“The independence of the legislature has been attacked, and the majesty of the people, of which you are the principal representative, insulted, and your authority contemned.  In their name, I demand that a provision commensurate with the evil be made, and which will be calculated to deter others from any future attempt to introduce the reign of terror into our country.  In addressing you in this plain language of man, I give you, sir, the best proof I can afford of the estimation in which I hold your office and your understanding; and I assure you with truth, that I am, with respect, your fellow-citizen, John Randolph.”

This language so well accords with our present sense of the becoming, that a person unacquainted with that period would be unable to point to a single phrase calculated to give offence.  In the year 1800, however, the President of the United States saw in every expression of the letter contemptuous and calculated insult.  “The majesty of the people,” forsooth!  The President merely their “representative”! “plain language of man”! and “with respect, your fellow-citizen”!  To the heated imaginations of the Federalists of 1800, language of this kind, addressed to the President, was simply prophetic of the guillotine.  So amazed and indignant was Mr. Adams, that he submitted the letter to his Cabinet, requesting their opinion as to what should be done with it.  Still more incredible is it, that four members of the Cabinet, in writing, declared their opinion to be, that “the contemptuous language therein adopted requires a public censure.”  They further said, that,

“if such addresses remain unnoticed, we are apprehensive that a precedent will be established which must necessarily destroy the ancient, respectable, and urbane usages of this country.”

Some lingering remains of good-sense in the other member of the Cabinet prevented the President from acting upon their advice; and he merely sent the letter to the House, with the remark that he “submitted the whole letter and its tendencies” to their consideration, “without any other comments on its matter and style.”

This affair, trivial as it was, sufficed in that mad time to lift the young member from Virginia into universal notoriety, and caused him to be regarded as a shining light of the Republican party.  The splendor of his talents as an orator gave him at once the ear of the House and the admiration of the Republican side of it; while the fury of his zeal against the President rendered him most efficient in the Presidential canvass.  No young man, perhaps, did more than he toward the election of Jefferson and Burr in 1800.  He was indeed, at that time, before disease had wasted him, and while still enjoying the confidence of the Republican leaders and subject to the needed restraints of party, a most effective speaker, whether in the House or upon the stump.  He had something of Burke’s torrent-like fluency, and something of Chatham’s spirit of command, with a piercing, audacious sarcasm all his own.  He was often unjust and unreasonable, but never dull.  He never spoke in his life without being at least attentively listened to.