from Cumberland, in Maryland, to the State of Ohio, their report to be subject to the approval of the President. If he approved, he was to obtain the consent of the States through which the road was to pass, and cause it to be constructed.

This bill passed without much discussion, and in glancing through the debates, we have not noticed that any question was then raised as to its constitutionality. In the act of Congress of April 30th, 1802, to enable the people of Ohio to form a State government, it had been provided that in consideration the lands within the State sold by the General Government should be exempted by an irrevocable ordinance from all kinds of State taxes for five years, after such sale (a measure, designed to favor emigration to this frontier territory at a time esteemed critical), one twentieth part of the net proceeds of the government lands sold in the State "should be applied to the laying out and making public roads, leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to the said State, and through the same; such roads to be laid out under the authority of Congress, with the consent of the several States through which the road should pass."

By the act of Congress of March 3d, 1803, it was further provided that three per cent. of the net proceeds of the public lands therein should be paid to the State, to be applied to opening and making roads, "and to no other purpose whatever." A committee reported in the Senate, December 18th, 1805, that the net proceeds of the sales of the public lands in the State from July 1, 1803, to September 30, 1805, amounted to $632,604 27, and that the sum then subject to the uses directed by the law of 1802 amounted to $12,652, and was steadily accumulating. It was under these circumstances that the bill for the construction of the "National road," as it was termed, passed.

It is apparent that this law did not stand on the same footing with one which should assume to the General Government the right of constructing post-roads promiscuously, and from any funds in the Treasury, even with the consent of the States. Ohio was allowed, for a valuable consideration, to reap the incidental advantage of an avenue between the sea-board and the Mississippi, which (when the act of 1802 was passed) equally had the military protection of our frontiers in view. In 1806, Congress But we may have overlooked some thing of this kind.

also had the military as well as other national connections of the East and West distinctly in view, and it was too late, in the latter year, to raise constitutional objections, unless the Government desired, under that plea, to break its faith with the State of Ohio. It would not have redeemed that faith merely to grant the money to the State. She could not make provisions to disburse moneys in road-building in other States. The United States had as much contracted to supervise the construction of the road, as to appropriate the specified funds. And it was not generally thought, in 1806, that the bond of connection between the eastern and western States was so perfectly solid and permanent in its texture that all additions to its strength were supererogatory, or that it was best to test that strength by a breach of faith based on a scruple which was not allowed to weigh when a contract important to the interests of the West was deliberately entered into by our Government. On the final passage of the bill the vote stood, in the House, yeas sixty-six, nays fifty. In the Senate, no vote by yeas and nays appears to have been taken. The objections of the minority seem to have been to the time of action, or to the particular location of the road. The division was not a party one, and perhaps as many "strict constructionists" of the Constitution voted in the affirmative as the negative. Such was the origin of a measure which ultimately grew so far beyond its original and constitutional objects, and led to such an abyss of Congressional "logrolling" and corruption, that its progress was happily arrested by an Executive veto.

The United States coast survey originated at this session, in an appropriation of five thousand dollars, to be expended by the Secretary of the Treasury in causing the coast of North Carolina, between Cape Hatteras and Cape Fear, to be surveyed.

An act was passed (after severe opposition from the Federalists, aided by Randolph and his followers), continuing the collection of the "Mediterranean Fund," to the end of the next session of Congress.

Among the important measures that failed during the session was one to complete six ships of the line, the materials for which had been mostly collected during Mr. Adams's Administration. A bill was introduced to tax the importation of slaves ten dollars a head, the Constitution having prevented an entire inhi

bition of that importation before 1808. After the consumption. of much time, and the usual bandying of recriminations between, in commercial phrase, the "importers and consumers" of the article, the subject was allowed to go over to the next session. Congress adjourned on the 21st of April.

1

The Administration had passed a severe ordeal, and passed it with its strength essentially unbroken. Reports had been industriously circulated that the President gave his ear entirely to the eastern Republicans, that he was estranged from those of the South, and that alarming dissensions existed in the Cabinet proper. The last of these allegations was without a shadow of foundation. The two first were believed by nobody, unless by Randolph and his little faction of Quids, in the House, and by such Republican senators as Bradley, of Vermont. And the splintering off of this fragment, so far from weakening, actually strengthened the Administration. It is said a crushed insurrection gives solidity to a government. A party insurrection commenced under such imposing auspices, urged with a vindictiveness exceeding that of former enemies, and resulting in so trifling a loss, was well calculated to increase popular confidence in the strength of the Administration, and to teach uneasy coteries and individuals that their opposition would prove dangerous only to themselves.

A circumstance occurred in the closing hours of the late session, which is so inaccurately, not to say fantastically, described in Garland's Life of John Randolph, and which so nearly concerns those connected with the subject of this biography, and indirectly, Mr. Jefferson himself, that we cannot pass it over in silence. Randoph, who had for months been in open and avowed hostility to the Administration, is represented by his biographer as its friend, but as a friend whom, on account of his independence and honesty, it was necessary to "silence or drive into the ranks of the Federalists." Mr. Garland melodramatically says:

"The plot was now ripe for execution: like Cæsar, he was to fall on the floor of the Senate by the hands of his treacherous friends. The evening of the 21st of April, on the final adjournment of the House, was selected as the time-that parting hour, usually given up to hilarity, to friendship, and an oblivious forgetfulness of all

1 See President's letter to Duane, of March 22d, 1806; and to Gallatin, October 12th, 1806.

past animosities, was chosen as the fit occasion to stab to the heart one who should have been their pride and their ornament. As the dim shades of night were gathering over the legislative hall, while the dim light of the taper served only to make darkness visible, the conspirators, each with his part well conned and prepared, commenced the assault on their unsuspecting victim, who sat as a confiding friend in their midst."

