Background

Tucker was born on December 24, 1823 in Winchester, Virginia on Christmas eve in 1823, the son of Anna Evalina Hunter Tucker (1789-1855) and her husband Judge Henry St. George Tucker (1780-1848). A grandson of St. George Tucker, J. R. Tucker would become proud of his heritage among the First Families of Virginia. His father and many relatives owned plantations and enslaved persons. Nonetheless, several of his siblings never reached adulthood. His brothers Dr. Alfred Bland Tucker (1830-1862) and Lt. Col. St. George Hunter Tucker (1828-1863) would die of consumption while in the Confederate States Army; his brother Dr. David Hunter Tucker (1815-1871) became a professor at three medical schools including the Medical College of Virginia and survived his Confederate service. His brother Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1820-1890) would become a Confederate diplomat and later a journalist.

Education

John Randolph Tucker attended a private school near his Winchester home, then entered the Richmond Academy. In 1839 he entered the University of Virginia, where he studied moral and political philosophy under his kinsman, George Tucker, and also mathematics and physical science, the teaching of which he was urged by his preceptors to follow.

However, he studied law under his father at the university and received the law degree there in 1843.

Career

From 1845 until 1857 he practised law at Winchester.

As attorney-general of Virginia from 1857 to 1865, he represented the state in important civil and criminal cases before the state courts.

From 1865 to his death, though he was during most of this time either teaching law at Washington and Lee University (1870-74; 1889 - 97) or serving in Congress (1875 - 87), he still engaged in the practice of law. It is said he appeared before the federal Supreme Court oftener, with one exception, than any other Virginian during this period.

After his retirement from Congress, he returned to Washington and Lee University as professor of constitutional and international law and in 1893 was made dean of the law school.

He was the author of The Constitution of the United States (2 vols. , 1899, published posthumously).

Among his published public addresses were The Southern Church Justified in its Support of the South (1863), Paper Read Before Social Science Association at Saratoga Springs, N. Y. , on the Relations of the United States to Each Other as Modified by the War and the Constitutional Amendments (1877), and The History of the Federal Convention of 1787 (1887) read before the graduating class of the Yale Law School.

John Randolph Tucker died in 1897 in Lexington, Virginia and is buried in the family plot at Mt. Hebron cemetery in Winchester.

Achievements

• John Randolph Tucker is remembered as U. S. Congressman (1875-1887), and the first dean of the Washington and Lee University Law School. His Lexington home, Blandome was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The history of the Federal Convention of 1787 and of its work: an address delivered before the graduating classes at the sixty-third anniversary of the Yale Law School, on June 28th, 1887.

    (The Making of the Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926 ...)

  • Paper Read Before the Social Science Association, September 6, 1877, at Saratoga Springs, N.Y.: On the Relations of the United States to Each Other, as Modified by the War and the Constitutional Amendments (Paperback) - Common

    (Britain at Work Britain at Work: A Pictorial Description ...)

  • The Constitution of the United States: A Critical Discussion of Its Genesis, Development, and Interpretation, Volume 1

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

  • The southern church justified in its support of the South in the present war: a lecture, delivered before the Young Men's Christian Association, of Richmond, on the 21st May, 1863;

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • The Constitution of the United States: A Critical Discussion of Its Genesis, Development, Interpretion V.2 1899

    (Originally published in 1899. This volume from the Cornel...)

Politics

An ardent believer in state-rights principles, he took an active part in politics, serving as Democratic elector in 1852 and 1856, participating in the gubernatorial campaign in 1855 against the Know-Nothing party, and supporting Breckinridge in 1860.

Other notable cases with which he was associated were the trial of Jefferson Davis and the Florida case before the electoral commission. Upon entering Congress in 1875, he immediately became a leader on the Democratic side of the House and showed himself to be "an old-fashioned, strict-constructionist, state-rights logician", resisting every tendency toward centralization and applying the yardstick of constitutionality to every measure before Congress.

He championed tariff reform, characterizing the perversion of the taxing power "from the purpose of revenue to the grant of a bounty or special privilege if directly a robbery; if indirectly a fraud".

He advocated the repeal of the internal revenue system--"nests of Federal patronage which have infested the States for twenty years, and have been the source of more petty tyranny and of more interference with the freedom of elections than has ever been known before in the history of the country"; favored the Chinese exclusion bill in order to protect "the young Hercules of the Pacific"; aided in the defeat of the Blair education bill; supported a sound money policy; and in 1880 introduced a quorum-counting rule that was subsequently adopted by the House under the speakership of Thomas B. Reed.

Views

Quotations: He represented the Chicago anarchists before this body, and, when surprise was expressed by some friends, he replied, "I do not defend anarchy; I defend the Constitution" (Hamilton).

"It is unfashionable, I know, " he once remarked, "to stickle for the Constitution".

Membership

In 1892-93 he was president of the American Bar Association.

Personality

His speeches were polished, and he was known for his witticism, oratory, and ability as a storyteller.

Connections

He married Laura Powell in 1848. They had one son who survived to adulthood, Henry St. George Tucker, III (who later became a U. S. Congressman). Their daughters who married well and survived their parents included: Anne Holmes Tucker McGuire (1850 - 1914), Gertrude Tucker Logan (1856 - 1925), and Laura Randolph Tucker Pendleton (1860 - 1946).

One of his sons, Henry St. George Tucker, III, would follow in his footsteps by becoming Dean of the Washington and Lee Law School, and later a U. S. Congressman representing Winchester (1922-1932).

Mother:

Ann Evelina Hunter Tucker

(1789–1855)

Spouse:

Laura Holmes Powell Tucker

(1827–1916)

Daughter :

Anne Holmes Tucker McGuire

(1850–1914)

Father :

Henry St. George Tucker

(1780–1848)

Brother:

Nathaniel Beverley Tucker

(1820–1890)

Brother:

Alfred Bland Tucker

(1830–1862)

Brother:

David Hunter Tucker

(1815–1871)

Brother:

Frances Bland Tucker

(1812–1826)

Brother:

Moses Hunter Tucker

(1810–1811)

Brother:

St. George Hunter Tucker

(1828–1863)

Brother:

Henry St. George Tucker

(1808–1826)

Sister:

Mary Stephen Tucker

(1813–1827)

Sister:

Ann Evelina Hunter Tucker Magill

(1809–1875)

Sister:

Sarah Virginia St George Tucker Brooke

(1817–1863)

Daughter:

Laura Randolph Tucker Pendleton

(1860–1946)

Daughter:

Gertrude Tucker Logan

(1856–1925)

Son:

Humphrey Brooke Powell Tucker

(1854–1856)

Son:

Henry St. George Tucker

(1853–1932)

References

• A History Of Rockbridge County, Virginia
• A history of Bristol Parish, Va.: with genealogies of families connected therewith, and historical illustrations