This judgment was so far true that none but persons hostile to all central government could look toward the future without alarm; for if the system continued in the future to lose energy as in the ten years past, the time was not far distant when the country must revert to the old Confederation, or to ties equally weak. Such a result was the outcome of Randolph’s principles, and he should have welcomed it; but Randolph was a creature of emotions; with feminine faults he had feminine instincts and insight, which made him often shrink from results of his own acts. At this crisis he showed more political judgment than could be expected from wiser men. Though a Republican of the narrowest Virginia creed, he would take part with none of the factions that racked the government. He opposed vehemently not only the legislative assertion that the French Decrees were withdrawn, but also the legislative violence that overthrew the constitution of the House by means of the previous question. If Randolph was wrong on either of these points, he was at least wrong in company with history itself. He favored his old policy of peace, economy, and a decentralized government, and lost his temper with his colleague Eppes, to the verge of a duel; but for this course he was little to be blamed, since the policy was that of his party, and the contest was not of his making. He gave to Gallatin all the support he had to give. Though more deeply committed than any regular party man to the Constitutional doctrines of narrow construction, he voted with the friends of the Bank. “Randolph’s opinion on the bill to renew the charter of the United States Bank is, I believe, unknown to every person except himself,” wrote Macon, February 20,[281]--although Macon, himself opposed to the Bank, was Randolph’s intimate friend. Disgusted with the factiousness of others, Randolph became almost statesmanlike, and for a brief moment showed how valuable he might have been had his balance equalled his intelligence.