40 of 56 · Virginia
WYTHE
A Teacher's Guide
40 lessons. 5 chapters. In his own words.
He taught Jefferson, Marshall, and Clay, freed his slaves in his will, and was poisoned by a grandnephew who wanted the will different.
George Wythe · 1726–1806 · First law professor · Jefferson's teacher
01
Teach the Founders
1 of 5
Make the men who make the country.
“He was my ancient master, my earliest and best friend, and to him I am indebted for first impressions which have had the most salutary influence on the course of my life.”
Thomas Jefferson on George Wythe · 1806
Jefferson, Marshall, Clay. A syllabus that became a government. If you can choose between being indispensable and teaching ten who are, take the ten. Influence compounds. Office does not.
Nothing would advance a young man faster.
“Nothing would advance me faster in the world than the reputation of having been educated by Mr. Wythe.”
A student of George Wythe · 1780
The chair was a credential because the man was. Reputation is a downstream effect of standards. Keep the standards feral. The line will form.
Stay close enough to correct them.
“Throughout his long life Jefferson never ceased to learn from his old teacher.”
Jefferson's continuing correspondence with Wythe · 1790
Graduation is not exile. He kept the channel open. Students who cannot be recalled will drift into brilliance and error in equal measure. Keep a hook in the best of them.
Virtue is a polar star. Say so.
“The exalted virtue of the man will also be a polar star to guide you.”
Thomas Jefferson, notes for a biography of George Wythe · 1820
Jefferson could not always live the sentence. He could still point at the man who had. Teaching is sometimes just refusing to lower the star. Let them steer by it and fail in public.
Not since Plato, judged by the disciples.
“Not since Plato's time has any teacher been made more illustrious, judged by the performance of his disciples.”
Nineteenth-century judgment on Wythe, from the record of his students · 1820
Ignore the flattery. Keep the metric. Performance of disciples. Not citations. Not affection. What did they build, and did it hold. Grade yourself on their decades.
Call him ancient master and mean the debt.
“He was my ancient master, my earliest and best friend, and to him I am indebted for first impressions which have had the most salutary influence on the course of my life.”
Thomas Jefferson on George Wythe · 1800
Jefferson could have claimed genius as a birthright. He claimed a teacher instead. First impressions are the country if the student drafts the parchment. Teach as if the next Declaration is taking notes.
Marshall, Clay, Jefferson — a faculty of one.
“He taught the men who would write, judge, and hold the union, from a chair that had not existed until he sat it.”
Record of George Wythe's students · 1780
A republic is a transmission problem. He solved it with pupils, not with a faction. One good chair can staff a generation. Sit it. Assign the reading. Correct the prose. Then get out of the way of the careers.
Virtue as a polar star is a syllabus, not a toast.
“Virtue was to him a polar star, and he taught it as if the law were a moral science or it was nothing.”
Thomas Jefferson, notes for a biography of George Wythe · 1820
Law without a star is a trade. He refused the trade version. Students who later fail the star do not refute the teaching. They prove it was a standard. Keep the standard public. Shame is a pedagogue too.
02
The First Chair
2 of 5
Invent the American law school by sitting down.
“George Wythe, Professor of Law and Police in the College of William and Mary.”
William and Mary faculty record · 1779
First chair of law in the United States. Jefferson, as governor, helped put him there. A country that has declared itself needs a place that can teach its own rules. Be willing to be first and lonely.
Law is a science, not a guild secret.
“He set his students to report cases, to argue both sides, and to treat the common law as a system that could be learned in Virginia.”
Accounts of Wythe's teaching · 1780
No pilgrimage to the Inns required, though he knew that world. Local genius, written doctrine, Socratic pressure. If the republic cannot train its lawyers at home, it will import its mind.
Police means the public order, not the constable.
“Law and Police — the constitution of the state, and the regulations that make it run.”
Title of the William and Mary chair · 1779
The old sense: polity. He taught government as a branch of law. Useful. A lawyer who cannot see the state will become a clever pest. Teach the whole machine.
Then take the chancery, and make equity a habit.
“George Wythe, Chancellor of Virginia.”
Professor, then the state's highest equity judge. Theory in the morning, decrees in the afternoon. A chair that never decides a case is a salon. Keep one foot on the bench.
Leave the books to the student who will use them.
“I give my books to Thomas Jefferson.”
