This was the
secret of the disgust with which he heard it proposed to style the
President "His Highness" and "His Majesty." _This_ was the reason why
it kindled his ire to read, in the newspapers of 1789, that "the most
honorable Rufus King" had been elected Senator. It was only Jefferson
and a very few other of the grand Virginians who objected for higher
and larger reasons.
In March, 1790, Mr. Jefferson reached New York, after his return from
France, and entered upon his new office of Secretary of State under
General Washington. He was a distant relative of our precocious
student, then seventeen years of age; and the two families had just
been brought nearer together by the marriage of one of Mr. Jefferson's
daughters to a Randolph. The reaction against republican principles
was at full tide; and no one will ever know to what lengths it would
have gone, had not Thomas Jefferson so opportunely come upon the
scene. At his modest abode, No. 57 Maiden Lane, the two Randolph
lads--John, seventeen, Theodorick, nineteen--were frequent visitors.
Theodorick was a roistering blade, much opposed to his younger
brother's reading habits, caring himself for nothing but pleasure.
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