Note 1178 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
"All the difficulties under which we have labored and now labor on this subject have grown out of a fatal admission" by Madison "which runs counter to the tenor of his whole political life, and is expressly contradicted by one of the most luminous and able State papers that ever was written [the Virginia Resolutions]—an admission which gave a sanction to the principle that this Government had the power to charter the present colossal Bank of the United States. Sir, ... that act, and one other which I will not name [Madison's War Message in 1812], bring forcibly home to my mind a train of melancholy reflections on the miserable state of our mortal being:
'In life's last scenes, what prodigies surprise! Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise. From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driv'ler and a show.'
"Such is the state of the case, Sir. It is miserable to think of it—and we have nothing left to us but to weep over it." (Annals, 18th Cong. 1st Sess. 1301.)
Randolph was as violently against the War of 1812 as was Marshall, but he openly proclaimed his opposition.