Edmund (Jennings) Randolph

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).

Edmund Randolph

1st United States Attorney General
In office
26 September 1789 – 26 January 1794
Preceded by	none
Succeeded by	William Bradford
2nd United States Secretary of State
In office
2 January 1794 – 20 August 1795
Preceded by	Thomas Jefferson
Succeeded by	Timothy Pickering
Born	10 August 1753 Williamsburg, Virginia
Died	12 September 1813 Millwood, Virginia

Edmund Jennings Randolph (August 10, 1753 – September 12, 1813) was an American attorney, Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State, and the first United States Attorney General.

Randolph was born August 10, 1753 to the prominent colonial Randolph family in Williamsburg, Virginia, and he was educated at the College of William and Mary. After graduation he began reading law with his father John Randolph and uncle, Peyton Randolph.

Upon the death of his uncle Peyton Randolph in October of 1775 he returned to Virginia to act as executor of the estate, and while there was elected as a representative to the Virginia Convention.

Randolph was elected Governor of Virginia in 1786, that same year leading a delegation to the Annapolis Convention.

He was appointed as the first U.S. Attorney General in September 1789, maintaining precarious neutrality in the feud between Thomas Jefferson (of whom Randolph was a distant relative) and Alexander Hamilton.

Randolph died on September 13, 1813 while visiting the home of a friend, Nathaniel Burwell of Carter Hall, near Millwood, Virginia in Clarke County and is buried at a nearby Burwell family cemetery "Old Chapel".