on their wings, filled with “political and religious fanatics [raving] about their dogmas.”2 Complaints aside, Randolph could not have missed this convention. it would in many ways represent a microcosm of all that he had fought for and against in his public life.3 The virginia Constitution of 1776 was one of the pillars of Randolph’s political philosophy. The handiwork of George Mason, it was to Randolph the perfect expression of ordered liberty. it vested power in the planters of the eastern part of the state. This was done by apportioning legislative representation by counties, not by population. Thus the eastern section—with numerous small counties—exercised political domination over the western part, with its fewer larger counties. As the western section of the state increased in population, calls for a revised apportionment scheme increased as well. The West wanted apportionment based on white population—which would ensure a power shift in its favor within twenty years. The East—Randolph’s natural and hereditary constituency— favored the current system of two delegates per county, regardless of population . Further complicating the matter was the issue of suffrage. voting in 216 ReMoRse 217 virginia was limited to free white males above the age of twenty-one, who owned a hundred acres of unimproved land, or twenty-five acres of land with a house, or an improved lot in a town. These requirements resulted in disfranchisement for 27 percent of the eligible pool of voters in the eastern part of the state, but nearly one-half of the potential voters in the west.4 in addition, residents of western virginia held fewer slaves and generally supported internal improvements and increased tariffs. All of these variables prompted the chant for reform. As such, reform’s most implacable skeptic had to be present. The convention assembled in Richmond on october 5, 1829. James Madison , frail and asthmatic, already formulating a compromise between the sections, made his way slowly into the chamber. Representing Loudoun County was another former president: James Monroe, ill and near destitute, in his fifty-first year of public service since taking a hessian bullet in the shoulder at the Battle of Trenton. Another veteran of the Revolution, and all the political wars in subsequent years, was Chief Justice John Marshall. A robust seventy-five, Marshall was “against a new constitution . . . against any extension of suffrage . . . against a free white basis of representation.”5 These three historical giants were first among equals in a class that included future President John Tyler, four virginia governors, seven United states senators , eleven judges, and fifteen members of Congress. The roster of delegates read like the roll call of virginia pater familias: Barbour, Campbell, Garnett, Giles, Leigh, Tazewell, and Upshur. But even among such a constellation, the Richmond Daily Dispatch editor, hugh Pleasants, wrote, “the man who commanded the most interest of all . . . to whom every eye was turned, and whose slightest motion was watched with intense anxiety, was John Randolph .”6 Randolph wore black crepe on his hat and arm in mourning for the old Constitution. Yet those expecting an immediate dramatic display were disappointed . For days, Randolph sat and listened. he could, of course, listen like no other. When an ally spoke, he would demonstratively lean forward, pull down the corner of one ear with his forefinger, and “utter some monosyllable at the same time, expressive of admiration.”7 opponents received similarly conspicuous notice, as Randolph would lean forward, gaze “as if with wonder and in awe,” before losing interest and sinking back into his seat “with a strong expression of contempt on his countenance.”8 The convention addressed first the issue of apportionment. James Madison introduced a committee report calling for representation in the house 218 John Randolph of Roanoke of Delegates on the basis of “the white population exclusively...