Edmund Randolph

Edmund Jenings Randolph (August 10, 1753 – September 12, 1813) was an American lawyer, Governor of Virginia, the first U.S. Attorney General and Secretary of State under George Washington.

Biography

Randolph was born to the rich and influential Randolph family in Williamsburg, Virginia; they owned tobacco plantations worked by slaves. He was graduated the College of William and Mary, and read law with his father John Randolph and uncle, Peyton Randolph. In 1775, with the start of the American Revolution, Randolph's father joined the Loyalist and moved to Britain; Edmund Randolph remained in America where he joined the Continental Army as aide-de-camp to General George Washington.

Political career

In late 1775 Randolph there was elected as a representative to the Virginia Convention. He went on to serve as mayor of Williamsburg and was selected as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1779, and served there to 1782. During this period he also remained in private law practice, handling numerous legal issues for George Washington among others.

Randolph was elected Governor of Virginia in 1786, that same year leading a delegation to the Annapolis Convention that warned of the urgent need for a new, more effective national government.

Constitutional Convention

In 1788 as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Randolph introduced the Virginia Plan as an outline for a new national government. He argued against importation of slaves and in favor of a strong central government, advocating a plan for three chief executives from various parts of the country. The Virginia Plan also proposed two houses, where in both of them delegates were chosen based on state population.

Randolph was also a member of the "committee on detail" which was tasked with converting the Virginia Plan's 15 resolutions into a first draft of the Constitution. Randolph refused to sign the final document, however, believing it had insufficient checks and balances, and published an account of his objections in October 1787. He nevertheless urged its ratification in 1788, seeing its adoption as having become necessary.

Attorney General

Washington named Randolph as the first U.S. Attorney General in September 1789. He tried to be neutral between Thomas Jefferson (of whom Randolph was a distant relative) and Alexander Hamilton. When Jefferson resigned as Secretary of State in 1793, Randolph succeeded him to the position. The major diplomatic initiative of his term was the Jay Treaty with Britain in 1794, but it was Hamilton who devised the plan and wrote the instructions, leaving Randolph the nominal role of signing the papers. Randolph was hostile to the resulting treaty, and almost gained Washington's ear. Near the end of his term as Secretary of State, negotiations for Pinckney's Treaty were finalized.

Resignation

A scandal involving an intercepted French message led to Randolph's resignation in August 1795. The British Navy had intercepted correspondence from the French minister to the U.S. and turned it over to Washington. Washington was dismayed that the letters reflected contempt for the United States and that Randolph was primarily responsible. The letters implied that Randolph had exposed the inner debates in the cabinet to the French and told them that the Administration was hostile to France. At the very least, Elkins and McKitrick conclude, there "was something here profoundly disreputable to the government's good faith and character." Washington immediately overruled Randolph's negative advice regarding the Jay Treaty. A few days later Washington, in the presence of the entire cabinet, handed the minister's letter to Randolph and demanded he explain it. Randolph was speechless and immediately resigned. Elkins and McKitrick conclude that Randolph was not bribed by the French but "was rather a pitiable figure, possessed of some talents and surprisingly little malice, but subject to self-absorbed silliness and lapses of good sense."

After leaving the cabinet he returned to Virginia to practice law; his most famous case was that of defense counsel during Aaron Burr's trial for treason in 1807.

Bibliography

• Elkins, Stanley, and Eric McKitrick, Age of Federalism (1994) best political history of 1790s online edition
• John J. Reardon. Edmund Randolph: A Biography (1975), 575pp, the standard biography.