St. George Tucker

St. George Tucker
Portrait by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin.
Born	July 10, 1752(1752-07-10)
Died	November 10, 1827(1827-11-10) (aged 75)
Signature

St. George Tucker (July 10, 1752 – November 10, 1827) was a lawyer, professor of law at the College of William and Mary, and judge of Virginia's highest court. In 1813, upon the nomination of President James Madison, he became the United States district judge for Virginia.

Early life

Born in St. George, Bermuda, near Port Royal. Tucker traveled to Virginia in 1771 to study law at the College of William and Mary, under George Wythe. Wythe also instructed Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall, signed the Declaration of Independence and served as chief justice of Virginia. Tucker was a member of the F.H.C. Society, and was approved for the bar on April 4, 1774, being admitted in 1775 at the age of twenty-three. He then settled permanently in Williamsburg and began practice in the county courts. During the American Revolutionary War, he was elected colonel of the Chesterfield County militia which joined Nathaniel Green's army in North Carolina. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Guilford Court House. In 1778, Tucker married Frances Bland Randolph, a wealthy widow, and assumed responsibility of large estates in Chesterfield County as well as her three sons, the youngest came to be known as John Randolph of Roanoke. At the Siege of Yorktown (1781), Tucker was wounded serving as a lieutenant colonel of cavalry and aide to Governor and General Thomas Nelson.

Family

In 1778, Tucker married Frances (Bland) Randolph, the daughter of Theodorick Bland of Cawsons and the widowed mother of John Randolph of Roanoke and his two older brothers. After the marriage, he moved to Chesterfield County and later fathered Henry St. George Tucker, Sr. and Nathaniel Beverley Tucker with her. After the war he returned to practice in the county courts but, after his wife died, returned to Williamsburg to live. His home was the St. George Tucker House in Colonial Williamsburg. Thomas Tudor Tucker, a member of the Continental Congress, was his brother; and George Tucker, a politician and author, was a relative.

"Tucker established a virtual dynasty of legal and constitutional talent that carried on Jeffersonian principles through successive generations."

His youngest step-son, John Randolph of Roanoke (1773-1833) , served in the U.S. House of Representatives, and as President Thomas Jefferson's spokesman in the House until 1803, was a United States Senator, as well as a Minister to Russia. He also was a leader of the Tertium Quids ( a.k.a. "Old Republican") a minority wing of the Democratic-Republican Party.

His son, Henry St. George Tucker, Sr. (1780-1848), "served in the state legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives, was chief justice of Virginia, conducted a successful law practice at Winchester, Virginia, declined President Andrew Jackson's appointment as attorney general of the United States, became professor of law at the University of Virginia, and published books on natural law, constitutional law, and the laws of Virginia."

Another son, Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1784-1851), "became professor of law at William and Mary and published three novels, [including, The Partisan Leader (1836)], as well as a number of works on political economy and public issues. He is a major figure in the intellectual history of the Old South."

His grandson, John Randolph Tucker (1823-1897), "son of Henry St. George Tucker, was attorney general of Virginia, professor of law at Washington and Lee University, counsel in numerous cases before the United States Supreme Court, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1875 to 1887, and published, among other works, The Constitution of the United States (2 vols., 1899)."

Another grandson, Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1820-1890), son of Henry St. George Tucker, "edited an antebellum newspaper in Washington, D.C., was U.S. counsel at Liverpool, and served the Confederate States as an economic agent abroad."

His great-grandson, Henry St. George Tucker, III (1853-1932), "son of John Randolph Tucker, represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1876 to 1889 and again from 1922 to 1932, carrying on the states' rights, populist, anti-big business tradition of his family and state. He was also professor of law at Washington and Lee University, and published Limitations on the Treaty-Making Power Under the Constitution of the United States and Woman's Suffrage by Constitutional Amendment."

"Given the massive change in the extent and distribution of political power since the Civil War, and the resulting adjustments in accepted understandings of the Constitution, Tucker's principles of states' rights and limited government are likely to seem strange to Americans today, unless it is remembered that these principles were the prevailing ideas not only during Tucker's time but also for several generations after."

