George Wythe

Role: Law Professor

# The College of William & Mary During the Revolution Long before the first shots of the American Revolution echoed across the landscape at Lexington and Concord, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, was quietly shaping the minds that would build a new nation. Founded in 1693 by royal charter from King William III and Queen Mary II, the college was the second-oldest institution of higher learning in the British colonies, surpassed only by Harvard. For nearly a century before the Revolution, it had served as the intellectual heart of Virginia's planter aristocracy, educating the sons of the colony's most prominent families in classical languages, moral philosophy, and natural science. By the time tensions between the colonies and the British Crown reached a breaking point in the 1770s, the college had already produced a generation of thinkers who were prepared not merely to resist tyranny but to articulate precisely why it must be resisted. Central to this legacy was George Wythe, who in 1779 became the first professor of law in America when Thomas Jefferson, then serving as Governor of Virginia, reorganized the college's curriculum and appointed Wythe to the newly created Chair of Law and Police. But Wythe's influence had begun long before that formal appointment. As a distinguished jurist and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Wythe had mentored some of the most consequential legal minds in American history. Thomas Jefferson studied law under Wythe's guidance in the 1760s, absorbing the principles of natural rights and English common law that would later inform the Declaration of Independence and Virginia's statutes on religious freedom. John Marshall, who would become the most influential Chief Justice in the history of the United States Supreme Court, attended Wythe's lectures at William & Mary in 1780. Henry Clay, the future statesman and senator known as "The Great Compromiser," also studied under Wythe's tutelage. The classroom where Wythe taught was, in a very real sense, a crucible of American jurisprudence, and the legal philosophy he instilled in his students shaped the nation's courts and legislatures for generations to come. Williamsburg itself was alive with revolutionary fervor during this period. Patrick Henry, the fiery orator who had famously declared "Give me liberty, or give me death" in 1775, was closely associated with the political culture that thrived in and around the college and the colonial capital. The town served as the seat of Virginia's colonial government, and the interplay between the college, the House of Burgesses, and the taverns where political debate flourished created an environment in which revolutionary ideas could circulate freely among students, professors, and politicians alike. Yet the Revolution exacted a heavy toll on the college. As the war dragged on, enrollment plummeted. Young men who might have filled Wythe's lecture hall instead marched off to join the Continental Army or the Virginia militia, exchanging their studies for muskets. The disruption intensified dramatically during the Yorktown campaign of 1781, when British and American forces clashed in the very region surrounding Williamsburg. The college's iconic main building, the Wren Building — one of the oldest academic structures in America — suffered damage during the military operations that swept through the area. French and American troops used the town as a staging ground, and the physical fabric of the institution bore the scars of the conflict it had helped to inspire. Despite these hardships, the College of William & Mary survived. It continued to operate through the war years, however diminished, and its persistence was a testament to the resilience of the institution and the community that sustained it. More importantly, its lasting significance transcended its physical campus. The ideas that George Wythe cultivated in his students — about the rule of law, the rights of individuals, and the structure of a just government — radiated outward from Williamsburg into the courtrooms, legislatures, and constitutional conventions that defined the new American republic. The college's role as a training ground for Virginia's political and legal elite meant that its intellectual influence on the Revolution and its aftermath was far greater than its small size might suggest. In this way, the College of William & Mary stands as a powerful reminder that revolutions are won not only on battlefields but also in classrooms, where the principles worth fighting for are first understood and articulated.