George Wythe

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George Wythe
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 – January 30, 1777
Preceded by
Succeeded by	Mann Page
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In office
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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

Early life

George Wythe was born in 1726 in Elizabeth City County at his family’s home of Chesterville.

Legal and political careers

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 the teacher

Main article: Wythe the Teacher

Wythe originally began his teaching career in the traditional eighteenth 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 future United States Supreme Court justices 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.

Judicial career

Main article: Wythe's Judicial Career

On January 9, 1778, Virginia's General Assembly passed an act creating the High Court of Chancery. Five days later, the Assembly nominated and unanimously elected Edmund Pendleton, Robert Carter Nicolas and Wythe to the bench. In addition to their chancery court obligations, an act of the Assembly in 1779 required all three judges to serve ex officio on the Court of Appeals with judges from the Court of Admiralty and the General Court. This changed in 1789 when the Assembly reorganized the courts and created a permanent Court of Appeals, leaving Wythe as the sole chancellor and his decisions subject to review by the Court of Appeals. Wythe retained his position as chancellor until his death in 1806—first as a member of the panel, then as sole chancellor, and finally as chancellor for one of three districts.

Death

Main article: Death of George Wythe

On May 25, 1806, George Wythe was struck with a severe gastrointestinal malady which most of his contemporaries (and subsequent historians) believed resulted from arsenic poisoning. The culprit who administered the poison to Wythe's entire household was his great-nephew and heir, George Wythe Sweeney. Also poisoned were Lydia Broadnax, Wythe's housekeeper, and Michael Brown, a young freedman to whom Wythe was teaching Latin and Greek. Broadnax survived the poisoning; Brown did not. He died on June 1, 1806. Wythe survived in agony for two weeks, long enough to disinherit Sweeney. The chancellor finally succumbed on June 8. The great teacher and judge was mourned throughout the Commonwealth with "more column inches of eulogy than had been elicited in Virginia newspapers by the death of George Washington or by that of any other person." Even at his death, his influence upon the nation was readily apparent. As one commentator wrote, "upon his death in 1806, the nation's President ([Thomas] Jefferson), its Chief Justice ([John] Marshall), an Associate Justice ([Bushrod] Washington), the Attorney General ([John] Breckinridge), U.S. Senators from Virginia ([William Branch] Giles) and Kentucky ([Buckner] Thruston), and the most influential state judge in America ([Spencer] Roane) all were former students of George Wythe."

Further Reading

Main article: George Wythe Bibliography

• 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.

• 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.