Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/170

1803. the conviction that if any attempt were made to impeach, Nicholson ought not to be the leader. In this opinion Macon was evidently right, for Chase's friends could not fail to suggest that Nicholson was to be rewarded by an appointment to Chase's vacant seat on the Supreme Bench; but the House of Representatives contained no other leader whose authority, abilities, and experience warranted him in taking so prominent a part, unless it were John Randolph.

A worse champion than Randolph for a difficult cause could not be imagined. Between him and Jefferson little sympathy existed. Randolph had quarrelled with the branch of his family to which Jefferson was closely allied; and his private feelings stood in the way of personal attachment. His intimates in Congress were not chiefly Virginians, but men like Macon of North Carolina, Joseph Bryan of Georgia, and Nicholson of Maryland,—independent followers of Virginia doctrine, who owned no personal allegiance to Jefferson. That the President should have been willing to let such a man take entire responsibility for an impeachment was natural; but had Jefferson directed the step, he would never have selected Randolph to manage a prosecution on which the fate of his principles closely depended. Randolph was no lawyer; but this defect was a trifling objection compared with his greater unfitness in other respects. Ill-balanced, impatient of obstacles, incapable of sustained labor or of methodical arrangement, illogical to excess, and egotistic to the verge of madness, he