Taylor, John

John Taylor of Caroline

John Taylor (December 19, 1753 – August 21, 1824) of Caroline County, Virginia was a politician and writer. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates (1779–81, 1783–85, 1796–1800) and in the United States Senate (1792–94, 1803, 1822–24). He was the author of several books on politics and agriculture. He was a Jeffersonian Democrat and his works provided inspiration to the later states' rights and libertarian movements. Sheldon and Hill (2008) locate Taylor at the intersection of republicanism and classical liberalism. They see his position as a "combination of a concern with Lockean natural rights, freedom, and limited government along with a classical interest in strong citizen participation in rule to prevent concentrated power and wealth, political corruption, and financial manipulation" (p. 224).

Taylor opposed a strong national government:

In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation. But the union possesses no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constituted; it is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by which it was formed -- John Taylor of Caroline

[edit] Career

His father died when Taylor was a small child, and Taylor was hence reared by his uncle, Edmund Pendleton, a leading Virginia politician. He attended a school sponsored by his uncle with fellow students: James Madison (a distant cousin), and George Rogers Clark. Taylor attended the College of William and Mary and then studied law under his uncle. He served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, rising to the rank of colonel, and serving under Patrick Henry and General William Woodford, and leading a regiment under the Marquis de Lafayette.

After the war Taylor lived as a lawyer, slave-holding plantar and part-time politician, serving several partial U.S. Senate terms. He was a leader of the Quids who believed that Jefferson and Madison had sacrificed true Republican principles. In 1808 he opposed the election of Madison as President and supporting James Monroe.

[edit] Ideas

Taylor wrote in defense of slavery and called for the deportation of free African Americans. He criticized Thomas Jefferson's ambivalence towards slavery in Notes on the State of Virginia. Taylor agreed with Jefferson that the institution was an evil, but argued that it was "incapable of removal, and only within reach of palliation," and took issue with Jefferson's repeated references to the specific cruelties of slavery, arguing that "slaves are docile, useful and happy, if they are well managed," and that "the individual is restrained by his property in the slave, and susceptible of humanity . . . . Religion assails him both with her blandishments and terrours. It indissolubly binds his, and his slaves happiness or misery together." His approach, defending the preservation of slavery as it was and claiming that proper management could benefit the slave as well as the master, anticipated the more emphatic defenses of slavery as a "positive good" by later writers such as John C. Calhoun, Edmund Ruffin, and George Fitzhugh .

Taylor's estate, Hazelwood, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Taylor County, West Virginia was formed in 1844 and named in Senator Taylor's honor.

[edit] Writings of John Taylor of Caroline

• Arator (one of the first books on the problems of American agriculture and a defense of slavery)
• A Defence of the Measures of the Administration of Thomas Jefferson, attributed to "Curtius".
• An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States (1814)
• Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated (1820)
• Tyranny Unmasked (1822)
• New Views of the Constitution of the United States (1823)

From Reprints of Legal Classics (1)

"Little-known today, Taylor's work is of great significance in the political and intellectual history of the South and is essential for understanding the constitutional theories that Southerners asserted to justify secession in 1861. Taylor fought in the Continental army during the American Revolution and served briefly in the Virginia House of Delegates and as a U.S. Senator. It was as a writer on constitutional, political, and agricultural questions, however, that Taylor gained prominence. He joined with Thomas Jefferson and other agrarian advocates of states' rights and a strict construction of the Constitution in the political battles of the 1790s. His first published writings argued against Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's financial program. Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated was Taylor's response to a series of post-War of 1812 developments including John Marshall's Supreme Court decision in McCulloch v. Maryland, the widespread issuance of paper money by banks, proposals for a protective tariff, and the attempt to bar slavery from Missouri. Along with many other Southerners, Taylor feared that these and other measures following in the train of Hamilton's financial system, were undermining the foundations of American republicanism. He saw them as the attempt of an "artificial capitalist sect" to corrupt the virtue of the American people and upset the proper constitutional balance between state and federal authority in favor of a centralized national government. Taylor wrote, "If the means to which the government of the union may resort for executing the power confided to it, are unlimited, it may easily select such as will impair or destroy the powers confided to the state governments." Jefferson, who noted that "Col. Taylor and myself have rarely, if ever, differed in any political principle of importance," considered Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated "the most logical retraction of our governments to the original and true principles of the Constitution creating them, which has appeared since the adoption of the instrument." Later Southern thinkers, notably John C. Calhoun, were clearly indebted to Taylor."

- Sabin, A Dictionary of Books Relating to America 94486.

- Cohen, Bibliography of Early American Law 6333.(21527)

[edit] References

• Christopher M. Curtis, Chapter I, Can These be the Sons of their Fathers? The Defense of Slavery in Virginia, 1831-1832.
• Vernon Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought (1927) v 2 online
• Sheldon, Garrett Ward, and C. William Hill Jr. The Liberal Republicanism of John Taylor of Caroline (2008)

[edit] External links

Biography portal

• John Taylor of Caroline at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Taylor, John. (1823). "New Views of the Constitution of the United States
• Taylor, John. (1821). "Tyranny Unmasked"
• Taylor, John. (1820). "Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated"
• John Taylor's works at the Online Library of Liberty.
• John Taylor of Caroline at Find a Grave

v • d • e United States Senators from Virginia Class 1 Grayson • Walker • Monroe • S. Mason • Taylor • Venable • Giles • Moore • Brent • J. Barbour • Randolph • Tyler • Rives • Pennybacker • J. Mason • Willey • Bowden • Lewis • Withers • Mahone • Daniel • Swanson • Byrd, Sr. • Byrd, Jr. • Trible • Robb • Allen • Webb Class 2 Lee • Taylor • H. Tazewell • Nicholas • Moore • Giles • A. Mason • Eppes • Pleasants • Taylor • L. Tazewell • Rives • Leigh • Parker • Roane • Archer • Hunter • Carlile • Johnston • Riddleberger • J. S. Barbour • Hunton • Martin • Glass • Burch • Robertson • Spong • Scott • J. Warner • M. Warner