Difference between revisions of "User:Gwsweeney/George Wythe"

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George Wythe SANDBOX
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Chancellor of the Commonwealth of Virginia
In office
December 24, 1788 – June 8, 1806
Preceded by
Succeeded by	Creed Taylor
Judge, High Court of Chancery of Virginia
In office
14 January, 1778 – June 8, 1806
Preceded by	Inaugural holder
Succeeded by
Delegate to the Second Continental Congress from Virginia
In office
August 11, 1775 – June 13, 1776
Preceded by
Succeeded by	Mann Page
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Personal details
Born	1726
	Elizabeth City Co., Virginia
Died	June 8, 1806 (aged 80)
	Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Resting place	{{{restingplace}}}
Residence(s)	Chesterville Plantation, Elizabeth City Co., Virginia Spotsylvania Co., Virginia Williamsburg, Virginia Richmond, Virginia
Education
Alma mater
Profession	Lawyer Professor of Law and Police (1779–1789) Chancery Court Judge (1778–1806)
Spouse(s)	Ann Lewis (1747-1748) Elizabeth Taliaferro (1755–1789)
Relatives	Thomas Wythe (father) Margaret Walker Wythe (mother) Thomas Wythe (elder brother) Anne Wythe Sweeney (elder sister)
Known for	Signer of the United States Declaration of Independence
Signature

George Wythe (/wɪð/;^[1] 1726 – June 8, 1806) was born in 1726^[2] in Elizabeth City County at his family’s home of 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 serve on the newly created High Court of Chancery.

Wythe originally began his teaching career in the traditional 18th century manner of instructing apprentices to his legal practice. Historians believe Wythe started instructing apprentices in his 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).

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.

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 judicial career until his death in 1806.

Early life

Born Granparents, parents Chesterville Apprentice to Stephen Dewey (south of Richmond, across the James River, south of Petersburg)

Examiners spring, 1746, license to practice signed by Peyton Randolph, Lawrence Burford, William Nimmo, and Stephen Dewey

Legal and political careers

1st job

Partner with Zachary Lewis, Spotsyvlania County, Virginia. Bel-Air plantation.

John Lewis

Ann Lewis (married December 26, 1747)

Practiced Augusta, Caroline, Orange, and Spotsylvania Counties

Ann dies August 8, 1748

"later wrote he drowned his sorrows in the inns of Spotsylvania County" http://books.google.com/books?id=Lq1rd1ecFCYC&pg=PA103

October 1748

Main article: House of Burgesses

Clerk of the committee on Privileges and Elections of the House of Burgesses of Viriginia

Clerk of the committee on Propositions and Grievances of the House of Burgesses of Virginia

Qualified to practice York and Warwick (now Newport News) and perhaps other Counties

1748-1752 clerk of

committee on Privileges and Elections of the House of Burgesses of Viriginia

committee on Propositions and Grievances of the House of Burgesses of Virginia

1750, Wythe was first elected as one of Williamsburg's aldermen (18 years)

re-elected 1752

August 1754-1756? Member of the House of Burgesses for Williamsburg (2 years) succeeded Armistead Burwell

committee on Courts of Justice

By 1754, qualifies to practice before the General Court (Court of Appeals)

January 1754 appointed Attorney General of Virginia (succeeded Peyton Randolph, succeeded by Peyton Randolph, December?)

"man of integrity" Edmund Randolph, History of Virginia 162-163

1755 older brother Thomas Wythe dies intestate, Wythe's inherits Chesterville

1758-1761 House of Burgesses for the College of William & Mary

1759 committee of Correspondence

1761-1767 House of Burgesses for Elizabeth City County

1766 John Robinson estate scandal

March 1768-1775??? Clerk of the House of Burgesses of Virginia (succeeded John Randolph, big quote in Js of the HoB 1766-69, p. 141) Speaker of the House of Burgesses

1774 committee of Safety

1768-1771 Mayor of Williamsburg

Legal clients: George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Robert Carter

Mentoring

Jefferson, St. George Tucker, James Madison, James Innes?

Revoltionary

1777 Speaker of the House of Delegates of Virginia

The College of William & Mary

Main article: Wythe the Teacher

Judicial career

Main article: Wythe's Judicial Career

Death

Main article: Death of George Wythe

Further reading

• Blackburn, Joyce. George Wythe of Williamsburg. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.

• Brown, Imogene E. American Aristides: A Biography of George Wythe. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, c1981.

• Clarkin, William. Serene Patriot: A Life of George Wythe. Albany, New York: Alan Publications, 1970.

• Dill, Alonzo Thomas. George Wythe: Teacher of Liberty. Williamsburg, Va.: Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission, 1979.

• Hemphill, William Edwin. "George Wythe, the Colonial Briton: A Biographical Study of the Pre-Revolutionary Era in Virginia". PhD diss., University of Virginia, 1937.

• Hemphill, William Edwin. "George Wythe: America’s First Law Professor and the Teacher of Jefferson, Marshall and Clay." Masters thesis, Emory University, 1933.

• Holt, Wythe. "George Wythe: Early Modern Judge," Alabama Law Review 58 (2007), 1009-1039.

• Kirtland, Robert Bevier. George Wythe: Lawyer, Revolutionary, Judge. New York: Garland, 1986.

• Loker, Aleck. George Wythe: Venerable Statesman, Jurist and Educator. Williamsburg, Va.: Solitude Press, 2007.

• Shewmake, Oscar L. 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.

References

1. Jump up ↑ "Wythe" is pronounced "with".
2. Jump up ↑ The exact date of Wythe's birth is unknown. Historians generally choose 1726, but Wythe may have been born in early 1727.