Henry St. George Tucker Sr.

Henry St. George Tucker

Henry St. George Tucker, Sr. (born December 29, 1780 in Williamsburg , Virginia , †  August 28, 1848 in Winchester , Virginia) was an American politician and lawyer. Between 1815 and 1819 he represented the state of Virginia in the US House of Representatives .

Life

Henry Tucker came from a well-known family of lawyers and politicians. His father St. George Tucker (1752-1827) was among other things law professor at the College of William & Mary and federal judge for Virginia. His son John (1823-1897) was also a lawyer and Congressman. His grandson Henry St. George Tucker III (1853-1932) also represented the state of Virginia in the US House of Representatives. His cousin George Tucker (1775–1861) and his nephew Thomas Tudor Tucker (1745–1828) were also members of Congress, the latter representing the state of South Carolina .

Tucker received an academic education and then studied until 1798 at the College of William & Mary. After a subsequent law degree from his father and his admission to the bar in 1801, he began to work in this profession in Winchester. During the British-American War he was a captain in a cavalry unit. Politically, he joined the Democratic Republican Party . In the congressional elections of 1814 he was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the third constituency of Virginia , where he succeeded John Smith on March 4, 1815 . After re-election, he was able to complete two legislative terms in Congress until March 3, 1819 . Until 1817 he was chairman of the District of Columbia Administration Committee . He then headed the Public Buildings Control Committee. In 1818 he renounced another candidacy.

Between 1819 and 1823 Tucker was a member of the Virginia Senate . From 1824 to 1831 he was Chancellor in the fourth judicial district of his state. He also ran a private law school. From 1831 to 1841 he was a judge and head of the Virginia Supreme Court . He then taught law until 1845 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville . During this time he designed the formula that all students had to take. They had to swear that they had passed their exams without outside help or aids. This formula was adopted in a modified form by many American universities and is still used in some cases today. Henry Tucker also wrote several legal treatises on natural law and the United States Constitution . He died in Winchester on August 28, 1848.

Web links

• Henry St. George Tucker in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Henry St. George Tucker in the database of Find a Grave (English)