Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/78

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TAZEWELL
TAZEWELL

McLean, soldier, b. in Washington, D. C, 21 Nov., 1828 ; d. in Baltimore, Md., 21 Nov., 1875, entered the U. S. army as 2d lieutenant in the 3d artillery on 3 March, 1848, and was promoted 1st lieutenant on 30 June, 1851, and captain and commissary of subsistence on 11 May, 1851. He served faithfully in his department during the civil war, becoming major on 9 Feb., 1863, and receiving the brevets of lieutenant-colonel and colonel to date from 13 March, 1865. — Another son, Joseph Hancock, sol- dier, b. in Kentucky, 26 Jan., 1836 ; d. in Omaha, Neb., 13 March, 1885, was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1856, and commissioned 2d lieutenant of cavalry on 16 Jan., 1857. He served in Kansas, in the Utah expedition, and in a cam- faign in 1860 against the Kiowa and Comanche ndians of Colorado. He was promoted 1st lieu- tenant on 22 April, 1861, and captain on 14 May, and was appointed acting adjutant-general of Gen. Edwin V. Sumner's division on 27 Nov., 1861. During the peninsula campaign, and subsequently in the Maryland campaign, he served as acting as- sistant adjutant-general of the 2d corps, winning the brevet of major at Fair Oaks, and that of lieu- tenant-colonel at the Antietam. He was assistant adjutant-general at Fredericksburg, and assistant inspector-general of cavalry in Stoneman's raid. On 1 June, 1863, he was assigned to duty as assist- ant adjutant-general of the department at Wash- ington. He was appointed a major on the staff on 30 March, 1866, and on 13 Aug. was brevetted colonel for faithful services during the war. He was on duty in different military departments till his death, which was due to disease that he had contracted in the line of duty.


TAZEWELL, Henry, senator, b. in Brunswick, county, Va., in 1753 ; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 24 Jan., 1799. He was educated at William and Mary, studied law with his uncle, John, was ad- mitted to practice, and in 1775 was elected to the house of burgesses. In the convention of 1776 he was placed on the committee that reported the declaration of rights and the constitution. He continued a member of the legislature, taking an active part in its deliberations till 1785, when he was appointed to a seat on the supreme bench of Virginia. He served as a member of the court of appeals, and in 1793, when a separate appellate court was constituted, he was chosen one of the judges. In the following year he resigned in order to take his seat in the U. S. senate, of which he was a member till his death. In 1795 he was elected president, pro tempore. During the discus- sion of John Jay's English treaty he was the leader of the Republican opposition. — His son, Littleton Waller, statesman, b. in Williamsburg, Va., 17 Dec, 1774; d. in Norfolk, Va., 6 March, 1860, was graduated at William and Mary in 1792, studied law, was admitted to the Richmond bar in 1796, and entered on the practice of his profession in James City county. He was elected in 1796 a member of the Virginia house of delegates and served in that body, by re-election, for four years. As an adherent of the Jefferson party he support- ed the famous resolutions of 1798, and James Madi- son's report of 1799. In 1800 he was elected to succeed John Marshall as a member of the U. S. house of representatives, and participating in the presidential election that devolved on that body he supported Thomas Jefferson against Aaron Burr. Declining a re-election to congress he removed in 1802 to Norfolk, where he soon took rank among the foremost lawyers of that commercial port, then noted for its able bar. He gained special distinc- tion in criminal and in admiralty law. Though W)VJcUX£ JZUa^ML sharing, in politics, the general views and consti- tutional opinions of Jefferson, he frankly dissent- ed from the chief measures of the administration — its gun-boat system of defence, its non-intercourse act, and the em- bargo. He was equally opposed to the wrongs that were committed by England and by France against our commerce during the Napo- leonic wars, and, favoring at an early stage a dec- laration of war against both alike, he avowed his readiness to make the attack of the

"Leopard" on the

cruiser " Chesapeake " in 1807 a cause of immediate war against Great Britain, and offered his military services at the head of a cavalry troop. But he finally broke with the administration at all points on the ground of its incapacity for either war or peace, and in 1808 opposed the election of Madison as president for a like reason. In 1809 he supported the Federalist candidate for congress in the Norfolk district, and, on grounds of public policy, continued in steadfast opposition to war with England ; but when war was declared in 1812 he gave to it his hearty support. The close of the war left Norfolk to deal with a new set of economical and fiscal questions, and, as Mr. Tazewell was known to be specially versed in such matters, he was elected a member of the Virginia legislature in 1816, and took an active part in its deliberations. He was appointed by President Monroe as one of the commissioners of the United States under the treaty with Spain for the purchase of Florida in 1819. In 1824 he was elected to the U. S. senate, and he was re-elected in 1830. As a member of the committee on foreign relations, of which for several years he was chairman, he wrote the celebrated report on the Panama mission, while his speeches on the piracy act, the bankrupt act, the prerogatives of the president in the appointment of foreign ministers, and the tariff, were greatly admired. Though antagonizing the general policy of the administration of John Quincy Adams, he soon arrayed himself, with equal independence, against the financial measures of President Jackson. In 1832 he favored a reduction of the tariff of 1828. While showing himself no zealot of the Bank of the United States, when the question of its recharter arose in 1832, he publicly denounced the act of the president in removing the deposits. He opposed the nullification measures of South Carolina, but at the same time dissented from the high Federal doctrines of Jackson's proclamation. When he was elected president of the senate in 1831, he refused to accept the honor, and in 1833 resigned his seat in that body from pure disgust of Federal politics. In the following year he was chosen governor of the state, and after his term of office had expired he withdrew entirely "from all connection with politics. While serving in the U. S. senate, he was elected a member of the convention that was called in 1829 to revise the constitution of Virginia, and distinguished himself in that body among men like Madison, Monroe, and Marshall by the solidity of his counsels, and the weight of