WYTHE, GEORGE American jurist, was born in the county of Elizabeth City, Va., in 1726. He had little formal schooling but was well taught by his mother and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1757. He was elected to the house of burgesses in 1758 and as such in 1764 was placed on a committee to prepare petitions to the King and both houses of Parliament against the threatened Stamp Act. Wythe drew up the petition to the House of Commons in such strong language that it required considerable modification before it could be sent. In 1775 he was sent to the Continental Congress where he remained to sign the Declaration of Independence. In 1776 he was appointed with Jefferson and Pendleton to make the laws of Virginia more appro priate for an independent State, an important work which required three years to complete. In the meantime he was an important member of the constitutional convention in Virginia. He was a member of the Federal constitutional convention in 1787, and, in the following year, of the Virginia convention which ratified it.
In 1777 Wythe was appointed a judge of the court of chancery, and in 1786 when the court was reorganized he was made sole chancellor of the State, which position he held until his death. He
was one of the first judges to lay down the principle (Comth. v. Catron, 1782) that a court can annul a law deemed to conflict with the constitution, a doctrine which became of tremendous importance as applied by his pupil, John Marshall (q.v.). From 1779 to 1789 he also held a professorship of law at William and Mary College, one of the first such chairs in the United States, but his increasing duties as chancellor forced him to relinquish it. He continued a private school at Richmond afterward. Wythe's in fluence as a teacher probably constituted his most lasting service to the nation. Besides the great chief justice, Marshall, two presi dents, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, were numbered among his pupils, and Henry Clay was for four years clerk of his court. Wythe died at Richmond, Va., on June 8, 1806. His Decisions were published in 1795 (2nd. ed. with memoir, 1852).