Virginia's class of wealthy slaveholders. While Randolph frequently criticized slavery, he also insisted that abolition would be worse for both enslaved blacks and whites. Indeed, Randolph lionized Virginia's wealthy slaveholding class as the rightful rulers of Virginia and the United States, and had great disdain for democracy and the advocates of more democratic government in Virginia and the Union. Federalist William Plumer of New Hampshire wrote in 1803 of his striking presence: Mr. Randolph goes to the House booted and spurred, with his whip in hand, in imitation, it is said, of members of the British Parliament. He is a very slight man but of the common stature. At a little distance, he does not appear older than you are; but, upon a nearer approach, you perceive his wrinkles and grey hairs. He is, I believe, about thirty. He is a descendant in the right line from the celebrated Indian Princess, Pochahontas. The Federalists ridicule and affect to despise him; but a despised foe often proves a dangerous enemy. His talents are certainly far above mediocrity. As a popular speaker, he is not inferior to any man in the House. I admire his ingenuity and address; but I dislike his politics. Randolph was chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in the Seventh through the Ninth Congresses, acting as the Democratic-Republican party leader. After breaking in 1806 with his cousin, President Thomas Jefferson, due to fall-out from the international reception to his ill-fated Mobile Act of 1804, he founded the Tertium quids, a faction of the Democratic-Republican Party that called for a return to the Principles of 1798 and renounced what it saw as creeping nationalism. Randolph's Teratium Quids believed that wealthy slaveholders like themselves were the rightful rulers of Virginia and the Union, and that any movement towards greater democracy would undermine the power and authority of Virginia's slaveholding class. Although he greatly admired the political ideals of the Revolutionary War generation, Randolph, influenced by Southern anti-Federalism, propounded a version of republicanism that called for the traditional patriarchal society of Virginia's elite, slaveholding gentry to preserve social stability with minimal government interference. Randolph was one of the House managers who successfully prosecuted the impeachment trial of John Pickering, judge of the United States District Court for New Hampshire, in January 1804. Critics complained that he mismanaged the prosecution when he performed the same role during the failed impeachment