A review of the proclamation of President Jackson, of the 10th of December, 1832: in a series of numbers originally published in the "Norfolk and ... under the signature of "A Virginian."
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Littleton Waller Tazewell was a lawyer, senator, and governor of Virginia. He was the son of Henry Tazewell and Dorothy Elizabeth (Waller) Tazewell.
Background
Tazewell was born in Williamsburg, Virginia, 1774. He was the son of Henry Tazewell and Dorothy Elizabeth (Waller) Tazewell. His mother's death in 1777 and his father's many public employments led to his being placed under the tutelage of his maternal grandfather, Judge Benjamin Waller. To the intimate relation between them, terminated by Judge Waller's death in Tazewell's twelfth year, he attributed "whatever worthy of imitation there may be in any part of my character".
Education
From his twelfth to his fifteenth year he was under the personal instruction of Chancellor George Wythe, with whom for a time he made his home. In his eighteenth year (1791) he graduated B. A. from William and Mary (a degree then of such difficulty that his was one of very few conferred by the college for many years). After completing his legal studies in the office of John Wickham in Richmond, Tazewell obtained his license in May 1796.
Career
From 1798 to 1800 he represented James City County in the House of Delegates, and in the latter year was elected to Congress to succeed John Marshall.
The ravages of war and fire had brought about in Norfolk an approach to pioneer conditions, which combined with the disturbance of its commerce by the country's unsettled foreign relations during the Napoleonic wars to produce a rich field for the lawyer. To the routine of civil and criminal work were added cases involving admiralty and international law. As early as 1805 William Wirt describes Tazewell as at the head of the local bar. But about the year 1822 Tazewell withdrew from general practice, though he appeared occasionally in noteworthy cases. One of the most famous cases in which he took part, was that of The Santissima Trinidad.
He served in the General Assembly from 1804 to 1806 and again in 1816-17, being elected on the latter occasion without his knowledge and during his absence from the city. In 1807 he was the spokesman of the city in its spirited defiance of the British fleet after the attack on the Chesapeake by the Leopard, conducting negotiations with Capt. Sir Thomas Hardy, of Trafalgar fame. But in general his part during his professional career was that of a thoughtful and detached observer, with a notable indifference to party lines.
Monroe appointed him in 1821 as one of the commissioners under the eleventh article of the treaty of 1819 with Spain. In 1824 Tazewell was elected to fill the vacancy in the United States Senate caused by the death of John Taylor of Caroline, whom his father had likewise succeeded upon Taylor's resignation from the Senate thirty years before. Relishing debate and excelling in it, he took place with the parliamentary giants of the day and was recognized as one of the leaders of a group opposing President Adams.
As a member (later chairman) of the committee on foreign affairs, he drafted the report against the Panama mission. Later he published in the Norfolk Herald a carefully written series of articles subsequently reprinted in England as A Review of the Negociations between the United States of America and Great Britain, Respecting the Commerce of the Two Countries (1829). Reelected in 1829, he became president pro tempore on July 9, 1832, but resigned shortly thereafter, alleging the pressure of personal affairs. It is probable that more lay behind.
He had supported Jackson for the presidency, and had been offered successively the posts of secretary of war and minister to Great Britain, both of which he had declined. But one whose state-rights views were so instinctive that he habitually referred to Virginia as his "country" could not brook the imperious leadership of the toaster of "Our Federal Union. " He opposed nullification, but more strongly still he opposed coercion; and Jackson's proclamation of December 10, 1832, drew from him a weighty reply. During his senatorial term he had served as a member of the notable constitutional convention of 1829-30, in which he spoke not often, but always impressively. Significant as evidence of contemporary estimation was his membership on the important committee of seven appointed to draft the new constitution. On January 7, 1834, he was elected governor of Virginia. The times were stormy. The movement for abolition was growing; federal encroachments were increasing; and the request of the General Assembly that the governor forward instructions to the Virginia senators on the expunging resolution brought the climax. On February 22, 1836, he declined to forward the resolutions, and on March 30 resigned, without explanation.
For nearly twenty-five years longer he enjoyed in Norfolk the retirement he had repeatedly sought. Indisputably its first citizen, he was the recipient of local veneration that passed almost into apotheosis. Tazewell's fame must rest largely on the estimate of his contemporaries. He can claim the paternity of no enduring policy. Such of his writings as have been collected from newspapers and periodicals, while accurate and substantial, are inescapably the work of a lawyer who could or would not disguise the lawyer's heavy hand. His legal arguments, mostly in local courts, are almost wholly lost. Yet of his contemporary reputation there can be no doubt. John Randolph of Roanoke held him "second to no man that ever breathed". William Wirt placed him, as a lawyer, first in Southern estimation, as Webster was in Northern. John Marshall and Spencer Roane are said to have agreed, perhaps for the only time in their lives, that he was "unsurpased by any competitor of his day". Hugh Blair Grigsby, in his memorial discourse, has added corroborative testimony of other eminent contemporaries. The stress is on his intellectual powers. The only shadow is itself a tribute to his genius for dialectics: a suggestion that the massive and versatile intellect so loved triumph for its own sake as at times to be unheeding of the ultimate right. But it is noteworthy that his contemporaries repeatedly indulged in discussions of his self-effacement and doubts as to his career. Coldness, lack of broad human sympathy, perhaps a little of the public suspicion that dogs the path of brilliancy, are all put forward to account for Tazewell's failure to take and hold the place to which they felt him entitled. Undoubtedly there is lack of human appeal, not to speak of the "saving element of common sense, " in logical processes so severe as to lead a public man to oppose, as did Tazewell, the celebration of George Washington's centenary because it savored of "man worship".
Appearing rather awe-inspiring for a democratic society, he made no effort to alter the impression. Unlike his father, to whom we may believe that the implications of the new republic were thoroughly congenial, Tazewell was an extreme individualist, wholly unaffected by trends of social thought. In him the English ancestors reasserted themselves. In a non-elective legislative body, like the House of Lords, freed from the importunity of constituents, he would have left an impress on the times in which he lived. But no urgency of desire impelled him to the compromises, even had he been capable of them, ordinarily required for repeated elections; and the daily legislative grind would have brought to him a tedium not easily endured. He keenly felt the duty to serve, if called upon; he may have secretly hoped for the call; but he would not invite it. What his friends viewed as a career of negations and abnegations was in fact a life, indifferent to official place, in which duty formed the sole impelling motive.
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Politics
By inheritance and principle an anti-Federalist, he opposed many important policies of Jefferson's administration, notably the Embargo of 1807 and the Non-Intercourse Act, favoring rather a declaration of war against both Great Britain and France. He opposed the election of Madison, and also the War of 1812, deeming that the time for action had passed; but when war was declared he loyally supported it.