Curse of Cannan - The New Ensign

Edmund Randolph devoted his later years to the practice of law. Because of his Masonic
connections, he never wanted for clients. He also worked for years on the writing of a massive
History of Virginia, which he began in 1786, and finally completed in 1810. For some reason,
he made no attempt to have it published. The manuscript was stored for many years at Staunton
Lodge No. 13, and was finally published by the University of Virginia Press in 1970. Although
it is a well-researched and factual work, it does not contain a single reference to Freemasonry
or to the part which this organization played in controlling the state from behind the scenes.
During his legal career, Edmund Randolph received considerable publicity because of his defense
of two controversial criminals, George Wythe Sweeney and Aaron Burr. Sweeney was the
nephew of George Wythe, who is generally regarded as the father of the legal profession in the
United States, because of his long tenure as professor of law at the College of William and Mary
in Williamsburg. His pupils included Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, and many other
political figures. Like his close friend, Edmund Randolph, George Wythe's commitment to the
cause of the Revolution was always suspect. It was Wythe and Randolph who had shouted
"Treason!" at Patrick Henry. In 1793, George Wythe, sitting as Judge of the Chancery Court of
Richmond, ruled against Americans and awarded British creditors full payment from Virginia
debtors on all loans predating the Revolutionary War, holding them to the full valuation of the
loans. Many Virginians demanded that Wythe be lynched because of this Tory decision, although
it was more likely a Masonic one.
Wythe had a young wife who died after only one year of marriage; she was but sixteen. Henry
Clay then became secretary to Wythe at Chancery Court and for some years was like a son to
him. Wythe's housekeeper, a slave named Lydia Broadnax, became his consort, and he had a
son by her, whom he set free. Dr. John Dove reported the subsequent events in a document now
known as "Dove's Memorandum": "Wythe had a yellow woman by the name of Lydia who lived
with him as wife or mistress as was quite common in the city. By this woman he had a son named
Mike." In 1806, Edmund Randolph was called in by Wythe to write a codicil to his will, providing
that some of his stock in the Bank of Virginia be left to his son, Mike. Wythe had a grandnephew
named Sweeney who was to be his principal heir. Wythe claimed that the nephew had been
stealing from him, and he called Randolph in to write a second codicil leaving Mike the remainder
of his bank stock. In fact, Wythe's decision was prompted by his passion for the youth, who for
some time had been serving him as a catamite, according to the Curse of Canaan.
Through the natural aging process, Lydia, who was about the same age as the now venerable
Wythe, was no longer a satisfactory bed partner. Wythe, still lusty beyond his years, now began
to satisfy himself with his handsome mulatto bastard. Overcome by his passion for the youth,
he made his fatal mistake. The tradition of the Old South was that an owner might sire as many
mulatto children as he wished, they being a desirable commercial commodity, and the
lighter-skinned, the higher the price; an equally powerful tradition was that such offspring could
never inherit money or property. They were often left some clothing, perhaps a gold watch, but
the owner was never expected to award them status by willing them large sums of money or land
holdings.
Because he violated this fundamental principle, Wythe was murdered by his rightful heir. Wythe's
will provided that if Mike preceded him in death, Sweeney would receive the entire estate.
Sweeney prepared coffee for his granduncle and Mike, and laced it heavily with arsenic. They
both died in agony. Sweeney was charged with murder, and much damaging evidence was
presented against him; that he had purchased arsenic, and testimony from Lydia that she had
seen him put something in the coffee. Nevertheless, Edmund Randolph, who defended Sweeney,
won acquittal by jury. Thus George Wythe, the father of the legal profession in the United States,
had a personal history rife with miscegenation, homosexuality, and murder by arsenic poisoning.
Here again, we can only conjecture that much of the later antics of the legal profession in America
would prove to be equally colorful if its true history could be revealed to the public. Wythe had
violated a basic principle by which his society lived, and so his murder went unpunished. The
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