Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/390

380 that might come in the shape of insult and aggression was commenced. The result was then foretold. It has happened." Speaker after speaker revelled in narrating the long list of insults and outrages which America had endured in patience.


 * "The House will pardon me," said Randolph, "if I forbear a minute recapitulation of the wrongs which we have received not only from the two great belligerents of Europe, but from the little belligerents also. I cannot, like Shylock, take a pleasure in saying, 'On such a day you called me dog; on such a day you spit upon my gabardine.'"

Yet Randolph himself fell naturally into the habits at which he sneered; and his wit alone raised him above the common level of Congressmen. However happily he might ridicule the timidity and awkwardness of others, he never advanced a positive opinion of his own without repudiating it the moment he was taken at his word. "I would scuffle for commerce," he said; and the phrase was itself unworthy of a proud people like the Virginians; but when Campbell tried to force from him a pledge to stand by the Government in asserting the national rights, Randolph declined to gratify him.

Of all the speakers, George Washington Campbell—the reputed author of the Report—alone took a tone which might almost be called courageous; but