TO CATHARINE WIRT

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ground had begun to smoke from the warmth of the rising sun, and the city seemed to spread itself out below me to a vast extent

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a huge dusky mass, to which there seemed no limit. But towering from above the fog was the Washington Monument (a single beautiful column 160 feet in height, which stands in Howard's Park, and is rendered indescribably striking and interesting from the touching solitude of the scene from which it lifts its head), and several noble steeples of churches, interspersed through. out the west of the city, whose gilded summits were now glittering in the sun. Casting the eye over Baltimore, it lights upon the Chesapeake Bay, and, after wandering over that flood of waters, it rests on Fort McHenry and its star-spangled banner. This is the fort where our soldiers gained so much glory last war, and the very banner with regard to which Mr. Key's beautiful song of the Star-spangled Banner" was written [9.v.]. After feasting my eye for some time on the rich, diversified and boundless landscape that lay before me, meditating on the future grandeur of this city and the rising glories of the nation, I turned around my face to resume my walk into the country, when all its soft beauties burst, by surprise, upon me. For while I had been looking back at the town, bay and fort, the sun had risen and was now so high that its light was pouring full upon hill and valley, field and forest, blazing in bright reflection from all the eastern windows of the hundreds of country-houses that crowned the heights around me, and dancing on all the leaves that waved and wantoned in the morning breeze. No city in the world has a more beautiful country around it than Baltimore, in the direction of the west, north and east. In the direction of Washington it is unimproved; but in the other points all that could have been expected from wealth and fine taste has been accomplished. The grounds which were originally poor have been made rich; they lie very finely, not flat and tame, nor yet abrupt and rugged, but rising and falling in forms of endless diversity, sometimes soft and gentle, at others bold and commanding. This beautiful undulating surface has been improved with great taste, the fields richly covered with grass, the clumps of trees, groves and forests pruned of all dead limbs and all deformities, and flourishing in strong and healthy luxuriance. The sites for

the houses are well selected,—always upon some eminence, embosomed amid beautiful trees, from which their white fronts peep out enchantingly; for the houses are all white, which adds much to the cheerfulness and grace of this unrivalled scenery. I hope one of these days to show it to you in person, and then you will be able to imagine what a delightful ramble I had to Mr. Thompson's yesterday morning. I took them quite by surprise; but it was a most agreeable one, and they were rejoiced to see me. Mr. Thompson inquired most kindly after all in Washington, — and giving me a good country breakfast, (most delightful butter,) brought me back to town in his gig, where we arrived by nine o'clock, an hour before Court. Was not this an industrious morning? Your affectionate father,

WM. WIRT.

JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE

[JOHN RANDOLPH was born at Cawsons, Virginia, June 2, 1773, and died in Philadelphia, June 24, 1833. He was seventh in descent from Pocahontas, the Indian princess who married John Rolfe. His father died when he was two years old; shortly after his mother married St. George Tucker, who made a good stepfather. He did not get much schooling and has himself described, in a letter to his nephew, the deficiencies of his early reading, although probably with some exaggeration. In 1787 he was sent to Princeton; the next year, after the death of the mother he dearly loved, he became a student of Columbia College. Then he studied law in Philadelphia under his cousin, Edmund Randolph, Washington's Attorney-General. Some dissipation, an unfortunate love affair, emotional experiences in politics and in religion, seem to have combined with constitutional infirmities of mind to give his character a twist that affected his whole life, making him eccentric always, and at times, scarcely, if at all, sane. About 1795 he returned to Virginia and led the life of a planter, family troubles adding to his misanthropy. In 1799 he first appeared as an orator in answer to Patrick Henry on the subject of the Virginia Resolutions against the Alien and Sedition laws. At this time he was elected to Congress, where he made an indiscreet speech which got him into trouble with some military officers, and, as a result, with President Adams. But he soon showed his genius as a leader in the House, becoming a brilliant debater and for a time the Democratic manager. He broke with his relative

