James Pfister: Peyton Randolph, the original founding father

The founding of a nation usually begins with a leader who aggregates political interests. In our nation, this interest aggregation process materialized among the colonies with the First and Second Continental Congresses of 1774 and 1775. The leader was Peyton Randolph of Virginia. Some consider him to be the first president of the United States. After the British threatened to hang him for treason, his security detail referred to him as “the father of your country.” Who was this little-known hero of the American nation?

Peyton Randolph (herein Peyton) was born at Tazewell Hall in Williamsburg, Virginia, on Sept. 10, 1721. His father was Sir John Randolph, a lawyer, a Speaker of the House of Burgesses (the colony’s legislature), and a wealthy man, who was the only native Virginian to be knighted by the King of England (1732). He died in 1737, leaving his library to Peyton, “hoping he will betake himself to the study of law.” (When Peyton died, Thomas Jefferson bought his library, which is currently in the Library of Congress).

Peyton fulfilled his father’s wishes. After attending the College of William & Mary, Peyton traveled to England to study law at the London Inns of Court, the Middle Temple, in 1739. He became a barrister, the highest level of English legal practice, on Feb. 10, 1743, thus spending about four years in London studying law.

Upon his return home, he was made Virginia’s attorney general on May 7, 1744. He was an elite English gentleman, not an American revolutionary. “An adherent of the British Constitution that emerged from the revolution of 1688 (the era of John Locke) and a political practitioner in the Court Whig mold of Sir Robert Walpole, Randolph’s moderating effect at key moments in the imperial crisis checked the extremes to which radicals such as Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee would otherwise lead the colony.” (The American Revolution Institute: Peyton Randolph). As Speaker of the House of Burgesses and later as president of the Continental Congress, Peyton was able to keep the radicals in check.

As attorney general, Peyton protected the colony’s interests and resolved governmental disputes, often between the royal governor and the Burgesses. In the 1750s, there was the Lieutenant Gov. Robert Dinwiddie affair, where the latter charged a fee for sealing new land patents. Peyton appeared to be in a tender situation representing the royal governor but arguing the Burgesses’ case in London. He worked it out in the end, retaining his position as Attorney General.

In 1764, the Stamp Act became an issue. Peyton wrote an “Address of Remonstrance” to the King arguing against the act. He strongly opposed Patrick Henry’s approach of using strident language in his Stamp Act Resolves as being counterproductive. It was conservatives versus radicals. In 1766, there were two candidates for Speaker of the Burgesses: Peyton and Richard Bland, the latter favored by radicals Henry and Lee. On Nov. 6, 1766, Peyton was elected Speaker by a substantial majority, and his conservative brother, John Randolph, became attorney general. The conservatives won.

Peyton was a successful politician, being elected as leader in every major assembly in which he sat. Most important in history was the First Continental Congress of Sept. 5-Oct. 22, 1774, meeting in Philadelphia. John Adams, who met Peyton there, described him as “a large well looking man.” Peyton was unanimously elected president of that national Congress. He would again be unanimously elected president of the Second Congress on May 10, 1775, but had to resign the presidency 14 days later due to poor health. He would die from a stroke on Oct. 22, 1775, just eight months before the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

Peyton was a transitional man, evolving in his life from being the English King’s attorney in Virginia to being president of the national Continental Congress, “the father of your country.” By contrast, his brother, John, a loyalist attorney, in 1775 left Virginia to spend the remainder of his life in London. Peyton’s conservative nationalism as a lawyer, I believe, had an impact on the Declaration: It was a legal document of due process, showing with precision the reasons for the separation and, as his young friend Jefferson wrote, “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.”

— James W. Pfister, J.D. University of Toledo, Ph.D. University of Michigan (political science), retired after 46 years in the Political Science Department at Eastern Michigan University. He lives at Devils Lake and can be reached at jpfister@emich.edu.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: James Pfister: Peyton Randolph, the original founding father