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;[330] 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 even Campbell thought more of tactics than of dignity. He admitted that the object of his Report was to unite the party on common ground; but he dared not say whether this common ground was to be embargo or war; he did not even say--what must have been in his mind--that the Government had exhausted alternatives. His chief effort seemed rather to be directed toward making a dilemma for the Federalists:-- “Are they determined to vindicate the rights and independence of their country? If they are, we wish to know in what manner. If they are not willing to pursue the measures of resistance we propose, of a total interdiction of intercourse with those Powers, will they assume a higher ground? Will they prefer war? If they do, this is one of the alternatives presented in the Report. We wish to know what measures they are willing to adopt for the safety of the nation. The crisis is awful. The time has come to unite the people of America. We join issue with the gentlemen as to a temporizing policy. We have not,--we will not now temporize. We say there is no middle course. We are in the first place for cutting off all intercourse with those Powers who trample on our rights. If that will not prove effectual, we say take the last alternative, war, with all its calamities, rather than submission or national degradation.” The most interesting part of Campbell’s speech was his awkward admission that peaceable coercion had failed. Such an admission was equivalent to avowing that the Republican party had failed, but Campbell stumbled as he best could through this mortifying confession.