http://lawlibrary.wm.edu/wythepedia/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Lpsene&feedformat=atomWythepedia: The George Wythe Encyclopedia - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T16:14:58ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.27.5http://lawlibrary.wm.edu/wythepedia/index.php?title=Professor_of_Law_and_Police&diff=7186Professor of Law and Police2013-08-14T15:19:50Z<p>Lpsene: Created page with "After becoming the Governor of Virginia and a member of the Board of Visitors at the College of William & Mary in 1779, Thomas Jefferson set into motion a change in legal educ..."</p>
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<div>After becoming the Governor of Virginia and a member of the Board of Visitors at the College of William & Mary in 1779, Thomas Jefferson set into motion a change in legal education. His idea was that a formal education program for lawyers should replace the practice of taking on legal apprentices<ref>Paul D. Carrington, [http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol31/iss3/2/ “The Revolutionary Idea of University Legal Education,”] ''William & Mary Law Review'' 31 (1990), 527.</ref>. His goal was to introduce a program of study that would teach law with the aim of “inculcate[ing] republican virtue, those traits needed by public men to evoke public trust in public institutions.”<ref>Paul D. Carrington, Teaching Law and Virtue at Transylvania University: The George Wythe Tradition in Antebellum Years, ''Mercer Law Review'' 41 (1989), 675.</ref> At a meeting of the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary on December 4, 1779 he was able to do just that. A resolution was passed that created the Chair of Law and Police as one of the six professorships at the College.<ref>The Virginia Gazette, [http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/gwythe/2/ "At a convocation of the visitors of the college of William and Mary, on the 4th day of December 1779, a statute was passed, of which the following is an extract,"] December 18, 1779, at 1.</ref><br />
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George Wythe, Jefferson’s teacher, was recruited to fill the [[Wythe the Teacher|position]]. Wythe lectured twice a week on topics such as the political economy, public law, and English common law and created regular moot court sessions where students argued in front of Wythe and other professors.<ref>W. Taylor Reveley, III, [http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/75/ “W&M Law School Came First. Why Care?”] ''University of Toledo Law Review'' 35 (2003), 185.</ref><br />
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Wythe served as the Chair of Law and Police until 1789 and was succeeded by St. George Tucker who continued the focus on public affairs. Tucker, like Wythe, also served concurrently as a Judge. This was a tradition that continued for the [http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/deans/ Chair of Law and Police at William & Mary] until 1851.<ref>Carrington, “Teaching Law and Virtue at Transylvania University: The George Wythe Tradition in Antebellum Years,” 675-6.</ref> In 1861 the school would close due to the Civil War and would not re-open until 1922 as the Marshall-Wythe School of Government and Citizenship.<br />
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==References==<br />
<references /></div>Lpsenehttp://lawlibrary.wm.edu/wythepedia/index.php?title=George_Wythe&diff=7184George Wythe2013-08-14T15:17:09Z<p>Lpsene: linking Shewmake article to repository</p>
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<div>George Wythe was born in 1726<ref>The exact date of Wythe's birth is unknown. Historians generally choose 1726, but Wythe may have been born in early 1727.</ref> in Elizabeth City County at his family’s home of [http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/Chesterville_Plantation_Site Chesterville]. As a second son in a family of moderate means, he chose law as his profession and qualified to practice in 1746. From that modest beginning, Wythe launched a successful career augmented by a variety of public service positions, including a brief stint as Virginia’s youngest Attorney General. When revolution erupted, Wythe participated as a delegate to the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, and briefly represented the Commonwealth at the Constitutional Convention. In addition to his contributions on the national stage, Wythe’s fellow Virginians selected him to help rewrite Virginia’s code of laws, to preside over Virginia’s Constitutional ratifying Convention, and, in 1778, to [[Wythe's Judicial Career|serve on the newly created High Court of Chancery]]. <br />
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Wythe originally began his [[Wythe the Teacher|teaching career]] in the traditional 18th century manner of instructing apprentices to his legal practice. Historians believe Wythe started instructing apprentices in his [http://www.history.org/almanack/places/hb/hbwythe.cfm Williamsburg home] before 1762 when Thomas Jefferson began to read law, but no records verify or identify earlier students. Subsequent Wythe apprentices included James Madison (president of William & Mary College) and St. George Tucker (Wythe’s successor as professor of law and police).<br />
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In 1779, William & Mary’s Board of Visitors reorganized the college and created the chair of Professor of Law and Police -- the first of its kind in America and only the second in the English-speaking world. The Board appointed George Wythe to fill the new chair, making Wythe both William & Mary’s first law professor and the first law professor in the country.<br />
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Wythe lectured twice a week and assigned readings from major legal treatises such as William Blackstone’s ''Commentaries on the Laws of England'' and Matthew Bacon’s ''New Abridgment of the Law''. He also introduced the use of mock trials and mock legislatures to American legal education in an effort to prepare his students for roles as “citizen lawyers”. Wythe’s students included John Marshall and Bushrod Washington as well as three future Virginia Supreme Court Justices and numerous future Congressmen and Senators. In 1789, the Virginia High Court of Chancery, on which Wythe had served since its inception in 1778, relocated to Richmond. This change and Wythe’s growing unhappiness with the direction of academic life at the College caused Wythe to resign his position as professor. He moved to Richmond where he continued his [[Wythe's Judicial Career|judicial career]] until his [[Death of George Wythe|death]] in 1806.<br />
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== Further Reading ==<br />
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*Blackburn, Joyce. ''[[George Wythe of Williamsburg.]]'' New York: Harper & Row, 1975.<br />
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*Brown, Imogene E. ''[[American Aristides: A Biography of George Wythe.]]'' Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, c1981.<br />
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*Clarkin, William. ''[[Serene Patriot: A Life of George Wythe.]]'' Albany, New York: Alan Publications, 1970.<br />
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*Dill, Alonzo Thomas. ''[[George Wythe: Teacher of Liberty.]]'' Williamsburg, Va.: Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission, 1979.<br />
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*Hemphill, William Edwin. [[George Wythe, the Colonial Briton|"George Wythe, the Colonial Briton: A Biographical Study of the Pre-Revolutionary Era in Virginia."]] PhD diss., University of Virginia, 1937.<br />
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*Hemphill, William Edwin. [["George Wythe: America’s First Law Professor and the Teacher of Jefferson, Marshall and Clay."]] Masters thesis, Emory University, 1933.<br />
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*Holt, Wythe. [http://www.law.ua.edu/pubs/lrarticles/Volume%2058/Issue%205/Holt.pdf "George Wythe: Early Modern Judge,"] 58 ''Alabama Law Review'' (2007), 1009-1039.<br />
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*Kirtland, Robert Bevier. ''[[George Wythe: Lawyer, Revolutionary, Judge.]] PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1983.<br />
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*Loker, Aleck. ''[[George Wythe: Venerable Statesman, Jurist and Educator.]]'' Williamsburg, Va.: Solitude Press, 2007.<br />
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*Shewmake, Oscar L. ''[http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/1374/ The Honourable George Wythe: Teacher, Lawyer, Jurist, Statesman|The Honourable George Wythe: Teacher, Lawyer, Jurist, Statesman: An Address Delivered Before the Wythe Law Club of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, Dec. 18, 1921.]'' Richmond, Va., 1950.<br />
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==References==<br />
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