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 200 RANDOLPH August, 1795. He published "A Vindication " (Philadelphia, 1795). RANDOLPH, John, of Roanoke, an American orator, born at Cawsons, Chesterfield co., Va., June 2, 1773, died in Philadelphia, June 24, 1833. He was educated at Princeton, at Co- lumbia college, New York, and at the college of William and Mary, and studied law at Phila- delphia, but never practised. In 1799 he was elected a representative in congress, and soon became conspicuous, in the language of Hil- dreth, as " a singular mixture of the aristo- crat and .the Jacobin." He was reflected in 1801, and was made chairman of the commit- tee of ways and means. In 1803, as chairman of a committee, he reported against a memorial from Indiana for permission to introduce slaves into that territory in spite of the prohibition of the ordinance of 1787, which ho pronounced to be " wisely calculated to promote the hap- piness and prosperity of the northwestern country." In 1804 ho was chief manager in the trial of Judge Chase, impeached before the senate. (See CHASE, SAMUEL.) In 1806 he as- sailed President Jefferson and his supporters with great virulence, lie attacked Madison^s administration, and opposed the declaration of war against Great Britain in 1812. His oppo- sition caused his defeat at the next election. He was reflected in 1814, and again in 1818, having declined to be a candidate in 1816. In the congress of 1819-"20 he opposed the Mis- souri compromise, stigmatizing the northern members by whose cooperation it was carried as " doughfaces," an epithet adopted into the political vocabulary of the United States. In 1822, and again in 1824, he visited England. From 1825 to 1827 he was a senator of the United States, and during that time fought a duel with Mr. Clay. (See CLAY, HENRY.) He supported Gen. Jackson for president in 1828. In 1829 he was a member of the convention to revise the constitution of Virginia, and in 1830 was appointed minister to Russia ; but soon after his reception by the emperor Nicholas, he departed abruptly for England, where ho remained for nearly a year, and returned homo without revisiting Russia. He was again elect- ed to congress, but was too ill to take his seat. Exhausted with consumption, ho died in a ho- tel at Philadelphia, whither ho had gone on his way to take passage again across the ocean. During his life his speeches were more fully reported and more generally read than those of any other member of congress. He was tall and slender, with long, skinny fingers, which he was in the habit of pointing and shaking at those against whom he spoke. His voice was shrill and piping, but under perfect com- mand and musical in its lower tones. His in- vective, sarcasm, and sharp and reckless wit made him a terror to his opponents in the house. At the time of his death he owned 318 slaves, whom by his will he manumitted, bequeathing funds for their settlement and maintenance in a free state. His "Letters RANDOLPH MACON COLLEGE to a Young Relative" appeared in 1834. See "Life of John Randolph," by Hugh A. Gar- land (2 vols. 8vo, New York, 1850). RANDOLPH, Peyton, an American patriot, pres- ident of the first congress, born in Virginia in 1723, died in Philadelphia, Oct. 22, 1775. He was the second son of Sir John Randolph, and after graduating at the college of "William and Mary went to England and studied law at the Temple. In 1748 he was appointed king's at- torney general for the colony, was chosen a member of the house of burgesses, and was chairman of a committee to revise the laws of the colony. In 1764 he drew up the address of the burgesses to the king against the passage of the stamp act. In 1765, after that act be- came a law, Randolph with other proprietors of large estates opposed Patrick Henry's cele- brated five resolutions. (See HENRY, PATRICK.) In the same year Virginia forwarded to Eng- land petitions similar to those adopted by the congress, with an address to the king written by Randolph. In 1766 Randolph was made speaker of the house of burgesses, resigning about the same time his office of attorney gen- eral. In the measures of opposition to the English government ho now took a conspicu- ous part. Ho was a member of the commit- tee of vigilance appointed to obtain the most accurate intelligence of all acts of parliament affecting the rights of the colonies, and to open a correspondence with the other colonies. In August, 1774, he presided in the convention at Williamsburg, and was one of the delegates elected to the continental congress. On the assembling of that body in Philadelphia in Sep- tember, he was unanimously elected its pres- I ident, but in consequence of ill health held that post only five or six weeks. In 1775 he presided over the second convention of Vir- ginia at Richmond, was elected again as a del- egate to congress, and when that body met at Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, was reflected president; but the duties of speaker of the house of burgesses recalling him to Virginia, he was succeeded by John Hancock. Ho died suddenly of apoplexy. RANDOLPH MACON "COLLEGE, an institution of learning at Ashland, Hanover co., Va., 16 m. N. of Richmond, on the Richmond, Fredericks- burg, and Potomac railroad. It was founded by a resolution of the Virginia conference of the Methodist Episcopal church in 1827, the charter was obtained in 1830, and the college began work in Mecklenburg co., Va., near the North Carolina border, in 1832. In 1852 an endowment of $100,000 was secured, but this was lost for the most part during the civil war. In 1866 the college was removed to its present site. The course of study is distributed into separate schools, of Latin, Greek, English, &c., the principal schools being arranged in four courses of one year each. Degrees are con- ferred for graduation in each school ; for grad- uation in a certain number of schools the de- gree of B. S. or A. B. is given, and for gradu-