They went into the library that became the nation's. Teaching does not stop at the last lecture. Bequeath the tools. A dead teacher's library is a second faculty.
Before him, law was apprenticeship and memory. He made a chair.
“He became the first professor of law in an American college, at William and Mary, in 1779.”
Title of the William and Mary chair · 1779
Before that, law was apprenticeship and memory. He made it a public science with a chair, a library, and a set of lectures. Institutions begin when a person agrees to be the first. Agree.
Lecture law, police, and constitution as one subject.
“He lectured on law, police, and the constitution of government as one subject, not three guilds.”
Accounts of Wythe's teaching · 1780
Police as the old word: the ordering of a commonwealth. Not the constable. Teach the whole. Lawyers who only know writs will miss the republic. Give them the architecture, then the forms.
Chancery is where a teacher becomes a check.
“He sat as Chancellor of Virginia and made equity a habit the common law could not always reach.”
The chair taught. The chancery judged. Theory that never has to decide a widow's case is recreation. Take the case. Write the reason. Let the students read what their master did when it counted.
03
Free Them in the Will
3 of 5
If you cannot free them in life, do not lie in death.
“I give my slaves their freedom, and I provide for the education of the young man Michael Brown.”
He had already manumitted some, including Lydia Broadnax, who stayed by choice and wages. The will finished the work. Late freedom is still a legal act. Write it so a court can read it.
Educate the freed. Otherwise you have only changed the collar.
“Property and instruction for Michael Brown, that he might be raised as a free man with a mind to match the status.”
A mixed-race youth in his household, being taught. That is why the grandnephew reached for the poison. Teaching a Black child as a person was the offensive clause. Keep the offensive clause.
Jefferson called him unequivocal. Be that rare.
“Wythe was unequivocal on the subject of slavery.”
Thomas Jefferson on George Wythe · 1800
The student who wrote all men are created equal was not unequivocal in his own house. The teacher came closer. Do not use Jefferson's fog to blur Wythe's line. Unequivocal is available.
Help write the statute that makes manumission legal.
“Jefferson drafted, and Virginia enacted, the 1782 law that legalized private manumission. Wythe used it.”
Virginia statute of 1782 / Wythe's deeds of manumission · 1782
Conscience without a form of action is a diary. He helped make the form, then filed it. If the law forbids the good, change the law, then do the good.
The will is the last brief. Argue it.
“Such was George Wythe, the honor of his own, and model of future times.”
Thomas Jefferson, notes for a biography of George Wythe · 1820
Model includes the manumissions. If the eulogy skips the people he freed, it is a bust in a courthouse. Read the will as part of the jurisprudence.
Free them in the instrument if you failed them in the life.
“I give my slaves their freedom.”
Late. Still a deed. Jefferson wrote the sentence and kept the keys. Wythe wrote the will and opened the door. A last brief is still a brief. Argue manumission in the only court that then always sat: the testament.
If you free, fund. Otherwise do not boast.
“He provided for the instruction of those he freed, as if liberty without letters were another servitude.”
A name on a will is not a life. He knew it. Literacy, a trade, a chance — otherwise you have donated a legal status and kept the caste. If you free, fund. Otherwise do not boast.
You cannot will what the code forbids. Work the code first.
“He had helped to revise Virginia's laws so that manumission could be done in daylight.”
Virginia statute of 1782 / Wythe's deeds of manumission · 1782
You cannot will what the code forbids. He worked the code first. Then the will. Then the deeds in life. Sequence matters. Reformers who only preach leave the clerk with nothing to record.
04
Take No Pay
4 of 5
Refuse the fee that would own the lesson.
“Jefferson read law in Wythe's office, and the master did not make a mill of the pupil.”
Jefferson's account of his legal education · 1762
Take pay from the public when the public is the client. Do not squeeze the young man who will have to outgrow you. Some tuition is paid forward in the country they build.
Live so the salary cannot bribe you.
“His virtue was of the purest tint; his integrity inflexible, and his justice exact.”
Thomas Jefferson on George Wythe · 1820
Eulogy, yes. Also a reputation no one dared to joke about. Modesty here is not shyness. It is a closed account with temptation. Keep the account closed in sight of students.
Be the Cato without the avarice.
“Devoted as he was to liberty, and the natural and equal rights of man, he might truly be called the Cato of his country, without the avarice of the Roman.”
Thomas Jefferson on George Wythe · 1820
Cato is cheap praise in a republic. Without the avarice is the expensive half. Stoic theater plus a pile of fees is just branding. Cut the pile.
