Background
He was the son of a prominent physician of Petersburg, Va. , Dr. John Thomson, and his wife Anne. The early death of his father in 1785 left the boy under the guardianship of his mother, but with a comfortable patrimony.
He was the son of a prominent physician of Petersburg, Va. , Dr. John Thomson, and his wife Anne. The early death of his father in 1785 left the boy under the guardianship of his mother, but with a comfortable patrimony.
When he was about fourteen he entered the College of William and Mary and shared in college oratorial contests. On leaving college in 1792 he studied law in Petersburg with the help of the library and the advice of his loyal and admiring friend, George Hay, the son-in-law of James Monroe.
Thomson learned with phenomenal speed and retentiveness and began to practise law when he was still in his teens.
With rather melancholy and thoughtful countenance, grace of manner, and kindly consideration for others, the young attorney soon became popular in Petersburg and the surrounding county of Dinwiddie and gained an unusual practice for so young an advocate.
Thomson voiced his opinions in the press under the popular classical signatures of Cassius, Gracchus, and Curtius, and his writings were widely copied by Republican papers. His style has been caustically criticized by Henry Adams as "stilted and artificial", but even this critic recognized his unusual promise and conceded that he echoed party feeling.
In August 1795 he attacked Jay's treaty in a speech of biting invective before a meeting of the inhabitants of Petersburg. He revealed in his caustic criticisms, not only the temper of the Virginia Republicans toward the treaty, but remarkable knowledge of the history of his country for one less than twenty years old. This speech gave him prestige among party leaders.
Three years later when John Marshall had voiced his views on the Alien and Sedition Acts in his so-called "Answers" (Times and Virginia Advertiser, October 11, 1798), Thomson joined the general press attack on him in a series of five letters under the signature Curtius.
Thomson was the leader in a coterie of talented young Republicans in southside Virginia which included his dissipated, ill-fated, but well-loved brother William and John Randolph of Roanoke. Randolph and John Thomson esteemed each other with deep friendly affection and mutual intellectual admiration. Thomson called Randolph "a brilliant and noble young man" and Randolph declared that Thomson had held the first place in his heart and the first rank in the intellectual order.
Thomson's untimely death as the result of pleurisy caused keen regret in the ranks of his party.
A partial collection of Thomson's writings was published in Letters of Curtius to Which is Added a Speech on the British Treaty (Richmond, 1804). It contains a short sketch of his life, probably by George Hay.
Thomson and Jefferson were akin in political faith.
Six feet tall, loosely put together, blue-eyed, he might well have come from the same physical stock as Jefferson.
Quotes from others about the person
Albert Gallatin, who knew him only from his writings and influence, esteemed him as "one of the brightest geniuses of Virginia and the United States", and keenly regretted his loss as a severe blow to the Republican interest.