“Repaired at the hour appointed to the State House, but no more States being represented than were yesterday (tho’ several more members had come in) we agreed to meet again tomorrow. (Govr. Randolph from Virginia came in today.)”
General Washington’s diary tells us what we already know – the convention still lacks a quorum.
Edmund Jennings Randolph is a decidedly handsome man who has not yet reached his thirty-fourth birthday. He was elected as the seventh governor of Virginia last December, succeeding Patrick Henry, and led the Virginia delegation to the failed Annapolis Convention last year. Like many of his colleagues, he graduated from the College of William and Mary, afterwards studying the law with his father, John Randolph, and his uncle, Peyton Randolph.
When hostilities erupted between the colonies and England, John Randolph chose the Loyalist side and emigrated to England, taking with him his wife and daughters. Edmund remained in America, joined the new Continental Army, and was assigned as an aide-de-camp to General Washington. When his uncle Peyton died in October 1775, Edmund returned to Virginia as executor of his estate. In short order, this young man of twenty-three was elected to the fourth Virginia Convention, then as mayor of Williamsburg, and finally as attorney general of Virginia. He retained the position of attorney general for ten years, relinquishing it only after being elected governor last December.
Peyton Randolph’s impact on Edmund was no less than it was on the events unfolding in America long before and during the early years of the revolution against English rule. After graduating from William and Mary, he was accepted to study law at the Inns of Court in London. In 1748 he was appointed King’s Attorney for Virginia as well as selected for a seat the House of Burgesses. Peyton first came to national prominence when the Attorney General of England decided in favor of the legal position he had argued pertaining to the Toleration Act. Not only did the Attorney General agree with Peyton’s reasoning, he extended his decision beyond Virginia and applied it to all of the American colonies. This was the first of many victories for Peyton and Virginia, whose interests increasingly coincided.
Peyton’s reputation was spreading through the colonies at the same time relations with England were crumbling. In May 1774, Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, dissolved the House of Burgesses.for expressing its opposition to the Boston Port Act imposed by the English Parliament and its sympathy for Boston. For Peyton’s role in the effort, his name was added to a blacklist of patriots the British hoped to arrest and hang for treason.
When the first Continental Congress met in September 1774 (the meeting was delayed for four days because they did not have a quorum!) at the City Tavern here in Philadelphia, Peyton Randolph was unanimously elected President. Peyton was a deeply religious man, as were many of the patriots. Under his leadership, the first act of the Continental Congress was to invite the Rev. Jacob Duché to open the meeting with prayer.
The Second Continental Congress convened on May 10, 1775 shortly after the confrontations at Lexington and Concord in April. The first order of business was to reelect Peyton as President. But this time, in an act of defiance, they would not gather in the City Tavern; they would meet in the State House. A year later, in this place, on July 2, fifty-six men representing all thirteen colonies would pledge their “lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor” and vote to dissolve all political connections with Great Britain.
Sadly, Peyton would not be among them. Lord Dunmore had called a session of the Virginia Assembly. Peyton was still Speaker of the Assembly and was obligated to attend. He left Philadelphia on May 23. John Hancock was elected to succeed him as President.
When the Virginia Assembly adjourned, Peyton returned to Philadelphia and the Continental Congress in October. Suddenly, on October 23, while sharing dinner with a friend, he suffered a stroke and died within hours. He was 54 years old.
Saddened by this tragic event, Congress appointed a small committee to “superintend the funeral” and resolved “that this Congress will attend his funeral as mourners…and continue in mourning for the space of one month.” On October 20, the Pennsylvania Packet reported, “On the day his remains were interred there was a greater collection of people that I had ever seen. The three Battalions were under arms. Their standards and colors were furled with black gauze; their drums muffled and covered with gauze. The bells at Christ Church were muffled. There, Mr. Duché preached a most excellent sermon – thence the Corpse was carried to the burying yard, the way being lined on each side by the Battalions, leaning on their arms reversed.”
This is the legacy Peyton Randolph left to his nephew, Edmund. Following in his steps, Edmund served his State as attorney, a member of the Continental Congress and now, as a member of the convention charged with creating a new nation. The South is essential to this effort and Virginia will lead the South. As Governor of Virginia, much will be required of Edmund Randolph.