Garnett was born on June 8, 1770 near Loretto, Virginia, the second child of Muscoe Garnett and his wife, Grace Fenton Mercer. His father was a planter of distinction, who served his county as a member of the Committee of Safety during the Revolution; his wife was a daughter of John Mercer of "Marlborough, " Stafford County, an eminent lawyer and author of Mercer's Abridgment of the Laws of Virginia (1737).
As was the custom among the better families, Garnett was educated at home.
Elected to the Virginia legislature in 1799, Garnett joined the rising Democrats in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts and became the friend of James Madison and John Taylor of Caroline. He went to Congress in 1805, serving for two terms and following John Randolph in his break with Jefferson. He served with that erratic leader on the jury which indicted Aaron Burr and won from him the uncertain praise. Retiring to his acres in 1809, he became one of the leaders in the struggle to restore the declining agricultural life of the Old South. He thought, as did John Taylor, that the tariff was a burden on those who farmed, and carried on with Matthew Carey spirited arguments in public print on this subject, Garnett writing as "Cornplanter" in the Spirit of Seventy-Six, a paper published in Georgetown, D. C. , about 1811. From the Fredericksburg Agricultural Society - of which he was president, 1817-1837 - came one of the first protests against the tariff, declaring it "a tax highly impolitic in its nature, partial in its operation, and oppressive in its effects". He became a member of the anti-tariff convention which met at Baltimore in 1821 and wrote its address, coming back into politics to enter the Virginia legislature during the sessions of 1824-1825 on the wave of resentment which arose against the centralizing tendencies of the period. In 1831 he attended an anti-tariff convention at Philadelphia. In addition to being president of the Fredericksburg Agricultural Society for twenty years, Garnett had a hand in founding the Virginia State Agricultural Society and was chosen as the first president of the United States Agricultural Society on its formation. He wrote widely on agricultural subjects and delivered numerous addresses to agricultural societies all over the section, urging the importance of agricultural organization and cooperation, advocating the selection of better seed, the wider saving and use of capital in agriculture, crop rotation and the use of fertilizers to restore the soils. He was a member of the Virginia constitutional convention of 1829-1830, preparing and publishing before the meeting of that body a series of Constitutional Charts, or Comparative Views of the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary Departments in all the States in the Union, Including That of the United States, in order to save the members' time and to give them the fullest knowledge upon which to act. In the convention he was not active, but in general took the conservative side, opposing enlargement of the basis of suffrage and favoring greater influence for the owners of lands and slaves. In the early 1820's financial reverses led him to open at his home a school for young ladies where he taught English composition, and his wife and daughters other subjects. In connection with this work he wrote and delivered a series of lectures - one each quarter - which were later gathered together and published, a second edition, enlarged, appearing under the title, Seven Lectures on Female Education, in 1824. In these papers he pointed out the obstacles to education in faulty early home training and the weakness in the prevalent methods of education which "drove" the students to work and incited them by "envious rivalship. " He advocated a wider education for woman, so that she would be not only better prepared for marriage, but also equipped to enter an independent career in case no person worthy of her affections should appear. His school gained wide recognition and students came not only from all parts of Virginia but from other states as well. It was closed when his wife's health failed, but he soon opened a school for boys in its place, continuing himself to teach composition, and hiring outside teachers for the other branches. As in the early part of his career he had been an active promoter of improvement in agricultural methods, so now he began to advocate improvement in methods of education. In his seventy-third year Garnett died at "Elmwood, " where he was buried.
President of the Fredericksburg Agricultural Society (1817-1837), member of the anti-tariff conventions (1821, 1831), founder of the Virginia State Agricultural Society, vice president of the Virginia Colonization Society
Garnett married his first cousin, Mary Eleanor Dick Mercer, daughter of Judge James Mercer of Fredericksburg, on September 21, 1793.
He was a nineteenth-century politician and lawyer from Virginia.
He was a nineteenth-century politician and lawyer from Virginia.
He was a nineteenth-century politician, U.S. Congressman, and lawyer from Loudoun County, Virginia.
