Page "John Randolph of Roanoke" Paragraph 32

Despite being a Virginia gentleman, one of the great orators in the history of Caroline, and House leader, Randolph after five years of leadership became ( 1803 ) a permanent outsider.

He had personal eccentricities as well, which were made worse by his lifelong ill health ( he died of tuberculosis ), his heavy drinking, and his occasional use of opium.

According to Bill Kauffman, Randolph was “ a habitual opium user a bachelor who seems to have nurtured a crush on Andrew Jackson .” However, modern science has well established that latent pulmonary tuberculosis, which " consumption " killed his brother Theodorick Randolph at age 21 and which eventually killed him at age 60, can sometimes settle in the genital tract and, once there, can cause the symptoms and the painful and permanent damage that would prevent the onset of puberty as Randolph experienced it in his boyhood.

Though he openly used opium, the only treatment of that time for the extreme pain caused by his lifelong battle with tuberculosis, his belligerent and bellicose personality can be traced to his early boyhood and before the onset of any disease.