June 2

H. L. Mencken (left), the sage of Baltimore, observed that democracy is the theory that “the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard”. John Randolph (right), a senator from Virginia, who was born on the 2nd in 1773, also distilled the role of democracy into a nice little sound bite when he said, “I am an aristocrat. I love liberty. I hate equality.”
Randolph was a slave owner. In his will, dated 1819, he included a provision that his slaves were to be freed. In a codicil added in 1821, he bequeathed the money necessary for the freed slaves to relocate to Ohio. A number of his former slaves resettled in Shelby County, Ohio. Randolph also observed, “We all know our duty better than we discharge it.”