The personal appearance of the man, however, encouraged this idea: Tawny complexion, tall thin form, spindle shanks, long hair in a queue, large, black, glowing eyes, pointed chin, beardless face, small effeminate hands, long tapering fingers, and, above all, a voice shrill, piercing, sonorous and magnetic as a woman’s. He dressed in drab or buck-skin breeches, with blue coat and white top-boots, or large buckled shoes. His manner was courteous and attractive to the few whom he regarded as his equals; to the rest of mankind he was dignified and reserved; to no one did he permit familiarity. A man introduced himself to Randolph as Mr. Blunt. “Blunt?” said he with a piercing and repellant glance; “_Blunt!_ Ah, I should say so!” Another stranger addressed him in Washington: “Mr. Randolph, I am just from Virginia; I passed your house a few days ago?” “Thank you, I hope you always will,” was the only encouragement the advance received. Yet, in England, Randolph was thought very approachable and genial. An introduction was not necessary to an acquaintance at all. Perhaps the difference was largely in his health, which was better abroad. John Randolph first came into prominence in politics in 1798, by the daring act of opposing on the stump the idol of Virginia, the venerable Patrick Henry. Henry took grounds against the State upon its nullification of the laws of the United States, although he had always been an extreme States-rights man. Young Randolph—then aged twenty-five—astounded everybody by daring to meet such a champion; but he had Henry’s former record in his favor, and he made a speech of such power that it carried him into the House of Representatives. Referring to these two men, the happy expression was used, “The Rising and the Setting Sun.” Henry died soon after. Randolph took his seat in December, 1799. When he advanced to the Speaker’s desk to take the oath, the clerk, moved by his youthful and singular appearance, asked, “Are you old enough to be eligible?” “Ask my constituents,” was the only reply his State pride allowed him to make. In one month Randolph had become one of the best marked men of the nation. He broke with the administration of his party under Jefferson on “the Yazoo business”—a bit of early official corruption that rivals anything disclosed in later times. His opposition to the anti-English measures of Madison’s administration, and to the war of 1812, cost him his re-election, and he was retired. Henry Clay’s star was rising, and a new era was dawning. “The American system” of internal improvements, protection, manufactures, and Federal supremacy was taking shape. The irrepressible conflict of State _versus_ Federal powers, had begun under Clay and Randolph—a conflict destined to lead to the duel between these two leaders, and ultimately to be appealed to the arbitrament of civil war.