1 62 Making the American Thoroughbred 



turned to gathering in his own hands the armour of war- 

 fare with which he had been scourged." 



At a session of Congress, some time after the Eclipse- 

 Henry race, the exigencies of the hour bring Randolph to 

 his feet to roam at large through a wide range of subjects. 

 He has bouquets for some persons, thorns for others; bit- 

 ing sarcasm for the people of the North as a whole. His 

 long service and many speeches have not diminished the 

 attractiveness of his unique personality or lessened interest 

 in what he has to say upon any subjct. Among his 

 associates in Congress as had been the case among 

 strangers at the Eclipse-Henry race his emphatic, 

 shrill-voiced scintillations always fall on appreciative 

 ears. The scene at the Union Course flashes across his 

 mind. He pauses a moment for a starting point while 

 House and galleries lean toward him in perfect silence, 

 wondering what he will say next eager to catch every 

 word. And this is the gold, unalloyed with the sting of 

 defeat, with which they are rewarded: 



"Mr. Speaker: I pass from the great men, as they are 

 pleased to call themselves, of the Northern tribes and 

 digressing even further from the particular object of my 

 speech, call the attention of the House to a man, who 

 knows, in his vocation, no superior. He has not, Sir, 

 * split the ears of the groundlings ' in this hall, a panorama 

 of human life, or, in the theatre, the mock representative 

 of man's follies and woman's weakness, drawn down the 

 applause of the galleries, by 'tearing a passion to pieces,' 

 as we see and hear every day, or rather night, in the play 

 houses of this country. No, Sir. The man of whom I 

 speak, was the last and only hope of the North in a struggle 

 between it and the South, where pride and skill were at 

 stake. I was opposed to him; I joined in the general wish 