He proceeds to narrate what took place, in about an equal vein of truthfulness and consistency. Those who wish to read. his account in full, must turn to his Life of Randolph (vol. i., p. 247). The substance of it, and all of it that is of any importance, in this connection, will be found mentioned, and most effectually answered, in the following letter, from one of the sons of Thomas Mann Randolph:

To HENRY S. RANDALL.

DEAR SIR:

RICHMOND, Feb. 6th, 1856.

You ask me to give a correct account of the personal difficulty between John Randolph of Roanoke and my father, Thomas Mann Randolph, which has been introduced into the biography of the former, written by Hugh A. Garland. As you may well suppose from your knowledge of my father's character, Mr. Garland's story is thoroughly inaccurate.

He attributes the collision to a supposed conspiracy planned by Messrs. Findley, Sloane and T. M. Randolph, the object of which was to crush Mr. John Randolph. Mr. Garland's sole authority for this alleged conspiracy is an anonymous letter in the Aurora, signed "A Citizen," and manifestly the production of a warm partisan. This letter has been incorporated literally in Mr. Garland's book, although it was publicly contradicted in the Intelligencer at the time of its publication, and betrays its want of truth on its face. The conspirators are said to have been prepared each "with his part well conned," and are then introduced in a condition indicating any thing else rather than cool preparation. Mr. Findlay we are told was "very much intoxicated;" Mr. T. M. Randolph was boiling with "rage and defiance ;" while Mr. Sloane embraced the opportunity of "slily thrusting his fangs" into Mr. John Randolph's side. The "very mild, dignified and conciliatory" deportment of the latter, strange to say, was the immediate cause of Mr. T. M. Randolph's anger, who "vociferated" a tirade of abuse, demanded an explanation from his adversary when called on for an apology, and on that explanation being refused, apologized himself in the humblest manner.

The wanton disregard of fact in Mr. Garland's narrative will be best exhibited by an account of the affair deduced from contemporaneous publications in the Va. Argus, the Enquirer and the Intelligencer, of May, June and July, 1806.

From these publications we learn that on the last night of the ninth Congress, Mr. S. R. Williams, while discussing the salt duties, used some warm language, for which he was called to order by Mr. T. M. Randolph. Soon afterwards Mr. John Randolph took the floor and began his remarks by saying, "What has thrown us into this heat?-is it the dinner we have just eaten? hope no honorable gentleman who has heretofore kept the noiseless, tenor of his way, because we have adjourned

for half an hour, has permitted his passions to indulge in an asperity not shown on any former occasion." This "mild," "dignified," and "conciliatory" insinuation that some honorable gentleman was intoxicated, following immediately upon Mr. T. M. Randolph's call to order, was supposed by that gentleman to be pointed at him. On the vote being taken, he requested permission to reply to Mr. John Randolph, a request seconded by the latter in a manner deemed offensive. The permission being given, Mr. T. M. Randolph began his remarks as follows: "It is true, as the gentleman says, that I have not made much noise this session, and it is as true that he has made more than is useful." He then proceeded to animadvert on the course of Mr. John Randolph, in observations at least respectable in manner and style, and wholly different from the miserable tirade ascribed to him by Mr. Garland on the authority of a person writing from memory two weeks after the transaction.'

On resuming his seat he was called on by Mr. Garnett, of Va., as the friend of Mr. John Randolph, and asked whether the remarks just made were intended for him; that if they were, a demand for satisfaction would be made. Mr. T. M. Randolph avowed that his remarks were meant for Mr. John Randolph, and were designed as a retaliation for the offensive expressions of that gentlemen. He professed himself ready to give the satisfaction required, brought his friend, Mr. Coles, and repeated to him in the presence of Mr. Garnett what had passed between that gentleman and himself. In the conversation that ensued, Mr. Garnett stated explicitly that Mr. John Randolph's remarks were not intended for Mr. T. M. Randolph, whereupon the latter expressed his willingness to make " any reparation that a man of honor might

make."

Mr. Garnett retired to get a formal disclaimer from his principal, and Mr. T. M. Randolph returned to his seat. Here he was assured by all around him of his mistake, and informed of its being whispered that his retort was in pursuance of a preconcerted plan. Neither Mr. Coles nor Mr. Garnett came; the session was about to close, the affair seemed to be settled, and there was danger of his losing the only opportunity of repairing the injustice he had done. Accordingly Mr. T. M. Randolph rose, and saying, "I have been told by six or seven gentlemen that the words were meant for another," expressed his regret for what he had said. He unquestionably supposed Mr. Garnett authorized to make the statement that he had made, as is proved by a note appended to the foregoing sentence in the contemporaneous report of the National Intelligencer. It is in these words: "Among them, one whose authority was beyond question."

In the meanwhile Mr. Garnett found Mr. John Randolph, who considered himself so situated that he could make no explanation. Mr. Garnett returned to communicate this fact to Mr. Coles, and to make arrangements for a meeting if Mr. T. M. Randolph should decline to apologize; but Mr. Coles, who was the private secretary of the President, had been called off on public business. When Mr. Garnett found him, Mr. T. M. Randolph had made his apology to the House, and Messrs. Coles and Garnett determined on consultation to say nothing of Mr. John Randolph's refusal to explain.

And yet, from Mr. Garland's book, it would be supposed that this refusal was communicated to Mr. T. M. Randolph, and even hastened his apology. The fact was not divulged until two or three weeks afterwards, when the anonymous writer, already mentioned, published an account of the scene in the House of Representa

1 T. M. Randolph's remarks on this occasion will be found in the Annals of Congress, and they more than bear out the assertions of his son.

*Id est, T. M. Randolph's informants.