William Grayson

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William Grayson

William Grayson (* 1736 in Dumfries , Colony of Virginia , †  March 12, 1790 in Dumfries , Virginia ) was an American politician . He represented Virginia in the Continental Congress and was one of the first two US Senators for the state .

William Grayson was born in 1736 on Belle Aire , the estate of his parents Benjamin Grayson and Susannah Moore Grayson; Today Woodbridge is in this area . He attended the University of Pennsylvania , where he graduated in 1760. Then he went to Great Britain for further studies ; however, it is not known exactly whether he operated this at Oxford University or Edinburgh University . After his return he practiced as a lawyer in Dumfries until the beginning of the War of Independence .

During the war, acted Grayson first as personal aide of George Washington and rose to lieutenant colonel on. In 1777 he assembled a regiment for the Continental Army , known as Grayson's Regiment , and fought with it in the Philadelphia Campaign . He was a member of a committee dealing with prisoners of war in 1778 before retiring the following year from the military and serving on the Board of War , a special committee convened by the Continental Congress that oversaw civilian oversight of the Continental Army.

Grayson, who like many officers in the Continental Army was a founding member of the Society of the Cincinnati , returned to Dumfries in 1781 to resume his practice as a lawyer. From 1784 to 1785 he was a member of the Virginia House of Representatives . He then took part in the Continental Congress between 1785 and 1787 as a delegate from Virginia, where he belonged to the group of anti-federalists around George Mason , James Monroe and Patrick Henry . Like this, he refused in 1788 - he was meanwhile again a member of Parliament in Virginia - the ratification of the US Constitution by the state convention convened for it. Grayson stated that the constitution was neither strong enough for the purposes of central government, nor were its decentralized elements sufficient to promote federalism . Although his faction was ultimately defeated in this debate, Grayson was able to be elected to the first US Congress as one of the first two Senators in Virginia, largely through the influence of Patrick Henry . He took office on March 4, 1789 and was the only member of the Senate, along with Richard Henry Lee , Virginia's other Senator, who had refused to approve the constitution.

Grayson died in March of the following year of complications from gout and was buried in the family vault on the Belle Aire estate . His grandson, John Breckinridge Grayson, served as a general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War . The Grayson County in Virginia also carries his name as the Grayson County in Kentucky .

Since 1780 he was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: William Grayson. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 28, 2018 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Grayson, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH 1736
PLACE OF BIRTH Dumfries , Virginia
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 1790
Place of death Dumfries , Virginia