Excerpt from Omitted Chapters of History, Disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph Governor of Virginia: First Attorney-General United States, Secretary of State
In a room of the Virginia Historical Society there is a portrait so blurred that the face is repulsive. It is the alleged portrait of a man described by his contemporary, William Wirt, as of "a figure large and portly; his features uncommonly fine; his dark eyes and his whole countenance lighted up with an expression of the most conciliatory sensibility; his attitudes dignified and commanding; his gesture graceful and easy; his voice perfect harmony; and his whole manner that of an accomplished and engaging gentleman." The portrait at Richmond, repudiated when painted, suffered all manner of ill usage; and its fate resembles that of the man for whom its dauber meant it, - Edmund Randolph. Painted by partisanship as he was not, his name has been marred by every prejudice, and his fame left to his country in conventionalized disfigurement. The Centenary of our Constitution has already brought a gallery of fresh historical portraits of its leading framers, but one panel, like that of Falieri at Venice, is vacant; there is no portraiture of the statesman to whom the initiation and ratification of the Constitution were especially due, except a blackened effigy hung up by enemies in a moment of partisan passion. This traditional effigy of Edmund Randolph I have examined by the light of facts and documents to which historians appear to have had no access, with growing conviction that the nation knows little of a very interesting figure in its early history.
The true portraiture, personal and political, might have been given in small compass; but behind the vacant panel have been found facts and documents of wider scope.
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