was then over a hundred years old. Mr. Tucker says : " He told with great delight of how Cornwallis asked for a sassation of hostilities, and proudly described the impor tant part he and his master had taken in bringing that proud English lord to terms." Judge Tucker married the widowed mother of the celebrated John Randolph of Roanoke. In 1825 his son was nominated for the United States Senate against his half-brother and would have been elected but he withdrew saying: " It was his desire in no event to be placed in competition with him." Daniel Call says : " After the war he once more be gan the practice of law and soon arrived at eminence, was second to none of his com petitors, was respected by all the court and bar and beloved by Marshall." In 1788 he was made a judge of the gen eral court and later became a professor in William and Mary College. In 1786 he was appointed with Edmund Randolph and James Madison a commissioner to the fam ous Annapolis Convention. In 1803 he was elected president of the court of appeals, which he resigned in 18 11 on account of his health. In 18 1 3 President Madison appointed him judge of the United States District Court which office he held many years until he was forced to resign on account of his health. He died November, 1827. He was a very learned man and Mr. Call says : "As a judge he was diligent, prompt and impartial. He kept a note book of all that was done in court, in which his own opinions are written in full. His opinions are considered gener ally learned and sound." His opinions, which J. Randolph Tucker cites as the most in teresting because " involving public ques tions " were: " Kemper v. Hawkins, holding that the Constitution of 1776 was the sover eign act of the people of Virginia and was the supreme law, and that every act of the legislature or any department of the govern ment in conflict with it was absolutely null and void. Woodson v. Randolph, in which Judge Tucker, dissenting from a majority of
the court, held that, 'the power of Con gress, though unlimited as to revenue, could not make rules of evidence with reference to a State contract sued upon in a State court.' And the case of Turpin v. Lockett, sustain ing the constitutionality of the great act of 1802, by which the glebes of the Episcopal church were ordered to be applied to the poor of the parish wherein they were situ ated." "But the fame of Judge Tucker," says his grandson, " depends more upon his con tributions to judicial literature. His 'Anno tations upon Blackstone's Commentaries,' was for years a text-book in Virginia and other States and gave him the sobriquet of the American Blackstone." In a very elaborate essay he controverts the proposition that there is any common law for the government of the United States and he has been sustained in this view by the case of the United States v. Worrell, and other cases in the Supreme Court of the United States. On the 30th of November, 1798, he wrote an essay on slavery, a copy of which he sent to the speaker of the Vir ginia House of Delegates with the following note: "I do myself the honor to enclose you a copy of a disquisition on slavery, with a pro posal for the gradual abolition of it in this commonwealth. My fervent wish is that under the auspices of the legislature, the day may arrive when the blessing of freedom will be inseparable from life in this common wealth." He was a man of urbane manners, social disposition, and great literary attainments. His son, Henry St. George Tucker, was born at Matoax, near Petersburg, Va., Dec. 29, 1780, and was educated at William and Mary College, graduating in law in 1801. He settled in Winchester to practice, "With the understanding" says his son, "that his father would allow him what was necessary for his support for three years, and in the three years he drew three hundred and