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Jefferson, however, especially as the latter was growing more and more national in his political views, while Randolph looked upon himself as the spokesman of an old and important state. He could never be trusted to carry legislation through in the way Jefferson desired, and although successful for some time in his own way, he failed signally in his attempt to secure a verdict against Justice Chase in the impeachment trial of that Federalist judge. Then, too, he lost the support of the administration and of the Northern Democrats by his violence in debating the famous case of the Yazoo claims, and finally he became a congressional free-lance, attacking or defending at his pleasure, but always making himself feared for his unrivalled powers of invective. His fellow-Virginians were proud of him, and returned him almost continuously to Congress, where he upheld the doctrine of states rights with an acumen and vigor that were afterward serviceable to Calhoun. He was opposed to slavery, but still more opposed to any interference with the affairs of a sovereign state. He also opposed all forms of war, and thus found himself at odds with Madison during the contest of 1812. His most famous quarrel was with Henry Clay in consequence of some thoroughly unjustified but brilliantly caustic remarks made by Randolph with regard to the falsely charged bargain between Clay and John Quincy Adams. From 1825 to 1827 he represented Virginia in the Senate, where he would deliver long, rambling speeches to which no one save perhaps Calhoun would listen. In 1829 he was a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention and spoke with great eloquence. In 1830 he accepted the mission to Russia, but the climate soon drove him home. There was considerable scandal caused by his spending a year in England, and yet drawing over $20,000 in salary which he applied to his debts; but he was not the person to mind criticism. By the will which was sustained by the courts, his slaves were emancipated. Some of his speeches were published during his life, and after his death a volume of his "Letters to a Young Relative" appeared (1834). These give a good idea of his varied culture and of his style, which is singularly racy and effective. Probably no other man of modern times has been such a master of extemporized invective, and Randolph's unique powers in this respect were enhanced by his striking appearance and his peculiarities. He was six feet in height, very slim, odd in dress, and most effective in his habit of shaking and pointing his long fingers at the person he was making his target. The selections given will illustrate his general powers of sarcasm; how he silenced an individual will appear from the following: A gentleman "ventured in the House to amend one of Randolph's motions on military matters. The rash man had formerly been a watchmaker. Randolph looked at him a moment; then, pulling out his watch, turned its face toward his opponent, and asked him what time it was. The victim told him. 'Sir,' said Randolph, 'you can mend my watch, but not my motions. You understand tic-tics, sir, but not tac-tics."" The 1 From the paper on 'John Randolph of Roanoke" in the present editor's "Southern Statesmen of the Old Régime" (1897).

speeches of Randolph have never been collected. See the able but one-sided biography of him by Henry Adams in the "American Statesmen " series (1882), and the life by H. A. Garland (2 vols. 1850); also The Century Magazine, March, 1896.]

VAULTING AMBITION1

[FROM "SPEECHES OF MR. RANDOLPH ON THE GREEK QUESTION," ETC. WASHINGTON, 1824.]

BUT, sir, we have not done. Not satisfied with attempting to support the Greeks, one world, like that of Pyrrhus or Alexander, is not sufficient for us. We have yet another world for exploits : we are to operate in a country distant from us 80 degrees of latitude, and only accessible by a circumnavigation of the globe, and to sustain which, we must cover the Pacific with our ships, and the tops of the Andes with our soldiers. Do gentlemen seriously reflect on the work they have cut out for us? Why, sir, these projects of ambition surpass those of Bonaparte himself.

It has once been said, of the dominions of the King of Spain – thank God it can no longer be said - that the sun never set upon them. Sir, the sun never sets on ambition like this; they who have once felt its scorpion sting, are never satisfied with a limit less than the circle of our planet. I have heard, sir, the late corruscation in the Heavens attempted to be accounted for, by the return of the Lunar Cycle, the moon having got back into the same relative position in which she was nineteen years ago. However this may be, I am afraid, sir, that she exerts too potent an influence over our legislation, or will have done so, if we agree to adopt the resolution on your table. I think, about once in seven or eight years, for that seems to be the term of political cycle, we may calculate upon beholding some redoubted champion

like him who prances into Westminster Hall, armed cap-a-pie, like Sir Somebody Dimock, at the coronation of the British King, challenging all who dispute the title to the crown-coming into this House, mounted on some magnificent project, such as this.

1 The speech from which this extract is taken was delivered in the House of Representatives on January 24, 1824.

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But, sir, I never expected, that, of all places in the world, (except Salem) a proposition like this should have come from Boston.1

Sir, I am afraid, that, along with some most excellent attributes and qualities the love of liberty, jury trial, the writ of habeas corpus, and all the blessings of free government, we have derived from our Anglo Saxon ancestors, we have got not a little of their John Bull, or rather John Bull Dog spirit—their readiness to fight for anybody, and on any occasion. Sir, England has been for centuries the game cock of Europe. It is impossible to specify the wars in which she has been engaged for contrary purposes; and she will with great pleasure, see us take off her shoulders the labor of preserving the balance of power. We find her fighting, now, for the Queen of Hungary - then for her inveterate foe, the King of Prussia now at war for the restoration of the Bourbons- and now on the eve of war with them for the liberties of Spain. These lines on the subject, were never more applicable than they have now become :

"Now Europe's balanced

- neither side prevails — ·

For nothing's left in either of the scales."

If we pursue the same policy, we must travel the same road, and endure the same burthens, under which England now groans. But, Mr. R. said, glorious as such a design might be, a President of the United States would, in his appreciation, occupy a prouder place in history, who, when he retires from office, can say to the people who elected him, I leave you without a debt, than if he had fought as many pitched battles as Cæsar, or achieved as many naval victories as Nelson. And what, said Mr. R., is debt? In an individual, it is slavery. It is slavery of the worst sort, surpassing that of the West India Islands, for it enslaves the mind, as well as it enslaves the body; and the creature who can be abject enough to incur and to submit to it, receives in that condition of his being perhaps an adequate punishment. Of course, Mr. R. said, he spoke of debt with the exception of unavoidable misfortune. He spoke of debt caused by mismanagement, by unwarrantable generosity, by being generous before being just. Mr. R. knew that his

1 Daniel Webster had offered a resolution for sending an agent to Greece.