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George Wythe & Robert Yates

George Wythe

George Wythe was born in 1726 in Elizabeth City County, Virginia. His parents were Thomas and Margaret Walker Wythe. George was taught Latin and Greek by his mother, and later attended the College of William and Mary either in the grammar school or the upper school. He studied law under Stephen Dewey in Prince George County and was apparently admitted to the bar about 1746. He practiced law in Spotsylvania County, in association with John Lewis, whose sister, Ann, Wythe married in December, 1747. She died the following year.

Wythe became attorney general of the colony in 1754 and served briefly during the absence of Peyton Randolph. He was a member of the House of Burgesses from Williamsburg, 1754-1755. About this time he married Elizabeth Taliaferro of James City County and they lived in Williamsburg, where he was a member of Bruton Parish Church. George worked hard at his career and continued his study of law.

He was again elected to the House of Burgesses, as a deputy from the College of William and Mary, 1758-1761, and Elizabeth City County from then to 1768. In November, 1764, he was appointed to a committee of the House to draw up petitions to the King and Parliament, protesting the proposed Stamp Act. Wythe drafted the remonstrance to the House of Commons.

In 1768, he was mayor of Williamsburg, and from 1769 to 1775 he was clerk of the House of Burgesses. Elected to the Continental Congress in August, 1775, Wythe served until December, 1776. When war started, he had volunteered for military duty, but there is no record of a commission received by him. Samuel Adams wrote his cousin John from Congress on January 15, 1776, that Wythe was "very solicitous" to have a confederation completed.

On March 22, Wythe presented to Congress a draft for a preamble about privateering. The preamble and resolutions empowering Americans to fit out armed vessels to privateer against British ships were adopted the next day. "This is not Independency you know," John Adams wrote facetiously, "nothing like it."

George Wythe was one of the principal speakers in support of Richard Henry Lee's Resolution for Independence of June 7, during the debate on this motion carrying out the May 15 instructions from the Virginia legislature. On June 29, Wythe was in Richmond, attending the Virginia 1776 Constitutional Convention. He had brought with him a draft from Thomas Jefferson which he presented to the Assembly. George Wythe signed the Declaration after returning to Congress in September.

In November, 1776, he was appointed by the Virginia Assembly, along with Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Pendleton, George Mason, and Thomas Ludwell Lee, to revise the laws of the state. Mason later resigned and Lee died. The report of the committee was made to the Assembly in June, 1779, with a letter from Jefferson and Wythe. In 1777, Wythe was speaker of the House of Delegates, and at the end of the year was appointed a judge of the state High Court of Chancery.

In the case of Commonwealth v. Caton, in 1782, he was one of the first jurists to declare that a court can annul a law judged to conflict with the Constitution or articles of government. Wythe became the first professor of law at the College of William and Mary and held this post from 1779 to 1789. Subsequently, he ran a private law school,

During George Wythe's brief stay at the Federal Convention, he presented the report of the rules committee. On May 30, in the committee of the whole, he supported the resolution proposed to establish a national government. Presuming from the silence of the house that the "gentn. are prepared to pass on the resolution," he proposed its "being put."

At the Virginia Ratification Convention, Wythe was chairman of the committee of the whole. On June 24, 1788, in that committee he moved for adoption of the Constitution. On the reorganization of the Chancery Court in 1788, Wythe became sole chancellor and moved to Richmond. After 1801, when three chancery districts were established, he continued as chancellor of the Richmond district.

On June 8, 1806, George Wythe died under tragic circumstances. He was allegedly poisoned fatally. The person accused, a great-nephew of his, was tried on this charge, and acquitted. In his will, Wythe made provision for the support of his three former slaves whom he had previously freed or manumitted. Two, however, predeceased him. One of these was also allegedly poisoned by the same person as Wythe, but an indictment on this charge did not result in a trial.

Of "my antient master, my earliest and best friend," Thomas Jefferson later wrote: No man ever left behind him a character more venerated than George Wythe. His virtue was of the purest kind; his integrity inflexible and his justice exact; of warm patriotism, and 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; for a more disinterested person never lived ... his unaffected modesty and suavity of manners endeared him to every one. He was of easy elocution, his language chaste ... of great urbanity in debate.... Such was George Wythe, the honour of his own, and model of future times.

Robert Yates

Robert Yates was born in Schenectady, on January 27, 1738. He received a classical education and read law with William Livingston in New York City. After being admitted to the bar in May, 1760, Yates started a law practice in Albany and soon rose in his profession.

An early Patriot, Yates represented Albany County in the first three Provincial Congresses, 1775-1776, and in the fourth Provincial Congress or Convention, 1776-1777. He was appointed to the Committee of Safety in 1776 and served on a secret committee to obstruct the navigation of the Hudson River in order to restrict enemy use of this vital waterway. Another assignment was to make arrangements for the Continental regiments. He was also one of the committee of thirteen members which drafted the first constitution of New York State.

On May 8, 1777, Robert Yates was elected a judge of the state Supreme Court, to serve under this new constitution. Writing to Robert Morris in August, 1782, Hamilton described Judge Yates as "upright and respectable in his profession." In 1786, Yates, a supporter of Governor Clinton and an anti-Federalist, wrote against giving the Congress the right to collect impost duties, and some of his work appeared in print. He served as a New York commissioner in settling the territorial dispute with Massachusetts.

At the Federal Convention on May 30, 1787, when the resolution to establish a national government, consisting of separate legislative, executive, and judiciary branches, each supreme in its sphere, was passed in the committee of the whole, New York's vote was divided - Hamilton aye and Yates opposed.

On July 10, the day that Yates and Lansing retired from the convention, Washington wrote to Hamilton stating that the council was, if possible, in a "worse train than ever." He almost despaired of a favorable result. "The Men who oppose a strong & energetic government are, in my opinion, narrow minded politicians, or are under the influence of local views," Washington continued, referring to Governor Clinton's insistence on state sovereignty.

In a letter to Governor Clinton for the Legislature, Yates and Lansing explained their departure, saying that they could not assent to the consolidation of the states into one government. Candidly, they would have opposed any system which had that objective.

Hamilton, with other Federalists, persuaded Yates to run for governor against the incumbent, George Clinton, in 1789, on the grounds that Yates had moderated his views on the Constitution and would promote harmony. He was defeated despite Federalist support.

In 1790, Robert Yates became chief justice of the state Supreme Court and he served until reaching the age limit of sixty, in 1798. Yates withdrew as Federalist candidate during the gubernatorial campaign in 1792. Three years later, when Clinton was no longer a candidate, he ran unsuccessfully for governor as an anti-Federalist against Federalist John Jay. Judge Yates was connected with the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Albany. He died September 9, 1801, in that city, a comparatively poor man. He was survived by his wife, Jannetje van Ness Yates, and four of their six children.

The notes taken by Judge Yates in the Federal Convention are next in importance to those of James Madison. They were copied by John Lansing, Jr., and published in 1821 by Yates' widow, Jannetje van Ness Yates, under the title, Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention . . . for the purpose of forming the Constitution.... To William Pierce, Robert Yates was an able judge, a "Man of great legal abilities, but not distinguished as an Orator."

Dorothy Horton McGee. Framers of the Constitution. . Dodd Mead & Co., NY. 1968.

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