The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1873-01-23


CARRIED and heightened each other, and
the meanness of anecdote often reduces
his public stature, while the man en-
balms the anecdote, mean as it may be.
RANDoLPH's NEIGHBoR, HENRY.
Chow is this called Roanoke" said I
to the afable engineer, being ON the
Staunton ?''
g Well, there is a little creek, I be
ieve, called Roanoke, winding through
Randolph's old estate. At any rate,
this is in the general Valley of the
Roanoke, and Roanoke is the name of
the railroad station, two miles from the
fellows abode. He was born at Cav
sons, an estate near City Point, just
before the Revolutionary War. His
youth was spent at Matoax, another es-
tate, this side of Petersburg, and he
/ lived at Bizarre, third estate-all of
which were destroyed by fire. He often
came here to shoot and stop awhile, but
lie moved here after 1910, when Bizarre
burned MP He nAuar built anything
extensive down here.
''Was he rich %
"Oh, yes one of the largest slave
holders in Virginia He left 318 slaves
and $50 horses, and he had some of the
best racing stock in this country"
Have any more recent great men
come from about here ?''
eyes, sir. Tom Bocock and General
Joe Johnston"
Are you much acquainted around
hereg'
"Putty tol'bul we'll"
"What do the people at this day
think of Randolph ?''
''The old people remember him as
naughty, honest, and, although never
mixing much with the voters, sure to
get their support. They never UNDER
stood him; nobody did; but he had two
or three acquaintances, and one of them
was the tavern-keeper at Charlotte
Courthouse, who knew from contact
that he was a great man. He was a
brave fellow, too, and a good hunter
part of his life. One idea is, that he
got in love, and was afraid to marry on
good grounds, and that it soured him
all his life. But his memory is getting
very indistinct, and is kept up most al
together by anecdotes.
Whereabouts in this country did
Patrick Henry live ?"
"He lived at Red Hill, thirty miles
from here, and his descendants, think,
occupy the place yet. That was said
to be little better for comfort than Ran
dolph's place, though Henry had some
mountain views from his yard They
were competitors, sir. Henry only lived
in this country five years, and he died
in '99, making his last speech just as
Randolph made his first, at our old
Courthouse town. Neither has got
any mark set up on his gravel = =
THE HERO IS WORST.
Still, we would not apologize for a
public man nowadays who rose in his
stirrups, in the height of his fame, ona
Long Island race-course, after having
betted all his money, to shout thus vul-
carly: "Ill bet crop of niggers on
Sir Henry p We should not associate
Southern hospitality with a public man
who replied to a constituents pleasant
address: "Mr. Randolph, I passed
your house to-day" "PIease continue
to do so, sir !" We should still consid-
er him very mean Congressman who
accused a doOr-keeper falsely of listen
ing at key-hole to a secret session, in
order to have him turned off, and then
bluffed the man without explanation, as
John Randolph did Vanzandt, merely
because he was an enemy's prOtege.
And we read of his causeless chastise-
ment of his negroes and wounding their
feelings with no more repugnance than
of his sending his books to England
because his Northern countrymen might
otherwise get the job. He showed, in
this last respect, equal want of national
ity and sagacity, because to spite the
Yankee by incurring a greater cost was
only to increase the relative poverty of
the South in the ratio. He did
manumit his slaves, but the feeling he
had previously made on the subject
helped to envelop the manumission with
litigation, and probably the best act In
its consequences he ever did was to re-
fuse Indiana Territory some the ''bIess-
ings of slavery" for which he petition
ed as a temporary dispensation, in
1903.
There were magnanimous times about
the man, and he did recognize a low and
little nature, and pierce it through and
through; but he would also turn like an
Algerine upon a great associate, to graf
ify a moments pique or cOneeit. Ger
tainly not less creditable than his fitful
generosity was the long and uniform al
lowance of his contemporaries and his
country for his admitted genius and
disease.
UNDERNEATH ALL.
Nature appears to have gifted him
with the melancholy talent of perceiv-