biography
| name: |
Randolph, Edmund (Jennings)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1753–1813)
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| biography:
| Lawyer and cabinet officer, born in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, the grandson of Sir John Randolph and descendant of Pocahontas. A lawyer and briefly an aide to General George Washington (1775), he served in the Continental Congress (1779–82). As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention (1787), he proposed the Virginia Plan (or Randolph Plan), basing representation solely on population. He refused to sign the final version of the Constitution because it was not ‘republican’, but later he advocated that Virginia ratify it. Washington named him the first attorney general (1789–94) and then the second secretary of state (1794–5). As the latter, he tried to hold to a neutral path, but found himself challenged when Alexander Hamilton sent John Jay to negotiate a treaty with the British (1794). Intercepted letters from the French ambassador, Fauchet, intimated that Randolph was receptive to bribery, and although both Fauchet and Randolph denied this, Randolph was forced to resign. He returned to his law practice, and was Aaron Burr's chief counsel when he was tried for treason (1807). |
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