Destroy the vanity papers.
“Wythe's lecture notes and legal papers were lost; Jefferson would not treat them as a private relic when they belonged to Virginia.”
Jefferson's correspondence on Wythe's papers · 1806
He did not build a cult of the file. The students were the publication. If the notes vanish and the disciples remain, the teaching worked. Prefer that ratio.
Take the honorific and keep walking.
“William and Mary gave him the degree of LL.D. He went on teaching and judging as before.”
William and Mary honorary degree · 1790
Letters after the name are furniture. The chair is the work. Nod at the furniture. Sit back down.
Keep one thing off the market. Make it the lesson.
“He would take no pay for teaching the young men who came to him, or as little as would keep the chair from being a shop.”
Thomas Jefferson on George Wythe · 1762
A fee can be a bridle. He preferred poverty to a student who had purchased a grade. Knowledge that is for sale will grade for the buyer. Keep one thing off the market. Make it this.
The students are the collected works. Trust them.
“He ordered his papers destroyed; he would not be a relic in his own hand.”
Jefferson's correspondence on Wythe's papers · 1806
Jefferson kept everything. Wythe kept almost nothing. Vanity is a second estate. Burn the drafts if the life already taught. The students are the collected works. Trust them.
Accept the parchment. Go back to the docket.
“William and Mary honored him; he did not make the honorific a personality.”
William and Mary honorary degree · 1790
Titles stick to men who like the glue. He liked the work. Accept the parchment. Go back to the docket. A modest founder is not a shy one. He is one who knows which room is real.
05
The Poisoned Cup
5 of 5
A bad heir will try to rewrite the will in the blood.
“George Wythe Sweeney, a grandnephew, put arsenic in the coffee and the strawberries, to stop the gifts to the freed.”
Richmond examinations in the death of George Wythe · 1806
The motive was the will. Michael Brown died. Lydia Broadnax lived, sickened. Wythe lingered. Greed reads documents. Write them anyway. Then watch the household.
Live long enough to cut him out.
“Wythe survived the dose two weeks, long enough to disinherit Sweeney and to reaffirm the freedom of those he had named.”
Revised dying declarations and will of George Wythe · 1806
The last act of the first law professor was an amendment. Stay conscious. Use the remaining days as a clerk of your own intent. Deathbed stationery still counts.
A Black witness cannot save you in a white court.
“Lydia Broadnax saw the act, and could not be heard against a white defendant. Sweeney walked.”
Record of the trial of George Wythe Sweeney · 1806
The legal system Wythe taught failed the household he freed. Do not sand that down. He built better than he died. The failure is part of the assignment he left his students.
No man left a character more venerated. Say why.
“No man ever left behind him a character more venerated than George Wythe.”
Thomas Jefferson on George Wythe · 1806
Venerated, and murdered for the virtue that caused the veneration. That is not a reason to keep the slaves in the will. It is a reason to write the will as if a Sweeney exists. Because he does.
The cup is the tuition for the next lawyer.
“We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
The Declaration of Independence · 1776
He had already pledged. The poison collected. Honor is not a talisman against family. It is the thing you refuse to swallow even when the coffee is sweet. Teach that, especially that.
Virtue in a testament is a provocation to greedy kin.
“George Wythe Sweeney poisoned the household to stop the will from freeing the people and the money from leaving his hands.”
Record of the death of George Wythe · 1806
Virtue in a testament is a provocation to the greedy kin. Write it anyway. Then live long enough to catch the theft if you can. He caught it and recut the will. Then the coffee finished him. That is not a reason to write a safer will. It is a reason to write a truer one.
The law ranked the witness by color. The murderer walked.
“Lydia Broadnax saw what Sweeney did; the law would not let her testimony hang him.”
Record of the trial of George Wythe Sweeney · 1806
The republic he taught still ranked the witness by color. The murderer walked. Do not tell this as a gothic tale only. Tell it as the legal system working as designed. Then change the design. That is the last lesson the chair was for.
Halos do not survive a Sweeney. Practices do.
“No man ever left behind him a character more venerated than George Wythe.”
Thomas Jefferson on George Wythe · 1806
Venerated, and murdered for the fortune the veneration would not protect. The character was the teaching, the will, the refused fee. Keep those. Ignore the halo. Halos do not survive a Sweeney. Practices do, if the next lawyer learns.