Anti-slavery pamphlet

In 1796, Tucker wrote a controversial pamphlet addressed to the General Assembly of Virginia which stated that the abolition of slavery was of "great importance for the moral character of the citizens of Virginia." The dissertation opens with a scathing denunciation of the practice: "Whilst America hath been the land of promise to Europeans and their descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions of the wretched sons of Africa…Whilst we were offering up vows at the shrine of Liberty... whilst we swore irreconcilable hostility to her enemies... whilst we adjured the God of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free or die; we were imposing on our fellow men, who differ from us in complexion, a slavery ten thousand times more cruel than the utmost extremity of those grievances and oppressions, of which we complained."

It goes on to outline a plan for the gradual freeing of slaves. With the vast majority of those of wealth and power being slave owners at the time, Tucker understood there was virtually no chance of abolishing slavery outright. Instead, he called for a measured approach that would eventually, over a period of generations, lead to freedom for all salves. In a striking parallel to political issues of today, 18th century abolitionists felt Tucker's plan did not go nearly far enough while proponents of the status quo deemed it simply unacceptable. Ultimately, the pamphlet had little effect.

Judicial service

Tucker was a judge of the Virginia General District Court in Richmond, Virginia, from 1788 to 1803, with overlapping service as a professor of law and police at the College of William and Mary from 1800 to 1804. Upon the death of Judge Edmund Pendleton, in 1803, Tucker was appointed to the state Court of Appeals. He resigned this position in 1811, returning to private practice in Williamsburg, until 1813.

On January 18, 1813, Tucker was nominated by President James Madison to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Virginia vacated by John Tyler, Sr. Tucker was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 19, 1813, and received commission the same day. On February 4, 1819, he was reassigned by operation of law to the newly subdivided United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, serving until his resignation on June 30, 1825.

Tucker's health began to fail several years later, and he died in November 1827 after a long illness. During his lifetime he published an edition of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, supplying valuable annotations on the United States Constitution and laws of Virginia, thus making the material relevant to an American readership. The papers of the Tucker-Coleman family, including the papers of St. George Tucker, are held by the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William & Mary.

Bibliography

• The Probationary Odes of Jonathan Pindar, Esq., a Cousin of Peter's, and a Candidate for the Post of Poet Laureate, to the C. U. S. In Two Parts, a volume of political satires, 1796
• A dissertation on slavery : with a proposal for the gradual abolition of it, in the state of Virginia, by St. George Tucker. Philadelphia: Printed for Mathew Carey ..., 1796.
• Letters on the Alien and Sedition Laws, 1799
• Blackstone’s commentaries : with notes of reference to the constitution and laws, of the federal government of the United States, and of the Commonwealth of Virginia : with an appendix to each volume, containing short tracts upon such subjects as appeared necessary to form a connected view of the laws of Virginia as a member of the federal union, by St. George Tucker in 5 vols. (Philadelphia: published by William Young Birch and Abraham Small; Robert Carter, Printer, 1803).
• The poems of St. George Tucker of Williamsburg, Virginia, 1752-1827, collected and edited by William S. Prince. New York : Vantage Press, 1977.

Suggested Reading

Tucker, St. George View of the Constitution of the United States with Selected Writings (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1999) (1803) Editor Clyde N. Wilson states that Views of the Constitution "was the first extended, systematic commentary on the Constitution after it had been ratified by the people of the several states and amended by the Bill of Rights. . . . [and] it was for much of the first half of the nineteenth century an important handbook for American law students, lawyers, judges and statesmen."

References

• St. George Tucker at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
•  "Tucker, Thomas Tudor". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1889. 

External links

• Colonial Williamsburg's biography page on Tucker
• St. George Tucker at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Full text of Tucker's edition of Blackstone's Commentaries
• View of the Constitution of the United States with Selected Writings (1803) from the Online Library of Liberty
• Digitized version of St. George Tucker's law lectures
• Tucker-Coleman Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary
• Digitized versions of St. George Tucker's law lectures