From that moment Randolph’s energies quickened in sympathy with old Republican principles; and when he returned to Congress in November, 1804, he and his friends began at once to take extreme ground as champions of State-rights. He lost no chance of enforcing his theories, whether in regard to exemptions from taxes, or in denying to government power to improve navigation within the District of Columbia, or in reproving the people of Georgetown for proposing to lay a general tax on their property for the betterment of their river front. He found the Administration opposed to him. “Mere metaphysical subtleties,” said Jefferson. The influence of Madison was strong in favor of the Yazoo Compromise, and the Northern democrats supported the Secretary. A struggle for supremacy was imminent, and its consequences were soon felt. The impeachment of Judge Chase was Randolph’s measure, and received no support from Madison. The Yazoo Compromise was Madison’s measure, and its defeat was Randolph’s passionate wish. The three branches of government were likely to be at variance on a point of deep concern. No one who knew Chief-Justice Marshall could doubt that he, and the Supreme Bench with him, would hold that the State of Georgia was bound by its contract with the Land Companies. The Administration had taken the ground that the State was not bound in law, but that the United States should nevertheless make an equitable compromise with the claimants. Randolph was bent on forcing Congress to assert that a State had the right to repudiate its own acts where it was evident that these acts were against common morality or public interest; and that its decision in such a case should be final. The conflict was embittered by the peculiarities of Randolph’s character. In his eyes, when such questions of honor were involved, every man who opposed him seemed base. Unfortunately the New England Mississippi Company secured the services of Gideon Granger, the Postmaster-General, as their agent; and Randolph’s anger became intense when, at the close of the year 1804, he saw the Postmaster-General on the floor of the House openly lobbying for the passage of the Bill. At length, at the end of January, 1805, the House went into committee on the Georgia claims, and Randolph for the first time displayed the full violence of his temper. Hitherto as a leader he had been at times arrogant; but from this moment he began the long series of personal assaults which made him famous, as though he were the bully of a race course, dispensed from regarding ordinary rules of the ring, and ready at any sudden impulse to spring at his enemies, gouging, biting, tearing, and rending his victims with the ferocity of a rough-and-tumble fight. The spectacle was revolting, but terrific; and until these tactics lost their force by repetition, few men had the nerve and quickness to resist them with success.