George Wythe
George Wythe was the first Professor of Law in what eventually became the United States, teaching at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, as well as apprenticing several future lawyers, including Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and a young Henry Clay. Wythe entered the political arena as a clerk for Virginia’s House of Burgesses – the colonial legislature – and eventually served as an alderman for Williamsburg and a Burgess for the College of William and Mary. Wythe was involved with the funding for Virginia troops during the French and Indian War and was considered a loyal supporter of the British Crown.
That changed with the Stamp Act of 1765 as Wythe emerged as a radical opponent of the notion that Parliament had the right to enact taxes and other duties on the colonies. Wythe’s views naturally were presented to his students, including Jefferson. In 1768 the Governor of Virginia dissolved the House of Burgesses, and they continued to meet in the Raleigh Tavern and other locales in town. In 1773 another Governor, Lord Dunmore, reconvened the Burgesses but the activities of Wythe and the other Virginians supporting the Sons of Liberty in Boston led him to dissolve the assembly again.
Wythe was selected as a delegate to the second Continental Congress after George Washington surrendered his seat in that body in order to accept his commission as Commander of the Continental Army. Wythe actively supported the motion for independence and though he was not a member of the committee of five which drafted the document, Jefferson consulted his mentor as he wrote the draft. Wythe later returned to Virginia to assist in the creation of the State’s government and constitution. It was Wythe who proposed the motto Sic Semper Tyrannis, for the state seal of Virginia.
Wythe also served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, where he helped establish the convention’s rules before being forced to leave to care for his dying wife. In 1779 Jefferson, then serving as Governor of Virginia, appointed Wythe as the first law professor in the United States. Among the legal minds trained by Wythe, were Jefferson, James Monroe, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall, John Breckinridge, and Bushrod Washington. Wythe developed the mode of teaching using mock trials and legislative procedures, one of the first systems of role playing as a means of teaching his students.
In 1788 Wythe became the only judge of Virginia’s Chancery Court, today the Virginia Supreme Court. Wythe continued to serve as Chancellor and as a mentor to young students and lawyers throughout his life. In May of 1805, Wythe and two others with whom he had breakfasted became ill, and Wythe informed his doctors that he had been poisoned. After Wythe’s death his grandnephew was convicted of his murder, but the conviction was overturned on a legal technicality. Wythe was buried in Richmond. The legal minds he personally trained were still involved in American politics and law at the time of the Civil War.