As I
remarked, I can see no peaceful solution of this great social evil;
but fear it is fraught with fatal consequences to our Government."
John Randolph, soon after the election of Mr. Adams, was sent to the
United States Senate by Virginia. His enmity to Mr. Clay had received
a new whetting through the events of the year or two just past; and
the natural acerbity of his nature was soured into bitter malignity.
He believed every word of the story of Creemer, and harped upon it
with the pertinacity of the Venetian upon the daughter of Shylock. He
was scarcely ever upon the floor that some offensive allusion was not
made to this subject. It was immaterial to him what the subject-matter
was under discussion: he found a means to have a throw at the
Administration, and of consequence, at Clay; and bargain and
corruption slid from his tongue with the concentration of venom of the
rattlesnake. The very thought of Clay seemed to inspire his genius for
vituperation; his eye would gleam, his meagre and attenuated form
would writhe and contort as if under the enchantment of a demon; his
long, bony fingers would be extended, as if pointing at an imaginary
Clay, air-drawn as the dagger of Macbeth, as he would writhe the
muscles of his beardless, sallow, and wrinkled face, pouring out the
gall of his soul upon his hated enemy.
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