George Wythe, Virginia

1726-1806

Representing Virginia at the Continental Congress

George Wythe was one of the very most distinguished men of his age, yet due to his modesty and quiet dignity, we learn little about him from the history books. He was born in Elizabeth County Virginia, in 1726, of a wealthy agricultural family. His father died when George was three, but his mother, who was extraordinarily well educated for a woman of that day, tutored him in the classics in a manner that would take him far indeed. His mother died when he was still a teenager and his oldest brother, who took no interest in George, inherited the family property. George entered the college of William and Mary but was unable to keep up with the fees. He dropped out and then managed to secure a study of law at the office of a Stephen Dewey. His studies were so successful that he was admitted to the bar in Spottsylvania County in 1746, at the age of 20.

Everyone who came into contact with him was impressed. He was appointed clerk to the Committee which formed the rules of conduct and elections in the House of Burgesses in 1746. In 1753 the Royal Governor of Virginia made him Attorney General, to fill the shoes of Peyton Randolph while he traveled to England. In 1755 Wythe was elected to represent Williamsburg at the House of Burgesses. At that time, his oldest brother died, and he inherited the family farm. Wythe served in the House of Burgesses until it was dissolved, on the eve of the revolution.

His most valuable contribution to the new nation was his involvement in education. This began in 1761 when he was elected to the Board of Visitors at the College of William and Mary. Eight years later the man who could never gain a degree for want of the money to do it with, became America's first Professor of Law. His students included Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, James Monroe, John Marshal, and several dozen other distinguished public servants. He taught for twenty years and admitted to no greater love than that of forming young minds.

In 1775 Wythe was elected to attend the Continental Congress. He served for two years, voted in favor of the Resolution, and for the Declaration. In 1776 he was called back to Virginia in order to help form the new government. He was elected Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1777. The following year he was made one of the three Chancellors of the State of Virginia, a post that he served in for the rest of his life. George Wythe was revered as a man on great honor and integrity. He was a republican in all things, and a quiet abolitionist. He freed his slaves and made provisions for their support until they could earn a living for themselves. This ended in tragedy-and that tragedy would cost Wythe his own life. A young member of his family, on discovering that Wythe had conditionally willed part of the family property to his slaves, decided to enlarge his own share by poisoning them with arsenic. He incidentally murdered George Wythe in the process. Wythe died on June 8, 1806 at the age of 80.

From: US History.org

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Virginia's George Wythe spent only about a year in the Continental Congress, never aspired to any other national office, and played a minor part in the Constitutional Convention. But he made a deep impress on legal education in the Nation and strongly influenced the government and jurisprudence of his State. A brilliant classical scholar and the first professor of law in an American college, he instructed scores of young lawyers. Included among them were Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, John Marshall, and Henry Clay.

Wythe was born in 1726, the second of three children, on his father's plantation on the Back River in Elizabeth City County, Va., within the confines of present Hampton. He lost his parents at an early age and grew up under the guardianship of his older brother, Thomas. George acquired a knowledge of the classics from his well educated mother before her death, and he probably attended for a time a grammar school operated by the College of William and Mary.

Wythe's brother later sent him to Prince George County to read law under an uncle. In 1746, at the age of 20, he joined the bar, moved to Spotsylvania County, and became associated with a lawyer there. In December 1747, he married his partner's sister, but she succumbed the next year. In 1754 Lt. Gov. Robert Dinwiddie appointed him as acting colonial attorney general, a position he held for a few months and which likely required that he spend some time in Williamsburg. The next year, Wythe's brother died and he inherited his birthplace. He chose, however, to live in Williamsburg in the house that his new father-in-law, an architect, designed and built for him and his betrothed, whom he married about 1755. Their only child died in infancy.

At Williamsburg, Wythe immersed himself in further study of the classics and the law and achieved accreditation by the colonial Supreme Court. Like his father, he served in the House of Burgesses (mid-1750's until 1775), first as delegate and after 1769 as clerk. During this period, in 1768 he held the mayorship of Williamsburg, and the next year sat on the board of visitors of the College of William and Mary. He also had found time during the years 1762-67 to train youthful Thomas Jefferson in the law. The two men, at first as mentor and pupil and later as political allies, maintained a lifetime friendship.

Wythe first exhibited Revolutionary leanings in 1764 when Parliament hinted to the Colonies that it might impose a Stamp Tax. By then an experienced legislator, he drafted for the House of Burgesses a remonstrance to Parliament so strident that his fellow legislators modified it before adoption. Wythe was one of the first to express the concept of separate nationhood for the Colonies within the British Empire.

Although elected to Congress in 1775-76, Wythe exerted little influence in that body. He spent considerable time helping draft a State constitution and design a State seal, and was not present at the time of the formal signing of the Declaration in August 1776. Furthermore, within a few months, Wythe, Jefferson, and Edmund Pendleton undertook a 3-year project to revise Virginia's legal code. In 1777 Wythe also presided as speaker of the lower house of the legislature.

An appointment as one of the three judges of the newly created Virginia high court of chancery followed the next year. Sitting on it for 28 years, during 13 of which he was the only chancellor, Wythe charted the course of Virginia jurisprudence. In conjunction with these duties, he was an ex officio member of the State Superior Court.

Wythe's real love was teaching. In 1779 Jefferson and other officials of the College of William and Mary created the first chair of law in a U.S. institution of higher learning and appointed Wythe to fill it. In that position, he educated America's earliest college trained lawyers, among them John Marshall and James Monroe. To supplement his lectures, Wythe introduced the use of moot courts and legislatures, in which students could put their knowledge into actual practice. In 1787 he also demonstrated his love of the classics and literature by offering free to anyone interested a class in Latin, Greek, and English literature. That same year, he attended the U.S. Constitutional Convention, but played an insignificant role and did not sign the Constitution. The following year, however, he was one of the Federalist leaders at the Virginia ratifying convention.

In 1791, the year after Wythe resigned his professorship, his chancery duties caused him to move his home to Richmond, the State capital. But he was reluctant to give up his teaching and opened a private law school. One of his last and most promising pupils was a teenager named Henry Clay.

In 1806, in his eighth decade, Wythe died at Richmond under mysterious circumstances—probably of poison administered by his heir, a favorite grandnephew. Reflecting a lifelong aversion to slavery, Wythe emancipated his slaves in his will. His grave is in the yard of St. John's Episcopal Church at Richmond.

From: National Park Service