Edmund Jennings Randolph was raised in a British household in Virginia, but grew up to become a prominent figure in the American Revolution (1775-83) and the new Constitutional government. Randolph's father came from a prominent Virginia family. He was an attorney for the king of England and returned to England before the American Revolution. Edmund, meanwhile, graduated from the College of William and Mary. Influenced by his uncle, patriot Peyton Randolph (1721-1775), Edmund broke with his father and joined the Continental Army when the American Revolution was underway. When Peyton Randolph (president of the first Continental Congress) died a few months later, Edmund returned to Virginia. He served in the Virginia Convention of 1776, was mayor of Williamsburg, and was attorney general of Virginia before his twenty-fifth birthday. In 1776, he married Elizabeth Nicholas.

In 1781, Randolph began serving as a delegate to the Continental Congress. There...