that might come in the shape of insult and aggression was commenced. The result was then foretold. It has happened."[1] 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,[2] "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;[3] 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
